EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
They have nothing in their communities, and here we are throwing thousands of dollars away.
I will keep working with you. I will oppose this motion. I am not mad, but I have to let you know how I feel and how the people out there feel.
The commission worked extremely hard, and I saw people going to the meetings in their wheelchairs to be heard by this commission which was directed by the Government of Nunavut.
As such, I wanted to make those comments for the record.
It is up to us to make the decision. We got the report which could be the first step to our progression. We can still go forward.
I wanted to make those comments, and I will oppose the motion.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Alagalak. (interpretation ends) To the motion.
There was one person before me the Member for the Kitikmeot, but I’m rising now because you recognized me.
First of all I want to say this is not the first time that a report is actually rejected, but it happened before in the NWT.
I can state that as a member I have witnessed where there have been increases, and we used to do that in Yellowknife; once we considered the report; once it’s tabled we used to review it page-by-page.
In the Nunavut Legislature I guess we know so much that without opening the report we reject it. I wonder how those people who are listening are thinking. What are they talking about?
I want to tell you that I didn’t vote at the time because of the timeframe and it was too busy. I wanted to get somebody else as a chairperson and that person was recommended by the committee staff.
The commission report that the chairperson (interpretation ends) experienced judge. I think that you are going to agree with me that she is a very able judge of the Nunavut court, and so on.
I would like to compliment her.
It’s the beginning of playing politics is what we have.
(interpretation) First of all, I would like to say that when I was in Yellowknife when they requested increases to the Members of the Legislative Assembly in Yellowknife we rejected it, but we could permit it as we reviewed it page-by-page, riding by riding, and all the recommendations; A to Z. With this particular one I don’t know how many of you have read it from the beginning to the end.
When I read it from the beginning to the end there are some areas where they’re very well done.
In the Kitikmeot they’re not over represented.
So for that reason some of those changes would be good. Maybe if the mover and the seconder agreed (interpretation ends) to withdraw your motion.
Let’s go page 1, at least recommendation 1. 2. It’ll be more democratic. It’ll be fairer to those people out in the constituencies, the elders who came.
(interpretation) If Iqaluit ridings don’t support it; if we were see the Cabinet Ministers the Kitikmeot is not over-represented; there is only one person from the Kitikmeot.
We have to make it equal. Maybe if there was a way that we could make it equal. (interpretation ends) Please withdraw the motion.
Before I begin I would like to also acknowledge the Commission and their hard work in the last year and traveling to every community to speak to many Nunavummiut and to hear their concerns for the plans as it relates to the current boundaries, and their views on whether they’re adequately represented in this House or not.
So I thank Judge Browne, John Ningark, and Bernadette Niviatsiak for doing that hard work for us.
I’m glad to have the opportunity again today to speak against the motion before the House.
The issue that we are considering today goes to the heart of this great institution. As Members of the Legislative Assembly, we do our best each and every day to represent our constituents, and our communities to the very best of our abilities.
We may sometimes differ on what solutions to pursue, but I genuinely believe that we are all committed to the task of improving the lives of Nunavummiut, the hard working taxpayers who pay the bills and who have entrusted us with this great responsibility.
I do not believe we should be sacrificing adequately representing Nunavummiut because of our current financial challenge. I agree with the mover with respect to some of the problems in the report.
What I don’t agree with is the proposed solution. It’s not a solution, which amounts to basically flushing $200,000 or $300,000 down the toilet, throwing up our hands and saying we give up, let the next bunch of Members of the Legislative Assembly deal with it.
That’s what we’re saying: ignore all the hard work of the commission, and ignore all the input we received from the many Nunavummiut who spoke to express their views.
Ignore that; leave it to the next Members of the Legislative Assembly. That’s what we’re saying.
Mr. Speaker, I’ve never believed in giving up and I believe that the report is not perfect, but very few reports are perfect.
What I am proposing is that we roll up our sleeves and fix the problems identified in the report.
I am asking members today to defeat the motion, and if we do so, I am prepared to bring forward a new motion to empower a new commission to be established with a clearly defined task of addressing the technical problems in the report, and bringing forward some practical solutions in time for the next general election.
We have not reviewed the report by recommendation behind closed doors or in the House. We have not even looked at it.
After spending $300,000 and talking to many Nunavummiut, we’re rejecting everything in the report for what?
Our job is to address the hard issues before us.
That is why we’re elected. We’re elected to address the hard issues, and this is a difficult one indeed, and we have to address those. Ignoring the recommendations is not representing the interests of our constituents.
Mr. Speaker, the unity of Nunavut is important. We must recognize that unity depends on our diverse communities and the regions being fairly and effectively represented in the Legislative Assembly.
