EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
There are quite a number of people out there who are experiencing some problems, but then again, we have to seriously take into consideration that there are consumers out there.
If anybody has a problem, I want your department to look into it to look at it and talk to the individuals who are experiencing those problems.
That’s the only way that you are going to find out the root cause of the problem.
And in G-2, in your business plan, it says here that the department support Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit is a context in which we developed and opened a responsive department.
What it means is that you have to be transparent and be responsible.
Why is it that your department’s not like that?
Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit is not just a word.
If we are going to use Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, we have to look at the people, we have to look at the consumers and find out what the problem is.
Why is it that their outboard motors or their motors are breaking?
When your department refuses to believe the people, then they start losing their confidence in the government.
I do know that if the Deputy Minister had problems with bad gasoline, they would look into the problem right away and get into the root of it.
It is very embarrassing when you keep using the word Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and not using it.
There are elders out there.
If you sit with an elder in Rankin Inlet, they would tell you what the problem was. $1,400 we received already, but (interpretation) you have to know (interpretation ends) that you have to talk to the individuals who had their motors broken that they are the one who have the receipts for the repair of these engines.
You have to talk to the people out there or maybe the people out there are starting to think that the government doesn’t feel for them, or if some of us are not doing our job or maybe it is not a problem at all.
The people out there are getting those kinds of thoughts.
We are saying that we have to be proud of the people but then again and we are not listening to them, (interpretation ends) not just press release of anything.
Consultation is meeting them on the street at the meeting room, board meeting, radio, telephone, so on, or appearing before hunters and trappers, council meetings, (interpretation) go to the council meetings and find out what kinds of problems they have with their gasoline.
If we are going to be a good government, then we have to take corrective action as soon as we hear that there is a problem.
There are too many individuals out there who are having engine problems.
Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to elaborate further on the problem that we are experiencing up here, and I wanted to supplement that to my opening.
The $400 million is a good chunk for the department and I am very pleased that you are going to be getting that additional funding.
Money is very hard to come by at the community-level and there are a lot of needs that are required in the communities.
The hamlets have a lot of responsibilities, but they don’t get the amount of dollars that is required to run a community properly, but not very pleased that there’s $1,075,000 for the hamlets.
Some of the hamlet employees are not getting enough benefits, and I think that the Government of Nunavut staff and the hamlet staff should get the same level of pay and benefits.
The hamlet staff need more financial support from the government, but I hear that there’s going to be a review on the hamlets to find out if their requirements are being met.
As my colleague stated, I truly believe that we’re experiencing bad gasoline and there are outboard or motor breakages in the communities.
We’re experiencing the same problem in my community.
Just a few days ago, two of my constituents called and said that there have been more motor breakages.
My wife’s sister’s husband had to be rescued when his motor broke when he was out hunting.
What I’m saying is that gasoline is a big concern.
It’s not only a spark plug issue.
I just wanted to make that comment or to reiterate the face that we are having problems.
There are two individuals who are had breakages already this week and it is something that is very serious.
These assets are not cheap.
Since we don’t have dog teams anymore, we have to rely on snowmobiles and other modes of transportation.
Dogs are just wandering around.
They’re not dog team trained.
It’s becoming a safety concern.
That was just a comment, Mr. Chairman.
If you have any questions while we’re dealing with page by page, you will be given the opportunity.
Page J-5, on the Directorate.
One of the problems we’ve been dealing with over the years is hamlets that struggle with their finances and we’ve had to turn to the department for assistance in sorting out our problems.
I know a couple of years ago when we were having problems in Cambridge Bay, from your staff members, there were vacancies, I guess that would be the correct terminology in the key positions, where hamlets could look to for help.
Does the department have funding or have PYs in place for every Regional office to hire people with financial skills and strategic planning experience, training experience to go into a municipality and help to work to develop and prepare the recovery business plan.
Even before, they have to get to that stage, to work with them to turn around the trend that is developing within their community before they get into a serious problem or have to actually develop a recovery Business Plan.
