Employment lawyers are raising questions about how Ontario’s new hiring rules will be enforced, saying they are largely “toothless” because there is no enforcement mechanism for delinquent companies.
A range of new employment rules came into effect on Jan. 1 as part of the province’s Working for Workers Act. Companies with at least 25 employees will now have to state the salary range or hourly wage bracket on job postings, and that annual salary range cannot be wider than $50,000.
Employers will also have to disclose if they are using artificial intelligence to screen, assess or select job applicants in publicly advertised job postings. Additionally, an employer has to respond to an applicant about a hiring decision, whether or not they got the job, within 45 days from the date of an interview.
But some lawyers are questioning the effectiveness of these new rules.
“Self-compliance is the way that the current provincial government has been choosing to try and improve employment law. But there is no effective punishment for non-compliance,” said Andrew Monkhouse, a Toronto-based labour and employment lawyer.
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Since Premier Doug Ford came to power in 2018, the Ontario government has made a series of changes to the province’s labour code (Employment Standards Act) by introducing numerous versions of the Working for Workers Act, with the stated aim of enhancing workers’ rights and righting the balance of power between employers and employees. There have been seven Working for Workers Acts to date.
In 2022, there was new legislation to compel employers to disclose to their employees if and how those workers were being electronically monitored. Employers also had to draft a “right to disconnect” policy, laying out rules for employees when it comes to engaging in work e-mails or phone calls after work hours.
But both those laws merely stated that employers needed to have policies in place. They did not take a position on whether employers should or should not monitor the employees, or grant them the right to disconnect from work at certain times.
“I think the province is concerned about adding more red tape and regulation on businesses, so the in-between is creating these rather ‘toothless’ regulations which are more like guidelines,” added Mr. Monkhouse.
In a recent interview with The Globe and Mail, the province’s Labour Minister, David Piccini, said that these laws were crafted to address “pre-employment problems” within the Employment Standards Act.
“We said to workers we are going to put a line in the sand and make sure we have progressive legislation that will keep up with the needs of workers,” he said.
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He also acknowledged that public policy had to “strike a balance” between supporting workers’ rights and not stifling companies. “We want to create a climate in Ontario where businesses want to invest and risk-takers can succeed.”
When asked about enforcement mechanisms for employers, Mr. Piccini said that there are employment standards officers who will take action if they find repeated and habitual violations of the rules.
Toronto-based labour and employment lawyer Lai-King Hum noted that there are no specific enforcement mechanisms for the new pay transparency rules. “It all falls to general enforcement under the Employment Standards Act, which includes administrative fines for individuals and corporations that can range up to $500,000. Given that these obligations are new, I suspect that any fines would be at the low end.”
But the onus still falls on employees to file complaints if employers do not adhere to these new rules, she said. “For job applicants, there is really no immediate relief or compensation.”
Gerald Griffiths, an employment lawyer at Littler LLP, said that new rules are substantive because employers now have to be clearer in job postings and employees can better assess if they want to apply for those jobs.
“There is always an open question about how much enforcement there will be. But the legislation states that employers have to hold on to their job postings for three years, so this does create a greater level of accountability,” he said.
Companies are increasingly using AI to create job postings and interact with candidates to screen them for second-round interviews. A study from the job search site Indeed, conducted in late 2024, showed that more than a quarter of hiring managers in Canada were using AI tools for recruitment.
Governments have been trying to regulate the technology. Quebec’s privacy laws were amended last year to state that if AI uses personal information to make a hiring decision, employers have to provide the personal information that was used upon request by the candidate. Additionally, if an AI tool makes a hiring decision without “meaningful” human involvement, a candidate has to be notified of that fact.