Archived News Releases

Employment and income assistance (EIA) for residents of Manitoba’s northern and remote communities will increase effective April 1 to help residents buy expensive essential goods and nutritious food, Family Services and Housing Minister Gord Mackintosh announced today.

 

“This additional support will provide much-needed relief to address the higher cost of essential items in the north,” said Mackintosh. “We want to build on the initiatives we’ve taken by providing more resources for things people in the south may take for granted such as the affordability of nutritious food and other important necessities.”

 

“Assisting Northerners obtain nutritious foods is an important goal of our government,” said Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Minister Oscar Lathlin. “This week there are shipments of garden supplies and equipment as well as commercial-size freezers going to the Island Lake communities to help address food costs in these remote fly-in communities on the winter road system.”

 

Lathlin said that earlier this week some of the most successful participants and organizers of last year’s program were recognized at a special event in Thompson hosted by the Bayline Regional Roundtable.

 

The minister also noted that last year there were approximately 300 hundred community gardens in northern communities as well as a transportation pilot project to use longer vehicles to help lower the cost of bringing supplies to northern communities.

 

The EIA northern allowance will increase for low-income families in three areas of the north. The three categories are:

·         those in or near Thompson, Flin Flon and The Pas;

·         those in remote areas with direct all-weather road, rail, or water access; and

·         those in remote areas without direct all-weather access.                                                                             

 

The government announced its intention to increase the EIA northern allowance in the throne speech in the fall of 2006.

- 30 -