EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Pursuant to our Rule 62(2), I will seek consent of the House to waive the one-day notice period in order to allow Bill 31 to be read for the second time today.
The Government House Leader is seeking unanimous consent to waive Rule 62(2) to allow for second reading of Bill 31. Are there any nays?
There are no nays. Please proceed, Minister Picco.
Bill 31 – Legislative Assembly Statutes Amendment Act, 2008 – Second Reading
I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Cambridge Bay, that Bill 31, the Legislative Assembly Statutes Amendment Act, 2008, be read for the second time.
Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act to clarify the provisions respecting the oaths that are taken by members and to correct technical errors.
This bill also amends the Legislative Assembly Retiring Allowances Act to increase the maximum age for contributions, years of service and commencement of allowances from 69 to 71 years of age.
The bill also ensures that an election for a lump sum payment includes the option of transferring a portion of that value of the allowance and corrects technical errors.
Finally, the bill amends the Supplementary Retiring Allowances Act to increase the maximum age for contributions, years of service and commencement of allowances from 69 to 71 years of age and corrects technical errors.
Speaker (interpretation): The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill.
The motion is carried and Bill 31 has had its second reading.
Second Reading of Bills. (interpretation ends) Government House Leader, Minister Picco.
Hon. Ed. Picco: Thank you. On a Point of Order, Mr. Speaker, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to waive Rule 67(2) and have Bill 31 moved into the Committee of the Whole.
The Government House Leader is asking for unanimous consent to waive Rule 67(2) to have Bill 31 moved to Committee of the Whole.
Bill 31 will be moved to Committee of the Whole.
Item 18. Second Reading of Bills. (interpretation ends) Mr. House Leader, Minister Picco.
Pursuant to our Rule 62(2), I seek the consent of our House to waive the one-day notice period in order to allow Bill 32 to be read for the second time today.
The Government House Leader is asking for unanimous consent to waive Rule 62(2) to allow for second reading of Bill 32.
Are there no nays? There are no nays.
Bill 32 – An Act to Amend the Nunavut Elections Act, No. 2 – Second Reading
Hon. Ed. Picco: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to our colleagues.
I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Cambridge Bay, that Bill 32, An Act to Amend the Nunavut Elections Act, No. 2, be read for the second time.
Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Nunavut Elections Act to exclude the constituency of Hudson Bay from the need for an Electoral Boundaries Commission in the period between the mandatory 10-year review of boundaries and to exclude it from the calculation of the electoral quotient.
The Chief Electoral Officer will be obliged, before an election, to inform the public of persons who are ineligible to be candidates in the elections because of failure to file a financial return or because they were expelled from the Legislative Assembly for an offence.
It also, Mr. Speaker, will do a minor housekeeping amendment to correct a typographical error which is also included.
The motion is carried and Bill 32 has had its second reading.
Hon. Ed. Picco: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On a Point of Order, I ask and seek the unanimous consent of our House to waive Rule 67(2) and have Bill 32 moved into the Committee of the Whole.
The Government Leader is asking for unanimous consent to waive Rule 67(2) so that Bill 32 can proceed directly to Committee of the Whole.
There are no nays and Bill 32 is moved into Committee of the Whole for today. (interpretation) Thank you.
Bill 26, 27, 30, 31, and 32 with Mr. Arreak in the Chair.
Just before we proceed with Committee of the Whole, we will take a 20-minute break.
>>House recessed at 15:13 and Committee resumed at 15:41
I would like to call the committee meeting to order. In Committee of the Whole, we have the following items to deal with: Bills 26, 27, 30, 31, and 32.
We wish to review Bill 31, followed by Bill 32 and once completed, we will report progress.
Do you agree to deal with Bill 31 and Bill 32, and once completed, report progress?
Bill 31 – Legislative Assembly Statutes Amendment Act, 2008 – Consideration in Committee
Chairman (interpretation): I would now like to ask our Law Clerk (interpretation ends) to join us.
Chairman: There she is (interpretation) and she will be waiting there. (interpretation ends) I would now like to ask the Speaker to make his opening remarks. Mr. Speaker.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to appear today before the Committee of the Whole to introduce Bill 31, Legislative Assembly Statutes Amendment Act, 2008.
Mr. Chairman, Bill 31 addresses a number of technical issues that the Management and Services Board has identified.
I would like to take some time to highlight these for members today.
Firstly, Bill 31 corrects the spelling of the name of the constituency of Tununiq to ensure that the English version accurately reflects the original Inuktitut.
I would like to thank the Member for Tununiq for having drawn this issue to our attention.
Bill 31 also clarifies certain provisions respecting the oaths of allegiance and office that are to be taken by members by ensuring that a member is not required to take the same oath on more than one occasion.
