Disabled Workers in Canada Seek Section 7 Charter Protection

BC Workers Compensation Needs an Overhaul.
Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
Lee Harding.
October, 30th, 2020

"The Fair Practices Office for WorkSafeBC receives 2,000 complaints each year. Retired labor lawyer Janet Patterson has shown the crown corporation how to lower that number significantly. After extensive consultations, she submitted her report in October 2019 with 102 recommendations and 517 pages. It took the province ten months to make the report public and one can only hope it moves more quickly to implement changes."

2). "Patterson says the review process works well for workers with simple injuries and a predicted path of recovery. But others “tended to have very negative compensation experiences and outcomes. This was particularly the experience of workers with serious or complex injuries, concussions, psychological injuries or occupational diseases. Such cases often had poor or no investigations, disregarded medical evidence or little communication with the worker before a decision was made.”

Even worse, “many individuals, workers and employers, stated . . . that the Board did not investigate or consider their evidence in decision-making.” Nor was there effective recourse. Patterson says, “The courts have commented that the system was ‘unwieldy, inefficient and cumbersome’, creating a ‘treadmill’ of appeals and doing little to advance a worker’s access to justice.”

3). "Many workers believed some incentive system existed to make case managers refuse to give them benefits. Patterson found that such incentives once existed, but they ended for unionized staff in 2013 and “for most management staff and executives by 2014.” Thereafter, ten percent of the VPs and CEO’s salary was held back if 9 corporate Key Performance Indicators (KPI) weren’t met. That wasn’t stopped until October 1, 2018. Yet, as the following paragraphs demonstrate management still puts undue pressure on case managers to meet arbitrary performance goals."

https://fcpp.org/2020/10/30/bc-workers-compensation-needs-an-overhaul/

“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”

― Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome

December 20th, 2020,
Update.
DMG

"How Workers' Comp Fanned the Flames of the Opioid Crisis."
Kathy Tomlinson: The Globe and Mail.
July 18th, 2020.

"Hardy Leighton was 31 when he died from an opioid overdose in North Vancouver in 2015. Five years earlier, he’d seriously hurt his neck working as a carpenter on a construction site. He began taking narcotic painkillers to cope with the pain. Then addiction took over.

That day in 2015, Hardy and his wife took a mix of prescription and street drugs, including fentanyl. Both died. Their toddler son, who was visiting with grandparents, was orphaned.

At the time, there was much public sympathy – yet another young family destroyed by the opioid crisis, which has killed at least 15,000 Canadians in the past four years.

What wasn’t revealed is how failures by WorkSafeBC, whose purpose is to help injured workers heal, led to the tragedy."

2). "After Hardy’s accident, the provincial agency pushed him back into the work force while he was still in pain, then cut his benefits. It also failed to acknowledge his opioid addiction and didn’t respond to his pleas for help. “He was hurt. He was in pain. And I think they wrote him off,” says Hardy’s father, Brian Leighton. “There should have been a public apology: ‘We are sorry. It was our responsibility, and we failed you and your son.’”"

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-how-workers-comp-fanned-the-flames-of-the-opioid-crisis/

December 19th, 2020
DMG

Kootnekoff: Changes for B.C.’s worker’s compensation system.
Salmon Arm Observer
October 2nd, 2020

"A recent review of B.C.’s WCB system stated: At its extreme, it is a toxic decision-making culture if a claim owner … does not seek/consider/weigh evidence of individual circumstances and then say “if you don’t like it, appeal”. At its barest, the first level decision maker does not apply, or seek to apply, the “merits and justice” of the case. …Appeals require time and resources that injured workers often do not have and should not be required to have in order to get compensation. For many stakeholders the issue becomes – how much justice can you afford? Given the rigors of an appeal process, many workers, and employers, live unhappily with “average justice”, which in their particular cases, does not feel like justice at all."

2). "A case manager may make numerous decisions, each of which must be appealed individually, with different review, appeal, reconsideration and judicial review deadlines. Soon, the result is a web of decisions, reviews, appeals and reconsiderations. It is enough to weaken those of the strongest fortitude."

