EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
As chair of the committee, I would like to take this time on behalf of my colleagues throughout Nunavut and the world.
Today is International Women’s Day. Thanks to all the women, mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, and women in all.
Have a wonderful International Women’s Day.
I wish all the women who are listening a good day and I send my greetings.
Members of the Standing Committee on Social Wellness have reviewed the 2016-17 main estimates and business plan of the Department of Family Services.
This will be the fourth year of the department’s existence after being established in April of 2013 with the transfer of various divisions and programs from other GN departments.
The operations and maintenance budget for the Department of Family Services has grown to almost $141 million, which represents an increase of approximately $13.6 million from the department’s budget for 2015-16.
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee has noted that there continues to be some confusion with respect to the overlap or, in some cases, gaps in services and programs delivered by the departments of Family Services, Education, Health, and Economic Development and Transportation.
This becomes especially problematic when clients and their families face a mix of challenges and needs in such areas as poverty, food insecurity, homelessness, addiction, and opportunities for education, training, and employment.
Services and programs for seniors and elders also seem to be delivered in a piecemeal manner with the Department of EIA coordinating seniors initiatives and the Department of Health and the Department of Family Services both coordinating different aspects of residential care services for elders and other vulnerable Nunavummiut.
The standing committee strongly encourages the minister and his officials in their ongoing efforts to collaborate with their counterparts in the Government of Nunavut’s other departments to ensure that Nunavut’s social safety net adequately supports all Nunavut residents who need such services.
Mr. Chairman, the Department of Family Services coordinates and delivers Nunavut’s income assistance programs which are directed towards assisting families, adult individuals, and seniors in meeting their basic needs.
Committee members recognize that a number of policy changes have already been brought forward within certain program areas and the committee anticipates that further changes may be brought forward as a result of the department’s social assistance review that was recently completed across Nunavut’s communities.
The committee notes that some of the proposed increase for social assistance benefit funding in 2016-17 will take into account an income exemption for income assistance clients with respect to the federal government’s new child benefit program and applauds the government for its intention to no longer claw back this much-needed funding from low-income families which face increasingly high costs of living.
The Department of Family Services, in conjunction with the Department of Education and Nunavut Arctic College, administers a number of programs and resources related to adult and post-secondary learning.
The department also administers financial assistance programs, such as FANS, Financial Assistance for Nunavut Students, and the Adult Learning and Training Supports Program, which provide important support to individuals seeking to further their education.
Committee members note that the department has made considerable progress with its career development initiatives to promote work readiness for income assistance clients.
The committee encourages the minister and his officials in their efforts to promote self-reliance across the territory.
Mr. Chairman, the Department of Family Services faces many challenges in delivering services to children, youth, and adults in vulnerable situations.
The standing committee notes that the department proposes to add a number of new positions to this division, including family resource workers, social workers, and specialists in the areas of residential care and family violence.
While committee members support the proposed changes, members urge the minister to ensure that newly hired staff have appropriate cultural awareness and relevant training.
The committee continues to encourage the minister to table updated Quality Protects Action Plans in the Assembly on a regular basis to demonstrate what progress is being made in the key areas of concern that were raised in the Auditor General’s 2011 and 2014 reports on child, youth, and family services in Nunavut.
Members of the standing committee continue to express concerns regarding the number of clients requiring specialized services and support who are sent south to other jurisdictions for residential care.
Standing committee members support the minister’s efforts to work towards having more Nunavummiut stay in Nunavut closer to their families and communities and encourage him to work with his cabinet colleagues to develop more supports and resources for seniors and others who require long-term care in the territory.
Mr. Chairman, the Department of Family Services provides funding and resources for the operation of shelter programs across Nunavut.
While members hold varying views on the effective role of shelters and the policies that govern them, it was recognized that more work needs to be done to address issues relating to the use of shelters, including homelessness, substance abuse, and domestic violence.
The standing committee notes that the department has included additional funding in its budget for 2016-17 towards family violence prevention initiatives.
Members look forward to updates on these initiatives in the near future.
Branch Summary. Corporate Management. Mr. Enook.
Can I ask questions on the opening comments before we go to the page-by-page review, Mr. Chairman?
Chairman (interpretation): Yes, you can. My colleagues, I will point out to you that we are on page D-4. You may proceed, Mr. Enook.
Before we go there, I will ask for clarification. Good afternoon, minister and your officials.