(interpretation ends) Mr. Chairman, Bill 31 also provides for a number of technical measures in relation to the Legislative Assembly Retiring Allowances Act and the Supplementary Retiring Allowances Act.
Mr. Chairman, as you may recall, the 2007 federal budget amended the Income Tax Act to change the required retirement date for federally-regulated retirement plans to the end of the year in which the member of the plan reaches the age of 71.
The previous age limit was 69.
This change makes our Acts compliant with federal income tax and pension legislation.
At present, Mr. Chairman, members who retire have the option of transferring the value of their Retiring Allowances Act pension to their own personal RRSP.
However, the Canada Revenue Agency limits the amount that can be transferred from the RAA to an RRSP.
The maximum value of the transfer may leave a residual cash payment which, when received, is taxable at the maximum rates. (interpretation) This amendment, Mr. Chairman, to our legislation allows for the member to have a smaller portion of the payout transferred to an RRSP and the residual cash value paid out as a pension over a period of years to age 65.
This will be taxed at a lower marginal tax rate. I would note that in developing this amendment, an advance ruling was sought and received from the Canada Revenue Agency.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening comments. I look forward to responding to any questions or comments that members may have.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Speaker Kilabuk.
Do you wish to have your officials brought to the table?
Yes, if you don’t mind, I would like Rob Vandersanden from Hewitt Associates to join us at the witness table. He will respond to any questions that you may have, Mr. Chairman.
You already mentioned your official’s name, but for the record, could you introduce him, please.
On my left is Rob Vandersanden from Hewitt Associates who deals with pensions for the members.
Since there are none, we will proceed with the clause-by-clause review of Bill 31. (interpretation ends) Bill 31, Legislative Assembly Statutes Amendment Act, 2008. Clause 1.
Under clause 1(4), the word Tunnuniq will be changed to Tununiq to follow the Inuktitut spelling. However, I do not see any reference as to when Bill 31 will come into effect. Perhaps if I could be shown where that reference is, I would appreciate it.
Maybe it would be best to ask this question: will it be enacted in time for the next election so the name is changed to reflect the Inuktitut spelling?
After the bill has been passed by the Legislative Assembly, we will disseminate the correct spelling to the public, including the people who are working with us. It will also be included in the materials of the Chief Electoral Officer and constituency electoral officers about this name change.
We will send out a notice of the name change shortly after the legislation is passed by the Members of the Legislative Assembly.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) Clause 1. (interpretation) Do you agree?
Chairman (interpretation): Turn to page 3. (interpretation ends) Clause 3. (interpretation) Do you agree?
There’s nothing there, so that’s it.
Does the committee agree to Bill 31 as a whole?
Chairman (interpretation): Do members agree that pursuant to Rule 62(2) that Bill 31 can immediately be placed on the Orders of the Day for third reading?
Now that Bill 31 is concluded, I would like to ask the Speaker if he has opening remarks on Bill 32.
Bill 32 – An Act to Amend the Nunavut Elections Act, No. 2 – Consideration in Committee
I have some opening remarks, Mr. Chairman.
You can proceed with your opening remarks on Bill 32.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to appear today before the Committee of the Whole to introduce Bill 32, An Act to Amend the Nunavut Elections Act, No. 2.
As members will recall, a number of amendments to the Nunavut Elections Act were introduced and passed by this House earlier in the Fourth Session.
The bill before you today includes a number of additional measures that your Management and Services Board have approved for members’ consideration in advance of the upcoming general election.
Many of these measures have been introduced in response to concerns and suggestions made by Members of this House.
Mr. Chairman, Bill 32 amends the Nunavut Elections Act to exclude the constituency of Hudson Bay from the need for an Electoral Boundaries Commission in the period between the mandatory 10-year review of boundaries and to exclude it from the calculation of the electoral quotient.
As members are aware, the Act currently provides that if the difference between the population of a constituency and the electoral quotient is more than 30 percent of the electoral quotient, an adjustment is required. (interpretation ends) Mr. Chairman, Sanikiluaq’s size and unique location are such that an adjustment would be automatically triggered unless this provision is enacted.
Mr. Chairman, as you and members are aware, the Nunavut Elections Act requires the Chief Electoral Officer to prepare a report no later than the 90th day after each general election certifying whether a constituency requires the adjustment of its boundaries.
The Chief Electoral Officer is required to inform the Speaker of the need to establish a boundaries commission.
I anticipate that the Members of the Third Assembly will have the opportunity, if they so choose, to revisit issues that this Assembly considered during its recent review of the report of the First Electoral Boundaries Commission.
Mr. Chairman, Bill 32 provides that the Chief Electoral Officer will be obliged, before an election, to inform the public of persons who are ineligible to be candidates in the election because of failure to file a financial return or because they were expelled from the Legislative Assembly for an offence.
This was an issue raised by members during their consideration of the Chief Electoral Officer’s report on the administration of the second general election.
