EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
So Minister Akesuk will be leading those discussions in the coming year.
I look forward to their productive comments from all chambers and the private sector in terms of what they would like to see our government do.
Mr. Speaker, the Keewatin Chamber of Commerce has been renamed the Kivalliq Chamber of Commerce recently and has a membership of over 80 members and 65% of the members are Inuit and small business.
Either the carvers, the print makers, the sewing ladies or various members like that.
The Kivalliq Chamber years ago recognized that high membership fees wouldn't attract members and they have a phased membership fee for people in the traditional economy of 25 dollars per year.
But the problem with that Mr. Speaker, is to operate an office, hire a part time person to answer the phone, and just to generally lobby the government and tell them what is going on, is very difficult.
So could he look at trying to direct his minister responsible for trying to set up some kind of base funding from some department in his government.
What I would suggest is that we are looking at every possibility but we also have to weigh the options and what we can afford.
We were asked to spend money on tourism, more money there.
So we have to weigh our budget and there will be, we will look forward to any proposal coming from the Chamber, because they want us to spend money on certain areas and we will look at that.
But we have to weigh the benefits for the private sector as well as for the overall economy of Nunavut.
Tabled Document 049 - 1(5): Statement of Regular Members’ - Leadership Review
Honourable members I have the honour of tabling today the statement of the regular members on the mid-term leadership review.
This statement is a summary of the issues raised in the House during the leadership review and the hopes of the members for the leadership in the second half of this government's term.
Bill 15: Technical Standards and Safety Act - Notice
Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on November 26, 2001, I will move that Bill 15, Technical Standards and Safety Act, be read for the first time.
Motion 013 - 1(5): Tabled Document 41 - 1(5) Report of the Liquor Licensing Board to Committee of the Whole
Ms. Williams: I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Uqqummiut, that Tabled Document 41 - 1(5) entitled, Nunavut Liquor Act Report, be moved into committee of the whole for discussion.
The tabled document is referred to the committee of the whole.
Hon. Kelvin Ng.
Bill 14: An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act - First Reading
Hon. Kelvin Ng: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Iqaluit West that Bill 14 - 1(5), An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act, be read for the first time.
Bill 12, Appropriation Act No. 1, 2002-03.
Bill 13, Supplementary Appropriation Act No. 2, 2001-02.
Minister's Statement 96 - 1(5), Ulaajuk School - The First of Many to Come.
Also the Tabled Document, Liquor Act Report.
The Committee of the Whole will take place with Mr. Iqaqrialu in the Chair.
Prior to that we will take a 45 minute break for lunch with members joining up in the members' lounge, sorry in the Tuktu Room.
>>House recessed at 12.02 p.m. and resumed at 12.49 p.m.
We will be going back to where we left off yesterday which was with the Department of Community Government and Transportation.
I would now like to ask the minister responsible, Mr. Anawak to please take the witness stand.
Thank you. Mr. Anawak, please introduce your officials.
Hon. Jack Anawak (interpretation): To my left is Mike Ferris and on my right is Doug Sitland.
Before we proceed with questions I will ask members to keep in mind you have 10 minutes for your questions.
The committee would like to deal with the 2002-2003 capital estimates for Community Governments & Transportation.
If the members have any comments.
You are allowed 10 minutes for your comments.
If you don't have any comments we can deal with this page by page.
Just a short comment before we proceed.
I have a concern.
The Department of Sustainable Development and the Department of Community Government & Transportation have to work together to respond to what Inuit want, in particular for the communities that will not have decentralization.
In Coral Harbour there has to be an access road available for outpost camps.
We do try to deal with these projects by working with the Hamlet Council.
The trail would be used by hunters who harvest the 6 thousand caribou I talked about earlier.
Except for January, February and part of March the ground is not frozen enough.
The community purchased a community freezer.
I think the road now reaches Salmon Pond and if we could extend this trail it would be beneficial to Coral Harbour hunters and Coral Harbour residents.
As well, with respect to Chesterfield Inlet, I have been dealing with this issue for quite a long time now.
There’s no gravel in Chesterfield Inlet and I’m very happy and thankful to the minister for the response that he gave me with respect to the gravel issue.
Because there’s no gravel in Chesterfield Inlet they do not have many trails or roads.
When people do not have boats to travel with they usually want to travel by all terrain vehicles but this is difficult.
The trail is not good enough.
It’s very difficult to travel on the tundra if you have no trail and if you have no gravel roads.
Because of these reasons the residents have been asking for a trail to be established.
They wanted to get more gravel roads.
The minister is aware of this concern.
Some of the pieces of stone are very large and we feel it’s a hazard for the community.
The community of Chesterfield has been having problems with the loading dock and they have identified a place by the Hudson’s Bay store that could be used for docks.
They’ve designed a dock that could be constructed in their community.
The minister said when this might be done but the money that will be needed for this hasn’t been put in yet.
And this is money from the Government of Nunavut.
Mr. McLean asked about when Baker Lake might receive a dock or where and the minister said if it’s going to benefit the community financially they could set this up as a priority.
If they were to put in a dock it would benefit the community financially through hunting.
They have a quota for fishing and we feel that this would really benefit the community of Chesterfield Inlet and they could bring in fish to Whale Cove, if they had a proper dock facility.
So those are the areas I would like the minister to look at and we hope that they could be put into the five year plan for the benefit of Chesterfield Inlet and Coral Harbour.
My question for the minister is about the Capital estimates for 2003-2007.
The capital plans don't include the Coral Harbour trail or a dock facility in Chesterfield Inlet.
When would I expect to see these in the Capital plan.
With respect to Government of Nunavut capital funding, there is always a shortage of funding.
It is pretty difficult to plan at this time for large facilities such as what the member is asking for when there is lack of capital funding.
I was talking about 500 thousand dollars, which is not a large amount, but it will help towards getting a response with respect to the member's concern.
I also talked about 4.3 million dollars that could be used towards access roads and travel roads.
We want to work closely with the communities when we are establishing these access roads.
We will start discussion on this, this year.
With respect to the access roads.
The three million dollars has to be used towards infrastructure programs.
We will be putting two million dollars towards transportation issues.
But the capital issues are very expensive.
They want more docking facilities in communities.
I know that this two million dollars will not go far but we will be putting part of the money towards access roads in communities.
With respect to the funding that we are going to be getting, it is going to be 4.3 million dollars.
This will be used over a four year period and will be made available through the Government of Nunavut.
This will be done over a four year period and we are going to plan every year through the Government of Nunavut.
We will be allowing 1 million dollars per year for up to four years.
We are going to be receiving this amount of money.
It is already agreed upon.
Then we will be using this towards establishing or expanding access roads.
Under the Bathurst Mandate, education and housing are priorities of the Nunavut Government.
It also mentions sustainable development whereby people will establish their own businesses.
I will use my community as an example.
They have tried to have up to six thousand caribou and in Chesterfield Inlet there is another business that they are concentrating on.
There are some hunters that also go to Chesterfield Inlet to go caribou hunting.
Can the minister work towards the Bathurst Mandate and not concentrate on establishing access roads so much but work with the Department of Sustainable Development as you work on issues of getting more funding for access road programs.
We are working very closely with the Department of Sustainable Development as we work on access roads.
If it will be used for recreational purposes, then it is under their department.
So we do involve them and if they can get more funding, we will work with them.
But just on our own, Community Government & Transportation will be receiving one million dollars every year that will be put towards activities that will be built, such as access roads.
As I said in my comments yesterday we are not sure at this time how we will be allocating this funding or to where.
But I want to say again, that we do work very closely with the Department of Sustainable Development.
We are hoping to maybe get more than the one million dollars.
This has been raised by the regular members before.
It is about Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and the Bathurst Mandate.
We decided to have community wellness in our communities, and we use a lot of funding.
The budget goes towards a lot of beneficial issues, but as far as community wellness is concerned, this has not been used towards programs that might be more beneficial for community wellness and healthy communities.
If a person can go to an outpost camp through these access roads and if people can get money for fishing and hunting, these things can be helpful to establish community wellness and healthy communities.
So it is more of a comment Mr. Chairman.
I want the minister and his department to think about this topic.
This is something that we've been working on.
We feel that if we provide docks and facilities like that and roads to campsites, that it will benefit the community through contributing to a healthy lifestyle.
We have already told the mayors they should think of how they could best spend this money and they have to think of what their community needs.
The community should generate ideas about how this money should be spent in their community.
We want to put equipment in the community that they need, as long it is safe for the community and there are no barriers as to regulations and so on.
As long it is safe for the community.
The community is able to give us their ideas as to what the community needs and how this money should be spent.
Each community will not receive access roads or dock facilities right away, it will take time.
We are trying to work more closely with the communities to get their ideas as to what kind of capital equipment they need.
As I said a number of times, the communities know what they need.
We are doing this so we could put them in the 5 year plan.
Just a short comment to make the minister aware and his staff.
Last year, funds that were to be utilized for a project were not enough.
When this is the case, the project continues for another year or is deferred to another year. Once the projects go in that manner, we kind of wonder if projects will ever be completed and the funds that are to be used for those projects need to be increased.
