Vince McKay

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission Northwest Territories and Nunavut Annual Report 2023. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of affordability is getting to be worse. It's not just -- you know, it used to be hard to get insurance for some folks, and now it's continuing to be harder and harder for most of us to get insurance for certain things. And that just relates to a lot of the disasters that have happened throughout Canada. You know, with the affordability, you know, there's documentation that's needed to show that it's not affordable for them to have insurance. You know, if you can't afford it, make sure you have that documentation so that it can help you in an event of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Residents who are obtaining insurance must obtain documents from their insurance company to state that what their insurance covers. And I think it's important for all residents that, you know, we all look at our insurance documents. They're pretty thick, and I'm sure probably most of us here have never read the fine lines of the insurance documents. I know I have after the last couple years. But it's important to go through them and get the information you need out of your insurance documents. If you have documents that are showing that you're refused uncertain...

Mr. Speaker, the Workers' Protection Fund provides no-fault insurance coverage for employers and benefits and care for workers in events of workplace injury.

All employers share the cost of this compensation system by making payments based on their assessable payroll, which is the amount of earnings they report for each worker, and the group rate for their industry. Each year's assessment rate must generate enough revenue to cover all current and future costs associated with workplace injuries occurring in the assessment year, including health care, rehabilitation, and wage replacement benefits...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The territorial government is on a working group with the federal government that is talking about insurance and affordability, also insurance coverage that is not available. For an example, some flood insurance is not available depending on the type of flood. So there is a working group out there to work on insurance coverage. And to mention to the point of the gray area, there is a lot of confusion about insurance and what can and cannot be covered. So there is a federal working group, and the government is part of it. Also, I believe the NWTAC is also part of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know the last year we've -- MACA has done a good job promoting the Be Ready campaign which also included making sure that you have insurance available for your assets. We have staff, like the Pathfinders, who work with residents to make sure they have their documents or assist them in getting documents from insurance companies. So it's important that, you know, residents reach out and even just work with Pathfinders that are available to see what they need. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to recognize Elise Scott, chief governance officer with WSCC.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The funding that goes to the communities is managed by the community governments. So the regional superintendents have been meeting with the community governments that have been receiving the funding. We have not had any public meetings. We send the funding to the community so that's who we've been meeting with. We are planning more engagements. As you are aware, we're going to meet with the committees here next week to go over it. So it is still an ongoing process. Hopefully, the rest of the communities get reached here soon. So we're still out there communicating and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am more than willing to work with the Member and definitely, you know, the interested -- I'm interested in working with the Yellowknife fire department also in order to see what their requests or wants are. But at the end of the day, we have 33 communities to look after and we have to do something that covers them all, and sometimes when we do training in a regional centre, it takes a lot of the budget and it takes away from the smaller centres, so we have to be careful with that. So I will look forward to working with the Member and see what we can do there. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently, right now there isn't a whole bunch of offered training; however, what it is is we do support regional centres to do training and they invite other communities, if they want, and the Department of MACA reimburses the training that they provide. However, some of the smaller communities were offered defensive level training in a program that was done quite some time ago. The department is currently looking at a new way of offering this training to the community. So there is different standards based on the level of service to the community. So there is work to...