WSIB continues to gather public input on solving financial issues

Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board wants public input on how it can solve its future financial issues, says the chair of the review panel.

The WSIB panel held its public session at the Valhalla Inn on Wednesday. The panel heard from individuals and companies who offered their suggestions on how the WSIB could avoid financial issues. A report released in 2009 showed WSIB was under funded by $11.7 billion.

Harry Arthurs, chair of the WSIB Funding Review, said that’s the reason why they need to figure out a better system to avoid that kind of problem in the future. But there are different opinions on what caused the problem from the economic crisis in 2009 to the government holding down employer premiums.

Whatever the cause was, he said he want the public’s input.

"I think it is going to be a long haul and I think there’s a complicated series of moves that need to be made," Arthurs said. "If there was one clever move to make someone would have thought of it by now. Part of what I’m hearing are ideas on how we can nibble away at this thing and put it into a better position vis-à-vis the workers.

"I didn’t come into this with any preconceived ideas. I’m listening, I’m learning and I’m asking the kind of questions only an idiot from outside the system would ask."

Steve Mantis, treasurer of Thunder Bay and District Injured Workers Support Group, presented his ideas to Arthurs. He felt that Arthurs as an individual was open to his suggestions but his mandate would prevent him from acting upon his suggestions, he said.
"He’s been told to look at the money," Mantis said. "If all you look at it money, all we’ll do is fight over who gets it and who doesn’t. But if we start looking at people, if we look at how we can help people the system is set up for, we will have whole different outcomes."

Mantis suggested WSIB adopt a system similar to the Canadian Pension plan that covers all employees regardless of claims filed. He said employers encourage workers injured on the job not to file a claim because then the employer can receive a kickback.

He said he wanted to eliminate the financial incentive.

"There’s real problems with the system but it isn’t about the level of funding," said Mantis. "We’re recommending a system similar to the Canadian Pension plan. They call that steady state funding. Their philosophy is that we need to have some money in reserve but we need to balance coming in and money going out in any particular year in the reserve. That’s what they’re designed to do."

With the present system, workers have to battle their employer to ensure that they are properly compensated but that process usually leaves them in an even worse state with the public system picking up the pieces, he said.

"We’re left with a whole group of people, 400,000 workers in Ontario have a permanent disability because of work. The majority of those are unemployed and living in poverty. The system isn’t working right. With that same money we can do the job right and benefit everybody."