Thank you, Mr. Speaker. October was a tough month for Yellowknifers on income support. It seems that the income support division at Education, Culture and Employment in late September and early October had a staff shortage, computer problems, who knows what other problems, and they got more than a little behind in the processing of income support payments. One of my constituents dutifully sent in all the necessary documents early in September, the usual time, expecting a bank deposit at the usual time. A week into October the bank deposit had not appeared. There was a polite but cryptic e-mail from a client service officer advising that they were “currently experiencing a staff shortage and processing times for applications were taking longer than usual.”
Income support clients have bills just like the rest of us – rent, phone and so on – and I don’t know many landlords who will wait for their rent cheques, or phone companies who will extend credit for months at a time. Income support clients also need to buy food, and generally have a very small margin of error in their monthly cash flow. A late income cheque means payments will be in arrears and the fridge and the cupboards will be empty.
How does the Department of Education, Culture and Employment expect people to survive any month without their anticipated revenue? My constituent waited patiently. This was not the first time he had encountered this problem. Yet a week later, halfway through the month, he still had not received his payment.
This is totally unacceptable. We can be sure that if GNWT staff paycheques were two weeks late, the problem would have been rapidly fixed much earlier. Why then can’t we do the same for our residents, our NWT clients? I can appreciate that departments run into staffing problems periodically, unforeseen circumstances and all that. But when the work is time sensitive, when people are relying on the end result of the work, a payment to manage their lives, surely we can find temporary workers or supervisors or managers, someone from another area to fill in and meet the deadline that looms.
I have said it before and I am sure I will have to say it again, the GNWT must develop a better customer service attitude and mentality. Our staff have internal and external clients. All clients deserve proper treatment. We are, after all, a public service. Good service from government has to become priority one across the board. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
