Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m M A R C H 2 0 1 7 41 eforms are coming to Ontario's labour laws, but how far-ranging they will be — or even if the Wynne government will implement them before the next prov- incial elections in 2018 — remains to be seen. In February 2016, the Ontario government announced the launch of public consultations to consider reforms to the Employment Standards Act and the Labour Relations Act. Twelve days of public hearings across the province heard from more than 200 organizations and individuals, and more than 300 written submissions were received. The interim report, released in July, outlined the myriad issues under consideration and the options for change: some 50 issues and more than 225 options relating to them. "I would say the report has been embraced and praised for taking such a comprehensive approach to the review," says labour and employment lawyer Danny Kastner of Kastner Law in Toronto, who also chairs the labour and employment section of the Ontario Bar Association. "At the same time, the report was challenging for those wishing to comment [because] it presents such a broad range of possibilities." With a key focus of the Changing Work- places Review being precarious work and a decreased security of tenure for employees, its interim report has been — not surpris- ingly — more popular with labour unions and workers' advocate groups than with the business and employer community. "What I'm telling clients is, there is more process before us," says Craig Rix of Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP in Toronto, whose firm works on the employer side. "A thousand ideas may be distilled" to 25 or 30, he said, and then "we'll have some- thing to bite off and chew on." Legislation ripe for modernization Changing Workplaces Review is the first independent review commissioned by the Ontario government in a generation. It looks at the modern workplace and work- force, including work precarity, standard- izing types of employment and employers and unionization. Ontario is the only juris- diction in Canada currently reviewing its employment and labour legislation. C. Michael Mitchell, a Toronto arbi- trator and mediator, and John Murray, a retired justice of the Ontario Superior Court, are its special advisors. "The scope of our review is very broad and, while we intend to deal with a variety of matters, . . . our key focus will be on vul- nerable workers in precarious jobs and the need for legislative amendments to address some of the issue facing these workers," wrote the special advisors in their interim report. "At the same time, we will be mindful of the interests of employers . . . and will carefully consider changes being sought by employers that could impact employees." L E G A L R E P O RT \ L A B O U R & E M P L O Y M E N T PETE RYAN Labour law overhaul Ontario's 'Changing Workplaces Review' could swing the pendulum toward employees By Elizabeth Raymer R

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