EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I think we have to get priority to the wellness of the communities such as hospital, homelessness, and recreational facilities, like I’m not saying that I’m hurt, but it’s just that last week our mayor said that there’s been an agreement that young people’s facility will be built and she said the government already agreed to it, but I don’t see it in the capital planning.
Maybe it would be under Culture, Language, Elders and Youth department but I don’t see it over here.
There’s also something else that they told me about that’s not even here.
There are lots of questions that I could have to the government. And looking at what the government is looking at are realistic, but the people that come from the community know what is going on in the community and I know that there are a lot of things that we need.
Like we are not using the way of Nunavut doing things like Mr. Peterson talked a lot about what his community needs are and he also wanted to get some information as to what they are going to be using for the small capital for which is realistic.
Of course he wants to know.
Perhaps maybe Arviat will have something from that $300,000. Perhaps Qikiqtarjuaq will get a little too as well.
I can go on and on and on, but I’d like to ask a question, I’d like to ask the minister.
A year and a half ago the government spent $25,000 to get a water a better water system in Arviat because we’ve had poor water quality for quite some time know.
And don’t see it in the five-year capital plan.
I just wanted to see if Community and Government Services is going to do anything about it or are they going to do another investigation about the lake that we use.
Madame Minister, what is happening with the Arviat water right now?
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Member for Arviat.
I feel for the comments he had made. I am pretty sure other communities feel that way.
A lot of times some projects are behind, the question that he raised I’d like to respond.
In here, work on the quality of water in Arviat it states 2007-08 there is $100,000 to start that and 2008-09, there is another $900,000 and I just wanted to point that out.
I would like to ask my officials if they want to add anything.
Mr. Dawe will supplement my response.
Some of the concerns raised by the member are exactly why we initiated the new process of consulting with the communities through the NCIAC process and it is these very types of projects that are now being brought more directly to our attention by the NAM representatives that come to our committee and by our trips out through the communities to actually consult with them.
Because as some of the members may be aware this past spring each community was visited by representatives of both Community and Government Services and NAM through the NCIAC committee and that is where our basic NCIAC process started it’s planning.
And we picked up a lot of the projects of the type that the minister, that the member has referred to here. As the minister rightly pointed out, we have indeed identified that particular project for funding to start flowing subject to the committee’s approval of course in the coming year.
It chances that the Arviat water problem is one of which we were aware through previous studies and we are know reinforced by the NCIAC and by some of the new money and we are now in a position to start doing something about it.
I might point out that that project is being funded under Gas Tax which probably is why it’s not so obviously apparent in the document that you have before you because it’s Gas Tax money which is 100 percent federal and not Vote 2 money on which the legislature is to vote.
So you can find the Gas Tax projects like this one and any other Gas Tax projects that we are proposing as was stated before in Appendix 4 to this document that you have before you.
Mr. Alagalak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the minister for identifying those numbers, yeah it is identified there, but one of the members said that they had been originally put in there and then they disappear after, what I would like to ask is that, they’re just going to put a filter in this summer.
That will not increase the quantity of water.
So 2008-09, it states $900,000, what will that be used for? What, specifically, will it be used for? Is it a guarantee that we will get it in 2008-09?
The $100,000 from Gas Tax; this is just for a study, that money that is set aside and the $900,000 that is put aside, I don’t think we’ll know exactly what it’ll be used for.
We have to go with the findings that they do with $100,000, but it will be to improve the quantity of water.
Mr. Alagalak, on J-6.
Yeah, so we will be expecting during that year like next year they’ll do another study and I will keep a close eye on the funding that make sure that they follow what they have to do because every year they just come back and say that there has to be more work on it.
And thank you for giving us something to expect on this.
I want to clarify something here, I know it says capital planning and technical services deals with capital projects and I assume that there are people that administer those capital projects as well.
I think we all know and I know Ed was always saying, when I was asking about what was going on at the middle school, and he was always blaming Community and Government Services saying it was all their fault, just kidding. He didn’t say it was all their fault, but either way it’s over there that’s good.
I guess in that, you know, as I look at that project, that capital project that happened here, that went months behind, I was just wondering how that could happen, I mean, we are approving millions of dollars worth of capital projects and how do we know that they are going to be monitored properly.
You know, so we don’t run into, or how did that situation happen.
Like I don’t know who monitors it, or who does what, so I wonder if I could get an explanation on that.
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, Chairman. The issue that is being brought up and what is written, I want you to know that since I’ve been a minister, I don’t know what my predecessor did, but we meet regularly to prioritize those.
