Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is not a new problem. This is not about trying to beat up the maintenance enforcement staff, and I would resent any characterization about this. This is about the process of trying to get the money to the families that need it.
To my knowledge there have been no default hearings in the last few years here in the Northwest Territories, and that continues to be a problem. I have a bunch of questions still outstanding with this department almost a month old on this particular file. The parents are waiting, they are struggling and the children are the ones being punished by the process being too slow and doesn’t engage.
The final point I want to make is the system is designed almost to make the single parent, who is taking the full responsibility of the children, to also be the police mechanism to go report them, and that’s not fair. The system must support them and I have tried to highlight how it should. We need some real answers and engagement.