EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
There are some questions that take a bit of time and I would ask him to be sometimes maybe remember, Mr. Chairman, to be patient and we are being patient. We will provide that information. If it is not at our fingertips, we will provide the information.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Curley. (interpretation ends) We look forward to a written question asking for specific information on all of the sole source contracts when we are in regular session, I guess.
The next question I have is Ms. Ugyuk for the time being. (interpretation) Mr. Elliott, I’m sorry.
Mr. Elliott: I know Minister Curley answered part of the question to what I had said and I thank him for that because I remember when we first started, he sort of took me aside and gave me some advice that I have taken to heart and it was that I should do my homework. I understood where he was coming from in a sense that to stay on top of things, you have to keep going and pushing.
But I had actually asked if the deputy minister was willing to sort of answer or maybe I’ll give him a chance to let us know some of his frustrations and how he is dealing with things within his department, again maybe to give us a better idea of what some of the deputy ministers are dealing with out there on a day-to-day basis.
We are not there to see how they have to deal with these situations.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Elliott. (interpretation ends) I didn’t hear a question on that.
I will turn to Ms. Ugyuk.
Ms. Ugyuk (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) Contract number 131, the government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities indicates that your department awarded a $1.8 million contract to FSC Architects in 2008-09 for a project named “Three Health Centres with Staff Housing - Repulse.”
Will there be repeat costs for this contract for planning and design if it is used in other communities besides Repulse Bay?
For which other communities are the other two health centres planned and for when?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Ms. Ugyuk. Who will respond?
I thought that was a question earlier from the Member for Quttiktuq. It was something about how I was dealing with the pressures that the department faces.
Obviously, I cannot share some of them here because we’re not dealing with micro issues here. These are complex.
As the minister responsible and the senior members of the department, we continue to address and try to save money wherever possible and we will take measures to start controlling contracts.
We believe that we share the concerns of the MLAs that there are just too many.
I specifically, in my opening remarks, Mr. Chairman, quoted exact figures on how much we have awarded contracts based on sole source and other contracts that are beyond the $5,000 level.
Mr. Chairman, we will continue to try and do the best we can and be transparent with these things.
I have indicated that to my officials and the deputy has taken a number of measures and steps to ensure that all of our directors as well as the program managers better reflect the concerns not only of the Members of the House but as well as the cabinet.
On C131, Mr. Campbell.
The answer is yes, the design of the health centre will be modelled under that one design that is being developed by the architects.
The project is being managed through CGS.
As you have noted, it is went through a request for proposals process.
I would like to indicate to the member that the three health centres are currently on the capital plan.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Ms. Ugyuk. Thank you. (interpretation ends) We are on health.
Are there any further questions on health? Mr. Elliott.
Contract C216, the government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities indicates that your department awarded a $73,000 sole source contract to a company to conduct a “Waste Management Investigation.”
Was this a public health issue and what did this investigation conclude?
I do have the number.
I’m just referring to my notes. Thank you. I’ll be just a few seconds here.
There is a report that was developed. I’m assuming the report has been completed and the report would be available on record.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Campbell. (interpretation ends) Are there any further questions?
Do you have the specific information on what the waste management investigation was?
What ended up happening with that information? Was it a clean up? Was it a spill?
Was it needles being lost or something?
Again I have to apologize. I didn’t bring the whole files with me on the list. I don’t know the details of it.
I assume it is an investigation that we have commissioned and the report is available.
Again I can provide that information to the member.
Chairman: We did provide this in advance that we would be asking these questions.
I don’t know how much further we can go at this point because we tabled the motion last session explaining that we will be asking these questions. We appear to be going in circles.
Mr. Elliott, do you want to still pursue questioning?
Mr. Elliott: Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Contract C1427, the government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities indicates that your department awarded a $148,800 sole source contract in 2008-09 to an individual to provide a and it’s classified as “Stakeholder Engagement & Communication Plan.”
What specific departmental initiative was this project related to and what results did the contract achieve?
The consultant in this case was part of a team that was also hired to provide some consultation and provide some advice on the Nunavut stakeholders into the eHealth project that I talked about earlier.
We’re working with Canada Infoway on establishing a health records management system for Nunavut.
That’s part of that process. That work has been completed.
I can indicate that the information is on file and that the work has been completed.
Mr. Elliott: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The minister talked about a consultation or a stakeholders meeting that occurred.
I believe he did a member’s statement in the House. It was a meeting that was done in December, I believe it was, and what he ended up saying is in regard to questions that I was asking about, the Child and Family Services Act, which leads up to the formation of the child and youth advocate’s office.
In terms of that stakeholder meeting that happened in December, was that organized by your department or was that a sole source contract as well?
Chairman: Mr. Elliott, can you identify the contract in the procurement book that you’re referring to because that’s before us, that is what we are dealing with.
Mr. Elliott: No, it’s not in the 2008-09.
It would be in the 2009-2010, which actually won’t be tabled probably until next year.
Chairman: So it is not in the book, we can’t deal with it.
Do you have any further questions, Mr. Elliott?
Mr. Elliott: Well, at times, we have been asking questions and getting information and the minister has been stating that things travel year, over year, over year and reports don’t get done.
I figured that it would be nice to know whether this was done by the department or not. I don’t know. Also, it is fresher in people’s minds.
Maybe the minister or the deputy minister would have the answer to that question.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. Minister Curley.
Mr. Chairman, the first event that was held really was about a three or four-day event.
In order to bring at least our Inuit people who are community representatives who have a long history of dealing with social and culturally related issues, it really required facilitators who are bilingual.
In that particular instance, we did hire a very small sole source contract for two individuals to help each other in presenting and keeping the discussion going.
I think I will be tabling that report shortly and it will give you a bit of an idea exactly how that particular project is shaping up.
The small contracts that I mentioned are not ongoing, that that was the end of it.
We are on Tabled Document 66 – 3(2), Document 99 – 3(2), Document 100 – 3(2).
So are there any further questions on those?
The government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities indicates that your department awarded a $117,300 contract in 2008-09 to an individual to provide “Consulting Services for Human Resource Management.”
What did this project achieve? I’m wondering if this is addressing some of the needs in terms of human resource issues within your department.
Again I have to ask the question as to what page number and which contract that the member is referring to.
Mr. Elliott, can you please identify the contract number once again.
This time, yes, I do have the contract number.
It’s C228.
Chairman: “Consulting Services for Human Resource Management,” page 55.
We do have a number of projects that this particular consultant had performed for the department, including looking after and setting up the office of the director of human resources for the department.
Again I have to keep re-emphasizing here that some of my senior management positions are vacant. The director of HR position remains vacant after nine months. The work needs to continue as a department.
Expectations are put on me to be aggressive on the Nurse Recruitment and Retention Strategy. There are expectations on the department that we be fiscally responsible for what we do as a department. I’m not able to do that with the resources that we do have in the department.
There are people who work in the human resource unit of the department, but they don’t have that expertise at the time.
The position is there; we’re just not able to attract people.
We had interviews twice and both times, the three people who were offered the position turned it down. That being said, the person was also responsible in providing some advice to me on re-organizational structures. There were two people who were involved.
One other consultant was involved in going through all of the PYs and making sure all of the PY numbers, all of the VS1 forms and the P2K information were all reconciled. With close to 1,000 employees, that takes a lot of work and detail.
I just don’t have the peoplepower to do all of that work, so there will be these contracts that you will see and appear here. The consultant in this particular case is no longer a contractor at this point in time.
I believe we have six more departments to go. We’re on day 3 and we have just finished two so far and we’re on department 3.
This contract was RFP’d and publicly advertised for the best possible, I’m sure.
My next question is: in terms of what you have just said in answering my question, are those senior positions now filled or do you still have quite a few vacant positions?
That particular position is still vacant. There are a number of positions that are also vacant.
In most cases, I encourage that we do have people acting in particular positions when there are vacancies. At the same time, we have to understand, members, that we don’t want to burn out the existing staff. We need to hire some outside expertise as needed at points.
With that, we do have a vacancy.
As I said earlier, we have a vacancy rate of about 24 percent currently. We are aggressively trying to hire into those full-time positions.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Campbell. I believe you said that you advertised this twice already.
I believe that they’re trying, but it’s challenging.
I don’t know, I guess the Chairperson feels that it was answered, but to me, I don’t think it was answered to the way I was asking.
The reason we’re being told that there are all of these sole source contracts and the highest number of sole source contracts for the Government of Nunavut at 42 percent, the minister is assuring us that they will not continue to do this and follow this practice.
What I’m asking is: do you have the manpower to fill these positions that are specialized or are we going to have to continue to sole source?
Chairman: Mr. Elliott, you are referring to C228 in your line of questioning.
That particular contract is a request for proposals, it’s not sole sourced. That’s what the deputy was saying.
Hon. Tagak Curley: Thank you. The member sometimes alluded what was said by the minister and so on. I think we have to deal with the responses in good faith, in my opinion, because when providing a response, we’re not commenting in a legal fashion.
Generally, we feel we’re not and you’re going to have to hold me to this particular one.
We say certain responses to the questions on very complex issues.
We made a commitment that we will reduce the number of contracts and that the direction has been provided, and that is the position of my department.
We are serious in ensuring, wherever possible, that the work will be carried out internally. We also made it clear that where we don’t have an expertise for the work required, we have no choice, from time to time, to go through the contract process.
That is something that we cannot commit to responding to.
Having said that, we’re not going to mislead the House or anything, you know, because that is not something that we will strategize on as a department. We will commit to continue to work towards reducing the amount of contracts that become, in my earlier remarks I had said, traditional, in a long ways, sort of conventionally used by the department.
We also have made it clear that Nunavut is only ten years old.
Unlike the NWT, they have not had to restructure, reorganize, and relocate completely for the work the whole of the Government of Nunavut is faced with.
We are a much decentralized system.
Sometimes I don’t think some members appreciate or if they do, they don’t mention the fact that this young territory has faced very traumatic and very challenging situations where we must, at the same time, be expected to deliver the same or comparable services, particularly the health program, compared to other jurisdictions.
That is not always going to be the case.
We will see disappointment, but we will do our best, Mr. Chairman, to try and respond to the needs of Nunavutmiut even though we are challenged in every aspect of the way. We are not discouraged.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Curley. (interpretation ends) Are there any more questions on health?
I don’t see any more hands. (interpretation) Thank you. (interpretation ends) We can move on to the other department. (interpretation) Minister Curley, do you have any closing comments?
Mr. Chairman, I think it is important that I do that to acknowledge the contribution of all of the members and I say that with respect to all of you, that you have provided some guidance and direction to our department.
We will take these suggestions seriously.
Mr. Chairman, there are a number of points that I would like to address at the moment.
Number two, I would just like to emphasize that Nunavut is a young territory, as I alluded to earlier.
We are still in the process of developing our own personnel with the skills and if I may say, bilingual as well and expertise critically needed to provide ongoing quality services to Nunavutmiut and people generally.
Three, there are many areas of my department requiring highly technical and professional expertise, including medical experts that is not yet available within the territory.
These skills often require many years of higher education and wide professional experience, experience that is still in the developing stages in Nunavut.
Four, at the present time, Mr. Chairman, my department must fulfill its mandate of providing the full range of critically required and nationally mandated as well health services and address the urgent social services needs of our people.
We can not compromise in addressing the medical needs of our people, the needs of women and children in crisis, or improving the quality of life for our elders.
Five, Nunavut is a unique region with unique needs and unique people, if I may say. There are no ready-made solutions to many of the issues we face. This is the reason that as we grow and develop, we must make use of the best knowledge and skills available.
Number six, as we grow our corporate knowledge and develop a pool of experienced Nunavutmiut, I can assure the Members of the Legislative Assembly and the people of Nunavut that we will rely less and less on outside contract services. Mr. Chairman, the sooner the better.
Number seven, the Department of Health and Social Services will continue to follow financially sound practices of utilizing the SAO and competitive RFP and public tender processes and will adhere to all best practice guidelines for sole sourcing of contracts. (interpretation) Thank you for your assistance today. (interpretation ends) Thank you.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Curley. Thank you, Mr. Campbell.
Sergeant-at-Arms, if you would escort the witness out, please.
We can then move on to another department.
Minister of Finance, (interpretation ends) Minister Peterson, you have the floor.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members.
For 2008-09, the value of the contracts issued by the Department of Finance accounted for 2 percent of the overall government total. With respect to the number of contracts issued, the Department of Finance was 5 percent of the government total.
Of the 75 contracts issued in 2008-09, 63 percent, or 41, of the contracts were for the government’s annual insurance premiums and the purchase of liquor products through the Nunavut Liquor Commission.
These two activities accounted for $3,494,817 out of $5,528,065 issued in contracts.
Other contracts issued by the department were to support the government’s initiative on strengthening financial management.
The contracts issued in this regard cover a range of areas, such as the preparation of the public accounts and the development of a training manual for program managers.
They have agreed.
Thank you, Sergeant-at-Arms, for escorting the officials in.
Minister Peterson, if you can introduce your witnesses.
