Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That's a challenging question and I don't have the numbers to give the Member on that. I can say, though, that the vast majority of people who collect income support in the Northwest Territories don't do it on a month

to-month-to-month basis. There's a regular cycle of people on and off the program. So it would appear that people are making productive choices. They're coming in when they need a bit of a hand-up, and they're getting that assistance when it's needed, and then they're moving back into looking after themselves when they can. There are some people who will be on income support for a long period of time who aren't going to be able to make a productive choice that means getting them totally self-sufficient. But that doesn't mean that the productive choice doesn't help out with getting them making a benefit or being a benefit in the community. So for instance, a productive choice could be for somebody to go out and harvest meat for elders in their community. In that case, that's a perfectly acceptable productive choice. Or stay at home and look after young children is a productive choice that is perfectly acceptable for young mothers. There are a number of options, and the goal of the program is to provide assistance to those who need it. What we find is that most people don't need it for a long time. Most people come into the office when they need assistance, they get the assistance for whatever period of time they need it, and then they're off the assistance and we don't see them for awhile. So we think that the productive choices are helping people get out, and get involved, and be productive members of society. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to follow up on that, I understand the intent of the whole program, but if you have some people who are dependent on the program and you give them productive choices, I think what I was getting at is, you know, hopefully that they'll have some sort of a training program right in the community...(inaudible)...For them to become independent, you know, you have to have a goal in mind in terms of exactly what they require. Personally, I don't think it's happening right now. I think it's left up to the income support worker.

I agree that there are some clients that come month by month, and the main reason for that is it depends on the availability of employment, especially in their community or outside of the region. I appreciate those people that rely on that, but there are times when it comes to some problems where an income support worker actually refused some of the clients mainly because it may be their first time, they're independent. I don't think that's right. Personally, I don't think that the choices that are being implemented by the income support worker with the client are working. I think the department should find other ways for the long-term income support clients. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member is right that we need to make sure that we're finding ways to provide services to all people who need support, and we need to find ways to link the services of the college, of, as I said earlier, the health and social services so we can get counselling for people, but even to organizations in our communities such as ASEP for training. I think, as I said, we're going to try and case manage, or move the case management approach out across the Territories, in collaboration with Health and Social Services. We're hoping that that will help us improve our ability to coordinate the services that we provide. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just in regard to the ASEP -- he mentioned ASEP just briefly there -- how can the local adult education departments access these funds for training for clients, or for adults, i.e., maybe into community-based carpenters or things like that? How can a local adult ed department get access to that fund?

Lastly, Madam Chair, before my time is up here, there are some long-term disability clients, that Mr. Yakeleya talked about earlier, and I'm just wondering with regard to the department, I raised the issue yesterday and so did the Member from Monfwi earlier today with regard to some of the benefits that come under the land claim groups. In terms of long-term disability clients, why should they be included as income where it's a benefit to them from land claim groups? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In response to Mr. Pokiak's question about ASEP and how community education workers could integrate or make proposals for plans, they should be talking to the regional training committee or the community rep on the regional training committee, about what sorts of applications are likely to be successful, and then working with the community and the regional training committee to try and develop programs that are relevant to the businesses that are helping to fund the ASEP program to ensure that people who are trained can get a job.

In response to the second question regarding payments, I believe the Member's asking specifically about payments that were recently made by the Tuk Community Corporation. At this point, the department's waiting for more information from the IRC lawyers about demonstrating how these payments are tied to the Inuvialuit Final Agreement. At that point, then, we would be able to go to Justice and ask for some guidance in how to treat them. But at this point, we need more information. It hasn't been demonstrated conclusively yet that these payments are related to the IFA. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Page 9-35, activity summary, income security, operations expenditure summary, $63.897 million. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to ask Mr. Dent in terms of the income support workers. Some of the communities have been given the rationale not to have workers in our community, maybe on a part-time basis because they were low income support clients, which is good for the community. I mean, I can say nothing about it. I want to say there are no clients in our community that need income support. I need the Minister in terms of is that work being done out of the...It's being done out of the regional office, in the Sahtu, out of Norman Wells. Are there any provisions or updates in terms of is there anybody in Tulita, or Deline, or Good Hope, or Colville that had a contract to do that work on

behalf of the department? Because income support, I guess, is more of the people who are using their own language as a first language for these types of services, and I just want to know if there's anything that is made to service the people in that area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We have, in the past, had contracts for delivery of the program in communities. The communities that took on those contracts, though, have, for the most part, given up because they haven't been satisfied with the level of funding. What we've done is we've said here's how much it costs us to deliver the service in this community, so that's all we're prepared to pay, and it's based on the caseload. So, you know, if you have a low caseload which, as the Member has already pointed out, is really good news for the region, it makes it difficult to justify the expenditure of putting a person into the community, and it also makes it difficult, then, for us to have a community organization take on the contract because the amount of money that would be available for administering is not very big either.

