Debates of March 10, 2005 (day 53)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

WHEREAS the Ministers responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut appointed a Workers' Compensation Board Legislative Review Panel in 2001 to consult with stakeholders and make recommendations to the Ministers for changes to the acts;

AND WHEREAS the panel, upon completion of its work, prepared a report in December 2001 entitled "Act Now" which expressed concern that the workers' compensation system has become adversarial and recommended, based on input from both workers and employers, that an independent review of WCB operations be conducted immediately;

AND WHEREAS no independent public operational review has been undertaken or initiated regarding the board nor has the Minister, in responding to questions posed in the Legislative Assembly, indicated any intentions of undertaking such a review;

AND WHEREAS trends in statistics indicate an increasing number of rejected claims by the WCB;

AND WHEREAS elected Members of this and prior assemblies have been made aware of serious concerns regarding the workers' compensation system of the board, including:

excessive delays, some of which have exceed 10 years, in the review and resolution of claims by injured workers;

the makeup, procedures, expertise and performance of the board's Appeals Tribunal;

Appeals Tribunal decisions that are not quickly and efficiently implemented;

the perceived corporate culture of denial of claims and protection of the workers' compensation claims fund at the expense of injured workers;

the absence of financial and operational accountability of the workers' compensation organization both to the Legislative Assembly and the public-at-large; and,

the degree to which appropriate human and operational resources are dedicated to the workers' compensation mandate of the NWT Workers' Compensation Board.

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Nunakput, that the Legislative Assembly request that the Auditor General of Canada undertake a comprehensive performance audit of the workers' compensation function of the Northwest Territories/Nunavut Workers' Compensation Board and report thereon to the Legislative Assembly;

AND FURTHER that the performance audit examine the organization, training and orientation of personnel, practices, attitudes, philosophy, internal performance measures, procedures and resources association with administering claims made by injured workers to ascertain whether these confirm with, and claims are managed in accordance with, the spirit and intent of the act;

AND FURTHERMORE that the audit examine the adequacy and appropriateness of the board's corporate governance model and accountability relationship to the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Legislative Assembly;

AND FURTHERMORE that the Auditor General examine such additional factors as she, in her opinion, feels are relevant;

AND FURTHERMORE that all employees, officials, board and tribunal members actively cooperative with the Auditor General in providing all appropriate documents, records, papers and information;

AND FURTHERMORE that the Auditor General is requested to complete this special performance audit as soon as practicable and provide a report to the Legislative Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Motion is on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The initiative that I have proposed, and my colleague from Nunakput is seconding, is not a small or a lightly undertaken initiative. The function of the WCB is one that is essential to the success and the stability of our workers and our workforce in virtually every endeavour here in the NWT, in our communities, in our governments, in our small businesses and big businesses too. Mr. Speaker, over my time here as a Member of this Legislative Assembly, I have had frequent traffic with a number of workers who have come to me with what really is a common story of in some cases denial, in some cases interference, in some cases of avoidance of their situation when it comes to managing our obligation and our promise to them through the WCB and promises made by employers to handle their case in a compassionate and a fair way.

Mr. Speaker, a very common assumption that comes up through these situations and the correspondence that I’ve seen over the last five years through Ministers’ offices from the WCB is that when difficult cases come along or those that may have aspects of interpretation or implementation that aren’t quite cut and dried or aren’t all that straightforward, that there’s been a very marked and demonstrated tendency, I believe, for the people in positions of authority and responsibility that if there’s going to be an error, it’s made in favour of the Workers’ Compensation Board and especially of the fund.

Mr. Speaker, it is I think one of the great agreements of our modern world, our modern workforce, that the idea of a no-fault insurance process was created called the Workers’ Compensation Board here. There are many like it, certainly all over North America. But for it to have the confidence of both the employers, who are major stakeholders, and, of course, employees, it has to be implemented. It has to be seen to be working with a mandate and indeed this is expressed over and over and over again, Mr. Speaker, where there’s benefit of the doubt it goes to the worker. In my experience, our WCB does not give this benefit of doubt.

In asking the Auditor General to come into this and make this enquiry on our behalf, I recognize that the Auditor General does perform a regular auditing function for all of our government departments and our Crown agencies, but there is something that we cannot rely on, Mr. Speaker, on a regular basis. That is a performance review of just are they doing what they are expected to do in the spirit and the intent by which the legislation was created. This is such an investigation.