We do not enjoy that situation today, and waiting another five, six, seven years will only make matters worse. We’re saying let’s wait until 2014 to deal with this problem.
The problem exists now. It exists now.
The census figures released last week reveal that a number of Nunavut communities have experienced dramatic population growth since 1999.
That resulted in enhanced funding as a result of that.
We’re saying we’re going to ignore this until 2014. Why? I actually happen to also agree that Iqaluit is entitled to another seat in the Assembly.
However, passing this motion would condemn this community to under representation for several more years; 2014 and I do not understand why the mover of the motion is willing to take that risk.
To take another example, Mr. Speaker, we all recognize the challenges facing our colleague from Akulliq.
Like his predecessor, our good friend Ovide Alakannuark, the Member for Akulliq faces the almost impossible job of effectively representing two communities split between two regions.
Because of the airline route any member in that riding spends most of their time traveling between two communities instead of representing their communities in the community.
When it comes to regional issues in the Kivalliq and the Kitikmeot that person is in conflict.
When it comes to regional issues that is what I have been told by my constituents and by the leaders in the region.
KIA President, Vice-President, NTI, all the mayors have said that.
We all have recognized the unfairness of this situation. The commission report provides a good solution for the problem and we would be doing a great disservice to the people of Repulse Bay and Kugaaruk if we were to just be so negligent to allow the problem to fester when we have this chance to fix it today.
Mr. Speaker, I am concerned about the potential for regional alienation in Nunavut. One of the reasons why Nunavut came into being was that the eastern arctic was not effectively represented in Yellowknife.
I do not want to see us go down that path again and that path of deepening divisions between our communities of making some part of this beautiful land feel that their voice is valued less than the others.
Mr. Speaker, it will certainly take some hard work to address the problems in the report and bring forward some solutions in time for the next election.
Mr. Speaker, I know that you have never been afraid of hard work, and I am confident that our colleagues today will agree that working hard together to face our challenges is a truly Nunavut way.
That’s why our constituents elected us. To deal with the hard issues, not to junk the report that they are saying we should address.
Mr. Speaker, I urge all members to join together in defeating this motion and choosing a better path; a path that will address the concerns of our regions and lead us to strengthening the territory as a whole.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you, Ms. Aglukkaq. (interpretation ends) To the motion. (interpretation) Member for Akulliq, Mr. Mapsalak.
The motion before us is very difficult for me as a member for Akulliq. We just heard about it and we are, especially for the Kitikmeot, it’s true that with the Kitikmeot Inuit Association and Kitikmeot mayors, this is very close to me because I am in that situation where I represent two communities in different regions.
It was mentioned that it is very expensive to travel between those two and a lot of times I can’t even visit the two communities and I am pretty sure my predecessor experienced the same hardship.
Even if we’re invited to go to a function it gets very difficult.
I feel the concerns of the Kitikmeot and Repulse Bay, the other community that I represent.
Which way are we going to go because the recommendations are divided, especially for Repulse Bay?
The Minister of Finance, in his budget address about the federal budget, not too much was for Nunavut.
I constantly struggle to represent them well because they are not even decentralized.
There are not too many options for my constituents from the NWT to Nunavut.
If this motion is passed I don’t know, will we be better represented looking at the money that we have if this is approved,…(interpretation ends)…when the Minister of Finance for Nunavut and the federal minister are saying that there are funding restraints.
(interpretation) I don’t see any positive outcome of this, but I doubt if the smaller communities will be better represented.
As I said earlier I feel what the Kitikmeot feel but there are some discrepancies in there.
For that reason I don’t know how I’m going to vote.
I would like to state that I will not be voting.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker for giving me the chance to talk to this motion.
First of all, I’d like to thank the boundaries commission for all the hard work that they did.
I know they spent a lot of time traveling across Nunavut meeting a lot of people. I’ve talked to people that met with the boundaries commission who were looking forward to their report and recommendations. I’d like to thank the Nunavummiut who also took the time to get out and talk to the boundaries commission folks and provide a lot of good valuable advice, and input.
Mr. Speaker, unlike my colleague from Repulse Bay and Kugaaruk, I don’t have this difficult situation that is identified in the report. I can vote against the motion; which I intend to vote against.
Mr. Mapsalak is caught between two regions. It’s something that we’ve known for a long time. It places him in a very difficult position.
His speech a few minutes ago highlights one of the issues that the boundaries commission intended to deal with.
I know that the boundaries commission is not a perfect document but it does contain a lot of good and valuable information. I think we can work with that information.
I have been in business for many, many years. When I get a consultant’s report that makes recommendations, I don’t toss it out.
I’d go through it and review it, talk to the boundaries commission, and see if I can adapt it to suit my needs.
I am not going to spend good money and then throw it in the garbage.
