One example of the Workers Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) egregious behaviour: J. v. Goliath (WSIB)

The video is 18 minutes long, and worth the watch to the end.  Workers in Ontario are having their rights trampled on by a system that has no accountability.  Disabled injured workers with brain injuries are deemed into jobs that they are unable to do and might not even exist.  

The legislation is un-penetrable, and the WSIB process is clearly designed to discourage claimants, and many people (with decent spousal income) just give up. This is unconscionable. Legally there is no way to get restitution, other than waiting in the queue for an appeal, with no funds, and no support.

The workers’ compensation system in Ontario is in embarrassingly dire straits.  Based on the 'Meredith Principles' tabled at the Ontario Legislature in 1911, the system was originally designed to provide fair and humane compensation for work-related injury while balancing worker, employer and the public interests.  The experience of J - https://youtu.be/2MfGAJ5O6Ns - and the experience of many other injured workers in Ontario (https://injuredworkersonline.org/issue/ clearly illustrate that the system has since degraded over the years and has become more difficult for injured workers with complex injuries.

Petition Text: 

Resulting from Meredith's principles, a public, non-partisan, agency was formed under which compensation was meant to be 'no fault,' non-adversarial, and offer compensation for as long as a disability lasts.  The 2019-21 strategic plan of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) states that its values consist of compassion, integrity, helpfulness, and trustworthiness (https://www.wsib.ca/en/strategic-plan-2019-2021  Similarly, the Ontario government, on its website, states: "Workplace insurance is a 'no-fault' system based on collective employer liability. This means workers can get workplace safety and insurance benefits without proving that their employer was to blame for their injury or disease. They must only prove that the injury or disease was work-related." (https://www.ontario.ca/page/workplace-safety-and-insurance-board-operational-review#section-0 Clearly, both Ontario and WSIB present the workers compensation system to the public as being benevolent and helpful to injured workers. 

Today, for workers with complex injuries, this is not the case.  According to Injured Workers Online, a site maintained by Injured Workers Community Legal Clinics, rather than receiving support for recovery and return to meaningful work, injured workers, especially those with a life-long, permanent disability, are met with a “look to deny” mentality which leaves them facing alone the financial and health impacts of their occupational injury or disease (https://injuredworkersonline.org/ 

New Democratic Party MPP, Jill Andrew, in the video above, states that the current system is "just not good enough."  It is obvious that J, the worker in this video, has not been treated with any of WSIB's purported compassion, integrity, helpfulness, or trustworthiness.  Most alarmingly, as J says in the video, she is not the only injured worker in Ontario being poorly affected by the practices of this agency.

It is embarrassing to see, in this Toronto Star article - https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2019/09/04/ontario-injured-worker-advocates-take-discrimination-concerns-to-united-nations.html - that injured workers have resorted to appearing before the United Nations because of WSIB's practice of "deeming."  According to the Toronto Star, the process of deeming: "…allows compensation boards to reduce benefits by declaring them employable in a new job whether or not the job actually exists. Studies show that in reality, workers with permanent injuries are often discriminated against in the job market and struggle to find work."  The article also points out that "…close to half of permanently injured workers have neither jobs nor workers compensation benefits."  It is disturbing that Canada's international reputation as a good place to live is being thrown into question by the actions of Ontario and WSIB. This piece by the Injured Workers History Project (https://injuredworkersonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/IWHP5_Back_to_the_Future.pdf outlines a brief history of deeming.  It is important to note that, in 1986, both Bob Rae, then leader of the provincial NDP, and Liberal MPP Steve Mahoney, attested to the harmfulness of deeming.  Clearly, ending deeming is not a partisan issue, with more than one political party acknowledging its harmfulness.

