EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I wonder if they can negotiate, the Government of Nunavut and the federal government, I wonder if the federal government can fund the construction of the arena 100 percent and maybe later on in the future then the Government of Nunavut would repay the federal government back because prices of everything are going up while at this time it’s a little bit cheaper to construct.
Before the prices go up again, it would be easier to build whereas if we just sit and wait, the communities would become more hopeless.
I wonder if they can ask the federal government during their negotiations instead of giving them 50 percent that they fund it for 100 percent at first, and then be able to repay them back.
I appreciate his questions and his suggestions are very good. We have negotiated with the federal government that they pay 50 percent, and they can’t go any further.
The remaining 50 percent is to be funded by CGS, that’s the agreement that we have.
I don’t think the federal government is willing to go through a different route.
We can talk with the federal minister but at this time our hands are tied, sort of.
At this time the federal government funds 50 percent and the Government of Nunavut 50 percent.
Back to J-7.
Department of Cultural…Mr. Kattuk.
Under J-7: the repair of three-bay garage and two-bay garage. What kinds of repairs are you going to do with those two and three-bay garages in Sanikiluaq?
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The repair of two and three-bays are already in progress because they are in need in repair because they have been in existence for about ten years, or more. They’re doing the renovations so they could save on energy.
What they’re doing is the repair of the ceilings and the doors to make it energy efficient.
That’s the way it is.
That’s the response that I was looking for. Thank you, Madame Minister. That’s it.
I have reviewed the department’s capital estimates and five year plan. I am happy to note that the plan includes a community hall for Arctic Bay and a community hall expansion for Grise Fiord.
However, I am disappointed to note that the Resolute Bay Arena Project, which was to have begun construction in 2007-08, has been postponed until 2009-10, which is after the next election.
Can the minister tell me why the Resolute Bay arena was postponed until 2009-10?
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All the plans that were in place had to get some changes or postponed, like I said, because of the lack of funding; we have to postpone those projects.
And as the members know our government is in deficit and we felt that as a department.
I’d like to let the member know that the Resolute Bay arena project that was postponed will reappear again in the near future.
I am sorry that it was postponed because we cannot complete everything all at once and all the communities can not get what they want. As we all know we have to do some negotiations with each other because there are 25 communities and all the communities have needs.
I will get Mr. Dawe to elaborate on that.
One of the considerations in the Resolute Bay arena in particular is that we have fair bit of work in the community on-going as we speak.
There is a major job for repairs and extension and replacement of sections of the utilidor and there is also a major tank farm project underway in that area.
And I guess one of the considerations that the community advisory committee would take into consideration and also one of the considerations of Community and Government Services, as well, it is very nice to see spread these things across a period of time where you don’t have a boom and bust cycle where you get all kinds of work coming into a community in a year or two, all the work gets done and everybody moves off and all of a sudden there is no employment anymore and for that sort of things.
The other aspect is that sometimes there is a community capacity issue in that as many people that can be employed as much contracting ability as the community can provide is often taken up by the work that is on-going.
One of our considerations sometimes is: let’s get the work finished that is underway right now, let that settle down a bit, and move onto other things when the people that have gathered some skills in the previous works can move on and continue employment a little later.
So it avoids the kind of boom and bust and stretches the benefits to the community out a bit over a longer period of time.
That is not the only consideration that goes into the phasing of projects like this of course. Another one in this particular case was the fact that the arena project would again be funded under one of the federal programs, the same one that we have been talking about – the Municipal and Rural Infrastructure Fund or MRIF - and one of the considerations of the committee and our department is to try to phase that out appropriately so that we don’t use up all the money too quickly or we don’t stretch it out toward the end and try to do a lot of catch up. We had to try and spread that out over a period of time.
So being as we needed to move a project there and that Resolute Bay was one of the projects where there is quite a bit of work in progress at the moment, we thought that putting that in that particular time slot would be appropriate.
The arena keeps on being in the Capital Estimates of Community and Government Services and it appears again. The other larger communities should probably get bigger arenas, probably through 3P, because it is very important for the communities to have those recreational facilities.
I want to ask the minister. (interpretation ends) Can the minister offer any assurance that the project will indeed be completed as scheduled in the plans that are before the House today?
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like Mr. Dawe to answer that question.
The reliability of the five-year planning cycle, that we’re into, is of course a question that’s been addressed for a long time.
One of our objectives through the new capital planning process that we’re trying here is to build some stability and reliability into the long range planning so that once something appears in the plan that there should be some confidence that we should be able to meet that schedule.
Having said that, there are, of course, realities with which we must deal in that sometimes the financial availability of funds that we assumed when we made that plan, might not work out. There might be harder financial times coming. There might be easier financial times, hopefully, when we could do more work.
The projects change on times even from the point of view of the communities. As you can appreciate, I’m sure that community priorities will vary from time to time, as new needs or new desires within the community come up, as new councils get elected, and they have different visions for their community.
For that reason, the other one that’s missing out there; sometimes there’s the emergency work that comes up that we often have to deal with for very basic services that we would have to contend.
These things all leave a little bit of uncertainty into the capital plan, but our hope, and our basic objective is that we stick to it as closely as possible, given the constraints with which we had to work, and we’re gradually moving, as much as possible, into some certainty so that people can rely on these sorts of things.
I welcome the minister and her officials again today. Thank you for showing up.
I have a couple of questions on J-7.
In Qikiqtarjuaq this description of the project is a municipal services evaluation.
It is budgeted for $500,000 in the next fiscal year.
I’m not sure if that is an appropriate description for what’s going on there.
Can you or your officials clarify what the project is?
The member is quite right.
It comes from the old name, that’s why it is a little out of date there. However, if I can expand a little bit on the water reservoir and sewage lagoon which is under the municipal services; all of these sites were all constructed in the early 1990s.
Each of these facilities has reached its capacity limit and a replacement, or expansion is required.
These projects have been ongoing for some time.
A construction contract has been awarded and the contractor has mobilized into the community. Construction will take place in 2007-08.
The requested allocation will provide a top up to the funds already available. Parts of this work are eligible for funding under the federal SCIF Program and Gas Tax initiative.
The requested allocation of the government is 50 percent of the required SCIF funding. That is for the Qikiqtarjuaq municipal service evaluation.
I thank the minister for that information. I’d like to recommend again that in the future when the capital estimates and the main estimates books are put together that appropriate departments use the appropriate descriptions to describe their projects or their programs so that we are not left guessing to try and guess what they mean.
The evaluation means something quite different to me than what the minister just described. That is a recommendation.
Throughout the Community and Government Services Capital Estimates, there is a fair number of community halls described, and in reading some of the substantiation sheets, they make reference to capital standards and criteria for community halls.
And I’m wondering if the minister or Mr. Dawe could give us a brief overview of what the capital standards and criteria for community halls are for the community halls and different sizes of communities.
Perhaps if he could start with a community of Cambridge Bay that has 1,700 people; what size community hall would the community of Cambridge Bay require to meet the standards and criteria?
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like Mr. Dawe to respond to that question.
Chairman: Mr. Dawe.
As I am sure the members can appreciate the capital standards and criteria are sometimes quite detailed in their provisions The only thing that I have available at the moment is a summary of the types of considerations that go into whether or not a project is eligible or not.
But I can inform the member through the Chair that for Cambridge Bay having a population greater than 800 people, which is one of the borderlines of the criteria, for a population greater than 800 people the community hall, is a large community hall and has a basic objective of 478 square meters in size.
Now, having said that, the standards and criteria do allow a bit of flexibility for accommodations of what the community wishes in terms of what programming or what type of community hall use they might have in mind.
As most do, there is a desire for kitchen facilities, for example, then that community can be accommodated within reason as well.
There are guidelines and in all fairness sometimes they don’t quite fit.
We apply them as best we can to ensure some consistency across the different communities, but we realize that we have to keep things a little bit flexible and allow for some community preference and allow some custom features in certain instances.
And the basic answer to the question is a community hall for the size of the community like Cambridge Bay should be about 478 square meters in basic floor area.
I like to thank Mr. Dawe.
I appreciate what you are saying.
I use Cambridge Bay as an example because that is where I am from.
Would the current facility fall within the standards and criteria that you described; 400 and something square meters?
I will ask Mr. Dawe to respond.
Unfortunately I don’t have before any figures on the dimensions of the existing hall. I have seen the hall.
I would suspect that it probably does meet that criteria but I can’t attest to it for certain.
What we do find often is that the community halls that don’t meet the criteria are often the very much older ones on the border line communities. By border line I mean border line in size.
So, to use this 800 population figure as an example, if a community now has say, 900 people, but it’s community hall was built 20 years ago when there were only 700 people, then we’re probably missing that criteria by a long shot now.
