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The Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board is an independent Saskatchewan government agency. It gives benefits and supports to people who’ve been injured at work. These can include replacement of lost wages, health care (including rehabilitation, counselling, and medications), and, in certain circumstances, retraining.
Facts about the Workers’ Compensation Board
- The WCB functions like an insurance provider. Employers pay premiums to the WCB for the people who work for them. As a result, those people are entitled to benefits if they suffer a workplace injury.
- Close to 75% of Saskatchewan workers are covered by the WCB.
- Every year, about 25,000 WCB claims are filed by workers in Saskatchewan.
- About 1% of accepted claims are for psychological injury.
- Sources: Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board Annual Report 2023,Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board, Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada, CTV News, CBC News
If you’ve been harmed by sexual harassment at work, you might think the WCB will help you.
- Maybe after you were harassed, you took time off work and so lost income.
- Maybe the harassment damaged your mental health, and you ended up needing to spend money on medication for anxiety or depression.
- Maybe the harassment had such an effect on you that you had to leave an industry and ended up needing to retrain for a new type of work in a different field.
Those are the kinds of expenses—replacement of lost wages, medication costs, retraining costs—that the WCB often covers.
However, historically, the WCB has mostly handled claims related to physical injuries suffered by workers in male-dominated fields like construction, manufacturing, and uniform occupations like policing and firefighting. If you slip at work and break your ankle, or are struck by a falling object, or are injured in a fire or explosion: that is the kind of situation the WCB was designed for and has a lot of experience handling.
But if the injury is to your mental health, the WCB only offers benefits and supports when you have suffered “psychological injury,” which is very narrowly defined. Realistically, it’s extremely unlikely that if you apply for mental stress benefits, you’ll be successful. The WCB states that “workload or work-related interpersonal incidents may be considered [for coverage], but must show highly aggressive, threatening or discriminatory behaviour over an extended period of time.”
In the meantime, your options could include making a complaint to the Human Rights Commission or taking legal action.