We all have staff in the communities and they work very well with the hamlet councils and mayors and the infrastructures.
When the members, MLA’s were in the communities they were also invited to attend and I met with some of you personally.
And during the process of planning some of you were involved.
We are hoping that they won’t disappear because they’re very important and I will keep a close eye on these projects because I feel they are very important.
I don’t want the communities to expect for nothing because that’s giving false hope.
So I’d like to tell you that I am very serious about this and that my staff has big responsibilities even though we may be short of funding.
The federal government can’t give us a huge amount of money since the creation of Nunavut. We are barely getting by but we are developing something. The advisory committee is new and last year in 2005 they just started and they have accomplished a lot.
We can actually produce something so they will be able to monitor the progress.
My deputy wanted to supplement my response.
Chairman: Thank you Madame Minister.
I am responding to the member’s question regarding the Aqsarniit middle school project.
I guess I can state that from my previous portfolio of Education I was watching the project closely as well.
I think the important thing to note is, to mention, is the fact this school project was a very complex project, it was not just a construction of a new facility, it was also renovation to an existing facility as well.
The project is actually delivered by the regional office where the technical officers are located, and it’s also overseen by technical division in headquarters.
The project, although there was a slight delay, it was less than two months and it is one that we are watching. We have a number of, obviously, a number of projects that are completed actually even before the construction date as well, so some are little bit easier and go through a lot quicker.
We have the odd ones that will extend a little bit longer than what we anticipate. When we design the tender documents and the contract documents were are putting our best date forward, for the completion dates based on conception drawings and tender processes.
It’s then when reality hits in this situation that with a delay of materials reaching the building site on time was one of the delays, which caused a delay in construction.
As soon as they were aware of the delay, they did let the client department, Education knows about this delay.
We also kept in contact with the school, the DEA, and the parents as well. We had meetings on site three times a week to make sure that the progress was being made.
So we did everything we possibly could once the delay was identified.
The minister has asked us to do a review of the project which we will be doing as well, so we will be looking at the process to see if there’s anything in our project administration process that needs to be changed, so that we can minimize any potential delay of future projects.
I thank the minister and the deputy for that response and I guess she’s looking at it now from a different perspective.
Given that when someone bids on the contract they know what they’re getting into, in this case there was more than one bidder; it doesn’t matter, but someone that is putting in a bid, especially on a project that like that, should know what they’re getting into, and they should be confident in knowing they’ll get it done in that time frame.
If you look at materials not coming here on time, well if they missed the deadline to get the stuff to the boat, is that our problem, or is that their problem? That’s what happens I think, when you have southern contractors that aren’t used to how things are done up here as far as deadlines and that go.
When you talk about the project where it’s administered by the regional offices, is that here? Is the regional office here?
We’re referring to the office in Pond Inlet.
Is someone from Pond Inlet looking after that project here in Iqaluit? Pond Inlet...what is that office? I know you have an assistant deputy minister headquarters positioned here, and a deputy minister here; you have an assistant deputy minister function in Rankin Inlet.
I’m just wondering, looking at a reporting process, and just to see if this might help you guys in looking at your review, is someone from Pond Inlet looking at a project here, and going back to Pond Inlet, then where do they go from that?
Do they go from Pond Inlet back here to headquarters, or does it go to the headquarters function in Rankin Inlet?
I’m just wondering what the reporting structure...if we want to see where and how delays came about.
That might be something to look at. Can we just get an idea of...if a project officer goes to the regional head guy in Pond Inlet, where does that person go to with everything? Is it through the headquarters office here, or the headquarters office in Rankin Inlet?
All the regional offices and implementation offices were developed before my time. It’s called decentralization.
It seems like Ipalligajuq since I’ve been minister. However, all those take time to Ipagiksaq, like, to organize, and to plan. That’s where we are today, trying to make everything fit; trying to make everything work.
To elaborate some more, I think my deputy minister will speak to that as well.
Just to answer the member’s question first is that; when we’re looking at the review of the file of this project we’re going to be looking at everything as well.
So your comment will be taken into consideration. We will look at that.
As the minister said, we have a number of decentralized offices, and when we look at the Baffin region, it’s even more decentralized because it also results from the amalgamation when Community Government and Transportation was amalgamated with Public Works and Services.
They both had two decentralized regional offices. We’ve kept those offices, so the community government side of operations of the Baffin region is located in Cape Dorset, and the technical services side is located in Pond Inlet.
