Debates of August 22, 2007 (day 15)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I listened, with interest, to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment talk about helping northerners achieve self-reliance. That is the point I want to talk about this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, there are families in my communities in the Sahtu that are starting out to be self-reliant. They have jobs. There is a lot of activity going on there. As soon as they either enter the social housing or have a job and enter into a social housing unit, their rates of rent increase from nothing to $1,100 for one month. It leaves them very little in terms of helping their families and children. These are young people who we encourage to go to school, get a job, but it seems like nothing has changed for them.

Mr. Speaker, my people are asking, is there a process here where we could help them through self-reliance? This was once a very self-reliant nation of people. Throughout the years, we have become very dependent on government. So much now, we are trying to help them become self-reliant again. In this process, they want to pay for their own roof over their head. They want to pay for things for their children. They want to learn how to be self-reliant. But through the system, we engage and had them enforced by our housing associations and the local Income Support Program. It doesn’t pay, they say. It actually discourages people to get into social housing. Is there a way that we can phase in this approach where they could have ownership? They want their own homes. Can we phase in a process like that where it would help the families build up the process where they would feel that they are making a contribution? Maybe one day they could own their own home. Right now, a lot of them are saying that the health program is a good program but it doesn’t do enough for them. It doesn’t secure them not to say, yes, we want a career, we want to advance our education. They say, as soon as we get our cheque, it goes right back to the government and just stops them from building and owning their own home.

Mr. Speaker, I will have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The big question is, how can we help our people be more self-reliant? Have them get into a place where they feel confident that they are making a contribution to their own people and have a house that they can proudly say this home is my home. They can probably say welcome to our house. Thank you.

---Applause