EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
That the Departments of Public Works and Human Resources provide full support and co-operation to the Decentralization Secretariat in order to ensure compliance with the decentralization timelines and targets committed to by the Government of Nunavut;
That the Government of Nunavut bring forward a plan to address the needs of non-decentralized communities; particularly with respect to locating any new Boards, agencies or economic development projects which are not in the current decentralization plan;
That the Government present a plan for the future of the Workers' Compensation Board prior to the end of the 2000-2001 fiscal year;
(interpretation) I would now ask Mr. Irqittuq to continue.
Recommendations of the Standing Committees.
That the Department of Justice make public its formal response to the recommendations contained in the Corrections Planning Committee Report;
That the results of the Department of Community Government and Transportation's Reviews of Municipal Legislation and Financing be tabled in the Legislative Assembly prior to the end of the 2000-2001 fiscal year;
That the Department of Sustainable Development table, during the Fall 2000 Session of the Legislative Assembly, a comprehensive substantiation of the social and economic benefits to Nunavut communities and residents of the Department's spending in the area of Parks and Tourism;
That the Department of Sustainable Development table the results of its review of Grants and Contributions programs;
That the Department of Sustainable Development present the results of the Minister's Forum on the Economy to the Standing Committee on Community Empowerment and Sustainable Development for review and input;
That the Government of Nunavut formally table comprehensive responses in the Legislative Assembly to past reports and recommendations made by Standing Committees of the Legislative Assembly and to motions and recommendations made in the Committee of the Whole.
Mr. Speaker, I move that this report be received by the Legislative Assembly and entered into the record as read.
Speaker: The member has moved that the Joint Standing Committee Report be tabled as read.
Speaker: Agreed.
Tabled Document 103 – 1(3): Letter of Instruction to Commissioner Irniq
I rise today to table the letter of instruction to the Commissioner of Nunavut, Peter Irniq which is going to be made available to the public.
Bill 13 and Tabled Documents 41-1(3), 61-1(3) and 101-1(3), and according to the authority vested in me by Motion 3-1(3) the Committee of the Whole will stay in session until it reports itself out, with Mr. Irqittuq in the chair.
Chairperson (Mr. Irqittuq) (interpretation): For committee of the whole we will be deliberating on Bill 13 and tabled documents 41-1(3), 61-1(3) and 101-1(3).
Yesterday we dealt with the department of Culture, Language, Elders & Youth and also did the opening comments of both the Premier and the committee Chairperson.
Mr. Premier please go up to the witness table so you can answer some questions in regards to Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
Welcome Mr. Premier and your officials.
If you would introduce your staff please Mr. Okalik.
On my right I am sure that you all know her, Carmen Levi who is the Deputy Minister and Mark Thompson and we also have Ruth Kadlutsiak from the Finance Department in the department of Culture, Language, Elders & Youth.
Those are the staff that will be with me.
I believe the opening remarks have already been done by the appropriate people and we can then go on to the general comments and questions.
Any general comments from the members.
Mr. Chairman, in regards to the department and the issue of Culture, Language, Elders & Youth, this is the first year that you have started working on the policies and programs.
You will probably be making some changes to accommodate the needs of the Inuit or the people of Nunavut.
Are you going to be keeping a close scrutiny on the department.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you and before we go to the witnesses I would like to tell you that we definitely have to approve today.
Definitely before 3 p.m. because the members are going to be leaving and I would suggest strongly that the members return to the House so that everybody is here during these proceedings.
In our estimates we are trying to make more visible or promote the uses of our language and culture and we are looking at ways and means of how to integrate Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit into the departments.
We are going to be reviewing the heritage centres and we are going to be looking at the youth in the communities and looking at how we will give our youth groups more support in the communities.
It is going to be an ongoing process.
Can you tell me if you are going to be working with the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Federal Government so you can work on the issues of youth and the heritage resources.
Yes, at this time we are paying the Federal Government because we have archaeological items in the heritage centre in Yellowknife.
We are paying them so they provide those services and we are also going to have ongoing dialogue so we will decide which belong to Nunavut and which to the NWT.
Once we have identified all the artifacts and which belong to whom we will want to bring them back.
You have responded to part of the question that I was going to be asking.
Where are you going to be putting those artifacts and where are they going to be housed.
We are going to review it and at this time they will be housed in the interim.
Once we decide where the artifacts are going to be housed then we will deal with it further.
