EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
The department’s capital budget for the 2014-15 fiscal year was $32,688,000.
Mr. Chairman, the department’s operations have a significant impact on the success of the Government of Nunavut’s overall capital planning process.
On June 12, 2014, the Minister of Finance appeared before the Committee of the Whole on the occasion of its consideration of Supplementary Appropriation (Capital) Act, No. 1, 2014-2015.
In his opening comments, the minister indicated that approximately 125 capital projects and $149,503,000 in funding were being carried over from 2014-15 to 2015-16.
Mr. Chairman, the department’s 2014-15 capital budget included $2 million to complete a number of preplanning studies for various departments. However, the department’s current five-year capital plan indicates that funding for new preplanning studies will resume in the 2016-17 fiscal year.
During the minister’s recent appearance, members were informed that the department is currently working to complete a backlog of capital projects and preplanning studies.
Members look forward to receiving ongoing updates on the progress of these projects.
Mr. Chairman, during the minister’s recent appearance, he indicated that his department’s officials “continue to work with the Government of Canada to negotiate the terms and conditions under the New Building Canada Fund which will provide $256 million of federal funding from 2014 to 2024.”
Members look forward to receiving updates on the status of the Building Canada Fund.
Mr. Chairman, the department previously indicated that it was “working closely with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, the Nunavut Association of Municipal Administrators and municipalities to establish daily procedures to assist communities in complying with their water licence requirements. A water monitoring working group has been established to ensure water samples are being taken regularly and water logs are being filed daily.”
Members continue to urge stakeholders to work together to ensure municipalities are in compliance with their water licences and look forward to receiving ongoing updates on this issue.
On June 1 of 2012, the department issued a request for proposals for a project to locate alternate sources of drinking water for each Nunavut hamlet.
During the minister’s recent appearance, he indicated that this contract was awarded and a report has been drafted. Members encourage the minister to table a copy of the final report from this initiative in the Legislative Assembly.
Mr. Chairman, members note that the department’s current five-year capital plan includes a number of projects related to recreational infrastructure in the communities.
The department’s proposed 2015-16 capital budget includes $1.8 million in funding for a second phase of upgrades to Coral Harbour’s arena.
Members also note that $26.3 million is planned to be spent in future years to construct a new arena in Rankin Inlet.
Members recognize that $1.7 million in capital funding has already been allocated to the planning and design of this project.
In anticipation of future capital appropriations, members emphasize the importance of providing comprehensive and detailed information on projects that require significant amounts of funding and encourage the department to ensure that it is prepared to substantiate its anticipated budget for this project.
Mr. Chairman, members note that the department’s proposed 2015-16 capital estimates include $5 million in small capital funding to complete various projects throughout the territory.
Information provided by the department indicates that $2,867,000 would be allocated to block funding which will be distributed in the territory’s three regions.
The department has indicated that “the amounts for this project have remained the same since 1999-2000 when it was inherited by the GNWT.
A new policy is in the works to upgrade the program.”
During the minister’s recent appearance, members were informed that a new policy on block funding may be completed as soon as November of this year.
Members encourage the minister to table this new block funding policy once it is completed.
Mr. Chairman, the department’s proposed 2015-16 capital estimates also include $1.5 million for a new project to integrate an electronic point-of-sale payment system to the government’s current fuel distribution system.
Information provided to members indicates that this system will allow the Petroleum Products Division to redefine the scope of its fuel delivery service agreements and “will streamline contractor operations and therefore result in more competitive commission rates.”
The standing committee encourages the department to keep members updated on any significant changes to the government’s current process for awarding fuel delivery service contracts.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening comments on the proposed 2015-16 Capital Estimates of the Department of Community and Government Services.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you very much. Do members have any general comments?
I have no names on my list for general comments. Before we proceed, I would like to remind my colleagues that we are reviewing the capital estimates for 2015-16. (interpretation ends) Please keep your focus and questions on the proposed budget.
I have no more members on my list for general comments. We will now proceed to the page-by-page review of the departmental estimates starting with page J-3.
Branch Summary. Capital Planning.
Total Capital Expenditures. $20,465,000.
Mapsalak, any questions? Mr. Mapsalak.
I have one question, if I don’t have to do a supplementary question later.
In your opening remarks, you were talking about the Building Canada Fund of $256 million that you would get from the federal government for 2014.
Where are we with that money now?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you very much. (interpretation ends) Hon. Minister Mr. Sammurtok.
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) The new Building Canada program (interpretation) is what you’re asking about.
We’re still working on the agreement with the federal government in regard to that money. (interpretation ends) We’re still negotiating with Canada regarding the New Building Canada Fund at this point. (interpretation) Thank you.
Thank you, minister, for replying.
You just stated that you’re still working on the agreement.
What is the hold-up? Why haven’t you reached an agreement yet?
If it’s okay with you, I would like to respond to this in English.
This is a little bit different from the initial agreement. (interpretation ends) Unlike previous Building Canada programs, there will not be a contribution agreement signed by Canada and the GN. Once Infrastructure Canada approves a list of projects that we would submit to them, an administration agreement will be signed by both governments. (interpretation) Thank you.
We are still under questions for page J-3.
I may ask other questions later on other matters.
When can we expect this to be completed? Do you think you will be able to reach an agreement this year?
We will have the agreement with the Canadian government before the end of the fiscal year, which is March 31.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you very much. (interpretation ends) Community and Government Services. Branch Summary. Capital Planning.
Ms. Angnakak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon.
Just looking at your opening comments, you talk about identifying priority projects and that you work closely with municipalities and that.
You were saying that “This approach allows us to address the most urgent and critical projects…” Can you tell us the department’s idea of what would be a critical project? Can you give us an idea of what that might be?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) I guess an example I can use at this point is solid waste sites would be a critical project.
Can the minister elaborate on what that means? Is it flowing everywhere?
For example, in Iqaluit, they don’t have a water licence because they’re not meeting the requirements of it.
Would that constitute a critical need right there since we’re having wastewater flowing into our sea?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) The short answer would be yes.
I think our city has been without a water licence for quite a while.
If you would consider it critical, I’m wondering why it’s taking so many years to address.
I know the municipality also has their responsibilities, but I’m just wondering why the two haven’t come together to address this need.
Hon. Tom Sammurtok: Thank you for that.
The City of Iqaluit is not the only community that we’re working with.
With respect to water licences, there are other communities that we are working with as well.
However, I would be very pleased to get together with the city to discuss this further with them and assist them in making sure that they acquire their water licence.
Just to go on, in your opening comments, you talk about the Canada-Nunavut Federal Gas Tax Agreement for a total of $143 million over 10 years. You also talk about a $256 million New Building Canada Fund.
Last spring, I think the federal government announced $400 million or a little over $400 million for capital infrastructure over 10 years.
Is that $400 million part of this or is it separate?
That is the total arrived at by adding the two, the $256 million plus the $143 million.
I’m assuming or maybe it’s not fair to assume, but I’m thinking that you will sit down with the communities to decide who is going to get what.
What are the long-term plans to spend this money?
Hon. Minister Mr. Sammurtok.
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) We are having discussions within the GN, also along with the municipalities, as to what priorities they may have and whatever priorities they may have identified.
When you sit down with the community and you work with them to identify priorities, how do you address conflicting ideas in what the priority for the community should be? For example, a community might want a new arena, but perhaps, you have done an assessment and you know that what that community really needs is solid waste infrastructure.
How do you deal with that conflict?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) When we’re working with the communities, they will identify their priorities through the Integrated Community Sustainability Plan using the website I mentioned earlier, www.buildingnunavut.com.
Those priorities are given to our Nunavut Infrastructure Advisory Committee that then prioritizes the request from the communities. (interpretation) Thank you.
How do you address the fact if a community disagrees with what, at the end of the day, you have come up with as their priority, if they feel that they have been misrepresented?
How do you approach that issue?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) We have a sustainability coordinator who works with the municipalities to discuss their priorities and sustainability planning.
I am very bad at acronyms here; however, I’ll use this one, NCIAC, the infrastructure advisory committee. This committee is made up of representatives from each of the regions in Nunavut, along with our department.
They are the ones who actually set the priorities at the end.
I suppose, if a community is not happy with a decision made by this committee, they can talk to this committee through our sustainability coordinator. (interpretation) Thank you.
When you’re discussing priorities with communities, how do you go about working with the community to ensure that the basic needs are being met versus maybe something like an arena? How do you work that with the community?
In this case, if it’s okay with you, I would like to defer that question to my deputy minister.
The NCIAC committee that the minister previously referred to; there is a ranking criteria approach that we use that is based upon the GN’s ranking criteria model.
Basically, the projects are ranked in terms of health and safety.
What I mean by health and safety is if there are issues in terms of wastewater treatment that could be harmful to the environment, if there are regulatory issues, those would certainly be dealt with under health and safety. They would be the priority within the government.
