This government is not blind to the plight of the folks out at Northland and we have been doing what we can to support the city’s application and making our feelings known to Canada. I can assure the Member and all Members that we’ll continue to do that. We’ve been constantly trying to get a meeting with our Infrastructure Minister. Early indications are that a meeting may be able to happen as early as a couple of weeks.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on my statement earlier today, I’d like to ask questions of the Minister of Human Resources. I’d like to start by noting that the GNWT is one of the territory’s biggest employers. The human, financial, and even governance costs of poor health and safety practices can be very significant.
The Minister’s response to my written inquiry said that GNWT is taking steps to create the health and safety committee structures required by law by the end of this fiscal year. Can the Minister tell me why these committees are not already in place three years after the start-up of the Safe Advantage program and what was the hold-up?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I missed who your question was directed to, Mr. Bromley. Could you clarify who your question is for? The honourable Minister responsible for Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.
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.
Thanks for that response from the Minister. That is this year. So we expect to see that in the next few months. Good to hear.
As I said, also I’m confused by the apparent contradiction between the increasing fines and penalties that we’re experiencing as an employer and increasingly good survey scores on return-to-work practices and safety. Can the Minister explain how our scores could be improving at the same time our penalties and claims costs are actually mounting into the millions of dollars?
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 that, and instead of instituting, there was also the possibility of a further $121,000 penalty which they did not assess because we were able to show that our management practices were being improved in the future.
I appreciate the response. It sounds pretty confusing still to me, so I’m going to study up a little bit on this. I appreciate those comments.
For some reason the WSCC has stopped publishing the accident frequency rates that tell us how different types of workplaces compare in terms of accidents, lost time, et cetera. Can the Minister of Human Resources tell me how the GNWT workplace accident and safety statistics compare to other major employers? Are we the best? The worst? What are the facts here?
In the Safe Advantage program there are three categories that one can fall under. One is where your performance is so good that you get a refund. The second category is where you are middle of the pack, so you have a neutral assessment. Third is if you’re in the category where over a three-year period you’re exceeding the average of $40,000, that you pay a penalty. So we’re in the third category where we have paid a penalty of approximately $243,000.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Of course, I didn’t ask for those categories. It’s obvious, as we’ve heard, that we’re paying the biggest fine, so we’re clearly in the worst category. I asked for rates, statistics, and I’m hoping the Minister will provide those to us. Examples of good safety practices are available at most mines and industrial workplaces. Safety is usually right in your face. Even when I attended a meeting at the Explorer Hotel, we started with safety protocols simply identifying where the fire exits are and other important facts. So I know these workplaces have vibrant health and safety committees up and running. Closer to home I’m disappointed to have to ask if the Legislative Assembly even have a health and safety committee in place.
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. The first is falls; 21 percent of our claims are due to falls. Thirteen percent are due to overexertion. Nine percent are due to bending, climbing, crawling, reaching, twisting. Those are the main reasons for the high number of claims in this government.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Transportation. I’d like to ask some questions of him with regard to programs that the department runs relative to distracted driving. It’s well known that distracted driving dangers are out there and that they’re really quite valid.
Early in 2011 the Minister made a statement or comment that the Drive Alive program would have different facets to it. In February, I believe, I made a statement about distracted driving and I asked the Minister about the Leave the Phone Alone pledge campaign, which he had indicated was going to be part of the Drive Alive program. At that time he gave me no information as to activities that the department had done with regard to the Leave the Phone Alone pledge campaign. So I’d like to ask the Minister, from February of this year to now -- we’re almost at the end of August of this year -- what sorts of things has the department done with regard to the Leave the Phone Alone pledge campaign.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; we had indicated that we would take on a number of initiatives to encourage people to leave their phone alone while they’re driving. It’s our goal to reduce the number of collisions in the Northwest Territories attributed to driver distraction. We have a number of objectives that we’ve set, and that is to have a large percentage of people acknowledging that distracted driving, driving with a phone or other electronic devices can cause harm, and that’s something they shouldn’t do.
