100 Years of Service

On January 1, 1917, two years after the province’s first Workers’ Compensation Act was proclaimed, WCB Nova Scotia opened for business. 

In Canada, workers’ compensation is built on The Meredith Principles, recommended by Sir William Meredith in 1913. They include the concept of collective liability among employers, and the compromise of injured workers giving up the right to sue for a financially guaranteed system of no-fault benefits. While WCB Nova Scotia and its mandate have evolved over the last century, the Meredith Principles still guide our work today.

In those 100 years, there have been some great strides in building a safety culture in Nova Scotia. Workplace injuries are down, and there are thousands fewer injuries, and hundreds of thousands fewer days lost to injury than a decade ago. We’re also seeing momentum in industry safety leadership, and the power of everyone working together to create a safer province. WCB Nova Scotia continues to move closer to financial sustainability. While we recognize the progress that has been made, there’s much more work to be done. 

We accept and embrace that our future must be very different. We are modernizing our service for a changing world through a business transformation that will better position us to deal with the impact of workplace injury, and make it easier for employers and workers to do business with us. 

Over the last century, together with Nova Scotians, we have helped to create a safer province to work and live.  And as we embark into another century, we remember the progress we’ve made and use it to renew our commitment and dedication to making sure every worker comes home safe at the end of the day. 

Our History

In the last 100 years, we've made great strides in building a safety culture in Nova Scotia. The course of our history has been marked by both tragic disasters and fundamental changes to how we as a province think about and work towards workplace safety. Together with Nova Scotians, we have helped to create a safer province to work and live. In the last decade alone, significant progress has been made – there are thousands fewer injuries, hundreds of thousands fewer days lost to injury, and we’re seeing positive momentum in industry safety leadership. Still, while we recognize progress has been made, there’s much more work to be done.