Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled "Annual Report on Official Languages 2015-2016." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In 2015, the government of the day tabled a Culture and Heritage Framework. Right now, we're working with all departments to develop an action plan that we will present to the House, and that will focus on some of the priorities. Also looking at all 33 communities and also looking at some of the land claims that are out there in terms of culture and heritage throughout the Northwest Territories here, we're taking the lead, the department is taking the lead in developing that action plan, and we should have something hopefully in the new year brought before committee and before Cabinet and then...

First of all, I just want to thank all the organizations that do set up food banks and provide services in our communities, even our smallest communities. As the Member has said, without their help, we wouldn't be able to get some of these other families that might fall off income assistance based on some of the, I guess, regulations that we impose for people that want to take down income assistance.

But we are doing our job, Mr. Speaker. The changes that we just made to the income assistance and the Canada Child Benefit, as I mentioned earlier, families are going to get an increase of up to...

I believe in 2015-2016 we had about just over $18 million on income assistance that this government provided. In 2016-2017, it went over $20 million, and the odd time we come back to this House asking for a supplementary appropriation. As everybody knows, the economy is in a downturn, so we are seeing more families on income assistance in some of the regions, and from time to time we will come back to the House to seek a supplementary appropriation to provide income assistance to those that are in need.

There are a lot of things that we take into consideration; how big the family is, the net...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we were moving ahead with the Income Assistance changes, we got recommendations from clients, we got recommendations from our partners in the NGO community. Moving forward, a lot of those included that we no longer claw back income that's intended to help parents with the costs of raising their children.

In order to understand the improvements, I think, to the Income Assistance Program, Members must look at the overall benefit package and not at each item in isolation. As a government, we give a whole suite of programs and services to help families in need, low...

We have a lot of clients that are on the Income Assistance Program. Obviously it's by a case-by-case basis. I've mentioned about the net income of the whole family, how many children are in the house and the ages of those children when we do the assessments. In this case, like I said, it seems very unique and in that case any families that do find themselves in that situation, I encourage them to come talk to the CSOs to find a solution.

When we're providing program services in the Northwest Territories, we always engage and consult with our stakeholders moving forward. Aboriginal Head Start has been very successful, and they focus on the culture and identity of the people of the Northwest Territories, and that's something that we're really implementing within our education system from JK to grade 12 and beyond and we want to make sure that some of their best practices and around the curriculum that we're developing is working closely together.

Early childhood is an important aspect of the work we do here within the Department of Education, Culture and Employment as well as working with the Department of Health and Social Services to make sure that our children get the right education, the right start to a long life and a very prosperous future. Working with that are groups, whether it's daycares, day homes, Aboriginal Head Start, we take all that into consideration when we're supporting them. We have supported Aboriginal Head Start for the last few years and will continue to support them and work with them to make sure that the...

I do believe that is part of our economic drivers, as well, but we've got to look at our cultures, our traditions, our values for the people that were here, our First Nations, our Inuit people that helped shape the Northwest Territories to what it is. So it's more than an economic driver, it's preserving culture, it's preserving language, it's preserving what our ancestors, our grandparents have laid before us. So it's more than an economic driver and more than a tourism thing, it's about preserving our culture and heritage in the Northwest Territories for the people that helped build this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have the full details of the heritage funds that we have here for the Northwest Territories. I know we do work closely with our federal counterparts to look at some of our cultural sites as well as our museums and the learning centres we have in the communities to do some of that work in terms of heritage, but I can get the numbers and I'll get them to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.