I would like to go back to the minister’s comments for clarification on page 2.
With this $837,000, what are the duties of the seven new family resource worker positions, Mr. Minister?
This provides assistance in social needs in the communities.
These seven positions will be assisting the communities.
My deputy minister will supplement on what exactly their duties are.
The seven positions that we’re requesting will be going to the communities mainly because small communities have only one social worker and some communities don’t even have a social worker.
We expect that the seven positions would all be Inuit beneficiaries coming directly from the communities.
We are looking at providing more support to combat family violence, to reduce the abusive situations, to prevent suicides by earlier intervention, to be involved in brainstorming, and to work on strengthening their Inuit cultural foundations.
This will revolve around youth and young parents with children on how to strengthen their cultural foundation and how to incorporate traditional Inuit counselling practices by introducing the social service worker to Inuit cultural counselling practices.
That is the goal for these seven positions and specific to communities that only have one social worker while some don’t even have a social worker.
We want them to be a pivotal foundation in that aspect.
What kind of training and skill sets do they need?
I’ll get my deputy minister to clarify that.
The qualifications we want for these seven positions are that they can assist children, youth, and elders with their problems or if they can contribute to an initiative in the community.
They will have to take the suicide prevention module.
We expect to train them upwards of six months.
Once the successful candidates are selected, they will be trained on the various counselling methods and in facilitating different groups and working with them. This also involves the ability to work plan. They must also be able to work with various interest groups.
They must be able to write in Inuktitut or English and speak English, particularly in Inuktitut.
They must be aware of the different government programs and how to bring them into their work by using traditional Inuit practices.
Further, we would like them to be able to write reports on their work, either in Inuktitut or English.
As well, they must possess management skills in an office setting.
We also want them to be aware of societal and traditional means of counselling to service families in need.
We want them to be qualified to maintain confidentiality in privacy issues.
If there are emergency situations, they should be proactive and contribute to resolving those situations.
We want those seven positions to be qualified for those situations and train them for six months.
Just to remind everyone, please be cognizant of the interpreters.
Let me ask the minister another question.
The workers will have to know how to work with families in the Inuit way. A lot of us who are not elders are very ignorant of family counselling.
I believe our elders are the only ones with that knowledge.
These workers would be trained somewhere for six months and they have to be able to write both in English and Inuktitut.
Our wise people, the elders, are cut off right there because they can’t read or write in English.
Hon. Johnny Mike (interpretation): Thank you for asking that question.
There has been a concern raised about the smaller communities.
They have stated to us that they need more help today with social assistance.
In looking at social assistance or counselling today, we know that things have changed over the years. We know there will have to be knowledgeable people.
We also know that people run things through administration these days.
In the Sivumut Abluqta Mandate, we are supposed to improve things. Obviously, these seven positions will not solve all the concerns, but with the request for family counselling in the communities, we wanted to improve that aspect.
My deputy minister can explain about the elders, Mr. Chairman.
As soon as these positions are open, anybody in the communities will be able to apply for them. After the candidates are hired, we will be moving on from there.
We are saying that they should be able to read and write in Inuktitut and English, but we want them to be more proficient in writing in Inuktitut and the Inuit way of working with others.
Once the position is opened, although the requirements are as you stated, a capability to also write in English automatically disallows our most learned Inuit from being eligible.
Although the language may be well written, that you will consider unilingual Inuit, the reality is that never happens.
It is only because the department wants it limited that the language is written in that manner.
Once any position requires any written English capability, it is a barrier.
Is it your requirement?
My deputy minister elaborated on this matter earlier.
Once the seven communities are opened for competition, the requirements we referred to are the most amenable to this field, as social work is not a simple process, especially in the communities.
That is why we have the requirement for both written and spoken Inuktitut, as well as the ability to write in another language, English, I suppose, in this matter.
These communities are pretty well operating with both languages, at least the chosen communities for these positions related to social services.
This has to start somewhere and the government believes that these workers will use Inuit cultural values and traditional counselling practices, and these have been identified in the advertisement.
This includes Inuit societal values, as it is called in English.
With that already a requirement, we will have to ensure we are carefully monitoring as this type of cultural bridge is needed and social services is very complex.
The clients who need this service are already undergoing hardships.
Many communities have social problems and we have to face them by starting at a point, at least with respect to social services. We are not trying to limit the eligibility of Inuit, but cross-cultural communication is needed and that is why this is a requirement for this position related to social services in the communities.
