Ontario to set $500K minimum fine for repeat, serious health and safety violations

Ontario is planning to create a mandatory minimum fine of $500,000 for employers repeatedly convicted of fatal and other serious health and safety violations.

Labour Minister David Piccini is tabling an omnibus bill today that expands cancer coverage for firefighters, introduces a job-protected leave for people who become parents through adoption or surrogacy, and requires drivers to move over for construction vehicles.

Piccini says the legislation also includes what he calls the toughest mandatory minimum fines in Canada for health and safety violations.

He says employers who are convicted of more than one violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act that resulted in the serious injury or death of a worker within a two-year period, they would have to pay at least $500,000.

He says a fatality cannot be the cost of doing business.

The bill also aims to crack down on immigration fraud.

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press