Debates of October 30, 2006 (day 18)

Agreed.

Clause 35.

Agreed.

Clause 36.

Agreed.

Clause 37.

Agreed.

Clause 38.

Agreed.

Clause 39.

Agreed.

Clause 40.

Agreed.

Bill as a whole?

Agreed.

Does committee agree that Bill 17 is ready for third reading?

Agreed.

Thank you, committee. Bill 17 is now ready for third reading. I would like to thank Mr. Ramsay, Mr. Mercer and Mr. Aitken for their help here today.

Committee, could I ask you please to turn your attention to the Report on the Review of the Report of the Auditor General on the Workers’ Compensation Board of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut? This report has already been read into the record. It has been referred to Committee of the Whole for discussion. Are there any general comments? Ms. Lee.

Madam Chair, before we go into general comments, just on the procedural point, the recommendations in this report, are we going to be submitting them by way of motion, or are the recommendations being considered as being read into? Does it require any further action from this committee? Thank you.

Yes, we will be processing the recommendations by way of motion. Those motions will be distributed shortly. Are there any further general comments? Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am very pleased to speak to the report, the work of my colleagues, the work of the Auditor General of Canada and her staff in accepting our request and, of course, the many workers who assisted in bringing to our attention their situation and the remedies that we should be looking at to make for a better WCB.

Madam Chair, my primary interest, as an MLA, is to give voice to my constituents and, in this case, to the many workers who have approached me over the past few years with their stories. Madam Chair, we have a picture of an organization that, for the most part, does a good job of helping the injured workers in a way that it is supposed to. That is to help them through the financial, emotional and physical impacts of their injury and get them back into the workforce. But, Madam Chair, obviously it has not done its very best on the part of some workers. While they all have unique stories to tell, there have been consistent threads in their situations that point to some systemic flaws and problems of due process in governance that must be addressed. That is our purpose here today.

As the Auditor General of Canada helped illustrate, these issues include shortfalls in the training and orientation, the board and the Appeals Tribunal members as well as the staff and front-line workers at the WCB. We know there are issues of interference at the appeals system and of its independence by the board and its executors. This has been proven in two recent court decisions by the courts here in the NWT and in Nunavut.

Madam Chair, we know there are major concerns with the interpretation of the medical evidence and information, especially in cases where the direct cause of an injury or its later consequences for the worker have been muddled in a system that seems more concerned with its bottom line and financial performance than in the well-being of the worker. As MLAs, Madam Chair, these are the people we are here to give voice to today in this Assembly.

Madam Chair, another common theme in their stories has been the endless treadmill of appeals, reviews and medical assessments they have had to endure in trying to get some resolution of their case. One worker infamously has been in the system for 19 years and is still awaiting justice. Despite his successful battle in the courts, Ivan Valic still awaits a new Appeals Tribunal, now 10 months after it was ordered by the Supreme Court of the NWT.

Madam Chair, some workers have experienced unusual degrees of surveillance as the WCB tracks workers for potential fraud. Some are addicted to some form of pain killer to try to manage their situation. Most have suffered anguish and hurt in their personal lives or in their personal and family lives. This is an aspect of the consequence of the injured worker that is all too often hidden. I know of workers, Madam Chair, who have become obsessed with their cases and their pursuit of what they believe they should get from the WCB. This obsession recognized in some corners, I understand, as WCB syndrome, tears at their sense of well-being and, in the same process, tears up their personal, professional and social lives. To these workers, their inability to get some resolution from the WCB casts a wide net. Madam Chair, those spouses and children pay a terrible price as their partners and parents lose their pride, their sense of purpose and, of course, at least part of their income. The home is, in some cases, devastated.

Our job as standing committee is to take the findings of the Auditor General, the stories of our constituents, the information provided by the WCB officials, the recommendations made by the Act Now panel of five years ago and present a report to the Legislative Assembly on what we think should be done to remedy these problems. This report was indeed tabled and read into the record of this Assembly last week.

Madam Chair, it is vitally important that we take this job seriously and with a sense of resolve, purpose and optimism that we can make the changes needed. As legislators, we have a unique role to shape the WCB that does its job to the fullest extent possible for both workers and employers.