Just to remind you to wait for the light to come on in front of you before you start to speak.
I want to be absolutely clear in my understanding of these requirements and to ensure the public doesn’t have false expectations, particularly our unilingual Inuit. I want to ensure that they don’t falsely feel qualified for this position if they can’t speak English.
I want to return to the minister’s earlier remark about using Inuit beliefs being a part of this requirement. Mr. Shooyook is very adamant about the fact that real Inuit are very capable of counselling people in the context of social services and they can’t speak a speck of English.
If our government actually believes in that principle, it is largely dismissed by the comments that social service is not a simple process, especially in the communities.
In light of vastly capable and knowledgeable real Inuit who can provide life counselling, if our government believes that the Inuit belief system is a priority, why does this government always place a barrier in front of our foremost experts on these matters?
Once the requirement is added about the ability to write in English, that is an automatic barrier.
We totally understand that there is a concern and we are well aware of it.
We are not trying to cast off those qualified people since the positions have certain requirements. We are not trying to leave anyone behind and we are not trying to stop anyone from applying if they don’t have these skills or abilities.
What we are trying to state with that requirement is the position will be dealing with stressful situations related to social service provision in our communities.
We are not saying to the public that you are disqualified from applying.
Our intent is not to stop applicants but rather to ensure we have applicants familiar with stressful social situations and complex work environments. That is why these minimum requirements are in place.
What we are saying as the government is that we are trying to follow the directives to try to incorporate Inuit societal values on services considered of prime importance.
With that being the case, many people still don’t believe that this will ever result in changes whenever an initiative is brought forward.
However, our mandate is based on these principles, on what we hear as well as past statements voiced in the past.
That is why we are persistently trying to improve support to these seven communities, as this will assist them to improve the situation.
Although there may be some hiccups, we believe the benefits will outweigh the costs related to social service provision.
Mr. Enook (interpretation): I want to clearly understand that, so I will return to it later on.
Let me ask this question in the meantime.
As per your statement, these positions will be at the forefront dealing with social counselling, family relations, child services, and youth, as the deputy minister clearly outlined.
The minister also spoke about the importance of these positions, that they will handle stressful situations.
Is it because you believe that dealing with stressful situations can only be handled by people who either speak or write in English?
Is that what this government and Family Services’ belief is?
Were you insinuating that only people able to speak or write in English are the only capable workers available to you? Is that really a corporate belief? Is that why you are so adamant about applicants who can write in English?
What we’re saying is we want bilingual workers, not just one language.
We want them to be able to speak and write in Inuktitut and English.
I’m not saying that they should know just one language.
My deputy minister can explain further what these seven workers will actually be doing.
She can give you an additional explanation if the Chairman can give her an opportunity.
The positions that we are talking about would go to the communities because they are really needed.
If they can read a bit and write a bit in English, it would really help with working with the schools, the teachers, the police, the nurses, and other professional workers.
They will have to work with people who cannot speak Inuktitut.
I hope you understand it like this.
If they can write in Inuktitut, it would be very good. If they can write in English, it would be good too.
If they can write in both languages, it would be even better.
Let me move to another topic as I strongly disagree with that position neither do I understand it.
In my eyes, regular Inuit are once again being discriminated against by this government as barrier after barrier is placed before unilingual Inuit who are our most learned experts in IQ.
Let me ask this question on page 2 of the minister’s opening comments.
The funds that you are requesting refers to… . Let me preface that with this practice I can never quite grasp.
In this House, as regular MLAs, if we raise a question in particular, if it is not a tangible issue, the ministers automatically refuse to answer and here I refer to possibilities or (interpretation ends) hypothetical (interpretation) situations we fear may occur.
I believe this is similar to that particular practice which is disconcerting to me since it seems to be speaking to hypothetical situations and I refer to the $700,000 contingency fund because the department feels the fund may be inadequate.
I automatically understand that to be in the same vein as the ministerial refusal to answer hypothetical questions about possible events or not.
Why do we have to approve potential possibilities without any proof that it may turn out that way?
This is (interpretation ends) hypothetical, (interpretation) the true definition with that English word, of which I know may happen or not.
If I was in those shoes and I was a minister, I would refuse to answer as we are told not to ask about potentialities, but correspondingly I feel the same here.
Why do I have to approve of the exact same type of (interpretation ends) hypothetical (interpretation) situation that may or may occur?
I think there’s a big difference between potential and the other word that was said.
