REGINA -- The 11th annual Workers Compensation Board Institute -- a two-day crash course in preventing and dealing with workplace injuries -- attracted about 300 delegates to Regina this week, including workers, employers, safety officers and union officials.

Sitting among the delegates was David Eberle, a Humboldt lawyer and owner of a Dairy Queen franchise, who was appointed chairman of the WCB last week by the Saskatchewan Party government.

It was Eberle's first official day on the job after informally visiting the WCB's Regina office last Friday wearing running shoes. Eberle said he was told to hit the ground running so that's what he's doing.

"It's a challenge I'm going to take on enthusiastically,'' Eberle said during a break in the morning session on the province's new occupational, health and safety regulations.

"The minister (of Advanced Education, Employment and Labour Rob Norris) and the premier (Brad Wall) saw fit to appoint me to this position. I'm humbled and honoured and I'll give it 120 per cent."

Eberle, who has a business degree and law degree from the University of Saskatchewan and practised law for 20 years in Humboldt, knows that he's on a steep learning curve as the WCB chairman.

"I've learned a lot and I anticipate I'll be learning a lot more,'' Eberle said of his first day at the Comp Institute -- the only one of its kind in Canada.

"My intent is to audit the various seminars that are going on in hopes of gaining a better knowledge of who we are and what we are. I think it's going to be an excellent learning experience for me."

Eberle, who served on the Saskatchewan Party's management committee, replaced John Solomon, a former NDP MLA and MP who was appointed by the former NDP government in 2001.

Eberle said he wants to help the WCB reduce the province's injury rate, which is one of the highest, if not the highest, in the country.

"In a perfect world, we would like to see no injuries. Unfortunately, that's something that we probably won't attain.

"But we have to try to reduce workplace injuries. I want to make sure that the programming we have in place is moving us towards the reduction of workplace injuries."

Peter Federko, CEO of the WCB, said the Comp Institute provides a forum for WCB stakeholders to learn more about the board's programs, as well as valuable customer feedback to the WCB.

Federko said the institute helps clients "to understand more about us,... why we do some of the things we do, and how we do some of the things we do, just so that it can improve their ability to interact with us,'' Federko said.

"If people have concerns, we'd rather they tell us about those concerns or tell the people who could possibly do something about those concerns.''

Tuesday, the institute features David Todd, operations manager of U.S. onshore production for Shell Oil, who will speak about Shell's "safety success story: the journey towards a zero injury workplace."

The luncheon keynote speaker is Curtis Weber, who will present "an injured worker's story."

Point Counterpoint

Reading these articles makes me wonder if this message was intended to make the transaction of firing and hiring a legitimate by way of releasing the story to the press.

In this case it's certainly not an issue of the devil in the details, in fact the opposite is true, the substance of why they were fired is missing.

Why is it missing?

Here we have "Government hired executives" who have in their office of duty, participated in human rights violations.  But let's make sure we understand that in their case it was not a crime, because the crime was perpetrated against injured workers who do not qualify to be termed human, by standards set by Alberta's Government, or for that matter any other province in Canada.

What is missing is Canadian's right to know why these two officers were fired. The only reason Canadians might care about who took their place is if it was accompanied by the knowledge there would be positive change in the wind.

WCBCANADA STAFF WRITER