Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for the question. The Member raises an area of some concern. I understand that concern. We are doing our best to address it. Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment that the number of applications in Fort McPherson, my records indicate that there are 20, eight were approved, five were denied, six were incomplete applications, and one was in progress. However, with regard to the question that the Member has raised, what we try to do with the Income Support Program, and what we do do across the Territory, of course, is to apply it consistently. An issue has been raised with regard to individuals living within the homes of seniors. Our assessment, of course, is based on the total family or home income, not just for the seniors. That is how we do the assessment at the moment, Mr. Speaker. We do that through the income tax returns.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the problem at hand, the way I see it, is that the federal income tax, the information that is being required right now, is the federal income tax returns. In most communities, a lot of that information is usually sent out to Revenue Canada and basically, once it is processed, you get it back. In most cases, because of the information that is required from his department to someone who may be a family member, a niece, a nephew who may be living with their grandparents, is always being questioned. Yet the income that they may have earned may have been earned in Alberta, out in a camp, or out of the community, but that is not taken into question.

I would like to ask the Minister exactly, will you do a review of the program, ensure that the assessment is only done on the household income for the year that basically the applicant is applying on?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct. The assessment for the household income is based upon tax returns, and those tax returns may be out of date. It could happen, Mr. Speaker, that we have situations where children, nieces, nephews move in with elders into their home, and yet this particular year, they do not have any income. I agree with the Member, that the assessments need to be done on the basis of current information, not one year ago when these individuals may not have any money left, in any event, or it may have been spent for other purposes, because we do not track the expenditures, so I do agree with the Member on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, under the program, it requires that receipts must be immediately notified to the department if there is any change with regard to the status in regard to the income of the household. We are already covered under that section, so I would like to ask the Minister, will we look at a different approach of assessing income based on, say, a six-month requirement, where every six months you have to go in and update your income based on a new process than depending on Revenue Canada tax returns?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the application process needs to be more timely, Mr. Speaker, because fuel subsidies, no doubt individuals apply at the beginning of the year, hypothetically September or August, perhaps even as early as July, so I think we need to use a narrow time period in order to do the assessment, rather than every six months, because individuals may move in after...I think when the application is done, that is when the household assessment needs to be done, in my opinion.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister if he can do a thorough review to ensure that this injustice has not turned away seniors in our communities from applying on this program because of the problems they have seen with the amount of information that is required just to fill out an application.

Could the Minister have his department do a thorough review on the number of people who may have applied who may not be applying today because of the problems they are seeing with the application process?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will have our department look at this issue immediately so we can make some changes in this. I totally agree with the Member that income for a family should be current information, not outdated information. That is my first step and we will look at seeing how we can address it for those individuals who may not have applied, but that is a little more difficult other than through the process of perhaps making it known we are concerned about this and advising our staff regionally, community-wide and so forth that we are looking at changes in this process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, yes. The staff retention policy is still in effect. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, does the Minister and his department have a program to ensure that deputy ministers of all departments are aware of all the provisions of the policy?

Mr. Speaker, all of the deputy ministers have been briefed on the expectations of each of them with regard to implementing the staff retention policy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Knowing that that briefing is taking place, is the Minister satisfied that all departments are in compliance with the policy?