PUBLIC REVIEW OF NO-FAULT INSURANCE IN SASKATCHEWAN page 3
DR. REG MARTSINKIW:	Our next speaker, it's with exceptional pride that I have to introduce him. I've known him for many years. He's got a bio as long as my arm and a little longer, but we're just going to hit on the highlights.
	Larry is a very well-respected lawyer and family man and community leader in Prince Albert. He coincidentally was the -- is the past president of the Law Society in 1995 when no-fault came in, so he's very well familiar with it. This man has chaired the Kinsmen Workshop. He's chaired the Kinsmen Foundation. He's a life member of the Kinsmen Club. He's chaired the Holy Hospital -- Holy Family Hospital Board. He was the initial man -- I remember this. He got a lot of press when they started Prince Albert Hospital District Board. He's chaired the Saskatchewan Winter Games. He's the Prince Albert citizen of the year. Hey, I could go on, but it's my pleasure to introduce this nice little Ukrainian man from Yorkton, Saskatchewan, makes his home in Prince Albert, Larry Zatlyn.
LARRY ZATLYN:	Thanks, Dr. Reg. I think, Patricia, one of the things that should be added to the list of items that you sell -- well, back there, Patricia, listening to the discussions this morning and this afternoon is you should probably sell tape recorders. Sounds like some people might benefit from them.
	My objective is to discuss from the legal perspective, albeit in a summary fashion, this afternoon certain aspects of the no-fault insurance scheme that has been in place since January 1st, 1995. The method I'm going to employ is to discuss certain of the anomalies that seem to exist.
	At the outset I want to openly declare that in my judgement and opinion, all residents of Saskatchewan are best served by having available to them as much information about no-fault as is possible. Informed members of the public can then arrive at an informed judgement and provide valuable input in the process of formulating the insurance scheme which best serves the needs for the one million citizens of Saskatchewan.
	As Dr. Reg pointed out, no-fault was introduced in the year that I was president of the Law Society, and because no-fault was introduced without public consultation, despite the recommendations of the consultants that there be such input, the first step was to put together a fairly detailed report, which was released in October 1996 together with an executive summary, and it looks something like that.
	The driving force behind this report was to provide an analysis which could be widely distributed directly to the media through the MLAs and to interested members of the public. It was intended to be information. In addition, I have always advocated that members of the public should obtain for themselves a copy of Part 8 of the Automobile Accident Insurance Act, which is the no-fault scheme. Each -- and of course each should carefully review the ads and the publications circulated by SGI and match all of the foregoing with your own experiences and those of your family, friends and neighbours; the reason being is so that a person can indeed become truly informed, educated and aware of an important law that governs all of us.
	Each and every year SGI's message goes out to some nearly one-half million people in this province, being drivers, registered owners of vehicles, corporations, etc. The administrative expense for this is paid for those purchasing licence plates and driver's licences. The first question one might ask themselves is if SGI submits informational -- informational material about no-fault scheme through its regular mailings, why would SGI object to those with a contrary view using the same envelope at no cost to SGI to distribute the voice of other views? Is that openness? Is it fair?
	One may ask the question what does no-fault in a simplified concept mean. What it means is that we pay for a licence, a pool of money accumulates, and let's say it's about 400 million dollars per year. This pool of money is essentially used for three purposes: Administrative expenses; damage repairs to vehicles, property repairs; and, lastly, personal injury claims. After you take out the administrative costs, approximately more or less one-half or more goes to property damage claims and the other half or less goes to personal injury claims because as you've heard earlier, it's approximately 50/50 or slightly more is spent fixing vehicles than dealing with personal injury claims. Now, no-fault left alone the property damage claim side, so one-half or more of the pool of money was unaffected. Those expenses are there and going up and noticeably are never discussed by SGI with the public.
	That left us to look solely at the personal injury side. What no-fault did was to expand to cover more people, and who are those people? Well, they are the people who cause the injuries, who are at fault in accidents. What SGI did through no-fault was to ensure that they received equal benefits to the innocent victims who they injured, and so thus it makes common sense that if you have one pool of money -- let's say 130 million dollars or so -- and more injured people are going to share in it, then those who are the innocent victims by definition will receive less.
	Now, how did the savings occur in order to expand the benefits to include the at-fault drivers? The majority of the savings comes from what you've all been talking about to this point today, and that is from not recognizing pain and suffering as an item subject to compensation. The second major portion of the contribution comes from what is in reality a deductible. The first seven days of wages are not compensated for, and thereafter, only 90 percent of net income is paid, which means that you have a deductible on your income of 10 percent for each and every day and each and every week that one is disabled. This -- these deductibles and these sums are part of the savings achieved so that the drunk drivers and those who are at fault can enjoy the same benefits as everyone else who is injured.
	Lastly and the third part of the scheme was a distribution of payments formulated to compensate wage earners, businesspeople, part-time earners, non-earners, students and youth under certain formulas with the amounts fixed low enough to ensure that there was enough money left over for payment to the at-fault drivers so that they would indeed be equally compensated.
	It appears there are more or less 6,000 persons injured each year by motor vehicles, 6,000 per year. Apparently there are some 60,000 collision claims filed each and every year in Saskatchewan. This means in 10 percent of all collision claims there is a personal injury claim. The first anomaly is that on the property damage side of this pool of funds, which is about half or more, the deductible is fixed at $700. On the personal injury side, the deductible is those amounts I said earlier, one week's salary and 10 percent, and so if you took a wage earner at $30,000 per year and the person were disabled for say six months, the person with the personal injury pays a deductible, a real cash deductible -- in other words, it's lost income -- of at least $1,000.
	So earlier on there was discussion. There seems to be an emphasis on the property side as opposed to the personal side. Well, think of the deductible that you who have been injured and who are victims have paid in order to benefit the drivers who in some instances have caused the suffering that you've incurred. Your deductible is greater than the at-fault driver paid as a deductible on his or her car. Why would the deductible for personal injury claims be higher than the deductible on fixing vehicles? Putting it another way, is property damage more worthy of compensation than the financial losses suffered by an innocent victim?
	I'm now going to go on and I'm going to quickly go through these 'cause there are a lot of examples, but these are from cases, so the things I'm telling you about, kinds of examples come from cases. They're all cited and so forth and -- but I do want to give you a flavour of the kind of people and the kinds of situations that are protected.
	If in driving down a highway a wheel flies off the vehicle in front of you -- or recently in Ontario in particular wheels are flying off some of the large transport units -- and cause permanent and serious injuries to the not-at-fault victims, why should manufacturer's liability for defective workmanship or an insurance company's liability for defective repairs be protected by the Saskatchewan insurance scheme? Is it fair that Saskatchewan residents protect those companies?
	Or if your seat belt is defective, why should the motor-vehicle manufacturer be protected? Is that fair? Is it fair that you should suffer pain without compensation so that you can protect the insurance companies?
	If failure to keep roads in good repairs in some instances is allowing drivers to sue for the damage to his or her car and you can get return of the $700 deductible, is it fair in the same accident you can sue for the deductible to your car and in some instances get it -- and there's been lots of citations in the newspaper where Highways is paying for these -- but the deductible you're paying for lost income cannot be recovered in the same fashion? So that your vehicle's repair is a hundred percent complete, but on the personal injury side, you are making a contribution of 10 percent of your income plus your first week's salary to benefit the reckless drivers.
AUDIENCE MEMBER:	And you can't even drive that nice fixed vehicle that you have.
