Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have stood in this House on many previous occasions and commented on problems with the workers' compensation coverage for traditional harvesters. Honourable Members already know what the problem is. Workers' Compensation Board policy does not consider an aboriginal person to be principally engaged in traditional harvesting unless they meet arbitrary and unfair criteria, based on a southern wage economy.
Mr. Speaker, we have been over this issue many times before. Each time we receive promises that this problem will be solved; none of these promises have been kept to date.
The Workers' Compensation Board says it is a problem to be solved by the Department of Renewable Resources because the money is supposed to come from their budget. Now the WCB and the Department of Renewable Resources are both saying it is up to the Minister of Justice to draft terms of a memorandum of agreement. Everyone is passing the buck.
In the meantime, aboriginal people who net fish for their families this summer will not have the protection of the Workers' Compensation Board, and hunters who bring caribou meat to the elders of their community will not be covered either. Mr. Speaker, there should be no mistake about where the responsibility for solving this problems lies. It lies with the Minister responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board. The Workers' Compensation Act is clear about that. For a long time we have considered the current Minister to be a man who gets things done.