An employee did not have a right under occupational health and
safety legislation to refuse work due to harassment, a Nunavut
judge has held.
The employee, a wildlife biologist with the Government of
Nunavut, refused to work due to harassment. She filed a work
refusal complaint with a government safety officer. Under the
Safety Act, an employee could refuse to work due to an
"unusual danger" in the workplace. The safety
officer decided that the employee had been subject to harassment
and that the harassment constituted an "unusual danger"
so that the work refusal was justified.
The court disagreed, and overturned the safety officer's
decision.
The court noted that unlike other provinces' workplace
safety laws, Nunavut's Safety Act is silent on the
issues of workplace violence and harassment. In Nunavut, a
safety officer could not issue an order to stop harassment, and the
legislation did not otherwise protect employees from
harassment. As such, if the Safet
