Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that subclause 34(3) of Bill 64 be deleted and the following substituted:
(3) Subsection 42(6) is amended by striking out “$100” and substituting “$500”.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Committee, the motions are on your desk. The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Clause 34 as amended.
---Clause 34 as amended approved
Clauses 35 to 43.
---Clauses 35 through 43 inclusive approved
To the bill as a whole as amended.
Agreed.
Does committee agree that Bill 64, An Act to Amend the Co-operatives Associations Act, is now ready for third reading as amended and reprinted?
Agreed.
Bill 64 is now deemed ready for third reading as amended and printed. Does committee agree this is the conclusion of Bill 64?
Agreed.
Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are losing employees to retirement at the Department of Justice and I also wanted to wish Mr. MacDougall well on his retirement. He has had a long and dedicated service to the government and to the people of the Northwest Territories. I know he put a lot of work into Bill 64, so I wanted to thank him and wish him well.
---Applause
Thank you, Mr. MacDougall, for your years of service, and good luck in the future.
Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses out of the Chamber.
Thank you, committee. We are going to carry on with House business. We’re going to go to Bill 69. With that, we’ll go to the Member responsible to introduce the bill. Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act sets the rules for how we do business as MLAs, Cabinet and committees. At the end of each Assembly, we normally draft a bill to make various changes that are required and came to light during the previous four years.
The most important provision in this bill is a trigger clause that automatically changes the date of the General Election in the Northwest Territories from the first Monday in October to the third Monday in November in years where the campaign period for a federal election will overlap with that in the Northwest Territories.
The act makes several other housecleaning amendments to the bill. Some of these are consistent with recent changes to the NWT Act. Other minor amendments clarify existing practices.
I would be happy to respond to any questions the committee may have.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Do you have witnesses you would like to bring into the House?
(inaudible)
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses in.
Mr. Bouchard, if you’d be kind enough to introduce your witnesses to the House.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right I have Tim Mercer, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly. To my left I have the director of legislation division, Ms. Kelly McLaughlin.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Ms. McLaughlin, Mr. Mercer, welcome back to the House.
Committee, Bill 69, we’re going to open up to general comments. Is committee prepared to go to detail?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. If it’s committee’s wish, I’d like to do that in groups of five. Is committee okay with that?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We’ll defer bill and the title until we’re complete. Clauses 1 to 5.
---Clauses 1 through 19 inclusive approved
The bill as a whole.
Agreed.
Does committee agree that Bill 69, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act, No. 2, is ready for third reading?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Thank you, Mr. Bouchard, Ms. McLaughlin and Mr. Mercer for joining us.
Sergeant-at-Arms, if you can please escort the witnesses out of the Chamber.
Continuing on with Committee of the Whole business, we’re going to turn our attention now to Bill 45. With that, we’ll turn it over to the Minister who is responsible for the bill. Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I’m pleased to introduce Bill 45, An Act to Amend the Workers’ Compensation Act.
Bill 45 proposes to amend the Workers’ Compensation Act to add five additional forms of cancer that have been identified as occupational diseases for firefighters.
A firefighter is defined in Section 14.1(1) of the act as workers who fight fires full time, part time, or volunteer members of fire departments and do not exclusively fight forest fires are recognized in the act as occupational special risk, occupational diseases, resulting from complex chemical combinations involved in fighting urban fires.
Those diseases are defined in Section 14.1 as listed diseases. The exposure minimums or minimum period of employment for various occupational diseases are then set out in Firefighters’ Presumption Regulations in the schedule.
On the passage and coming into force of this bill, we intend to enact amendments to the firefighters presumption regulations to add minimum periods of employment for the proposed additional forms of cancer listed in this bill.
Following up on the comments by some members of the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure, I am pleased to report that members of the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission are in contact with a representative of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to determine if that department recognizes any special risk to forest firefighters.
I can assure this committee that if this is the case, we will seek a legislation solution to recognize such occupational risk.
I am pleased to report that the proposed legislation is supported by the International Association of Firefighters in Canada and locally by the Yellowknife Firefighters’ Association.
I am pleased to answer any questions the Members may have regarding Bill 45.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. At this time we’ll turn our attention over to the chairman of the standing committee which reviewed the bill for comments. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure held its public review of Bill 45, An Act to Amend the Workers’ Compensation Act, on September 17, 2015. The committee thanks the Minister and his staff for presenting the bill.
Bill 45 amends the definition of listed diseases specific to firefighters to identify five additional forms of cancer. The committee initiated one amendment of the bill which was adopted during the public hearing with the Minister’s concurrence. This amendment changes the coming into force clause of the bill to March 17, 2015, to coordinate with Nunavut’s equivalent bill which was enacted in March 2015.
Following the clause-by-clause review, a motion was carried to report Bill 45 to the Assembly as ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole as amended and reprinted.
This concludes the committee’s general comments on Bill 45. Individual Members may have additional questions and comments as we proceed.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. We’ll turn our attention now to Minister Lafferty to see if he has witnesses he would like to bring in.
Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses in.
Minister Lafferty, if you’d be kind enough to introduce your witnesses to the House.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. To my left we have Mr. Dave Grundy. He’s the president and CEO of the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission, and Ms. Emerald Murphy, legal counsel, to my right.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Ms. Murphy, Mr. Grundy, welcome back to the House.
Committee, again, we’re on Bill 45. We’re going to open it up to general comments. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank you for bringing this to our attention, and I want to thank the workers’ compensation and safety organization plus the Minister and our Justice staff for the quick work on putting this bill together. I’ll leave it at that.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Hawkins.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just want to use the occasion to ask a similar question I posed to the Minister and certainly the department on the list of diseases that I used in committee. During Committee of the Whole I had asked and I thought it would be important to put it on the official record as well as how comprehensive or updated is this new changing to our listing of diseases for the workers’ compensation to cover for full-time firefighters? I do have another couple of quick questions, but we’ll start with that particular one. The reason I ask now as I asked then was to ensure that we’re fully up to date with the most current sort of knowledge or understanding of the challenges that the organization, the WSCC, may face, as well as the challenges and impacts that firefighters may be facing in the perceived reasonable future.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We want it to be comparable to other provincial and territorial jurisdictions across Canada. We are covering the majority of diseases throughout Canada. We want to be compatible to other jurisdictions and part of the reason why, obviously, we brought forward our discussion with ENR, as I stated in my statement, is due to a fact that committee members want for us to explore further with that department to recognize forest firefighters and why they’re excluded or they should be included. So, those are discussions that we’ve been having and if we need to make changes, we will be making those changes. Mahsi.
I thank the Minister for that answer. Were there any requested issues, such as disease, ailments, asked for by the firefighters that did not make the final cut of the lists of amendments proposed by the department? Thank you.
Those diseases that were identified, five categories, have been highlighted by the firefighters and they have been included into legislation and we haven’t excluded any of the diseases otherwise highlighted. Mahsi.
