Statements in Debates
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member noted, the Department of Human Resources has been working very closely with all of the departments and the government to develop an Occupational Health and Safety Program. It’s taken a couple of years to do so. We now have a program that we’re implementing. It will be fully implemented by 2011-2012.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my left I have Alan Cash, deputy secretary to Cabinet; on my left, I have Mark Aitken, the director of legislation with the Department of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to introduce Bill 18, An Act to Amend the Public Utilities Act.
Members will recall last year’s release of Creating a Brighter Future, a comprehensive response to almost two years of extensive consultations held with communities, key stakeholders, the general public, and Regular Members. Creating a Brighter Future detailed this government’s public commitment to a number of specific actions with respect to the Northwest Territories’ electricity system, including commitments to introduce amendments to the Public Utilities Act.
These legislative amendments have...
Yes, I would, Mr. Chairman.
I can provide the following information: The top three natures of injury were: sprains, strains, and tears, 15 percent; bruises and contusions, 13 percent; cuts and lacerations, 9 percent; and the top three locations of injury were Yellowknife, 51 percent; Fort Smith, 16 percent; Inuvik, 10 percent. The majority of the incidents are in facilities that operate 24/7, 365 days a year, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
I guess that’s the approach that we want to take. We’re having these occupational health and safety standards and committees, and in conjunction with that we’ve also started focusing on our duty to accommodate. We’ve hired a duty to accommodate officer. We’ll be working very closely with WSCC so that we can work with individuals and help them get accommodated earlier rather than having to pay compensation, because, like, 62.4 percent of our costs are due to compensation. Thank you.
Whenever we attend meetings with the mining companies and mining industry, we always start off with a safety first meeting. That’s been expanded to oil and gas companies. I’m sure as part of with the opening prayer we can also start with a safety first commitment. I think that as we go forward, I really believe that as a government we’re going to have to move in that direction. Safety is going to have to be first and foremost on everybody’s minds.
As far as statistics, we have lots of statistics and I can give the Member the top three events that are causing the significant amount of claims...
There are a couple of reasons for that. First of all, WSCC operates on a three-year cycle. For the first two years of this government we were in a neutral category. The third year, 2010, there was a significant increase in the amount of claims. There are two parts to it. One is a financial penalty and then the other part is on the management practices side. The penalty that we paid is because of the increase in claims. We were able to show on the management practices side that we do have a strategy and a plan to improve our performance. By doing so, we were able to get the WSCC to acknowledge...
Mr. Speaker, one of the goals of the 16th Legislative Assembly was to create a diverse economy that provides all Northwest Territories communities and residents with opportunities and choices. Today I am pleased to highlight how the Northwest Territories tourism industry has helped us to achieve this goal.
Tourism 2010 was the Government of the Northwest Territories tourism investment plan. Under this plan the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment provided $1 million annually towards the tourism industry. We were also successful in leveraging an additional $5.3 million in additional...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I’m very pleased to recognize my wife and partner of 40-plus years, Melody.
I want to recognize a number of visitors from PNWER and I’ll go through the list. Senator Cathy Giessel, State of Alaska Senate; Senator Lyman Hoffman, Alaska State Senate, and his wife, Lillian Hoffman; Mike Schaufler, president of PNWER from the Oregon Legislature; Max Black, State Legislator, State of Idaho; Mr. Jeff Morris, Washington House of Representatives; Mr. Bob Herron, Alaska State Legislature; MLA from Alberta, Ray Prins; Mr. Colin Smith representing British Columbia...