When you’re in business you don’t do that kind of stuff, but I guess, as a government it’s okay because everybody thinks the government has an endless source of money, which we don’t.
This report cost over, I think the figure is over $250,000.
To a lot of people that’s a significant amount of money.
That is one house, or almost one house according to Nunavut Housing Corporation figures. I think they’re saying $308,000.
It’s very expensive. Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that, when I read through the boundaries commission that they would address the geographical issues that would help my colleague from Repulse Bay, Kugaaruk.
We all know it takes him three days to travel to Repulse. It’s like travelling around the world for him. He’s got to go through Rankin Inlet, Yellowknife, Cambridge Bay, with no stops, and then he gets to Kugaaruk, then he spends a couple of days there, and then he has to reverse.
That’s a pretty hard trip on him.
I don’t think any of us here has that type of concern.
I know the Premier spoke about us all representing everybody in Nunavut; which we do.
I speak quite often about issues related to Nunavut, and I also speak of issues that are important to people in my riding, and my region.
We don’t like to talk about regions sometimes, but the fact of the matter is there are regional differences, regional issues, and regional concerns.
We have regional Inuit associations, we have regional organizations. We don’t have a lot of territorial organizations, so there is a fact of the matter. There are regional interests.
I think the boundaries commission put a little bit too much emphasis on the electoral quotients in Nunavut.
The figures they presented or I read; there are 1,573 constituents per constituency on average in 19 constituencies.
In the Northwest Territories it’s 2,206, and in Ontario it’s 123,512 per one Member of the Legislative Assembly.
With that kind of information, I think we could work with the report, we can redraw some boundaries, and we can help Mr. Mapsalak out so he doesn’t have to make those seven or eight day trips.
The folks in Kugaaruk could have their own Member of the Legislative Assembly, tied in with Taloyoak, and then the people in Repulse Bay could have their own Member of the Legislative Assembly tied in with communities in the Kivalliq region.
Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague from the Kitikmeot, Ms. Aglukkaq, that we should not put decisions off to future Assemblies to deal with tomorrow. It is five to seven years from now by the time you go through the process, if we put this boundary report on the shelf, it will be another five to seven years.
I think we should deal with the issues now, go through the report as my colleague from Rankin Inlet said, Mr. Curley, page-by-page and review the recommendations, and make recommendations then.
To facilitate that, I think that we should, in one of the options we discussed; establish a restricted Electoral Boundaries Commission that we can charge to go look at the issues we identified in the first report and correct them, and then report back to us.
That would speed the process; we don’t have to go through a five to seven-year process.
Mr. Speaker, I’m going to urge my colleagues in the House to vote against the motion, and I certainly intend to vote against it.
A Member: Hear.
Hear.
To the motion, Member for Uqqurmiut, Mr. Arreak.
I am in favour of the motion.
Perhaps some of the members might think that the report has no impact on me, but there are communities that were consulted by the Electoral Boundaries Commission, but there were some communities that were not consulted, and they wanted information from the boundaries commission, but the information was not adequate for those communities that were not consulted.
Some of the members are saying that we have not read the report yet but it’s open to the public now. A lot of people don’t really just want to pick up something and read it if it’s not interesting to them.
The $250,000 that was used for the Electoral Boundaries Commission is a huge amount of money and you can use that to build houses but if we were to get more MLAs, it probably would be a little over $2 million that we have to put in for the members’ use.
I think that would be at least two five-plexes that we could build for that amount of money.
It would be only used for the members if we were to increase our number.
And that money should be better spent on the public out there.  The Electoral Boundaries Commission’s Report should not be dealt with at the present time and get a better report by a different boundaries commission, and to, again, consult the communities through the Electoral Boundaries Commission, and some people were saying that the Electoral Boundaries Commission, when they consulted with the communities, worked really hard.
I realize that and I also feel that even though it doesn’t have an impact on me too much, I feel it’s very important that we reject it.
To the motion. (interpretation ends) Member for High Arctic, Mr. Barnabas.
I would also like to thank the commission that travelled to the communities.
Mr. Speaker, I’m in the same position as the Member for Akulliq because two communities could not be consulted because it’s either to do with the weather, or the route of the airline. That’s the problem that I have with my riding.
To me, it’s not adequate and it’s not adequate for my constituency.
I represent Quttiktuq and the communities are quite far apart. The communities are not visited by dignitaries and stuff like that because they’re so far apart.
I am in favour of the motion because two communities have not been consulted in my riding.
When they had a Yellowknife Electoral Boundaries Commission, they visited all of the communities, and we were able to read their report and really dealt with the report.
Here in Nunavut, some of our constituencies have not been consulted yet; the commission did not go to those communities.
