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Ontario’s Pay Equity Act

with Selected Case References, 2022

Disclaimer: This Guide gives an overview of the minimum requirements of the Pay Equity Act as interpreted by the Pay Equity Office. The interpretations are drawn from our own experiences and by applying the key rulings of the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal and the courts and is current to the date ​of publication.

Contents

(2) The plan must do the following:

  1. Identify the establishment to which the plan
  2. Identify the key female job classes of the seeking
  3. Identify the proxy employer and the proxy
  4. Identify the female job classes in the proxy establishment with which the key female job classes of the seeking employer were compared and set out their pay equity job rates.
  5. Identify the female job classes in the seeking employer that are not key female job classes and that were compared with the key female job classes.
  6. Describe the gender-neutral comparison system used for the purpose of making the comparisons.
  7. Describe the methodology used for the calculations required by the
  8. Set out the value of the work performed in each job class that was compared with another job class.
  9. Set out the results of the
  10. Identify all positions that are excluded in determining whether a job class is a female job class or a male job class and that are not to be included in any compensation adjustments under the plan by virtue of subsection 8(3), and set out the reasons for relying on that subsection.
  11. With respect to all female job classes for which pay equity does not exist according to the comparisons, indicate how the compensation in those job classes will be adjusted to achieve pay equity.
  12. Set out the date on which the first adjustments in compensation will be made under the plan, which date shall be not later than one year after this section comes into force.

Helping Hands Daycare (No. 2) (unreported, October 11, 2006, P.E.H.T., File No. 2387-05) — The issue was whether the Applicant used the proxy method of comparison to compose the required pay equity plan and whether the plan meets the requirements in section 21.18(2). The Tribunal held that employers must sequentially follow every step under section 21.18(2) in order to prepare and post a plan. The Tribunal also found that in order to properly determine job rate for the proxy female job class, the Employer needs to develop a gender-neutral comparison system.

Royal Crest Lifecare Group v. Warner, 2002 CanLII 49458 (ON PEHT) 2002- 11-18 — The Tribunal found that the Employer carried out a pay equity plan in good faith but did so without adhering to the Act. The Tribunal ruled that the Employer cannot independently create a compensation system and label it a pay equity plan. The Employer must follow the precise methodologies prescribed in the sections 21.11 – 21.23 of the Act when posting a plan.

Maitland Manor Health Care Centre v. Mattuci, 2015 CanLII 67576 (ON PEHT) 2015-10-19 — The Review Officer issued an Order fourteen years after the Applicant’s non-union proxy pay equity plan was posted, concluding that the plan failed to comply with the Act. The Tribunal held that notwithstanding the precise requirements of the proxy methodology, where a pay equity plan has been posted in accordance with the Act, without timely comments or objections, it becomes a deemed approved pay equity plan in accordance with the Act despite defects in the plan.

Ontario Nurses’ Association v. Participating Nursing Homes, 2016 CanLII 2675 (ON PEHT) 2016-01-21 – The Tribunal found that pay equity under a proxy plan must be maintained but this maintenance does not require on-going comparisons with the external proxy employer. The Tribunal found that this would be inconsistent with the principle of the Act. Instead, maintenance requires the monitoring of the compensation and value relationship of the non-key female job classes and key female job classes as compared to the compensation/value relationship that has already been determined for the initial pay equity plan.

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