EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
For this reason I support the motion.
I’ll make it very brief.
Old bureaucratic systems and thinking die hard.
I’m in support of this motion.
I just want to make a brief comment on the District Education Authority in the communities.
I know that they want more powers within their organizations for further flexibility.
So they can help a lot of students out there and help the teachers as well.
All those in favour? All those opposed?
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters; Bill 2, Bill 3, Bill 4, Bill 5 and Bill 6, Bill 8 and Bill 9.
Minister’s Statement 020 - 1 (6), Tabled Document 016-1 (6).
According to the authority vested in me by Motion 002 - 1(6) the Committee of the Whole, will stay in session until it reports itself out with Mr. Irqittuq in the chair.
Before we proceed to committee, we’ll take a short break.
We’ll be back in the chamber by 1 p.m. I would also like to inform regular members that there is a meeting with officials from First Air at 12:00 in the Nanuk Room.
>>House recessed at 11.55 p.m. and resumed at 1.04 p.m.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you for coming back to the House.
I hope you had a good lunch.
We can now begin the Committee of the Whole.
During Committee of the Whole, we have to deal with Bill 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and Minister’s Statement 020 - 1(6) and Tabled Document 016 - 1(6), Gjoa Haven Gasoline Study.
There was a Minister’s Statement 020-1(6) as well as Tabled Document 016 - 1(6), Gjoa Haven Gasoline Study.
After that we can continue to with Bill 6, Appropriation Act No. 2, starting with the Department of Public Works and Services and after we finish Public Works and Services we would like to do Bill 8, Revolving Funds Act.
Does the Minister for Public Works and Services have any opening comments?
(interpretation ends) Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to talk about the gasoline situation in Nunavut.
Before I begin, I would like to say that I was very troubled to learn of the gasoline quality in our territory.
I recognize that this problem affects the daily activities of Nunavut and I wanted to assure everyone that we are working very hard to fix this situation.
Mr. Chairman, the Petroleum Product Division of the Department of Public Works and Services reacted immediately to all voiced concerns on gasoline quality from our customers, delivery contractors and the media.
The quality of our fuel supply is very important.
Gasoline samples were sent to the Alberta Research Council, the leading research laboratory in Canada for analysis.
Samples were also sent to a lab in the United Kingdom for additional testing.
Most recently PTT along with IRT conducted two sets of tests on snowmobiles.
Mr. Chairman, the Minister’s Statement I made on May 3, 2002, was for the results of snowmobile testing.
These tests indicated that the current gasoline supply in Baffin and Kivalliq caused engine damage.
The gasoline meets the specifications of Canadian General Standard Board except for the deposit control additives.
The problem is high concentration of some of normally occurring elements.
The high concentration can only be found and measured through lab testing.
The Albert Research Council has tested fuel from across Canada and has never seen concentrations as high as these recently identified in the Baffin and Kivalliq gasoline supplies.
Mr. Chairman, a preliminary assessment suggests there are two possible solutions.
One, to dispose of the remaining gasoline supply and two, blending remaining gasoline supplies with the new re-supplies.
PWS had hired a consultant to lead this process.
A letter of notice was sent to our supplier the Northern Transportation Company Limited.
Public Works and Services is currently exploring all legal options with the Department of Justice and we will be consulting the appropriate people to find an approach that will work for Nunavut.
Mr. Chairman, our work at this point is directly related to concerns and the testing of the 2001 re-supply.
The report by Advanced Technology Limited was very specific addressing concerns raised by residents of Gjoa Haven.
I welcome any questions that members might have.
Perhaps the Minister can go to the witness table.
Go ahead Mr. Minister.
Sergeant-At-Arms, would you assist the witnesses to the table with the Minister?
Mr. Kattuk can you please introduce your officials?
The person on my right is Ross Mrazek, my Deputy Minister, and this individual is from the Alberta Research Council, Don Wispinski.
Perhaps the Standing Committee’s Chairman has some opening comments to make.
I don’t want to make any opening comments on behalf of the Standing Committee.
I would like to suggest that we leave the opening comments to every MLA on their own, but I think that it is the wish of everybody that they have some opening comments and I would like to go first if it is possible.
Under 77(1), I will have the members of the Assembly make up to ten minutes of general comments.
Does anyone have a comment?
I want to make it very clear before I start that I don’t blame the current minister for this situation.
And what I mean by situation, I think the gravity of the situation is that we are into a mess here with our gasoline situation in Baffin and the Kivalliq.
We can all agree that the situation we have to clean up in the fastest possible way.
When we get into situations like this, the first thing that happens is we are talking about suing so and so and suing so and so back and forth.
But the immediate situation that I would like to see dealt with is a solution: a solution to the problem of bad gasoline.
