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Later, this collection of criminals discovered “someone” had made a mistake and sent the letter of denial in error and, in an effort to erase their guilt pangs, awarded his wife and child a cheque that amounted to little more than funeral expenses.

The outcome of this injured worker’s case is not an isolated incident. Those other injured workers who have been treated like this man …and, eventually, take their own lives as a result, don’t make it into the statistical results. They are simply “suicides” and there is no mention of the underlying reasons that drove these people to commit this most disturbing final act. The system gets away free from being held responsible for destroying the lives of those unfortunates who depended on WCB to help them get their lives back together after their workplace injury.

Beyond the obvious, there are hidden costs that, I’m sure, have never been taken into account by the politicians … because they simply download those costs to the overburdened taxpayer. Employers pay thousands of dollars into the WCB for the “insurance” it supposedly is providing to workers with the potential of becoming injured in the workplace. The WCB, as it is presently constituted was sold to employers as a method whereby they could be exempted from becoming sued for negligence by any injured worker. Provincial governments legitimized that arrangement by making it a law.

The burden was shifted to the poor taxpayer in this manner: 1. The injured worker does not receive immediate benefits from WCB … so; their accounts can earn interest while an injured worker’s case is adjudicated by WCB. (2) You have an injured worker, with a family perhaps, who has no income from employment, writing on the WCB to decide if they will pay benefits … and in what monetary amount.

This is where the WCB simply downloads its responsibility to provide for the injured worker onto the municipal or provincial welfare agencies that is taxpayer supported.
The employer is relieved of his responsibility to his employee by virtue of his premium payment to WCB. Meanwhile, WCB, because it has downloaded the problem of the injured worker to be covered by the regular social net, can take its time in deciding whether (and how much) of a benefit it intends to pay, if any. There is no law and no incentive to settle injured worker claims in a forthright and timely manner.

Injured workers in Canada, it appears, are just as expendable and non deserving as those injured and maimed Chinese workers whose stories were aired, not long ago in a CBC documentary. Yet, our politicians have the audacity to quote, whenever possible ( like mindless robots) how we ( commoners) are so very fortunate to be living in a “democracy” that doesn’t allow people to become just another “throwaway” like some other countries.
Once again, people are being sold a bill of goods that denies the facts and hides the realities and indignities injured workers must endure every day in their efforts to get a fair shake from the WCB and the Departments of Labour across this country.

Political leaders had better start exercising some authority over the various departments that deal with injured and impaired workers. To continue with what they have been doing (nothing or very little) is to continue the status quo at their peril.