Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my concern about the operations of the Workers' Compensation Board. I believe that the Workers' Compensation Board has lost touch with the people of the northern workplace and, in particular, lacks an understanding about traditional occupations practised by aboriginal harvesters in our communities.

Members may recall that when the House sat in December, I posed a series of questions about the manner in which the board has been treating hunters and trappers who are injured in the course of their work, in the bush or on the trapline.

The board, composed entirely of people from Yellowknife, has decided that they are qualified to define who should be considered a hunter and who should be considered a trapper. Without telling the Legislature they established internal policies which set up income criteria for identifying who should be considered principally engaged as traditional harvesters. They did this behind closed doors, Mr. Speaker, without seeking input from harvesters' organizations or regional councils while they were developing the policy.

After their directive had been drafted and passed by the board, they did distribute it through hunters and trappers organizations as an information item, but when I had the material analyzed I learned that the policy and accompanying materials are written in legalistic language that is as difficult to read as the Harvard Law Review.

Although they distributed it to hunters' and trappers' organizations in the Eastern Arctic and in our smaller, more isolated communities in the West, they did not even have the courtesy to translate their information package into aboriginal languages. Then they sat back and claimed they had the support of hunters and trappers across the Northwest Territories because they received no written criticism.

Mr. Speaker, as a result the men and women who have lived their lives hunting and trapping, and are recognized in their communities as hunters and trappers, are unable to receive compensation from the Workers' Compensation Board because the Yellowknife-based administration does not believe that they are really principally engaged in harvesting occupations.

It is indicative of a lack of accountability that has prevented this board...