WorkSafeBC Owes You Money

As a small business owner, one of our most important obligations is to help ensure the safety of our employees. This is especially true in our industry, where the risk of injury is ever-present and safety is always on the minds of everyone on our sites.

If one of our workers is injured, our obligation extends to covering the costs of their recovery through our payments into B.C.’s workers compensation program, administered through WorkSafeBC. We want to help to make sure their compensation comes quickly and with little hassle, and that the recovery programs they put in place are effective and adequately funded.

But through our membership in the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, we’ve become part of lobbying efforts to encourage WorkSafeBC to refund the billions of dollars in surplus funds they currently enjoy to the employers who’ve paid into it.

Right now, WorkSafeBC has assets of about $18.5 billion – a full $6.4 billion more than their liabilities. This puts them at a staggering 153% funding level. The CFIB has recommended for years that the program aim for a funding level of 110%, giving them plenty of resources to both meet the needs of B.C.’s injured workers and to improve their programs and services.

But year after year, their coffers continue to swell with B.C. employers’ money. Only last year, they were at a 142% funding level, meaning there has been substantial growth in the past year. We’re going in the wrong direction, while thousands of small businesses in B.C. are struggling to keep up with ever-increasing wages and taxes. They could use a refund when it’s available – and there’s no denying it’s there for them right now.

If WorkSafeBC refunded employers to a position of 110% funded, they would return $5.2 billion to B.C. businesses. This comes out to $2,167 per employee. Other provinces have done this very thing, including Alberta, who in 2016 returned $467 million to its employers. B.C. employers deserve the same treatment.

Our co-founder, Daniel Greenhalgh, says ENM will do everything they can to help the CFIB lobby for this change. “Just last year, the Liberal government was prepared to pass legislation requiring WorkSafeBC to issue this kind of refund. There was massive support for it, but when they lost the provincial election to the NDP’s, that measure of course disappeared. Labor lobbyists claim to be appalled at the idea because of the need for service improvements. But you can address those with the extra 10%. Meanwhile, they’ve had this surplus for years and where are the service improvements? To me, it’s indefensible to hoard our money so blatantly.”

WorkSafeBC did lower their base rate for employers from 1.65% to 1.55% in 2018. But even with this reduction, 26% of industries still saw an increase in their rates. It’s past time to bring these rates down by meaningful percentages across the board, and to trigger an automatic refund when a fair funding ratio is reached.