paid sick leave crops up as an election issue
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prime minister justin trudeau speaks during a news conference in charlottetown, p.e.i., july 27, 2021.
john morris
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reuters
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one of the biggest policy controversies of the pandemic is back — this time, as part of the federal election campaign.
last friday, the federal liberal party announced its plan to provide 10 days of paid sick leave for federally-regulated workers. “we believe that a government’s most important responsibility is to keep canadians safe, healthy, and thriving,” prime minister justin trudeau said in a press release. federal employees currently get three days a year of paid sick leave.
because labour law is mandated by the provinces, federal workers — a group that includes people who work federally-regulated private sector jobs in banking, telecommunications, radio and tv broadcasting, crown corporations, port services, grain elevators, road transport and first nations band councils, in addition to public sector workers and government — are the only ones that the federal government can impose laws onto.
only about six per cent of canadians have jobs that are federally regulated, according to toronto employment law firm monkhouse law. for the most part, it’s up to individual companies to decide whether to pay employees for sick days. of the canadian provinces and territories, only quebec and prince edward island offer paid sick days — two days a year in quebec, after three months of employment, and one day a year in pei, after five years of employment. amid the pandemic, some provinces have introduced paid sick day policies, but only as temporary measures.
the liberal plan of ten paid sick days for federal employees is identical to the one the new democratic party proposed earlier this summer. ndp leader jagmeet singh said that if his party formed a government and applied its sick leave policy to federal workers, he hopes provincial governments would be inspired to follow suit.
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“how can we as a federal government raise the importance of paid sick leave if there’s not paid sick leave at the federal level?” he told cbc news in july.
singh is one of several people critical of the timing of the liberal announcement.
“justin trudeau has gone through four waves of the pandemic without giving workers paid sick leave,” singh told ctv news. “we’ve been calling on him to deliver paid sick leave for 18 months. every day since then, people went to work sick because they didn’t have another way to pay their bills. now, he wants us to believe he’ll do it after the election. he’s saying the right thing now, but he has no intention of doing it.”
similarly, a spokesperson for conservative party leader erin o’toole told ctv that “if [trudeau] didn’t do this at the start of the pandemic, he is not going to do it now.”
the tories, for their part, say that they will increase employment insurance sickness benefits to 52 weeks if their party forms a government. (ei currently provides canadians who can’t work for medical reasons with up to 15 weeks of financial assistance.)
why paid sick leave matters
the topic of paid sick leave has became a national conversation over the last year and a half. when the covid-19 pandemic began, public health messaging told everyone to stay home if they were feeling sick. but many people depended on a salary they’d only make if they showed up to work.
the topic of paid sick leave has became a national conversation over the last year and a half. when the covid-19 pandemic began, public health messaging told everyone to stay home if they were feeling sick. but many people depended on a salary they’d only make if they showed up to work.
last september, the federal government created the canada recovery sickness benefit, or crsb, to help supplement people’s income if they were sick or had to self-isolate for covid-related reasons. crsb provided $450 a week after taxes, for a maximum of two weeks.
but many critics, including the ndp, said that wasn’t enough: the crsb couldn’t be extended beyond two weeks, they pointed out, even if illness persisted past that point. cbc news reported that in some parts of ontario, nurses — who already felt overworked — weren’t being paid if they tested negative for covid but were still following provincial orders to self-isolate for 14 days. those conditions discouraged testing, surgery resident dr. amanpreet brar wrote in the toronto star: “workers already struggling on minimum wage cannot afford to walk on eggshells and risk receiving no payment for missed work.” even canada’s chief medical officer of health, theresa tam, said paid sick leave is “essential to protect worker and community health.”
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there were a number of covid outbreaks in essential workplaces, including long-term care homes and factories. “low-wage, part-time and temporary workers who cannot work from home are the most vulnerable and are less likely to have access to paid sick leave,” registered nurse stephanie sarmiento wrote in healthy debate. “as a result, covid-19 has disproportionately struck racialized workers, often women, from factories in brampton, ont., to farms in surrey, b.c., and slaughterhouses in alberta, the scene of one the largest workplace outbreaks in north america.”
in ontario, sick leave became a wedge issue over the course of the pandemic. the province used to mandate two paid sick days for all workers, but that was reversed by ontario premier doug ford’s progressive conservative government in 2018. following public pressure, the province finally agreed to provide three days of paid sick leave in late april. the policy will end this september.
in may, provinces including b.c., manitoba and nova scotia also introduced temporary emergency paid sick day policies for people unable to work for reasons related to covid. the days off ranged from three to five.
but outside of these emergency measures, more than half of canadians — 58 per cent — don’t have access to regular paid sick days, according to a report by the decent work and health network (dwhn), a group of ontario healthcare providers who advocate for better health through employment conditions. that puts canada in the bottom quarter, globally, the report says.
“women, racialized workers and workers in the precarious sector [are] not making [enough] money [where] they can choose to stay home,” debora de angelis, ontario’s regional director for canada’s united food and commercial workers union, told chatelaine.
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“as a nurse, if i tell my patient to stay home when they’re sick, and they can’t afford it, it means nothing,” toronto nurse carolina jimenez also told the magazine. “when we’re seeing the hospitals filled up, the icu is filled up, we need to do everything we can to protect workers on the job, so that they have the agency and the confidence to take time off when public health is asking them to.”
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