Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to talk about a subject that I’ve been seeing difficulties with over my term as MLA. We as MLAs get concerns from all kinds of industry, all kinds of individuals, all kinds of groups, but some individuals come to us with a concern. I’ll talk to you about some of the income assistance clients that I’ve seen over the last year who have come to me and talked to me about an injustice.
These income assistance individuals receive some sort of small payment – a GST cheque, income from RWED for fur – and these are small amounts of dollars. We’re talking about $40, or $80. Because they receive this amount of money and they don’t declare that money, then their income assistance for that month is docked. They lose all the income for their family for that whole month.
I’ve brought it to the attention of the department and staff. Normally, staff are able to help me out and say, “Yes, there’s flexibility here. Maybe we could deal with it this way.” But they said, “The act is clear; this act doesn’t allow us to just deduct that amount from the next payment,” so that that family has income for the month, they don’t have to beg or borrow money to survive for that month.
We need to change this act that allows us, as a government, to be responsive to our citizens and say, “Yes, you received a $40 GST cheque and we understand you didn’t recognize it. We’re going to just deduct that from your next income.” That’s a reasonable approach.
The unreasonable approach is that we remove all that income from that family for the whole month. I’ve discussed it with the Minister today, and we may not have questions today because of time, but I know the Minister here is listening and I know the Minister has committed to me to looking into changing inequality in our system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.