MR. ZATLYN:	Well, exactly, but you can enjoy it in your garage or your front driveway. Under the legislation, if a person uses a vehicle to deliberately run into a pedestrian, willfully run into a pedestrian, the egislation prevents, even under those extreme circumstances, a claim for the pain and suffering caused for the injured pedestrian. Is it fair that a driver who causes an automobile to be used as a lethal weapon can inflict pain and expect you and I to suffer that pain without any compensation whatsoever for the pain and suffering? Is it fair that the injured pedestrian should incur all of the pain and suffering for all of the rest of his or her years of life without any compensation whatsoever under a no-fault scheme?
	Is it fair that people who deliberately make the decision to drive while impaired should be able to wreak havoc with innocent persons and yet the drunk driver has equal opportunity to claim for equal benefits for similar injuries?
	Now, much has been made that impaired drivers lose one benefit, the so-called permanent disability benefits, which occur in about 200 of the 6,000 injury claims every year, but there are recent court decisions that indicate that indeed, impaired drivers can in certain instances even collect for permanent disability. Is that fair?
	You will also recall a fairly -- there's a fairly large number of recent newscasts over the last few months where people who admittedly are drinking at the time of an accident and have caused the accident are actually acquitted of impaired driving and, of course, when that occurs, then they're no different than anyone else. The criminal -- and, of course, SGI keeps saying, well, that's up to the police, and we all know that the Criminal Code is not designed around the no-fault scheme in Saskatchewan. It's designed with a system of checks and balances which includes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and as we know, the Charter is there to protect people from government, from government.
	Is it fair to say that we say to the injured victim who suffers for the rest of his or her life don't worry, leave it to the criminal justice system when we know full well the criminal justice system is not designed to deal with those at fault in the -- in car accidents? It's designed with a broader purpose in mind, a broader social purpose in mind. Sometimes it works in automobile accidents, sometimes it doesn't.
	A comment on the old system was the insurance limit of $200,000. If your damages were more than that, all you would get was 200,000. Well, were you aware that a family security package policy, which costs in the range of $100 a year -- which is about what you still pay; there's really been very little reduction -- protected the whole family for up to one million dollars? Have you tried to purchase an insurance policy for $100 after the no-fault scheme which covers you for pain and suffering, denies -- covers you for pain and suffering up to a million dollars?
	Is it fair that because no-fault legislation denies the existence of compensation for pain and suffering you cannot claim for it, you cannot even insure for it, and as a victim, the price you pay is that further deductible I talked about earlier? Is it -- is that deductible fair to you or is it simply too much?
	In the report we did in October of -- released in October of 1997, we talked about certain groups of individuals who are subject to certain financial deductibles, and some of those have already been touched upon. The self-employed, they have a choice. They can take 90% of their net income or attempt to hire a replacement worker. As Mr. Cartier was just mentioning a minute ago, the $6 per hour kind of employee situation. Can a farmer afford firstly -- ask Mr. Cartier, can you afford a 10% deductible of your net income? What farmer now is in a position to give 10% of their net income to benefit drunk drivers? I would -- I would dare say likely none. Is it fair that they're expected to do it under the current scheme?
	And if you're a self-employed person and your business cannot be continued because you're sick and you're getting your 90% and you can't hire a replacement person at $6 an hour or whatever's allowed -- and the allowance can be up to $550 per week, which -- but as pointed out, it's in the discretion of SGI, and so if you can't continue your business and it's necessary to shut it down, the costs of the cancelled lease, the costs of any losses incurred all come out of the 90% of net income that you receive based on your previous earnings.
	Homemakers. Now, firstly, it's interesting because homemakers are classified under the table of contents, which is -- this is the Part 8 scheme. You'll be pleased to know homemakers now come under non-earners. Kind of fits, doesn't it?
AUDIENCE MEMBER:	We don't matter.
MR. ZATLYN:	So no compensation is available to a homemaker because of the classification homemakers are under, and even if you perform your work with increased disability, there is no allowance.
	What's really I think of concern and maybe that should be of concern to members of the public is that it was just four years before the no-fault scheme that the Courts in Saskatchewan finally recognized compensation for homemaker services within -- and yet within four years of that recognition, no-fault returned to the status quo non-earner, non-compensation.
	Students. A student is defined as one 16 or over and in an educational facility. Thus, a Grade 11 student potentially and a student completing a fourth-year course in education or third or fourth-year course -- third or fourth year in nursing or six-year course in law or medicine are all treated the same, all treated the same, same grid or sometimes it's referred to as you're locked in the same grid, gridlock.
	If such a student received long-term disabilities are you aware that the income would be the same for all such students? You wonder how many of these medical students realize that if they don't have a job when they're injured and they're not going to be able to practice medicine or practice -- or teach or practice nursing, they would get the same compensation that the student in Grade 11 would have gotten, notwithstanding the extra costs presumably incurred to attain the higher level of education, and if you take someone -- for instance, just to use a further example of the deductible I talked about, if you took someone who's in the final year of education but did not have a job and was permanently injured and could not teach, I mean if you think of their compensation relative to the starting salary -- starting education salary of about 30,000 a year, which slides up to about $48,000 a year, the deductible for that personal injury for that individual victim is very very substantial.
	Seniors as well join homemakers. Homemakers are not alone in that category of non-earner. If the accident occurs after retirement, there is no income replacement benefits, no compensation for pain and suffering nor for loss of enjoyment of life. A senior after 180 days might have room to file a claim for income replacement benefits if he or she, quote, "could have held," end of quote, employment at the date of the accident. This is a subjective determination within the jurisdiction of the adjuster, and is it fair that one could be an injured senior with absolutely no compensation whatsoever?
	No-fault requires all of those who are inflicted with pain and suffering receive no compensation as you all well know for pain and suffering -- for that pain and suffering unless a person can demonstrate a permanent disability which falls within certain particular categories identified in SGI's charts.
	For example, anyone who suffers a soft-tissue injury, even if such injury has resulted in disabling chronic pain or fibromyalgia, is not entitled to any pain for that pain and suffering -- is not entitled to any payment for such pain and suffering. Does that seem fair to you?
	Do you remember -- there's an ad that's run every now and again that SGI runs that runs something like, quote, is something like "No one walks away from pain and suffering," which seems like a strange ad for them to be running because the caption might read, No one walks away from pain and suffering; underneath, But SGI does.
	It is now being more openly stated what we well knew back in 1995, that no-fault is good for the public because it is bad for lawyers. I think that was primarily the staining and the rallying point to convince the public that this had to be good because anything that's bad for lawyers by definition must be good for the public.
	In a recent letter which is circulated -- I won't name the author for the moment; we have the letter -- "Lawyers are schooled in and philosophically bound to an adversarial tort system." Well, unfortunately the learned writer of that letter -- and he was -- is a learned person -- doesn't understand the legal system very well because what all lawyers are bound to is a system of justice, and the system of justice is the pursuit of truth, and the adversarial system is the tool we use in the context that it is more than likely that we will find truth and if we find justice if the position of both sides is advanced. That advocacy often takes place before tribunals, commissions, mediation sessions as well as in courts.
	I challenge members of the public to look at the Act itself and to decide for yourself do you understand. Do you feel any reasonable person is capable of understanding the phraseology in this Act? And, of course, that's why they've put out the booklets. It's interesting. SGI publishes booklets telling you their view of what this Act says, and as was explained, a lot of people apparently don't get the books, and I suspect in many instances a lot of people don't understand the booklets don't necessarily reflect what the legislation is as it applies to your situation.
