Yes, thank you. So the senior citizens supplementary benefit, that benefit there, I mean, it's continuing along so that's not there's not I don't see another department so the new senior program, that will just be tied into that income assistance program? It's just being kind of split so it's more streamlined, is that my understanding? And then is it is there a can you clarify the age for a senior person to be falling into that category. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mahsi. Minister.
Thank you. So the idea of the new program is it will have one application. If you're a senior and you want assistance with your home heating fuel or you need income assistance, you will make one application and based on your income, you will be, you know, provided either the home heating or income assistance. So that is the plan. Thank you.
Mahsi. MLA Semmler.
So what age is somebody going to be considered as a senior because I know, like, if I go to my Indigenous organization, there's an age. If I go to another organization it's just like our youth, we have different age. So what senior what age is seniors would be expect could they expect to be falling under this program because some of those ages might not consider themselves seniors but it's an age group so they may not access the program. Thank you.
Mahsi. Minister.
Thank you. The age will stay the same at 60 years old. The revamped income assistance program will be for persons ages 19 to 59 and then the seniors program is for everyone 60 plus. Thank you.
Mahsi. MLA Semmler.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Looking at the home senior home heating subsidy, so in 20212022, it was 2,155, and then our revised estimates for 20222023, 2,649. Main estimates 2,192. We know our fuel has gone up. We know especially in the Beaufort Delta, fuel heating home fuel has raised significantly and come April 1st we will be having to pay the carbon tax on top of that. So we know we're going to be expected to pay more throughout the territories so I'm just wondering why that number hasn't even matched last year's heating home senior home heating. Thank you.
Mahsi. Minister.
Thank you. The goal of the senior home heating subsidy is to subsidize heating. So it's not to cover the entire cost, and we aim for 80 percent. There was a topup early in the life of this government to the program to ensure that we hit that 80 percent. Given the dramatic increases we've seen, we're no longer at that 80 percent. So what we did earlier well, I guess it was last year, was we provided a onetime topup to the program, and so that's reflected in the 20222023 revised estimates. In the upcoming fiscal year, we will look at our budget and look at the cost of home heating fuel and see if we can and should provide another onetime topup. Thank you.
Mahsi. MLA Semmler.
So thank you for that. So now that we're coming close to the year end, March 31st, so we should know exactly what we've spent this year, this summer we should be able to figure that out. So would we be would you be considering having to come back, or would you just find that money from within to reallocate the funds? Because we all know that it's not going down; it's only going to go up. So even to meet 80 percent coverage, we're going to need more money there. So I'm just wondering how the Minister's going to deal with that because we don't want our seniors without their home heating subsidy. Thank you.
Mahsi. Minister.
Thank you. And the cost of fuel goes down and it goes up so it could go it could actually come down; we don't know that. It could continue to go up. I'm always the optimist I guess. And we wouldn't be coming back for a supplementary estimate. It would likely be funded from within as we did last time around. Thank you.
Mahsi. MLA Semmler.
Okay, thank you. Just to the last topic there, the student financial assistance. I see that we've raised it. It's consistently went up and we've raised it again just under, you know, a million dollars there. And I'm just wondering with the changes that student financial assistance has made, has that you know, with eliminating the number of semesters an Indigenous person can only go to school for, I know that was eliminated. So I'm just wondering how much of an uptake have you received or has that started or when will that start, and are we budgeted properly for in case I decide I want to go back to school and I can get more semesters or any one person, any Indigenous person who's used up their semesters. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mahsi. Minister.
Thank you. And I had the same thoughts as the Member. So these changes that we really have not discussed publicly will take effect for the upcoming so the 20232024 academic year. So students going to school in September would have access to some of these changes that we're making. The increase in the budget is about $1.4 million. As well, we've made some other reallocations internally to adjust the program as well. So some of the changes are the basic grant. We are increasing that for first of all, this program, again, is supposed to cover 80 percent of the cost of attending school in somewhere like in Edmonton. I think that was the original calculation. So we wanted to make sure that that 80 percent was still accurate so we looked at the numbers and we increased the overall budget for each of the grants available. We also decided for Indigenous students, to increase the basic grant to cover 100 percent of the cost the average cost of tuition, books, etcetera, and we removed the cap on semesters. So before you would have to you could only use 12 semesters of funding before you were done. So we've removed that. I'll just leave it at that for now. Thanks.
Mahsi. Mahsi for that. MLA Semmler.
Well, I guess that's sorry, I opened a can of worms. But with all of the numbers and all of the briefings and all of the budgets and all of the numbers, I think this is a good thing, though. I mean, that's why I think one of the things that I'm worried that within this number here, people going back to school or, you know, with COVID and people being without COVID now and people being able to go back to school in person, there's a lot of students that missed the years of going to school because they decided to opt out of going to school during COVID, virtually. So I'm just hoping that that number is going to be relooked at if we're going to need more. Thank you.
Mahsi for that. Minister.
Thank you. And we have been underspending the SFA budget for years, and it's sort of common across Canada. We've seen lower numbers of students so that allowed us to make some enhancements beyond the $1.4 million here. And, you know, if it comes to the point where there's so much uptake that we're overspending this, then we're overspending it and we'll have to increase the budget. It's a great problem to have. Thank you.
Mahsi. Next, MLA Cleveland.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm going to work really hard not to repeat anything that's been said so far.
