Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the honourable Member has hit on an important aspect of my department's area of concern; that is, the total income support and development area. Employment insurance, as it is now called, is a federal program. We don't have a lot of input into that. In fact, the changes which were recently announced to that program were announced
unilaterally and without any consultation with any of the provinces or territories. UI hasn't had a great history in the Northwest Territories. It has been difficult for most of the people of the Territories to get into, as the Member mentioned, but it has gotten increasingly more difficult. The northerners accessed the program two years ago to the tune of about $40 million. This year it will be down to about $30 million. Given the changes that have been announced, I have no doubt that it will be further reduced significantly in the next year.
That means an increased amount of pressure is going to come on this government. I have written to the federal Minister about some of the changes and about the need for us to work together to address some of the unique problems we face in the North. I am planning to talk to the federal Minister by phone next week, again to try to address some of these issues. I took the opportunity when the Honourable Ethel Blondin-Andrew was here today to talk to her about whether or not we could get together to discuss some joint approaches to try to come up with a more streamlined and better way of dealing with the needs of her constituents.
The Member brings up a good point. Yes, I think it is an extremely important area in which we need to work given the federal cutbacks and our fiscal situation. We need to find ways to work together better. We are looking for those ways. For instance, in some places now, we are already collocating with the federal human resources people and our income support delivery people. There is room for lots more. We will be working very actively to streamline and cooperate better as we can, Mr. Speaker.