EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Since the creation of the Nunavut Government, we know that the Nunavut communities, and especially the smaller ones, are having a hard time selling their arts and crafts.
We have very famous carvers out there in the communities but I am concerned about the rural carvers who have no proper facilities.
They work outside to feed and clothe their families because they have no proper facilities.
Because of that the Nunavut Government through the Department of Sustainable Development should be giving them their full support.
We have to work very closely together to get proper facilities for the carvers.
I myself was a carver before I became a Member of the Legislative Assembly and I will keep lobbying on behalf of the carvers out there in Nunavut.
This was more of a comment than a question.
Just a reminder that members should try to keep their preambles short even if they are comments.
Question 615 – 1(3): Timing of Negotiations for Mineral Accord
I am really pleased with the response from the Premier on the Canada Post appointment, like holy cow, I didn't expect the Federal Government to respond to us that quickly.
They never have in the past so maybe this is a new beginning.
On a more serious note Mr. Speaker, I am always concerned about revenue in this territory.
We don't seem to be attracting enough outside revenue to put into our own coffers to make us self-sustaining.
For this territory to grow and prosper we have to bring in outside dollars.
Being an ex-businessman and still a businessman, my question today is to the Minister of Finance.
I have brought this topic up in the House a couple of times.
My question to the minister today is, in his budget speech the minister committed to pursuing a devolution agreement with the Federal Government to give Nunavut greater powers to control its own natural resources.
Could the minister tell us how far this initiative has progressed to date.
Mr. Speaker, to date we have been working, Government of Nunavut officials have been working with NTI officials and some from the Federal Government in trying to lay out a framework and identifying issues and putting together what those issues are.
The plan would be to move on from there once that is clarified and there is some agreement to try to establish a time frame to move on into some more substantive negotiations.
That's where we are at now Mr. Speaker.
As Minister Thompson declared in her statement the other day that there was over 350 million dollars in mining opportunities or revenues generated in Nunavut last year, that caught me by surprise.
I want to pin the minister down a time frame.
I know the old GNWT was working at trying to get a Mineral Accord with the Federal Government and I know there is an election looming on the horizon here, it is no big secret.
But could the minister be more precise, I know there are other parties involved like NTI, but is it going to be this year, next year, 10 years from now.
Can we expect to see it in the foreseeable future.
Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that is being identified and it hasn't been resolved yet from the perspective of any concrete agreement, or even quite frankly at the level of our cabinet, is the actual time frame of when we would want to try and reach an agreement.
When we would try to have implementation if that agreement were to be finalized.
So those are the issues, as I had indicated earlier Mr. Speaker, those issues have been identified.
As we get closer to finalizing an options paper a decision will have to be made at that time on how aggressive we want to be given all the other factors of trying to continue to move on in establishing a government and addressing the issues that we continue to meet in continuing to try to meet the demands of our constituencies at large Mr. Speaker.
I know it is a monumental task to do something like this and stream negotiations and I am still trying to get an answer out of the minister if it’s a year from now, two years from now or three years from now.
On that topic, when we redo our formula financing agreement with the Federal Government will this be a factor in our renegotiations with them if they sign some kind of Mineral Accord.
Mr. Speaker, that's obviously a factor and they are connected but it's a matter of which one would precede the other.
I can say from a personal perspective as the lead minister responsible, I am not trying to be vague answering the question about timing, because it is a very complex matter. From the perspective of being the lead minister, my intention to my cabinet colleagues would be to try to have the framework of the negotiations completed before the end of the mandate of this government to allow for an orderly transition laid out for the next government coming in as far as assumption of any of those responsibilities.
Now I don't know if my colleagues would think that is not aggressive enough but again it is a matter of timing, resources and expectations and being able to deliver on those expectations, Mr. Speaker.
Question 616 – 1(3): Inuit Liaison Officer with RCMP
On April 26 of this year the minister made a statement saying that he will be creating a position that will be a liaison between the RCMP and the Inuit. This officer would be giving advice to the RCMP on Inuit traditional culture and values.
Could the minister tell us how far they have gone on this issue.
I apologize because I cannot give you a direct response to your question.
I can tell you that we have a very close working relationship with the RCMP.
We are working with the RCMP to look at how they can better operate within Nunavut.
It has to be an ongoing relationship and I know that Chris Bothe has worked very hard to ensure that the RCMP and the Inuit are closer together.
Mr. Chris Bothe will be leaving us soon and there will have to be a replacement for his position.
I have also stated that the Commissioner of the RCMP and I had a meeting recently to make sure that we have an ongoing close working relationship between the RCMP, our department and the Inuit.
I apologize that I cannot give you a direct response to your question but I will be taking this as notice.
