Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today we heard the announcement from the new Minister of Human Resources and I’d like to welcome him to the file. Clearly, this is a great announcement that we have here before us. I want to make sure, for the record, that it was a lot of pressure for this side of the House that has been applied as of late. Again, we had numerous numbers of fines, double fines, some of those fines to the tune of over three-quarters of a million dollars. We did talk about a lot of increased claims growth that the GNWT had. It was clear that we needed a definite change in direction to make sure we had a safer GNWT. My questions today will be for the new Minister of Human Resources.
Can the Minister indicate prior to today’s announcement, how many full-time safety officers did the GNWT have for its almost 5,000 member workforce? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know how many full-time safety officers that the GNWT had. However, I do know that this is a piece of work that has been in the works for seven years. It has taken a lot of work and lots of reviewing of a lot of acts and regulations. In fact, there were 14 different health and safety acts and regulations that were reviewed in order to come up with this agreement and this partnership with the Northern Safety Association.
I think I know the answer to my question because I just did a little bit of research on our website. I think we had one. We had one member for almost 5,000 employees, which is kind of a paltry number, if I do say so.
With today’s announcement, how many more safety officers will the GNWT acquire?
I recognize that this agreement with the Northern Safety Association allows them to go out and get some specialists in certain fields. I am told by the individuals from that organization and the department that this will actually be an agreement that will assist us in the issues that were recognized in the House here over the last couple of years, where there were some fines and so on levied by the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission from workplace injuries and so on, and how they would try to focus in on the key areas that we’ve identified in the House; the hospitals, the corrections centres, and so on, where there’s high incidences of those type of injuries and workplace accidents. I think this is a move in the right direction, so I believe this is something that we’re going to all benefit from.
I appreciate the Minister’s response. I agree; claims that we’ve had, claims growth that we’ve had and fines, like I said, well over three-quarters of a million dollars. Clearly, we had to take a new directional change in our department safety and our government safety.
With that, with this new initiative there has got to be some cost forecasts that were done by the government. Can the Minister say what will it cost for the implementation of this new direction in safety?
Although I am prepared to provide the cost to the Member, I don’t have the cost of the partnership agreement between ourselves and Northern Safety here with me today, but I’m sure that I can get that very quickly.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
I appreciate the Minister’s commitment. I realize he’s brand new to the file here, so can I get the Minister’s commitment to the House that he will report our training progress annually with this new program and all our partnerships that are involved with our safety?
Yes, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Colleagues, before we continue, I’d like to draw your attention to the visitors gallery and former Member and colleague Mr. David Krutko, who is in the House today. Welcome.
Oral question time has expired. Item 8, written questions. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, petitions. Item 11, reports of standing and special committees. Item 12, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 13, tabling of documents. Item 14, notices of motion. Item 15, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 16, motions. Item 17, first reading of bills. Item 18, second reading of bills. Item 19, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Tabled Document 70-17(4), Electoral Boundaries Commission, Final Report, May 2013, with Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair.
