Kitchener, Ont. grocer pushing Ontario lawmakers to strengthen employee protections

Ontario lawmakers are looking to close the loopholes allowing some employers to take advantage of their workers.

Over the next two weeks they’ll propose amendments to Bill 190, also known as Working for Workers Five Act, to provide greater protections for employees.

One example being used is a Kitchener grocer with an extensive track record of not paying its employees and vendors.

“Over the last five years we have been seeing waves of workers come to us about one particular employer, a grocery store in the region called Dutchies Fresh Market,” said Joanna Mullen, a lawyer with Waterloo Region Community Legal Services.

The Dutchies story was shocking to many of those on the committee.

“I was absolutely blown away, realizing that it was more than a decade this has been happening,” stated Jamie West, the Sudbury MPP and NDP Labour critic.

West and others on the committee said it shows the laws currently in place are not strong enough.

“You can't get away with wage theft for more than a decade and have the Ministry of Labor kind of put its hands in its pockets and say, ‘shucks, jeez, what can we do?’” said West.

Bill 190 currently proposes increasing the maximum fine for bad actors from $50,000 to $100,000.

West pointed out in the committee meeting that the maximum fine is rarely issued, so increasing the fine is not enough.

“Dutchies is a horrible example of this, there are horrible examples all across the province,” he said. “There's a lot of really great employers, but we have to hold the bad ones to account.”

According to Mullen, the province should have the ability to shutdown businesses with repeat offenses.

“The ministry should have more powers to strip employers of the licenses that they need to operate a business, whether it's their business license, a liquor license, even a driver's license,” Mullen explained. “They need to have some ability to actually go into these companies and say: ‘You can't do this anymore.’”

Lawmakers have another two weeks to propose amendments to the current legislation and West promised he’d support a law allowing the province to revoke a business’s license.

“The Minister of Labour really should be writing legislation to give him the power to prevent this from happening,” he said.

CTV News reached out to David Piccini, the Minister of Labour, but did not hear back by our deadline.