Dear editor,
The current Ontario PC government has just cancelled more than $300 million in funding expansion to post secondary education institutions. They claim it will help Ontario taxpayers through taxpayer savings. However, it will severely cost Ontario taxpayers in more ways than we will ever truly know. In part, by limiting opportunity to our children, Ontario’s future, to low paying labourious jobs. Everything this PC government has done was claimed to be in the name of saving taxpayer’s money. In reality, the Ontario PCs have done nothing more than cost taxpayers, but have ensured the protection of the profits of big businesses.
A recent example of the Ontario PC’s deceptive tax saving tactics was used when they announced that the Ontario workers compensation board, the WSIB, had announced a rebate to Ontario employers of more than $2.3 billion. The Ontario PCs deceptively claimed it would save Ontario taxpayers. In fact, the rebate has cost Ontario taxpayers more! What the rebate did do, was increase big business profits. Sadly, this rebate was at the expensive of thousands of injured workers whose legitimate claims for employer funded workers compensation benefits were unlawfully cut by the WSIB. This then forced the hundreds of thousands of Ontarians who are injured workers to seek income assistance elsewhere. This may have been through private insurance or even in many cases taxpayer funded welfare programs.
Many Ontarians are unaware that Ontario’s workers compensation is solely funded through employer premiums. Meaning that not one cent of taxpayer dollars is used in anyway to fund the administration or payment of benefits to injured workers. It is somewhat comparable to Ontario’s auto/life/property insurance and how it is funded through private premiums. Therefore, premium cuts or rebates to workers compensation have zero direct savings to taxpayers. On the contrary, the rebate does have a direct impact on increased costs to taxpayers. When injured workers are forced to use taxpayer funded social programs like OW, ODSP, OHIP, OSAP, CPPDP, and so on. These programs then become financially depleted by the WSIB’s unlawful actions. It also and especially costs taxpayers who have been injured at work and are then wrongly denied legitimate claims for medical & income replacement benefits. Who are hardworking Ontarians that are intentionally pushed into poverty, just so the WSIB can ensure big business profits increase!
What is even more disturbing, is that now the Ontario government considers workers compensation to be insurance and not workers compensation. Well, when was the last time you ever got a rebate on your car, life, or property insurance? NEVER! Why? Because you are not big business, with powerful government lobbyists on your side.
So, was the rebate to employers really a taxpayer saving initiative?
Was the more than $300 million cancel funding to post secondary education a tax savings?
Or were the rebates and cuts part of an elaborate covert agreement to ensure the Ontario PC’s big business backers are even more profitable? All at the cost to Ontario taxpayers, injured workers, and future Ontarians. Sadly, most Ontarians are unaware of this deception by the Ontario PCs, due to the media is also part of big business….
Paul Taylor
Chair Injured Workers of Wellington & Dufferin Counties
IWWDC meet every second Thursday of the month starting at 3pm at 611 Silvercreek Pkwy N, Guelph.
https://www.facebook.com/injuredworkersofwellingtondufferin
E-mail: paultayl@hotmail.com
52 Swift Cres.
Guelph, Ontario N1E 7J3
Paul Taylor