Nunavut reviewing practice of clawing back bingo, lottery wins from welfare payments
Income assistance clients shouldn’t be “punished for a bit of good luck,” says MLA Cathy Towtongie
Bingo players in Cambridge Bay. Nunavummiut on social assistance get less income assistance if they win over $40 at bingo or in a lottery. (Photo by Red Sun Productions)
Nunavut’s minister of family services says her department is reviewing regulations that cause income assistance clients to have money clawed back when they win a bingo game or lottery.
As things stand, when someone on income assistance wins $40 or more, the amount of their income assistance will go down by the same amount.
“When I heard that for the first time, I was surprised too,” Elisapee Sheutiapik, the minister of family services, told the legislative assembly on Monday, March 2.
Elisapee Sheutiapik is the minister of family services. She said her department is looking into changing the income assistance regulations, but does not know if or when they will be amended. (File photo)
Sheutiapik went on to say she gave direction to her department to review the legislation to see if it can be changed.
Sheutiapik was responding to a question from Cathy Towtongie, the MLA for Rankin Inlet North—Chesterfield Inlet.
“I find it very disheartening that income assistance clients have their benefits reduced simply because they have had the good luck to win at bingo or in a lottery,” Towtongie said.
In the income assistance regulations, unearned income is calculated as part of an income assistance client’s total monthly earnings, and “winnings in excess of $40 a month, including bingo and lottery winnings,” are classified as unearned income.
Also in that category are things like a percentage of the money earned from lodgers or renters, pension payouts, regular monetary gifts and certain child benefits.
In 2016, the GN stopped including National Child Benefit supplementary payments as income when calculating income assistance amounts for Nunavummiut.
And in 2017, the GN started to allow income assistance clients to have a side job to earn money, and open a savings account, without having those things affect their monthly payments.
The regulations were last amended in July 2019.
Cathy Towtongie, Nunavut’s MLA for Rankin Inlet North—Chesterfield Inlet, wants the GN to change the income assistance regulations so clients can win at bingo without it affecting how much social assistance they get. (File photo)
Towtongie said the rule about bingo and lottery winnings makes it so that income assistance clients are “punished for having a bit of good luck.”
“We should be able to enjoy our windfall instead of receiving it with one hand and then having money taken out of the other hand,” Towtongie said. She asked Sheutiapik to commit to revising the legislation, so bingo and lottery wins aren’t calculated as net monthly earnings.
Sheutiapik said she can’t just tell staff in her department to stop doing something without changing the regulations first, and that she’s already given a direction to look at these regulations.
Sheutiapik added that she didn’t know if, or when, the regulations would be amended.
My understanding is that in Canada all lottery and bingo winnings were already exempt from any kind of income or other form of government tax. Why would income assistance be going after these folks?
You’re understanding is flawed, this is not a tax. I collected welfare for a short period in two different provinces a number of years ago during a rough patch. In each province, excess income and winnings like bingo were clawed back.
Nunavut is not acting any differently than any other jurisdiction to the best of my knowledge. When you choose to go on welfare, you agree to these conditions, the monitoring of your finances, etc. Nunavut welfare recipients can choose between gambling income and social assistance, but you can’t have both.
As mainstream as bingo is, it’s still gambling. Income support recipients should be spending their money on their families, not throwing it away at bingo.
Should people on social assistance be gambling in the first place? Income assistance is meant for people to provide the necessities of life. If someone can afford to gamble each week maybe the income amount should be reduced
Income Support Recipients shouldn’t be playing bingo with all our taxes paid to support them. Spend it on living essentials not friken bingo
Seeing on fb some comments that people say income support took off money when a parent gave them money to help them is ultra rediculas. If they take money away for receiving a gift then if someone on income support gives money to someone they should get that same amount from income support.
and although I do think playing bingo is a waist of money it is a form of entertainment like watching hockey at a tournament (were you pay to get in you spend that money with no return), so are all you people saying that if someone is on income support they should only be able to pay for rent and buy food. No entertainment allowed?
“so are all you people saying that if someone is on income support they should only be able to pay for rent and buy food. No entertainment allowed?”
With that income assistance money….Yes
Do you think your tax dollars should buy someone’s bingo cards?
Entertainment can help with keeping mental health levels up. and someone that has a good mental health will be more likely to find employment. and if they are on hard times and need income support were will they get the money for entertainment? if someone gives them some they loose some income support.
