EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
But with that, I would like to call the committee meeting to order. In the Committee of the Whole, we have the following items to deal with: Bill 12 and Bill 9. What is the wish of the committee?
Congratulations on your first day as a Chair with the Committee of the Whole.
Mr. Chairman, we wish to proceed with Bill 12 and continue with the review of the Department of Education Main Estimates and Business Plan, followed by the Department of Environment.
You say Bill 12.
So are we agreed we first deal with Bill 12?
Chairman: Yesterday, I believe the minister presented his comments.
Mr. Picco, do you have witnesses you would like to bring to the table?
Chairman: Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, would you please escort the witnesses in.
For the record, minister, could you please introduce your witnesses?
I would like to congratulate you on your new position as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole.
Mr. Chairman, with me today to my immediate left is Mr. David Pealow, who is Comptroller for the Department of Education, and on my immediate right is Ms. Pam Hine, who is the Deputy Minister of Education.
Also, in the Gallery, we have Mr. Mac Clendenning, President of Nunavut Arctic College, and Ms. Sandy Teiman, who is the Director of the Income Support Program.
Does the Chair of the Standing Committee on Health and Education have comments?
Mr. Alagalak, please proceed.
As the Chair of the Standing Committee on Health and Education, I am pleased to make some opening remarks as we began deliberations on the budget of the Department of Education.
The Department of Education proposes an operations and maintenance budget for 2006-07 of $184,268,000. This has been increased by almost $8.6 million from the revised O&M budget for 2005-06.
The committee has noted that the number of positions under the department is projected to increase mainly in the School Operations Division.
While the members support initiatives to improve pupil-teacher ratios, it is not clear how the department will address pupil-teachers ratios at different levels of the K to 12 education system from the elementary schools to senior high.
The committee encourages the minister in his efforts to recruit and train more Inuit teachers and supports initiatives to develop and improve the Nunavut Teacher Education Program.
The committee has been given to understand that another phase of the new school funding formula will be implemented in the coming year.
Members appreciate the minister’s willingness to provide a detailed update to the committee on the new formula in the near future and recommend that district education authorities, communities, and parents also receive a full update.
The standing committee anticipates that the department’s new DEA steering committee will support DEA’s in carrying out their rules and responsibilities at the community level and look forward to regular reports on each activity.
For example, DEAs have expressed a need for support in the areas of cultural programs, hiring policies, and initiatives to address the issue of youth not attending school.
Members look forward to updates on effective use of the multiple options strategy, which is aimed at keeping students in school.
Committee members have noted a number of initiatives being undertaken by the department to address special needs programs, including increasing support staff and the development of inclusive schooling procedures for teachers.
The committee looks forward to regular updates on these and other projects, such as the language of instruction pilot programs and criterion testing and assessments.
While members are proud of the linguistic and cultural uniqueness of Nunavut, it is also important that parents and students are confident that the quality of education provided in Nunavut is equal to that provided in other provinces and territories across the country.
Recognizing that consultation activities are still ongoing and that a number of difficult issues will need to be addressed, the standing committee looks forward to the future introduction of the department’s new Education Act.
Post-secondary education and upgrading opportunities are very important to the future of Nunavut. Nunavut Arctic College is again projected to receive nearly $16 million in direct funding form the department with other funding from outside sources.
Although the college’s annual report is tabled on a regular basis, members also look forward to scrutinizing Nunavut Arctic College’s business plans, which have never before been tabled in the House.
The committee continues to work on its own review of Nunavut Arctic College and anticipates tabling its final report after consultation activities are concluded.
Trades training and apprenticeship are also important investments in our future. The committee has noted that after the end of its term some time ago, a new Apprenticeship Trades and Certification Board was appointed this January.
The committee continues to monitor to the plans for the establishment of a Nunavut trades school given the unacceptably high rates of unemployment and the growing needs for a skilled trades labour force in the territory. Members urge the minister to explore and consider options for delivering trades training and certification to Nunavummiut, locally where possible, centrally where necessary.
In November of 2005, Members of this House unanimously supported the minister’s motion on federal-territorial negotiations on early learning and childcare.
Since then the change in government at the federal level has resulted in some uncertainty with respect to this funding. Members urge the minister to continue his work in negotiating the best support possible for Nunavut’s youngest residents. There is some concern that the federal government’s newly proposed childcare strategy may not greatly benefit Nunavut’s lowest income parents if, for example, these benefits were to be clawed back from territorial programs such as income support.
The standing committee is pleased that the minister acted on suggestions made by members of this House and ensured that the department will continue to fund the Young Parents Stay in School Initiative.
Members encourage the minister in his efforts to ensure that young parents have information about this program, as it will assist them in continuing their education.
Over the past two years, committee members have been pleased that the minister has made efforts to respond to members’ concerns over the high costs of living in Nunavut’s remote communities. The 15 percent increase to social assistance benefits and the exemption of Co-op dividends from the earned income calculations have been welcome.
