Third Session, 42nd Parliament

(2022) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 245

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 41 — Workers Compensation Amendment Act (No. 2), 2022 (continued)

G. Kyllo

M. Bernier

A. Olsen

A. Mercier

D. Davies

R. Merrifield

P. Milobar

T. Halford

B. Stewart

D. Coulter

J. Sturdy

M. Elmore

B. Banman

Hon. H. Bains

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of the Whole House

Bill 36 — Health Professions and Occupations Act (continued)

M. Lee

Hon. A. Dix

S. Bond

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2022

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call second reading, in this chamber, on Bill 41, Workers Compensation

Amendment Act.

In Committee A, I call committee stage for Bill 36, Health Professions and

Occupations Act.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 41 — WORKERS COMPENSATION

AMENDMENT ACT (N o . 2), 2022

(continued)

G. Kyllo: It is indeed a great privilege to be able to rise in this House

today to respond to Bill 41, the Workers Compensation Amendment Act (No.

2), 2022. By notice, I am the designated speaker.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

It definitely gives me a great amount of pleasure to stand today

and respond in second reading to Bill 41. Significant changes to the

B.C. Workers Compensation Act.

I think it’s important, at the outset, to just give thanks and

recognition to the many workers from across this province that provide

all of the benefits that provide for the society that we all enjoy.

Workers from both the private sector and the public sector, unionized

and non-unionized. Workers, in general, definitely have the right to a

healthy work environment, the right to be able to go to work and for

their families to have confidence that those workers are going to be

able to safely return home at the end of each and every day.

There’s a fine line that needs to be approached and to be achieved

with respect to the balance of the costs borne by employers in providing

funding for the workers compensation that all workers enjoy in this

province and then, also, in ensuring that workers are protected — those

who might be injured on the worksite or, sadly, who may not return home

at the end of the day — and that their families are actually well looked

after.

I think it is, to that point, really important that we have a look

at the context of the Workers Compensation Amendment Act and the

amendments that are being brought forward by this government and that we

are able to strike that balance.

[1:35 p.m.]

We have gone through some pretty significant crises here in B.C.

in the last number of years, specifically the COVID pandemic, which is

still upon us, and the opioid crisis, which is having a significant

effect, as I shared earlier in this House today, with 80 percent of

opioid deaths affecting men, many of whom are in the construction and

transportation sectors.

Again, at this particular juncture in time, B.C. is faced with a

number of health care crises that are actually having a significant

impact on our workforce. So as we look to the amendments that are coming

forward, I think it is important to have a look at the context of where

the economy is at, what the position, financial strengths of businesses

are and their ability to potentially undertake and take on just further

cost impacts in light of the pandemic.

It’s no surprise to me and many of our members on this side of the

House — and, I’m sure, even members on the government side — that

businesses are still finding a lot of financial stress. We found from

the different surveys that have been done by CFIB recently that business

confidence levels are at an all-time low. Businesses are very concerned

about the outlook. We’ve had significant increases in the interest rates

with yet further increases before us.

I think businesses are really feeling the struggle. So as we have

a look at some of the amendments that are being brought forward….

Although they’re definitely valid and many are even much needed, we also

have to take into context the ability of businesses to actually shoulder

some of that financial burden.

With that, it’s important to note that the New Directions

report, a.k.a. the Patterson report, which was launched in April of 2019

and released again in August of 2020, has largely inspired and directed

the changes that are before the House with this particular piece of

legislation. The legislation implements some recommendations from the

report by Janet Patterson. This report, sadly, was tainted by the fact

that many of the employer associations actually withdrew from the

process over the apprehension and concerns of bias of the former adviser

at the B.C. Federation of Labour.

I will be, in my commentary, speaking a bit about the consultation

that was undertaken with the business associations, those that are

largely representing employers from across this province, and the

concerns that they had with respect to the bias and concerns they had

with the consultation that was or was not undertaken. I’ll note that

this was actually extremely controversial. We’ll have many questions

about the lack of consultation and the bias, again, that was reflected

in the Patterson report, in the consultation process for this

legislation as a whole.

Later yesterday afternoon I was speaking with a representative of

a fairly large business organization who expressed extreme concern on

the lack of access to this government. Three formal requests last spring

and absolute silence in the response from the minister. It took a fourth

inquiry directly to the Premier’s office to heighten the level of

concern on the lack of attention before there was finally a response

from the minister.

We have a look at a government that needs to provide consultation

and representation both of workers but also of business associations and

business owners across the province. It’s important that businesses have

confidence in this government.

Just before the lunch hour break, the minister spoke about

confidence in our WorkSafeBC system. Confidence is absolutely

imperative, confidence by workers and also confidence by the business

community so that they actually feel that their concerns are being

heard.

Sadly, that confidence does not exist with many of the private

sector business associations and organizations, who seem to not be able

to attract the attention of the minister, who feel sidelined and ignored

and who do not really feel that they’re at the table with this

government in consultation around the drafting of very important pieces

of legislation like that that is in front of us here today.

[1:40 p.m.]

Bill 41 also attempts to bring aspects of the act in line with

other jurisdictions. I think that it’s definitely worthwhile to do a

scan of other jurisdictions across Canada. I don’t know that we

necessarily want to be leading the pack. We certainly don’t want to be

at the bottom of the pack.

But it is important for us to do a bit of a navel-gazing exercise

to determine the workers compensation supports in our province and how

that stacks up and meets with other jurisdictions around Canada. In some

instances, the minister has indicated that B.C. is actually behind. And

in some of the more expensive costs that are associated with the changes

that are before us today…. In some of those instances, B.C. is, indeed,

slightly behind other jurisdictions in Canada.

As we have a look at those jurisdictions that we might want to

have a look at, I think it’s also imperative that we give consideration

to the provinces that are most like B.C. in size, demographics and the

economies that actually drive our province. So I think that as we’re

looking at doing comparisons across other jurisdictions, the

prov­inces of Alberta, Ontario and Quebec are probably the three

largest jurisdictions that we actually should be giving consideration to

as we give consideration to how the program is offered to workers in

British Columbia and how that stacks up against other provinces in

Canada.

Unfortunately, the NDP have repeatedly shown a lack of balance

regarding labour issues, with everything from the discriminatory union

benefit agreement — the community benefits agreement, as they call it —

to the removal of the secret ballot for union certification, to the role

of big unions — as recently as the recent leadership process undertaken

by the NDP.

The Balance, Stability, Improvement report and the

Restoring the Balance report have also inspired some

elements of this bill which have been integrated into the legislation

that’s before this House. The bill implements several of the

recommendations from the report, especially regarding interest paid on

overdue wage loss and permanent disability benefits greater than 180

days, based on a number of different factors. Notably, the bill provides

protection for workers who may face retaliation for filing compensation

claims.

That particular piece is something that is definitely worthy of

consideration and implementing. I have heard stories of workers who are

encouraged by their employers, attending the emergency department or

going to see a family doctor…. I have heard stories of employers that

have encouraged them to not indicate that it was a workplace-related

injury. As the minister shared in his comments, that is absolutely

inappropriate.

Although the minister was not able to share just how rampant the

numbers are, I’ve heard of a number of different instances where that

has occurred, but I don’t know that it’s necessarily systemic throughout

British Columbia. No matter how stringent the regulations may or may not

be, there will always be some bad actors. But I certainly am in support

of this particular piece of the legislation that provides a bit more

rigour and also the opportunity for administrative penalties for

businesses that work towards suppressing worker injury

claims.

I think, too, from the workers’ standpoint, it’s also incredibly

important that it is actually noted as a workplace injury. A worker may

stress their back, and although they may be able to return to work in a

day or two, it’s hard to determine, at that particular point in time,

what challenges they may face ten or 20 or 30 or 40 years down the

line.

[1:45 p.m.]

So it’s important not just for employers to understand that any

behaviour to suppress workers from making claims is going to be the

recipient of administrative penalties; it’s also important that workers

really, fully understand the necessity of making sure that if they do

have an injury or an accident that occurs on the worksite, they actually

make sure that those complaints are lodged. And if they are seeking

medical advice, again, make sure that that is duly noted on their

medical report, because one never knows what future health concerns may

arise in their later years.

As well, the bill provides protection for workers who may face

retaliation for filing claims. Again, I think this is an area where we,

as the official opposition, certainly are in support of that and want to

see that all employers are fair and honest with their employees and that

they’re treated appropriately.

Similarly, clause 4 helps to guide the relationship between the

worker and employer in situations where injury or other cases might

cause a disturbance. The bill proposes the establishment of a fair

practices commissioner, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, independent

from Workers Compensation Board’s administration and reporting directly

to the board of directors.

Establishing a new agency and expanding government does come with

some risks, and we’d like to ensure that the minister has considered

these risks, especially regarding the execution of this particular

launch. Sadly, we have seen this government fail to consult, at times,

with relevant stakeholders, regarding changes to the industry, and I’d

like to verify that this bill has been subject to a robust consultation

effort that includes both workers and employers. We do know that during

the creation of the Patterson report, employer groups dropped out of the

consultation phase due to dissatisfaction with the report’s scope and

how it impacted operations.

Now, I do believe that this bill does strike a balance, or at

least it aspires to. However, although I was provided a briefing

yesterday from the minister’s office, there are a number of concerns we

have with respect to the costing and the financial impacts of various

pieces of this legislation.

I am hoping that in committee stage, we’ll be able to further

identify and determine what those cost impacts are, again striking that

balance between providing adequate support for workers and injured

workers as well as ensuring that the financial burden that may be put

upon employers does not put us out of step with other jurisdictions

across Canada, many of which could potentially lead to uncompetitiveness

of B.C. businesses.

B.C.’s workers compensation system does give workers the right to

compensation for being injured on the job while providing employers

immunity from lawsuits from injured workers. For a sustainable industry

and healthy work-employer relationships, ensuring that all parties are

protected is in the government’s best interests. However, we also need

to keep in mind that businesses’ employees need consistency and

stability, and we need to be mindful on how this legislation would

impact that.

The act, specifically clause 9, requires the retention of a health

professional for advice and information, and the independent medical

opinion of the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal does have its

merits. However, we certainly do have significant questions about the

potential impacts that may have both on costs and on the timeliness of

coming to a final determination on a claim.

We’re certainly concerned about other cost issues. Although

WorkSafeBC does have an unappropriated balance with more than $5 billion

as of last year, it’s certainly subject to market volatility, and the

distribution of these funds must be appropriately planned, monitored and

executed.

[1:50 p.m.]

We do look forward to debating this, both in committee stage and

to better understand how the cost pressures associated with this piece

of legislation will influence the finances of WorkSafeBC.

Again, if we talk about the confidence and the amount of

disclosure, the amount of information that is shared by this government

with both employers and workers, with respect to the cost implications

of different pieces of legislation that are brought forward, is

absolutely paramount.

We only have to go back to the 1990s, when the current government

was then in power. WorkSafeBC was an absolute dumpster fire, an absolute

dumpster fire in the 1990s — significant unfunded liabilities. When the

B.C. Liberals formed government in 2001, there was a significant amount

of work that had to be undertaken to right that floundering ship. Many

efforts were undertaken at that particular time to try and put the

worker accident fund back into stable territory.

It was successful, extremely successful. Workers were well

represented. The fund was very healthy, with a considerable

surplus.

