Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to use my Member’s statement today to put a bit of a profile behind who the working poor are in our Northwest Territories.
This is a question often asked by many because they want to know who we are talking about. Well, more often than not, women are the subjects of being considered the most vulnerable in comparison to men. On average in the NWT, women earn 23 percent less than their male counterparts. That’s a shame that we should never be proud of, and certainly something that we should strive hard to fix.
Many of our working poor, it’s well known, are single families that make less than $30,000 a year. In the Northwest Territories it’s estimated that there are over 1,200 people in this situation that make less than $30,000 a year. What does $30,000 buy you? Well, let’s put it on the table. A two-bedroom apartment in Yellowknife costs almost $1,600 a month to rent, and if you make that $30,000 a year, after taxes you’d be left with less than $900 a month to pay for your food, buy clothing, get your transportation and whatever else your family needs for help. Well, how does this work? It doesn’t. Quite frankly, I don’t know how people survive.
I know a woman in my constituency who uses her credit card to pay her utilities and her food for her children through the winter and she hopes for a good summer to balance it off. It’s a crying shame to know that she balances summer against winter. We’re not talking about a month-to-month problem; we’re talking about a year-to-year problem.
If she goes to income support, guess what their answer is? Sell your house and then we’ll help you. What type of independence do we support when we tell people to sell their house even though their mortgage is cheaper than their rent? I get it; the solution becomes put them back on the system, that’s the only way. Once they’re on the system, I see very few people who’ve ever had a fair shot of getting out of the system. We have people who want to be independent. We must find ways to help support them.
I can tell you specific to this one case alone, although there are many and we all know that. All that these families are looking for is a little financial support to stay out of the system. Let’s embrace their independence and support them in ways that we can make a difference to support families.
I’ll have questions later today. Thank you, colleagues.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