This is potential. (interpretation) It’s potential.
With regard to the funds, I will have the person who works and deals with the funds, Sol, respond.
Ms. Modesto-Vardy: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
That $700,000 was based on the 2014-15 expenditures we have.
That is what we have seen is that we were short by $700,000.
That is the reason why we are asking for that for the 2016-17 fiscal year.
This is based on the applications and demand-driven income assistance payments. We pay it as we go every year.
In 2014-15, at that time, when we were planning in early summer, it is what we were seeing as a projected shortfall and that is the reason why we are asking for the request for the money for 2016-17.
Actually, it is due to my self-identity as a real Inuk that I tend to fall back on my Inuktitut language.
I just follow what is presented and written for our review.
The language is speaking about a potentiality that may or may not occur.
Perhaps if one is expertly fluent in English, you may understand the real linguistic meaning.
Why is this included? We already have a process to deal with projected shortfalls of departments, as they will submit a supplementary appropriation request. We also know that the Minister of Finance will be submitting a supplementary appropriation request.
Why are you submitting projected shortfalls through that process? Why isn’t this included in that request?
At this time, it seems there is nothing in place.
Hon. Johnny Mike (interpretation): I’m sorry.
Sol will respond.
The reason why we did not ask for a supplementary request this year is because we are able to cover any shortfalls this year within the budget within our department. We are able to manage that.
This is a planned expenditure or “projected” might be the right way to say it. At this time, we are seeing a projected shortfall in our social assistance payments based on the 2014-15 records.
During 2015-16, we did not ask for supplementary money because we are able to manage it within our budget year.
If I have time to return to the topic, I will do so later on.
I wish to ask questions on a different topic referred to in your opening comments on page 4.
Within the top paragraph, it speaks about 1.5 PYs the department wishes to create in Ottawa and Edmonton.
I would ask the minister this question then. As regular MLAs and Nunavummiut, we are constantly expecting the repatriation of services back to Nunavut at the earliest possible moment to ensure that these clients are closer to home and can be visited by their relatives.
Is it because this department isn’t even close to even thinking about repatriating services that you are now trying to open up these residential care client liaison positions in the south?
In regard to the member’s question, for the positions in Ottawa and Edmonton, at this time, we have around 90 elders staying down there and around 60 children are residing there.
The Edmonton and Ottawa homes are residential care facilities, whether it be for mental or physical disability.
For example, they provide different services like mental services and they provide services to take them out to the various hospitals, especially if they are physically or mentally disabled.
Since we have a lot of patients staying in Ottawa and Edmonton, the person in Edmonton can probably go visit Winnipeg or Saskatchewan because there are fewer patients staying in those provinces other than Ottawa.
It would be better if we can have positions in those provinces.
To date, we provide contracted services, which is a lot more expensive than having positions.
They go visit the patients and if there are large sums of funds that are expended, these positions will be able to provide and visit the patients.
They can provide visitation services to the clients.
We are using the contracted services and it’s more expensive than what we’re requesting today.
We are well aware of those facts since we constantly hear that refrain from the departments and we know the reality here.
What I was trying to ask about and what I’m trying to ask about is how we can start repatriating services into Nunavut.
It seems this department is absolutely dead set against this, as they don’t have any long-term goals to achieve that.
I see nothing anywhere, except the continual departmental pretext that since we don’t have the facility or service, we have no choice but to send them south. What people want to see, if at all possible, is to move these services to our territory.
I gather that as a government, we have no long-term goals in that regard.
I wanted a response to that question.
Nonetheless, this issue I just heard now is very concerning to me. We have heard time and again, minister, that these patients are checked up on regularly in the south by workers representing your department or tasked to do that. We have heard in this House that our clients get regular visits to check on the level of care.
What I heard shook me when the deputy minister stated that workers do checkups to ensure the facility is up to par. I thought we were already doing that.
We have heard many times in the House that clients from Nunavut are visited regularly.
Isn’t this the case?
Perhaps I didn’t say what I was trying to say properly and I apologize.
What I was trying to say was sometimes these facilities that we use are very good facilities, but sometimes these facilities move or change.
We have a monitor in place because we are quite far.
When I was in Edmonton, I visited seven facilities because I wanted to see for myself.
If I can say it in English, (interpretation ends) in our business plan, the priority is for us to explore for people to come back from south to be placed in Nunavut.
Currently, it’s difficult to do that.