Bill 69 directs the provincial Minister to take all necessary steps, including introducing legislation, to improve working conditions for personal support workers (PSWs), homemakers and staff in hospitals, long‑term care homes, home care agencies and regulated health‑care providers. Key numeric requirements are a staffing target — at least 70% of employees must be permanent full‑time where an employer has more than 20 employees — and a wage floor for PSWs set at $8.00 above Ontario’s minimum wage, plus mandated health benefits, pension plan membership and paid sick leave.
The bill also extends core Employment Standards Act protections (hours of work, eating periods, overtime pay) to workers defined as homemakers and sets a one‑year deferred commencement after Royal Assent. For employers, funders and regulators this is a structural intervention: it creates binding targets and compensation floors but leaves implementation mechanics, funding and enforcement to the Minister to sort out.
That gap is the bill’s central operational challenge — employers will need clarity on counting rules, funding, and compliance timelines before they can change staffing models or budgets.
At a Glance
What It Does
The Act requires the Minister to secure three principal outcomes: a 70% permanent full‑time workforce at hospitals, long‑term care homes, home‑care agencies or regulated health‑care providers with more than 20 employees; PSWs paid at least $8.00 above minimum wage with health benefits, pension membership and paid sick leave; and homemakers paid at least minimum wage with specified Employment Standards Act protections applied to them. The Minister must take “all necessary steps,” including new legislation, to achieve these outcomes.
Who It Affects
Directly affects hospitals, long‑term care homes, home‑care agencies and regulated health‑care providers that employ more than 20 people, personal support workers, paid homemakers employed by a third party, and the provincial ministry responsible for labour and health workforce policy. Householders who directly employ homemakers will see new statutory obligations if enforcement extends to private hiring arrangements.
Why It Matters
The bill sets numerical staffing and compensation floors rather than purely aspirational goals, which could reshape employer staffing models, bargaining priorities and government funding decisions. By putting the duty on the Minister to act, it signals likely regulatory or legislative follow‑up rather than immediate, employer‑level rules — but it also creates uncertainty about who ultimately pays for higher wages and benefits and how compliance will be measured and enforced.
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What This Bill Actually Does
Bill 69 does not itself amend employer payroll rules; instead it imposes a statutory duty on the Minister to ensure three outcomes. First, where a hospital, long‑term care home, home‑care agency or regulated health‑care provider employs more than 20 people, the Minister must secure a situation in which at least 70% of that employer’s total workforce are permanent, full‑time employees.
The text puts the onus on government to “take all necessary steps, including introducing legislation,” which means the practical details — how to count employees across sites, what counts as permanent or full‑time, and transitional deadlines — are left for follow‑up instruments.
Second, the bill creates a floor for personal support workers: PSWs must receive at least $8.00 more than the provincially defined minimum wage for every hour worked. Full‑time PSWs are entitled to at least 10 days of paid sick leave per calendar year for their own illness or medical emergency; part‑time PSWs get a pro‑rated number of days.
The bill also requires PSWs to receive health benefits and to be members of a pension plan, but it does not define minimum benefit levels, employer contribution rates, or which pension plans qualify.Third, the bill brings paid homemakers under basic ESA protections. It defines a homemaker narrowly as someone employed by a person other than the householder to provide homemaking services in a private residence, and requires they be paid at least the minimum wage and receive the hours‑of‑work and overtime protections found in Parts VII and VIII of the Employment Standards Act, 2000.
The Act takes effect one year after Royal Assent, giving the Minister a limited transition window to craft regulations or legislation and to signal funding or compliance expectations to employers and funders.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The 70% permanent full‑time threshold applies when an employer (hospital, long‑term care home, home‑care agency or regulated health‑care provider) employs more than 20 individuals and is calculated against the employer’s total number of employees.
Personal support workers must be paid at least $8.00 per hour above whatever the provincial minimum wage is at the time they work, rather than a fixed dollar figure indexed to future minimum‑wage changes.
Full‑time PSWs are entitled to a minimum of 10 days paid sick leave per calendar year for their own illness or medical emergency; part‑time PSWs receive a pro‑rated entitlement based on hours worked.
The Act requires PSWs to receive health benefits and be members of a pension plan, but it does not specify benefit minimums, contribution levels, vesting rules or the type of pension plan.
‘Homemaker’ is defined as someone employed by a person other than the householder to perform homemaking services in the householder’s private residence, and those homemakers must receive at least the minimum wage and the Employment Standards Act’s rules on hours and overtime.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Purpose: workforce retention and recruitment
Section 1 states the Act’s goal: improve working conditions for PSWs, homemakers and workers in certain health‑care settings to retain and attract staff. This is a high‑level policy purpose that frames later operational commands to the Minister; it creates a legislative justification for interventions that could affect funding, regulation and collective bargaining.