For members that may be watching from home, there’s actually a

legislative requirement that when a worker is injured, the cost

determined or established for maintaining and looking after the medical

and the financial supports for that injured worker are taken into

consideration, and funds are set aside to provide that protection for

the workers. There’s a base rate that is established, based on all of

those claims costs. As an extra measure of protection, there’s an

additional 30 percent that is set aside.

WorkSafeBC, when they do establish and set aside the funds for

maintaining a healthy worker accident fund…. It’s not just the base rate

on their estimated costs. There’s an additional 30 percent contingency

to ensure that if there’s market volatility, there’s a significant

amount of additional funds in order to ensure that workers aren’t unduly

put in harm’s way with respect to market volatilities that may happen,

or future claims costs. So that worker accident fund is actually

extremely robust.

The additional surplus that I referenced is funds that are in

addition to that 130 percent. As of December 31 last year, it’s my

understanding that that was a little over $5 billion. So again, a very

healthy additional surplus.

That surplus and all of the premiums are funded by employers, so

they’re employer premiums. One might be able to make the argument that

maybe employees were overcharged for a number of years. But having said

all that, the workers compensation accident fund has been extremely

healthy for the last 20-odd years, which was not the case when the NDP

left government back in the early 2000s. The worker accident fund was a

disaster.

In any event, as we’re sitting here now, looking at yet further

administrative changes or legislative changes for the Workers

Compensation Act, the question arises: what is the cost associated with

all of the changes that are before this House?

There was some reference to some generalities that I received

yesterday. I certainly am hoping that the minister will be forthcoming

in providing accurate information to this House with respect to what

estimated costs are associated with the changes that are set out in this

particular piece of legislation. I think all governments need to ensure

that they’re being forthright, honest and upfront with the general

public and, in this case, with workers — those who are actually

responsible for providing the premiums to provide that necessary

protection for workers in the province.

[1:55 p.m.]

There have been a number of changes to the Workers Compensation

Act. The minister, in his remarks, mentioned a significant number of

changes that have been implemented since the NDP have formed government.

Many of them are valid and worthy changes. But what we have not seen

from this government is any honesty when it comes to what the potential

financial impacts are.

One specific change, which occurred in the last year and a half,

was Bill 23, and in that particular piece of legislation, there was a

change which took a look at, actually, the retirement age of workers. So

if a young worker was maybe injured and unable to return to the

workplace at the age of 30, there was an estimation and determination

that their funding would run right through to the retirement age at

In evaluating the cost of managing that claim and providing those

necessary supports for the worker, WorkSafeBC would have to have a look

at the severity of the injury, the potential ongoing medical costs on

looking after that worker and, of course, what the indexed, estimated

cost of their worker benefit would be through till age 65. That cost

would be known. Although it wasn’t with absolute certainty, there was at

least an estimation that was undertaken to determine what that cost

might be. Those costs were borne and established, and the budgeting for

that was put into the worker accident fund.

What Bill 23 has done is effectively provided an opportunity for

those injured workers, ten, 20 or 30 years after the injury occurred, to

make the request for a review of WorkSafeBC and to give consideration

that maybe, rather than retiring at age 65, I was going to work till age

70 or 72 or 75. Although that argument may remain valid, and members of

the general public may be thinking, “Well, maybe that is fair and

equitable,” the challenge is that with respect to that particular

change, it’ll have significant cost impact on the worker accident fund.

But we don’t know what it is.

I appreciate that government may not be able to accurately

determine how many individuals might be requesting a review, and it is

fully up to the WorkSafeBC board — that’s my understanding — to make a

determination whether they’re going to accept or reject that

application, whether they may determine: “We’ll maybe let you move it

till age 67 or 69 or 72 or 75.”

A significant number of additional cost burdens that won’t be

borne by the ratepayers back when that worker was initially injured 20

or 25 years ago…. Those costs will now be borne solely by ratepayers

today. That is a new, unintended, unanticipated cost burden that is

being put on current and future ratepayers. We don’t know what that cost

might be.

It was the dual pension provision back in the 1990s that put

WorkSafeBC on the rocks and created all the financial challenges that

needed to be remedied in the early 2000s. But here we have a government

that has moved forward, now, with replacing the same dual pension

legislation that was the cause of much of the hardship for the

organization back in the 1990s. We have yet to receive any information

from this government or from the minister with respect to the magnitude

of the cost.

We talked about the potential $5 billion in surplus over here —

Bill 23 — and we can appreciate that those costs won’t all be borne in

the first year, but any workers that otherwise would be attaining age

65, I’m sure, are thinking: “Geez, maybe I’d like to extend this and be

making application for a review.”

[2:00 p.m.]

What that process of determination is by WorkSafeBC, I’m not

familiar, but I have heard that some individuals have had their age of

retirement extended from 65 to 68 and, in some cases, until their 70s.

So again, a significant cost burden without any information forthcoming

from this government with respect to the cost magnitude.

The other concerns we have on the financial implications — and

these certainly aren’t of government’s doing — have to do with

investment returns. I recall asking the minister last year in estimates

what the actual rate of return was for the worker accident fund on all

their investments, and I was absolutely impressed that the rate of

return that the minister shared with me was 11.1 percent.

I think most of us would be quite excited to have that type of an

annual return on our investments, 11.1 percent. Extremely healthy. Those

financial returns help to further bolster the accident fund and

potentially provide some relief for worker rates, the compensation rates

that are actually paid by employers.

However, this year I think we will all understand it’s going to be

a very different situation. Is that a 5 percent loss, a 10 percent loss,

a 15 percent loss? We don’t know. The financial year in reporting for

WorkSafeBC is December 31. I’m quite certain that WorkSafeBC will be

watching this very closely and likely will have some pretty good

indication even now — at this late date, on November 1 — on what kind of

returns they will or will not receive. I’m guessing it’s probably in the

10 to 15 percent range.

It was interesting that when I asked ministry staff when

WorkSafeBC might report out on what the financial rate of return was or

is or will be for this current fiscal, it wasn’t January 10 or January

15, although I’m sure WorkSafeBC will have the numbers by then. I was

told that we’ll have to wait until the regular financial reporting of

WorkSafeBC’s financial statement, which won’t be out until late March or

April.

Well, imagine contacting your financial advisor trying to get some

determination on how you did on your stocks this last fiscal, but you’re

being told: “It’s going to take three months past year-end before we

want to disclose that and let you know.” I’m not quite sure where that

comes around for confidence in the system.

I certainly am hoping that when we do get to committee stage — I

will certainly be asking many of these same questions directly of the

minister — with the minister having all of his very competent staff at

his disposal, that he might be able to provide a little bit more

insight. On something as important as the financial return on $20

billion of investment, I certainly would hope that government would be

more than willing to come forth and actually share, with British

Columbians, the impacts of any reductions in estimated financial return

for the accident fund.

Now, as I mentioned at the outset of my commentary, these are

extremely tough financial times. Businesses that may still be busy,

businesses that may have returned to full employment from pre-pandemic

levels — what I’m hearing, they are struggling financially. Many

businesses breaking even, having to dip into lines of credit in order to

keep their doors open.

At the same time that they’re barely struggling to keep their

operations fluid, we have increasing interest rates on the horizon, and

economic forecasters from around the globe are talking of potential

recession. And in the backdrop of all of that financial economic

uncertainty, government has chosen that now is the time to put potential

additional cost burden on the backs of businesses.

[2:05 p.m.]

Now, the minister did share that WorkSafeBC — I don’t think it’s

any great surprise — came out last week, last Thursday, and announced

that the actual base rate for worker protection in this province will

remain static, that there will be no increases in fiscal

It gets me to thinking. A minister that says he has no control

over WorkSafeBC, that they’re independent…. It’s not typical for

WorkSafeBC to come out in the last week of October and actually make an

advance notification that we’re going to hold rates for the next fiscal.

So the fact that WorkSafeBC came out last week and said: “Don’t worry,

folks. We’re going to maintain rates for 2023. All of these changes over

here, yeah, there’ll be cost impacts, but we’re not going to share any

of that with you. But don’t worry about it, because we’re maintaining

your rate stability through 2023….”

Now, maybe it’s coincidental. With the tabling of Bill 41 this

week in the House, with only two sitting weeks left, a pretty

significant piece of legislation will have pretty significant cost

impacts on the organization. Yet WorkSafeBC came out last week to

provide comfort to businesses: “Well, yes, we’re making changes. Changes

are being undertaken by this current government. It’ll add cost pressure

and cost impacts to the worker accident fund. But don’t worry. We’re

going to maintain rates through fiscal 2023.”

Storm clouds are not just on the horizon anymore. They’re now

above us. Legislative changes…. Many of them are valid. I in no way,

shape or form dispute the merits of many of the changes. But I think the

question that is before us is the timing. There’s been no shortage of

additional cost pressures that have been put on businesses in the last

5½ years that reduce the competitiveness of B.C. businesses, businesses

here at home.

I think back to the 1990s. I know that’s a long time ago. I know

that for many of our younger viewers, they may have just still been in

elementary school then. But it’s important to remind British Columbians

of the fact that…. The fact we’ve had a fairly healthy and robust

economy in the last 15 years was not the norm in the 1990s. There was a

time when B.C. had the worst economic performance of any province in

Canada — the worst. Not the middle of the pack. Not second from last.

Dead last. We had the highest unemployment rate in Canada.

You think of how we are blessed with natural resources on Canada’s

coast, the economic opportunities that we have afforded to us. But

without proper government that was keeping their hand on ensuring that

businesses remain competitive, we went to the bottom of the pack — the

bottom of the barrel in Canada and the worst record for job creation in

all of Canada.

Now, that changed. Some might say: “Well, it was just

coincidental.” The B.C. Liberals came to power with 77 of 79 seats. For

members over there, I just want to remind you that there was a time when

you were reduced to just two sitting seats in the

Legislature.

Deputy Speaker: Through the Speaker, of course.

G. Kyllo: Oh, of course, hon. Speaker.

Of course, that was a message of British Columbians. They’d had

enough of the cost pressures that drove businesses out of this province.

It took a long time in the early 2000s to right that ship, to create

B.C. as an environment that was attractive to businesses and to create

that employment. And employment is so fundamental to everything that we

do as a society — that sense of purpose and ability to provide for your

families, put food on the table, pay rent and cover your mortgage

payment.

[2:10 p.m.]

We see what happens with high unemployment rates. I’ve always

shared — typically, campaigning during election cycles — about the value

of full employment or as near full employment as we can get. A working

community is a healthy community. Where we see high unemployment rates,

we see increased dependency on drugs and alcohol, we see increased

occasion for family and marital disputes and breakup, and we see

increasing levels of crime. So it’s all connected.

There’s that balance. We have to have a healthy economy, which

means that we have to be cognizant of ensuring that businesses that are

operating here in British Columbia are competitive and remain

competitive compared to other jurisdictions. And with respect to Bill

41, we also need to make sure that workers feel safe, that we have a

robust system. I can say that worker injury rates in British Columbia

have largely been stable or declining slightly for the last number of

years, and that’s a good thing.

Governments have brought forward core certification, opportunities

for businesses to really improve and add some more robustness to the

health and safety policies they have in their corporations. For that

additional cost burden and the work to make that employment worksite

safer, there are some small deductions, some administrative relief

that’s actually provided. Those are extremely valid

initiatives.

