A workplace can have a reporting policy, a designated investigator and a formal complaint process and still have a serious reporting problem. A 2026 evaluation of the federal Occupational Health and Safety Program gives a useful picture of why. Among employees in federally regulated workplaces who said they had experienced harassment or violence in the previous two years, 64.4 per cent reported the most serious incident to their employer. That means 35.6 per cent did not. The reasons matter. Among employees who did not report, 44.2 per cent said they feared negative consequences. Another 17 per cent doubted that reporting would make a difference. The experience of people who did report is just as important. The evaluation found that 62.7 per cent were dissatisfied with how their cases were resolved. Those figures come from federally regulated workplaces, so they should not be treated as a prevalence estimate for every Canadian employer. They do, however, expose a basic operating problem that applies much more broadly. A complaint process only works when employees believe using it is both safe and worthwhile.
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