EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Mr. Speaker, I would like to announce that communities meeting the departments' financial reporting criteria will be eligible to receive quarterly funding once the main estimates have been approved.
Mr. Speaker quarterly payments are the best way for helping communities meet the Bathurst Mandate initiatives for healthy communities and self-reliance.
It will give communities greater authority, responsibility, build capacity and enhance control over their financial well being.
It will make communities more accountable to themselves and it will allow communities a greater opportunity to generate revenue based on the potential they can earn on the advanced funds.
Mr. Speaker the Department of Community Government and Transportation supports quarterly payments as one way in which Nunavummiut can take charge of their own affairs and their own futures.
Minister's Statement 55 – 1(3): Open Custody Contractors Conference
As members are aware the Department of Justice has approved a number of community based corrections facilities over the past three years, five open custody camps, one open custody home and two alternative homes have been approved across Nunavut.
These facilities will allow low-risk offenders to reside in a less restrictive environment and they aim to help offenders gain skills on the land and become more involved in the communities.
These facilities are an important aspect of our efforts to deal with our offenders, both youth and adults, in a more appropriate and effective way.
It is another way that communities are taking a direct role in justice.
These facilities are run under contract and the contractors are skilled in running their facility.
However they have not had the opportunity to meet as a group to share their professional approaches nor to meet together with Department of Justice officials to discuss the new procedures for their facility.
Mr. Speaker, we are therefore holding a three-day conference for open custody contractors in Iqaluit this month.
The purpose of the conference is to provide an opportunity for open custody contractors to meet with each other and with Corrections staff.
The aims of the conference are to establish on-going communications between the operators and the Department of Justice so that information can be easily obtained and shared, increase knowledge of the different ways the camps and houses implement their programs, identify future training needs, contribute to the revisions and the development of procedures for getting open custody facilities.
(interpretation) Mr. Speaker, delegates will include Department of Justice representatives from each open custody facility, community contacts from communities with open custody facilities and presenters from groups such as the fire department and emergency measures.
Our move to open custody facilities is a significant response to the need to keep low-risk offenders out of jail and to give communities more responsibility in caring and counselling for individuals with problems.
Conferences like the one this month will help to ensure the most effective operations of these facilities in that the most effective operations of these facilities is in the interest of the offenders and our communities.
Minister's Statement 56 – 1(3): Curriculum Initiatives
I'm pleased to announce several curriculum initiatives which will begin to improve the quality of education we are delivering in our school system.
The quality of education is dependent on the quality of curriculum and the resources we provide to deliver courses.
Good curriculum ensures better teachers and promotes improved achievement levels.
Education Nunavut is mandated to provide curriculum that is embedded in Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, that promotes strong bilingual language skills, that is holistic and integrated and that reflects the culture of the students and community.
This mandate requires that we make significant changes not just in what we teach but how we organize schools.
The critical research studies in language and the instruction curriculum resource development strategy will help the early childhood and school services division develop long-term plans to meet the needs of students in Nunavut.
However we already know that the existing curriculum has significant gaps.
There is no curriculum for Inuktitut, Innuinaqtun or second languages.
There is no curriculum about Nunavut.
There is no curriculum designed to help our students cope with the rapid changes and significant challenges which they face daily in our communities.
For the last thirty years Inuit educators have been promised curriculum and resources for teaching in Inuktitut.
The Federal Government has funded this work yet after thirty years there is very little to show for it.
Our Inuit teachers are frustrated and tired of hearing the promises and they have been promised time and time again that these would be complied with and many have lost confidence in us and have moved to other career areas.
The other consequence is that our children have been deprived when our teachers are resigning from their work.
They are exposed to a southern school environment at the expense of their history, language and culture.
We know too well the effect de-culturation has had in our communities. We must act, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we must produce Inuktitut resources immediately for our classrooms.
I am pleased to be able to announce that significant work in this area has been accomplished since April 1, 1999 for the opening of the new school year.
