Mahsi. Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. YWCA Yellowknife reports that eliminating the income assistance food and clothing allowance for children is already having a devastating impact on NWT families. For example, when women and children flee violent homes, it can take some time to have the Child Tax Benefit migrated to the person who left with the children. So for the Minister, if the income assistance applicant is not receiving the Canada Child Benefit because they're waiting for changes in taxation filing to go through, how will ECE ensure the family does not suffer even more as a result of the elimination of the food and clothing allowances for children under 18? Mahsi.
Masi. Minister for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In cases such as the one the Member brought forward, I'd encourage the Member to set up a meeting with our CSO at the office. Any families that find themselves in that situation obviously want to provide the best overall supports to the families so that they do see this benefit, but in any cases as the Member has stated, I'd like to encourage the Member to talk to the families or even have the YWCA to explain to their families, come talk to us at the department, speak with the CSO on how this can be addressed, and I'm sure we can find a solution. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I'm wondering if the Minister can tell us if this issue can be addressed by paying food and clothing allowances until the Canada Child Benefit is available?
We have a lot of clients that are on the Income Assistance Program. Obviously it's by a case-by-case basis. I've mentioned about the net income of the whole family, how many children are in the house and the ages of those children when we do the assessments. In this case, like I said, it seems very unique and in that case any families that do find themselves in that situation, I encourage them to come talk to the CSOs to find a solution.
Thank you to the Minister for that answer. Another situation that's like this that I'll bring to his attention is mothers with newborns. They often will take months of waiting to get the money paid, to get on with the support of the Canada Child Benefit. The other problem I want to bring to his attention is timing. So food and clothing allowances used to be paid at the beginning of the month. The Canada Child Benefit is paid in the last half of the month and people end up at food banks and other food security places earlier because they run out of money. Can the Minister say how people should be budgeting the lesser funds to make them stretch further?
From my understanding, the amount of the cheque that the families get at the beginning of the month includes everything in it and there has been an increase. In terms of tail end, of families getting cheques at the end of the month from our office, I'll have to confirm that, but my understanding is families receive an increase in their payments and an increase in cheques at the beginning of each month. I'll have to confirm with our department, but I'm pretty sure that all families get the full payment at the beginning of the month. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll look forward to that confirmation from the Minister. Finally, I'm going to repeat the question that commentators and frontline service providers as well as I have been asking: will the Minister recognize that taking away the food and clothing allowance for children under 18 was the wrong thing to do and to reinstate that allowance immediately? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we were moving ahead with the Income Assistance changes, we got recommendations from clients, we got recommendations from our partners in the NGO community. Moving forward, a lot of those included that we no longer claw back income that's intended to help parents with the costs of raising their children.
In order to understand the improvements, I think, to the Income Assistance Program, Members must look at the overall benefit package and not at each item in isolation. As a government, we give a whole suite of programs and services to help families in need, low income families. All departments, most of our departments, do that. We've made those changes within Education, Culture and Employment.
When you put the community cost adjustments and that we're no longer clawing back income for children, our families are receiving more money, Mr. Speaker. Any other concerns can be brought forward to the department, but I thank the Member for bringing the concerns that she's been hearing to the House. I feel they're being addressed with the work that we've done with our changes in Income Assistance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
