EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I would once again like to clearly support the intent of Mr. Schell’s motion in raising awareness of the impact of the EU’s actions in the seal industry to national and international levels. However, for the reasons indicated above, we will be abstaining during this vote.
I strongly support this motion and stand in solidarity beside my colleague. I know in my constituency, the residents are often tired of being bullied by other groups and agencies, almost like a David and Goliath kind of effect.
I am a little confused in terms of how the World Trade Organization is able to tell the Government of Nunavut when, in its own tabled documents, when you flip through, you see that we’re purchasing our liquor from Labatt’s brewery, Molson Canada, Liquor Control Board of Ontario.
So I guess the World Trade Organization is saying that we can purchase or we can’t purchase stuff from Ontario, which is kind of funny.
I agree that culturally, maybe it’s not alright to attack, but I don’t know if this is an attack.
It’s more of a symbol. It’s a symbol that we need to stand and say, “What’s going on here? How long are we going to allow other countries, in some instances, to take away people’s livelihoods?”
We have the recent banning of the sale of polar bear products in Baffin Bay and we’re told that the reason this is happening is because of global warming.
And again, what control do we have as a territory over global warming? We see in Ontario buyouts to big companies like Ford to secure jobs and help them out.
Billions of dollars go into that and to what, put cars back on the streets that, in turn, emit these fumes that go into the atmosphere that continue to perpetuate global warming?
So to me, what we’re saying is, as the Premier said, Nunavummiut have a choice to purchase liquor.
They can purchase it wherever they want to.
At the same time, I would disagree with her in terms of people’s choice to purchase liquor because most communities are restricted to getting a licence to be able to actually purchase liquor in the first place.
We’re not telling them they can’t buy it. What we’re doing is we’re telling them, “Let’s think about this. Let’s send a message to the global world that we’re not going to do this.”
Mr. Aupaluktuq: I, too, applaud the federal government for having seal on their menu in the parliamentary restaurant.
I think that’s good to state to the rest of the country and the world that these products are healthy and they’re used in a humane way.
Though I’m familiar with the issues of Newfoundland and Labrador sealing, I can only speak for and in favour of Nunavut.
It’s crucial to address that simply, Nunavut seals have been harvested in accordance with respect to Nunavut’s practices and customs.
Like Mr. Elliott, many Nunavummiut have expressed that they too are tired of being bullied and more importantly, Inuit in their own country are tired of having their rights infringed, violated, and tarnished.
The intent and spirit of what we want to do as a government is to be able to listen and hear what people have to say. I think, with this symbolism, the principle of it all is that the intent of it is to raise awareness.
With this, I wasn’t going to decide as to how I was going to vote, but after listening to some colleagues, I can honestly say that with the intent and principle of this motion, I will be in favour of it.
My constituents in the communities of Kugaaruk and Repulse Bay are largely dependent on the income derived from the sale of sealskins, especially in the summer months. This is true of not just my constituents but in practically every community in Nunavut where people derive extra income from the sale of the sealskins, which is used to purchase fuel, food, and large items, such as snowmobiles and ATVs.
Many of our people make their livelihood from harvesting seals, not for primarily commercial reasons but to ensure that they have nutritious and healthy food as part of their diet. The meat is used for many reasons, including feeding the huskies that make up the dog teams of many Inuit in the communities. The skin is largely a by-product and is sold to supplement their meagre incomes to assist their relatives, spouses, children, grandchildren, and so on.
These people largely live off the land and perceive themselves as part of the land, exactly as it should be.
Inuit are like other humans.
Our hearts beat and our bodies depend on our bloodstream.
They are trying to make their livelihood based on the available resources in their environment. We do not have lands amenable for farming purposes nor can we depend on livestock, such as chickens, pigs, cows, and other husbandry species.
Inuit are simply trying to make a livelihood based on their local resources, which has added benefits, such as proper nutritious foods that our bodies need for a healthy life, as well as the cultural and social benefits of the traditional lifestyle of being on the land, and with very few alternatives, which is why the impact on Inuit is writ so large. Their sole source of income will be stolen simply due to the fashion whims of a larger, ignorant society that doesn’t condone hunting.
That is obviously why Inuit are struggling.
Although we form part of the global peoples, our cause is largely ignored due to our remoteness.
I believe that even a token gesture to retaliate, even if it is not substantial, will assist Inuit as our whole culture is under attack and many Inuit are hurt by this senseless activism by outsiders. That is why I will be supporting the motion in its entirety.
To the motion. (interpretation ends) Does the mover of the motion have a last reply?