Between 1990 and 1998, workers with a permanent disability were afforded a benefit to offset "future economic loss” (FEL) (http://www.owa.gov.on.ca/en/benefits/Pages/Future-Economic-Loss-Awards.aspx This FEL was 90% of the difference between what WSIB believed a worker could earn and what they were earning pre-injury.  When deciding the amount, WSIB also considered: personal and vocational characteristics, chances of success returning to work, as well as the availability of suitable work. Some injured workers were also given the option to receive disability benefits as a lump sum through the process of commutation (https://www.wsib.ca/en/operational-policy-manual/lump-sum-commutations  Lump sum payments are known in the rehabilitation community to have multiple benefits for injured parties, including the ability to re-focus on healing, terminating a potentially toxic relationship with WSIB, increased understanding of medical and employment status, as well as offering some closure and a sense of being supported (https://fishmanlawyers.ca/the-benefits-of-settling-an-ltd-claim/

In 1998, workers compensation in Ontario changed to the detriment of injured workers.  FEL awards were replaced by Loss of Earnings (LOE) benefits, Full LOE benefits are based on 85% of a workers net average earnings before their injury.  Some workers also receive a Non-Economic Loss (NEL) award.  NEL, according to the WSIB, compensates workers based on the degree of their permanent impairment meant to recognize the permanent effect of a workplace injury on an injured worker's life outside of work. It is based on the degree of permanent disability (http://www.owa.gov.on.ca/en/benefits/Pages/default.aspx  J. v. Goliath illustrates that the NEL determination is flawed, because administrators who never see the worker can assign unfair degrees of disability that disregard the assessments of medical professionals who actually see and medically evaluate the worker.  The idea that future earning potential is not factored into compensation for injured workers is both wrong and unfair.

It is also unconscionable that the compensation of injured workers is below what they were paid while working in the first place, and even more so that it was further reduced by in 1998.  As being injured and/or disabled naturally results in increased costs,  the removal of any consideration of future earnings has made life harder for injured workers.  Reducing the income of people who are suddenly faced with increased costs is neither helpful, nor fair.

Another issue is that the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act discriminates against older workers, as most benefits and support end when the injured worker reaches age 65 (https://www.canlii.org/en/on/laws/stat/so-1997-c-16-sch-a/latest/so-1997-c-16-sch-a.html  In Ontario, as of December 12, 2006, the Ontario Human Rights Code protects all persons aged 18 and over against discrimination in employment on the basis of their age (https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/end-mandatory-retirement-fact-sheet Injured workers should not be treated by the WSIB as though this human rights protection does not exist.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in his December 2021 mandate letter to Carla Qualtrough, Canada's Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, writes: "[Canada's lawmakers] must continue to address the profound systemic inequities and disparities that remain present in the core fabric of our society, including our core institutions."  Even though federal and provincial laws differ, as a lawmaker living in Canada, it is your responsibility to ensure that the systemic inequalities in the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, outlined above, are corrected, and to ensure that the vulnerable among us are treated fairly and equitably.  

Furthermore, in October 2021, Premier of Ontario Doug Ford began presenting his party as one that is on the side of workers (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-ontario-election-pc-party-workers-1.6214896  Ontario's Minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development, Monte McNaughton, in the same article, voiced concern for: "workers in Ontario being taken advantage of by some bad actors and bad corporations.”  A critical examination of WSIB's policies makes it seem like the agency is also a "bad actor."  If the premier is to be taken at his word, support for workers must include a redesign of workers’ compensation to ensure Ontario's workers are treated fairly.

We, the undersigned, ask that you advocate for injured workers and fight for a redesign of WSIB.  This redesign should end the harmful practice of 'deeming,' ensure that medical professionals are believed, provide livable compensation, recognize the increased cost of disability, and acknowledge future earning potential.  We also call for an end to the discriminatory practices taken with respect  to older injured workers older than 65.  Benefits should be indexed to inflation, with a restored option for commutation, preserving the ability of injured workers to heal, and to find meaningful ways to contribute.  These actions would contribute to Ontario being a more livable and prosperous province, while recognizing the original intentions of workers’ compensation. Not only would this benefit Ontario's economy by providing more jobs, it would honour and value the contributions of Ontario workers, ensuring all workers are treated with compassion, integrity, helpfulness, and trustworthiness.