The other ones would also be government services, where you have facilities that are nearing their capacity and they need to be addressed in order to be able to deliver the programs and services.
One example could be the schools where they’re nearing capacity. We need to be able to address that. That one certainly would be the second ranking criteria.
The other one that we use is the sustainability and that’s more reflected to the federal government infrastructure programs or their cost-sharing programs where there are unique benefits within the GN.
As part of this committee ranking, they do communicate back to the communities to indicate to them that the project will be based on health and safety and environmental risk, and then we would encourage them to bring forward their projects based on what they think is the greatest and critical need, especially for the core program needs in those communities.
Chairman: Thank you. (interpretation) Thank you very much.
I wasn’t expecting to be called up so soon. I think I’ve got most of my ducks in a row as it is.
I’m going to touch upon something that Ms. Angnakak has mentioned with regard to the $143 million from the Canada-Nunavut Gas Tax Fund for water, wastewater, and solid waste infrastructure.
I’m looking at this year’s capital budget.
I’m only seeing two water treatment plant infrastructure, one in Kugluktuk and one in Cambridge Bay, totalling less than $2.8 million, yet when I’m looking at the $143 million over 10 years, I guess my initial question is: how is that $143 million allocated? How is it broken down?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) I’m not sure if this is the answer the member is looking for.
However, the Gas Tax Fund is a federal fund and what we’re talking about at this moment is… . I’m sorry.
What is identified in our capital plan is covered under our GN funds. (interpretation) Thank you.
Mr. Hickes: Sorry, Mr. Chairman.
I don’t think I understood the response.
I understand that this is federal monies that are coming to the Government of Nunavut for water, wastewater, and solid waste infrastructure. I see two water treatment systems, which are water infrastructure, totalling less than $2.8 million.
Maybe the minister could just clarify: are those federal dollars not in this budget?
Are there projects going to be done out of those federal dollars that are not included in the GN budget?
I understand that the budget from the GN allocation towards the capital planning process for water and waste treatment is $2.8 million.
Could I maybe get a response? How much is going to be spent overall out of that federal tax agreement?
I would like to get one of my technical people to respond to that if I may.
Chairman (interpretation): Which official would you like to respond?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok: I’m sorry. My deputy minister.
To answer the member’s question, the gas tax is 100 percent funded by the federal government, so it wouldn’t show up in the calculations as a contribution from the Nunavut legislature.
In Appendix 4 of the capital estimates handbook, there is a list of projects that are being funded under the gas tax program.
For this fiscal year, I think we have approved approximately seven projects out of the gas tax for 2014-15 and that was mainly to address some of the budget shortfalls that were approved in the previous gas tax program.
The allocation of the funding of the gas tax is using the same ranking criteria that I mentioned before and the allocation is decided by using the community sustainability plans, using their online website, in coordination with the Nunavut infrastructure advisory committee.
Mr. Hickes: So would the same conditions apply to the Building Canada dollars in the $256 million announcement?
From what I understand, some of that is cost shared, if it’s similar to the last structured agreement. How are those dollars reported?
If it’s okay with you, I would like my deputy minister to continue responding to that.
With respect to the New Building Canada Fund, that is a cost-shared arrangement between the federal government and the Nunavut government.
The cost sharing is 75-25 percent. Once we submit a list of applications to Infrastructure Canada for consideration once we finalize the new program, basically, we will be including the 25 percent of the requirements from the GN in the capital estimates.
You will notice that what we will be doing is including the 75 percent contribution from Canada in the appendices so that you have a general idea of the total contribution cost by the GN and the federal government for a specific project.
Mr. Hickes: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the deputy for that response.
Are there going to be any funds flowing from the Building Canada Fund in the fiscal year that’s being applied for the 2015 capital budget?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) It will depend on the timeline if Canada approves the agreement.
Mr. Hickes: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I realize that back in March during the appropriation for capital, at that time, I had asked a similar question and one of the responses I got was that both provincial and territorial governments are lobbying to get an understanding from the federal government on how that funding will be allocated over an annual basis.
Back then, they didn’t know and they also didn’t know the federal approval process.
From what I understood from the deputy’s last response, they still don’t know.
That’s quite a substantial amount of time in between the announcement of funding and still negotiating the parameters of how to access that funding.
Where’s the roadblock?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) I would like to ask my deputy to respond to that.
