Some welcome news for employers – Ontario’s Pay Transparency Act is being put on hold indefinitely.
On November 15, 2018, the Ontario government released the first draft of Bill 57, called Restoring Trust, Transparency and Accountability Act, 2018 – an omnibus bill that proposes to amend over 40 other laws in Ontario – including the Pay Transparency Act, 2018, which we told you about earlier this year.
The Pay Transparency Act was was scheduled to come into effect on January 1, 2019; but if and when Bill 57 is passed, it would essentially change the coming-into-force date of the new law to TBD – To Be Determined (by the Ontario Government).
As we told you earlier this year, Ontario’s Pay Transparency Act would be the first law in the country to force certain employers to publicly report compensation to the government and to employees (and likely online too); and the reports would include information relating to the employer, its workforce composition, and differences in compensation in the workforce with respect to gender and other characteristics. The law would also force employers to (1) stop asking prospective employees about their compensation history, (2) publicly state the range of compensation in job postings, and (3) hand over any information related to pay transparency without a warrant to the government.
Dentists can now breathe a small sigh of relief that they will not be forced to change their hiring processes in the new year; but the government has said they would be completing further consultation into pay transparency. As always, we will keep you up to date with any new changes to the law.
