Wendy Bisaro

To the Minister, then, maybe unfilled is the wrong term. What is the policy for decentralization? Do we decentralize positions without somebody in them? When the PY is moved from one community to the next, does the person not go with it? That’s why I’m asking if it’s a vacant position, or if it’s a new position that would then suggest to me that it needs to be filled. What is the policy for decentralization?

Thanks to the Minister and I guess I would have to say that 2007 is seven years ago, almost eight years ago now, and I think it’s about time that we have a comprehensive review of income securities policies. Piecemeal changes do not necessarily produce the best product.

I’d like to go back to the Minister’s statement that a RRSP for an income support client is a rainy day fund and needs to be used up. Yet, there is also an Income Support Policy which allows clients a RDSP, a Disability Savings Plan, or a RESP, an Education Savings Plan. Those do not have to be cashed in, yet a RRSP does.

So...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m really pleased to welcome all the ladies up there who will be working at the Campaign School this weekend, working for and in and about. I would specifically like to mention a Frame Lake constituent, Laura Boileau, and I would also like to give my thanks at this point to Ms. Lisa Dempster, who is the Member of the House of Assembly for Cartwright-L’Anse au Clair in Labrador. I’m not sure if Lisa is up there, but I wanted to say thank you to her for coming to see us this morning and to help us with the school. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to consider Tabled Document 188-17(5), Northwest Territories Main Estimates 2015-2016.

To the Minister, I hardly consider it fair that we’re going to penalize somebody because they happen to be proactive and they happen to have the opportunity to save a little bit of money. Because I don’t have a RRSP, my next door neighbor has to cash it in because we both need a little bit of income support. That’s hardly fair and I think it therefore puts income support clients longer on the government dole and I really don’t think that’s where we should be going.

It seems to me that we penalize everybody in the income support programs because there are a few people that we feel either are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think my colleague got excited that he got a second chance at questions.

---Laughter

I have some questions today for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and I’d like to go back and revisit some of the questions I asked the Minister the other day about income assistance policies.

The Minister suggested in Hansard, and I’d like to quote from Hansard of the other day, “If an individual client presents, say, a suggestion to us, then we will seriously look at it,” and again, “From the general public, if there is more than one policy that they want us to make...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There’s an obstacle I’ve encountered throughout my life as an elected official and it is that of being a minority gender on an elected body. It’s quite obvious, as you look around the Chamber here, that the NWT Legislature does not have gender parity; we’re not even close; and there’s not even an inkling of any balanced gender differential in Cabinet.

Across Canada the best percentage of women in elected office is 36 percent in British Columbia, and the NWT is a long way from that.

Today and tomorrow the NWT Status of Women Council is holding a Campaign School for women...

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

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be short. I guess I have to say to the Minister that the idea of fairness apparently is individualized, because I certainly don’t agree with the Minister’s characterization of fairness.

My last question, since he mentions that RRSPs need to be cashed in, I would like to know from the Minister what it costs the department to allow people to keep a RRSP. What extra money is the department spending to allow me to keep my RRSP and to give me a little bit of income support? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, the budget is out and I look forward to discussing and debating it over the next five weeks. We as a government, as a Legislature, are stretching our resources further and further and I’m becoming increasingly concerned that we will overextend and end up in financial hot water.

In the fall we approved many millions of dollars for fire season costs and to avoid a low water rider on our power bills, some $60 million in total. That was not money in the bank. Unfortunately, we don’t have a savings account to draw on, a rainy day account that the Minister of Education...