Doug Ford’s government has not followed through on implementing a key piece of legislation aimed at keeping temporary employment agency workers safe on the job, the Star has learned.

The measures, enacted by the Liberals last year, would have ensured all companies who use temps are liable for their injuries at the workers’ compensation board, which critics have long argued is a key financial incentive to protecting these vulnerable workers.

But the Progressive Conservative government has not created the regulations necessary to enforce the new law.

“The government’s decision to not do the regulations is jeopardizing people’s lives,” said Deena Ladd of the Workers’ Action Centre. “I think it’s appalling.”

A 2017 Star investigation showed that temps who work in blue-collar jobs are twice as likely as other employees to get hurt in workplace accidents. But those injuries do not appear on accident records of the companies who employ them because temp agencies are technically the workers’ employer at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

As a result, the temp agency takes the financial hit if a temp gets hurt, not the company where they were actually injured.

“A temp agency does not have any control over the day-to-day work of a worker in terms of safety instruction, safety equipment, use of equipment, access to chemicals,” said Ladd. “All of the things that happen on a day-to-day, regular basis is in the client company’s hands. So they need to be held responsible for those injuries.”

Last March, the Liberal government proclaimed legislation — Bill 18 — that would ensure just that. But the law required Queen’s Park to develop a regulation to give the WSIB its new powers. That did not happen before the Liberals were voted out of office.

In a statement to the Star, Ministry of Labour spokesperson Janet Deline confirmed the new government has given “no direction to proceed with creating a regulation.”

Christine Bujold, spokesperson for Progressive Conservative Labour Minister Laurie Scott, called the matter one of “many unfinished files left behind by the previous Liberal government.”

“Given the pace of urgent and positive reforms undertaken by Minister Scott, a specific approach to this regulatory question has not been adopted. Minister Scott is working to ultimately address all challenges left behind by the previous government, including the issue raised in your question. Any specific commitment at this stage would be premature.”

Bujold said the minister was “working hard to implement positive reforms for Ontario workers” through new legislation, including Bill 47.

That legislation, passed last year, reversed the majority of new labour reforms introduced under the Liberals through Bill 148. These included two paid sick days for all workers, a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour, equal pay rights for temp agency workers, and measures to make it easier for temp workers to unionize.

“Minister Scott has been actively addressing problems left behind by the Liberal government, including the job-killing aspects of Bill 148,” Bujold said. “Minister Scott is making it easier to create good, safe jobs in Ontario.”

Workers’ rights advocates and occupational health researchers have long pushed for joint liability for workplace injuries, arguing it would remove existing incentives for employers to shift risky work onto temp agency workers who often receive little training or protection.

As part of an investigation into the rise of temporary work, a Star reporter went undercover at Fiera Foods, a North York industrial bakery where four temp agency workers have died since 1999, at its main factory or affiliated plants. One of the workers killed was 23-year-old refugee Amina Diaby, who died in September 2016 after her headscarf became entangled in an improperly guarded machine.

A subsequent investigation by the WSIB found that a fellow temp worker present at the time of her death wasn’t able to help because he did not know how to use the machine’s emergency stop buttons. WSIB records show that around 70 per cent of Fiera’s workforce is temporary.

Fiera Foods was charged in relation to Diaby’s death under health and safety laws. The company pleaded guilty and was fined $300,000.

A company using temp agency workers can be prosecuted for any critical injuries and fatalities under provincial health and safety laws. But in the absence of Bill 18’s provisions, it is harder to hold them responsible at the WSIB. Since WSIB premium costs are tied to injury rates, using temp agency workers can mean significant cost savings in the event of workplace accidents.

The set-up “provides an incentive for the client to use (temp agency) workers to perform more dangerous work,” noted a 2017 report to the Ministry of Labour on working conditions in Ontario.

“A client can save money by assigning work that is more likely to give rise to an accident or injury to (temp agency) workers rather than to its direct hires.”

In a written response to questions from the Star, Fiera Foods general counsel David Gelbloom said the company is “continuously taking steps to ensure our safety standards exceed our legal requirements.”

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Internal email correspondence at the provincial workers’ compensation board previously obtained by the Star shows how the WSIB struggled in the wake of Diaby’s death to hold Fiera accountable because the necessary legislation was not in place.

Noting passages of Bill 18 related to joint injury liability had never passed, an internal briefing note said “the WSIB is unable to hold the principal Fiera accountable for having unsafe working conditions and failing to take sufficient precautions to prevent this workplace fatality.”

A later email from the WSIB’s executive director of corporate risk management notes that “the reality is that the fix required to fully address this situation is a legislative one, and a particularly simple one at that, that would make the client employer, e.g. Fiera, the employer of record.”