Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I wanted to say this is a very important program. There are many people throughout the North who need government support because of their personal situations. This division plays a big role. However, based on feedback from constituents and listening to other colleagues, there are still some major issues here. Dignity is still missing in the treatment of income assistance clients on a too frequent basis. I’m not saying all the time, but more than it should be. People, frankly speaking, are treated like they are dirt. This is totally unacceptable. I know it’s unacceptable to the Minister. Our workers are consistently losing client paperwork on a monthly basis to where clients not only have to come in and re-establish it, but they have to learn to photocopy everything, which is not
always an easy thing unless you happen to have a photocopier in your house or some piece of equipment that will serve, and that’s not typically true of many of our income support security clients. Often they have to go back to original sources such as the fuel distributor, the utility, their landlord to get original receipts because of this lost paperwork. Unnecessarily requesting a person is present when there are mobility issues, which engenders expensive taxi rides.
These are some of the issues that I consistently come up with or hear from clients about. I know the Minister has heard these sorts of things and knows what I’m talking about here.
Does this budget include or is the Minister planning a way to really try and make progress on this? I think many of our workers get into the business out of social concerns themselves, and yet somehow, after a period of time, their behaviour changes. Does the Minister see any way to deal with this situation?