Debates of October 19, 2007 (day 2)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we all know, we’ve just gone through an election process where we’ve heard a lot of issues, going door to door and hearing our constituency raising issues by way of problems that they see in our communities. Mr. Speaker, one of the biggest problems I see is the poverty that’s still out there in our communities. We hear about the high cost of living, the high cost of rent, the problems delivering programs by way of income support for individuals who are walking the streets for three months with not a nickel in their pockets because they either missed a meeting or were told we can’t help you so…But, again, Mr. Speaker, the poverty that is in the Territories should not be there, yet we may rate as one of the high statistics in regards to the economic and the gross domestic product of producing diamonds in the country and we’re still living in poverty in a lot of our communities. The problem that we’re having by way of attracting people to our communities and the high cost of living, especially in the area of housing, from people that are living in income support are basically who are receiving a good paying job and having no alternative but to go to public housing to find shelter and paying $2,500 a month to rent a home to raise their families and finding out that they’re no better off going to that community find a job; they’re better off to go into larger centres.

Mr. Speaker, we also have to deal with the high cost of living by way of the power costs, the shelter costs and also the high cost of groceries in a lot of our communities. Mr. Speaker, we, as a government, have an opportunity to do right by the people we’re here to serve, and revise our programs and services so that they work; they’re not penalizing people through our income support reforms that we’ve done. If anything, we’ve got a bigger crisis by way of people in arrears, people who cannot afford shelter and people that also can’t take advantage of programs and services because of the restrictive guidelines that we’re using to enforce it.

So with that, Mr. Speaker, those are some of the issues I heard during my campaign and I want to ensure to Cabinet that we have to do everything we can to ensure that we have a process that will get our people out of poverty and put them back to be able to have reasonable and sustainable living in all our communities. Thank you.

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