In 2018 an amendment to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act came into effect, finally providing all injured workers full Consumer Price Index indexation of benefits on an annual basis – including those on partial disability benefits. Without full cost of living protection (automatic increases to match the actual rate of inflation), the purchasing power of benefits drops and injured workers’ poverty rises. However the WSIB’s method of calculating the indexing rate is based on an incorrect interpretation of law and policy : for 2022 the Board has set its indexing rate at 2.7%, far below the 4.7% increase in their wage-loss benefits that injured workers should have received. Following repeated approaches to the Board on its erroneous method of calculation that sees injured workers losing out, in December 2022 ONIWG has launched a court challenge.
Many promises …
When the workers’ compensation system was introduced back in 1915, inflation was not an issue. By the 70’s and 80’s injured workers saw their benefits being swallowed up by inflation. Eventually the government responded, and in passing Bill 81 (1985) – with the consent of all parties – the Minister of Labour promised the right to an annual adjustment that takes into account the effects of inflation:
…The pain, the loss, the disruption and the disorientation caused to a worker and his or her family by a disabling injury is suffering enough. We should never add to this suffering the indignity of having to come cap in hand to the steps of the Legislature angrily demanding merely the protection of compensation benefits from the annual rate of inflation. From this day forward, injured workers will never again be in that humiliating position….” (Hon. W. Wrye)
Subsequent workers’ compensation legislative amendments reduced protection from inflation for partially-disabled workers. Despite the 2003 election promises of the Liberal leader, and recommendations of Harry Arthurs’ “Funding Fairness” report (p. 102), there were only ad hoc adjustments but no real move to full cost-of-living adjustment until the Budget Measures Act of 2015 (Bill 144, Schedule 23). This Act amended the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act (s.49(1)) so that benefits should be adjusted annually on January 1st: “an indexing factor shall be calculated that is equal to the amount of the percentage change in the consumer price index for Canada for all items, for the 12-month period ending on October 31 of the previous year, as published by Statistics Canada.”
- Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups. 2022 May 25. Response to WSIB re cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) | 2022 May 10. Presentation
- Singleton, Antony. 2015 Dec. 2. “Fairness: It’s Coming In 2018! But What About Fixing the Damage Done Before Then?” Just Compensation
- Ontario. Ministry of Labour. 2015 Nov. 20. Bulletin: Ontario Ensuring Fairness for Injured Workers. Toronto: The Ministry
- IWO Fact sheet. 2013. No Minister, The Real Facts about Injured Worker Benefits
- Robert Storey. 2007. No More Cap in Hand: Cost of Living as a Right. Toronto: Bancroft Institute (IWHP bulletin, no. 3)