Mr. Chairman, I would also like to take this opportunity to note for the public record that your Management and Services Board has given consideration to the issue of amending the Act to increase the range of circumstances in which persons are ineligible to stand for election to the Legislative Assembly, such as the case where a potential candidate may have been convicted at some point in the past of a criminal offence. The board has determined that the existing provisions in the Act with respect to candidate eligibility are sufficient.
As members are aware, Mr. Chairman, any attempt to limit the rights of citizens to stand for election to the Legislative Assembly, as provided for by Section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, would be potentially subject to a court challenge.
Ultimately, it is up to all of our constituents to make their own decision at the ballot box as to who is best qualified to represent them in this House.
Mr. Chairman, Bill 32 also provides a minor housekeeping amendment to correct a typographical error.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening comments, and I look forward to responding to any questions or comments that members may have. (interpretation) Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, would you like to have your officials with you at the witness table?
I have two witnesses that I would like to bring to the witness table.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses in.
Mr. Speaker, for the record, please introduce your officials.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my right is Sandy Kusugak, who is the Chief Electoral Officer, and to my left is the (interpretation ends) Chief Legal Counsel to Elections Nunavut, Patrick Orr. (interpretation) Thank you.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you and welcome.
At this time, do members have any general comments?
Mr. Kattuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Speaker, and your officials.
There is reference to Hudson Bay in the bill, so I would like to make a short comment.
Perhaps I’ll state first that in the past, when the electoral boundaries were being established during the NWT days, I travelled to Yellowknife to represent the community of Sanikiluaq.
At the time, my constituents viewed our language and our culture as being quite unique. For that reason, we were very proud to take part in the First Electoral Boundaries Commission.
Bill 32 still recognizes Sanikiluaq as a unique area, along with its residents. Future candidates for the constituency will be quite proud to run for the Sanikiluaq riding.
This is all I wanted to say, Mr. Chairman.
There being none... I’m sorry.
Thank you, Sandy and Patrick, for being here.
I wanted to raise a question that I had raised with you as it relates to issues around elections in Nunavut and impacts of other jurisdictions’ issues.
Generally speaking, recently, I had requested our Chief Electoral Officer of Nunavut to review the impacts of the federal legislation on federal elections and whether that will have an impact in Nunavut and whether we would have to change our legislation or try and get the federal government to change their legislation so that Nunavummiut can vote in the next federal election.
The amendment to the federal Elections Act requires that citizens show on their identification card a civic address.
We know that in most communities, we don’t have that, which would greatly decrease the number of people in Nunavut who can vote in the next federal election and to be able to participate in a democratic process of selecting our next MP for Nunavut.
Having said that, I have written our Chief Electoral Officer in Nunavut to examine the implications of that legislation.
Just recently, I have written our Premier to try and address that for Nunavummiut so they can participate in all elections - municipal, territorial, as well as federal.
Having said that, I understand it is a federal legislation but was there an examination as part of our own legislation in Nunavut, we would have to keep current and update our own legislation on a regular basis. So the question I have for you is: were we able to examine whether we would be required to produce civic addresses for Nunavut in our current legislation down the road?
Is that something that we might have to address in Nunavut as it relates to that, or what has been your general response to date and what are some of the issues that we need to raise as elected officials in Nunavut to have this issue addressed?
So I wonder if I can ask for your thoughts on some of those as to where we are at.
In regard to this issue, Ms. Kusugak reviewed the documents, so I would like her to respond to that question, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Kusugak: I think what I can offer you, in addition to what I wrote, is opinion only that I think we’re going to be affected by this addressing thing more and more through our lives because in the scale of the world, the world is not going to change for us.
And it’s probably on a federal scale, etcetera, so it seems to me that we will be required to have civic addressing. I suspect that anybody that ever orders anything on the Internet discovers that you can’t order from a box number.
Even that is a small thing that people either invent street addresses or they use one that’s in place. I have a personal interest in it.
As Nunavut gets larger, the ability of us to divide a community into a number of constituencies depends on civic addressing because you need to know where people are in space. You can’t just decide that you want to be on that side because your friend or somebody is running there, we have to locate people.
So there’s that issue.
I believe, as a citizen, I have noticed that there’s also some difficulty as our communities grow often with emergency services, etcetera, the RCMP, ambulance, and people needing to get to somebody.
Not everybody knows everybody anymore, and often saying, “I might. I lived across the street from Cathy’s house,” may be not enough for people to, you know, “Who is that woman?
Where is she? What’s her problem?”
So I mean, personally and also as part of my job, I think it’s important.
In the Kitikmeot, I discovered, through doing plebiscites there in Cambridge Bay and Kugluktuk for instance, all people know their street address.
They will tell you I live on 7, Okpik Street; even the oldest people know that. I think it’s just become a habit and I think it seems to me, gradually, as the communities grow, this is probably something that we will have to do.
