Persons with Disabilities 120% tax rate applied

Mr. Speaker, like young people, disabled Canadians want the opportunity to
work. A million of them already do, and private sector companies like Tim
Hortons, RBC, and KPMG want to continue hiring them, but a disabled worker
earning minimum wage can lose as much as $1.20 in clawbacks and taxes on
every new dollar he earns. 

No one can afford to work with a 120% tax rate.
Will the finance minister show leadership to remove this poverty trap and
make work pay?

 Source: http://openparliament.ca/debates/2016/10/26/pierre-poilievre-2/ 

Rhona DesRoches, FAIR: 59,000 cases on docket in Ontario

Ending the use of jury trials in personal injury cases doesn’t have much to do with restricting freedom of speech for insurers who will undoubtedly continue with their fight to reduce claims costs under the guise of a fight on fraud. 

The constant maligning of MVA victims over decades by the IBC/insurers in advertising has had the intended consequence of negatively influencing the public and that has included potential jurors. This is not just one case.

In Bruff-Murphy v Gunawardena, 2016 http://canlii.ca/t/gmr5x there’s an acknowledgement that the expert evidence that the Judge found questionable may not have been viewed in the same way by the jury. Juries are made up of ordinary people with the ordinary expectation that the evidence they are presented with is honest. Anyone working in the personal injury field knows that this is often not the case when it comes to Ontario’s ‘experts’ whose medical opinions are relied on by insurers to delay and deny legitimate claims

Auto insurance is a dirty game played out in our courts and if the flawed evidence is going to be allowed in the door you can’t expect the ordinary jurors to filter out the junk medicine replete with biased or flawed opinions and come to a just decision. 

According to StatsCan there are over 59,000 (2015) auto insurance related cases on the docket in Ontario; aside from pointing out that this is indicative of an unaddressed problem with Ontario’s auto insurance, it’s a massive amount of money being laid out by taxpayers when 50% of claims are denied and end up in hearings.



Source/more:
http://www.slaw.ca/2016/10/26/wednesday-whats-hot-on-canlii-188/comment-page-1/#comment-948175

Auto insurance rates up again

According to a recent report from the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO), rates went up by an average of 1.5 per cent in the third quarter, which follows an average increase of 0.33 per cent the quarter before.

Source/more:
http://oshawaexpress.ca/auto-insurance-rates-up-again/?platform=hootsuite

WSIB's 'devastating' compensation policy all about board's bottom line, lawyers charge

Toronto lawyer Richard Fink launched a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit in 2014 against WSIB on behalf of injured workers who had their benefits cut due to pre-existing conditions.

An Ontario judge dismissed the case in July 2015, but Fink appealed. The case was heard Sept. 16 and he and his clients await the decision.

Source/more:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/wsib-injured-worker-benefits-1.3803300

The persistence of poverty in Ontario

Total benefit income for those who depend on Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) locks nearly 895,000 Ontarians into deep poverty, according to Ontario’s Social Assistance Poverty Gap (PDF), a May 2016 report authored by Kaylie Tiessen, an economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

Source/more:
https://nowtoronto.com/news/the-persistence-of-poverty-in-ontario/

Chronic pain: do patients get the care and treatment they deserve?

A long wait is not unusual for those in pain. While wait times to see a pain specialist are difficult to track and vary widely, a telephone survey conducted by the Canadian Pain Coalition for their 2014 “Painful Truth Report” found that chronic pain sufferers waited, on average, nearly 18 months to see a specialist. Anecdotally, physicians and patients said wait times to see a pain specialist could be anywhere from nine months to a year but could reach as high as five years.

Source/more:
http://healthydebate.ca/2016/10/topic/chronic-pain-care-treatment

LAT hearings held in writing 'fundamental denial of justice'

“These people are not being given the opportunity to come before the tribunal and have their credibility assessed, have their doctors testify and have their lawyers cross-examine the insurance company’s doctors,” Singer tells AdvocateDaily.com. “Instead, it’s all done in writing.

Source/more:

http://www.advocatedaily.com/darryl-singer-lat-hearings-held-in-writing-fundamental-denial-of-justice.html

WSIB gives corporations millions while doctors, injured workers outraged

TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - October 31, 2016) - Despite growing public attention surrounding the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board's (WSIB) treatment of workers who get injured on the job, the WSIB announced Friday that they will further reduce employers' premium rates that fund the system.
Source/more:

http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/oniwg-wsib-gives-corporations-millions-while-doctors-injured-workers-outraged-2170921.htm

Ontario’s auto insurance benefits a ‘hollow shell’

The changes to Ontario’s auto insurance benefits are yet another blow to drivers and accident victims that will ultimately cost the system, says Toronto plaintiff personal injury lawyer Brian Goldfinger.

Source/more:
http://www.advocatedaily.com/brian-goldfinger-ontarios-auto-insurance-benefits-a-hollow-shell.html

Juries swayed by big $ spent on IBC fraud campaigns

It would seem that David Cheifetz, a now retired defence lawyer, can be as insulting to auto insurance claimants via his incredibly ignorant statements to the Chair of FAIRAssociation.ca (not-for-profit motor vehicle accident victim group seeking insurance reform) as so many of the rogue IME assessors are to claimants they assess, whom they deny in order to keep their lucrative insurer-paid jobs.

More: http://deniedbenefitclaims.com/blog.html