Doug Ford would like us to forget his cuts to sick days for precarious workers

Politicians like to recall tough decisions that turned out to be visionary. Of course, no politician ever likes to speak of the reverse situation — decisions that years later appear ill-advised.

In the midst of COVID-19, many in the Ford government, for example, might like to forget certain parts of Bill 47, Making Ontario Open for Business Act, passed in late 2018.

The legislation, designed to halt minimum wage increases and undo labour legislation brought in by the Wynne government, eliminated two guaranteed paid sick days for low-wage workers — a cringeworthy proposition when we have all been told to self-isolate at the slightest sign of illness.

By reminding everyone about these provisions I am not trying to start a fight with Premier Ford and his team. They appear to be handling the current crisis competently and have introduced a number of measures to support vulnerable workers through the pandemic.

I am also not suggesting two paid sick days would have significantly slowed COVID-19. What I would argue, however, is the way the matter was dealt with contains some important lessons.

Although the elimination of paid sick days was only one of many measures contained in the bill, it received considerable attention during public hearings on the legislation. Perhaps the most thoughtful criticism came from Dr. Jesse McLaren, a Toronto-based emergency physician.

Citing an article from the Canadian Medical Association Journal, McLaren noted the accepted medical opinion that people shouldn’t go to work with the flu or other contagious diseases. Unfortunately, the article concluded: “many employees cannot follow these recommendations if it means foregoing their wages or risking their jobs ... Employees who have access to paid sick leave are more likely to stay home when advised to do so by a physician; employees with no sick leave are more likely to go to work and expose others to infection.”

Despite the pleading from McLaren and others, the elimination of paid sick days remained in the bill. How could we as Ontarians have let this happen? Why was there so little public outrage when the government eliminated this basic entitlement? The answer is easy, but kind of sad. As a society we pay little attention to those at the bottom end of the wage scale — the server at the coffee shop; the store clerk; or the personal support worker.

And yet, as the province released the list of essential workplaces allowed to stay open during the pandemic, many of them involve low-wage workers — from takeout restaurant cooks to delivery people through to those who clean hotel rooms.

While those of us working from home enjoy our relative safety, there is a whole army of individuals out there putting their health at risk for us. Premier Ford has called these individuals — people like grocery store clerks, hydro workers and truckers — “local heroes.”

The premier is right. Although we continuously heap praise on front-line health-care professionals during this crisis (full disclosure, I am married to one), we should also thank these other heroes — those in low-wage and often precarious jobs helping us weather the current storm.

Maybe the experience of COVID-19 will cause us to speak out much more forcefully in the future about their right — not only to a few paid sick days — but to many other benefits that those at the other end of the wage scale enjoy. John Milloy, a former Liberal MPP and cabinet minister, serves as the director of the Centre for Public Ethics at Martin Luther University College. A version of this was originally published at the online publication QP Briefing.