Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And in keeping with the theme of the day, I have some questions on income support.
Mr. Speaker, my first question is considering removal of the productive choice and employment requirements, as we've been talking about a fair bit this afternoon already, how is the department proposing to continue work to reduce dependency on income support? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd say one of the significant changes that I've had the opportunity to speak to quite a bit today is freeing up quite a bit of time of client navigators by ensuring that we are reducing administrative burdens to a significant number of income assistance clients. That leaves about 60 percent of income assistance clients who are still reporting month to month. And it allows the client navigators to form more indepth relationships with those clients. So it means that all of a sudden they are able to make stronger connections within the communities that these clients live in and that they want to work in. It means that we are connecting clients to more opportunities within communities. We have heard from multiple Members in this House about some of the ways that traditionally income assistance clients through sometimes productive choices have had the opportunity to add to community, and there are tremendous amount of people there, especially in the North, who want to be able to build strong communities. And so how can we connect them to those opportunities?
In addition to that, it's connecting people to, like I said, education, and with my ITI hat on, there's a tremendous amount of programs and people over there who are eager to support people with their entrepreneurial goals. And that is a goal of mine, is to see a lot more entrepreneurs in the territory as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So if there aren't triggers in terms of the requirements that were previously put, are there going to be any kind of triggers or places where some kind of connection point is created with the department so people are connected with these client navigators who have new time to be engaging with clients? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, income assistance is a month to month program, which means that there is already a baked in month to month connection for a tremendous amount of income assistance clients with their client navigators. So these are relationships that every month are being worked on. In addition to that, there is also the career development officers that work within the regional offices as well. And these are people who are creating pathways to whatever are the career goals of persons as well. And so the client navigators would also be able to work in conjunction with those roles too. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yeah, I would just say to the Minister I hope to see some new programming coming forward to that end to getting people connected with employment.
Mr. Speaker, on a slightly different note, section 24(v) of the income assistance regulations requires people to drain their retirement savings in order to be eligible for income assistance. Is the Minister willing to review these regulations to see if we can achieve the balance of program fairness without forcing people to compromise their longterm future? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am most definitely willing to look further into any part of any regulation. I think it's really important that we ensure that we're supporting our most vulnerable residents while still ensuring that we're also maintaining fiscal responsibility. I think it's also prudent for me to also say that income assistance is intended to be a program of last resort and is intended to pick people up when they need to be picked up in order to get to the next month and hopefully be able to access programs that lift them out of that program as well. And so yes, definitely willing to look at that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
