Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak today about some issues my constituents are having in their interactions with the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission, in particular I would like to share some of the insights of an injured worker during his journey through the process after a permanent injury suffered over a year ago. It includes suggestions on how the WSCC could improve their service for the betterment of injured workers.

In 2006, the Workers’ Compensation Board was audited and a number of recommendations from the Auditor General indicated how they could improve delivery of services to injured workers. A key one was:”The board should present its policies to workers more clearly and comprehensively specifying what is covered and what is not and explaining its rules, procedures and, most importantly, its limitations.”

Although the board responded positively, two years later they are still failing to fully inform workers as to what their rights are as laid out by the Workers’ Compensation Act. Indeed, after many and repeated interactions with WSCC and then finally going through the act itself, my constituent discovered a number of rights he had not been informed of. He found that while the worker’s handbook does give basic information about filing a claim, it is by no means a comprehensive document. There is much room for improvement here.

Another source of problems is the recent change from a worker’s advocate to a worker’s advisor. Workers should have an advocate working for

them, not just someone to give them advice. As my constituent has discovered, disputing a claim can be difficult for someone who is out of work and has reduced capacity for physical labour. While the WSCC is armed with lawyers and doctors and authority, the injured person is provided with no such free access to these resources. While a hard working worker’s advisor can try to help, this position does not offer legal expertise. The ultimate purpose of the WSCC is to help injured workers and we need to ensure that the people they employ are there to do just that, not to make it difficult for workers to effectively assert their right to compensation.

It is only through repeated, costly, and often difficult and fruitless meetings with WSCC that my constituent eventually learned of the full range of options available to him. More free-flowing information and a helpful approach would go a long way to address this situation. Statistics clearly etch out a record of failure on appeals, so while oft referred to, appeals are seldom a real possibility for those who, through injury on the job, no longer have the financial resources to command the expertise that would match the deep pockets of government. I call on the Minister to make the changes required to address this situation.