If they’re given in proper amounts then projects could be completed.
With the project that’s going on in Kugluktuk, I made this statement so that you’re aware.
There are other communities that don’t need to go through the same process.
A very brief note in terms of the airstrips.
Yes, some seem to be in good shape in the communities, some communities are not so good as others.
I’ve noticed because I’ve heard from pilots at First Air and Canadian and other carriers at times, that airstrips need to be improved.
For me, for example, in Kugluktuk the airstrip is in fairly good shape, some of the pilots are not aware as to the condition of the airstrip.
This information needs to flow to the carriers.
For instance, if they are to bring in bigger airplanes into the community in the future there needs to be better communication flowing back and forth.
In Kugluktuk regarding the gravel situation, they at times have difficulties to haul gravel because it’s a fair distance away for housing pads and the roads.
This is very expensive and you’re aware of this and it’s the only thing that we can do.
We are aware that you’ve gone to meetings in Ottawa with your federal counterparts.
Yes that’s a good thing and please continue.
You support Nunavut very well as to their goals and aspirations.
The other day I mentioned it, I will mention it again.
If your meeting schedules are written down and forwarded to the hamlets and myself, we can refer to those documents so we can support you.
I don't have any other comments, but I have a question. Thank you.
A very short question.
Just to clarify something here.
When funding is projected for a certain project at times there are shortfalls.
Why is that the case, are they not reviewed year after year as to the costs.
Does a project become more expensive, is there a worry that a project is not going to be completed after a certain period of time.
Why are there shortfalls.
Is it not new, is it too old.
Are the projects becoming too expensive.
On April 1, 1999, when the government was created, not everything was perfectly put into place.
But we are trying to perfect it and I have been involved in municipal politics as a mayor and a council member.
In the past, we would estimate how much a project would cost or how much we would have to spend on a certain project.
We weren't always right but while we are working on this five year plan, if a community would look at what they need within the three years, we would be able to work with the community, and try to estimate how much a certain project would cost.
Even though we do this, if we were to do one in a community and we don't have a written amount, quite often we don't have the exact amount that is needed for the project.
Quite often something else comes up that we need to add to the project, equipment may be needed, but we just follow what is the amount that is in front of us.
As members will remember, we dealt with the capital budget, it was done in April.
We were going to be too late to the order stuff in for the communities.
So, we weren't able to identify exactly what amount of money was going to be spent for certain projects.
We are better prepared because now we identify what communities need in November so we are better prepared for the amount of money that is needed.
(interpretation ends) Sometimes there are unforeseen circumstances where we might have spent capital dollars elsewhere as a result of some emergency.
Now that we are going to be doing our appropriations for the next fiscal year in November this should take care of a lot of the concerns that have been expressed.
But again what we are trying to set up is a much better 5 year capital plan so that we don't have to make changes right through the year or at the end as a result of some unforeseen need to spend capital dollars.
As all of us know the 5 year plan does change from year to year by way of prioritizing the items that are in it. You mentioned the department reviews it annually. When you are doing that I guess you maintain contact with each community to make sure that they have their input or update their priorities to their 5 year forecast.
The reason why I am asking is because it was mentioned by the department and again I want to make sure each community has submitted their 5 year forecast prioritizing their needs for that year.
Because as you know it changes from year to year.
Hon. Jack Anawak: That is precisely why we are trying to get a 5 year capital plan that is more realistic and is arrived at in the community in joint consultation with Community Govt. & Transportation.
We want to make sure if we have a 5 year capital plan we have the capability to deliver it.
If there are going to be any changes we want to streamline the planning process so it would only occur as a result of having discussions with the communities involved.
We don't foresee any at this time.
Once we streamline the process we expect to see a much better outcome from the planning process because it is going to be much more realistic, rather than as has happened in the past, sort of having a wish list in the past.
It is not just a wish list, I know it is important, but sometimes the Government of the Northwest Territories at the time was negligent in saying that some of the items that a community might want may be far down in the future, rather than putting it into the five year capital plan.
We want to get a truly realistic five year capital planning process in place so that the communities can expect to get their fire hall in the year three, rather than us coming back and saying well we have to move it back a year because we didn't identify the dollars in time.
We want to eliminate that whole thing of having to change the five year capital plan unless, unless it was absolutely necessary and it would only happen in discussions with the communities involved.
Just a short comment and I will have two questions later.
In the minister's opening comments, they are clear and they are almost the same as last year's.
I just wonder if the money is going to be coming for the access roads.
