EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
For example, my good friend from Resolute Bay, Mr. Kalluk, when he was working for the Power Corporation, he would be laid off in the springtime for a whole month, and in the fall time, he would be rehired again and for twenty years that occurred. He could not receive any pension from that, due to this practice.
There are quite a few individuals like that who used to work and be laid off, and they weren’t eligible for a pension, this seems like a calculated plot to deprive them of their pensions by their employers, so they would not have to pay the premiums.
Nowadays they get their elders’ pension from the federal government, and I think that they also get a pension from NTI of a paltry 100 dollars.
When these pensions are not enough to cover their means and necessities, especially when they are supporting a lot of relatives, they are given additional funding from income support.
They live below the poverty line and they have to survive in the community with these limited funds.
I was wondering if the Minister responsible for Income Support has considered rather than having the elders go through income support, if there could be some other less demeaning source of extra funds.
We take an individuals’ self-esteem when we put them on welfare.
They will not be looking for jobs as they are “retired”.
They are not looking for additional career training, and we are still putting them under income support.
We are taking away their pride of being a self-sufficient Inuk.
I was wondering even though the money will be coming from Income Support, rather than give them this income support, call it supplementary pensions, I don’t know how to say it in Inuktitut, but I was wondering if the elders could receive a supplementary pension to be able to live above the poverty line.
I was wondering if you have ever considered that.
Yes, that is one of the reasons why we are requesting this additional funding.
For example, in 2001-2002, in supplementary benefits for individuals aged 65 years and older, there were 531 individuals and they received 135 dollars per month in extra benefits.
In line with the federal pension plan that the elders are eligible for, the supplementary pension is made available to all the elders who are 65 years and older and that’s still continuing today.
We will try to keep the elders above the poverty line with a Supplementary Pension in regards to my colleague’s question about this issue.
We all know that the income support recipients are asked to give their cheques to the store and they purchase groceries.
And the elders who are 65 years and over, since they only get 135 per month, for example, here in Iqaluit, do you send the cheque out to the elders under their names?
In response to his question, we’re waiting for our income support official to come here and that individual can respond adequately.
But first of all I would like to clarify; I don’t want to have any misunderstandings in relation to my earlier comments.
The increase is to keep up with the forced growth of the elders.
It’s not a supplementary pension. It’s to keep up with the population.
But in respect to your question, I cannot respond to it.
I am not familiar with the details involved in this process.
I will ask my officials. My officials are waiting to come here to the witness table to respond to these income support questions.
Chairperson (interpretation): Let me get some order here.
We’re now on income support.
So please get the appropriate official to the witness table so that your officials can respond to the members here.
Yes, I’m sure the officials are on their way down.
I want the members to receive a good response in regards to income support.
Our director was unable to be here but there is another co-worker that this individual works with presently available.
If it’s okay with you Mr. Chairman, I would like to invite the official to the chambers.
Chairperson (interpretation): In order to proceed properly let’s take a five minute break and after five minutes come back to the chamber.
>>Committee recessed at 5.08 p.m. and resumed at 5.19 p.m.
Chairperson (interpretation): We now have a quorum. We’re still on the same page.
I would first like the minister to introduce his officials. Mr. Minister.
Their last names are a little bit different from the previous officials I had.
To my right is our Senior Income Support Policy Analyst Mark MacKay.
Our income support director could not be here so he’s replacing that individual.
Welcome Mr. MacKay.
Mr. Arvaluk, you can ask your questions again so that they’ll be able to respond.
These figures are only dealing with the compensation and benefits package, so we’re just talking about income support staff at this time and I was wondering, I think it’s 9-16, I think that’s only part of fees and payments.
It talks about fees and payments, here.
The 22 million 600 thousand dollars on 9 – 16 is used for income support.
I would like to deal with 9-16 at the same time we’re dealing with 9-10 if that’s okay with you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairperson (interpretation): Mr. Arvaluk, I will ask the members.
This income support page is for the workers and also there’s employment and career services so if we can follow along that line of thinking.
Is it okay if we do it the way Mr. Arvaluk suggested?
Yes we will do so, there’s agreement.
Mr. Arvaluk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and my colleagues. Mr. Chairman, first of all I would like to ask a question.
We would like to deal with 9-10 and complete it.
For example, I think we call it a pension (ittuqsiutitaat) for the elders, whether they be female or male, the federal pension plan, I think it is 608 dollars that they receive per month and 100 dollars from NTI.
