Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog
Doug Ford’s ruling Conservative Government announced a provincial election to take place on February 27, 2025. Mr. Ford called the election early, because that’s one of the tactical advantages which you have as the ruling party. You get to call the election when it best suits your timeline; and to catch the other parties off guard.
You might not think that Ontario Provincial Elections, or Provincial Politics have anything to do with personal injury cases. But they do! The Ontario Government has ALL of the power with respect to the rules and regulations which get applied to not only personal injury cases, but how the Courts and Tribunals function which have a significant impact on all aspects of a personal injury case.
Let’s take a look at a few examples at how provincial politics, and provincial governments have impacted personal injury cases:
April 1, 2016 The Elimination of the Financial Services Commission of Ontario and the Introduction of the License Appeals Tribunal
The Ontario Provincial Government completely eliminated FSCO, and replaced it with the LAT. In doing so, the completely eliminated all FSCO mediations and arbitrations, along with taking away an innocent accident victim’s right to sue his/her own insurer in Court. They effectively eliminated the rights of all Ontario driver’s and accident victims to sue over an accident benefit claim denial/dispute. They also transferred these cases from knowledgeable arbitrators to inexperienced and “new” adjudicators at the LAT who were not familiar with how car accident cases work. They also eliminated the ability to recover legal costs or disbursements against you own insurer in a proceeding, thereby increasing the power imbalance between an innocent accident victim and a sophisticated, deep pocketed insurance company. They say that in civil litigation, the party with the deepest pockets tends to win. The provincial government certainly aided insurers in making that fight even more imbalanced with the elimination of costs for these car accident cases.
Effective June 1, 2016 the Provincial Government announced that the maximum accident benefits available for non-catastrophic accident claims has been reduced from the current total maximum of $86,000; down to a combined total of just $65,000. This is about a 24% reduction in available benefits. Have your premiums been reduced by 24% over the past 5 years? Then why should your benefits be reduced by 24%? This makes no sense.
Effective June 1, 2016 the Provincial Government announced the duration for receiving/claiming accident benefits had been shortened from 10 years down to 5 years!
Effective June 1, 2016, the Provincial Government announced that the non earner benefit, which had been payable over the duration of one’s life, had been capped to a maximum duration of only 2 years!?!?
Effective September 30, 2019 the Provincial Government announced that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board had been completely eliminated, and NOT replaced with anything! That meant that if you were an innocent victim of crime, and injured, that you would not be able to seek any sort of compensation or treatment benefits from the Government in relation to your case. If you didn’t have the money to pay for treatment, therapy, or simply weren’t independently wealthy to overcome those hard times, you were simply out of luck and stuck without the ability to seek any sort of meaningful compensation other than against the perpetrator of the crime. The problem is that in the vast majority of these cases, the perpetrator of the crime has NO ASSETS, or is judgment proof, and there is no insurance to compensate you for a criminal act. In this situation, the Plaintiff would “win” their case and get a judgment against the at fault party; but they would not be able to recover any money on the judgment because the Defendant does not have the ability to pay it, and is without any assets. A Plaintiff cannot get blood from a stone, nor can they garnish ODSP or OW benefits. They cannot place a lien on a rental property, or an asset which does not exist.
Effective December 9, 2020: Introduction of the Occupier’s Liability Amendment Act. What this did was create a 60 day written notice period for all winter time slip and fall cases caused by ice and snow on the owner/occupier, along with their winter maintenance contractor. Before December 2020, there were no notice requirements. All that needed to happen was that the Plaintiff commence his/her action within 2 years, which is the standard limitation period. The 60 day written notice requirement required that then notice include the date, time and location of the occurrence, and required that the notice be personally served on or sent by registered mail. It essentially created another hurdle which did not exist before to stop Plaintiff claims in their tracks so that they would not see the light of day in Court.
2005 Pit Bull Ban under Dog Owner’s Liability Act: Pit Bull and other breed specific legislation was introduced by the provincial government in 2005 because these breeds were commonly tied to violent dog attacks and dog bite cases. Interestingly, despite the introduction of this legislation, you still see Pit Bulls around. This can attributed to lack of enforcement or resources on then municipal level.
One final observation from the kickoff of the Provincial Election. Messaging on baseball hats are in! If you can’t get your message across clearly in bold on the front of a podium or dais, and you aren’t very clear or articulate in your spoken words, then the new best way to get that message across is on the front of baseball hats! Taking a page right out of Donald Trump’s playbook with the red MAGA hats. Ford had a hat, as did the leader of then Provincial Liberal party.
Electoral promises are also big during an election campaign. The Liberals are promising more doctors which is really cute. This promise is akin to a free beer and pizza for everyone and anyone who votes for them. Everyone likes the idea of more doctors, the same that everyone likes the idea of free beer and pizza! The problem is who pays for “more doctors”; the same with who pays for the beer and pizza party? Nothing comes for free. And strangely enough, when politicians get elected on these grandiose promises, and have a chance to review the books, they soon realize that their promise of “more doctors” (just like free beer and pizza) isn’t realistic or economically feasible without significant spending paid on the back of tax hikes or decreased funding in other areas. But the idea of “more doctors” sounds great (as does free pizza and beer 🙂
