The requirements of a WSCC or actually being an active participant with the WSCC in good standing, all that means is that you’re paid in full. That’s all part of having a WSCC certification. It doesn’t preclude the fact that you’re supposed to have minimum levels of standards.

Let me liken our sister province to the south of us here. Alberta has numerous programs in place. It has what is referred to as a Health and Safety Management System where the requirements, the company has management leadership and organizational commitment, has hazard identification and assessment hazard control, worksite inspections provided, worker competency and training, incident reporting investigation, emergency response planning and program administration. These are the basic requirements that anyone wanting to work for the government as a contractor has to have, including what is referred to as partnerships in injury reduction programs, which is a voluntary program. These are just various tools that other jurisdictions have in order to have the competencies in place so that when the Government of Alberta is working with contractors through its shared services and procurement, we know that these companies are up to par and have a full, engaged Occupational Health and Safety system.

So, to the question: if the government is acting as a principal contractor and we may be obligated to indemnify agents or contractors while working for

the government and their responsibilities, by what virtue do we have to guarantee that these companies are living up to the level of safety standards that we would think they’d have?