Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, changes to income assistance are on the way, but changes could happen now to improve the lives of NWT residents.
Will the Minister provide a ministerial directive that ensures ECE staff reduce the burden on clients by taking all measures to obtain the financial information that they have access to on behalf of clients? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member. I was taking notes and listening to the Member's statement and appreciate her sharing the lived experiences of members of her communities. Currently, the notice of assessment, if a client is unable to provide their notice of assessment to their client navigator, the client navigator is able to get the information directly from the Canada Revenue Agency. But, unfortunately, this is not available until after June. And so leading up to June, clients are required to provide proof of filing their taxes by April 30th and then able to also to work with their client navigators to access this information. Income assistance is a very heavily regulated and legislated program, and so it's not something where I'm able to provide a directive and break the law in order to do that. But I will work with the Member in order to find solutions with client navigators to be able work with constituents and residents to be able to do our best to access this information. Thank you.
Okay, well, I am surprised because I know that the income assistance program has access to clients' CRA notice of assessment. It's been in place for over ten years and they haven't been using it to lessen the burdens on clients to get all the necessary information. So will staff in the Department of Education, Culture and Employment have the authority to locate a person's notice of assessment with CRA? Will the Minister ensure staff take the necessary steps to obtain this from the CRA on clients' behalf?
Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely, the client navigators will work in order to access that information through the CRA. Unfortunately, that information's not available until after June in that existing year and so there might be some information that the client navigators want to source for the existing month that they're in, so they might need to work with the resident in order to get that existing information. But absolutely, they can work with the resident in order to access that information through Canada Revenue Agency as well. Thank you.
Will the Minister ensure that families with disabilities are priority in the review of applications? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this summer is going to be the time where residents are going to see the launch of the new program for persons who are seniors and persons with disabilities for income assistance. So there has been a long wait for that new program to be activated, and currently staff are training on that new program.
One of the things that I think is really exciting about this as well is to acknowledge administrative burdens and to reduce administrative burdens, staff at ECE have already been using the new forms with their existing clientele, and they've been doing that for about a six-month period so that they can reduce the administrative program once that new income assistance program comes online with the new software as well.
And the other thing that I think is really important is persons with disabilities have doctors' notes on their files, and ECE has also been migrating those notes over to the new system as well in order to do their best to reduce the administrative burden for residents. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister for Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We've been waiting for that program since last spring. It's almost a year now.
But, Mr. Speaker, people with disability living with challenges in their lives are forgotten people of our society, especially by this government. Therefore, will the Minister guarantee that people living with disability in the NWT are guaranteed income support? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Not everybody living with a disability in the territory would need income support. But those who apply and those who meet the criteria, absolutely would receive income support. And so I encourage anybody who is in a situation where they need some additional supports, to contact their client navigator or work with their MLA as well in order to receive that contact information. Because, absolutely, we want to make sure that we're supporting residents to the best of our ability. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from the Sahtu.
