(Queen’s Park) – Randy Hillier, PC Party Critic for Labour, decried the actions of the McGuinty government in cancelling vacation pay for summer students employed by the provincial government.
“Every other employer in the province must pay their employees 4% of their wages in lieu of vacation time,” said Hillier. “This year, the McGuinty government sent a letter to summer students saying that they would no longer adhere to that particular law.”
Students were hired under the assumption that, as in past years, they would be given an 8.16% automatic wage compensation because they are not allocated any vacation time, in keeping with the Ontario Labour Act. In an arbitrary break of contract, they received notice later that the Provincial government was not subject to the labour legislation, and that they would not be compensated.
“The McGuinty Government is certainly breaking the spirit of the law,” stated Hillier. “They’re ignoring their own legislation, bending over backwards to steal $200 dollars out of summer students’ pockets. They’re pilfering the future to cover the debts of the present.”
“Summer students got their first taste of this government’s corrupt practices,” said Hillier. “While Mr. McGuinty demands that all employers compensate their workers, he does not believe that those principles apply to him.”
“If Mr. McGuinty thinks that stealing summer students’ vacation pay to cover his own fiscal mismanagement and budget shortfalls is the way to run this province, he is truly mistaken,” concluded Hillier. “He has a duty to honour contracts and respect the law.”
Randy Hillier, MPP Lanark Frontenac Lennox, is a co-founder of the Lanark Landowners Association, which was brought to life to address government imposition on the rights of private property owners, and to address the regressive regulatory impositions that government was bringing down upon farmers and business owners in rural Ontario.
In 2006, Randy resigned as President of the OLA in order to run as a candidate for the Progressive Conservatives. Randy was elected in the 2007 provincial election.
Randy a long-time resident of Lanark County, an electrician by trade and member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), continues to co-publish and edit rural Ontario’s successful magazine “The Landowner.”
