The Ford government wants Ontarians to celebrate Bill 105 as a long-overdue win for Injured Workers. Raise loss-of-earnings benefits from 85% to 90%. Let some workers apply to keep benefits past age 65. After nearly thirty years, that sounds like progress.

As practitioners who fight WSIB denials and benefit cuts every day, we will say what the press release will not: a headline increase is not the same as real protection — especially when the same bill removes a safeguard that permanently injured workers rely on.

According to reporting by Canadian Occupational Safety (September 18, 2026), Bill 105 — the Protecting Ontario's Workers and Economic Resilience Act, 2026 — would:

• Raise WSIB loss-of-earnings benefits from 85% to 90% of pre-injury net average earnings
• Allow some workers to apply to continue benefits past age 65
• Eliminate the 72-month “lock-in” that currently protects permanently injured workers' benefit levels from being reopened six years after injury

The trade-off Injured Workers did not ask for

Thunder Bay advocate Eugene Lefrancois, president of the Thunder Bay and District Injured Workers Support Group, put it plainly: injured worker groups were not consulted before the bill was tabled. He warns that removing the lock-in means permanently injured workers face open-ended surveillance of their income — tax returns, anything they earn — until age 65, with no guaranteed floor.

“You're not healed when you hit 65,” Lefrancois said. “Your arm didn't grow back. Your back is still broken.”

That is the lived reality we see in our practice. A five-point bump on paper does not undo decades of under-compensation if the Board can keep reopening your claim and clawing benefits back.

This debate lands after hundreds of WSIB job cuts

Bill 105 is heading toward third reading when the Legislature returns in October — weeks after the WSIB cut more than 460 jobs and closed nine regional offices, including roughly 238 positions in northern Ontario. The Ontario Compensation Employees Union has tied those cuts to growing use of artificial intelligence in claims work, including a reported $7.3-million AI claims-summary contract (a connection the WSIB has not confirmed).

So the same system that just hollowed out local claim staff now wants credit for “protecting workers” with one hand while weakening long-term income security with the other.

Follow the money — again

Meanwhile, employer rebate programs have returned billions in surplus premiums to Ontario businesses since 2022. A 2025 peer-reviewed study found roughly 40,000 workplace injury and illness reports filed by health-care providers each year never become compensation claims. The Board has explanations. Injured Workers have unpaid rent.

Public relations is not justice. A benefit rate increase that comes packaged with the loss of lock-in protection is not a gift — it is a negotiation Injured Workers were shut out of.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

If your claim has been denied, delayed, or your benefits cut — or if Bill 105 changes how your long-term support is calculated — do not accept the Board's first word as the final word.

Our message to Injured Workers is the same as it has always been: this is your system, funded to protect you. Keep fighting for the decision you deserve — and let us fight it with you.

Contact Sholdas and Associates today for a free consultation. We share your frustration, and we are here to help.