Bill Braden

Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a couple of questions to Mr. Roland, the Minister for Public Works and Services. This relates to the arrangement that our government has with the YWCA. This provides them with a very valuable multi-storey apartment building located in my riding and it’s part of their housing infrastructure and the services that they provide to the community.

Mr. Speaker, this apartment building, the Rockhill Apartments, is made available through a lease. It’s my information that this lease is expiring within the next year or perhaps two and that the building is going to be in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister has he communicated the urgency of this situation, the pressing nature of the requirement to have this panel assembled and this hearing implemented, Mr. Speaker?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Fourteen months ago, this Assembly passed a motion requesting the Auditor General of Canada to do some very specific and very important work on our behalf. We asked that her office look into the area of claims management for injured workers in the Workers' Compensation Board. We asked her to look and see whether claims were processed fairly, efficiently and impartially, that the appeals tribunal performs its work in a like manner, that the governance counsel’s oversight functions are adequate and that the roles and relationship of the board and the stakeholders are clearly...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Minister, for repeating the oft-heard review and the chronology of this program in this House. I don’t need to go over the old ground on this, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think we recognize that even though a program may have been set up with good intentions 10 years ago, circumstances change and we have to be ready to address it when those things become apparent. This is all I am asking of the Minister. With the concerns of the validity of a couple of aspects of this program, it seems that we really do have something here that we need to address. In the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the investment that goes into the building on an ongoing basis I am sure is appreciated. Also of concern to the YWCA is the renewal of the lease. This is something that I understand we have been working on, but, of course, timing is always of some significance, Mr. Speaker. I am wondering if the Minister could advise how negotiations are going and when a conclusion might be expected, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, given that this is a specialized task and the appointment of the new tribunal member will require some orientation, some training, some familiarization with the job. All things considered, I am wondering if I can get some sense of when we would be able to see this hearing date actually set for this tribunal hearing, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a couple of questions of Mr. Dent as the Minister -- a couple of questions perhaps, as many as the Speaker will allow -- of the Workers’ Compensation Board of the NWT and Nunavut. Last December, the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories ruled on the case of Mr. Ivan Valic, an injured worker and his efforts to have a new hearing before a reconstituted appeals tribunal. In that time, in that approximately five months, there have been some procedural issues regarding finding impartial panel members to appoint to such a tribunal. The...

Mr. Speaker, I would be very pleased to accept that offer. The thing we need to look at is, as circumstances change, our readiness to amend and affect our policies in the meantime. The message we have heard from constituents is that there has to be a fundamental principle here that where a person can’t afford to pay something toward their own welfare, that we should be in a position to work with them at that extent. That, I think, is a very worthwhile offer and I would like to ask the Minister to make a commitment to bring to the Social Programs committee the framework for how we can amend...

I should try not to read between the lines here because I just might make a mistake. I respect the Minister's situation here where he can't put too many of the cards on the table right now. But I guess the point that I want to make, Mr. Chairman, is that we've seen so many innovations and so many new ways of doing business crop up in the last few years since the last regulatory framework was set up, that I believe we should really be more open and in fact more aggressive in seeing what other options there are out there. So, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to know what the government can do to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this afternoon are for Mr. Roland as the Minister for Public Works and Services and the department that has historically had, I understand, a kind of a watchdog capacity for regulatory matters, and that would include, I'm assuming, Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Radio/Television Telecommunications Commission. Mr. Speaker, the GNWT has kept an eye on these kinds of regulatory matters. There are hearings scheduled for Whitehorse next month on a major new regulatory framework for NorthwesTel, the major service provider of telecommunication services across the...