EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Again I realize, and it has been mentioned before, that this is a federal government program that we’re trying our best to assist the federal government with making recommendations, which they could either listen to or not listen to.
Mr. Peterson actually touched on some of the second part of my question in terms of the realm of responsibility that we do have.
Is there anything sort of territorially that you could put input into as to how we might be able to help with… ? I know Mr. Taptuna’s department, ED&T, is working on the Anti-Poverty Strategy and different things like that. While you’re here in the House with us, do you have any suggestions territorially that we could do to help put healthy, nutritious food on the tables of individuals across the territory?
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Elliott. Mr. Harper.
Mr. Harper: Well, one thing that hasn’t been discussed very much in the last couple of days is country food. While there’s provision for subsidy on country food in the program, I don’t think that has been very well thought through as to how it would actually work.
I think the federal officials, certainly at the meeting a couple of nights ago up in the high school, would have to agree with that, that it’s a working progress.
I think the ability to get caribou meat from a community that has lots of caribou to a community that has not so many caribou or no caribou perhaps in a particular year, it’s got to have some real thought and I don’t think the bureaucracy in Ottawa is particularly well equipped to deal with those.
Those are issues that are much better dealt with through recommendations that come from people such as yourselves and a body such as the legislature and through listening to people in the communities.
I know that one of the people at the meeting the other night expressed that it’s not so much a business that supplies. Sometimes it’s a business that supplies country food needing to be able to supply it to another business that needs country food in a different community.
Sometimes it might be a simple matter of you are here living in Iqaluit, where you can’t get seal meat or walrus meat or caribou meat at a particular time of year, and your brother is living up in Pond Inlet and has access to meat but he can’t afford the freight to get it to you. How do we make that possible?
I am not a hunter and I am not a country food retailer. I can help in identifying and verbalizing this problem, but I don’t have a solution to suggest. I think that might be one way in which northern input and the input of this legislature could be very valuable in making this work for people in the communities.
I suppose another part of the answer to your question would be to simply carry these items forward, the five items that Mr. Elliot identified, and find a way to get those before the bureaucrats in a meaningful way. Maybe that involves a delegation of a few people going to Ottawa and talking with the bureaucrats in an informal session. Maybe it involves going through the advisory board.
I would suggest trying to use that advisory board as much as you can. My impression, and somebody can correct me if I’m wrong, is that it is there for you to use as much as it is for individuals and retailers to use.
Give them your input so that they can have… . As I said, they don’t have any formal teeth and that is why they are advisory, but you give them the moral clout to speak forcefully to INAC about changes that they see necessary and that you see necessary.
Mr. Elliott, your final question based on your signal to me.
I’m sure everyone is happy that this is actually my final question.
Again I would really like to thank Mr. Harper. The quality and definitely the honesty in the answers that we received today are definitely a lot better than yesterday.
In terms of the Food Mail Program, in conversations that I’ve had with Nutrition North Canada, part of the reason they explained that it was better from food mail to Nutrition North was that the treasury board actually assigned $27 million every year for the Food Mail Program and we’re consistently… . I think I was told that $57 million is what the Food Mail Program was starting to run for the past couple of years. Now what they have done is they have capped it at $60 million.
Again, you’ve had a lot of experience over the years with the Food Mail Program and have seen it grow. They said part of the reason it has grown is because of abuse. I’m sure some if it has grown because of use in terms of population growth and whatnot.
Do you see any problems or concerns with… ? Sometimes when I look at the program and wonder what’s really happening, I really think that the treasury board is just trying to find a way of saving money.
If you cap it, then that’s where we’re stuck. We have a high population growth here.
Are we going to be trouble in the future if this is another 30-year program? Do you foresee problems with capping the program at $60 million and is that something we need to address when we’re addressing this with the federal government?
Mr. Harper: I’m concerned about there being a dollar cap on a program that is designed to do something for a population that is growing rapidly.
Common sense would tell me that you will hit the wall on that.