It is not up to us as MLA’s to decide the factor on the end of who is responsible for this low grade petroleum product that was purchased by the government, whether it is NTCL’s fault, or the Government of Nunavut’s fault, or the quality control people that should be keeping an eye on this thing.
There is a world out there.
And I know that it is buyer beware.
But there has to be a standard set.
I heard what you said in your statement that it was Canadian…CG…whatever controlled and bought under.
The fact of the matter is, we have got a petroleum product that is causing a lot of havoc in our communities, yours included.
Like I said, I don’t blame you for this problem.
They did a study on the Gjoa Haven gas three years ago and it is not the same type of petroleum but it is very close to it.
I am wondering why that situation was not rectified back then, so it didn’t overflow into this, where we are today where we have this type of product in every community.
I have been fielding calls from my constituents dealing with this issue.
I am saying be patient, I am sure as a government we will come up with a solution. That is what I want to accomplish here today.
I think all the members want to accomplish today to come out with some kind of solution to fixing this problem.
Like I say, law suits in the courts can go on for years on who’s responsible.
I’d like to see everybody sit down at the table and say okay, this is the issue we have, let’s solve it for the better of all residents of Nunavut.
I find it difficult that an organisation like ours, the government, and yes, governments make mistakes and so does private sector.
In talking with some experts of our own, the olefins are around 36.9 which is six times the national average, or the average in the petroleum products.
It says that this can cause the types of problems in engines that we’re starting to experience.
We’ve got to deal with this situation as a solution and that’s all I’m going to say.
I’m keeping my comments very brief and I will ask questions later in the House.
But I want to emphasise to you as minister, solution, a solution as quickly as possible.
The law suits can come later.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. McLean. Did you want to respond, Mr. Minister?
Hon. Peter Kattuk (interpretation): I would like to suggest that every member make their opening comments first of all before I respond.
Thank you, Mr. Minister and your officials.
I just wanted to comment a little bit in regards to the concern.
There’s really no problem from my constituency in terms of the gasoline right now but there is a concern because the gasoline that was dealt with in Gjoa Haven was a concern in the region. Perhaps, you never know, the same supply of gasoline that was in Gjoa Haven might be brought up to Kugluktuk.
There are always concerns about gasoline.
I know it’s a problem that we have to try to rectify as soon as possible to make sure that this doesn’t happen again because if we don’t rectify this problem, our problems will lead to other concerns; as we know, the bad gasoline deteriorates in skidoo motors, outboard motors and leads to damage and eventually loss of equipment.
I’m just wondering if perhaps the bad gasoline could be in the tank farms.
That’s just a concern, a comment. I will have a question in regards to how the communities are keeping an eye on the quality of the gasoline because without knowing, it’s kind of hard to understand what kind of gasoline we have.
We should keep an eye on all the supplies that we have so that this problem doesn’t happen again.
Residents of Kugluktuk, perhaps Kitikmeot will have to have an idea as to how to tackle this problem if it comes to our region again. Those are just my comments.
It’s just a caution as to keep an eye on the gasoline, what the quality of the gasoline is like, and to try and rectify the problem that we have now as soon as possible so that we can get on with other issues.
But at the present time we need to rectify this problem that we have.
I would first like to say that even though there are impurities in the gas, I am glad that we are able to work together to resolve this issue.
We will do the best that we can to resolve the problem and we will work with your department to find some solutions.
In regards to the problems that first arose in Gjoa Haven, the department at that time told us that it was good gasoline.
Then there started to be complaints in the Baffin and the Kitikmeot areas after that incident.
Why is it that we were told in the first place that there was bad gasoline in Nunavut?
The people of Nunavut were trying to tell the government that there was bad gasoline and only after our persistence and more problems coming out of the Baffin and the Kitikmeot did the government start admitting that there were problems with the gas.
I think that the government should be up front about problems like that.
The government was persistent in trying to tell the people of Nunavut that the gasoline was good and then we had to get a study done to confirm our suspicions.
It makes me wonder if the Nunavut Government is truly representing the people of Nunavut if they are going to truly represent us then they are going to have to be up front and tell the truth.
They are representing our people, they are providing services to the people of Nunavut and they have to listen to the people.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that the two communities that I represent are going to tell me what they want to see and it will be up to me to tell the government about their needs.
I was elected to represent my communities and I have to be their voice in the Legislative Assembly not only today but for the life of this Legislative Assembly.
Because of that, today the people of Nunavut are very disappointed in the quality of gasoline that they have received and of course the boating season is almost here. I am sure there are going to be quite a number of outboard motors that are going to be breaking down this summer.
It’s quite obvious the quality of the gasoline is breaking down the machinery and there is residue and deposits accumulating in the guts of these engines.