Even in those cases where we don't have somebody in the community, we do try and have workers visit the communities on a regular basis. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you. The Minister is correct; I have seen the regional caseworker going into our community. Again, it goes back to the number of caseloads in our community. However, I want to say that for services in our communities, sometimes I know the difficulty is to pay the price of doing business there, and I know what he's saying. Damned if you do and damned if you don't in terms of this situation here. However, when the worker is no longer in our community, then we have to make these long distance calls and I don't know if you're going to see very many elders making these long distance calls to a 1-800 number, or a toll-free number, so we need to have a presence in the community. I really understand him in trying to figure out what we can do to keep a presence of the income support workers, even on a part-time basis. I really have a tough time in terms of...I think it will help the other worker, especially now with the housing program coming over to the Department of Education and Culture. So I'd like to work with the Minister on this here. I want to ask if he has given any thought to keep the presence of a worker in our small communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We can always take a look at it but, as I said, everything has to be based on the costs or what it costs to deliver the service.

One of the goals that we have with our one-stop service centres in those communities where we don't have staff, is to make sure that we have at least a kiosk some place where the phone will be there. It won't be having to dial a 1-800 number. You can just pick up the phone and you'll be talking to our office. So we're hoping to increase the ability of people in the smallest communities where we don't have resident staff to contact us more easily. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I like the concept of the one-stop shop and I hope the wishes come true. I hope that we have it done by the next year. It makes a lot of sense in our communities. The Minister has my full support to have this one-stop shopping in our communities. It makes it so much easier and it makes so much sense. However, sometimes within government we have to do a lot of work to get it moving here. So I appreciate the hard work done by his department. However, we'd be happy to see something like that in our community.

I'm talking now, Mr. Chairman, in terms of the presence being in our community. I appreciate the Minister saying that there's going to be a phone there you can pick up, you don't even have to dial 8-100s, it's direct to the office. However, it's for the people who use English and also never really use it that much, but their language, they want to speak more comfortably in their first language and they could have that opportunity. I'm not too sure who's going be on the other end if they really understand them. Sometimes people miss programs or miss dates or whatever things happen, but we need to have someone in our community that can be a tie to the Income Support Program identified that this is the person you go see, not to pick up the phone and phone and you get somebody in Norman Wells. They need to go...I mean, that's what it's there for. We get enough headaches when we have to have our phone calls with the RCMP redirected to Yellowknife, or we get an answering machine or something. We get enough of that. So I appreciate what the Minister is saying, but I would really like to see if he would do some strong consideration to have somebody in our community, even on a part-time basis, that someone can identify when they're walking down the street, or at the Northern Store, or at the post office, saying that's the person you need to see for this Income Support Program. That's what I'm getting at, Mr. Chairman, otherwise we'll just go back to same old and tell the people that there's the office, use the phone. I don't think most people are going to go that route. They prefer to see a smiling face from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment sitting in their community. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand the desire of the community to see a resident worker. It will be a challenge for us to justify that, given the caseloads; but as caseloads change, it is certainly something that we can consider. I'll commit to staying in contact with the Member about service delivery. We could also examine whether or not one of the local agencies is prepared to take this service delivery on a contract basis again, but I don't have the money in this budget to start adding positions in communities across the North where we don't have a big demand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, has the Minister considered the new program that's going to be implemented on April 1st in terms of the housing? How is that going to be implemented in our communities? Is there an extra worker coming into our region or is there going to be contracts to housing associations? Surely they can look at programs like that. They've got to have some flexibility. Caseloads may not be warrant enough to have, but it's more disservice to our people who are on income support. Again, it's those people that don't use English as their first language, they use Slavey in their first point of communication and to try to work with them is going to be difficult through the phone system. So would the Minister look at something in terms of that? I don't know the rationale or the justification of the consequences of that project, but I guess I'm still pleading to have a presence in our communities. Even if it's, like I said, part-time and the funding that's going to have part-time workers, it costs high in the communities. So they can't blame the communities for saying no, because things cost high in the Sahtu region. So they're not going to do it for nothing either. Thank you.