Bill 239 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, 1st 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 239, the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act, 2021, amends the Employment Standards Act, 2000, to introduce paid personal emergency leave, expand paid leave for declared emergencies, and establish a financial support program for employers.
This Bill, titled the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act, 2021, aims to amend the Employment Standards Act, 2000. It introduces changes to personal emergency leave and other types of leave related to declared emergencies. The Bill proposes that employees would be entitled to paid leave days 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. It also proposes paid leave for situations related to declared emergencies or infectious disease emergencies. Additionally, the Bill outlines the creation of a financial support program for employers to help cover the costs of this paid leave.
- Amends the Employment Standards Act, 2000, to replace existing sections on sick leave, family responsibility leave, and bereavement leave with a new section on personal emergency leave.
- Establishes that employees are entitled to seven days of paid leave and three days of unpaid leave for personal emergency reasons in a calendar year.
- Defines 'family member' for the purposes of personal emergency leave to include a spouse, parents, children, siblings, grandparents, and other relatives, as well as individuals prescribed by regulation and those who consider the employee like a family member.
- Specifies that the seven paid days of personal emergency leave must be taken before any unpaid days.
- States that if an employee has been employed for less than one week, they are not entitled to paid personal emergency leave days until they have worked for one week.
- Requires employers to pay employees their regular wages for paid personal emergency leave days, or a greater amount if the employee receives performance-related pay.
- Clarifies that employees are not entitled to overtime pay or shift premiums for paid personal emergency leave days, nor are they entitled to premium pay if the leave falls on a public holiday.
- Allows employers to request reasonable evidence of entitlement to personal emergency leave, but prohibits requiring a certificate from a qualified health practitioner.
- Amends existing provisions related to leave for declared emergencies and infectious disease emergencies to allow employees to take the first 14 days of such leave as paid leave in a calendar year.
- States that the entitlement to paid leave for declared/infectious disease emergencies is in addition to other paid leave entitlements.
- Requires that the 14 paid days for declared/infectious disease emergencies must be taken before any unpaid days.
- Requires the Minister to implement a financial support program for employers to cover costs associated with paid leave under section 50.1 (declared/infectious disease emergencies) and to help employers adapt to costs associated with paid leave under section 50 (personal emergency leave).
- Specifies that payments from the financial support program can only be made if money has been appropriated for this purpose by the Legislature.
- Employees in Ontario
- Employers in Ontario
- Employees have the right to seven days of paid personal emergency leave and three days of unpaid personal emergency leave annually.
- Employees have the right to 14 days of paid leave for declared or infectious disease emergencies annually.
- Employers are obligated to provide paid personal emergency leave and paid leave for declared emergencies.
- Employers are obligated to pay employees their regular wages during paid leave days.
- Employers are obligated to implement and provide information about a financial support program for paid leave costs, subject to legislative appropriation.
- Employers cannot require a certificate from a qualified health practitioner as evidence for personal emergency leave.
- The Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.
- The Bill requires the establishment of a financial support program for employers to cover costs associated with paid leave.
- Payments from the financial support program are contingent on money being appropriated by the Legislature.
- The Bill does not specify penalties for non-compliance. Enforcement and penalties would likely be governed by the existing provisions of the Employment Standards Act, 2000.
- The Bill refers to 'prescribed circumstances' and 'prescribed conditions' for qualified health practitioners and family members, which are not detailed in the provided text and would likely be set out in regulations.
- The exact amount of funding available through the financial support program for employers is not specified and depends on legislative appropriation.
- The definition of 'qualified health practitioner' includes 'a person who is qualified to practise... under the laws of the jurisdiction in which care or treatment is provided', which could lead to variations depending on the jurisdiction.
- The Bill uses the term 'urgent matter' concerning family members, the scope of which may require further clarification through interpretation or regulation.
- The Bill does not explicitly state how the 'financial support program' will be administered or what specific criteria employers must meet to receive funding beyond the Legislature appropriating funds.
This Bill amends the Employment Standards Act, 2000, by replacing sections 50, 50.0.1, and 50.0.2 with new provisions for personal emergency leave and by amending section 50.1 to provide for paid leave during declared emergencies. It also adds a new section regarding a financial support program for employers.
Source: Sections 1, 2, 3
The existing provisions for sick leave are repealed and replaced with new rules for personal emergency leave, establishing entitlement to seven paid and three unpaid days per calendar year for specific personal or family emergencies.
Source: Section 1
The existing provisions for family responsibility leave and bereavement leave are repealed as part of the substitution with new rules for personal emergency leave.
Source: Section 1
This section is amended to provide that employees are entitled to take the first 14 days of leave related to declared emergencies and infectious disease emergencies as paid leave in a calendar year.
Source: Section 2
A new section is added to establish a financial support program for employers to help cover the costs of paid leave under sections 50 and 50.1 of the Act.
Source: 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
The current official sources do not publish a recorded division breakdown for this bill, so there is no representative-by-representative table to show.
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