Bhupinder Singh Kang's tragic suicide last week on Tuesday highlights the racism that Indo-Canadians face in dealing with Workers' Compensation Board (WCB) - that has been re-branded as WorkSafeBC, although the law necessary to change the name has yet to be passed, according to Vancouver lawyer Craig Paterson.
In fact, Patterson told me that the name change was apparently to get rid of the highly negative image of the WCB, though the legal name remains WCB.
Kang, 39, a commercial trucker, suffered multiple fractures of his C-1 vertebrae and an injured right shoulder when his co-driver went off the road in Arizona back in 1998. Kang received workers' compensation until August 2000, after which the WCB cut him off. Kang's family then started supporting him. The single man lived with his younger brother Jaspal and his wife Simerjit, their two kids and his mom Mohinder.
Paterson waged a legal battle with WCB on behalf of Kang and he's naturally highly upset at what transpired.
The WCB is a heavily Caucasian organization and the one remaining appeal system (after Premier Gordon Campbell reduced it from three appeal bodies) is markedly pro-employer and pro-WCB, constrained by reactionary rules and procedures. You cannot sue the WCB and you cannot appeal its decisions to the Courts. Disabled people have no rights. None. There is no legal aid. The Law Society and the College of Physicians and Surgeons are
looking the other way and avoiding principled involvement, according to Paterson.
I think that Indo-Canadian MLAs of the NDP should take this issue up in a big way - so should the gurdwara leaders.
Patterson in a candid interview with The VOICE on Tuesday lashed out at the WCB as he revealed what happened in Kang's case.
VOICE: Is one of the problems that WCB does not understand ethnic issues?
Paterson: They do not know what the word ethnic means.
VOICE: So they are totally lost as far as that is concerned?
Paterson: As far as I am concerned they are totally lost. And they don't want to be found. The Abbotsford area office of the WCB is composed almost entirely of Caucasians and serving a community that's very heavily immigrant, Punjabi and Hindi-speaking. There're a lot of Koreans out there as well and Chinese. The WCB area office does not reflect the linguistic, cultural or religious diversity of Abbotsford by a long shot and it's notorious for that. And I have been dealing with it for years. I represent a lot of Indo-Canadians, mostly Punjabi speakers from Langley, Abbotsford, Surrey, and I've had nothing but problems. They don't care. They're inattentive.
I mean it extends beyond the WCB. When the coroner went to investigate Bhupinder's death, she didn't speak Punjabi and didn't take anybody with her who did. And when the Abbotsford Police went to investigate, they didn't take a Punjabi speaking interpreter or a police officer (who spoke Punjabi) with them either. When I talked to the brother and mother the day after, Bhupinder's body had been removed and they didn't know anything about post mortem, autopsy, toxicology testing. They knew nothing about that. They had no idea that they could ask for or approve or require that he have a post mortem examination, nothing like that. So they hadn't been educated either about the issues involved and that concerned me as well and I aired that concern to the coroner Smith.
Yes, I have no hesitation in saying that the Board is insensitive to linguistic and cultural matters. But this case required sensitivity to physical and mental health issues. They didn't believe this man from the beginning, they treated him as a cheater and a liar for eight years.
And you know the thing that's so damning is that it turned out - I only found this out Friday (last week) - that in fact apparently the Board officers admitted to (Vancouver Sun reporter) Kim Bolan that they had had him under surveillance in November and December, which he had been phoning me constantly about in a paranoid state. He had already tried to commit suicide three times and he knew that. And what's alarming is that apparently they had looked at this videotape on their own and decided that he was telling the truth, that he was really disabled. And they didn't share that information with him on the Tuesday of his death or with me. If they had told me that, or him, I am sure he'd still be here. If they had told me that the videotape surveillance had cleared him as far as credibility was concerned, I would have driven that point home to him hard in saying, 'Look, you've got it won. They've believed you now. You don't have to try and prove to them that you are disabled anymore. They believe you, finally." And I think that would have saved his life.
But they withheld that information from him. That's what I think makes it criminal. I think this is criminal negligence causing death actually under Section 220 of the Code.
VOICE: Could you proceed with legal action on this?
Paterson: Well, the problem is that if they'd accepted that the death was work related, then the family cannot sue the Board. If they'd decided that the death was a compensable occurrence arising secondarily to the physical and mental injuries, which they accepted under the claim finally after a five-year fight, the mental part of it, then they cannot sue the Board. You can't sue the Board for anything related to your work-related injury. I tell you without any hesitation I am sure that Bhupinder took his own life in order to prove to the WCB that he was disabled.
VOICE: But in your opinion, it is tantamount to criminal?
Paterson: Yes, it is. It is criminal. They had information that he was truthful. They had covert surveillance on him that apparently convinced them that he was genuine. Yet they withheld that information from him. They withheld from him the fact that they had decided that he was genuinely disabled. Instead, they call him in to go through an initial vocational assessment eight years after his injury - the very idea was ridiculous - and interrogated him for an hour on Tuesday morning (last week) and left the meeting on the ground that he was supposed to come up with a vocational plan and go back to work. So when he left there, I am sure he left in the opinion that he still had prove himself to them because they were taking the position that he had to go back to work. It's totally ridiculous. So that's where I think it becomes criminal. They withheld information from him that would have saved his life.
VOICE: Are there any steps that you can take on behalf of the family?
Paterson: I have filed a claim for his death with the Board. I have asked them to apologize and to pay retroactively the five and a half years of benefits he wasn't paid and that they pay his legal costs for the last three years and that they pay his funeral expenses. His funeral is on Sunday (February 19) at the Riverside Funeral Home in Delta at 11 a.m. If anyone in the public wants to attend, I am sure they'd be welcome. And I have asked the Abbotsford Police Department to investigate the Board for criminal negligence causing death. And I've asked the coroner of the province to hold an inquest into his death so that all the background of this can come out, because this is not an isolated case. I have a man in my office right now who is listening to this phone call - Mr. Jaspal Toor - he's been 14 years fighting the Compensation Board. His wife's here with him. They've got a similar kind of story.
PICS' REACTION
We read with shock about the recent death of Bhupinder Kang who was disabled. It was not only an oversight but the officials made major errors in their approach. They do not seem to understand that WorkSafe has the power to control people's lives via their institutional setting.
"We believe the death happened due to direct intervention which lacked sensitivity. Obviously, Mr. Kang felt helpless in dealing with his decision makers. He ran out of alternatives and took his life in the end. In addition, there is a lack of ethno-cultural representation on the Board and there are no channels whereby the Board can receive input and feedback from ethno-cultural groups", said Charan Gill, Executive Director of Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society (PICS).
Our sympathy goes to the Kang family who has suffered a major loss. We hope WorkSafe will work in a culturally sensitive and professional manner in the future to avoid any tragedies.
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