The HRTO Is Rewriting Its Rulebook: What Ontario Employers Need to Know Before June 5

On May 13, 2026, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) opened a public consultation on proposed updates to its Rules of Procedure and Practice Directions. The consultation window closes June 5, 2026 — 23 days from publication. That is the entire window Ontario employers, their HR teams, and their counsel have to weigh in before the rules that govern every harassment, discrimination, and reprisal application get rewritten.

The timing is not coincidental. The rewrite lands roughly six weeks after the Ontario Divisional Court's April 2026 decision in Bokhari v. Top Medical Transportation Services, 2026 ONSC 1073, which forced the HRTO to abandon its informal "balance of probabilities" screening standard and let more applications proceed past the door. We covered the operational implications of Bokhari in detail on April 27. The Tribunal is now adjusting downstream — and the adjustments shift procedural leverage toward applicants.

For Ontario employers, this is not a niche administrative-law update. It is the operational rulebook for every workplace harassment file that ends up in front of the Tribunal.

Key Takeaways

• The HRTO opened a public consultation on May 13, 2026 with a June 5, 2026 submission deadline.
• Four substantive areas are in play: reconsiderations, Notices of Intent to Dismiss, application withdrawal, jurisdictional reviews — plus a brand-new Mandatory Mediation Practice Direction.
• The rewrite follows Bokhari and is consistent with a broader shift toward more applications surviving to a merits stage.
• Employers who do not engage now will absorb whatever procedural posture the rules adopt by default.
• Mandatory mediation will require new internal protocols: authority limits, early-resolution posture, and decision-maker availability.

What the HRTO Is Changing

The Tribunal's May 13 operational update and the draft rules document outline four substantive amendments plus one structural addition.

1. Reconsiderations process

The HRTO is proposing changes to how reconsideration requests are managed and adjudicated. Reconsideration is the Tribunal's narrow internal review mechanism — the procedural step before judicial review at the Divisional Court. Until Bokhari, reconsideration was effectively a paper exercise that almost always confirmed the original decision. With more applications now surviving past initial screening, the reconsideration channel becomes a more active pressure point. Cleaning it up makes the appellate-style architecture of the Tribunal more legible — but it also matters who benefits from the clarification.

2. Notices of Intent to Dismiss (NOI)

Adjustments to the timelines and submission processes for Notices of Intent to Dismiss applications. NOIs are the Tribunal's tool for closing files at the threshold stage — for delay, abandonment, jurisdictional defect, or other procedural failures. Bokhari did not eliminate NOIs; it raised the threshold for using one to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds. Procedural housekeeping around NOIs is exactly what one would expect the Tribunal to undertake in the wake of Bokhari. The substantive question for employers is whether the new timelines give respondents more or less room to engage when an NOI lands.

3. Application withdrawal

The proposal would simplify the withdrawal process by allowing an applicant to withdraw via email, copying the respondent. Operationally minor on its face. Strategically more interesting: faster withdrawal reduces friction in early-settlement files, which is consistent with the Tribunal's broader push toward mandatory mediation (see below).

4. Jurisdictional reviews

Updates to the existing Practice Direction on jurisdictional reviews. Bokhari was, at its core, a jurisdictional-review case — the HRTO had purported to dismiss for a lack of jurisdiction (no disability under section 10 of the Ontario Human Rights Code) and the Divisional Court found the Tribunal's reasoning unreasonable. Updating the jurisdictional-review Practice Direction is the Tribunal's first formal opportunity to absorb the Bokhari reasoning into its internal procedure. Watch this closely.

5. New Practice Direction on Mandatory Mediation

The single largest structural addition. The Tribunal is launching a new Practice Direction on Mandatory Mediation that will, in the Tribunal's words, "better clarify the purpose and processes involved" with mediation in the appeal process.

The Ontario Bar Association has historically engaged on HRTO rules consultations. The OBA's sector updates on prior rounds make clear that mediation has been a recurring point of contention — over whether it should be mandatory, what authority mediators should have, and how it interacts with the broader merits track. The Ontario Human Rights Commission has also previously intervened on rule reform. The pattern is consistent: mediation reform always changes the cost calculus for employer respondents.

Why This Matters for Ontario Employers

Three reasons this rewrite is materially different from the routine procedural housekeeping the Tribunal does every couple of years.

