Bill Braden

Mr. Speaker, I’m not sure the Minister understands the difference between a legislative review, which is partly what we’ve undertaken, and an operational review, which is to say that once we’ve created the rules and the platform for how a job is to be done, how is the job actually implemented and undertaken. This is where many injured workers have come to me and other MLAs, to say that the way the WCB performs in this area for some workers, not all, but for some, puts them on an endless treadmill of appeals and frustration. When are we going to undertake an operational review? Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this morning are for the Minister responsible for the Workers’ Compensation Board and they have to do with the program of legislative changes undertaken in the last Assembly. Mr. Speaker, there was a second phase of legislative review that was committed to. In fact, the most recent report of the WCB says that the second phase of the legislative review will focus on outstanding aspects not addressed in phase one. The research developments and consultations on these issues will be undertaken throughout 2004. Mr. Speaker, that has passed. I’m not aware of...

Mr. Speaker, I believe that there are options out there; we just have to be bold enough to go out there and put the case on the table. There’s one very apparent one that comes immediately to mind in the Aboriginal Development Corporation who, through land claims settlements and cash injections to the Government of Canada, are, I think, very well positioned to be major players in finding an answer to this solution. Are the Aboriginal Development Corporations and First Nations on that list in our toolbox, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will take the advice there. There have been a couple of forums in Yellowknife on this area related specifically to housing and people with disabilities, but there were concerns voiced there about how some of the aspects of our system do treat them. I will take the Minister’s suggestion that there is flexibility in the system and I would be happy to work with constituents to see if we can resolve their cases. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance just said that he would be interested in looking at the kind of thing that my colleague Mr. Ramsay was talking about: tax breaks, tax situations, and what the cost would be to the government. But here we go, we’re looking internally again. We’re saying oh, gee, this might hurt us. What about the positive impact it might make for the families and the people out there in the Northwest Territories, in the communities, who are coming up short right now because we’re not able to think outside that box? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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Okay. There is turnover. Should committee still be concerned? Yellowknife is a magnet community. We have more people coming into Yellowknife with issues and problems and needing support. Are we beefing up the income support office to respond to that growing clientele, or are we trying to do more with the same? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister has opened up an interesting area: our own-source revenues. I’d sort of like to turn that around a little bit. What about our own ability to provide incentives to our partners, builders, developers, communities, aboriginals, development corporations, to step up to the plate to join us in this venture? But we would need to make taxation and revenue decisions to, as I say, provide those incentives. Is that something that we have in our toolbox to help build more houses? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To be sure, I was told recently that if you put together all the employees that are at work on diamond row in the sorting shops and the cutting and polishing shops, we probably have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 300 people in Yellowknife, including the families and everyone else who has indirect employment. So there’s no doubt, in my mind, that we have the foundation for a successful and a sustained industry.

One of the expectations I think that we all had when these shops were getting set up, was that we would be able to attract and grow a northern workforce that...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. In the Northwest Territories today, we have social housing programs that are becoming social housing problems of enormous complexity. Mr. Speaker, we not only have issues that my colleagues have very eloquently outlined today facing us in their communities, but we have a very long-range problem in that the multi-year contract we have with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which today feeds our coffers to the tune of some $33 million, is slowly, gradually disappearing, Mr. Speaker. According to the terms of the takeover we signed with CMHC, I believe it was eight...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The support in the diamond industry; was this a scheduled sunset, if you will, or a withdrawal of access to that program, or is this something that may come as a surprise to employers in the secondary industry? Thank you, Madam Chair.