Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister responsible for the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission. I want to mention a couple of things to set the background here.
Our Occupational Health and Safety Regulations are over 22 years old and some four years ago, in September of 2010, the WSCC Safety Advisory Committee started to do revisions on these very outdated Occupational Health and Safety Regulations. These regulations govern workers everywhere in the NWT, and after a lot of work, an initial draft was completed and distributed for consultation and there was a huge outcry across the territory, particularly industry and especially the construction industry. So they had further consultations. They did, I think, two or three more drafts and then the Safety Advisory Committee determined that the regulations were complete and
they were sent to the Minister for approval. That was in January of 2012, literally years ago.
My first question to the Minister: What is the reason that we are still using 22-year-old regulations when we’ve had a new set of regulations ready for almost three years? Thank you.