Members recommend that the department conduct a review of the social assistance regulations with a view to better supporting individuals such as hunters or outfitters who only have seasonal opportunities to earn income.
The committee encourages the minister to continue working with his staff to improve the administration of income support programs. The committee supports the department’s ongoing work to establish a Nunavut-wide electronic case management system for income support.
On a final note, Mr. Chairman, the issue of homelessness is one that concerns members of the committee. Although it does not fall within the mandate of this department, members recognize that it is part of the minister’s portfolio and, as such, is included within this budget.
The committee looks forward to receiving reports on the progress of projects relating to addressing homelessness across Nunavut. Members encourage the minister to continue to work with entities such as the Nunavut Housing Corporation and others to address this serious issue.
Before we proceed, I would like to remind members of the following: according to Rule 77(1), you have 10-minutes to speak and according to Rule 77(2), subject to the discretion of the Chair, a member may speak more than once to a matter under discussion but not until every member wishing to speak has spoken.
I suggest to members that wherever possible, you ask your detailed questions during the page-by-page review of the departmental estimates and again, like my colleague, Mr. Arreak who has been chairing, I want to remind members not to ask questions which are hypothetical or questions that are seeking an opinion.
And again, I remind you, at the discretion of the Chair, members may speak more than once and also remind you to be mindful that we are working through our interpreters, capable as they may be.
With that, do any members have general comments?
Mr. Curley: Thank you. (interpretation) First of all, I would like to thank the minister and his officials, the deputy minister and his comptroller.
I want to make it very clear, and I want the minister to be aware, if he was to see that our northern teachers work really hard in our schools and they don’t get enough recognition for their hard work.
I just want to point that out because sometimes, we get different days for specific things like Mothers Day or what have you. We should show our appreciation more to those teachers and that we do recognize their hard work.
I want that to make a difference.
Mr. Chairman, teaching in general, whether it’s our children in Nunavut, is planning for the future and we should realize that as parents, as teachers, and the schools themselves.
We should keep that in mind.
In our communities, we seem to be going away from our traditional instructions into more modern, standard instructions in schools. It’s getting to be very similar to the southern way of teaching.
I would like to ask the minister, who makes the final decision because we are preparing our youth for the future and we encourage them to complete their education.
We shouldn’t lose hope.
At the same time, the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, we seem to be separating from that and maybe even more rapidly.
This is not very easy to say, but who is responsible for those two where we can maybe strengthen both of them at the same time, or as I have stated long time ago, after 30 years, I have the material with me.
So would it be better if we just forget about Inuit culture?
No, our elders are not saying that, but I can say that in Canada, especially in Nunavut the Inuit culture is rapidly fading.
We don’t even seem to be too proud of our culture. If we went to Greenland it’s completely different.
It’s amazing. All they’re talking is Inuktitut with the elected politicians.
You can really feel their uniqueness and even looking at their science and their history, they’re very capable.
They have Inuktitut professors.
And, if we were to go to Alaska, it’s the same thing. They’re teaching Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, Inuit culture within their universities.
I wonder who has the responsibility for that in Canada.
Is it the responsibility of the Department of Education or the Minister of Education? Or is it the responsibility of other Inuit organizations?
I think we shouldn’t forget this.
We haven’t completed enough.
We have to strengthen our goals and objectives.
We see that when they talk about polar bears, they are not using Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
If we have a Cabinet, who would be responsible for all those; if we were to compare Alaska and Greenland, maybe there can be improvements if we include Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, if they have a full understanding of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit in order to survive.
Maybe there wouldn’t be so many tragedies.
As we just heard, a young person wrote a letter saying what they need is not just in the schools.
Yes, the schools help. Maybe it’s about time they get a camp because they would even be able to make some money through trapping or hunting.
The reason I said this Mr. Chairman, is because our governments have to support us more.
If we look at Alaska they have scientists and if we were to go to Barrow in the northern part, we would see a lot of different buildings that were constructed with the advice of the scientists, scientific research centres and the Inuit culture is always included.
But for us Canadians who are responsible for those things, because we don’t even have our own scientists, we get occasional research done, but once it’s completed, we seem to forget about it.
Who is responsible for continuing this?
Is that the responsibility of the Minister of Education?
And, if it is a responsibility, how can we introduce it so that our young people will become stronger?
At the appropriate time, I will be asking more questions because Inuit traditions are presently being used in Greenland and in Alaska.
Once scientists do research, they always include Inuit traditions even though they’re not in full agreement all the time.
I wanted to make that point. When our children are in school our history, right from the beginning, they do not teach enough Inuit history, and why isn’t it included?
If we do not know what went on way before and what changes are becoming, we cannot really be strong. There are Inuit and Qallunaat who really know the history, why can we not ask for their assistance or get them to help to produce a program that can be used in the schools, because we can get expert panels.
Before we lose those very capable peoples we have to do something about it.
That is all I have for now, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to welcome the minister’s officials to Committee of the Whole today.
Ministers have talked about this several times over the years, even before I became Member of the Legislative Assembly, about education.
