Mr. Speaker, thank you. Can the Minister explain the purpose of the income support program? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for ECE.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So we have a number of income support programs. I believe the Member is referencing our income assistance program, which is a specific income support program. The purpose of that program is to provide residents with enough funds to be able to procure the necessities of life. It's not the type of program where people can save money or earn you know, earn a living doing that. It is to help people who are at the point where they can no longer, you know, keep a roof over their head, have food in their fridge, things like that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. According to the income support, what does the income support program means, it's right here. It says the program provides financial assistance to the Northwest Territories residents to help meet basic needs and enhanced needs. The program encourages and support greater selfreliance to improve the quality of life. Okay, that's yeah, that's what it says on there.
With that in mind, I want to ask the Minister, I know that with the income support, when the person earns some money from parttime employment or any money earned are usually clawed back. And it seems like from with the program that exists, it seems there's no incentive, no incentive for people to work. Therefore, can the Minister explain what is the productive choice program? Does it help to get people off the income support program? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The productive choice productive choices are something that are in the legislation, the income assistance regulations. Individuals who are collecting income assistance are required to participate in a productive choice unless they are seniors or persons with disabilities I believe.
The productive choices, there's a variety of them. But currently everyone is enrolled in the wellness productive choice which we instituted at the beginning of the pandemic where people were required to take care of themselves and their families. And so that is what people are currently enrolled in.
The other productive choices include things such as parenting. They include things such as work, volunteer work, things like that.
Reviews are mixed on productive choices. In some communities, they see the value in them. It gives our communities service officers and an ability to work with someone and help that person maybe perhaps gain employment, get some volunteer experience, go out on the land, do things like that. And then other communities people see them as a burden. We have individuals on income assistance who instead of, you know, perhaps bettering their lives or doing what they need to do to better their lives, they are busy trying to fulfill this productive choices in order to get income assistance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Okay. Well, that's good, thank you. Okay, well, I think he explained a little bit here. My next question is that so he said some, you know, how, but I just wanted to ask how is the department helping people get off the income support program? How is the income support working with the people on income support so that they make so that they are that, you know, we help them be selfreliant, because I'm sure some of those people do not want to be on income support and they would like to help themselves be productive in their communities, do something good for themselves, so I just want to know how is the department helping some of these people get off the income support?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So there's a number of ways. First I'll speak about ways outside of the income assistance program. We have the small Community employment funds. $4 million go into communities every year to help create jobs which helps people, you know, get jobs and earn income. We have labour we have funds for employers to hire people who might need additional training, people who the employers might not otherwise hire. And we have a number of different programs like that. I recommend that everyone read the recent report from the Ombud on income assistance. They talk quite a bit about how actually the client service officers work with the income assistance applicants. And you can tell from reading that that there's a real desire among the client service officers to spend time with those clients. But they just don't have enough time. There's not enough hours in the day to do that work. And so sometimes clients feel like they're rushed through the system, and they're not supported in the way they would like to be. But the fact is the system is just it's stretched to the limits right now. And so we are undergoing a review of the income assistance program and making changes so that those client service officers have more time to spend with each client. And this is the first step towards moving towards a more integrated service delivery model where the income assistance client service officer can help a client access other programs. So labour market programs, perhaps housing programs, and things like that, so that we can actually work more closely with the clients because I you know, I'm in agreement with sort of what the Member's getting at, is that we are working with these people, how can we help them help themselves better. And that's what we're doing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Monfwi.
Thank you. Mr. Speaker, has the Government of the Northwest Territories saved income support dollars due to the federal COVID emergency and recovery benefits? Can the Minister explain how ECE assists income assistance eligibility for those receiving CERB or receive CERB or CRB payments? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Government of the Northwest Territories saved zero dollars due to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, CERB. We exempted that. So if you were collecting income assistance and you received CERB, we did not count that against your income. When the Canada Recovery Benefits, CRB, came out, that was counted as income. Notices were sent to income assistance clients. There was an advertising campaign. We let MLAs know that that was the case. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