	Have you thought to yourself if a layman is supposed to represent themselves before SGI, why does SGI need all these medical consultants and why do they always refer matters to their, quote, "legal people" if this stuff is so easy to understand? Have you ever thought to yourself that if this Act was designed so that you as a victim can represent yourself, then why isn't it written in layman's language? What would be so difficult about using simple words that a person could read and actually understand what your rights and benefits and obligations may be? And you can be forgiven because the Act is foreign not only to laymen but is demonstrated by ample court cases within the courts where we find one level of court finding an interpretation one way and an appellate level making a different determination on the exact same wording of the Act. Is it fair to an individual to be faced with legislation that is incomprehensible and the language of which is incomprehensible to that victim?
	Have you found it curious that a review committee which is mandated by the Act to review and report, quote, "on all matters concerning this Part," which is the Part 8 no-fault, has some members who have spoken out and/or written strongly on the topic of no-fault but who, we are told, will think and act objectively and neutrally, but have you heard of one person appointed to the committee who has written out or spoken against no-fault? Does it strike you as strange?
	The message that should be taken from my presentation is that in the search for fairness and justice, we are balancing the kind of system we want to compensate injured victims measured against the premiums we are prepared to pay, recognizing that if we continue at the rate of 60,000 collisions per year, we will continue to injure 6,000 or more of our people each and every year. Of course, many of these injuries are minor, but they do involve some personal traumas. On the other hand, some of these injuries are going to be lifelong. What is fair compensation? What is just compensation to those people that we injure and cause pain and suffering for the rest of their lives?
	I suggest that no rational answer can be provided unless people are knowledgeable about what is, and that is the reason we have things like freedom of the speech and freedom of the press. It's to ensure that there is distribution of information and knowledge, for we all know that knowledge is power. Ignorance may be bliss. Bliss may be dangerous. Knowledge will allow us to shape and form and dialogue with each other about our insurance scheme, which is a nongovernment-subsidized scheme. This does not come out of our tax dollars. It comes out of our licence plates, our insurance premiums. It's your money.
	It seems to me that when we talk of support for no-fault being fought on the basis that it's bad for lawyers, but I'd like you to consider and what needs to be made clear is that this is a victims' issue. What -- this is all about what is happening to you and your body, and I suggest that when you think about your struggle against what is -- is quite an uphill battle -- and that's been discussed about, but think of the model -- a good model in the justice system that comes from the justice system, and that is in Joyce Milgaard who stood alone for many many years, many many decades to fight for the freedom of her son, and I think she -- she exemplifies a model -- or as a model in the fight against injustice.
	What is the system of compensation we believe properly redresses the wrong and the harm to our citizens by those of us who drive badly? One of the great inspirational talks I've heard of in the last number of years was given by Ralph Nader in May of 1999, and he reminded me of something I'd heard about 30 years ago while I was in law school. Quote:"Justice is a seamless web and so is injustice. Gets to be contageous. They figure you accept this, then you will accept that. If you accept that, you will accept this, and it becomes a slippery slope, and the real question is what will you accept? In a democracy, the answer is yours, and your answer we all respect and accept."
	Thank you.
DR. REG MARTSINKIW:	Thank you. Thank you, Larry. There will be more questions, but we have to roll along, and the next lady that's going to be speaking I met on the telephone. She's the executive director manager in charge of the Blue Rose Advocate Society of North Battleford. She leads her life with her heart as she pours her heart out and has helped a lot of victims of SGI, and I'd like to present to you now Theresa Charpentier. Theresa, please.
THERESA CHARPENTIER:	Hello, all of you. I'm going to start this off by telling you that I was not a victim of SGI, but I was a victim of the WCB system in 1990, and it seems hard to believe that it's been 10 years since this long fight with no-fault.
	What happened in 1995 brought back a lot of memories for me, who was fighting back in 1990 against a WCB system, for the horrific stories that I heard were the same ones over and over and over again from people who have been victimized by WCB. It was so horrific in my own family that I was a nurse for 25 years and I lost my job. They fired me because I couldn't do the work. We lost our home. I lost my nursing licence because nobody would hire me to do light duties, and it was a big battle, but I remember talking before the WCB building back a few years after my injury, and I said, You know, you people remind me of a dictatorship, and I want you to know something is that during World War II, there was a dictatorship but there was also a resistance, and we are the resistance and we're going to be the resistance, and we're going to be a pain in your backside for as long as we can be, so with that, we started to fight for people. I can't tell you how many calls we got repeatedly and repeatedly at my home.
	Every year there's about 17,000 personal claim injuries with WCB. Every year there's about 6,000 claims with SGI for personal injury claims, so as you can see, there's a lot of people who need medical attention due to injuries.
	The topic I'm going to talk to you today specifically is what happens when clients are misdiagnosed. Since the introduction of SGI in 1995, I've heard a lot of the same similar stories and the same similarities coming out of medical documents. They aren't in particular -- and I'm just going to quote from some of the ones and give you some of the similarities that I find to get rid of you.
	They say people are still having a great deal of pain, yet they have been told there is nothing objective to show the reasons for this. Most people come and ask you what do they mean by that, what do they mean by objective. I tell them it's something they can see with their naked eye. Statements such as the client presents with a high perceived disability stating extreme interference in their life due to pain. What does that mean?
	People are being told they are pain focused and that this is resulting in their inability to give their best efforts in the rehabilitation centres. People are being told that they are exaggerating their symptoms, and we find statements such as symptom magnification -- big words -- stamped on their cases.
	People are being told that they are psychologically distressed due to other things in their lives, okay? It could be a marital breakup, but we know what happens, or a job loss or a financial loss of income. I mean that's natural. It would psychologically distress anybody.
	The reports seem to pick up and choose the desired topic unassociated with the accident to blame depression, anxiety or frustration on rather than what the accident has done in this person's life. People are often not believed also by their doctors in some cases or by the rehabilitation centres or by the specialists that they are having serious pain, and many times the diagnostic tests are not done 'til months or years after long suffering, frustration and anxiety and depression.
	People are being told that they are faith healed by SGI and can return to employment and will have to learn to deal with the pain as SGI is not responsible for pain and suffering; hence, all benefits cease. As you can tell from all these above statements, this does not create a user-friendly system.
	As SGI quotes that the ones that we have used above immediately set up barriers in communication for the injured individual, their claims adjuster, their rehabilitation team and sometimes the doctors, for the person no longer trusts many of those involved in the recovery. Depression, frustration and anger set in, which in turn gets misinterpreted by SGI and caregivers.
	I know now that the above tactics -- and I call them tactics -- used by this system can create such problems because events become uncontrollable. Not knowing what the future holds with respect to their functional capacity only adds to the total bewilderment and fear of the future felt by injured people over how to negotiate through all these complexities of medical, financial, rehabilitation dynamics of the no-fault system.
	We have to ask ourselves does misdiagnosis cause a wrong turn in the treatment maze of the insurance industry, especially the no-fault system? You bet it does. The experience I've had as an advocate is the only thing I can relate to, and so these are my opinions.
	The majority of back and neck injuries are treated as sprains and strains. The no-fault have adopted the philosophy provided by the so-called medical research the Quebec Task Force to back their medical consultants and claims adjusters who state you will be healed within 6 to 12 weeks. They do not want to look any further should you not be any better because they know what it's going to mean. They have to pay you. They will therefore carefully scrutinize all your medical history right back to the day you were born to see if you came out the right way if they can find a pre-existing condition they can blame for your lack of recovery. If they cannot find that, they will surely analyze you psychologically and come up with terms like pain focused, malingering, noncompliant or something because they don't want to pay you.
