Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In February 2009 I told this Assembly about a Weledeh constituent who is taking on the Workers’ Compensation and Safety Commission. I’ll update you today on his progress.

The basis of this dispute is the fact that while workers can receive compensation for the psychological pain resulting from injuries, WSCC practices doesn’t allow compensation for physical pain. Psychological pain settlements are made according to a written standard which rates severity. I have read the policy. There may be a provision for a physical pain standard to determine compensation, but WSCC has...

Again, I appreciate the Minister’s commitment there. I believe he does see opportunities there and kind of understands what I’m getting at here.

As I’ve said, I really support the Apprenticeship Program and I think we have opportunities that would sort of be a precursor to apprenticeship. It could be fairly modest maintenance programs for housing, ways to reduce housing costs. Like I mentioned, gathering wood for the distributed heating system and working with ENR, who is actually active putting distributed energy systems out there and so on, to deal with some of the costs that the Housing...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start off by asking just for clarification on the Apprenticeship Program. I don’t believe I have that quite right. I wonder if the Minister has the information handy on how many apprentices we have and are planning to have during this budget’s fiscal year and if we happen to know off hand what the current apprentices areas of expertise are.

I will leave it at that but if the Minister has anything he can provide, I would appreciate it, just for my understanding. But that is all I have on this page. Thank you.

Can I get confirmation that those agencies are charging the NWT Housing Corporation for their contributions to the work?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A quick question here, I am just wondering what all is being covered under contract services here. I see it is 70 percent up from last year and I wonder if perhaps that has something to do with the shelter policy or something, but I would like to find out. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister for his remarks there. My last question: did the Minister ensure that his legitimate expense under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act should be accounted for in the AIP negotiations, was it accounted for in the AIP negotiations to date and will he be ensuring that they are part of the final agreement? Mahsi.

Thank you. That certainly is an area that needs attention. I think these boards have been underfunded, but all of the northern boards have spoken out repeatedly, calling for participant funding, Mr. Speaker. So I understand, from interviews of Mr. Pollard recently and so on, the process of environmental review process is ongoing. So will the Minister provide that input to Mr. Pollard? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. DIAND’s recent decision to fund participation by outside groups in the environmental assessment of the Giant Mine Remediation Project is good, but late in coming. I want to congratulate DIAND for finally offering participant funding for federal environmental assessment, something that southern Canadians have enjoyed since the 1980s.

As Member’s know, DIAND is again in the conflicted position of being both the project proponent and the regulator. GNWT is a co-proponent under the 2005 cooperation agreement. To further complicate matters, other federal and territorial...

I was just under the illusion that we were all sort of one, so why would they be charging the Housing Corporation?