I’m sorry, but this statement couldn’t be further from the truth. In 2002, under what amounted to an elected dictatorship, compensation law and policy was intentionally stacked to favour employers. Many reports have validated that the changes made in 2002 have not only given a blessing to employers. The changes, in effect, pitted workers and employers in a legal game conducted by WorkSafeBC. Although I’m certain some injured and ill workers made it through the maze that is this self-serving system, many workers in BC did not.

This review is over-due. Long over-due. The general public isn’t fully aware of the reality that many workers in confrontation with injury in illness in BC, faced up until the change in Government, a quite callous system. There was no balance. Legislative changes in 2002 were put down for the very purpose they achieved.

Employers benefited and WorkSafe benefited, while many injured workers, due to the stress of engaging in the system, took their own lives. The past government and employers may wish to keep that reality buried under a rug. Myself and fellow advocates, who pushed for this review, simply will not allow that dirt to not now be exposed and cleaned up. Criminal law in Canada now makes it crystal clear who it is that is fully responsible, 100%, for safety in our B.C. workplaces today: I’ll refer you, BC employers, to the Westray Act.

I’m a former BC social service worker and former BC paramedic. I served in my home town as a First responder for 16 years. I’ve confronted this system now for 13 years, head-on. I’m one of Canada’s first responders who lost it all, and nearly my life. I survived my own suicide attempt-too many of my peers have not-including four first responders who perished to suicide in B.C. in 2018.

After years struggling and causing myself much further harm trying to stay working-I succumbed in 2015 to depression. Thankfully I survived. I know too many with stories like my own. We’ve all met up along the way. We’ve banded together and simply will not allow continued abuse of employers and WorkSafe.
I’m now permanently disabled. Google, “Sanctuary Trauma”. That is what WorkSafe law and policy has delivered to injured workers for years. A generation now is lost to chronic issues with improperly treated injuries and illness-people have died.

Permanently Disabled: That’s what I got for my service in B.C. Our Canada Pension Plan? Try surviving long with an income of $13, 000/year. Taxed no less on this deep-poverty level income. Things in B.C. are so bad now for our disabled population myself and others called on the United Nations to investigate-we stood up for all disabled citizens-injured, ill and employer-abandoned workers and our families included. Let that sink in: We needed to call on the United Nations to be rightly heard.The Special Rapporteur’s ‘End of Mission to Canada’ statement, speaks volumes.

I now quite comfortably share this, given the outcome of the Petrie Report. The outcomes of a generation’s worth of inept public policy speak for themselves to validate that we have a serious problem. This review will tackle one system. We intend to expose it all in all such systems.

“Restoring the Balance” is the perfect title for Mr. Petrie’s Report that supported our call for this review.