The First 7 Days

What to write down after a workplace injury in Canada. Free. No email required. For every worker, whether you are full time, part time, casual, seasonal, on contract or through an agency.

If you were hurt at work today, take a breath first. Nothing on this page has to be done in the next five minutes.

What follows is the record your claim will eventually be judged on. Almost nobody is told, at the point it would help, that the record is theirs to start. Your employer will file something. The board will open a file. Neither of those is your account of what happened, and neither of them is written by the only person who was actually there.

You do not need to do this perfectly. You need to start.

Before you leave the workplace

Some of this stops being possible the moment you walk out the door. The scene gets tidied, the shift changes, and the people who saw it go home.

• Tell your supervisor you were hurt. Out loud, today, even if it seems minor and even if you can finish your shift.
• Put it in writing. Send yourself a text or an email so the date and time exist somewhere your employer does not control.
• Write down the exact time, the exact task you were doing, and what happened, in your own plain words.
• Photograph the scene before anyone tidies it. The ladder, the load, the spill, the machine, the floor.
• Get the full names and phone numbers of anyone who saw it. First names are not enough three months from now.
• Ask whether an incident report was filled in, and ask for a copy of it.
• Do not agree to keep it off the books. Not for a favour, not for a bonus, not to protect anyone.

How long do I have to report a workplace injury to my employer?

Every province and territory expects you to tell your employer as soon as practicable. Four of them go further. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador all write it into the statute: notice has to come before you leave that employment. If you quit, or are let go, before you have reported the injury, the claim becomes considerably harder to run.

Can my employer pay me instead of filing a workers compensation claim?

They should not, and in some places the arrangement has no legal force. Being paid instead of filing is how claims quietly disappear. One Manitoba study found 70.8 percent of injured workers were offered continued wages rather than a claim.

The first 24 hours

A gap between the injury and your first medical visit is the most common reason an injury gets questioned later. So is a first appointment where you were too polite to describe how bad it was.

• See someone medical. A doctor, a nurse practitioner, a walk-in or an emergency department. Go even if you can still walk.
• Say the words "this happened at work." That one sentence is what sends a medical report to the board. Without it, your claim has no independent backing.
• Name every part of you that hurts. Every one. A body part left off today is treated as unrelated later, and adding it back needs approval.
• Do not play it down. "I am fine, just a bit sore" becomes a written record of what you are able to do, and you will be held to it.
• Ask your clinician for a copy of what they send to the board.
• Ask your employer for a copy of the report they filed. In Ontario they face a penalty for not giving it to you.
• Start a symptom note tonight. Pain out of ten, what you could not do, how you slept. Two lines is enough.
• Keep every receipt from today. Parking, prescriptions, a taxi, a brace, a bus fare.

Does my employer filing a report mean my claim is filed?

No, and this is the single most expensive misunderstanding in the whole system. It is also completely understandable. Something was filed. Someone official has your name. It feels handled.

Your employer files their own report, usually within two to five days depending on the jurisdiction. In most provinces you have to file your own report, in your own name, separately. In Ontario, benefits stop after two weeks until the WSIB receives your signed Form 6.

Days two and three

• File your own claim with the board. Today, not when you feel better. Do not wait to see what your employer does.
• Write your own account while it is fresh. One page, dated, plain words, kept somewhere you can find it.
• Check the employer's report against your account. If it differs, say so in writing, calmly, with the correction.
• Photograph visible injuries each day in the same light, with something for scale.
• Log every call. Who you spoke to, when, what they said, what they promised to send.
• If you are casual, agency or self-employed, find out today who your registered employer is. Optional coverage is never backdated.

How long do I have to file a workers compensation claim in Canada?

It varies more than most people expect, from three months in Newfoundland and Labrador to twenty four months in Alberta. Your deadline is set by where you were hurt, not by where you live, and the board named beside it is the one that decides your claim.

Those are the outer limits, not targets. Most boards can accept a late claim where there is a justifiable reason for the delay, and several are required to. But the explanation has to come from you, and it is far easier to write while you still remember the week clearly.

By the end of the week

• Ask for your claim file. You are entitled to it at any stage, not only when you are appealing something.
• Read anything before you sign it, including your employer's internal report.
• If modified duties are offered, ask for the tasks in writing so your clinician can judge whether they are safe for you.
• Do not simply refuse work. Say specifically what you cannot do, in writing, and tell the board the same day.
• Find your free help. Worker adviser and advocate offices, your union, a community legal clinic. None of them charge you.
• Put your province's deadlines in your phone with a reminder a week before each one.

What should I keep writing down after the first week?

Two lines a day. Pain, sleep, what you could not do, who called. A claim is judged months later on a record made now, by someone too tired to make it. Do it anyway, badly, in pencil, in bed.

Your province sets the dates

Every deadline that governs your claim, what starts each clock, and what to write down at the moment it matters:

• Alberta WCB deadlines
• British Columbia WorkSafeBC deadlines
• Manitoba WCB deadlines
• New Brunswick WorkSafeNB deadlines
• Newfoundland and Labrador deadlines
• Northwest Territories WSCC deadlines
• Nova Scotia WCB deadlines
• Nunavut WSCC deadlines
• Ontario WSIB deadlines
• Prince Edward Island WCB deadlines
• Quebec CNESST deadlines
• Saskatchewan WCB deadlines
• Yukon deadlines

Hurt in a collision rather than at work? The First 72 Hours is the same thing for a car accident. En français, les délais de réclamation à la CNESST.

Keeping the record these deadlines depend on

Everything on this page is free and always will be. If you want more than a checklist, two things decide how a workplace injury claim goes. What you wrote down, and whether you did the right thing at the right time for where you work. The National Workplace Injury Recovery Guide handles the first, the daily record of symptoms, appointments, calls and costs that a claim is eventually judged on. Your provincial Companion Guide handles the second, the deadlines above and the forms, boards and appeal routes behind them.

Your Recovery. Documented. Protected.

Find the guide for your province

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This page is general information for people hurt at work in Canada. It is not legal or medical advice. Rules differ by province and territory and change over time. Confirm anything specific to your situation with your board, a worker adviser or advocate office, or your union.