The Government of Ontario has approved changes to the rules that govern unpaid leave due to long-term illness. Some workers will now have access to a 27-week long-term illness leave. During that time, their employer must hold their job for them. This is called a “job-protected” leave. Workers can access this leave once they have been working with their employer for at least 13 weeks.
In December 2024, Bill 229, Working for Workers Six Act, received Royal Assent, which means it was passed into law. You can read the details of the Bill here and the full text here (PDF).
ISAC provided submissions to the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development’s consultation in May 2024 on one proposal that ended up in the Bill. The government had proposed adding some type of job-protected leave to the Employment Standards Act for people with a critical illness or serious medical condition. We highlighted our recommendations in this website post, and our full submission is posted here in PDF format.
In general, we urged the government to protect the jobs of ill workers if they must take a leave of absence from work, and provided recommendations that would bring provincial legislation more closely in line with federal rules and timelines related to EI sickness benefits. Many workers can access EI sickness benefits for up to 26 weeks if they have an illness or injury that prevents them from doing their job.
We were pleased to see some important points that we advocated for included in the text of the Bill, including the following:
- It seems that some people will be able to use the same medical certificate they would use to apply for EI sickness benefits as acceptable proof of entitlement to this leave. People who are unable to perform the duties of their position because of a “serious medical condition” would meet the criteria for both EI sickness benefits and this new job-protected leave provision. This is positive as it reduces the amount of administrative work that a sick person will have to undertake in order to access job-protected leave. However, a worker who is unable to work because of an injury may qualify for EI sickness benefits but not job-protected leave.
- The term “serious medical condition” isn’t defined in the Bill, which allows for an important measure of flexibility. It is also a broader term than “critical illness”, which was the Ministry’s initially proposed term. Using the term “critical illness” in the Bill might have excluded people with episodic or chronic illnesses that sometimes prevent them from working.
- Approved leave doesn’t have to be taken all at once. For example, if someone is off work for 10 weeks then returns to work, but has to go off again for another 17 weeks, their job is still protected. This lines up with EI sickness benefit rules in that the 27 weeks of leave just have to be taken within 52 weeks from the start date of the benefits claim. This is positive because recovery from a serious illness is unpredictable, and effective support needs to be flexible to accommodate this reality.
These changes will come into force in June 2025.
Personal emergency leave and employer-paid sick days are additional supports which many workers in Ontario do not have access to, and which would hugely benefit workers recovering from illness or injury. Though the consultation did not ask about personal emergency leave or paid sick days, we urged the Ministry to include them in any legislation intended to support workers who are ill.
Another new job-protected leave
Changes to unpaid parental leave were also immediately enacted through the passage of this Bill. These changes correspond with the “upcoming federal EI benefits for parents through adoption and/or surrogacy, so that these parents have leave for the arrival of a child into their family or care, including the ability to take the leave in advance of the child’s arrival” (text in quotes from here.) This blog post has more details on those changes. Though not the subject of ISAC’s submissions on the Bill, these expanded supports for parents are also positive as they better support families, including 2SLGBTQ+ parents.
While there is still a long way to go in ensuring that workers have their needs met when they fall ill, are injured, or need to take a leave for family reasons, these are positive changes that we hope to see expanded upon in the future.