L090 - Thu 16 Jan 1986 / Jeu 17 jan 1986
REPORT, STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT (CONTINUED)
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
REPORT, STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT (CONTINUED)
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for adoption of the recommendations contained in the report of the standing committee on resources development on the 1984 annual report of the Workers' Compensation Board.
Hon. Mr. Wrye: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I have not risen on a point of order to make note of the historic nature of what happened here shortly before six o'clock this afternoon in your chair. As I understand it, it was the first time in recent memory that the Speaker has voted in this assembly.
Before the debate begins tonight, I want to acknowledge the presence of Dr. Robert Elgie, whom we all know, the chairman of the Workers' Compensation Board. With him are Irwin Glasberg, who is his executive assistant, and Doug Cain, whom veterans of the standing committee on resources development know is the executive director of the review services division. I just note their presence and their continuing interest in the deliberations of the Legislature on this important report from the committee.
Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, that was a courageous vote you placed before the chamber this afternoon.
I have now been a member for 14 years plus. They have been 14 years of dealing with the Workers' Compensation Board and with injured workers that have seen a great deal of conflict, a great deal of anger and a great deal of frustration, despair and, if I may say it, a great number of burned-out constituency assistants. Every year, without exception, people came before the standing committee of the Legislature with the same complaints and nothing seemed to be done about them. Members of the Legislature always seemed to be sympathetic to the problems of the injured workers, but nothing ever seemed to be done about them.
However, this year I felt the frustration among members had reached a new level. I think there is a reason for that. It was the first time -- and these are harsh words, perhaps -- that the Progressive Conservative members told the truth about their own level of frustration in dealing with workers' compensation problems.
On a more generous note, I should also say I feel very strongly that the new members of the Legislature helped a great deal in preparing a report that I hope will go some way to improving the lot of injured workers. I am talking about the new members in all three parties. There was the member for Simcoe Centre (Mr. Rowe); the member for Humber (Mr. Henderson), who is here tonight; the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Ramsay); the member for Essex North (Mr. Hayes), and the member for London South (Ms. E. J. Smith). They were extremely helpful in that they came in as new members and could not believe the proportion of their constituency problems that dealt with injured workers and the Workers' Compensation Board. They simply could not see why this was so and they expressed this in a very honest and very forthright way, regardless of the party to which they belonged. That was extremely refreshing.
The other point is that during the hearings two people from the compensation board were there almost all the time. They were the new chairman, Dr. Elgie, to whom the members of the committee look for some refreshing reforms at the board. There is a feeling among the members that reforms will --
Mr. Haggerty: Is the member suggesting there is hope?
Mr. Laughren: Yes, I believe there is hope. The other gentleman the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye) mentioned is Doug Cain. As the standing committee on resources development dealt with Workers' Compensation Board problems over the years, he was always there and was able, in an objective and nonpartisan way, to express warnings when the committee was straying into areas that would cause more problems than effect solutions. The committee members appreciated very much the role that Doug Cain played.
The result of the deliberations was this report, which is a unanimous one. The members were determined to make it unanimous. There were some tradeoffs on all sides, but the government, and the Minister of Labour in particular, should understand that it is a unanimous report. I hope they will understand that all three parties supported these recommendations, and did so in a very thoughtful way, and that there was considerable debate on every recommendation in the report.
It would be peculiar for the government or the Workers' Compensation Board to ignore the recommendations in this report. With the new chairman of the board, there is a mandate for change. I believe people expect change. I believe even the employers of Ontario expect change. I believe the employees at the board expect change. It goes without saying that the injured workers expect change, and that the members of the committee expect change.
Before dealing with specifics, I should say a brief word about the injured workers' associations that have fought so hard over the years on behalf of their members. Most of the people involved were themselves injured workers. Of those who were not, some were lawyers and community organizers. They displayed what I would call an awe-inspiring commitment to the cause of one of the most vulnerable groups in our society; namely, injured workers. I am not referring to the people who charge injured workers for their services on a contingency basis, because I am appalled by that practice.
I do not believe we would have accomplished even these modest reforms if it had not been for the indomitable will of injured workers and their associations. Year after year they laboured, demonstrated, lobbied, prepared briefs and, more often than not, received more insults than rewards for their efforts. I trust their long struggle will continue, but with more tangible results. We have just begun the process of reform and I hope the minister understands and agrees with that. It is not possible to open the door to reform and then close it. Once the door to reform is open, it can never be closed.
I should say a word about the concerns of employers. Employer concerns are appropriate, and employers and their associations have a right to be concerned. The cost of compensating injured workers is high and is climbing ever higher. Employers should understand that benefits for workers will continue to escalate. We recently indexed the cost of benefits.
8:10 p.m.
The Workers' Compensation Board assessment of 30 cents on the dollar, which it can be in mining development work, for example, is unacceptable to employers, and to employees as well. A 30 per cent assessment rate, $30 out of every $100 of payroll, reflects an outrageous fact of life in the work place for two reasons: (1) because of the accident rate it represents, and (2) because of the costs to employers. I can think of no better reason that those two reasons to reduce assessments.
This report urges the Workers' Compensation Board to examine the possibility of compulsory inclusion of all employers under the Workers' Compensation Act. We believe this would spread the cost over a much broader base and would be a fair allocation of WCB costs. For example, most of us believe the finance sector, such as the banks and insurance companies, receives the benefits for which other people pay. Does anyone believe that stockbrokers can get an enormous advantage because of the mining development work done at Hemlo? Of course they can, and yet they are not paying their share of WCB assessments.
We believe that when more employers across the province experience the pain of WCB assessments, the pressure on them to reduce their accident rate will build even more. We must all agree that having fewer accidents is the only acceptable way to reduce WCB assessments.
Now I will delve into some specifics. When writing its report, the committee decided to start and work through the way an injured worker encounters problems at the Workers' Compensation Board. That is the reason we began with the recommendation to establish a functional assessment team to resolve claim disputes right at the beginning. It was our hope that much of the appeal process could be avoided if this recommendation were implemented. The functional assessment team would be a multidisciplinary team that would examine the whole person, not simply his or her body.
The committee was concerned that when disputes arose among an injured worker, a doctor and the board's medical personnel, the judgement of the board's personnel invariably carried the day. As well, we were concerned about the quality of adjudication decisions at the primary level. In the board's 1984 annual report, 49.4 per cent of appeals were allowed or partially allowed by appeals to adjudicators. The appeal board then allowed more than 33 per cent of appeals. We think that is too high a percentage of injured workers to be put through the appeals process wringer. We believe the functional assessment team could dramatically reduce the need for that appeal process.
I pay tribute to the member for Humber whose idea this was. He deserves most of the credit for convincing the committee that there was an opportunity here to head off problems further along the appeal process. He made a very significant contribution to the deliberations of the committee.
The committee wrestled for a long time with the whole question of supplements and rehabilitating injured workers. We felt the board, plain and simply, was not doing the job in this regard, particularly in the way in which supplements were handled. The committee recommended, and I repeat it verbatim: "Rehabilitation or re-employment should be the only reason for termination of supplements." We also felt that four weeks' to six weeks' notice of termination should be given with reasons in writing.
Of special concern to the committee was the older worker. The act has a section -- and the minister will recall this because he served on the committee that helped draft this section -- that gives the board the discretion to pay older workers the equivalent income they will get after they turn 65 when they go on pension.
The committee deliberately left the age out. We did not want to put an age in there that said 55 because of what would happen to a worker who was 54.5 or 53.75 years of age or whatever. There was agreement that we should leave the age off for that reason. We were concerned that the board might interpret the act too literally. The committee was concerned that the board might interpret that section in such a way as to take the injured worker off a rehabilitation program or off supplements to reduce its own costs. We urge the board not to do that.
Since this report was tabled, I personally have felt compelled to write to the minister and I think I sent a copy to the chairman of the compensation board to get clarification of the policy. I have in my possession something from the board -- I think I sent a copy with the letter -- that says a worker over 54 is too young to qualify for the program. That is not the spirit of the change in the act, as I recall it. That simply was not the purpose. I reiterate that. We deliberately left that out of the act.
With regard to the appeals process, there is now in place an independent appeals tribunal, the principle of which I agree with. The members of the committee are worried, with reason, and I believe without exception, that the appeal process will become too legalistic, too complex and too slow.
Mr. Haggerty: We are moving in that direction now.
Mr. Laughren: Yes. We believe six months is too long for the process, given the problems of an injured worker. We said it best in the report. It is a short quote, so I would like to read it to members here in the assembly. Members can see I was concerned about the appeals process.
"For example, the matter of adequate representation for injured workers may become a significant problem if the practice develops that injured workers are represented by nonlawyers while employers are able, because of greater financial resources, to hire expert legal assistance.
"Secondly, the pre-trial process will present problems for injured workers' representatives, including among them the assistants of members of the Legislature, who may perhaps have to appear for both the hearing and pre-hearing phases.
"Thirdly, cross-examination at the hearing itself, adversarial by nature, may intimidate a claimant and his or her witnesses, whose language skills and education may not compare well with those of a lawyer hired by the employer."
The members of the committee are concerned about the appeals process becoming too legalistic. We said that to the chairman of the appeals tribunal. We invited Professor Ellis back to the committee to affirm our concerns and to tell him how concerned we were about it. I believe he intends to put in place a very fair appeals system, but our concern is that it is simply too legalistic for the job that needs to be done.
I could not talk about the Workers' Compensation Board and the report we have tabled without talking about board doctors. If there was one common bitterness among groups that appeared before the committee, it was about the board doctors.
They feel there is an inadequate examination of injured workers by board doctors. They feel the doctors are the real adjudicators of the board, not the claims adjudicators. They feel general practitioners are overruled by board doctors, that sometimes the board doctors overrule specialists acting on behalf of the injured workers, and that the same doctor from the board who decides the fate of an appeal will then rule on the state of a claim and at a later date decides on an appeal on the same claim.
For those reasons, the committee is concerned, as were most of the people who appeared before the committee. I might add that the Ombudsman in his 1984-85 annual report directed similar criticism at the board and its doctors. We believe the medical section of the board needs to be reviewed and revamped.
On rehabilitation, there simply needs to be a better job done. The committee outlined very briefly two things we felt should be corrected. One was more emphasis on English as a second language and, second, more emphasis on high-tech programs so injured workers get back into not simply another job but perhaps even a better one. The board should concentrate more on adapting the work place to the injured worker rather than vice versa.
