I appreciate the response; however, the department is very aware that regulations on the floor of the House here are something to which we, as legislators, have absolutely zero impact on. We can talk about them in the House; we can make inferences; we can make suggestions; but we have no control over regulations. We do, however, have control over legislation. So, when legislation is brought before the House, it is deemed appropriate that proper consultation pursue. That proper consultation was reached out to all stakeholders.

Clearly, what we are hearing today is still that we are trying to match an act to regulations that are out of our control and we are somehow supposed to understand and agree to these changes to the act in the absence of full consultation, which makes it very problematic in context. So it is very difficult for me to move forward with this act as a Member because we are kind of doing things a little backwards. We are matching legislation to regulations and in the absence of consultation, in the absence of not having all stakeholders provide input, these changes to the act will affect small businesses. In fact, those businesses of less than 20 are going to be affected greatly in terms of extra costs to maintain certain occupational health and safety standards, and those costs will affect the businesses that affect Northerners that affect their way of life.

What has the department done to evaluate what is the financial impact of this act on small businesses of less than 20 people?

I appreciate Mr. Grundy’s reply to the question. Why didn’t we go and consult our stakeholders in preparation for today’s amendments and bill? What was the impetus for not reaching out? Like I say, it has been a number of years since we took it upon ourselves to do this. What was the reason for not consulting these various stakeholders to which it will have an immediate and direct impact to small businesses throughout the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to welcome the Minister and the department here this evening for I think a very important bill. One in which that I think drew a little bit of controversy and a little bit of concern when we did the clause-by-clause. I think it came down to the level of consultation that was undertaken to prepare the bill that we see today. As you heard this evening in the Minister’s comments, extensive consultations – his words – occurred September 2010 to March 2011, and to our knowledge, very little consultation took place in the drafting of this bill to match current regulations under the occupational health and safety matter.

So, first and foremost, as I indicated back in our clause by clause, I was going to give the Minister and his delegation appropriate time and energy to go and consult after the clause by clause and so at this time I will be asking the Minister or his designate whether or not they did get concurrence and approval from such areas as the Governance Council of the Workers’ Compensation Division, the Chamber of Commerce, both territorial and in Yellowknife, the Chamber of Mines and others that we talked about.

So, again, I will ask the Minister or designate, has this been fully consulted with these groups and have they been blessed to support the Safety Act? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a motion. I move that Clause 13 of Bill 64 be amended by renumbering proposed subsections 13(3) and (4) as 13(7) and (8) respectively, and adding the following before those renumbered sections:

Notice of delay

(4) If the directors delay the redemption or payment under subsection (2), the member affected must be notified of the reason for the delay no later than 30 days after the time for redemption where payment has elapsed.

Continuing notice

(5) If the redemption of payment continues to be delayed, the member must be notified each six months of the reason for the continuing delay.

Payment when possible

(6) When the directors determine that the circumstances giving rise to the delay under subsection (2) no longer apply, the amounts owing to the member must be paid within 30 days after that determination.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate the response. We heard the term monitor, which I think is of importance to Members of this side of the House. So I guess the question we should be asking is in this monitoring there must be some measurable, there must be information that would be subscribed to in terms of finding efficiencies within this Fine Option Program.

Will the department and will the Minister commit on sharing that information as this act comes on board and be able to share the success or the failures of this program as it relates to this act being passed? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do respect the Minister’s response and I do not want to split hairs with the Minister or department. I just think this nomenclature that we used to define this act is a bit misleading. A true victim here is a person who has had an act against them of violence or anything against them, and in a lot of cases I don’t think the victims themselves are recipients to the fines the way it’s set up by the courts. So I just want to make that perfectly clear.

There’s going to be a significant amount of impact and cost as these fines become higher and people or inmates are being released or being charged will be looking at the Fine Option Program to work off these debts because the fines are going to be substantially higher than the past. Which means that we’re going to have a lot more manpower in play to manage and mitigate a lot of this client option program.

What does the department expect to see in terms of costs associated with managing the influx that we may see with the Fine Option Act or a program in full effect with this act? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to welcome the Minister and the department here today as we review this act. I guess, first and foremost, after being well schooled on the principles of this act and the mechanism behind this act, I had a concern with the title of this act, called the Victims of Crime Act. When you look at where this money is going and how this money is collected, victims of any crime do not receive a penny of this, this actually goes to rehabilitation of inmates and so I really strongly encourage the department to consider renaming this act to clearly reflect where this money is going to give nomenclature to these acts. It’s a bit of a misnomer that we’re misleading the public that victims are receiving this money. So that’s more of an observation as we move forward, Madam Chair.

What we have here are changes to the regulations that will follow with respect to increased surcharges, so if the department could give us a better idea

and scope as to when this act, if it does pass, when will these changes take effect? Thank you.

My former question, especially going back to warrantless seizures – I’ll have to take a look through my notes here – is when we look at any type of case precedent in this area the term “reasonableness” comes to the forefront each and every time when provisions are talked about in terms of warrantless search and seizures and these fall under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So, I guess, from the department’s perspective, what legal advice can you give us as Members of the House as to what is that degree of reasonableness that would be passed to the coroner in the event of making that determination of a warrantless seizure? Thank you.