As Nunavut residents, according to Canadian Federal Statutes, if an individual is living alone in a house here in Nunavut, whether it is a house or elders’ facility, what’s the minimum allowable pension amount that the elder is eligible for?
I’d like to get that clarified first.
Are we talking about the total or are we just talking about the Nunavut Government’s pension plan.
You would be under the poverty line, if you only made so much annually.
For example, there’s 608 dollars, just an example, and 100 dollars from NTI and if you totalled that up it’s 708 dollars.
Is 708 dollars under the poverty line or is it over if we’re talking about one individual.
Is the poverty line up to a maximum of one thousand dollars, 800 dollars or what is considered the poverty line?
Chairperson (interpretation): Please say thank you so our technicians will know which buttons to push.
I’ll have our income support person respond to your question.
Chairperson (interpretation): Mr. McKay.
Mr. McKay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
From what I understand of the question, you were saying that 708 dollars is what’s provided to a single person and you were asking if that person is above or below the poverty line in Nunavut.
First of all at this point, in this office for income support, we don’t measure what the poverty line is.
We basically establish what needs are.
So for a single person for instance in Iqaluit it would be based on a food need, a housing need, an electricity need and some clothing needs and some other benefits.
So for an average single person that need is somewhere between 500 and 700 dollars per month.
That’s primarily because housing is established at a very minimum amount of 32 dollars a month or less and if it is for seniors or elders it is free.
In the food allowance in Iqaluit again as an example it is 259 dollars a month and clothing benefits and power benefits.
The income that comes from us there are certain amounts of these that are exempt.
The NTI benefits are exempt, the pensions count as unearned income.
So whatever is left over would be the top up that would be provided.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. MacKay.
There are a variety of formulas.
But in that case the top up still comes from Income Support for the elderly who never received income support before the prices went down.
Some of the elders are still hunting and they are still trying to have the livelihood out on the land.
Is there a study with CLEY and the Income Support division to find a better or more dignified way of assisting the elders?
For example Canada Pension is one and NTI pension is the other.
Rather than having a person called an Income Support recipient or whatever the government term maybe in the government jargon.
Is there another dignified way that it can be handled?
For example, a fixed amount that you can give in a form of a cheque rather than a voucher to an elderly person.
I first would like to make a clarification so that we’ll know what we are talking about.
The Income Support recipients or the pension benefits the elders get, don’t go through this process, they go through the supplemental process which is in the amount of 135 dollars that we mentioned earlier.
These are just to keep up with inflation and forced growth.
The 186 thousand dollars is here in our estimates.
That is to supplement the benefits the elders get.
I would like everyone to understand that they don’t go through here.
They’re from another pot.
Mr. Arvaluk (interpretation): I don’t quite understand it.
It doesn’t go through the 22 million 600 thousand dollars that Mr. MacKay mentioned in regards to this supplemental benefit?
Are you saying it doesn’t come out of the 22 million dollars?
We will have to approve these main estimates line by line.
I do not want to cause any further confusion in regards to these figures.
There is 186 thousand dollars that I mentioned which the forced growth increase is under 9-10 and then there are the employment and career services which are under 9-16.
To further explain it in 9-10, the elders’ benefits go to 135 every month.
That’s where the supplement comes in.
Mr. Arvaluk: I understand that.
I’m only referring to 9-10 in your preamble.
The Income Support program provides financial security for those in need, as well as incentives and support for those receiving assistance to become more self-reliant and to have productive choices according to their health, abilities and efforts, education, training, work opportunities etc.
But there is nothing in this program, especially in the preamble, to have special consideration to promote something that is more dignified for the elderly, in your preamble.
We are going to continue to group them with other income support recipients if the Canada Pension and NTI one hundred dollars is not sufficient.
My question here is would you put in the preamble an innovative way of recognizing the elders that they are not in fact in income support because they don’t want to go to school or they don’t want to get training or they are not looking for jobs.
They’re elders now.
We could recognize it in CLEY.
Can we recognize it in page 9-10?
That’s all I’m asking.
That is your last question.
I will go back to you after I let the other members have their say.
In the preamble, we could fix up the wording so that we could recognize what you’re saying.
I think it’s doable.
Mr. Arvaluk, your last question.
We all know that there is housing that has to be considered as Mr. McKay mentioned earlier.
You have to look at the utilities, the electricity, the water services, but what I’m trying to say is that even with those things to factor in we should look at the elders in particular who were never in the workforce in their whole lives.
They never contributed to the pension plan.
How can we recognize those individuals, not through income support?
Can we not look at some sort of a plan for the elders specifically?
We cannot put a line item here but possibly what you can do is work with the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth so that they can get additional benefits.
