Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today in my Member’s statement I talked about a perceived or real process problem of potential conflict. Perceived or real are about the same in this type of business. It’s about the integrity of our particular system. The folks I’m talking about in my examples, I know are all good and honourable people and they certainly work to do the best job that they can. My questions will be directed to the Minister responsible for WSCC.
Knowing that the Governance Council is well within its authority to make rules and procedures regarding conflict of interest, and with respect to that, it would only seem reasonable, therefore, for the Minister to request the WSCC to ensure the board directs those type of policies to be drafted. Would the Minister be willing to investigate this particular situation, ensure that conflict of interest policies apply to all of their adjudicating officers under the act under WSCC?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for the Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission, Mr. Jackson Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. With this particular case, the Member brought it to my attention and I did forward it to WSCC Governance Council immediately to find out if there is a perceived conflict of interest. At this point it is a perceived conflict of interest and they came back saying they don’t see any perceived conflict of interest. There wasn’t any correlation between the clientele and the worker at that time. There is no connection there. The word that came back is that they don’t foresee any conflict of interest on this particular case. I will be dealing with this case with the Governance Council as we move forward on other potential perceived conflicts of interest.
I appreciate the answer from the Minister but the Governance Council, as I pointed out earlier, had already felt the decision of the Appeals Tribunal was not improper and unreasonable as to how it applies to the policies. Due to a fair bit of research we have been doing, we have not been able to find a conflict policy for it to apply to. In other words, they didn’t breach the policy because there is no policy. Ultimately, that is the question. It’s not about the specific example of names when I say this case; it’s about the bigger picture of how we deal with them in the future. Therefore, I restate the question in a different way.
Would the Minister be willing to investigate the need for the conflict of interest policy, and to ensure that one is established under the authority given to the Governance Council, to apply to all its adjudicated officers under the WSCC Act?
I’ll definitely be meeting with the WSCC Governance Council – I’m planning to meet with them anyway – and I will definitely be addressing this particular topic.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Hawkins.
I’ll decline. The Minister answered the question satisfactorily.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