Definitions and scope for covered employers and providers
Section 2 defines key terms used later: it imports the Employment Standards Act definition of ‘minimum wage’ and defines ‘Minister’ as the member of Executive Council responsible for labour, immigration, training and skills development. It also defines ‘health care provider’ narrowly as a member of a regulated college acting within their scope of practice, which limits the Act’s reach to regulated professionals rather than all care workers.
Minister’s duty to secure 70% permanent full‑time staffing
Section 3 requires the Minister to take all necessary steps, including introducing legislation, to ensure that employers with more than 20 employees have at least 70% of their workforce in permanent full‑time roles. The provision places a positive obligation on government to design and enforce whatever measures are needed rather than imposing direct, immediate statutory duties on employers; operational details such as counting rules, exemptions and remedies are left to subsequent action by the Minister or accompanying regulations.
Minimum compensation, sick leave, benefits and pension for PSWs
Section 4 sets PSW‑specific protections: a wage floor of $8.00 above the minimum wage, a minimum of 10 days paid sick leave for full‑time PSWs (pro‑rated for part‑time), and entitlement to health benefits and pension plan membership. Clauses (a)–(d) bundle pay and benefits into a single policy package, but the section does not specify implementation modalities — for instance whether employers or the Crown will fund the increased costs, how pension membership is to be arranged for small employers, or how ‘personal support worker’ will be defined in practice.
Wage and ESA protections for homemakers
Section 5 requires the Minister to ensure homemakers receive at least the minimum wage and that Parts VII and VIII of the Employment Standards Act (hours of work, eating periods, overtime) apply to them. Subsection (2) narrows the definition of homemaker to people employed by someone other than the householder to do homemaking services in a private residence, thus targeting third‑party domestic workers and not informal family caregiving.
One‑year deferred commencement
Section 6 delays the Act’s coming into force until one year after Royal Assent. That gives the Minister a statutory transition period to prepare regulations, guidance and potential funding measures, but it also sets an implementation deadline that may interact with collective bargaining cycles and public budget timelines.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Personal support workers — gain an $8/hour wage premium on top of minimum wage, guaranteed paid sick leave (10 days full‑time, pro‑rated for part‑time), health benefits and pension membership, improving income stability and benefits coverage.
- Paid homemakers employed by third parties — receive statutory protection to be paid at least minimum wage and to benefit from ESA rules on hours and overtime, reducing wage exploitation in private‑home care arrangements.
- Patients and residents in hospitals, long‑term care and home care — stand to benefit indirectly from higher proportions of permanent full‑time staff, which research links to continuity of care and lower turnover costs.
- Part‑time workers with PSW roles — receive pro‑rated paid sick days and a clearer pathway to benefit entitlements if employers move roles toward permanent full‑time status.
- Unions and workforce planners — the statutory requirements give bargaining agents and the Ministry leverage to negotiate standards and funding frameworks tied to the new floors.
Who Bears the Cost
- Hospitals and long‑term care homes — face higher labour costs if they must convert casual, part‑time or contract positions into permanent full‑time roles to meet the 70% threshold and pay PSWs the $8 premium.
- Home‑care agencies and private employers — particularly those operating on thin margins will face increased wage and benefit obligations, and may need to restructure contracts or reduce subcontracting to comply.
- Ontario Ministry of Health and Ministry of Labour — may need to provide new funding, administer compliance mechanisms and draft regulations; those are administrative costs that are not funded in the Act.
- Householders who directly employ homemakers — if enforcement extends to private hiring, household budgets will rise due to minimum‑wage and overtime obligations and potential payroll administration requirements.
- Small employers near the 20‑employee threshold — may face sharp marginal costs to avoid crossing the coverage threshold, creating hiring distortions or incentives to restructure.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is classic: improve worker pay, stability and protections to retain staff and raise care quality, or avoid imposing costs that could shrink service capacity, force care providers to subcontract or reduce hiring, and shift costs to households and taxpayers. The bill solves one set of problems (low pay and precarity) but leaves unanswered who will bear the predictable rise in labour costs and how to preserve service access while enforcing the new standards.
The bill leaves the hardest choices to the Minister. It sets numerical targets and compensation floors but provides almost no procedural detail: it does not define ‘permanent’ or ‘full‑time,’ specify counting rules for workers across multiple sites or employers, or establish enforcement mechanisms, penalties or funding sources.
That means the effectiveness of the policy depends entirely on subsequent regulations or legislation and on whether government pairs standards with new funding for publicly funded employers.
Practical implementation raises multiple tensions. Converting part‑time and casual jobs to full‑time posts increases payroll and scheduling complexity and may reduce employer flexibility in matching fluctuating demand.
Requiring pension membership and unspecified health benefits for PSWs raises questions about plan choice, employer contribution rates and portability for workers who move between small agencies. Extending ESA protections into private homes produces enforcement challenges: how will inspections, complaints and compliance function when the employer is an individual householder rather than an institution?
The one‑year commencement gives time to act but may be insufficient to resolve collective bargaining, budgetary and regulatory design issues across a fragmented care market.
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