Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don't mean to be redundant, but I don't want to pass the opportunity to also acknowledge and say some thanks for where we are with respect to this new Workers' Compensation Act and the work that has come before that.
Mr. Chair, I want to, first of all, thank the committee because I think that the report that the chair, Mrs. Groenewegen, read into the House this morning says everything about what we have been able to include in this legislation. I am hoping that the workers, the employers and anybody out there who had an interest in what is going on with respect to this legislation will take the time to read that. I think it really speaks well. It really speaks to a lot of work that has gone on in terms of I was listening to what we were being told about the things that needed to be changed, not just from the injured workers but all the stakeholders. I think that report just speaks for itself. I am really proud of what little role that I have had to play in that.
Mr. Chair, I also want to thank Mr. Braden. I guess when you choose to leave politics, you get more thanks than if you are not, so maybe everybody is thanking Mr. Braden because of it. But I have to tell you that things get pretty hectic around here and we are all juggling different priorities, but Mr. Braden is always there as the last man standing fighting for the last word to make sure that we go through all the highs and lows and the exciting parts and the boring parts. I have other duties in other areas where I couldn't be there. I always knew that he would be there to make sure that the work gets done.
Mr. Chair, I also want to thank the committee because, as the chair mentioned in the report, this legislative review process tried a method of working through these changes, something that has not been done before, and that was the workshop that the chair, Mrs. Groenewegen, talked about. That was a really useful exercise. In that, we had the Minister, the board of the Governance Council; we had the CEO; we had all the staff. We had 12 or 15 people in there working out all the clauses. I think we should all be very proud of the work that we did in that regard. I think that also speaks to what Mr. Dent spoke of earlier about how we can do things differently as a consensus government to make laws, not in a confrontational and partisan manner, but talking about how we best build the line the best way possible. It is not a win-win or lose-lose scenario, but it is something that we can all work together to make as ready and as finished a legislation as we possibly can. I would like to really acknowledge that process.
I would like to, in particular, thank the staff of WCB. I know that, in this House, over the last eight years, Mr. Braden and I were there in 1999 when, for some reason, a lot of cases...We were both getting more WCB cases. We went through the Act Now, a consultation process under Mr. Handley when he was the Minister responsible for WCB. This is the latter part of that eight-year exercise. Of course, Minister Krutko was there throughout the process. In that process, I know that there were some pretty strong words spoken here. I know that the WCB staff that work at the WCB and all the people that work in our government structure, we know them personally. We go to school together. We use the same retail businesses. In talking to them personally, I know for some of them it was puzzling to them why the work that they do was not as clearly understood or criticized so much, but I hope that there will be enough communication from the management of WCB to explain to the staff and maybe if they saw the report that we have worked on in the new legislation, everybody could understand that we had to make the motions to bring the Auditor General in. We had to do lots of statements, motions and actions taken in this House to get us this far. It was all in the interest of the public interest that we serve here. I do really want to thank the new CEO and all of the other senior staff that was involved, as well as the medical and legal advisors.
When we do work like we have done here, I am very proud and I think we should all be proud. This doesn't get done without a lot of people being involved. I think this was a really good exercise. It is different than any other way we have done in making laws. We should all be proud of that.
I just want to finish by saying I have been trying to explain to some of the injured workers that I have been working with, about the changes we are making. While I am very proud of what we have done and I think we have gone a very long way in addressing some of the deficiencies, I am not sure that this will ever be enough. I guess the real essence of it will be when this legislation comes into effect
and how it is implemented. It has been said often that we cannot legislate corporate culture or lots of actions that we do. We could do a lot of good with or without legislation. If we don't have the intention to do good, no legislation could make you. But I am very confident that this legislation could achieve that. From the perspective of injured workers, I think that is yet to be proven. I just spent, two nights ago, 77 minutes on the phone with somebody who was convinced that there was nothing we could do anything good about WCB legislation. I am hoping that not with the WCB legislation but the whole compensation system, even that individual will give us a chance and give us an opportunity to have this implemented. I'm very confident that this is a new beginning for all of us and it's a culmination and it's a good conclusion to all the work that we have done. I forgot to thank the worker's advisor, but he was thanked very loudly earlier. So later on I'm going to have some specific comments to make on some clauses, but I'd just like to end there. Thank you.