8:20 p.m.
An important recommendation is that an independent task force be set up, consisting of education, labour and industry, to make recommendations to the board and to the government on how to improve the rehabilitation system. That is of enormous importance.
We also felt the board should look at its assessments and see whether there is a way of changing the assessments so the assessment rate of employers would reflect the extent to which they rehabilitate injured workers.
I cannot think of a more positive incentive than to say to employers, "The more you rehabilitate the people who are injured when they work for you, the lower will be your assessment rate." At least that would be a reflection, because it does not allow companies to disregard workers who are injured and to take them off the payroll a year or two down the road. We do not think that is appropriate.
A word about industrial diseases: This may sound a bit harsh, but there is concern that the board may still be a broken-bone board rather than a board that deals with injured workers. We are not the only ones who are concerned about that. Members who have been around here for a while know who Professor Weiler is. He stated in his report Protecting the Worker From Disability: Challenges for the Eighties:
"What most people would think of as a disease in the true sense of the term -- a cardiovascular, cancer or respiratory condition which is seriously disabling or even fatal -- amounts to a total of only 200 allowed claims per year, or 0.05 per cent of the claims granted by the board for accidental injuries."
Our report refers specifically to asbestos-related diseases. We want the entire matter of asbestos-related diseases referred to the Industrial Diseases Standards Panel. Members may also know of the Royal Commission on Matters of Health and Safety Arising from the Use of Asbestos in Ontario and what it had to say about the matter. I will quote from that as well:
"That asbestos can be a devastatingly serious health hazard was widely known many years before this commission was appointed in April of 1980. We were hardly needed to confirm this fact.... The asbestos-induced disaster at this plant, Johns-Manville in Scarborough, ranks with the worst that have been recorded in the international epidemiological literature on asbestos."
Our committee recommended that something has to be done there and that the Industrial Diseases Standards Panel should take a look at it. Since the committee was, at least in theory, dealing with the 1984 annual report, as opposed to the general operations at the board, we thought it appropriate to make some specific recommendations about the report and how it could be improved.
This is my own interpretation, and probably not even a majority of the members of the committee feel this way. I feel it should be less of a public relations exercise and that more effort should be put into providing more meaningful information to the people who are concerned about the board. We made very specific recommendations and requests in our report, but I will not repeat them; they are in the report.
There were other recommendations, but I do not want to go through the entire report. I want to refer to a suggestion made by the Ontario Mining Association. I know the Minister of Labour would be disappointed if I did not make reference to it. They said, "Perhaps it is time to consider incorporating the existing compensation system into a comprehensive disability insurance scheme." At least they indicated it was worthy of further study.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think the Ontario Mining Association would so blatantly steal a plank from the New Democratic Party policy platform. I never thought the Ontario Mining Association would stoop to that. For years we have been a voice crying in the wilderness for a universal sickness and accident scheme. Finally, we have the Ontario Mining Association echoing our clarion call. Our clarion call is no longer made in the wilderness. We now have on side with us, cheek by jowl, the Ontario Mining Association.
The next thing we know, the Ontario Mining Association will be calling for public ownership of the mining industry. What is Ontario coming to when the Ontario Mining Association takes this step? I do not want to belittle their suggestion that we should take a look at that. I welcome their call. It may not be for the same reason I want it, but I do not want to prejudge them or suggest they have other motivations.
We know the present Workers' Compensation Board system is a horse-and-buggy vehicle in a jet age. For example, how is it possible to compartmentalize accidents? If a worker gets hurt on the job and aggravates the injury at home, in that case the worker gets compensated. The other way around, if he gets hurt at home and aggravates it on the job, he has a very difficult time getting compensation from the compensation board. How does that make any sense?
I have always used the example with the committee of a very real person from a northern community called Chapleau. He is a unilingual, French-speaking injured worker who worked in the bush all his life. He has perhaps a 15 per cent back disability and gets 15 per cent compensation. It is total nonsense. For all intents and purposes, that worker is totally disabled.
The other question is, what about industrial diseases? If a worker from Elliot Lake is a heavy smoker and gets lung cancer, he will be compensated, although we do not know what the cause of it was. For a worker in a sintering plant or an asbestos worker, the employer pays because there is enough evidence to indicate that the probability is that was how the cancer occurred.
Let us face it, with industrial diseases, the day has gone when we can say with certainty where the disease originated. Particularly now that we have cast off the cobwebs of 42 years, surely it is time for Ontario to put in place a universal sickness and accident system that will compensate people regardless of where they were injured and regardless of fault.
Let me make clear that employers would still pay their fair share; as a matter of fact, perhaps for the first time. The Ontario Mining Association should not think this is some way of passing off private sector costs to the public sector. There would have to be a decision that the private sector would pay its fair share.
If we think about it, there are three places people get hurt or get diseases: on the job, at home or out there somewhere. We already compensate people through the automobile accident fund. We all pay into it; it is compulsory. We already have a worker's compensation scheme; it is compulsory. All that is missing is the third link, for someone who gets hurt at home or in some kind of recreational activity.
We need to have a pie divided into those three sections. If a worker or somebody got hurt, he would be paid immediately and then the bureaucrats could fight over which piece of the pie it came from: the employers' fund, the motor accident fund or the general fund. It should be paid for either by general taxes or by premiums. It is not complicated. They have that kind of system in New Zealand. That is the long-term solution to the problems of injured workers in Ontario.
8:30 p.m.
In conclusion, I want to thank the members of the committee. Without exception, they worked extremely hard. As I said at the beginning, there was a real effort to come up with a report that was unanimous in its recommendations and was a real consensus. Everybody gave up a little to get a report, because we felt it was important for the government to be able to say, "This is a report with the support of all three parties," and for the compensation board to understand that it reflected the desires of all three parties in the Legislature.
I want to thank as well the clerks of the committee, Doug Arnott and Todd Decker, who were with us during our deliberations. I also want to give a special mention to our research officer, who can write so well. As I said in my remarks when I tabled the report in here, despite the fact that she has legal training, she is able to write with clarity.
The report was a good experience for members of the committee. I offer a friendly warning, though: The natives are getting restless, and if a year from now, when we are debating the 1985 annual report, there have been no changes and no improvements in the kinds of recommendations we have made, then the frustration among members will change to anger.
I was impressed by the way the new members expressed their displeasure at spending so much of their time having to deal with problems that should have been resolved by the board itself. I was very impressed by the input of the new members. I do not think they will tolerate that for very long, and they are absolutely right. There is no reason the constituency offices of so many members should be so preoccupied with Workers' Compensation Board problems.
It is safe to say that we as a committee are hopeful the changes we recommend will be taken seriously and enough of them will be implemented so that a year from now we will be able to feel good about the work we put into this report.
Mr. Polsinelli: I am pleased to rise this evening and participate in this debate on the recommendations of the standing committee on resources development regarding the 1984 annual report of the Workers' Compensation Board.
I want to say at the outset that I am one of those new members who was extremely surprised to find that 50 per cent of my constituency case load was composed of workers' compensation files. It was also very refreshing to participate in one of my first committees in this House, the resources development committee, under the able chairmanship of the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren).
I found that the members of the committee approached the recommendations in a fair and nonpartisan manner to find the most equitable solution and recommendations to address the problems of injured workers in this province. The members of the standing committee should be congratulated on their comprehensive and extremely useful report.
Its principal focus is on the identification of obstacles to the smoother, more efficient functioning of the present compensation system and on the means by which their impact may be alleviated. The basic objective is one with which the injured workers of this province and all the members of this House can sympathize.
The fact that the recommendations made have been endorsed unanimously by the members of the committee provides some indication of the pervasive nature of the problems addressed and of the degree of interest in attempting to seek appropriate solutions. The recommendations deserve, and will receive, very serious consideration by both the government and the Workers' Compensation Board.
It is probably accurate to say that the vast majority of the recommendations pertain to a revision or an improvement of internal board administrative practices or procedures. Relatively few involve or require an amendment to the act itself. In the latter regard, however, it should be noted that one specific recommendation made by the committee in relation to the benefit entitlements of surviving spouses has already been addressed by this government.
Bill 81, which received royal assent last month, provided for a total increase of 11.9 per cent in survivors' benefits in respect of those claims that predated last spring's enactment of the new dual award scheme for survivors. The purpose and effect of the 11.9 per cent increase is to bring the pensions of those pre-existing survivors up to the average level of entitlement that they would have enjoyed had they been covered by the new scheme. In future, the pension benefits will be linked to movements in the consumer price index in accordance with the general benefit indexation provisions, also contained in Bill 81.
That is but one small indication of the commitment of this government and this minister with respect to improving the workers' compensation system.
The remaining standing committee recommendations, which probably would require a legislative amendment to implement, include those related to extended coverage of the act, the tying of supplements to enrolment in a vocational rehabilitation program, higher fines for safety violators, provision for maintenance of benefits for claimants and so on.
Members will be aware that the Minister of Labour has indicated his intention to pursue further reform of the workers' compensation system. Specific issues currently under review include the rehabilitation and re-employment of injured workers, the determination of compensation levels for permanently disabled workers and the experience rating of assessment premiums, which the member for Nickel Belt has alluded to.
Several of the committee's recommendations -- those related to supplements, for example -- impinge directly upon this review and should be considered as part of it. It may also be appropriate for other matters involving legislative change to be rolled into the same legislative review process so the act can be amended in an integrated way rather than in a piecemeal fashion.
Many of the remaining issues touched on by the committee conceivably could be dealt with by a change of current procedures rather than by statute. In effect, they are issues that fall within the area of discretion accorded to the Workers' Compensation Board under the act as currently worded.
Very broadly, the bulk of the committee recommendations can be grouped under four major headings: claims, adjudication issues and related questions, including the resolution of medical issues in dispute; the calculation of benefit entitlements; vocational rehabilitation and training, and issues related to financing of the system and assessment rates.
One of the committee's major recommendations in the claims adjudication area involves the establishment of a functional assessment team independent of the Workers' Compensation Board and comprising professionals representing a range of medical and related skills, including physiotherapists, occupational therapists, kinesiologists and so on, in addition to physicians. This is one item I wish to speak a little more on.
