Kieron Testart

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You're very generous, Mr. Speaker.

Today is a theme day for income assistance programs so I'll get the ball rolling and ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment what is the department's position on a universal basic income in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you. So given that okay, so we have costs. So do we know how much so basically we don't this isn't saving money as much as it's generating revenue and the that revenue's going to be used to support the program as it's currently designed. Is there still if everything works out with the rebates and with the copays, what is the gap missing debt? Or what's the total cost overrun at that point? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I'm going to join my colleagues in speaking about income assistance. It's clear there's severe shortcomings in how the GNWT works to address poverty and inequality. As we search for solutions, I would like to turn to my colleagues' attention to the work Alternatives North has done to find missing pieces of our social safety net.

After years of tireless study and research, they have concluded that what the North is missing is a universal income program. They've even provided us with the steps we need to take to put this program in place. Rates of poverty and low income remain...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I just wanted to speak to some of the comments that have been made by the Honourable Premier and the honourable Member for Yellowknife North around, you know, deleting this won't put jobs into communities. So I just want to point out that of this key activity, there are 38 jobs in headquarters. In languages and culture, there are 51 jobs in headquarters. One in the South Slave, and two in the Beaufort Delta. So we are not seeing this function of the department is a headquartersbased function. And I think this the Member's motion underscores the need to improve the...

Just a thank you. I appreciate having that kind of cost accounting. So just to be clear on the shortfall, so if it's costing us $2.5 million to bring new beneficiaries on board and the income testing is going to generate $1.2 million, is the shortfall not $1.3 million, then, because of the new revenues coming into the program? Thank you.

So thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to be clear, like I am a big believer in no blame culture, especially when it comes to improvement, continuous improvement. So you blame the problem, you don't blame the person. And in this case, you don't blame the comms people. So I agree with the Minister, they've done great work, and I don't want my comments to be misconstrued as going after individuals or trying to apportion blame to hardworking public servants. I always said we have the best public servants in the biz, and I completely stand by their work. What I am saying is let's look at the problem...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So we are on supplementary health benefits? Yes, okay.

So the Minister has seen the AOC report calling for a pause to income testing this program. And I believe that's, I think, enough to understand the disposition of the House or this side of the House on that initiative.

Should that income testing be paused, what would that do to the appropriation for supplementary health benefits? Thank you.

Okay, thank you. So as this corporate management also covers policy legislation and communications, earlier this year there was quite a public snafu with communications where an inappropriate meme was shared with the public inadvertently and it had to be pulled down. What steps are we taking to avoid those kind of missteps? This is again, lots of communication comes out of this department. It's responsible for a lot of like, for language, for culture, for promoting language weeks, culture weeks, all these kind of things. They have to do a lot of communications work. So what are we doing to...

Do we know thank you, Mr. Chair. Do we know the cost per client based on the actuals, the 20222023 actuals of this program? Thank you.

There we go. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, so this department is crucial in a an important part of our efforts to reduce poverty and give people support and keep people out of the justice system, otherwise known as integrated service delivery. I know that the Premier has made this kind of the centerpiece of what his work in the Premier's office is to bring government together and offer integrated service delivery, eventually moving to a broader service NWT kind of model. But in the meantime, our most vulnerable citizens who need the most support are kind of the first stage of integrated...