There will be no further supplementaries.
Question 617 – 1(3): Changes to P3 Approach
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister responsible for Finance I believe.
Mr. Speaker, in the minister's budget address last March, he stated that Public Private Partnerships or P3 are an example of a resourceful approach to addressing our capital needs and that the P3 process represents a valuable financing vehicle for major infrastructure projects in Nunavut.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Health indicated that the Government of Nunavut has moved away from the P3 concept.
I would like to ask the Minister of Finance why there seems to be an about turn in looking at this approach.
Mr. Speaker, as members know we were trying to finance the new health facilities using a public private partnership approach.
At the time we were aggressively pursuing that.
Subsequent to that budget speech Mr. Speaker, there was some changes in the accounting and reporting relationships for public private partnerships that were pointed out by the Auditor General to our staff.
In reviewing the circumstances, really there were two things I guess.
First of all, there was no perceived long-term advantage for us in continuing to pursue public private partnership financing concept that would differentiate between conventional capital leasing arrangements.
So we have made a decision, basically to go back to more conventional methods of financing in respect to those three health facilities and any future capital facilities that might be provided by the private sector.
Speaker: Thank you Minister Ng. Supplementary.
Mr. Speaker, in light of the minister's comments that it was pointed out by the Auditor General that we are really not able to do that I take it.
I am just wondering Mr. Speaker, last spring the government announced that it had entered into a P3 agreement to build a health facility in Arviat.
I was just wondering if there was any effect or any changes that are going to have to take place on that existing project.
Hon. Kelvin Ng: Yes I believe that we are terminating that project now, sorry Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, no we don't think there will be an impact given that when we entered into the agreements on the Arviat health facility at that time it was our understanding that it met all the criteria for the public private partnerships and it was signed off prior to any of these changes from the accounting profession.
Speaker: Thank you Mr. Ng. I am not sure if you have any supplementaries left there Mr. Tootoo.
No Mr. Speaker, I am in no way trying to say let's not go ahead with that, I was just wondering if there were any technical changes that may be necessary as a result of the recent decision.
I guess I am just wondering, the minister stated that there were some changes made after the agreement was signed for the health facility in that community.
Mr. Speaker, what were those changes that we weren't able to use that method on the newer facilities that we are looking at.
Mr. Speaker, there were changes implemented by the Public Service Accounting Board of Canada, which I believe is a association that governs accounting procedures and reporting that type of thing. Not being a fully fledged accountant I could not speak to what those technical changes were.
But, I can if the member wants I can provide that information but basically as a layperson, the change meant there was no difference in structuring a Public, Private Partnership versus a capital lease.
The capital leases through governments are allowed to be amortised over a longer period of time over the useful life of that asset versus having to charge it out in the year of assuming responsibility for that asset.
Basically it allows governments not just ours, to use a method similar to basically what is in the private sector now. Being able to amortise over a longer period your capital assets.
I would like to ask if he could please provide us with at some point in the future, a briefing on why those changes were made.
I will be more than glad probably in the upcoming business plan and budget reviews that will be taking place in a couple of weeks.
Question 618 - 1(3): Support for Community Health Committees
The regional health boards have been dissolved at this time.
We now have committees and they were given some funding, 5 thousand dollars I think.
My question is to the Minister of Health & Social Services, at the committees at the community level, is there some kind of support at this time.
What are their responsibilities.
I would like to ask the Minister if he could explain where you are at now with the training of committees at the community level.
Mr. Speaker, similar to the education councils that were on the ground within the Department of Education after the integration of the education boards.
The Department of Health & Social Services felt that a similar organization, a similar set-up should be created and this was the Committee of Council.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank the member who chaired the health committee which supported us in setting up those councils.
The training has been on-going Mr. Speaker.
Right now we have just completed, for example, training sessions in four high Arctic communities; Grise Fiord, Arctic Bay, Resolute Bay and the home community of the Member of Pond Inlet.
Training was given on advocacy issues, on confidentiality issues that the committees would be dealing with.
The second part of the member's question Mr. Speaker, on the 5 thousand dollars that was allocated to Hamlets for the community health committees.
There has been an indication from several of the mayors that 5 thousand dollars was not acceptable.
Mr. Speaker I accepted that.
So what I did, what I intend to do Mr. Speaker, is to review the 5 thousand dollar amount as I stated to the Mayors and again two weeks ago when I met with the mayors in Iqaluit.
To review that amount to see indeed if it provides the logistic as well as administration and financial needs of the committee at the local level.
And if it does not we will review it.
Mr. Speaker, that would form part of our business plan.
Speaker: Thank you, Mr. Picco. Supplementary. Mr. Nutarak.
