EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
There is a process in place through the RFP where there is a committee that reviews each proposal.
The NNI Committee is also separate from that, which reviews the decisions of the committee. Those are being reviewed as it is and a final decision will be made once the NNI Committee’s recommendations have been reviewed.
Sometimes I just wonder what the point of even asking questions is.
In this particular case I guess this is something that has been brought forward and questioned.
For the minister to stand up and say, well, I can’t look it up because I’m not involved; this is the decision that her department made, and the criteria that they used. They awarded the contract.
Like I suggested yesterday to the Minister responsible for Economic Development and Transportation, the buck stops at the minister.
They’re not going to go and ask, it’s not up to me to go and ask the committee why they made the decision on something like that, it’s my job to ask the minister why that was done and that’s what I’m doing.
Again, I would like to ask the minister as she committed to providing that information to me and I’d like to ask her when I can expect a full report from her to have all that information. Will it be before the contract actually takes place?
You know what is going to happen. Right now you have basically have two companies sitting in limbo, one that is contracting, sub-contracting the work to southern based companies and one that has made a $5 million investment here. So when will I have that information to look at.
The processes are in place to have submissions reviewed fairly and outside political discussion, through the RFP committee through the NNI. I will not interfere in the NNI process; that process is in place to ensure people who are appealing get a fair review of their appeal.
That appeal hearing has occurred. Their recommendations are coming out of the appeal.
Those recommendations are being reviewed. I don’t have the information as to those recommendations as it is right now. Once those go forward to Cabinet a decision will be made.
In terms of providing the full report, I will not be able to provide that until the next sitting.
Question 422 – 2(3): Elders Homecare Assistance (Peterson)
My question is also for the Minister of Health and Social Services.
Many of the elders in my riding live alone or with relatives who are not equipped to provide proper health care or homecare.
In Cambridge Bay, the Department of Health and Social Services provides homecare maybe two or three hours a week for elders and usually during the day.
In my experience, elders who are usually disabled require homecare 24 hours; cooking, cleaning, and grooming.
We heard the minister say yesterday that there will be no elders’ facility built in Cambridge Bay. So my question for the minister is: can the minister tell the House, since they provide assistance or homecare, can they provide it on a daily basis?
The individuals that require homecare assistance, we have homecare workers in the community. Those programs are designed in partnership with the homecare providers, as well as the individual that requires the need.
Needs assessments are based on what the patient needs and are sometimes on a part time basis and sometimes where there is a requirement for 24/7 care and we are not able to provide that, we need to look at where we can provide that service to the individual and it is not always necessarily in the community where that individual resides.
All efforts are made to the homecare workers to put in place programs to provide assistance to elders or anyone that is in need of medical attention in the home.
My experience with professionals who deal with seniors and elders recommend that these individuals stay home as long as possible. Prolong their life and they feel better at home.
Also, if they do have to go to a facility that they are in a facility that is closer to home so that relatives can visit them.
Since we know that is not possible in Nunavut, it seems like the most likely situation is they will have to stay at home as long as possible.
And in my riding of Cambridge Bay many of the elders are at home and for various reasons they can’t get out to go to the health centre for their check ups and these check-ups should be done weekly.
My question for the minister: can the minister tell the House how community regional health professionals ensure the elders get regular weekly health check-ups at home when they are unable to go to the health centre?
Most communities, as part of the regular clinic days, have dedicated days for, as an example, well women, well men, or children and some communities have also designed programs for seniors, and dedicate a day to visit seniors and so on.
If individuals cannot leave their homes, a registered nurse will go to the home and provide the checkup to the patient that requires medical attention, and that service is available in communities. Community health workers, along with registered nurses do the visits to the homes of individuals that require the attention.
I’m sure in some areas in Nunavut, homecare is working. I’m sure in Cambridge Bay, it’s working in certain situations, but I’m hearing from some of the elders who don’t think it’s working; they think they require more help.
I’ve read the reports from the elders in Cambridge Bay that require more services from homecare.
When you hear it from the elders, then, obviously, there must be something wrong. I’m not suggesting for a moment that the homecare workers aren’t doing their jobs, but maybe they need some help to do it better; to address what the elders really need.
So my question for the minister: can the minister tell the House what initiatives are underway in Nunavut to evaluate the homecare need in individual communities?
As it is right now, we have over 1,000 clients in Nunavut that we provide homecare services to. We have initiatives within the department where we try and train individuals to provide homecare services to address that need.
At the same time, we are trying to expand the services in Cambridge Bay, in Rankin Inlet, and in Iqaluit to provide more services to individuals in their communities. So the initiatives are to train local people to work with the homecare nurse, at the same time, to expand services in the regions. And as we move forward to work closer with Community Health Committees to better address some of the concerns of the communities.
I understand in Cambridge Bay, they have a dedicated day as well for seniors and deal with seniors in the community at the centre to provide more opportunity for dialogue to how better improve the services, from what I understand.
Continuing care homecare facilities in Nunavut don’t seem to be an option for probably the next decade. When we have an aging population I think homecare is going to be a critical need in Nunavut going forward.
I think it’s important that the Department of Health start now to assess the current Homecare Program, and then plan for the future.
My question for the minister: has the minister’s department undertaken any reviews or prepared any reports on the need for homecare in Nunavut for the future?
Speaker: Thank you, Mr. Peterson. (interpretation) Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Aglukkaq.
There is a need for homecare services in Nunavut; we know that. We have been trying to train local people in the communities. Just as an example, we offered training in the Baffin in November, which was in Pangnirtung.
So there is a need for homecare services in our communities.
Perhaps, each community would differ depending on the number of clients per community. There are also other initiatives around healthy living type activities that each community has undertaken through some of their Health Care Committees.
An example I shared earlier was; having a dedicated day for seniors, where homecare nurses go to the homes as well, with the homecare nurse to provide better service.
So, we know there is a need in the communities for those services throughout Nunavut.
As it is right now, we have over 1,000 clients, and we are trying to keep individuals in the communities.
They may not necessarily be elders.
They may be individuals that are in assisted living and need some medical attention in each community. So the review in terms of whether we need the program or not, we recognize there is a need for the program.
Members, as a reminder, we’ve only had three members ask questions, and we’re running out time.
If we’re going to give every member an opportunity for questions, then you will have to keep your responses brief.
Question 423 – 2(3): Staff Housing Rent Scale (Kattuk)
Mr. Kattuk: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation.
My question will be on staff housing. I understand that staff housing is priced according to the house, not the employee’s salary.
Is that true? Is that my understanding?
I believe his question is in regard to the employee’s salary, and the rent scale.
We are doing a review of the rent scale this year.
I don’t believe I understood what he said. Is he saying that the rent scale is based on the size of the house?
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk (interpretation): It is compared to the size of the house.
Can the minister tell me and the House how much of their salary is paid for the house that they rent?
What they do is they pay according to how much they make and how much the household makes is what they pay for public housing. They take the percentage and that’s how much they pay, but I can look into it for the member and respond to him.
I know that some of them are having hardship and I know that there’s about, perhaps, they’re paying about 30 percent of their salary.
I wonder if the minister can look into the 30 percent. For some of them 30 percent is too much.
The government employees, if they make below $90,000, they would pay 20 percent, if they go beyond $90,000, then they pay 25 percent, and if they make over $100,000, then they have to pay 30 percent.
Question 424 – 2(3): Court Appearance Delays (Mapsalak)
I would like to direct my question to the Minister of Justice. In regard to the court circuits in Nunavut, we have some concerns about the people who are going to be making appearances.
If the court circuit doesn’t arrive in the community due to the weather, or for some other reason their court dates keep getting deferred and deferred and sometimes they have to wait about a year before they make an appearance. Why is it that there are repeated delays in those appearances?
There are quite a few things that we go through; at times, the lawyers are not available, there are quite a lot of reasons that we use when we’re doing our court circuits. At times, we can’t go to the communities because of the weather and in those cases the cases are deferred to the next round. We are also looking at getting another judge so that they would be able to go to the communities more frequently and to avoid delays.
I would also like to thank the minister for his response but in any case I would like to ask the minister why there are so many delays and the individuals, especially the youth go through a hard time and are highly stressed out by the delays.
Is it possible for the minister to tell us how many cases have been deferred over the year? I can tell the minister that there are cases of suicide of people who are stressed out because of the delays. Do you know how many there are?
I am not sure exactly how many, but I will probably have to get my staff to look at the cases. I do know that last year there were 49 circuits going around the communities and we’re targeting 55 circuits for this coming year.
I would also like to thank the MLAs for approving our budget. And with the approved budget we will be able to increase the number of visits to the communities.
And we can also look at how we can improve the system.
Does the minister know how many people are given support and how many are Inuit who are working for the court system who do counselling for individuals who have to make an appearance.
