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WORKER’S COMPENSATION
SYSTEMS WERE ESTABLISHED
TO PROTECT EMPLOYERS
AGAINST EXPENSIVE
LAWSUITS
British Columbians
didn’t get a no fault
system until January 1,
1917
Our current day Workers
Compensation system in
British Columbia was set
up to protect employers
from expensive lawsuits.
As the labour movement
began to grow in the
early 1900s, it assisted
workers in their
individual legal actions
against employers. The
breakthrough results
were that workers began
to win more and larger
civil lawsuits against
their bosses.
British Columbians
didn’t get a no fault
system until January 1,
1917 – after Ontario and
Manitoba had their
system in place. That
meant neither the
employer or the employee
could sue and that
compensation would be
paid.
In 1902, during the
third minority
government in five
years, and with the
balance of power in his
grasp, BC Socialist
Party MLA JW
Hawthornthwaite, backed
by his one other party
colleague Parker
Williams, introduced the
Worker’s Compensation
Act, which was virtually
a word for word takeoff
on the Workmen’s
Compensation Act that
Great Britain introduced
five years earlier – in
1897.
 The
hook was that there was
a legal onus on workers
to prove employer
negligence for their
injuries and the maximum
benefits that could be
paid were capped at
$1,500. Forest industry
employers successfully
fought to have forest
workers exempted from
coverage under the 1902
act. It applied to
miners, transport and
factory workers – but
not to the forest
industry, where the
carnage was growing.
For another 15 years,
forest workers continued
to be on their own. Most
would never proceed with
a case against their
employers. An injured
logger or mill worker
would be left to fend
for themselves. Many
became destitute. It
wasn’t until the Supreme
Court of Canada ruled in
1912 that dependents of
injured BC workers –
wherever they were in
the world – could sue
employers for a loved
one’s death and
successfully receive
damages. That raised the
stakes for forest
industry employers who
faced a pool of people
who could sue them and
win. In response the
forest industry’s hiring
practices increasingly
focused on hiring single
men from faraway
countries.
Against a background of
economic recession and
civil unrest, the BC
government formed a
Royal Commission on
Labour between 1912,
which spawned a
Committee of
Investigation on
Workmen’s Compensation
between 1915-16. By May
of 1916 the Workmen’s
Compensation Act was
introduced to the BC
Legislature.
By 1932 seventeen forest
companies took the WCB
to court, alleging the
board was negligent in
how it levied
assessments against the
industry. Fortunately
they lost. Had the
forest companies won
they could have put the
fledgling WCB system
into jeopardy.
The no fault WCB system
we know today in Canada
stems back to 1910 in
Ontario when Justice
William Ralph Meredith
(the leader of the
Ontario Conservative
Party for a 16-year
period in the late
1800s) issued a royal
commission report on
workers compensation in
the province. Meredith
had been appointed as a
one-man commission on
laws related to the
liability of employers
in relation to the
compensation of injury
employees. He issued the
report in 1913, two
years before his
recommended changes
became law.
 Canada was trailing
Western European
countries and even the
United States in workers
compensation reforms.
Meredith travelled to
Belgium, England, France
and Germany and the USA,
where he focused on Ohio
and Washington states’
compensation systems.
Germany was the first
European nation to run a
state run insurance
system, funded by both
employers and workers.
In Canada Justice
Meredith faced the
Canadian Manufacturer’s
Association in Ontario,
which wanted workers to
pay part of the
assessments for a WCB
system. Employers fought
compensation for workers
if a worker was injured
due to his “own serious
or willful misconduct…”
When Meredith issued his
report in 1913, it
called for collective
liability among
employers, a no fault
insurance system,
independent assessments
and freedom from
political influence –
something that is a far
cry from reality, even
today. Wrote Meredith:
“In these days of social
and industrial unrest it
is, in my judgment, of
the gravest importance
of the community that
every proven injustice
to any sector or class
resulting from bad or
unfair laws be
removed”.[top]
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