Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just looking at two line items here, and a quick comment, then some questions. I'm looking at the Senior Citizen Supplementary Benefit and Senior Home Heating Subsidy, those two line items. There's not a whole lot of change in there. I want to make some comments on our mandate, with our mandate item to enable seniors to age in place with dignity. We had a couple of commitments, and that's to increase the Senior Home Heating Subsidy and to create a separate Income Assistance program for seniors or persons with disabilities, in our mandate. I would like to ask the Minister what is his vision or plan going forward to increase these numbers and/or how would it look in the next budget moving forward? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. Right now, the Senior Home Heating Subsidy, I think a lot of people see it as covering 100 percent of the costs. The fact is that it is intended to cover about 74 percent of the average cost of heating a home, an average home, in a particular region; and so each region is different. What we are proposing and what we are going to do is increase that 74 percent to 80 percent. It's not 100 percent, but it is a larger increase.

One of the issues that I find people run into that, you know, this was a cold winter, especially up in the Beaufort-Delta, and seniors, they spend all of their heating money by February, and then, if they want a fill-up, each fill-up is a minimum of $300, and they don't have that $300. One of the options is looking at, if it is a subsidy and there is an expected contribution, perhaps every fill-up, there is a contribution from the senior. So, you know, instead of having a $300 contribution all at once at the end, maybe a few of them in a row, you make small contributions throughout the year so that you can extend that. There are administrative issues surrounding that, but that's just one of the options.

The other initiative the Member mentioned was creating -- sorry, one second, here. I want to get the wording right. I guess it was the position or the stream of Income Assistance for seniors, I believe. There is work under way to figure out how we can do that. There is no point in having seniors who have aged out of the workforce reporting their income every single month. I know seniors on Income Assistance who have difficulty getting out of the house. They have medical issues that keep them homebound, and it's difficult for them just to do that basic reporting. Even if you payroll them, it's still a big issue to get out of there every three or six or 12 months. The idea is to treat those people who are collecting Income Assistance differently from the people who are able-bodied and who have fallen on hard times. They are two completely different populations, and there is no point in having them lumped together in a single program, and so the idea is to separate those programs so that it serves those distinct populations better. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the Minister for that response, as well. I guess I had a quick comment. I was just doing some research here, just earlier, on the NWT statistics on some age demographics, and it looks like we're going to start to see an influx of people retiring. I'm just wondering: are we going to expect to see an increase with these two line items that I just mentioned, moving forward? I have a feeling that we're going to be seeing an increase in applications for these programs. Mahsi cho, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. It's hard to predict a lot of these programs, but I think that, if you look at the statistics of the number of people who are getting to a certain age, more people are going to become eligible for the programs, and hence there is going to be more uptake. That's certainly what we've seen. You know, there are also fuel prices. While these aren't tied to fuel prices, necessarily, if a senior runs out of fuel, we don't just leave them hanging. If they've used their entire benefit and they still are eligible for Income Assistance, we'll help them out so that their house doesn't freeze in the middle of February in minus 40. Right? And so those types of costs also grow, and those are based on the fuel cost. If the price of fuel doubles, they're going to run out more quickly and we're going to be providing more of that additional assistance, as well. Unfortunately, like most of these types of programs in the territory, I imagine that costs will go up. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you again for that response. Helping elders in the middle of winter like that sounds good to me. That sounds dignified. I'd like to hear more of that and hear that from other departments. That's just a comment, and that's all I have to say. Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. Again, I'll bring this back to what I've been saying and what everyone has been saying here, that it would be great if we could increase all of these programs and do all of these things we want to do, but we have to focus on the priorities of the Assembly and the mandate. There are a lot of great ideas and wonderful things that I would like to see done in Income Assistance, but they all cost money, and so I want to temper everyone's expectations. While I am open to discussing everything and changing what we can do, changing our mentality, it all costs money, and so I am not guaranteeing it's all going to get done or even any of it is going to get done. However, if we can do things better, that is what I want to do, and I want to work with the Members to do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to ask a question on the student financial assistance. For the 2018-2019 actuals to now, there has been an increase. Does that mean there are more students enrolled, or does it mean an increase in student financial assistance?

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. The budget has remained the same, but there are more students projected to access it, so we budgeted it higher than we needed to, I guess, in the last round, so there were fewer students accessing it. Going forward, hopefully, we have more students accessing it.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Thebacha.

I just want to make sure that all students who want to take post-secondary education have access. I am saying that because we had a problem just before Christmas with regard to the new aviation program that was being held in Fort Smith. In the end, I want to make sure that post-secondary education includes pilots, that it does not necessarily have to all be associated with Aurora College or University of Alberta or anywhere else in Canada, and I want to make sure that access is important for all students of the Northwest Territories and there is no distinguishment of where they are going to school. That is all I am asking.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. The way that SFA determines whether or not a school is eligible is based on a master list. You can access it. It's a federal list of accredited universities. It's accessible through the SFA website. If you go on there, you can search for a school and, if it's on that list, then, if it is a program leading to a licence, certificate, diploma, bachelors, masters, et cetera, then it's an eligible school. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Thebacha.

I don't have any other questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Any further questions on income security? There are no further questions. Please turn to page 46, Education, Culture and Employment, income security, operations expenditure summary, 2020-2021 Main Estimates, $54,359,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you. The next section is labour development and advanced education, beginning on page 49 with information items on pages 53 to 60. Minister.