Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott hinted on Tuesday that the Progressive Conservative government may be implementing paid sick days in the near future, CP24 reports.
Elliott expressed frustration with the Trudeau government's decision not to expand the Canada Recovery and Sickness Benefit (CRSB) in the latest federal budget, suggesting that the provincial government may need to take action in lieu of greater federal support.
"It didn't seem necessary for us to institute another program if there already was a federal program that could have been improved," Elliott explained. "However it was clear yesterday with the budget that it was not going to be improved by the federal government, so we are considering our alternatives now to deal with those gaps."
Elliott's comments appear to contradict remarks made earlier on Tuesday by Labour Minister Monte McNaughton, who said that paid sick leave would only come to Ontario with an expansion of CRSB.
The Ontario government has received criticism throughout the pandemic for not instituting paid sick days, with supporters of the policy arguing that the current approach encourages workers to go to work even when they're feeling ill. While the CRSB allows workers to stay home if they have a confirmed coronavirus infection, it does not apply to general sickness, which could include unconfirmed cases of coronavirus.
Such proponents will point to a study conducted last year in Peel region, which found that 2,000 workers with coronavirus symptoms went to work at least once. 80 people who actually tested positive for the virus went to work in the same period.
Opponents of paid sick days have argued that it would encourage employees to take off work even when they are not actually sick, and that such a policy would create a burden on employers, many of whom are already suffering during the pandemic. The Ontario government has also held the position that CRSB is enough to prevent coronavirus infections in the workplace.
Ontario formerly had paid sick leave, but the policy was axed by the Ford government shortly after taking control of the Ontario Legislature in 2018.
However, as the government takes increasingly stricter measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which earlier this week was infecting more than 4,000 Ontarians per day,
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