FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Etobicoke, ON – Personal support worker and president of CUPE 132 Tera Engley is deeply apprehensive about Ontario’s new PSW regulatory body, which impacts 322 workers at her local union at a Durham long-term care home.
The Health and Supportive Care Oversight Authority (HSCPOA) has sparked a lot of anxieties among PSWs due to its arbitrary rules that deny workers the same rights as other regulated health care professionals, particularly as many employers are making employment conditional on enrolment.
These concerns are compounded by HSCPOA’s arbitrary rule that by Dec. 2027, PSWs trained prior to 2014 will be forced to return to school to maintain their regulatory status.
“The biggest concern for my colleagues is the ‘grandfathering’ deadline,” says Engley. “In the past, healthcare aides were grandfathered into roles as PSWs. This was common practice. But now we’re being told that if you were educated before 2014 you don’t know how to do your job? I don’t think that’s true. Despite years of experience, many long-service PSWs will see their livelihoods in jeopardy.”
Protesting these unfair rules, Engley and her fellow workers will be joining a large contingent of CUPE PSWs and other health care workers at a rally outside Doug Ford’s constituency office on Wednesday morning, demanding the government “fix HSCPOA.”
“When this PSW registry was first announced, it was billed as a benefit for PSWs,” says Debra Maxfield, chairperson of CUPE’s health care workers committee. “They said it would be like any other college of professionals, like the Ontario College of Nurses. The reality is far short of that.”
Registering with the authority puts employees at risk of disciplinary actions without due process, including revocation of their licenses at the discretion of the HSCPOA director. CUPE is also concerned about the absence of PSWs on the HSCPOA board arguing that other health care regulatory bodies have worker representation on their board of directors.
“There are no PSWs on the board of the agency that regulates them, unlike every other regulatory body in Ontario,” says Treena Hollingworth, PSW and regional vice-president of the 46,000-member Ontario Council of Hospital Unions-CUPE (OCHU). “Workers won’t have the full due process rights given to every other profession. This is a slap in the face.”
And while registration is currently free, workers are concerned that it won’t stay this way. Without representation on the board, PSWs will have no say in determining the rate.
“Most PSWs in Ontario are women and many are racialized, and this is the one group the Ford government has singled out for discriminatory treatment in regulation?” said Michael Hurley, president of OCHU. “PSWs are already facing multiple barriers – high levels of stress and injury on the job, with some of the lowest wages and benefits in the sector. They deserve the same rights and protections as other health care workers. And we won’t stop fighting until we achieve that.”
CUPE is asking Ontario residents to send letters to their MPPs to demand the government fix the registry.
The rally at Doug Ford’s office will begin at 10:30 a.m. on July 8. Media spokespersons will be available for comment.
Who: PSWs represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees
What: Respect PSWs: Fix HSCPOA Rally
Where: Doug Ford’s Constituency Office, 823 Albion Rd, Etobicoke, ON
When: Wednesday July 8, 2026 at 10:30 a.m.
For more information, please contact:
Zee Noorsumar
CUPE Communications
647-995-9859
znoorsumar@cupe.ca
Hayley Rivier-Gatt
CUPE Communications
613-986-3279
hrivier-gatt@cupe.ca
