NDP leader Andrea Horwath is calling on Premier Doug Ford to implement paid sick days for everyone before parents start sending their children back to school.
In a press conference Thursday morning, Horwath said the current back-to-school plan requires students who have any symptoms to stay at home in efforts to stop any community spread of the virus.
“If a child wakes up with a fever and a cough, but mom and dad don’t have any paid sick days to use, what are they expected to do?” said Horwath.
“How can we ask parents to keep their little ones home if they don’t feel 100 per cent, when Ford is choosing not to give them the tools they need to stay home?”
ETFO President Sam Hammond was also at the press conference and spoke about how important he believes paid-sick leave is.
“Along with many parents, migrant workers and others, we have educators including occasional teachers and casual education workers who have no access to paid sick leave,” said Hammond.
“They are also among the lowest paid educators in the public education system. We can’t expect them to go into schools without recourse to paid sick leave should they contract COVID-19.”
Horwath also spoke about her disappointment in the Ford government’s back-to-school plan, which she says will result crammed classrooms that do not allow physical distancing.
Ford has defended the plan, and argued that the NDP and the teachers’ unions are just playing politics.
