The MPP for Bay of Quinte says he voted against a private member’s bill calling for paid sick leave, because it would have “buried already embattled employers who are struggling through the pandemic.”
MPP Todd Smith says it shouldn’t be up to business owners to shoulder the cost of Liberal MPP Michael Coteau’s bill, which called for every Ontarian to be eligible for 10 paid sick days.
Smith tells Quinte News the Provincial Government is trying to support Ontarians by negotiating an alternate arrangement to top up the Federal Government sick leave program and take some pressure off employers.
“We were able to negotiate $1.1 billion in paid sick leave with the Federal Government last summer and there’s still almost $700 million left in that fund. So we’re negotiating a new and improved Federal program, with an Ontario top-up and we’re really hopefully Prime Minister Trudeau will sign off on that.”
Smith noted that Ontario is the only province trying to do more than what the feds had offered last summer, saying the Ontario Government has offered to immediately double payments for all workers, up to $1,000 per week, $25 per hour, for four weeks.
He also weighed in on Ontario getting outside help to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic after a team of doctors and nurses from Newfoundland and Labrador landed in Ontario on Tuesday, set to help in hot spot areas around Toronto, and the the military being called in as well.
Smith says while it’s nice to get that much needed support in Ontario’s hospitals, that’s not going to turn the trend and stop people from getting sick in the first place.
“What we really need is for these vaccines to arrive and we understand that this week we are going to get a significant increase in the number of vaccines. That’s really going to help, particularly in the hot spots where most of the cases are occurring, in Toronto and the GTA.”
He added that if those shipments arrive as planned, we should be seeing an increase in doses coming to the Bay of Quinte and Hastings Prince Edward areas as well.