In the review that was done on income support previous to this it wasn’t mentioned but according to Mr. Arvaluk’s comments, if an individual has never participated in the workforce or contributed to the pension plan, if you’re 60-64 years of age, they receive 175 dollars monthly. I just want to include that as information.
We’re talking about giving additional financial support to the elders so I will have to talk to my colleagues to see what we can do.
Possibly through discussions with the Cabinet members we could very likely review it and come up with something but I will have to talk to my colleagues before I make any decisions.
Under 9-10, on the preamble I guess you can call it, the last sentence you have, after saying to make productive choices according to their health, ability and effort and these choices include community healing, education, training and so on. But anyway, I just want to refer to the community healing.
I guess I just want to give you an example.
I said this too last year, and I want to say it again.
Where my community works with another community, on the healing side of it for example, it’s very hard to do that without funding available to go to another community.
I’m talking about a group here, not individuals, although you have here individuals.
We work with groups and from what I see, it’s been very effective in a way although it’s a group thing, but individuals improve their way of living, the way they behave, their day to day lives after the community meeting with another community and working together and sharing their experiences and how they can heal themselves as an individual.
In this area, I guess there is funding available to go to another community as a group chartering from one place to another to do exactly that when we say community healing.
Maybe it’s not wrong but maybe it’s not in this, maybe elsewhere.
I just want to make sure that’s how I understand it in this page.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Mr Havioyak.
I am very glad that the communities took that initiative to work on the community healing and we’re all for it as a government.
As Mr. Havioyak stated, (interpretation ends) like those groups, and to echo his comments, it is the individuals that benefit from such activities.
So we do encourage communities and groups to do what they can within their means to help benefit the individuals in the community; having said that, it is not something that we fund with the funds that we have identified on this page.
We are in the same boat here; we are talking about community healing all of us in this House.
Community healing like I said, in my community one of the things that they do annually for the last ten years they do their own fundraising, but they struggle to do it, because they can’t get to another community to share their information, or get somebody to come to the community to share their experiences in the areas of community healing.
I would like to see something in this area where we can make some funds available for this type of assistance to the communities so they can work towards community healing.
When you talk about community healing, it might be a local program, local community healing.
But when you invite someone from another community or go to that community, when you are sharing these experiences that you or as a group learn, you get better in life.
I have seen that.
I wish we could find somewhere where we could address this.
Maybe I am hoping that I could see something in the pages that I have here.
If not, I would like to try and address that in this budget if it can be.
I am using my community as an example; I know that they did a little bit of fundraising.
From one community to another they estimated that the total costs would be 20 thousand dollars annually, this is for my community I am talking about.
Maybe other communities might be looking at that type of community healing.
Twenty thousand yes is hard to find. I am just saying that we have to address this. I can give you an example where at least ten elders and youth went to the Deline community last year by charter but they still struggled to get that money, they wished they sent about twenty.
I want you to be aware that they will be coming forward again to this type of healing if we are going to address that.
Most of those people that are going to the community healing again, maybe seventy or eighty percent of them are Income Support recipients.
So let us take a good serious look at this and see what we could come up with.
I am glad that our department does take part in working with other departments to develop community healing approaches.
For instance, Justice, Education and Health & Social Services worked with a community to access crime prevention funding from the federal government.
I don’t want to build expectations from the communities that all Income Support programs will have duplicate roles and responsibilities as Health & Social Services.
Our role in wanting to assist communities with their healing programs, we are more than willing to provide information to them that will help the groups and communities reach their goals.
So Mr. Chairman, I don’t want to build unrealistic expectations because of our appearance here in the Committee of the Whole.
This is an area that our department does not lead in.
I want to try and keep the issues at hand separate as they are with our roles and other department’s role in mental health programs and delivery.
However, like I said I am glad that my department contributes to some development of community healing approaches.
In regards to Mr. Havioyak’s comments under 9-10 and in the preamble, the reason why Mr. Havioyak is asking those questions is because it is mentioned in there.
Mr. Havioyak go ahead.
Mr. Havioyak (interpretation): I just want to see more.
This is not a question it is a comment.
I just want to say that the elders and youth have always struggled to have programs in place for community healing.
For example if we can work with the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth and the Department of Health & Social Services and if you work together as departments and perhaps put funding together and work for this goal.
And that is what I like to see if it is at all possible.
When you talk about community healing why is it that when we talk about it we don’t have funding put aside.
Perhaps if we use the three departments and put funding from each department together into one pot, perhaps that would help.
