Mr. Chair, the other thing that was said is that proposing an increase to the basic grant for nonIndigenous students who were schooled in the territory to assist with 80 percent of the average cost of tuition, books, and supplies. Is that found in here as well? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Mahsi. Minister.
Yes, that is found in there as well. We've increased the supplementary grant and the remissible loan to that 80 percent threshold, and that's included in there. We've tied those numbers to the market basket measure for food and shelter. So there is something that, you know, we can always refer back to. It's not an arbitrary number. We've removed the number of semesters that Indigenous students can receive the supplementary grant, and that's costed out in there as well. We have looked yes, we've also looked at the student suspension. So if a student currently doesn't complete 60 percent of a full course load, they are suspended from income assistance. I don't think we need to or sorry, SFA. I don't think we need to punish students for trying. And so we have removed that barrier as well and costed that out. There's also an increase for study grant for students with disabilities so that we are now aligned with the Canada Student Loan Program in terms of the amounts available through that stream. Thank you.
Mahsi. MLA O’Reilly.
Thanks. It was almost like a Minister's statement. All good news. No, seriously, that's good stuff.
I have had one Yellowknife resident who is nonIndigenous ask about why the removal of the 12 semester limit for basic grants is only being done for Indigenous students. Have you looked at is that federal money or why is it limited to Indigenous students? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Mahsi. Minister.
Thank you. As it was one of our efforts to advance reconciliation. Thank you.
Mahsi. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks. Has the department calculated what it would cost to do that for, say, P2 students? Thanks, Mr. Chair. And what I mean by P2 is students that are actually born in the Northwest Territories. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Mahsi. Minister.
Thank you. And yes, we did look at that initially. Again, as I told as I told the Member before, we shoot for the stars and we get chopped down at every juncture. So we still wound up with an excellent program but we couldn't get everything in this program that we wanted given our financial situation. But I think we wound up with I would say we already had we already currently have the best student financial assistance program in Canada, and we're just going to leave everyone in the dust come the next school year. Thank you.
Mahsi. MLA O’Reilly.
Yeah, thanks, and I agree with that assessment. I'm just a little bit concerned that we haven't found a way to extend that benefit, in particular to our students that are born here and largely educated here. And I would suggest that the department make another run at that and try to do that because I think yeah, I think that's the right thing to do. We want to encourage all the students that go to schools here to go off and get as much education as they can and come back and stay here. And I think we want to try to eliminate barriers. So I'll just leave it at that, Mr. Chair. Thanks.
Mahsi. No further questions? Yes, go ahead, Minister.
Thank you. And so there used to be a limit on the number of semesters that, as the Member said, P2s could access remissible loans. We have or we are proposing to remove that as well. We've tied the amount of those remissible loans again to the Canada market basket measure. We've increased them again. We are proposing to remove income testing for spouses and not tying them to the years of schooling in the NWT. Thank you.
Colleagues, we'll take a short break. Mahsi.
SHORT RECESS.
I call Committee of the Whole back to order. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Before I get started, I'd like to welcome in the House today Shannon Steen, daughter of former Member Vince Steen and former Minister, and back in the day my uncle. He's my uncle also, Uncle Vince Steen. Did an awesome job representing the people in Nunakput and he's passed on now. But Shannon's down here visiting me. So I'm really honoured to have her in the House. And hi, Shannon.
Then I have Ms. Mavis Adjun. I grew up with her back home in Tuk and she lives in Kugluktuk. She's Shannon's auntie. Her husband, former fiddler extraordinaire Colin Adjun, and played a lot of music all of the country and awesome fiddler. And she has a son that Gustin now that took over his dad, and he's travelling around doing a lot of good things for the people in the communities that he goes to play. And so I'd really to like to welcome her in the House too.
I got nine minutes and 11 seconds, Madam Chair.
Of ECE on income support, income security. Okay. Welcome, and go ahead, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Madam Chair. No, Madam Chair. I just want to really congratulate the Minister and staff in regards to the increases that we're giving to the income support across the territory. That was in my Member's statement today so it's really good news to see. And I just want to keep like, if we just keep working together to try to do betterment for the people that, you know, are less fortunate, that don't have jobs and just keep working and plugging away for them, and let them know that we're working for them on their behalf, and I'm working with the Minister that really wanted to do good for that. So I'm really thankful for that, Minister Simpson. And for that, I have nothing else to say, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. And thank you for the comments. We'll move on to Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I don't have much question too for the Minister. I mean, other than that actually, it's actually great working with the Minister and your office and your staff as well. The only one that keeps coming up is that is the fuel subsidy in my riding. And I went through your policies really quick. I understand the zones and one, two, and three, and the levels, etcetera. The only thing that sometimes I get calls on is that sometimes the subsidy doesn't go far enough in terms of going over the amount or whatever it may be coming towards the end of the year. So I'm assuming casebycase basis I'm assuming that your department probably will work with individuals and that kind of thing just to get through the year? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. So if someone a senior needs assistance with their seniors home heating and they run out of their seniors home heating subsidy, they can always apply for income assistance and there's the chance that they're they could be topped off. I've seen that a number of times. As an MLA, I've had a number of constituents who they used all of their senior home heating subsidy and income assistance was able to provide them support. I've had as Minister, I've seen that come across my desk from every region in the territory and for the most part, they're always provided with support. We don't want anyone's home to freeze up. That being said, not everyone is going to be eligible for all the programs but we between income assistance and the seniors home heating subsidy, we do manage to support many, many seniors. Thank you.
Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Madam Chair, anyway thank you for your response Mr. Minister. I was going to also just say that I put out an invitation a few weeks ago in the House here, tabled it, and I just want to know if maybe you want to make a time I'd like to see if you could come along in maybe May or April, May sometime into our my riding just to meet with the chief and council and the Metis council just to meet and greet and maybe listen. And so I just want to put that out there. Mahsi.
Minister of ECE.
Thank you. I know that I think I'm travelling every week after session for maybe a couple months. But if we're talking if the Member's talking about Fort Resolution, that's an easy day trip for me from Hay River when I'm in town so I'm happy to find the time to do that. Or if the Member's talking about other areas, then we'll work that into our schedule as well. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh, did you have any further questions?
I have one more question. And thank you for that. And I really appreciate that. And my last question would be is that I know coming in here a year in my term already and I'm trying to throw some luggage on the train, and I mentioned this to the Premier the train left the station back in 2019 and but anyway, it's something that when I go to the community of Dettah, one of my home communities, they always talk about a new school. And I was apprentice back in 1981. We were still doing the maintenance on that building. So I'm just wondering maybe it's something that we could probably get a chance to also meet with local DEA even and when we meet with the chief and council, this issue's going to come up. So anyways, I just want to put that out there. And I don't have any other questions on the budget. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. And I think that's probably the next section but I'm very well aware of that issue. I've spoken with the DEA chair about that. It's been raised by the leadership as well with me. So we'll continue those conversations, and we are going through the capital needs assessment process where all of the DEAs provide their requests for capital and then they make their way through the process. So we are working on that. But I'm happy to have further conversations. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. And then I would like to say the same thing too. Congratulations, you guys did a good job, especially with the student finance assistance program, lifting the cap for the Indigenous students, because that's good. That's going to help a lot of our students in the small communities because usually the first year that they leave, you know, after graduating high school, they spend their first or second year upgrading and that's not it's a concern for a lot of parents. I'm not discrediting the teachers or anything because we have a lot of good teachers. We have a lot of good Indigenous teachers as well. They're doing good. And the only thing that's lacking, the reason why they're going through all this or going to upgrade, is because you know that I've said it many times too that we need a lot of programs and services. We need more resources to help so that so we can improve our education system.
So I think that's where and, like, even with the speech and language pathologists, and we need that. And then even for multigrades or for, you know, elementary, even some junior high, there are you know, like, it's a multigrades, you know, like, where one teacher's for two or three class or grades, you know. So that's a disadvantage, especially in the small communities. So this really helps, this lifting the cap for the Indigenous students compared if our students were living in the larger centre, you know, where the education system is good, you know, like in Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith, Inuvik or, you know, larger regional centre where they have more resources.
And we don't hear much of those young people going into upgrading program unless it's an Indigenous student, you know, because of the residential school, there's a lot still a lot of them are still affected by the trauma. You know, they're still affected by what happened in the residential school. So that has an impact on them, you know. So we cannot dismiss that. So I am very grateful and thankful that you guys did that because a lot of students were asking about that, you know, because some students they use up their student finance assistance program by taking two or three, four access program, you know, at one time, so. And by the time it came for their career choice, they have no more money or not enough money to carry on to finish their studies so that's good, you know. Like, I'm I'm happy about that, which I was against that cap too myself because it's not helping our young people, our students coming from the small communities. So I'm sure a lot of parents will probably be happy, especially in the small communities. So I just want to say thank you for that. I'm happy with that.
