That's pretty hard to beat that one. So, Mr. Speaker, today the residents are accessing a variety of government support programs housing, income support, and disability supports, across the it territory, and especially my riding. This is due to a variety of reasons but the main reason that we do not have the sustainable income in Nunakput region there's no jobs and nothing to sustain families. I have told this House to be compassionate, flexible about the needs of our people, particularly those in small communities.
But, Mr. Speaker, today my residents are facing claw backs, withholding of their income support payment. The ECE took steps in March 2020 to exempt from the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, CERB, from the calculation of benefits on income assistance, the applications. However there are other payments that our residents received, including CERB, CRCB, that's disabilities, and CRSB and CWLB, are now being accounted as assessments when applying for income support.
Mr. Speaker, we need to remember that the residents do not have much support and much resources and are trying to get as much as they can to support their families. I already and we're already not providing enough. We're pushing them to obtaining other supports during this unprecedented the pandemic that we went through.
The money is not a huge sum of money, Mr. Speaker. People are struggling on high costs of living, high cost of food, just barely getting by. I call again and again we need some compassion here, Mr. Speaker. We need to show we care. COVID feels like forever ago, and we're all worried about the impacts and the supply chain issues, the vulnerability of our residents. People are trying to do whatever they can do to take care of their family. I will ask questions of the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to make sure that the CERB payment and the disability payment are not being calculated on the income support program and seeing if we could for the next government to take off. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Members' statements. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