I’m very, very pleased with the support that I’ve gotten from my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, in bringing this forward. I’m looking forward to a very clear report from the WCB that will help us to set a new course, perhaps in legislation or in regulation, on how we can better manage situations on behalf of injured workers. I know from talking to the people, Mr. Speaker, the damage that it does not only to their lives; their working careers sometimes are ended very badly and eroded because of an injury. The impact that this has on the families of these injured workers, Mr. Speaker, as they strive to try to get some degree of stability or normalcy back into their lives after a serious injury. The events they find themselves in of never ending loops, Mr. Speaker, of appeals, of having to explain their situations to different case workers. A lot of these systemic kinds of things, Mr. Speaker, that I know we can do a better job of and that is why I’m very pleased to be presenting this motion and looking forward to its acceptance and the report of the Auditor General in due course. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Braden. To the motion. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to say that I’m going to support the motion that’s before us today. I appreciate the work that the Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden, has put into this piece of work. It’s a huge undertaking that this motion sets in motion. I know Mr. Braden has been a Member of this Legislative Assembly for quite a bit longer than I have and he’s had an opportunity to work with injured workers more than I have; but in my year-and-a-bit that I have been a Member of the Legislative Assembly, I have dealt with a couple of constituents that were injured workers. It’s not a normal practice when you are dealing with an injured worker. A normal constituent comes in and you can talk to one of the Cabinet Ministers and try to identify areas where you might be able to actually lend them a hand or help them along their path. With WCB claimants it’s almost impossible as a Regular Member to help these individuals out. I know on the two occasions that I’ve had to try, you make some phone calls, you talk to the worker’s advisor and that’s about it. The Minister doesn’t want to talk to you and nobody really wants to talk to you. Somewhere the injured worker is still left to suffer along and try to find a resolution to the difficulties that they are encountering.

One of the other things I wanted to mention is that as a former business owner, employers are always concerned about the cost of doing business, especially here in the Northwest Territories where everything else is very expensive. In some cases, I think employers have been hit with substantial increases to their rates over the past two or three years specifically. In some cases, probably 50 or 60 percent increases and for smaller businesses, Mr. Speaker, that causes them, obviously, some pain. This is going to certainly be felt by the Workers’ Compensation Board. It’s a big undertaking to have the Auditor General come in, but I look at it as being a healthy exercise. Maybe we can learn from it. I see it being a positive exercise, Mr. Speaker, and I’m glad that Mr. Braden has put the work into this and I’m happy to support that today. I think it is a worthwhile exercise and I’d hate to think that there are injured workers out there that we’re not helping and we have to do what we can to help them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. To the motion. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am also happy to be supporting this motion and to have the opportunity to discuss this very important area today. Mr. Speaker, I’d also like to thank the Member for Great Slave who has worked very hard, and the staff who have helped him put this together. I have had many occasions to speak to him about our mutual concerns about some of the WCB files, as we would like to call them, that we have been working on for many, many years.

Mr. Speaker, I support this motion, knowing that this is a motion that is very comprehensive. It is giving a very wide responsibility and power to the Auditor General’s office. We are asking her office to do quite a thorough review about various aspects of the operations of the WCB and, as Mr. Braden stated, this was a part of the work that was planned to be done during the last Assembly that we did not pursue that there. This is an opportunity for us to revisit that.

The reason why I support this is because I do respect the fact that the Workers’ Compensation Board is an independent body, but it is a public body and all public bodies that use public money and where the body asks the public such as the employers to pay assessments and make decisions about how that money is spent, I believe that body has to be accountable to somebody. I respect that if the elected leaders are not the ones that can do it in a direct way, if we cannot ask the board directly about the decisions that they are making, I think that a body like the federal Auditor General’s office should be the one that should be able to ask the questions that people want to know. I think this is an opportunity for that to happen.

I’ll be very interested in seeing what the results might be. I’m hoping that the results of this review will teach us and guide us as to where we go from here. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that in the last Assembly I had many WCB files and at the beginning I was an enthusiastic champion for all those people that look to the MLAs to help them. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, I’ve had grown men cry in my office about what they are going through and I’ve had grown women, women of ages twice as old as me, telling me about what they are going through. I’m old enough to know and I know enough to know that I’ve listened to these cases very carefully, I make judgments on that and I have fought for many of them. I have convened a meeting of the injured worker, the family, the doctors, the nurses, the WCB doctors, WCB president, and I would have a case meeting on that and I feel that this is great, I’m making something happen, we get an agreement and benefits get reinstated, and a month later it’s gone. The poor worker has to go through the whole process all over again.

