Daryl Dolynny

Madam Chair, if we can get maybe a little bit more information as to what type of confidence was put into that estimate. As, typically, market escalators are used from an original estimate and I guess brought into the future in terms of what that number could be today, can we get some insight as to what tools, what actuaries or any type of assessments were used to come up with a prediction of what this demolition would be in today’s dollars?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Part of our role as Regular Members is public accounts in terms of looking at cash flow and where money is coming from. This is another classic example where government, you know, you have to be very diligent on where monies are being taken from one area and put into another. I think this is another one of those negative supplementaries which is taking out of operations and now putting into capital expenditures for infrastructure.

I have a series of questions here pertaining to this amount of money. The first one is: When was the initial estimate established for the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I have great faith in the Auditor General of Canada. Again, we are asking for some public input in terms of the audit and information shared with the public.

On the subject of governance, will the Minister responsible for the WSCC commit to facilitate a full review of governance on how the GNWT is being assessed by the WSCC employer industry classification and assessment rates? Will the Minister commit to tabling all findings and correspondence from the department and the WSCC to this House? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t want to split hairs on math, but I believe 13 cents on 79 cents is more of a 16 percent, not 20 percent. Given we heard from the Minister of Human Resources, health and safety claims both for GNWT showed significant increases for the Department of Health, Justice and also Transportation, if we were to compare these departments with job descriptions and classifications in the current 2013 WSCC Rate Guide, the comparable private industry fields would find the following: for Health, $1.61; for Justice, $2.58; and Transportation, $5.85.

Given the law of averages, can the...

Does committee agree?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to pick up where some of our Members have been going today. Grave concern about WSCC claims costs. We have talked about penalties. These are pretty large numbers here that I think most people need to get some clarity on.

I want to hone in on what was said earlier today or bring up a part of the response here from the Minister of Human Resources where he had a concern about the WSCC Safe Advantage program. Did he have a concern with the fairness for the GNWT? Was there a concern with the framework of the plan? What is the Minister’s concern?

I think the Minister mentioned three, but I think only two were given. That said, did the two departments that were given, in terms of Justice and Health, if one was to look at realistic comparison in these so-called rate sheets that are provided by WSCC, those areas, in terms of claims or what premiums are being paid by those related private sector industries are in the order of probably about, and in the case of health, about $1.61 per $100 of payroll, and in the issue of corrections, somewhere around the $2.58 mark per $100.

As I indicated earlier in my Member’s statement, the GNWT is paying...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the last three years, WSCC claims cost experience for the GNWT has more than doubled. Let me repeat that word: doubled. In my Member’s statement today we talked about the GNWT’s Safe Advantage penalties, which is the second part of these claims costs and penalties. Those have risen from zero dollars in 2009-2010 to over $508,000 in 2011-2012. It’s for this reason we just talked about, hearing about no money for midwifery, I’d like to say it’s very difficult to look at the whites of the eyes of midwives across the Territories and give them 508,000 reasons why there...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The GNWT Safe Advantage penalties for Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission have been tabled in this House and have risen from zero dollars in 2009-2010 programming, to $243,583 in 2010-2011 and a whopping $508,625 in 2011-2012.

In the Department of Human Resources’ own words, it claims to “have taken significant steps in the development of health and safety programs in the last few years. Current results demonstrate that there is work to be done across the GNWT to ensure the safety of all our employees and reduce claims cost experience.”

The Regular Members sure...

Great. Thank you.

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