Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to continue on the same line of questioning as my colleague from Weledeh. This government has been known to have a very poor track record in the filing of claims for WSCC. Maybe if the Minister can

elude as to how many penalties have been in the late filing in such claims in the last year.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think definition of poor record is maybe not completely accurate. We have had some late filings. In 2009 there were 18 late filings; in 2010, there were 11 late filings; in 2011 – actually this might be better if I just provide just a touch more information. In 2009 there were 293 claims, 18 of them were late. In 2010 there were 343 claims, 11 of them were late. In 2011 there were 378 claims, 23 of them were late. In 2012 there were 279 claims; nine of them were late. So we’ve had a total of 61 late claims in the last four years and the total cost on late penalties was $56,000. There’s a wide range of reasons why a claim might be late. In shift work, if someone worked on a Friday and they don’t return to a shift until Tuesday, technically they would be late in filing.

So, late penalties are unfortunate. We think we can work with our employers and employees to try to reduce that. We insist that our employees file and we will work with them to try to reduce that number, but I don’t think 61 in four years out of 1,293 claims is an indication of excessive late fines or late submissions.

The Minister is correct; this is a cascade approach. I think the first fine, $250; second fine, $400; and it’s a $1,000 fine for every claim thereafter. That’s according to WSCC guidelines.

I beg to differ, Madam Chair. I think $56,000 is $56,000. I’m sure anyone who said $56,000 is on the floor over there, don’t worry about it, it’s a small number... I believe it’s a large number. More importantly, the fact that it won’t go away because, as we continue, even with one more claim tomorrow, that’s another thousand bucks. It will just continue like this and snowball until such time as we go to zero and get that reset, but that’s something that’s going to be ongoing.

I guess my question, Madam Chair, is I think it’s significant enough. Why are we submitting late? Do we not have the mechanism? Are we not providing the tools, the rationale for the employees to say if you are injured, you have 72 hours, please contact person X? Do we have those tools or measures to allow that to happen to reduce that amount because it does affect the budget at the end of the day? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Obviously, we don’t want to see any late submissions. That’s not our desire. We’d obviously like to save the $56,000. There are some challenges that we face and there are times when late submissions do occur. Sometimes there are time delays when an incident

occurred and when the employee reported the occurrence to the supervisor. But as soon as the supervisor becomes aware, you get them to submit a form. There have been delays between when an incident occurred and when an employee sought medical attention. They may not have thought they were injured or that they needed attention. Then the condition or the injury got larger or more obvious later on.

There were situations where employees and their supervisors were not aware that there was a requirement to report all workplace incidents, and this is something we are trying to deal with and we’re doing it through the workplace occupational health and safety committees, making sure employees are aware that every and all injuries must be reported. We don’t want this to be an excuse. We think we can work on this and we are working on that one.

There was a situation where there was an understanding between an employee and a supervisor on the process to be used to submit required WSCC forms. This is one, again, an area we can work with our occupational health and safety committees to make sure they are providing the accurate information to supervisors and employees. So we want this to go away. We want this number to drop, and hopefully we will see some results on that as we continue to move forward and help educate our staff and our managers, senior managers, on the requirements for reporting across the Northwest Territories.

It’s promising to hear we are going to be dealing with this. As I said earlier, $1,000 penalties that we claim we are going to look at in the year to come or two years to come will add up with time.

I want to ask a question in line with what the Member for Weledeh started to ask about rates. Currently, the Government of the NWT pays a 79 cent per 100 dollar rate. There has been discussion and debate out there whether or not that rate is relatively too low given our claims growth, our claims experience, our penalties and the fact that the business communities have been supplementing that so-called claims growth on the backs of businesses.

Now, I don’t expect the Minister to comment on the setup. That’s something for the other Minister, and I agree those are questions for WSCC in the future. But the point of my questions, Madam Chair, is we have a number of – I will use the term loosely – very poor performing departments, as the Minister indicated, we’ve got opportunity to improve. If we looked at comparing those very same departments in the private sector, our rate, our WSCC rate, would be well within the two or three dollars per $100. Yet, we couch those departments and wrap those departments, so to speak, with other

departments that have zero claims, as the Minister indicated – congratulations – but we are the benefactors of a relatively low rate. Vis-à-vis, the rest of the business world and the business community, I believe, is very upset.

Even though we did get a maximum 20 percent increase from 66 cents to 79 cents, are we paying our fair share? Is this government paying their fair share, is an extremely valid question, one in which we’ve asked many times here in the House before, and I will ask that question to the Minister. Given our claims growth, given our penalties, given everything that we’ve talked about today in WSCC opportunity, does $0.79 equate to what would be deemed what we’d see in the private sector for equivalent performance?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. I’m not sure this is a question for this Minister, but I’ll go to Mr. Abernethy for a response.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don’t think it is a question for this Minister. We pay what we are required to pay under the schedule that was established by the WSCC. If they change the schedule, we’ll pay what we’re asked to pay.

We pay a significant amount of money. Last year we paid $2.3 million. This year, at 79 percent, we’re going to pay 20 percent more than $2.3 million. So we’re going to be approaching $3 million just on our fees.

