Earlier this week, ICBA and 45 other employer associations – representing industries from restaurants to construction – pulled out of the NDP’s sham review of WorkSafeBC. See our comments HERE.
The media has picked up on this important story:
- The Vancouver Sun: “The business community has resigned en masse from a review of B.C.’s workers’ compensation system, saying the government-appointed reviewer is regurgitating recommendations made a decade ago for the B.C. Federation of Labour… ‘When you undertake a review in this area, it has got to be done ensuring it’s a fair independent review that is going to strike an appropriate balance,’ said Chris Gardner, president of [ICBA], one of the 46 groups that quit the process. ‘The concern is Janet Patterson is biased in how she approaches this review and the focus will be on fairly significant and dramatic wholesale changes in WorkSafeBC.'”
- The Orca: “Patterson then took 23 of her 24 recommendations from her 2009 report and added them into the current review. Any semblance of fairness or an unbiased review vanished, and thus the 46 industry associations pulled out… Essentially, the NDP tabbed a player to referee a game they’re playing in – who then changed the rules at halftime.”
- Black Press: “‘We were willing to participate in a balanced an impartial process to review the system,’ Richard Truscott, B.C. and Alberta vice president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said in a statement Wednesday. ‘However, the writing has been on the wall from the very beginning that the review lacked objectivity.’
- Business In Vancouver: “Signatories to the letter published Thursday – which include the BC Chamber of Commerce, Greater Vancouver Board of Trade and Mining Association of BC – say they were ‘quite taken aback and dismayed’ by what they see as an expansion of the review’s original scope.”
- Journal of Commerce: “‘We just want a fair and independent process,’ said Doug Alley, managing director of the Employers’ Forum.
