Here's a previous post made on LinkedIn to explain generally explain part of the history behind this petition: 

 

💡 Dietitians in Ontario are being paid within a system designed over 40 years ago—and it shows.

If you want to understand why compensation hasn’t kept up with scope… you have to look at history.  

🏥 Where hospital pay grids came from

In 1981, Ontario introduced centralized hospital bargaining, creating province-wide collective agreements—starting with nursing through the Ontario Nurses’ Association.

This was a major shift:

➡️ Hospitals moved from setting their own wages

➡️ To standardized pay grids (salary bands + step increases) across the province

These grids tied pay to:

• Job classification

• Years of service

—not evolving clinical scope

And those same structures still exist today.  

Modern hospital compensation is still based on:

✔️ Step grids (e.g., Year 0 → Year 8+)

✔️ Across-the-board % increases applied to all roles

✔️ Grouped classifications within bargaining units

Not individual REASSESSMENT of scope or responsibility.

 

Here’s where the system breaks down:

When these grids were created, dietitians were largely seen as:

• Food service leaders

• Educators

• Support roles

 

But today? Dietitians:

✔️ Provide Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT)

✔️ Manage complex chronic diseases (diabetes, cardiovascular, GI)

✔️ Work alongside physicians and Registered Nurses

✔️ Often hold Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) credentials

✔️ Can independently authorize nutrition-related medical supports (e.g., ODSP Special Diet Allowance)

 

Now compare that to nursing:

Nursing followed a different trajectory within the same system:

✔️ Expanded scope (e.g., advanced practice, prescribing in some roles)

✔️ Strong role differentiation (RPN → RN → NP)

✔️ Significant advocacy and visibility

✔️ Result: clear wage stratification and higher compensation ceilings

 

Even within the same grid-based system, nursing roles have been:

👉 Reclassified

👉 Differentiated

👉 Elevated over time

 

Dietitians? Not so much. Instead:

➡️ Dietitians remain grouped within “allied health” 

➡️ Often sharing grids with a wide range of professions without similar years of current education requirement 

➡️ With limited reclassification despite major scope expansion & regulatory standards (national credentialing exams)

 

And because of how the system works, changing this requires:

• Full collective bargaining renegotiation

• Reclassification across entire bargaining units

• System-wide agreement—not just evidence of expanded scope

 

We now have:

➡️ A modern clinical profession

➡️ Operating inside a 1980s compensation framework

Where:

• Scope has evolved dramatically

• Responsibility has increased

• System reliance is growing

…but valuation hasn’t kept pace

 

We need not just raises—but system-level change 

👉 Reclassification of roles

👉 Recognition of clinical scope

👉 Compensation models that reflect what dietitians actually do today

 

 Because when compensation systems don’t evolve we don’t just undervalue dietitians 👉We undervalue nutrition as a core part of healthcare.

 

Please share this petition to support Dietitians