Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I brought up the recovery of households getting income assistance frozen across the North and especially my riding who people who need it most, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister tell me how many residents are having income assistance file reviewed or files frozen? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have those numbers on hand. But I can say that what the Member is speaking about is a few years ago, the Government of Canada introduced a number of different benefits for Canadians to help them get through the worst days of the pandemic. We as a department exempted CERB payments so those were not counted against income assistance applications; however, the later benefits were not exempted. And so clients who received those benefits, all they needed to do was declare that they received those. So even just verbally telling the client service officer that they received them so that we could count that because that's all income needs to be declared to receive income assistance. So what's happening now is that we're discovering clients who did not declare that income and we're following the regulations, and unfortunately there are some individuals who are being cut off. Not individuals. I've given direction to take a compassionate approach to this while still making sure that we comply with our own laws. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the Minister consider putting the Canada Recovery Caregiver Benefit, which was more important than CERB as far as I'm concerned because people needed it the most. Would the Minister consider stopping penalizing people who needed the help the most at that time? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So as I said, we did exempt CERB, but we did not exempt the subsequent support programs, but we did inform all applicants that if they received those programs, they needed to declare it. So at this point, I can't go back and exempt some individuals and not others because others did declare it, and they didn't receive this benefit. And so it wouldn't be fair in that sense. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I think this Minister has the authority to do that. Like I said, CERB payment was given by the government so easily at that time making themselves look good. Now they're doing clawbacks, we're doing the federal government's dirty work by taking CERB payments, Canada recovery, taking it all back. People with nothing that have nothing in their fridges, elders got no food. What's happening? This government, no empathy on this side? This government has to take a step. Our Premier said take a step back, let's help the people. Let the Minister make the right decision, Mr. Speaker, and get this go down that list. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I agree it's a terrible situation. There's some individuals who are suffering. And if you're on income assistance, you're not making a bunch of money to begin with and so I get the concerns. And we took a more compassionate approach than other jurisdictions by exempting certain amounts, but at this point I can't commit to exempting these amounts now. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our Premier said it best before, lessons learned, take a step back. All this money that was given by the federal government, we should take a more lenient approach and put it all under from your T4, for your CERB payment, for your Canada revenue payment plan, should be all exempt from people. Our government, there's no jobs. There's nothing going on in the Beaufort Delta and in my riding. There's no jobs to be had. We live they have no choice but to go get income support. This Minister has the authority. Our Premier has the authority to take this off, Mr. Speaker. Do we have to make a motion in the House? Mr. Speaker, this government could do that. All it takes is a Minister's directive to make it happen. This government should show empathy on the people that we work for across this territory and have I guess not have it as good as down here in Yellowknife or in the south. People are suffering. You know it too, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And we did learn lessons from COVID. That's why this budget includes the biggest overhaul to the income assistance program in a generation with millions of dollars more budgeted that will go directly to clients. The situation the Member's talking about, though, in the future we're still going to see those situations because at the end of the day, the program requires people to declare their income. And if they don't declare their income, there's consequences. However, we are looking at even that aspect. There needs to be some rules but we're definitely taking a more compassionate and lenient approach going forward. We want to avoid these types of situations. We want to help people budget. We want to help them so that they don't run into these situations. But unfortunately this is the situation we're in. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