Madam Chair, as our NWT economy expands at incredible speed, so does the number of workers and businesses attracted to this part of Canada. We all need a WCB we can have confidence in. That should be our vision and our purpose today, Madam Chair. Thank you. That concludes my general comments.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Are there any further general comments? Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to start off by thanking everybody that was involved in putting this report together. That includes the Workers’ Compensation Board of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut and, as well, the injured workers who were talking to many of us through this whole process, and the Auditor General of Canada who took us by the hand and helped us through this process. I think they are owed a great debt of gratitude. As well, I do want to mention Mr. Braden and his work in the area of helping injured workers. He is a real champion of the cause for injured workers. I think he is owed a great debt of gratitude as well in this whole process. Thank you, Mr. Braden.

I do look forward to us getting to where we need to go with the Workers’ Compensation Board. There are nine recommendations contained in this report that I think, if acted upon by the Workers’ Compensation Board, it will help get us there. There are also changes upcoming to legislation that could certainly help as well. I think by working together with the Governance Council of WCB, the Minister, the Government of the Northwest Territories and injured workers, I think we can get to where we need to go to. This report is long overdue. I am glad to see it here on the floor of the Legislative Assembly today so we can pass these motions and we can try to make a difference, especially for those folks who have encountered difficulties in dealing with the WCB and long-outstanding claims. With that, Madam Chair, I just want to, again, thank everybody involved in putting this report together. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. General comments. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a short comment I wish to make for the record. I don’t want to repeat the issues that Mr. Braden so ably put together, but I just would like to state that I think we have to look at this as a new opportunity to finally do something on this issue that has been with us for a very long time. I am encouraged. Perhaps it is not a bad thing that, as the committee presents this report that reflects the work of committee over the last number of months and it is an accumulation of the workers who came forward to tell their stories once again and the work of the Auditor General’s office who has helped us and actually the Board of Governance who has been showing its willingness to work with us on these issues and the fact that the report now is received by a new Minister of WCB who, I hope, will have a fresh look on these recommendations and apply all of his efforts and willingness to see if we can, once and for all, resolve some of these long-outstanding issues.

I have to tell you that I do sense, in talking to some of the members of the Board of Governance and just listening to what is going on, I think that this report, along with all of the other questions and issues that have been brought forward in the House, has raised the issue somewhat. I know that at the beginning of this Assembly, especially when the House passed the motion to send the WCB for a review at the Auditor General’s office, I know there was a great deal of question on the part of everyone involved with WCB as to why our Legislature would take such a drastic action. I think, by virtue of having gone through the public hearing process and the findings of the Auditor General’s report and the Board of Governance members and staff of the WCB being involved in this process and listening from the people, I think that even if the wheels haven’t turned quite enough, I think there is at least an openness and willingness to look at it. In this business I know that we go on beating about what is wrong, but we couldn’t keep on going with what we do if we didn’t believe that we could make some changes. So I would like to encourage the new Minister of WCB to take this report and the number of recommendations that are going to come forward to his heart and that he would give it his best effort to make some changes and then he, too, could be a champion of the workers that Mr. Braden has demonstrated himself to be. In a consensus government, we need the Members on this side as well as the Ministers on that side to make it work in the interest of the people. I will be looking to the new Minister to make this happen. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Are there any further general comments? Mr. Villeneuve.

This is just short brief comments on the report. I just want to commend the Auditor General on the work that her team did with compiling this report. I think it has been long overdue, especially for a public institution as important as WCB and how people view their claims as very important and very substantial in how their lives change and why they haven’t changed for the better in many instances when they are working with WCB. Hopefully, over time, this report will make those changes more positive for the people that have these long-outstanding claims that they have been dealing with with WCB.

Again, as my friend, Mr. Ramsay has stated, I have to commend Mr. Braden on his efforts to see this report come to some fruition. It has been taking a couple of years, but we do have a document here now in front of us that we can present and make recommendations and motions on that I hope the government can act on and draft some communications protocol and an action plan that will address all of these recommendations. I look forward to seeing that.

With that, I just want to say that I hope that the people that had a lot of input into the report and provided their experiences and what they are up against when they are dealing with the WCB, that they can have a lot of these issues put behind them and they can move on with their lives and hopefully see some benefits, if they are rightfully entitled to them, come to them and some justice coming out of this report for everybody that has to deal with WCB, that everybody is treated equitably and fairly. All hearings are taken with the utmost importance in seeing that people are treated in a fair and equitable manner by this institution or for the future. With that, again, I just want to thank everybody for having their input into it. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee recommends the Minister responsible for the Workers’ Compensation Board come forward with options to expedite the resolution of longstanding claims and to improve timelines for the hearings of appeals. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Lee.

