Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I just want to give a bit of an explanation to the public here, that the legislative proposal goes to committee but the legislative proposal does not mean we will see legislation in the life of this Assembly. And I know that some of this is out of the Minister's hands but I believe with proper political will and, you know, some working with committee, we could pass the Liquor Act in the remaining year of this Assembly. And I really believe it is what we should do or else we risk all of this work just simply being a waste of time and not being done by the next Assembly because different Assemblies have different priorities. So my question for the Minister of Finance is will she bring forward amendments to the Liquor Act in the life of this Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I also was relieved in some ways when I had received the recommendations and the report. And the reason I say that is that the fact of managing and dealing with liquor and the sale and production and transport of liquor can be divisive but the report does do, in my view, a good job of finding that balance and operating in a way that, you know, encourages safety, encourages consumption. So I am certainly committed to seeing those recommendations come forward.
I had the pleasure of appearing in front of committee quite recently, and the message of finding a way forward was received loud and clear. And as I say, I am doing my best to find a pathway by which we can achieve that goal collectively. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, through this education fiasco, I guess, we're forgetting about the district education authorities or councils in the small communities. I've been speaking to my DEA chairman for the last couple days, and they don't know what's going on in education. They're not provided any information. I think I made a statement about this before, how the DEAs and the supports they need, because I find that it's very lacking. They don't have workshops for them for roles and responsibilities or any new documents that come out, like performance measures like the Minister alludes to. They don't know that stuff. So they're asking me to meet with them. So I'm asking a few of my colleagues from the small communities to reach out to their DEAs also, see if they're running into problems. And if any that are listening, we can pass the message to their district education council that they can reach out to me. I'd appreciate that very much.
Mr. Speaker, when a business is running, the businesses usually get a general financial audit done when their business when they run into problems or facing bankruptcy, they ask for a forensic audit. So they dig deeper and find out the problems that are in there. And with the education in the small communities, we can look at it that way. The Auditor General did their broad general reports and recommendations and whatnot, and we can look at perhaps going deeper into the small schools' education systems by having something like an audit, a forensic audit. I'm wondering if the Minister is would warm up to that idea? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has identified a number of things that are issues. He speaks about data collection, the availability of data. He talks about the ability to audit education bodies. These are all things that we are proposing to change by amending the Education Act. So the Member has great suggestions, and I'm definitely open to them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. And I thank the Minister for that answer, and I'll hold him to many things, as I'm not done with small communities' education fiasco, and I appreciate that. Mahsi.
Thank you. Minister responsible for ECE.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I just wanted to take this opportunity to clarify. I've never claimed to be a lawyer. I've never said that all students go to university. What I said is in Hansard yesterday and I apologize if I appeared as though I was showboating. I will say I was getting a little frustrated but I never intend to showboat. I think about an elder I spoke with in your constituency, Mr. Speaker, when I was there, and they were talking about how they watch the Legislative Assembly and they appreciate the level of decorum in here, and I always try to maintain that. So I apologize to the House if I appeared to be showboating. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.
Mr. Speaker, thank you. Can the Minister explain the purpose of the income support program? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for ECE.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So we have a number of income support programs. I believe the Member is referencing our income assistance program, which is a specific income support program. The purpose of that program is to provide residents with enough funds to be able to procure the necessities of life. It's not the type of program where people can save money or earn you know, earn a living doing that. It is to help people who are at the point where they can no longer, you know, keep a roof over their head, have food in their fridge, things like that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. According to the income support, what does the income support program means, it's right here. It says the program provides financial assistance to the Northwest Territories residents to help meet basic needs and enhanced needs. The program encourages and support greater selfreliance to improve the quality of life. Okay, that's yeah, that's what it says on there.
With that in mind, I want to ask the Minister, I know that with the income support, when the person earns some money from parttime employment or any money earned are usually clawed back. And it seems like from with the program that exists, it seems there's no incentive, no incentive for people to work. Therefore, can the Minister explain what is the productive choice program? Does it help to get people off the income support program? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The productive choice productive choices are something that are in the legislation, the income assistance regulations. Individuals who are collecting income assistance are required to participate in a productive choice unless they are seniors or persons with disabilities I believe.
The productive choices, there's a variety of them. But currently everyone is enrolled in the wellness productive choice which we instituted at the beginning of the pandemic where people were required to take care of themselves and their families. And so that is what people are currently enrolled in.
The other productive choices include things such as parenting. They include things such as work, volunteer work, things like that.
