Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, keeping up with the past convention, I hosted a pre-session constituency meeting at Range Lake North School this past Monday and I was pleased to spend the evening listening to and sharing information with the valued members of my constituency whom, although few in number, had a lot of advice and assignments for me to work on during this session and beyond, Mr. Speaker, and as we begin our short session today I'd like to tell you about some of them.

They would like, Mr. Speaker, me to keep working hard to resolve the intolerable situation surrounding the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t think the Minister has detail of the information on this review, so may I ask the Minister to make a commitment to look at not only the human resources review that’s being worked on at the hospital, but also the survey being undertaken by UNW. I’d just like to ask him to commit to looking at that and see what we can do to implement some of those findings. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask questions today to the Minister of Health and Social Services and it’s in regards to the human resources management review that’s being undertaken at the hospital in partnership with the management of the hospital as well as the employees there, and there was a process developed to work on that. I’d like to ask, on the eve of us leaving this session, if he could give an update as to where we are with that review? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Census Canada released results from a 2006 survey yesterday which seems to more accurately reflect the demographics of the NWT population. I’d like to acknowledge the Stats NWT for doing the work they did in assisting Census Canada with the work. When we get our funding per capita, every head counts, obviously, Mr. Speaker, and this also just shows you why we need to do more things in the North, not in Ottawa, to get the things done right.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that emerged from the 2006 Census is that Canada now gets most of its population growth...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we’ll have to wait to get some more details and maybe the Minister will undertake to do that. I understand there is another review being done by the UNW with respect to working conditions and harassment issues or violence issues. I’d like to ask the Minister if he’s aware of that and whether he can undertake to take a look at that and see what government can do to implement the findings there in partnership with UNW. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, if we are going to maintain and grow our population by immigration, we need to employ a plan that would bring new and old people together and raise everyone to an equal playing field. Territorially and nationally I believe this is a sleeper issue that will challenge us a great deal as a nation unless we pay attention to this at the level it deserves. I’d like to urge this government and the federal government to address these issues, not just as an issue of number of votes, but an issue that is important to our economic and political future...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I need to speak on this motion because I believe this is next to the motion about changing the mandatory, or the Minister reviewing the mandatory that I spoke to earlier. I think this is one single thing that we could make a lot of difference to.

Madam Chair, I have to say that while a lot of discussions here evolve around injured workers who are unsuccessful in their claims, I think all the Members here are aware of the fact that what we are trying to do is create a fair system. The way I see it, it’s okay to go through the Workers’ Compensation process for most of...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to draw the attention of the Minister to this motion, because I think it’s a big one and it’s one that if done properly could really make a difference in the issues that we’re dealing with in this report. I would really like to recommend the Minister and anybody who cares to understand this issue to go and look at the transcript of our AOC public hearings where the workers’ advisor, Colin Baile, spoke to us about what Meredith principle means and the history of it, and how that in the last 60 or 70 years we, as a society, might have lost our way in living...

Thank you. I just want to add a piece to this motion by saying that I hope that the response to this motion from the Minister, or the new Minister of WCB, would not be that there are some kind of policy or legislative barriers to doing this. I think that there is a lot that the Minister of WCB can do, including looking at new legislation. I don’t want to hear the WCB Minister again saying the laws don’t allow me to do that. If that is going to be the answer, I would like to know what that law is. I would like the Minister to respond by saying he could change the law, because, in case the...

Madam Chair, before we go into general comments, just on the procedural point, the recommendations in this report, are we going to be submitting them by way of motion, or are the recommendations being considered as being read into? Does it require any further action from this committee? Thank you.