Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are also for the Premier today. I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement. Clearly, the statistics describe the vast disparity in household incomes between our richest and poorest citizens. I would appreciate a general reaction on this from the Premier. It’s obvious that these are trustworthy numbers and the trend is not a good one. Does the Premier agree that we can’t really claim to have a just and equitable society when some people have so much and increasing numbers of other people struggle to survive on so little? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Premier, Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The facts as quoted by my colleague, in fact, are true. I mean, we see quoted in national media that Yellowknife has the highest per capita income in Canada, but they never report on the high cost of living.
There was considerable work done in the 15th Assembly where we looked at how much this government was spending on subsidies to assist people living in the Northwest Territories, and the number that we came to was something in the neighbourhood of $158 million. There was also work undertaken by ECE and Health and Social Services to see what salary range we would have to go to before the subsidies or support stops. I think the most expensive place was Sachs Harbour and I think it was $93,000.
There are differences between the small and large communities. We also looked at how could we do it so that we have a system whereby no matter how you set it up, if you work, you’re always better off than not working. We did some work in that area and I’m expecting that as part of our Shelter Policy review that we will have some discussions about those areas. Thank you.
Thank you for that response from the Premier. I think it’s well known that this government is spending a lot on these issues and particularly in the area of housing. That’s certainly got a lot of national attention lately. Yet, clearly, the income disparity increases. The number of people living in poverty, that proportion of their income doesn’t change and gradually worsens, relative to our high income people. There is still some work to be done and I think that’s what we’re all about today.
Many other Canadian jurisdictions have pursued the approach of anti-poverty strategies. Their approaches are based on the principle that people have a right to adequate food, housing, health care and other basic social services.
I’d also like to confirm, before my last couple of questions, that this government subscribes to this principle, and ask the Premier what we need to do to actually work with families to help get them out of poverty rather than just helping them live in poverty. Thank you.
I’d like to point out that we’re not starting something new. This started in the 16th Assembly. In May of 2010 the Premier of the day committed to developing a discussion paper on anti-poverty. There was an intergovernmental working group set up. In October 2010 there was an anti-poverty workshop set up. In December 2010 we had an advisory group of stakeholders on poverty. We undertook community consultations over a period of January to April 2011. We also briefed standing committee. We did a survey, as I indicated. We had a report on what we heard. We’ve been working and developed a broad discussion paper. We’re now at the stage where we are looking at having an Anti-Poverty Strategy.
This is work that we’re building on. We have gone directly to the people of the Northwest Territories, we’ve heard their reaction and their views on what the causes of poverty are and we will build that into our strategy that we are working on. Thank you.
I’m glad we are working on a poverty strategy. I think there are probably a couple of different interpretations on the work that’s been done to date; however, I won’t dwell on that.
Representatives of the Anti-Poverty Alliance met recently with the Priorities and Planning committee to discuss developments on creation of an Anti-Poverty Strategy, and they also plan to meet with Cabinet in the new year, I believe, in January. Given the broad-based called for creation of a strategy, the unfulfilled promises of the last government and a promise to make an Anti-Poverty Strategy a priority from 18 of us, when will this government actually meet the commitments and get to work on a strategy, and can the Premier confirm that that’s actually underway right now? Thank you.
We will be meeting with the Anti-Poverty Coalition, I believe it’s called, on January 19th. We are working on a draft strategy that will build on the priorities of the 17th Assembly. It’s my expectation that we would have something by the middle of 2012. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question for the Premier is: The request for an Anti-Poverty Strategy calls for its creation through a broad process involving businesses, communities, organizations, labour, and people living in poverty. Will the Premier commit to just such a process? Thank you.
I believe I tried to convey in my previous response that we’ve already done that. We’ve already gone out and consulted throughout every region of the Northwest Territories. We met with over 250 people. We’ve held over 30 focus group sessions in 13 communities. We conducted a territorial-wide survey to get people’s views on poverty. We believe we’ve done the heavy lifting already so that we can get to work on developing an Anti-Poverty Strategy based on the priorities of the 17th Assembly. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