I do know by law that they have to have a lawyer to help them out and they are provided by the courts. They are given the aid of a lawyer by law.
Are the individuals who are under stress given the opportunity to be counselled? Are they given the support system that they require before their appearances?
Well it is not something that we do in our department but we do appreciate the people who can give support by phone.
There is the Kamatsiatuq Hotline that is used and we are looking other support systems.
We would like to give counselling to the abusers and it’s not only going to be that. We do try to provide as much support as we can to the offender and to the family.
And I know that it will be of good benefit to the people of Nunavut.
Question 425 – 2(3): Nunavut Association of Municipalities’ Resolutions (Barnabas)
My question is to the Minister of Community and Government Services.
We all know that the Nunavut Association of Municipalities made a recommendation following what came out of the association’s meeting.
Has the Infrastructure Committee given their recommendation to the government?
The question that the member is asking, I just want to find out from him whether he is asking a question on behalf of Nunavut as a whole or can he repeat his questions.
Mr. Barnabas, can you re-phrase your question.
I am sorry I did not make myself clear.
The Nunavut Association of Municipalities had a meeting and the mayors of the hamlets requested some infrastructure in their community. The Nunavut Infrastructure Committee had to make a decision to give to the Cabinet.
I just wondered whether the Cabinet had a chance to look at those requests yet.
I thank the member for rephrasing his question. It has been given to the government committee.
The Infrastructure Committee is in the process of looking at it. They have not given it to me as yet. I know that they will give them to me once they are finished with their decision.
I’m not really sure how long it will take the Infrastructure Committee to decide on the recommendations. The mayors of my constituencies and the SAOs want to find out what their decisions are.
Can the minister provide the information to the members of this House, or to me?
Yes to the question of the member. As soon as the Infrastructure Committee makes their decision, I will provide that to the House and the hamlets of each community in Nunavut.
Question 426 – 2(3): Commitment to Inuit Societal Values (Tootoo)
The Pinasuaqtavut Document 2004-09 talks about our commitment to building Nunavut’s future. One of the initial comments in there by the government is that, “Our government is in its second mandate. It is a time that will be used to build a stronger cultural foundation based on Inuit societal values, and develop and expand our economy.
These are our main priorities.”
I’d like to ask the Premier how committed the government is to following up on that mandate?
Over the last year it has become quite evident that we’re doing as much as we can.
We’ve announced the site of the heritage centre to promote and enrich our past. We’ve announced a cultural school to be put in place in Clyde River to return to some of our teachings. We’ve also announced a trades school to train our young people to take on the jobs that will be coming with the mining sector, and the trades.
I think those are strong indications that we are following through on what we committed to do as members. We’re trying to do our best with the tools that we have to try and address the challenges that we’re facing today.
I believe the comments that the Premier just talked about were dealing with the Inuit culture and preparing a workforce and educating our people.
As far as building and strengthening our economy one of the other things in the document under self-reliance it says, “Nunavut residents will receive every opportunity to benefit from the public dollars spent in and by Nunavut.”
I’d like to ask the Premier if he could give us an indication of what initiatives have been undertaken by the government in following through on that commitment.
I think we’ve done a number of steps in that area as we look at housing, the housing trust that we have established.
We’re going to use some of that money to train some people in the communities to start constructing housing in the communities.
I think that commitment was made clearly by the Housing Minister. As I said, in other areas, in mining we’ve put in tax measures where we can with the companies that will do work in the territory.
We’ll provide them with tax benefits provided they train the local residents in the area.
Those are some steps that we are taking in addition to implementing NNI where we contract with private parties to deliver some capital projects.
That is a requirement of our government so those are some things that we have done in this House in the past year.
In a lot of those areas in the business front and also a big argument that our government has provided to the federal government is just the sheer fact that the cost of doing business, the cost of running a government here in the north is much higher than running a government in the south and doing business in the south.
Given that, are there any initiatives that the government has done or plans on doing in trying to work with businesses that are actually set up here in Nunavut?
You have a lot of these, what people call store fronts where they have a little office up here and a lot of the infrastructure and investment and everything are in the south.
Can the Premier give us an indication if they’re looking at trying to address that issue at all?
We have the NNI policy to try and address some of those challenges. That is always under review on an annual basis, but at the same time, every time we change a comma in that policy it’s a real challenge. So as the member has concerns as to what has been taking place, I’m more than willing to receive them and provide them to the review committee so that we can perhaps revive the policy to accommodate the concerns that are raised in the community, but I must say that we have made a lot of improvements since we first started.