First, post-Bokhari, more applications will reach the procedural rules. When the Tribunal was dismissing applications at the jurisdictional screening stage on a "more likely than not" standard, most workplace harassment respondents never engaged with the procedural rules at all — their files closed before they had to. Bokhari changed that. The Divisional Court's reasoning is now reflected in commentary from Rudner Law and administrativelawmatters.com, and the practical consequence is that more applications survive to procedural and merits adjudication. Whatever rules emerge from this consultation will govern that larger surviving cohort.

Second, mandatory mediation will change how files get resolved. Ontario law firms have long anticipated procedural reform along these lines. Hicks Morley, Norton Rose Fulbright, McCarthy Tétrault, and Gowling WLG have all flagged the broader procedural-tightening trend across Ontario tribunals over the past year. Mandatory mediation requires employer respondents to come to the table early — with someone present who has settlement authority. That is a structural change in how harassment and discrimination files are managed. Employers without internal protocols on early-resolution posture, authority limits, and decision-maker availability will arrive at mediation underprepared.

Third, this is a 23-day window. The HRTO is consulting under the Tribunals Ontario operational governance framework, not under a broader statutory consultation regime. There is no parallel legislative track, no Standing Committee, no opportunity to weigh in after June 5, 2026. Employer voice in this rewrite is the consultation submission or nothing.

What This Does Not Change

It is also worth being clear about what the consultation does not touch. None of the proposed changes alter:

• The underlying employer duty under section 32.0.7 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act to ensure that an investigation appropriate in the circumstances is conducted into incidents or complaints of workplace harassment. The Ontario Code of Practice to Address Workplace Harassment remains the operational floor.
• The Ontario Court of Appeal's reasoning in Metrolinx v. Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1587 that the duty to investigate extends to off-duty conduct with workplace impact, even where the complainant declines to file a formal grievance.
• The OLRB's longstanding doctrine that employers have significant discretion in choosing an investigator — and the corresponding caution that employers should not take a casual approach to that choice.

In other words: the substantive law on workplace harassment investigations is stable. What is changing is the procedural shape of what happens at the HRTO after a complaint becomes an application. The investigation file remains the principal cost-management lever.

What to Do Now

Four operational steps Ontario employers can take in the next 23 days.

1. Read the draft rules and decide whether to file a submission. The draft rules document is publicly available. Submissions are due June 5, 2026. Employers in regulated industries (healthcare, construction, financial services) — and any employer with active HRTO files — should consider submitting directly, or coordinating a submission through industry associations or the HRPA.

2. Audit every active workplace harassment investigation file on the Bokhari + mandatory-mediation premise. Assume each will (a) survive to a merits stage and (b) be routed through mandatory mediation early. That changes what "investigation-ready" means. The standard is now: investigation report quality, complainant and respondent interview records, contemporaneously dated documentation, and a clear documentary trail from intake to outcome.

3. Build an internal mandatory-mediation protocol. Designate who attends, what authority they bring, and what the employer's default early-resolution posture is for harassment, discrimination, and reprisal files. Mandatory mediation rewards respondents who come prepared and penalizes those who do not. The cost of underprepared mediation is paid in either settlement value or downstream merits-stage exposure.

4. Re-confirm your workplace harassment program meets the statutory floor. Section 32.0.7 of the OHSA, the Ontario Code of Practice to Address Workplace Harassment, and the Ministry of Labour's general guidance remain the operational baselines. If your harassment program has not been reviewed in the past 12 months — particularly in light of the October 2024 amendments adding virtual harassment — that review is overdue.

The Bigger Picture

The 2026 Ontario environment is shifting in a clear direction. Bokhari expanded the cohort of HRTO applications that survive. The May 13 consultation will adjust the procedural rules that govern those applications. The October 2024 OHSA amendments added virtual harassment to the statutory definitions. The Working for Workers Seven Act, 2025, now in force, doubled ESA fines and tightened enforcement. The new OHSA Administrative Monetary Penalty regime took effect January 1, 2026.

The pattern across all of these is the same: more procedural exposure, more enforcement leverage, more cost when an Ontario employer arrives at a forum — HRTO, OLRB, MLITSD, Divisional Court — without a clean investigation file and a documented program.

The May 13 consultation is a 23-day window to influence the next layer of that architecture. After June 5, the new rules become the new floor.

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1205 Consulting helps Ontario employers build workplace harassment programs that withstand HRTO and OLRB scrutiny — and runs the investigations themselves when an incident lands. If you are reviewing your investigation protocols, drafting a consultation submission, or preparing for a Tribunal file, book a working session. Our workplace investigations practice is built around the cost-management posture this environment now requires. Our HR services practice covers the program-and-policy layer that sits underneath every investigation.

This post is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult your legal counsel on any specific matter.