Chairperson (interpretation): Any further comments Mr. Iqaqrialu.
In here I do not like the way that it is written here.
It is demeaning to our youth.
I would suggest that we would write it again.
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): Which one are you referring to in what written documents are you reading from.
Once I find that then we could talk about it.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): In these, the department of Culture, Language, Elders & Youth's business plans.
I am asking questions that are in the business plan.
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): I am not sure.
If you could say the page number.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): Page 4, environmental review.
It is just stating where we are now at this point.
We are in the very bottom with social problems compared with the rest of Canada.
It states where we are today and where we want to go tomorrow.
We want to build up our society and come up to par with the rest of Canada, because of all the social problems that the young people have to deal with today.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): I have many questions but the clock is ticking and I will leave at that.
Chairperson (interpretation): Any general comments.
We as the Nunavut Government created the department of Culture, Language, Elders & Youth and it is very important because it is related to Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
I am very proud of your department and on behalf of the elders I am glad that the Nunavut Government has that foundation for our government.
For that reason we have been looking forward to Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit being established.
It is a very slow process in the schools in regards to instruction in the Inuit language and also the timeframe where they might set aside 10 minutes that will deal with the Inuktitut language and curriculum for the year 1999/2000 since the creation of the department of Culture, Language, Elders & Youth within the Nunavut Government.
With Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit it has effected the department of Culture, Language, Elders & Youth.
I am sure not all the communities are affected but it has helped with funding and because this department is the foundation it is now visible in my community maybe not a very huge impact.
The elders of Nunavut are very proud that such a department was created.
They will now no longer be talking to the air they will be doing substantial work.
They will be able to say their stories before everybody is gone.
In the year 1999/2000 I do not know exactly how much money we have used in regards to Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
I am still looking forward to the implementation part of it where they will be teaching the Inuit traditions through Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
I am looking forward to seeing more funding being put into the community's programs so they can deal with Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): Yes, thank you Mr. Chairman.
In total of the various civil programs we are up to approximately 2 million dollars in the past year and this year we will also be giving support financially when the communities do apply.
We will have a general consensus with the Nunavut Social Development Council that will deal with Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
We will set aside some money for that specifically.
I am sure I will be talking for about an hour before we complete this department.
On page 6 of your business plan.
Well, let me read and you will understand.
That the cabinet table a report so they can give support to our councils and implement an official languages policy and that they plan to table a plan with a comprehensive report how you will be teaching Inuktitut language and using Inuktitut language.
For example, make available a policy for culture in Nunavut.
It states here that there should be appropriate funding provided for programs so the elders can teach traditional ways.
Mr. Premier or your officials.
Perhaps my deputy can respond to his question.
Our budget, we do have a policy and we use the policy when we review the applicants.
Some of the applicants do not usually coincide with our mission but we try to deal with the applicants that are relevant to our department and we have very limited resources.
This 7 million dollars I think the department's funding is 7 million dollars.
Will you be reviewing this in the upcoming years.
Because your department is very important to Nunavut residents and we want to enhance Inuit culture.
We have to develop Inuktitut curriculum using Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and that is the only way to get proper training material.
Perhaps all the ministers stated that we have to initiate these because this is part of the Nunavut culture and we have to use culture and language in the training programs and in the schools.
It states here with the support of the department of Health and Social Services that they deal with it.
So I was wondering if those two departments are working together to support the department of Culture, Language, Elders & Youth.
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): Yes, Mr. Chairman. Although it states there that there is a 7 million dollar budget we will also be getting additional funding from the Federal Government.
We have made an agreement with the Federal Government that approximately 5 million dollars will be transferred to the Nunavut Government within 5 years.
Funding that we receive from the Federal Government will be on top of the 7 million dollars.
Part of it will be used for languages and the other part of it will be used for the French language.
It will be used for Inuktitut languages too.
In the Rankin Inlet session we met with various groups and we also met with people with disabilities.
They would like to have the opportunity to be supportive to this department.
In there it states on page 7 of the business plan they will review funding for the Status of Women, People with Disabilities and that Culture, Language, Elders & Youth and the government will give support so that these programs can be made available to people with disabilities.
Have you made plans to include people with disabilities.
For people with disabilities we formed an association and they now have an office in Iqaluit.
A year ago the GNWT did a review in Nunavut and a survey as to how many people have special needs and have disabilities.
