Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses in.

For the record, Mr. Minister, could you introduce your witnesses?

Mr. Chairman, with me is Penny Ballantyne, president of the Workers' Compensation Board; Mike Triggs, corporate secretary and general counsel with the Workers' Compensation Board; and, Mark Aitken, director of the legislative division with the Department of Justice.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, witnesses. We're dealing with Bill 15, An Act to Amend the Workers' Compensation Act. Are there any general comments on the bill? Mr. Bell.

General Comments

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won't take much time. Mr. Dent, I think, has already hit all the points that we had raised in committee. I just wanted to say that I think this does go some distance in addressing many of the concerns that injured workers have been raising, and I'm glad to see this bill will be passed before this assembly is dissolved. I think it's also important to keep in mind here that this doesn't address everything that was proposed and suggested in Act Now, and that there are two phases. This really is phase one of the legislative update and shortly following this, we hope, will be phase two, which will seek to address a number of the other recommendations in Act Now

There is one point that I wanted to ask the Minister about, and that is this issue of adequacy of benefits. The Minister and the staff of the board have agreed to look at this, I understand, but I'm wondering if there shouldn't be some sort of a provision for continual adjustments, that we take into account the cost of living. It's possible that this already exists, but maybe the Minister could answer that and also indicate when the last time was that these benefits were adjusted and looked at. Thank you.

Minister responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board, Minister Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I think it's a good point. One of the things that this proposed legislation that we have in front of us here does, is move a lot of the provisions for adequacy of benefits into regulation, so that it's easier to make adjustments, than has been the case in the past, when it's in legislation. A lot of the adequacy issues are tied to the YMIR, and we do make that adjustment annually. So the most recent one would have been several months ago when we adjusted the YMIR.

General comments. Mr. Bell.

Thank you. I know this is slightly outside the scope, but I understand from our research that we're roughly pretty much middle of the pack on benefits, if you compare them across different areas where benefits are provided to injured workers. Given our high cost of living, it does seem inadequate. You would think that we would need to be at or near the top of the pack. Would the Minister agree with that assessment?

Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, maybe I'll let the president, Penny Ballantyne, just give us the information on how we stack up with the rest of the jurisdictions.

Mrs. Ballantyne.

Mr. Bell.

Okay, thank you for that. I think that certainly is something that we look forward to, and it makes sense that we be able to deal with something that should change more frequently in regulation so that we're not handcuffed in that we need to do this legislatively. I would just like to thank the Minister and the board for bringing this bill forward. I think it is a step in the right direction. I think there's more we can do, and I look forward to seeing that next phase. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. General comments to the bill. Does the committee agree to go clause by clause?

Agreed. Clause 1.

Clause 2.

Clause 3.

Page 3, clause 4.