Mr. Speaker, I’m happy to do this, but we can’t be doing this full time for all of the injured workers that cannot speak for themselves. I think that if an assessment is done, we should have an understanding and a reasonable expectation that the benefits they are receiving will last more than the time it takes for you to turn around. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate that most cases that go to WCB get approved. Almost 90 percent of the cases get approved. It is about 10 percent of cases that do not get approved that seem to have to go through a chronic situation where no one else can help, and I’m telling you I’m not an expert, but these are very, very compelling cases.

Let me tell you about some of the cases we are talking about. I can tell you there are three men on my street, on one street of my riding, the first case is a man who is about 39 years old. He has worked all his adult working life in a mine. He is younger than me; I know him and I went to school with him. He has worked all his working life in a mine. He cannot work anymore. His knees don’t work anymore and a lot of it has to do with that heavy duty work that he did, and his employer covered for these benefits and he paid into the funds. After years of going through WCB, he has told me that he can only be covered for one percent of his disabilities. He is 39 years old and he is not asking to be compensated or get a paycheque from WCB for the rest of his life. He is only asking to be retrained, so that he can get into a new line of work where he is not hindered by his disability, so he can provide for his family. He has lost his case and he has to hire a lawyer to go through the appeal.

Let me tell you about another guy who lives just 15 houses down the road. This guy is about 35 years old and this guy has worked all his working life too and has injured his back and cannot work anymore. He is asking for retraining, but because of his condition…You are okay if you break an arm or leg or something is very obvious, but if it is a chronic pain situation, you are not going to be compensated. This guy, at 35, is not asking for compensation for the rest of his life, he is just asking to be retrained.

I have another guy who lives on the other side of the street; same thing. He has been an electrician all his life; he has all sorts of injuries. He has lost his cases, he also has to retain a lawyer to do this.

Mr. Speaker, all these people feel that WCB is just not there for them. They might win some cases, they appeal them, they win some for a little bit and then they are put right back into the list of having to explain their situations all over again. They feel that eventually they are just to wear out of this process and many of them move down south because they cannot afford to live here if they cannot make a living.

I tell you that there are many people and many injured workers who have chosen to move because, for some reason lately, somebody got the understanding that we are going to be dealing with this motion. I have been getting calls from south of 60. I got a call from somebody in Manitoba who said I hear you are doing this motion and let me tell you my story. This guy is exactly the same case. He is 43 years old and injured and can’t get training, Mr. Speaker.

I can tell you that Chronic Pain Syndrome, chronic pain cases, are a big problem. In spite of the fact that the Supreme Court just ruled that chronic pain should be covered and I believe that WCB has made some adjustments, but still are not willing to go all the way. I think that they should be, to equalize their treatment.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to speak to the other side of this issue, which has to do with the employer’s aspect. When I was fighting for employees, I was always made to understand that WCB had a boss, well they had the board to listen to, but their client that they had to answer to were the employers who paid the assessment rates. I can tell you, yesterday I got calls from at least four or five ratepayers of WCB who just got hit with another 26 percent increase in their assessment, and that is on top of another 20 something percent increase last year. In over two years their assessment rate has gone up 54 percent.

I was always told by previous WCB administration, but look, we have to manage our money well, we have to answer to the assessors and we have to answer to them about how we do our job. Well, talking to these people who are paying the assessment, they are telling that they have no say really on how all this is being done. Last year they appealed the assessment; nothing changed. They were hoping that everything would at least stay the same and not go up; this year they are hit with another 27 percent.

We allow WCB to be a monopoly. There is no other WCB you can go to if your service is not good. That is why this has to regulated. This is why we, as a public body, have to make sure that there is some accountability there. The employees are asking what are we doing with our money. Who is causing all these increases? How can we have a say on how this money is spent?

I can tell you that a preliminary study that I have done at my office shows that overall, at least between 1994 and 2002, the number of claims have gone down, the number of rejected claims have gone up a little and their investments in some parts were not doing that well, but we don’t know what happened because nobody really gets to see that, their administration has gone up all along.

These are the questions that I cannot ask. We have tried -- and Mr. Braden will be the first one to agree with me -- in the last Assembly we have had WCB people come up and answer questions, but I am convinced that having seen what I have, that this will be a fruitful and productive exercise for us to ask the Auditor General’s office to look at how we are managing our WCB operations.

For all I know, everything might be fine; that’s great, but maybe we could get some guidance and directions as to how they are doing and what we can do better as legislators and what we can do better to meet the needs of workers who are feeling left behind, and also address the employers who are wondering where their assessments are going and how and what determines what their rights are.

