EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
So, I had to do something about that and found a job and I worked with the Kitikmeot Inuit Associations and the hamlets and wildlife.
I have also worked in other areas as the representative of my people and when I was a hunter, at times, we were not very successful in the hunt and those are the experiences I have gone through in life.
Mr. Speaker, the life we have today is very easy compared to the past and we still look out for our kids to ensure their safety. My wife, Victoria, we have been married for 43 years; we have three adopted kids and numerous other children.
Although my wife has been ailing over the last while, she has been very patient.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to state that in Naujaat, I would like to state again that there is no recreation facility in Naujaat.
The youth are the ones suffering due to the lack of a community center and it is my wish to ensure this is provided for by the next Government.
In regards to the future Members of this Assembly, I urge them to continue to represent the needs of Inuit.
Having sat here for four years, I am very grateful for my experiences.
Mr. Speaker, the housing shortage is still a critical issue that should continue to be the priority of the next Government.
And our youth who suffer a very high unemployment rate, we should continue to look after their needs and people with mental disabilities still continue to need being looked after.
I urge the next Government to look at those needs.
Member’s Statement 783 – 1(6): Thanks Family and Constituents for Support as a Member of the Legislative Assembly
I rise today to show my gratitude to my Colleagues and we have a lot to be thankful for.
First of all, my family, my husband Glenn, my son Ben and daughter Virginia and my granddaughter Kirsten and my son Virgil; I thank them for their ongoing support.
I am able to be here because of their support and it gives me the strength and when I go home, they are always there for me and I thank them for that.
And the three communities, almost five communities and because there are two old mine sites that are still manned and I know the people that work there.
So, I would like to thank all of the people of the High Arctic, especially those who pray for me and my well being.
Mr. Speaker, there is a church in Arctic Bay and every Saturday, they gather to pray for the Members of this Assembly and the Government.
I thank them for that and I have often told them about my Colleagues and the support I get here and the Cabinet and the Standing Committees and actual Sessions in this House that we can pray five times in a run of a day and that we all know that if we do not have a higher Being to believe in, we would not be here and we always pray for the support and the strength.
Our good Lord hears us when we pray.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to state that before I was a Member, when the Government was being formed, I was involved, I was working with the Interim Commissioner, my colleague Anawak was the Interim Commissioner and it was kind of, I was always kind of leery when the Members came in when Mr. Anawak had to meet with them.
And Mr. Speaker, my time is up, so I would like unanimous consent to conclude my Statement?
Speaker: The Member is seeking unanimous consent to conclude her Statement, are there any nays?
There are no nays, please proceed Ms. Williams.
Ms. Williams (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker and my Colleagues.
It used to be intimidating when the Members came in.
All of these people in such high positions and we had to inform and brief them on the different issues and we had one year to make sure everything was running well enough.
And I am grateful for that experience and I took it very seriously, especially in the area of justice and social services and the agreement for the different prisons in the south.
And I would like to remind Members that, I never wanted to mention this in the House, but I got this permission yesterday that during the Northwest Territories, the Ministers did not even acknowledge the employees, I used to have an office here in Iqaluit at that court house and the door was all glass and there used to be a lot of people coming in and out to my office for coffee.
When I went in my office, there a lady standing in the porch and I asked her if she needed help.
She was chewing gum and when I looked back, this lady with white hair and I was wondering who this was and she shook my hand, she told me, I did not even recognize the Minister.
That is how much we had no contact, with Minister Kelvin Ng that I never, when he was with the Department of Justice, I thought he was some ordinary guy coming in for coffee.
Now we know who he is and we, the Government is very closer to the people now and so, I am sure all of his staff in his Department recognize him now.
It was very far away back then during the Northwest Territories days and now it is very much better where the Government is closer.
There will be elections for mayors and District Education Authorities and different councils within the communities.
So, I urge the people to go vote and to congratulate those who win those elections.
I would also like to thank the staff, the two who I have known, John Quirke who I have known for many years when I lived in Inuvik as a nurse.
I never felt like I had family.
So, John Quirke and Annie came in and I felt so much better in Inuvik.
I do not think that they lived there for a long time, but that was in the 1970’s and Nancy, one of our tireless workers, when I went to Kuujjuaq in 1966, I think that it was in a DC-3 that we flew from Resolute to Kuujjuaq.
When we came in late at night, the first time I have ever seen trees and there was a young lady who was working there and said to me that it was Nancy.
Now we can be good friends and have this contact and at the professional base, and she is a very professional lady.
I thank you, too, Mr. Speaker, when I first became a Member, you really assisted me and guided me, you gave me some different ideas and suggestions as how I should work as a Member and you people seemed very experienced and were so confident in your positions and that was comforting.
And Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful for my mother who is in her 90’s, I am sure she will be watching, so I send her my regards and my family in Arctic Bay and Resolute and Grise Fiord and the people of the high arctic, thank you and I wish you a Merry Christmas.
Member’s Statement 784 – 1(6): Thanks Constituents, Family and Members of the Legislative Assembly for Support as a Member
I would like to show my gratitude.
I first became a Member in 1999 when we first started; I am forever grateful for all the experience I have gone through throughout our tenure.
Having become a first time Member of the Legislative Assembly, it was quite intimidating. I thank my constituents for putting me here.
My grandchildren, I have mentioned who they were before, a big hello to them, two in Pond Inlet and two here in Iqaluit, I send my regards.
As Inuit of Nunavut we are very inter-related, through family and through stories by elders.
We start getting all these relations whether you are from the Kitikmeot or the Kivalliq I have an in-law in the Assembly whom I am not sure you are aware of.
Maktar and I are related, so, Ovide Alakannuark, I am somehow related to him from our ancestors.
It was kind of surprising to see, although he is from Kugaaruk and we are pretty far away.
And I am also related to another person as well that I will reveal to you in the future.
I will not mention it today.
As well, just the other day, there was an announcement by one of the Members who will not be running again, the Member for Cambridge Bay, and he said that he will be relocated in Yellowknife.
Mr. Ng, I want to invite you to Pond Inlet in the springtime, the beautiful time of the year.
Dennis Patterson, as a previous Minister in the Northwest Territories days, went up for a holiday in the springtime, so I invite Mr. Ng to visit Pond Inlet in the springtime or middle of August, and I would help him and show him the best part of Nunavut besides Pangnirtung.
I would like to thank my wife for her ongoing support.
If I did not have her support, I would not be here.
Because of her continuing support, I thank her very much.
She may be leaving today, and so she could not make it here today.
I will remember Members.
It will be hard for me to say whether we will be back, or which of us will be back.
It is very hard at any election, and working in a job and you know you will have that job until you decide that you do not want to do it anymore, but being elected you do not have that option, so we will probably be applying for this job again, at the next Election.
I have learned a lot, Mr. Speaker, from when I first became a Member.
We say that we have a rising when we have a Statement, and so I do not say that I rise today, because when you see it on TV, you are already standing.
It probably makes sense on the radio, but that is one of our rules in this House, that you have to say that. You rise today; I do not say that I rise today because you are already standing when they see you on TV.
So I thank the staff, John Quirke, and Nancy Tupik, Leetia Wisintainer, Erie Leighfield, I thank them for their hard work and I used an interpreter while we are not in Session, Nancy.
And I tend to go to Nancy more than John because of the language difference and I thank them for all their support and hopefully, we will see you again, in the New Year.
Member’s Statement 785 – 1(6): Thanks Everyone for the Last Five Years
I will try to keep my Members’ Statement short today and it is Friday, so, I am trying to lighten up here a bit.
It is very heart warming to hear the Members’ Statements about their almost five years in this House.
I am no different to that.
I have to say and I have to admit that we disagreed on various issues, we get up and we voted on them and for our own reasons and our own minds, and I really respect the Members in this House who I sat here with the last, almost five years because of their views.
And I must say every one of you in my humble opinion and being a 30-year northerner from the south that there is not one Member in this House that I can honestly say does not care in their hearts about this territory and their community and that includes you, Mr. Speaker.
Everybody, everybody in this House I can say and like I say, we have had our disagreements, but when we walk out of this House, the next day, everybody seems to be smiling to each other and it is nice to see that everybody respects everybody else’s opinion at the end of the day, no matter what race, creed or religion or sexual orientation.
Mr. Speaker, on that issue, off that issue, I would like to say over the last five years and if it was not for John Quirke when we first came in here as a bunch of rookies and his, I would like to call him the mother hen attitude, no offence to anybody, but without his strong guidance in the first couple of years.
I do not think we would have been as effective as we were and that is how the public bases how effective we are in his regard, but I give all, I give all my gratitude to John Quirke and I think he made me a little bit better over the last five years.
I would like to thank Nancy, Kooyoo, all of the interpreters, especially Mary, but somebody called me up one night and said, Glenn, your Inuktitut is very good, but he says, you sound like Mary and I laughed at that.
So, I would like to thank Mary and the interpreters for my fast talks, I would also like to thank all the CBC reporters; they have been very, very gracious to us.
The CBC television people, Jim Bell has been very good to us, a few of us and also, Daryl Greer has been good to one of us and I would like to thank him because without that side of the media attention, whether it is the newspaper, the voice media or whoever, I think we probably would not be as vigilant in the House.
So, we need you and I appreciate what you have done for me in the last five years in this House as reporters because you forced us to make issues and ask questions maybe a bit more vigilant because sometimes you sit here and you look across to say, do we have to beat up on those Cabinet Ministers again?
