Group calls for replacement of Workplace Safety and Insurance Act in Ontario

Injured workers' advocates in Ontario have developed new legislation that they hope would become a provincial law.

The Thunder Bay and District Injured Workers Support Group (TBDIWSG) introduced The Meredith Act also – known as the Workers’ Compensation Act, 2025 – at a media event in Thunder Bay on Monday, according to a CBC report.

They hope that the legislation will replace the province’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Act. The group believes that their legislation would address what they claim to be problems with the current provincial legislation in a number of ways.

"Number one is to move back to a collective liability to make the system similar to OHIP, where there are flat rates that ... corporations pay regardless of their accident frequency rate,” Steve Mantis, TBDIWSG treasurer, said. "The second is that compensation is available as long as the disability lasts."

With TBDIWSG’s legislation, the role of the treating physician also “becomes a higher priority,” said Mantis in the CBC report.

"Now, the treating physician who knows the individual best, oftentimes their opinion is disregarded and their advice is overruled by the people that are doing the paperwork at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB)."

The legislation will also educate workers more about the plights of injured workers. Currently, there is a lack of awareness of the struggles injured workers face in Ontario, said Jules Tupker, TBDIWSG secretary, in the CBC report.

"When I talk to workers that aren't injured about the struggles that injured workers are going through, they look at me and they say, 'I don't know anything about that,'" Tupker said. "Or the story is, 'well, I cut my finger and I was in compensation for a week or two weeks, and it was great.'"

"But what we're talking about is workers that have got a permanent injury, a permanent disability, a permanent illness caused by chemicals," he said. "We're not talking 50 people or 100 people or 1,000 people. We're talking tens of thousands of people a year in Ontario." 

The Meredith Act

The purpose of the Meredith Act is to “provide compensation, benefits, rehabilitation, education and training (hereinafter compensation) to injured workers or their survivors”.

It also aims to “authorize the gathering information about workplace health and safety, injuries, and disease, and to analyze and distribute this information to the Ministry of Labour, other ministries, officers of health, coroners, other government agencies, other governments, and the public.” 

The legislation covers the areas of worker and employer rights and compensation for injured workers.

It also requires the following: 

• Injured workers and employers are required to promptly report to the Commission (the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board) any workplace accidents, injuries, onsets of symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis, prescription, accident reports, documents, Ministry of Labour investigations or reports or orders or witness statements, or in general, any information or thing that may be related to a workplace accident or disease.
• If the Commission requests any such thing as noted in s.129, or any other information, report, or thing from any injured worker or employer, the requested thing shall be promptly provided, unless exempted by operation of law, or is no longer in the worker’s or employer’s possession. 
• All employers are required to register any and all employment within 15 days of the commencement of such employment, if the said employment is either expected to or in fact does result in payment to the worker in the amount of one hundred dollars in any given thirty day period, or six hundred dollars in any six month period, or one thousand two hundred dollars in any twelve month period, or other valuable goods, services, or credit in any form equivalent to the above amounts as expressed in Canadian dollars.
• All employers are liable to pay such contributions, retroactive to the date of the formation of the employment contract, to the Commission on behalf of their workers upon notification of the rates and other terms as may be determined by the Commission from time to time.

Previous criticism of Workplace Safety and Insurance Act

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Act (WSIA) – which came in in 1997 – has faced criticism in the past.

Previously, for example, a proposed class action lawsuit argued that workers were wrongfully denied full benefits under the WSIA from 2012 to 2014, alleging misfeasance in public office, bad faith, and negligence, according to lawyer Frank Van Dyke of Van Dyke Law Office.

The WSIA has also faced criticism for its handling of mental health claims. In Decision No. 1227/19, the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal determined that an employee’s action for constructive dismissal based on workplace harassment and mental distress was essentially a claim for chronic mental stress within the scope of the WSIA, thereby barring the civil action, according to DLA Piper lawyers Titus Totan & Jennifer Seal.

However, that decision was later partially overturned, according to Williams HR Law.

“The court held on judicial review that the applicant’s claim for constructive dismissal which was based on claims of chronic mental stress arising out of a poisoned work environment was not barred under the Act, therefore allowing the applicant to pursue a constructive dismissal claim and aggravated, moral, and punitive damages against her employer.”