We are to the point now that between our negotiations with Infrastructure Canada and the GN that we have pretty much ironed out the parameters around the New Building Canada Fund.
Basically, our next step now is to work with the municipalities and the Government of Nunavut to determine which projects we would be submitting under this request.
Like the gas tax, there is no annual allocation. It’s based on how many… . It’s kind of a bundling of projects.
If we felt that we could do approximately five to ten projects, let’s say, over a five-year span, we would bundle those up and they would approve the total bundling.
It could take up to 16 to 18 months after we submitted an application before we get the final approval from the federal government.
That’s why we can’t really give you a firm timeline of when we will have the approval from Infrastructure Canada on our list of projects that we would be submitting.
Going back to that same appropriation from last year’s budget, in one of the questions that I asked, I had specifically said that “The key now is to ensure that funding flows” to the territories in a timely… . Sorry. It was a quote from the federal government.
“The key now is to ensure that funding flows to our provinces and territories in a timely, efficient and flexible manner to support the needs of our citizens.”
Mr. Chairman, as we all know, Nunavut’s capital budget, in comparison to most other jurisdictions, is quite small, yet it’s not as flexible because of the limitations that our budgetary requirements have on the limited funds that we have.
If there is any type of a delay in accessing these funds, it could create quite a challenge for this government to put forward a number of projects all at once.
Where is our 25 percent going to come from? Maybe if the minister could give me a little bit of insight into how that planning process will work.
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) When Canada indicated that they were not going to sign the agreement immediately, I raised a concern with Canada with respect to program suitability for Nunavut.
Infrastructure Canada has been receptive to the concerns raised by our government.
They’re now allowing the GN to bundle projects for submission to streamline the approvals and payment process and to allow for cash advance on larger projects.
However, I would like to ask my deputy minister to elaborate on that a bit more.
I guess the frustration that the GN has experienced in terms of trying to finalize the agreement under the New Building Canada Fund to fit within our own fiscal framework has been a challenge for us to work with Infrastructure Canada to change some of the parameters to allow us to be able to fund those within our fiscal framework.
We have done a lot of our work over the last six months and we’re pretty much agreed that Nunavut is different.
It’s claim-based driven. It can have an impact on the debt wall limit.
We need to make sure that if there is ability to be able to give us cash advances, if the claims base affected our ability to fund those projects because it could have an impact on the debt, we have agreed to all those parameters.
They have agreed to us to bundle projects, which is similar to previous annual capital plans.
Basically, we’re to a point now that we are looking at, as the GN, bringing forward a list of projects that we would consider over the next 10 years.
Really, we will be having a deputy ministers’ committee meeting some time within the next four weeks whereby departments and the municipalities will submit a list of projects that we think that we can finance over the 10-year agreement.
The only difference with this one is just that we don’t have an annual allocation like we had before. Before, we knew we were getting $25 million a year and we knew that 25 percent of that was cost shared by the government.
Right now, we have submitted a list of projects and they can range anywhere from $25 million to $100 million in a particular bundle. Basically, once they’re approved, we will have some idea of how we can cash flow that in to meet the GN’s fiscal framework.
At this point in time, we’re just getting a list of projects that we would try rank and prioritize within the government and the municipalities to best meet the criteria under these new programs as we move forward.
We have actually ironed out the details with Infrastructure Canada.
Basically now our next job is to identify a list of projects that we want to fund out of this program. From our discussion with Infrastructure Canada, and then this is where it’s problematic for us as well, they are saying that it could take from 6 to 18 months by the time that we submit this list to Infrastructure Canada to get final approval.
We will continue to work with our counterparts in Ottawa to try to reduce the timeline that’s required to get the federal approval.
Basically, once we have submitted the application, we can only continue to encourage the federal government to expedite the process, but at the end of the day, it rests with the minister responsible for Infrastructure Canada.
Mr. Hickes: I do have another question of what the deputy minister just brought up with regard to some of the new parameters.
Before I do so, I would like to ask a question regarding the term “cash advance.” Would those monies come off of next year’s federal transfer or is this specifically just advancing funds from the Building Canada Fund?
That would be advancing funds from the Building Canada Fund.
Mr. Green had mentioned some of the new parameters of the Building Canada Fund. From some recent news coverage and announcements by some of the Inuit organizations, they now have access to federal programs as well, which I would assume too include some of these Building Canada programs across the country.
Has there been any talk or negotiation with any of the Inuit organizations on establishing some of these prioritized projects and maybe working in coordination and pooling resources and monies to access larger portions of this fund?