Ontario – The Ontario government is building on progress from its previous five Working for Workers Acts by intending to introduce new first-in-Canada supports and even stronger protections that would, if passed, support the safety and wellbeing of workers and their families, grow Ontario’s workforce, and keep costs down for workers and businesses.
Today, the government is introducing the Working for Workers Six Act, 2024. If passed, the act and a related set of regulatory proposals and proposed policy actions would:
Support the safety and wellbeing of workers and their families:
- Expanding cancer coverage for firefighters by reducing the required duration of service for primary-site kidney cancer presumptive coverage for firefighters, fire investigators, volunteers and wildland firefighters and fire investigators from 20 years to 10 years – the lowest duration of service in Canada, and removing the requirement that their primary-site colorectal diagnosis must be made before the age of 61.
- Unlocking $400 million to invest in health and safety programs for workers and employers developed by the WSIB, focusing on mental health, preventative and chronic injury care and recovery to ensure workers have the supports they need to return to work safely and quickly. This will include expanding the WSIB’s mental health care programming to partner with 11 public hospitals and their networks of community-based service providers across Ontario to ensure workers have the care they need, when and where they need it.
- Launching a new Safe Business Bonus with an additional $1,000 bonus to eligible employers who create a new workplace health and safety action plan approved through the WSIB’s Health and Safety Excellence program, starting in 2025. Over 4,600 businesses are currently enrolled in the WSIB Health and Safety Excellence program. Since the program’s launch in 2019, members have received total rebates of over $68 million, including $15 million in additional incentives for smaller businesses that participated in 2023-2024.
- Creating a new parental leave for parents through adoption and surrogacy, with a 16-week job protected leave under the Employment Standards Act for adoptive parents and parents through surrogacy, to ensure they have adequate time to meet the demands of the adoption or surrogacy process, attach and welcome their child into their new home. This would also align with upcoming federal changes to create employment insurance (EI) benefits for adoption.
- Creating a new 27-week long-term illness leave for employees unable to work due to a serious medical condition as defined by a medical practitioner, such as cancer, multiple sclerosis or Crohn’s. If passed, this would be one of the longest provincial leaves in Canada and would ensure workers with a serious medical condition have the time away from work they need to get treatment and recover, without risking their jobs.
- Bringing more women into the trades and growing Ontario’s trades workforce by explicitly requiring properly-fitting personal protective equipment (PPE) for women, and all workers with diverse body shapes. This expands on the requirement for properly fitting PPE for women and diverse body shapes in the construction sector that was included in the Working for Workers Act, 2023 to include all sectors.
- Enhancing safety for roadside workers by expanding existing requirements for drivers to slow down and move over when passing emergency vehicles and tow trucks under the Highway Traffic Act to also include prescribed work-related vehicles at roadside with flashing amber lights activated (excluding construction zones with posted speed limits). Penalties for a first offence could include fines up to $2,000, three demerit points, and a possible two-year driver’s license suspension. For subsequent offences within five years, penalties could include fines up to $4,000, three demerit points, possible two-year driver’s license suspension, and possible jail time up to six months.
- Bringing clean washrooms from Bay Street to Main Street through a new regulation for washroom cleaning records that covers what records must be posted and where. This is in direct response to advocacy from tradeswomen and other sector stakeholders who have cited better washroom facilities as a key policy to encourage more women to join the building trades.
- Cracking down on bad actor employers that harm workers by imposing mandatory minimum fines of $500,000 for corporations convicted of repeat offences under the Occupational Health and Safety Act within a two-year period, which resulted in the death or serious injury of one or more workers.
- Supporting health and safety for tradespeople on construction projects by enhancing the dialogue and transparency between workers and employers through Worker Trades Committees, which the Minister can order to create.
- Expanding Chief Prevention Officer (CPO) powers to strengthen and standardize training requirements, including increased oversight of required training, recognize training from other jurisdictions, reference third-party training standards, receive advice from section 21 committees, and collect and access occupational health and safety data to measure performance and inform future prevention strategies.
