Bill 66, Restoring Ontario's Competitiveness Act, 2018

The Human Toll of the Ford Government's
"Job-Killing Red Tape" Campaign

- Pierre Chénier -

Demonstration in Toronto, October 15, 2018, against Ford government's anti-worker Bill 47, passed in November. Bill 66 continues the attack on workers' rights.

The Ontario Ford government tabled Bill 66, the Restoring Ontario's Competitiveness Act, 2018, on December 6, 2018, the day the Legislature adjourned until February 19. The bill passed first reading the same day and the government opened an online comment period that ran from December 6, 2018 to January 20.

The government describes the bill as "the second in a series of bills through Ontario's Open for Business Action Plan to stimulate business investment, create good jobs, and make Ontario more competitive by cutting unnecessary regulations that are inefficient, inflexible or out of date."

The first bill was the Making Ontario Open for Business Act, known as Bill 47, which received royal assent on November 21 last year. Amongst other things, Bill 47 cancelled the increase in the minimum wage from $14 to $15 an hour that was set to come into force on January 1, freezing the current rate until October 1, 2020. Not content to only attack those on minimum wage, the bill cancelled the minimum legal requirement of two paid sick days a year, and a measure prohibiting employers from forcing employees to obtain medical notes to prove they were sick.

Bill 66 is omnibus legislation amending 18 existing laws.[1] No consultation was held with workers or the general public on the changes that are going to significantly affect their lives.

Here are some of the bill's main features:

Changes to the Labour Relations Act, 1995

Schedule 9 of the bill amends the Labour Relations Act, 1995 to deem municipalities and certain local boards, school boards, hospitals, colleges, universities and public bodies to be non-construction employers. This means the trade unions currently representing employees of those agencies and institutions, who are now or may be employed in the construction industry, no longer represent them. Any collective agreement binding the employer and the trade union ceases to apply in so far as it applies to the construction industry. What this means is that the government is preparing to massively de-unionize construction workers and construction work in public institutions and terminate legally binding collective agreements without the consent or permission of the workers involved. This is a frontal attack on the wages and working conditions of construction workers, the right to organize and be a member of a collective, and to work in construction under safe and healthy conditions that have the general approval of construction workers and their collectives. This comes at a time when the rates of fatalities and injuries in Ontario's construction sector continue to rise.

Changes to the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA)

Bill 66 removes the legal requirement that employers must apply to the Director of Employment Standards before entering into an agreement according to which their employees can exceed 48 working hours per week, with a limit of 60 hours per week. A significant change contemplated in Bill 66 is the repeal of the 60-hours-per-week cap. 

Bill 66 also removes the requirement that employers receive approval from the Director of Employment Standards before entering into agreements that allow them to average out their employees' hours of work for the purpose of determining their entitlement to overtime pay. Workers, especially those who are not unionized, already find it very difficult to avail themselves of the current provisions of the ESA. In a cynical way the Ford government avoids this difficulty for workers by simply eliminating the ESA provisions.

The bill also removes the requirement that an employer post at the workplace a copy of a poster prepared and published by the Ministry of Labour concerning the rights and obligations of employers and employees under the ESA.

Changes to the Planning Act

Demonstration outside Environment Minister Lisa Thompson's office December 14, 2018.

Some of the most retrogressive and dangerous measures introduced in Bill 66 are changes to the Planning Act. This section faced swift and broad opposition as soon as the bill was introduced. On January 23 the Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark tweeted on social media that  the PC government "... has listened to the concerns raised by MPPs, municipalities and stakeholders with regards to Schedule 10 of Bill 66 and when the legislature returns in February, we will not proceed with Schedule 10 of the Bill." It remains to be seen whether Schedule 10 is in fact removed from Bill 66 when the Legislature returns.

The Planning Act sets out the ground rules for land use planning in Ontario. Schedule 10 of the bill would have amended the Act by adding a new provision that enables a municipality to pass an "open-for-business planning bylaw." According to the Ford government, the change would have created a new "economic development tool" that allows "municipalities to ensure that they can act quickly to attract businesses seeking development sites."

An open-for-business planning bylaw would be part of a municipality's zoning powers. However, according to the bill as introduced, before passing such a bylaw, the municipality must first seek the approval of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. The demand would require a council resolution and any "prescribed information." This would include "open-for-business information, including details about the proposed employment opportunity, [and demonstrate that the bylaw is] for a new major employment use." The minimum threshold is 50 new jobs in municipalities of less than 250,000 people and 100 jobs for municipalities with over 250,000. The "prescribed information" must also "identify the uses," of which "residential, commercial or retail" cannot be "the primary use." Within the process, no public notice or hearing is required prior to passing an open-for-business planning bylaw.

