Bill Braden

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The bill before us now is like the one we just previously considered, one that has been long anticipated. I want to acknowledge that it was back in 2000 or 2001 when the comprehensive survey undertaken by a special panel resulted in the report called Act Now. So we know we have at least six years of work, review and anticipation involved in the bill that is now before us. Many people have had a hand in the matter that we are going to be considering today and one that I am very happy to be saying to committee, Mr. Chair, that I would be supporting.

In the past term...

Mr. Speaker, those are all very valid arguments and discussions. It is precisely the kind of thing that I and other Members of this Assembly are pleading for. Get this information out here so that we have some sense. I can’t believe that the Premier is saying to us that nothing has changed. Mr. Speaker, this thing has gone from $60 million to $150 million. That is still just an estimate. That has changed. He has suggested that the toll fee isn’t going up from that originally projected. Arguably he is right. But we are going to be paying the same fee for twice as long. Twice as much...

Conditional contractual. Mr. Speaker, the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, to the best of my knowledge, has an extremely limited equity that they have been able to put forward for this project. It is all on the basis of collecting tolls and of the additional investment that we are going to make through the costs we are otherwise putting into the ferry, the ice road and the additional $2 million.

I have to continue asking. Just what are the commitments, then, that the GNWT is either directly or indirectly put on the line here when this agreement will be signed by the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is that the extent of the information that the Minister is able to provide?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Wednesday, August 22, 2007, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River South, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends the Minister responsible for the Workers’ Compensation Board extend Mr. Denny Rodgers’ appointment as chair of the Governance Council to April 12, 2008. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, colleagues, and every Member of this Assembly. Indeed, anyone who ever chooses to run for public office knows how intensely personal that decision is. For me, the choice was a combination of almost 30 years of interest and involvement in all sorts of elections and public affairs at every level of our country’s government. It was my various work experience as reporter, tourism manager, a small business owner, a senior corporate director, all of it here in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, Mr. Speaker, that gave me the sense that, perhaps, I could make a...

Mr. Speaker, thank you. My questions this afternoon are for the Minister responsible for the Workers’ Compensation Board, Mr. Krutko. It regards the plight of longstanding unresolved cases of injured workers and specifically the widely publicized case of Mr. Ivan Valic, a worker who was injured while he was helping to build the Ruth Inch Memorial Pool here in Yellowknife some 19 years ago now.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Valic’s case was a subject of a Supreme Court ruling that found the WCB’s policies and procedures wanting and an instruction developed to make sure that his case was reheard at appeal....

Merci beaucoup, monsieur le president. One of the most frequent issues that I have raised in this House and had a little bit of an inventory done 50 times, Mr. Speaker, in the last eight years, has been the plight of injured workers. It’s not about those people whose injury or disability has been expeditiously handled by the WCB and the vast majority of cases have, indeed, been handled this way. Rather, my concern has been for those injured workers that have complex, unconventional injuries who have challenged the WCB for years. In their quest for justice, some of them have lost virtually...

Thank you for that information. Does it not seem a bit unusual, if I could continue to direct the question to Mr. Bell, that we are undertaking this mission, yes, at the very end of this Assembly and our senior official, Mr. Handley, I understand is going to be leading the delegation. He is not returning to this Assembly.

---Laughter

How is it, Mr. Chair, that this government wants to undertake this when the Minister quite rightly points out that this should only be the first of many delegations and building this market? It just seems quite unusual that we are putting this together under the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, there are a couple of things in here that should be celebrated, as Ms. Lee pointed out, when we see good work, even if it is the result of years of hard slogging. When the paperwork actually lands on the desk and we are given the chance to say yes to it and really have it mean something, then that is something that makes this job worthwhile.

Ms. Lee has highlighted the territorial dementia centre, a long sought after program. Madam Chair, I think just about all Members, members of the general public, the media, have all heard the stories of families that are...