But what we have seen, sadly, although we have seen accident rates

largely stabilize, is a significant increase in the actual cost of

administration and the cost of claims. The cost magnitude is absolutely

staggering, and these are areas that I think government should be

accountable for in ensuring that they’re properly monitoring the work of

WorkSafeBC.

In benchmarking the program…. The minister is quick to want to

benchmark the benefits that are provided to workers in B.C., as compared

to other jurisdictions in Canada, and I absolutely agree with that

approach. But where is the benchmarking that is undertaken to properly

evaluate the administrative cost burden with respect to delivery of the

workers compensation product here in British Columbia?

Given that injuries are down, it would be expected that costs and

overall liability would be on a similar trajectory. However, in the last

five years alone, the cost of claims has grown by a staggering 90

percent.

So you’ll recall I talked about this surplus. There’s this surplus

that’s over there. And I guess if you’ve got a big bank account with a

whole bunch of additional cash stowed away, you don’t have to be so

worried about the ongoing operating expenses.

It’s apparent, under this government’s watch, administration costs

have risen by 90 percent — not 9, not 19, not 29, but 90 percent. Yet

worker accident rates largely have been unchanged or, if anything,

slightly declined. How can you justify that? There’s a cost burden in

this instance that will directly be borne by employers in this

province.

[2:15 p.m.]

As we look at these different pieces of legislation that have been

brought before this House, there has been no costing. What business

would undertake change in policy or process without looking at the hard

cost? If there’s an inability of government to pinpoint it with absolute

accuracy, at least you could provide a range: “We estimate that this

particular piece of legislation, as valid as it may be, will have a cost

magnitude ranging from A to Z.”

Government would then have to be forthright and forthcoming to

British Columbians and say: “Lookit, we’re going to be optimistic and

think that the cost magnitude is low.” They could be pessimistic and

think that the cost magnitude is going to be high, but at least they

might even come to the determination that we’re going to estimate it to

be somewhere in the middle. At least, on full disclosure, on

transparency, we’ve shared with the employers, who are paying the funds

to provide the workers protection in this province. At least we’re going

to let them know what the cost magnitudes are.

But bill after bill after bill have been brought forward in this

House with much debate and zero disclosure to British Columbians or to

businesses with respect to the cost magnitude associated with these

changes.

Now, hon. Speaker, if it’s not concerning for you or for listeners

at home, I do know that business associations and business organizations

are extremely concerned. This also will flow back to the competitiveness

of businesses here in our province.

Since taking office in 2017, we have seen a significant increase

in taxation and new fees that further erode and reduce the

competitiveness of businesses here in our province. Bill 41 will only

add potential further challenges and cost impediments on businesses in

B.C. Everything from an increase in the corporate tax rate….

Well, we certainly aren’t an island. We don’t have finite borders

where we only do commerce within the province of British Columbia. We

compete with neighbouring jurisdictions of Alberta, northern U.S.

states, but here’s an interesting fact. Do you know that our corporate

income tax in B.C. is now 50 percent higher than our neighbouring

province of Alberta? Fifty percent. Alberta has a corporate tax rate of

8 percent. For the privilege of opening a business here in B.C., 12

percent — 50 percent higher corporate tax rate to corporations that

operate in B.C.

What message is that telling to large corporations, who we

otherwise want to attract here to set up their head offices, to provide

gainful employment, to invest in B.C., to create those very important

family-supporting jobs? “Well, yeah, you can come here, but you’re going

to pay a big premium, a 50 percent premium, on the corporate tax

rate.”

What else have we received from this current government? Well, we

have a new employer health tax, which for a significant number or the

majority of our larger employers in this province adds an additional 1.9

percent of cost — $1.9 billion of additional cost burden that has been

added.

So as much as the government may talk about eliminating MSP

premiums, nothing was eliminated. It was just a tax shift. It went from

the responsibility of the citizen, in many instances that were paid by

businesses, to directly being fully on the backs of businesses in B.C.

That even affected many of the other agencies and government agencies.

Some were backstopped and provided additional funding to cover that

additional 2 percent cost, but some weren’t.

We have crime rates in British Columbia that are out of control.

What did the NDP do when they brought forward the employer health tax?

They didn’t fund it. That was a 2 percent funding cut for RCMP services

around our province, having a significantly larger impact on rural

communities.

[2:20 p.m.]

We’ve got a 50 percent higher corporate tax rate. We have the

employer health tax. Oh, and what did we get this year? Five days of

paid sick leave. Now, paid sick leave in the middle of a pandemic, I

think, is admirable. It was supported, I believe, by all members of this

House — for illness. Guess what. They decided to slip in “injury” as

well.

I get it. If somebody is sick, and they’re coughing, the last

thing we want is that worker that has an illness to actually go to work

and, potentially, transfer that virus and cause other individuals in the

workplace to be ill. But if somebody, who’s out skiing on the weekend

and twists an ankle — it has nothing to do with the employer; it’s not

the employer’s fault — or injures their leg while skiing on a weekend,

calls in saying, “I can’t come to work; my leg’s sore,” the employers in

British Columbia get to pay for that — the only jurisdiction in

Canada.

Now, I’m not saying that somebody that injures their leg skiing

doesn’t still have to put groceries on the table and pay rent, but how

is that the obligation and responsibility of the employer? Employers are

getting fed up. It is one cost burden on top of another, which is

reducing the opportunity for businesses to be competitive in B.C. The

cumulative effects and the lack of disclosure by this government are

concerning to me and many businesses across the province.

We certainly will be raising many questions during committee stage

— about financial stability, how these specific changes in Bill 41 will

affect the Workers Compensation Act, and how cost pressures will affect

rates going into the future. At a time when costs are increasing for all

small businesses, we want to ensure that they’re kept under control and

that there’s full disclosure. Bringing forward legislative changes

without sharing with British Columbians what the cost impacts are —

that’s unfair. That’s certainly not transparent. That’s not

forthcoming.

We do know it was only a number of years ago, when asked about the

status of the surplus within WorkSafeBC with the worker accident fund,

that the minister cavalierly said, “Oh, it has been wiped out; it

doesn’t exist,” only to be corrected the next day by WorkSafeBC: “No,

the minister misspoke.” It is a pretty healthy surplus.

I think at the time it was about $2½ billion or $3 billion. We

have a minister that made a rounding error and somehow misplaced or

didn’t recognize the fact that the worker accident fund was $2½ billion

higher than what he was actually sharing to the news media. If that

doesn’t give you cause for concern, I don’t know what would.

I think now I’m going to go through some of the specific changes.

There are 16 different pieces of the bill, seven of which have a pretty

significant impact on the delivery of services to workers in B.C. The

first change that has been identified is the development of the fair

practices commissioner.

I know, certainly within my own constituency office in Salmon Arm,

that on occasion we do have workers that will reach out with concerns

with respect to WorkSafeBC. If there’s an inability to find a remedy or

solution to that particular problem, largely, for workers in B.C., the

only avenue, if they pass their appeal process, would be then bringing

it forward to the Ombudsperson’s office.

I see this as an important and, I think, necessary step to provide

that second opportunity for a worker or an employer to reach out to the

fair practices commissioner to have a second set of eyes looking at how

that particular claim was handled or administered. I’m definitely in

support of that.

[2:25 p.m.]

I did have the opportunity to ask ministry staff about the cost

magnitude of that change. I was told that largely, it would be

negligible, if any. Certainly, we’ll be asking some more questions

through committee stage, for a bit more detail on that. So no real

general concern with respect to the implementation of the fairness

commissioner.

The other

section is to establish a clear legal employer duty to

re-employ or to accommodate an injured worker. Now, that’s incredibly

important. I would suspect that all good employers see the value in the

work done by their employees and would do everything they could. They’d

likely feel extremely disheartened if a worker were injured at the

workplace and would be equally encouraging to try and do what they could

to accommodate the return of that worker to the workplace.

Now, I believe it was in the 1980s that there was a Supreme Court

of Canada decision that actually made it a legal requirement to

accommodate injured workers. So this isn’t something new. This is

something that is actually within our legal system. Largely, any worker

or employee that might have been concerned about the lack of

accommodation that might be provided to them on returning to work have

had the opportunity to reach out to the Human Rights

Commissioner.

I guess further embedding that language and putting it directly in

WorkSafeBC and, potentially, adding additional administrative penalties

to employers that might otherwise suppress that opportunity or not make

those very important changes within their workplace, I think, is

certainly valid.

Now, the legislation does do a card vote for…. It’s my

interpretation, on the initial reading the bill, that for employers with

20 or fewer employees, they would be largely exempt from that as far as

what might be perceived as undue hardship. I’m certainly looking forward

to a bit more detail, in committee stage, on that particular piece. I

think that, for small business owners, sometimes the cost of trying to

accommodate the return of an injured worker could be burdensome and

could cause what the legal system would deem to be undue hardship.

Again, no great concern from our B.C. Liberal caucus on that particular

change.

There is also the intent of expanding the opportunity for an

independent health opinion or an independent health professional to

actually do a re-evaluation of any claims. Now, this his something that

has been available to the Workers Compensation Appeal Tribunal,

otherwise known as WCAT, for a number of years, but it is not something

that was available to either employers or employees.

The tribunal had the opportunity, if they saw some conflicting

concerns with respect to the medical opinion, to seek out an independent

medical officer to do an evaluation. Then they would be able to look at

that information and advice as part of their consideration of

determining the final outcome on a claim.

This is a new move. I have no idea, and I’m certainly hoping that

the minister will be able to provide some more clarity during committee

stage, of what the costs are. I don’t anticipate it is a small cost —

independent medical advice. I’m not sure if it’s $500 or $5,000. Maybe

depending on the complexity of the accident and the injured worker, it

could be even a magnitude more than that.

It’s really important. Although on initial review, it makes sense

if an employer or an employee or worker, injured worker, feels that they

have a concern, that they’re looking for independent medical advice…. It

sounds valid, but it’ll really be important to see how that is codified

in the actual policy legislation. The reason that’s important is that it

would not only affect the cost — obviously, the additional costs

associated with having that independent medical advice or medical

opinion — but also the potential impact on the timing, on when the claim

would actually be finalized.

[2:30 p.m.]

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

I’m certainly looking forward to a bit more scrutiny, in committee

stage with the minister, to better flesh out what the cost magnitude may

be and if, indeed, there are safeguards put in place so that we do not

see every employee or injured worker that actually has a claim or a

concern that their claim may not be adjudicated on to their benefit, who

would automatically seek the advice of an independent medical officer,

add further cost burden and delay the timing of that. You know, again,

the devil’s in the details, they say. I’m certainly looking forward to

fleshing it out in more detail in committee stage.

There’s another change that actually requires interest to be paid

on compensation benefits that are determined by WorkSafeBC. It kind of

makes sense. I don’t really have a dispute, although there certainly

will be some cost burden associated with it. But even Revenue Canada

pays interest on outstanding amounts.

The way the legislation is written is that for any amount due for

a period of greater than 180 days, interest would actually accrue to the

benefit of the employee or, if there was funding that was going back to

the employer, also back to the employer. That just makes good

sense.

I think that we would all agree that if money is owed or due, even

though there might not be a final determination on the success of an

injured worker on their application, even though it may be retroactive,

that that payment that was due them should incur some form of interest.

