Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on my statement earlier today, I’d like to ask questions of the Minister of Human Resources. I’d like to start by noting that the GNWT is one of the territory’s biggest employers. The human, financial, and even governance costs of poor health and safety practices can be very significant.

The Minister’s response to my written inquiry said that GNWT is taking steps to create the health and safety committee structures required by law by the end of this fiscal year. Can the Minister tell me why these committees are not already in place three years after the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m alarmed to hear about the apparently huge issue of health and safety performance in the GNWT workplace. Information received from the Minister of Human Resources describes GNWT performance under the Safe Advantage program created by the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission in 2007. It says that employers with proven safety and return-to-work practices receive a refund and employers with poor safety and return-to-work practices pay a penalty.

Since the program was created in 2007, the GNWT has never received a good performance refund. In fact, over the past...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be happy to provide you many examples, many of which you will be very familiar, of exactly this situation in which the Member was allowed to have that question to the Minister during his general comments. With that, I will continue, Mr. Chair.

I wanted to note that the department did come forward with a communications plan, which we had asked for and were very happy to see. I think there’s a lot of good material in that. The Minister does note in that that he will be working with the Students Against Distracted Driving, and he also has commented that he will be...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to continue my general comments that were wrongly cut off by the Chair earlier today. That’s correct. I would like to note...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity to comment on this legislation. I want to start by saying that I’m pleased to see this legislation come forward. This legislation does begin to address the many, many constituent concerns that have been raised from my Weledeh constituents who have had near misses as they’re walking along the road, some in vehicles. This is a real concern and I believe this is a sincere effort on the side of the department to address this.

Unfortunately, however -- and I cite largely the material provided by the department here -- this doesn’t go far enough...

Of course, I didn’t ask for those categories. It’s obvious, as we’ve heard, that we’re paying the biggest fine, so we’re clearly in the worst category. I asked for rates, statistics, and I’m hoping the Minister will provide those to us. Examples of good safety practices are available at most mines and industrial workplaces. Safety is usually right in your face. Even when I attended a meeting at the Explorer Hotel, we started with safety protocols simply identifying where the fire exits are and other important facts. So I know these workplaces have vibrant health and safety committees up and...

Thanks for that response from the Minister. That is this year. So we expect to see that in the next few months. Good to hear.

As I said, also I’m confused by the apparent contradiction between the increasing fines and penalties that we’re experiencing as an employer and increasingly good survey scores on return-to-work practices and safety. Can the Minister explain how our scores could be improving at the same time our penalties and claims costs are actually mounting into the millions of dollars?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to also recognize a couple of constituents from Weledeh, and we have Ben Nind, who was the inductee for the Minister’s Cultural Circle this morning in the individual category. Congratulations to Ben. I’d also like to recognize Chief Edward Sangris of Dettah, and drummer extraordinaire. I heard him performing this morning. Mahsi.

The Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative is going ahead, with much good work done. In handing this work over to the next Assembly, I’m asking the Minister to ensure that resources are earmarked to efficiently achieve the huge potential we now realize we can achieve through early childhood development with much less cost than the greater and too-late cost during schooling. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to confirm, the work done in the past, it would amount to about $1.1 million. Is that correct?