David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, it’s based on household income and the size of the family. If you have a family with six people or seven people, it’s based on the ability of that family to maintain themselves, but also maintain a mortgage. So there are also things that are looked at with regard to how you determine the evaluation. Also, regarding the income support system, it again is based on where these units are being put in place. A lot of communities, where you’re putting $300,000 into a community, your threshold numbers are somewhere in the range of $50,000 or $60,000. In...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it may seem that the numbers are screwy with regard to how you look at it, but I think the Member has to realize that this program is developed throughout the whole Northwest Territories. We have communities who have just as much need for assistance as they do here in Yellowknife. You also have to realize that this program is not only for high income clients. It’s also there to assist people who are trying to move from income support, clients who are in social housing, to get them out of social housing and into home ownership. There is no set guideline in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to recognize the Aklavik drummers who were here for us today: Mr. Andrew and Eva Gordon; Phillip and Laurie Elanik; Dean (Manny) Arey; Barbara Archie; Colin Gordon; and also Cecil Greenland. I’d like to welcome you all, and along with them I’d like to recognize my delegation from the Mackenzie Delta who are sitting behind me. My constituency assistant, Ms. Liz Wright; her sister, Alice Charlie; her sister, June Tetlichi, along with her son, Trevor Tetlichi; Karen Wright-Fraser; and also Cathy Moore from the Mackenzie Delta.

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Mr. Speaker, I have a return to oral question asked by Mr. Braden on Monday, February 28, 2005, regarding the Workers’ Compensation Board Appeals Tribunal.

How many cases are before the Appeals Tribunal today and what is the average turnover or turnaround in waiting times for those appeals?

The Appeals Tribunal currently has 23 cases before them. The average turnaround time has been 200 working days. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be speaking to the motion in regard to issues that have been raised in the motion. I think it is important to realize that the direction that was given to the corporation came by way of the Act Now document, in which a lot of those have been implemented. They did a special audit of the operation of the Workers’ Compensation Board, which was done by the Auditor General in 2002.

Also, they have done a reorganization of the Workers’ Compensation Board to allow for the recommendations that came out of the Act Now. The Act Now came by way of two phases. The first...

Mr. Speaker, North American Occupational Safety and Health, or NAOSH, Week will be held from May 1st through 7th this year. The goal of NAOSH Week is to focus the attention of employers, workers, the general public and all partners in occupational safety and health on the importance of preventing injury and illness in the workplace and at home. NOASH Week was first launched in June 1997 marked by an agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico.

For many years, responsibility for NAOSH Week activities in the North fell to the WCB. Six years ago, the WCB extended an invitation to...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document, entitled Act Now - A Report of the Workers’ Compensation Board Legislative Review Panel.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, like I stated, we do have a log housing initiative that is a policy within the Housing Corporation. So under that program we see any log homes being constructed that sort of follow the criteria of that initiative, because we have had problems in the past with construction of two-story facilities because of the shifting of the ground and also the logs not settling right. Because of that through, this new initiative we have basically directed people that want to build log homes that there are certain criteria they should follow. So if the Member would...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have been doing pilot projects in different communities with log construction. We do have a program in regard to log homes. But because we’ve had problems in the past with structural problems with two-story units, we’re now recommending that if anyone is going to get into log construction, that they keep it a single floor construction because there is shifting, which is causing problems. But we do have those types of programs. We’ve done pilot projects in the different communities on log construction. So we are open to looking at those types of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, for the record, we are supportive of log home construction in the North. We do have a log housing initiative policy program and we have those pilot projects in communities to do that. So we are open to pilot projects and also to ensure that we do have log home construction. Thank you.