EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
There are engineers, project officers, electrical inspectors, and people in those fields that do that for us through CGS.
The Department of Health, according to the capital plans that we’ve had, seek the advice of CGS in doing the technical assessment of any facility before we proceed with the program review part.
Those projects for Taloyoak and Repulse Bay started in 1999. The technical assessments are done. The Functional Programs for Repulse Bay and Taloyoak are done.
Repulse Bay, right now, is in the design phase, as well as Taloyoak.
Arctic Bay entered the books in 2004 for technical assessment.
The functional part is the area that we’re working on right now and we hope to complete by the end of the fiscal year.
The technical part is conducted through CGS.
With the Taloyoak and Repulse Bay projects, we’re now in phase three and four of those facilities, which is project design and project tender. That’s the phase we’re at with those two. Whereas with Arctic Bay, we’re in the project initiation stage by completing the functional piece in support of the technical assessment that would form the design part, which is the phase three part of any project.
Arctic Bay entered the books five years after the Taloyoak and Repulse Bay projects started in the previous government and it carried onto this government. We continue to work with CGS project staff and the architects that are in the design phase of the two facilities for Repulse Bay and Taloyoak.
As for Arctic Bay, we have yet to do our functional piece.
So that’s where the stages are on those projects.
We have not sat down and set technical reviews of those three projects because they all entered the capital planning process at different stages.
Seven years ago we started two facilities.
All of the other facilities that we started seven years ago are completed, for example, the hospital here, the health centre in Pond Inlet, the Pangnirtung facility, the Igloolik facility, the Rankin Inlet facility, the Chesterfield Inlet continuing care facility, and the Cambridge Bay facility.
Of all those facilities, two remain outstanding and that’s Repulse Bay and Taloyoak.
What we’re trying to do in this budget is finish those off and that’s where those two projects are.
They are at phase three of the project planning stage and Arctic Bay is at phase one of the project planning stage, which are the phases that are used by CGS in moving projects along.
I use those terms as defined by the capital planning process where they provide assistance to departments as a central agency for project management.
When we are asking questions, we should be resolving some answers but I’m creating more questions as the time goes by and I also think that I’m wrong.
The capital estimates seem to be different because the Taloyoak Health Centre was in the books in 1999 but according to my capital estimates, it has been in the books for renovations.
I must have the wrong book, so I’m not going to pressure that anymore.
I’m going to simply ask that when CGS provide the technical advice to compare which projects of similar type should go first, when the Health Department receives it, do they make a final choice?
Chairman (Mr. Evyagotailak): Thank you, Mr. Arvaluk.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: I will ask Mr. Campbell to answer that question.
Mr. Campbell (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) We’ve tried to explain to the committee that, as a department, we’ve assessed the projects that are currently on the capital plan. Last fall, the officials of both CGS and our department met to review some of these projects that are in the capital plan.
We met again in February.
At that meeting, there were recommendations from both CGS and our department to recommend that we do a replacement of the facility as a result of the cost implications associated to renovations and additions of the Taloyoak centre.
To my assessment, that’s prudent planning on the part of our officials making those recommendations to the department.
Where we’re at at this point in the stage is a recommendation has been made by officials.
The government has approved the recommendations of the officials. We presented it to the standing committee a month ago. We’re presenting it to the Committee of the Whole presently to approve those recommendations of the government.
Mr. Arvaluk, your time is up and I have a couple of names on my list.
Qikiqtaaluk Region. Mr. Arreak.
Thank you very much. I have a very brief question in regard to this.
First of all, just let me say back in 2004 when we were elected, I was very pleased that we now have this government and that it would be an open and transparent government.
I expected it to be like that. That’s what I expected. Nunavummiut had expected it to be clear and transparent but now we’re starting to see some things coming up from beneath where we can’t see.
For that reason, when that occurs, we’re not pleased with this department because not just this department but the whole government could be scrutinized. All the members could be viewed as a negative thing.
That’s what is starting to occur. When we’re not transparent and clear, those kinds of things occur, too.
I believe in that, so I wanted to say that first.
I was asking questions on December 4, 2006, in regard to Qikiqtarjuaq’s health facility, which is the oldest facility in Nunavut.
It was built in 1972. Although the minister had responded to me that it was renovated back in 1991, this health facility in Qikiqtarjuaq is 35 years old.
I’m sure there are technical reports but I don’t have a copy of them. I have been requesting for that copy but yet, I have not seen it.
The minister had responded by saying that some health facilities, once they had completed the older facilities, then they would look at the Qikiqtarjuaq facility.
I still have not seen it in the five-year capital plan even though it’s the oldest facility.
The other facilities are 19, 25, or 26 year old facilities.
