In an opinion article in Saturday’s Hamilton Spectator (Dec. 13, 2025) IWC legal representatives Chris Grawey and Tebasum Durrani discuss how the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act could be amended to address age discrimination against older workers at the WSIB. This follows release of the joint IWC/ONIWG report Rights Don’t Retire at a press conference in the Legislative Assembly Nov. 25, and the Minister of Labour’s acknowledgement that the issue must be addressed.
The Ontario-made solution proposed by a broad coalition of injured workers advocates and labour organizations includes:
- Compensation for loss of earnings continues to age 70, if the worker was younger than 65 at the time of injury or recurrence. Currently, federal law requires a worker to begin their Old Age Security and Canada Pension Plan retirement benefit at age 71.
- If the worker was age 65 or older, compensation for loss of earnings continues for five years after the date of injury or recurrence.
- If the board is satisfied that the worker would have retired at a date later than provided for above, compensation for lost earnings continues to that date.
Retroactivity should be provided to all injured workers impacted by the age cutoff, back to December 2006, when mandatory retirement ended in Ontario. As the authors point out, this is feasible given the WSIB’s financial reserves. Moreover, with cumulative savings to business since 2018 totalling more than $21.5 billion because of WSIB premium rate reductions and surplus distributions, it is time that injured workers get their fair compensation.
The proposed amendments would be long overdue recognition that more people are working later in life — not just by choice, but because financial security increasingly requires it….