We already know that for 2012 our claims history has gone down noticeably. Last year when we paid $2.3 million, they paid out $1 million. I would say that we’re not costing them significantly. Between what we pay and what we got charged in fines, we’re significantly ahead of what they paid out, but at the end of the day, we don’t set the rates. It’s the WSCC that sets the rates. I would say the Member should be talking to the Minister responsible for the WSCC on how they determine the rates, how they calculate what different organizations and businesses must pay, how they do that, because, quite frankly, that’s out of the bailiwick of this particular department.

I will take the advice of the Minister and I will bring the appropriate question to the Minister responsible for WSCC at a future time during the budget process.

My last question in the same relationship to the issues of claims growth and safety, the Minister has talked today about numerous tools and resources that the department is working on and everything. Just so that we’re very clear and understand all the variety of resources out there for our employees to have access to, could the Minister provide to this House all the tools and resources that this division is developing to support the accountability of employer and workplace health and safety?

I have provided that information to committee once before and I actually listed off the list of tools that we have developed and/or are working on, but I’m happy to provide it in writing to the Member and committee if they so choose or desire.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Dolynny has no further questions. Mr. Moses, do you have a question?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we report progress.

---Defeated

Mr. Moses, do you have a further question?

Yes, I’ll move on to this question here then. In the opening comments I’ll refer to some of the discussions that we had with the Minister and the department, but he says that one of his focuses on his actions for 2013-2014 is in recruitment, development and advancement of Aboriginal employees. I also mentioned that it should be focused on northern indigenous employees as well.

When I look at the program delivery details, there is a total cost of $614,000 decrease from last year in the three areas of Maximizing Northern Employment, human resource planning and development, and staff retention, which we always have issues with. Can the Minister give us a description of why there is a decrease in there when it’s one of his priorities, and how does he think that’s going to affect us moving forward for retention and recruiting our staff?

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Under the Maximizing Northern Employment, the total budget isn’t actually changing, where it’s located is changing. We have removed or, rather, transferred some of the health recruitment positions that were in the Department of Human Resources to the Department of Health and Social Services, and some of the Maximizing Northern Employment dollars go with those positions and those particular responsibilities because they were health-dedicated funding right from the beginning.

The HR planning developments and staff retention dollars, staff retention is a slight reduction but some of the HR planning development resulting from some of the reorganization in the department we’ve created a stand-alone labour relations unit that is taking some of the dollars and moving it around. At the end of the day, there isn’t a significant reduction, but the Maximizing Northern Employment to the Government of the Northwest Territories has not changed.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Moses, nothing further? Page 3-25, Human Resources, activity summary, corporate human resources, operations expenditure summary, $9.163 million. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. With pleasure, I would like to weigh into this discussion a little bit. The opportunity before us here really comes down to something simple, which is one of the challenges about coordination. Through our corporate focus here, who is going to take charge of some of these WSCC fines and coordination and, certainly, safety? Wouldn’t this now be the time for the department to say we’ll approach the Premier and Cabinet to find a coordinating role and this could be the opportunity? Clearly, we’re hearing several Members, I was glad to hear Mr. Bromley speak up to that issue earlier today and I want to give him credit for that. Fundamentally, what’s being missed here is a coordinating role and all I’m hearing is that it’s somebody else’s problem. What is the Minister willing to do today on this particular issue?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We’ve seen huge progress in this area already, and I think creating awareness in the individual departments has helped an awful lot. I have had discussions with the Premier on this and we have discussed this with Cabinet; Cabinet is aware. The deputy minister has been discussing this at the deputy heads’ meetings on a regular basis. I think the deputies are taking responsibility and accountability for this issue, and I think we have already started to see some positive results.

As I indicated earlier when I was talking to Mr. Bromley, the Premier has indicated that this is part of the performance measurement system for senior managers in the Northwest Territories. I think the accountability is there. I think we have started to make significant progress and that can’t be forgotten.

I’m sorry, but I’m just not seeing it. The hoping that every department steps up to the plate still misses the coordinating role. It’s like an orchestra. We need a conductor to ensure everyone is playing the same tune. Sure, they all play wonderful instruments that are polished nice and they practice on their own, but the reality is, without that person tapping on the music and causing it to come together properly, it doesn’t have that element.

Here is a good example of the fact that no one is in charge of this particular thing. It’s all left up to the deputies by saying, don’t worry, you’re on your own, do the best you can. Clearly, we could have a department such as Human Resources here taking the opportunity. So what is stopping the Minister

from approaching Cabinet to say, I will seize that opportunity to help coordinate this problem, develop safety programs and initiatives that could further lend strength to better rates, and better safety and compliance?

As I’ve said before, we’ve had this discussion in Cabinet and I have discussed this with the Premier. This is going to be part of the performance measurement system for senior managers and it’s discussed on a regular basis at the deputy head level. Each of the deputy ministers are accountable, and they are accepting that accountability and making the appropriate progress within the departments.

Is this not part of the performance management process of the deputy ministers, because that’s what I’m hearing now being repeated we’re going to make it part of? To date has it not been part of it?

When I talked to the Premier we confirmed that it is, yes.