In Nunavut we will be able to have curriculum and resources available for all grade levels for Inuktitut language arts.
The work is not nearly complete but we have begun. (interpretation ends) We require second language curriculum for English, French, Inuktitut and Innuinaqtun.
Development of these curricula is awaiting the recommendation of the language of instruction research.
Mr. Speaker, in the meantime staff are preparing guidelines and benchmarks for second language courses which will be available to teachers for the new school year.
Our children need to learn about their rich heritage and unique environment.
Nunavusiutiit will be the social studies curriculum that allows for children to learn about and to take pride in who they are and where they live.
If we do not begin to define Nunavut others will do it for us.
We need to be the ones doing the teaching, both for ourselves and for students outside Nunavut.
Our students need to have a strong sense of who they are, a positive understanding of their place in the world and the knowledge they are equipped to cope with the changes and challenges that face them.
Inuqataginiq is another new curriculum that will help address these needs.
So many of our students are at immediate risk that the need for a course that will help them develop skills, capacity and strong collective cultural identity is critical. (interpretation) Mr. Speaker, although we have many other projects on the go, I want to focus on the three that are most essential.
These three areas have been identified as high priorities for ECNSS, however we also face significant funding issues.
Curriculum design and development is a long and costly process.
We require extensive collaboration with elders, resource people, school-based educators, students and parents if we are going to do the job properly.
We must field-test new curricula, develop assessment tools, design guidelines and in-service workshops for teachers, identify and produce resource materials to accompany the curriculum document.
(interpretation ends) Printing documents and distributing them to schools is an additional cost.
ECNSS has no actual budget for any of this work.
We will be looking for funding and support for curriculum development so our students and Inuit educators finally receive the support and the resources and the leadership they deserve.
Member's Statement 111 - 1(3): Repulse Bay Concerns
Mr. Alakannuark (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Speaker, my constituents have given me this honour and privilege to sit at the Legislative Assembly as a member and I have heard from the people in Repulse Bay.
They have forwarded their concerns and there are a number of issues that have not been addressed.
My constituents would like to participate in the Nunavut process, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, while serving my term I will work to the best of my ability to represent the needs of my constituency.
Repulse Bay would like to be well prepared for the future.
Right now I am very proud of the fact that they have given me this document to express that they would like to be well prepared.
I will table that document during the budget session.
Members' Statements. Mr. Irqittuq.
Member's Statement 112 - 1(3): Hall Beach School Addition
I will make sure that I speak within the time limit.
Mr. Speaker, last week I asked the Minister of Education about the school addition in Hall Beach.
The Minister answered that this project has been delayed and the needs had to be considered along with all the other needs in Nunavut.
Mr. Speaker, I have learned that the plans were well advanced in the past, over a year ago community consultations took place and an architect began on the plans for an addition.
I'm told that the drawings were three quarters of the way to being finished.
When the project was stopped, it is my understanding that all the projects were stopped by the new government.
The only projects that were allowed to continue were projects where the work had already started.
Projects where contracts had been issued to a contractor to start site work or building or where there were serious health and safety considerations.
Mr. Speaker, the Arnaqjuaq School in Hall Beach was built for kindergarten to grade 9.
Since it was built we are offering up to grade 12 in Hall Beach, but the school was not built with that in mind.
It has only eight classrooms.
This fall there were 214 students in that school, ten more than last year.
Mr. Speaker, the school is full and the principal tells me that they are having to hold classes in the library.
The new grade 10 to 12 programs are taking up space that was meant for the kindergarten to grade 9 program, Mr Speaker…
Speaker (interpretation): Your time is up Mr. Irqittuq.
Mr. Irqittuq (interpretation): Mr. Speaker I am requesting from the members that I’d like to complete my statement.
Speaker (interpretation): Any objections to the request.
Please proceed Mr. Irqittuq.
The school is full.
The principal tells me they are having to hold classes in the library.
The new grade 10 to 12 programs are taking up space that was meant for the kindergarten to grade 9 program.
