Recent documents are in both PDF and html formats but all may be available in alternate formats on request.
Submission re Proposed changes to the Appeals program
Lawyer, with over 36 years’ experience representing injured workers, provides historical context for Ontario’s appeal system and, noting the backlog is a crisis of the Board’s own making, delivers a strong critique of proposed changes. In particular, letter addresses the use of downside risk and potential review of uncontested prior decisions as a scare tactic […]
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Presentations to Agency review: Workplace Safety and Insurance Board
Transcript of presentations by legal advocates and injured workers to the Standing Committee on Government Agencies which address changes to workers’ compensation policies and practices that attack fairness. These include increased claims denial, appeals process, cost-cutting on the backs of workers, deeming, KPMG report, experience rating. Discusses also Arthurs’ Funding Review recommendations.
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Re Ignoring Professor Arthurs’ quest for fairness for the injured
In open letter to the premier, ONIWG responds to the recently announced 2013/2014 cost of living adjustments of 0.5% which, being below the expected inflation rate, means a real reduction in benefits. This runs counter to Arthurs’ recommendation of full COLA.
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Submission re: KPMG Value for Money Audit (on claims adjudication and administration)
Clinics’ Network critiques the KPMG report for providing a flawed analysis, exceeding the mandate of an independent value for money audit and making policy recommendations based on their misunderstanding of Ontario workers’ compensation law and legal principles. It calls on the Premier to stop WSIB implementing from its recommendations before there have been public consultations […]
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Re: Why the KPMG report on adjudication is so upsetting
Clinic details objections to a poorly-researched paper by the external consulting company that advocates disbanding the key tenets of Ontario’s workers compensation system.
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Additional submission to Professor Harry Arthurs regarding indexation of benefits
In applauding the provisional report’s statement that the restoration of full indexing is a matter of urgency and fundamental fairness, the organizations call for ongoing improvements to catch-up indexing and restitution of past losses through a corrective Friedland formula for annual adjustments.
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KPMG Report on WSIB Adjudication: concerns about injured workers paying for WSIB unfunded liability
Letter to the Premier, in light of KPMG recommendations which seem aimed at transferring the cost off employers, reminds him of promise not to deal with unfunded liability on the backs of injured workers.
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Commentary on the WSIB Framework for Policy Development and Renewal
IWC urges the Board to shape its policy also on the concept from the original purpose of Meredith’s workers’ compensation legislation: that it is remedial legislation. Legal clinic expresses concern at the process for policy development, evaluation and approval, and the emphasis placed on an undefined “financial responsibility” (cost cutting at injured workers’ expense?). Paper […]
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Letter re Workers’ compensation platforms
Letter (Nov. 2, 2010) to leaders of Ontario’s provincial parties, outlining changes and problems with funding and benefit levels in the workers’ compensation system and requesting publication of their policies; addresses deeming, inflation, Serious Injuries Program. Follow-up letter (Aug. 31, 2011) alerts them to the real significance of an innocuous-seeming change included in the Work […]
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Supplementary submission to the WSIB Funding Review
Response to the Marshall submissions, including the Nexus paper and Eckler models on funding levels. Through its emphasis on full pre‐funding of the system and claims cost based rate‐setting, the Marshall scheme threatens to undermine the goals of workers’ compensation as a public social insurance system with fair compensation and meaningful vocational rehabilitation.
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