Reviews are mixed on productive choices. In some communities, they see the value in them. It gives our communities service officers and an ability to work with someone and help that person maybe perhaps gain employment, get some volunteer experience, go out on the land, do things like that. And then other communities people see them as a burden. We have individuals on income assistance who instead of, you know, perhaps bettering their lives or doing what they need to do to better their lives, they are busy trying to fulfill this productive choices in order to get income assistance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Okay. Well, that's good, thank you. Okay, well, I think he explained a little bit here. My next question is that so he said some, you know, how, but I just wanted to ask how is the department helping people get off the income support program? How is the income support working with the people on income support so that they make so that they are that, you know, we help them be selfreliant, because I'm sure some of those people do not want to be on income support and they would like to help themselves be productive in their communities, do something good for themselves, so I just want to know how is the department helping some of these people get off the income support?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So there's a number of ways. First I'll speak about ways outside of the income assistance program. We have the small Community employment funds. $4 million go into communities every year to help create jobs which helps people, you know, get jobs and earn income. We have labour we have funds for employers to hire people who might need additional training, people who the employers might not otherwise hire. And we have a number of different programs like that. I recommend that everyone read the recent report from the Ombud on income assistance. They talk quite a bit about how actually the client service officers work with the income assistance applicants. And you can tell from reading that that there's a real desire among the client service officers to spend time with those clients. But they just don't have enough time. There's not enough hours in the day to do that work. And so sometimes clients feel like they're rushed through the system, and they're not supported in the way they would like to be. But the fact is the system is just it's stretched to the limits right now. And so we are undergoing a review of the income assistance program and making changes so that those client service officers have more time to spend with each client. And this is the first step towards moving towards a more integrated service delivery model where the income assistance client service officer can help a client access other programs. So labour market programs, perhaps housing programs, and things like that, so that we can actually work more closely with the clients because I you know, I'm in agreement with sort of what the Member's getting at, is that we are working with these people, how can we help them help themselves better. And that's what we're doing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Monfwi.
Thank you. Mr. Speaker, has the Government of the Northwest Territories saved income support dollars due to the federal COVID emergency and recovery benefits? Can the Minister explain how ECE assists income assistance eligibility for those receiving CERB or receive CERB or CRB payments? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Government of the Northwest Territories saved zero dollars due to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, CERB. We exempted that. So if you were collecting income assistance and you received CERB, we did not count that against your income. When the Canada Recovery Benefits, CRB, came out, that was counted as income. Notices were sent to income assistance clients. There was an advertising campaign. We let MLAs know that that was the case. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to pick up where my colleague from Monfwi just left off almost in terms of income assistance. But so my question is for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
The federal House of Commons announced two cash benefits to offset the impacts of the large increases in the inflation rate. These were passed I think about ten days ago in the House of Commons, Mr. Speaker. Benefits include the onetime doubling of the GST rebate to low income citizens and a onetime $500 benefit for low income renters. So I would like to ask the Minister if he and his staff are aware of these newlyapproved benefits and whether they're going to be clawed back from income assistance? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the first reading by the Senate was on October 6th. So I don't think that those benefits have been finalized yet. I understand that the federal government should have them finalized and money should be flowing perhaps by the end of this month.
When that happens, I can say that we will be exempting the additional GST that clients may be receiving. So currently GST rebates are counted as income against someone's income assistance. But understanding that the reason this is being doubled is because of the record inflation that we're facing, we are not going to count that additional GST rebate against income. So income assistance clients won't see their income assistance reduced because of the additional GST rebate.
There is the housing benefit as well, and that is money for rent. Income assistance pays the actual cost of rent and utilities. So it's sort of a nonissue so I don't think people need to worry about that. If you're getting money for your rent from income assistance, you wouldn't get the money for rent from Canada. Or if you get it from Canada, that will be deducted by income assistance.
And there's also a dental benefit, for children under 12. I believe it's over two years. And because that is a benefit for children, that will also be exempted from the calculations. We don't include funds received for children as income. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is for Minister of education. Can the Minister provide data on how many small community graduates directly enter university as compared to larger regional centres? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, I don't have that I have it in my hands but I can't flip through this document and find that information at the moment. I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker.
Okay, I did do a written question. I submitted a written question back in December. How many people in the Northwest Territories have a grade 12 education and are on income support assistance program, and the answer was that this is not the answer I was looking for. This data is not tracked by the Department of Education as the input is not a requirement to qualify for the assistance.
So what I'm asking here is that if the education system was good, I don't it's more of a comment. I don't if he wants to answer, but I already asked the question. If we had if the education system was good, we would not have many of these young people walking around in the small communities because we hear from the community leaders and community elders, community are saying why are why do we have all these young people with grade 12 education walking around doing nothing? And I'm sure you heard that too, in your ridings too before, Mr. Speaker. So I'm just asking the Minister that if the education system was good, we would not be having this. And can the Minister provide the number, how many grade 12 graduates that are on income support assistance? We need data so that maybe they can make a good decision in the future to improve the education system, especially for small communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I don't have that. When a client goes to apply for income assistance, we don't ask what their level of education is. And, you know, I think as a government we need to always be mindful of how much information we are requesting. However, I get the Member's point; it would be useful information. I think that we're at a point, though, where we have a good sense of what the education system is like across the territory in communities. We have a lot of data out there, and we just need to start implementing or continue to implement some of these new initiatives to help address the issue because we all know there's issues in education. It's no secret. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document: The 20232024 Capital Estimates. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Tabling of documents. Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents: Inuvialuit Water Board 20212022 Annual Report and Financial Statements; and, Natural Resource Conservation Trust Fund Financial Statements for Year Ended March 31st, 2022. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Tabling of documents. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: Director of Child and Family Services Annual Report 20212022. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Tabling of documents. Minister responsible for Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following three documents: 2023 Corporate Plan Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission; Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission 2021 Annual Report; and, Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission Path Towards Safety Strategic Plan 20232027. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
