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.

From my understanding, the amount of the cheque that the families get at the beginning of the month includes everything in it and there has been an increase. In terms of tail end, of families getting cheques at the end of the month from our office, I'll have to confirm that, but my understanding is families receive an increase in their payments and an increase in cheques at the beginning of each month. I'll have to confirm with our department, but I'm pretty sure that all families get the full payment at the beginning of the month. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In cases such as the one the Member brought forward, I'd encourage the Member to set up a meeting with our CSO at the office. Any families that find themselves in that situation obviously want to provide the best overall supports to the families so that they do see this benefit, but in any cases as the Member has stated, I'd like to encourage the Member to talk to the families or even have the YWCA to explain to their families, come talk to us at the department, speak with the CSO on how this can be addressed, and I'm sure we can find a solution. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I know we've heard those concerns of the implementation of junior kindergarten; the impacts it will have on daycares, day homes, in particular on this question Aboriginal Head Start. We have consulted and we have engaged with the eight Aboriginal Head Start staff and managers. We have been meeting with them on a regular basis. On August 24th we had the Public Health Agency of Canada come and speak with the managers as well and inform them that funding will not be affected going forward with the implementation of junior kindergarten. It is in our mandate to provide early childhood programs...

As mentioned, in 2015 a framework was tabled in this House. As we're going out to develop the action plan we do want to continue to get support from our stakeholders, Aboriginal governments, societies that are out there that focus on culture and heritage, as well as our residents of the Northwest Territories who provide that knowledge and experience of where we need to put our focus as well. As I mentioned, we have 33 communities in the Northwest Territories; we want to make sure that all priorities, all areas in terms of culture and heritage are met for the communities, for the Aboriginal...

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.