Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to echo some of the comments that have already been made. I want to first talk about the income security reform that’s been mentioned. I think we talked about it the other day, but I see this as a great opportunity to do things cross-departmentally. I was pleased to hear the Minister mention the Anti-Poverty Strategy and that that’s kind of in his sights, I guess, as they look at income security.
I look at the description from the business plans and it says that the department administers a range of programs addressing cost of living issues, encouraging homeownership, ensuring access to health education, et cetera. I mentioned the other day and I’ll mention it again, I think that the relationship between income security and housing is one that is probably the most difficult for our residents when they try to access either income security or housing. They are co-related, they have to exist together.
Mr. Bromley talked about some of the red tape and the difficulties that people encounter when they’re filling out forms. I echo those sentiments. I’ve had the same sort of comments from constituents that it is not an easy process to get either income security and/or housing. I’ve spoken before, it was some time ago now that I made a statement about the lack of a customer service attitude within income security, the whole division. It’s not everybody, but certainly I think it’s something that does not exist. We have too many of our clients who are approaching in kind of a weakened state, for lack of a better way of putting it. They are not treated to good customer service. I think our staff sort of expect them to be a little more on the ball than maybe they are and very often I think they are totally intimidated by the whole process of filling out forms, no, this isn’t enough, you have to go back and get me more. I just think that similar to my comments about the Department of Human Resources, I think it’s every department in the government, but this area of education is one that should be very much client service and customer service-oriented. I just encourage the Minister and the department to look at that.
Customer service doesn’t only show itself in the staff. It also should be evident in our policies and procedures. That’s where Mr. Bromley was going with his talk about forms and so on. We need to enable people and encourage people and make sure that we treat them as a client, because they are. They are an internal client, but they’re a client. We have to treat them like we would want to be treated if we were going off to do the same job.
I wanted to go to Mr. Menicoche’s comments about the home heating subsidy and the difficulties there. It’s my understanding that we are establishing appeals committees in our communities, I think. At least in our regional centres. That would be something where I would think that the situation that he’s encountered with his elder probably could be dealt with through an appeal if necessary. Again that’s one more step that people have to go through. However, my question to the department at this point is: have we got the Social Assistance Appeals Committee set up and how many and where and what have we done with establishing them yet?