So we established The People with Disabilities Council and we will be working with people with disabilities and make the funding available for the public with the help of the People with Disabilities Council of Nunavut.
With the assistance of the staff from social services and with the assistance of staff from the department of education, we will work with the two departments and come up with a decision.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): Thank you for the response.
In here it states on page 8 of your business plan that they will use culture to train the students locally in Nunavut and also train the tourists because they have to be respectful of the culture and the heritage centres.
To me that means returning the heritage centres to schools.
According to Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit that is how I understood it myself.
I just want you to clarify it.
We want the funding to be available to everyone because some of us are losing our cultural traditions.
For that reason we want the younger people to be taught and we want the elders to tell stories to the younger people because we do not want to lose our heritage and culture.
We want to give further training to the young people in cultural issues.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you for the response.
According to the business plan it states that we have twenty-six communities in Nunavut do you plan to establish a heritage centre in all the communities in Nunavut.
Yes we want to be open and as we have stated the heritage centres should be established in the communities and we want to be open in the future and if any one of the communities want to establish a heritage centre then we would like to see it.
Thank you for the response and going on to page nine in the business plan.
It talks about suicide prevention.
I would like clarification on what that was in regards to suicide prevention.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you. Ms. Levi.
The youth in the communities or drop in centres for youth would be run by the youth committees and they will provide programs and such things as suicide prevention.
It is also one of the ongoing issues in the communities and the youth will be given the opportunity to learn how to run these organizations and also to run facilities such as youth drop in centres.
That is very good to hear and it is something that I would like to see.
But the funding is very small.
Have you set aside some funds so there will be O&M money provided for such facilities.
Most of the communities and the youth are requesting youth drop in centres and other types of services.
It is a start and these programs are geared specifically for the smaller communities and the Federal Government has set aside some funds with communities with population of 1 thousand and over.
Smaller communities, we invite them to make proposals.
There is 100 thousand now for the smaller communities and we will take it from there.
Chairperson (interpretation): Any further question Mr. Iqaqrialu.
On C-1 appendix, they will be working together with the Department of Education.
When we are going to be talking with the school and curriculum.
This was going to be mentioned earlier.
How are the departments of Education and Culture, Language, Elders & Youth going to work together when they have separate budgets.
How is that going to work.
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): I can say at this time that the Department of Education has been very open and also set aside some dollars that will be used for Inuit culture and languages curriculum production and will be used this year.
We want to have a close working relationship with the Department of Education and anyway we are open.
Chairperson (interpretation): Mr. Iqaqrialu is complete.
Mr. Puqiqnak (interpretation): I will make this as brief as possible.
We have an ongoing problem in Nunavut and I am sure that it does not only affect my community.
I would like to ask the department about requests or proposals or applications, which take a long time to be responded to.
We look forward to getting responses and there was one time it took seven months to get a response to one of our proposals or applications.
Have you increased your capacity in your department this year.
Chairperson (interpretation): Mr. Okalik.
It is going to be a lot easier.
This year we are increasing our staff for this coming year and we are looking at May 19 and we will see which communities apply and we will also inform people that have made applications and we will give them an update.
Chairperson (interpretation): Okay, I do not have any other names on my list.
In regards to the Inuit language, one of the main reasons that we created Nunavut was to preserve and promote language and culture.
Those were the main reasons and we want to use more of our language and culture.
When are we going to start using the Inuktitut language in government or is it going to be the status quo.
Or when are we gong to start respecting the use of the Inuit language or the usage of the Inuit language.
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Chairman, over this coming year we will set aside 702 thousand to be used for the promotion and protection of our language.
I would like to ask another question in regards to the elders.
We talk about Inuit culture and how are we going to use that in the government system.
We still have elders who are alive today who know the Inuit culture and traditional lifestyle.
In my community we have the elders' societies.
When are they going to get more support from our government.
Ms. Levi (interpretation): This year we have been setting up a support system for the elders.
We are also going to ask the communities for input.
We are going to do some recording and filming of elders.
Since not all communities have elders' societies or councils we are going to be starting discussions on setting aside some money for this summer so they will have elders' councils or societies in most communities.
We have set aside some money so that we will start the filming and interviewing of the elders and since all communities do not have elders' societies and again at the present moment that is being put together by our staff.
When we started having meetings and when we had our first session at the cadet hall the minister would have meetings with the Standing Committees and we had discussions on artifacts.
We made suggestions on setting up a heritage centre at least in Nunavut.
