Sandy Lee

Thank you. Before I move to subsection (4), I have a question on subsection (3), which speaks to the capacity under this clause to go to a third opinion. It says in there in 27(3) that this resolution is binding, so whatever the third opinion is, it’s binding to both parties, subject to new medical evidence. So I have a question about what that new medical evidence means exactly, because it could happen in either case. You could have binding resolution on a conflicting medical opinion where both the medical advisor, WCB and the worker agree to a…Let me just ask first whether they have to...

Thank you. Very conveniently, section 27 deals with the question I had in mind and it's in regards to conflicting medical opinion situations. I'd like to ask either the Minister or whoever on the panel, Mr. Wright, just to explain to the people out there how does this section address situations of conflicting medical opinions.

I realize that we may be…I guess the lawyers here might want to err on the side of caution and we don't want to be too definitive in interpreting this clause. But I think Mr. Wright has basically said what I was looking for, but I'm just going to confirm this again in my remaining seconds. Am I right in thinking that if, say, this clause requires the workplace to be a dominant clause, dominant factor of the injury or the disease, your burden of proof would have been lot higher than what we have here, which is a little lower but higher than trivial cause? I could look in that step-by-step...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do appreciate that we have to go against sort of the established machinery of that case law interpretation, but in his legal opinion, would section 1.1 make any difference whatsoever in interpreting that clause that’s interpreted that way everywhere over time? Can we do anything differently here? Are we doing anything differently because of that? Thank you.

Okay. For the record, I'd like to say that these changes were supported by not only the PSAC, UNW and NWT Federation of Labour, but also the NWT Construction Association, and that was, I think, mentioned in the report. Let me just say this again. From what I understand, if someone gets injured in a workplace, if they could prove that that happened in the workplace, doesn't have to prove but there's enough through medical opinion or whatever that the work had something to do with it. That doesn't have to be dominantly work, but if work had something to do with it, then you will be...

Could I get the Minister to commit that section 92 will be read in context of section 1.1? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this is a clause on causation, which obviously is one of the crucial components in this new legislation. As was indicated in the committee report, there have been amendments to this legislation to make the standard of proving cause as being something that’s dominant in the workplace. I’m wondering, regarding dominant causes of workplace injury, and I’m wondering if, for the interest of those who are listening to this, the Minister or his staff could explain how this would be implemented in the real cases? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question on clause 92 which deals with the presumption in favour of injured workers and this is a very important and often controversial component of the workers’ compensation legislative system. I know the workers who go through the claim process, some of them feel that they’re not always treated with the presumption in favour of them as injured workers, and probably the workers in the system don’t agree. Anyway, I would like to ask the Minister how this section will be different than what was in place prior to this legislation in a specific term. I don’t...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Without having had a chance to look at the letter I don’t know how final it was, but listening to Mr. Premier I think that there might be a wee little tiny bit of room open there. So could I ask the Premier, could I take his answer to mean that he’s encouraging his department to work with this group to see if there are any other avenues and perhaps he could commit to asking the MACA department to look at that further? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I read that subsection 2(2) and it says, “they shall seek the opinion of another medical professional who specializes in the area of the conflict.” It says they shall seek but it’s not clear to me whether the medical advisor or the worker will have the same say on who that third medical opinion should be. Is that the correct way to do that? Is that the sound medical opinion to say that both parties have equal power? It doesn’t say they have to agree.