Workplace investigator for Belleville, Quinte and Eastern Ontario.
When a harassment or misconduct complaint lands and nobody inside the organization can credibly investigate it, the answer is an independent investigator. Aegis 360 HR is based in Belleville, holds the Q.ARB designation through the ADR Institute of Ontario, and quotes a flat fee with the scope written down before the work starts.
Most workplace investigators in this province are in Toronto.
That matters more than it sounds. An investigation is built out of interviews, and interviews are better in person. When the investigator is two and a half hours down the 401, in-person interviews become a logistics exercise: they get batched into a single long day because a second trip is expensive, witnesses get moved to video because the calendar will not align, and the travel appears on the invoice.
Working from Belleville changes the arithmetic. Trenton, Napanee, Prince Edward County and Kingston are a short drive. A second visit to put a new allegation to a respondent, which is exactly the step procedural fairness most often demands and time pressure most often eliminates, is a morning rather than a budget decision.
None of that makes a local investigator automatically the right choice. It does mean that in this region the usual trade-off between doing it properly and doing it affordably is a good deal smaller than it looks.
Where investigations are conducted
Aegis 360 HR takes investigations across Ontario. These are the communities served directly from Belleville, where travel sits inside the flat fee rather than beside it.
- Belleville
- Quinte West and Trenton
- Kingston
- Napanee
- Prince Edward County
- Brockville
- Peterborough
- Cobourg and Port Hope
- Cornwall
- Smiths Falls and Perth
- Renfrew
- Ottawa
Outside this region, investigations are still taken on and any travel is set out in the engagement letter before it is signed.
What gets investigated
Workplace harassment and sexual harassment complaints, bullying and poisoned work environment allegations, discrimination complaints raising a ground under the Human Rights Code, misconduct including theft, dishonesty and policy breaches, and allegations against an owner, an executive or a member of the board, which are the files an internal process can rarely survive.
Both unionized and non-union workplaces, and both provincially and federally regulated employers. In a unionized setting the investigation is conducted with the collective agreement and the right to representation in view, because a finding that ignores either is a finding that gets grieved.
The duty is on the employer, not the investigator
Section 32.0.7 (1) (a) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act requires an employer to ensure that an investigation is conducted into incidents and complaints of workplace harassment that is appropriate in the circumstances. Section 32.0.7 (1) (b) requires that the worker who has allegedly experienced the harassment, and the alleged harasser if they are a worker of the employer, are informed in writing of the results of the investigation and of any corrective action that has been taken or that will be taken as a result of it.
Engaging an external investigator does not transfer that duty. It is discharged by the employer, and the written notification at the end is the employer's to issue. What an external investigator supplies is an investigation capable of standing up when it is read by someone who would rather it did not.
Aegis 360 HR is an HR and labour relations consultancy. It does not provide legal advice and does not act as anyone's lawyer. Where a matter carries significant legal exposure, engaging qualified employment counsel alongside the investigation is the right course, and that gets said early rather than late.
Flat fee, quoted before the work starts
The scope is written down and the fee is fixed against it. A 50 percent retainer is payable on signing and the balance on delivery of the report.
Straightforward
$3,500 to $5,000 + HST
A single complainant, a contained set of allegations, a small number of witnesses.
Standard complexity
$5,000 to $7,500 + HST
Multiple allegations or witnesses, a larger documentary record, or a longer period in issue.
High complexity
$7,500 to $12,000 or more + HST
Many parties, allegations against senior leadership, or a parallel regulatory or legal proceeding running alongside.
Which band a file lands in is assessed on the first call, at no charge. Investigations are quoted and run separately from any ongoing HR retainer, deliberately, so that independence is not something anyone has to take on trust. The full service description sits on the workplace investigations page.
Questions employers ask
Do you actually travel to the workplace, or is this done remotely?
Interviews are conducted in person where the situation calls for it, and that is the usual choice in Eastern Ontario because the drive is short. Aegis 360 HR is based in Belleville, so Quinte West, Napanee, Prince Edward County and Kingston are all inside a comfortable same-day return trip. Some interviews are better done by video, a witness who has left the organization or lives out of province being the clearest example, and that is a judgment made at intake rather than a policy. What does not happen is an investigation conducted entirely at a distance because nobody wanted to make the drive.
Is travel billed on top of the fee?
Not within Eastern Ontario. The flat fee quoted at the outset covers the work, and travel inside the region is part of it rather than a line added later. That is a practical consequence of being based in Belleville rather than a concession: there is no meaningful travel cost to pass on. For an engagement well outside the region the position is stated in the engagement letter before anything is signed, so there is no surprise on the invoice.
What obliges an Ontario employer to investigate in the first place?
Section 32.0.7 (1) (a) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act requires an employer to ensure that an investigation is conducted into incidents and complaints of workplace harassment that is appropriate in the circumstances. Section 32.0.7 (1) (b) then requires that the worker who has allegedly experienced the harassment, and the alleged harasser if they are a worker of the employer, are informed in writing of the results and of any corrective action taken or to be taken as a result of the investigation. Those are statutory duties on the employer, not optional steps. Aegis 360 HR is an HR and labour relations consultancy and does not provide legal advice; where a matter carries significant legal exposure, engaging employment counsel alongside the investigation is the right course.
Why use an external investigator instead of handling it internally?
Sometimes internal is fine. It stops being fine when the person who would normally investigate is the subject of the complaint, is close to them, or reports to them. In a small or mid-sized Eastern Ontario employer that happens often, because the owner, the general manager and the HR function are frequently the same two or three people. An investigation run by someone with a stake in the outcome is the finding most likely to be attacked later, whether by the complainant, the respondent, a union, the Ministry or a tribunal. An external investigator removes that line of attack entirely.
You are not a law firm. Is that a disadvantage?
It is the point. An investigation is fact finding, not advocacy, and an investigator who also acts as the employer's advocate invites the argument that the findings were never independent. Aegis 360 HR acts as the neutral investigator and nothing else on the file. Scott Tracze holds the Q.ARB designation through the ADR Institute of Ontario, which is an arbitrator's credential rather than a generalist HR one, and the discipline it brings is the relevant one here: allegations are put to the person they concern, each question is decided on its own evidence, and findings are made on the balance of probabilities. Where the matter needs a lawyer, it needs a lawyer, and saying so early is part of the job.
What does an investigation cost?
Flat fee, quoted before the work starts, with the scope written down. A straightforward investigation runs $3,500 to $5,000 plus HST. Standard complexity runs $5,000 to $7,500 plus HST. High complexity runs $7,500 to $12,000 or more plus HST. A 50 percent retainer is payable on signing and the balance on delivery of the report. What moves a file between those bands is the number of allegations, the number of people to be interviewed, the volume of documents and whether a parallel proceeding is already running. That is assessed on the first call, at no charge, and the quote follows.
How quickly can an investigation start?
The first conversation is usually available within a day or two and costs nothing. How fast the investigation itself starts depends on what the situation needs: a complaint involving an immediate safety concern is treated differently from a historical one, and interim measures may need to be in place before anyone is interviewed. Being in the region genuinely helps here, because arranging interviews does not require assembling a travel schedule first. If a matter is time critical, telephone 613-661-0696 rather than emailing, so it is not sitting in a queue.
Talk it through before you decide anything.
The first conversation is free and confidential. You will get a straight answer on whether an external investigation is needed at all, what it would cover, and what it would cost, before you commit to anything.
Book a Free 20-Minute ConsultationOr telephone 613-661-0696. If a matter is time critical, call rather than email so it is not sitting in a queue.