Some of the artifacts are in Ottawa and Yellowknife.
What is the status of that today.
Ms. Levi (interpretation): I am the Deputy Minister.
Some of the artifacts are still down in Ottawa and some of them are still out west.
If they want to give them to us we will be directing them to Yellowknife as before we build a heritage centre they will house these artifacts.
We have made an agreement on what is going to go to Nunavut and what is going to be staying in the NWT.
We have already drafted an agreement and we will now have it signed by the minister.
The appropriate ministers will be signing this agreement.
Mr. Nutarak (interpretation): Before you stated that you are going to be sending the artifacts to Yellowknife before we get a facility that will house it.
Do you have one in the works where we will build a centre.
Chairperson: Ms. Levi.
We are going to do a study to find out where we will be locating this facility.
Before the creation of Nunavut the issue of a heritage centre was not included.
So it was not included in the budget.
We will do a study this year.
Once it is completed we will submit our findings to Cabinet and I am sure in the upcoming year we will find out.
We have not made a decision on where it is going to be located.
The people who do this sort of work in Igloolik have not made a statement on where to build this facility.
Once the review is done the findings will be submitted to the Legislative Assembly and to the Cabinet.
Mr. Chairman under the business plan there is quite a lot of political issues listed there.
I would like to ask the minister about those.
One of them the letter "B" working to continue to complete the reports on conferences that were held in each region.
I would just like to ask the minister when they plan on completing those and when they will be made available to the members.
They should have them available at the end of the month.
So we can make a commitment to provide the member with a copy.
Mr. Chairman the next one talks about promoting and encouraging the establishment of youth councils in all communities.
I would like to ask the minister how exactly, the avenues in place on how they wish to accomplish that.
Ms. Levi.
Ms. Levi (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The youth councils, we now have youth councils in each community.
We usually get support from Designated Inuit Organisations and through those Inuit Organisations we now have youth committee in all the communities of Nunavut.
I am pleased to hear that.
I commend the department if they had anything to do to ensure that we have those councils in each community.
I am just wondering has the department received any requests for operations & maintenance funding from any of these communities in regards to youth facilities or getting them established.
Whoever wants to respond.
Mr. Thompson: The department has received several proposals for both operations & maintenance and several capital proposals from various youth committees.
At this time I cannot say which ones.
We have received several requests for support that we are reviewing at this time.
Mr. Chairman I will not ask who they are.
I was asking how many actually have been received.
Mr. Thompson.
Mr. Thompson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The exact number is between 5 and 7.
Once our budget in approved we will be communicating with each of the 15 communities that were targeted for populations under 1 thousand to request proposals for capital money for those youth facilities.
We are expecting to get more within the week.
We have been initiating some contact without actually making a request before this time.
So as soon as we are able to make that official request we are expecting to receive a number of proposals for that particular budget item.
At this time there is no money for operations & maintenance.
So we will not be reviewing those at this time.
Mr. Chairman I am very pleased to hear that fifteen communities are targeted at being helped with capital dollars of 500 thousand.
That is good to see that it is going to as many communities as possible.
I would like to ask how many of those applications the 5 or 7 that were mentioned were operations & maintenance funding.
Chairperson: Mr. Thompson.
Often the proposals that we receive, in this case the few we received from these committees have been a mixture of both operations & maintenance and capital requests.
Some of them are just for programs they want to initiate as well.
So there is a mixture within those support proposals that we received.
So there is not an exact number.
Some of the requests have numerous differences between operations & maintenance and capital requests.
Mr. Chairman, I just asked the minister if he could explain why the department does not have any operations & maintenance funding available for these facilities.
The main reason is that we want to help start up these centres and want to promote self-reliance, which is one of the Bathurst Mandate principles.
We wanted to see proposals from the communities about how they are going to proceed in the future.
Mr. Tootoo do you have any further comments.
If I interpret the answer correctly the minister is saying for operations & maintenance funding these organisation or groups have to help themselves.
That the department is not willing to put forward any operations & maintenance for these types of programs.
I am wondering if that is accurate.
Yes at this time.
Mr. Chairman I believe last year I myself made a motion there should be some funding for youth facilities and programs made available within this budget.
I highlighted the fact in the past here in Iqaluit and other communities as well that the youth group had a facility available but was looking for operations & maintenance dollars to run it.
There was no money for this type of a program and for that reason I asked that there be some dollars for such a program last year.