Make paid sick leave mandatory for Yukon private businesses, panel suggests

A panel composed ofLiberal andNDP MLAs, and members of the public, recommends making paid sick leave mandatory for Yukon-based private employers.

The Making Work Safe panel made the recommendation along with 22 others in a sweeping report Monday afternoon. Over 500 people sharedtheir feedback online with the panel onhow permanent paid sick leave should be established in the territory.

Emily Tredger, the NDP MLA for Whitehorse Centre who co-chaired the panel, said the pandemic showed members of the panel that paid sick leave needs to be universal.

"As an employer, when you're dealing with a pandemic and worker shortages ... having an optional thing sometimes doesn't make the cut," Tredger told reporters. "I think it's really important that this ... is for everyone."

Some of the panel's other recommendations are to make 10 paid sick leave available to all employees, including self-employed and gig workers without any payment delays. The panel also suggested that workers cannot be fired or let go from their jobs due to taking sick leave.

Minister of Community Services Richard Mostyn, aLiberal MLA and thepanel's other co-chair, noted there's still a long road to find out whether the territory will adopt therecommendations.

The report still has to be presented to party caucuses for discussion, he noted.

"Now government's got to determine how to actually deal with the recommendations," said Mostyn.

"There's a lot of work to be done to figure out how to implement such a program throughout the territory, how it's going to be funded."

The establishment of a paid sick leave program during the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the terms of the Confidence and Supply Agreement (CASA) that setout the working relationship between the Liberals and the NDP after the last territorial election, which resulted in a minority Liberal government.

In a later press release, the Yukon government explained that the panel's recommendations will work towards a permanent territory-wide program.

If the recommendations are adopted, the panel hopes the government can make the necessary changes to the Employment Standards Act by September.

That's when the territory's current paid sick leave program, put in place during the pandemic, is set to expire.