New false-statement rules and aggravating factors under the WSIA put premium on accurate reporting and strong internal systems
Employers in Ontario are facing higher stakes and more penalties under new amendments to the The Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997 (WSIA) – particularly when it comes to reporting workplace injuries and health and safety compliance.
Bill 30, or the Working for Workers Seven Act, 2025, came into effect on Nov. 25, and amends the WSIA and the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) to expand administrative penalties, prohibit false or misleading statements by employers to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) and introduce “aggravating factors” that can increase fines for employers.
However, as Micah Fysh, employment lawyer with Littler in Toronto, explains, the WSIB’s three-day window for reporting injuries remains tight, making internal communication, documentation and training critical for avoiding trip-ups.
“That's not a huge amount of time to investigate the circumstances of an accident or injury and make this report,” Fysh says.
“There may still be a lot of information that is outstanding or unknown or that is just not confirmed yet, and being clear on those caveats can help mitigate the risk of accidentally making a false or misleading statement.”
The danger of misleading statements in WSIB claims
Section 22.2 of the Act now explicitly prohibits employers from “making a false or misleading statement or representation to the Board in connection with any person’s claim for benefits under the insurance plan,” with prescribed administrative penalties now on the table – even on top of any other court-imposed penalties.
Fysh explains that this means heightened responsibility for employers to be disciplined about what reporting and follow‑up correspondence with the WSIB. This is especially true in cases where employers are contesting a claim, plan to contest a claim, or if there are differing or incomplete accounts of an event.
Incomplete or contradictory information could now potentially be taken as “misleading”, he stresses.
“Employers need to ensure that when they are contesting or making the initial report, that they aren't making these false and misleading statements, that they are giving their statements to what they know to be true, or what they understand at the time to be true,” Fysh says.
“One of the biggest risks may be where there simply is not an agreement on what actually happened in an accident, between an employee and an employer. Where simply the memory of an employee may be different than the memory of whoever the employer spoke to at the time or what the employer’s investigation in that three-day reporting period finds.”
To mitigate this risk, he recommends employers be explicit when sharing disputed or incomplete details with the WSIB – and to err on the side of over-reporting. By openly flagging disagreements, he says, employers can help avoid later allegations that they misrepresented contested details as facts.
WSIA administrative penalties and aggravating factors for employers
Bill 30 adds a new layer of administrative penalties to several WSIA provisions – the new section 152.1 makes “failure to pay premiums” an offence and allows a court to order restitution for any unpaid amounts. Employers can also be charged for failing to properly report wages under this section.
While Fysh observes that these practices are already standard for many employers in Ontario, the new regulations should be a signal to review and make adjustments so compliance is seamless: “Make sure that it's easy for whoever is in charge in your organization of filling out those forms … to access the payroll information that they need, easy for them to distill that into the format of the form, and then also having strong injury reporting policies and processes.”
Bill 30 also raises the ceiling on fines in multi‑count prosecutions – section 158 of the WSIA now provides that where certain persons are “convicted of two or more counts of the same offence in the same legal proceeding, the person is liable to a fine not exceeding $750,000 for each conviction.”
On top of that, courts must consider specific aggravating factors when sentencing an employer and determining penalties:
“1. The defendant was previously convicted of an offence under this Act.
2. The defendant has been convicted of two or more counts of the same offence in the legal proceeding to which the determination of the penalty relates.
3. The defendant has a record of prior non-compliance with this Act.”
Fysh notes that while all mitigating and aggravating factors will be considered, they will not all carry the same weight – such as administrative penalties unrelated to the matter at hand.
Strengthening injury reporting, communication and training
The WSIA’s reporting obligations, combined with the threed-ay timeframe, make internal communication particularly important, Fysh says, explaining that communication practices with the WSIB can be a compliance tool in themselves.
“The stronger your communication lines are internally, the more of that three-day timeline can actually be used to get information and double-check that information,” he says.
“The longer it takes for word of an accident to reach, for example, your disability management specialist or your health and safety specialist, or whoever is in charge of that function, the less time they have, and rushes often lead to mistakes.”
For this reason, training of line managers on reporting practices is essential. Fysh highlights this area as one that could benefit from in-house WSIA reporting policies such as outlining preferred methods of communication and documentation.
“Note-taking requirements on the phone, aspects like that, that will help control what information is being sent to the WSIA so the employer can ensure that everything's accurate.”
Stress claims, over-reporting and common WSIB pitfalls
Fysh identifies underreporting or non-reporting of potential workplace injuries as a common area of non-compliance – with mental health and stress-related claims especially ripe for employer missteps.
“The WSIB has very complicated rules for when workplace stress is a compensable injury and when it's not. They are fairly strict rules, they are rules that are commonly misunderstood,” he says.
“You will often have employees saying, ‘My stress was workplace-related, and I need you to report it for compensation.’ Often it is not compensable because of the very strict rules WSIB has on when a workplace stress injury is a compensable injury. But that doesn't mean that an employer doesn't have to report it.”
According to Fysh, from a compliance perspective, reporting more rather than less can reduce risk.
“It is still, in today's day and age, more likely that employers will overlook stress related claims,” Fysh observes, and recommends training in escalation for front-line managers to mitigate these gaps.
“The direct manager is not the one who's responsible for communicating to WSIB,” he says.
“So ensuring that there's training on escalating these types of worker complaints up through the health and safety system, up through the disability management system in a timely manner,” he says.