The amount of money expended on the program grew and grew wildly, and you have expressed it well.
It grew because there was population growth but it grew because there was abuse as well.
That abuse could not have happened without federal bureaucrats approving the things that were added to the list over the years.
It was them that allowed people to ship toasters, microwave ovens, washing machines, dishwashers, skidoo parts, and truck tires as food mail.
Sure, somebody out in the communities may have said, “I want to do this,” but somebody in Ottawa had to say, “Yes, you can do that.”
For them to say that the program was being abused is a little disingenuous because it was their agreement that allowed that abuse to happen.
It couldn’t have happened otherwise.
Presumably and hopefully it will be administered this time without this abuse happening.
I know it’s starting off in a way where the list is fairly well defined, so it will be imperative for them to make sure that this creeping abuse whereby one more item, then one more item, then a dishwasher, and then a microwave oven doesn’t get added and we end up back with the same level of abuse we had before.
So they’re going to have to be diligent in not allowing this abuse to happen.
Next year, for example, after October 2012, the cost of the program should be less as the items that were added back in, in March are taken finally off the list.
I don’t have a crystal ball, but without the abuse of items being on the list, who’s to say they will spend all of the $60 million? If it was $60 million with abuse, will it be $60 million without abuse? It may well be less and if it’s less, will the cap then be cut back so that you still don’t have room in future years for population growth?
In future years, without abuse, there should be two things that make the necessary dollar value be higher: one, population growth, which we have mentioned, but the other one is people eating in a healthier manner.
If their public education program that is supposed to accompany the Nutrition North Canada Program works, you would expect the same people to eat more healthy, nutritious perishable food than they were doing before, would you not?
So those should be the two drivers of increased volume: population growth and people eating more healthy food and displacing less healthy food from their diet.
Therefore, I would think and I would recommend that the program funding will have to be flexible.
I have one last question, really, and it starts with this preamble.
We supposedly live in a free market system, including air transportation, as well as marine cargo services.
Really, all of our contribution agreements or whatnot are not really geared towards a free market system. We’re really pretty much subsidizing all of the cargo, and so on.
Even if you have a contract, it’s not designed to have the best price, fair system, most efficient, and whatnot. It’s designed so that they all get a piece of the pie.
It means that we have to pretty well adopt the socialist kind of approach to make sure all of these entities that do business for transporting goods and services don’t go bankrupt. Where are we eventually going to draw the line, including with this new federal program?
I commented at home one time that this is really now designed as part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan. The economic action plan is designed to make sure that all of these old-timers who have been around and big players all benefit and thereby marginalize, what you just essentially told us and I alluded to them yesterday, the fastest growing population, very young families, and they can’t afford to ensure the safe environment for their homes because they just simply cannot afford it.
It’s not the fault of the retailers; it’s just that the federal program is not directing a bulk of that cost to them.
I think the Food Mail Program, in some ways, was helping those who are in a special category for health reasons, as well as the people with young families who were able to take advantage of that, including small competitors.
What I’m trying to get at is eventually we have to get into the most efficient, economical, and not have to worry about who gets out of the competition process because they failed to make profits or whatnot. I think profit isn’t the only thing. If the service is good, people will continue to support that and they will rely on that.
So my question really is: do you think there’s room for, even independently … ? Taking into consideration that we’re doing all kinds of options reviews of whether or not poverty reduction, if you translate it, should probably mean… .
Should we establish a subsidy program for young families that are in a vulnerable economic position, in your view?
Mr. Harper: Governments increasingly don’t like to use the word “subsidy” or hear the word “subsidy.”
I learned this in my discussions with both the Greenland side and the Canadian side in talking about the establishment of an air link to Greenland, but nobody wants to hear the word “subsidy.”
I think, in a fair society, there has to be room for consideration of subsidies in certain circumstances.
You mentioned in the context of young families. I don’t want to think of that subsidy just in terms of social assistance but in terms of something that’s uplifting and allows a family to live with dignity.
