Mahsi. Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. YWCA Yellowknife reports that eliminating the income assistance food and clothing allowance for children is already having a devastating impact on NWT families. For example, when women and children flee violent homes, it can take some time to have the Child Tax Benefit migrated to the person who left with the children. So for the Minister, if the income assistant applicant is not receiving the Canada Child Benefit because they're waiting for changes in taxation filing to go through, how will ECE ensure the family does not suffer even more as a result of the elimination of the food and clothing allowances for children under 18? Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister's answer. But if the funds were sufficient, why would we have food banks? Why would we have soup kitchens? Why would we have all these organizations, not only here in Yellowknife but in Hay River and Inuvik, and even in smaller places like Tuktoyaktuk that give food to people every single day? Food security is a huge issue in the Northwest Territories, and I would like the Minister's commitment that he's going to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Thank you.

Of course, the Minister knows that income assistance is a last resort. The criteria for receiving income assistance is that you have used every one of your resources, including your savings, selling your house, selling your car, that you have nothing left. That's the premise for applying for income assistance. So I want to ask, again, whether the Minister will ensure that this promise to increase food levels will, in fact, be part of this government's agenda as well?

While the Minister is chatting with the Finance Minister about whether to uphold that promise from last year, I would just urge him to consider that every other per diem and allowance that any of us receive who are associated with the government rises over time, and that the price of food isn't going down. So I wonder if he could give me a rationale for not continuing to raise the level of income assistance for food?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of ECE. No, sorry. I have two sets of questions. I am on the wrong one. Heads up. My questions are for the Minister of Transportation. Just kidding. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture, and Employment. Is the Minister prepared to continue to stick to the promise made by the previous finance Minister and continue catching up food allowances for income assistance recipients so that they are up to 2014 levels? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, during this sitting of the Legislative Assembly, we've been debating changes to the NWT Income Assistance Program. We have learned that the new Canada Child Benefit no longer counts as income for people receiving income assistance. We've also learned that the department that administers income assistance has taken this opportunity to end the food and clothing allowances for children under 18.

Mr. Speaker, the effect of this change is two-fold. First, Ottawa is now paying for food, clothing and other necessities for children on income assistance through the Canada Child Benefit. The second is that the GNWT is paying less income assistance to families with children who are in need. Mr. Speaker, the government has been spinning this as a good news story because the bottom line is that poor families have more income.

Mr. Speaker, this is a claw-back by any other name, and I'm concerned there is another coming. In 2014, our Bureau of Statistics created a Northern Market Basket Measure as a tool to figure out what to pay recipients of income assistance for food. The Finance Minister of the day announced in his 2015 budget that an additional $1.75 million would be added to the food allocation under the Income Assistance program, an allocation that until then hadn't been increased since 2009. The increases would be phased in over a number of years to catch food allowances up with escalating costs, but, instead of catching the food allowances up for children, they have been wiped out.

Mr. Speaker, are more cuts coming to Income Assistance with the introduction of the enhanced NWT Child Benefit? The Minister told us, "The NWT Child Benefit will provide additional financial support to more low- and modest-income residents with children," and this is the important part, "not just those accessing Income Assistance." That sounds like good news, but my concern is that the introduction of the revamped NWT Child Benefit will follow the same pattern as the Canada Child Benefit, namely, that the benefit won't be counted as income but it will result in reductions in income assistance rates. I will have questions for the Minister. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister for making that commitment to remove the requirement for a statutory declaration from some kind of health professional in order for people to change their designation. I appreciate that the situation with minors is a little trickier because they're vulnerable people just by nature of their age, and I look forward to his further information on that pending his research. So my thanks to him and his officials, and my thanks as well to the Rainbow Coalition, Coleen Canney and Teale MacIntosh who made this original presentation to us on Wednesday night. That's everything.

Thank you. As the chair of Social Development mentioned, we had several presentations at the public hearing at this bill, including one from the Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife, which is a youth organization that supports people who are transgender and queer. I want to read a portion of their presentation because it helps to flesh out the section 42(1). So I'm quoting here: "Transgender identity at its core describes a person who feels like they are a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth by our medical system and/or by their caregivers or parents. There is no requirement of wanting to change one's body, nor is there any other requirement. The only thing that makes a person one gender over another is the feeling they have inside. Some trans people want to make changes to their bodies, and some do not. For any agency to place restrictions on a person's autonomy to control their identity is an invasion of individual human rights. Trans people should have the right to have vital statistics documents that reflect their identity."

I'll just pause here at the end of that quotation to say that the Minister has already acknowledged that he will recognize X as the alternative to male or female, and so I believe it addresses that point.

To continue quoting: "We are concerned that section 42(1) remains too vague and might end up meaning that the registrar requires, for example, a letter of confirmation from a medical professional that the applicant identifies as the sex that they claim to identify as. We believe that it is important that trans people are recognized as the sole experts of their own identities, and that medical professionals are not required to provide confirmation of identity for trans people. Furthermore, we hope that there will be explicit mention of not requiring medical confirmation of gender identity as to ensure that this barrier does not disallow people from changing their sex designation. We suggest requesting that the applicant be provided with a statutory declaration to sign that states that they identify as the sex that they are requesting to be designated on their documentation."

So, Mr. Chair, what all of this means is, as the Minister said, that trans people want self-determination in their identity. They want to be able to designate their own gender without needing an intervention in the form of a statutory declaration by a medical professional, with whom they might not have any relationship and with whom, quite frankly, trans people often have very troubled relationships. So the point here is that, if a person identifies as whatever gender they identify with, this should be taken at their word.

Now, I know that the legislation does not include that level of detail. It will be included in the regulations. But what I am seeking in this forum is a repetition from the Minister that the regulations will address this point of individuals being able to practise self-determination in their identity without the intervention or support of a medical practitioner? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, today my remarks are specifically about the amendment with the designation 42(1). Do you want to hear those comments now?