Ontario Appeal Court set to rule on constitutionality of wage restraint law Bill 124

Ontario's top court will rule on the constitutionality of a law that limited raises for more than 1 million workers in the broader public sector, including nurses and teachers.

Ontario’s top court is set to rule today on the constitutionality of a law that limited raises for more than one million workers in the broader public sector, including nurses and teachers.

The Progressive Conservatives enacted the law, known as Bill 124, in 2019 as a way to help the government eliminate a deficit.

It capped salary increases for public sector workers to one per cent a year for three years.

The law sparked widespread outrage among labour groups and opposition parties, with its effects on the health sector a particular focus as critics say it’s partly responsible for driving nurses out of the profession or into private nursing agencies, where the pay is substantially higher for the same work.

Labour groups and unions representing hundreds of thousands of public sector employees challenged the law, and the Ontario Superior Court in late 2022 found it infringed collective bargaining rights, striking it down as unconstitutional.

The government appealed and the Appeal Court says its decision will be released today.

Since the law was struck down, even while pending appeal, arbitrators have awarded additional retroactive pay to several groups of workers that had “reopener” clauses in their contracts, including teachers, nurses, other hospital workers, public servants, ORNGE air ambulance paramedics, and college faculty.

Several hospitals have told a legislative committee conducting pre-budget hearings that the Bill 124 reopener arbitration rulings are straining their budgets, though the government has committed to reimbursing them.