CHAPTER 14:

PUTTING FOXES IN THE WSIB HENHOUSE

Ontario is reviewing it’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board to see how it’s efficiency compares to private insurance. They talk about “fairness and efficiency”. The last time they talked that way thousands of parents with children who had autism were targetted to lose their benefits.

Many are worried that this could happen to WSIB and to the thousands of workers who get injured on the job in Ontario every year. They might have some cause for concern since one of the first moves by the Ford government was to cut employer’s premiums by 30 percent. Since all worker claims are paid out of this pot, that meant 30 percent less money to go around for everybody who got hurt at work.

Secondly, the review is being led by Linda Regner Dykeman who is head of MidCorp Canada, which is a division of the mammoth insurance and asset management firm Allianz. And by Sean Speer whose claim to fame is that he once served as a senior economic adviser to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. No one, with even the faintest memory of recent times, could pretend that our former PM was a friend to workers or working people.

The insurance industry is licking their chops and big business in Ontario is salivating at the very real possibility of WSIB being dismantled or privatized by Doug Ford as another favour to his friends.

Does the WSIB need to be reformed and changed to more responsive to the needs of the people of Ontario? Absolutely.

Do we believe that Doug Ford’s government will do that? Absolutely not.

Guess the workers of Ontario are not real people either.

Stand Up. Fight Back. Don’t Give Up.

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