In May 2017, following two years of detailed examination of Ontario’s changing workplaces, both special advisers C. Michael Mitchell and John C. Murray that Labor Minister Kevin Flynn tasked with producing a report presented their findings in the 419 page ‘Changing Workplaces Review’ (the Report*), making it now one of the province’s biggest studies in over a decade. Just six months later Ontario’s government adopted Bill 148 Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017**, which implements several of the Report’s recommendations aimed at tackling growing levels of insecurity being experienced by employees who are having to deal with precarious employment. The new law makes sweeping revisions to the Employment Standards Act 2000 so as to make them fit the new working environment and it also amendments the Law on labour relations. Urwana Coiquanud, Labour Law Professor at the HEC Montreal HR Management Department details the changes for Planet Labor.
- Significant changes to the minimum employment standards
A significant increase in minimum hourly pay. The most important change is the sizeable rise in the minimum hourly pay rate. From January 2019, the minimum hourly rate will be C$15, much ahead of the pre-January 2018 rate of C$11.60 and the post-January 2018 rate of C$14. Thus over the course of the two years the minimum rate will have risen by 31%. Following these significant increases the law intends for an annual inflation linked adjustment with an in-depth review to be carried out after five years.
In spite of the fact that this change has received the backing of more than 50 economists from various Canadian universities, small business owners have criticized the move believing that it will force them to shed jobs.
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