Update on Bill 47 – Making Ontario Open for Business Act, 2018 

The Legislature has been busy this Fall. Bill 47 received royal assent yesterday and will come into force on January 1, 2019. This greatly impacts employers. If you remember from our previous newsletter, Bill 47 significantly repeals Employment Standards Act, 2000 amendments brought in by Bill 148, Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act.

Accordingly, employers should review their policies and practices by the new year in order to ensure they can hit the ground running in January 2019 when Bill 47’s changes come into force. Depending on the employment standard, some of Bill 148’s amendments will remain or come into force in 2019, however others will be repealed. For a recap on the changes, please see our previous newsletter. Regardless, employer policies will need to be amended to account for new rules (such as Bill 47’s annual leave days) or remove recently added amendments (such as Bill 148’s public holiday pay calculation).

Update on Bill 57 – Restoring Trust, Transparency and Accountability Act, 2018

As discussed in our March newsletter, the Pay Transparency Act, 2018 enacts new rules regarding the disclosure of information about employee and prospective employee compensation. For example, section 6 requires employers who publicly advertise jobs to include information about a position’s expected compensation and section 5 prohibits employers from seeking compensation history information about a job applicant.

On November 15, 2018, Bill 57 was carried through its first reading. If passed, Bill 57 will defer the coming into force of the Pay Transparency Act, 2018 to an unspecified date, which is supposed to come into force on January 1, 2019.

Employers should keep an eye out for updates on the status of Bill 57 and any details regarding a new date for the coming into force of the Pay Transparency Act, 2018.