For that reason, I don’t know how many schools have, for example, school breakfast programs.
But I remember back, it’s a long time ago now, when we had a very visionary man as the head of the curriculum development department in the Department of Education in Yellowknife. Paul Robinson goes back many years, probably close to 40, 35 at least. He was always telling people at teachers’ conferences, “You can’t feed the mind if the body is starving.”
It’s imperative that the school have a breakfast program, for example, to prepare the kids for the learning that they have to do for the rest of that day.
If those children are living in circumstances where they’re not coming to school fed, this is certainly relevant to our discussion of nutrition.
I think school breakfast programs, for example, should be supported everywhere that there’s a demonstrable need for them. I know some schools do this but I know some places don’t.
I don’t know if the Department of Education has a policy on this or if it’s up to individual school administrations, but I think it’s part of encouraging and having a healthy society and healthy communities in the north.
I assume it’s coming into the discussions on poverty reduction strategies and I think it’s important… . Well, nobody should be going hungry, but especially children in their formative years shouldn’t be going hungry.
I’m not a policymaker, but maybe that’s as far as I should go in answering those questions or trying to contribute to those questions.
There being no more names on my list for questions to our witness, I would ask our witness if he has closing comments.
Mr. Harper: I don’t have any prepared closing comments, and I think we have covered a lot of ground and I know you covered a lot of ground yesterday.
As well, I know that you have heard some conflicting perspectives.
My perspectives differ quite a bit from those of my competitors at the North West Company and Arctic Co-operatives, but I think we do all have one thing in common and one common thread through our remarks is that we recognize the need for this subsidy program to be in existence to stabilize and keep as low as possible the costs for nutritious perishable foods in all of the communities of Nunavut.
I think all three of us who have spoken are in agreement on that.
We have some differences of opinion in how to get there and we certainly have some differences of opinion on the level playing field for transportation costs, but the goal is the same for anybody with a responsible commitment to the communities that they’re doing business in and that is to support and encourage the development and growth of healthy communities, physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy communities.
Through subsidized nutritional perishable food is one of a number of ways, but it’s the way we’re addressing it today. It’s one way of getting there and achieving that goal.
So I simply want to thank you for the opportunity you have given me by inviting me here to share my ideas on this with you.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Harper for taking the time to appear today. It is appreciated.
I would now like to ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witness out. (interpretation) Thank you.
(interpretation ends) I now would like to recognize Mr. Rumbolt.
All those opposed. No one?
Speaker: Moving on in the Orders of the Day, Item 20.
Your committee has concluded the discussion with the witness from the Arctic Ventures 2000 and I move that the Report of the Committee of the Whole be agreed to.
Any opposed? I didn’t think so.
Moving on in the Orders of the Day to Third Reading of Bills.
This House stands adjourned until Friday, June 3, at 9:00 a.m.
