Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. To date there are 22 committees that have been established throughout the Northwest Territories. A total of 80 people have been appointed to date.

That’s good to hear. Twenty-two committees. We have more than 22 communities. Are we going to have an appeals committee in each community or will there be some serviced regionally?

Some of the committees are also covering more than one community. Those communities that may not have an appeal committee per se are covered through these different committees.

Just one final question. Is this job of establishing appeals committees now done?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Daniels.

Thank you, Mr. Daniels. Next on my list is Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first question is in the Child Care User Subsidy Program. Financial assistance to parents that help child care so that they can go to school. I’m wondering if the threshold of income... I guess my first question is what is the income threshold in order for students to access. I’ll just put some context to that. I’m wondering if two students on full student financial assistance would be over the threshold.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Lafferty.

The subsidy is based on the needs assessment of those individuals.

Needs assessment I’m assuming is income tested. I’m wondering if the income testing is fine. Is there any consideration for the cost of daycare or child care in that particular instance?

We do factor in those costs that the Member is alluding to. Part of the assessment.

I’d like to ask the Minister to review the financial thresholds on this subsidy program. I think it’s too low. I think that students that are in Aurora College from my home town are struggling with this policy. Daycare or child care costs are about $50 per day and I do not believe that they’re netting enough money to pay for that. So there’s something wrong with the system when what they’re netting from student financial assistance is lower than their daycare costs. It’s almost equivalent to their daycare costs, I would say. Individuals are forced to work part time. Which is okay, I don’t have an issue with students finding part-time work; however, with the part-time work it puts them over the income threshold. My assumption is that the income threshold is very low. I’m wondering if the Minister has any plans or incidents where this is an issue other than me bringing it up here today.

I did state in the House that with the existing policies there have been some changes. Whenever an issue or a concern has been brought to our attention we’ll seriously look at it and if we need to make changes to our policy, then by all means we need to sit down and inform the Members that there will be some changes coming. This is an area that we as a department can also look at.

The area of income assistance, I was wondering when the last time the department looked at the -- I forget what the term is -- but you’re allowed to earn so much money. Unearned or earned income. The earned income thresholds. When was the last time the department looked at the earned income thresholds?

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Daniels.

I wouldn’t advocate for income assistance to be increased to make it easier for people to stay on income support, but in the cases of need and cases where we want people to work their way off the system I think that increasing the earned income threshold would be a positive move towards getting people off of income support.

My third question is on the seniors’ home heating subsidy. My issue is a little bit different. It’s more of asking the department to review the adult children supporting aged and disabled family members, whether they be grandparents or parents. Right now the alternative is to move some of these elders into a home, because some of them are getting to a stage where they’re starting to forget things and not really safe to leave them alone to cook for themselves and fend for themselves. Generally day-to-day operations many widows and widowers are running households by themselves at this point. They are homeowners and they have adult children living with them. They are providing some support and so on. What I’m asking the department to do is look at the positives of that type of thing; the money that the government saves overall.

Putting someone in Woodland Manor in Hay River is a very substantial cost to this government. Although it’s to another department, it’s a very substantial cost to the government as a whole. However, having adult children living with the aged is a cost savings to the government because that person’s needs are taken care of by that adult child. However, because their income is taken into consideration, the children don’t want to stay at home and take care of their parents because their parents are going, well, if you’re here, in cases where they have to be anyway, they’ve got no choice, they lose their seniors’ home heating subsidy. My question is: would the government do some sort of feasibility assessment, or whatever we want to call it, an evaluation of actually exempting incomes of adult children that live with the aged in supporting them through their day-to-day life and see if that would be a possibility? We have many situations like that where had it not been for those adult children, many of those elders would be in homes. Very expensive. A very expensive proposition. And then, of course, I guess their homes would be either unutilized or that adult child would take over the home. But this is something that is saving the government a lot of money but it’s

not as common as it should be, because it’s pretty simple. It’s like a policy and heating fuel is very expensive. It’s very hard for them to afford it. Then the burden is on the adult child to do all these essential things for their parents or grandparents.

In addition to that, they have to then fork out some money to cover the costs of operating the unit, because the government will then claw back or not provide this particular subsidy because of the adult child’s income. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Lafferty.

Mr. Chair, as I stated, these are areas that we continue to look into. To some degree, we have to be cautious of how we approach different areas of policy changes where if we allow adults to live in their parent’s or grandparent’s place, the individual could be earning a good wealth of income and others will follow. I’m just afraid of elders’ abuse, directly or indirectly, in the household, because it will be rent free for them. I can imagine in all the communities elders living in a household, they might have grandchildren living with them for a number of years and, to some degree, it may be best for some people, but some elders want to stay alone as well. But if an elder wants to stay alone and their adult kids want to move in at their own cost, I guess those are just some of the fears I would have. As I stated, we can look at this and see what we can come up with as a department. We need to work closely with the communities and also with the Members. Mahsi.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Next on my list is Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I too would like to talk about the seniors’ fuel subsidy program. I have to agree with Mr. Beaulieu. I think that we have to be realistic here and find ways of allowing for exemptions in certain situations where people are elderly and they’re into their 90’s. Maybe use 90 as the age level. That anybody over the age of 90 can have a family member or a relative living with them, because you’re talking about the well-being of seniors. I mean, if they’re 90 years old, they are going to need… I mean, I dealt with this situation similar to Mr. Menicoche in regard to a 96-year-old gentleman, his wife is 92. They’re independent. They own their own home. They’ve lived there all their lives, yet when family members come to visit, in most cases they come and spend the summer with them when the kids are out of school, grandkids and whatever. They go through this situation every year.

For me, the stress and the turmoil that you put these elders through, that’s elders’ abuse. I think that we should maybe look at allowing for certain exemptions to take place when you have people in certain status by way of mental ailment by way of dementia, by way of respite care, by way of there

are certain elements they may require that 24-hour home care, which if the family can provide it, it’s a benefit that you keep them there than having to send them to a long-term care facility, say, in Inuvik or having to fill a bed in a dementia centre or whatever. But if you can save the cost for the simple cost of heating their homes, it’s a cost savings to government.

I’m wondering if we can seriously consider looking at the exemptions that are offered and look at age as one of the categories that you consider for an exemption and that you allow those circumstances in those elements that I mentioned. That if you fit that category or class of person, age will be one, the other would be the ailment and the other one, you’ll be allowed to have someone live in the home regardless if it’s a family member or a relative who will be able to take care of the elder. Again, I mean, I know there used to be exemptions allowed in the past and, again, it seemed like they have disappeared, but I think we have to find a way of taking the stress that’s being put on our seniors, especially the ones who have lived out their lives in their own homes, basically have paid for it, they own it, they basically maintain it, but yet they’re at that age where they’re fragile.

I think we have to be realistic here, and we know who those people are. Those people receive the property tax exemptions. Those people are the ones that have been on the list year after year after year getting the benefit of the fuel subsidy. But because of a simple situation, like I say, someone comes and spends the summer with the family, which we all have family members. When we travel to our different communities, we’d like to have families spend time with their grandparents or their parents while they’re still with us. I think we’ve got to be realistic here and we have to allow for those types of exemptions to take place.

Again, I’d like to ask the Minister if that’s something that your department can seriously consider in light of the policies and regulations we have, to allow for these types of exemptions to be applied under those types of circumstances. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister Lafferty.