Pay transparency rules for job postings

Summary#

Bill 24, the Pay Transparency Act, would create a new law; it does not amend an existing Act. Its stated goal is to reduce systemic wage disparities and promote fairer compensation practices. This is first-reading text, so it is not law; no amended version is included in the supplied material.

  • Employers would have to include an expected wage or wage range in new public and internal job postings, and could not generally ask applicants about or rely on their compensation history.
  • Employers with an average of at least 50 employees would have to prepare annual pay transparency reports. The reports would be filed with the existing Bureau under the Pay Equity Act, 2009, and made accessible to the public.
  • Reporting employers would have to make reasonable efforts to collect prescribed employee information, while telling employees that sharing it is voluntary.
  • Employers could not penalize employees for discussing compensation or exercising rights under the Act, or make employees sign agreements restricting compensation discussions.
  • The Minister would administer the Act and could appoint inspectors. Inspectors could examine records and premises, subject to limits on entering private dwellings. The bill also creates orders, administrative penalties and offences for some non-compliance.

What it means for you#

  • Job applicants: Employers would have to post an expected wage or wage range for new publicly advertised and internal jobs. They generally could not ask about your compensation history or rely on it if you volunteer it. The exception is information that is publicly accessible.
  • Employees: You could discuss compensation and exercise rights under the Act without your employer penalizing or threatening to penalize you. You could choose whether to provide prescribed information for an employer’s report.
  • Employers: The posting and compensation-history rules apply to employers generally. Annual reporting duties apply to employers averaging 50 or more employees; filing dates would differ by employer size and whether the employer is covered by the Public Service Labour Relations Act.
  • The public: Employer reports would have to be made publicly accessible. The Bureau would publish aggregated information, including compensation differences among equity groups and trends.
  • Workers and employers generally: The bill does not itself set wages, require a particular pay increase, or create a process for employees to apply for a pay review.

Money#

No cost estimate or fiscal note is included in the supplied materials.

  • The Minister, Bureau and inspectors would have duties or powers under the Act, but no staffing level or public cost is specified.
  • Reporting employers would have to collect information, prepare and file reports, publish or otherwise provide access to them, and keep copies for at least five years. The materials do not estimate those costs.
  • Regulations could set administrative penalty amounts and fees for appeals. The bill does not state the amounts.

What is unclear#

  • Regulations must set important details, including report contents and calculations, the employee information to collect, and how it must be collected.
  • The bill does not set a start date for the provisions it lists as coming into force by proclamation. It also does not give a start date for the other provisions.
  • The bill leaves administrative penalty amounts, offence categories, review and appeal procedures, and appeal fees to regulations. Those regulations are not included.
  • The bill does not specify how the Bureau will protect reported information while publishing group-level differences, or how it will handle small groups or data that could identify individuals.
  • No amendment materials were supplied, so changes from the first-reading text cannot be verified.

Case for#

  • The bill appears intended to make pay information more visible to applicants and the public, and to limit the use of past pay in setting compensation.
  • Public reports could make compensation differences among named equity groups easier to identify and track over time.
  • Protecting compensation discussions could help employees share information without fear of employer retaliation.
  • Voluntary employee disclosures and confidentiality rules could support reporting while limiting the release of identifiable personal information.

Case against#

  • Much of the reporting system depends on future regulations. Until those rules are set, employers and employees cannot know exactly what information will be collected or reported.
  • The bill creates reporting and record-keeping duties but provides no cost estimate, staffing plan or detailed reporting process.
  • The bill authorizes inspections, orders and penalties, but key penalty amounts and review and appeal procedures are left to regulations.
  • It is unclear how useful public comparisons will be if the regulations do not explain how differences are calculated or how small groups’ privacy is protected.