Ontario nurses getting up to $5,000 incentive pay to stay on the job
The Ontario government is giving eligible nurses a $5,000 payment to help incentivize them to stay on the job.
According to the government, the $763-million investment will help to retain nurses across the health sector and stabilize the current nursing workforce in Ontario.
Eligible full-time nurses will receive a lump sum $5,000 payment, while eligible part-time and casual nurses will receive $5,000 in two installments.
The money will be given to eligible nurses through their employer, the government said.
"Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic nurses have stayed on the front lines with remarkable dedication and selflessness as they care for our sick and most vulnerable Ontarians,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said in a statement Monday. "This investment will support the nurses we currently have so that Ontarians continue to have access to the care they need during the COVID-19 pandemic and into the future."
WHO IS ELIGIBLE?
According to the government, nurses eligible to receive the payment include nurses in hospitals, long-term care and retirement homes, home and community care, primary care, mental health and addictions, emergency services, and corrections, as well as range of other community based and developmental services including youth justice.
Nurses in a management or supervisory role who were redeployed to a direct patient care role during the pandemic will also qualify.
For part-time and casual nurses, to receive the first payment, they must be employed as of March 31, and to receive the second payment nurses must be employed on Sept. 1.
The announcement was immediately slammed by a collection of unions representing 85,000 nurses who labelled it as a "band air pay-as-you-vote gimmick."
"Nurses across the province are angry at once again being thrown crumbs by this government, instead of meaningful solutions to the health staffing crisis," Sharleen Stewart, president of SEIU Healthcare, said.
Nurse and health-care workers have been calling on the government to repeal Bill 124 – the Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act -- which has capped public sector salaries since 2019.
Nursing unions say the $5,000 won't retain and recruit nurses who are looking for "long-term predictability and support."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
LIVE AT 11 ET Trudeau to announce temporary GST relief on select items heading into holidays
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will announce a two-month GST relief on select items heading into holidays to address affordability issues, sources confirm to CTV News.
'Ding-dong-ditch' prank leads to kidnapping, assault charges for Que. couple
A Saint-Sauveur couple was back in court on Wednesday, accused of attacking a teenager over a prank.
Border agency detained dozens of 'forced labour' cargo shipments. Now it's being sued
Canada's border agency says it has detained about 50 shipments of cargo over suspicions they were products of forced labour under rules introduced in 2020 — but only one was eventually determined to be in breach of the ban.
2 boys drowned and a deception that gripped the nation: Why the Susan Smith case is still intensely felt 30 years later
Inside Susan Smith’s car pulled from the bottom of a South Carolina lake in 1994 were the bodies of her two young boys, still strapped in their car seats, along with her wedding dress and photo album. Here's how the case unfolded.
Genetic evidence backs up COVID-19 origin theory that pandemic started in seafood market
A group of researchers say they have more evidence to suggest the COVID-19 pandemic started in a Chinese seafood market where it spread from infected animals to humans. The evidence is laid out in a recent study published in Cell, a scientific journal, nearly five years after the first known COVID-19 outbreak.
International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas officials
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defence minister and Hamas officials, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their 13-month war in Gaza and the October 2023 attack on Israel respectively.
REVIEW 'Gladiator II' review: Come see a man fight a monkey; stay for Denzel's devious villain
CTV film critic Richard Crouse says the follow-up to Best Picture Oscar winner 'Gladiator' is long on spectacle, but short on soul.
Alabama to use nitrogen gas to execute man for 1994 slaying of hitchhiker
An Alabama prisoner convicted of the 1994 murder of a female hitchhiker is slated Thursday to become the third person executed by nitrogen gas.
This is how much money you need to make to buy a house in Canada's largest cities
The average salary needed to buy a home keeps inching down in cities across Canada, according to the latest data.