Workplace Investigations
Impartial, procedurally fair, and built to withstand scrutiny.
When a complaint lands on your desk, how it is handled matters as much as what is found. A flawed investigation can expose an organization to legal risk, damage morale, and deepen the very conflict it was meant to resolve. A well-run investigation does the opposite: it protects everyone involved, satisfies legal obligations, and gives decision-makers findings they can rely on.
Ella Forbes-Chilibeck has been a certified Workplace Investigator with the Canadian Association of Workplace Investigators since 2016, backed by 20 years of employment and labour law practice.
She has acted as principal or sole investigator into allegations of sexual and other harassment, violence, discrimination, and wrongdoing for unionized and non-unionized, provincially and federally regulated workplaces, and as a senior university executive, has also overseen independent investigation processes from the employer's side.
Because we act for both employers and employees in our broader practice, we understand every perspective in the room.
What we investigate
Workplace harassment and sexual harassment complaints
Discrimination and human rights complaints
Bullying, incivility, and poisoned work environment allegations
Code of conduct and policy violations
Workplace violence incidents
Reprisal complaints
Abuse of process allegations, where a complaint is alleged to have been brought as a sword rather than a shield
Complex, multi-party, and anonymous complaints
Who retains us
We are retained by private-sector employers, public-sector organizations, universities and colleges, not-for-profits, boards of directors, and HR departments who need an external, neutral investigator, whether to satisfy obligations under Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. O.1, or the federal workplace harassment and violence regime under the Canada Labour Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. L-2, Part II and the Work Place Harassment and Violence Prevention Regulations, SOR/2020-130, or to address complaints engaging the Canadian Human Rights Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. H-6, or Ontario's Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, or simply to get to the bottom of a workplace problem before it escalates.
Ella conducts investigations for organizations across Canada, in person and remotely, and her experience spans both federally and provincially regulated workplaces, in unionized and non-unionized environments.
Our approach
Every investigation is different, but our commitments do not change:
Procedural fairness. Every party knows the allegations they face and has a full opportunity to respond.
Impartiality. We are retained to find facts, not to reach a predetermined outcome.
Trauma-informed practice. Interviews are conducted with care for the wellbeing of complainants, respondents, and witnesses alike, informed by Ella's pre-law background in psychology and years of front-line behavioural and counselling work.
Timeliness. Workplace conflict compounds while it waits. We scope realistically and deliver promptly.
Clear reporting. Findings are documented thoroughly, reasoned transparently, and written to withstand scrutiny, including in litigation, arbitration, or before a tribunal.
Experience you can rely on
Ella has practised employment, labour, and human rights law since 2006 and has been a certified Workplace Investigator for a decade. She has appeared as lead counsel before the Ontario Superior Court, the Federal Court, the Canada Industrial Relations Board, the Ontario Labour Relations Board, and the Canadian, Ontario and Nunavut Human Rights Tribunals, so she knows first-hand the scrutiny an investigation report must survive.
She has also seen investigations from the employer's chair, having served as Executive Director of Faculty Relations at Simon Fraser University, Associate Vice-President of Faculty Affairs at Mount Royal University, and Director of Faculty Relations at Western University, where she oversaw independent investigation processes and advised senior leadership on workplace complaints.
She has conducted dozens of workplace investigations, from single-incident complaints to complex, multi-party matters, including reprisal complaints and allegations that a complaint process itself was misused. In a decade of certified practice, not one of her investigation reports has ever been the subject of judicial review.
Our investigation mandates are confidential.
We do not publish case studies or matter descriptions, the organizations and individuals who trust us with their most sensitive workplace problems rely on that discretion.
After the investigation
An investigation answers what happened. It rarely answers what happens next. Teams that have been through a complaint process often need help rebuilding trust and re-establishing working relationships, which is why Ella also offers workplace restoration services as a certified Workplace Fairness Analyst, designed to follow an investigation or stand alone.