Again, not a huge amount of concern, although it will be important for

government to disclose and share with this House what that cost

magnitude is.

I can’t repeat it often enough: all these changes will have a cost

and eventually have an impact on employers and the rates that they

actually pay in this province. So it’s really important that we have a

full understanding of what those costs may be.

A further change with the claims suppression amendment. This will

be put in place to further dissuade and also have the opportunity for, I

believe, administrative penalties on employers that try to encourage

workers not to actually make a claim. I spoke about that a little bit

earlier in my opening comments. I’m fully supportive of that. I think

it’s important.

Although we want to certainly encourage good behaviour, those bad

actors certainly should have some form of administrative penalty put

against them. But it will be interesting to see what that magnitude is,

if that is based on the size of the employer, the number of employees or

if it’s just based on a per-occurrence basis and those that repeat bad

offenses over and over again if there’s an escalation. Again,

information that we hope to tease out a bit more in committee

stage.

There’s also movement. It was interesting when the minister made

his comments in his second reading speech about doing this

cross-jurisdictional kind of evaluation, having a look at what other

provinces are doing and, again, having a look at making sure that B.C.

was not at the bottom of the pack, not necessarily at the top, but I

think, certainly having a look at what other provinces are

doing.

When it comes to hearing loss, the maximum cap in British Columbia

was 15 percent. And the minister’s office yesterday in the briefing

shared that some jurisdictions are as high as 35 percent. So if you have

what’s deemed to be a non-traumatic hearing loss, so for a worker whose

lost full hearing…. The maximum they’d be allowed under B.C. legislation

was 15 percent. Some provinces are as high as 35.

In keeping with the minister’s remarks about wanting to be

commensurate with other provinces, I certainly would have expected that

the cap would be raised from 15 to 35 percent. But no, the minister is

going it alone here. He’s giving WCAT or WorkSafeBC the discretion to

make a determination on what it’s going to be. We don’t know. It could

be 5, could be 10, could be 20, could be 50. We don’t know.

On one hand, the minister wants to be commensurate with other

jurisdictions, but when it comes to this change for hearing loss, which

I fully support, having a look at raising that rate and being

commensurate with other provinces….

[2:35 p.m.]

But I’m wondering. Why is it that the minister is going alone and

deciding to just give full discretion to WorkSafeBC to determine what

that might be? It’s not in keeping with some of the other ministers’

remarks about being, I guess, fair with respect to what other

jurisdictions across Canada are doing.

Now, the last change — I left the best for last — is also the most

costly. I shared with this House how WorkSafeBC was a bit of a disaster

under this current government back in the 1990s. It was a bit of a mess

— huge, underfunded liabilities — and a lot of effort had to be

undertaken to try and right that ship, so to speak. It was at that time,

I believe in 2002, that the legislation was changed such that workers

compensation would go up at the rate of inflation minus 1

percent.

Now, the minister shared how heartless that was at the time, but I

think we have to take that into context and the backdrop of the disaster

that was presented by the then NDP government. Very important

legislative changes had to be undertaken to fix the mess that was

created by the previous government.

It was also interesting…. Although the minister said it was quite

heartless, he also shared that there are other jurisdictions in Canada

that are actually at the rate of CPI, consumer price index, minus

one-half a percent. So yes, maybe the rate in B.C. has been lower than

others as far as the rate they’re increasing, and it’s definitely valid.

I think we would all agree that for an injured worker, providing

compensation for that injury on an ongoing basis, through till age 65 or

maybe later — that that rate would go up commensurate, so they did not

see themselves necessarily falling behind year over year over

year.

Now, I agree with the logic. However, we also know that wage rates

in British Columbia, in Canada or around the globe do not automatically

just follow CPI. Some go up higher, but in certain years, things roll

back quite significantly. I recall back in 2009, after the sub-prime

mortgage crash, many employees were taking 15 and 20 percent wage

rollbacks. So although CPI may be a great measurement tool, it does not

always predict what the average wage rate would be within the province

in any particular year.

The important piece on this is that there is also the provision

that government is undertaking to provide flexibility for WorkSafeBC. So

if the rate is actually higher than 4 percent, WorkSafeBC will have the

discretion to determine whether it’s actually going to be fully indexed

at CPI. The minister, in his comments, said that the change will index

it to CPI, but only kind of.

To make it simple, if the rate was going up by 1 percent, yes, the

rate would go up by 1 percent. If was 2 percent, it would be 2 percent.

If 3 percent, 3 percent. If 4 percent, yes, it would be 4 percent. But

if CPI was 5 percent, WorkSafeBC has the latitude, the discretion, to

either raise it at 4 percent, 4½ percent or 5 percent.

In this current fiscal, if the actual rate of inflation or CPI was

determined to be 8 percent, under the current legislation, that rate

would be 7 percent, 1 percent less. However, this bill actually provides

the latitude for WorkSafeBC which, although deemed to be independent….

I’m sure there’s going to be some direction from government. It might be

4,5, 6, 7 or 8 percent.

Although the minister’s comments made it sound like this

particular change, tying it to CPI and not having the minus 1 percent,

is actually going to be a benefit to workers, I guess the proof is in

the pudding, and we have yet to see what WorkSafeBC actually brings

forward.

[2:40 p.m.]

I think at a time where we see wage rates, both in the private

sector and in the public service, not automatically tied to CPI…. We

will see what decision WorkSafeBC actually makes in the months ahead

with respect to their determination on what they feel to be a fair and

just rate for increases to injured workers.

With that, hon. Speaker, I thank you very much for the opportunity

to present some of the concerns that we have with respect to this bill.

I really do look forward, in committee stage, to teasing out some more

details to better fully understand the full cost impacts of this piece

of legislation.

M. Bernier: It’s an honour to stand up and speak to Bill 41 today. I also want

to start my comments by thanking our critic on this, the member for

Shuswap. As we’ve heard through his commentary for the last hour-plus,

he’s quite knowledgable and has done a lot of work on this. I commend

him for that, because this is, in a lot of ways, very technical in its

own parts.

I think it’s also important to highlight for the minister and for

government some of the concerns that we have but also the areas we can

agree upon. My colleague touched on a good portion of those.

I think it’s important…. When we talk about, not only within this

bill but the Workers Compensation Act itself, specifically within the

act, we’re talking about workers, workers’ rights, workers’ safety. I

think everybody in this House acknowledges and wants to ensure that we

have the safest workplace possible for all of our employees, for our

loved ones, for our family members, the people in our communities that

expect to go to work every morning, work a good, hard day but come home

safe every night to their families. That’s obviously paramount. That’s

something that I know everybody in this House wants to promote and

support, a safe work environment.

Throughout that, though, it’s also important to ensure that we’re

promoting a healthy economy, a sustainable business model, as well,

because we have to remember that it’s both here, as we’re trying to

ensure that we have jobs for people in this province to go to every day.

Now, we know that this amendment that came forward for the Workers

Compensation Act under Bill 41 comes, for the most part, from the

Patterson report and recommendations within that Patterson

report.

I think it’s important, as my colleague before me also

highlighted, to highlight — not to take away from, maybe, some good

recommendations that were in this report — how the report in itself can

be considered somewhat tainted by the fact that through the gathering of

information — making sure that we had all the right people at the table

who would be sharing information to help guide the amendments and the

recommendations for this bill — how concerning it was when many of the

employers withdrew.

They were part of the initial panel, if you want to call it that,

to share information. But because of the perceived or, maybe not even

perceived, the notable bias that they were feeling with some of the

commentary and direction and influence that was happening on where

recommendations may go, a lot of the, I would say, talent that was at

the table unfortunately left. Why is that important? Well, if we’re

going to have proper recommendations for ensuring the safety and the

well-being and the fairness for our employees, we have to ensure that

the employers are also at the table as part of that

discussion.

I hope the minister — I don’t remember hearing it in his

commentary — acknowledges that. If the minister is going to base this

entire amendment act on the one report that was kind of tainted by the

people that should have been at the table but who left because they felt

they were not being listened to and felt that their opinions were not

going to be seen, that should be a cause of concern for this

minister.

[2:45 p.m.]

We’re going to have to ask some of those tough questions when we

get to committee stage, because we want to know what was considered.

What are we going to do for further outreach and consultation? We’ve

seen, with this government, how they talk the talk around wanting to

consult. But at the end of the day, it seems like their ideas have

already been made up and it’s just an exercise in pretending that

they’re listening to people. That’s very unfortunate, especially when

we’re talking about something that’s so important, like workers safety

and the sustainability of a strong economy in our province to ensure we

have those employers.

Now, one thing I will support is…. The minister put forward the

fact that there are some areas that we want to acknowledge where maybe

we are a little behind, in comparison to some of the other provinces in

certain areas, when it comes to the Workers Compensation Act. I’m fully

supportive of looking at that. We want to ensure that our workers are

treated fairly but that we do it in a model that we’re not hindering

competitiveness in the province of British Columbia for the people who

actually want to invest and actually employ people. I’ll probably talk

about that a little bit later on.

The reason why I have some concerns, though, on how this

government treats our employers is that through their actions alone,

we’ve seen, under the last five or six years of this government, when

we’re dealing with employers, how they, in essence, demonize them. This

is completely the wrong approach if we’re wanting to ensure that we grow

our province, that we have those jobs for people to go to every

morning.

In order to do that, we have to have confidence. We have to make

sure we strike that balance between workers’ rights — which, as we’re

talking about today, are important — and also the rights and

understanding of what creates a strong economy for businesses to invest

in.

I’m not saying this against anybody on the other side, because I

absolutely don’t know all of their backgrounds, only some of them. But I

know on this side of the House, in the B. C. Liberal caucus, a good

majority of us are or were business owners. We employed people. We

wanted to have safe workplaces. We understand the balance sheet of what

we can do for investing to try to promote our business and to try to

grow our business, which in essence hires more people.

Many of us have done that on this side of the House. Some have

been managers, some have been employees, some have been employers, but

we understand those nuances and that balance that has to be achieved in

order to be successful for everybody.

Unfortunately, what we’re seeing and what we’ve seen over the last

four, five or six years of the NDP, though, is almost contrary to

supporting the employers in the province of British Columbia. We’ve seen

how they brought forward the union benefit agreement, which really

rewarded some and penalized others when it came to the ability to employ

people and acquire work in this province.

We saw how they’ve removed the secret ballot, something that just

surprised the heck out of me, for a government that says that they want

to ensure a strong union environment — that then they would take away

one of the fundamental rights of union or potential union members. We

even saw, in this last tainted leadership race, how unions were

infiltrating and influencing this government through the processes that

they want to see.

We’ve seen the actions of this government. In all fairness, I

heard the minister’s commentary when he was introducing this bill, which

doesn’t really quite align with the actions that we’ve seen to date. So

of course, it’s going to be important for us to really question the

minister and dive deep into some of the issues in this bill, some of the

recommendations that put together this amendment to this act.

Again, the minister spoke of balance, which I think we would all

acknowledge is important. We just haven’t seen that.

[2:50 p.m.]

As we’re going through this bill, we want to ensure that those

issues are being talked about and addressed and those questions are

being answered by the minister.

One of the things that we should talk about when we look at this

bill is some of the recommendations from the report. As my colleague,

again, before me, who was the first speaker for us…. I know we’ll have a

few more who want to speak to this bill.

