The buck stops at the premier’s office
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letter to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is printed here at the request of its author, Colin Pick, president of the Manitoulin and North Shore Injured Workers Group.
Dear Premier Wynne:
Further to my letters of July 31 and September 2, 2014, asking for your intervention to better conditions for injured workers going deeper into poverty, and after my making a special request asking you for a proper replay, I feel it is rather unbecoming of you to just ignore people.
As a result, this will be an open letter to the media to emphasize the gross negligence, illegal policies and mistreatment of injured and diseased workers, over the past five years in Ontario by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) CEO David Marshall, board chair, Mrs. Elizabeth Witmer and yourself, because you ignore all pleas for intervention!
Injured workers experience nearly four times the rate of poverty in Ontario, which you turn a blind eye to, allowing Mr. Marshall and the WSIB board to completely dismantle the once Ontario proud Meredith Principles of fair and just compensation. And in their place, practice such reckless and hurtful changes of “illegal policy,” which have been illegally imposed upon the backs of injured and diseased workers contrary to the provisions of the WSIB Act. Premier, the mental anguish and financial hurt caused to injured workers and the poor by these changes is putting people into the poor house and is a humanitarian disgrace.
Further, the sneaky way that WSIB has been downloading onto municipal social services and the health care system is also wrong. And by you allowing the WSIB to surreptitiously shirk off their responsibilities onto municipalities, means that the local taxpayers pay more, which is unfair to municipal councils. Madam Premier, you call this fairly serving the people of Ontario? Shame on you!
Besides other areas of government excess, take a good look at the WSIB sunshine list, with 386 unnecessary piggies at the pot, all taking their lavish expenditures from the fund that was originally set up to pay compensation to injured workers; not for excessive executive sunshine lists, the best of benefits and other perks, lifetime pensions (which I remind you, was taken away from injured workers), abuse of the system, illegal practices and most of all, poor management by lack of proactive financial measures, that were lost by WSIB incompetence and government oversight long ago.
It never ceases to amaze me that the greedy practices of the land barons of yester year are still ingrained, when the corporate rich and the political rich think it’s okay for them to have wages, pensions, and benefits in excess, but think it’s okay for them to take from the workers, to widen their profit margins or make workers do more with less, instead of themselves cutting back a little.
To quote NDP leader Mr. Thomas Mulcair: “we’re fast becoming the first generation in history to leave our children and our grandchildren with less of a quality of living than we inherited from our parents.” This is so true of Ontario if we continue to allow Mr. Marshall and Ms. Witmer to run amok, leaving our children and grandchildren with absolutely nothing should they get injured in a workplace.
Mr. Marshall can manipulate the system and change the wordings of the WSIB Act all he likes to suit the circumstances, but no amount of manipulation will make what is wrong and illegal into something somewhat legal. With this staring you right in the face, as the premier who states she, “stands for the people of Ontario,” why do you wear a blindfold to justice that allows such despicable practices to continue?
Regardless, premier, the buck stops at your door, and failing to stop these illegal actions is a disgrace to your office. I can be reached at P.O. Box 88, Manitowaning, ON P0P 1N0.
Yours sincerely,
Colin Pick
MANIWG
Advocate for injured workers and the poor
