Bill 77 explained in plain English
Speaking Out About, and Reporting On, Workplace Violence and Harassment Act, 2025
Ontario legislature bill summary, status, timeline, sponsor, votes, and official sources.
At a glance
Official Legislative Assembly of Ontario snapshot for 44th Parliament, 1st Session. Representative vote breakdowns appear when the Assembly publishes an Ayes and Nays page for the bill.
Our plain-language take, written for civic education.
Source: By PoliticalData.ca
Bill 77 protects Ontario workers who speak out about workplace violence and harassment from retaliation, and requires hospitals and long-term care homes to publicly report monthly on violence and harassment incidents.
Bill 77 amends Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act in three main ways: First, it adds protections for workers who speak out about workplace violence and harassment. Employers cannot punish, discipline, fire, or retaliate against workers who speak out in good faith about these issues—either to their employer, a union, a health and safety committee, an inspector, or the public. The bill defines "reprisal" broadly to include any measure that harms a worker's employment, such as firing, demotion, suspension, layoff, transfer, wage cuts, schedule changes, or intimidation. Second, it requires hospitals and long-term care homes to publicly report, at least once a month on their website, the number of workplace violence incidents and workplace harassment incidents that occurred in the previous month. Third, it updates the existing anti-reprisal protections in the Act to make clear that workers are protected when they speak out about workplace violence and harassment specifically, in addition to other health and safety matters. The bill comes into force when it receives Royal Assent.
- Expands anti-reprisal protections in the Occupational Health and Safety Act to explicitly protect workers who speak out about workplace violence and harassment to their employer, a health and safety committee, a union, an inspector, or the public
- Defines 'reprisal' broadly to mean any measure that adversely affects a worker's employment, including firing, threatening to fire, demotion, discipline, suspension, layoff, transfer, job elimination, wage reduction, schedule changes, and intimidation or coercion
- Requires hospitals to publicly report on their website, at least once per month, the number of workplace violence incidents that occurred during the immediately preceding month
- Requires long-term care homes to publicly report on their website, at least once per month, the number of workplace violence incidents that occurred during the immediately preceding month
- Requires hospitals to publicly report on their website, at least once per month, the number of workplace harassment incidents that occurred during the immediately preceding month
- Requires long-term care homes to publicly report on their website, at least once per month, the number of workplace harassment incidents that occurred during the immediately preceding month
- Workers in Ontario who experience or speak out about workplace violence or harassment
- Employers in Ontario, particularly those subject to the Occupational Health and Safety Act
- Hospitals in Ontario
- Long-term care homes in Ontario
- Members of joint health and safety committees
- Health and safety representatives
- Trade unions
- Workplace inspectors
- The public, who will have access to monthly reports from hospitals and long-term care homes about violence and harassment incidents
- Workers have the right to speak out about workplace violence and harassment without fear of retaliation
- Workers have the right to report workplace violence or harassment to their employer, supervisor, health and safety committee, representative, union, or inspector without facing reprisal
- Workers have the right to provide information to the public or make complaints to the public about workplace violence, harassment, or other health and safety violations without facing reprisal
- Workers have the right to participate in violence, harassment, or health and safety investigations without facing reprisal
- Workers have the right to refuse work they reasonably believe violates the Act without facing reprisal
- Employers cannot take any measure that adversely affects a worker's employment as reprisal for the worker speaking out about violence or harassment in good faith
- Hospitals must publicly report on their website, at least monthly, the number of workplace violence incidents from the previous month
- Hospitals must publicly report on their website, at least monthly, the number of workplace harassment incidents from the previous month
- Long-term care homes must publicly report on their website, at least monthly, the number of workplace violence incidents from the previous month
- Long-term care homes must publicly report on their website, at least monthly, the number of workplace harassment incidents from the previous month
- The Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent (the date is not yet known, as the bill is at First Reading as of November 25, 2025)
- The bill does not specify any financial costs or tax impacts. Hospitals and long-term care homes will incur costs to implement monthly public reporting of violence and harassment incidents on their websites, but the bill does not quantify these costs.
- The bill text does not specify enforcement mechanisms or penalties for violations of these new provisions. Enforcement would likely fall under existing Occupational Health and Safety Act enforcement procedures, but the bill itself does not detail these.
- The bill does not specify what qualifies as a 'workplace violence' incident or a 'workplace harassment' incident for the purposes of public reporting by hospitals and long-term care homes. These definitions may exist elsewhere in the Occupational Health and Safety Act or its regulations, but they are not provided in this bill.
- The bill does not specify how hospitals and long-term care homes should count or categorize incidents for reporting purposes (for example, whether one incident involving multiple workers counts as one or multiple incidents).
- The bill does not specify enforcement mechanisms or penalties for hospitals or long-term care homes that fail to comply with the public reporting requirement.
- The bill does not specify whether personal identifying information of workers or alleged wrongdoers should be included or excluded from the public reports.
- The bill does not specify what format the public reports should take or how detailed the information should be.
- The bill refers to existing reprisal protections in the Occupational Health and Safety Act (such as sections 32.0.2 and 32.0.6) but does not reproduce the full text of those sections, so the complete scope of protected activities is not fully clear from the bill alone.
- The bill does not address which government ministry or agency will enforce the new protections or oversee compliance with the reporting requirements.
Adds new protections for workers who speak out about workplace violence and harassment, preventing employers from taking reprisals against workers for speaking out about these issues in good faith. Also requires hospitals and long-term care homes to publicly report monthly on workplace violence and harassment incidents.
Source: Sections 32.0.2, 32.0.6, and 50(1)
Generated using AI from official bill text. Not legal advice. It is written by PoliticalData.ca for civic education, automatically checked and spot-reviewed before publishing.
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Vote Summary
This bill is still active. We only show vote counts after the legislature publishes a recorded division.
No published representative vote breakdown
This bill is still moving through the process. When a recorded division is published, representative positions can be listed here.
Official sources
Status, sponsor, votes, and timeline on this page are drawn from these official legislative sources and public records. Each summary above is attributed to its own source.
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