Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the honourable Premier. With respect to the IRS personal credit, will the Premier act swiftly on behalf of the residents and request that Minister Valcourt, who is on the file, extend the October 31st deadline?
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too have IRS personal credits that I have not had the opportunity to use up, so I would be pleased to call on the federal Minister to extend the time period so that we can maximize the healing required for some residential school students.
Within my riding we’ve had a lot of assistance from both the Inuvialuit and the Gwich’in helping our residents work closely to fill out these forms. I’d like to ask that the Premier also request that the federal government provide additional support for eligible applicants.
As the Member indicates, the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement is administered by the federal government and, as I understand it, a component of this agreement relates to personal credits that individuals may be eligible to put towards educational, cultural projects, skills development or other related purposes. I think that we would want to see that information available to survivors, and the concern that has been raised by former eligible students that have not had adequate opportunity to apply to this program, so I would be pleased to include that in the request.
I’d like to ask the Premier, if the deadline is extended, will the Minister commit to helping NWT residents maneuver through this application process? For example, with the communities that have government service officers.
We have those community liaison officers for that exact purpose, to help people in the communities access benefits that they are entitled to, and we would work with the federal government to make sure that if it is extended that they be provided with the requisite information so that they can assist those former residential school students that would like to take advantage and benefit from these personal credits so that they can maximize their healing.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
