Robert Villeneuve

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Ironically enough, from October 29th to November 4th is Canada Career Week. You find the work you love and build a life you want, and here we have a gallery full of 22 people that obviously found the work they love and are building a life that they want and a lot of northerners want their clients to have. They are here today dealing with this lockout. What assurances can the Minister provide to the current clients that are down south, and their families, that they will again have access to treatment here in the NWT in the near future? When might that be? Thank you...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today is a sad day for me and many Dene people in and around Yellowknife, especially for Deninu Kue constituents and a lot of people from Detah. Mr. Speaker, this morning I just attended the funeral of the late Ms. Helen Toby. Ms. Toby was a very well-respected Dene elder who lived in Detah and she passed away after a long battle with cancer. I just want to send out my sincere condolences from everyone here in the Legislative Assembly to all the family, friends and relatives and the many, many, many friends of Helen Toby. Our prayers go out to them all.

Mr...

This is just short brief comments on the report. I just want to commend the Auditor General on the work that her team did with compiling this report. I think it has been long overdue, especially for a public institution as important as WCB and how people view their claims as very important and very substantial in how their lives change and why they haven’t changed for the better in many instances when they are working with WCB. Hopefully, over time, this report will make those changes more positive for the people that have these long-outstanding claims that they have been dealing with with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As far as I know, the employees did get locked out prior to their strike deadline that was issued to the employer. Can the Minister’s department do more than just monitor at this point in time? Of course, time is of the essence in this whole issue. We have people who want to come home and want to get treatment here in the NWT by people that they know and have received treatment from in the past, I am sure. What can the department offer besides just monitoring? Can we provide some mentoring, perhaps, Mr. Speaker; anything besides just sitting back and monitoring...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My question again is to the Minister responsible for Human Resources, the Honourable Floyd Roland just about with the Nats'ejee K'eh clients. I guess Health pays the bill. Just with the government having notification of the lockout prior to it actually coming through, but efforts were taken to notify the clients and their families of the move to ensure that as little as possible interruption of their treatment would happen. What efforts were made to notify families and clients that they would be moving south? Were they given advance notice? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee recommends that mandatory orientation and training be implemented for all new Workers’ Compensation Board employees before they are allowed to engage clients. The committee further recommends ongoing professional development be programmed for each employee, manager, executive and member of the Governance Council and Appeals Tribunal and documented and reported annually as a key component of performance measurement. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would just like to use my Member’s statement to express some of my concerns with the new Human Resources department. Mr. Speaker, although I am in full support of the amalgamation of the human resources and public services and the intent to develop a more balanced and representative public service here in the NWT, I feel that there are some important human resource issues related to why this government moved back to a stand-alone Human Resources department that are falling through the cracks as we move forward.

Mr. Speaker, I am still receiving many...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So making this change, if somebody from the NWT has got stocks and bonds, shares on the Toronto Stock Market and they get some kind of a dividend out of that every year, with this change they're going to be gaining an extra…or $8 is less of what they're going to have to pay on every $100 that they claim? Is that the scheme?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not even really sure how to ask this question. I know this is, this whole taxation regime here is a pretty complicated part of the GNWT's or our Finance department's responsibility. I guess I just want to, I guess just for the common man out there to try and understand how this is going to work for them, I guess just to the public dollars that this government raises through the NWT tax act, has there been any numbers that have been looked at as to how much the NWT actually loses in taxable income or corporate income tax as a result of not changing this or making...

Clarification, I guess. So everybody basically falls under section 1 of the Medical Care Act, right?