Ontario’s Liberals Release Economic Platform
On March 26th, Ontario’s provincial Liberal party released their Plan for Economic Dignity. The plan is centered around several key ideas: replacing minimum wage with liveable wage, banning underpaid gig/contract work, more paid sick days, expanding benefits, establishing a four-day work week, help self-employed business owners, and continuing to support small businesses.
Let’s break down what the Plan says about each of these:
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The Liberals, if elected, plan to increase the minimum wage to $16 an hour effective January 1st, 2023. This is intended to make the minimum wage a more liveable income for the province of Ontario. While this increase wouldn’t make minimum wage in urban centres (i.e., Toronto) more liveable, it would help across the entire province. The plan does include a willingness to consult and develop a living wage structure that would involve wages from all over the province, including those urban centres, in order to try and make the minimum wage liveable for all Ontarians.
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The Plan calls for changes to Ontario’s employment laws that would classify workers for app-based platforms as employees which would afford them the same rights and protections granted to all currently classified workers such as sick days, insurance, and holiday/severance pay. The Liberals also plan to bring back protections that ensured equal pay for equal work across gender and employment-status lines. They also plan to restore rules that gave workers a minimum of three hours’ pay for being on-call or work less than three hours. Production quotas will also be considered, with the Plan stating that these quotas will be disclosed to employees and monitored to ensure they do not push workers too hard or violate occupational health and safety standards.
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While the current government has allocated three paid sick days for workers, the Liberals plan to offer ten paid, job protected sick days. The rationale is that these sick days can be used for a number of things during the pandemic (getting vaccinated, getting tested, isolating, etc.) but can also be used for life events outside the pandemic (death in the family and pregnancy loss are the two stated examples in the Plan). The Liberals would also reintroduce the ban on employers demanding a sick note when employees request leave time while also providing business up to $200 a day in order to compensate them for workers taking more time off through sick days. They estimate this to cost $800 million but no range of time is given.
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The Liberal Plan states that half of working people in Ontario do not have access to basic workplace benefits. The Plan outlines a portable package of affordable and quality benefits that all workers can use, including gig workers. Employers with similar benefits would be required to enroll their employees while providing them the option to opt-out. Businesses will be encouraged to contribute to the cost of the package and in order to help with the encouragement, small businesses will be given an extra two years to enroll their employees before it would be required while also receiving a tax credit for up to 25% of their employees’ benefits. The Plan also hopes to make it easier for smaller employers or individuals to join pension plans while also providing low-income earners with matched contributions up to $1000 in order to help with saving. This is expected to cost $280 million every year it’s in effect. They will also require all employers to provide mental health services as a part of their benefit packages.
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Who doesn’t love the weekend? The Plan hopes to develop a four-day work week model by working alongside businesses and labour groups. This can be expected to roll out on a test basis in smaller communities in order to see if it really works or not before being expanded to the rest of the provinces. If you’re lucky enough to live in one of those communities, I envy you.
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Ontario’s Liberals plan to eliminate incorporation fees for new business start-ups in order to encourage these businesses to develop. This is expected to cost $14 million annually. They also plan to launch a 311-type help service for self-employed entrepreneurs to et advice and assistance on following regulations. They also plan to revamp the high school careers curriculum to involve self-employment an entrepreneurship.
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In order to help small businesses rebound from the pandemic, the Liberals will suspend corporate income tax for these businesses for 2022 and 2023 while scaling relief to revenue loss. This is expected to cost $500 million over the two years it’s in place. They also plan to work with financial and credit institutions to backstop loans in order to support small businesses with start-up costs such as equipment and real estate by using a $300 million loan portfolio. This is expected to cost $8 million dollars with no time range. The Liberals will also help small businesses digitize by providing them with dedicated programs and low-cost cybersecurity solutions. This is slated to be a $30 million dollar increase to the current funding. Working with federal partners is also part of the plan in order to help cap credit card transaction fees for small businesses and introduce a permanent commission cap of 15% for restaurant delivery services.
It's an ambitious plan that has the potential to do a lot of good for helping Ontario bounce back from the pandemic. Some of the proposed supports are brand new ideas, while others are building on already introduced ideas. The lack of concrete costing is to be expected for an opposition platform so it remains to be seen how many of these ideas the Liberals would be able to afford if they win the election. Stay tuned.