Know your rights as a volunteer

As a true volunteer you are generally not covered by the Ontario Employment Standards Act. That means no legal entitlement to minimum wage, overtime pay, vacation pay, public-holiday pay, or termination notice, and you do not build Employment Insurance hours from volunteering.

You can stop at any time. Because there is no employment contract, you are generally free to step back from a role or stop volunteering whenever you need to - and the organization can also end a volunteer role, subject to its own policies and human-rights law.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission's position is that human-rights protections in the "employment" area extend to anyone in a work-like context, including volunteers. That means you have the right to volunteer free from discrimination and harassment based on protected grounds such as race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed (religion), sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital or family status, disability, and (in the work context) a record of offences.

You also have the right to be free from sexual harassment and from a "poisoned environment." A single serious incident can be enough - harassment does not have to be repeated to count.

Organizations have a duty to accommodate needs tied to a protected ground - most often disability or religion - up to the point of "undue hardship." In practice that can mean a wheelchair-accessible station, shorter shifts or seated tasks, a break for prayer, a uniform adjustment for religious dress, or having a guide dog present. Cost or a real health-and-safety risk can be a limit; general inconvenience, co-worker resentment, or "customer preference" cannot.

If you experience discrimination or harassment while volunteering, you can file an application with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO), generally within one year of the last incident. The Human Rights Legal Support Centre gives free legal advice and can help you. The law also protects you from reprisal - you cannot be punished for raising a human-rights concern or for taking part in a complaint.

Even though most general volunteers are not "workers" under Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act, the organization still has a legal duty of care - under common law and the Occupiers' Liability Act - to provide a reasonably safe environment, proper training and supervision for your role, and suitable, safe equipment. This duty cannot simply be signed away by a waiver. And you can always decline an unsafe task and leave.

Because general volunteers are usually outside the OHSA, some formal workplace-safety rights - like the statutory "right to refuse unsafe work" and the Act's violence-and-harassment procedures - may not legally apply to you, though many organizations extend them to volunteers by policy. (Unpaid co-op and post-secondary placement students are an exception and are covered as "workers.")

Volunteers are usually not automatically covered by WSIB (workers' compensation), because there is no employment relationship. Some volunteers are covered by law - for example volunteer firefighters, volunteer ambulance and first-response members, and auxiliary police. For everyone else, protection usually comes from the organization's insurance: commercial general liability, and sometimes no-fault "volunteer accident" insurance. These only help if volunteers are actually included, so it is worth asking.

If you are injured while volunteering:

• Get medical care right away, and keep records and receipts.
• Report it to your supervisor or coordinator immediately and make sure an incident report is filed.
• Write down what happened and take photos of the hazard and any injuries.
• Ask the organization what insurance covers volunteers and how to make a claim.
• For anything serious, get legal advice - claims can have deadlines (often around two years in Ontario, but confirm).

For many charities and non-profits, no single privacy law automatically applies to volunteers' information. In that case your privacy rights come mainly from the organization's own privacy policy and the consent form you sign - so read them. If you volunteer for a government body, public hospital, university, school board, or police service, stronger public-sector privacy laws may apply. Either way, you can ask what information is being collected and why, and ask to see and correct your own information.

For roles of trust or authority over children or vulnerable people, an organization may require a police record check. Under Ontario's Police Record Checks Reform Act, 2015, a check always needs your consent, and there are three standard levels that disclose different things:

• Criminal Record Check - criminal convictions only (the least intrusive).
• Criminal Record and Judicial Matters Check - the above plus certain outstanding charges, warrants, and some court orders.
• Vulnerable Sector Check - the most detailed, used for work with vulnerable people; it can include certain non-conviction information only where strict legal criteria are met.

Your rights in the process: you can usually receive the results yourself first to check them for accuracy before they go to the organization; you can ask to correct errors; and you can ask for a reconsideration of non-conviction information (for example, contact with police as a victim or witness, or during a mental-health crisis, is meant to be screened out). Youth records can be kept separate.

Reimbursed expenses are not income. If the organization pays you back for real out-of-pocket costs you incurred volunteering (mileage, supplies, parking), that reimbursement is not taxable.

Honorariums can be taxable. A small, token honorarium is generally fine, but anything more than nominal is taxable income and the organization may report it on a T4A (generally once payments to you reach $500 in a year). Regular pay-like "stipends" for your time can also be a sign you are really an employee.

Special federal tax rules exist for emergency-services volunteers (such as a tax-exempt amount for certain firefighter, ambulance, and search-and-rescue payments, and a volunteer firefighters' and search-and-rescue tax credit for those with enough hours). These are specific and worth checking with the CRA or a tax professional.

Ontario does not set one legal minimum age to volunteer - each organization sets its own age rules for each role (often 16+, and higher for sensitive settings). Volunteers under 18 are usually asked for parent or guardian consent, and some tasks and settings are off-limits to youth under health-and-safety rules (for example, operating power tools or vehicles, or handling medication).

If your hours are for Ontario's 40-hour community involvement requirement for the OSSD, students under 18 must plan their activities with a parent or guardian, who approves them and verifies the completed hours. The activity also cannot be something normally done for pay, cannot happen during class time, and cannot be an activity on the Ministry's ineligible list. See our student-hours guide for more.

• Know your volunteer agreement and role description - they set out what to expect and often a complaint process.
• Raise it with your coordinator or supervisor, then escalate through any complaint or grievance policy.
• Keep written records - dates, what happened, who was involved, and what you reported. This matters for every step below.