Injured workers' advocates push to replace Workplace Safety and Insurance Act

Injured workers' advocates in northwestern Ontario are hoping to see new legislation they've developed become provincial law.

The Thunder Bay and District Injured Workers Support Group (TBDIWSG) introduced its Meredith Act at a media event in Thunder Bay on Monday.

The document is intended to replace the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act.

Steve Mantis, TBDIWSG treasurer, said the Meredith Act would address what the group said are problems with the current provincial legislation in a number of ways.

"Number one is to move back to a collective liability to make the system similar to OHIP, where there are flat rates that ... corporations pay regardless of their accident frequency rate, Mantis said. "The second is that compensation is available as long as the disability lasts."

"Right now there's a number of ways that compensation is reduced, even though people are continued to be disabled and unemployed."

"Number three is the role of the treating physician becomes a higher priority," he said. "Now, the treating physician who knows the individual best, oftentimes their opinion is disregarded and their advice is overruled by the people that are doing the paperwork at the WSIB (Workplace Safety and Insurance Board)."

The Meredith Act would also allow better tracking of injured workers' cases, "particularly workers with a permanent impairment, over their life course, to see how does it work in terms of improving their lives," Mantis said.

Jules Tupker, TBDIWSG secretary, said one of the big challenges is a lack of awareness of the struggles injured workers face in Ontario.

"When I talk to workers that aren't injured about the struggles that injured workers are going through, they look at me and they say, 'I don't know anything about that,'" Tupker said. "Or the story is, 'well, I cut my finger and I was in compensation for a week or two weeks, and it was great.'"

"But what we're talking about is workers that have got a permanent injury, a permanent disability, a permanent illness caused by chemicals," he said. "We're not talking 50 people or 100 people or 1,000 people. We're talking tens of thousands of people a year in Ontario."

Mantis said the outcome of the provincial election will play a big part in what happens next with the Meredith Act.

"We work with all the political parties," he said. "We're going to continue regardless of who's in government and who's in opposition, to move forward to both put these issues into the public discourse and then put these issues into the legislative assembly."

The entire Meredith Act document can be read on the group's website.