I would like to go back to the Premier’s comment that Inuit don’t retaliate. If I remember right, she refused to put somebody on the seat for the EU ban on the sealskin as retaliation. I just want to correct that for the record.
Mr. Schell: I also want to make another point clear. The Nunavut Liquor Commission operates under the direction of the government and the government is accountable to the Legislative Assembly.
The government has the right to determine what products it will sell to its own residents from its own facilities.
I find it very hard to accept arguments that say that we are somehow required to purchase a certain amount of products from specific countries. For instance, if the NorthMart, or Arctic Ventures, or the co-ops decide that they are no longer going to sell French cheese, can they be forced to stock it on their shelves and sell it to our customers because of international trade agreements? Of course not.
I believe that’s the same thing when it comes to selling alcohol. It is our Liquor Commission. We can decide what’s going to be going on the shelves or what’s not to be going on the shelves.
I want also to make it perfectly clear that nothing is being made illegal.
Once again, I make it clear that individual residents will still be able to buy import permits and order their French wine from Ottawa, Montreal, or Yellowknife.
The only thing that will be different is that the Government of Nunavut will not be doing the selling.
Mr. Speaker, I promise you that the government will not be able to ignore this motion quietly.
I will use every tool in my disposal to monitor whether or not the government defies the will of the House and allows the Liquor Commission to continue ordering European alcohol to sell to our constituents.
In the fall session, all of the Members of this House will know whether the government is accountable or not.
Pursuant to Rule 59, I request a recorded vote on this motion.
The debate is now closed and we will vote on the motion.
The record shows that the vote for the motion is 9; against, 0; abstentions, 7.
>>House recessed at 15:53 and Committee resumed at 16:24
Chairman (Mr. Okalik)(interpretation): Good afternoon. I would like to call the committee meeting to order.
We have Bill 22 to deal with. What is the wish of the committee?
This afternoon, we will continue with the review of the Department of Education and if time permits, commence the review of the Department of Community and Government Services.
Are we in agreement to have the Department of Education appear before the committee again?
Chairman (interpretation): We weren’t finished with our review of the department and we were on page G-7 with Minister Tapardjuk at the witness table.
You can go to the witness table along with your officials, Minister Tapardjuk. Do my colleagues agree with that?
Some Members: Agreed.  Chairman (interpretation): Thank you.
Sergeant-at-Arms, thank you.
For the record, Minister Tapardjuk, please introduce your officials.
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my left is Sandy Teiman, Director of Income Support in the Department of Education. To my right is David Pealow from Corporate Services.
Mr. Chairman, Ms. Teiman will be seated to my immediate left while there are questions pertaining to income support and then I would like my deputy minister to return to the witness table after that, Mr. Chairman.
We left off with page G-7 and we will continue. In the list of names, Mr. Rumbolt, you were next.
I just have one more question on income support.
I know that there are not a lot of people in their own homes who are on income support on a regular basis, but I think there are some.
In these cases, does your department help out with home insurance in any way for those who are on long-term income support?
Ms. Teiman, if you can try and answer the question.
When a homeowner comes to the Income Support Program, we have various things that we look at when they come in for their assessment.
They bring in their mortgage papers and the majority of times, their mortgage insurance is included in the mortgage document.
So we do provide assistance for mortgage insurance. We provide things like fuel and electricity.
The assessments are based on the previous 30 days and that may clear up the question from yesterday regarding the receipts that are brought in because our program is based on the previous 30 days.
If someone comes in with their electricity bill, fuel bill, bank statements for their mortgage, and things like that, we do include those in the assessment.
I know people who have mortgages usually do have insurance on their mortgage to protect their mortgage if something happens, but the insurance I’m talking about is insurance on their home itself. If there’s a long-term person or family who is on income support who have their own home, can they get assistance from your department for providing home insurance in case something happens to their house?
We do look at… you’re talking about private homeowners insurance for personal effects?
We would include that in the assessment, but again, it’s based on the income that the individual comes to us with.
So we may pay some, all, or none depending on the income from the previous 30 days after the assessment has taken place.
I wasn’t talking so much on personal effects.
I’m trying to get the point across that there are people on income support who can’t afford to have insurance on their home if they have a fire and the house burns down. That’s the point I’m trying to get across here.
Do you provide assistance for people for home insurance?
In most of my experience with homeowners, they have it included as a portion of their mortgage, so it’s included in their mortgage amount, so it would be included. If they had it included in their mortgage, yes, we would include it on the assessment.
Mr. Rumbolt, that was last question number what?
Mr. Rumbolt: Some questions lead to confusion.
