Page 9-30, advanced education and careers, active positions, continued on page 9-31.

Page 9-33, activity summary, income security, operations expenditure summary, $61.365 million. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This whole program is working reasonably well and delivering its objectives. I do look forward to the overall review of all of our income security programs, along with other departments, including this one. My question right now in terms of delivering what we are mandated to do is kind of a localized question, Mr. Chairman. My concern is reflected in some calls that I have had from constituents who seem to have problems with the amount of time it's taking for their case to be heard or reviewed or the ability of the local income support office to respond to problems or complaints or situations that they are having. I wanted to ask, Mr. Chairman, whether staffing within the Yellowknife income support office or anywhere else in the NWT is an issue. Are clients' complaints related to any difficulties because we haven't been able to keep the staff complement up? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have changed the supervisor. We changed the office manager in the last six months. So there hasn't been the actual review done that we had talked about doing. We thought it would be better to let things settle out and let the new management have a chance to have some advice and input in the process. So we should be taking a look at that operation fairly soon and should have some response we can give Members in the not-too-distant future. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Okay. There is turnover. Should committee still be concerned? Yellowknife is a magnet community. We have more people coming into Yellowknife with issues and problems and needing support. Are we beefing up the income support office to respond to that growing clientele, or are we trying to do more with the same? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So far, we haven't added any staff. I think we need to give the new management a chance to take a look at the situation and we will work with the current staff to assess the level of difficulty, if you will, and if there is a problem, we will have to deal with it. At this point, there has been no change.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Page 9-33, income security, operations expenditure summary, $61.365 million.

Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We talked a bit about the Income Support Program. Again, I go back to 2003-04, $15.717 million. The main estimates for 2004-05 was $17.956 million and after the revised 2004-05, it was $18.056 million. Can the Minister give us a breakdown on the regions on income support assistance? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I assume the Member is talking about page 9-34 now.

That's correct, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, if the Member is asking about the regional distribution of the numbers, we don't allocate the numbers by region. It's a total allocation across the Northwest Territories and money changes. If the North Slave region doesn't need to have as much because the economy is good, then that money doesn't get used there, but it may get used in another region. What we have found is that different regions have different demands every year because of the economy's fluctuations.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I think at this moment in time, we will call for a short recess. Thank you.

---SHORT RECESS

Welcome back, committee. We are on page 9-33, activity summary, income security, operations expenditure summary, $61.365 million.

Page 9-35, income security, grants and contributions, Mr. Menicoche.

With regard to income security, have we ironed out how we are going to address subsidies of public housing initiatives? My immediate concern is we are going to have somebody who never asked for income support going to ECE. I am not sure what kind of guidelines are in place. These are people with income, jobs, and typically ECE helps people who are in dire need. I don't know if they have set up a different structure. People are telling me when they are going to ECE, what's actually going on is you have to expose your whole life to ECE in order to get approved for a program and it's pretty humiliating, especially to young families getting a start in life. I just wonder how the Minister and the department is going to address this concern.