But on the other hand, I just wanted to ask can we get a is there a data available about how many of these students, especially from the outlying communities, from the regions, are accessing student finance assistance program?
Minister of ECE.
Yes, thank you. So in 20222023, there were more than 1,650 applications. And of those, 49 percent were from Indigenous Aboriginals or Indigenous residents of the Northwest Territories, 51 percent from nonIndigenous. Students from the Beaufort Delta make up 14 percent of those students, 3 percent from Deh Cho, 4 percent from Sahtu, 16 percent from the South Slave, 58 percent from the North Slave. And I know that the Member likes to have the Tlicho region broken out and so in addition to those, there's 5 percent from the Tlicho region. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you, I'm glad you came prepared. So yes, well, thank you. Well still, you know, I mean we could do better. You know, like, I mean and it's good there's 1,650 applicants our applications received. But how many of those were successful or not successful but how many of those because I know that at the list minute a lot of those young people who applied, you know, if there's always a backup plan. So how many of those did actually left the North or actually went to postsecondary?
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. I don't have that information. We do try to track that. I can provide the information that we do have to committee. But I don't have it on hand here. But the Member makes a good point. That's important. Data collection is always difficult in all the areas that we do our work, which makes it difficult to design and evaluate programs. But we are getting better, and I believe we do have some information that the Member will find useful and we will share it with her. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Monfwi.
Yeah, well, that's good because we need that too as well because in the region, like, so we can, you know, do better or try to do something that's going to help benefit our young people because maybe this, A, is not working, maybe B will work, you know, whatever it is that, you know, we're trying to do to help our young people. So I'm glad.
And then another one too is that here I see income support. So there's a huge increase. I just want to ask our Minister what are they doing to help the income support assistance client to get off income support to become more selfsufficient?
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. So ECE offers a number of different programs that employers can access and that individuals can access. We also have the Student Financial Assistance program. So someone might need income assistance but perhaps they might decide they actually want to go to school and with the increases that we're proposing for student financial assistance, that makes that a possibility as well.
So, with the unlimited semesters, it's possible that someone could, you know, do their best to pursue their postsecondary education and if they have difficultly or if they take a longer time, we're supporting them in that way. We are not we're taking a bit more of a handsoff approach with the income assistance program. We are proposing to eliminate the productive choices. And I know that that's one program that clients would sometimes use to you know, to perhaps advance their education to do volunteering that could lead to a job and things like that. But what we are doing is we're providing clients with the opportunity to retain more money so that they can go out and they can earn money on income assistance and the government won't be clawing it back the way they used to. Right now, if you earn more than $200 the government starts reducing your income assistance. They start counting that against your income assistance. We're increasing that to $500. So there can be $500 earned per person as well as 25 percent of whatever else they earn. And that will not be reduced from income assistance. As well if you get a job and you do your best; you know, say you are you get fired because maybe you were relying on someone to give you a ride to work and that ride fell through and then you get fired, under the current program you would be cut off from income assistance. What we're proposing is that if you work and you try to work and it doesn't work out, we're not going to cut you off. So those are the types of things that we're doing. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi.
Yeah, thank you. Another one too is that, okay, Yellowknife, I know they have income counsellors because I heard about them. And I think we don't have any in Tlicho region, you know. So I just wanted to know why Tlicho region does not have income counsellors when we have a lot of people who are on income support that are unemployed? I think we need something similar to what Yellowknife, North Slave has, or headquarters, yeah, regarding employment counsellors.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. So, again, with the changes to the income assistance program, we want to make the reporting less onerous so that it frees up time for the clients and for the client service officers so that eventually we hope they will have more time to work with the clients. I know that the Tlicho region is a very busy region when it comes to the workload for the CSOs and because of that, they don't have time to spend with the clients. So we're looking at increasing the number of positions there as well at some point in the very near future. So the Member can look forward to that. And the whole idea of like I said, of income assistance, these changes, is to move towards a more integrated way of delivering these services. So eventually down the road an income assistance client will be able to get that assistance from the person that they're working with. That's the ultimate goal. So we are going in that direction. Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any further questions under this section from Members? Seeing none, please turn to page 48.
Education, Culture and Employment, income security, operations expenditure summary, Main Estimates 20232024, $66,723,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
