Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement I talked about poverty. I'd like to ask the Minister responsible for Poverty a couple of questions on that.
The federal Minister of Family, Children and Social Development has said that provinces and territories have provided ideas on how to engage the federal government differently. How will the Minister, our Minister, ensure the needs of the Northwest Territories are represented in the new Poverty Reduction Strategy under development at the federal level? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think it was about two weeks ago I had an opportunity to attend the federal-provincial-territorial meeting with the Minister that the Member opposite is referring to, and we did have an opportunity to discuss the work that the federal government is doing on a federal anti-poverty initiative. They're currently out doing a number of stakeholder engagements across the country.
At that meeting, we had an opportunity to talk about what's happening in every jurisdiction, and I clearly outlined the work that's been done around anti-poverty work here in the Northwest Territories and our desire to do more. We shared with them the different action plans prepared over the years, both the territorial action plan as well as the government's action plan, and I strongly encouraged the Minister and his staff to engage front-line people, people who have actually lived in poverty, rather than just relying on input from NGOs. So we shared our information. We've getting them as much information as we can. We're looking forward to seeing what they come forward.
At this point, there has been no indication that the federal government is going to put any money into this anti-poverty plan, but they do have some levers that we know they can use, whether it's taxes or other mechanisms, that we hope will be able to support residents across Canada who are struggling with poverty, but also in the Northwest Territories.
As for all FPTs that we attend, we try to encourage understanding of the realities of living in small rural and remote communities in the North and how that might be different than somebody who is living in poverty in Toronto. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I'd like to ask the Minister how he is exploring options to leverage funding for increased investment in anti-poverty initiatives?
I appreciate the Members during Committee of the Whole are very passionate about increasing our allotment to the Anti-poverty Fund, and obviously if money were available this is certainly an area that we would like to invest, and it is part of our mandate. So hopefully in the future we will be making some additional investments, but in this particular budget we did invest money in helping seniors who are living in poverty do some renovations to their homes. We have made some other changes that are clearly beneficial to residents who are struggling with poverty to the Northwest Territories, and we continue to work with our partners to allocate funds through the Antipoverty Fund which can be leveraged for other dollars.
Anti-poverty is a big issue in the NWT. What new money is being invested and targeted to anti-poverty in 2017-18?
There are five pillars that were utilized to help us address poverty in the Northwest Territories, and this is being used by our stakeholders as well, and that's the Children and Family Support, Healthy Living and Reaching our Potential, Safe Affordable Housing, Sustainable Communities and Integrated Continuum of Services. In this budget that is before us today, we are investing $750,000, new dollars, to provide services for homeless people in Yellowknife. There has been a commitment to fully fund junior kindergarten. There's $3 million to enhance small community employment support, which is something we've continuously heard from the Member opposite. There's $750,000 to extend the NWT Child Benefit, and there's $500,000 to provide a home repair program to low-income seniors. This is on top of the dollars that we're providing in housing programs that meet the pillars, some of our education dollars that are helping to address the pillars, as well as many of the other things we're doing in the government; these are new dollars.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to increasing work and continuing to meet with the other social development Ministers of the GNWT to reduce poverty in the NWT?
Mr. Speaker, we have a number of different committees in Cabinet that we get together to work together as Ministers to help break down silos. Our deputies also work on similar committees to break down silos within the Government of the Northwest Territories. I'm continually raising the issue of poverty, as it is one of the areas I'm responsible for, and trying to find ways to work together to offer our residents more options to help lift them from poverty as opposed to just providing handouts, and we're working to that end, Mr. Speaker. We appreciate the Member's commitment to increasing and supporting anti-poverty and we look forward to making improvements over the term of this government.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