And we have to, it is our job and I hope before we head off into the next general elections that nobody ever took it personal and I can say honestly that I do not think any of you did.
I would like to thank Eerie, who has done my travel arrangements over the last five years and I try, I changed my ticket, but I think 95 percent of the time, not because I wanted to, but I think our great weather in Baker Lake forced me to.
So, at the end of the day, I would like to thank everybody, but before I stop, before I stop, I have to make one thing.
My last weekend here was a good weekend, but it was very excruciating and one of the Members that had always made me feel welcome here was Minister Picco.
Like the first year I was here, he invited me over to his house and baked me up a great Newfoundland supper of boiled corned beef and cabbage and potatoes and this weekend I was in my office doing work and he was in there.
So, I went up to his office and I tried to talk about issues of Nunavut and he was plain as peas and I sat through the seven songs, Mr. Speaker and I tried to be, you know, I was taught by my elders to respects people in their endeavours in life and that they may not be great at it, but you know, you should give them, give them consideration for really trying to do something that they are not really set out to do.
So, after listening to the CD all weekend, I said to myself, I said, you know, he tried.
But what I want to say to the people out in Iqaluit East, all of his Constituents and voters, please vote for Ed. Picco in the next election because he is not going to make it as a singer.
So, I hope he can make it as a politician.
Member’s Statement 786 – 1(6): 1st Assembly Activities
When we were first elected, when I made my first speech along with Mr. Alakannuark and the other Members, I'm not really sure what I said but there were many people looking at us and it was quite nerve wracking.
My mother made this for me and I used it at the beginning of the session.
I am wearing it again on the last day of the Legislature.
I thank my constituents for having faith in electing me into this House for the last five years.
It is sometimes very challenging to work as a Member of the Legislature, and I would like to state my appreciation to my constituents for that.
As well as my family, who have always been there to support me, I thank them.
As an MLA you don’t have just one life, you have many different lives.
There are good times and there are bad times, and although that happens our families are always behind us, and so I would like to thank them for that.
In the five years that we have been here we have criticized each other, especially the Ministers.
Myself, I get upset quite easily.
I have challenged Mr. Picco on many occasions, and there was one time we went to the bathroom and we almost had a fight.
I am happy that he did not try to punch me and so that is why I did not try to punch him.
Since today is Friday we can talk about the things that we have experienced and I would like to say thank you.
Mr. Irqittuq (interpretation): Thank you, colleagues.
This is a true story in Inuktitut.
When we were talking about the time change, we were really sad at one time on the next day after the vote on something that we were defeated on as regular Members.
My good friend M. Picco wrote me a note saying that God loves you, and he has done this to me on numerous occasions.
Even though I tried to maintain a positive attitude, I was very upset so I left the Chamber and I went to go see Leetia Nowdlak to write a letter in English to Mr. Picco.
Mr. Picco wanted me to be happy in saying that God loves me and I told him that he will not be elected again in the next election is what the note said.
I gave it to one of the pages and I did it secretly, and I had told them to deliver it to Mr. Picco.
When he looked at the note and he looked around the room and he couldn’t figure out who wrote the note.
When he stood up awhile later, he did not seem too happy and he made a point of order and if you look at the televised debates then you can see it in one of them.
Those are the experiences we had, some of them were true and some of them were in good humour.
I would also like to thank everyone for letting me be a Member of this House along with the rest of you.
I have been upset many times but that is in the past now.
I would like to be able to make a reply to the Commissioners address later on.
Member’s Statement 787 – 1(6): Progress In Sanikiluaq
Mr. Speaker, I think this is the last time and I rise today before you in the first legislature…bear with me I have a three page Member’s Statement.
Sometimes we are given Member’s Statements from constituents.
I am very proud of what I am going to talk about in terms of what happens in the communities.
Mr. Speaker, Najuksivik is a non-profit society that was formed in January of 1998.
It runs a daycare and is involved in community activities trying to support economic development.
Support to nurseries from Nunavut Government has resulted in many benefits for our community career development in the Department of Education.
They have supported polar bear making and making of full use of northern animals.
This has allowed babysitters in town to make some income in our northern polar bear.
Career development has allowed people and students to train in picture framing.
Mr. Speaker, a picture framing shop allows us to frame culturally significant objects for sale, and small grants from the Department of Sustainable Development have allowed us to obtain fish skins from Pangnirtung.
I thank my colleague here.
Mr. Speaker, people are now making fish skin dolls and they are beautiful and framed.
Career development has supported the special skills program.
Senior students in the schools and people on income support have hard a time doing math, science and language and the half learning of how to do construction.
Najuksivik operates Kuni Kuni FM radio station 105.1.
This station talks about good things happening in the community.