Mr. Chairman, I personally have a mortgage and I have home insurance.
My home insurance is not part of my mortgage. I get a separate invoice forwarded with my homeowner’s insurance from an insurance broker annually.
My question is: when a person comes up with their annual homeowner’s insurance for their house, does income support help them in any way?
If somebody did not have the insurance included in their mortgage, then we would assist as long it was within certain limits.
If it was excessive, we would probably compare it with what the bank would offer under mortgage insurance. Yes, Mr. Chairman, the answer is yes.
Have that being said, if they do qualify for some assistance towards their insurance, does this affect the amount of food allowance that they get in any way?
It’s difficult to answer that question unless I go into how the assessment is calculated. It depends on every situation.
So when you come through the door for an assessment, it depends on how much income that you bring to the table from the previous 30 days, then it will depend on how much your mortgage, electricity, and insurance would be, and then if you have a budget deficit, which means you don’t have enough money to cover all of those needs, then we would cover some, all, or none depending on what the circumstance was.
So we could pay $50, $100, $3,000; it just depends on the income that you come into the department with.
The next one I have is Mr. Aupaluktuq.
I appreciate Ms. Teiman as well as Mr. Pealow, and the hon. minister being here to answer some questions.
It is our job to ask a lot of questions on behalf of our constituents to make sure that things are operating smoothly.
This is a form of checks and balances for our government as well as your department to work together to ensure that we best represent our people.
I would like to state for the record and in the public forum that I do respect all income support workers and I do support what they do because they deal with the most sensitive issues that affect people’s livelihoods every day.
I can appreciate the stress levels as well as the difficulty that they must administer in terms of their work duties.
With a lot of relatives throughout Nunavut, not just our own communities but all Nunavut alone, there are people who are on income support for various reasons. We can spend a whole day on that, but what it comes down to is there are people on income support for various reasons.
A lot of them are made to feel like they receive their cheques made out Northern or co-op alone.
I understand that there are few recipients who may not have some budgeting skills or have had any budgeting skills at all to help them stretch the dollar or where to best spend the money to meet the needs of their family.
With this common practice in some communities, the income support cheques may be made out to the stores.
Most or all people are treated in the same practice. People are made to feel like they are guilty for accepting income support. They have nowhere else to go and yet, they feel like they’re being micromanaged as to how they spend their money.
My question, Mr. Chairman, for the department is: will or does income support use a proactive approach on introducing budgeting or even perhaps providing some budgeting skills to recipients or new recipients?
The practice of issuing what we call in the department or the income support world supply or driven cheques have a long history in Nunavut and back to the NWT government.
We, in the early days, in 1996 and I’ll date myself, went through a whole issue of community empowerment in the territorial government of the day.
In a lot of cases, we try to approach the hamlet councils to determine how income support cheques will be given out. We ask for a motion in council so that it will be very clear, community by community, how the program will be administered in the community.
We did try to issue cash to individuals in several communities over the years. Unfortunately, due to lack of financial information in the communities for recipients, the project failed miserably. We had situations where individuals had their power cut off because they didn’t pay their electricity bill.
They had rent arrears because the cheque didn’t go to the housing association. So we have competing interests because the minute that I would go to make that change to have cash issued, then other agencies have a problem when those bills aren’t paid.
Our program, through the government, does not pay arrears when clients don’t. If it’s included in the assessment, we don’t go back and then make another payment when those things aren’t done. So that’s where the term supply or driven cheques has come from.
I would love to see a system where cash was issued and we have a lot of work to do government-wide to introduce financial literacy within the territory for all of our residents. I think that it would probably be a wonderful idea if we could somehow offer courses through the college to introduce that to income support recipients especially so that they could stretch their dollar.
This year, we have introduced with Nunavut Arctic College in partnership pre-employment courses that are a little different than what we had done in the past, where we’re teaching people who are on income support use of computers and things like that which, I think, will go a long way in helping people learn how to manage their money.
I look forward to the day, Mr. Chairman and the hon. member, that we can go to a cash system.
Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Teiman. Mr. Aupaluktuq.
I also thank Ms. Teiman for that response.
I just do have one more question in regard to this subject.
I know there are some income recipients and people who are new to income support and who do require emergency funding.
I have been approached by four different people with families and one gentleman by himself who required some emergency funding.
They were hesitant to access emergency funding because they were made to feel as if they were asking for something they weren’t entitled to when technicalities, all of the policies and procedures are there to ensure that the client has access and the right to those emergency funds.
The most common response that I have been told when I have asked, “What kind of responses do you get?” It’s always been, “Well, I’ll have to call a certain regional office. We will get back to you in two days.”
