Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act has required employers to investigate workplace harassment complaints in a way that is "appropriate in the circumstances" since 2016. For nearly a decade, nobody could tell you precisely what that phrase meant — not with a decision behind it, anyway. Employers built policies around their best guess, investigators applied their own judgment, and everyone hoped it would hold up if tested.
It was tested. In Alyssa Gassi v. The Corporation of the County of Lambton, 2026 CanLII 64081 (ON LRB), the Ontario Labour Relations Board delivered its most detailed ruling to date on what "appropriate in the circumstances" requires — and found that a county government's internal investigation, run by a trained investigator who acted promptly and in good faith, still didn't clear the bar.
What happened
Gassi was hired by the County of Lambton as a municipal prosecutor in October 2024. In early March 2025, she filed a written harassment complaint naming a range of workplace parties — court staff, police officers, two outgoing prosecutors, and a presiding justice of the peace.
The county assigned Angelo DiCarolis, a senior labour relations consultant with investigation training and experience, to investigate. He met with Gassi twice, for roughly three hours in total, then met with the manager of court services and a general manager. On March 31, 2025, he delivered written results: the complaint was not substantiated, though steps would be taken to improve working relationships.
In the days that followed, Gassi unilaterally cancelled court on two consecutive days — affecting nearly 180 cases — and announced she would work from home permanently, without following the county's telework policy. When management scheduled a meeting to address it, she declined to attend. She was terminated on April 4, 2025.
Gassi complained to the Ministry of Labour that the investigation had not been appropriate in the circumstances. A ministry inspector disagreed and issued no order. She appealed to the OLRB, and separately alleged her termination was reprisal for the harassment complaint.
Where the county's investigation fell short
Vice-chair Peigi Ross was explicit about what the board was, and was not, assessing: "the board ought not to engage in an assessment of whether the investigation reached the right result, or whether the board would have reached some other conclusion." The question is procedural — was the investigation "fairly and appropriately undertaken in a manner that would permit an employer to determine whether workplace harassment has occurred."
On that question, the board credited what the county got right: the complaint was taken seriously and investigated promptly, the investigator understood OHSA's harassment and reprisal provisions, and he developed a proper understanding of the complaint through Gassi's written material and two lengthy interviews with her.
It identified two deficiencies that were fatal to the process:
Only one named party was interviewed, with no explanation offered. The complaint identified multiple individuals. Beyond the complainant, the investigator met with the manager of court services (one of the named respondents) and a general manager, and spoke to none of the other named respondents, and the board found no justification in the record for why further interviews weren't needed. The OLRB was careful to note that an appropriate investigation does not require chasing down every allegation or interviewing every person named — investigators retain latitude to scope an investigation. What they don't retain is the ability to scope it silently. A decision to narrow the investigation has to be explainable.
The promised opportunity to respond never materialized. Gassi was told at the outset she would be able to respond to information gathered during the investigation. She wasn't. The board treated the broken promise as a key deficiency. Employment lawyers read it as making the opportunity to respond an ongoing obligation through the life of the investigation, not a one-time step at the initial interview.
On a third question, the board sided with the county: Gassi argued she was entitled to the full investigation file — the report, witness statements, investigator's notes. The OLRB rejected that. OHSA requires only that the complainant and the alleged harasser, if a worker of the employer, be informed in writing of the results and of any corrective action taken or planned; it does not require disclosure of the underlying file. The board also dismissed Gassi's reprisal claim, finding — despite the reverse onus reprisal applications carry in Ontario, under which the employer must prove the termination was not retaliatory — that her termination was driven by her refusal to attend a scheduled meeting, the unilateral court closures, and her unauthorized work-from-home declaration, not by the harassment complaint filed weeks earlier. Timing alone, the board held, invites scrutiny but does not establish reprisal.
The board also left a door ajar without walking through it: it acknowledged that a more flexible process — mediation or an informal fact-finding exercise, for example — might in some circumstances satisfy the statutory duty, but declined to decide the question. Employers shouldn't treat that as settled law. Until a future decision says otherwise, a documented investigation remains the safer path for anything involving contested facts, power imbalances, or safety concerns.
