Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to follow up from my earlier Member’s statement with questions to the lead Minister for the Anti-Poverty Strategy, Mr. Abernethy.
As I mentioned in my statement today, my constituents are telling me that our social safety net contains poverty traps. Some of the rules make it very difficult for people to access the help they need.
I’d like to start by asking the Minister, first of all, what is the current status of the Anti-Poverty Strategy Action Plan. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister responsible for poverty, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The framework was released earlier this calendar year, and the government and Cabinet have been working on an action plan to respond to that framework. We have shared that draft with committee and we are working on the committee’s responses to it to improve that plan as we move forward.
In the meantime, we’ve funded the No Place for Poverty Coalition to have a roundtable of their own to start working on individual responses to the report so we can all come together in November. November 28th and 29th are the dates that have been confirmed for our territorial group to come together and work on a territorial response to poverty. So it’s important that we all work together, that we’re working with the NGOs, and also working across departments, because it’s going to take everybody to deal with poverty in the North. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate the Minister is seeking support or input from the wider community on this and that he’s committed towards moving things forward towards implementation of the action plan.
The poverty traps I mentioned have been discovered by people trying to access the system. Obviously, these constituents are not policy analysts, but their experience highlights the need to research such policy issues and propose solutions. So can the Minister say how the action plan will tackle these needs?
Thank you. The Ministers responsible for the social envelop have continued to have conversations on how we can bring the departments together to work more effectively together. In the development of our action plan, which we’ve shared with committee, the draft action plan, we worked really hard to make sure that we’re using common language and where there was certain crossover between initiatives like the Economic Opportunities Strategy and Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan that the Minister is coming forward with, as well the Early Childhood Development Framework and Action Plan, as well as the good work that the Housing Corp has been doing. We’ve tried to ensure that all of that was incorporated within our territorial response, our GNWT response. But it’s more important than just having a response; it’s actually working together. The Social Envelope Committee of Ministers has been having conversations around this and has been directing our departments to find ways to actually break down some of the silos and work together. We continue to do that and we will continue to do that.
We also are always looking for examples, and the Member has provided me with a number of examples of where we’ve had some obvious breakdowns between different departments and some of the programs and we’re looking to find remedies to that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister has very correctly depicted this as a cross-departmental dilemma. Clearly focused attention is needed on these conflicting cross-departmental policies that entrap people in poverty, as the Minister has said.
Will the Anti-Poverty Action Plan include funding or dedicated personnel, almost an ombudsman sort of a person, to research and suggest solutions to poverty traps like these and other policy dilemmas as they come up? Thank you.
An anti-poverty coordinator has been hired with an effective date of October 21, 2013. This individual coordinates territorial action plans, provides advice and recommendations to the GNWT on any ongoing initiatives that support the priorities in the frameworks, and identify areas for collaboration actions to advance the priorities of the framework among all of our partners, including GNWT departments and NGOs. This position will also review annual results of the GNWT partner actions and complete results reports and report progress on broad social indicators. So the answer is yes.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I don’t see a coordinator as being what I’m talking about here. Policy analysts are a very specific breed of cat and they have a specific focus and they get into the intricate examples of conflicting policies and weigh out the solutions. So I’m wondering: Has the work to date profiled issues such as these, other than a few examples provided by my colleagues and myself? What mechanism is being contemplated to ensure these policy conundrums are captured and brought forward for resolution so they don’t recur? I don’t think, again, a coordinator is what we’re talking about. Mahsi.
It’s a title. The coordinator is a title. This individual will be reviewing policies across departments that are coming under this Anti-Poverty Action Plan and making sure that they’re moving forward. The larger responsibility, obviously, belongs to the individual Ministers and the Social Envelope Committee of Ministers to make sure that departments are working together, and each department has their own policy unit who can do analysis. So this coordinator will play an important role in analyzing and making recommendations on where these barriers tend to, or may, exist. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
