Vancouver Sun | Rob Shaw | May 23, 2020
VICTORIA — The government agency in charge of setting and enforcing the rules for reopening businesses closed by the pandemic can’t afford to help businesses buy protective equipment because it has lost almost all its $3 billion surplus in the recent stock market collapse.
Labour Minister Harry Bains said WorkSafeBC cannot use a large surplus accumulated over many years to give partial refunds to employers on masks, gloves, Plexiglas shields and other safety gear, as suggested by the Opposition Liberal party.
“WorkSafeBC is not immune to COVID-19 either, their investments have sunk to almost zero when it comes to the surplus money they are sitting on,” Bains told Postmedia. “So almost all of the surplus has been wiped out a couple weeks ago because of our stock market, and that’s where the money was invested.”
WorkSafeBC’s last publicly available annual report, from 2018, pegged the surplus at almost $2.9 billion.
“It was wavering between $2 or $3 billion,” said Bains. “It’s almost all gone.”
The agency, which is responsible for workplace insurance, injury claims and safety regulations, likely could not have purchased the protective gear anyway, because provincial law states the surplus can only be spent on certain things.
The loss of the WorkSafeBC’s surplus does not leave the organization in an immediate financial crisis.