So the specific question that the member raised; the project officer would report to the project manager, and the assistant regional director located in Pond Inlet, who would then talk to the regional director located in Cape Dorset.
It seems a long ways to go around for something that is right here in the middle to get done, and that might have...I’m not saying I’m knocking the set up or whatever, but, it has to go here, there, and everywhere, and each time it has to go to one of those places, it goes right through here where the project is.
You might have been better off having someone from here administer that project.
Then, they could go see for themselves that everything is fine, and not be told; oh don’t worry, everything is fine, and then when they come down and see it from Pond Inlet, they find out that everything isn’t.
With that I very much look forward to the review being done and, like you say, everything being looked at.
To me a contract is a contract, if a contractor says, “Yes, we’re going to do it by this timeframe; it should be done by that timeframe.
Is it our fault that they didn’t order stuff in time to get it on the boat?
That’s not our fault.
Hopefully, the yeoman service that the Minister of Education has done on this file to make sure that those children didn’t lose out as much as they could’ve.
I think when you look at it two weeks of school or more that they’ve lost.
The staff up at the school there has put in a tremendous amount of effort just to maintain it. I think we owe it to them, and to Mr. Picco, as well to make sure things like this don’t happen again.
We can learn from our mistakes because given everything, it’s a lot of undue stress on everyone involved; right from the kids to the teachers, to the Minister of Education; to the staff, and everybody throughout the whole system. It doesn’t need it. Everybody is busy enough already.
So I’ll leave it at that and I look forward to that review being done and reviewing the review.
Detail of Capital. Capital Planning and Technical Service.
I just wanted to follow-up with the previous line of questioning we had going here with respect to projects that are funded under the Gas Tax in Appendix 4.
I realize they’re not Vote 2 projects, but previously in the House some of the projects were funded and subsequently now they’re being 100 percent funded by the Gas Tax.
My question for the minister and her officials is: can they table an update and then table a document that shows us how the funds that were appropriated earlier for some of these projects; how they were reallocated to other projects?
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and also the member for asking those questions. I will have Mr. Dawe respond to that question.
The member is quite right in referring to a number of projects that were started a little while ago with Vote 2 money and since the signing of the Gas Tax agreement are now eligible for funding under the Gas Tax agreement instead. Some of these projects we had already identified Vote 2 money in previous capital programs.
So the proposal was to take that Vote 2 money and reassign it to other projects for which Gas Tax is not suitable for projects that are not eligible under the Gas Tax.
We have taken measures to start that process.
There are perhaps a half dozen projects that we’ve identified so far that are at a certain point where we can indeed take the free unspent money yet and put aside.
We have identified a number of projects of potential for reuse of that money elsewhere, but we don’t have a final list of that yet. It will be very little in terms of initiating of new projects because some of this money will be used for shortfalls that occurred on other projects for emergency work that came up, and quite a number of other different purposes that we proposed to reassign the money.
In direct answer to the member’s question, we do not have the money reallocated yet; we can provide shortly a list of the projects that we are considering that need reallocation of some money of this sort.
And that will at least demonstrate the field as to where this money is being proposed, where it’s possible to spend it.
We do have to get a little bit closer to the final accounts on some of these projects to determine exactly what the financial status is.
So we’re not quite in the position at this point in time to actually make hard and fast decisions as to where the money should go, but we do have some general ideas and those can be tabled as a guideline for the information of the members if you so wish.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Dawe. Mr. Peterson.
I thank the minister and Mr. Dawe for that information. Can Mr. Dawe give us an idea of the total amount of funds that are freed up as a result of the Gas Tax initiative being signed?
Mr. Dawe: Again, as I mentioned earlier, the accounts are a little bit preliminary at this point in time because, as you can appreciate, we are only now approaching the end of our construction season, and it’s actually quite a busy part of the financial season in getting all these bills out and getting all the accounts straightened away.
There is also an issue with respect to some of the free money versus some of the money that we’ve already paid that may be eligible. The bottom line is, it looks like, and I don’t have the figure exactly in front of me, but if I recall, I think it was about $2 million that we were looking at immediately available for reallocation to some of these other projects.
Now in the meantime some of that will have to go to other committed projects that we have had to do some juggling on earlier, but it looks like $2 million to be dealt with of which, some of it will be discretionary, but a lot of it more or less tied up with other projects that have come into shortfall or have been initiated for emergency purposes.
As I said we will be able to provide a more detailed list in a few days.
I thank Mr. Dawe.
Can Mr. Dawe tell me if these other projects that you may reallocate the funding to, are they also projects that would have been reviewed by the Nunavut Investment, or the Nunavut Infrastructure Review Committee?
