EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
AND WHEREAS the Legislative Assembly is prepared to recommend an appointment to this position;  NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the Hon. Member for Iqaluit-Niaqunnguu, that the Legislative Assembly recommends to the Commissioner of Nunavut that Ms. Sherry McNeil-Mulak be appointed as Representative for Children and Youth, effective June 16, 2014.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) The motion is in order. To the motion.
I am humbled to speak in favour of the motion before the House today.
Mr. Speaker, we all recognize the need to ensure one of the most vulnerable sectors of our society, children and youth, receive the services necessary to protect their rights and well-being.
The position of Nunavut’s representative for children and youth as an independent officer of the Legislative Assembly is a result of a great deal of collaboration and hard work.
Mr. Speaker, the journey to create Nunavut’s independent representative for children and youth began in Cambridge Bay in 1999 with Debbie Gray, a long-serving teacher making the case.
I can recall standing in this House almost 10 years ago to the day asking our government to seriously consider the need for advocacy.
In the First Assembly, MLA Rebekah Williams championed the cause within the House, and in our Third Assembly, MLA Ron Elliott carried the torch.
I want to acknowledge and thank the many individuals along the way who worked towards creating this important office, including Brenda Jancke, the late Elwood Johnson, David General, and Johnny Ningeongan.
There were also many public servants, individuals, and organizations that contributed to the development of our legislation.
Ms. Carol Chafe, who serves as the Advocate for Children and Youth for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, assisted throughout the process.
Ms. Chafe has served as the chair of the Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates and provided tremendous advice and expertise to our board.
Mr. Speaker, our Management and Services Board held a transparent, competitive, and merit-based selection process. From this process, we’re now in a position to appoint Nunavut’s first representative for children and youth.
Mr. Speaker, Ms. Sherry McNeil-Mulak is a long-term northerner, mother, and Iqaluit resident. She brings a wide range of knowledge, skills, and experience to this important role.
She is very familiar with the social and cultural issues that exist across our territory, and we can all be confident in her appointment as Nunavut’s first representative for children and youth.
Mr. Speaker, over the coming year, Ms. McNeil-Mulak will carry on the necessary work to fully establish the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth.
Mr. Speaker, today is a proud day for Nunavut, especially for our children and our youth. I ask all of my colleagues to support this motion.
Congratulations to Sherry McNeil-Mulak, our first Representative for Children and Youth.
>>House recessed at 15:22 and Committee resumed at 15:44
Before we proceed, Nunavummiut who are listening and watching the proceedings, welcome to your committee and always be welcome to your committee.
We wish to continue with the review of the main estimates for the Department of Education, followed by the Nunavut Housing Corporation and the Department of Family Services.
Are we in agreement that we continue with the review of the main estimates for the Department of Education?
Chairman (interpretation): Please state your agreement properly.
Does the committee agree to bring in Mr. Quassa’s witnesses?
Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort Mr. Quassa’s witnesses in.
Mr. Quassa, as we took our break during the weekend, please introduce your witnesses for the record once again. Mr. Quassa.
To my left is (interpretation ends) Deputy Minister Kathy Okpik (interpretation) and to my right is Mr. Marc Rose, (interpretation ends) Controller. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to the House, Ms. Okpik and Mr. Rose.
We will continue where we left off. We were going to page G-9.
Are there any questions on this page? Mr. Hickes.
I’ve got a couple of questions.
Mr. Chairman, according to the draft business plan from the Department of Education, funding allocated to the Young Parents Stay Learning program was originally $133,000 for 2013-14, but it was increased to $228,000 in the revised estimates for that year. A budget of $140,000 is allocated for the 2014-15 fiscal year.
Is the number of young parents being supported through this program increasing or are the costs of subsidizing daycare increasing?
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Hickes. (interpretation) I would like to remind members that if you’re going to have questions or if you have questions and you would like your name on the list, please identify yourself ahead of time. (interpretation ends) Hon. Minister.
I would also like to thank the member for his clear question regarding the Young Parents Stay Learning program.
Let me state first that the Young Parents Stay Learning program reduces the number of students… . If the students don’t attend, then they reduce the amount of funding for this.
Through you, Mr. Chairman, I’ll have my deputy minister respond to that question.
Last year, we increased the funding, thinking that there would be more people that we will be providing services to, but it follows the number of students attending school. If they don’t attend, then their daycare funding is reduced.
At the end of the year, we found out that the funding we thought we were going to use was no longer used, so we put it back to the original figure. If there is more interest out there, we will be able to look into this to see whether or not we need to increase the number if there are more interested people.
It has come to my attention recently that the amount of the Young Parents Stay Learning program subsidy provided to a young parent who is trying to stay in school is a fixed amount.