To my right is Deputy Minister Peter Ma and to my left is Assistant Deputy Minister Chris D’Arcy.
Colleagues, do you have any comments to the opening remarks and/or to the contents of the bill?
There is a hand raised.
I thank the hon. minister for the opening comments.
On the third paragraph concerning “… contracts issued by the department were to support the government’s initiative on strengthening financial management,” I believe that would be from a recommendation of the Auditor General that was given to us about a year ago or so.
Mr. Ningark, that was an initiative that was started in 2006 and I believe it is in response to initiatives like this, where Committees of the Whole ask questions.
The Auditor General of Canada and the Government of Canada has had concerns, so they provided us with $23 million to undertake a number of initiatives to strengthen our financial management across Nunavut.
I thank the hon. minister.
Since the strengthening has taken place, have you seen any positive results from such initiative?
I thank Mr. Ningark for that question. Yes, there have been some noticeable changes.
The preparation of public accounts has been faster. I remember asking many of those questions about the preparation of public accounts. They have been reduced from about 19 months to a much shorter period, which is pleasing the Auditor General of Canada.
There has been significant progress in updating the Financial Administration Manual and there is work underway to implement a faster computer service or connectivity across Nunavut.
We’re hoping that when that is all complete, things will be significantly improved in terms of some of the financial information.
Chairman: Thank you, Minister Peterson. (interpretation) Are there any questions to the opening remarks?
I don’t have any names.
Perhaps we can proceed with the page-by-page review. (interpretation ends) Are there any questions on the details or particulars of the Department of Finance?
Mr. Schell: The government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities indicates that your department awarded a $303,000 contract in 2008-09 to one individual to provide consulting services.
This was the largest contract awarded to a single individual by the government during the entire 2008-09 fiscal year.
This individual’s website indicates that the services provided to your department included providing “advice and support services for the planning for and implementation of selected improvements in systems, policies and practices to facilitate strengthening financial management within and across the government.”
What steps is your department taking to hire more full-time accountants so that it does not have to rely on $300,000-a-year consultants to perform such key functions as finalizing the territory’s annual public accounts?
For the benefit of the minister and his fellow witnesses, C253 is the contract number.
I have some notes here and I’ll just read them into the record here.
I was referring to the individual as part of a larger contract which was part of a federally funded building financial and information capacity project for strengthening financial management for the Government of Nunavut. I just referred to that.
The contract was to provide financial support for the financial reporting section of Finance in regard to the completion of non-consolidated financial statements as well as the consolidated financial statements for 2006-07.
The total value, of course, spent on the contract for 2008-09 was $318,621.85.
So that individual’s name was there as part of a larger contract.
This is referring to contract number C244. The government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities indicates that your department awarded a $186,180 sole source contract in 2008-09 to a former senior employee of the department to provide consulting services.
Exactly what kinds of services did the individual provide and couldn’t the department hire one or two full-time employees for that amount of money?
Minister Peterson
I again thank Mr. Schell for the question.
The details is it was a contract that was originally let as part of a response for proposing and it was subsequently extended as the work on the Financial Administration Manual was not completed and that was in 2006.
The contractor was previously employed by the government where he held a certain position.
I don’t want to name the position because it will identify the individual, but it was responsible for the FAM.
So he had in-depth knowledge in the areas that FAM needed for improvements and he also understood the respective regulations which should have been considered before FAM change can occur.
Again the contract was one of the components of the strengthening financial management project that was paid through the federal government’s building financial information capacity funding.
Fifty-two FAM directives were rewritten and approved in 2008-09.
Mr. Schell: Mr. Chairman, this is referring to contract C203 and C1467.
The government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities indicates that your department awarded $282,000 in contracts in 2008-09 to a company called CiRam eSolutions to assist the department in its financial reporting.
Exactly what kinds of services does this company provide and why can’t the department do the work itself?
I thank Mr. Schell. I’m going here at rapid fire trying to keep up with the questions on contracts.
That was a two-part contract; CiRam, $56,000 and there was $225,000.
It was a contract investigating reporting options to increase system functionality of the Personality 2000. The system is commonly referred to as P2K and Free Balance.
P2K is the government’s currents payroll and human resources system and Free Balance is the financial operating system that we rely on.
The work that CiRam does focuses on improving the reporting of both the P2K and the Free Balance finance system. Again, it’s a project. It’s a component of the strengthening financial management initiative and it’s partially funded through the federal government’s building financial information capacity.