The object of this approach, as I understand it, would be to move beyond the present emphasis on physical impairment alone to include consideration of other factors affecting overall functional disability and to provide a means of resolving differences of opinion between the claimants and the board's doctors on medical matters.
On the face of it, this objective has considerable appeal. Clearly, however, the merits of the recommendation cannot be weighed in isolation. The new panel of medical assessors attached to the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal, in operation since October 1, 1985, was devised in large measure to provide a source of impartial, expert medical advice to help resolve disputes on medical issues. How would the proposed functional assessment team concept fit in with the mandate of this new body?
Similarly, the idea of considering factors other than physical impairment constitutes a potentially important element in many of the proposals for redesigning the current system of clinical impairment pensions to evolve a more direct consideration of loss of earnings. This, as I mentioned earlier, is currently under active review.
While the recommendations related to functional assessment teams provide a convenient illustration of the ways in which some of the committee's proposals may interact with the recent procedural reforms introduced by Bill 101 and with the ongoing legislative review in this area, it is possible that other of the recommendations can and should be addressed expeditiously by the board itself.
I understand, and I have been assured, that each of the committee's recommendations is being examined and evaluated by an internal review team at the board and that the board will be providing to the chairman its detailed response to the committee's report in due course. Without seeking to prejudge the outcome of this process, it may be that progress can be made in addressing at least some of the issues of concern to the committee within a relatively short time frame.
The Ministry of Labour is also in the process of reviewing the committee's report, and once this exercise is completed, I expect ministry and board officials will be meeting to exchange views of implementation of the committee's recommendations.
8:40 p.m.
Mr. Gillies: I am pleased to join this debate on the 1984 report of the Workers' Compensation Board as the Labour critic for our party and not as a member of the committee, either now or as it was constituted then.
Having reviewed the report, having talked with some of our colleagues who were involved and having glanced at the Hansards of some of the meetings, I would agree with what the member for Yorkview (Mr. Polsinelli) has said. It was a very good body of work. A great deal of congratulations are due to the members who were involved, especially to the chairman, our friend the member for Nickel Belt.
As I said, I was not on the committee, but when I hear other members indicate that the chairman did yeoman service working hard and in a nonpartisan sense with all the members, and when I hear it is our friend the member for Nickel Belt, I cannot be very surprised.
Hon. Mr. Kerrio: I do not believe all that.
Mr. Gillies: I caution our friend the chairman, though, when I hear of this unholy alliance developing between the Ontario Mining Association and the New Democratic Party, it strikes at the very credibility and the very core of both organizations.
Mr. Mackenzie: At least we have some to lose.
Mr. Gillies: Our usually cheerful friend the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) threw that one back at me. I will accept it.
This is also the first opportunity I have had, in speaking on matters related to the Workers' Compensation Board, to offer my congratulations to the new chairman of the board, our good friend the Honourable Dr. Robert Elgie, QC, MD, FRCSC.
Mr. Cureatz: QC? Wait a minute.
Mr. Gillies: I do not want to get into that.
Our good friend Dr. Elgie had a few more letters behind his name about a year ago. They are gone, and now the government is taking away a few more. Where does this end? I assume it cannot take away his medical degree.
However, I will tell the Minister of Labour I was truly heartened and encouraged by the government's appointment of Dr. Elgie to the chairmanship of the board. I will give the minister the benefit of the doubt that he had some input in the selection of this gentleman. I see that he is conferring closely with his parliamentary assistant even now on this very matter.
While there may have been a temptation to make an appointment to that position on partisan lines, the minister picked the right guy. He could not find a better man of any political stripe to try to sort out some of the problems at the WCB than Bob Elgie. As critic, I am looking forward very much to working with Dr. Elgie.
I am also very conscious, from past work on committee matters pertaining to the WCB, and from a previous incarnation as parliamentary assistant to the former minister, of the tremendous contribution made by Douglas Cain, both in his advice and counsel to committees examining things pertaining to the board and in his availability to members of the Legislature with our particular problems, concerns and questions about the board. We are well served by Doug Cain.
Mr. Morin-Strom: Is the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) going to take Elgie's place as the last of the red Tories?
Mr. Gillies: My friend the member for Sault Ste. Marie asks whether I am the last of the red Tories. By no means. There are legions of red Tories and they breed like rabbits. We are everywhere.
I heard the chairman of the committee, the member for Nickel Belt, speak to the proposition of a more comprehensive plan. While the WCB fills a need for the people who find themselves victims of work-place accidents, he opens up a bigger question.
The whole concept of a more comprehensive and streamlined governmental approach to any number of types of subsidy and compensation is one that has long attracted me. When one looks at the system we have in place now with workers' compensation for the victims of work-place accidents, we have Canada pension plan pensions for other people disabled under certain conditions, we have pensions from the Ministry of Community and Social Services for people in different circumstances, and we have unemployment insurance, the guaranteed income supplement, old age security, the guaranteed annual income system and any number of schemes.
All these mandates are doing good things in varying degrees for the people who need them, but -- I can only concur with the chairman of the committee -- I have long been attracted to the proposition of governments at all levels moving towards some sort of comprehensive scheme in both simplifying the delivery and the bureaucracy that is required to meet the needs of people.
One of the first people I heard espouse this thought was no less an arch-socialist than the Honourable Robert Stanfield back in 1972. I thought Bob Stanfield was on to something then and I think it is still worth pursuing. A guaranteed annual income or something of that kind might just be the answer. When one throws out that concept, some people throw up their arms in horror at what they see as the potential cost and size of such a program.
When we take all the different bureaucracies and all the people who are required to administer all of these different programs, I am convinced that a lot more of those dollars could be going directly into the wallets and pockets of the people who need them.
Mr. Haggerty: Why does the member not move over to this side?
Mr. Gillies: I used to be over there. I put this whole question in as something that might be -- who knows? -- a good subject for a select committee of the Ontario Legislature to look at when the committee work schedule is somewhat lighter than it is right now; maybe when the accord has run out and all those committees that were struck by the Liberal and New Democratic parties have done some of their work.
Mr. Laughren: It could be part of the new accord.
Mr. Gillies: It could be part of the new accord between the Progressive Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party. I definitely want to be involved in the drafting of that one.
Members of the committee have expressed their frustration with some of the operations of the board and some of the things we see as being necessary by way of reform. However, looking back as I have at what has happened in the past couple of years, there have been a number of reforms and changes. The pace of change at the Workers' Compensation Board has actually been quite considerable. The first foot came down with Professor Weiler's report and everything that was in that report, good and bad, and that was followed up by quite a program of reform.
We saw the Workers' Compensation Amendment Act of 1984, introduced by our former colleague Russ Ramsay, and all the things that flowed out of that report. When one sees the scope of it and the scope of what will continue under phase 2 of that reform, it is really quite impressive.
As an example, compensation benefits would be based on 90 per cent of the injured workers' pre-accident net earnings as opposed to 75 per cent of gross. I recall some controversy in the committee over that recommendation. The bottom line is that the family person with dependants is going to end up with more in his or her pocket.
I remember some examples brought forward at the time where we thought some individuals in some circumstances would get less but, overall, it was a step in the right direction. Older workers unlikely to find work would be eligible for supplements equal to the level of the old age security pension until the worker actually began to receive old age security benefits -- again, a very progressive move and long overdue.
I mentioned in the House once before that my family, when I was growing up, was one of those families which had the shock of my father, the breadwinner, being out of work at an advanced age. In our case it was not because of a work-related accident but because of the closure of a plant. The problems for the family are the same.
Nobody has more difficulty getting out into the employment market and finding a new job than a person who is getting close to retirement age. People in their late 50s and early 60s call our offices all the time. One hears the frustration and the anguish when one talks to those people. In my five years as a member, I have often heard the comment: "I just wish there was more that could be done to help me. I cannot wait until I turn 65. I cannot wait until I turn 65 because then I will be getting some half-decent pensions and I will have enough income to get by."
8:50 p.m.
People in those circumstances are often the forgotten ones. I thought that was a very good move on the part of the Legislature at the time in passing that act.
Survivors' awards consisting of a lump sum and a continuing benefit fixed as a proportion of the pre-accident net earnings of the deceased, again, was a very good move, an excellent initiative on the part of the government. It recognized that, at the time of a death, the special extraordinary costs and expenses which can fall upon a family should be recognized by some lump-sum form of payment, and then the continuing pension would kick in to help provide for those people.
In that legislation there were also improvements to survivors' benefits, especially taking into the account the situation of those dependent children who are left fatherless or motherless by a work-place accident. We have to have tremendous concern that those young people be provided for, and that their opportunities to pursue higher education and everything else that should be available to them, as to every other young person in our society, not be curtailed because of the unfortunate circumstance of the death of the breadwinner of the family.
There were other progressive benefits in that package introduced by our government with respect to the changes made to the structure of the board. The commissioners were replaced by a board of directors, the majority of whom were to be outside part-time members representing employers, workers, professional people and the public. It was a very progressive move, a breath of fresh air and some fresh perspectives now being felt at the very highest levels within the Workers' Compensation Board.
I am sure Dr. Elgie, Mr. Cain and others who are present would not be offended, because I do not intend it personally when I say that any bureaucracy of the size of the WCB can develop quite a coat of moss. Any opportunity for fresh ideas and fresh blood from people who are working in the field, involved in running companies, in the trade union movement, or know the problems at first hand, not from the bureaucratic side but from the marketplace, has to be an excellent reform. I urge the minister to continue in that direction.
The independent tripartite appeals tribunal was an excellent move. The office of the workers' advisers was expanded -- our friend the former member for Downsview, Mr. Di Santo, has been appointed to that department -- and there is the industrial disease standards panel.
Phase 2 of the reform includes some of the things being looked to, a few of which the minister has acted on, such as reforming the present scheme for determining permanent disability pensions; a review of the current clinical ratings schedule; pension indexation, the bill we passed just before Christmas in this House; adjustment of retirement benefits for persons beyond retirement age, and reinstatement/re-employment rights for rehabilitated injured workers.
I want to talk about that last point for a minute because I recall the minister speaking in Niagara Falls some time ago, indicating he would like to move in this area. On the re-employment rights of injured workers, I urge him to pursue that very much in the same spirit as the initiative taken by the former government to include discrimination against injured or formerly injured workers under the Human Rights Code.
