Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of ECE. No, sorry. I have two sets of questions. I am on the wrong one. Heads up. My questions are for the Minister of Transportation. Just kidding. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture, and Employment. Is the Minister prepared to continue to stick to the promise made by the previous Finance Minister and continue catching up food allowances for income assistance recipients so that they are up to 2014 levels? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We'll have to look at the promise that was made by the previous Finance Minister. We are in a new government in the 18th Legislative Assembly, so we'll have to take a look at that, but the benefits and the increases in the changes that we've made to our Income Assistance program is actually benefiting families a lot more than what was in the previous year and even in the previous government. As I mentioned last week in the House, families are going to receive up to about $740,000 to $750,000 this fiscal year, in the fiscal year since we've made these improvements, but we'll have to take a look at the promise made by the previous Finance Minister. We do have a new Finance Minister now, and I will commit to sitting down and chatting with the Finance Minister to see what those previous promises were. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
While the Minister is chatting with the Finance Minister about whether to uphold that promise from last year, I would just urge him to consider that every other per diem and allowance that any of us receive who are associated with the government rises over time, and that the price of food isn't going down. So I wonder if he could give me a rationale for not continuing to raise the level of income assistance for food?
I believe in 2015-2016 we had about just over $18 million on income assistance that this government provided. In 2016-2017, it went over $20 million, and the odd time we come back to this House asking for a supplementary appropriation. As everybody knows, the economy is in a downturn, so we are seeing more families on income assistance in some of the regions, and from time to time we will come back to the House to seek a supplementary appropriation to provide income assistance to those that are in need.
There are a lot of things that we take into consideration; how big the family is, the net income for that family in the house, as well as the age of the children. I think we're doing a great job in providing those services to residents of the Northwest Territories, and we will continue to do so as we continue to make further income assistance changes. As well, this whole government, all departments, provide a lot of good programs for low income families, and we'll continue to do that job.
Of course, the Minister knows that income assistance is a last resort. The criteria for receiving income assistance is that you have used every one of your resources, including your savings, selling your house, selling your car, that you have nothing left. That's the premise for applying for income assistance. So I want to ask, again, whether the Minister will ensure that this promise to increase food levels will, in fact, be part of this government's agenda as well?
I believe in 2015 this government did put an increase on food allowances. The Northern Food Basket was what we looked at in terms of how we provided an income for food in the Northwest Territories. Obviously, there's one federally, and we wanted to make one for the North so we developed our own Northern Food Basket. As a result, we did put an increase in 2015. There is no index for income assistance. We don't index it to anything. So we feel that what we offer in income assistance is sufficient for families and individuals that need income assistance in the Northwest Territories.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister's answer. But if the funds were sufficient, why would we have food banks? Why would we have soup kitchens? Why would we have all these organizations, not only here in Yellowknife but in Hay River and Inuvik, and even in smaller places like Tuktoyaktuk that give food to people every single day? Food security is a huge issue in the Northwest Territories, and I would like the Minister's commitment that he's going to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Thank you.
First of all, I just want to thank all the organizations that do set up food banks and provide services in our communities, even our smallest communities. As the Member has said, without their help, we wouldn't be able to get some of these other families that might fall off income assistance based on some of the, I guess, regulations that we impose for people that want to take down income assistance.
But we are doing our job, Mr. Speaker. The changes that we just made to the income assistance and the Canada Child Benefit, as I mentioned earlier, families are going to get an increase of up to $750,000 annually. Once we make the changes to the NWT Income Tax Act, families are going to get even more money. We just have to go through the process to get that done, and in 2017, August, we're going to see those changes come into effect and we're going to see more families getting more money so that they can put more food on the table, more clothes on their backs. I do believe our department and our government are doing a good job in addressing those issues.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