I just want to make a comment because we need to work together.
As we know the Minister of CLEY is here and this is just a comment.
I want to assure the member that those comments are being noted.
Mr. Havioyak: A very short question on Income Support.
The individuals receive monthly, I might have missed it somewhere earlier, the individuals receive between 500 to 700 dollars a month.
I am wondering how you arrived with those numbers.
It seems, maybe I should leave it at that for now and I’ll go to another question.
How did you arrive at the 500 to 700 dollar amount?
Maybe I misunderstood it earlier on.
Hon. Peter Kilabuk (interpretation): I apologise Mr. Chairman.
Do I understand that this question he is raising is under 9-16 or can you clarify that Mr. Chairman?
Chairperson (interpretation): We’ll complete 9-10 and it is a priority and then we will move on to 9-16 before your officials leave.
Mr. Nutarak (interpretation): Under 9-16 and 9-10, I thought we were going to deal with those two pages together.
That was because Mr. Arvaluk asked about one specific budget item on 9-16 and for assent to deal with that line and the members agreed to it.
I thought that is what we agreed to do.
When Mr. Arvaluk asked about the 22 million dollars under 9-16 and the figures in 9-10, I wanted to ask why they’re on separate pages.
Could you clarify why that is on a separate page?
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you. You’ve just asked that question.
Hon. Peter Kilabuk (interpretation): Mr. Rich will clarify why these two are on separate pages.
Page 9-10 deals with the headquarters, the central office functions and that’s the policy function and program development function for income support operations.
By and large, that’s not the part of the department that directly gives out the income support cheques.
Page 9-16 deals with the field offices, the employment and career services offices and those are the offices that directly deliver the income support programs and also the employment and career counselling programs.
So they provide the direct income support and other related programs.
That’s the only reason for the split.
Mr. Nutarak (interpretation): I wanted to raise that question while the income support worker was here or the director.
How well do headquarters, the income support workers and housing associations work together?
He also alluded to the housing issue that payments have to be made for the recipients’ housing.
Do they work closely together when they try to deal with payments that need to be made to housing?
I apologise while the income support director is here, Mr. McKay is here, I’ll get him to elaborate or respond to that question.
Workers at the community level work very closely with as many other agencies as they are able to fit within their day.
One clearly is the local housing authorities in trying to ensure that the payments for social housing are made.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. McKay.
I think this question will come up again when we deal with the Housing Corporation Minister and his budget estimates.
The Housing Corporation Minister stated that they would be looking into this and this fall the minister made a statement about the housing rent scale and that it would be worked on.
When queried, the minister responded that way.
Has your department worked with the Housing Corporation on the rent scale?
In regards to the income support review that is being done, we’ve looked at the matter.
Mr. Nutarak (interpretation): The funding for Income Support, the 22 million 600 thousand dollars has increased by a bit.
In the communities throughout Nunavut, the cost of living is quite high, food and clothing prices are very high.
Is this increase due to the cost of living increasing in our communities?
What is the reason for this increase, is it due to the eligible population increasing or what is the reason?
The increase on page 9-16 under Income Support, as I stated earlier, the 22 million is being increased due to the recommendation to increase the exemption of earned income for recipients, especially those who have just started a new job.
This never used to be the case, but it will be used now.
Presently if a potential client has made some income, the cut-off level is at 150 dollars and we are going to request an increase to 200 dollars for an individual and an upper limit of 400 dollars for families after the review.
These are the changes that we will be recommending.
Under 9-10 and 9-16, page 9-10 is up to 2 million dollars, perhaps it has not existed before this year. For example, before income support was put under education, you have a Main Estimate figure for 2002 – 2003 of 2 million 186 thousand dollars budgeted for this aspect.
In respect to the headquarters’ staff and their ability to deal with these issues as well as the communities’ staff, it states that income support programs provide financial security and this program starts to enable individuals to make productive choices according to their health.
These choices include healing, education, and some of these programs weren’t included here in the previous year, when it was only social assistance, so has the workload increased as a result of these programs?
For the question from the member, I don’t have the information in front of me and my officials are looking into the answer to the member’s question.
But we would like to note there are some people that do more work and get pre-employment training for their job and they have been working but I don’t have the numbers on hand.
There has to be better planning as there is over 2 million dollars for Income Support headquarters on 9-10.
I would like to see this used for training and other beneficial programs for the community workers.
I think we have to watch that 2 million closely to see if that 2 million dollars is distributed to Income Support people who need it so that they can try to be self-reliant.
That is a good reason for this program.
This is what I expect out of these funds.