We all see it in our own constituency offices. A person comes in, frustrated. He has applied for new employment, the personnel department at the company has done a check and said, "Whoa, this person has been on WCB." Let us face it, to some employers that conjures up a range of negative impressions. That person can be at a disadvantage in seeking employment or being re-employed and is being discriminated against because he was unfortunate, or there was negligence on the part of somebody, which led him to be involved in something in which none of us wants to be involved, a work-place accident. How the heck it can be that in 90 per cent of the cases it is the workers' fault and they should undergo discrimination on this basis boggles the mind, but it happens.
Despite these progressive moves, and I again credit the minister for moving on some of them, many things have to be done and have to be looked at. Some were highlighted in this report and I would like to come back to a couple of them.
I throw out to the minister for his consideration the whole question of what one might call the centralization of the rehabilitation mechanism, and these are things the resources development committee might also be able to look at on some future date. We have the hospital in Downsview; I think there should be decentralization of that. One has to wonder why, as I understand it, 25 per cent of the active case load in the Sudbury regional office has to undergo treatment and assessment in Downsview.
It is a long way and it is very inconvenient. To the extent resources allow, I would like to see the board move towards decentralization. I see the minister nodding. We fully appreciate that, in view of the unfunded liability and other problems, we are talking about limited resources. We will come back to that.
With workers already coping with trauma and pain, struggling to deal with the prospect of changing occupations and re-examining their roles in family and community, there is a kind of isolation for someone involved in this. They feel they are up against an impersonal environment, without the benefit of the support of their community. This may be a little esoteric, but I suggest the resources of the board should be stretched in that direction.
The needs of injured workers after an accident are not always just physical. That can lead to any range of counselling and to any kinds of advice and tangible help that can be offered beyond that which deals with physical injuries. As we move into the late 1980s, I hope the board will appreciate there is a whole range of problems that has to be looked at.
Benefits being cut off without notice --
Mr. Martel: It never happens.
Mr. Gillies: It does happen.
Mr. Martel: Oh, no. Mr. Corbeau says it does not happen.
Mr. Gillies: My friend the member for Sudbury East is saying it does not happen. Whenever I have a case like that come into my constituency office again, I will say: "I am sorry; that cannot happen. My friend, Elie Martel, told me it does not happen."
Mr. Martel: It does not happen. Send it to Tony Corbeau; he says he will eat the paper if it happens.
Mr. Gillies: It does happen and it is not right or humane. It is a practice that should stop. Even if someone has broken the rules and his benefits should legitimately be terminated, I believe he deserves the courtesy and the human decency of some notice and explanation of what is happening. That does not always happen.
The act refers to injured workers in the rehabilitation process being helped to find suitable employment, not that they "will" be helped, but that they "may" be helped. I would like to see that area strengthened. It is too delicate an area. It has too direct an impact on people's lives to talk about "may." When someone has been through that system and is trying to get back on his feet and back into some sort of employment, training or rehabilitation program, we cannot afford to deal with maybes. Those people should and must be helped.
There are a few of the recommendations, some of which the chairman of the committee has already made reference to, that I would like to highlight and comment on.
The fifth recommendation in the report is, "The board should ensure the effectiveness of the system by obtaining all relevant information and evidence prior to the initial adjudication of a claim."
This is one aspect, the tip of the iceberg, if you will, to a whole range of bureaucratic problems that seems to surround the board. Anyone who has ever toured the offices at 2 Bloor Street East knows the size of the operation and the magnitude of the problems with which the board is trying to grapple. I think we all understand that and we are all reasonable enough to know it is trying to do its best.
9 p.m.
If one walks through one whole floor at that office, there is aisle after aisle, floor to ceiling, of files. Most are still old-style hanging paper files, which seems a little incongruous in view of changing technology. I believe the board has to change some of its system so that when the representative of an injured worker approaches the board to access the file and get some meaningful information on the case, he is not kept waiting, some times for weeks.
The worst thing they can do --
Interjection.
Mr. Gillies: There is always room for improvement.
The point is, the worst thing injured workers could do, and they generally do not know it, is to take the problem to two or three different people. They think they are doing themselves a favour when they go to the provincial member to try to get his help with the case, or they go to the federal member, or they go to a worker adviser and then, in some cases, they go to the local unemployment help centre or other labour organization or the union rep to see if they, too, can help with their workers' compensation claim. I have seen it happen on a number of occasions.
If one really wants to throw somebody's file into limbo, if one wants to see it disappear for five weeks, just like that, that is when it happens. It happens when everybody is after the file and it is being shuffled from desk to desk to be photocopied for half the people who have been approached by the injured worker. It is a bureaucratic mess. There has to be a better way, whether it comes through increased computerization or better systems management. The committee's recommendation speaks to part of that problem, but it is only the tip of the iceberg.
The Minister of Labour acknowledged to the committee, when he appeared in October, and it forms part of the eighth recommendation of the committee, "There are few, if any, who would argue with the assertion that no group within the compensation system is more deserving of special attention than surviving spouses." Absolutely; I could not agree more.
I would suggest the minister keep that in mind, especially with the very special concerns and frustrations that are expressed to members from the surviving spouses of the victims of asbestosis. I see again that there is a specific reference and recommendation in the committee report on that subject.
I hope the minister will look expeditiously and favourably at that recommendation. There are some very tragic cases there. The overall number of cases, compared to the system as a whole, is not that great. I would urge the minister to err on the side of compassion and generosity with regard to their problems. In a minute, I will read that recommendation into the record.
Again, as I said earlier, the board should make every reasonable effort to find a job for injured workers, especially older workers. I subscribe to that. In fact, I would suggest the wording should be somewhat stiffer. The board must make every effort to try to find employment. The board must, where appropriate, get these people into rehabilitation and training programs. They absolutely have to.
As the member for Nickel Belt said when he spoke, the whole rehab system is probably the area of greatest concern and greatest criticism of the board. I have people come into my constituency office who have trouble getting hold of their rehab counsellor. They go into a program, they find it is not right for them, they get out and then they are told, "No, you cannot get into something else"; or they cannot get into the program they want to get into because it is oversubscribed, or they are told, "No, you cannot get that kind of rehabilitation because you have already been through another type of course and we just do not have the resources to put you through another one."
This area has to be beefed up enormously. These people have to be given help, because the consequences to them and to their families and to society as a whole are just too great if they are not given help and if they are left out in the cold. We have all had these cases.
The oldest ongoing case I have had come into my office since I was elected, out of some 1,200 or 1,300 by now, is a man who came in staggering under the weight of a file he had and one of the claims he was still arguing and fighting dated back to 1948. I was really worried about this man. It was a back injury and I thought, with the size of the darned file, he might throw his back out again just carrying it around.
This man, for some years longer than I have lived on this earth, was absolutely convinced that his case was not being dealt with justly, that he had not been given adequate rehabilitation and other help. I see a couple of members nodding and smiling. We have all had examples of the frustrations that can grow with some of the older cases that centre around the rehabilitation process.
The 21st recommendation in the report I find particularly interesting: "An independent task force comprised of representatives from labour, industry and education should be established to make recommendations to the government and the board regarding improvements in the rehabilitation system." Amen.
It is the same sort of move we made with the corporate board and the same sort of move we made with the creation of the worker adviser group bringing in outside advice and bringing in fresh perspectives to try to do something good with that area of the board that seems to be the one that attracts the most criticism.
The 22nd recommendation: "The rehabilitation branch should do at least one year of follow-up on a worker who secures employment." Absolutely. Too often a worker is placed and after a brief time is forgotten. When somebody acting on behalf of the injured worker contacts a board official, too often the official is surprised to learn that Mr. X is having a problem. The board officials do not know -- and they are not being cute; they honestly do not know the problems exist.
The poor rehab counsellor on the end of the phone says: "I would have tried to help Mr. X, but I did not know there was a problem. He has not called me in three months." I ask, "Did you do any follow-up?" He says: "Listen, Mr. Gillies, I have too many cases. I have too much work to do. I cannot find the time to follow up as I should on all the cases."
The resources have to be there so the proper and adequate follow-up can be done. We know that the investment of dollars, time and human effort that is put into getting the training or regaining employment endures and that the long-term benefit we want from that process comes about.
The 28th recommendation: "The new corporate board should conduct a study to determine whether the present size of the unfunded liability constitutes a problem, how severe that problem is and what steps should be taken to remedy it. The corporate board's conclusion should be included in the next annual report."
If I had been on the committee, I would have suggested a slightly different wording for that recommendation. There is no question in my mind at all that the unfunded liability is a problem, but we do not need the corporate board to do a study and tell us it is a problem. We need the corporate board to suggest to us what should be done about it. The rest of that recommendation is fine.
We can all recognize that the unfunded liability rose from $2 billion to $2.7 billion over the course of 1984, an increase of 34 per cent in one year. Any member of this House looking at those numbers and looking at that circumstance would say it was a problem.
Mr. Haggerty: The frustration is at the top but it passes on down.
Mr. Gillies: I can tell the member the frustration is right through the system, There is concern on every side. There are no black hats or white hats in this as far as I am concerned. A small businessman who has just been hit with a 30 per cent or a 40 per cent increase in his assessment rate is upset legitimately and with just cause.
Mr. Martel: Reduce the accidents.
Mr. Gillies: Amen. The injured workers themselves are concerned when they see the figures about whether there is going to be any darned money left in the system years down the road when they need it. That is a big concern.
It is not a case of good guys and bad guys. This affects everybody, particularly when we take into account that most employers under schedules 1 and 2 are not on an experience rating system. Concern is expressed by the little employer who calls up and says his assessment has gone up 30 per cent or 40 per cent, or whatever it is, but he has not had an accident all year in his place of business or he did not have any more accidents in his place of business than he had the year before.
Because it is not being done on an experience rating system, that particular classification goes up and so do the rates. There has to be --
Mr. Martel: If they did not have the accidents, my friend, it would not go up.
9:10 p.m.
Mr. Gillies: I am sure my friend the member for Sudbury East shares my concern that this system should be well funded so everybody who needs it down the road is going to have it available to them. He would like to say it is all the employers' fault. I am just saying, let us put fault aside for a second and talk about what we are going to do about the problem. That is the big problem.
Mr. Martel: We will reduce it when we reduce the number of accidents.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): Address your remarks to me.
Mr. Gillies: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will address my remarks through you and the member for Sudbury East can read them later.
Mr. Martel: It would not be worthwhile reading.