If that community hall needs to be redone, it would be a considerable improvement in that particular one.
Cambridge Bay’s particular situation I would hazard a guess that it probably does meet the criteria, but I would have to stand for correction if I’m proven wrong on that.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and Mr. Dawe.
When I read through some of the other substantiation sheets for the community halls across Nunavut, I’m not sure who writes these up, but they use all kinds of descriptive information.
They’ll say things like the capacity is rated by the Fire Marshall’s Office for X number of people, it is too small; the building was built 20 years ago, that sort of stuff. And, I started thinking; well Cambridge Bay was built approximately 20 years ago. I think 1987 it was opened.
It probably is just border line right now. So, I’m wondering how your department - you said you went into the communities last May, I’m sure every community, or most of the communities have mentioned community halls to you - I’m wondering how you sit down and assess which communities in Nunavut are a priority for a community hall and which ones aren’t. You’ve got the capital standards criteria, but you’re talking about flexibility.
I’m wondering; have you sat down internally and listed all the community halls and all the communities across Nunavut by age, by the dates when they were renovated, when they were built at a certain time when there were 800 people, and now there are 2,000 people.
Have you factored all that in and ranked community halls in terms of priority for consideration for funding going forward under the new prioritization criteria that the Minister of Finance outlined for us last week?
Those are very good points that the member is raising. I have been to all of the communities in Nunavut except perhaps three, and I have visited some of those facilities.
I am aware that a lot of those facilities are aging, and they’re old. For example, I’ll use Rankin Inlet. It was built in 1987 with a struggle.
They couldn’t get it approved at the time, but it was built.
And when it was built, it was in the olden days when they didn’t really have to abide by building codes. When the building code came in, the Rankin Inlet arena and hall had to be upgraded to the specifications of the building codes.
When that happened, the hamlet had to work with the staff. Then it was called MACA.
Just to put the sprinklers, a little bit of piping, and a little bit of electrical work, it cost over $800,000 at that time.
There was no change, absolutely no changes for those few things that were required by building codes.
I know in other communities that a lot of these facilities are too small for the size of the population.
We all know that. There are 25 of them.
In order to have the work done, it’s going to require everyone’s cooperation, like the new committee, the Advisory Committee, NAM, the hamlet councils, and our staff.
I sit down with the staff and they explain to me what they’re doing and it’s very good that the communities be involved because it’s the community that knows what’s needed in their facilities and what the plans are for the capital projects.
With that new committee that was struck, I think these are really leading on to where there are big improvements.
I think every community is seeing something this year, in 2006-07, that almost every community is getting something one way or the other, whether it’s a small capital, or whether it’s a large capital.
I’m pleased to say that because we had a very good reception from all of the communities that we visited. I was happy with the progress that was happening.
So I thank the member for the insight that he brings because a lot of the communities are in very poor shape.
I’m not saying that there hasn’t been negligence in the past due to whether it’s funding, or whether Nunavut is new, or for the planning was two much at the time.
I’m sure we’re going to have more challenges in the future simply because we are in financial restraint at the time.
So we must really work together and put our heads together, and put everything on the table like this committee has done since September. They’ve done very good work with the MLAs involvement, and if they were ready to come to meetings, they came, but a lot of times, they’re busy, too. You guys are all busy people.
I know you guys travel just like all of us do. The communities request and ask that the ministers visit their communities more often. I keep hearing that every time we go into the communities.
I thank the member for bringing that insight, I think we needed to hear that; all the members had to hear that and the communities.
One of the things I noted in reading some of the substantiation sheets is that a new community hall nowadays, that’s in 2006, could cost as much as $3 million. And I think going forward; you’re probably looking at $4 million, upwards of $4 million for community halls.
I know from my experience in Cambridge Bay; and our community hall was originally built for...the original building was probably well under $1 million. The renovations due to the fire last year, I think they cost almost a million just for renovations.
I’m wondering if the minister...given the skyrocketing cost to construct new community halls in Nunavut communities, where are you going to find the money to address the need that is out there?
We have been quite fortunate that the Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund is available; it pays for 50 percent, but for the Government of Nunavut to come up with the other 50 percent of a $4 million building it is going to be very difficult.
I’m wondering how you would, looking forward at your five-year capital plan, how you are going to address the needs from all the other communities.
Thank you, member for that.