Mr Speaker, the minister has said that he will be developing a capital plan for education this coming year.
I’m urging the minister to put a high priority on the projects like the Hall Beach school addition where planning was well underway.
Where the design was almost complete and where there was a strong need.
Member's Statement 113 - 1(3): Suicides in Nunavut
Here in Nunavut our life has changed.
Our society has changed drastically and we have felt the effects back in the 1970s and after the 70s a number of young people, mostly men, have committed suicide.
It was strange then Mr. Speaker, that I think perhaps our young people at that time were introduced to a different time and we have since then tried to develop or come up with a strategy that would help young people.
We would ask the different organizations that had certain responsibilities or delegate some other organization to look into this suicide issue.
But since the 70s to now there’s over 400 suicides.
If we are looking at the statistics, one small community has been wiped out by looking at the statistics.
Perhaps sometimes it doesn’t impact on us, since April 1st to today there have been 24, I know I’m sure there’s over 22, but there are about 24 now.
So, that wipes out one classroom, that’s an example.
They’re all over Nunavut and I think the community leaders should perhaps address this issue more aggressively in order to help their young people.
So if you go into a classroom, that’s since April 1st until now there’s 24 students that have committed suicide, young people that have committed suicide, so, Mr Speaker, I would urge the leadership and the community leaders to address this very serious issue.
I would urge the leadership to be more sensitive to the young people in their communities as to how they should address this very serious problem of suicide.
I thank you very much Mr. Speaker.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Jack Anawak.
Member's Statement 114 - 1(3): Inadequate Education Funding
Mr. Tootoo: Mr. Speaker I rise today to express my strong concern about the reduced funding for education.
Yesterday, a class of grade 5 students at Nakasuk School in Iqaluit had to be cancelled because no substitute teacher was available.
The principal of Nakasuk school tells me that one of the reasons for their increasing difficulty in getting substitute teachers in Iqaluit is that substitute teachers are unwilling to take the responsibility for the large classrooms which have sadly become the norm in our schools.
In Nakasuk School in Iqaluit, for example, the school is projecting an average class size of 31 for Inuktitut programs unless there is some relief.
These pressures of class size are taking their toll on our teachers as well.
I know of several qualified teachers in Iqaluit who have left their crowded classrooms to take office jobs with the government of Nunavut, in much less stressful situations.
The loss of even one trained Inuit teacher is a tragic setback for the goals we all support of enhancing the Inuktitut language and culture in our education system.
I am wondering if we need to consider providing financial incentives to teachers as we did to the nurses in Nunavut earlier this year.
The pressures are not just in classrooms, our schools are very short of money for materials and supplies.
Our middle school Aqsarniit, which was opened to students this year, had to launch a public appeal for books for its library.
In the 1992/93 school year there were 50 teachers for 850 students in Iqaluit.
This year there are 1,050 students in Iqaluit, but under the current formula, the funding formula provides them with only 49.5 teachers.
Schools in Iqaluit in the coming year, because of the growth in enrolment, will be short approximately 1.5 million dollars just to keep the same level of service as this year.
Mr. Speaker, in recent news reports the Minister of Finance talks about a sizeable budget surplus for this fiscal year.
Today, on CBC radio, I heard him say that preliminary estimates indicate that the surplus could be between 30 and 40 million dollars.
The government of Nunavut has said that education and housing are two of its main priorities.
I look forward to seeing these stated priorities reflected in concrete action.
Member's Statement 115 - 1(3): Government Phone/Fax Lists
I rise today to express the concerns of my constituents in Broughton Island regarding the new telephone and fax listing of the government of Nunavut.
Mr. Speaker, although the government of Nunavut are able to communicate in a variety of ways, with wonderful new technology, the smaller communities are neglected to be informed of the very basics of new telephone numbers and fax numbers.
This has resulted in correspondence not being relayed in a timely fashion or even lost.