The residue dries up and it seizes the motors and it’s quite obvious they will have to get new machinery.
Some of the equipment that was bought was brand new but broke down due to the accumulation of the residue or deposits.
We have problems in the winter and now that it’s spring time and the weather is warming up, I’m sure that might lessen the problem but if you use that bad gasoline on any of the motors, it might work good during the warmer seasons but if it gets cold out there, they’ll freeze up and they’ll dry up and it won’t start up again next year.
Who’s the one to blame, the Government of Nunavut or who should be the ones responsible?
Is it NTCL or is it the suppliers out there that we bought the gasoline from?
We have to look into all of these issues and find out who brought this bad gasoline or low grade petroleum product to Nunavut.
We have to find out who distributed this product to the Nunavut communities.
And I want them to be up front about what they find out.
There are services and products that we will need all the time and we have to be provided good quality products.
If it wasn’t for this bad gasoline, we wouldn’t have to have a meeting specifically to deal with petroleum products.
There are times when the people we’re not truly representing them.
As people of Nunavut and the north, it’s a day to day existence.
We use these machineries on a daily basis.
If we have suspicions about any qualities of any of these products, it’s probably true because we live day to day.
There are some of us who have not learned about fixing up small engines in a formal school but because of our life long experience working on these machineries, we learn how to fix them and it’s the same thing.
There are some hunters out there who will probably have to be compensated because of this problem.
It’s their sole means of survival.
They have lost a lot because their machines broke down.
They have not been able to go hunting to provide food for their family and friends.
The majority of the town, we eat country foods and much less so on the products that are sold at the retail outlets.
So we have to look at all the effects that this low grade gasoline has caused the communities and the individuals out there.
We know we have also noticed the odour of the gasoline.
I’m sure if we can smell it, the animals out there, I’m sure has a lot more effect on the animals out there. I can now say that it might even be causing environmental concerns because of course our wildlife eat from the land and this gasoline, or some of the residue is going out on the environment and probably causing damage and we in turn eat the wildlife.
So, are we going to resolve this problem?
Can we not do anything about reducing the price at the retail outlets?
You have 10 minutes.
I’d like to make a brief comment on the quality of our gasoline.
It has been a number of years but it first surfaced in 1999 then there was a slow down in 2000.
We had that problem in my area in 1999 and it resurfaced again over here in the Baffin and Keewatin this year.
In 1999, the community of Gjoa Haven especially started experiencing numerous break-downs in their machinery and when you idle a machine or snowmobile outside of your house, usually what used to happen was that the snow where the exhaust touched would turn a particular colour and there was smoke coming out of the exhaust at that time when we first started experiencing the bad gasoline.
We spoke about it on more than one occasion to the government, thinking that the government in turn would help us out but that wasn’t the case.
The government kept insisting that it was good gasoline.
It was quite hard to try and convince the government about the quality of gasoline.
We were insisting that it was bad gasoline and the government in turn told us that it was good gasoline.
The communities do the best they can and as Inuit we don’t lie very often.
That was the way we were brought up by our parents.
We were told to tell the truth and not to tell lies in life.
That was part of the up bringing that we got from our parents and we still live by it today.
And because of that, we were trying to tell the government that our machinery was breaking, that the gasoline was bad and that we needed help from our government.
I don’t know why the department kept insisting that it was good gasoline.
At that time we found it hard because you couldn’t get the support from your government and it seemed like I was the one who was creating all the problems.
At that time, we found that we couldn’t rely on or ask for support from our government.
Even though that was the case, we are still in support of our Nunavut Government.
We still try to believe in our government and when you look at it from a global sense we do have a good government.
We have a good country and we have an agreement and we also thank the government for providing shelter and food to the residents.
But on the other hand it becomes quite hard.
We have a good government that doesn’t cause wars and we have to keep it like that by helping one and other.
At that time that we wanted help from our government but if they tell us the gasoline is good and won’t budge, it becomes hard.
There was one member that said they didn’t want to blame the department or the minister.
The member also said that they will work with that department so they can find solutions to the problem.
That’s what we would like to see.
The diesel is fine, the heating fuel is fine, but the gasoline we have a problem with and we have to find solutions to the problem.
I will ask questions afterwards.
Mr. Nutarak (interpretation): Very briefly Mr. Chairman.
In regards to Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit that we keep mentioning in the House, we, as Inuit, kept insisting that the quality of gasoline was bad, especially from the full time hunters and it originated from Kugaaruk at that time.
The government started out by saying that it was good gasoline then after some studies were done we did find that our suspicions were true, especially in the Baffin and Keewatin areas.
There were some public statements coming out at that time and that suspicion was confirmed when we did the studies with snow machines up here which is part of using Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
I will be asking some questions afterwards but I would like to urge the government to at least listen to the people of Nunavut and that Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit is relevant in determining some of these matters.
I would like to welcome the minister and his officials.
We are trying to work together and we are all representing our communities, our Nunavut.
We are representing our communities and we should work for them and try to do their wishes since we wouldn’t be sitting here if we weren’t representing our communities.
In Repulse Bay they are experiencing the bad gasoline and not just there but in other communities as well.
We have to look for ways to correct this problem because a lot of people are using snowmobiles and experiencing problems with the gasoline.
We have to find solutions for this problem.
Up to today, we hear this problem from different communities all the time.
I would like to say something from Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
Some of us grew up in an igloo.
We used to survive on the sealskin and qulliq.
We didn’t have any skidoos and snowmobiles in those days.
In the spring time, people used to try to get enough seal oil.
In the spring time, the seal oil would not be good because of the heat of the sun outside.
This is Inuit knowledge because the some of the seal oil, some of it is not good and Inuit can tell which one is good oil and which one is not.
So we have to think about this bad gasoline in the same way and look for good gasoline to find out where we can get that.
Up to today, our way of life today involves money all the time.
We buy gasoline with money and other things.
Therefore, we should look for solutions so we can get better gasoline for communities in Nunavut.
Because I’m representing my people, not just for myself but for other people in the communities, in Repulse Bay, they have been getting gasoline from Kugaaruk.
Ever since they started getting gasoline from Kugaaruk, the gasoline has been okay.
And we’re thinking about summer time supplies coming in.
We hope to see the improvements of the gasoline because we will have to deal with the outboard motors and skidoos that use this gasoline.
We have to look for solutions right away so that it will be used for communities in a respectful way.
Especially this summer, there will be problems for the hunters because they’ll be using their boats.
Sometimes they go a long ways.
There are all kinds of boats that will travel, hunting and there is danger out there.
So we have to think about this and try to help our people in any way we can.
You were here two months ago.
Today, we are representing all of Nunavut, different communities, whether you are a minister or not.
We are all representing the communities and we have big problems dealing with this issue. I’m happy to be where we are today because we’re getting somewhere.
Mr. McLean mentioned today that we have to look for solutions in the future right away instead of waiting for something else to happen.
If we knew the problem ahead of time we would have done something differently and a lot of snow machines would have been usable instead of breaking down.
Yesterday I received some information in a booklet about the breakage to the snowmobiles and what damages are caused.
At this time a lot of people in our communities are getting ready to go out because of the good weather and they will need good snowmobiles to go out.
I believe in my government that it can do something to help our communities.
The people that we represent will then respect us.
I don’t have much to say but we all know the gasoline is bad and we have to do something about it.
At the moment our communities are using this bad gasoline and now that we know the gasoline is bad we have to do something about it.
I will have further questions later on.
Mr. Arvaluk: My comments will also be short because we will probably want to ask more questions instead of just comments, which will not make all that much sense to argue.
There are some questions we will have and before that I think it would be fair to say that Public Works or the GN was unwary of possible deposit control additive problems because it never happened before as far as we know about the history.
When the consumers, especially the hunters, started suspecting about possible problems with the gas, the government did not react right away to find out as quickly as possible what might be the problem, because they were not suspecting it because it had never happened before.
Of course, the question arises, do we have engineers at the loading point and the dumping point from Public Works that may have had a suspicion of the weird odour of the gasoline and the colour.
I myself this fall, when we started skidooing after the snow started covering the ground, on the first trip I went out with my brother.
At our usual time after we cut up the caribou and make some tea, we would refill our tanks for our return trip.
I saw the colour and the odour and said who did this, I wonder if somebody did this in the middle of the night?
So I did not put it into my skidoo.
When I got back I left it out in the shack and went to get a new one and in this case it was the same colour and the same odour directly from the gas station.
I wonder if Public Works did not suspect that kind of difference when they were loading and unloading at the tanks.
Because they know very well that the section 5.1.2 required agreement between government and NTCL that they require specifications for unleaded automatic gasoline with the Canadian General Standards Board on section 3.5 with 94 wintergreen type 2.
Did they not suspect it might not be the case?
Minister’s statement on the second page, third paragraph, states that the gasoline meets the specifications of the Canadian General Standards Board, CGSB except for the deposit control additive DCA.
However, there was some independent tests being done, one of them was in Coral Harbour that was sent down to Edmonton, I think it was Edmonton, and it was not 94 like the agreement states.
In fact, I think they say it was 87 or lowest 87.
Then again I don’t have the papers with me to prove that.
My point, Mr. Chairman, is that somewhere along the line with professional engineers from Public Works and Petroleum Products Division and NTCL a specific requirement in the agreement that they should have suspected something before the hunters did.