They’re newer than our facility and they have been renovated.
What about the Qikiqtarjuaq health facility? When will we start seeing the replacement plan for that?
I’m going to ask Ms. Brown to answer that question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Nunavut came into effect, of course, in 1999. Our capital assets computerized building system said that there was a renovation done to the health centre in Qikiqtarjuaq in 1991.
I do not believe that the technical services brief from 1991 is available to CGS. It is possibly archived in Public Works of pre-Nunavut.
The department has requested that CGS provide technical services, inspections, and reviews of all of the health facilities in Nunavut, as we don’t have that many technical services’ reports. Whale Cove has just been completed as there was a crew in that area also checking out other departments’ buildings.
Certainly, it will be on as a request to have the technical services done of the older buildings so that it will help the department know how to factor community facilities like the health centre in Qikiqtarjuaq, the health centre in Cape Dorset that we also know is having issues, plus identify issues in other health centres that we don’t know about.
There are 25 communities and we don’t have that many new health centres yet.
So it is going to take us some time as a department or as a government, the same as it is for the Department of Education to deal with the requirements for new schools or renovations for schools.
So all we can basically say is that the department and CGS will be looking at the health centre in Qikiqtarjuaq for a technical services review.
The health facility in Qikiqtarjuaq had never been reviewed for technical purposes.
Will you be looking into the health facility as soon as possible so that the facility will be replaced in Qikiqtarjuaq?
I will ask Mr. Campbell to respond to that.
Mr. Campbell (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) Just before I start into answering the question, I was in Qikiqtarjuaq as one of my community trip visits recently and I was pretty impressed with the facility.
I know it’s an old building but it’s well-maintained. My congratulations to the people who are working in that centre of keeping a well-maintained health centre there.
That aside, the commitment I made yesterday in Committee of the Whole was that we will be doing an assessment of all the buildings and facilities that are currently under our management of the department. We will be doing a proper assessment of that. I’m preparing a more realistic capital planning for the next cycle and I think we need to do that.
We will prioritize the buildings based on what’s needed to be replaced on urgent basis. So we will be doing that in the next year.
I know there are people in Qikiqtarjuaq who are looking after the building really well. They are looking after it efficiently, but the building doesn’t have space for some of the equipment and the medical supplies in the building.
The fire department would have to, I think, caution the facility if they have too much stuff in the building.
After you check the building in Qikiqtarjuaq, we would like to see the report on paper, and it should also be placed on the five-year capital plan.
I agree with the member and I will share that information with the members as we work through the technical assessments and functional reviews of the facility.
Mr. Arreak (interpretation): That’s it.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) I just want to make a point.
First of all, when I was asking the minister with respect, during the formal Question Period the other day, I think I would correctly say that the minister made the point that these five-year plans were important documents or guidelines.
I think the impression to the public was that once you’re in the five-year plan, you’re in good shape. Is that the position of the government?
And, having said that, do I, as a MLA have any role in incorporating anything into this five-year plan?
Chairman (Mr. Arreak): Thank you, Mr. Curley.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Thank you. I believe he is asking for my opinion on the government’s position on that.
In terms of planning capital plans, there’s a number of work involved in getting to this stage; community consultations and consultations with various interest groups, DEAs as an example, health committees as an example, and hamlets as an example.
Locations of land will involve selections through hamlets.
The members have a role in identifying projects, standing committee review of government positions and so on, and this process and in the House.
I don’t know if that’s what the member is getting at.
Mr. Curley: What I am getting at is as regular MLAs, we actually have no formal involvement in incorporating five-year plans.
This is a ministerial discretion, and the minister and the Cabinet can actually change it whenever they want.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: I’m sorry but I missed the last part of his question.
Can he repeat that?
Mr. Curley: Thank you. This is a clarification, so my time should remain.
In terms of developing five-year plans, I don’t have any formal involvement in voting for a five-year plan, so therefore, my role is I can only do the same thing as you ask the CGS Minister, I can provide you with sound advice but that doesn’t mean anything.
Having said that, I don’t get to vote on those five-year plans, am I correct in that, Madam Minister?
Some of these capital plans started long before we were elected.
In 1999, the capital plans that were presented here in the House included Taloyoak and Repulse Bay, so was I involved? No.
Was MLA Mapsalak involved?
So it depends on what stage those projects entered the five-year plan. So in this stage, from our term, of course, we’re involved in this discussion through standing committee and through the House debates. But some of these decisions were made before by the previous government and previous legislators that carried onto this government.
So just for clarity, I say that.
Your answer is yes, I don’t get to vote in the five-year plan.
I think I’m correct in saying that.
