Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to the Minister of ECE. It is in regards to my Member’s statement on the challenges that we are facing in our small communities, especially the delivery of housing in regards to the economic rent that is being charged by local housing authorities. More importantly, the ECE program by way of income support in regards to how we are supposed to approve services that are in our communities.
I think one thing that is lacking is that we don’t really look at the social and economic viability in a lot of our communities. One of the things I see is that we have a high pocket of unemployment in our communities. We know statistically what the total household incomes are in a lot of our small communities. In most cases, it is less than $40,000 per household, yet in Yellowknife it is in excess of $120,000 per household and yet the programs are delivering in the same sort of policy. I would like to ask the Minister of ECE, in light of the plans that took place between the Housing Corporation and ECE in regards to the Income Support Program and the housing supp, the Housing Corporation had a policy in place before the transfer took place which basically allowed a tenant of the Housing Corporation who was unemployed for a period of time to basically transition into employment for a couple of months so that they can be able to get a job, but, more importantly, retain some of those earnings so that they can purchase items that they need and prepare them so that when they do get charged economic rent, that they have the resources to do so and not use the hammer approach where you basically nail them with the first pay cheque they get and take as much as you can and then say, here, go to work the next day. I think this program is not working. I would like to ask the Minister of ECE: Would he consider that policy and implement that policy, which was in the Housing Corporation, in light of what has happened in our communities?