Can the Minister of Health and Social Services say how much authority these committees will have, according to their terms of reference.
How much authority will these community health committees have.
Mr. Picco: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, as the members know, in consultation with the Standing Committee of Health of this Assembly, the terms and draft terms of reference for the committees on health, which are attached to the Hamlets was tabled with the members.
Also Mr. Speaker when we went forward with the process and in consultation with the mayors the terms of reference for the committees were actually given to the Hamlets themselves, at that time. The authority of the committees comes from their designation by the Hamlets, because they are committees of council.
That is why, Mr. Speaker, the money to help administer the Health committees has been given to the Hamlets.
Their terms of reference outline their authority, and their authority deals with advocacy issues, Mr. Speaker, deals with promotional issues of health, deals with other issues of social services at the community level.
Mr. Speaker, hiring, recruitment and so on, still is maintained by the Department of Health and Social Services.
Mr. Nutarak (interpretation): They have committees at the community level, have you already planned to get staff in place for them, some time in the future.
Do you have that in place in your plans.
Speaker: Minister Picco.  Hon. Ed Picco: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, most of the administrative support that has been given to the committees to date, has come from the Hamlets, as I said earlier, they are committees of council.
The Hamlets have provided the administration support, the five thousand dollars that was originally put forward for the committees, was to be used for honorarium, to pay the members of the committees, sub committee of council, or it could be used for administrative support.
Mr. Speaker in some cases some of the Hamlets have not even accessed the five thousand dollars for the honorarium, they have used it for the administrative support, for the committees and that Mr. Speaker is purely at the discretion of the Hamlet.
Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services has not given the administration support at the Hamlet level for the committees, but we have spoken Mr. Speaker, about providing administrative, legalistic as well as some the advocacy and confidentiality issues workshops, for the committees so they can be able to get up and run.
For example, in Cambridge Bay they have now 11 members on the committee.
As you know Mr. Speaker, like the members of the House know, the committees are a voluntary committee, the Hamlet has in each case asked people to sit on it, on those committees.
Question 619 - 1(3): Education Capital Projects
Mr. Havioyak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Education a question about 2000 – 2001 capital projects.
In April people were happy when the budget was approved for 600 thousand that was to be used for education in Kugluktuk. Six hundred thousand dollars was made available in April.
But this summer we heard that the money was not used.
What is the status of the funding.
I am wondering what happened to the money.
It was completely finished.
Speaker: Minister responsible For Education, Mr. Okalik.
Yes, we were unable to complete this task this fiscal year.
We are planning for the upcoming year and we wanted to utilize the funds for others because we were unable to complete the project.
We did not completely stop it, we just deferred it.
He said it is not completely done yet.
I did not understand when this is going to be starting up again.
When we can access this.
When can we try to access this for the people of Kugluktuk.
Yes, this budget was already approved so it has been deferred until the next fiscal year.
I would like to know if the minister had said the money was allocated towards something else.
Are there any other problems like this.
Sometimes it is hard to access it in the same year.
It was to be used over two years.
Is that going to be moved to one year.
Sometimes it takes a while to get some projects going.
If we have the funding available then we will be taking on that project again.
However, we have allocated some funding for future projects and we have just deferred this project for one more year.
That is our plan.
Is this going to be deferred to one year.
I did not hear it.
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): Yes, we will be taking on this project again some time this year.
Question 620 – 1(3): Recruitment of Nurses
Last year, I directed a question to the Minister of Health & Social Services.
I wish to ask the minister what kind of plans we have for recruiting nurses in the communities, and has the minister looked in to seeing why we have such a shortage of 35 nurses in the communities.
Speaker: Minister responsible for Health & Social Services.
Mr. Speaker, as the members know over the past several months now, and not just here in Nunavut but across the country indeed, in North America, there’s a pandemic shortage of nurses.
Now after saying that the Government of Nunavut over the past 16 months has moved aggressively to look at recruitment and retention issues and several initiatives we have done have started to bear fruit.
Mr. Speaker, as an example last month I met with the President of the NWT Registered Nurses Association, which also represents the nurses here in Nunavut to discuss why they think we’re having a problem with recruitment as well as retention.
Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Health and Social Services I put together an action team on recruitment and retention.
Mr. Speaker, the report was given to me in August in Kugluktuk, I accepted the report, and it has an opportunity phase within it, 22 recommendations for recruitment and retention.
Mr. Speaker, I’ve accepted every one of these recommendations.
We also just completed Mr. Speaker, a national recruitment drive in the south where we had recruiters trying to hire nurses for us, in southern Canada; we were quite successful there.