According to the minister's statement he says that they received some money from the Federal Government, and I really appreciate that his staff is working very hard to try and acquire that funding.
There are a lot of communities that don't have community halls and they use the school gyms for community events and the schools use community halls quite often as a gym.
Arctic Bay needs a community hall and there are a lot of communities in the high arctic that need community halls.
If a community has a good community hall it is a good place for the kids to go to for activities such as volleyball and basketball and it keeps them away from committing crimes.
The minister said that there is 300 thousand dollars and 3.4 million dollars over four years set aside for access roads.
My first question is, Mr. Chairman, if I may be permitted to ask a question.
You can go ahead and ask your questions Ms. Williams.
My question is about access roads.
They will be building access roads in the communities starting April 1, 2002.
Do the communities have to request the department to provide an access road in their community.
Hon. Jack Anawak (interpretation): The 4.3 million dollars, we can get the 300 thousand dollars presently out of the 4.3 million.
The 2 million that I talked about and the 4.3 million dollars has to do with infrastructure, it’s infrastructure money.
The 4.3 million is for transportation, but the two million dollars is not enough and we have asked the Premier to increase that funding.
I’m sure that the premier will sign an agreement as soon he goes down to Ottawa.
The 4.3 million dollars is for transportation but we expect that as soon as the Premier signs the agreement we will be able to acquire one million dollars in April.
But we feel that the best way is to have the communities keep requesting funding for access roads.
If we can increase the one million dollars we figure we’d be able to divide up the money for the communities’ access roads.
Perhaps divide it up amongst the twenty six communities.
If we can get a little bit more than a million dollars, the communities don’t have to apply to get that funding.
We were just thinking about dividing it up amongst the twenty six communities.
Ms. Williams (interpretation): Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And the 7.7 million, at the bottom it states that the money will be going towards access roads. I would like to say thank you to the minister because I’m sure the communities will appreciate getting some funding for access roads.
My last question is, I mentioned yesterday about airport terminals, and I just wondered, because there’s no money in here in the capital estimates for Arctic Bay.
He doesn’t have to answer right now but I just wondered if there would be any way to move the funding for Arctic Bay's airport closer to this year.
Hon. Jack Anawak (interpretation): We were surprised when the mines announced their closure as they had stated that they would close the mine next year in September.
But one thing that I could say to you is that the airports and access roads, as the Nunavut Government, we would be responsible for that and we will make the decision whether Arctic Bay will require an airstrip.
The Federal Government will be responsible for the clean up of the Nanisivik mine after it closes.
But we expect perhaps maybe for two years the cleanup will take place and prior to that, we will start making decisions as to how we can deal with the closure of Nanisivik mine.
But the reason we haven't made any decisions on that is because the announcement of the closure of the mine had surprised us.
We will consider it carefully in the upcoming year so that we will start planning towards it.
I won't stop any members from asking question through their general comments.
I will make my comments very brief.
I will be using my dialect.
Some of the communities don't have gravel facilities or places to make granular materials.
There is hardly any gravel in some communities.
I was wondering how you could give more support to those communities.
In Repulse Bay there is no gravel close to the community and because the Municipality is lacking gravel and the community terrain is deteriorating or eroding.
I know that since we don't have much gravel the terrain in the community is deteriorating.
There is an old campsite, because we are not allowed to remove or touch the artifacts from that heritage site, the rocks are there but we will have to start focusing on the needs of the communities.
How can we give more support to those communities.
Because we only have one gravel truck and we can't keep up to the community's needs and the demand.
How can you give more support to have more heavy equipment so there would be more gravel transported to the communities.
I know we have to reach the gravel pit in our area and the granular machine can't keep up with the demand in the community.
How can you give more support to those kinds of communities.
That's my general comment.
I do have a question with that.
For those workers who are trying to reach the gravel pit, how can you give them more financial assistance because there is hardly any gravel close to the community of Repulse Bay.
We give support to community initiatives.
I am a very frequent visitor to Repulse Bay.
I do have many friends in that community and say hello to Gabriel if he is listening.
Yes, that individual usually takes me through the access road and they built that on their own when they weren't busy with daily operations, they used the equipment to construct this access road.
But the terrain is kind of hilly and it is kind of rough so it is hard to access the gravel pit.
Last summer we had a bit of a surplus and the mayor of that community came and we were able to assist him financially to work on the access road to the gravel pit.
As the member knows, the access road we are trying to build is not just for the gravel pit, it is also for the recreational areas, so that people can go fishing in the spring or the summertime.
It's a very scenic place, and they are working very hard to complete this.
So, therefore we expect that the gravel pit, we could help with the construction of the access road to the pit next year.