Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will have to get back to the MLA on that and actually get the actual facts on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the Minister is going to get to me with that there because, again, we have made a change. There should have been new money to make this change if we got 100, and if there isn't, that means seniors or elders were getting the short end of it who were actually accessing the program. The Minister actually talked about elders going out and cutting wood and that to help, you know, pay for that. That is great, but did they look at actually allocating the money that was litres as money instead of just coming out with monetary value?

What I do know is that not all seniors actually got less money. It is that some of the regions, the higher zones, zone 3, actually, had an increase because their cost of living was substantially higher than, I'm going to say, it is a lot higher cost of living in Tuktoyaktuk than it is in Yellowknife or in Hay River. I hate to say that, but that is the reality we face.

This program actually extended it so more seniors can actually access the program. Not all seniors, but it was based on looking at comparable communities to see what their cost of living factors were, market baskets, and defining what their subsidies should be. Remembering that this is a subsidy program. It is not meant to take care of every single cost of seniors, and so it was determined that it was more equitable to give a cash payment versus a litre payment because of the fact that many seniors in our smallest communities are still using wood heat and are not getting the full allocation because of that.

Again, I thank the Minister. She talked about wood heat. In my riding, small communities use wood heat. They use that and they use fuel subsidy. These elders are in, you know, older ages. Again, when we did these changes, why weren't the communities, like we talk about the seniors, but why weren't the political bodies asked then question? Like DFN and those political bodies.

Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I appreciate the Minister saying that the department is going to look at it, review that, and I greatly appreciate she is going to get back to me with that information. The Minister spoke about, when I asked her questions earlier, she talked about income support and having to look at it. Can the Minister advise, if seniors apply for this seniors' subsidy, do the department staff actually encourage the seniors to apply for income support, as well?

Education, Culture and Employment is supposed to be actually providing as much, the best, customer service as possible. I cannot say that every single person is always doing that, but the direction is that they should be very consumer focused, and they should be, actually, if there are seniors who are struggling financially, they should be talking about all of the options. So, if they are accessing this program and their income is low and they are still in need, then my hope, and I will look into that, is that they should actually be referring people and saying, "Would you consider income support?" Recognizing again that many seniors are very stubborn and very proud and very proud in their ways, so sometimes asking for help is not always easy for that population. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.