On November 15, 2018, the Ontario government introduced Bill 57, Restoring Trust, Transparency and Accountability Act, 2018 (Bill 57) in the Ontario legislature. Bill 57 proposes to amend a significant number of Ontario’s statutes, including the Pay Transparency Act, 2018, which was scheduled to come into effect on January 1, 2019. 

If passed, Bill 57 would change the commencement date of Ontario’s Pay Transparency Act, 2018 to a date to be determined by the cabinet.

As noted in our June 2018 Blakes Bulletin: Ontario’s Pay Transparency Act Coming Into Force January 2019, certain employers would have increased reporting requirements relating to compensation under the Pay Transparency Act, 2018. Every employer with 100 or more employees (and every prescribed employer) would be required to prepare pay transparency reports. These reports would include information relating to the employer, its workforce composition, and differences in compensation in the workforce with respect to gender and other prescribed characteristics.

In addition to having to post these reports online or in a conspicuous place in every workplace of the employer, pay transparency reports would also have to be submitted to the Ministry, which would then publish these reports or otherwise make them available to the public.

The 2018 Ontario Economic Outlook and Fiscal Review (Review), which was published the same day as Bill 57, provides that “the government is proposing to delay the implementation date for the Pay Transparency Act, 2018 to allow for consultation.” The Review went on to state that “[c]omplying with the Act’s current reporting requirements would have significantly increased costs for businesses and affected some sectors more than others.”