Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Same line of question in regard to the Income Assistance Program. More importantly, in regard to the Public Rent Supp Program. I’ll use an illustration of a program that was run in Tsiigehtchic with regard to individuals who were in social housing who had arrears. The housing authority was able to develop a training program for people to rip down the older housing units to make way for new housing units. They tried to salvage what they could and, more importantly, they had a training component for a lot of the single mothers that were on the project. Half of their payment went to their arrears, the other half they got to keep, but they also got training. They managed to get the coverage for workers’ compensation to the housing authority. I think it’s in those type of projects that maybe this government can learn from and try to illustrate more of those programs. At the end of the day I think everybody went away happy. People had money in their pockets. They got trained. They paid off their bills. More importantly, they were able to salvage a lot of the materials and the community still uses those materials for other renovations they are doing in their community. I think it’s those types of incentives that we have to build from.
Again, I think that the whole idea regarding having people retain more money over a transitional period, I think that period you’re looking at is more like six months to a year. Allow these people to get the skills, but also have a system that instead of $200 here or $400 there I think you have to look at a larger portion. Let them keep 50 percent of their revenues, calculate the other 50 percent by way of what their rent is going to be. I think at the end of the day, once the people develop that relationship between the value of the money and the value of the work and the value of having to pay the bills, I think you’ll get a lot better product at the end of the day. I think you have to look at it as a give and take thing. You don’t just simply take, take, take. You give a little bit, let the individual that was on income support get some experience, get some skills, get some ability to earn some money, and at the end of the day don’t feel like they’ve been penalized because they happened to earn some money.
I think we have to look at these things and realize that we have some unique challenges in the North. A lot of our aboriginal communities and communities don’t have a long-term economy. Most of our economies in our small communities last only two or three months. You might get a winter gravel haul or you might see the summer works project by way of renovations or whatnot in your community. I think that we have to realize that we have these economies in the Northwest Territories and we have high unemployment and dependency on our social programs in a lot of our communities because of that. We have to find a way to stimulate these people to be able to feel that they won’t get penalized if they go to work or they know that because they’re going to be working that they’re going to be clawed back. I think it’s a system.
I know there are systems in other parts of the country. From people in Newfoundland, I know when we were there we met with the Newfoundland government in which they developed a lot of their programs around the whole idea of a 28-week period so they could take advantage of the federal unemployment insurance system so that people are able to get the federal dollars and also earn the time they need to get those dollars. I think that’s something that we should look at seriously in the Northwest Territories to stimulate employment, but also try to find ways to use federal dollars to subsidize some of our programs so that income support...We spent $23 million. Is there a way we can leverage another $20 million from the feds using the EI system?
For me it’s more of an overall idea that I think this government should seriously look at. Again, I know the whole idea of the Income Support Program when it was first out there. I know there was a lot of criteria that was put into it, a lot of emphasis was for training, getting people onto income support, they had to take training through upgrading or go to that Arctic College program or go to work. I think that seems like it’s not really the push that’s out there now. I think we have to get back to that in light of the cost of what this program is. Especially to find a balance between people who are attempting to work their way into the economy and earn their living and seeing other people, struggling homeowners, and seeing that they’re trying to take care of all their bills, then they realize that people in some cases are not paying any rent. If other people are paying very little rent yet people are struggling just to keep their lights on and their homes heated, I think we have to find a way to show that we are trying to make a difference, but, more importantly, using those programs.
I’d just again like to ask the Minister if he could consider looking at the concept that I mentioned that was used in Tsiigehtchic in which it was a good effort. Maybe work with the Housing Corporation to
see how that program worked and expand it in other communities.