Bill 48 explained in plain English
Support Workers Pay Act, 2021
Ontario legislature bill summary, status, timeline, sponsor, votes, and official sources.
At a glance
Official Legislative Assembly of Ontario snapshot for 42nd Parliament, 2nd Session. Representative vote breakdowns appear when the Assembly publishes an Ayes and Nays page for the bill.
Our plain-language take, written for civic education.
Source: By PoliticalData.ca
Bill 48 proposes to set a new minimum pay for support workers, require employers to pay for travel between work sites, and create programs for training and retention of support workers, along with establishing a wage review commission.
Bill 48, the Support Workers Pay Act, 2021, proposes to establish a new minimum pay rate for support workers that includes the temporary pandemic pay they received. It also requires employers to provide travel payments to support workers for travel between work sites. Additionally, the Act mandates the Minister of Long-Term Care to develop programs focused on training, recruitment, retention, and ensuring paid on-the-job learning for support workers, with a goal of full-time employment after training. A Support Worker Wage Review Commission would also be created to review and recommend changes to support worker pay and set travel payment rates.
- Establishes a new minimum pay for support workers, which is to be based on the temporary pandemic pay increase they received.
- Requires entities employing support workers to provide payments for travel between work sites.
- Mandates the Minister of Long-Term Care to develop programs for training, education, professional development, recruitment, and retention of support workers.
- Ensures support workers are paid while learning on the job and have opportunities for full-time employment after training.
- Establishes the Support Worker Wage Review Commission.
- Support workers (including home support workers, home help workers, community support workers, long-term care home support workers, retirement home support workers, residential support workers, and homemakers).
- Entities that employ support workers.
- The Minister of Long-Term Care.
- Long-term care staff.
- Support workers have a right to a minimum pay that includes temporary pandemic pay.
- Support workers have a right to receive travel payments per kilometre travelled between work sites.
- Entities employing support workers have an obligation to provide travel payments.
- The Minister of Long-Term Care has an obligation to develop specific programs for support workers.
- The Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent (Section 6).
- The Support Worker Wage Review Commission must set the amount of travel pay per kilometre within 12 months after the Act comes into force (Section 5(4)1).
- The Commission shall review support worker pay every two years (Section 5(4)1).
- The Commission shall review travel pay every two years (Section 5(4)4).
- The Act's provisions on minimum pay and travel payments do not apply unless money has been appropriated by the Legislature for these purposes (Section 2(2) and 3(2)).
- The application of the minimum pay and travel payment provisions is conditional on money being appropriated by the Legislature (Section 2(2) and 3(2)).
- The number of members on the Support Worker Wage Review Commission can be between three and nine (Section 5(2)).
- The Lieutenant Governor in Council shall ensure, 'to the extent possible', that sector management, policy experts, and support workers or their representatives are evenly represented on the Commission (Section 5(3)). The extent to which this representation is achieved is not specified.
- The Act does not specify the exact amount of the temporary pandemic pay that will be used to determine the new minimum pay, only that it should be included.
This is the new Act that sets out the rules for support worker pay, travel payments, and related programs.
Source: Section 1 to 7
This regulation, which is referenced for determining the temporary pandemic pay amount, is noted as having been in force immediately before its revocation. The new Act uses this past rate as a basis for the new minimum pay.
Source: Section 2(1)
This Act will come into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.
Source: Section 6
Generated using AI from official bill text. Not legal advice. It is written by PoliticalData.ca for civic education, automatically checked and spot-reviewed before publishing.
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Vote Summary
This bill is still active. We only show vote counts after the legislature publishes a recorded division.
No published representative vote breakdown
This bill is still moving through the process. When a recorded division is published, representative positions can be listed here.
Official sources
Status, sponsor, votes, and timeline on this page are drawn from these official legislative sources and public records. Each summary above is attributed to its own source.
How this data is sourced