Mr. Speaker, as the members are aware, we have hired internationally, we’ve gone to Australia, Mr. Speaker we were successful there, we’re also in the Philippines right now hiring nursing staff.
Mr. Speaker, on all those issues two weeks ago in Winnipeg, as the Minister of Health and Social Services I, along with my Provincial and Territorial colleagues, addressed a National Health Human Resources strategy, that was announced which deals with Nurses as well as other medical professionals.
Mr. Speaker that is another component of the recruitment and retention drive that we’re on.
As well Mr. Speaker, we moved forward on the bonuses that were paid out in the past and Mr. Speaker with the support of this House, we've started our own Nursing Program, where we've been turning out Registered Nurses.
I should also add Mr. Speaker, that all nurses working in Nunavut are certified nurses.
My question was, are we still having a problem recruiting nurses into the communities.
Is it possible to get some more nurses in the communities.
The reason why I am raising this question is there does not seem to be any difference in my community when it comes to nurses and staffing of nurses.
Can the minister elaborate a little bit more on that.
As an example, Mr. Speaker, in the community of Hall Beach, we have 2.5 PY allocations for nurses, we have two there right now, one is indeterminate, one is filled on a casual position basis.
Mr. Speaker, the member has a good point, and the point is, how do we fill the number of nursing positions that we need.
We talked about in this House earlier how we had gone down from at one point, X number of operational beds in the hospital; we’re down to eight beds now.
So all of the strategies I just talked about, Mr. Speaker, the 22 recommendations of the nursing recruitment and retention, going nationally and internationally hiring and recruiting nurses as well as trying to bring forward market rates and bonuses and so on, is to be able to recruit Mr. Speaker and also to retain our nursing staff and the nursing complement.
The member has a good point when he was saying he has not noticed anything different at the community level.
But Mr. Speaker, what we have seen is that with the success that we've had nationally and when these people that we have hired come into the system we should be able to bring the numbers up.
So Mr. Speaker, I think we have done quite a bit over the past several months to recruit as well as to try to retain.
Some of the recommendations Mr. Speaker, we are in the process of translating it so I can bring it forward to the House and I will also bring it forward to the Standing Committee on Health so that they can give me some assistance and ideas on recruitment and retention issues.
My supplementary question pertains to the nurses in Hall Beach.
If one decided to leave the community would the department have difficulty in getting a substitution.
Mr. Speaker, I think we should point out as an example this summer we probably had one of the most serious crisis situations with the nurses and nursing staff.
Mr. Speaker, we never closed one nursing station in Nunavut.
In the Northwest Territories as an example and other jurisdictions hospital beds have been closed.
Indeed, I think there were three or four centres that closed in the Northwest Territories.
Health & Social Services in Nunavut did not do that.
In the member's case he asked if a nurse left the position would we be able to fill that position.
Mr. Speaker, we would be as expedient and expeditious as possible to try to fill the position that was left.
As I said earlier Mr. Speaker, at the present time 2.5 positions have been allocated for Hall Beach.
One is filled with an indeterminate staff, a full time employee for the Nunavut Government.
The second position is a casual and the .5 position is for a casual until February 2001.
So, Mr. Speaker, the community is covered off.
If a person left, we would be expeditious to try to hire a person or have someone in the wings to bring in.
Another thing to add Mr. Speaker, if I may just very quickly, since the integration of the health boards we have been able to shift resources.
If I have five extra nurses in Baker Lake and I need an extra nurse in Hall Beach, we have been able to move those nurses around.
I am also now in discussions with the Government of New Brunswick to see if there is an opportunity to bring up local nurses.
Mr. Speaker, I have also had some conversations with other jurisdictions about covering up.
Mr. Speaker, I think we have been progressing aggressively and doing what we can as a smaller jurisdiction.
Yes, I understand the minister's response.
This will be a short question.
I am trying to ask the minister if one of the nurses decided to leave a community would a replacement be immediately available.
For instance if a nurse decided to leave a community would the minister's department be able to get a replacement for the nurse right away.
I have been informed by my colleagues in the House looking around that members would like to get a real response and the real response Mr. Speaker, is if the person left then I as minister and staff would move quickly to fill that position as fast and soon as possible.
The reason Mr. Speaker, I do not think it is a funny thing, but it is not fair to leave one nurse in a community by themselves.
That's one thing when I met with the Nurses Association a month ago that they raised.
So yes Mr. Speaker, this government would move as quickly as possible to replace that position.
I thank the Speaker and the member for their indulgence.
Question 621 – 1(3): Tabling of Public Accounts
Could the Minister of Finance inform the House whether the first set of public accounts of Nunavut will be tabled in the Legislative Assembly by the deadline of December 31.
Mr. Speaker, they will be available before December 31.