The complaints have been minimal at best, but there’s always room for improvement. The place to do it is through our NNI, where a majority of our capital projects are reviewed and if they haven’t been met then I’ll make sure that they are addressed.
Question 427 – 2(3): Status of Women Recommendations (Peterson)
My question is for the Minister responsible for the Status of Women. Violence against women is a serious issue in Nunavut, we know that. The costs to society are enormous, socially, psychologically, and financially but the Status of Women’s Council is taking the lead in fighting for the rights of women in Nunavut.
My question for the minister: can the minister tell the House what initiatives are currently being undertaken by the Status of Women’s Council that directly address the issue of violence against women?
Initiatives that the Qulliit Status of Women’s Council, as an advocacy group, have taken are around violence against women is first, to raise awareness on the issue.
Last year they organized the first symposium in Nunavut to deal with violence against women, and the recommendations coming out of that symposium, our Premier will be tabling that.
There are a number of recommendations that came out of the consultation, where over 100 people from Nunavut participated. At the same time the violence against women initiatives that they’ve undertaken is to also provide input into the current legislation that’s before the House today. They provided input into that area.
They lobbied through the federal government, and in fact, I believe that they are participating in a protest down in Ottawa along with other councils of Canada on the recent federal cuts by the Conservative Government around the cuts.
They also try to promote awareness of how better to improve the services, and again, a lot of that initiative is coming through the report and recommendations from the work that they have done.
At the same time, I met with them this weekend and one of the things that they’ve released, today actually, is in fact, to identify again what their next year priorities are for addressing violence against women.
They again renewed this as a priority to continue to work toward trying to address the statistics in our territory.
I thank the minister for outlining all those important initiatives.
One thing she didn’t touch on is crisis shelters. In most Nunavut communities there are no crisis shelters for women and their children to flee to for safety when violence erupts at home.
My question for the minister: can the minister tell the House what the Status of Women’s Council is recommending that women do when there are no facilities in communities to flee to for safety if they are in danger?
There are a number of areas that we had discussed. Some of the ideas revolve around our developing safe homes for women to escape to, to get away from a current situation for that moment.
At the same time, some of the recommendations coming out from the group in my discussions with the Qulliit Status of Women’s Council are also to not just put resources into buildings, yes, buildings are needed to address the immediate harm that can be caused to women, but at the same time, in the long-term, that’s not a solution; and some of the solutions that they’ve been talking about are to try and deal with the counselling aspect in treating the individual that needs help, who commits those violent acts.
So some of the recommendations coming out, and ideas, is to expand on programs at the community level such as mental health, such as stronger support to individuals that require family counselling, and so on.
So there are a number of initiatives, and after today, I think you’ll have a better idea as to a lot of the community based initiatives that are coming forward from the symposium. They don’t just talk about a building, or a shelter situation, but rather, long-term, to deal with the high emotional side of violence.
I probably agree with the minister and the Status of Women to some degree that we probably won’t be able to afford the facility, so a lot of research work and education is going to be required.
A couple of years ago, the former Minister of Health tabled a document in the House that said; “What Inuit women need in order to deal with abuse and violence.”
It was research and a report prepared for the Qulliit Status of Women’s Council. It’s a very formal document.
This is the kind of research that the Status of Women’s Council can do for the Government of Nunavut and for Nunavummiut, and individuals such as ourselves. The recent federal funding cuts are going to have a huge effect on that kind of research.
So my question to the minister: can the minister commit to finding funds for the Status of Women’s Council for them to continue their research initiatives that they have for women in Nunavut if the federal government doesn’t back off on their decision to cut the funds to the Status of Women?
Yes, I recognize the contribution the Qulliit Status of Women’s Council has made to address those issues not just around the violence against women, but initiatives around homelessness, around FASD, and so on.
So one of the things we discussed over the weekend, Friday and Saturday, was to talk about our commitment to continuing to provide support and assistance to Qulliit Status of Women’s Council.
The federal government’s initiatives on the national level will have an impact on us in terms of doing collective research with other jurisdictions. Seeing how we’re smaller, we’re not always able to do the research internally, but we have committed to looking to try and address some of those concerns they’ve also expressed, and I’m concerned about it as well. So we will continue to try and work in partnership.
One of the other things, in terms of working with Qulliit Status of Women’s Council, is that they put out their priorities on an annual basis as to what some of those initiatives will be that they’re working on throughout the year.