	The reasons for the no-fault system being so effective is that they do not have to pay for pain and suffering. They also know that they can use pre-existing conditions as valid reasons for showing it is not all accident related even if you functioned well with a pre-existing condition prior to the motor-vehicle accident. They also know should they cut off your benefits and you do not have access to the knowledge of how to fight them effectively, they have rendered you powerless and helpless; hence, the word the victim.
	The system can misdiagnose you from the beginning because they do not want to know the extent of your injuries or because they are following recommended protocol from their medical advisors. You may have a physician who is accepting that rehabilitation are the experts -- and many times they do -- and they will follow their advice or your doctors forget to document all the areas of your injuries -- that's another one -- on their initial reports. Hence, SGI says it's not part of the motor-vehicle accident. Or your doctors are not aware there are other diagnostic testings that can be done should your condition not be resolving, and they also say on your reports there's nothing else they can find. So it is a maze. I see these as wrong turns and dead ends in the path towards complete recovery.
	We have what we call in this province a wellness model. This is supposed to take into account all aspects of the person. A person is supposed to take responsibility for all aspects of their well-being, yet under the systems of SGI and WCB we cannot take this responsibility because they know what's best for us.
	It seems hypocritical to me to empower you prior to an injury to take responsibility for your health and put this out as a government health initiative and fund programs, the wellness grants, the wellness programs promoting this when its own government insurance systems have complete power and control over all aspects of your well-being, even when you disagree strongly with the direction that you are being pushed into.
	I have not read anything in this wellness plan that states physical or psychological pain are not recognized as valid reasons to seek medical attention. I mean they're all paid for under the government medical plan. If the advice of a family doctor or chiropractor or specialist states in order to effect a cure, common care and prudence would state you not work, this should be sufficient. Perhaps the objectiveness of all pain could be found given the amount of trained specialists and dollars. Who has this? In many cases such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, etc. that results from accidents, the clients' interpretation of their conditions has to be measured by functional capacity evaluations which become their expense. Many people are forced to obtain evidence the insurance system can see to be objective before they will believe the person. The onus is always on the injured person to prove their cases, creating further financial hardships on the individual who has no benefits and a family to take care of, yet must come up with the medical proof that will satisfy the medical advisor of SGI. Saving money is always what it comes down to, and it seems to be the main focus of SGI. By cutting an injured person off their benefits, SGI saves the money but passes their financial responsibilities on to welfare, group disability plans, Canada Pension and Employment Insurance sickness benefits. This is not morally right.
	SGI should not be allowed to throw its responsibilities onto other systems. They should be held accountable for their actions to deny or cut people off their benefits. Why should another government section increase its budget to take up all those who have been forced onto the scrap heaps of charity?
	In Ontario a study was done on WCB injured workers who were cut off benefits. 25% landed up on welfare. Our province states they don't know. I've said to them, What is so hard? Get a form. You've got computers now. Take off. Have you been cut off SGI, WCB, Canada Pension? I mean to me it's simple. Keep it simple, okay?
	What is going to happen to these people who are your more long-term cases? Is it not time for them to stand up and take notice that we've noticed this? I mean what's wrong with them? What about all those who cannot return to their predisability jobs because of pain and suffering or pre-existing conditions that are now exacerbated because of motor-vehicle accidents or have not yet been properly diagnosed?
	One of the ways I think SGI and WCB both could be truly effective is to have good case managers, a good case manager. I mean they got rid of all us nurses that couldn't work, okay? Could be a nurse, okay, or a good rehab counsellor, and I know we talk about rehab counsellors, but there are good ones and others who are very savvy -- and that's the word, okay -- about specific diagnoses and can request second opinions or certain specialties.
	Long-range views of the cost effectiveness of certain tests and strategies could be an example of the kind of thinking that we sometimes call integrated disability management. Although they state they have this in secondary and tertiary assessments, the reports I have read -- and I have read many over 10 years -- seem to be a fancy multipage report asserting you are faking your injury by what I stated earlier or that your condition has reached a plateau and you can go back to work.
	That report allows the insurance system to escape the claim and not be in bad faith. That's exactly what they do. These reports are commonplace. Anyone who has experienced a long-term claim will no doubt be faced with such a report at some time or another. I must also state that there have been -- there's been a very few, few of them, honest rehabs that I have counted on for functional capacity evaluations and vocational testings, pain management that actually do care and show respect for the entire person.
	We can only improve the no-fault systems by keeping up our diligent fight against the cruel and unjust treatment of injured people. We must open the eyes -- and I agree that we must go to the politicians -- to the realities of what these systems are doing to its people. Bring back soul and bring back heart into those handling claims an effective and integrated disability management that will reflect what we call the wellness model that we hold up.
	Remember, we hold this up to the world as a prime example of our Saskatchewan province, so if we want to do this, let's not be two-faced. Let's get in their face and let's do something about making them change this for the people of Saskatchewan. Thank you.
DR. REG MARTSINKIW:	We're going to have a little stretch. Are you getting all this down, Shawn? I can hardly believe it 'cause this has to get down to the MLAs, baby, for sure. You're doing a great job. Let's have a stretch period. She's got to change some paper here. The doughnuts are still on, and we'll get back at it again in about five minutes.
	(Hearing adjourned at 4:00 p.m.)
	(Hearing reconvened at 4:05 p.m.)
DR. REG MARTSINKIW:	We're going to have Joseph Hnatiw speaking here. He promised me for sure it will only go 8 1/2 minutes. After that we have Doug Miller from Choiceland and then Mrs. Anderson, so, ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for Joseph Hnatiw.
JOSEPH HNATIW:	Thank you. I've actually heard a lot of stories and been through the hospitals, through the therapy situations and through the adjusters, and is there anybody from SGI here? Good question. No. I usually can pick them out. I might just point one out here.
AUDIENCE MEMBER:	A little louder, sir.
JOSEPH HNATIW:	Okay. I actually did want to speak out a little loud today, I did, because I'm really soft-spoken and I like to be that way, but today I'm going to start speaking a little louder.
	It took me a long time with this whole system coming from the farm, work. Mom and dad had a 24-hour operation, a restaurant, gas station. 20 years old, highball, working hard, making lots of money, got on with CN five years. I know how to make money. I know how to work, and I know how to work damn hard.
	I end up getting in an accident, T-boned actually, took my back out for me. Well, I thank God I'm standing here in front of you. I can -- I can pull through that and work on the body trying to be healthy. That's most important. Health is most important in this country. That is what we stand for here in Canada. That's what we have. If we don't have that, we have nothing. If you don't have your health, you don't have nothing. You'll find out as I carry on that there's a lot about health.
	So I can't work. I continue on with SGI. They pay me Part 2 payments $600 a month, from $3,500 a month to an income of $600 a month. You're starting to sell stuff off. You're starting to get squeezed. You get a lawyer. Lawyers try to practice law, okay, and some lawyers are good in their profession in a certain position of law andthey're educated in that area. Well, I grabbed a lawyer that wasn't as educated as I thought and was very incompetent. He's actually been disbarred, not from my case but prior to it and caused me a lot of problems.
	I needed money. I got into another accident in '87 and got T-boned downtown again in Saskatoon. Hurt again. Well, there's two cases now. Now I've got two people on the go with SGI. Well, he says, Let's settle the first one. I say, I need the money. I do. I'm broke. My family has been exhausted. Idon't want to put my pain and suffering on my family and friends, so he says $30,000. I said, $30,000? It's been 2 1/2 years. I have been making $30,000 a year plus depending on overtime, so I believe I should get paid $60,000. He says, We'll just deal with your pain and suffering, Joe; we'll deal with your wage loss second accident. I said, Okay.