At the Inuksuk Infant Development Centre Daycare at Inuksuk High School here in Iqaluit, that fixed amount is not enough to cover the cost of the space in the daycare.
Mr. Chairman, why does the amount of subsidy provided under the Young Parents Stay Learning program not fully cover the cost of a daycare space for a young parent trying to stay in school?
Hon. Paul Quassa (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to thank the member for his question.
I can provide an answer by saying that this is a subsidy only. As we have stated earlier, it only follows the number of students who attend school.
It’s to be used for licensed child daycares or unlicensed child care facilities.
To elaborate further, looking at one child a month, it would cost $700.
If the child attends daycare daily, it would cost $600 for a child who attends family home care.
It would cost $500 for full-time unlicensed care per child. It would be $350 for part time to a licensed daycare.
It would be $300 for part time to a licensed family home care. It would be $145 for a school-aged child.
Those are the different levels.
Chairman: Qujannamiiktauq, Hon. Minister.
Maybe the minister can explain to me how a young adult, under the age of 18, attending school full time with a young child to look after, is expected to earn an additional $200 to $300 every month to pay for daycare space so that his or her child can be cared for while he or she is in school.
That’s a very good question. I’ll be able to tell the member that we can review this fully and look at the price. We can review it fully.
Just to clarify, the minister is committing to reviewing the amount provided for daycare space so that it actually covers the cost of that space, so the parent can continue to be supported to stay in school.
As I stated, we can review this fully and look at it.
I can’t tell you what will occur, but I can say that we will look into it.
As I have stated earlier, some children don’t attend daycare and that’s why the funding is no longer used. Perhaps we will encourage the parents to bring their children to daycare, and then we will give it full attention.
Moving on. Ms. Angnakak.
Ms. Angnakak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) Just under healthy children initiative programs, I was wondering if you could tell me how much was spent on supportive services, if you can elaborate on that.
If you can elaborate on that, (interpretation ends) hon. minister.
It’s detailed there in the plan. There are a number of them, but I can list them if you want.
You have to look at all the communities in a different way. Maybe I’ll speak in English.
(interpretation ends) It’s not broken down, but I can give you the various amounts.
For example, the budget for 2014-15 is $980,000; $431,899.31 has already been allocated.
For the Kitikmeot region, we have $200,000; $126,507.32 has already been allocated.
For the Kivalliq region, we have $271,000; $63,937.99 has been allocated.
For the Qikiqtani region, we have $437,000; $241,454 has already been allocated.
That’s not a breakdown of what the member is asking, but that’s the general amount. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Can you tell us how you determine how the funding will be allocated to each community?
That’s another question from our fellow MLA.
Let us all be aware that these are accessed through proposals. Ever since this was created, the money that can be used, sometimes all of the communities… . (interpretation ends) Each community has an allocation of a certain amount, but again, it’s proposal-based.
I don’t know if I answered your question.
My next question is around daycare grants and contributions.
Can you tell us how many new daycare spaces have been created in the last year?
I can respond by saying that we haven’t created any new daycares, but I know that the community of Igloolik, for example, is always asking for a daycare. However, to date, we haven’t created any new daycares.
With that in mind, what kind of strategies do you have in place to address the ever-continuing growing need for daycare spaces?
Where are we going to be at over the next five to ten years?
We’re starting to consider what is called junior kindergarten. We know that in Nunavut, the kindergarten students start with just half a day of school.
When we look into this, we’re going to see if kindergarteners can spend the whole day in school. Some of the other jurisdictions have full-time junior kindergarten classes.
We’re looking to see if we can do that here.
Perhaps it can help the daycares if we put our kindergarten students in the classroom full time instead of having to be in the daycares. It would lessen the need for daycares.
Let us be aware that the way it is now, whenever we build new schools, we’re going to include a daycare inside them.
We’re always going to be supporting this because we always support the community daycare centres and private daycare homes. However, let us also be aware that we don’t have an endless supply of money for new daycare centres.
We should also be aware that the communities themselves create their own daycare centres and we support them with money.
We have a funding program for the start-up of new daycare centres. They have to start the program themselves by looking for money. We support them financially afterwards.
Going back to one of my first comments, we’re looking to see how we can lessen the need for daycares by creating junior kindergarten classes, where kindergarteners can spend the whole day in classes instead of half a day.
I’m wondering: if you have the junior kindergarten, will the schools be able to accommodate the extra demand?
As I said, we’re just looking into this now.
In the Northwest Territories, it exists over there and we want to look at it.
We’re trying to make some plans for the future. Of course, we will have to look at the spaces available. If kindergarteners have to spend the whole day, then we would probably have to find some extra classrooms.
I hope that makes sense, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Ms. Angnakak: Qujannamiik, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation) Daycares should be a priority because when there is no daycare, the parents who want to work or go back to school have nowhere to turn.
