Merci, Madame la Presidente. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. First, I'd like to get some clarity on the basic principles of the new minimum wage approach announced in August. Can the Minister tell us how poverty and a living wage were considered in the development of this new approach to a minimum wage? Mahsi, Madam Speaker.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. So a living wage reflects what an earner or earners would need to bring home to pay the bills in any given community. The minimum wage is the lowest possible wage that you can pay someone, and its purpose is to protect vulnerable workers. So they're two different things. So our minimum wage, it's similar to minimum wages across Canada. It's on the higher end. And the changes that we are making or that we have made would put us on an even playing field with the rest of Canada. And I will note that given the climate in the Northwest Territories, the employment climate, it's pretty rare to find someone earning minimum wage. And the Member himself said that it's hard to attract employees if you're only paying the minimum wage. So this minimum wage is a bare minimum that you are legally required to pay but the market is dictating higher wages than that. Thank you.
Merci, Madame la Presidente. I want to thank the Minister for recognizing that the minimum wage is not a living wage, and it keeps people in poverty. So through the work of the minimum wage committee and ECE analysts, you know, there's a lot of information that's been compiled. I also put together this percentage. 90 percent of our workforce received a page topup program because of how low our minimum wage actually is here. So can the Minister commit to developing and regularly update an actual living wage for each of the 33 NWT communities? Mahsi, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I can't commit to that. I know there are organizations who do look at the living wage in different communities, and we're going to let them continue to do that good work. Thank you.
Merci, Madam la Presidente. I want to thank the Minister for recognizing the work of lowly NGOs and getting them to do the work of government again. So one of the reasons the Minister keeps giving for a minimum wage keeping minimum wage so low is the impact of a higher wage on small businesses, and the Minister just said that few businesses pay the minimum wage. So can the Minister tell us whether this government is considering a further package of wage topups for low income workers to lift these people out of poverty? Mahsi, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. No, the wage topup was primarily driven by the federal government and we are not considering that. We are trying to get people out of poverty through employment programs, through education. And I will say that we do actually have a number of labour programs, some of which provide wage topups. So we are doing a bit of what the Member is talking about but we are not looking at rolling out the large scale program similar to the ones the federal government funded in the last couple years. Thank you.
Thank you. Final supplementary. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Madam la Presidente. I want to thank the Minister for that. Well, let's talk about some systemic change here, then. So in our current inflationary situation, price increases have been highest on mandatory costs, including food and shelter, rather than discretionary purchases, meaning poor people suffer more from inflation. So will the Minister take this affordability crisis as the opportunity to construct lasting measures, like a guaranteed basic income, that directly addresses the cost of living? Mahsi, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. And we won't be implementing a guaranteed basic income during the life of this Assembly. We do have a number of very expensive initiatives that we are currently working on and will be bringing forward. So we are making investments in this area, making investments to reduce the cost of living. But a guaranteed basic income is not one of those. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