Mr. Speaker, I have been able to lay out some of the concerns that I have seen over the years and for all the reasons that I have stated. Hence, I will be supporting this motion and I would like to again thank the Member of Great Slave for doing this and I would urge the rest of the House to support this motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Ms. Lee. To the motion. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise briefly to speak on this motion and I would like to thank the Member for raising this issue and commend his diligence on initiating a review of the WCB department and management regime.

Mr. Speaker, I am supportive of this motion due to the fact that I have received numerous enquiries and concerns about the WCB over the past year just with respect to the unfair treatment of some of the WCB clients and the total lack of proper accountability and mechanisms in the department.

I could mention many cases and circumstances that people are dealing with, as my friend from Range Lake has mentioned, but I think that we all get the picture of where she is coming from and what other Members that support the motion are alluding to.

I just want to talk about the attitude of the management regime of the WCB. To me it seems to be one of apathy and disregard for accountability and transparency. These values, Mr. Speaker, are what this government has entrenched in its vision of a shared responsibility and I think that should be carried right across the board in every government department, arm's length departments and everybody else.

I look forward to a comprehensive review of the WCB's activities, just to ensure that our northern workers can expect and will expect to receive fair and respectful treatment that they so duly deserve. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. To the motion. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise, too, in support of this motion. Just a few thoughts with respect to WCB claimants in my riding where there are lots of small communities, Mr. Speaker, and in fact I have six. The inquiries that I did get are that in our smaller communities like Nahanni Butte and Trout Lake, there is a quiet acquiescence to when they are dealing with WCB.

They are sitting in their small communities and getting notices in the mail that they are cut off and they can’t really do too much. I pride some of the examples that my colleagues have brought out. In the larger centres they are able to go see their MLAs, go see doctors for second opinions, have meetings, but in the smaller communities they just cannot do that, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, believe that WCB should benefit all, despite our locations. That is something that really has to be looked at and here is an opportunity to do that. That is why I am for this motion. Just looking at some of the documentation that is already before me, we have the total number of claims climbing over the past three or four years, but the total of accepted claims remains the same. It almost seems that there is a hidden policy to keep the amount of claims the same every year, no matter what happens to the workers. There are fathers and mothers and children that come from our injured workers. We have an unwritten contract to take of care them through the WCB.

Just looking at their revenue statements, I have noticed, as well, the rates for the small businesses and businesses are increasing. If you look at the revenue statements, you have investment revenue taking a sharp decline because they have poor managers for their investment monies, they have to take it off the backs of the businesses as well. What is really going on here?

Shame! Shame!

I am really happy that we can have a really good look at this and have the Auditor General have a really good look at how we are running our Workers’ Compensation Board, Mr. Speaker.

Above all, this just goes back to that one person; in this case a person from Trout Lake. He cannot earn income and he is cut off and yet, despite his pleas, he has to somehow make income and he has nowhere to turn and he can’t make any income, Mr. Speaker.

I am very supportive of this motion and I would like to see a total in-depth review and that is what this motion calls for, and I am very much in support it. Mahsi cho.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. To the motion. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t really have a lot to say because all of my colleagues have said quite a bit already. Keeping that in mind, I have not had a lot of personal calls from injured workers. I wish to assure everyone that my phone is on the hook.

I will emphasize, Mr. Speaker, I have had phone calls from the employer’s side. The employer’s side is they are very concerned with the way the rates are and how they keep climbing up. One year it is 26 percent, the next year it’s even more, and who knows where it is going to be the next year.

Mr. Speaker, I am in support of this and I will say that, being in significant favour of an audit. I believe the process is what it is and give it a chance and WCB should not be afraid of an audit and I think no department should be afraid of an audit and we should go forward and allow this motion to proceed to do a healthy check. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. The honourable Member for North Slave, Mr. Zoe.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, will be in support of this motion. I did experience calls from my constituents pertaining to WCB. It is very difficult, Mr. Speaker, just to try to get information, especially for MLAs to try to get information on a specific client. I had an opportunity -- I even tried to go through the Minister’s office, Mr. Speaker -- to try to get details as to where this client was or how he was being treated.

I just needed general information. I listen to both sides, this is the WCB’s rationale and the client and what he has to say, and then I determine how I should deal with this as an issue. I even had to get written permission from the client just to get information, documents from WCB, and it took ages. Little things like that shouldn’t be happening.

