Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and it’s in regards to the lack of income support services in communities, especially communities such as Tsiigehtchic where you don’t have an income support worker in the community and you have to depend on people to come in from either Fort McPherson or Inuvik. They usually come in once a month and in most cases it’s at the end of the month, and it’s causing some problems not only for the local housing authority but for the residents of Tsiigehtchic. What we’re finding is they’re one month behind and they run into arrears. The Housing Corporation isn’t being paid on time. More importantly, if you’re not in the community for that one-day visit, you miss out, so you basically have to wait until the next month to be provided with that service of income support.
The other issue is there’s no consistency with regards to the people who come into the community. Every time an income support worker comes to the community it’s a different person, so you have to explain yourself all over again on exactly how many people who live with you, how much money you make, how many kids you have and how many cats you feed. I think it’s that type of information that people are getting tired of. So I’d just like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, what is this government doing to ensure that communities have people based in their communities providing these type of services rather than having to depend on outsiders to come in and provide a service for them? Perhaps through a service agreement with the band operations or privatize it so somebody locally can provide that service, rather than having this system which basically is having an effect on the service in the communities. Thank you.