I think that would be a very important position in any of your Regional offices.
We do have personnel like that at the Regional office.
Thank the minister for that but if you don’t have a person like that, the vacancies, I know that there not staffed all the time.
How would you help a hamlet that turns to your department for assistance, you don’t have people in that department, if there’s a vacancy in that key position?
Would you bring someone from another region, would you contract an accounting firm, or management firm to provide that assistance to the hamlet?
In that case then the headquarter staff is more than available and willing to cover for the vacant position.
When a community needs help, then our headquarter staff are always in a position to go cover for them, and work with the municipalities.
In 2003 when a hamlet of Cambridge Bay were experiencing difficulties, we were trying to get help from the department at the regional level, and of course they had a vacancy there, and then we had to wait for someone who was working out here in the Baffin to become available, to come to the Kitikmeot.
I think it dragged on for three months before that person was able to come out to the Kitikmeot that actually helped, and then he simply worked in the Government of Nunavut office, I don’t think he spent much time in the hamlet office.
What I’m getting at is, you have to have a person in the Regional office who’s dedicated solely to help the hamlets, who will be there 24 hours 7, maybe not necessarily that long but be available when you need them, not have to call someone from another region or contract someone.
It’s that important I think, because we got too many hamlets reading about in the news, that is having financial problems.
I think we need that person in every Regional office on a regular basis.
Hon. Peter Kilabuk: (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
All the positions are filled for that position and also at this time, the staff are able to provide more support to the municipalities prior to the municipalities getting into deficit situations.
Prior to the actual problems arising.
Back in Baker Lake, there’s an office there that actually they provide support to the municipalities, that way we’re able to find out the problems before they actually arise.
Our office can provide support, although we don’t want to see a vacancy rate for a long time and would like to see them filled.
We’re on page J-5.
Operations and Maintenance. $8,628,000.
Chairman: They agreed.
Community Support, respect to J-7, J-8, J-9.Total Operations and Maintenance $49,710,000.
I want to make a comment, in regards to sewage and water block funding.
I think there under these programs, for water sewages block funding.
In communities like say for example, the sewage lagoon and the garbage are getting further and further away form the communities and the funding is not increasing and it seems like there doesn’t seem to be any respect and the equipment they’re requesting is in their five to seven year capital plan.
The community’s land fills are getting further away from the community and we have to clean the road to make it accessible.
How can the Minister respond to me if we can provide adequate funding.
We know in Rankin Inlet, the heavy equipment is not going to be sufficient enough to keep the roads accessible to the garbage because the garbage dump is quite far from the community.
For the upcoming spring, we would like to work closely with the community municipalities in regards to water and sewage services.
Some services are falling way far behind in all of Nunavut.
They require repair and work done for a long time.
Due to a lack of funding, we weren’t able to provide funding but even the 5 year capital plan, we’re pleased to see that we will be able to actually work on the challenges that we’ve been facing before.
In some communities, if they have extra ordinary challenges, or problems, our staff and our department can work with the community.
This coming spring, we’ll be working with municipalities to identify their needs.
Although we worked on that last fall during the capital expenditure process, but the policy needs to be clearly identified within your Department of Community and Government Services.
We believe that it needs to be worked on and improved and all the old land fills had to be filled for safety reasons.
The municipality, if the government closes the land fill, so there might be a liability although we worked on it last fall.
I believe it’s time, it’s been six months since we’ve worked on it.
I believe that you’ve already worked on it.
Perhaps, you can work on your policies to make sure that they’re improved.
Yes, we will work closely with what was identified in the fall and we will provide funding to work on those.
I read somewhere in the business plan here G-22, I think it falls somewhere in this area but it’s talking about a total review of an excessive financial recovery plans, to continue to support communities who improve financial capacity.
I wonder if the Minister could clarify how many hamlets have recovered business plans and how many are close to having a recovered business plan put in place.