Mr. Gillies: He cannot hear over his own voice right now, so he will have to read it later. The member for Sudbury East has been here for years and he still has not learned that he cannot hear when he has his mouth open all the time. However, some day he will learn.
Mr. Martel: The member wants it on both sides of the fence. If he ever slips, he will rupture himself because he cannot be on both sides of the fence at the same time.
Mr. Gillies: I will drop it. One never gets anywhere having an argument with the member for Sudbury East, because to have a good argument there has to be reason on both sides.
Recommendation 30 in the report says, "Employers should be educated to understand that the Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination against a worker to whom compensation benefits or pensions were or are presently paid."
I made reference to that earlier. It is now the law. It is grounds for investigation of a case of discrimination under the Human Rights Code. If that has not been properly disseminated to employers, then it has to be.
Recommendations 33 and 36 make specific reference to the survivors of asbestosis cases. This is something the minister should move on or ask the board to move on expeditiously. Recommendation 33 says:
"A thorough, independently conducted medical examination of all workers working with asbestos and of all workers who have worked with it, whether or not they have a claim, should be done annually. The results of these examinations should be made available to the worker. Programs should also be undertaken which will protect members of asbestos workers' families."
The survivors of deceased asbestos workers are spoken to in recommendation 36.
There is enough evidence and enough concern about the whole asbestos situation that, as I indicated to the minister earlier, we should err on the side of generosity and not on the side of caution in these cases. I know that the representatives of those workers would be very pleased to see that reform brought in.
To conclude, the resources development committee did some excellent work. I believe the House is well served by this report. I again congratulate the chairman and all the members of the committee for what they have accomplished here, and I hope that by the time we next debate matters concerning the Workers' Compensation Board we will be talking in the past tense about some of the problems and speaking in the present tense about some of the reforms that are spoken to in these recommendations.
Mr. Mackenzie: I intend to be very brief. There are a number of things I may touch on despite the brevity, matters that my colleague the member for Nickel Belt has mentioned.
I do not intend to go into the details of the report of the standing committee on resources development. However, regarding the individual recommendations I would say that one of the things that has made one feel just a little bit better about the whole question of workers' compensation in the last few months is the openness, the fact that for the first time ever, I believe, the committee had a debate and issued a report on the report of the Workers' Compensation Board. I cannot recall that happening before in the 10 years I have been in the House. There are 40 recommendations that I have no difficulty in endorsing.
The thing I want to reflect on for just a moment is the very point that we seem to be addressing. I am going to wind up by directly raising the concern I still have with the Minister of Labour; however, for the first time, we seem to be taking a serious look at what we can do to resolve some of the problems we have had for a long time.
When I think of the fight on behalf of injured workers that has gone on since long before I entered this House, it certainly has been a central feature of almost every session since I was elected in 1975. I think of the difficulties we have had and I remember my frustration at being told during a series of Labour estimates and previous debates we had that we were being a little unfair because 85 per cent of the claims were handled expeditiously and without too much trouble.
The cases, in the hundreds, were still coming into our constituency offices, into advocacy offices around the province, into legal aid clinics and community centres. Whether or not they only represented 15 per cent of the cases, they were the ones that involved back injuries, head injuries, problems with the lungs, toxic substance problems, and increasingly in the last few years hearing problems. I certainly detect in the plants in Hamilton and in my constituency a growing concern over the question of hearing loss and problems with hearing.
These cases were a different story. It was frustrating to have it put to us that the Workers' Compensation Board was resolving 85 per cent of the claims so we should not be raising as much of a fuss as we were raising.
When I think of the tremendous amount of work that was put into trying to achieve some redress for injured workers in Ontario, I wonder how it could have been so difficult to see the light before this.
Stop for a minute. It was not just the work being done by the board and the staff of the board. The board had, as advocates, almost every member in this House. Over my 10 years here I have heard a few say they did not involve themselves in Workers' Compensation Board cases, but not many. I have known members in this House who have had an active list of as many as 100 cases at any one time for years.
I know it is a point that has been made by the member for Sudbury East, who has been one of those who, at the level of being a member of this House, fought long and hard with respect to problems with the board. However, the board did not just have the members and their staff. Early on, I realized there just was not the time to handle all of these cases. I got lucky because I had a very good staff person in my office, Valerie Taylor by name, who I would match with any member in the House with respect to knowing how the board operated. When we had a case she knew what we could or could not do. It became a major part of her job. That was the case with many other members.
However, we also had the unions. If we ever tried to do an assessment of the amounts of money put in and staff that were working, in many cases full time, to try to deal with workers' problems in Ontario, it would be a tremendous bill. That really was a subsidy that should not have had to be there for the Workers' Compensation Board, and in effect for the government of Ontario.
I know of the work that is done at the McQuesten Centre and some of the legal aid clinics in my community. I know this applies across Ontario. I know the work that was done by some of the advocacy groups. I know of the variety of injured workers' groups over the years and the efforts they put into it.
As I mentioned briefly, among some members in my own caucus, and there may be others in this House, I personally give a heck of a lot of credit to three or four members in particular. I think of the member for Sudbury East and the member for Nickel Belt when I think of the Workers' Compensation Board arguments in this House and our efforts to improve things.
I think of the member for Dovercourt (Mr. Lupusella), not only in the years he has been in this House but also for the many years he has worked for injured workers.
9:20 p.m.
When I think of the work they have done for injured workers across Ontario, in trying to raise the issues in this House and get what we are finally having here, a report actually issued by the committee and a debate on it in this House, I think we owe a large measure of thanks to a great many people.
I said I was going to bring it to a close. I am sorry the member for Dovercourt is not in the House at the moment. My concern with the recommendations of this committee and with the government, with all the good intentions and all the moves that have been made -- and there have been some improvements made in the area of workers' compensation in Ontario -- is where we will be at this time next year with respect to the 40 recommendations in this committee report.
While we have made some changes and some improvements, we have a long way to go. There are few groups in our society that are more deserving of and more in need of some assistance than are injured workers in Ontario.
There are still a couple of holes in the operation. I want to read into the record a very simple letter, the author of which some people in this assembly will recognize. I have heard some people call him a bit of a pain in the neck, but I do not know of anybody who has worked harder with respect to the asbestos problems than Ed Cauchi. He sent me a letter just this week and he makes the following comments that are apropos:
"Dear Bob:
"I have just received your news release of December 9, 1985, with regard to the changes to the Workers' Compensation Board. As you are well aware, the changes do not mean anything to the disabled workers and widows who are not receiving any benefits.
"I have already written to the Minister of Labour in this regard and I have asked for a meeting with him and the chairman of the board of the WCB. We hope that he will meet with us and try to resolve the problems we have encountered during the last 20 years."
That is a time frame that is accurate; it is probably even longer than 20 years.
"Enclosed you will find some newspaper clippings that were sent to me by the Asbestos Victims of America. They might be of some help to you in obtaining some information with regard to pensions for Canadian workers.
"Also, you will find an article with regard to Dr. Stewart, the so-called chest disease specialist to the WCB, who is the main obstacle in our cause to obtain compensation.
"If you ever need any more information, you can call on me at any time.
"Yours truly, Ed Cauchi."
If I were spending a lot more time on it this evening, I would read some of the articles because they are very interesting. This is one of the areas where we have still not seen justice done. We can look at the number of workers at Manville Canada and the difficulties and problems we have had and are still having in establishing those cases clearly.
I want some assurance from the minister. Provided that we are able to stand up and debate the report of the WCB next year and that the committee does issue a report on the board's activities, I want to know what we are going to see in terms of the 40 recommendations in this report. To me, that will be the real acid test as to whether the moves we have made are real, sincere and just the start. Anything we have done so far is simply just the start.
I will be the first one to say hallelujah and congratulate the members across the way if in a year's time we see the recommendations that are in this report either in legislation or in the process of being put in legislation. I do not mean just two or three of them, but a large number, because there is not one of the 40 that does not make sense and would not assist the problem of injured workers in Ontario.
I am saying thanks for what we have. I am glad to see the openness in this kind of debate on a report, and I am glad to see a report written. Over the next year, I want to see how much we are going to do to resolve the problems we have had for so damned many years with respect to injured workers in Ontario.
Mr. Henderson: I am pleased to have this opportunity to comment on the report of the standing committee on resources development on the 1984 annual report of the Workers' Compensation Board.
At the outset, I want to say how much I enjoyed the rather modest participation I had in the work of this committee. I found it quite an invigorating and productive experience. I want to add to what others have said by way of commending the work of the regular members of the committee and that of the committee chairman, the member for Nickel Belt.
I do not think I can say it any more eloquently than did a gentleman called Steve Mantis of the Thunder Bay and District Injured Workers Association, who wrote in a letter on December 12:
"I wish to take this opportunity to thank you for letting us see a copy of the 1984 annual report of the Workers' Compensation Board. I became quite excited upon reading your report, and I would like to congratulate you on a job well done. It is good to see such a positive and creative approach to the issue of workers' compensation. With actions such as these, we can hope to create a system that deals fairly with Ontario's injured workers."
Mr. Mantis went on to say:
"We also strongly support your recommendations on rehabilitation. Rehabilitation should begin as soon as an injury is recognized as being long term. Those first couple of years when a person is receiving total temporary benefits could be spent on helping those individuals adjust to the major changes forced upon them because of their injury."
Mr. Mantis also says:
"Once again, I must say how well done your report is. Good job! What is the next step? How are these recommendations to be dealt with? Is there anything our group" -- the Thunder Bay and District Injured Workers Association -- "can do to help these recommendations become policy? Please let me know. Yours sincerely."
We know the next step is this discussion, and I am pleased to play a small part in continuing it. I will not attempt to be comprehensive in these remarks but will simply comment on some aspects of the report that interest me as a legislator and as a concerned citizen who happens to be a physician by training on the one hand and a believer in liberty and opportunity for working men and women on the other hand.
It seems to me that working men and women have been the backbone and in many ways the unsung heroes of civilized society for many hundreds or even thousands of years. Rarely is their contribution fully recognized. Only comparatively recently have the needs, rights, and sometimes even the humanity, of workers gained the empathic recognition of society and of the state that they deserve.
