Caitlin Cleveland

The Minister lightly touched on it, and I touched on some of the common barriers that were brought up in the ICM report in my Member's statement. I'd like the Minister to hopefully confirm that, yes, all of the common barriers identified in the ICM report will be part of the review of the Income Assistance Program. Some of those, for example, are cumbersome program requirements, late payments, and lack of person-centered approach.

Mr. Speaker, public servants can improve the lives of Northerners if they are empowered to do so. Yellowknifers have told me they experience frustration navigating government department, especially during high stress, multi-dimensional life changes. Housing and Education, Culture and Employment income assistance are the two areas causing the most frustration for my constituents. Earlier this year, Justice released the integrated case management social review on investment report. Women were slightly overrepresented at 54 percent of the program participants, while 78 percent self-identified as...

Thank you to the Minister for further documentation and also the willingness to review that. When it comes to public housing, Yellowknife is considered a zone A community. This means that a person who makes a base salary of an MLA can live in public housing for $890 a month, that a manager with the GNWT is eligible for public housing for $1295 a month, and a Minister would pay a rent of $1625 per month. This is all found in the public housing brochure. It's valuable to remember that Yellowknife also currently has more people on its housing list than the total number of housing units available...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. I am wondering if the Minister can explain how the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation calculates the core need income threshold, otherwise known as CNIT, and what programs use the CNIT to determine eligibility? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I've said before that a house is not a home. A home is a place that assures us safety, individual and community health, a platform for participating in community, and is embedded sustainably into the fabric of an emerging North and provides reliable comfort. The focus of a home, Mr. Speaker, is the person.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights argues that housing is a human right that underpins an adequate standard of living throughout all stages of life with focused attention on mothers and children. Article 21 of the United Nations...

NWT residents often identify barriers they experience in qualifying for NWT Housing Corporation's funding for home ownership, repair, or market rental program as being related to CNIT. In some cases, due to the income targets under CNIT, seniors or people with disabilities do not meet eligibility requirements, even though they desperately require the funding supports that the GNWT does have. Will the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation conduct a review of the current CNIT to create a modern way of prioritizing Northerners for housing in the Northwest Territories?

The NWT Human Rights Commission is separate from the Government of the Northwest Territories. It is part of the human rights system set up under the Human Rights Act. Most legislation in the Northwest Territories has a Cabinet Minister responsible for the act. This is different for the Human Rights Act. It says the commission is responsible to the Legislative Assembly for the administration of the act. The Assembly's Office of the Clerk is responsible for the oversight of the territory's statutory officers, including the Human Rights Commission.

The commission's role is to protect people from...

I appreciate the Minister's comment about not being able to decide on programming from Aurora College, so I hope Aurora College is listening. Will Aurora College consider integrating the personal support worker diploma courses for partial credit towards the first year of the nursing program so that the personal support workers can receive credit for what they have completed should they decide to return to college and so that existing nursing students will be eligible for personal support worker positions as summer employment while they complete their nursing degree? As an aside, Mr. Speaker...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment currently has five career and education advisors serving all 33 communities. This role is to help high school students come up with a path that they want to take after high school and to be able to lay that path out with them and get kids really excited about what they want to do. I've had the opportunity to speak with both people who serve in that role and kids who have taken advantage of that role, and it's a very positive relationship. What I am wondering is: what is ECE's plan to grow the career and...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Along the same lines as making sure that high school students have all the opportunity in the world to build their experience, whether it be economy of care or whether it's trades, I am hearing from some employers that there is a concern that, in order to qualify for the trades wage subsidy, their apprentice needs to accomplish a minimum of 30 hours of work during the week. Some of the apprentices are high school students through the SNAP program and obviously cannot accommodate 30-hour-a-week minimums. I am wondering if the program is willing to work with...