Madam Chairperson, the same reasons. The amount of money that was required that was recovered was not very much over the course of ten years, I cannot remember what it worked out to, but it was only a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. For that, you have to sue all kinds of people and drag people through litigation for years. That is not the intent. The intent of the Workers' Compensation Board is to get away from litigation. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. The figures that we received were from the Workers' Compensation Board itself.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Bill 12, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1998, No. 2, has two purposes. The first is to amend various statutes of the Northwest Territories that contain errors or inconsistencies that

have been identified in the ongoing statute revision project or that have been brought to the attention of the Department of Justice by members of the public or by the staff of Justice and other departments.

The second purpose is to amend several statutes that refer to the Companies Act. That act is being repealed on March 31, 1999, and the various references to it in other statutes will be deleted, leaving only the parallel references to the Business Corporations Act. These amendments will also be brought into force on March 31, 1999, at the same time that the Companies Act is repealed. Departments responsible for the administration of the various statutes being amended by the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1998, No. 2, have each reviewed and approved the changes to the statutes under their authority.

Most changes proposed in Bill 12 are minor in nature and many consist of the grammatical or spelling corrections to either the English or French version of the statute. Other changes have the effect of repealing certain provisions of the statutes that have expired or otherwise ceased to have effect. The bill also provides for the repeal of the Legislative Assembly Building Loan Fund Act, which is spent in its entirety, and for the repeal of an unproclaimed 1983 act amending the Judicature Act. The amendments are of a nature that the preparation and legislative consideration of individual bills to correct each statute would be time-consuming for the government and the Legislative Assembly, particularly at this juncture when we must be frugal with both time and resources.

In order for an amendment to be included in the bill, it had to meet the following criteria:

a) It must not be controversial;

b) It must not involve the spending of public funds;

c) It must not prejudicially affect the rights of persons; and,

d) It must not create a new offence or subject a new class of persons to an existing offence.

Madam Chairperson, in our view the amendments proposed in Bill 12 meet those criteria and I and my officials will be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. The Standing Committee on Government Operations reviewed Bill 12, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1998, No. 2, at its meeting on November 12, 1998. The committee would like to thank the Minister of Justice and his legislative counsel for presenting the bill and responding to the committee's questions.

The purpose of this bill is to correct errors and inconsistencies in various NWT statutes. These include corrections to typographical errors, incorrect section references, errors in grammar and structure and errors in the French translation. References to the Companies Act, which will be repealed March 31, 1999, are removed from various statutes. One amendment to the bill was passed during the standing committee review. In the original bill, a reference to section 4 was missing in subclause 33(2). Subclause 33(2) provides that certain provisions that delete references to the Companies Act will come into force March 31, 1999, when the Companies Act is repealed.

The standing committee had no difficulty with this bill, however, committee Members may have further comments or questions on the bill as we proceed. This concludes the standing committee's comments on Bill 12, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1998, No. 2. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

Yes, I do, Madam Chairperson.

Agreed.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I have with me, Mr. Mark Aitken, director of the legislation division of the Department of Justice, and Mr. Gary MacDougall, director of legal registries with the Department of Justice.