So Mr. Chairman, for the record, I think it’s really quite important that MLAs don’t have a formal role in actually voting, but we do get to vote on capital plans. Once we voted on this capital plan, as you’ve asked us to do, how important is this piece of document that you want us to approve?
What does the approval of this committee mean once we say, “Yes, you can have all this money you want,” in terms of this $8 million or so.
In terms of his comments, that was not my answer.
So, for the record, that was not what I said. What I said was that some of these projects started before you were elected, before I was elected, by this House. So at that time, the members around the table voted on those projects.
Every single capital estimate and every single bill that goes before this House is voted by members. That’s the process and that’s the Rules of the House.
So I’m not sure why you’re saying that you don’t have a role, or you don’t have a vote, because you do have a vote, and of course, that’s up to you in terms of how you want to vote.
So I can’t tell you how you should vote but these are the debates that would allow you to make an informed decision for your constituents and so on.
Those are the Rules that we follow in debating in this House, and I think the member is quite aware of those rules in voting.
We just stood here and had a recorded vote on a motion.
So I’m not sure why I need to explain the House Rules to the member when it comes to voting in the House on bills.
I thank the minister for her attempt to try and advise me of how and whatnot. I really don’t need her advice and whatnot because I’m quite able to do that.
I just want to say one point. I’m trying to differentiate between the five-year process, which is a ministerial discretion in Cabinet, and the actual expenditures that are normally tabled in this House, which we are doing right now. I think these are really quite important.
The Government House Leader recommended, before we were elected, that the Repulse Bay project was important for the upcoming fiscal year, for 2003-04 to be exact, I think. We can even move a little bit further, 2002-03.
So he had all of the, I assume, technical advice that he wanted for the assessment of the Repulse Bay project. If so, he allocated $440,000 at that time for the design and planning.
The minister has that information.
Where is that money now, Mr. Chairman?
I will ask Ms. Brown to explain the money that was set aside for the Taloyoak and Repulse Bay projects.
In the early capital planning instructions from the government in 2000, 2003, 2004 and so on, the government gave each department a target for each of the years in the capital plan and the department could not go over that target no matter how many projects it wanted to put in that year.
Then there was a supplementary fund which each department could request to the government to be allocated to projects.
The bottom line is this wasn’t exactly as efficient as we are doing now, which is the new the funding from the government which is you plan each project from the base up.
Having said that, in a five-year capital plan, the only money... our department may show certain monies for say three or four years of the five-year capital plan, however, the government only votes on the first year of the capital plan.
So the government is now voting and, for sure, approving the funds in 2008-09 capital plan.
As I understand it, the funds in the remaining five years are approval for planning purposes.
They are not approvals of guarantee of money and that’s why, in subsequent years of the capital plan, the amounts vary and they maybe deferred a year depending on what the department finds as a priority, or what the government tells us is a priority in terms of whether to apply for funds or not.
In terms of, I use the example, in the terms of the direction from the government and planning for the 2008-09 and five-year capital plan, was to not put any new projects in the first three years of the capital plan because of the expectations that current projects will be over budget given the climate of construction and the cost of labour in the country, and as has been witnessed in Nunavut for the past three years, where projects have exceeded budgets, even though fairly sound estimates had been previously made about budgets.
I’m not sure if I have answered the question. I answered it as I understood the question.
That may be helpful to some departmental officials, but to those of us that are asked to approve allocations, no, it’s not helpful.
This government is not isolated from the previous Assembly, or any other absence of the government of the First Assembly. In 2002-03, it was appropriated and approved by the House that $445,000 for health care replacement for Repulse Bay was voted on and approved by the Assembly.
My simple question was: where is that money now?
Going through the 2003-04 capital estimates, the item that was up for approval for Repulse Bay was $75,000.
I will ask Ms. Brown where that money went and what it was used for.
The $75,000 went towards the Functional Program development of the health centre of Repulse Bay.
Mr. Curley: I’m asking all of the officials, Mr. Chairman, not to be shy. I said I’m looking at a five-year plan, and a document that was provided and voted in the House in 2002-03, a year before the amount you just indicated was approved, $445,000 was approved for Repulse Bay.
That would have been a major design and planning estimate, and that was voted in the House.
Where has that money gone to?
I thought he had mentioned 2003-04. I will have Ms. Brown, again, explain where that money went.
I would have to go back and check my records.
I recall that some money from this project was required by another community project.
I would have to go back to our records in terms of what requests were made to FMB, or if it was in the department’s right to re-allocate money according to the amounts in the FAM.
Chairman: Thank you. Are you done, Ms. Brown?
Ms. Brown: Yes, thank you.
I said I would have to go back and look at the records. It’s been some years ago now, and I know, in the earlier stages, some money was transferred between communities to support projects.