Generally speaking, those projects would have been considered by the NCIAC whether they made a final, made the cut to the final recommendations may or may not be true.
In most cases I suspect it would be, but there are some projects where we have had to advance them because conditions became a little bit different because we had a leak in the sewage berm or because we had, as an example.
So generally speaking, yes, all the projects were considered by NCIAC unless they were ones that came up for emergency purposes, in which case NCIAC would be involved from an approval after the fact sort of type of consideration.
They would review the project and if they agree, then we can do some realignment to the funds, if they agree to forward the recommendation.
I thank the minister, and Mr. Dawe.
When Mr. Dawe was speaking, I was thinking that it would sure be nice for Members of the Legislative Assembly and I’m sure for the ministers as well if we had a book or a dictionary of acronyms. We’re tossing around; I know I have so many rolling around my head that sometimes I don’t know if we’re talking the same language.
I think it would be worthwhile in the interest of transparency as I had mentioned in my opening comments if the department would table that information so that we know where the funds are being reallocated to.
We do have limited funds in the government for infrastructure, so it would be worthwhile for us to, as members of the House and the various standing committees to know where the funds are being shuffled around to. They always say; follow the money.
We want to make sure that the funds are going to good use.
That’s just more of a comment Mr. Chairman, but I’m quite serious about the acronym dictionary, or book.
Back to J-6.
Detail of Capital. Capital Planning and Technical Services.
Total Qikiqtaluk Region. $4 million.
Total Grants and Contributions. $4 million.
Total Headquarters Region. $3,895,000.
Qikiqtaluk Region.
Mr. Arvaluk: Just for the record, I think you’re supposed to say $3,895,000.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Arvaluk. $3,895,000.
Qikiqtaluk Region. $200,000.
Chairman: Sorry. Next page. Page J-7.
Total Qikiqtaluk Region. $2,266,000.
I seriously took a great interest for Pond Inlet, these shares projects. The foundation for a community hall is $1,000,020.
The main part of the community hall I guess will be $400,000.
I don’t know how the breakdown is. The foundation seems to be twice as expensive as the rest of the community hall.
I think that’s what the company charges. I also see with interest that in the substantiation sheet, there is a plan for 2010. I believe it is for a three bay garage in Pond Inlet, 2010-11, of $4 million.
I was very interested when Mr. Peterson was talking about that, and I think Mr. Tootoo, too...
Tootoo, too.  >>Laughter
... that there is a consultation between the mayors.
I think the deputy minister was stating that they held a consultation with the mayors and the Members of the Legislative Assembly were invited to participate in prioritizing the items for their community under the Community and Government Services.
When I became a hamlet member four months ago, five months ago, I was briefed by the hamlet council, and especially by the SAO, that we would get a community hall this year, or next year, and because the funds are not available now, we would not get a community complex.
That means arena included, and possibly with a curling rink, then they will have to wait until the following year for that, another year for that.
I noticed now that it’s completely gone.
I looked to 2012 and beyond that, and there is also a column here that says future years.
That is way past 2011-12, I think. There’s nothing there either.
As far as the community briefing me was that, we cannot really use the arena anymore because it’s, if you go inside in the dark, you could see the stars through the roof, and the parents, what about the children freezing their ears off when they’re trying to play hockey?
So they really don’t use it now and especially in the late winter, like February. How is it that when the understanding was reached to have, you know when the funds become available to community hall design so that the arena can be added to it?
And the site developed accordingly, that even for the future years, there’s nothing there. Is that because, it would be eligible on the Gas Tax, and what of the extra money that some other funding was to be made available?
Can I have that explanation?
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll have Mr. Dawe answer your question.
The Pond Inlet Community Complex Project wound up being very much more expensive than the money that we were providing at the time, as it went along.
We found the same thing with quite a number of our recent projects that costs seem to be rising an awful lot because of market conditions it seems.
In any event, we did not have enough money identified in the capital program to fund what was at the time being proposed as a community complex, which would have consisted of a community hall and an arena built into the one building.
Rather than delay the entire project, we did determine that we could probably fund the community hall part of it, the community hall was, through consultations, was determined to be the more pressing of the two needs, so in effect we decided to use the money that we had already identified to build the community hall part, also to make provision in the foundation work that is now being done on site so that the arena part could be built in at a later point, and that accommodation is also being made in the design.
The financial reality remains with us however that we still only have enough money to build the one component of it and there is not enough money identified in the capital plan for the second.