Policy on preventing sexual and gender-based harassment / : Politique sur la prévention du harcèlement sexuel et du harcèlement fondée sur le sexe

When deciding if an organization has met its duty to respond to a human rights claim, tribunals are likely to look at: the procedures in place at the time to deal with discrimination and harassment how quickly the organization responded to the complaint how seriously the complaint was treated the resources made available to deal with the complaint if the organization provided a healthy e [...] Ontario Human Rights Commission 9 Policy on preventing sexual and gender-based harassment 2. Identifying sexual harassment 2.1 Defining sexual harassment Section 10 of the Code defines harassment as “engaging in a course of vexatious8 comment or conduct that is known or ought to be known to be unwelcome.” Using this definition, more than one event must take place for there to be a violation of the [...] In other words, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (the HRTO) can conclude on the basis of the evidence before it that an individual knew, or should have known, that his or her actions were unwelcome.11 It should be understood that some types of comments or behaviour are unwelcome based on the response of the person subjected to the behaviour, even when the person does not explicitly object.12 A [...] This form of harassment, in which the victim suffers concrete economic loss for failing to submit to sexual demands, is simply one manifestation of sexual harassment, albeit a particularly blatant and ugly one…15 Over time, the definition of sexual harassment has continued to evolve to reflect a better understanding of the way sexual power operates in society. [...] The situation must be viewed in the overall context.16 Example: A tribunal found that while the most common understanding of sexual harassment is conduct such as making passes, soliciting sexual favours, sexual touching, etc., the definition of sexual harassment also includes conduct that denigrates a woman’s sexuality or vexatious conduct that is directed at a woman because of her sex.17 Human ri