Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m alarmed to hear about the apparently huge issue of health and safety performance in the GNWT workplace. Information received from the Minister of Human Resources describes GNWT performance under the Safe Advantage program created by the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission in 2007. It says that employers with proven safety and return-to-work practices receive a refund and employers with poor safety and return-to-work practices pay a penalty.

Since the program was created in 2007, the GNWT has never received a good performance refund. In fact, over the past four years we’ve paid $255,000 in penalties, rising to a peak this year. During that time, claims experience costs topped $2 million. This is not good, and I will be asking the Minister how our workplace injury rates and costs compare to other workplace categories.

There are also confusing results of management practice questionnaires completed by GNWT to report on its performance. Managers describe their performance in such areas as inspections, hazard management, and Occupational Health and Safety Program evaluation. Survey results have given steadily improving ratings, from 17 percent in return-to-work practices and zero percent on safety in 2007-2008, to 100 percent in return-to-work practices and 86 percent on safety in 2010-2011. Contrast this to the dramatic growth in penalties from zero four years ago to a quarter million-plus this most recent year and claims costs peaking at

another three-quarters of a million dollars in 2010-2011 and it’s hard to understand how the survey ratings could be improving when claims and penalties are skyrocketing.

Incredibly, the GNWT does not have health and safety committees intended under the act. According to the Minister’s explanation, the GNWT will establish a health and safety committee structure, which will require departments to have occupational health and safety committees and an overall committee, it will meet the legislated requirements of the act by the end of 2011-2012. We’re talking “will,” four years into the introduction of the program.

What are these injuries and what are we doing to avoid them? Information I’ve gathered indicates health and safety committees are a rarity. I will be asking the Minister how rare and how it’s possible that our penalties and costs continue to go up while our ratings appear to improve, all in the absence of government-wide health and safety committee structure that meets the requirement of the act.