It is important to acknowledge there are some aspects of this,

some of the amendments that were brought forward, that we think are

going in the right direction, that we can support or, at least, give

some credibility to the suggestion around those recommendations. And

then dive into them a little bit holistically to ensure that the intent

of those recommendations and those changes within the amendment are

actually going to meet the test that we can support and are going to be

beneficial for workers and for employers in the province of British

Columbia.

When we look at some of the recommendations that specifically came

out of the Patterson report…. I’ll talk about some of these

recommendations. It’s important, again, that afterwards, when we look at

how those recommendations fit into the amendments, we will have further

commentary to make sure that it is actually beneficial for

all.

We look at recommendation 29, which says: “I recommend that the

Workers Compensation Act be amended to provide that interest will be

paid on overdue wage loss and permanent disability benefits greater than

180 days, based on the board’s return on investments, at compound

interest as of the date the benefits would have become payable.” I

think, actually, this is something that on the face seems logical, seems

fair and something to be definitely considered. I’ll get into some

costing afterwards — some comments that I have on that.

But when we look at this specific recommendation, I think we all

know that any time people have been, let’s say, owed money by the

government, which usually is very rare…. Usually, we owe them money, and

they want our money. But the few times where somebody might have

overpaid, especially as a business at tax time, they received that

compensation back with interest. When we look at the fairness of this

for an employee who may be owed compensation, I think that’s important

to look at.

Recommendation 43 is also “that the Workers Compensation Act be

amended to provide protection to and remedy for a worker facing

retaliation for filing a compensation claim.” This one, to me, is very

important, and I acknowledge this one coming forward. The last thing

anybody wants to see is somebody get hurt at work. Again, we all

acknowledge that.

But to add to that, we don’t want to see somebody being

intimidated or threatened that they can’t report that injury. We have a

Workers Compensation Act — an insurance policy, if you want to call it

that — specifically to help our employees in the time of an injury or,

even worse, for a family in the case of a fatality at the

workplace.

Of course, we want to make sure that if there is a valid concern

and a valid claim that’s being sent in to the board, that is looked at.

We want to ensure that employers are not undermining that. And I think

all of us in this House have maybe heard those stories. So I think it’s

important that that recommendation…. Again, we’ll have some questions

around it, but I think that’s an important addition to come in for

consideration.

Recommendation 57 is that “the Workers Compensation Act be amended

to recognize the employer’s duty to accommodate and the related legal

issues as set out in detail in the attachment to 58” — again, another

important one where there are going to be some definite questions around

that one as we look at that recommendation.

[2:55 p.m.]

Then one other one I want to highlight is recommen­dation

67: “The Workers Compensation Act be amended to establish the office of

a fair practices commission and appoint a fair practice commissioner by

the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council” — in an OIC, as we know it in here.

“…from the Workers Compensation Board’s administration and reporting

directly to the board of directors.”

Again, we’ve heard stories. I think a lot of us, as MLAs, have had

constituents come to our offices who feel that they have not been

treated fairly, who feel that they have a legitimate claim because they

were hurt at the workplace or have maybe an underlying illness that they

say is the cause of the workplace that they were at, and that claim gets

denied. And right now, the only avenue that I’m aware of is to go to the

Ombudsman to try to have that re-looked at or considered.

So to have that second look, to have a fair practices commissioner

appointed…. On face value, again, this recommendation, as we’re seeing

it within the amendment of the act, has some credibility. It has some

merit to try to look at that.

Obviously, we want to know what the cost pressures might be. Is

that an additional burden to the bottom line of the actual

administration costs of the board? That’s something we always want to be

mindful of, because the last thing we want to be doing, again, is going

to businesses and telling them that their employer rates for WCB are

going up, but then noticing that that money is now just being

transferred to administration rather than to the employees who are

actually putting in the claims, who may rightfully be entitled to

compensation.

Those are just a few of the recommendations out of the report that

I wanted to highlight that I feel…. Again, we’ll have some good

conversation on it, but they’re important recommendations to definitely

consider.

Again, we want to make sure this is fair. We want to make sure

things are balanced. When we look at maybe even again on the fair

practices, if we’re establishing a new agency, that can come with risks.

I talked about maybe some of the cost pressures, but it could be also

risks to the employees themselves — maybe a sense of false expectation,

if government is not going to be laying out a strong path that employees

can follow and the expectations of what they will be receiving if they

actually contact this agency. So we’ll have good questions at committee

stage. My hope is we’ll have some good, factual, wholesome answers from

the minister.

This is not to put our minds at ease. These questions are on

behalf of the employers and employees in the province of British

Columbia who are going to want to know. Again, this is a technical bill,

but a lot of this is stuff that, I’ll say, the majority of people don’t

think about and don’t talk about until they actually need it. That’s

when they want to make sure that all the answers are there and that a

good path forward for them and their families to ensure that they can

still put food on the table, that they can still pay their mortgage and

pay their bills while they’re in a position of maybe not being able to

work.

That brings me to basically, again, almost like a consultation

process that…. We’ve talked about some of the failures of the government

to adequately consult or, if they do consult, they don’t necessarily

listen to the information that they’ve been receiving. I think in this

one here, especially as I highlighted earlier with so many people

walking away from the panel and not being there because they were

concerned, again, around how this report was going to be

framed….

The government has a duty to reach back out, I believe, after this

to ensure that they’re not going to have any of those unintended

consequences that are going to negatively affect businesses in the

province of British Columbia. And when we do that consultation, I think

it’s also really important, especially as a rural MLA, to highlight that

we need to do consultation at a cross-section.

[3:00 p.m.]

This is not just a few union friends of the government that we

should be consulting with. This should be small, medium and large-size

businesses. This should be your mom-and-pop operations who are

struggling right now after COVID. I mean, we look at COVID. There were a

lot of businesses that, unfortunately, did not survive through the time

of COVID because of lost revenues or cost pressures that they were faced

with.

We need to remember that every time you lose an employer, it means

you’ve lost employees. I know this government’s history is to demonize

those employers. But if we’re truly….

As the minister mentioned in his opening remarks on this bill…. He

talked about balance. He talked about partnership. I think it’s

important to acknowledge that partnership actually is important, and it

goes both ways. Without employers, we don’t have work. Then without

workers, obviously, we don’t have the opportunity for companies to

succeed. It is truly a partnership and a win-win for everybody if it’s

done properly.

I know right now that there is a huge lack of confidence in the

province of British Columbia around investment. In my area alone, one

more hit to a bottom line…. WCB is a line item in every single business.

They understand the costs that they have to pay. It is a requirement for

them. I have yet to meet a business that says: “Look, I don’t want to

pay WCB at all.” They understand the point of it. They understand the

purpose of it, but they also want to ensure that they are being treated

just as fairly as the employees.

As I mentioned, many businesses didn’t survive COVID. Many that

actually did are just hanging on still and are trying to figure out how

to recover. They want to grow and build and be able to hire more people.

The last thing they’re looking for is another hit to that bottom line,

imposed by government, that could be the difference of staying in

business or not.

As I mentioned, up in my area…. That lack of confidence is

something that I hear about on a daily basis in my office. Businesses

are coming in, larger businesses — I’m talking ones that employ

thousands of people in my riding — who are telling me that after being

hit with the employer health tax, after being hit with other increased

taxes, after being told that there is no certainty on whether they’ll

even get permits to operate and expand in the province, whether it be

forestry, mining, oil and gas, they’re left in limbo.

I know on this side of the House…. Again, I spoke about the

experience that a lot of us have in business. The last thing you want in

business is uncertainty, to be left in limbo and to be

guessing.

When you are responsible to a board of directors and shareholders,

they are very, very quick to say: “We’ll pull out of British Columbia.

We’ll move to Alberta.” In fact, I know of billions — and I say that

billions with an ‘s’ at the end — of dollars, just in the oil and gas

sector alone, in the last 18 months, that have left British Columbia and

moved into other jurisdictions like Alberta because they can’t trust

this government.

They know the resource is there. They know the resource isn’t

going anywhere. They said: “If we have to wait for another government,

or if we have to wait, even, for this government to get their act

together and understand the impact that they’re having with their lack

of decisions on business…. Well, we’ll just wait too. We’re going to

invest somewhere else, because we still have to have a rate of return

for our investment and responsibility to our shareholders.”

It’s unfortunate that can’t be in British Columbia. Who pays the

price for that? We all do. That’s less schools that can be built. That’s

less hospitals that can be built. That’s less people that are getting

family-supporting jobs in the resource sector.

That’s, I think, important, when we acknowledge that we need to

have that certainty, and we don’t have it right now.

[3:05 p.m.]

I talked about ensuring that we have safe workplaces. I do

acknowledge and applaud the minister for bringing this forward. It gives

us the opportunity, again, to look at the act. It hasn’t been looked at

in a little bit, and I think it’s important that almost every act gets

looked at and gets modernized. Times change. Workers’ expectations and

employees’ expectations and needs change. The impacts on employers also

change with time. It is important to look at this bill and to ask the

tough questions. When changes are needed, then those changes can be

supported.

I think, also, as we’re looking at those changes around worker

safety and the impacts they might have on companies, we have to talk

about the financial stability and sustainability of the Workers

Compensation Board itself. As we heard, we have over $5 billion sitting

there right now within workers compensation. We’re going to have to

really be careful with that. It’s important to make sure we have the

funds that are there when needed and not overspend, because you never

know when those funds are going to be needed.

We’ve also heard…. We’ve seen that workplace injuries and

accidents have not increased. In fact, they’ve declined.

I look at some of the policies that were brought in with the B.C.

Liberals — I know they’ve continued under this government, so it’s not a

partisan attack — to ensure that we’re always looking at training and

that we’re always ensuring that our employers are doing what they can to

have a safe work environment. But — I hate to say “but” there —

accidents do happen. We hope that they don’t, but they do. We always

hope that if it happens, it’s minor.

I know, during my time…. When I was a manager running an oil and

gas company, I was proud of the fact…. In the 20 years that I was there,

I can only recall one time where somebody got hurt and had to have a

lost time claim with WCB. I put that up to, mostly, the extensive

training that we did and the value we put on our workers to ensure that

they had a safe work environment. I know we always want to push that for

our employees — to ensure that they go home every night.

As I wrap up my comments on this…. There are some amendments that

have come forward that definitely, as I said, have some merit. I’m

looking forward to the answers to our questions from the minister and to

find out what we can support, or not, in this bill. Again, it’ll be

really important, for that transparency part, to be as open as possible

and to give as much information as possible so people know what these

changes are and what they can expect after this government passes this

bill, which we know that they will, with their majority.

Again, it’s our job to ensure, with what we’re hearing out there

from the workers and employees, that their voices are heard in this

chamber as well. This can’t be a top-down, pushed-on approach. If it’s

truly going to be transparent and if it’s truly going to be a

partnership like the minister talked about, then we have to ensure that

that information is out there so everybody is comfortable with the

changes that will be made through this amendment.

A. Olsen: It’s an honour to be able to stand and speak to Bill 41, the

Workers Compensation Amendment Act (No. 2).

Before I get too far into my comments here, I would just like to

acknowledge that this is the second time that this bill has been opened

in this session. It is becoming somewhat of a habit, I think, that the

bills…. We see multiple amendments for these bills, for this

legislation, in a single session. It’s kind of unique to this

government, I think, that we open and close, open and close and open and

close these bills, this legislation. Just acknowledging that this is the

second time that this bill has been opened for amendments, a suite of

amendments that I think workers in British Columbia are going to be

pleased with.