Once an "open-for-business planning bylaw" has provincial government approval and is passed, a number of provisions from the existing Planning Act and the following laws will not apply to whatever "development project" has been proposed:

These negated laws exist often with significant history, including fatalities suffered by Ontarians and environmental damage. Many people consider the laws have great social value. However, without consulting the people or even bothering to explain why the government considers them obsolete or presenting any scientific argument, the Ford government has merely declared that they constitute "job-killing red tape."

For example, the Clean Water Act (CWA) was passed after the Walkerton, Ontario tragedy in 2000.  Contamination of Walkerton's drinking water, as a result of inadequate purification and water testing following the system's privatization, claimed seven lives and made thousands of people very ill. After Walkerton, the CWA drew up source water protection plans to protect drinking water facilities across Ontario. Bill 66 now threatens those measures and opens the door to other water contamination tragedies.

For the Ford government, a "job" does not include environmental protection for the people, nor does it include workers' health and safety, adequate living and working conditions, nor the right of workers to organize as a collective so as to have a voice and defend their interests. The government considers a worker a means of production similar to a machine, and the "job" they do a conduit to private profit. Anything standing in the way of the "job" such as a degree of social responsibility for the well-being of the people and environment is condemned as "job-killing red tape."

Changes to the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014
and the Education Act

Schedule 3 of Bill 66 makes a number of changes to child care rules. Amongst others, it allows for up to three children under the age of two in an in-home daycare. Currently only two young children are allowed in such settings. It also allows two child care providers to look after six infants at a time, an increase from the four infants currently allowed. The changes also mean that once their own children are four years old, care providers no longer have to include them in the total number of kids under their care.

All this was decided behind closed doors, without any public discussion or input from child care workers and parents and their organizations, under the hoax that this is the way to create more affordable child care spaces.

Numerous other changes of that nature in the bill include the repeal of the Toxics Reduction Act, 2009, scheduled for December 31, 2021 as well as all existing regulations within the Act. This significant change has appeared without a word of explanation or science. The Toxics Reduction Act deals with the use of toxic substances at the workplace with the stated aim of reducing them. The Ford government considers the Act to be eliminated as yet another "cost" and "job killing red tape" encumbrance on an "Ontario open to business" regime. Workers who are now or have been exposed to toxic substances and have suffered the consequences would say dismissing such regulations is socially irresponsible, especially without scientific proof and extensive discussion and agreement. This is not making Ontario open for socially responsible business but open for death and disease at the workplace and surrounding communities.

Bill 66 is a usurpation of power over the lives of the people by forces other than those who provide the services and produce the goods people and society depend upon for existence. The malignant government forces in control reveal themselves as blinded by their neo-liberal mantra of putting all of society's assets at the disposal of the rich regardless of the damage to the people and their society. The backward and socially irresponsible outlook sees the conditions in which people live and work and their needs, as amounts on a ledger that must be reduced or shifted into private profit no matter what the consequences.

Bill 66 is retrogressive and dangerous. Workers and their unions, environmental organizations and other social organizations have pledged to firmly oppose the legislation, with some city councils announcing that they will not implement such things as open-for-business planning bylaws.

The organized people must not let this pass, and through mass political mobilization ensure the bill is withdrawn.

Note

1. Bill 66 will amend the following 18 existing laws:

- Agricultural Employees Protection Act, 2002
- Child Care and Early Years Act, 2013
- Education Act
- Employment Standards Act, 2000
- Farm Registration and Farm Organizations Funding Act, 1993
- Highway Traffic Act
- Labour Relations Act, 1995
- Long-Term Care Homes Act, 2007
- Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Act
- Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998
- Pawnbrokers Act
- Pension Benefits Act
- Personal Property Security Act
- Planning Act
- Private Career Colleges Act, 2005
- Technical Standards and Safety Act, 2000
- Toxics Reduction Act, 2009 (this act will be fully repealed)
- Wireless Services Agreements Act, 2013

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This article was published in

Volume 49 Number 2 - January 26, 2019

Article Link:
Bill 66, : The Human Toll of the Ford Government's "Job-Killing Red Tape" Campaign - Pierre Chénier

    

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