Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and I want to follow up on my statement about income support policies and the impact that they have on those of our residents who apply for income support.
I’d like, first of all, to ask the Minister if he could please explain to me and explain to the House and explain to residents the rationale for the policy, which says that a Registered Retirement Savings Plan must be cashed in before a resident can access any income support. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister responsible for income support, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Income assistance provides adequate benefits to clients, while considering household income as a family resource. Clients are expected to avail themselves of all financial resources. We’ve done that for so many years now.
RRSPs are considered to be a rainy day fund. As such, they should be used prior to accessing IA, income assistance, but the Registered Education Savings Plan and Disabilities Savings Plan are not counted as income. So these are just some of the rules that we have.
We must be financially responsible and also adhere to the rules of this House and the Auditor General of Canada when spending public money. These are the policies that we have and all the regulations within our GNWT. Mahsi.
I’m somewhat perplexed by the Minister’s answer, but I accept that he has provided us with some rationale. That the Registered Retirement Savings Plan is considered a rainy day fund, I would like to suggest that it’s going to be raining awfully hard when people reach retirement age, and if they have no pension from their work, which many of our residents do not, then it’s going to be raining very hard. I can’t accept that rationale.
I’d like to ask the Minister, I mentioned a contradiction in my statement, and in terms of contradictions it is the requirement of the department basically that the individual be reliant on government. The Minister says that we provide for residents. I don’t think $9 a day for food is very much of a provision for residents; however, we provide for our residents, but on the other hand we want them to make productive choices and to become independent. So please, Minister, can you explain how those two things are not contradictory? Thank you.
The Income Assistance program is based on need. All participants must demonstrate their financial needs as set out in the program legislation and regulations and also policies that we have to ensure all people are treated fairly across the Northwest Territories in a consistent manner. So when an individual has an RRSP – most of the Income Assistance clientele do not have anything – so we must be fair to that clientele. That is part of the reason we have regulations in place, polices in place.
We do make changes over time. We’ve made some drastic changes to income security in 2007 and 2011. We are going through other changes in 2014-2015, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.
Thanks to the Minister, but I have to frown on what I heard the Minister say, that it’s okay to penalize people for good planning. It’s okay to tell people that you’ve managed to save, you’ve got this money, use it up before we give you any money to help you out, especially when somebody has been successful and they’ve encountered a bit of a rough patch. They don’t need a lot of money, they need some money, but let’s make them destitute and then the government will look after them.
I would like to ask the Minister, he mentioned that there are some changes that are coming. I would like to know in line with these changes, when income support policies were last considered and all of the policies, not just one or two, but I’d like to know all of the policies in total.
Has the department looked at all policies, seen contradictions in those policies and done something about it? When was that done? Thank you.
Every opportunity that we have to review and make changes to our policies within income security programming, we’ve made changes along the way in 2007 and 2011. Now we’re onto 2014-2015. This is based on the feedback that we’ve received from clientele themselves and also the general public. We’re always open to those ideas, input and feedback. I will be presenting to standing committee on the changes that are coming in 2014-2015. We will update the standing committee. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister, I was going to ask what changes are coming. I guess I will wait with bated breath for them to come to committee.
I would like to know, when the Minister says they are constantly looking at things, are they looking at things in total? I suspect they are looking at an individual policy in isolation.
Have they considered the total impact of a change on the whole of the policies within their department, or do they simply look at one policy at a time? Thank you.
That all depends on the circumstances. If an individual client presents, say, a suggestion to us, then we will seriously look at it. From the general public, if there is more than one policy that they want us to make some amendments to, those are areas we will seriously consider looking at. When the Member is asking if we change the whole overall policy within the GNWT Income Assistance program, I believe at this point we haven’t amended all policies within GNWT, but those are areas we are looking at from the feedback we receive from the public. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