[3:10 p.m.]

I know our colleagues in the official opposition have raised the

point with respect to the impacts that these changes could have,

potentially, on businesses. I think that there is a need to balance

that.

However, I think one of the things that we have heard over the

last number of years is a growing concern, especially in our

constituency offices, with respect to WorkSafeBC and with respect to

injured workers and the relationship between those workers and

WorkSafeBC.

I know that I have a handful of cases, seemingly perpetually, of

injured workers. I know that I’ve got two cases right now from outside

of my constituency, simply because the MLAs of the areas that are

responsible for where these individuals live were not prepared to

provide any advo­cacy. We’re picking up that advocacy on behalf of

those workers.

I think it’s important we recognize the changes that have been

needed, the reports that have been written, the calls that have been

made to this government, are being made, however slowly and however in a

fragmented fashion — that we see them being made here.

This spring, I spoke to amendments to the labour code, and I said:

“With the Patterson report collecting dust with 100 recommendations that

authentically protect workers yet to be implemented, this B.C. NDP

administration has ceded ground when it comes to workers.” So it is

important that they’re making up that ground, and we see yet another

piece of legislation here to be debated.

However, it’s not for them. I guess for the B.C. NDP, who have

long claimed to be a workers party, it’s important for them from a

political perspective. But for the sake of our constituents, for the

sake of the work that we do in this place on behalf of the people of

British Columbia, it’s really important that the work is being done to

implement the Patterson report, the Petrie report, our Ombudsperson Jay

Chalke’s report — that that work is being done by government, no matter

what banner they’re flying, no matter what colour banner they have

flying outside this building.

I was pointing out earlier in the spring the meagre progress that

this government has made on the recommendations of the numerous labour

reports that we’ve seen over the last years. I just referenced them, but

I’m going to name them here: Janet Patterson’s report New

Directions: Report of the WCB Review 2019 ; Paul Petrie’s 2018

report Restoring the Balance: A Worker-Centred Approach to Workers’

Compensation Policy and then the addendum of that report,

Claim Suppression: The Elephant in the Workplace ; and

Ombudsperson of B.C. Jay Chalke’s report, Severed Trust: Enabling

WorkSafeBC to Do the Right Thing When Its Mistakes Hurt Injured

Workers .

Earlier in this session, earlier in the spring, I had some very

pointed words as to where government and the systems that have been

created here to support workers have left those workers without the

support, without the care and without the resources that they need to be

able to be looked after.

As has been said in the speeches prior to me standing and speaking

to this, workers should have the expectation that they go to work and

not get sick, that they should go to work and not get injured and that

they should go to work and be able to come home at the end of the day.

Those are the basic expectations that we have in this House and that we

have in this society.

That’s the WorkSafeBC workers compensation system that we’ve set

up. It was a system in which the premiums are paid, and the workers’

expectation is that when they are put in the unfortunate situation of

having to access those resources, they will be there for them, and the

people who are administering that system are there working on their

behalf in order to ensure that they’re well looked after. Unfortunately,

we’ve seen, through those reports that I just noted, that that’s not

always the case.

[3:15 p.m.]

We as constituency MLAs see those cases come through our doors.

It’s unfortunate. So it is important that this government is making

these recommendations, and I think it’s also important to keep in mind

the cost impacts as have been raised also.

For the sake of those that may be just joining the debate, I’ll

just go over…. I know they’ve been mentioned previously, but I’ll repeat

them again. The recommendations that are in this report will improve

safety accountability and protections for workers. At a time, right now,

where we see that workers in our economy are vulnerable, struggling to

make ends meet, I think it’s just a basic provision that we can ensure

that workers who also get injured or sick at work have the ability to be

looked after. It’s nice to see that some of the recommendations that I

talked about earlier in the spring, from the Patterson report, are

finally being enacted, brought to the table for debate.

The legislation that we have in front of us today establishes a

more independent fair practices commissioner with the authority to

investigate complaints by workers and employers of alleged unfairness in

dealings with WorkSafeBC. The office will be more independent than it

currently is, and it will be an office within WorkSafeBC that will make

recommendations to WorkSafeBC and deliver an annual report to this

House.

It also establishes a clear employer duty to re-employ injured

workers and to accommodate employees returning to work. It expands

access to independent health professionals by allowing them to be

requested as part of an appeal to the external Workers Compensation

Appeal Tribunal. The legislation requires interest to be paid on

compensation benefits owed for 180 days or more.

It includes explicit provisions against claim suppression. This

was a point that I made quite sharply, I believe it was in April of this

year, with respect to Paul Petrie’s report. This has been in front of

this government for some time, taking a look at the claim suppression

that has been ongoing and that this government, for the last five years,

has failed to address. It is going to make Mr. Petrie and it’ll make all

those workers that have claims that perhaps have been suppressed quite

happy to see that this government is addressing this issue.

It restores the indexing of workers compensation benefits to the

consumer price index. I think there’s increased importance of that as we

see inflation continuing to increase. Finally, this legislation

increases the maximum compensation for non-traumatic hearing loss. These

are all important steps that this government is taking to bring us in

line with other Canadian jurisdictions and will serve to make B.C. a

safer place for people to work.

I want to caution, though, as I do in these speeches, that

government not use this progress as a shield against future and ongoing

work. There’s much, much more work to do. We know that the compensation

system has to be worker-centred. I think everybody here in the debate so

far has been saying that. Certainly, the minister was saying it in his

points earlier today.

We know that the dispute resolution process still needs to be

redesigned. In a June interview, Janet Patterson, who I referred to

earlier, highlighted this last issue, saying that there is “not even a

whiff of comment” about redesigning the dispute resolution system. The

changes before us today do not appear to overhaul this dispute

resolution system.

All of this to say, the reality here is that for a party that has

long worn the cap of the worker, a party that purports to be a labour

party…. The reality is that we continue to raise these issues, and then

they come to the table.

[3:20 p.m.]

This needs to be part of the government’s inertia. It needs to be

something that drives this government, rather than having to have these

issues be raised, and then, several months later…. If that’s the role

this government wants to take and have the members of the opposition

raising these issues about workers and workers’ rights — workers’ rights

to be safe, workers’ rights to have a fair dispute resolution system —

then that’s fine. Continue to provide that service. However, it is an

expectation, I think, of workers that this current government be leading

that, and I would expect to see those changes and changes in the culture

of the government going forward.

We still have a long way to go, and there’s a lot more that needs

to be done to protect workers. We’ll continue to raise those issues. And

I think it is important, also, to acknowledge the comments that our

colleagues have said previously, with respect to the fact that there is

a challenge that this government has in making sure that they’re

achieving a fine balance with the need to protect workers, to ensure

worker safety and to ensure that there are dispute resolutions that are

fair but, as well, to ensure that the decisions that are being made in

this House are not putting an undue amount of pressure on a small

business community that simply cannot carry any more.

That is a challenge that the Minister of Labour has and that,

frankly, all of the members of this chamber have as we go forward here

in a time in which we see increasing inflationary pressures not only on

individuals and on businesses but also on the institution of

government.

With that, Madam Speaker, thank you for this opportunity, and I’ll

take my seat.

A. Mercier: It is an honour to stand here and speak to this bill today, the

Workers Compensation Act amendments. I want to thank the Minister of

Labour for doing the hard work to bring this forward. I want to take a

moment in my brief remarks to just canvass what we’ve heard today in

debate.

I would suggest to you that some of what we’ve heard from the

other side has been absolutely egregious in terms of framing workers

compensation and safe workplace protections as a dichotomy with a

healthy economy — that you can have dignity for injured workers and a

safe workplace or a healthy economy, and anything over here, in terms of

helping injured workers and creating a safe workplace, somehow detracts

from that. That is absolutely false. A healthy economy is built on a

healthy workplace.

In particular, we heard the member for Shuswap talk about how he

takes issue with the timing of these amendments, and we heard a lot

about the timing from him. It seems that whenever it comes time to talk

about changes that will help working people — and, in particular,

changes that are going to help injured workers — there is always an

issue with the B.C. Liberals on timing. I would say: if now is not the

right time, then when is?

We would not have to even introduce this legislation and make

these changes were it not for a set of brutal and vicious policy

decisions and changes that were made in the early 2000s. The member for

Shuswap can’t just roll over that with a misguided revisionist lesson on

B.C. political history. Now, we heard from the member for Shuswap,

saying: “This isn’t the right time. Costs are going up.” Well, not the

right time to index the pensions of injured workers to inflation when

costs are going up? That is absolutely the right time. That is

absolutely the right time to help those workers.

The other thing we’ve heard is that there hasn’t been enough

consultation. This is a peculiar theme, because in this House, the B.C.

Liberals take umbrage with consultation any time there’s an engagement

or any time the government seeks to reach out to stakeholder communities

or people affected and consult, except when they don’t like the result,

and then they say that there should be more consultation.

Well, the fact is that when they were in government and when they

made these vicious changes to workers compensation, there was no

consultation. They knew what they wanted to do. They acted quickly in

the beginning of their term, and they absolutely gutted the workers

compensation system, leaving a generation of injured workers behind. The

focus in this debate ought to be on injured workers.

[3:25 p.m.]

We’ve heard how they’ve been referred, and it is absolutely

mind-boggling — a line item, a cost burden, a risk. We heard the member

for Peace River South say WCB is a hit to an employer’s bottom line.

That is offensive. Injured workers are not cost burdens. They are not

line items. They are people. They are people that deserve the same

dignity as everyone in this House.

I just want to say that, in particular, for me, it’s personal. My

mother is an injured worker. She gave her career as a nurse and ended up

working in an emergency department, having multiple injuries from

lifting people, having multiple back surgeries, leg surgeries, dealing

with partial paralysis. And I grew up watching her deal with workers

compensation my entire life, and she still is now. A lot of that comes

from changes that were made in the early 2000s. So it is absolutely

egregious to sit here and to listen to the opposition say this isn’t the

right time.

That’s not all we’ve heard. We’ve heard the member for Shuswap

say: “Well, employers have safe workplace policies, so really, that can

do a lot of the work.” Well, look. When they were in office, they

initiated a war on safe workplaces. They gutted WorkSafe. They gutted

employment standards and turned everything to self-help kits.

We heard the member for Peace River South talk about the

importance of training and how training makes safe workers. They gutted

compulsory trades in a move so bizarrely characterized by ideology that

not even the Mike Harris government followed them on that in

Ontario.

They did all of this without any broad public consultation. So to

sit here and say that there should be more consultation than the reams

of consultation and engagement that have been done on this file — it is

absolutely absurd.

I want to turn briefly to the act. I intend to keep my comments

fairly brief, but this act is long overdue. It takes time to do the

legislative work, to establish the technical changes and provisions and

to build on this and to do the consultation properly to get to this

point. It’s an auspicious day because this is going to help a lot of

people.

It’s going to establish a fair practices commissioner within

WorkSafe. I’ll say for the House: my background has been, as well as a

worker and many other things I’ve done in my life, a labour lawyer. This

will add a legal duty to accommodate for employers and re-employ workers

who are injured at work. I can’t tell you enough what a positive impact

that is going to have on injured workers and the harm that is done to so

many injured workers that that provision has been lacking. That is

absolutely huge.