So first I wanted to start off with so the Minister indicated that the intent is to kind of go out and do some public relations in regards to this new program later on in the year with the intent of kind of looking at June or July. My concern is that revamps to income security include student financial assistance and student financial assistance has a deadline of June. And so I'm wondering how students will learn about changes to the program in advance of them actually meeting up with a deadline because some people who, like MLA Semmler indicated, might all of a sudden be eligible for more student financial assistance that they don't realize, and there is a whole lot of planning that goes into becoming a student again in your life. Thank you.
Mahsi. Minister.
Thank you. So we want everyone to be aware of these funds and know what they're going to be getting in September. So a lot of work has happened. Once this budget passes, a lot more work will happen. And we want to make sure that this is widely communicated. I think this is such a great new story that we shouldn't have a problem letting everyone know about it, once we iron out those details and are able to tell people exactly what we're providing. So we're well aware that there are deadlines and we want to ensure that we are working to ensure that everything is completed ahead of those deadlines so that everyone knows what they're eligible for. Thank you.
Mahsi. MLA Cleveland.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And, you know, I assume that people like career advisors and counsellors and school administrators will be part of that education, even school teachers. But I would also like to ask, given that income security and income assistance is in here as well, that GSOs but not only GSOs, NGOs, be made part of kind of that training because there are NGOs like YWCA that spend a lot of time helping people access programs and kind of act as a mediator between residents and programs like yours. And so I'm just hoping that we can ensure that they're included because they can be champions in helping spread the good word of these program changes as well. So thank you for that. And that's just a comment.
My question is does the federal government contribute to income security, either the income assistance program or the student financial assistance program; is there any cost recovery that happens here? Thank you.
Mahsi for that. Minister.
Thank you. And of course we get most of our money from the federal government. In particular, we do get money specifically for the student financial assistance program. We receive $5.6 million from the federal government. They have the Canada Student Loans Program that we opted out of in order to be able to offer these types of customized programs to our residents. And because we opted out, we get that money from the federal government and we contribute GNWT funds as well. Thank you.
MLA Cleveland.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Yes, it was that $5.6 million fund towards SFA that I was looking for. I'm wondering if there is any conversation, given the changes that have happened to income security and student financial assistance, if there's been any conversation with the federal government to increase that amount especially given that one of the most exciting changes that was made to income security was this opportunity for Indigenous students to really go for unlimited terms of education if that's what they so desire. Thank you.
Mahsi. Minister.
Thank you. The department does have a relationship with the federal government and at officials levels there are always discussions and there's always meetings. There haven't you know, we haven't made a formal request for more money from the federal government for the student financial assistance program. Thank you.
MLA Cleveland.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll wait until the next section.
MLA O'Reilly.
Yeah, thanks, Mr. Chair. I want to go to some of the comments from two previous speakers. You know, it was great to get the Minister's statement on changes to income security on February the 27th but there was like a "what we heard" report. But I guess I'm hoping that there's kind of like a report that says "what we're going to do" because there was a lot in there and just not many people pay attention to what happens in here. So I think there's a real need to communicate. Look, that was a very big piece of work. Lots of good changes, things that I've had complained to me by constituents for years, so hats off for getting the work done. And I think you need to toot your own horn a lot louder on it. So I know you got a news release out today about this. That's good. Keep it rolling. But put it together in a comprehensive way.
So I want to turn now to the budget here. So I see that there's an increase in income assistance program funding on page 48. And it's a big increase, and so it should be. 20222023 Revised Estimates 38.9; 20232024 Main Estimates $44 million. So that's like a if I do my math quickly, $5 million increase. That's a lot of money. And that's good. I support it. But how did you calculate that amount? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Mahsi. Minister.
Thank you. We looked at the program, thought about what we'd like to do with the program, and then figured out how much it would cost, and then figured out how much we might actually be able to get. And that's really the way we do everything, is we shoot for the stars and then we get chopped down, you know, at each stage until we wind up with the number that we can get through all of the various stages. Thank you.
MLA O’Reilly.
It sounds like a thrashing machine. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yeah, well, presumably there's obviously some work in here about okay, if people are not going to have IBA payments deducted from income assistance, you got some sort of way of calculating that. If people are, you know, they're not going to lose income assistance because they lose a job. There's got to be some way of kind of predicting some of these costs. Is that the kind of work that went into calculating this? And more specifically, does this amount also include the benefits for seniors that are going to be rolled into this bigger program? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Mahsi. Minister.
Thank you. And yes, I know my last answer might not have been perhaps as serious as the Member was looking for. But that's what we are doing. We looked at every benefit that we wanted to offer and we costed those out based on the historical realities. We looked we removed a number of barriers as well. And so, you know, income assistance clients won't be cut off for certain things anymore. And there is a cost attached to that as well. So we did look at those costs and we factored those in. We looked at the exempting all of these, say the IBA payments, things like that, and we costed that out. So, yes, every item in here was costed out. Believe me, I know that, you know, sometimes these numbers just appear here but it is a very, very rigorous timeconsuming and resourceheavy exercise to come up with these programs and justify every dollar that we want to spend and then that's analyzed within the department, that's analyzed by the Department of Finance, and then it's analyzed here in the House. Thank you.
MLA O’Reilly.
Yeah, okay, no, thanks; I just wanted to make sure that that's what this number reflects and that the seniors stuff is in here. That's good. Good work. And thanks for sneaking it by your Cabinet colleagues.
Student financial assistance, there's an increase in here to the grants on page 49, and the Finance Minister in the budget addressed actually said some of this stuff about how the basic and I'm quoting, "the basic grant for northern Indigenous students to fully cover the average cost of tuition, books, and supplies and eliminate their 12semester limit for the basic grants." Is that included in here? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Minister.
Yes, it is. Thank you.
MLA O’Reilly.