We have also an objective to reduce the traffic collisions, by a small percentage, increasing every year. We also want to increase the use of seatbelts. We’ll do this by providing a number of messages. We’ve already started. We’ve sent out information to every house in the Northwest Territories. We will be taking out ads. We’re working with the Students Against Drunk Driving, with their public campaign. We’ll be providing them with some funding to do some work on our behalf, or on behalf of this initiative. We’ll be providing public announcements.
There is a lot of work that needs to be done. Some of it is already ongoing and some of it will be coming forward.
All the objectives of the department are certainly laudable. I certainly support them. In all of the words in the Minister’s response, I really heard very little reference to the Leave the Phone Alone pledge campaign. In March of this year, again the Minister made a statement on the Year of Road Safety. He mentioned the pledge campaign as one of the initiatives. Again there was no real detail to it. To this day -- I checked the website before I came down today -- there is no mention on the department’s website, there is no mention in any communications plan, that I can find for the department, of the Leave the Phone Alone pledge campaign. It leaves me to wonder how important this campaign is to the department. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could explain that.
The campaign is very important to the department or we wouldn’t be doing it. There are a number of strategies and tactics that we have committed to provide. We need to get the information out into the public. Some of it we’ve already started. I certainly can provide a detailed information package to the Member.
We are, as I indicated, providing information to each community in the Northwest Territories. We have a window sticker campaign that is ongoing right now. We have news releases that are being developed on the new distracted driving law when and after the legislation takes effect. We have plans for public service announcements on CBC’s Northbeat. On CKLB we’re taking out ads and in the newspaper, to promote awareness about the new law. We have a social media campaign using Facebook ads. We have a brochure that’s going to be distributed. We’re providing, as I said earlier, money to Students Against Drunk Driving so that they can do public service announcements. We’re also going to involve the Students Against Drunk Driving in most of our public campaigns on distracted driving. We have, and are creating, a public service announcement for CBC TV website and radio. We have the French language version for radio also. We’re providing funding for school media studies and for professional assistance. We’re working with the enforcement people, the municipal people, the RCMP, and we want to start an advertising blitz in advance of back to school. There are a lot of things we’re doing, and certainly we can provide that in further detail to the Member if she’d like that.
Thanks to the Minister for that somewhat exhaustive list of things. It’s unfortunate that most of the verbs that he used are future tense. I’m really quite disappointed that between January 2011 and the end of August 2011 it seems as though there’s very little that the department has done to promote this Leave the Phone Alone pledge campaign. I really feel that this is an absolutely wonderful opportunity to force people, to train people not to use their cell phones while driving. If they have a sticker on their vehicle which says they’ve pledged, they’re quite likely to think three or four times before they pick up the cell phone while they’re in the car.
I’d like to know from the Minister if he could tell me whether or not they will do such things as publicize the Leave the Phone Alone pledge campaign on their website, and if specifically the Leave the Phone Alone pledge campaign is going to be front and centre of their public activities.
The answer is yes and yes and yes. I understand the Member’s sense of urgency wanting to have this advertised and documented. We have the plans to do so. We had wanted to have the legislation passed first, prior to getting this out in the public. We have started, and I’m sure the Member will be happy to see, further information being provided.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. Yes, I will be happy to see it when I can see it. I guess I would like to ask the Minister: can he give me a date when I can go to the website and see a Leave the Phone Alone pledge access site? Thank you.
We ask the Member to be patient. We will have the information ready as soon as we have confirmation and we know that all the legislation is in place. We will be stepping up our initiatives through the public for information on their legislation, and that information will also be on the website as soon as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Justice. It’s in regard to the federal government’s tough on crime legislation and the possibility of minimum sentences.
I think, as a territory we should learn from other jurisdictions, regardless if it’s the United States who took the same approach and who ended up building more jails and having more people incarcerated, and for simple, petty crimes, that they end up in jail because it’s a minimum sentence.
As we know, the Northwest Territories probably has some of the highest crime rates in Canada in regard to Aboriginal people incarcerated into our jail system, which is almost 90 percent of the people in our system.
Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister: have we looked at the implication of this legislation on the Department of Justice to be able to implement a tough on crime agenda, especially when you’re dealing with minimum sentences?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This federal legislation, tough on crime, has been in the works for quite some time now. First it was the Youth Criminal Justice Act and then this tough on crime. One of our main goals and objectives as we come to the table at the federal/provincial/territorial Ministers meeting is to push for more programming into the regions and into the communities. More specifically, for the three territorial jurisdictions, because we’re quite unique compared to other provincial jurisdictions, and they’re fully aware of that too. We’ve been pushing with the federal, especially with the federal Minister, and we will continue to do that. The last correspondence that we sent out to federal Ministers and also provincial Ministers is to have more programming delivered as opposed to strictly tough on crime, more jails and so forth. We want to focus on programming into the Northwest Territories, along with our colleagues Nunavut and Yukon.
That’s the position that we’ve been pushing and we will continue to do that, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, that’s the concern that I have, is that presently we already are having a financial shortage in regard to the Department of Justice, where money is being taken away for programs and services that should be there for the inmates to pay for extra guards so that we incarcerate these people and keep them housed in the institutions. So we’re already taking the money away from programs and services to pay those additional costs. The fear that I have is that by having more inmates in our system, as a government do we have the capacity, resources or infrastructure-wise to take on more inmates with this legislation coming in?
Mr. Speaker, those are the areas that have been assessed through the 13 jurisdictions that we have to deal with. We talked about the resources and the manpower that’s required when the legislation comes into force. At the same time, again, the federal government needs to recognize our uniqueness, the high cost of living in the Northwest Territories, the Yukon and Nunavut as well, that this particular program that we’re continuing to push with the federal government, it’s one of the priorities of the Northwest Territories Justice department to identify those key areas. We will continue to do that, Mr. Speaker.
The Member is referring to possibly additional inmates and if we’re ready for them. We could be ready for them. We have to be ready for them. But at the same time it’s the resources that are required are coming from the federal government. So, Mr. Speaker, we are in a partnership in that with the federal/provincial/territorial Ministers meeting and we will continue to push that at the federal table. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, as we all know, most individuals that are sentenced for two years and less spend their time in the Northwest Territories. Anything over two years, they are basically sent to a federal institution. I’d like to ask the Minister: have you been made aware of what the minimum sentence year is going to be and will there be implications on inmates that we have now, which may be having to do more than a two-year sentence and having to leave the Northwest Territories or is the minimum sentence, it could be two-and-a-half years. What effect will that have on our system?
Mr. Speaker, the tough on crime has been in the works, again, for some time now, and we are doing an overall assessment of the Northwest Territories, the corrections, the program delivery, and we can provide that information to the Members for their review as well.
This is an area of interest for us. Whatever happens at the federal/provincial/territorial jurisdictions, it does have implications in our jurisdiction, as well, when it comes to tough on crime and more program delivery for those inmates and the minimum jail time, whether they serve it in the Northwest Territories or outside the Northwest Territories, there are additional costs to that. That’s an area that we’ve been pushing with the federal government: our uniqueness, how we operate in the Northwest Territories. We’ll continue to push that. There has been some reassessment of our Department of Justice and we can provide that information.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I think, my question is: do we have the financial means and the capacity to take on this type of legislation that will be imposed on us by the federal government? Do we have the financial means to implement this type of legislation in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
If we don’t have those resources, then definitely we need to go through our business planning cycle to identify the core needs of those inmates. If there are increasing inmates in the Northwest Territories, we have to identify those. Again, federal is also a key partner, so we will continue to push them. But within our own jurisdiction in the Northwest Territories, there is a plan in place. If the legislation comes into full force, what are the implications and we need to prepare for that. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for Human Resources and are in follow up on some questions my colleague Mr. Bromley was asking earlier.