Expanding access to independent health professionals to assist in

deciding appeals and having good information, good medical information,

from independent medical exa­miners to expeditiously hear an

appeal is hugely im­portant. Interest on delayed benefit payments

owed to the worker because of a review or appeal decision — that’s just

common sense.

The thing that strikes me the most here, in addition to CPI, is

establishing explicit provisions to prohibit employers from suppressing

workers compensation claims. Claims suppression isn’t just anecdotal;

it’s very, very real. I felt it personally when I slipped two discs in

my back when I was driving a truck, and I had my employer come to me and

actually have a consultant come to me and try to dissuade me from filing

a compensation claim — not on the basis that I wasn’t injured but on the

basis that it would affect their premiums.

Claims suppression is real. It’s incentivized, and we need

explicit provisions to prohibit employers from engaging in that

behaviour. This will make a real difference in the lives of injured

workers.

Tying the annual indexing of workers compensation benefits for

inflation to CPI, while eliminating the automatic 1 percent reduction

from CPI that’s been in place since 2002 is huge.

I guess I’ll close just on contemplating that: an automatic 1

percent reduction for injured workers from CPI since their changes to

workers compensation in 2002. That is vicious, that is unwarranted, and

it’s about time that legislation is coming forward to change

that.

[3:30 p.m.]

I am so proud of the work of the Minister of Labour for bringing

this forward, and I can’t say enough good things about it.

D. Davies: First of all, it’s an incredible privilege and an honour to be

able to rise here, first of all, on behalf of the opposition, as well as

on behalf of the constituents and residents of Peace River North, to

speak on Bill 41.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

I just want to take a moment to give a few thoughts on the member

for Langley, who just spoke before me, finding some of our inquiry and

questions on this debate egregious. I find that quite

puzzling.

Our role here, first of all, as opposition, is to ask questions,

sometimes tough questions. We need to look at all pieces of legislation

that go through this House and look at how they impact every single

British Columbian. To ask about timing is absolutely critical. I’m not

sure if…. The member for Langley says that we shouldn’t be asking

questions, but that’s not the reality here in this place, which is where

we debate these bills, look at these bills to make sure that we are

looking at what is best for British Columbians, what is best for

workers, in this case.

Like I say, the timing. Well, we’ve seen this government over and

over again introduce legislation that has not been in the best interests

of British Columbians, even though they may think it is. We’ve, as my

colleague from Shuswap so well put it…. I do want to thank him for

leading us off in this debate and his comments. There is lots in this

bill that we do agree with, of course. We agree that we need to make

sure that the WorkSafe legislation is improved. I’m going to talk a

little bit more about that. Again, to have our comments seem egregious

is just completely puzzling to me. I just wanted to raise

that.

We have had so many challenges across British Columbia in these

past couple of years, leading off, obviously, with COVID, which has

dramatically impacted everybody. The opioid crisis. We have a health

care system that has collapsed. On and on and on. There are many

challenges facing British Columbians, all British Columbians.

As I mentioned, we are not opposed to improving Work­Safe,

improving conditions for people that are injured, but we do question the

timing right now. We do question the process right now. We do question

the motive for doing this right now by this government.

A Coles Notes review of WorkSafe. It’s a system that gives workers

the right to compensation for being injured on the job, to get them

well, to get them back into the workforce. I think that is important to

look at. It also gives employers immunity from lawsuits from injured

workers. That system is about a balance between the worker, a balance

between the employer, who relies on the workers compensation system. It

depends on that balance, and it is an extremely important

balance.

As many are aware, I, too, take this personally. I was in a

horrific workplace accident in 2018 here in Fort St. John. I am a client

of WorkSafe B.C. I do say “client” because it is a level of service that

I do expect, as a client, and a certain level of respect that I do

expect from WorkSafe. I’m still receiving medical treatment. It’s been

really good dealing with WorkSafe. I think it’s really important that we

do recognize the work and the folks that are working within WorkSafe —

to recognize the important work that they do and to thank them for the

work that they do.

[3:35 p.m.]

I think that’s kind of where I lead off on many of my remarks that

I’ll be making on this, as it is personal. We do want to make sure that

we see a system that is working for the worker, a system that is being

improved for the worker at the end of the day. As my colleague mentioned

— it’s been mentioned by speakers before me — generally, we are in

support of this. But we do need to ask questions, and we are looking

forward to going into committee stage on Bill 41 so that we can dive

deeper into some of the recommended changes.

We also need to be looking at other jurisdictions. The member for

Langley did mention Ontario and stuff, but we do need to look at other

jurisdictions, not just Ontario but across the provinces, making sure

that we are in line, that we are doing things better, that we are

improving the system.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen this government repeatedly show this

lack of balance that we’ve seen in other pieces of legislation that have

been brought forward in this House, especially even around the labour

piece. I remember being in this place debating the very, I say,

discriminatory union benefits agreement or community benefits agreement

and how that has negatively impacted, by and large, British Columbians.

Removing the secret ballot — how that has had such a negative impact in

labour. We’ve even seen most recently, as the member for Shuswap also

pointed out, the role the friendly NDP unions have played in this recent

leadership process that the NDP have just gone through.

We look at so many pieces around this legislation and how it will

be implementing recommendations from the report by Janet Patterson, a

report tainted by the fact that employers withdrew from the process over

apprehension of bias by the former adviser of the B.C. Fed. We have a

lot of questions around the lack of consultation and bias that is

reflected in this Patterson report as well as the consultation process

for this legislation. I’ll go a little bit more deeper here in a moment.

But this is a government that proudly — well, maybe not so proudly —

wears the badge of the most secretive government in Canada. These are

the lenses that I look at.

Timing? Well, any piece of legislation that comes through this

government we need to be looking at, because I do worry that this is

going to have long-term negative consequences or unintended

consequences. We need to be asking these questions. And time and time

again we’ve heard from this government, on multiple pieces of

legislation, around the poor job of consultation, the poor job of

meaningful consultation.

People — as again, my colleague has pointed out — have reached

out. Many organizations have reached out to us in the official

opposition and spoken to us about their lack of consultation. Again, I’m

going to talk about that momentarily. But this is real. These are real

people. These are real folks that have reached out and shown concern

around this piece of legislation.

At a time when costs are also increasing, we need to be looking at

time. We are concerned. People have come to us that are worried that

these costs are just going to be passed down on to these small

businesses that are struggling, these small businesses that are the

backbone of our economy, the backbone of British Columbia. This isn’t us

putting workers before businesses or businesses before

workers.

[3:40 p.m.]

As I mentioned, it is a balance. We need to make sure that we are

supporting our businesses. We need to make sure that we are providing an

environment where our businesses and companies can flourish in British

Columbia so that we can have people employed and we can have people

contributing to everything that we want, whether that, in the long run,

looks at a good education system, a good health care system.

This balance — we want to make sure that government is getting it

right. These are the questions that we will be asking on Bill 41 during

committee stage, and I look forward to hearing some of the responses as

we move into that stage.

I hear over and over again from not just businesses in my riding

but…. We’ve heard — and I’ll guarantee the members opposite are also

hearing these same phone calls, are getting the same phone calls from

businesses in their riding — that they’re barely hanging on. The ones

that, first of all, have made it through COVID, thankfully…. We’ve lost

a lot of businesses that didn’t make it through COVID, but the ones that

are still hanging on are hanging on by a thread. A lot of this is

because of the financial burden that’s been placed on them over and over

again since 2017.

I’m not going to go into great detail. I mean, others have done

this already, and I’m sure others after me will do this. But this is a

government that takes great pleasure in increasing the costs to our

businesses and somehow imagining that there’s going to be no impact.

Well, there is an impact, and that impact is that these businesses will

close. These businesses will go elsewhere.

We’ve had tax increases, fees increased on businesses. We’ve had

the stresses of wages, interest rate increases, labour challenges that

we’ve had. Generally, the affordability — food costs rising through the

roof, fuel prices. Supply chain issues that we’ve certainly seen come to

light since COVID are still a huge challenge. Concerning, also, is the

looming recession. We hear over and over again from economists that the

future is not looking bright right now.

So Bill 41 — we need to ask those questions. What is this going to

look like at the end? Yes, we want to make sure we are protecting

workers — I am one of those workers — but we also need to recognize that

the amount of burden that this government has pushed down on our

businesses has been amazing. It’s been absolutely incredible.

Many times in this House, on different bills, this one included,

I’ve brought up that British Columbia is one of the least competitive

jurisdictions on the continent. I still stand by that. We need to make

sure that we are in line with other jurisdictions, as well, when it

comes to attracting, retaining businesses in our communities — our

communities that rely on these businesses.

These businesses are the heart of our communities — the businesses

that make our communities, the businesses that employ the people in our

communities, the businesses that support our incredibly important

not-for-profit sector. When we see the potential of more burden being

pushed down on these businesses, that is really when I start to worry

about the unintended consequences of Bill 41.

Again, this is not about that we disagree that we need to improve,

but we need to make sure that we are asking questions when it comes to

committee stage so that we know what the impacts are going to be. Are

there things that government possibly might not have included,

purposefully or otherwise? We need to ask those questions.

One of the things we also need to look at is that changes to the

Workers Compensation Act in this bill come from the Patterson report, as

mentioned, that was launched in April of 2019. The report was released

in August of 2020. Now, when the report came out — and probably the

latter half of the work that was done on this report, of course — we

were in some pretty challenging times. If you recall, 2020 was when the

world shut down. The world stopped because of COVID.

[3:45 p.m.]

We need to look at the environment that this report was done in as

well. Those are going to be some of the questions that I’m sure my

colleagues will be asking during committee stage around how this

environment could have impacted these recommendations. Are those

recommendations still going to be potentially appropriate, moving

forward?

Again, questions that we need to be asking and hoping for

appropriate answers on from the minister, because it was a very unique

time, and we need to make sure that there…. Again, it’s all about

unintended consequences that…. What was happening during 2020? How is

that going to impact down the road? Is it still relevant? Those are

going to be some of the questions that we use.

You know, I mentioned around the consultation piece, and this is

where I probably…. I’m looking at my notes here. I jumped around a

little much, and I should have stuck to my speaking points. But I’m

going to go back to this, because this is quite alarming: around how

Bill 41 became in regards to….

Multiple employer groups dropped out of the consultation basically

because they saw an issue. I’m sure many recall the news at the time.

I’m going to read, and I’ll read this right from the Victoria

newspaper.

“Employer groups including the Business Council of B.C., the B.C.

Construction Association and the B.C. Restaurant and Foodservices

Association wrote to retired labour lawyer Janet Patterson, the head of

the B.C. government’s review Wednesday. They said the selected issues

chosen by Patterson for review exceeded the mandate that they were

expecting and matched closely with the report ten years ago commissioned

by the B.C. Federation of Labour.

“‘The employer community is quite taken aback and dismayed with the

extremely broad and far-reaching scope of these selected issues, and

after giving the matter due consideration and consulting with various

representatives of the employer community, we have determined that we

have no choice but to cease all participation in the review’s process,

effective immediately.’”

This was from Doug Alley, the Employers’ Forum, representing 46

business groups.

