Then why was that not provided as an answer on page 5? Why wasn't that said, worker's advisor was asked to do the proposal and he will do that? Instead, we get a whole page telling us how it's being done, which is basically that the workers right now do not get independent assistance. You know, worker's advisor is one person. All the workers who need his assistance have to go with him and it was made very clear in our public hearing process that we need to balance this imbalance of power so that the workers don't have to come here. The WCB administration and tribunal, everybody, by law, have WCB lawyers, WCB medical advisors. They have all the infrastructure they could ever have. Workers have nothing other than the worker's advisor. We, as a committee, said we need to balance this and we are asking the expert. The worker's advisor is the expert on workers' interest issues. We're asking the Minister to ask him to do a proposal. You know what? I'm not going to ask any more questions because I think this goes back the fact that WCB is a public institution, they're supposed to be accountable to the Legislative Assembly. The Legislative Assembly is a law-making body, WCB gets to do what they do, collect money from employers because we enable them by law to do that, and the whole infrastructure and the intent of this legislation exists for the benefit of workers and nothing I see today...It just demonstrates again that WCB doesn't get it, and this latest answer says that again. I'm sorry; I cannot help it. But it just repeats itself. There's a whole page on WCB telling us how it's done now and it ain't gonna change. So I just want to put WCB on notice that I look forward to seeing the legislation next week and I expect to have there enough infrastructure built for the workers and, if not, we will change the legislation to make sure that it does. So I don't need to ask any more questions. Thank you.
Sandy Lee on Item 16: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
In the Legislative Assembly on March 7th, 2007. See this statement in context.
Item 16: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 16: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
March 6th, 2007
Page 1307
See context to find out what was said next.