	Well, when it comes through with it all, papers get changed, I see 11,500 I signed for, which was 30,000 I signed for. He had paid Part 2 payments back to SGI, the $600 they paid me a month. They got 18,500 back. I had an assignment to the Credit Union. They knew about it. Well, they got the other $8,600, which was good 'cause I could pay my debts 'cause I like to work hard, I like to have a credit rating. I like to be good. I'm an honest man, and I smoke dope and I inhale.
	So anyways, that's not the issue here 'cause I've had a lot of other medications that are a lot worse than that, I can tell you that, and put me through hell, stomach ulcers, bleeding stomach for three months, but I've tried every remedy in the world. I'm going to be healthy 'cause that's all we have is health. I'll stress that. Get better. If you're injured -- a lot of people are injured here. Get better. Find out whoever you can, see whoever you can, do whatever you can. Smile. Look at the dandelions. Put up your feet. Get healthy. That's all you've got is life, health.
	So we settle this case of $30,000 it ends up. Now I need another lawyer 'cause he's disbarred. I've got no money. I'm broke. I fight like crazy to get a lawyer. No lawyer will accept it because they say SGI is going to utilize that you settled the first accident and now it's going to be put on the second accident so they're going to say there's a conflict of interest there, which they did, and they took it right away all the way through court. They had private investigators. They followed me around for a long time. In fact, they probably spent well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars on me, SGI did, on me to delay and deny. That's what they did.
	So in the meantime -- and they do it to everybody and I hear it and it's bullshit, but we're going to sort that out one of these days here, and you've got to take it to the politicians, MLAs for sure. You all scream. You hear you got a government coalition. It's great, right, supposed to be good? You have Pat Atkinson. She does a wonderful job, but she's a teacher and she's the Minister of Health, and you have now -- finally we have someone in the position as a doctor, but he's the Minister of Education. I don't understand that. If I was to build a house, I wouldn't have a plumber doing my electrical work. That's just the way I think.
	So anyway, I carry on this litigational pursuit. I get a law firm to accept it. Well -- and it's a hard battle because they've got SGI with the top lawyers and they're paying them good to say, hey, you know, he settled on the first claim, he's got no money coming, he had no job, he was a bum, he was injured, he's a malingerer. That's what they stated. I don't know what a malingerer makes. They should draw a wage. I know it's under poverty line.
	Anyways, so I make it to trial, and they got these private investigators that I knew from back home in the restaurant when I worked around the clock for my parents and farming, and he comes in, and he came to my house in 1989 -- in 1989, him and his girlfriend -- and he told me that she was -- and they sat at the table talking for 15 minutes. I have five brothers. Including myself there's five boys, two sisters; asked me about them all. 15 minutes he leaves. I find out in court he had showed up at my house twice. Good story. Must have charged SGI for it so that they could get paid a little bit extra; made up this fabricated story that I had a hydroponic system in my basement and I've been selling pounds of dope, and I did all the farming for my parents and seeding and harvesting. I can't even handle a bump anymore, so I say, okay, and this guy's saying it, and she comes up and she says it too. We're talking to a jury here, a six-man jury like I'm a criminal, and I wish I was. Damn, I wish I was a criminal. You know why? 'Cause I'd have a lawyer appointed for me and a damn good one, you know, a damn good lawyer appointed for me.
	So I'm not a lawyer, and I know I said I'd take eight minutes, maybe a little bit more, but this is worth it. This is worth it. I've been through a lot of shit. This is worth it. So I end up trying to get a lawyer now. This law firm doesn't want to continue. It's too costly so, of course, I say I got to try to fight it on my own. Transcripts for the trial cost over $3,000. Wow. I don't got that kind of money. I'm on welfare now. Taxpayers are paying my wage, right on, $210 a month. I got a little girl. I got a family. $210 a month doesn't go very far. My family again exhausted because we're farmers and we eat good, always have, so my family looked after me and my friends, and I had a lot of friends. People will know one day I had a lot of friends and a lot of people all over the place from millionaires to the brokest people, and I love them all because that's what we're all about here, life, living, health, okay?
	So I continue on with this battle. It cost me a lot of money. That paperwork there, there's a lot more of that. I cut down a lot of trees for sure to fight these people. Hopefully there's no tree huggers here 'cause they're going to be pissed at me. So I end up taking this to the Court of Appeal. Of course, this is the Crown. Who pays who here? Okay. We don't have to discuss that, right? Okay.
	So I have to take it now to the Supreme Court of Canada level. There's $21,000 the lawyers fight over to see who's all going to get it. Everybody's in there. I don't get anything. It was great. You know, they're all standing there fighting over what kind of money they're going to get, and I said, You know, I sure hope you guys can sort this out here today because it's going to cost you guys a lot of litigational cost if you guys continue to argue this out, and that's all I could say. I said, I'll probably take it to the Supreme Court of Canada. The judge smiled at me. He said, Go right ahead, you know, of course. There's a lot of work to it, and you have to have an education in law and a good one, and the ones that do have good education and they're good at what they do, they've done a lot of homework and they're good at what they do, so needless to say, they're still held by some laws that they can't step out of line.
	So I take it to the Supreme Court of Canada level. Well, that's cost me a lot of money and a lot of time. My back killed me sitting at that typewriter, but I did it because I have something to say that honesty is honesty, so now I hear that they accepted it to the Supreme Court of Canada. Thank you. And I also understand that I am probably a fish that got through because now the other side, since now I was fighting this lawyer, see who was going to fight it, so the Law Society picked one of their best lawyers to protect this lawyer that got disbarred, so I'm in the Supreme Court of Canada and at the Court of Appeal level against two of the top lawyers probably in Saskatchewan in their field, and the other law firm, both of them together write a letter to the Supreme Court of Canada saying that they won't dispute this argument.
	Now, maybe I am a fish that got through, but I did put a lot of stuff in there that I shouldn't have probably put in there because I'm not a lawyer, but I put it in there because it's honesty and it's truth, and that book can be published and it can be sent to the world and I don't have nothing to hide, so all I say is I've been through a lot. We'll continue the fight. A person has to change the laws to make sure that it's really competent for everybody. It has to be a system that works, so there's got to be solutions. There were things in the old system. There's things in the new system that would work.
	The idea of not having a lawyer to represent you was to not have a cost paid out. Like if I was going to work, which I'd love to do, I don't pay a lawyer to carry my lunch kit. I have no need for somebody to walk around carrying my lunch kit. I don't. I'll carry it myself. So when you get injured, now you have a lawyer that's going to take a portion of your income, and I fix houses now and I have people work for me, and I work on people's homes that are in a wheelchair, and I hear some terrible stories. They can't afford it. They can't afford to get up to their own house, and the changes, stuff you don't even look at. SGI has a hard time looking at that, but they have to look down that road, and if they didn't deny and they didn't delay and they got their rehabilitation that they needed and gave them whatever and didn't say that my doctor, who spent seven years in school getting his degree and spent 30 years in the profession, is a scribe. He's not a scribe. He's an educated professional -- professional, and I -- he should be accepted that way, not some adjuster that's inside some office that's got his job for whatever he gets paid -- and I don't care -- to say that my doctor's a scribe. He's not a scribe.
	My eight minutes are almost up. I'm behind everybody.
DR. REG MARTSINKIW:	Good for you.
JOSEPH HNATIW:	Love youse all that are fighting for this, and I think you work for SGI, but that's -- that's how I feel. Have a good day.
DR. REG MARTSINKIW:	You're getting this down, Shawn? I thank you. Thank you, Joseph. Thank you for taking the time to come. I think the next guy's going to be speaking is from Choiceland; Choiceland, Saskatchewan. Doug always says, I don't have the ability to speak in front of a crowd, but the problems that he's had with SGI with his insurance has been a motivational factor in his life to a point where he's getting control of his situation and he wants to relate his story to you. Doug, please come down and speak to us.