Mr. Speaker, it would be appreciated if the departments could provide these smaller communities with their new telephone and fax numbers.
Member's Statement 116 - 1(3): DARE Program
Mr McLean: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise today to talk about a program being run in the Baker Lake school and I believe other Nunavut communities called the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program.
In grades 5 and 6, it helps students recognize and resist the many direct and subtle pressures that influence them to experiment with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other inhalants or to even more serious drugs that end up leading to violence and other things.
The DARE program offers preventive measures to help families, schools and communities and Mr. Speaker, the program works.
I would like to take this time to thank the RCMP detachment in Baker Lake and especially Constable Jennifer Ebert who delivers this program and helps build self-esteem.
Speaker (interpretation): Ma'na, Mr. McLean.
Member's Statement 117 - 1(3): Tribute to Mike Bruce
Later when we move to item 5, I will recognize certain visitors but at this time I’d like to recognize one of the visitors, my father's younger brother Mr. Mike Bruce.
I’d like to recognize him because he has been employed by the CBC for a number of years and he has been in the southern hospitals because of his lung situation. I’d like to thank him for attending, being a visitor in the gallery and I am very thankful to the nursing staff for being very helpful to Mr. Mike Bruce, and I am sure you all know Mr. Mike Bruce who was formerly a CBC employee.
I was very young when he was down south and I only saw him after a number of years.
He can read English and write in English and I think he can speak a bit of the native languages and I think he also speaks some Hungarian.
I’d like to recognize my uncle, I was named after his former wife, because he’s a widower and I’d like to thank him very much for being here with us today.
Member's Statement 118 - 1(3): Sanikiluaq Soccer and Basketball Teams
Back in 1972 in Coral Harbour I was in Coral for a month and I would like to recognize Mr. Mike Bruce.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to recognize the achievement of the athletes from Sanikiluaq at the recent soccer and basketball tournament held last week in Kuujjuarapik Quebec
These age groups consist of grades 9, 10 and 11.
The boys' team placed first in soccer and sixth in basketball.
Team members are Meeko Qavvik, Daniel Qavvik, my son Ippu Kattuk, Sam Iqallak, Peter Qavvik, Carson Iqaluk Timothy Cowcharlie.
Also the girls' team placed 8th in soccer and 8th in basketball.
Players on the girls' team are Linda Iqaluk, Wanda Qavvik, Winnie Arragutainak, Charlotte Crow, Karlie Meeko, Sarah Cookie and Mary Cookie.
Coaches were David Ford and Eva Aragutainak.
Mr. Speaker I know members will wish to join me in congratulating these athletes for playing hard and doing well.
At this time I would like to welcome the children of this school.
They are in grade 8 and their teacher's name is Miss Coralee Smith.
I would also like to recognize the grade 7 class who are also going to school here and this teacher used to work in Arctic Bay, Julie Miller.
Mr Speaker it gives me a great deal of pleasure to recognise the new Mayor of Arviat, David Alagalak.
Speaker (interpretation): Welcome to our gallery.
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery Mr. Anawak.
I would like to recognize the Keewatin community leaders.
Possibly what I could can do is say their names and where they come from. Simon Okpatauyak Mayor of Rankin Inlet, Johnny Ningeongan Mayor of Coral Harbour, David Alagalak Mayor of Arviat, Jacopie Ikinilik Mayor of Baker Lake, Donat Milortuk mayor of Repulse Bay, Joe Angotingoar Deputy Mayor of Repulse Bay and Annie Napayok representing Whale Cove.
These are the community leaders of Keewatin and we will have a meeting with them.
I would like to recognize them at this time.
I would like to recognize also Peter Tatty and his son, along with co-owner of M&T Enterprises Ray Mercer.
I would also like to recognize Sheila Malloy who is the Co-ordinator at the group home and my niece Andrea Glen.
Also we have Nauya Williams if you don’t know this person, she used to be from Coral Harbour and also the original Rankin Inlet resident Mike Bruce.
