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ARTICLE · 22 JUNE 2021

Ontario To Provide For Temporary Paid Sick Leave

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The Ontario government has passed a bill that will temporarily provide Ontario employees with paid sick leave, labelled as "infectious disease emergency leave pay."

CanadaEmployment and HR
Kyle Lambert
Kyle Lambert
David Fanjoy
David Fanjoy
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The Ontario government has passed a bill that will temporarily provide Ontario employees with paid sick leave, labelled as "infectious disease emergency leave pay."

Ontario passed Bill 284 on April 29, 2021. Bill 284 amends the infectious disease leave provisions (s. 50.1) of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 ("ESA") to provide employees with three days of paid, job-protected leave.

When is paid leave available?

Paid leave will be available until September 25, 2021 and is retroactive to April 19, 2021. These include:

  • An employee may take a leave of absence with pay for all of the same reasons for which unpaid infectious disease emergency leave was already available.
  • An employee is under individual medical investigation, supervision or treatment related to a designated infectious disease (i.e. COVID-19);

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