Construction employers say there should have been a consultation before the fund's closure, but WSIB says the decision is final
The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) says its decision to close the Second Injury and Enhancement Fund (SIEF) is final, rejecting a formal request from Ontario's construction sector to pause the closure and hold a full consultation before proceeding.
"The decision has been made and the policy is up on our website for people to see," said Aaron Lazarus, WSIB's vice-president of communications. Asked directly whether the board would revoke the decision and consider a consultation on SIEF, he said: "No."
Why employers wanted WSIB to slow down
The pushback follows a briefing note from L.A. Liversidge, a workers' compensation lawyer representing the Construction Employers Coalition (CEC). Liversidge argues SIEF's real purpose since the 1970s has been ensuring employers aren't charged premiums for claim costs entirely outside their control, and that WSIB's recent value-for-money audit, conducted by Deloitte, measured the fund against the wrong goal, disabled-worker employment outcomes, rather than employer equity.
Liversidge also argues WSIB's own 2020 policy framework commits the board to broad public consultation on changes of this scale, and that the closure breaks with precedent. SIEF faced formal review, and survived, in 1990, in 1996, and again between 2013 and 2018, and each of those reviews included a public consultation process. This time there wasn't one.
What the Construction Employers Coalition is asking for
Andrew Pariser, chair of the CEC and vice-president of RESCON, said the coalition formally asked WSIB and Ontario's Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development to pause the closure and hold a proper consultation. "There's been a broad and thorough outreach" ahead of past policy changes of this scale, Pariser said, "and then in this one there was just a policy change, and we were notified of it once the change had already gone into effect."
Pariser said the coalition's core ask is straightforward: show the numbers. "We haven't seen the math," he said, calling on WSIB to model the real-world impact on a specific business, for example, "if a company with 100 workers has one injury that would have been covered under this fund, what would be the premium and what would be the economic outcome, with the fund and without the fund." He didn't dispute WSIB's figure that only 2,400 businesses, 0.75 per cent of Ontario employers, used SIEF in 2024, but argued that understates its value as collective insurance, particularly in construction, where workers move between employers frequently. "Was it that company who hired somebody for a week or two weeks, or was it the fact that they had worked in construction for 25 years?" he said. "We're not looking to get into a fight," he added. "We've had more transparency in the past. We're looking for it on this issue as well."
The CEC isn't the only group asking WSIB to pause. Regional associations, including the Barrie Construction Association, have separately urged the province to intervene, sending letters directly to Ford and Piccini. The Council of Ontario Construction Associations, representing more than 10,000 general and trade contractors, had previously told WSIB the fund was important to employers and should not be eliminated.
WSIB says the criticism is coming from the wrong people
Lazarus pushed back on that framing directly. Asked whether he'd put the CEC in the category of groups profiting from the fund's complexity, he said: "I would put their lawyer in that group for sure." He described SIEF credits as "mirage money that doesn't actually exchange hands," arguing that lawyers and consultants, not businesses, benefited financially from the program. He noted SIEF did generate a genuine year-end rebate before 2020, but that incentive disappeared once WSIB's current rate framework model, introduced in 2020, with its own built-in caps and weighting rules, took over.
On the employer-equity argument specifically, Lazarus was direct: "We respectfully disagree that the policy was created" for that purpose. He maintained SIEF was designed in 1945 to help returning war veterans find work without discrimination, a purpose he said has "far outlasted its purpose and meaning." He pointed instead to WSIB's Health and Safety Excellence Program, which he said has already delivered "millions of dollars of value to Ontario businesses" in rebates for health and safety improvements.
No pause, no revocation, no consultation
Lazarus confirmed any SIEF application already in WSIB's system as of July 16, 2026, will continue to be processed, and any claim with an existing SIEF award will keep that treatment for the life of the claim. Beyond that, he said, there's no room for negotiation. "We are moving forward," he said, pointing employers toward the Health and Safety Excellence Program as WSIB's preferred path for reducing premiums going forward. "Anytime there are vested interests involved, we expect that type of reaction," he added, arguing that as WSIB works to make its processes "better, easier, and faster," business models built around navigating a complex system will face more pressure, not less.
What this means for safety and claims teams
For health and safety leaders and claims managers, the practical takeaway hasn't changed: SIEF cost relief won't apply to new requests, and businesses that relied on it should look to WSIB's Health and Safety Excellence Program, which independent researchers recently found is cutting injury rates, and stronger return-to-work outcomes to manage premium costs. Whether WSIB shares the cost data CEC is asking for remains an open question, but the board appears firm that it won't pause or reverse the decision.
