Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What we have done so far with the Income Support Program: I know that our department regularly reviews the Income Support Programs to make sure that they are updated regularly, but I have taken it a step further. I have actually met with all of the NGOs, as many as possible that I could, recognizing that time was not on my side in this endeavour. I met with the NGOs. Every NGO was invited to bring one person who is accessing income support at this time so that we can have a voice from them. "Nothing about us without us" is my philosophy.

Since we compiled that...

One of the first things, of course, that that person will have to do is get used to what he is walking into, or she is walking into. They will have to look at taking over the overall supervision, the operations of the normal day-to-day operations within all the campuses. Because we will be starting the vision exercise, they will be actually working with that close vision exercise, not only for the Northwest Territories, but taking that vision and then what we define as a vision of the Territories, they will be defining what the vision is for the polytechnic university. They will be taking our...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to take a moment to state that I do not see the MLA who just asked me the question as a coward. I see him as a very capable MLA, so I will start with that.

What have we done? What have we done so far? We put out the ad, and so again I will be releasing very soon where we are with the hiring practise. That will be coming up, by the latest, on Monday. I will be doing a Minister's statement on the polytechnic at that time. We have done visits, three visits to all three communities, and that was a lot. In fairness, when I went to the communities, there was a lot of...

I am a little bit shocked. I am wondering if the MLA has more information than I do, because I didn't know that we were having a new campus in Yellowknife at this time. We are still working with the City of Yellowknife to define if that is a brick and mortar or if it actually is building on what they have already. So those decisions have not been made, and my commitment has been to work very closely with the municipal government to determine that need. Like I said, the first couple of years are around planning, and the definition of what headquarters looks like or where it will be will be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, I think that the first thing to do, actually, was to hire the person to actually become the associate deputy minister, would be the first priority, and that is what we focused on. Actually defining where the headquarters are, we spent a lot of time, Mr. Speaker. I went to the three communities, Inuvik, Yellowknife, and Fort Smith, a total of three times. I met with the community counsellors there. I met with public meetings. I spent a lot of time, and I heard clearly, I heard clearly, that students and staff see the benefits of all three communities, and I see the...

Currently, it doesn't have a cost of living index included into it. This is just the start of the program. We have increased the threshold. We have increased the amount. We have looked at it on more of an equitable basis, so based on communities that have a similar cost of living.

Once this season is over, this summer, then we will be doing a review of it again to make sure, but I cannot stress enough. I take heed of the Member from Nahendeh stating that many seniors do not even reach this. I mean, $56,000 for the lowest zone is quite a bit of money, although you can struggle on it. So if you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment regularly reviews programs to make sure they are still meeting the needs of people; in this case, seniors in our communities. We recognize that there was a need to expand our program because we weren't subsidizing people who had rental accommodations; we were only subsidizing homeowners. In my personal opinion, oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes homeowners are often at a financial advantage to people who have to rent. Not always.

So we expanded it so that we could include renters, and we increased our income...

Education, Culture and Employment is supposed to be actually providing as much, the best, customer service as possible. I cannot say that every single person is always doing that, but the direction is that they should be very consumer focused, and they should be, actually, if there are seniors who are struggling financially, they should be talking about all of the options. So, if they are accessing this program and their income is low and they are still in need, then my hope, and I will look into that, is that they should actually be referring people and saying, "Would you consider income...

What I do know is that not all seniors actually got less money. It is that some of the regions, the higher zones, zone 3, actually, had an increase because their cost of living was substantially higher than, I'm going to say, it is a lot higher cost of living in Tuktoyaktuk than it is in Yellowknife or in Hay River. I hate to say that, but that is the reality we face.

This program actually extended it so more seniors can actually access the program. Not all seniors, but it was based on looking at comparable communities to see what their cost of living factors were, market baskets, and defining...

Sometimes, in honesty, I think that sometimes we work too slow. Then I have to remind myself I only got this portfolio in April. I won't even have an actual year until it is finished, but I think we are making a lot of progress. What can be done? The person will be hired as our associate deputy minister. Our overall vision statement for the Northwest Territories and for the polytechnic will be done in this Legislative Assembly.