Thank you, Mr. Minister, for that clarification. Mr. Vanthuyne, any additions?

Mr. Chair, if I wanted to know how much we paid or are proposing to pay this year in Senior Home Heating Subsidy where would I find that in this document? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Mr. Minister.

Yes, under the summary here you'd find that under utilities.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Mr. Chair, I won't

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this. I respect where the Minister is going with this. I'm for the record expressing a challenge. The department has the following programs: Income Assistance, Senior Home Heating Subsidy, Senior Citizen Supplementary Benefit, NWT Child Benefit, and Student Financial Assistance. It would be recommended that within the budget document that we have those actual programs broken out so that we know what the financial allocations are to those specific programs year after year. The reason why I ask that, Mr. Chair, is because a lot of those programs have been criticized in the past as it relates to their ability to keep up with consumer price index or you know indexing of some level or another. I want to be able to look at that. I want to be able to look at past years' histories on the expenditures in those particular programs and determine if there is any value in debating whether these programs should in fact receive some form of indexing. Right now as it relates to the current version of this budget document that's impossible to discuss. I would like that to be considered for future budgets, but if in the meantime the Minister can commit to Members to get us a breakout of what we're proposing for those actual programs rather than just where it might lie in the expenditure summary it'd be well appreciated. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We can get the breakdown of all these programs to the Member or interested Members. We do go through a cycle. We do go through the business-planning cycle where requests like those also can be made before the main estimates are printed. In terms of more specifics on the main estimates, when we do print them maybe we can talk with Department of Finance on when they're printed out. However, we do also have a public accounts document that's tabled in this House every year. In that document all the programs the government has is able to get specifics on amount of dollars that was being allocated and the amount of dollars that were actually spent. So I do know the Member has brought questions up in the House the other day and I made references, once again, to the public accounts documents that shows how our government spends dollars and once that is tabled, I'd encourage the Member to look at those numbers as well. But this is something we had discussed with Department of Finance in terms of programs services. If there's specifics that he wants then we can get the department to provide that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. For the purposes of clarity, we will include pages 61, support detail, 63, support detail to operations expenditures summary as identified on 62. I recognize Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I know that I've asked the Minister some questions about indexing of income assistance over the last week, and there was some further discussion of that to increase that appropriately even here in the House today. I understand that there has to be changes brought in, legislative changes, in terms of the NWT Child Benefit, the Canada Child Benefit, but when I look at our schedule, it looks like that legislation's probably not going to get into the House until October or November, and presumably at the end of that session we might need the Commissioner to sign off on it, so would the changes actually be made retroactive to April 1stor for the tax year? I'm just trying to understand the schedule here and when people could expect to see changes to the benefits that they receive. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Minister?

For the income assistance changes, it will be August 1st, as mentioned in the House. We just have to get some minor changes done to the regulations for the child benefit. As the Member said, we are going to have to make some legislative changes to reflect that and that could be a little bit longer.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate the answer from the Minister. When those legislative changes come through, can they be made retroactive to August 1stor do they only come into effect on the signing of the legislation by the Commissioner? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Minister?

Yes, in terms of retroactive pay, we would have to talk to the federal government in that area. In terms of the other one, we just have to wait until the legislative proposal actually gets approved.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I guess I'm a little confused now if I wasn't before. There's the Canada Child Benefit, the NWT Child Benefit. Do we have to change our Income Tax Act to ensure that people can take full advantage of both of those benefits and when would those changes actually legally come into effect? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Minister?

Yes, and I appreciate the Member bringing up questions in terms of retroactive pay and whether the GNWT can focus that on their own in terms of funding as questions were in the House earlier today, and last time we did the income assistance increase was April 1st, 2015. The increase was about 20 per cent. Currently, our government doesn't have any policy to reflect changes in income assistance. We review on a case-by-case basis. To get to a couple of the other details, I will ask my deputy minister to get into a bit more details of the program and where we can see some real changes. As I mentioned in the House, these are going to be some great changes for low to moderate income families moving forward, and the sooner we can get on that and bring it into force the better it'll be for our residents. I'll ask my deputy minister to give a little bit more detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Recognizing Deputy Minister Stewart.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the deputy minister for that response. I would encourage the department then to move forward then as quickly as they can so we can help our folks better on income assistance. Thanks, Mr. Chair.