Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will ask my deputy minister respond to Mr. Lewis' question.

Mr. Dunbar.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would suggest that there are some good things in the Northwest Territories for seniors. I believe that we are starting to see the results of some of those things. This government has been very active through the years in considering elders' facilities. When you visit some of these facilities, you can see that we have some facilities which are extraordinarily well designed. We have had a great deal of community input from the elders themselves in the design and the construction of those facilities. It has been part of the process to involve elders in the design of some of these programs.

When you look at the old age pension and the guaranteed income supplement, this government took the steps through the Legislative Assembly to provide a supplement to that. That supplement is currently at $135 a month. This government has also taken the initiative of providing a subsidy for fuel for seniors living in their own accommodation, in order to try to equalize the cost of living for an individual who is living in their own home, as opposed to someone who is living in one of the government subsidized units. I believe that has been a very positive step. The seniors themselves are slowly getting together. There is a seniors' society in the Northwest Territories. There are groups of seniors in other communities who are being encouraged by this umbrella body. There is not, as was mentioned earlier, an organized program for seniors funded through the Department of Social Services at the present time, but certainly in discussions with representatives from the seniors' society, there is an interest in seeing this happen. For the first time, Ministers responsible for seniors across the country met in November. This was a milestone in the partnership between seniors in the country and their governments and was seen as such. In my opinion, those would be some of the very positive things which are occurring in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you. Are there any further general comments? Mr. Arngna'naaq.

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.

Thank you. Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the first comment on the social assistance ceiling and the income

that recipients make and their deductions, these are the kinds of things that have to be reviewed which I spoke about in my Member's statement. Being the new Minister, I have talked at every possibly opportunity with my deputy on the areas that need to be changed.

I will let the deputy minister respond to the custom adoption issue.

Mr. Dunbar.

Mr. Chairman, thank you. There are two or three things that contribute to it taking so long. One is that there are forms which have to be filled out very carefully. When you start to compare the lettering on the form to the birth certificates and all the documents they have to be checked with, unfortunately we have found errors in many cases and we have to send them back to be re-done. Then, you have to contact the people who are involved and obtain the information and signatures all over again. That certainly contributes to it.

A second aspect which contributes to it is that there are occasions when the work load is such that staff are unable to get at completing some of these things, because they are involved in dealing with other crisis. Sometimes, there is a delay in completing these forms both in the field and in headquarters.

A third area where backlog can occur is in getting the cases actually presented into court. Occasionally, there are delays in doing that. I have had discussions with the deputy minister of Justice recently, and we are going to endeavour to deal with the current backlog during the next few months. We are going to endeavour to get it cleared off.

Thank you. Mr. Arngna'naaq.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To get back to the issue which I raised initially, only because the Minister has responded to it, I realize it is one of these problems which has to be tackled by the department. I also realize it is not going to happen overnight. However, I was making a suggestion that when the department looks at the income of a person, that should be higher than what is being issued to a recipient. For example, a person who is on social assistance will have an income of $500, but the maximum assistance they can receive will be $300. There is a gap between the income that person makes for a month and what they receive from Social Services. This is the suggestion which I was making to the Minister as an idea which may be used by the department.

I have a second question with regard to custom adoption. Is this a partial reason why this process is so slow due to our legal system?

Madam Minister.

I will have Mr. Dunbar respond.

Mr. Dunbar.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not know that I am the best person to endeavour to answer Mr. Arngna'naaq's question, I believe it involves a legal opinion of sorts. In a sense, perhaps the legal system does contribute to it. As I tried to explain yesterday, the process which the Department of Social Services has responsibility for, at the present time, is in the completion of the forms which then get presented by the Department of Justice to the Supreme Court through our solicitor. I do not believe there is a great deal of delay once the forms are presented to the Supreme Court. The completion of the forms in compliance with requirements of the court is what we are charged with doing, and this is what we have to do very carefully and in that sense it does contribute to a delay.

Thank you. Mr. Arngna'naaq.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did not realize this area had been discussed at length yesterday. I will refer back to the unedited Hansard to review some of the answers.

I know the Minister has indicated that at the present time, when a community issues coupons rather than cash, this process is only there because the hamlet council had wanted it to be this way. I wanted to get clarification of what the process would be for a community to change from coupon assistance to money.

Thank you. Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Usually the requests are made from the residents to the hamlet, and then the hamlet will inform the department whether the recipient should be receiving vouchers or cash payments. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there are other general comments? Mr. Arngna'naaq.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the community of Arviat this seems to be the case. I am wondering if this is a new process which is being used by the department.

Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is not a new process. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any further general comments from the committee? Mrs. Marie-Jewell.