Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the key words there are families and individuals who receive social assistance. One of the things that I see happening more often is that there seem to be more restrictions put on families, or grandparents and their grandchildren, or the immediate family. Those aboriginal organizations have large family units. In a lot of our communities you are either related to half the town or the other half is related to someone else. With respect to these large family units, because of the restrictions you put in place, especially if a senior or a grandmother has her grandchildren or her nieces or nephews or even her daughters who may want to come to visit or stay over for a couple of months, we penalize them. We tell them that they cannot have so and so staying with them, you will be penalized or your rent is going to be increased. I think this government should be avoiding those types of circumstances.
Also in a lot of those communities you do not have any alternative places for these people to live. You made a comment earlier about people moving to the larger centres and regions, and that is one of the reasons why. A lot of people who go back to their home communities end up living with their parents or their grandparents, and you become a burden on your own family and you have these arguments within your own family, "It is your fault that my rent went up, so get out" sort of thing.
As a government we should not be implementing these types of restrictive policies which basically condemn families. If anything, we should be promoting families to start living together and being more of a cohesive unit so that the grandmother can enjoy her grandchildren or nieces and nephews, to spend time with the family, instead of penalizing them because they might have come in. They may have a part-time job as a summer student and stayed with their grandparents, then they went off to school and the grandparents are stuck holding the bag. The Housing Corporation says, "Sorry, you had Johnny staying with you over the summer and this is how much he made. That is considered income, so now that is going to be put against you."
I find it awfully hard, especially when you know that these people come back home and they want to spend time with their parents and they want to spend time with their grandparents, but it does cause a lot of frustration within the family with regard to the emotional and mental disruption that this causes to families. I would like to ask the Minister if there is anyone looking at the whole area of reuniting families in these communities, looking at some of these regulations and policies you may have which restrict the ability of families to start living together and spending time together without being penalized?