Premier Doug Ford pledges to top up paid sick leave to $1,000 a week — if Ottawa agrees to run the program

Ontario workers would be eligible for up to $1,000 a week in COVID-19 sick pay if Premier Doug Ford can convince Ottawa to let Queen’s Park bolster the existing federal program.

Under fire for months due to the lack of a provincial paid sick-leave plan, Ford is offering to double the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (CRSB), which pays $500 a week to ill workers.

In a letter last Thursday, provincial Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy made that pitch to federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

“As part of Ontario’s plan to address gaps in the programs available for workers, Ontario would like to move ahead and double the benefit for every Ontario application,” he wrote in a missive first reported by the Globe and Mail and also obtained by the Star.

“Specifically we would like everyone in Ontario to be eligible for $1,000 per week, as opposed to the current $500,” the provincial treasurer continued.

“The third wave of the pandemic has hit our country and our province hard. We need to do everything we can to help keep people safe and to protect our health care system from collapsing.”

Bethlenfalvy emphasized “we are prepared to make this commitment immediately and the province will pay the full cost of the additional top-up.”

His letter was sent the same day as an emotional Ford vowed “to come up with a very strong program to protect the workers” to encourage sick workers to stay home to curb the spread of the virus that has killed nearly 8,000 Ontarians in 13 months.

“We’re going to take actions ourselves and we will have the best program anywhere in North America, bar none,” the premier said Thursday from his late mother’s Etobicoke home, where he is self-isolating until the middle of next week due a workplace COVID-19 exposure.

Ford, who had his first AstraZeneca on April 9, tested negative last week after a top staffer tested positive for COVID-19 last week. The young male aide is recovering at home.

Queen’s Park would need Ottawa’s cooperation to administer the enhanced program even though hundreds of millions of provincial dollars would top up the benefit.

“The way the federal legislation is written, if we did our own top up we would disqualify Ontarians from the federal program,” a senior provincial official told the Star on Tuesday.

With that it mind, “the fastest, best way to do this is for the federal government to increase payments and we will reimburse them,” said the insider.

But that means Ottawa has to agree to the scheme. Freeland’s office was not immediately available for comment early Tuesday.

It is also expected that other provinces will weigh in with similar proposals later this week.

On Monday, the Tories used their majority to defeat Liberal MPP Michael Coteau’s bid to give 10 paid days for essential employees in Ontario — just as they have derailed NDP MPP Peggy Sattler’s repeated efforts for provincal paid leave.

Labour Minister Monte McNaughton emphasized the Progressive Conservatives are seeking “a federal partner” in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals to help sick workers.

The federal CRSB has been tapped into by 300,000 Ontario workers since coming into effect last fall, but users complain it is clumsy to use and slow to pay benefits.

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Adding insult to injury, Ottawa deducts $50 in taxes from the $500 weekly payment so it nets out at $450.

McNaughton noted that is “less than minimum wage” in Ontario.

“Workers in the province of Ontario shouldn’t choose between their health and their job,” he said Monday.

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie