Mr. Chairman, I can shed some light on this particular matter. This area has always been a real challenge to balance or to strike the right balance between assisting those individuals that are on income support and pushing them towards or creating economic dependency.
There is a program in place with our department as well: Productive Choices. We have initiated, in the past, various programs so that we can get people out of their homes and work for the money that we provide to them, but there has been a push back. They went through their leaders and their MLAs and put more pressure on us to, sort of like status quo. I need a lot of support from the community leadership for us to pursue further with this. I am willing to do this as a Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and I feel that those individuals that have 10 fingers and 10 toes can be out there, employable.
It has always been that way with our ancestors as well, so I think that is the clear message that we always receive from our grandparents so we are more than willing to do that, Mr. Chairman, it is just that I guess taking the next step and working with the communities, so we do have the productive choices, and I like to see young individuals that are on income security to go out there and get some firewood for the elders or chop wood for the elders, or fishnet for the elders and so forth. Those are simple tasks that can be done and those are the areas that we exploring, Mr. Chairman. Mahsi.