WorkSafeBC’s Failures ‘a Major Embarrassment,’ Says Report

Despite being illegal, British Columbia companies routinely suppress claims of workplace injuries. And the offences are rarely investigated or punished.

That’s the conclusion of the latest report from Paul Petrie, a former vice-chair of the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal who has provided advice to WorkSafeBC on fixing the compensation system.

“The available evidence shows that the enforcement of the employer claim reporting requirements and the prohibition against claim suppression are virtually non-existent,” he wrote in “WCB at the Crossroads: Experience Rating, Claims Suppression and Collective Liability.”

“In my view, this lack of effective enforcement should serve as a major embarrassment to WorkSafeBC’s administration.”

WorkSafeBC says it takes claim suppression very seriously and in 2024 created a new enforcement team to “review and enhance” the claim suppression investigation process.

Employers are required to report any injury that results in an employee losing time at work and can be fined $6,557 for a first offence if they don’t.

But through freedom of information requests Petrie learned that in 2024 WorkSafeBC adjudicated 20,264 claims that were made without an employer submitting a report of injury. Not one of them led to an investigation of the employer’s failure.

Petrie found that in the four years from 2018 to 2021 there were just four investigations into whether employers had met the reporting requirements, and none of them resulted in penalties.

Over that same period, WorkSafeBC made 927 investigations under the section of the Workers Compensation Act that prohibits employers or supervisors from “discouraging, impeding or dissuading” a worker from reporting an injury, illness or hazardous work condition. Just four resulted in penalties.

“The main purpose of writing the report was to get the issue of claim suppression on the Workers’ Compensation Board agenda,” Petrie said in an interview. “It is obviously something they are aware of, but they’re short on the action in response to this major problem.”

The new report is a second followup to one he completed for WorkSafeBC in 2018, “Restoring the Balance: A Worker-Centred Approach to Workers’ Compensation Policy,” that led to some changes in the compensation system. An earlier followup report estimated at least 45,000 workplace injuries went unreported in B.C. in 2019, making it “the elephant in the workplace.”

Petrie links claims suppression to the “experience rating” system in place since the 1980s that reduces the WCB rates for employers with workplaces that have few claims.

“There’s a big financial incentive to suppress claims,” he said. “There is no consequence for that illegal behaviour when that happens.”

Looking at the last 25 years, Petrie added, there is no evidence that the experience rating system has provided an incentive to prevent injuries or make workplaces safer and in fact the available research shows it has in some cases contributed to unsafe workplaces.

Nobody from WorkSafeBC was available for an interview.

A spokesperson said in an email that the agency disagrees that experience rating incentivizes claim suppression and instead sees it as an incentive for employers to reduce workplace injuries and keep workers safe.

One way WorkSafeBC addresses claim suppression is by identifying unregistered employers, they said. “Since 2016, the compliance team has identified and assessed 3,251 unregistered employers, recovering $14.4 million in unpaid premiums, and ensuring these workers are provided with WorkSafeBC coverage.”

The agency is following a multi-year strategy to reduce claim suppression, the spokesperson said. “This strategy includes proactively identifying suspected cases of claims suppression, enhancing processes for sharing information between departments and divisions, and implementing effective consultation, education, and enforcement to ensure workers know their rights and address claim suppression at B.C. workplaces.”

In 2024 the agency created a Worker Rights and System Integrity team dedicated to investigating claim suppression. The team, which now has six officers, conducted 60 investigations in its first year that led to 14 orders of violations under the Workers Compensation Act. In 10 of those cases employers were sent warning letters, and in four they were assessed administrative penalties totalling about $27,000.

WorkSafeBC also has 350 prevention officers on staff and has marketing campaigns ongoing to inform workers and employers about their rights and responsibilities regarding workplace safety and claims, the spokesperson said. “WorkSafeBC emphasizes that employers must ensure that workers understand how to report workplace injuries and illnesses, and they must co-operate with WorkSafeBC prevention officers, joint health and safety committees, and worker safety representatives.”

The BC Federation of Labour welcomed the report. “Paul Petrie’s done some thorough, invaluable work here, and we’re grateful for it,” said president Sussanne Skidmore in an emailed statement. “We’re still digesting his findings and his recommendations, and we’ll be talking with our affiliates in the coming weeks about next steps.”

Claims suppression remains a serious issue for sick and injured workers, she said. “Many of them face intense pressure that keeps them from making a claim, seeking the benefits they’re entitled to or taking the time they need to recover before returning to work.”

Labour Minister Jennifer Whiteside, who is scheduled to meet with Petrie in early June, said she has received Petrie’s update and planned to speak with WorkSafeBC about claim suppression.

“I don’t have a sense of the scope of it so I will be very interested to hear what Mr. Petrie is observing with respect to what he thinks the scope is and I’ll be very interested to hear what the board has to say about that,” she said.

Whiteside mentioned WorkSafeBC’s new claims suppression team and said she’s interested to understand what Petrie has to say about the relationship between experience rating and claim suppression.

“I’m always very concerned about any kind of claim suppression in the WorkSafe system,” she said. “We know that it’s absolutely critical that workers have access to both the prevention services and appropriate claim services through WorkSafe and it’s critical that we get workers back to work as soon as we can once they’ve been injured at work. We know that they do better the sooner we can safely get them back to work.”

Rob Botterell, the BC Green MLA for Saanich North and the Islands, said a focus on claim suppression is needed. “I do think it’s something that needs to stay on the radar,” he said. “It’s important when someone with Paul’s experience and background brings these concerns forward and continues to bring them forward that WorkSafe really take them seriously.”

Over decades the workers’ compensation system has shifted from an entitlement system for injured workers to operating more like an insurance agency, said Petrie, describing a shift that has included the move to experience rating to determine costs to employers.

“To me that’s at the heart of this,” he said. “There’s a transition happening now and it’s a transition toward an adversarial insurance system and away from an entitlement system based on the inquiry process.”

WCB is funded by premiums paid by employers and investment income. In what is sometimes referred to as the “historic compromise,” both employees and employers give up the right to sue in exchange for a predictable no-fault method of determining how much support an injured worker is entitled to.

While there are great people at WorkSafeBC doing good work, Petrie said, “the system as it’s structured inhibits what the original purpose of the system was.”