Mr. Curley: Thank you. The replacement for the health care facility for Repulse Bay was well underway. The major amount, as presented by one of earlier Minister of Health, he had a major amount approved, and the subsequent use of that smaller amount to continue the design phase and so on.
This year would have been a major construction phase if the plan was implemented, and the total would have been $6,595,000, including the original $445,000 to date.
So my question was: where did these amounts of dollars go to and who made the decision?
Now, this is a new question: which minister gave the direction to the department not to proceed with the five-year plan that was originally agreed to by the First Assembly for Repulse Bay?
I would have to refer to that to the Minister of Health in the first government, Minister Picco.
As per our regulations of the Legislative Assembly adopted and passed on April 1, 1999, and following the parliamentary traditions of all Westminster forms of government, including this one, a minister is not to be asked or referred to on the portfolio previously held. You can’t question the minister on a portfolio previously held.
What I can say though to this, in effect, is this, Mr. Chairman: that when you’re looking at capital budgets for different types of projects and five-year plans, projects come in and out of capital plans all the time, based on the dollar values that you have available to build a certain or given project.
And, this is what occurred on this file: you look at a project that began as a renovation, then you start coming up with only an X number of dollars available, and then so you finish off the project in Rankin Inlet. You might need more money for the project in Arviat, did you do the project in Pangnirtung, and so on.
So when you look at the project by project specific, I know and the members all know that Ms. Brown is here, as an example, and looks at all the projects within the capital. And, I can tell you that you’re not going to go to a person like Ms. Brown with that type of senior service in the government and tell her to pick and choose, or cherry pick a project. That’s not what occurred on the file.
What has occurred here on the file is that projects were prorated and prioritized based on technical reports that had come forward and the change of scope... a project can change, it happens all the time on projects, and they come in and out of the project of the five-year capital plan.
A five-year capital plan approved by this Assembly will have no weight in the next Assembly when you have 15 new members elected. They can change the capital plan themselves at that time. The member knows that.
So, hopefully, that helps clarify for the member the issue around the five-year capital plan and the project specification of a certain project.
The five-year plan is actually blind if it doesn’t take into account this minister or that minister’s term - it’s going to expire here, so they may have a problem. The five-year plan itself is an ongoing document.
Once the Assembly approves an amount, it stays on until the minister of the day cancels it. So the five-year process does carry on.
So Government House Leader says that he had a plan in 2002 that the Repulse Bay replacement was going to be in the future years and would have up to $6 million additional, so he spread the amount through the five-year plan. That’s the way I understand it. It’s blind.
It doesn’t care about who the minister is.
So having said that, I want to ask the minister: why did you cancel the Repulse Bay replacement health care centre since you took over?
I didn’t cancel a project. The Repulse Bay project is in the design phase. We have an architect hired doing the design for Repulse Bay.
It’s not cancelled.
The project has been in the books for seven years and, since I took over, I have been pushing the department to complete the commitments of 1999. I have said that I don’t know how many times the last five days in this House.
To finish off the commitments made to Repulse Bay and Taloyoak, we are trying to finish off the projects, and that’s where we are at.
We are at phase three of the process for Repulse Bay.
If you look to the back of the book, the plan here for Repulse Bay, it’s not cancelled. It’s in the books.
We are using an architect to use the same design for Taloyoak to cut costs, and, again, we are looking at using the same design for Taloyoak and Repulse Bay for Arctic Bay.
We have to finish the functional part for Arctic Bay. We hope to have that done by the end of the fiscal year.
They are similar in community size and similar services are provided, so we are looking at the design to be modified and so on for Arctic Bay, Repulse Bay, and Taloyoak. We are looking at the same architect to come up with the design to cut the costs.
That’s where that’s at.
Repulse Bay is not cancelled.
The five-year plan, like I use the word, “is blind,” it doesn’t take into regard who the minister is.
The Repulse Bay project has been changed from a five-year construction and a major construction, the final year would have been this year if it was implemented but someone changed it.
Some minister signed off a document through FMB and said, “We’re going to change our priorities.” Someone, it could have been you, Madam Minister.
Now, it’s been delayed from the original 2002-03 fiscal year, it’s now seven years late.
So someone moved that capital planning process from the original five years; this year would have been the final year; for the amount stipulated in the amount of $6.5 million. It would have been the final year.
Where did these dollars go?
Who recommended that this plan change, and if so, don’t be shy if it’s you?
The member will recall Full Caucus had a meeting in Arviat.
We had a meeting in Arviat in 2004, shortly after we were all elected, at which time we all decided at that meeting that we would construct continuing care facilities.
In 2004, I was Minister of Finance at that time.