The municipalities that have been running in deficit are six municipalities and also, municipalities that are, we’ve been looking at all the other communities that have potential to go into deficit, but there are six communities in deficit.
Perhaps the minister could take us through the steps that the department implements to help the municipality implement a recovery business plan.
I will just go over the process that we went through for the last municipality I took part in, to help them with their recovery plan, and this one that we put in with the administrator to manage the finances and operations with the council.
When the hamlet is known to be in a deficit situation, depending on the measures that are needed to be taken because if it is bad enough, then depending on how far as the minister I want to go with the advise I get from staff, we can look at from removing the council and mayor, but I think you know me better that I probably wouldn’t go there.
So to place the administrator to work with the council was the option we chose, and this is to ensure that the municipality or the council members still have a say in what and how the community will be operated, and with the administrator there, the administrator then looks at finding where they can cut programs or services to help reduce the deficit.
So it’s in consultation with the council that these things are decided upon between the council and my office.
In the Kitikmeot, I know of one hamlet for sure, actually it was in the media recently, a comment from the SAO in Kugluktuk that their financial difficulties are originated with putting cement forward into an ice arena down there, either $1 million or $1.5 million.
It makes you wonder, I mean I appreciate what the mayor and councils are trying to do, trying to provide things for the community that the people want, but having said that, for them to be able to put $1 million or $1.5 million into their cement and then have to reserve funds, it didn’t happen overnight, it happened over a period of time.
Surely, your department must have been wondering that situation or reading the minutes, and be aware of those kind of expenditures.
I am wondering, that’s Kugluktuk, but it must be other communities or mayors and councils are facing similar demands or requests from the communities to provide service as an attempt to use their reserve funds.
How do you deal with those kind of situations or prevent them from occurring because it seems to me that has happened all of the time.
It was four years ago there were 16 that had financial troubles, three years ago it was 12, this year you are saying it’s six, next year they are going to be 15 again, and this keeps being a recurring problem, it puts a lot of stress and strain on the mayor and council, and on the community, and on the government.
The hamlets are one of the main economic engines in the community.
There’s the private sector and then there’s the government, but then there’s a hamlet.
Some could have upwards of 60 to 70 employees and it’s to be painful and hard on a municipality if the hamlet gets into a financial crunch, then it has to start cutting programs and services.
Everybody suffers and we all live in communities.
So how do you deal with those kinds of situations to make sure the hamlets or try to make sure the hamlets don’t run into those problems before they happen?
Well, I would certainly hope that the increase in more funding, that we don’t see an increase in hamlet deficit situations, but I guess in wanting to closely with the municipalities and recognizing this is another level of government, they have controlled over their operations.
We are always advising to try and insure the municipalities operate under good operating guidelines.
Also the other thing were happy to have seen succeed so much is the training, that the Municipal Training Organization has done.
And with those, because a lot of the people in the offices have been taking advantage of these courses, so it is with encouragement, the training, advice and the close working relations that we hope that the municipalities will not go into deficit situations.
Thank the Minister for that, I think it’s in your bullet here; it says you train municipal council members and staff.
I’m wondering if evaluations municipal operations, but I think it’s encouraging to hear you say that to there is more training going on, I know the municipal training organizations doing a lot of work, I think they write in your presentation like 660 people in the last year, that’s quite a few people.
It has to be continuous and on going. Once you start the training you can’t stop it because there’s turn over, or people moving around, new people come in.
It’s scary to think though that there’s municipalities out there that are prepared to spend millions of dollars on projects that they don’t have the funding for, and they could do it, and use up all the reserve funds, not have money for land development or water sewer trucks, and other such thing.
One or two small mistakes early on that are not detected could set a community back three to four to five, maybe ten years in terms of what they could do for there community in terms of development for the future.
To me it’s very important that our councils, to staff our council to receive an ongoing and continuous training, a high level training, not the basic training, has to happen.
