No new paid sick days for P.E.I. workers as government votes down bill

A proposed bill to increase paid sick leave for Island workers to 10 days a year was voted down in the P.E.I. Legislature Tuesday. 

The bill was introduced by the Opposition Green Party and debated in the house over the past couple of weeks. 

"No business owner should ever be able to tell a person that they're not sick enough, they have to come to work," said MLA Trish Altass before the vote Tuesday. 

"Workers could lose their jobs for following public health advice and staying home when they are sick," she said. 

P.E.I. requires only one paid sick day per year, and that's only for employees who've been with the same employer for five years.

Under the Employment Standards Act, employees are entitled to three unpaid sick days per year after six months on the job.

The proposed 10 days of sick leave would have been the most offered by any province in Canada. 

Some provinces require no paid sick days. B.C. recently brought in legislation requiring five. The government of Doug Ford in Ontario now requires three.

There had previously been debate in the legislature about whether 10 days was too many. Altass, who introduced the bill, had asked those opposing it to give a different number of days that would be acceptable. 

Liberal MLA Hal Perry said Tuesday he had spoken to business owners in his constituency about the proposed changes.

"They thought 10 [days] was unreasonable. So to find that magic number, I can't come up with it without some more consultation," said Perry.

Altass said she used the number of 10 sick days based on evidence and other jurisdictions around the world.

"To simply say, 'Well I don't like 10, so we'll just throw this all away,' disregards the position that puts workers in," said Altass.

Early in the pandemic, the province created a COVID-19 special leave fund to pay workers for time missed due to illness, the need to isolate or to care for family members.