Mr. Speaker, I’m having some difficulty reconciling the responses I heard with what I see in the response in the way of what we’ve paid in penalties. Mr. Speaker, in 2008, the first year of the Safe Advantage program, the GNWT paid $387,000 in claims. In 2008-2009 it was $440,000 in claims and we had a penalty of $11,000. In 2009-10 we paid $429,000 in claims but we didn’t have a penalty. This year, or rather 2010-11, we paid $778,000 in claims with a penalty of $243,000. Now we hear from the Minister today that because of these things and because of the Safe Advantage program, we are, in fact, developing health and safety committees to help address some of these issues. I’m wondering if the Minister could provide some clarity as to how, as we’re developing this thing, our incident rates are going up instead of down. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our incident rates have been increasing for sure, but a large part of those costs are due to the fact that we’ve been paying compensation instead of focusing on medical rehabilitation and pension for injured workers. As a government, we’ve been working with other departments to develop occupational health and safety programs that will be government-wide, that all government departments will be represented on. We’ve been working very closely with the WSCC to have a blueprint or something so that we can continue to improve on our record. Through worksite assessments and so on, we’ve been able to prevent further penalties from being incurred. On a go-forward basis we expect to see our claims and incidents reduced, and we’re starting to see an improvement already. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I’d like to thank the Minister for that. That certainly provides some clarity. I wasn’t sure, or I didn’t understand that it was the compensation that we’re paying instead of the rehabilitation that might be driving up these costs. I’m hoping the Minister can provide some assurances that we are changing our direction on how we’re going to be dealing with these and we’re going to focus more on promotion, or, sorry, prevention and rehabilitation rather than compensation. It seems to me that we really want to get our employees back to work, or better yet, we would like our employees not to go off work. So if I can get some assurances from the Minister that we are moving in that direction, that would be great. 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.
Once again, thanks to the Minister for that response. I’m happy to hear that we’re working in that direction.
The other part of that question was more focused on promotion. Earlier in the Minister’s responses to my colleague Mr. Bromley, he indicated that 43 percent of all of our claims are a result of falls, overexertion, climbing, and twisting. Mr. Speaker, all of these are completely avoidable. All of these, through proper training, education, and proper quality assurance and health and wellness training for our staff, every one of these can be avoided. If they’re avoided, we don’t have claims costs, which means we also don’t have people off for extended periods of time, we have employees that are healthier. So what is being done to enhance our promotion and training?
Yes, I understand from a previous response that these health and safety committee structures are going to be established, but I also know that we only have one health and safety officer in the Government of the Northwest Territories, or at least only one that I was able to find on the GNWT website, and that’s at Stanton. Where’s the rest of them, Mr. Speaker?
In addition to all of the criteria with regard to Safe Advantage program that we’re introducing, and I’ll just go through very quickly and I referenced several times the Government of the Northwest Territories Occupational Health and Safety Program and some of the things that we will be including are occupational health and safety management, occupational health and safety training, incident management, inspections, emergency preparedness, hazard management in Occupational Health and Safety Program evaluation. So we’ll have the structure and we’ll be working very closely with Workers’ Safety and Compensation Committee so that we can promote workplace training, increasing awareness regarding workplace safety, and also working with the department so that we can identify and get rid of unsafe worksites. So all of these things we’ll be working together to improve our record, because I agree that a large part of these incidents can be avoided, and that, as such, will reduce our costs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It sounds like the Minister and I are on the same page. We ultimately want to avoid having any of these incidents occur, and when they do unfortunately occur, we want to be able to help the people transition back into the workforce as quickly as possible.
In developing this plan, and I’m very, very pleased that this plan has been developed and that it will be introduced hopefully soon so that others can see it. I think in order to be effective and develop it appropriately, we need to have a sense within the Government of the Northwest Territories of where the majority of these incidents occur. I don’t know if the department actually has a breakdown by department or by worksite or work type where these incidences are occurring. If we do, I would ask the Minister provide it to Members so we have a bit of a sense as to where these things are going so that we can focus in as an Assembly on solving these problems, and if the Minister doesn’t have that in HR, it must exist in the WSCC because they’re able to break down to the penny what our penalties are, which means or suggests to me that they have a pretty thorough listing of where all these things are occurring. So can the Minister commit to providing the Members with a bit of a breakdown as to where these incidents or the majority of these incidents are occurring, so that we can have a better understanding and work to solve this problem in the future? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
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.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
