Ford government extends COVID-19 paid sick days program until March 31

The Ford government announced Thursday it is extending its COVID-19 paid sick days program until March 31, 2023.

The program, which allows Ontarians who miss work due to COVID-19 to have up to three days off, was set to expire on July 31.

The program offers eligible workers up to $200 a day for up to three days if they need to get tested, vaccinated, receive booster shots, self-isolate, or care for a family member who is ill from COVID.

The province will continue to reimburse eligible employers for the paid leave days.

The Ford government announced the program back in April of 2021. The province partnered with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board to deliver the program and reimburse its staff.

However, opposition parties and other critics have been calling for the government to expand the program by offering more days.

Deputy NDP leader Sol Mamakwa said Thursday that the program should offer up to 10 days to ensure people have enough time to recover from a COVID-19 infection.

“We need more days,” he said.

Nurse Justine Champagne raised a similar point at a health-care union news conference on Thursday.

She said she was off work for more than three days when she got sick with COVID-19, and argued that people returning to work before they’re fully recovered could lead to more staffing shortages.

“Just three days’ sick leave is definitely not enough to allow us to recover and return back to work,” she said.

A group of small and medium business owners also published an open letter to Labour Minister Monte McNaughton on the paid sick days issue on Thursday, calling for changes to the program.

Their letter raised concerns about a potential fall wave of infections and the spread of more infectious variants of the virus that can easily reinfect people.

The group called for the sick days program to become permanent, to cover illnesses besides COVID-19 and for employee eligibility to reset so people can use sick days if they get ill again.

Sam Conover, owner of Broad Lingerie in Toronto, said her company already offered employees five paid sick days, and started offering an additional two weeks to her sick leave program during the pandemic.

Conover said she supports the government extending the program but would like to see it enhanced so that small businesses like her’s would benefit more.

“I am very happy to pay for paid sick days out of my pocket, and I will continue to do so, but it would be great to have that support extended to us,” she said in an interview.

Conover said illness-related shutdowns would last longer if staff came to work sick and infect others, noting that workers aren’t able to function as well on the job when ill. Offering paid sick days also helps retain employees, she said.

“From my perspective, obviously, it’s a moral issue, I just think it’s a smart idea to treat people like humans,’ she said. ”But it also makes good business sense.“

Gilleen Pearce, who also signed the letter to McNaughton, runs a small IT support company with offices in Toronto and Hamilton. She said her company started offering 10 paid sick days in 2017 and allows people to take more sick days if they need it.

Like Conover, she said offering paid sick days has helped her business function and made employees more willing to stay. She argued that legislated general paid sick days, rather than a temporary program for just one illness, would simplify the process and remove the uncertainty that the pandemic program would expire.

“It shouldn’t really be a big, separate bureaucratic government program that people need to apply for,” she said.

A spokesman for McNaughton said nearly 500,000 workers have accessed the program so far and said the extension would allow more people to take COVID-19-related absences “while having the confidence they’ll still be paid.

“We promised our supports would remain in place as long as they are needed to keep workers and their families safe from COVID-19,” Harry Godfrey said in a written statement. “We are keeping our promise and will always have workers’ backs.”

The government said any employer would be reimbursed if their employees chose to access the provincial program.

This comes on the same day the province announced that parents could book COVID vaccinations for kids aged six months to under five years old starting at 8 a.m. on Thursday, July 28.

Immunocompromised youth between the ages of 12 to 17 will also be able to book their second booster dose if six months have passed since their first booster.