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Suppose a Canadian religious private school's policy first includes a list like this:

Workplace harassment can involve harassment based on the following grounds:
[...]
• sexual orientation,
• gender identity,
• gender expression,
[...]

The policy then adds this caveat:

It is not harassment for this school to teach and promote a traditional Christian perspective on marriage, gender, and sexuality. School staff sharing or commenting on these religious perspectives in a respectful manner does not constitute inappropriate sexually oriented remarks, expression of bias on the basis of sex or sexual orientation, or vexatious or unwelcome remarks, as the school has the right to operate as a religious organization and to teach from a distinctly Christian perspective. This right is recognized under sections 18 and 24 of the Ontario Human Rights Code and in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As a religious institution, the school may hold religiously based lifestyle expectations.

One of the situations envisioned by the policy is almost certainly this: a teacher tells a class that traditional Christian marriage (male + female) is the only kind that is morally right, or perhaps directly promotes this to a student living at odds with this doctrine; the student alleges that they have been harassed on the basis of their orientation; the school cites this policy in defence. One could imagine many related instances: the school enforces a male dress code policy on a student identifying as female, the school prints a non-preferred pronoun in the graduation package, the school does not allow same-sex couples at a dance, etc.

To what degree does the law support the interpretation that this does not constitute harassment?

HRC §18

This provision seems to be about harassment against all parties, but especially students / those who would access the school's services.

18 The rights under Part I to equal treatment with respect to services and facilities, with or without accommodation, are not infringed where membership or participation in a religious, philanthropic, educational, fraternal or social institution or organization that is primarily engaged in serving the interests of persons identified by a prohibited ground of discrimination is restricted to persons who are similarly identified. R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, s. 18; 2006, c. 19, Sched. B, s. 10.

If I paraphrase the relevant parts a bit:

The rights to equal treatment with respect to services and facilities are not infringed where membership in a religious school is restricted to adherents of the school's religion.

Some open questions here:

  • Are rights "with respect to the services and facilities" inclusive of the right not to be harassed?
  • What is a "member" of the school and does it matter?
  • Is this clause limited if the school in fact enrols students who are not adherents of its religion? Does it then limit the whole clause or only its effects on the enrolled non-adherents?

HRC §24

This one seems to be about employing staff at the school.

24 (1) The right under section 5 to equal treatment with respect to employment is not infringed where,
(a) a religious, philanthropic, educational, fraternal or social institution or organization that is primarily engaged in serving the interests of persons identified by their race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, creed, sex, age, marital status or disability employs only, or gives preference in employment to, persons similarly identified if the qualification is a reasonable and bona fide qualification because of the nature of the employment; ...

Paraphrased relevant parts:

The rights to equal treatment with respect to employment are not infringed where an organization primarily engaged in serving the interests of adherents to a religion gives preferential employment to said adherents, if the qualification is a reasonable and bona fide qualification because of the nature of that employment.

Open questions:

  • Is a school, even a religious school, "primarily engaged in serving the interests of adherents to its religion"?
  • Could sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression be a reasonable and bona fide qualification due to the nature of employment of teaching?
    • Perhaps this is supposed to gel with §18: since the school requires them to "teach from a Christian perspective", they can't have an identity proscribed by that perspective? I realize the law can't answer the theological question, but maybe this is the practical argument the school would make in court, for example.

Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Unfortunately, the school's hypothetical text cites no specific sections of the Charter. These are the ones that look relevant:

In summary

I'm the furthest thing from a lawyer and as such I'm a little at sea as to how tenable the above policy is. Is it citing relevant law? Is it applying it in a way that might hold up if challenged? What gaps exist in its interpretation?

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    Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on Law Meta, or in Law Chat. Comments continuing discussion may be removed. Commented Aug 30, 2025 at 19:45

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There are several questions here and the scenarios are quite different. I will treat the title question.

First, denominational schools referred to by s. 29 of the Charter are publicly funded schools for a minority faith (Catholic vs. Protestant specifically) in some provinces and territories of Canada under s. 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867. They have historic rights and privileges that are not available to private religious schools; at the same time, they are public actors that could be subject to some levels of Charter and statutory scrutiny (see for example Hall v. Powers, though that case ended without a final decision).

The Charter itself does not apply against private actors including private schools in general, although due to significant government involvement in the delivery of education to minors, the Charter (specifically equality rights in this case) may or may not apply to their students and employees in some aspects. This has not been tested on appellate level, see York Region District School Board v. Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario 2024 SCC 22.

Religious schools have a right to teach from their religious perspective [Loyola High School v. Quebec (Attorney General)], balanced against legitimate government objectives. This is part of their right to religious freedom under s. 2 of the Charter. In the cited case, it was deemed unreasonable for Quebec to require a private Catholic school to teach Catholicism from a neutral perspective. The majority also decided that it may be reasonable to require that the school teach other religions neutrally.

The right against harassment in employment is provided in the Ontario Human Rights Code. Students do not have an explicit right against harassment at school in the Code, although harassment by a service provider on protected grounds generally also violates the right to equal treatment. A student may have additional rights and teachers may have additional responsibilities under education or child protection laws.

Sections 18 and 24 apply to the right to equal treatment only and not the right against harassment in workplace. But they affirm the principle that religious organizations have religious freedom to operate according to their beliefs.

One of the situations envisioned by the policy is almost certainly this: a teacher tells a class that traditional Christian marriage (male + female) is the only kind that is morally right, or perhaps directly promotes this to a student living at odds with this doctrine; the student alleges that they have been harassed on the basis of their orientation; the school cites this policy in defence.

Two remarks first: (1) A policy on workplace harassment is almost certainly not directed at students (2) a policy is not a defence to unlawful conduct in any case.

These aside, whether a conduct constitutes harassment is a case-specific inquiry. A generalized teaching about the Church's belief in marriage or sexual behaviour is generally covered under religious freedom. A statement directed at a specific student or employee, depending on all the relevant circumstances, may not be. It is unlikely that a protected religious freedom allows excessive or vexatious statement targeted at an individual due to their actual or perceived protected grounds.

Whether the religious organization is protected from discrimination claims will depend on whether an employment requirement is reasonable and made in good faith. It has been generally accepted that a religious school may require the teachers to be an adherent and conform with certain behaviour expectations (Caldwell et al. v. Stuart et al.). There would have to be again a case-specific inquiry that considers the stated and practical purpose and characteristics of the organization. In Ontario Human Rights Commission v. Christian Horizons, 2010 ONSC 2105 (CanLII), the court decided that a Christian charity, when providing community living residence provider, is subject to discrimination claim when it terminated a support worker for being in a same-sex relationship contrary to its code of conduct. The court found that in this case the employment requirement of not being in a same-sex relationship is not reasonably connected to the group's core missions as far as they concern a support worker. Teachers in Catholic schools on the other hand can be more reasonably subject to religious requirements since their role to teach and indoctrinate religious beliefs is core to the operation of religious schools and they are expected to be role models.

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  • Thanks! Right, poor wording about citing policy: I meant referring to the legal argument laid out in this policy. And good point about students vs. workplace harassment; I guess the core point is the same, though it means the school may not have an explicit policy regarding the same sort of comments directed at students, I guess. Commented Aug 31, 2025 at 0:34

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