Bill Braden

Mr. Speaker, my questions this afternoon are for the honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment in relation to the issue of the clawback on the national child benefit supplement. Mr. Speaker, to illustrate this briefly, a single parent in Yellowknife with two kids, receiving social housing and on income support loses the equivalent of about $2,700 a year because of our government’s clawback. My information is that leaves just under $10,000 for this family of three to look after their necessities. What justification can the Minister provide to this single parent for keeping the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the fiscal policy area, the department’s responsibility, among the many responsibilities, is to work out the formula financing agreement with Canada. An issue that dogged us over the last few years was trying to settle down, Mr. Chairman, the results of the national census and how that impacts federal transfer payments to the Government of the NWT. I wanted to take this opportunity to ask if that whole issue of how many people live in the Northwest Territories has finally been settled at least as far as it relates to the amount of revenue we get from Ottawa. Thank...

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a couple of things I would like to follow through on, starting with a few things that Minister Roland told us about in his opening remarks. Specifically to the information he provided saying among the priorities for the coming year are going to be identifying the issues to be considered in a possible review of the Liquor Act. This is something that this government should be looking at as a fairly high priority, Madam Chair. The Liquor Act has been around for some time now and I have a sense from amongst people who are clients, if you will -- Liquor Act...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the explanation, it is a multi-layered issue. The Minister explained that one of the core principles that the federal government had behind this is it wanted to help stimulate development and inclusion in the workforce, but our program, our own income support program, recognizes that staying at home to raise a family is recognized as a productive choice, just as productive to our society as being out there working. So does it not stand to reason, Mr. Speaker, that income support clients who make this productive choice should be entitled to the full...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take up the issue again -- one that has frequently occupied the time of this Assembly -- of this government's decision to claw back from many, many families in the Northwest Territories the national child benefit. Mr. Speaker, the Minister responsible for this area, Mr. Dent, to his credit met with the organization Alternatives North a short while ago to receive an extremely well-developed proposal and argument they are putting forward, Mr. Speaker, that this clawback should stop. The Northwest Territories is one of only five jurisdictions, I understand...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won’t belabour the results, but at least we have something we can move forward on now. So that we can avoid this in the future, Mr. Chairman, have we talked to the folks at either the census office or Revenue Canada to see if we can sort out the criteria for this, so that we don’t have these arguments about whether or not a community was counted accurately? This was a real frustration for us in the last government, Mr. Chairman. I think it caused us at least a year if not two of uncertainty in our financing situation with Ottawa. It was several millions of dollars...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we report progress. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, those are all measures that I would certainly welcome. I think the public would also. I guess I’m wondering though, in the system that we already have, to some extent that information is available. It might not be readily available, but I think we could supply it. I guess I’m curious, Mr. Speaker, when the Minister says he’s considering legislation, do we need legislation to govern those things in this Assembly? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can’t help building on the pictures that a couple of my colleagues have painted for us. I guess I see perhaps not a Cadillac or a convertible, but perhaps more like a pick-up truck heading toward this debt wall. We’re all in the back of the truck screaming, no. But you know, one thing that has changed is that we do have a new driver and I’m glad it’s Mr. Roland because he’s a journeyman mechanic.

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And he’s going to be able to find the brakes in time. Mr. Speaker, I too would like to reflect a bit on the message, at least one of the messages that Mr...

Mr. Speaker, I would wholeheartedly endorse the idea that we would be able to demonstrate results against objectives for the money that we spend. The final question that I’d like to ask, Mr. Speaker, is where the Minister says he’s considering creating legislation, what kind of a mechanism does he envision for determining if that’s needed and then what kind of time frame for bringing it forward? Thank you.