PATRICIA SCHRYVER:	If Chantel Bosovich is here, could you come down and see me, please? Chantel Bosovich.
DOUG MILLER:	Okay. My nightmare began on September 23rd, '97. I was a passenger in a '97 Saturn in Rocky Mountain House. We had our seatbelts on. As we were approaching an access road to PetroCan, there were several oncoming vehicles. We were stopped with the left signal light on waiting for these -- I can't -- waiting for --
PATRICIA SCHRYVER:	Let me help you. But I'm short.
DOUG MILLER:	Waiting for these vehicles to go by. There was one more vehicle that was in the -- that was not in the first group of vehicles. As we start -- waited, she noticed lights in the rear-view mirror approaching fast. She glanced in the mirror again and said, I think we're going to be hit.
PATRICIA SCHRYVER:	I didn't believe her and turned to the right to look behind. My whole upper body head to hips was twisted to the right to look behind. As I turned to look, she started to scream. We were violently struck from behind. Just as the last vehicle went by, totalling the 1995 Ford pickup and our Saturn, the impact rendered the driver and myself unconscious. The result was severe and whiplash and soft-tissue injuries. Physio --
DOUG MILLER:	I attended physio in Nipawin through my -- referred by my doctor. Physio asked me how my pain was in a snide manner. I told her, just because you don't believe I have pain. Her answer: I never said that. The report comes out that I said nobody believes I'm in pain. Another time she asked me what I was up to. I told her -- I told her I was having car problems, a friend was fixing it for me. She writes in the report, "Was trying to fix his car last few days." When I asked for a copy of the report, I had to wait a week for it, but she said she'd have to rewrite it. I wonder what the original report said. She was communicating back and forth with my adjuster.
	One of the first things I asked SGI was how -- one of the first things I was asked by SGI was how I found out about PIP. I bought insurance for many years, and I'm not supposed to know about PIP. We should all be getting this information when we purchase our insurance. I received PIP for approximately four or five months, and the first conversation with the adjuster was pleasant and helpful. As time went on, she became very judgemental about my condition and sometimes downright rude.
	At the time I was getting physiotherapy and massage treatments, I was told I would get paid every two weeks from SGI, be reimbursed for my expenses, for mileage, massage, physio, meals and doctors' appointments. I faxed in my receipts. I was sent the wrong amount. I phoned my adjuster to let her know. Her reply was, How many times did you go to the doctor anyways. Another time I asked to be reimbursed for just a $3 fax. She said, We're sure getting picky now.
	I was continually phoning for my cheque when they didn't arrive on time. They told me I would get funds in advance to go to assessments and treatments, just let them know. In one instance I was supposed to get paid February 4th, '98; never received it 'til February 17th, '98. She told me it was in the mail February 4th, so it took two weeks to come from Tisdale to Choiceland, yet it only took two days to receive my termination notice from SGI, mailed the 24th, received the 26th. I was --
PATRICIA SCHRYVER:	I was to a secondary assessment December 4th, '97, in Prince Albert, which was arranged by SGI. They told me I had no signs of neural tension, yet I could not stand on one foot, could not move my arms without pain, had very little neck mobility and a lot of pain. The physio asked me to stand on my left foot and raise my right knee to my chest. When I told her there's no way I could do it, her reply was, are you refusing to do this. I wasn't refusing. I just knew I couldn't stand on one foot without falling over.
	The doctor at this assessment talked with me for about two minutes and made a decision what was wrong with me. The chiropractor at this assessment told me I didn't need chiropractic treatment, yet an independent chiropractor's opinion differs.
	I went to an independent chiropractor in Saskatoon who took X-rays of my hips that showed they were dysfunctional. It's mind-boggling to see how these assessors can get together and make a judgemental call without any X-rays or tests. It's basically just a visual assessment and nothing else.
	Tertiary assessment, January 21st/22nd, 1998, in Saskatoon also arranged by SGI and accompanied by my mom. First words we heard at this assessment were we don't work for SGI. I wonder who pays them. The first person I saw was a social worker. Does everyone that's injured have a mental problem? First day had me confused with another patient, had to exchange appointments, not always proper equipment for testing; example: cloth tape measure to measure how wide I could open my mouth due to TMJ injury, then stated in report that I could open my mouth 22 centimetres. Do I really look like a person that can open my mouth nine inches, swallow a whole chicken and not blink an eye?
DOUG MILLER:	I asked them if they could explain the numbness in my left lateral thigh, sometimes my whole leg down into my toes. They said no. If they had the best interest of the patient at hand, they would be interested in finding out why. Maybe it looks better for the insurance if it can't be explained. They were working for SGI and to heck with the patient's needs.
	There were many inconsistencies and discrepancies throughout this report. Accident happened in Rocky Mountain House, not in Edmonton as stated in the report. It stated I live in Prince Albert when I actually live on a farm near Choiceland, state there's no crepitus in my TMJ; no tests or X-rays taken for this conclusion, yet an oral pathologist finds there was crepitus on left TMJ, definite intermittent on right side.
	Several times the reports stated some tests could not be done due to self-restrictions and anticipated pain. I'm the one that has to decide my limit of exertion. Reported that I had moderate abdominal obesity. Do I look obese? I found all assessments to be very inconsiderate, rough and aggressive in testing my lower extremities.
	SGI had their clients -- SGI have their clients over a barrel. If you go to their rehab programs, they'll tell you in six to eight weeks that you're fit to return to work and cut you off, cut your income off. If you refuse rehab, they still cut you off. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. You're cut off either way. It's no wonder they say people are recuperating faster with no-fault. They way the system works, claimants are cut off income so it makes it appear that most everyone is fully recuperated and back to work.
	Assessment through my work insurance. First thing I was asked to sign a document prior to the assessment releasing them and the insurer of any responsibility from the assessment and treatment. This tells me that they are not too confident in their assessment team and program. They told me everything is not going to go my way. If things were going my way, the accident would never have happened and I wouldn't be in this predicament.
	Their physio told me the MRI report which was done in Edmonton says my neck and back are fine. When I told them the MRI was of my neck only, they got on the offensive.
	They recommend that I go to rehab, be back to work as a derrick hand in eight weeks. One of the assessors said they would send someone to the oil rig and observe the job of a derrick hand. Don't observe. Get up there 30 meters above the ground in a harness or try lifting 50 to 100-pound bags, sometimes as many as 2 to 300 of them in a shift. It's easy for someone to watch and say, yeah, I can do that. In reality you have to try it to know whether you are capable or not.
	I've had a couple experiences with doctors that don't seem too anxious to work with patients that are involved with insurance companies. One of the doctors I saw on my own was more concerned if SGI was still involved. That was the first thing he asked me. I said no. He asked me again. I replied no. It seems he was more interested about SGI than my health.
	All insurance companies I've been involved with are the same. They take your money for premiums when you're in an accident. They treat you royally as long as you bow to their every command. As soon as you state your own opinion or refuse their recommendations, they kick you in the back and you're a forgotten case.
	In March 2000 I attended the Rothbart Pain Clinic in Toronto, saw Dr. Gale and Dr. Shulman who did the facet nerve block. This confirms my notion that I have severe nerve damage that is causing my pain. Dr. Gale has recommended I go to Minneapolis to have facet intervention surgery in the cervical and lumbar regions. I am so grateful to Dr. Gale --
PATRICIA SCHRYVER:	And the staff at the Rothbart Clinic for taking time to see me and finding the cause of my extreme pain. Now the insurance companies can debate this facet intervention treatment for God only knows how long. All this time the victim has to suffer. Almost three years have passed since the accident. I'm getting some minor temporary relief with massage and chiropractic treatments.