I am glad the Member for Great Slave has put this motion forward, so that the Auditor General, through an operational audit, can come up with recommendations on how to streamline all these little things that clients are encountering. Again, also with employers; they are paying enormous rates, as the Member for Range Lake has indicated. I am looking forward to the Auditor General’s report on this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Zoe. To the motion. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also will be supporting this motion and think that, Mr. Speaker, this is very healthy for this government to re-evaluate the WCB in terms of the issues that the Auditor General may find, especially for the small communities that are primarily Slavey speaking -- the aboriginal language is the first language in terms of them getting some services -- and see what they can do in terms of strengthening the governance of WCB or the way it manages claims and how it is perceived in the public.

WCB doesn’t have to be seen as a place to fear, but somewhere that they will take care of you. That is what we are here for in this government.

Hear! Hear!

That is our vision; that is our leadership. I believe that the Minister was showing some good leadership in that area, in terms of re-looking at the WCB with the Auditor General, with us, with our people. These people work because they love to work and when they get hurt, surely, Mr. Speaker, they need to be taken care of by us as a government. That is our job, so I think this motion is timely and I fully support this motion. Thank you.

Timely.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be speaking in favour of the motion as well. I think that if there was a time when we need to be compassionate and particularly attentive to our constituents, it is at the time when they are in need and they have been injured. This can be very trying on many fronts, on people's personal lives, on their financial well-being, on their livelihood and on the well-being of their families, as well.

I think that we need a culture within our WCB which is very sensitive to injured workers. I, as well, have received concerns over the years from constituents who felt that they had had the WCB and the employers turn their backs on them after they were injured.

Also, Mr. Speaker, during a lot of the media coverage of the Giant Mine trial, we heard some of the cost estimates on some of the services that were retained by the WCB and I have a lot of questions around that, and I think that an audit of this nature also would deal with some of the operations decisions that were made in respect to that. I just think it is good business from time to time to take a look at the operations of an organization like this, to ensure that it does reflect what our priorities are and what our thoughts are as a government who oversees this as well as the employers and employees. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the motion. The honourable Minister responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be speaking to the motion in regard to issues that have been raised in the motion. I think it is important to realize that the direction that was given to the corporation came by way of the Act Now document, in which a lot of those have been implemented. They did a special audit of the operation of the Workers’ Compensation Board, which was done by the Auditor General in 2002.

Also, they have done a reorganization of the Workers’ Compensation Board to allow for the recommendations that came out of the Act Now. The Act Now came by way of two phases. The first phase was to look at the operation side. The second phase was to look at the legal parameters between the boards -- the appeals board, the governance council -- and also look at the rates that the corporation sets, which is now being developed under phase two.

That work is ongoing and will be coming to this House, hopefully we are looking at this fall, but because of this motion, it could delay that factor. I think it is important to realize that the Workers’ Compensation Board does have to follow certain legislative responsibilities that we give it, from the Legislature, in regard to the Workers’ Compensation Act and also through the Financial Administration Act. They have to follow our Financial Administration Act of this Legislature and also because of the Mine Health and Safety Act that is in place.

They are governed by these acts, which are passed by this Legislature. It is important to keep that in mind, in regard to this motion. One of the most critical concerns that I have with this motion is because of our relationship we have with our Nunavut colleagues and also because this board is a joint board which is shared by both territories.

I have been in correspondence with my colleagues in Nunavut and they are upset that this motion is coming forward in this manner, without them being consulted on such a motion, because we do have a joint arrangement. We do have a memorandum of understanding with Nunavut and ourselves in relation to this board that they will be consulted on these types of movements.

Again, I think it is crucial that we realize that this definitely does not sit well with my colleague from Nunavut because of the way this motion came about without having them consulted or made aware that such a motion was going to be there. I think it is important to realize that we do have obligations through a memorandum of understanding. We have signed with Nunavut and ourselves in the arrangement of how we manage this joint board and at those legislatures.

Like I stated in the House, I have had an opportunity to meet with my colleague in Nunavut on this matter. Again, they are upset because a lot of the legislation that came forth in regard to the board, the first in regard to phase one, we passed it in this Legislature and, basically, all they got to do in Nunavut was rubberstamp it. They were upset about that because they wanted to make some changes in regard to that legislation. Again, this is another situation where we have to realize that we have to work in conjunction with our colleagues in Nunavut, because we do share this board together and also we do have to consult each other on where we are going with this. I think it is important to note that.

Again, I think that the Member realizes that we are going through a process such as the implementation of the Act Now document. We have gone through phase one. Phase two will be coming to this House looking at the activities they have to do. There were some 100 resolutions passed. In order to do that, it took several years.

