Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also have some concerns in the area of social services, coming from a community which has many people on social assistance. It is a variety of situations and circumstances of people who raise issues in the area of social services, varying from custom adoption to the process in which social assistance is handed out to social assistance recipients. However, one of the areas which has been raised by my constituents is that at the present time whenever any person who is on social assistance finds temporary work or is somehow able to access money outside of their social assistance, that is taken away from their social assistance because there is a cap.
I have never been on social assistance, but my parents have. I have said before that I was raised on social assistance. When people who are on social assistance find temporary work or find money they are able to use to purchase much needed capital items such as snowmobiles, outboard motors or any other type of equipment they may need for their hunting requirements, that is taken away from their food basket allowance. From speaking to the people who are on assistance, this discourages them from trying to find any kind of temporary work, or if they are an artist to try to make any money by producing art, because they know this will be taken away from them when they come into the Social Services office.
The only time a person will try to find work is when they will be finding a permanent job, something which will be over the social assistance cap which is set at this time. I do not know how to resolve that kind of situation, but I think it is a problem, especially with our young people. I have young constituents who are now living away from their parents and have their own place, but are not willing to go out and find any kind of work, even temporary work, because they know when they do find work and earn a small amount of money, that will be taken away from their social assistance which is guaranteed as far as they can see. So, it is a catch 22 situation, we would like the young people to go and find work or become better educated. However, as far as their eyes can see, it is the next welfare cheque. When the cap is set so low that money will be taken away from them, and when they receive assistance it is set towards a certain item -- food, which is a necessity.
I would like to stress that when young people who are on social assistance are not able to find any work, if they are on their own or trying to live on their own, find temporary employment will have their social assistance reduced because they earned a bit of money which they may have used for something which was badly needed. It discourages the people. There are often times when I am speaking to people, especially from southern Canada, who see our young people sitting at home and say that we have lazy young people. I do not think that is the case. I think we have young people who want to get things done, want to see themselves improve, but are unable to get anywhere. From what I have heard, it discourages them from looking for any kind of employment, even temporary employment. That is one area that I wanted to raise because it has been raised with me by a number of my constituents.
I would like to separate from that issue and ask about custom adoption. The process at the present time for custom adoption is very cumbersome and very slow. I would like to know exactly what it is that takes up so much time when a family is custom adopting.