Not so many years ago, workers commonly laboured in overheated and underheated, badly ventilated, overcrowded, dirty and otherwise inhuman conditions, sometimes for horrendous work weeks. In recent years, thanks to the energy and emancipation of working people and their leaders, and thanks perhaps to a more enlightened and egalitarian attitude in society, there have been major improvements.
In the 1980s, many working people in Canada can boast a comfortable lifestyle, reasonable working conditions and a satisfactory package of benefits protection. Many working men and women have achieved or are approaching honourable working and living conditions and the prospect of a comfortable and creative life. However, that happy state of affairs is far from universal. It seems to me that in many ways the problems of working people are sometimes subtle and in many instances attitudinal.
I remember well a summer some years ago when, as a young physician, I was working in a provincial hospital in northern Ontario. I took a week of holidays to make an eight-day canoe trip nearby. I was enjoying my time at that hospital. I had made a number of good friends, and I believe I had a friendly relationship with most of the hospital personnel.
Mr. Laughren: Nurses too.
9:30 p.m.
Mr. Henderson: Nurses too.
However, on the way back from my canoe trip, I had to pass through the hospital to get to the interns' quarters where I was living. I was dressed in camp gear and looked like a worker: khaki shirt, khaki trousers and trip boots. I was well groomed, but I had a week's growth of beard on my face. Even the nurses did not recognize me. Quite fortuitously, these circumstances changed my appearance enough in the hospital that I was not recognized by the staff I worked with, my friends and a few patients I encountered.
The experience of walking through a hospital where I was known and reasonably liked, but with the appearance of being a hospital worker, perhaps a janitor, groundskeeper or something, was a very sobering and very revealing experience for me. Practically nobody recognized me unless I greeted them. The stereotype that was imposed by my appearance was so strong that it was impossible for me even to make eye contact with the people I knew unless I greeted them first. As I walked down the hall nodding towards my friends and acquaintances, I was not even attended to enough to have the nod noticed, let alone did the person I met glance behind the façade and recognize me.
I consider that episode to have been a very fortunate accident in my professional development. I know if I had been a worker inquiring after some service or looking to receive some kind of assistance, the stereotype I had happened to stumble into would have very dramatically coloured the way I would have been treated and the satisfaction I might have received.
It is that kind of attitudinal and subtle discrimination that workers must experience in the 1980s, and I believe that should concern us. We must be mindful of that subtle attitudinal disadvantage towards workers as we discuss and review the recommendations of this committee on the annual report of the Workers' Compensation Board.
In passing, I want to pay tribute to the leadership provided by the past chairman of the board, now the Lieutenant Governor, Lincoln Alexander. I know he inspired the loyalty of board staff and secured the affection of many working men and women throughout the province. Chairman Alexander himself pays tribute to board employees in his report, and his dynamic, sensitive leadership inspired the board's continuing commitment to provide injured workers and employers with the best possible compensation system.
I also note that the WCB is in very good hands indeed under the leadership of its new chairman, my physician colleague and former mentor -- medical mentor, not political mentor -- Dr. Bob Elgie. Dr. Elgie was the chief resident of neurosurgery at the Toronto General Hospital when I was a junior intern there. He gained the affection of all the intern staff, who admired his technical skill as a neurosurgeon and especially appreciated that he was one of the few high-profile people around that institution who seemed to take a real interest in the junior staff and to reflect that interest in humanity that he brought to his way of relating to less senior people. The board is very fortunate to have so able and so sensitive a leader.
I want to make some comments on matters arising out of the board's report and the report of the committee that has examined it. As a physician, I have sometimes performed assessments of workers in matters of claims adjudication; I have always found that to be a very vexing task. I am trained to listen with a third ear to accounts of suffering, to perform appropriate examinations and to offer diagnoses and recommendations for treatment aimed at helping an individual return to good health.
The whole matter of causation, or what doctors call aetiology, is of interest to physicians, but it is of interest as a means of establishing a diagnosis and recommending a treatment. Ordinary practising physicians are not especially expert, nor are they trained or for the most part experienced, in trying to evaluate how a particular set of signs and symptoms are related to a particular set of circumstances in the work place or to a particular event or series of events that may have occurred in the work place and are at issue with respect to whether they caused a patient's symptoms.
The question of whether a back disability was caused by injury or ongoing degenerative disease would be bypassed by a clinical physician, who would simply say it arose from a combination of both. He has no interest in going beyond that as a rule, nor would he treat the question as having very much real legitimacy.
I have always felt that turning to a practising physician was not the best approach to making that kind of judgement. It is true that I could never think of any other single better person to do it, but as a clinician, I was always left with a strong sense of impotence on such matters and somehow a strong sense of the inappropriateness of my being called upon to make these rather pregnant or, perhaps I should say seminal judgements. I therefore believe the concept of the functional assessment team proposed by the committee is well worthy of consideration.
The so-called functional assessment team would comprise a number of professionals, not employed by the Workers' Compensation Board, including such professionals as physicians, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and others who would know of the medical factors involved in a particular worker's situation but not be limited by too narrow a focus on diagnosis and treatment and be able to see a larger cross-section of the functional level of a claimant, obtain a truer and more realistic assessment of his or her limitation in a more lifelike situation and embrace the kinds of questions called upon to be adjudicated following an injured worker's claim.
The teams may also be able to familiarize themselves with what might loosely be called the politics, or if one prefers the group dynamics of the assessment situation broadly viewed.
Because these functional assessment teams might be costly to initiate, or at any rate because the cost might be difficult to determine in advance, the functional assessment team might not be called upon unless there is conflict of medical opinion between the claimant's physician and some physician paid by the board. When such a conflict exists and the claim is denied, the claimant can take the matter to the functional assessment team for some kind of review or opinion. Similarly, if a claimant objects to the termination of benefits, he may take the matter to the functional assessment team.
In my view, these teams have the advantage of being perhaps the best possible solution, or at any rate the least unsatisfactory approach, to the problem of bias. The claimant's physician and the board's physician both feel certain they are making unbiased assessments. To me, that is simply an impossibility; yet it is asserted and reasserted by physicians on both sides of clearly somewhat adversarial situations.
Practising physicians are not used to adversarial processes. So much are they are not used to them that they frequently fail to recognize they are involved in a somewhat adversarial process and are quite naturally in large measure -- unconsciously, I am sure -- influenced by it. This is just axiomatic and hardly needs to be stated; yet it is far from generally accepted by my medical colleagues.
After one of the meetings of the committee when I had raised this matter, I was drawn aside by a rather senior board physician to be reassured by him that objectivity was certain amongst all board physicians and that bias was unthinkable. I cannot believe that for a moment. I do not doubt his integrity or his belief that what he was saying was so, and I do not even say it in criticism of board physicians.
In my view, it is simply a fact of life that a physician unconsciously identifies with the organization with which he is most closely affiliated. I have done it myself, and I have worked in a wide variety of settings in both specialist and generalist practice. I cannot think of any occasion when I have known a physician involved in a somewhat adversarial process who did not do it at least a little.
9:40 p.m.
However, I have known clinicians in adversarial situations, who were not accountable to any particular body, government or individual, and who were doing a particular kind of work again and again, to develop at least a fair degree of balance in their approach to matters that come before them on a regular basis.
I am thinking, for example, of mental health teams who habitually assess mothers, fathers and children in cases of marriage breakdown and custody disputes. Even those teams, which do this work day after day and incorporate every possible check and balance against bias into their assessments and reports, cannot escape some degree of bias deriving from old accountabilities and personal prejudice.
I believe the functional assessment teams, as I have understood them, may be the best possible solution to the problem of physician bias. As well, I believe that a number of different professionals, all coming to have a snapshot view of a claimant and his problems, and all individuals clinically trained and clinically experienced, means we have the best possible opportunity of fair assessment of the nature, degree and cause of a disability. I think the teams are a good idea.
I want to say a word about the termination of benefits. Termination of benefits has been a difficult matter. Apparently benefits have been terminated in some instances and the claimant notified that he will be reinstated if a decision about the legitimacy of the claim is finally made in the claimant's favour. As all of us can appreciate that is likely to be a lengthy process and the claimant is left high and dry in the meantime. When benefits are already being paid, it seems to me a reasonable enough proposal to consider continuing to pay them pending a decision about termination by the functional assessment team. It might also spur the process to move a little more quickly.
This notion of functional assessment teams can also be applied in the matter of permanent pensions. Surely a functional assessment team that can get to know an individual claimant and his special problem in some detail and depth over a longer period of time is far superior to the kind of instant snapshot that is obtained in the course of a brief, or sometimes not so brief, examination in a doctor's consulting room. Many experienced doctors will admit that to see an individual in a work situation or even in an ordinary day-to-day living situation can give a very different impression from a clinical examination on the examining table of a consulting room.
This latter approach, the consulting room examination, may be the best thing to do when surgery is contemplated or when a diagnosis is in dispute, but to see someone in a work situation and in daily living can be an indispensible part of the assessment, because of the complexity of the secondary gain and the functional overlay that so often play a part in a claimant's situation in work-related disability or illness. It seems to me that is another potential advantage of the team.
I think we had a fair degree of agreement in the committee in our reservations about the so-called meat chart approach to disability ratings. I do not like that approach. Maybe it can be argued that it has the advantage of being fair and unbiased, but a procedure that is unbiased and yet is totally irrelevant to the presenting problem is not a very satisfactory procedure. In my opinion, the so-called meat chart is an approach that has outlived its usefulness, if it ever had any, and the sooner we find a fairer and more person-centred approach the better.
As someone cogently argued, to lose a finger may cause no or little work disability if one happens to earn one's living as an English teacher, psychiatric nurse or something such as that, but if one happens to be a concert pianist or even a typist, the matter takes on very different proportions. One simply cannot evaluate the nature of an occupational disability knowing only in a circumscribed, focused way the organ or part of the body that is disabled. That is not enough.
To try to attach a particular rating to loss or injury to a particular part of the body without consideration of the whole person and without consideration of the nature of his work and other living circumstances does not make any sense.
I also concur that there is a need for further attention to the matter of surviving spouses. The Minister of Labour has recently underlined his concern for the needs of surviving spouses. I concur with his view, or what I judge to be his view, that the needs of surviving spouses are worthy of more attention and review.
I want to return for a moment to the matter of physicians. It seems to me that this sadly maligned and mismaligned profession has attracted unfair criticism for its attempt to serve in matters pertaining to the Workers' Compensation Board.
