New Potential Legislation Supporting Families and Women in the Trades

Ontario’s provincial government will soon introduce legislation that if passed, will support families and assist women in entering and remaining in the skilled trades.

Supporting Families

This legislation will propose a new 16-week job-protected leave under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (“ESA”) for adoptive parents and parents through surrogacy. These amendments would also align with upcoming federal changes to create employment insurance (EI) benefits for adoption. The government also intends to propose a new 27-week long-term illness leave for employees unable to work due to a severe medical condition as defined by a medical practitioner, such as cancer, multiple sclerosis or Crohn’s disease. If passed, this would be one of the longest provincial leaves in Canada.  

Women in the Skilled Trades

In legislation from earlier this year, the government now requires menstrual products on construction sites with 20 or more workers and where the project is expected to last three months. In continuing the trend of supporting women in the skilled trades, this newly proposed legislation will expand the explicit requirement for properly fitting PPE for women in the construction sector that the government included in the Working for Workers Act, 2023 to include all sectors. Recent research published by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) found that 50% of women said their PPE does not fit properly, 43% said it is uncomfortable to wear and 35% said the selection of women-specific PPE is inadequate.

Ontario is also proposing specific requirements on employers that will increase accountability and transparency with washroom cleaning records to ensure workers have access to clean washrooms. These amendments would build on the new duties for employers and constructors related to clean washrooms passed under the Working for Workers Five Act. Half of the Ontario Building and Construction Tradeswomen 2022 survey respondents cited better washroom facilities as needed to make construction more appealing to women.

Should you or your organization have any questions about these potential amendments and how they may impact your workplace, please get in touch with a member of KMB’s employment law department.