Injured Workers' Day: June 1, 2026

Pain is usually temporary, and serves a useful purpose: warning us that something is wrong. It lessens as we heal, and eventually goes away. This kind of pain is called acute pain.

Chronic pain is different. According to Pain Canada, chronic pain is pain that persists for longer than three months.

It can be pain that remains after an injury has been treated or healed: for example, chronic post-surgical pain or chronic cancer pain.

It can also be pain that no other diagnosis or injury can account for, but that can seriously affect day-to-day life. That includes conditions such as chronic widespread pain, complex regional pain syndrome and fibromyalgia. 

The World Health Organization has recently recognized chronic pain as a disease in its own right—an important milestone that validates the experience of the 8 million Canadians living with chronic pain.

Medical and scientific research on chronic pain say that chronic pain can affect all aspects of our lives, including:

• mental health disorders
• sleep
• mobility
• cognitive functioning (due to pain and/or the effects of pain-relieving medication)
• capacity for self-care
• performance of household and family duties
• recreational activities
• social activities
• sexual life
• occupational activities
• overall enjoyment of life.

There’s a lot we don’t know about chronic pain. Treating it can be difficult, and it can’t always be cured. And despite millions of Canadians being affected, the services Canadians have for treating and managing chronic pain are limited and difficult to access.  

Pain is complicated, and assessing and treating it requires a multi-dimensional view of the whole person. The biopsychosocial model of pain focuses on prevention, assessment, and management of pain in all its dimensions: biological, psychological and social.  Medications work best combined with other types of treatment and support, such as psychological support, physical rehabilitation, training in coping strategies and integration with cultural approaches.

Find out more about chronic pain, including examples of interventions and treatments for chronic pain, from the 2019 report of the Canadian Pain Task Force.

Work-related injuries are among the most common causes of chronic pain. People with work-related injuries are six times more likely to experience chronic pain than the general population of adults in North America. 70 per cent of injured workers sampled in an Ontario study experienced ongoing pain 18 months after a disabling (that is, severe enough to make them miss time from work) work-related injury or illness. 

In BC, chronic pain claims account for about 7 per cent of all WCB claims, and they are on the rise; WCB claims increased by 48 per cent between 2017 and 2022.  

Workers often continue working while struggling with chronic pain because they’re afraid of losing their jobs, can’t afford ongoing treatment or feel they can’t report the conditions they believe are contributing to their pain. Often, these situations lead to increased stress and may worsen their condition. 

Sectors requiring heavy labour like construction and other trades can leave workers struggling to deal with chronic pain, while still working a physically demanding job. Up to 75 per cent of workers in the construction sector have persistent musculoskeletal pain. And more than half of the 6,500 British Columbians lost to the overdose crisis were living with chronic pain and sought medical care for pain in the year before their overdose.  There is a clear link between work injury, chronic pain, addiction, and overdose.

Injured workers often get only minimal treatment for chronic pain before being told that their pain is permanent. Then, their wage loss benefits are cut off, and they are given a monthly award equaling 2.5 per cent of their wage loss benefits.  This applies regardless of the location or severity of pain. WCB generally expects workers to use that 2.5 per cent award to cover any ongoing treatment and intermittent days off work due to pain. 

Injured workers must prove their chronic pain is stopping them from returning to work before the WCB will provide any additional compensation. Usually, the WCB will say that a worker can return to some other type of work, even if the injured worker says they can’t physically do the new job or do not have the right training and experience to be hired in that new occupation.

Injured workers battling chronic pain need improved treatment options, ongoing support to return to work long-term, and fair compensation to improve their quality of life. The current approach gives them none of that. And it’s inconsistent with current science and modern medical understandings of chronic pain.

Delays: Although early intervention is key to reducing chronic pain, injured workers often face a string of delays. They may have to fight to have their WCB claim accepted, to prove that their injury has not healed, or to prove that something more serious is causing their symptoms — or while they navigate a lengthy appeals system. Meanwhile, their pain is often left untreated, and their condition gets worse.

Inadequate treatment: Even if their claim is accepted, injured workers can’t expect much help. A typical worker might receive benefits for only about six months after their injury is expected to heal. After that, support is cut off, even though chronic pain is complex and often requires ongoing care such as counselling, physio, and massage.
The WCB frequently argues that ongoing pain is caused by non-work-related factors rather than the original injury, and uses that to justify denying long-term treatment and support.

Inadequate compensation: Once the WCB returns them to work, they receive only a one-size-fits-all flat rate 2.5 per cent award, and no ongoing health care for their permanent condition. That ignores their individual needs: situations vary widely in the severity of pain, the kinds of treatment required, and the impact on a worker’s ability to do their job, their functioning outside of work and their quality of life.

And that 2.5 per cent award is nowhere near enough for many workers to pay for ongoing therapy or to cover shifts they miss because of flareups. Workers wind up paying out of pocket — exactly what workers’ compensation is supposed to prevent.

WCB needs to make changes now to give injured workers the chronic pain treatment and support they actually need. Among them:

• Prioritize delivering early treatment for pain, both acute and chronic. Early intervention is critical for reducing the severity of chronic pain — or preventing it altogether.
• Draw on all kinds of treatment approaches — physical treatment, mental health support, medication and pain-management strategies.
• End the practice of discontinuing treatment for workers with permanent chronic pain. Provide ongoing treatment and support, to reduce pain’s impact on their quality of life and return to work.
• Conduct full, realistic assessments of how chronic pain affects a worker’s ability to work and live, carried out by a team of healthcare professionals from the full range of disciplines.
• Provide ongoing healthcare benefits that actually meet the long-term, individual needs of injured workers who return to work with chronic pain. End the one-size-fits-all 2.5 per cent flat-rate award, and compensate workers fairly.