>>House adjourned at 17:34
Friday, June 3, 2011
Pages 756 – 794
Opening Prayer 756
Ministers’ Statements 756
Members’ Statements 759
Oral Questions 769
Revert to Item 5: Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery 786
Reports of Standing and Special Committees on Bills and Other Matters 787
Tabling of Documents 787
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters 788
Third Reading of Bills 793
Orders of the Day 793
Friday, June 3, 2011 756
035 – 3(3): Curbing Childhood Obesity - Champion (Curley) 756
036 – 3(3): National Hunger Awareness Day (Aariak) 757
037 – 3(3): Environment Week 2011 (Shewchuk) 758
038 – 3(3): Update on the Nunavut Business Credit Corporation (Taptuna) 758
039 – 3(3): Thank you to the National School of Dental Therapy (Shewchuk) 759
059 – 3(3): Training Opportunities on Nunavut’s Research Vessel (Schell) 759
060 – 3(3): In Support of Social Justice (Aupaluktuq) 760
061 – 3(3): Sanikiluaq’s Teamathon Participants (Rumbolt) 761
062 – 3(3): Passing of Louis Anakanerk (Ugyuk) 762
063 – 3(3): Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Tapardjuk) 763
064 – 3(3): Mine Training Success Stories (Ningeongan) 764
065 – 3(3): Congratulations to Ian Taptuna and Other Graduates of Kugluktuk School (Taptuna) 765
066 – 3(3): Tribute to Retired Leaders (Elliott) 766
067 – 3(3): Arctic Co-operatives New Recycling Program (Ningark) 767
068 – 3(3): Congratulations to Cambridge Bay Graduates (Peterson) 768
069 – 3(3): Review of Nutrition North Canada Program (Curley) 768
093 – 3(3): Contracting Practices (Schell) 769
094 – 3(3): Cancer Screening and Prevention in Nunavut (Ugyuk) 773
095 – 3(3): Environment Week 2011 (Tapardjuk) 776
096 – 3(3): Polar Bear Co-Management Issues in Hudson Bay (Rumbolt) 778
097 – 3(3): Bedbugs in Boarding Homes (Ningark) 780
098 – 3(3): Government Restructuring (Elliott) 783
099 – 3(3): Dental Care Issues (Aupaluktuq) 784
Committee Report 003 – 3(3): Bill 2, An Act to Amend the Scientists Act (Ningeongan) 787
045 – 3(3): Nunavut Business Credit Corporation Annual Report 2009-2010 (Taptuna) 787
046 – 3(3): Correspondence from Sheila Fraser on the Audit of the Nunavut Business Credit Corporation ending March 31, 2010 (Aariak) 787
047 – 3(3): Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment Meeting, October 21, 2010 (Shewchuk) 787
Bill 02 – An Act to Amend the Scientists Act – Consideration in Committee 788
Bill 02 – An Act to Amend the Scientists Act – Third Reading 793
Speaker (Hon. Hunter Tootoo) (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) Ullaakkut, everybody.
Maybe before we get started, I would like to ask Mr. Shewchuk if he could lead us off with a prayer, please.
Speaker: Good morning, everybody.
We’re going to start off on the Orders of the Day, Item 2.
Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Curley.
Minister’s Statement 035 – 3(3): Curbing Childhood Obesity - Champion (Curley)
Hon. Tagak Curley (interpretation): Mr. Speaker, childhood obesity is a national problem that has been getting national attention and support through the development of a new childhood obesity framework and strategy.
Governments at the federal, territorial, and provincial levels are working together to help obese and overweight children get back to a healthy weight through a strategy aimed at helping people lead a lifestyle that incorporates healthy eating and exercise.
Last week, my department met with youth in Iqaluit to talk about childhood obesity.
The information gathered during this discussion will be shared at an upcoming national summit on childhood obesity later this fall.
As the Minister of Health and Social Services, it is important to me to be the Nunavut champion of this national move to curb childhood obesity before they enter the schools.
Rates of childhood obesity have been steadily increasing, and being overweight in early childhood and adolescence increases the chance of being overweight in adulthood.
Years of carrying excess weight raises the risk of developing chronic illnesses, all of which require expensive health care treatment.
Mr. Speaker, the national strategy on curbing childhood obesity is welcome and complements a number of my department’s existing strategies and programs. These include but are not limited to:
Maternal and Newborn Health Strategy  Public Health Strategy (2008-2013)
Nunavut Food Guide, which is often discussed nationally.
Taking action today to help young Nunavutmiut plan their path to maintaining a healthy weight is critical to their future and for Nunavutmiut.
Speaker: We will move on. Ministers’ Statements.
Madam Premier, Minister of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs.
Minister’s Statement 036 – 3(3): National Hunger Awareness Day (Aariak)
Hon. Eva Aariak (interpretation): Good morning, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) First of all, Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to your new role, and although we will miss your contribution to the cabinet, I am sure you will excel in your position.
(interpretation) First of all, I am going to be reading this in English, Mr. Speaker. I know that our Inuktitut interpreters will be able to interpret it properly.