Going to another topic, (interpretation ends) DEA Early Childhood Education, I’m wondering how these funds have been spent.
From what we have seen, a lot of money that isn’t used is just given back to us.
The DEAs have to give it back to us if they don’t spend all of the money.
The way it is, if we can look at 2011-12, the money that had to be returned ended up being our surplus.
From the Qikiqtani, Kivalliq, and Kitikmeot regions, $1.6 million was returned in 2011-12 and the surplus was $1.2 million. A lot of money is not used.
In 2012-13, out of the $1.6 million program funding, the surplus was $1,287,555.
The new Early Childhood Division that we are creating will help local DEAs how they can spend the money properly. That is what we are going to do. We are going to be reviewing the Education Act.
That can be included in the Education Act review.
Chairman: Qujannamiik, hon. minister. (interpretation) We are on page G-9.
There was a question asked about this, but I would like to ask a question about the (interpretation ends) Young Parents Stay Learning program.
(interpretation) In Baker Lake, some young parents who are students have never heard about this program. What can the department do to promote this to young parents who are in school?
Thank you for the question from my colleague.
What I just talked about, the Early Childhood Division that we will be creating will help with things like this, informing the communities.
The Early Childhood Division will help local DEAs.
It will also inform them of things they need to know.
School principals will be the signatories of these proposals. Whatever programs that needs to be known about will be one of the things the principal has to promote. It’s the school principal or the vice-principal’s job.
When there is a principal’s conference, it is where they will disseminate the information as well. Of course, through the offices of MLAs in the communities, they can also help to promote this program.
The people of Baker Lake and some of the students who are young parents did not know about this subsidy program. It’s great that they’re going to know about it now.
The Healthy Children’s Initiative helps a great deal in our community.
My question is, as the minister stated before, young parents who are in school will be helped.
For the child to be involved in the program, does the parent always have to be involved?
Hon. Paul Quassa (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank my colleague for the question.
In Baker Lake, the Aupilarturvik Play Group has received $63,588 through a proposal.
However, they were approved for $39,000.
It’s a two-part funding program.
You need to have a society status in order to access the funds through a proposal. Different groups can request money. The DEAs or the municipalities can also request money on their own, or family day homes in their own, for the benefit of the community and through a support system as well.
That’s where they access the funding.
The other side of the program is where they can access money for students who are between the ages of zero to six.
Up to May 12, 2014, there were 25 proposals received and we’re still waiting on three of them.
Proposals are used properly to access the Healthy Children’s Initiative funds.
Chairman: Qujannamiik, Hon. Minister.
In reference to the Young Parents Stay Learning program again, I will go back to that again, would this type of program be promoted by the GLOs?
We can use the GLOs in the communities to provide information too.
One of my colleagues had asked this, but in the future years, as you indicated, you’re looking at providing child daycare services within the school infrastructure.
My question to that now is: do you also take into consideration the threshold of human safety in an infrastructural building?
What I’m thinking here is a fire marshal usually indicates the size of the infrastructure and what the limitations are for human threshold.
I don’t know if that’s a topic on this page.
We have to make sure and we have to be aware that there’s law whereby a building can only hold so many people. There’s law with respect to safety. There are usually people who have to make sure that the safety of the building, whether it be a daycare or whatever, is up to code.
Those are the types of things that we have to follow if we’re going to provide daycares in schools.
Mr. Mikkungwak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for allowing me to continue with that question. I thank the minister for his answer.
On page 88 of your priorities 2013-14 and priorities 2014-15, on that first bullet, that’s the only bullet on 2013-14, but on 2014-15, it’s also included in the second bullet, the Child Day Care Act.
Do you feel that you will have completed the Child Day Care Act within that fiscal year?
First of all, I can say that as a government, we will be able to complete it during the Fourth Assembly.
What we have done so far is staff certification, funding options, and curriculum requirements in the daycares, as well as culture and language. We have also been reviewing the Child Day Care Act and Child Day Care Standards and Regulations. We have been reviewing those continually.
Those things will be completed in the term of this government.
Priorities 2014-15 again, the very last bullet, “Strengthen support for language skills development in ECE programs.”
So you have materials that are already made to be provided to early childhood education programs.
To date, we have four themes. With respect to Mr. Mikkungwak’s question, four themes have been completed and the four themes have different topics.
That’s the response to the member’s question.
As I said, in the NWT, they have junior kindergarten programs. We will be getting someone to see how the NWT model is carried out with respect to junior kindergarten.
They go to school for the whole day. That’s what we want to be able to see and see what kind of curriculum they have. That’s what I can respond with, Mr. Chairman.