What it means for Ontario employers
1. "Appropriate" now has content, and it's procedural. For almost ten years, employers operated on inference. The OLRB has now confirmed the standard turns on the integrity of the process — training, scope, documentation, and the opportunity to respond — not on whether the investigator landed on the "right" answer. That's a meaningfully lower bar to clear on outcome and a meaningfully higher bar to clear on process.
2. Scoping decisions must be explainable, not just defensible in hindsight. The board didn't fault the county for limiting the interviews. It faulted the investigator for not explaining, at the time, why that was enough. If your investigation notes don't capture the reasoning behind who you did and didn't interview, you have created exactly the gap this decision penalizes.
3. "Opportunity to respond" is a standing obligation, not a form field. An initial interview satisfies the duty to hear from the complainant. It does not satisfy the duty to let them respond to what the investigation later turns up. If your process treats intake and response as the same event, it's built on the assumption this decision just rejected.
4. Internal investigators can meet the standard — with real qualifications. The board did not require an external investigator. It required one with genuine understanding of OHSA's harassment and reprisal provisions, the employer's own policy, and ideally direct investigative experience. An HR generalist handed a complaint with no training in scoping, evidence-handling, or procedural fairness is not automatically disqualified — but they are the person most likely to produce the two gaps that sank this investigation.
5. Your written-results letter doesn't need to become a disclosure exercise. The board's rejection of Gassi's disclosure argument is good news, not a loophole. Employers can, and should, keep investigation files confidential beyond the statutory results letter — but only if internal policy doesn't promise more than OHSA requires. Check your harassment policy's language against section 32.0.7 directly, available through Ontario's guide to the Act, before you commit to anything broader in writing.
What to do now
Build a documented scoping rationale into every investigation. Before interviews conclude, the investigator should be able to point to a written note explaining who was interviewed, who wasn't, and why. That single artifact is what separates a defensible investigation from an inspector's order — or a board reversal eighteen months later.
Make "opportunity to respond" a scheduled step, not an assumption. Build it into your workplace investigation process as a discrete stage after evidence-gathering and before conclusions are drawn — not folded into the initial complaint interview. Document that it happened and what was offered.
Audit who inside your organization is actually qualified to investigate. "Appropriate" now has a floor: understanding of OHSA's harassment and reprisal provisions, familiarity with your own policy, and ideally prior investigative experience. If the person you'd hand the next complaint to doesn't clear that bar, that's the moment to look at external investigation support rather than after an inspector gets involved.
Re-check your harassment policy against the statute, not against best practice aspirations. If your policy promises complainants a copy of the investigation report or full disclosure of witness statements, you've created an obligation OHSA doesn't require and this decision doesn't support. Align the policy to section 32.0.7 and stop over-promising.
Use a documented decision framework before choosing mediation over investigation. The OLRB left the door open to informal resolution but didn't walk through it. Until it does, treat mediation as a tool for relationship repair after the facts are established — not a substitute for establishing them in matters involving serious allegations or safety concerns.
Train whoever holds the investigator role — before the next complaint lands, not during it. Firms including Fasken and Dentons have both flagged investigator training as the practical takeaway from this decision. Our workplace investigation training for Ontario employers covers exactly the gaps this case exposed.
The takeaway
Nothing about the county's investigation in Gassi looked reckless. It was prompt. The investigator was trained. The complainant was heard at length. It still failed — not because anyone acted in bad faith, but because two ordinary, easy-to-make process choices went undocumented and unexplained.
That's the real lesson. Most Ontario employers aren't one bad-faith decision away from a finding like this. They're one unexplained scoping call, or one forgotten follow-up interview, away from it. As reported by Canadian HR Reporter, the lawyers closest to this decision describe it as filling a decade-long gap in guidance — which means the standard it sets is the one every investigation opened from today forward will be measured against.
Not sure your current investigation process would hold up? Start with the investigation fit assessment, or review how we structure Ontario employer-side mandates through our workplace investigations practice.
Need investigator training or a policy audit rather than a one-off investigation? That capability-building work sits inside our HR services. Book a 30-minute consultation or contact us.
1205 Consulting provides HR and workplace investigation services. This article is general information, not legal advice. Court and tribunal decisions are summarized from public sources and published legal commentary; always read the primary decision and consult employment counsel before relying on it for a specific situation.
