The Ontario government has published a list of employees eligible for its temporary pandemic pay program.
To provide additional support for frontline workers fighting COVID-19, the government is providing temporary pandemic pay of $4/hour worked on top of their regular wages. In addition, the government will be providing monthly lump sum payments of $250 for four months to eligible frontline workers who work over 100 hours per month. The pandemic pay will be effective for 16 weeks, from April 24, 2020 until August 13, 2020.
Temporary pandemic pay is designed to support eligible full-time, part-time and casual employees. It does not apply to management.
To receive pandemic pay, you must work in both an eligible:
- role (i.e. be an eligible worker)
- workplace
Eligible workplaces and workers are those listed below, by sector.
Health care
To be eligible for pandemic pay you must be an eligible worker (full-time, part-time or casual) who works in an eligible workplace providing in-person publicly-funded services.
Eligible workplaces
- All hospitals in the province providing publicly-funded services, including small rural hospitals, post-acute hospitals, children’s hospitals and psychiatric hospitals
- Home and community care settings, including community-based mental health and addictions
Eligible workers
- Personal support workers including home support workers, home help workers, community support workers, residential support workers, homemakers
- Registered nurses
- Registered practical nurses
- Nurse practitioners
- Attendant care workers
- Auxiliary staff, including:
- porters
- cooks, food service, food preparation
- custodians, cleaning/maintenance and environmental services staff, sterilization and reprocessing staff
- housekeeping
- laundry
- security, screeners
- stores/supply workers, receivers, department attendants
- hospital ward and unit clerks
- client facing reception/administrative workers, schedulers, administrative staff working in home and community care or community-based mental health and addictions
- community drivers
- community recreational staff/activity coordinators
- Developmental services workers
- Mental health and addictions workers: counsellors/therapists, case workers and case managers, intake/admissions, peer workers, residential support staff, Indigenous/cultural service workers
- Respiratory therapists in hospitals and in the home and community care sector
- Paramedics
- Public health and infection prevention and control nurses
Long-term care
Eligible workplaces
- Long-term care homes (including private, municipal and not-for-profit homes)
Eligible workers
- All non-management publicly funded employees and workers in eligible workplaces (full-time, part-time and casual)
Retirement homes
Eligible workplaces
- Licensed retirement homes
Eligible workers
- All non-management employees working on site in licensed retirement homes (full-time, part-time and casual), excluding hours worked to provide extra care services purchased privately
Social services
Eligible workplaces
- Homes supporting people with developmental disabilities
- Intervenor residential sites
- Indigenous healing and wellness facilities and shelters
- Shelters for survivors of gender-based violence and human trafficking
- Youth justice residential facilities
- Licenced children’s residential sites
- Directly operated residential facility – Child and Parent Resource Institute
- Emergency shelters
- Supportive housing facilities
- Respite and drop-in centres
- Temporary shelter facilities, such as re-purposed community centres or arenas
- Hotels and motels used for self-isolation and/or shelter overflow
Eligible workers
- Direct support workers (such as developmental service workers, staff in licenced children’s residential sites, intake and outreach workers)
- Clinical staff
- Housekeeping staff
- Security staff
- Administration personnel
- Maintenance staff
- Food service workers
- Nursing staff
Corrections
Eligible workplaces
- Adult correctional facilities and youth justice facilities in Ontario
Eligible workers
- Correctional officers
- Youth services officers
- Nurses
- Healthcare staff
- Social workers
- Food service
- Maintenance staff
- Programming personnel
- Administration personnel
- Institutional liaison officers
- Native Institutional Liaison Officers
- TRILCOR personnel
- Chaplains