DOUG MILLER:	Since the devastating accident, I feel as if I'm living in jail. I'm thankful that I can depend on my parents for a place to live and the necessities of life. If not for them, I guess I'd be out on the street. My current health situation is severe: Headaches every day; ringing in the ears; black floaters; memory loss; poor concentration; blurred vision when reading for extended periods; poor balance; abdominal pain when pressure applied; frequent urinating; dizziness; cervical, thoracic and lumbar pain; and numbness to the left thigh and sometimes the whole leg depending on prolonged positions; poor sleep patterns. This has caused great financial and emotional stress for myself and my parents as well. Thank you.
DR. REG MARTSINKIW:	Thank you very much, Doug. We have a lady here that wasn't scheduled, but she's going to be given an opportunity to make her presentation. She's been here from eleven o'clock this morning, and at this time I'd like to introduce Mrs. Anderson. Mrs. Anderson? It won't take her very long.
MRS. ANDERSON:	This is a letter that I tried to get edited, and nobody seems to want to edit for me or to put it in the paper, so I'll read what I have written. My name is Sharon Anderson. Last year on Mother's Day I lost my son from a tragedy that should never have happened. Zachary was a very well-liked boy. Zachary would go out of his way to help anybody in need. He would never expect anything but a thank-you in return. Zachary was well-liked by anybody who knew him. He was always highly talked about from the people he knew or met. He would never do any wrong to anyone.
	The loss that we now have to experience from this tragedy is the broken heart for the rest of our lives and the lives of everyone whom Zachary's heart they knew. No one will know a loss until you have lost a loved one, and I cry as I write this letter now.
	The following experience that I have I wish to now share about trying to sort out the aftermath of my son's loss with dealing with the justice system only to find that the aboriginal people, that justice is one-sided. The following that I am going to share with you is my personal experience in which I have expanded all my energies and, needless to say, my unlimited resources, only to find that I was misguided, my estimation mistreated and to find that the loss of my son because of the unequal administration of justice, someone in this city turns, laughs, shrugs it off as not being serious and is simply allowed to walk away. I guess this is the best message to young offenders or to offenders period that punishment for committed offenders does not fit the crime.
	I am writing this letter in regards to the tragic death of my beloved son on Mother's Day. I am looking for justice, and justice has not been served. When you have a situation with an unregistered vehicle, an underage driver and access to the keys and I am sure no permission to drive the vehicle, he kills a boy and has shown no apparent remorse to the family that has to live with the pain of a lost one.
	I have written many letters to appropriate authorities and have had no success in justice that has been acceptable to me and my family. No-fault insurance is on a vehicle that is registered. This vehicle was not registered at the time of this tragedy. I have only gotten assumptions and no facts. Now that I have exhausted all my known resources and have had no successful response, no other recourse than to make it public for help in justice. Now that all my known resources have been exhausted or the appropriate resources have been exhausted, it has become obvious that the agencies and services that I have been in contact with were of little value with offering us an acceptable solution to my personal dilemma. It has become obvious that the position that I have been left in in seeking justice leaves me only one alternative, and that is to make the public aware of my personal plight and dilemma.
	It is a sad situation in this country when a single parent with four children finds herself in a desperate and yet a losing situation and cannot turn to those in a position of responsibility and authority which only results in no apparent solution offered by those in authority. Having been born and raised in Prince Albert, I find it totally unacceptable to how the death of my son has been handled in seeking justice, as most aboriginal people have experienced in a similar situation.
	I wonder if in a different situation if the victims in the same situation were not aboriginal, were not low income and had some status in the community would justice not be administered differently?
	It appears to me in order to get situations like this resolved, we obviously live in a society where there are two levels of justice. I feel shortchanged and mistreated in the way my son's case has been handled that no justice has been served. I guess I shouldn't be surprised knowing the level of justice has been -- that has been served to aboriginal people of this province and, indeed, the city of Prince Albert.
	The justice in this -- the justice system in this city and province can take pride that they have ignored yet another case affecting aboriginal people. It has been adequately dealt with as far as they are concerned.
	The reason that I am bringing this to the public's attention simply confirms that the death of an aboriginal person, accidental, intentional or otherwise, is not high priority to the non-Indian people who are in a position of authority and trust that they are -- that they wished or if the shoe were on the other foot could make a difference if they so desired.
	What I have experienced over the last year is the loss of a son whose life can never be replaced. In order for me and my family to properly grieve my son's death, I feel that having turned to the justice system in order for justice to be carried out, I was also shortchanged as a result in the way this case was legally and professionally handled.
	I am going to find it extremely difficult in years to come for me and my family to get on with our lives 'cause no justice was served. If anyone has experienced this type of treatment or losses and have been subjected to what I have, you can share or advise me. I would appreciate any advice or direction that anyone could restore my faith in humanity and mankind. Thank you.
PATRICIA SCHRYVER:	Is Gille Bruno here? Lynn, could you come on up?
DR. REG MARTSINKIW:	From Prince Albert, Lynn Potter.
LYNN POTTER:	I'll make this really quick 'cause I think everybody kind of wants to go home. I'm feeling really silly that there's so much emotion with these issues. I was in a MVA on December 10th of '99, and I'm a life skills coach. I never see things as being half empty. Julian, don't make me cry. And, you know, I -- a Jeep Cherokee tore into the end of our Intrepid and tore the rear end right off.
	I had written and was ready to deliver a life skills program for single moms. I kept on delivering it until -- it was a contract job until the end of March. I was -- had a full neck brace and thanks to narcotics did it. Well, you know, people said to me why are you doing this, Lynn, it doesn't matter.
	I'm really feeling really silly here. At the end of the contract, I'd normally go back and work in Corrections in North Battleford from whence I came. My neck -- I've been diagnosed with a spastic torticollis, and my neck is kind of in a constant -- I'm kind of blonde. I've got a tip to my head here, and then I am not able to go back and work in Corrections.
	Up to this point, SGI has not given me any income replacement after March 31st. I was put on surveillance. Thanks to Bonnie investigating the investigators, she saw the van following me and she found out that I was under surveillance. It was unbelievable. I hadn't -- there was nothing to benefit. I hadn't had a cent. I was to get a diagnosis.
	We found out on May the 18th that surveillance had been put under us. On the 19th I saw a neurologist in Saskatoon who confirmed the diagnosis of a post-traumatic torticollis. I -- on the 18th of May, I was hysterical. I phoned the leg. and I screamed, What the hell are you guys doing. I phoned customer service and I said, What are you guys doing. I did everything right.
	I believe in government. I do. I have to believe in government. I have a 25-year-old son who was a research assistant for Dwain Lingenfelter. My son believes. I believe in John Nilson absolutely, and I know that's really -- shut up, Reg. No, I do, but I believe that there has to be accountability by his underlings. There's a saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and adjusters have been given that power, and they can't do it. I'm sorry.
	I have to -- one more thing is -- Reg, don't look at me like that. I have a wonderful team of caretakers. I have my injured workers' group. I have Reg, who's rude to me all the time, and I have a supportive family doctor, and I think that that's -- for those who are injured, you have to gather those around you that will support you, and it doesn't matter.
	Just -- I got my freedom of information file. You know, I phoned Bonnie, I phoned Marilyn, and I said, So did you look crazy in that file; did you really question your sanity? Yes, we do. I've searched out doctors and treatment people, and I've been -- I think that's part of the problem solving.