Mr. Cureatz: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Just before the honourable member continues his point regarding physicians, I listened with great interest to his comments regarding spouses and, much to my regret, I was deeply involved with some of my working files from my office --
The Deputy Speaker: What is the point of order?
Mr. Cureatz: I wonder whether we might have the unanimous consent of all members of the chamber for the member to repeat the last half hour of his speech.
The Deputy Speaker: That is not an appropriate point of order.
Mr. Henderson: Where was I? I do not know where he was coming from on that, let alone whether it was a point of order.
I know I seemed critical of physicians in some of my earlier remarks. However, it is not the physicians I criticize but rather the system that places them in the position of performing a quasi-judicial and sometimes even godlike task for which they are not entirely trained and which is, by the very nature of the task, certain to evoke criticism that I do not think is entirely deserved.
When a man or a woman is trained to diagnose and treat an injury, we ask that individual to tell us whether the injury came about from illness, injury, trauma or long-term psychological factors and he or she either errs or has a little difficulty being precise. That hardly impugns the physician's professionalism, in my view. He or she has been asked a question that, although it may be related to his or her field of professional expertise and practice, is a little divergent from his accustomed work and usual way of conceptualizing the things that come before him.
Some valid points of practice have been made in this report. Of course, doctors should not make diagnoses without careful examinations of their patients. That is a general principle of good medical practice and it applies to Workers' Compensation Board physicians the same as to anyone else.
General practitioners should not be allowed to overrule specialists. I would add that specialists should not be allowed to overrule general practitioners, either. There are times when the general practitioner is in a better position to offer an opinion than is the specialist.
What is required is some satisfactory way of resolving situations arising from the difference of opinion among physicians, regardless of whether the physician happens to be a GP or a specialist. Perhaps the functional assessment team that we were speaking of would be a reasonable approach.
I would add that physicians involved in WCB work should be doing this on a regular basis to become familiar with the kinds of questions and issues dealt with and, frankly, with the various social and other pressures that bear on their decisions. I agree also, incidentally, that the physician who addresses a matter of appeal should not be the one who made the original assessment.
Essentially, those are my remarks. I have spoken at somewhat greater length about the social, attitudinal and medical aspects of the Workers' Compensation Board because those are the very areas that attracted my greatest interest. I have spent very little time talking about the rights and needs of employers, but I do not neglect that matter because of any lack of appreciation of its importance. I am sure others will address or have addressed that subject and can perhaps do so more expertly than I.
I believe that much of what I have been talking about would, on reflection, fall under the general heading of subtle attitudinal and perhaps ideological problems that attach to being a working man or woman. I hope that, on reflection, my preamble will have seemed a suitable introduction to some of the points I have made.
9:50 p.m.
Mr. Stevenson: I, too, am pleased to join in the debate on the annual report of the Workers' Compensation Board. This is the first time I have had an opportunity to be on a committee that had any discussion or review of the WCB to any degree, except for some discussion during estimates in the standing committee on resources development. I found it a learning experience. I have a better understanding of some aspects of the board and a sense of the frustrations that members of this House, injured workers, and employers for that matter, have in dealing with some aspects of the board.
I want to congratulate Dr. Bob Elgie for being appointed to his position with the board. Everyone recognizes his ability and the breadth of his experience. I believe, as many others have stated, that he will do an excellent job there. He and the people associated with him in the administration of the board are facing, and will continue to face, some very great challenges in their positions because I believe the Workers' Compensation Board is going to have to undergo some significant changes in the near future. I am sure it will test their administrative skills and their intestinal fortitude to have the strength to make the decisions and to have the priorities and information in place to make the decisions they are being faced with and will continue to be faced with.
Bob Elgie has some very close connections with my great riding of Durham York and has been associated with that part of the country near Lake Simcoe for most of his life, maybe all of his life. He is well known by many people in that part of the country. At one point, he worked during the summers as a milk delivery person in that area. As a result, he is very well known by many of the families who have been in that area for some time.
The riding of Durham York does not have the same highly labour intensive companies that many other ridings have, particularly in more urban areas. Relatively few companies in my riding would employ more than 100 people. Most of them are owner-manager companies with relatively few employees.
Many of the farms have an owner, or a couple who own a farm, with possibly one hired employee. I deal, as does every other member, with injured workers, some of whom have had lengthy frustrations in dealing with the Workers' Compensation Board, but in a riding with that sort of makeup I also get a number of complaints from employers. Due to the nature of my riding, I suspect the frustrations I hear about on the employee's side and the employer's side are much closer to each other in numbers than one would tend to find in many urban settings.
In my first elected year, in 1981, I took the opportunity to visit the WCB office. As I recall, we were invited to visit after the 1981 election. As the member for Brantford stated previously, I was absolutely amazed and almost in awe of the complexities of that office. The tremendous number of files that people have to work with and the number of people working there creates both an administrative struggle and an organizational struggle.
I was impressed with the complexity and the work load the people face, but I came away wondering whether the organization and the setup of that office would be the same if it were run by a private sector organization. I was surprised by the number of people, although I suspect now with greater computerization the number of staff per client load has decreased some since that time.
I also suspect there have been some administrative changes, but I left there with the impression that the overhead cost of running that setup must be relatively high. I am sure that is something the current administration will be looking at -- at least I hope it will be looking at it -- to try to deal with the costs of running the operation.
The frustration of the workers, and to some degree of the employers, has already been covered, but one of my major concerns is with the funding and the unfunded liability of the Workers' Compensation Board. There is not a member in this House who does not want to see injured workers get fair treatment and a fair pension or settlement as a result of an accident. Everyone wants these people to live in dignity and to be able to carry on a life similar to the one they were leading prior to the accident.
They want them to carry on that life free of some of the frustrations many of them have experienced. Those frustrations must seriously affect the family life of many of the workers, and the social ramifications of underfunding related to unfair treatment of injured workers must be quite significant. As a society, as employers, we must do all we possibly can to see that these people are treated in a fair and dignified way.
Having said that, we have to look at where the money comes from and how it is handled. I have not done any extensive study of the development of the WCB, what its initial intentions were and how it hoped to carry on its duties through the many years it has functioned. I wonder, however, when the structure of the board was set up, together with its aims and objectives, whether it ever anticipated the problems of rapid inflation and the highly mechanized industrial society that have developed. The costs of running this type of operation, this type of board, have increased very rapidly in recent years. It has become quite a significant burden to the businesses of Ontario; not just small businesses but all businesses.
10 p.m.
No employer I talked to wants to see the board dismantled. In general, employers are pleased with the intent of the board and with the things it tries to do. However, I believe that now and into the future we are going to have to take a very serious look at the funding of the board to see whether we can expect our industry to carry the full load of the Workers' Compensation Board. I suspect that people have looked at getting partial funding through government or some other source. However, if they have not, then it is certainly time a very serious look was taken at the whole aspect of funding the Workers' Compensation Board.
In our own small family farm operation, I believe our assessment this year was something like $1,700. That is not a small chunk of money any more in operating a family farm at a time when commodity prices are as low as they have been for many years and when the revenues on the operation and most other farms in this province, are going down rather than up. Input costs are increasing steadily; our margins are decreasing. The economic situation on these farms is well known to anyone who is even reasonably close to agriculture, yet assessments for workers' compensation are rising in a fairly steady manner.
I was also checking with a few employers around the riding. I checked with one relatively small company; it is owned by two families. I am not sure how many employees it has, but it certainly is not a large company. It is a steel contracting company, so it is in an area where injuries are quite prevalent. I believe I am correct in stating that its assessment is slightly more than eight per cent of its labour costs. That is a very significant number. When one goes out to seek contracts in the construction industry and has to build that sort of cost into a contract or the cost of doing business, it is a very significant cost.
These people do not complain about their injured employees getting a fair pension for their injuries. However, I come back to the question of how much of a burden we can expect the companies to bear in a time of intense competition. This company happens to be involved in some international construction; it is competing against companies primarily from the United States but also some from Europe on occasion. This is a very significant cost that it must build in when it is bidding on these jobs.
We want our companies to flourish. We want them to employ people. As long as there is work, there are going to be injuries. I agree wholeheartedly with the members who have said during the debate tonight that we must get the number of injuries down. In some types of work it is going to be much easier to reduce injuries. In a relatively controlled environment it is fairly easy to put on improved shielding, to build in some sort of hand restraints and to teach people to do certain types of jobs in a safe way.
In industries such as farming and some areas of construction, however, people must move around in a fairly large area at times and must deal with machinery. No matter how we try to shield them, there are going to be open working parts. In times of some stress, possibly when workers are a bit tired or in a hurry to do a job, there will always be some lack of care, some movements that occur more quickly than the person can think. Invariably, accidents are going to occur.
Mr. McGuigan: Four o' clock in the afternoon is a very bad time.
Mr. Stevenson: That is correct. A number of the studies, particularly in the agricultural industry, indicate some of the problems. The honourable member is aware of those, as I am aware of some of them.
If the workers are going to be treated fairly, the revenue has to be there in the companies to meet the cost of carrying this very important board, the Workers' Compensation Board. I am sure some measures can be taken internally by the board to save a considerable amount of money, to improve safety standards on the job and to make some significant improvements.
In regard to the settlements these injured workers are going to have to have, however, to give them adequate living standards during a period of injury, whether it be relatively brief or some considerable length of time, with the changes in cost that are occurring in our society today I wonder whether industry is going to be able to carry that cost strictly on its own.
When one looks at the size of the unfunded liability, particularly as it has built up in recent years, when we are trying to cover that as well as meet --
Mr. Martel: The Tories underassessed them for five years; they reduced the amount for years. My friend should not play that game.
Mr. Stevenson: I am sure the member for Sudbury East has all the answers.
The burden on industry is quite significant; I think the people who are investigating the situation are going to have to take a very serious look at some outside financing, at least in the short term, to keep the board in an adequate financial position.
10:10 p.m.
In the area of assessment rates, I and my party are strongly in favour of experience rating. I believe that the good employers have to receive some benefit for the extra care they may take in making their work place a safer environment in which to work and in carrying on good programs of worker training to assist with the increase in safety procedures in that work place, whether it employs 200 people or one person. Their assessments have to reflect those programs and, it is hoped, encourage everyone, employers and employees, to make the necessary changes to take extra care in dealing with some of the exercises and procedures that have to be carried on in the many varied work places in Ontario.
