Bill capping Ontario public sector pay hikes passes
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A Doug Ford government bill to cap public sector compensation increases at 1% annually for three years passed third reading Thursday but opposition parties predicted it’s doomed to fail.
Liberal Leader John Fraser said he will not be supporting Bill 124, even though his own party attempted to legislate teacher compensation following the 2008-09 economic crisis.
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“We did and that didn’t work out so well, did it?” Fraser said Thursday. “The courts told us 100%.”
The Dalton McGuinty government’s Bill 115 imposed contracts on teachers and banned them from striking, legislation the court later shot down as unconstitutional.
The government should instead adopt a policy of wage restraint and then bargain to achieve it, Fraser said.
“You don’t need (Bill 124); why are you bringing out a sledgehammer?” he said. “It’s almost bad faith.”
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said it makes no sense for the PCs to go down the same path as the Liberal government.
“We know that our Charter protects the right to free collective bargaining — not collective bargaining that’s interfered with through legislation, not collective bargaining that is kind of tampered down by a bill that caps wages,” she said.
Ontario public sector unions have already warned they intend to challenge Bill 124 in the courts.
The Speaker of the Ontario Legislature ordered the public gallery cleared Thursday as heckling rained down on Treasury Board President Peter Bethlenfalvy while he spoke in favour of his bill.
Compensation for public sector workers is an area that can’t be ignored on the government’s path to fiscal health, Bethlenfalvy said.
The legislation would not open up existing collective agreements but would mandate a cap of 1% on annual increases in salaries and benefits for the following three years, he said, adding workers would still qualify for other pay hikes including those based on seniority.
“It would not impede the collective bargaining process or the right to strike, it would not impose a wage freeze or wage rollback and it would not impose job losses,” Bethlenfalvy said.
In the legislature Thursday, Ford and his cabinet ministers emphasized the need to tackle the provincial deficit, which they most recently pegged at $9 billion.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce said the government is putting more funding into education but does not want to add to the province’s debt load.
“The transfer of debt from one generation onto the next is not an acceptable proposition for the very parents we suggest we represent,” he said.
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