Employer met duty to accommodate pregnant worker, but also sexually harassed her: Ontario court
Feb 24, 2025
“A lot of people have a preconceived notion about what sexual harassment means -behaviour along the lines of nonconsensual touching or flirting - but sexual harassment can also mean comments on the basis of someone's sex or pregnancy.”
So says Samantha Sutherland, an employment lawyer and workplace investigator at Turnpenney Milne in Toronto, after the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruled that a pregnant worker was subjected to sexual harassment in the workplace, although her employer still met its duty to accommodate her pregnancy-related disability.
In December 2016, the worker moved into an apartment building in Toronto with her spouse and child. She arranged with the building’s owner to be the building’s superintendent in exchange for living in the apartment rent-free, which she estimated to be about $1,300 per month. There was no formal lease agreement or employment contract.
“Even if there isn't a formal employment contract in place, courts and tribunals will often look beyond that and look at what the day-to-day of the relationship looks like,” says Sutherland. “And I think that speaks to the role of the [human rights] tribunal and their duty in looking out for the human rights of individuals - they often take a very broad and liberal approach to who is an employee, perhaps even more broad and liberal than the courts, with respect to the scope of what is an...
The Iranian Embassy in New Delhi has issued a stern warning about a series of fake social media accounts impersonating official Iranian entities, allegedly aiming to disrupt the diplomatic relatio...