For the 100th time …
On most issues that have come to the fore in the pandemic, Ontario has taken steps to make things better. The government’s actions are rarely comprehensive enough or quick enough, but when problems have been clearly exposed, the government has responded.
But there’s one issue, where change is desperately needed, that the Ford government stubbornly refuses to budge on: paid sick days.
When asked about it this past week, Premier Doug Ford seemed frustrated that he was still getting questions about why his government won’t mandate paid sick days for all workers.
“Again, here we go, I don’t know how many times I have to repeat it, I’ll repeat it for the hundredth time … there’s a program already,” Ford said.
He was referring to the temporary sickness benefit put in place by the federal government — which stepped in to fill the gaping hole of workplace protections left open by the provinces.
Well, premier, as you put it, for the hundredth time, public health officials across the province say the federal program is not working and there’s a vital role for
Ontario to play in ensuring the necessary access to paid sick days. It’s long past time you listened to them.
Ottawa’s $500-a-week benefit for those who don’t have workplace-based paid sick days and need to isolate or stay home because they have contracted
COVID-19 has reached only 400,000 people across the country. That’s well below the need. So far below that Ottawa has spent less than a third of the $1.1 billion allocated for the program.
Far too many people are still going to work sick because the program doesn’t change the equation enough for them.
In Peel Region, for example, public health data shows that one in four employees went to work while showing COVID-19 symptoms. A small portion continued to go to work even after receiving a positive test.
It’s easy to see why. The federal benefit pays less than minimum wage in Ontario and it can’t be used a couple days at a time, which would allow people to take time off to get a COVID test and wait for the results.
Ottawa can and should fix those problems, but that still doesn’t let Ontario off the hook. The federal program is temporary and it will never normalize taking days off when sick, especially for low-wage, precariously employed workers. Only provincial legislation mandating paid sick days for all can do that.
Amid Ford’s annoyance at being asked about paid sick days, he noted that he already “fought to get” the federal program. That will, undoubtedly, come as news to pretty much everyone.
When the sickness benefit was being negotiated last summer — with B.C. Premier John Horgan fighting hard for it — Ford stated his view clearly. “I don’t support it,” he said then.
Ontarians already knew that, since Ford rolled back the two paid sick days all workers used to have when his government was elected in 2018.
Ford’s early support amounted to not standing in the way of Ottawa’s pandemic program, so long as it cost Ontario nothing. More recently, his support has extended to touting the federal program as a way to deflect all questions about his own inaction.
It’s not enough. Ontario needs to step up to its responsibilities and ensure that workers who are sick, or think they might be, have the paid days they need to do the right thing and stay home — and not just in a pandemic.
Ford can keep repeating his line that the federal government has got this covered all he wants. That doesn’t make it so.
Far too many people are still going to work sick because the federal program doesn’t change the equation enough for them