Ministry of Labour (Ontario)

Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development
Ministère du Travail (French)
Ministry overview
Formed	1919
Jurisdiction	Government of Ontario
Headquarters	400 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Ministers responsible	David Piccini, Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development; Deepak Anand, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development;
Website	www.labour.gov.on.ca

The Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development is responsible for labour issues in the Canadian province of Ontario.

The Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development and its agencies are responsible for employment equity and rights, occupational health and safety, labour relations, and supporting apprenticeships, the skilled trades, and industry training. The ministry's three program responsibilities are delivered from a head office in Toronto and 19 offices organized around four regions, centred in Ottawa, Hamilton, Sudbury and Toronto. As well, the ministry oversees the work of eight specialized agencies.

The current minister of labour, immigration, training and skills development is David Piccini.

History

The Province entered the field in 1882 with the creation of the Bureau of Industries, which was attached to the Department of the Commissioner of Agriculture.^[1] In 1900, it was transferred to the Department of the Commissioner of Public Works and renamed as the Bureau of Labour,^[2] which subsequently became the Trades and Labour Branch in 1916.^[3]

In 1919, the Conservative government of William Howard Hearst secured passage of an Act to raise the Branch into a Cabinet-level department to be known as the Department of Labour.^[4] Finlay MacDiarmid, the Minister of Public Works, was appointed the first Minister of Labour as well, but the first full-time minister was Walter Rollo of the Independent Labour Party in the government of E.C. Drury that took office after the Conservative defeat in the 1919 general election.

In 1972, as part of a general reorganization of departments initiated by the government of Bill Davis, the department was renamed the Ministry of Labour.^[5]

In 2019, the Ministry of Labour changed its name to Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development to reflect its expanding mandate of training, apprenticeships and Employment Ontario.^[6]^[7]

Following the 2022 provincial election, the ministry was renamed to Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development.^[8]