Ensuring that Ontario remains the best place in North America to recruit, retain and reward workers

Recommendation 1: Support funding for lifelong learning with no age restrictions, continue to promote development and recognition of micro-credentials and promote more on-the-job training.

Recommendation 2: Build on Ontario’s Skills Development Fund model, invest in new channels of career development beyond traditional educational institutions to include funding employers, professional associations and unions directly.

Recommendation 3: Launch a challenge-based program to encourage private-sector providers and non-profit organizations to propose online solutions to help employees and employers navigate the province’s increasingly complex marketplace of skills training programs, providers and courses.

Recommendation 4: Develop a provincial benefit that aligns with the Canada Training Benefit to help defray costs for individuals who wish to pursue lifelong learning opportunities.

Recommendation 5: Build on the federal government’s efforts to expand learning on the job, by encouraging employer programs to ensure there are enough workplace learning opportunities.

Recommendation 6: Reform training programs, building on the recent announcement of the Second Career program, to better serve those with weak employment history, including vulnerable and marginalized groups.

Recommendation 7: Partner with other levels of government to enhance lifelong learning, skills training and workforce development for Indigenous people.

Recommendation 8: Appoint an expert to design and test a portable benefits program, where contributors could be employers, workers and the government.

Recommendation 9: Establish mandated competency-based accreditation to accelerate the availability of skilled workers based on the BCIT model, which would allow workers from other jurisdictions to enter the workforce more quickly.

Recommendation 10: Modernize existing job boards to make it easier to match employers searching for specialized skills with highly skilled workers across multiple jurisdictions.

Recommendation 11: Pilot a virtual platform that matches supply and demand for various types of gig and contract work.

Recommendation 12: Create a committee of cabinet, comprising four or five key ministers, to keep on top of matters related to workforce, competitiveness and fairness.

Supporting workers, especially platform workers, by providing greater flexibility, control and security

Recommendation 13: Limit the use of non-compete clauses to specific intellectual property and eliminate blanket non-competes in law, to encourage innovation, worker mobility and competition.

Recommendation 14: Create or clarify terms under which independent contractors are defined, for highly skilled workers who opt for this flexibility.

Recommendation 15: Create and recognize the dependent contractor category for gig or platform workers in the app-based space and give this category of worker basic employment rights, such as termination pay, minimum wage, minimum or core benefits, regular payment of wages, pay stubs for pay accountability and notice of termination with severance entitlements.

Recommendation 16: Require gig platform companies operating in Ontario to provide basic, easy-to-understand, full disclosure and transparency on payment, work allocation and penalties, suspensions or pay deductions.

Recommendation 17: Require contracting companies to be transparent by stipulating that they comply with employment standards, specifically with respect to worker classification. Clear and unambiguous acknowledgement that liability compliance rests with both the contracting and the subcontracted company is needed.

Recommendation 18: Simplify the exemptions section of the Employment Standards Act to make it easier to understand and enforce and more relevant to current and future workers.

Making Ontario the top destination with a world-class workforce and talent supply

Recommendation 19: Introduce the right to disconnect, which would protect workers’ ability to balance personal obligations with work commitments, to foster a culture of life-work balance and emphasize Ontario’s commitment to supporting mental health.

Recommendation 20: Develop fast and reliable transportation networks linking major cities with smaller communities where workers want to live. Enhance telehealth services so people who leave large urban centres can still access specialized health diagnostics/care. Enable the installation of high-speed telecommunication networks.

Recommendation 21: Develop an employment brand and communications strategy for domestic and international markets to promote Ontario as a desirable place to work and live.