Almost Canadian

Legal redress in a civil sense is not a concern for employers as, if WCB didn't exist, they would likely have private insurance so both cost them nothing (save a deductible). Legal redress in a criminal sense is not affected so dodgy employers still get done.

It's just like when someone rear ends someone in their car. They will watch their driving habits for the rest of that day, but will be back to their usual habits quickly as someone else is picking up the expense.

Aviator

If you mean paying WCB premiums, they are way higher than private liability insurance would ever be. WCB pay nothing to employers, they just take money and increase premiums in the event of a claim. I suggest if you are this interested in it then have a read of the WCB site to see how it works. Perhaps you could offer them some feed back as to how the system in your opinion, should work.

Whether we pay WCB or private insurers, it still ends up going into cost of the product and eventually the price, so when you shop the consumer ends up paying for it whatever. You could even be buying our products and helping us pay our premiums

Alan2005

Yes, that's insurance.

There are two things here:
1 - Should insurance be responsibility of the government (through crown corps)?
2 - Should it be illegal to sue an employer if they cause you harm?

My view is no to both of those, though I will concede to pragmatism on the first one if it can be proved that the private sector cannot deliver (as is the case with medical insurance).

Alan2005

Sure. I would expect employers to pay insurance; I wouldn't work for a company that wasn't insured.

Almost Canadian

What benefit is there to being able to sue the employer if the employer doesn't actually pay (because of insurance or WCB)? I suggest very little.

As I said above, if the employer does something to a criminal extent, health and safety (or whatever its equivalent in Canada is) can still go for a conviction.

In an insurance or a WCB scheme, the employee doesn't pay any premiums so there is no cost to the employee. WCB, unlike insurance and the court system, does not require proof of fault, the fact that the employee was injured during the course of work is sufficient. So, in theory, administration of the scheme is straightforward and relatively painless for the employee. It costs taxpayers nothing as the system is self funding through premiums paid by the employer. So what exactly is the downside?

Alan2005

I'm amazed you don't understand the difference between free enterprise and a government ran monopoly.

You say no risk to tax-payers. That's the same thing people say about CHMC and ICBC etc. The thing is, the risk is entirely born by tax payers - just because in a statistically normal year the scheme is self funding does not change this.

Aviator

Perhaps some US tax payers may not see it the same way. Wasn't banking supposed to be no risk to tax payers? How much money did the US tax payers ending have to put into failing banks, insurance companies etc? How much of it have they got back?

Alan2005

Banking should be no risk to the tax payers - the people taking the risk with banks should be share holders, bond holders and account holders (in that order); it shouldn't really be anybody else's business. You want to blame somebody for the bailouts? Blame the US government - not the banks, which should have been allowed to fail.

(you'll note that here the banking sector really IS underwritten by the government via the CHMC - the loans may be less risky, but the risk is born by the tax payer).