I think it is important to realize that the corporation is audited by the Auditor General every year and a report is tabled in this House to how their operation is audited. Also, you have to realize that there is definitely a distinction between the governance council and the Appeals Tribunal. Those are two separate bodies which were implemented through Act Now through phase one. If you are going to do an operational review, you have to ensure that you encompass each of those. Also, we do have operations that we have established through Nunavut because of implementation of phase one.

I just wanted to raise that. I think it is important that Members keep that in mind, that we do have a joint responsibility here. I have been notified by my colleague from Nunavut who is upset because of the way this motion came forward without their consultation. Thank you.

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

Question.

I will allow the mover of the motion some closing comments on this debate. Mr. Braden.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I do want to express my appreciation and support and the justification that my colleagues have given for backing this on behalf of injured workers in their constituencies who they know of. Mr. Hawkins indicated that our phones are indeed ready to be answered. I must admit I am feeling a little shy, Mr. Speaker, because I don’t have boxes and boxes of files that I will be able to put at the disposal of the Auditor General, because so many of those workers over the years have had to leave the NWT and are living in other parts of Canada because they simply cannot afford to live here and carry on with the diminished capacity to work and the very small returns that they claim they are getting as a result of WCB’s handling.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to address a couple of things that the Minister has said. But first of all, I have to say that it is this kind of objection, push back, resistance and denial that we have been receiving through the years and the letters that are demonstrated on the floor of the Assembly again today by the attitude of the Minister. It is very much why I wanted to bring this motion forward because, through the conventional process, the political process, we are just getting nowhere on behalf of injured workers. The Auditor General is an agency that has the credibility and the experience and the authority to go in there and hopefully find out where we are, as the whereases and the wherefores in this fairly extensive motion point out. It is extensive, Mr. Speaker, because it is, in essence, a job description. These are the things that we have heard. These are the things that we want the Auditor General to look into, confirm and sort out for us so that we can get on with it.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister mentioned that the Minister from Nunavut may be upset with this inquiry. That may be so. But I have made some of my own inquiries about Nunavut, and I am finding that their injured workers and Regular Members have issues exactly the same as we do. We do not need to ask the permission of Nunavut to engage in this kind of investigation on behalf of our own workers.

Hear! Hear!

---Applause

I am very confident, Mr. Speaker, that what we will find out through the investigation here will only benefit workers from Nunavut.

The Minister does make a very valid point in that we do have a hard-won agreement with our sister territory, Nunavut, to share the resources and the responsibilities of running this WCB that we can share. I think that is a good arrangement. He also made the point that when we proceed on legislation, we have to be careful to proceed in tandem so that both territories can accommodate the legislative process and the changes that we see as required. But, Mr. Speaker, this is an operational review. This is a performance review. I want to find out whether the spirit or the intent of the legislation and the delivery of services to injured workers is really what we should expect and what they deserve. Those are the answers there. I can’t get it through the regular process. Again, that is why the Auditor General is coming in.

The Minister mentioned a report that was commissioned in 2002. This would be after the Act Now report, done by the Auditor General. It has never seen the light of day on my desk or on this side of the Legislative Assembly. So while it may be in existence, that is fine. But what good is it to us if it is going to be kept under wraps, never disclosed and only internalized? That is, again, why I want the Auditor General to do a public review where the injured workers, employers, every stakeholder comes in and has their say, has their story told, examined and reported back.

A couple of other Members, Mr. Speaker, raised some interests to the aspect of the specific interest of employers in this. Another Member raised the interest of our WCB’s actions in relation to the Giant Mine trial. The motion was scripted, Mr. Speaker, in such a way that there is the scope and the latitude to allow the Auditor General, if she chooses, to go into these other areas of relevance.

So, with that, Mr. Speaker, I think we have had a very good discussion on it today. I hope we have carried through the significance and the importance that we believe this issue has on behalf of our workers today and very much in the future. We have some massive construction projects on the horizon of the Northwest Territories. This is one part of our infrastructure that we better have in shape. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Braden.

Question.

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

---Carried

---Applause

Item 15, motions. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to deal with the motion I gave notice of earlier today regarding appointments to committees.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. The Member is seeking unanimous consent to deal with the motion that he gave notice of earlier today. Are there any nays? There are no nays. Mr. Villeneuve, you may deal with the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also request unanimous consent to waive Rule 58 to allow Motion 34-15(3) to proceed.