First, I would like to say that we have come a long ways because before when the per capita used to apply, that was not nearly enough to cover the whole of Nunavut.
If you remember in the first government, when the Premiers were having a meeting, the territorial Premiers walked out of the meeting in protest of changing the per capita funding and that was very successful and Yukon and Northwest Territories and Nunavut achieved their goal.
That is why we have Gas Tax money.
It was because the Premiers putting their heads together and that helped a lot and that is something that we are seeing now.
That has been applied since 2005 when that Committee was struck into your communities.
In the future, I am quite optimistic that each of the ministers can meet with their federal colleagues or federal ministers down in Ottawa and we lobby for more funds and we try to make them understand.
We invite them up here to make sure they see physically in their own eyes what we have to live with and I think that has to be done a lot more so that they understand how this infrastructure is and how all these facilities are.
I don’t like to see them that old. I’d like to see them up keep and that has not been done in the past and we are struggling.
I think the first government was trying very hard to find money and I think we are in a good grid because we have come a long ways.
And I think I will ask Mr. Dawe to expand on how we can acquire more funding in the future so that facilities can be looked at and plan ahead but we do need very much your involvement: the communities’ involvement and the elected officials.
And I will say again, the communities, when they do their capital projects that they don’t change around what their priorities are; stay in there. When they start to change, then you see that it doesn’t fit with the whole picture. There are so many hands in the pie.
Technical staff tries hard to achieve that goal. So I would like to ask Mr. Dawe to expand on that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There are a couple of particular things that the minister mentioned that point to some potential for improving our situation over the next little while and we are trying to address some of these short falls, one to which she alluded of course was the per capita funding formula that has been a stumbling block for Nunavut and for the other northern Territories, as well for some time when it comes to federal funding programs.
And I guess that is one very good example of where we have been generally very successful in pointing out our situation and the special circumstances of our case to the federal funding programs and to the other areas where decisions are made in this respect.
We have been very successful in pointing it out with regards as the minister said to the per capita funding formula. We have been successful in pointing out the differences in costs that apply to us versus southern jurisdictions. We’ve also been successful in pointing out the differences in eligibility of projects.
Many of these programs that we are funded under through the federal government have certain eligibility criteria that many jurisdictions can’t take advantage of.
A community hall is a good example of that because one of the programs the Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund allows for community recreation facilities.
We were successful in convincing the federal government that a community hall, while they don’t all have the necessary basketball court markings on the floor or for a volleyball court. They are indeed community cultural social and recreation facilities and very important to the health and well-being of our communities.
So that has expanded the availability of funds and we have been able to make better use of new funds coming in. Another initiative that we are pursuing is making better use of funds that we already have and in that respect we have recently initiated a new tool if you like and I’ve been corrected for my use of acronyms.
This one is called RECAP and I don’t know what the acronym stands for.
Basically re-use and re-engineering of existing facilities and it’s an infrastructure management program whereby as the member asked do we have an exact inventory of all the community halls. We don’t yet. We are working towards it, through this recap program.
This will be able to, once we can feed all the information in and get good studies, good reliable evaluations and inspections and estimates put in this system, we should be able to determine exactly what the shape is of all our community halls, and all our sewage lagoons, and all our front end loaders and it’s a large undertaking.
I’m sure you must appreciate, but it is something that we are working toward and something that will allow us to make much better use of money that we already have because it will tell us that this community hall needs replacement, whereas that community hall is still in good shape, and can be expanded to meet its needs, and save some money, as an example.
And I guess as stated earlier, that allows us a little bit of hope for improving financial times is that I guess it probably falls into the area of managing the expectations of what we want, and what we need.
And by that I mean, community halls as I said are very vital and important aspects of keeping our communities strong and healthy, and pursuing the way of life that we want.
Sometimes we all have to bite the bullet a little bit and realize that, okay, for the sake of a fancy finish that might look nice, you can substitute for that some internal process facilities that make it much more functional and usable and stretch the dollars along.  So those are the things that can be addressed, I guess as technology and try to address things as we go along.
Madame Minister, I would like to direct your staff to answer the questions very shortly because that is taking a lot of our time here, we have to deal with other things, too.
Thank you, Madame Minister, or Mr. Dawe. Thank you.
I personally find it very useful, I’m glad that you mentioned it’ll be in the Hansard for mayors and others to read.
One of the other things that probably should be considered is protection of the assets and ensuring that they are operating properly and they’re insured to their full value.