	Anyways, sorry for being a basket case, and you have to keep on believing. I believe. I have to believe that Mr. Nilson will make changes to this. Thank you.
DR. REG MARTSINKIW:	Thank you to the audience. We've heard people. We've learned. I think Mr. Adair said it straightforward. We have to go to our MLAs. That's what they're there for. This is our government. You learned today. Take this knowledge with you today and use it to your benefit and to the benefit of others.
	At this time I'm going to call the whole Coalition group, and we'll let Patricia close the evening off. Thank you again for giving me this opportunity. Patricia?
PATRICIA SCHRYVER:	Thank you. Throughout the afternoon we've heard concerns, problems expressed here. Now, there's some things here that we can do to help make some changes. First of all, there's a -- Dr. Freeman has a research study going on. We can participate in that. The study will take a look at how well no-fault insurance has benefited us and whether or not it's working. You can write to your MLAs expressing your concerns. Their addresses are listed on our website. It's www.againstnofault.com. Come out to our public reviews. Our next review is tentatively set for August the 12th in Estevan. Brenda?
BRENDA KIENAS:	We have T-shirts, buttons and bumper stickers, raffle tickets to help us support the cause so we can have these reviews. Thank you.
TRUDY LANGENHOFF:	And remember to keep the momentum up. We've been working hard. It was hard for our victims to come and sit this long.
	Link together. We have cards with everybody's names on from different districts, from Regina, Grenfell, Estevan, Saskatoon, P.A., and we've picked up a new one today in the Humboldt area. Get these cards before you leave. Get lists of names of neighbours, friends, people that you hear of that are in accidents. The more of us that group together and fight the no-fault system, the better it will be for everyone. Thank you.
YVONNE DAGENAIS:	Before you leave today, I would like to ask you all to make sure that you sign our petition. We'd also like to ask you if you could please take some petitions, get your family, your friends, your neighbours to sign them. There's an address at the bottom of the petition for you to mail them back to us. Thank you very much.
DR. DARYN MINTZLER:	These wonderful new cards in the printer, if you get to the bottom and you see my name, Dr. Daryn Mintzler, if you call that phone number, you won't get me. 8562, if you remember to change that later, we can do that. We had a slight printer problem I see.
	One thing we have to do now. The PIPP committee, the real PIPP committee is starting their reviews. They're starting in Regina on Monday, Tuesday; Saskatoon Thursday, Friday. We need volunteers and people to come out. We are going to be picketing outside the front of those reviews because if we thought the panel was tainted before, we've added more black to the white now than there ever was to start with. The only two semi-nonbiased people excused themselves from the panel because they knew it was tainted. We got two even more tainted people on the panel after they left. Three of the original were tainted, and the other three we just don't know anything about.
	We as a coalition are still firm in our position of boycotting this review. We are not showing up because, as I said to a reporter, one does not take a rope to your own lynching. It's just -- it's just not worth our effort. It would be like saying to the NDP we're going to set up a panel to review your government and your decisions over the last five years but all the panel members are going to be Saskatchewan Party members. Would they show up for the review? Probably not.
	Therefore, we're not going to show up for the review either. We're going to hang out outside. We're going to tell people that they shouldn't go into the review. We're going to hand out buttons. We're going to hand out bumper stickers. We're going to talk to the media. We're going to do everything we can to make this government take notice that we, the victims, are not going to sit still and let them whitewash over a review of a report we're pretty confident's already sitting on a desk in Regina somewhere.
	God, they're getting little and mean. So let -- let's do that and let's get in touch with our local people. Look in the newspaper. There was a schedule of when these meetings are going to be, and local people, please get together and rally out in front of these meetings to put an end to this biased review. Thank you.
PATRICIA SCHRYVER	One last final note. Thank you, Dr. Martsinkiw, for moderating for us and to the computer court reporter, Shawn Hurd; Dr. Gale; Dr. -- or, pardon me, Gordon Adair; Mr. Larry Zatlyn; and Theresa Charpentier from the Blue Rose; and, most importantly, thank you to the accident victims and the guests for coming out to share your stories and your support and efforts towards a better insurance system for all. Thank you, and before I go, I want to pass this on to my daughter. She's been doing a wonderful job. Thank you, Casey.
DARYL WIBERG:	My name is Daryl Wiberg. I'm the MLA for Rural Prince Albert, and it was a pleasure that I had the opportunity -- I was glad to put the time together to be here this afternoon. I couldn't be here this morning because I had another commitment. Do the petitions. Get them done quick. The house -- they're going to try to stop the house from sitting by the end of June, and so if you want them on public record, we've got to have them there by the 27th or something so we can get them on public record. Otherwise they'll just sit until next year. I didn't bring anywhere near enough cards. If you need to get a hold of me, my address is 24 - 10th Street East in Prince Albert here, S6V 0Y5, and my phone number is 922-04 -- 922-2407.
DR. DARYN MINTZLER:	He's on the web page.
DARYL WIBERG:	And really quick. Reg, if you'd have waited for no-fault insurance, you wouldn't need to go to school to be a chiropractor. All you'd need to do is be an SGI adjuster. Well, I got a whole file cabinet full of people who've been fighting against SGI and WCB. Keep up the work 'cause I'm on your side.
PATRICIA SCHRYVER:	Thank you.
	(Hearing adjourned at 5:00 p.m.)
	(Hearing reconvened at 5:05 p.m.)
CLAUDE DUPUIS:	My accident happened in1996, February the 29th, and I was struck from both side and behind on the Marquis Road, and I did -- I did apply for anything after, you know, dealing with the accident, going to be -- going to come back -- well, are going to be normal. You know, I was so stiff and everything, I figured, well, I'm just going to be all right, but it was tough. Four days later I was getting stiffer and I couldn't do the work I was supposed to do. I was very stressed out, so I went back to the SGI and I make a report of it, you know, my accident, what happened and everything.
	So -- and I went back to my doctor also my accident and put me to physiotherapy stretching neck. They released the pain for a little while, but as soon as you go back to your job and all that, it's the same thing, headache, pain in the arm and the leg and all that, and I should have wrote it down.
	They send me to Calgary for MRI tests. They send me to Calgary for MRI tests, and the MRI -- I didn't see the MRI. I don't know what's going on in there. They didn't want to say anything, and some doctor -- some doctor -- I can't even remember what it was -- he says it was some structure, bone, and after that they send me to -- a few months later they sent me to Edmonton for another test, sothey said it was a pinching nerve in the neck.
	From there -- from there I continue to do my therapy here, and for quite a while I never -- I was doing quite a bit on my own to help myself out and all that, so in the meantime -- yeah, the Fit from Saskatoon called me because SGI want me -- they want me to go there for Fit For Living. They call for more process, you know, find out what's wrong with me and all that. So while I'm on there and everything to me on my own, what I was doing, what I tried to do on my own, there was a brainwash to me, so that's what, and that was -- made me some good exercise for my neck to manage the pain of that better, but the rest of it -- I was there for -- they said 10 week, but I was there for more than that, for 16 week, so I didn't like that program at all. It's pretty well what I have to say now.
	(Hearing concluded at 5:10 p.m., Saturday, June 10, 2000)
	OFFICIAL QUEEN'S BENCH COURT REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE: I, Shawn Hurd, CSR, Official Court Reporter for the Court of Queen's Bench of Saskatchewan, hereby certify that the foregoing pages contain a true and correct transcription of my shorthand notes taken herein, to the best of my knowledge, skill, and ability.
	_______________________________CSR Shawn Hurd, CSR Official Queen's Bench Court Reporter
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