Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to speak regarding income security. We all know it's a subject that I guess a lot of us hope we can get away from sometimes. But we have to go back to reality that the reason the program is there is for people who need support, not there to help people who can work. It's there as a last resort for people who really need the assistance to get by for the month. That's my understanding of the program.

Some of my colleagues, Mr. Chairman, touched on the transfer of the funds from the Housing Corporation to income support. Again, I agree with some of my colleagues here that it's still a problem, especially in small communities. I will give you an example, Mr. Chairman. I raised it the other day. With income support clients who are going to post-secondary education outside of the communities, I understand that we have a minimum of three months that they can leave the community. Who is going to finish a program in three months if you have to leave for a six-month program? It's very clear under the policy it's a minimum of three months and a maximum of two years.

In one case the Minister is saying the mistake was made by the local housing authority. I don't think so. It depends on how you interpret the policy. If you had a program for two years, granted, understanding that people might need housing but if they have enough units, I think they should hold onto that unit. That is where the problem was encountered, Mr. Chairman. After three months, the income support worker just said I'm sorry we can't pay the O and M of the housing unit. That's why they got into the situation where they ended up $5,000 plus in terms of payments. As the Minister indicated the other day, that's been rectified. I think it's important that these kinds of things should be looked at.

I just hope down the road that if we are gong to keep the system the way it is today, we hope the transition can run smoothly.

I want to talk a bit about productive choices. Sure, you can stay home and watch your child. You can go get ice and wood for the elders. You can go hunting for the elders. These are just some of the productive choices that are identified by the department. In reality, when you look at it, how does this help you out in the long term, so you get a productive choice so that you are able to do something with what you have learned and not out shovelling snow just to make up for the house so they can get income support. To me, that's not a productive

choice. That's just doing slave labour for $200 a month for a single person. You are not gaining any experience; you are just going out there to do something the department wants them to do. A productive choice is when you go out and work with an organization, sit in the office for eight hours or something like that. Learn something, let's have a productive choice. In the end, you learn something.

I don't know what we can do, Mr. Chairman. We've talked about it so many times. For the last three years, we've talked about it. We talked about it for the last year and a half after the transfer of money from the Housing Corporation to income support. I just hope that some day we will get it right and we don't have any more complaints about the Housing Corporation, LHOs and income support workers. These are just a few comments I want to make, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.