Re-organized BC Workers' Compensation Act now in force

Today, Monday April 6, 2020, a revised British Columbia Workers' Compensation Act, RSBC 2019, c. 1 came into force (the "Revised Act").The Revised Act is reorganized and intended to be easier to read. Parts of the former legislation were 100 years old and in need of more comprehensible and modern language. The former legislation had also grown substantially over time, but not logically in structure. As such, the Revised Act should now be more accessible to those who need to read and interpret it.

Notably, the Revised Act has not changed substantively and despite some revisions to wording compared to the former legislation, there are no changes to British Columbia's laws concerning workers' compensation, occupational health and safety, and employers' assessment premiums.

In light of the Revised Act coming into force, businesses need to be mindful that their existing policies and procedures will need to be updated to refer to the new sections of the Revised Act, instead of the section numbering of the former legislation. The government has published a Table of Concordance to assist with that, here: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/about-bc/workers_compensation_concordance_pre_rs2019_to_rs2019.pdf