Putting a former Conservative labour minister in charge of the Workplace Safey and Insurance Board is a lot like letting the fox guard the henhouse, says injured workers advocate Steve Mantis.
Mantis on Friday was joined by about two dozen other protestors outside Minister of Natural Resources Michael Gravelle’s Memorial Avenue constituency office, where he said he’s really concerned with the direction the government is taking toward injured workers.
The nomination of Elizabeth Witmer as WSIB chairwoman is a slap in the face, he said.
“We’re feeling abandoned. We are feeling like they have decided that injured workers and their families are disposable, are dispensable and they just say let’s make sure we are responding to the concerns of their friends in big business,” Mantis said.
“And we’re going to be thrown onto the garbage heap.”
Witmer served as labour minister under then premier Mike Harris, a position she held from 1995 to 1997.
She’s the architect of much of what went wrong with the WSIB in recent year, Mantis said, including the institution of worker and employer self reliance, the contracting out of labour market and rehabilitation services and a 30 per cent reduction in employer payroll contributions.
All have since been scrapped, Mantis said, shocked that the Liberals government chose someone with her track record to head the board.
“All of these have been doomed to failure. They’re now bringing in new policies to try to make the system work better. And here’s Elizabeth Witmer, the person who brought in all these failures, and what does (Premier Dalton) McGuinty do? He rewards her with a plum post,” Mantis said.
“She’s getting $188,000 a year to chair the (WSIB) and gets to collect her MPP’s pension on top of that. So she’s going to be sitting pretty with the money flowing in like crazy and what faith do we have that she’s really going to try to restore the balance of the workers’ compensation system.”
Gravelle, who met with Mantis and other injured workers prior to the sign-filled lunch-hour protest, said he understands the opposition to Witmer, but asked her opponents to give her a chance.
The long-time Liberal MPP said he’s had his differences with Witmer in the past, but believes she deserves the opportunity to prove herself worthy of the post.
“This is an opportunity for her now that she is freed from the partisan reality of the situation to be able to work directly on behalf of not just the employers, but the injured workers,” Gravelle said, promising to ask Witmer, who gave up her legislature seat to take the WSIB job, to come to Thunder Bay and meet directly with her opponents once the appointment is ratified.
Gravelle added he has grave concerns about some of the numbers he was presented with on Friday, including the loss of 200 WSIB personnel, the reduction of long-term benefits by a third and a 31 per cent reduction in permanent impairment awards.
Gravelle promised to look into the numbers, provided by the Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups.