There are other ways of entertaining yourself that don’t cost as much, or that get way more mileage for the cost. Redefining gambling as entertainment so you can portray it as a mental health benefit is just not convincing. It is expensive and in my opinion wasteful and should be avoided if you are on social assistance.
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As for being penalized for getting money from others, I can’t understand that, how does anyone know you’ve received a gift? That should be left alone.
The people on income support in our community have to go on line and justify every penny that goes into their bank account to the income support worker. They are also ask if they made money from selling crafts or baked goods and sales from selling berries when it is berry picking season. Their personal finances are under the microscope of the income support staff and if they do not comply, they don’t get their monthly assistance.
If the recipients are trying to make the money they receive to go a little further by baking, sewing or harvesting berries, they shouldn’t have to be penalized. prying into individuals private affairs is going a bit too far.
I have given money to a grandson to buy groceries and I had to do a statutory declaration as to why the money was in his bank account. He has a partner and a baby. The system needs to be revised so people on income support feel like people instead of burden to the system. After all, it was the welfare system that destroyed our self reliance in the first place, but that is another topic.
So you blame the welfare system for destroying your self-reliance, and you think the answer is to have no oversight on the money that others work hard to give you? The answer to dependence is not more dependence, it is in deciding to support yourself and be proud to do so. Why should it be the responsibility of others to keep working hard to support those on income support, if the people on income support are earning or are given money and could use it to support themselves? Stop blaming and taking advantage of the generosity of others. If those others can work hard to support others, surely those being supported can contribute as much as they can, whenever they can, towards supporting themselves.
But, the short and simple fact is, they ARE a burden on the system, and at least while they are on welfare financially non-productive members of society.
Does this lessen their value their value as people – absolutely not. Do they financially contribute to society as much as tax paying, working individuals? No, they take far more than they contribute. Does this mean we should abolish welfare? No, everyone may need help now and then, and we need a strong social safety net.
However, if you want to receive handouts from society, you lose many of the privileges deciding how those handouts are spent. It is pretty simple. If a person doesn’t like it, they don’t have to be on welfare.
The system is as it should be.
Support citizens in rough times as a short-term matter, but have it set-up so that there is zero incentive to stay on the system. Do everything to stop the generational SA families that we see in Nunavut.
Income support is a privilege. Working people work hard to supply money for those on income support. It shouldn’t be wasted on bingo, and yes, if you win money, it should definitely be used to support yourself! You should be proud to use your own money and not be reliant on the generosity of working people when you are lucky enough to win some money and not even have to work for it.
And! And why are our bank statements being printed out? I thought they were personal banking information that we are not supposed to share with anyone!
Social assistance recipients choose to surrender much of their financial privacy in order to receive their handouts.
They could choose not to collect and maintain their privacy.
Working people should be allowed to publicize their income on a monthly basis. They also shouldn’t go out or play bingo. They should also tell their employer if they got gifts from other people so the monetary equivalent will be docked from their pay.
How would they feel if their privacy and liberty was under the microscope every month like that?
Lottery winnings aren’t clawed back in other jurisdictions south of 60. GN unfairly target income support recipients. Only in Nunavut.
South of 60, for those on Social Assistance they also have their income adjusted based on winnings from such things as bingo. It’s just that there’s a little more anonymity there. In NU, everyone knows who wins the games especially jackpots. It is upon you to abide by an honour system and report it. Then you just take your chances on whether or not someone will report it to Income Support or CCRA. In accordance with their policies and guidelines, it’s fraudulent. G 54… G 5-4… under the G 54
Working people work their butts off to make their lives better. But if they work too hard, the government takes a little more money by taxing us. Tax season is a great time for a lot of people, getting their tax returns and what not. Some people still have to pay, why? So that people on income support can get paid. I don’t mind people on income support being asked to show where every penny is coming from. Maybe it’ll give them a drive inside to say “hey, i don’t like being asked to show where every penny is coming from, I’m gonna get myself a job and work hard so I don’t need to be on income support ever again. I’m going to contribute to society and be a working man for the rest of my life!” If everyone worked in Canada then maybe then we wouldn’t have to be taxed up the you know what every year.
