By now the evidence is in that stress and harassment can make you sick.

So last year, when Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board extended benefits to cover employees who had become ill after experiencing long-term trauma or harassment on the job, it was a welcome, if overdue, step.

Now, though, there are questions about whether the WSIB is interpreting what constitutes workplace harassment too narrowly, after an audit last year found that 94 per cent of chronic mental health claims were denied.

And if one case, in particular, is representative of how the board is making its decisions, it appears they are setting the bar far too high.

That case is the claim of Margery Wardle, a former heavy equipment operator for the City of Nepean (and later Ottawa, after the cities were amalgamated).

She was diagnosed with anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress after being repeatedly subjected to sexually explicit comments and references to her sexuality, being exposed to pornographic material in the workplace, and being physically harassed and intimidated.

But according to the board, while the circumstances Wardle worked under could be interpreted as “unprofessional,” “inappropriate” and “upsetting,” these “unwelcome” behaviours — which included “blocking her path of travel and bumping her on the stairs,” grabbing her and following her into the women’s washroom — did not add up to bullying or harassment.

Instead, the board ruled, they constituted only “interpersonal conflict.” And that category, all too conveniently for employers who pay into the WSIB, is not covered by the board’s new chronic mental stress policy.

The WSIB needs to give its collective head a shake and revisit what it considers to be harassment and bullying. And if its claim that its decisions are consistent with the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act is true, that legislation should be revisited.

Further, the board’s assertion that its decisions align with guidance from the Ontario Human Rights Commission sounds downright implausible, especially considering that Wardle says the commission told her the incidents she described amounted to sexual harassment.

The WSIB should not be sending a message to employers that the type of working conditions endured by Wardle are acceptable. Instead, the board should make it clear that employers who allow such conditions to exist, never mind persist, will be held liable by supporting the claims of workers who are made sick by them.

It is, after all, 2019.