Thank you. I just want to add a piece to this motion by saying that I hope that the response to this motion from the Minister, or the new Minister of WCB, would not be that there are some kind of policy or legislative barriers to doing this. I think that there is a lot that the Minister of WCB can do, including looking at new legislation. I don’t want to hear the WCB Minister again saying the laws don’t allow me to do that. If that is going to be the answer, I would like to know what that law is. I would like the Minister to respond by saying he could change the law, because, in case the Ministers haven’t realized, we are lawmakers here, and I think that we will be willing to look at making new laws to make it possible. So I just want to put that key thing to this motion. Of course, I will be voting in favour of the motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. To the motion. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. If there is one real tangible result that can come from this, it is that those workers…Madam Chair, I know that the Auditor General considered about 40 files of injured workers and just about all of them had longstanding cases that they were trying to get resolved. If we can do one tangible thing, it would be to see some kind of mechanism whereby they may see some resolution and some closure to their claim or to their case.

Madam Chair, it is well understood here that not all workers are going to get everything they think should be coming to them. The WCB does have a very serious obligation to ensure that claims are legitimate and that workers get certainly what they deserve and not necessarily more. But, Madam Chair, in talking to a number of injured workers, their expectations were, of course, that something may result in their favour from the work of this committee and of the Auditor General of Canada. Of course, that was never the expectation, and we took some pains to make sure that workers understood that they were not going to see a direct resolution as a result of the Auditor General’s investigation. But I would say, and this is the foundation of this motion, Madam Chair, that if there is a legacy that we could leave or start, it would be to find a mechanism whereby these longstanding chronic cases could see some resolution. That is the intent of this motion, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. To the motion.

Question.

Question has been called. All those in favour of the motion? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

---Applause

Mahsi, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends the Minister responsible for the Workers’ Compensation Board ensure the Governance Council and Workers’ Compensation Board administration complete a draft communications protocol and an action plan to address the Auditor General’s recommendation and forward these to the Accountability and Oversight committee by the end of 2006. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just briefly, I think it’s clear here there is a deadline here of the end of 2006, but I believe the officials at WCB are already aware of the recommendation, obviously, and in our discussions and in public hearings and the Auditor General’s report findings showed that WCB could do much better in communicating its programs and policies and its decisions and such in the letters and the way the staff conveys messages to injured workers and such. But I just wanted to make it clear that in speaking and in putting this motion forward, I think that the whole general issue of communication is much larger than just a letter and message idea. Also, that this not be considered as something that would answer to all of the issues surrounding how the injured workers feel about the services they get from WCB. I just think that while the WCB, in our findings and in our public hearings, while the WCB has room for improvement in how they communicate their message, but also that shouldn’t be taken as saying that the product is fine and that the only problem is the communicating. I don’t think it should be seen as that. I think there is room for improvement in communicating, as well as improving the product itself, because sometimes when we think of communication and messaging we think of it as if we can just market it better we’ll sell it better. But I think in this instance, as I stated in our public hearings, that there is something wrong with the product also. I think that the WCB’s inability or unwillingness to address in a fundamental way the issue of chronic pain and the conflicting medical opinion of lack of resources and wherewithal to the injured workers, I don’t think that should just be categorized as merely a communication issue. I think that speaks to lack of action on the part of the WCB to really fundamentally address that.

So I just wanted to speak in favour of this motion accepting that the WCB could do a lot better to do their communication strategy and protocol, but that does not do away with its obligation to take care of the product itself. So I just wanted to put that on record. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. To the motion.

Question.

Question is being called. All those in favour of the motion? All those opposed. Motion is carried.

---Carried

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee recommends the Minister responsible for the Workers’ Compensation Board locate the Appeals Tribunal offices separate and apart from the Workers’ Compensation Board and that this relocation be undertaken as an immediate priority. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The motion is in order. To the motion.

Question.

Question is being called. All those in favour of the motion? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee recommends the Minister responsible for the Workers’ Compensation Board direct the Governance Council to overhaul its reception protocols, security practices and client and public relations functions to provide a more accessible and responsive level of service. Thank you, Madam Chair.