That question was asked already, but is the funding enough for all Nunavut communities or are you going to be asking for more funding for that area?
As I said earlier, we now know that that funding is not accessed by very many communities. We will look to see why there is a low uptake.
There’s going to be a new division dealing with that funding and to provide some information to the communities. Maybe they will ask for more funding once they find out what the funds can be used for.
This funding hasn’t been accessed by many communities and there are may be various reasons. Even though there’s money available, some DEA members don’t really seem to be working on those properly. At times, some DEAs don’t really want to sign an agreement with respect to that.
They have various reasons and we have to review it more to see what the problems might be.
We’re on Branch Summary. Education.
Mr Akoak.
I just have one question under Daycare Grants and Contributions.
Does this include financially troubled daycares? Is this where they get funded?
The societies that are in existence have to be a society in order to access that funding or given that funding, but the entities that are not societies yet can’t access this funding.
It states in the legislation that whoever wants to access the funding, these monies are for non-profit organizations. They have to be agreed to by the, and I will say it in English, (interpretation ends) Nunavut Legal Registries. (interpretation) They have to be approved by Nunavut Legal Registries.
We can’t approve some of the daycares because they’re not a society and that is the case to date.
My colleague just asked part of the question that I was going to ask.
In regard to the Healthy Children’s Initiative and early childhood education, what about (interpretation ends) children with disorders and disabilities? How is that taken into consideration?
As I stated earlier, there are two types, the Healthy Children’s Initiative money and the second one is for people who need supportive services.
There are two pots of money that can be requested from.
The Healthy Children’s Initiative money can be used by the daycares.
As I said, there are two pots of money that can be requested from.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) That was your one and only question, did you say?
I have another question. A few minutes ago, it was stated that the government can only provide funding to societies that are properly incorporated. (interpretation ends) The daycares and Healthy Children’s Initiatives, as indicated, have to be registered societies. Does your department help or assist communities in ensuring that these committees or daycares or HCI programs are assisted by your department in becoming registered societies?
I will answer in English. (interpretation ends) Of course, like any other society, they have to be in good standing in order for them to receive funds, but our department certainly will offer support.
We will offer them where to go or who to go to, to get back their good standing. We’re constantly there to help them out in any way we can.
We can only give funding to groups that have good standing through the Nunavut registries, (interpretation) the funding sources that is available.
They must have proper society status.
We try to provide assistance to the daycares all the time when needed by way of their boards. We provide them with whatever assistance we can provide in terms of expertise.
Education. Early Childhood Education. Total Operations and Maintenance, to be Voted. $6,484,000.
Turn to page G-10. Education. Branch Summary.
Adult Learning and Educational Initiatives. Total Operations and Maintenance, to be Voted. $1,270,000.
Go back to page 3. Department Summary.
Education. Detail of Expenditures. Total Operations and Maintenance, to be Voted. $184,230,000.
Are we in agreement that the Department of Education is concluded?
We have already concluded the department. (interpretation ends) Hon. Minister, (interpretation) if you have any closing remarks, I give you the opportunity now.
I thank my colleagues for their meaningful questions. We are aware that as a government, education is an important priority and there will be improvements in the life our government. You will be advised concisely what the department will be doing in addressing the issues that were raised.
I thank my officials for being with me here.
We will move on. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses out.
We will proceed with the review of the housing corporation after we have a 10-minute break.
>>Committee recessed at 16:33 and resumed at 16:45
Bill 02 – Appropriation (Operations & Maintenance) Act, 2014-2015 – Nunavut Housing Corporation – Consideration in Committee
We are on page L-3. (interpretation ends) Hon. Minister Kuksuk, (interpretation) welcome.
As we proceed, I would like to ask you, minister, if you have any witnesses that you would like to bring to the table.
Does the committee agree to bring in Minister Kuksuk’s witnesses?
Hon. George Kuksuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I say “good day” to my fellow Nunavummiut.
With me today to my left is Heather Moffett, and to my right is Lori Kimball, (interpretation ends) Interim President and Chief Executive Officer (interpretation) of the housing corporation.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, minister. (interpretation ends) Ms. Kimball and Ms. Moffat, welcome to the Assembly and welcome to the House. (interpretation) We will now proceed with the housing corporation. (interpretation ends) Hon. Minister, (interpretation) if you have any opening comments, you now have the floor.
Hon. George Kuksuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members.
Thank you for allowing us to meet with you. (interpretation ends) I am very pleased to meet with the members of the Committee of the Whole today to discuss the 2014-15 main estimates and business plan for the Nunavut Housing Corporation.
As I said, I have with me today Lori Kimball, Interim President and Chief Executive Officer, and Heather Moffett, Acting Executive Director of Corporate Services and Chief Financial Officer of the Nunavut Housing Corporation.