A New Approach to Regulating Temporary Agency Work in Ontario or Back to the Future?

In 2009, Ontario adopted the Employment Standards Amendment Act (Temporary Help Agencies) partly in response to public concern over temporary agency workers' lack of protection. Analyzing consequent changes to the Employment Standards Act in historical and international context, this article argues that while the Act now contains a section extending protections to temporary agency workers, several of its features take the province back to the future: specifically, its focus on temporary help agencies to the neglect of an overlapping group of private employment agencies and its exclusion of a key occupational group resemble unprincipled omissions and exclusions permitted previously. Limits on workers' politico-legal freedoms sanctioned under the new section also mirror precarious labour market conditions in early 20th century Ontario -- conditions prompting state intervention in the first place.