When we look at the recommendations and Bill 41, this piece of

legislation, moving forward, it seems like there already is a dark cloud

over top of this bill that we can’t ignore. We need to make sure again,

as I mentioned earlier, what the motivation is, the process around

getting here — make sure that it is in the best interest, again, of

British Columbians and of workers that have been injured.

We heard already from one of my colleagues — I think it was maybe

Saanich North and the Islands who mentioned it earlier — about the

number of people that he gets into his office and files that he’s

working on within WorkSafe. I can agree. I have a number of files at my

constituency office around WorkSafe.

For the most part, again, for WorkSafe staff, my hat’s off.

They’ve been great to deal with in helping us manage through this. But

it is these folks that are that are struggling with the system that I

will be keeping in mind to make sure that their voice is also going to

be at the table as we move forward into committee stage. Because that is

what this is all about: that balance that we spoke about. We need to

make sure that that balance is appropriate, moving forward with this. So

I do look forward to hearing more in committee stage. That’s going to be

led by my colleague from Shuswap.

I’m not going to touch on a lot of what the bill does. We will go

into that in much more detail here as we move into committee stage —

around how the bill amends the Workers Compensation Act. Again, there’s

much of it that we do agree on, but there are many questions that we

also need to ask.

[3:50 p.m.]

I look at one recommendation, I think No. 67: “The Workers

Compensation Act be amended to establish the office of the fair

practices commission and appoint a fair practices commissioner by the

Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council independent from Workers Compensation

Board’s administration and reporting directly to the board of

directors.” On the surface, it sounds great. It is probably a good thing

to remove that or to bring a level of accountability to WorkSafe, but

again, we do have questions around this government’s record on growing

administration for the sake of growing administration, without any

better outcomes.

That’s what this is all about. We need to make sure that the

outcomes are better, with improvement in protecting the worker as well

as that balance of making sure that we are not forcing our businesses to

close down because they cannot afford to keep their doors open — which

doesn’t do anybody any favours whatsoever.

I’m just going to kind of wrap up here. There’s lots in this bill

around making sure we do protect the worker. We want to make sure that

we never lose sight of that. At the end of the day, that is what we all

want to make sure of — that we are protecting the worker. We also need

to, as opposition, dive deeper into this bill to make sure that we are

asking the right questions on behalf of all British Columbians and that

we are holding this government to account on every piece of legislation

that comes through here.

To find our questions egregious…. Quite frankly, I find that

egregious. I encourage everybody in the House to look through a critical

lens as they review any piece of legislation and ask the tough

questions. At the end of the day, all 87 of us in this Legislature are

there for that reason — to make sure that we are looking at the

legislation for the betterment of every single British Columbian out

there.

Hon. Speaker, I certainly want to thank you for your time. I do

look forward to the committee stage on Bill 41, the Workers Compensation

Amendment Act, and getting to some of these tough questions. That might

make government uncomfortable, but that is our job here: to ask the

tough questions.

With that, I’ll take my place and look forward to listening to

further speakers.

R. Merrifield: I am pleased to take my place in the second reading debate and at

least provide some initial comments on Bill 41. Obviously, this is

second reading. I’ll try not to get too into the details, because I

recognize that we do need to update labour-related legislation. It’s

vital in ensuring that British Columbia is a place that helps workers

thrive and employers succeed. Protecting all parties involved,

especially during times of difficulty, such as workplace injuries, is

absolutely critical. This includes any mandated processes as

well.

It’s with cautious optimism that I approach this amendment act,

and I really am looking for the positive silver lining in it. Obviously,

this is coming out of the New Directions report, also known as

the Patterson report, launched in April of 2019 and then released in

August 2020, which inspired the changes that this act represents. I have

some concerns around that. I am trying to come at this particular bill

without the preconceived notion that I would derive based on the report

that was actually boycotted by many of the stakeholders that it would

actually represent.

In some ways, it’s almost like a tainted report, because the

employers actually withdrew, and my colleague from Peace River North

just articulated all the different industry associations that withdrew

from the process over apprehension of bias by the former adviser to the

B.C. Federation of Labour. I’m going to note that this was quite

controversial. With that, it is going to provoke more questions than

maybe I would have had if that were not the case.

[3:55 p.m.]

This bill also attempts to bring aspects of the act in line with

other jurisdictions. We do have best cases and good governance in other

areas that we can follow.

Another aspect that I’m bringing to this conversation and this

debate is that, unfortunately, the NDP has repeatedly shown a lack of

balance regarding labour issues, from their discriminatory union benefit

agreements and removing the secret ballot to the role of big NDP unions

in their recent leadership process. We are seeing an effect on our

businesses. Yes, we can go through the actual jobs numbers, which show

that private industry has yet to really catch up to pre-pandemic levels,

whereas public employment has soared throughout the course of these last

two years.

Just recently, I met with a manufacturing company that was located

in the Lower Mainland. They were moving. This is a business owner that

I’ve known for more than a decade — a corporation that is literally 50

years old. I was really disheartened by this move. Obviously, yes, it’s

the 800 to 1,000 jobs that it represents, but they’re also great-paying

jobs in the biochemical engineering space, etc. When I asked why, the

owner said: “Look, we’re dying a death of 1,000 cuts. At some point,

we’ve got to jump over to Alberta before we actually bleed

out.”

Yesterday, I heard the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan stand up

and laud all the ways that the NDP have made things more affordable for

British Columbians. I said that with quotation marks and waving hands,

because I would disagree with what he said. What he neglected to say was

that most of these measures have been actually just downloaded and put

onto the backs of businesses.

He spoke of MSP. Well, EHT has absolutely hit businesses very hard

— never mind the double-charging for foreign workers or the

double-charging for international students. Then there are the taxes,

which have been gone through by the member for the Shuswap. There are

other taxes on housing that have created a less affordable housing

industry. There’s a minimum wage that has continued to go up. I want to

make sure that we keep wages competitive and absolutely on par with

where they need to be, but — and I say “but” — it does make everything

more expensive.

Then there were the five sick days — which, during COVID, made

absolute sense. But now every business is giving five additional sick

days to all of their employees. If I use even a public example of that,

the RCMP is looking at 2 percent EHT as well as five additional sick

days for all of their staff. If you look at that, what could be done

with 2 percent? What could be done with that many more days?

These costs are all in these costs are all in addition to higher

fuel costs, higher salaries, higher housing costs and higher WCB

insurance costs. Deaths happen with 1,000 cuts. It’s no wonder that we

haven’t seen the gains in the private sector. When I approach this bill,

I want to see things like the balanced stability improvement that the

report has — and the Restoring the Balance report that has also

inspired some elements of this bill — and which have been integrated

into it. I want to see those elements — not the elements, necessarily,

of the report, but the elements that are chosen in the actual

titles.

The bill implements several of the recommendations from the

report, especially regarding interest paid on overdue wage loss and

permanent disability benefits greater than 180 days, based on various

factors. That makes a lot of sense. We’re not going to complain about

things that are just practical and make sense. But how is this going to

get paid for? How is this going to be costed out? Has that been done?

These questions need to be answered as we move through into committee

stage.

[4:00 p.m.]

Similarly, clause 4 helps guide the relationship between the

worker and employer in situations where injury or other cases might

cause a disturbance.

The bill also proposes the establishment of a fair practices

commissioner by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, independent from the

Workers Compensation Board’s administration and reporting directly to

the board of directors. What authorities and powers is this agency going

to have? Establishing a new agency and expanding government come with

risks, and we want to ensure that the minister has considered all of

these risks, especially regarding the execution of this

launch.

We’ve seen this government fail to consult, at times, with

relevant stakeholders regarding changes to industry. It doesn’t matter

if it’s the forestry industry, the housing industry or now, with this

bill. Were the stakeholders present? Was there consultation? Was there a

sit-down meeting? Sure would have loved one of those when it came time

to support the First Nations bid for the Olympics.

As the official opposition critic for gender diversity and

inclusion, I’m interested in learning more about the effects that this

bill takes to promote gender equality, especially for women and other

marginalized groups in the workforce. How are they protected? How were

they consulted? How is the consultative process actually inclusive of

them?

We all saw what happens if these consultative processes aren’t

met. We see the backlash. We see the mistrust. We see industry leaving.

I would hate to see similar reactions with this bill. So it’s hard. We

have a bill in front of us that is inspired by a report that industry

didn’t participate in. So is industry supportive of this bill, or is

this just another of the 1,000 cuts?

I wonder if there’s been consultation done specifically with

groups such as women, people of colour, Indigenous peoples, to really

examine it, to see whether this legislation prevents those people from

falling through the cracks of a system that has continuously let them

down. This bill strikes a tone of balance, or at least aspires to. But

how will we know for sure without due process and examination through

committee? We don’t.

B.C.’s workers compensation system gives workers the right to

compensation for being injured on the job while providing employers

immunity from lawsuits from injured workers. For a sustainable industry

and healthy worker-employer relationships, ensuring that all parties are

protected is in the government’s best interests. Keeping workers safe is

in everyone’s best interests. However, we also need to keep in mind that

businesses and employees need consistency and stability, and we need to

really examine how this legislation affects that. If it’s not

consistent, it can result in adversely negative effects.

Take, for instance, the implementation of the five sick days. As

it was being implemented, there were errors in how those days were

calculated in the calendar year. That cost some businesses ten sick days

because the legislation wasn’t correctly implemented. It can hurt

businesses, and it can hurt workers, if it’s not done

correctly.

The act, specifically clause 9, requires the retention of a health

professional for advice and information. What happens if someone, on the

weekend, goes for a jog and rolls their ankle but claims that it was

done on Friday afternoon at 3 p.m., on a job site? Well, this

independent medical opinion on Workers Compensation Appeal Tribunal —

that could be expensive if there are not guidelines that are actually

utilized on how that can be asked for.

[4:05 p.m.]

While WorkSafe’s unappropriated balance is more than $5 billion….

Well, that was last year. That unappropriated balance is subject to this

year’s market volatility, so we don’t know what that amount is. The

distribution of these funds must be appropriately planned, monitored and

executed, and I know that businesses would have loved a little bit of a

rebate. Businesses were still paying their WCB insurance amounts even

though they were shut down, even though they were not employing anyone

during certain seasons of COVID, which is part of the reason that

WorkSafeBC has such a large unappropriated balance and that we didn’t

see more claims.

We also know that safety has shifted on sites. We know that all

employees, all employers are taking more precautions and are doing a

better job of keeping each other safe. So a rebate would have been a

nice way to reward businesses for great work during a pandemic and maybe

just a little band-aid on one of those 1,000 cuts. But instead, we’ve

got those finances going towards the aspects that are inside of this

bill that we’re not even sure what they are, because they haven’t been

quantified yet.

So we’re going to have some questions concerning the financial

sustainability of these changes and how these changes are going to

affect rates, because right now, we can’t afford another cut. We’re

coming off of a few very challenging years for small businesses, who

continue to face cost pressures. Inflation is hammering them, and not

just inflation, but interest rates. You can’t fix very much of a

commercial loan. So our businesses are paying much more for interest

costs.

This may have a similar effect, and we need to make sure that

increasing the costs that businesses have to face doesn’t happen,

because that’s only going to drive up the cost for everyone. We are

living in a cost-of-living crisis, and the government needs to recognize

the need to be driving business costs down and not up.

Gas prices — well, they’re up. Renting — well, that’s way up. Our

labour shortage means that salaries are way up, and the salaries in the

pri