Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today in my Member’s statement I spoke about the Income Support Program. I have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment on the Income Support Program.
Mr. Speaker, the Income Support Program should be delivered with the concept of putting people to work. I’d like to ask the Minister what is in the program that encourages people to go to work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we do have people in the regions that deal with clientele. Yes, we deal with a computer system, but that’s just one piece of it. We continue to train our staff that they can have PR training into the communities, public relations. I think that’s the key. We have client service officers in most of the communities. For those without client service officers, we have dedicated individuals who go to the communities to deal with clientele. So there has been constant training that’s happening within our department. We will continue to provide those services, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.
In the area of training, would the Minister commit to ensure that all client service officers are trained in the area of employment counselling? Thank you.
That is one area that we continue to focus on with our department. The client service officers take various training to deal with the subsidies, the program delivery, the client face-to-face interaction, public relations. That area can certainly be part of the training package that we continue to provide our services to client service officers as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Would the Minister look at changing the unearned and earned income exemptions so that there is an incentive for individuals to go to work as opposed to what appears to be a bit of a disincentive? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We did make some changes to our program back in 2007. We did a review of our programming. We have made some drastic changes from increasing benefits to Northwest Territories. Also, just adding $5.1 million into the program itself. Those are substantial changes. We continue to work with the unearned and earned income. We do provide various training programs as well for those individuals that would like to get off income support, a Productive Choices program, but we continue to create these programs so those individuals can work with us. Mr. Speaker, we will continue to provide that valuable information to clientele.
The Member is asking for another review. We just did a review. That might be something we may have to look at down the road. I think it is too soon. We just did one two years ago. With that, that is where we are at, Mr. Speaker. We made some drastic changes to that. Mahsi.
Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mr. Speaker, I think the review of the Income Support Program didn’t achieve desired results. I would like to ask the Minister if he could commit to reviewing the program with an emphasis on employment and using the idea of income support person going to work as a key component to the program. I was wondering if the Minister could commit to looking at that again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, that could be part of the key component of discussions that we can have on a going forward basis. I can certainly commit to consider that as part of the discussions that we could have. Like I said, we just did a review and another review could be undertaken down the road, but I can’t commit today when that is going to happen. But I will take that into consideration and work with the Members on that. Mahsi.
The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
