The WSIB is here to help and wants everyone to receive the compensation they are entitled to.
When we look at occupational disease claims, we must rely on the best scientific evidence available, in addition to information about the person’s illness, workplace exposures and other relevant factors. As the scientific research related to occupational disease evolves, we continue to look for new information that may help with our evidence-based decision-making.
Our Occupational Disease Strategy will help us achieve a more responsive and sustainable approach to occupational disease policy and decision-making. It draws on recommendations from the Demers report - Using scientific evidence and principles to help determine the work-relatedness of cancer - released in July 2020, the KPMG, "Value for Money Audit Report: Occupational Disease and Survivor Benefit Program", released in 2019.
The Occupational Disease Strategy includes short-term, medium-term, and long-term activities.
We have completed the short term, foundational activities focused on three main areas:
- Establishing a Scientific Advisory Table on Occupational Disease to provide expert scientific advice to the WSIB to support policy development and scheduling
- Developing an overarching Occupational Disease Policy Framework, in consultation with our stakeholders, to guide future policy development and scheduling
- Leveraging our Research and Grants Program to ensure the collection of up-to-date scientific evidence to support evidence-based decision-making – see occupational disease research currently underway.
In addition to completing the short-term activities, we have worked with the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development (MLITSD) to make a regulatory change under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act (WSIA) to add a new presumption for Parkinson’s disease in McIntyre Powder-exposed miners. This means that if anyone was exposed to McIntyre Powder through work in the mining industry and develops Parkinson’s disease, the disease is presumed to be work-related, unless the contrary is shown.
Work on medium and long-term activities has now begun, including:
- Ongoing review and updating of the existing policies and schedule entries
- Identifying opportunities for new policies and schedule entries
- Posting new grant opportunities
- Working with our Scientific Advisory table on Occupational Disease to support the activities above
Updates will be provided as we progress through the development of these activities.
Related info
- McIntyre Powder update
- Using scientific evidence and principles to help determine the work-relatedness of cancer
- “Value for Money Audit Report: Occupational Disease and Survivor Benefit Program”
- Occupational disease cohort statistics
- Making a claim for occupational disease
For more information, please contact odprb@wsib.on.ca