Nothing comes back about it. A person comes back and says, “We will get back to you.” By then, people are used to not having anything and they just simply walk away.
I have told people on a couple of occasions, “Why don’t you go back and try to access some emergency funding where you have your family involved there?”
Forgive me, Mr. Chairman, this may not be an O&M question, which it isn’t, but it’s intended in light of this process under income support. Would you be able to have the department clarify with your employees in Income Support to ensure that emergency funding is made available for the intended use? I think it’s something that should be stressed throughout the territory.
The topic of emergency assistance is a difficult one to address.
Emergency assistance in the social assistance world is for things like fires, if somebody’s house burns down, or if there is some sort of catastrophic event.
That was the intent of emergency assistance.
In many cases, what happens is that the requests for emergency assistance do normally go up through the different levels and we do have quite a bureaucracy.
I don’t administer the Income Support Program in the communities. We have directors of regional offices that are supposed to oversee the program, but many of those do come to my attention because of the levels that people are asking for.
We have had many situations where people have, for lack of a better word, made poor judgments in some of the major amounts of funding that they have received and have used massive amounts of money that they have gotten from sale of certain things to perhaps not look after their families. Perhaps that is a judgment call in mind. They have done things with money that perhaps they should have had a second thought about the children being hungry.
So in some of those cases, emergency assistance funds are turned down.
In many cases, emergency assistance will come to my office and in many cases, they are approved. Again, it’s a case-by-case basis.
We have an approval system and we also an appeal system within the department.
The member is right in bringing this up.
We do have a lot of work to do to get the word out that people don’t always know that they can appeal or that they can pick up the phone and call a higher level authority.
We are working on communication materials in my office to try to get that back out into the communities.
We had a major campaign back in the early 2000s where we had brochures and things put out in all languages. Many of those materials are out of date and have to be updated.
So that is the process. Emergency assistance, and I’ll choose my words carefully here, has to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis and so we try to err on the side of caution in the majority of cases.
I thank Ms. Teiman for that.
Just a final comment in closing, some of the comments I made earlier were in regard to constituents, clients, and even relatives, and even personal experience. I’m a past recipient of income support.
With such a large number of our people, I believe it’s 48 percent of our population or higher, dependent on income support, people are doing what they can as best they can with what they have or what they’re given.
We should be able to give our people the dignity of being able to access dollars or support that they should be entitled to rather than being made to feel the sense of judgment, or stereotype, or one-umbrella-fits-all attitude for all recipients.
I think we should destroy the stigma that recipients don’t know how to take care of themselves. I was glad to hear you addressing the fact that it’s a judgment call in the sense of how we express ourselves.
I’m watching how I word my words carefully, but the fact of the matter that I would like to comment, Mr. Chairman, is that I would encourage all departments under income support, all offices be made aware of what the rules, procedures, and appeals are and that we should encourage or remind people that they have a right to an appeal.
I think that is very crucial, very important, and would give a little bit of effort for people to understand that the system is there to help them and that it’s not Income Support’s personal gain as to who they allow to have dollars or who they will allow to have emergency dollars.
I just want to make sure that these devices are there that are supposed to help our people. I just want to make sure that all income support workers are educated enough to be able to provide that service to the income support recipients.
I didn’t hear a question, just a comment. I must say and I would like to add that there was one time I went on welfare and that was the last time, thank goodness.
I felt ashamed, but I deserved it.
I put myself in that position, so I’m glad that the cheques were there so that I would never do it again. It served its purpose on me and it is there for a reason, as a place of last resort and not the place of first resort.
I have more names.
I was glad Ms. Teiman was going to be here for the questions I wanted to ask… I guess if she could give us an update of the Income Support Case Management System since this is her area of expertise.
One of the concerns or one of the problems we have is, and with what Mr. Aupaluktuq was saying, the income support workers seem to have a thankless job where they seem to be cheque-writing people.
I think the intent of the income support is what Mr. Okalik was saying where it is just temporary.
My idea of the case management system is to actually help the income support workers get the cheques into the hands of the people, but then that frees up their time so that they can actually do some of proactive search or help people find jobs.
I was just wondering if, while you are here, you could explain a little bit more about how you see this rolling out and how long this is going to take.
Ms. Teiman: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Income Support Case Management System has a long history. It started in May of 1998, if you can believe it, pre-division.
It was started off by the Office of the Interim Commissioner back in the day because all jurisdictions across the country have systems that drive the rules and regulations and the accountability for the Income Support Program. Nunavut had to have a system for those checks and balances. The program is full of rules.