(interpretation ends) Mr. Speaker, National Hunger Awareness Day was this week and it is another reminder that too many Nunavummiut go to bed hungry every evening.
For 10 years, the Niqinik Nuatsivik Nunavut Food Bank has been fighting community hunger one person at a time here in Iqaluit.
I would like to thank the volunteers and everyone who has volunteered with food banks across our territory.
Your services have helped so many, and sadly, the demand continues.
Uqaqtittijii, our government is committed to ensuring that the basic needs of all Nunavummiut are met and to reducing poverty and its effects. However, we recognize that poverty is a complex problem that cannot be addressed effectively by government alone or by any one organization.
That is why we are collaborating with Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, municipal governments, non-profit groups, and our business community.
Together we have supported community dialogues on poverty reduction, focus groups with elders and with youth, and currently, regional round tables on our policy options for poverty reduction.
Food security has been central to these discussions.
Mr. Speaker, through public engagement, our government and our partners will arrive at solutions together, each taking responsibility for its own part in poverty reduction.
These responsibilities will be detailed in a joint Nunavut Poverty Reduction Action Plan to be decided at a poverty summit scheduled for Iqaluit November 28 to 30, 2011.
While Minister Taptuna will be speaking about this in more detail next week, I did not want to let the World Hunger Awareness Day pass without proper recognition.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to take a moment tonight to consider what it might feel like to go to bed hungry. Hunger is one of the few cravings that cannot be appeased with another solution.
Hunger should not be an option for anyone.
I encourage all Nunavummiut to work together for a solution. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Environment, Minister Shewchuk.
Minister’s Statement 037 – 3(3): Environment Week 2011 (Shewchuk)
June 5 to 11 marks Canadian Environment Week, which is dedicated to raising environmental awareness and appreciation across the country.
I would like to take this opportunity to share with you public education and awareness initiatives my department is undertaking during this week.
This year, for the second annual Environment Week Challenge, we are asking Nunavutmiut to share with us what environmental stewardship means to them.
The goal of this campaign is to inspire people to reflect and take pride in both the environment and the age-old traditions that continue to help people live in harmony with the land.
In addition to the Environment Week Challenge, my department is continuing its work on a territory-wide anti-littering campaign. Accordingly, we have once again partnered with organizations and other government departments to organize community cleanup events throughout Nunavut.
Mr. Speaker, I truly believe that education and awareness are essential to Nunavut’s continued dedication to environmental stewardships.
>>Applause  Speaker: Thank you, Minister Shewchuk.
Minister’s Statement 038 – 3(3): Update on the Nunavut Business Credit Corporation (Taptuna)
Good morning to my colleagues here and good morning to my constituency of Kugluktuk and Nunavummiut.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to provide the Members of this House with an update on the Nunavut Business Credit Corporation and the audit of its 2009-2010 fiscal year, as promised during the October session.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that the corporation has finally emerged from a history of denied opinions by the Auditor General of Canada. In April, Madam Fraser provided an audit opinion on the Nunavut Business Credit Corporation’s 2009-2010 financial statements that, apart from its failure to meet its statutory deadline, was overall positive.
In her role as Auditor General, Madam Fraser even expressed surprise over all that has been accomplished since her last visit and acknowledged the improvements that have occurred to address the serious concerns and deficiencies she raised in her 2007 report to the Legislative Assembly.
This is a significant accomplishment for which the Nunavut Business Credit Corporation’s board, its management and staff deserve much recognition, along with the Department of Economic Development and Transportation and the Public Agencies Council.
This highlights what can be achieved through a commitment toward improvement, shared focus on key priorities, and dedication of appropriate resources.
Mr. Speaker, the Nunavut Business Credit Corporation can now take a more proactive role in fulfilling its mandate to foster economic development and create employment for all Nunavummiut.
Minister of Nunavut Arctic College, Minister Shewchuk.
Minister’s Statement 039 – 3(3): Thank you to the National School of Dental Therapy (Shewchuk)