Najuksivik also operates SCTV, Sanikiluaq Community TV, which goes into every house in the community and operates twenty fours a day, seven days a week.
It offers a great opportunity for elders to demonstrate cultural activities.
Najursvik also operates a small community museum in the school lobby.
I think some Ministers and regular Members have seen that in our school.
Mr. Speaker, the funding from Canadian Heritage through the Small Museum Assistance Program has allowed many opportunities to frame and show to the community.
For the third year, Najursvik has a response with six students in business development Bank of Canada contest for developing business skills in students.
For the last two years students have won national prizes.
This year, finals are in British Columbia and the team hopes to win another prize with the business on Inuit culture.
Najursvik has produced two Community Historical Yearbooks with funding for one book from Culture, Language, Elders and Youth.
The third book produced was in 2004.
Three books together will show future generations of life on the Belcher Islands; from early 1900’s to present.
Mr. Speaker, before I end my Member’s Statement, today is Friday and I think that some if us will be flying today.
(interpretation) Some of us will be going home today.
When we were talking about bad gas at the time, when you go on a plane, than it will be much faster for you.
I did not raise dog teams at that time, I used to want to go fast on the dog teams when I did use them.
When I used to go by dog team I used to go “Uliu, uliu”.
That was the type of things I used to do to make my dog team go faster.
Member’s Statement 788 – 1(6): Happy To Have Served As a Member of the Legislative Assembly
Mr. Speaker, after hearing the kind words from my colleagues over the past couple of days, and I thank you for those kind comments, I had a chance to reflect on the past few years, and then I start to think about what has to be done before I left.
There is an apartment to pack up and move the personal effects, Ministerial office, the constituency office in Cambridge Bay will have to sort out the constituency assets, Ministerial assets, personal assets, files destroyed and sort out, etc.
There is quite a bit of work involved and as well heading up to notify the telephone company, the utilities companies, etc.
In a brief moment of insanity I thought about reconsidering my decision not to seek re-election for a moment, and then as I was thinking about that I thought do I really want to serve possibly another four to five years with Ed Picco, and I came to my senses, Mr. Speaker.
On a more serious note Mr. Speaker, in closing once again, I do want to thank my wife Susie and my family for all their love, support and understanding over the years; my constituents for allowing me the honour and the privilege to serve them and represent them over almost eleven years; the Government of Nunavut staff, the Legislative Assembly staff, my executive staff, and certainly the interpreters who are always able to keep up with me in my pace of delivery, for their support in really making my job a lot easier.
To all my colleagues in this House, Mr. Speaker, to yourself, all the other Members, we’ve all had our personal losses and tragedies with our families over the years, I know it’s something that we rarely speak about but everybody in this House certainly knows about it, and without the support of our colleagues here, it would be a lot more difficult to get through those difficulties and I certainly appreciate that.
In closing, I wish you and your families and all Nunavummiut a very Merry Christmas season and all the best in future years.
Speaker: Thank you, Mr. Ng. Member’s Statements.
Member’s Statement 789 – 1(6): Thanks Constituents and Everyone for Support as Member of the Legislative Assembly
I would also like to thank my Constituents in Cape Dorset and Kimmirut.
I had thanked them already in the last few days, but I would like to thank them for giving me their support over those years.
And also to the people who work in my Department, Ulluriaq Cornwall, Joanne Manning and also my previous employees, Jane Cooper and Ooleena Naujuq who have supported me throughout all those years.
I am sure that the workload would have been a lot harder if it was not for my employees.
And also to Aqqaluk Qumangaapik in Cape Dorset, my CA and Nicotye Michael from Kimmirut who worked in our Constituents Office and also to the mayors of the two communities who have shown me their support during my tenor as the Member of the Legislative Assembly.
And also to my wife who I would like to thank very much because I leave her a lot of the time during my Ministerial duties and also to my children and my sisters in Salluit and Rankin Inlet.
They call me once in a while and it helps me when they give me a call during my hard times.
And my older brother and my members of the family who give me advise and help me in my time and also to the Elders who have the wisdom and the knowledge and are recognized by the people out there.
And also to my Colleagues who have supported me over the years from the time that I started.
They have always stood by me, even at the most challenging times.
I thank you all and also, Mr. Speaker, I thank you all very much for supporting us all and recognizing us when we want to make our Statements.
And also to Erie Leighfield, who helped me tremendously when I was a regular Member and also the administrative staff and the people of Nunavut who extend their welcome in our travels throughout Nunavut.
I thank the people of Nunavut and I wish them a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Hon. Manitok Thompson: Look at that book he has written.
Member’s Statement 790 – 1(6): Reflecting As an MLA on the Last Five Years
Hon. Ed. Picco: Open the book and you tell me that it is the very best.
Mr. Speaker, my mom used to always tell me when I was growing up, I would always like to play jokes and try to keep things light.