Praise for Skelly, but sick-pay gap flagged

MPP launches website to help small businesses as pandemic goes on

Hamilton city councillors are praising a new “one-stop shop” website local MPP Donna Skelly has launched to help small businesses through the pandemic.

But they say a lack of paid sick days for many low-wage workers is a dangerous gap amid the ongoing struggle to curb the coronavirus.

Skelly addressed city politicians after her website, reliefwithinreach.ca, launched earlier Wednesday.

The Progressive Conservative MPP said it offers a simple interface for users to access various government pandemic-relief programs.

“A lot of small business owners don’t know what’s available and that is the problem.”

Skelly, who represents Flamborough-Glanbrook, also announced operators can apply for a new $20,000 grant starting Friday.

That’s “definitely welcome news” for small businesses trying to stay afloat, Coun. JohnPaul Danko said. But paid sick days is a “critical missing piece” in the government’s response.

Other councillors echoed Danko, noting low-wage workers with families to support will go to work with untested symptoms rather than forgo pay.

“So if we are being champions for small business, then we should certainly be champions for sick pay,” Coun. Maureen Wilson said.

Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, the city’s medical officer of health, said people going to work, despite not feeling well, is a “factor that continues to support transmission.”

Skelly referred the Spectator’s request for comment on sick pay to the Ministry of Labour.

In an email, a ministry spokesperson said in July, the provincial and federal governments agreed to 10 paid sick days for Ontario workers as part of a larger pandemic-relief package.

But critics argue that doesn’t cut it, noting the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit comes with criteria, such as earnings of at least $5,000 in the past 12 months and missing half the work week, in addition to the application itself.

That’s “a real process” for workers who think they may have COVID-19 but worry about losing pay for days, said MPP Peggy Sattler, the NDP’s employment standards critic.

Paid sick days must be “employer-delivered,” LondonWest MPP said. “That’s the only way it can be seamless.”

Patty Coates, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, called the government response a “temporary fix.”

The federation supports the NDP’s call for seven regular paid sick days and 14 paid infectious disease emergency relief days. “So workers don’t have to make that choice, and they can stay home and stop the spread of covid within their workplace,” Coates said.