Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am also happy to be supporting this motion and to have the opportunity to discuss this very important area today. Mr. Speaker, I'd also like to thank the Member for Great Slave who has worked very hard, and the staff who have helped him put this together. I have had many occasions to speak to him about our mutual concerns about some of the WCB files, as we would like to call them, that we have been working on for many, many years.
Mr. Speaker, I support this motion, knowing that this is a motion that is very comprehensive. It is giving a very wide responsibility and power to the Auditor General's office. We are asking her office to do quite a thorough review about various aspects of the operations of the WCB and,
as Mr. Braden stated, this was a part of the work that was planned to be done during the last Assembly that we did not pursue that there. This is an opportunity for us to revisit that.
The reason why I support this is because I do respect the fact that the Workers' Compensation Board is an independent body, but it is a public body and all public bodies that use public money and where the body asks the public such as the employers to pay assessments and make decisions about how that money is spent, I believe that body has to be accountable to somebody. I respect that if the elected leaders are not the ones that can do it in a direct way, if we cannot ask the board directly about the decisions that they are making, I think that a body like the federal Auditor General's office should be the one that should be able to ask the questions that people want to know. I think this is an opportunity for that to happen.
I'll be very interested in seeing what the results might be. I'm hoping that the results of this review will teach us and guide us as to where we go from here. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that in the last Assembly I had many WCB files and at the beginning I was an enthusiastic champion for all those people that look to the MLAs to help them. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, I've had grown men cry in my office about what they are going through and I've had grown women, women of ages twice as old as me, telling me about what they are going through. I'm old enough to know and I know enough to know that I've listened to these cases very carefully, I make judgments on that and I have fought for many of them. I have convened a meeting of the injured worker, the family, the doctors, the nurses, the WCB doctors, WCB president, and I would have a case meeting on that and I feel that this is great, I'm making something happen, we get an agreement and benefits get reinstated, and a month later it's gone. The poor worker has to go through the whole process all over again.
Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to do this, but we can't be doing this full time for all of the injured workers that cannot speak for themselves. I think that if an assessment is done, we should have an understanding and a reasonable expectation that the benefits they are receiving will last more than the time it takes for you to turn around. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate that most cases that go to WCB get approved. Almost 90 percent of the cases get approved. It is about 10 percent of cases that do not get approved that seem to have to go through a chronic situation where no one else can help, and I'm telling you I'm not an expert, but these are very, very compelling cases.
Let me tell you about some of the cases we are talking about. I can tell you there are three men on my street, on one street of my riding, the first case is a man who is about 39 years old. He has worked all his adult working life in a mine. He is younger than me; I know him and I went to school with him. He has worked all his working life in a mine. He cannot work anymore. His knees don't work anymore and a lot of it has to do with that heavy duty work that he did, and his employer covered for these benefits and he paid into the funds. After years of going through WCB, he has told me that he can only be covered for one percent of his disabilities. He is 39 years old and he is not asking to be compensated or get a paycheque from WCB for the rest of his life. He is only asking to be retrained, so that he can get into a new line of work where he is not hindered by his disability, so he can provide for his family. He has lost his case and he has to hire a lawyer to go through the appeal.
Let me tell you about another guy who lives just 15 houses down the road. This guy is about 35 years old and this guy has worked all his working life too and has injured his back and cannot work anymore. He is asking for retraining, but because of his condition...You are okay if you break an arm or leg or something is very obvious, but if it is a chronic pain situation, you are not going to be compensated. This guy, at 35, is not asking for compensation for the rest of his life, he is just asking to be retrained.
I have another guy who lives on the other side of the street; same thing. He has been an electrician all his life; he has all sorts of injuries. He has lost his cases, he also has to retain a lawyer to do this.
Mr. Speaker, all these people feel that WCB is just not there for them. They might win some cases, they appeal them, they win some for a little bit and then they are put right back into the list of having to explain their situations all over again. They feel that eventually they are just to wear out of this process and many of them move down south because they cannot afford to live here if they cannot make a living.
I tell you that there are many people and many injured workers who have chosen to move because, for some reason lately, somebody got the understanding that we are going to be dealing with this motion. I have been getting calls from south of 60. I got a call from somebody in Manitoba who said I hear you are doing this motion and let me tell you my story. This guy is exactly the same case. He is 43 years old and injured and can't get training, Mr. Speaker.
I can tell you that Chronic Pain Syndrome, chronic pain cases, are a big problem. In spite of the fact that the Supreme Court just ruled that chronic pain should be covered and I believe that WCB has made some adjustments, but still are not willing to go all the way. I think that they should be, to equalize their treatment.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to speak to the other side of this issue, which has to do with the employer's aspect. When I was fighting for employees, I was always made to understand that WCB had a boss, well they had the board to listen to, but their client that they had to answer to were the employers who paid the assessment rates. I can tell you, yesterday I got calls from at least four or five ratepayers of WCB who just got hit with another 26 percent increase in their assessment, and that is on top of another 20 something percent increase last year. In over two years their assessment rate has gone up 54 percent.
I was always told by previous WCB administration, but look, we have to manage our money well, we have to answer to the assessors and we have to answer to them about how we do our job. Well, talking to these people who are paying the assessment, they are telling that they have no say really on how all this is being done. Last year they appealed the assessment; nothing changed. They were hoping that everything would at least stay the same and not go up; this year they are hit with another 27 percent.
We allow WCB to be a monopoly. There is no other WCB you can go to if your service is not good. That is why this
has to regulated. This is why we, as a public body, have to make sure that there is some accountability there. The employees are asking what are we doing with our money. Who is causing all these increases? How can we have a say on how this money is spent?
I can tell you that a preliminary study that I have done at my office shows that overall, at least between 1994 and 2002, the number of claims have gone down, the number of rejected claims have gone up a little and their investments in some parts were not doing that well, but we don't know what happened because nobody really gets to see that, their administration has gone up all along.
These are the questions that I cannot ask. We have tried -- and Mr. Braden will be the first one to agree with me -- in the last Assembly we have had WCB people come up and answer questions, but I am convinced that having seen what I have, that this will be a fruitful and productive exercise for us to ask the Auditor General's office to look at how we are managing our WCB operations.
For all I know, everything might be fine; that's great, but maybe we could get some guidance and directions as to how they are doing and what we can do better as legislators and what we can do better to meet the needs of workers who are feeling left behind, and also address the employers who are wondering where their assessments are going and how and what determines what their rights are.
Mr. Speaker, I have been able to lay out some of the concerns that I have seen over the years and for all the reasons that I have stated. Hence, I will be supporting this motion and I would like to again thank the Member of Great Slave for doing this and I would urge the rest of the House to support this motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause