Ontario to review workplace safety agency
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The Ontario government is launching a review of its Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.
The review, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2019, will provide the government with new information regarding the board's operations and how it compares with industry best practices, the Ontario government said Thursday in a statement. It will specifically focus on three areas: financial oversight, meaning the sustainability of the WSIB insurance fund and controls over it; administration, meaning the effectiveness of the current WSIB governance and executive management structure; and efficiency, meaning the cost-efficiency and effectiveness of operations, including comparisons to competing jurisdictions and private-sector insurers.
But the review will not examine how the WSIB — the independent agency that administers compensation and no-fault insurance for Ontario workplaces — makes decisions about claims or benefit levels and will not be looking at individual claims, according to the government.
The review will be conducted by Linda Regner Dykeman, who is the head of MidCorp Canada, a division of Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE; and Sean Speer, senior fellow in public policy at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
In September, the government announced that premium rates for Ontario employers would be reduced on average by almost 30% starting Jan. 1, 2019, due to the elimination of the WSIB’s unfunded liability.
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