Bill 8 explained in plain English
Stay Home If You Are Sick 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
This Bill amends the Employment Standards Act, 2000 to provide eligible employees with 10 days of paid personal emergency leave per calendar year and modifies leave entitlements for declared emergencies, while also establishing a financial support program for employers.
Bill 8, the Stay Home If You Sick Act, 2021, amends the Employment Standards Act, 2000, to provide employees with paid personal emergency leave. This new leave allows employees to take time off for personal illness, injury, or medical emergencies, as well as for the death, illness, injury, or medical emergency of certain family members, or for urgent matters concerning these family members. Employees will be entitled to 10 days of paid leave per calendar year, which must be taken before any unpaid leave. The bill also modifies provisions for leave related to declared or infectious disease emergencies, entitling employees to the first 14 days of such leave as paid leave. Additionally, the bill requires the Minister to establish a financial support program for employers to help them with costs related to paid personal emergency leave, subject to legislative appropriation of funds.
- Creates a new entitlement to 10 days of paid personal emergency leave per calendar year for eligible employees.
- Amends provisions related to leave for declared emergencies and infectious disease emergencies to include the first 14 days as paid leave.
- Requires the Minister to implement a financial support program for employers to offset costs associated with paid personal emergency leave.
- Specifies that payments from the financial support program can only be made if funds have been appropriated by the Legislature.
- Repeals existing sections related to sick leave, family responsibility leave, and bereavement leave, replacing them with the new personal emergency leave provisions.
- Defines who qualifies as a family member for the purposes of personal emergency leave.
- Sets rules for when an employee must notify their employer about taking leave.
- Establishes how pay is calculated for paid personal emergency leave.
- Clarifies that overtime pay, shift premiums, and public holiday pay are not applicable to paid personal emergency leave.
- Allows employers to request reasonable evidence for leave, but prohibits requiring a certificate from a qualified health practitioner.
- States that the Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.
- Employees in Ontario
- Employers in Ontario
- The Minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development (or equivalent)
- Employees are entitled to 10 days of paid personal emergency leave per calendar year.
- Employees are entitled to the first 14 days of leave for declared emergencies and infectious disease emergencies as paid leave.
- Employers must provide paid personal emergency leave and comply with pay calculation rules.
- Employers are prohibited from requiring a qualified health practitioner's certificate for leave evidence.
- The Minister is obligated to implement a financial support program for employers.
- Employers are not entitled to overtime pay, shift premiums, or public holiday pay for paid personal emergency leave taken.
- An employee must notify their employer about taking leave, as soon as possible if the leave must begin before notification.
- The Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.
- Establishes a financial support program to provide temporary financial support to employers for costs associated with paid personal emergency leave.
- Payments from the financial support program are contingent on funds being appropriated by the Legislature.
- Paid personal emergency leave pay is calculated based on the employee's regular rate of wages, not including overtime or shift premiums.
- Employees do not receive premium pay for paid personal emergency leave taken on a public holiday.
- The bill does not specify penalties for non-compliance, but amendments to the Employment Standards Act, 2000, would generally be subject to the enforcement mechanisms within that Act.
- The specific conditions for an individual to be considered someone who the employee 'considers to be like a family member' are not fully detailed in the provided text and may be prescribed by regulation.
- The 'prescribed circumstances' and 'prescribed class of health practitioners' for defining a qualified health practitioner are not detailed and may be defined in regulations.
- Details regarding how payments will be made and eligibility criteria for the employer financial support program are not fully specified and may be subject to program design by the Minister.
- The precise mechanism for financial appropriation by the Legislature for the employer support program is not detailed in the bill text.
- The bill does not explicitly state if the 10 days of paid personal emergency leave are in addition to existing sick days provided by employers outside of the Employment Standards Act, 2000.
Amends sections 50, 50.0.1, and 50.0.2 to replace existing leave provisions with new rules for personal emergency leave, including paid leave entitlements and eligibility criteria. Also amends section 50.1 concerning declared emergencies and infectious disease emergencies to provide for paid leave. Adds a new section 53.2 to establish a financial support program for employers.
Source: Section 1, Section 2, Section 3
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.
Official textProcess Snapshot
Vote Summary
This bill does not have a published recorded division in the current official sources, so representative-by-representative vote counts are not shown.
No published representative vote breakdown
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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.
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