EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Mr. Speaker, last week when the minister and his witnesses were here in the Committee of the Whole and going over their capital budget, I mentioned the fact that the married accommodations for Nunavut Arctic College here in Iqaluit is something that’s been on the books ever since Mr. Picco was a regular member in the NWT and fought for it trying to get them then.
Still here we are, he’s on the other side of the floor and can’t say anything now.
So I’d like to ask the minister, you know this is something that is needed here in Iqaluit.
I received a letter last month from a student from a community informing me that she had to return home and quit her program because there wasn’t adequate housing for her.
Mr. Speaker, you know, this was one person’s lifelong dream of being able to go through the hairdressing program and be able to go back home and start a business and hopefully survive in her home community, which she couldn’t fulfill because there weren’t adequate accommodations here in Iqaluit.
Last week, I mentioned to the minister and his staff that Mr. Picco had indicated with his boarding home or with the boarding home for patients coming down is something he’s going to have to look at doing when the new hospital gets built here.
Would the minister commit to looking at working with the Minister of Health and Social Services to see if this is an option that could help fast track the married accommodations here in Iqaluit so that no more students will have to go home because of lack of housing?
Sorry, Mr. Speaker.
I most definitely will commit to talking to the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
However, the response I might get may be a major “but”.
I will definitely commit to talking to the Minister of Health and Social Services.
And Mr. Speaker, I won’t comment on the type of response that the Minister of Education would get, but hopefully it would be a supportive one.
I know that I had indicated last week, that we have to try and make our dollars, our limited resources, stretch as far as we can.
If there’s an opportunity here to capitalize on other such third party funding we would be very disappointed to miss out on that opportunity.
The minister committed to meeting with the Minister of Health and Social Services, the hospital going up, starting next year.
Can the minister indicate, not only just a commitment to sit down and meet with the Minister of Education, but to try and work together to try and push this thing forward, if there is a way to do it in conjunction with the Department of Health of Social Services, to make it happen.
I most definitely will talk to my colleague and also in the process make sure that my staff responsible for capital planning is involved in the process.
I’ll most definitely have a talk to my colleague and also have my staff involved in the process.
I appreciate the minister’s willingness to do that.
I just want to ask if he can keep me as the Member for Iqaluit Centre informed with the process and any progress made, not only to hear from the Minister of Health and Social Services, but also from the Minister of Education.
Speaker: Minster Kilabuk.
And also further to that, I’ll commit to assuring the member that, where possible in our consultations through the process, make sure that the member and other members of the community get a chance to be involved in part of this process.
Question 281 – 1(6): Vaccination Program for Husky Dogs
In my constituency there is quite a lot of big game sport hunting.
Could the Minister of Sustainable Development give us an indication of when they are going to start a vaccination program for the husky dogs?
Could the Minister give me an update on the vaccination program or distemper shots for the husky dogs?
The member has approached me about the issue of husky dogs in her riding because there is an increase in the population of the husky dogs.
My department is now responsible for the distemper shots.
We will be working on this expeditiously so that the husky dogs could be given vaccination shots.
It is something that we will treat as a priority and take immediate action on.
The Department of Sustainable Development has made a rule, if there’s going to be a polar bear hunt, they have to use a dog team.
When are you buying the vaccination shots and who is going to be responsible for the administration of these shots?
We will work closely with the communities and our wildlife officers will be involved in administering this program, particularly in cases involving sports hunting.
I know that you are going to be working with the communities and I’m not saying that you don’t want to work with them.
What I am trying to say is when are you going to start delivering this program?
Some communities are now dog teaming already since the sea ice is frozen now, perhaps not in Iqaluit as we don’t have ice yet but there are other communities that have ice.
Could the Minister tell us today when this vaccination program is going to be made available to the communities?
I will work on this as a priority.
I cannot exactly say when, but we will give the communities in the High Arctic, the priority in sending them the vaccines.
Can the Minister indicate if these vaccines are going to be bought by the Department of Sustainable Development?
And are they going to be administering the program?
We will need the support of the dog team owners.
I think that it would be better if the dog team owners administer the vaccines with the help of our Wildlife Officers for safety.
Question 282 – 1(6): Housing for Elders
My question is directed to the Minister responsible the Housing Corporation about the 15 recommendations that were dealt with by the Special Committee.
There is a lack of housing for the elders.
I wonder if the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, if he can give us a brief description of how they are going to allot some housing for the elders?
Mr. Speaker, right now the focus is trying to provide as much housing as possible under different venues.
On the specific needs of elders’ housing, if there are requests for that, then we work with the local housing authorities, and municipalities or the Hamlet, in most cases and try to address some of those needs.
I would like to direct another question to the Minister.
