Hon. Pat Duncan: Thank you, Senator Cotter, for your sponsorship of this bill. I appreciate the intent, as you’ve so eloquently described, and I have full respect for our colleagues in the other place.

Because you mentioned in your speech that you’ve pored over all the documents, the testimony and so on, as well as pored through the bill, my question is as follows: Where in the federal‑provincial-territorial consultations do the Workers’ Compensation Boards, which are independent of government, fit?

I’m thinking of a long-term claimant with something, such as a diagnosis of PTSD, where sometimes you will get the Workers’ Compensation Board saying, “No, you’re fit to return to work, or we’re done; you’ve reached the limit.” Yet a doctor would still diagnose that person with a disability.

Would this be of assistance to them? Is this subject to the clawback? Where does that consultation fit?

Senator Cotter: I’m not very knowledgeable on the specifics about the link to workers’ compensation, but I do know that there has been consultation and dialogue with — let me call it — the insurance industry. When you think about workers’ compensation as a form of insurance, where workers and employers pay into it, to try to figure out the intersection there as well — and the minister and her office have advised me that they have identified that, and have been working to ensure that people are not damaged by the benefit where they would get here, and it would not undermine benefits to which they’re legitimately entitled to in other ways.

I will make a further exploration about the workers’ compensation point because I think it’s a very good one.