Bill Braden

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize the Nats’ejee K’eh workers today in the gallery and a constituent of Great Slave, an ally of these workers, Mr. Todd Parsons, the president of the Union of Northern Workers, Mr. Speaker.

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Thank you, Madam Chair. This motion speaks to issues, longstanding issues I think with the general sort of service orientation and attitude and approach toward being an accessible and an open organization. Madam Chair, I know that going into WCB offices here in Yellowknife has some very stringent security requirements regarding access. I have tried to work with and assist workers who have had issues with the WCB, and I know that one worker in particular was denied and just total outright flat denied access to the office even though he was in the company of my constituency assistant. I...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee recommends the Minister responsible for the Workers’ Compensation Board come forward with options to expedite the resolution of longstanding claims and to improve timelines for the hearings of appeals. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Is that a provision of the new act, then, that communities can set their own criteria, whereas before it was lockdown, Madam Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Sahtu, that Committee Report 6-15(5) be received by the Assembly and moved into Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I have two written questions. One is for the Minister responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board.

Mr. Speaker, Environment Canada recently pointed out to the Joint Review Panel that there is indeed a regulatory gap for the jurisdiction and the management of the project on these lands. Is the Minister’s department or some agency of the GNWT actively working this file with municipal, aboriginal and federal agencies to close this regulatory gap, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this afternoon are for Mr. McLeod, the Minister of the Environment, related to our regulatory regime for environmental management, Mr. Speaker. As we well know, mega development means mega consequences. Just look at Alberta and its tar sands. I believe they are the single largest contributor to greenhouse gasses in the country. Here in the NWT, we are on the cusp of something of a similar size. The government can do many things when it comes to environmental management. One of them is having a sound process to make sure that everybody plays by the...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Unchecked global warming will devastate the global economy on the scale of the world wars and the Great Depression, according to a major British report released today that seeks to quantify the costs and benefits of action as well as inaction. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said of the report, it is not in doubt that if the science is right that consequences for our planet are literally disastrous. This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime. Unless we act now, these consequences, disastrous as they are, will be...

Madam Chair. The circumstance that injured workers can find themselves in if they have been through, I guess, the standard cycle of reviews and appeals before the WCB, is that they will find themselves without the resources or the ability to call on legal or medical help to help them advance their case. That is of course with the exception, Madam Chair, of having access to the NWT’s legal aid system. We now are chronically under-resourced and understaffed in the legal aid area, Madam Chair, and so that means that an injured worker who may have very few or no alternatives other than to...