Welcome to the gallery. Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery.
I would like to recognize a person from my other community, their names were ready already mentioned but Donat Milortuk are here from the community of Repulse Bay which is in my constituency.
Mr. James Arvaluk.
Hon. James Arvaluk (interpretation): Thank you Mr Speaker.
They were recognized already, the mayor John Ningeongan, the mayor of Coral Harbour and this morning Mr. Speaker even when the cabinet was meeting I agreed to go to the high school to give out awards for the science fair.
We gave out medals, the Assistant Deputy Minister was also there.
I would like to recognize some of the grade 5, 6 and 7 students who were participants in the awards ceremony.
Their parents were also in the classroom.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you Mr Arvaluk.
Welcome to the gallery those people that Mr. Arvaluk recognized.
Mr. Tootoo: Thank you Mr. Speaker in keeping with trying to recognize a relative of mine here in Rankin Inlet every day…
(Audio unavailable)
Speaker: Mr. Iqaqrialu
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Speaker I become very aware when we don’t recognize everybody who is in the gallery, so at this time I would like to take the opportunity to recognize all the people of Nunavut. Thank you Mr. Speaker
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Iqaqrialu I will recognize all the people of Nunavut then.
I recognize a few people but I never mentioned it formally in the house.
There’s a person here who I went to school with for two years in the Sivuliuqtiit program.
He’s standing down there by the door Robert Nowkatsi I would like to recognize him.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Akesuk, recognition of visitors in the gallery.
Hon. Jack Anawak (interpretation): I apologize Mr. Speaker, we have leaders here that I had forgotten to mention the first time around.
In the whole of Nunavut there were competitions for the Arctic winter games.
There were some people who went to Kugluktuk, Naujaat, Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, Cambridge Bay and I tell you sometimes it’s so sad to see your own community lose when they worked very hard.
It’s also a very happy event when you see the people who win.
We have three pages who will be going to play soccer at the Arctic Winter Games in Whitehorse, Amy Kaludjak I’m not quite sure which one it is Amy Kalujjak and Joe Annkin and Laura Merrit they will be going to Whitehorse to play soccer.
Mr. Puqiqnak(interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Before I recognize anyone possibly what I can do is give you a short story.
When the snowmobile first started coming up to northern communities and when we first saw the snowmobiles available for sale in the store, the first one I saw was in Gjoa Haven at the Hudson Bay Company.
At that time this person and myself, my great friend Ray Mercer and I got a Ski-doo there.
Ray Mercer was the Hudson’s Bay Company manager and my friend and I bought a Ski-doo for 850 dollars per Ski-doo.
We bought that Ski-doo and then we went camping and hunting and at that time I don’t believe he had any children when he went to Uqsuqtuq and when he left they had children.
I think that was the first time that snowmobiles arrived in the northern communities.
So at this time I would like to recognize this particular person Ray Mercer who provided us with the snowmobiles and the parts. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
All the people that I was going to recognize were named by Mr. Anawak but even though that’s the case, I welcome the Deputy Mayor Annie Napayuk representing the Hamlet and we will be going over there around 6:30 p.m. this evening.
I would also like to recognize Silo Connelly who’s just walked in.
Going back to the orders of the day, item 6.
Question 182 - 1(3): Canada/Nunavut Language Agreement
Earlier this year both the Yukon and NWT signed an agreement with the Federal Government to secure funds for the preservation and enhancement of aboriginal languages.
Could the minister inform the house as to the status of the Canada/Nunavut agreement.
The agreement has already been signed and our staff members and the Federal Government have been working on this together.
We will be focusing on French language, Inuinnaqtun language and the Inuktitut language.
We're focusing on these and we're trying to find funding for these programs right now.
Thank you Mr. Speaker, I will be addressing these a bit later on.
Question 183 - 1(3): Federal Gun Legislation
My question, which I brought up in October, will be directed again to Minister of Justice in regards to the gun legislation.
Possibly what I can do is provide a preamble.