Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as Members of the Legislative Assembly, we create bills or acts that will better the lives of all Northerners. Within the government, these acts are turned into policies, which each department follows. Mr. Speaker, although these acts and policies are created with the best of intentions, it is not until they are in actual practice that we discover some of the kinks in them and then they need to be reviewed.

Income support is an area where I see a need to address government policies to adapt to individual circumstances. In December, I had a constituent who was in Yellowknife for medical reasons for her children. Because she was in the city longer than she expected, she wanted to have her income cheque forwarded from her community. Under the current policy, cheques have to be picked up in person. Options such as sending the cheque to Yellowknife and having an income support worker here to act as a contact were not explored. The reason this option was not examined was it was impossible to contact anyone with any authority to deal with the matter. Decision-makers were not available, either by phone or in person to deal with this situation. When I did manage to talk to someone in the department, I was told that she was given direction not to talk to me.

Mr. Speaker, this was just a simple matter. The department created a system where only the people at the top can make decisions. These people have a tremendous workload. Would we not be better off empowering all our workers by giving them some authority to make decisions when no one else is available? I am sure we could create a more effective system and policies which allow for individual cases to be considered.

Student financial assistance is another area where flexibility is needed and policies to address individual circumstances.

Finally, impact benefit agreements and their clawback by income support is an ongoing issue that needs a solution. Mr. Speaker, as legislators, we create acts and by connection, policies for all Northerners. We are elected to serve all Northerners. We can best do our job by creating policies that allow for individual circumstances to be taken into account and by allowing government workers to use their common sense to make decisions when unusual cases occur. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause