Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that is an answer that is a maybe and a final kind of a response, and it leaves many questions. My question to the Minister is, will the Minister indicate in this House whether he intends to readvertise that position and staff it through the public process that is the norm in the Government of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Justice, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Minister Antoine. Supplementary, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask again, this position has been vacant for months and months and months. Will the Minister indicate what option he intends to pursue? Is it the public process? Is he going to direct appoint? What does he intend to do? I would like a clear answer so that it is clear in my constituency as to when this position will be staffed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Justice, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Minister Antoine. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister if he could confirm that in fact he intends to proceed as indicated to me with a direct appointment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question this afternoon is for the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, and it relates to the Income Support Program of this government. Last spring, there were a number of issues raised regarding inconsistencies and clawbacks of funding to income support clients, and the adequacy of meeting family needs. The Minister indicated at the time -- and it was welcome news -- that the whole program would come under review to test its criteria in this day and age. My question is what is the status of the review of income support? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the question from the honourable Member on the income support system. Our department has been doing extensive work in this area over the past several months. We have looked at a number of issues that needed to be addressed, and we will be bringing forth, through myself, a statement in the House hopefully before the session ends. We did have the opportunity to brief the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight just yesterday, but we need to do a bit more work in that area, Mr. Speaker, before we can actually release some of the decisions that we need to make on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Ootes. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Could the Minister advise the Assembly of what parties, what people, what agencies the department has been consulting with in terms of redefining this program? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, as I stated last session, we would be looking at having our officials do a review of critical areas, and that has been the process, to look at a number of areas that have been of concern and take into consideration some of the previous work that had been done in this area.

For instance, we had a report from the community advisory committee. That is a number of different agencies in our particular community that brought forward some of the issues. We took that into consideration as well as previous reports that had been issued in this particular area of concern, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to see if the Minister could give us any further indication on when any of these new criteria will be implemented. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are going to move fairly fast on it, Mr. Speaker. The moment that I can make a statement in the House, or shortly thereafter if we cannot meet that deadline, I expect that within weeks we will be instituting changes in the program. As I said, I am not in any position today to discuss the details of those particular programs but we did have an opportunity for the Members to become a bit familiar with that.

I am meeting with some of the social agencies at the end of the week as well and there may be other areas that need to be taken into consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Ootes. Final supplementary, Mr. Braden.