I don’t see that the rest of Canada is always going to waive all things and say, “Well, that’s Nunavut and postal addresses are enough,” box number or something.
I think there will be increasing demand as the more security, etcetera, continues on, but that’s partly opinion and partly my professional interest in it because I think that it would personally make my work easier as our communities become larger.
I would like to remind members that we’re dealing with Bill 32, Nunavut Elections Act.
I raise this issue for two things.
We talk about in the opening comments around boundary issues and I think a civic address relates to boundary issues within our own community and municipal structures when it comes to setting boundaries for Nunavut.
And I think, in my view, the issue around civic addresses is one that will have to be considered sooner than later by Chief Electoral Officers of Nunavut for the obvious reasons as described by our chief electoral officer and in my letter, more and more so in the next little while, and not just to be triggered by population growth but also the boundaries commission review has to also, I think, examine the issue around civic addresses and identification, and so on.
I appreciate the chief electoral officer’s comments and I know in her work as our territorial chief electoral officer, she also tries to convey to the federal chief electoral officer some of the challenges of Nunavummiut in voting and participating in the democratic process of selecting MPs, and so on.
So I appreciate the member raising that issue for Nunavummiut.
I also shared a copy of that correspondence with my colleagues in this House and I believe that it is an area that we need to raise at the federal level to educate, as well as the challenges that we have in upcoming elections at the federal level, to say that Nunavummiut will most likely not be able to participate fully in the next federal election if this issue is not addressed.
So based on that, I would just like to offer those comments for the public record that it is an area that I think, as Nunavummiut and Members of this House, we need to raise to the federal government, the federal chief electoral officer, to ensure that Nunavummiut participate in the next federal election selections.
That was not a question, just a comment.
Your comments are well taken.
Democracy is very important, especially eligibility to vote in federal elections.
The land claims agreement states in the preamble that Inuit want to be part of Canada and that’s why we agreed to these rights. I believe that we are also aware of what Ms. Aglukkaq is stating.
In federal elections, they need civic addresses, such as the unit number as well as the name of the street. If that’s still the case, it will be impossible to change it.
Since it will be impossible to get that requirement changed, perhaps we can have the Minister responsible for Community and Government Services request information from hamlets prior to the next federal election to see if they have street names or unit numbers.
If we don’t have street names or unit numbers to start preparing for the next election, many of us won’t be eligible to vote, even though we are Canadians.
Perhaps in regard to the question, I know that we cannot resolve this situation right now, but we should approach the Minister of Community and Government Services and ask the minister during Question Period.
We are dealing with Bill 32.
Since there are no more comments, we are on (interpretation ends) Bill 32, An Act to Amend the Nunavut Elections Act, No. 2.
Mr. Arvaluk (interpretation): I apologize, Mr. Chairman, I raised my hand too early. I will ask my question when we get to clause 3.
On page 1, Notice of Eligible Candidates, that there would be reasonable and practicable notices before the close of candidacy in the newspaper of general circulation, I think we also talked about the Assembly’s webpage.
Why is it not included in the Assembly’s webpage, and why is it only in the newspaper of general circulation?
We were just following the recommendations we had received from our Management and Services Board, Mr. Chairman.
I think I would be right if I corrected the Speaker that in the current legislation, there is no provision to put the eligible candidates in the newspaper of general circulation right now. It only says that they should be listed in the Nunavut Gazette.
I think this provision allows for the electoral officer now to be able to publish those that are not qualified to run in the election in general circulation.
During the caucus meeting the other day, we did propose that there be at least an advisory put on the Nunavut Legislative Assembly website referring maybe to a newspaper of what will be posted and so on.
Would I be correct in stating the two points I just raised?
I apologize. At our meeting, I didn’t even think of including the Assembly’s website in my opening statement during our deliberations that the member just raised and so what the member says is correct.
We are prepared to approach our website designers and raise the points you have just made with them.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the Speaker or his officials, clause 3 is silent on exactly who these ineligible candidates would be or who they are. So for the benefit of the members and Nunavummiut, with respect to clause 3, could they explain to us exactly what it means to be ineligible to run in the next election coming up pursuant to subsection 11(2)(1) or subclause 3 in the Act?
With the current legislation under clause 11(2)... I apologize.
The ineligible candidates are identified as any member who has been charged with a summary offense and who is being taken to court... I apologize.
I’ve got a cleaner copy now.
An ineligible candidate would be a person who didn’t file their financial return or anybody who has been charged with a summary offense under Nunavut’s or Canada’s legislation.
If that person was no longer eligible to sit as a member, there would be no replacement until a by-election is held.
Those are the ineligible candidates as defined under the current Nunavut Elections Act.
I assume that’s what 11(2)(1) really meant, but we don’t have it in front of us.