That gets back to my comments earlier on, that you have to have a person in a Regional office that can go in there with harbored with all kinds of, follow legislations, and other stuff tools, and talk to the Mayors and council and say hey folks you can’t do that, you just can’t do that.
I’m glad to know that your on top of this kind of stuff and that I think we have to hammer it home that we just can’t allow hamlets to, in this day and age where we have shortage of funds that we stake an early impact to community.
That was more of a general comment, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Is that all, Mr. Alagalak?
Mr. Alagalak (interpretation): He put up his hand up.
Chairman: But you had your hand up first, you were first.
Mr. Alagalak (interpretation): That’s why am asking.
Chairman: All those apposed, the motion is carried.
Item 21, Report of Committee of the Whole.
The Chairman, Mr. Netser.
And also, Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of the Committee of the Whole be agreed to.
Item 23. Orders of the Day for tomorrow, Mr. Clerk.
Announcements for tomorrow; a meeting of the regular caucus at 11:00 in the morning in the Tuktu Board Room.
Orders of the Day for Tuesday March 8:
This House stands adjourned until Tuesday, March 8, 2005 at 1:30 p.m.
>>House adjourned at 20:08  Nunavut Canada
Tuesday March 8, 2005
Pages 1292 – 1383
Opening Prayer 1292
Ministers’ Statements 1292
Returns to Oral Questions 1301
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery 1301
Oral Questions 1302
Written Questions 1321
Tabled Documents 1322
Notices of Motions for First Reading of Bills 1323
First Reading of Bills 1323
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters 1324
Committee Report of the Committee of the Whole 1382
Orders of the Day 1382
Tuesday March 8, 2005 1292
073 – 2(2): Absence of Minister Tapardjuk (Aglukkaq) 1292
074 – 2(2): Municipal Government Certificate Program (Kilabuk) 1292
075 – 2(2): International Women’s Day (Brown) 1293
076 – 2(2): Nunavut Arctic College Receives Research Grant (Picco) 1294
162 – 2(2): Larga Boarding Home Visit (Barnabas) 1294
163 – 2(2): Larga Boarding Home (Arreak) 1296
164 – 2(2): Turbot Fishermen Incident (Kilabuk) 1297
165 – 2(2): Anglican Women’s Group Parish Service (Picco) 1297
166 – 2(2): Congratulate Philip Kalun from Kugluktuk (Evyagotailak) 1298
167 – 2(2): Elders of Cambridge Bay – Firearms Ammunition (Peterson) 1298
168 – 2(2): Tribute to the Roles of Women (Tootoo) 1299
169 – 2(2): Tribute to Women (Brown) 1300
170 – 2(2): Recognition of Women (Kattuk) 1300
171 – 2(2): Happy International Women’s Day (Aglukkaq) 1301
Return to Oral Question 195 – 2(2): RFP Award (Kilabuk) 1301
217 – 2(2): Funding Arrangements for the Youth Cottage (Tootoo) 1302
218 – 2(2): Larga Baffin House (Barnabas) 1303
219 – 2(2): Air Ambulance Services (Peterson) 1304
220 – 2(2): Wildlife Act and Regulations (Alagalak) 1304
221 – 2(2): Larga Service Contract Update (Arreak) 1306
222 – 2(2): Polar Bear Survey Update (Kattuk) 1307
223 – 2(2): Ilitiit Society Funding Update (Tootoo) 1308
224 – 2(2): Passport Photo Address To the Federal Government (Barnabas) 1311
225 – 2(2): Status of Bad Gasoline (Netser) 1313
226 – 2(2): Shell Canada $5,000 Donation (Curley) 1315
227 – 2(2): Access Housing Causing Hardship (Peterson) 1316
228 – 2(2): Inform Nunavutmiut on Protection Against Ozone (Kattuk) 1317
229 – 2(2): National Childcare Initiative (Tootoo) 1319
027 – 2(2): Elders Center Floor Renovations (Barnabas) 1321
028 – 2(2): Performance Bonuses, Settlements and Termination Pay for 2003-2004 (Peterson) 1322
096 – 2(2): 2004 Environmental Rights Act Annual Report (Akesuk) 1322
097 – 2(2): MTO Progress Report April 2004 to December 2004 (Kilabuk) 1323
004 – 2(2): Delete $500,000 From 2005-06 Main Estimates – Department of Community and Government Services (Curley) 1349
Bill 11 – Loans Authorization Act 2005/2006 – Notice 1323
Bill 12 – Write Off of Assets and Debts Act 2004/2005 – Notice 1323
Bill 12 – Write Off of Assets and Debts Act 2004/2005 – First Reading 1323
Bill 11 – Loans Authorization Act 2005/2006 – First Reading 1324
Tuesday, March 8, 2005
Speaker (interpretation): Good afternoon, Mr. Premier, Ministers and Members.
Minister’s Statement 073 – 2(2): Absence of Minister Tapardjuk
I would like to inform the House that Minister Tapardjuk will be absent from the House.
Minister’s Statement 074 – 2(2): Municipal Government Certificate Program
I rise today to update the House on excellent results to date with the Municipal Government Certificate Program.
As members may know, this program is designed to train the entire management team in every municipality.
Other residents in each community also participate.
At this time, five management courses will be delivered in every community, as well 35 municipal specialty courses in the three regional centres.
(interpretation ends) Between September and November 2004, every community in Nunavut completed their first management course.
In December, the first round of specialty courses were delivered.
Over 300 citizens participated and over 90 percent of participants were Inuit.
With that, I wanted to thank all the people and organizations who have worked so well together to achieve these initial results, especially the municipalities whose commitment to their staff and their communities is demonstrated so clearly by their participation.
Most of all,I wanted to personally congratulate the participants for their commitment and professional development and encourage them as they work to complete their certification.
Minister’s Statement 075 – 2(2): International Women’s Day
I rise today as the minister responsible for the Status of Women, in commemoration of International Women’s Day.
March 8th was declared by the United Nations in 1975.
The Charter of the United Nations proclaims gender equality as a fundamental human right.
To this end, the Government of Nunavut established the Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council April 1, 1999.
The purpose of the Council is to advance the goal of equal participation of women in society and promote changes in social, legal and economic structures to that end.
(interpretation ends) As the minister responsible, I am fortunate to receive information and advice from Qulliit Status of Women’s Council.
The women on the council represent all regions of the territory.
The hard work of the council is one source of information that the government relies on in the formulating of policy and legislation.
The Government of Nunavut continues to work to address one of the most complex barriers to attaining gender equality, violence against women, through the Nunavut working group on violence against women.
This group is co-chaired by the Department of Health and Social Services and the Department of Justice.
The Government of Nunavut has dedicated a full time staff position to women’s initiatives.
This individual provides support to the Qulliit Council, administers grants and contributions programs, and provides support to women’s shelters and safe houses.
International Women’s Day is a time to reflect on women’s place in our society and their journey to achieve equality, justice, peace and development.
We have come a long way, but there is still a way to go.
Women are our grandmothers, mothers, partners, wives, daughters and sisters.
Achieving equality for all in our society will ensure strong, healthy families and healthy communities for all of us.
Minister’s Statement 076 – 2(2): Nunavut Arctic College Receives Research Grant
One of the objectives of this government, as outlined in Pinasuaqtavut, is to ensure that our history and accomplishments have been preserved and recognized in our books, art and museums, and that we are a source of pride to all Canadians.
I would like to recognize today the work of the students and staff in the Language and Cultural Program at Nunavut Arctic College for their contribution in this area.
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada announced recently that researchers in the Language and Culture Program at Nunavut Arctic College, along with their partners at Laval University, will receive a three year grant, totaling $249,452, to collect and document the life stories of 5 Inuit leaders who have played and/or continue to play an active and decisive role in the construction in Nunavut.