3). "Recently, in Paleos v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal, the British Columbia Supreme Court observed: The process is a lengthy, complex and inefficient one, which is striking when considered in contrast to the lofty goal of compensating injured workers fairly in a timely and efficient manner, seemingly established by the Act…"

4). "In the words of the B.C. Court of Appeal: The internal appeal and review provisions of the Workers Compensation Act are convoluted, and in some respects bizarre. Other cases have referred to the process as “long and convoluted,” “tortured” and a “legal playground.” Many injured workers are unable to navigate this convoluted system without a lawyer. The WCB does not compensate injured workers for legal fees. One key problem is that the WCB will not compensate for it’s own poor handling of claims. So, after years of fighting, even if an injured worker receives the compensation he or she was originally entitled to, there is no compensation for the trauma involved in battling the WCB. There is no compensation for being left in poverty in the meantime."

https://www.saobserver.net/opinion/kootnekoff-changes-for-b-c-s-workers-compensation-system/

December 16th, 2020
Update.
DMG

Here's an opportunity that I encourage everyone in the group to accept as such. It's a fundraiser. No worries there. We still get to ask our questions before the 'submit' button takes us to the donation page. Here's what I asked:

"Will you fix this, with us, on-side, proactively?
Or, are we going to need to lawyer up?"

(I included the link to the online campaign).
https://you.leadnow.ca/petitions/disabled-workers-in-canada-seek-section-7-charter-protection

It would send a message to the BC NDP and our Premier that they do need to hear from more persons struggling with this BS than me.

Food for thought.

Ask the exact same questions. With the letter I sent out today, the timing is actually rather serendipitous.

Premier John Horgan wants to hear from you. (bcndp.ca)
https://www.bcndp.ca/ask-john

December 16th, 2020

Hon John Horgan
Premier of British Columbia
PO BOX 9041
STN PROV GOVT
VICTORIA, BC V8W 9E1
Email: [email protected]

Re: Stabbed in the head and suffering PTSD, ex-employee takes B.C. Corrections to human rights tribunal: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-jail-ptsd-1.5835955

Re: Vulnerable to Human Rights Abuse: A Request for Section 7 Charter Protection.
https://you.leadnow.ca/petitions/disabled-workers-in-canada-seek-section-7-charter-protection

Re: Question Period Today: Time for implementation of the CRPD.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24481&LangID=E

Premier Horgan:

2). "The collapse of good conscience; and, the absence of accountability and public scrutiny, have led to crimes against humanity and violations of international law."~ Nelson Mandela

I write as an advocate for social injustice concerns. Disabled Workers in BC are campaigning to raise what are in full, quite troubling concerns. We are standing with thousands of workers in these circumstances coast to coast. With 40 years in full of lived and professional experience, attached to disability concerns, I write today in response to the exchange in Legislature during question period.

3). I am a former paramedic. For half of the sixteen years I served in emergency services, I worked as a manager of residential care services, and have served as a care-giver all my working life. I write as a member of many groups of injured, ill and/or disabled workers. I write as a member in as many groups with others with disabilities from all walks of life.

As mentioned at the start of this letter, there are many disabled workers who've gathered together. There are 280 standing with me in BC. Across Canada, we number in the 1000's. We are all victims of human rights abuse. This is due to fact that our Workers Compensation Acts in every jurisdiction; as in force effectively legalize the human rights violations.

It's law, policy and regulations that empowers those agents of WorkSafeBC to carry out these offenses at will.

4). Beginning in 2001 and carried out through to 2017, as was the subject of question period today for about an eye-blink: the current opposition party protests too much; however, we've not seen anything that much improved since the other party fell.

Self-advocates and advocates, to remind the Premier, hounded this government for financial relief for our most vulnerable citizens before we heard the words, seniors, disability, homeless, or any other word attached to the plague of social injustice issues those across the way in Legislature left behind.

At best, past governance was ripe with thoughtless decisions made by policy-makers that has left too many stranded in poverty for in total 20 years. That's a generation. This social injustice is the legacy of Leader Bond's team in opposition. Those who've lingered from the early days in 2001 and Leader Bond dare not preach as though any left from the olden-days are faultless.