Alfred Moses

Mr. Speaker, the income security programs provide for the basic needs whether it's market rental housing, clothing, food, just the basic needs for anybody looking to live an independent lifestyle whether it's a senior or persons living with disabilities. To get into more details, it is on a client-to-client basis on any income that they might have as well. To get into more detail anyone that's applying for income assistance that needs the help that they do need, I would encourage them to go to see a client service officer and work out a plan moving forward.

Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Ms. Crystal Lennie to the House today and take in our proceedings. I believe she's been regularly coming to Yellowknife to take her management and leadership courses and I wish her the best of luck in that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As mentioned, we are going to be developing an action plan that hopefully will be tabled in the House in October, and we will be making sure that those areas are discussed as well. We will see what the action plan comes out of. We will be, once again, discussing that with our industry, business, our education, training partners, and Aboriginal and municipal governments.

This is the first time that the government has done a comprehensive review of the labour market needs, the demands of our jobs, in the Northwest Territories. It is something that we are building on. We have our post-secondary education partners that we are working with to try to develop some of these programs. Aurora College is going to be embarking on a strategic plan this summer and the program will be better aligned with the labour demands that we are seeing through the Labour Market Needs Assessment. All this stuff is brand new. Like I said, this is the first time the Northwest Territories...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize the constituent of the riding Inuvik Boot Lake, Ms. Judy McLeod. Welcome. It is always great to see you here. I would also like to welcome the victim services coordinators. I appreciate all the work that you guys do throughout the Northwest Territories and also like to thank the Stanton Elders’ Council for the work, guidance, and wisdom that you have shown us throughout the Northwest Territories as well. Thank you.

When the work went out in terms of developing this comprehensive agreement, we got input from all the stakeholders across the Northwest Territories, a lot of it did come from the business side sector. But we also got other programs in place such as the culture and heritage framework and action plan. We also continue to provide funding for arts and culture initiatives. When it was done, we had municipal governments, Aboriginal governments, business, industry, community members, all providing input into this Labour Market Forecast Needs Assessment. I think maybe some areas were just discussed...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you heard in the budget address that our Minister of Finance had mentioned, we are also reaching out to students who are graduating with the $2,000 forgivable loan if they come up and do some work in the Northwest Territories. That is one area that we are working in. We are also developing an action plan based on the labour market report. We are going to be working with Aboriginal governments, industry, business, and our education and training partners. As much as we want to attract residents to the Northwest Territories to fill in some of these positions, we also...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following two documents entitled “Follow-up Letter to Oral Question 56-18(2): Wage Subsidy for Child Care Workers” and “Follow-up Letter to Oral Question 74-18(2): Accommodating Students with Disabilities at Aurora College.” Mr. Speaker, further to my Return to Written Question 4-18(2), I wish to table the following document entitled “Aurora College Student Enrolments per Semester, 2013-14 to 2015-16.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As mentioned, when clients do go on income assistance or need that top up for market rental rates, the clients also have to adhere and still need to live up to the elements of what's in the lease agreement. When they get income assistance, they have to also abide by what they signed in the forms. Our Client Service Officers are just following policy, following legislation, and the landlords are also following what's in the lease agreements. When we fill out forms, we've got to make sure that we do it in the best way that's going to keep the family in the home.

When a client comes to the office, our CSOs, I believe, do a great job. Within the last government, a lot of changes and improvements and developments have been made, compliance and audit of the files have been developed, our regional managers actually do a monthly compliance of the workloads that their CSO's do. We have increased the staff training, as well as development. We also got to understand that in some cases, with some of our clients, they also need to live up to what is in the lease agreements with their renters as well, when going through this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.