Ontario has seen a steady growth in the number of temp agencies starting up at a time the province seeks to enact new protection for its most vulnerable workers.

Statistics obtained by the Star show a 20 per cent increase in temp agencies in Ontario over the past decade, with much of that growth driven by businesses registering in the Toronto area. In the GTA alone, there are now almost 1,700 active temp agencies — more than the combined total of seven Canadian provinces that track such stats.

It’s “like a huge warning bell to anyone who is concerned about (work) conditions and low wages and precariousness,” said Deena Ladd of the Toronto-based Workers’ Action Centre.

“I think it’s a huge indication that corporations are shifting their responsibility to a third party for employment. I think that is incredibly dangerous.”

To paint a picture of the scale of temp agency work nationwide, the Star filed Freedom of Information requests to every worker’s compensation board in the country seeking the names, addresses and registration dates of all active temp agencies. Staffing firms are required to register with the boards because they are liable when a temp agency worker gets hurt on the job — a financial incentive for companies to use them.

Two provinces, British Columbia and Quebec, said they did not have the data requested by the Star. The remaining provinces combined declared 847 active temp agencies, while Ontario alone had almost 2,600 in 2016.

In June, the government proposed sweeping amendments to Ontario’s employment and labour laws that would tackle the rise of precarious work. If passed, the legislation would make it illegal to pay temp agency employees less for doing the same work as permanent workers. It would also make it easier for them to unionize.

“We seem to be growing into a society where agencies are proliferating, and these people are getting a little piece of everybody’s paycheques,” said Labour Minister Kevin Flynn in an interview with the Star.

Flynn said he believes there is a legitimate role for temp agencies: catering to people who truly want short-term employment or employers who experience major peaks and valleys in production. But the proposed legislation, Bill 148, aims to remove the financial incentives for companies to use bad-actor agencies to avoid creating permanent jobs.

“We’re concerned about the people on the production lines and warehouses,” he said. “I think the concept of full-time, permanent work is being abused.”

Temp agency employment has gained a foothold in other sectors too: Estina Gitan, 59, says she has worked for more than five years as a qualified personal support worker through agencies placing her in hospitals and youth shelters across the GTA.

Gitan is her family’s main breadwinner because she says her husband was let go from his factory job after he had a heart attack. She says her pay as a temp has always been minimum wage and her schedule erratic. To make ends meet, she rations her medication for an underactive thyroid to make it last and makes her own clothes.

She says agencies would often charge for “training” courses and in one case made her sign a contract to prevent her from applying to permanent jobs at workplaces where she was assigned.

“This money is coming from our minimum-wage pocket,” she said.

While Ladd says she applauds many of the measures in Bill 148, which include increasing the minimum wage to $15, she believes the legislation falls short on temp agency worker protections.

“We want the client company to be held financially liable for any injuries, and not the temp agencies,” she said.

That step, she argues, is critical to removing a major financial incentive for companies to use staffing firms. It was also one of the final recommendations made by two labour experts appointed by the government to review its employment laws.

Workers’ rights advocates also want to see the proposed legislation restrict companies from hiring more than 20 per cent of their workforce through a temp agency, and mandate that they be made permanent if they do the same job at the same company for more than three months.

“You have to close all the loopholes,” Ladd said.

Flynn told the Star his ministry sees such regulations as too “unwieldy,” but said the government is currently exploring ways to increase companies’ liability when a temp agency worker is injured. Committee hearings started for Bill 148 this week.

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Mary McIninch, head of the lobby group the Association of Canadian Search, Employment and Staffing Services, which represents 255 Ontario staffing firms, said her organization’s members pledge to uphold a code of ethical standards and are “committed to advancing best practices, including proven safety in the workplace.”

In its 2015 submission to the government on employment law reform, ACSESS said legislative changes were “unnecessary, unsubstantiated and would cause undue hardship to the staffing industry.” McIninch said her organization does, however, support Bill 148’s proposals to beef up enforcement efforts. She also said she believes “workers embrace temp work for its flexibility, link to learning new skills or pursuing new opportunities.”

Gitan described her own experience working through a temp agency as akin to being invisible.

“You would work and they would push you around and you would take it,” she said. “(Permanent staff) would treat you like nothing.”

Indeed, national statistics have literally erased workers like Gitan: in 2004, Statistics Canada stopped collecting the number of temp agency employees across the country. Instead, it now measures temporary employment — which includes people hired directly by a company on a short-term basis. Currently, there are over 747,000 temporary workers in Ontario, according to Statistics Canada.

Last year, Ontario temp agencies estimated their workforce to have around 146,000 “full-time equivalent” employees according to the WSIB data requested by the Star. But this number is an estimate calculated through insurable earnings declared by agencies and average hourly wages, and assumes a person works 2,000 hours per year — roughly the equivalent of a full-time job.

In other words, the figure does not reflect the actual number of people who cycle through temp agencies — who often don’t work standard hours, and may work through multiple staffing firms.

Gitan currently has one part-time job and picks up more shifts through a temp agency; previously, she worked through two agencies — which she says made her schedule even more erratic.

“I didn’t get to spend quality time with (my kids),” she said. “We didn’t have a meal together because I was working all the time.”

“The entire setup is to give client companies, companies who use agencies, a completely disposable labour force,” Ladd said.

“If you have that kind of system in that place, why would a company ever hire you directly?”

With files from Erin Nespoli