Ummm, you need to get out more. “South of 60” financial gifts, bingo and lottery winnings, and any other income, even freaking money in a card from your grandmother is clawed back. Hell, if you make 10 bucks shovelling your neighbour’s driveway it is to be declared and deducted.
Nunavut is not any different than any other jurisdiction this way.
Let us not get carried away with benefit reviews of wine and cheese.
Some friends come to mind.
In an ideal world where most students graduated from high school and got post secondary education, sure it would be appropriate to chastise those on income support. With the highest drop-out rate and hardly any jobs available in small communities. people got no choice but to receive income support.
It seems most of the posts are from bigger communities with ample job opportunities. Since when did working people work their butts off so they could support income support recipients? Some posts make it sound like people work hard so we could get income support.
Piitaqanngi, where do you think the money comes from to pay for social assistance?
The same place that money comes from for public schools, hospitals, and for GN/Fed/RCMP salaries.
Pick a small community with no decentralized GN jobs. You got stores, nursing station, RCMP, school, Hamlet and housing. What do you expect the rest of the community to do. And then you crap all over them because they want to play bingo. What a sad state Nunavut is turning into.
So move to an area of opportunity that has the kind of jobs you want. Nobody is guaranteed a living in the community they are born in or choose to live in, anywhere on planet earth. Those outsiders you see working for RCMP, schools and health centres have travelled for work. Guess what? Folks who choose to live on income support could do that too. They have the privilege of not doing so as so many other hard-working people pay huge taxes to support those who don’t want to finish school or hold down a job. Those jobs you don’t want to do? Someone else has to do them, AND support you for not working!
So where does the plane ticket money come from. Where does housing come from. You expect someone in a small community who has probably never traveled outside of Nunavut to some how get on a plane, move south with no job, no housing no nothing. ect…. not like they get job experience in their community to put on a resume.
Short sighted comment. Maybe you need to take a cultural sensitivity course.
Canada wants Nunavut to be apart of Canada, the Land and precious resources, then Canada needs to step up and develop these communities. Nunavut gets less $ then Canada sends to other countries for Aid. Sad……
Somehow other cultures figure out how to support themselves, despite even greater challenges. Don’t be racist and assume inuit are not up to the challenge. An inuit person can support themselves just as well as anyone else on earth can.
What a load of nonsense. Nunavut is part of the Canadian economic system, whether anyone in Nunavut likes it or not. There had better soon start to be some attitude adjustment on the part of Nunavummiut, because the current system is unsustainable, particularly with the insane and completely unsustainable population growth rate.
Everywhere else in this country, when there is no opportunity, you pursue it – if that means leaving your home town, that’s just the way it is. Young people having been leaving dying communities in search of better opportunity forever. It isn’t pretty, but it is the way the country operates.This isn’t going to change. Rural Nunavut will continue to stagnate until people start showing some initiative and going to the opportunities rather than sitting in a dead-end hamlet waiting for it to come to them.
Plane tickets? Housing? There are soooooo many opportunities available to beneficiaries on the government dime. It takes just the smallest amount of discipline and effort. Get your GREAT, get your PASS, have the government pay you to go to Rankin or Cambridge or Iqaluit for training, then get into a university in the south somewhere and have the government pick up all of the fees.
The fully paid opportunities for beneficiaries are enough to make many in the country turn green with envy if they knew what was available, yet so few people pursue them.
We are well on our way to a two-tier system of Inuit in this country. The 30% who have left nunagat for good and gone south, together with those who have moved to bigger communities in Nunavut. Then we have those who are wasting away in opportunity-free hamlets. This is not a recipe for an equitable society.
No different than any other rural and under-educated young person in this country it seems. Lord knows that there are lots of them. Certainly no different than some young person from an isolated outport of Newfoundland, and they seem to find their way to where the opportunities are.
All comes back to getting that all important basic early education. Instead of advising readers to take completely unneeded cultural sensitivity courses, why don’t you advise parents to hold off on having children, and then when they have them, actually parent them instead of letting them run feral, get no meaningful education, and become trapped in a futureless existence?
Being on income support is awful. People who are on income support should not be expected to live without anything but basic necessities. Having a decent life also includes being able to have fun and enjoy some “luxuries” from time to time. I don’t think its right for people to scrutinize how people spend each and every dollar when some of our government systems create unemployment.
I’ve tried many times voicing my concerns an response I got was there’s food bank and soup kitchen. My concerns are not good enough.