So it doesn’t make sense when some of the communities were not visited at all and the people were not consulted at all and the people did not have a chance to voice their opinions.
I feel that this is not right because the elderly people don’t know anything about those kinds of things.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Barnabas. (interpretation ends) To the motion. (interpretation) Member for Hudson Bay, Mr. Kattuk.
I would like to speak to the motion.
My community was not consulted as well by the commission but just before I came here I went on the local radio and asked my constituents and we had a meeting with the hamlet council to ask them what they think of the boundaries commission that visited the communities.
They felt that it was not adequate because they did not consult my community or they did not go to my community.
Mr. Speaker, this was not, the people of Sanikiluaq thought that it was not an adequate report because they did not go to Sanikiluaq and we have a lot of concerns in my riding about regional governments.
We always felt that we were going to have less for Sanikiluaq because of that I will not be against the motion.
It seems somebody said that there would be an additional $2 million that will be spent for extra members of this House. We have no place else to go even if we get an extra member we have a very small area for our meetings at this time and we don’t know if we are going to be getting another House. This building today has no place to expand.
It is already too small as it is and if we get another extra member it will probably be too small to house more members that we have presently.
For example, in Sanikiluaq whenever there is capital funding we talk about in this House, we don’t get any capital funding for my community.
I can say to the Members of this House that Sanikiluaq people do not have any funding at all for capital.
They don’t get any capital money because the government does not have enough money to spend. In some ways I feel that the report is good, in some ways it’s not adequate.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Barnabas. I’m sorry.
My apologies to the member, Mr. Kattuk, I called you Mr. Barnabas, so I apologize Mr. Kattuk. (interpretation ends) To the motion.
Members, I wish to inform the House that I have no more names on my list. Does the mover have any last replies?
I would like to thank everyone that spoke to the motion; I mean that’s what the whole democratic process is about.
As far as doing this whole process behind closed doors and as I mentioned in my opening comments, the report was tabled in our last sitting.
It is out there, it is public information.
I have heard conflicting comments on the amount; I have heard one member say $300,000, $252,000 and some change.
I heard someone say that Iqaluit is over-represented and someone else say it is under-represented, it is under-represented based on the current form, and on the report it would continue to be under-represented.
I think when you talk about regional representation, for Cabinet, as my colleague from Rankin Inlet North indicated, when we all get elected every member that is in here has an opportunity to run for Cabinet.
To my recollection, there was only one member from the Kitikmeot who wanted to run for Cabinet.
Everybody had an opportunity…was there two? Then I apologize. It was to my recollection.
Everyone has an opportunity. Right from April 1, 1999, we have been saying Nunavut is a territory. We are not three different regions that we were under the GNWT.
We created our own territory because we wanted to do things differently, not the way they used to do things in the Northwest Territories, like my colleague said he wants to do with this report. Even that process has changed over there and has changed here as well. They don’t even do that over there.
Regarding the comments about money, 99.9 percent of my argument has nothing to do with money. The report is incomplete, it does not contain the required information under the Act that it’s required to have in it.
There are some very good recommendations. I am not saying many of those recommendations and things in there were not good.
I apologize to all those people that came out and put forward what their concerns were and what they would like to see. It is not their fault that the report was not done properly.
I don’t think it would be fair for us as members of the assembly; I don’t think it would be responsible for us as this assembly to cherry pick and go through an incomplete report.
The whole idea, as I outlined in my comments, of setting up an actual boundaries commission, was to take politics out of it. It shouldn’t be up to us. That is why we assigned that commission to come forward with recommendations so that we won’t be able to do exactly what some people seem to want to do now; that is to cherry-pick and do what’s good for them.
One comment that was made was, “adapt this report to suit my needs.”
It suits my needs just fine, that report. But I am not here to look after my needs. I am here to look after the needs of all Nunavummiut and to make sure we do our jobs properly and that we move forward.
We are not waiting until 2014 for this to be addressed.
Regardless of what happens here, after the next election will automatically trigger another electoral boundaries commission.
After the next election in one and a half to two years, automatically another electoral boundaries commission will have to be struck, because of the population, to do this all over again.
As I was saying, you take some lessons learned. There are some good recommendations in there. However, legislation cannot be drafted based on this report, which is what it is supposed to do.
Again, I urge, the report is incomplete and based on that, that’s my basis for rejecting the report. Because it does not contain what it is required by law to contain.
I would think it would be irresponsible of us to say, “That’s okay, we are going to take it and do whatever we want with it anyways.”
I think we owe it to our constituents to make sure we do things right. I have always been told, “If you do something, do it right.” As Inuit, if we didn’t do things right we wouldn’t be here today.
I believe that and I believe this is an example where we have to follow that. Again, I urge all members to support my motion to reject the report in its entirety.