The Investment Dealers Association is strongly opposed to a proposal by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board to extend mandatory coverage under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act to presently-excluded industries, including the securities industry.

In a letter to the board, IDA president & CEO Joe Oliver says that this initiative would represent “an additional and unneeded cost to the industry. Securities industry employees are well cared for through comprehensive disability and health insurance plans that are superior to coverage provided by Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Program.”

“It is the IDA’s view that it cannot be justified other than as a means of financing the unfunded liability that currently exists in the Workplace Safety and Insurance Program,” writes Oliver. “The IDA strongly rejects the notion that premiums or surtaxes would be levied on the securities industry in order to reduce the underfunding that presently exists in this program.”