Jackson Lafferty

The income security framework, there was a review back in 2007. Out of the review we made some changes to reflect on the high cost of living in small, isolated communities and to provide more subsidies to those communities. On the side of that, we’ve looked at a seniors home fuel subsidy, as well, and over time we made some changes on the threshold as well. This is a policy area. We’re looking at this request that was made a couple of weeks ago on various aspects of where seniors have their grandchildren or children living with them but they’re at 90-plus years of age. That was a scenario they...

Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. To my left is Mike Reddy, policy and planning division, and to my right is Mr. Mark Aitken, director of legislation division.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here today to speak to Bill 14, An Act to Amend the Conflict of Interest Act. I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Social Programs for its review of this bill.

The Conflict of Interest Act defines the circumstances in which a council or board member is considered to be in a conflict of interest when participating in decisions of that council or board.

The current act automatically deems that a member has received a benefit -- what the act calls an “indirect pecuniary interest” -- in situations where the member is also an employee of the...

That was also brought up. That will be part of the discussion we’ll be having with my department. We need to look at the overall structure of how we deliver subsidy programming. We talk about individuals living with their parents or grandparents and some individuals can be making more money than we are, standing up here. But we don’t charge them to be part of the household. So we ask for household income so they can be part of the process. So there’s no penalization on the elders. Those are the options we need to work with.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I did commit in this House a couple of weeks ago that we are looking at a seniors home fuel subsidy and if we need to make some changes, we need to work with the committee members. Those are areas that I did already commit. We will keep the Members posted as we move forward.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Mike Reddy, policy and planning division, and Ian Rennie, legislation division.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. We’ll try to continue to spend more money in the Member’s riding as much as we can. Court circuit of course is at the discretion of the judge. At the same time, there’s got to be a cost effective of how they travel. Sometimes the court is done early so the plane waits on them and then a couple of hours later they fly back as opposed to the plane going back and coming back again. That would almost double or triple the cost. Those are just cost factors that the judges take into consideration.

The court workers, we’ve expanded their role. We’re trying to utilize their service...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Most of the discussion that the Member addressed I agree with. The 18 recommendations that are being brought forward, the implementation should be sooner than later. I agree with him. Those are the areas that we are pursuing and we will follow through with those recommendations.

The clinical psychologist, we’ve dealt with that in the House. As I stated in the House, we will have a trained individual within a month or so from now and we’re looking forward to that individual coming on board as a fully fledged clinical psychologist. That’s in the works.

The life sentence versus...

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I agree that this is an important matter that’s before us and we continue to press our entire department to focus on these areas. When we talk about protection against family violence it covers broad sections of different programming. We can touch on the program that we currently deliver and the new initiatives that would be undergoing. We presented to the standing committee this morning and various initiatives are undergoing. Yes, this is important for our department along with other programming that’s before us too. There are other pressing matters. Like with this...