- Prevent injuries and illnesses for auto workers by developing an occupational health and safety action plan led by the CPO and in partnership with the auto sector to address the growing use of lithium-ion batteries in the sector.
Keep costs down for workers and businesses:
- Returning $2 billion in surplus funds to Ontario businesses through the WSIB due to the agency’s new approach to strong financial management. Eligible employers will receive their one-time rebate starting in February 2025 if they are a safe employer, which includes not having been convicted more than once under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act or Occupational Health and Safety Act since 2020. For a small construction business with 50 employees, this could mean receiving $46,000 to reinvest in new jobs, enhanced health and safety programs and bigger paycheques.
- Cutting the average premium rate for Ontario businesses from $1.30 to $1.25 per $100 of insurable payroll through the WSIB starting in 2025, without reducing benefits. This is the lowest rate in half a century and will save Ontario businesses about $150 million annually starting in 2025 when compared to the 2024 rate. Over the past decade, the WSIB has cut the average premium rate by more than 50 per cent, resulting in cumulative savings for businesses of approximately $18.6 billion since 2017.
- Removing the $150 fee for apprentices taking their first Certificate of Qualification exam, making it easier for more people to start their career in the skilled trades. When combined with other fee reductions and removals that the province has implemented since 2019, Ontario is saving each apprentice at least $330, putting almost $3.6 million back into the pockets of nearly 11,000 apprentices.
- Enabling implementation of a new accelerated framework for the Ontario Immigration Nominee Program (OINP) that employers can apply for in order to access more efficient, streamlined processes, pending further regulatory changes.
Grow Ontario’s workforce:
- Training over one million workers in every corner of the province through Ontario’s Skills Development Fund (SDF), including launching the second round of the SDF Capital Stream on November 29, with over $74 million in available funding to build, expand and retrofit training facilities for workers in the trades, including construction, manufacturing, technology and health care.
- Growing Ontario’s health care workforce by expanding immigration pathways for self-employed physicians using the OINP to work and live in Ontario.
- Cracking down on fraudulent immigration representatives who scam newcomers out of the Ontario dream, by enabling the province to create standards that immigration representatives must meet when assisting individuals or employers with their application to the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP). To enforce these standards, the government would have the authority to issue fines, multi-year bans and lifetime bans for those who violate the Ontario Immigration Act, 2015 and its regulations. These proposals build on steps the province has taken to crack down on immigration fraud, such as increasing the minimum administrative monetary penalty amount for dishonest representatives and employers from $2,000 to $10,000.
- Accelerating registration timelines for internationally trained applicants in regulated professions by having the time limit reduced for regulatory bodies to make their decision from six to three months, enabling internationally-skilled newcomers to work in Ontario faster.
- Streamlining and accelerating processes and removing barriers for internationally trained workers by requiring regulated professions to have a plan for enabling multiple registration processes to take place concurrently, allow for alternative documents, concurrent processing of registration documents, and minimum requirements for assessing qualifications.
- Creating fairer and more transparent conditions for jobseekers through new requirements related to job vacancy disclosure, responses to interviewees, Canadian experience as a pre-screening mechanism, disclosure of compensation range in job postings, disclosure of use of AI in recruitment, and information to be provided to new employees at the time of hiring
- Opening access to apprenticeship opportunities to more people by creating alternative criteria for individuals who cannot meet the current academic standards to register as an apprentice.
- Proclaiming April 2, 2025, as the date on which certain functions, including exam administration, will be transferred from the province to Skilled Trades Ontario (STO) under STO’s new Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Candice White.
- Honouring workers by celebrating the contributions the Golden Generation of Skilled Tradespeople who built our province into what it is today, and who are passing on their wisdom and expertise to the next generation of workers to shape Ontario’s future, by creating a new Skilled Trades Week during the first week of November each year.