Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I continue looking at our income security system by seeking ways to avoid the creation of poverty traps. In my last two statements I described how Charles ended up in a system that leaves him struggling to feed his family and that pulls him back down every time he tries to make a bit of money on his own. Charles is not a real person, but we all have constituents, family members and friends in such situations.
The experiences of Charles and his family lead to obvious recommendations:
We need a realistic definition of a poverty line based on the actual costs of living in each community. It is obvious from the number provided by Nutrition North that the amounts defined by income support are too low to keep a family out of poverty. The Housing Corporation did some good work on this when they created three zones based on the cost of living.
We should not claw back payments and income from people living below the poverty line. Therefore, we must stop clawing back GST rebates, child tax credits and other payments that are intended to help people out of poverty.
We should encourage people living below the poverty line to earn money on their own and support them through a zone of income above the poverty line. As people start to become self-supporting, we should then gradually reduce income support instead of clawing back up to 85 percent of their earnings right from the start. Again, the Housing Corporation has done some good work on this with their graduated rent scales.
Treat people who apply for income support the same way we treat people who fill out their taxes. Ideally, we should use the same tax forms. This would make the whole process less stressful and reduce the burden on our own staff.
Don’t require people to hit rock bottom before we help them. It is much more costly to help lift people out of poverty when they have absolutely nothing left than to prevent it in the first place.
Focus special effort on children and in particular on single parent families. Yesterday the Minister of ECE implied that Charles should just get a job. Single parent families are doing the most important job I can think of, looking after their children. If we want anything to be different 30 years from now, we need to provide our children with stable homes.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
We spend a lot of time and money dealing with the symptoms of poverty: $5 million approved just yesterday to top up payments for child placements outside the NWT, child protection orders resulting from neglect, high rates of alcoholism. These are all symptoms of poverty. We need to deal with the root cause itself: poverty. Substantive changes in income support such as those suggested will yield returns on such investments through savings in education, health and social services and corrections, and enhance economic activity.
I will have questions.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