I have a number of other items, but many have been covered already and I do not know that I need to take the time to go back over them.
Of course there are some comments one could make. I believe the member for Lincoln (Mr. Andrewes) intends to speak later on some aspects of the report of the Ontario Task Force on Health and Safety in Agriculture. I do not want to steal any of the thoughts he may wish to bring forward in his discussion. I will say only that there are some good ideas there on improving safety on our farms in Ontario. If legislation is brought in to retrofit some of our structures and equipment on farms in Ontario, I hope financial assistance is made available to the farmers to put the new safety equipment in place.
Something as simple as a rollbar is easy to retrofit on a tractor that is a fairly recent model; however, to retrofit a rollbar on a tractor that was built in 1950 is difficult, particularly for some of the older pieces of equipment that did not have the three-point hitch hydraulic lift. Many of those older tractors are boarded from the back. If we are going to put safety equipment around the operator we are almost going to have to build in a ladder to get the operator on to the equipment. The same goes for some of the safety equipment on silos and so on. It is easy to install them at the time of construction; but in some situations it is much more difficult to install at a later time.
With that, I will bring my discussion of this report to a close. I enjoyed the opportunity to take part in the review of the annual report and I will be watching for changes in the future related to some of the recommendations in the report.
Mr. Martel: I do not have all the answers, but I want to say one thing to my friend who just sat down: the answer is reducing accidents. The people in this province who can make that happen are the very people who fight health and safety every day of the week. They refuse to bring it in. They are responsible for it under the act and they fight it every inch of the way.
If we started to assess for the people who are sick, not for the accidents but for the illnesses that occur in the work place, industry would be out of business tomorrow. They are the ones who have charge of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. They are the ones, in the cases that come across my desk, who resist every day of the week. Maybe the member would like to come and share them with me; I will show them to him.
Mr. Stevenson: Perhaps the member would like to come and share some of mine.
Mr. Martel: I can talk about farmers too, because I was here when we brought in the Occupational Health and Safety Act and they did not want to be included. The recent report vindicates those of us who argued they should be in, because the statistics about the number of accidents are overwhelming. The whole thing is based on an assessment of the number of accidents.
When I hear the suggestion that we are going to subsidize industry, I have to say that if industry wants to reduce its rates it has to help reduce the number of accidents. It does that by a meaningful health and safety program involving the workers on one hand and the employer on the other to reduce those accidents. We are not going to reduce them one iota if we subsidize them to help them pay the freight that society is paying now.
I get sick and tired of the gobbledegook about poor industry. I want to tell the member, if he wants to see rates reduced the number of accidents must be reduced.
Compensation is not a very complex thing. I think the board makes it unduly complicated. There are two factors. When one gets hurt one needs income and one needs retraining. Maybe there are three factors; one also has to be repaired physically. We should deal with those three things.
My friend is talking about a universal sickness and accident policy. Although he does not want to use those words that is what he is advocating. The day society starts to kick in, based on the original intention of the Workers' Compensation Act, then we eliminate the Workers' Compensation Board and move to universal sickness and accident insurance.
I never cease to be amazed by these Tories. This is the free enterprise party that is saying: "Subsidize again. Give industry some more. There is not enough; bring a truckload in." However, I do not hear much about cutting down accidents. They seem to think if we stop the silliness on occupational health and safety that is how we will deal with it.
I want to deal with only one aspect of the board. We put many things in the report, but I want to deal with a problem area. I know what Professor Ellis is doing and I know the moves made by the government, but they attack the problem in the wrong place. The problem is not with the appeal system per se, although that will improve things somewhat. The primary level of adjudication is what is driving all of us crazy.
When I speak about the compensation board I have difficulty even being rational about it any more. After 19 years of fighting the board I have reached the point where I am convinced it deliberately sets out to find ways to take people off compensation. No one can convince me of anything different.
Let me give an example. A young man worked in the construction industry for 15 years. He never had a test on the equipment. He did not have earmuffs. He took up skeet shooting one summer. He is industrially deaf. What did the compensation board blame it on? Guess. The board said it was skeet shooting for one summer.
It has to be a perverse system that can find that reasoning to eliminate someone from compensation. The problem for all of us is we cannot even get a handle on the primary adjudication to try to find out why this continues to occur. There is not even a pattern. The only pattern is the inconsistency. There is nothing that is consistent at the board except the inconsistency at the primary level of adjudication. Until we deal with that we can put in all the nice structures we want without basically improving things.
I say to the new chairman, until we get at the root of what is wrong at the primary level of adjudication we are never going to resolve this problem. I suggest to him there are some problems at that level; and some are in the medical staff. Some people have talked around the issue. We need some competent doctors at that board who are specialists in various fields so we get the best medical information and assessment available. That is not happening. We get gobbledegook.
10:20 p.m.
The new chairman sat at the board recently at the hearings, and Mr. Corbeau, a lovely fellow whom I have known for years, said, "No one is cut off." One of the areas of major concern is the family physician or treating specialist and the board doctor. Mr. Corbeau had the audacity to say that when there was a difference of opinion the worker was never cut off without first having being seen by the board doctor and examined. That is a bunch of hokum.
If I asked every member in this Legislature to bring five cases forward in which the board doctor said that the man was to be cut off, regardless of what the family or treating physician had said, and without having been seen by him, each and every member could find five cases tomorrow. The board will sit there and argue with us, when all of us in this Legislature know that to be the case. That is part of the problem at the board. I do not know whether they can see the forest for the trees. This all deals with that primary level of adjudication.
One might say, "It is no longer at that stage." It is if one has a man coming back with an aggravation. The easiest thing to resolve should be aggravation of a former accident. It is now a nightmare. I would like someone to tell me some day what the hell it is at the primary level of adjudication and why we can have every cockeyed, stupid, idiotic reason for it.
There are probably a thousand of us out here trying to help workers. Why? That is the role of the board and its employees; it is not the role of members of the Legislature. It may be in the odd complicated case. Why are so many of us so deeply involved? It is because of the adjudication system, the primary level.
We put all this nice airy-fairy stuff in. As I said to Professor Ellis, it reads like a lawyer's nirvana. That was the best system in the board. If one were going to pick something in the board that was pretty good it was going before the adjudication level, particularly the final level.
However, that is not where the problems are. Sure, they change some and they reverse them. The minister and I chatted about it tonight. They reverse a fair number. The question is why are improper decisions made in the first place; and no one wants to deal with that.
The act in itself is not a bad act. There could be some changes here and there, particularly in the meat chart and the rating of disability, but by and large it is not a bad act. I prefer total --
Mr. Haggerty: Yes, but there is another aspect; the board's policy and the adjudication policy they have.
Mr. Martel: That is the thing that is wrong: the policy book, which no one can understand except Al MacDonald. I am not sure; maybe Doug Cain understands it.
I will watch. I have two minutes to go. I am being instructed to make this brief.
That is a key area. We are going to have to look at the medical staff and at what is going on out in the field. The board says it does not tell staff to find reasons; just the opposite, give the worker the benefit of the doubt. If the board wanted to undertake one thing that would be progressive, it would be to find out why the primary level of adjudication is so screwed up.
The second thing I want to say to my friend the chairman and to the people who are with him is that I want to find out once and for all whether I am right. Day after day, case after case, the family doctor says he is not ready to go back to work and the attending specialist says he is not ready to go back to work, but somebody at the board says he is and he goes back to work. At least he is told he is going back to work. Members know that Mr. Corbeau said this does not happen without examining that worker first. That is bunk, and I hope the chairman will eliminate that kind of response.
If we want to improve the board, retrain them. There is very little sense in our having a young man or a young woman of 30 injured and remain on partial disability and welfare for the rest of his or her life. That is a real cost to society.
One has to take the time to retrain them. I remember Art Darnbrough saying to us, "We spent $750 million last year sending people to post-secondary education." Is that not wonderful? That is $750,000 of the board's budget for some 300 people. As I said to Mr. Darnbrough on that occasion, "The total cost per year for those of us in the Legislature who send our kids to university would be much higher that that." We are talking about injured workers. That is $750,000 in post-secondary education. Are we saying that every worker is a dumb slob and he cannot accept university training? We are going to have to move in that field. That has to be strengthened.
I am running out of time, so I want to make one point about the functional assessment team. I was pleased with my friend the good doctor who played a major role in getting the committee to accept that. That is an area that will reduce, to some degree, some worker receiving a letter from someone that says: "You are going back to work. You are ready to go back to work." Somebody either looked at a letter or some doctor in a hurry did not have time to assess the guy properly and said, "You are ready to go back to being an underground miner."
Last week, a worker who cannot lift, walk on rough ground or do anything that makes him bend over to lift anything was told to go back to work. He has five different restrictions and the board told him to go back to work. He worked for Ontario Hydro in construction. He was up on a post, the post fell and landed on top of him. With all these restrictions, the board told him to go back to some form of modified work. Tell me what modified work is for that guy. It blows my mind.
With those remarks, I simply say that we have a report before the House which I hope the board will deal with seriously. I charge my friend the minister with making sure that some of this is carried out, because if it is we will not have as many problems a year hence. I hope he takes it seriously. I wish I had more time to do a bigger rant.
Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to participate in the debate?
Hon. Mr. Wrye: I will be brief, as I note the hour.
I wish only to say that for our part we have begun to move in the right direction. I am pleased to note the tribute that has been paid to my colleague the member for Humber, who I think deserves a great deal of credit for his work on the committee, as do all members on the government side. I want to be fair. All members of the committee deserve a great deal of respect for the work they have put into this report and its 40 recommendations. I know Dr. Elgie and the board are looking very carefully at each and every individual recommendation.
I note only in passing, as I conclude a very short remark, that the board and the government will be looking at and focusing on the whole area of vocational rehabilitation, particularly in the months to come. It is an area that we have neglected in some substantial effect for far too long.
As a minister and as a member of the executive council of the government, I can assure the honourable members that we are deeply concerned about the lack of direction that vocational rehabilitation has had in the past. We want to work with the corporate board and with the chairman to ensure that vocational rehabilitation becomes much more of a reality for injured workers in the months and years to come.
With those remarks, if it is appropriate, I would move the adoption of the recommendations of the standing committee.
Mr. Speaker: That motion has already been placed by Mr. Laughren. The motion is that the report be received and adopted.
Motion agreed to.
The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.