Ontario Just Rewrote Its Workplace Harassment Investigation Guidance — What the June 2026 Update Means for Employers

On June 12, 2026, Ontario's Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development republished its official Workplace harassment investigations guidance page. There was no press release and no statutory amendment — but the refreshed page is the clearest statement the Ministry has issued in years on what it actually expects when an Ontario employer investigates a harassment complaint under section 32.0.7 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

For employers, "guidance" is easy to dismiss. That would be a mistake. This is the document a Ministry inspector reaches for when deciding whether your investigation was good enough — and it now puts numbers and teeth behind expectations that used to live only in case law and consultants' heads.

Key Takeaways

• Ontario's official harassment investigation guidance was refreshed on June 12, 2026, consolidating the Ministry's expectations into one page.
• The Ministry's stated benchmark: investigate promptly — ideally within 90 days or less — and document any reason for going longer.
• A Ministry inspector can order an impartial, external investigator at the employer's expense where an internal investigation can't be trusted to be objective.
• The written-results obligation is restated plainly: parties must receive a written summary of findings and corrective action — not the full report.
• None of this is new law. All of it is the standard you will be measured against.

What actually changed

The update doesn't create new obligations — section 32.0.7 of the OHSA has required an investigation "appropriate in the circumstances" since the Sexual Violence and Harassment Action Plan Act amendments took effect. What the June 2026 refresh does is consolidate and sharpen the operational expectations into a single, plain-language page. Four things now stand out in black and white.

1. A 90-day timeline is the default. The Ministry states that employers "should ensure that the incident is investigated as soon as possible, ideally within 90 days or less, unless there is a compelling reason why a longer investigation is needed (for example, there are multiple witnesses or a key witness is unavailable due to illness)." This mirrors the language in the Ministry's Code of Practice to Address Workplace Harassment — and it converts a vague "promptly" into a number an inspector can hold you to.

2. The inspector's power to order an external investigator is spelled out. The guidance confirms that "a ministry inspector may order an employer to have an investigation carried out by an impartial person who has specific knowledge, experience or qualifications. The employer would pay for this investigation and receive a written report when it is complete." It lists the triggers: the alleged harasser is the employer; the organization has failed to deal with complaints in the past; or the employer can't ensure the investigation will be conducted objectively internally.

3. Who can investigate — and who can't — is clarified. The person conducting the investigation must not be involved in the incident and must not be under the direct control of the alleged harasser. They can be internal (a supervisor, senior manager, or HR staff), at another company location, or external (a licensed private investigator, HR professional, lawyer, or someone with another relevant designation). There is no licensing requirement to investigate — but, as the Ministry notes, someone whose work "primarily consists of conducting investigations into the character or actions of others" may need a licence under the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005.

4. The written-results duty is restated — with a warning. After the investigation, the employer must provide the results and any corrective action, in writing, to the complainant and to the alleged harasser if they are a worker. The Ministry draws a line most employers miss: "The results of the investigation are not the same as the investigation report. The results of the investigation are a summary of the findings." Hand over the wrong document and you create a new problem.

What it means for Ontario employers

The strategic read is simple: the bar for a defensible investigation just became more legible — to inspectors, to complainants, and to their lawyers.

For two years the operational standard has been built case by case. The Court of Appeal's decision in Metrolinx v. Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1587 established that the duty to investigate is triggered even without a formal complaint and even for off-duty conduct with workplace impact — a point Stewart McKelvey summarized crisply for employers and one we unpacked in our own breakdown of the no-complaint duty to investigate. The "appropriate in the circumstances" standard has been clarified piece by piece, as we've written about before.

The June 2026 refresh pulls those threads into one place a non-lawyer can read. That cuts both ways. It makes compliance easier to understand — and non-compliance easier to prove. When the regulator's own page says 90 days, an investigation that drifts to six months with no documented reason looks worse, not better. When the page says the impartial-investigator order exists, an employer that left a CEO-respondent matter to a junior HR generalist has fewer places to hide.

This is exactly the kind of slow-moving signal that separates employers who treat investigations as a compliance function from those who treat them as a litigation-defence discipline. For context on the underlying statutory duties, our OHSA investigation obligations checklist and the official understand the law on workplace violence and harassment page are the right place to start.

What to do now

Five concrete moves, in order of priority:

1. Pull your last three investigations and check them against the refreshed page. Were they completed within 90 days? If not, is the reason documented in the file? If a closed matter ran long with no recorded justification, that gap is now measured against a published benchmark.

2. Build the 90-day clock into your intake process. Date-stamp the moment the employer became aware of the incident — not the moment a formal complaint was filed. Calendar the 90-day mark. If you're going to exceed it, write down why before you do, not after.

3. Pre-decide your escalation triggers for an external investigator. Don't wait for an inspector to order one. Define in advance which matters go external automatically — senior respondent, prior mishandled complaints, allegations against the owner, or any case where internal objectivity is questionable. Knowing how to choose a workplace investigator before you need one is far cheaper than a Ministry order.

4. Fix your close-out template. Make sure your standard process delivers a written summary of results and corrective action to both parties — distinct from the full report. If your team has been emailing the entire investigation report, or nothing at all, correct it now. See our guidance on what happens after the investigation.

5. Confirm your investigators meet the Ministry's independence test. No one investigating an incident they were involved in. No one reporting to the alleged harasser. If you can't clear that bar internally for a given matter, that's your signal to go external.

Where 1205 Consulting fits

This refreshed guidance is not a reason to panic — it's a reason to pressure-test. Most Ontario employers will find that their process is 80% compliant and 20% exposed, and the 20% is almost always in the same places: timeline drift, the wrong investigator on a senior-respondent file, and a sloppy close-out.

1205 Consulting conducts independent, defensible workplace investigations for Ontario employers and builds the HR infrastructure — intake protocols, investigator independence checks, 90-day tracking, and close-out templates — that keeps you on the right side of the Ministry's expectations before an inspector ever calls. If you want a fast read on where your current process stands, our workplace investigation readiness assessment is a useful starting point.

To talk through how the June 2026 guidance affects your organization specifically, book a 30-minute call or reach out through our contact page.

This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. For advice on a specific situation, consult your employment counsel. 1205 Consulting provides workplace investigation and HR advisory services — we are not a law firm.