The elders’ housing in the communities, there is good housing in some of the communities, but in the smaller communities there is not enough housing for the elders.
For those smaller communities what kinds of plans do you have for this?
Because I don’t know what the Hamlets and the district housing authorities are doing, can the Minister tell me what plans they have for the smaller communities to help the elders to be provided with housing?
Mr. Speaker, it depends on what the Member refers to in reference to elders’ housing.
We’re responsible, the Housing Corporation, for providing residential units, independent living units for as many people as possible including elders.
If the Member’s talking more about specialized elders’ facilities for extended care, then that responsibility does not rest with Housing Corporation, that rests with the Department of Health and Social Services, my honourable colleague Mr Picco.
So I guess in clarifying that, if it is in respect to the Housing Corporation’s responsibility for independent units, then again as I said earlier, we work with the local Housing Authorities to identify that need and try to address that with public allocations of residential units.
When I was a committee member, this was part of our community council concerns and I didn’t realize that it was the responsibility of the Minister of Health and Social Service but now that I know, I know which Minister to direct questions to.
There were fifteen recommendations that we provided from the Members and I have not heard about the recommendations to date.
It was included in our report and our recommendations at that time.
Mr. Speaker, if the Member is referring to the specific Task Force on Housing recommendations, there were 15 of them and the corporation has acted on pretty well every one of them.
Going back to the Member’s issue, if it is specialized elders’ facilities, with extended care, again it isn’t the responsibility of the Housing Corporation to provide that housing.
But certainly in conjunction with the Department of Health and Social Services, we will assist them in trying to put together whatever program was required to support individuals with specialized needs, thank you Mr. Speaker.
Yes I understand the response and I would like to thank the Minister.
As the Minister of Finance and the Housing Corporation, what kinds of plans can we take to the Minister and can the Minister work with the Department of Health and Social Services and the Housing Corporation to provide more housing for the elders in the smaller communities?
Again Mr. Speaker, if there are specific needs in specific communities we will try to address that in consultation with the appropriate department for the circumstances of specialized elders’ needs with the Department of Health and Social Services.
Question 283 – 1(6): Fishing Program 80% Funding from the Federal Government
My question is directed to the Minister of Sustainable Development in regards to his statement he made earlier.
It was very good to hear the statement in regards to money being allocated to fishing.
He stated that the Federal Government pays eighty percent and the Nunavut Government pays twenty percent.
He stated that in the meantime the Nunavut Government is financing this entire program.
So when are you going to ask the Federal Government for their eighty percent?
We are working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as well as the Provinces.
Because the Provinces have had a lot of assistance from the Government of Canada we have had some assistance in regards to quotas.
The independent committee on access criteria is who we want to work with in regard to fisheries’ development.
What we have done is we have talked with those individuals to see whether we can get more assistance in the way of funding to do fisheries’ development in Nunavut.
We wanted to be recognized by the Provinces and by the Federal Government and they have started to do that.
What we want is to have the maximum amount of money that we can obtain from Fisheries and Oceans.
The Ministers will be meeting on Atlantic Fisheries with the Federal Government, and keeping this in mind I will voice these concerns to the Minister responsible.
The 350 thousand dollars available to be delivered through contributions that he mentioned, I wonder where that money is going to be coming from.
Mr. Speaker, my question is, in Chesterfield Inlet, they allotted a 100 thousand pound quota, but they don’t usually get the whole amount because they sell them to Rankin Inlet and Rankin Inlet already has enough fish.
They should be exported to the Provinces so this way Chesterfield Inlet could fill their quota of 100 thousand pounds.
Can we start exporting fish to the Provinces?
The $350 thousand dollars for Nunavut we would like diverted to the communities for commercial fisheries and such other things as shrimp.
This is what we want to do.
We want to work with the communities on fisheries’ development.
Since we started in 1999 the Minister has stated many times that he would like to work with the people of Chesterfield Inlet, but three years have passed and nothing has been done.
I think that the people of Chesterfield Inlet are beginning to give up doing commercial fishing because they have to sell their fish to Rankin Inlet and they cannot fill their quota.
Looking at this $350 thousand, perhaps they could be provided with funding in the amount of $50 thousand dollars per project.
What I am trying to say Mr. Speaker, is that we’re all aware that they do Arctic Char fish farming in the south, and they don’t have the same taste, they should be using the northern fish rather than these “farmed” fish.
That amount of funding in the $350 thousand dollars was in the Main Estimates for 2002/2003.
That $350 thousand dollars has been approved to be delivered through contributions to the priorities I mentioned.
Those fish that are being farmed, I went to Nova Scotia or PEI, I was down in PEI at the Food Technology Centre to take a look at the fish that are being farmed and we wanted to be able to work with those people because they know about food processing. What we wanted to do was to do different things like canning and other ways to make them more available to be sold to people in the south.
Not just fish, but other things as well like four legged animals.
That’s what we wanted to find out from them and that’s what I went to see when I was in PEI to make it more available so that different parts of fish can be available by canning them.
We wanted them to help us with different ways of preserving them or canning them.
So that’s what we are going to do with some parts of the $350 thousand dollars and to get those Arctic char from the north here.
Mr. Arvaluk: Mr. Speaker.
You have to learn how to count to four.
Seems like only two.
I guess my final Supplementary to the minister is how good is your inventory of all the quotas in Nunavut, when you add all the quotas in Nunavut, the total sustainable quota that you have already in place, not just Coral Harbour, Grise Fiord, Pond Inlet, 26 other communities.
That will give you a very substantial amount that can be exported outside of Canada.
That can be treated as a delicacy food, rather than just you know, not treated like halibut or cod or any other fish.
My question is will you be getting all the export experts in southern Canada, not just Prince Edward Island and but also development centres out of Manitoba to determine finally how we can sell this sustainable harvest from Nunavut.
Yes we’ll work hard to deal with this and also, as the Nunavut Government we’ve already signed an MOU with Manitoba on how they could give us more support on fisheries.
And also one thing I learned too.
On my way south I noted the restaurants of the world will want to get a similar size fish, they want the same kind of look, they weigh it, taste, and the size.
In looking at the Pangnirtung fishery in Pangnirtung, they work on various sizes and weights of turbot.
So they follow the procedure very well even though it’s quite expensive.
So we’re looking at ways how we can deal with Arctic Char in the future and also we would like to advertise the food we eat to the world because the potential to market them is very high and to transport them to other communities.
So, it’s evident that we’ll have to be transparent because the cost of cargo is quite expensive.
Just to let the members know that when it comes to the number of questions that you have, supplementaries, we have two table officers in front of me that mark down the title of the questions and how many supplementaries you have.
There are two people that verify how many supplementaries you have, it’s not because I am having a bad day that you are getting two questions or three.
Those are the rules of the House.
Question 284 – 1(6): Briefing on Polar Bear Tag Harvesting
Mr. Speaker, I had other commitments, I came in late, so I apologize.
Mr. Speaker, I will direct my question to the Minister of Sustainable Development, I will ask him three questions.
In all of Nunavut, they did a survey on polar bears and they allotted tags to the communities.
According to the polar bear regulations now, if I had five tags, I’m supposed to have just two females and three male polar bears.
If I have just three female polar bears the male tags could be deducted off according to the regulations we have.
They would deduct two tags off and therefore I would only have three tags left for the polar bear.
For that reason, what kind of briefing did you get about this issue?
I will talk a bit about the polar bear and I’m sure my response is going to be quite long, I’m just joking.
In regards to the wildlife polar bear issue, during the polar bear management consultation tour they will be talking about the MOU in all of the communities and how they can deal with the polar bear issue, during the discussions on the memoranda of understanding for the communities they will talking about that.
Inuit people do like to eat smaller polar bears because the meat is tastier so when the polar bear management group goes into your communities during the consultation tour for the MOU’s, you will have that opportunity to voice your concerns at that time.
The polar bear biologist will be visiting the HTOs at the local level to talk about the MOU’s.
So, I think it’s up to the community itself to voice their concerns during the MOU consultation tour.
We urge the communities to work with the polar bear biologist.
Just before we proceed again.
We also have two people at the front desk here that watch the time and they’ve noticed that we lost two minutes of question period.
So we will add it on.
Briefly, some communities when they have too many females, they lost most of their tags, or if they have too many males, or vice versa.
How can we get the number of tags back after losing a tag due to harvesting too many males or females?
If the Member could clarify his question, because I did not understand his question, Mr. Speaker.
Speaker: Supplementary. Clarification.
Mr. Irqittuq (interpretation): What I was trying to say is a community, if they harvest too many females, they deduct some tags.
In some communities, they almost depleted their tags.
If one community had 4 tags, and they had over harvested females or males, how long would it take to get original number of tags back?
We have to work with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board.
If you have a concern over that, we can definitely consult with that organization, if they over harvest males or females.
We can work with them because the communities are allocated a number of tags for each quota of the management zone.
If your community is concerned, I am sure that they can review that.
This is becoming a great concern by my constituency.
They had 18 tags but because of polar bear disturbances, because of them coming into our community; the polar bear population is so high in my community.
Because of the polar bears disturbing the community, they have been harvesting and killing these polar bears and they almost have depleted their tags.
Can you not respond to me how fast they can give those tags back to the community?
Yes, I know that the polar bears are abundant in Nunavut.
I don’t know how fast the tags could be returned to the community because each community is allocated a number of tags, or various numbers of tags in each community.
When the polar bear biologists do their review, do they report to the Sustainable Development?
Yes, we work closely with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board in regards to polar bear management.
We also have drafted up the MOU’s.
We work with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board because the population grows in the communities.
Usually they recommend the quota and we work with the polar bear biologist along with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board.
Question 285 – 1(6): Consultation Process in Developing a New Wildlife Act
It’s Sustainable's day today, I have a question for the Minister responsible for Department of Sustainable Development.
Mr. Speaker, as all members of the house know, there are a lot of people out there that know the Department of Sustainable Development is under going consultation for a new wildlife act.
I would just like to ask the Minister, if he can give us a review of the consultation process and how that input is to be used in the development of the new wildlife act.
We toured all the communities in regards to the wildlife act.
The submissions and the concerns have been reviewed and we’ve also recorded all their input. The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board and NTI, we’re working along with them side by side in regards to the wildlife act and this has proceeded very successfully.
The work will become evident when we table the wildlife act because it tries to incorporate concerns of the public at local level.
I’m pretty sure they’ve just finished, or if they are just finished the consultation tour on the act to the communities.
I just want to ask the minister, after all the consultations are done, is the department putting together a report or something that outlines the concerns and the issues that were heard during those consultations tours?
Yes, everything will be recorded up to February 2003; yes we will table the report.
They will be translated into Inuktitut so that all the concerns will be known at the local level.
We will make a report in both Inuktitut and English to the public and to the members here and our constituencies.
Can the minister give us an indication as to when the report on the consultation that he mentioned, if it’s going to be done in both Inuktitut and English.
We could elaborate to you on what level it is at now, the report, perhaps by tomorrow.
Mr. Speaker, I’m raising with the minister a concern that was brought to me as a Member of the Legislative Assembly here in Iqaluit by some residents about the consultation tour that was done.
The report on the consultations still hasn’t come back, the department has a draft act that’s already done and a lot of people seem a little concerned that the Legislation is all ready prior to the feedback, before the report on it even being done.
I’d just like to ask the minister if the report is not done, how you know that they will incorporate those reviews and concerns of the other stakeholders that he mentioned that he’s working with?
So they all can take it into consideration, when drafting legislation if legislation is pretty much drafted already.
I will try and table the Report before the Wildlife Act is passed.
And also I almost forgot that the Report has to be translated into Inuinnaqtun.
And also it includes the process and also the concerns.
Speaker: The Members will note that Question Period is now over.
Item 7 Written Questions.
Written Question 003 – 1(6): Two Hours for Question Period (Ruled Out of Order)
My written question is to the Speaker.
I was wondering if in one of our sittings we can include two hours of Question Period?
This is my first question as the Speaker.
Yourself, as the Chairman of the Rules Committee, you probably should know that I will have to rule this out of order.
I would suggest that maybe you should bring this up before the Caucus.
Tabled Document 055 – 1(6): Bumper Stickers
Mr. Speaker, as I had indicated in my Member’s Statement earlier, that I would like to Table more than 19 bumper stickers here.
It says, “Please note Schools need music.”
I would like to ask, Mr. Speaker, if there is a surplus of bumper stickers, would the surplus be allocated to the Minister of Education.
Hon. Kelvin Ng: Sorry, Mr. Speaker, it was for Tabling of Documents.
Do I ask for an extension?
Speaker: Proceed.
Tabled Document 056 – 1(6): Interim Financial Report (Unaudited) March 31, 2002
Tabled Document 057 – 1(6): NHC Annual Report for 1999/00 and 2000/01
Hon. Kelvin Ng: I would like to Table the following document.
Interim Financial Report, March 31st, 2002.
And the Nunavut Housing Corporation’s Annual Report for 1999/2000, and 2000/2001.
Notices of Motion for the First Reading of Bills.
Item 15: Notice of Motion for First Reading of Bills
Bill 20 – An Act to Amend the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and Related Statutes – Notice
(Interpretation ends): Mr. Speaker, I give Notice that on Wednesday, November 27th, 2002, I shall move that Bill 20, an Act to Amend the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and related statutes be read for the first time.
Bill 22 – An Act to Amend the Securities Act – First Reading
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Baffin South, that Bill 22, an Act to Amend the Securities Act, be read for the first time.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters; Bill l3, Bill 17, Bill 18, Minister’s Statement 072-1(6) with Mr. Iqaqrialu in the Chair. Before we proceed with committee of the whole we will take a 45-minute break.
>>House recessed at 15.16 p.m. and resumed at 16.09 p.m.
Chairperson (Mr. Iqaqrialu): Thank you colleagues. We can resume.
If we could start the committee of the whole.