We all hear that education is very important and that you cannot take a good education away from an individual whether they are a young person or an adult.
I believe very strongly in education, that it is a key ticket into a better and improved life for anyone but also for the people surrounding the individual. When you are married and have a family you can be a model to your kids.
So education is very important that we give our young people to step up in education and to provide them with all the resources that we can afford. And throughout life, for those folks that did not quite make it through high school, we support them through other courses and training, including upgrading courses. I think it is very important.
There is no doubt in my mind that, as Nunavut goes forward, it needs a very well trained, educated, skilled work force right across Nunavut.
There is no doubt in my mind that the government needs skilled people, trained people, educated people, private sector, the mining industry, the hamlets, everybody. So education is very important.
I know the minister believes in that as well, from my discussions and conversations with him.
One of the things I want to hear some more about from the minister, and I will ask questions later, is school guidance counsellors. In my community, Cambridge Bay, a lot of parents have expressed concern that there should be a high school guidance counsellor to help kids in grade 10, 11, 12 choose courses and counsel them on some big decisions in their lives.
I know that parents are important, the community and friends are important but you need people who can sit down with you and have your best interest at heart when you are choosing courses.
The minister and I have talked about that. Along with my colleague, Mr. Curley, I believe teachers are very important and we should support them with all the resources we can provide them with and, in particular, the teachers who have to work with children with learning disabilities because even a child who has a learning disability deserves a good education otherwise they will be dropping out of school and wandering the streets.
We have kids like that all over Nunavut, and even some adults.
It is not a pleasant experience for them and it is very difficult for their families to know that their relatives will go through life without accomplishing anything for themselves.
I was just down at a Prospectors and Developers conference in Toronto the last two days and I talked to the mining companies that are involved in exploration and development of mines in Nunavut.
They told me that they are going to need a lot of trained trades people, engineers, and geologists.
They asked me to stress that to the minister that they are having difficulties now recruiting people to work. With the Tahera opening officially on April 1 and Miramar just got their approval today from NIRB, it is a pretty good sign that we might have a gold mine...another gold mine opening in Kitikmeot in a couple years. They want to hire people from Nunavut, but they have to come with certain skill sets.
The mine companies said that they are willing to do their part to train people, but they would like to see the government step up a bit more and provide trades training and channel some kids into the engineering field and technical fields, and scientific fields.
I think what we have to start seeing that in the schools, I know in Cambridge Bay that everything seems to be geared towards the matriculation, but a lot of kids do not desire to become engineers. Some of them will become excellent mechanics, journeyman, carpenters and plumbers, and we need a lot of them up north in Nunavut.
I have concern in my riding about the income support funding levels.
I have folks visiting me all the time and sending me emails asking if the funding is indexed to inflation.
They do not quite understand why $300 does not buy you more than three bags of groceries that has to last two weeks.
I do not know what to tell them except that it is very expensive to live up here in Nunavut.
A lot of my constituents who are in need of income support just cannot seem to make their income support funding last for the entire period of time that it should cover and they end up having to go visit the food bank.
They have to ask for a lot of help from their relatives. To the credit of the food bank and relatives, they do help out.
I would like to hear more from the minister about the Financial Assistance for Nunavut Students program and what they are doing to increase levels of support to post-secondary students.
Last year, the minister heard me raise a question about helping Adult Basic Education students feel that they are students. They have to feed their families and they were looking for a little support there.
I understand from the minister’s explanation why they did not qualify for Financial Assistance for Nunavut Students, but it is very difficult to explain to ABE students why they do not qualify when they believe in their minds that they are students. They have heard the talk from politicians and educators that education is important and for them to go back to school. When they go back as adults, many of them are mothers and fathers and have all the extra costs of supporting a family.
I was very pleased to read in the minister’s opening comments that he is taking bullying seriously.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to hear more about the progress report and how that is going in areas right across Nunavut, and certainly I would like to hear how it is being implemented in my riding.
I heard yesterday at the Prospector and Developers Conference from the mining companies involved in the mine focus group that they would like, and I, too, would like an update, on where the mine focus group is on training.
I understand that it’s a territorial focus group, but you know with all the mining sector developments going on in the Kitikmeot that it’s important for them to see or hear what the mine focus group does to help our folks over there.
I also understand again that Nunavut Arctic College has their core funding. It looks like it is the same amount as last year. I understand that in that core funding only certain programs are covered and then the people in the different regional colleges have to apply for funding from third party sources to offer courses and that creates a bit of a problem.
If you can’t secure the funding you cannot put the course on. If the funding runs out during the course then the course has to be cancelled. It puts students in a bit of a difficult place.
Also, cancellation of courses: I know there was a course in Cambridge Bay that was cancelled several months ago. I don’t think students have a full explanation as to why it was cancelled. It was the Inuinnaqtun Language Training Course.
I think they would like to get an update as to whether the course is going to be started up again.
I think most of them had more than a year in the course. So, I think it would be good for them to understand where they stand with that course.
I think that’s where I’ll leave off with on my comments.
Chairman: Very good timing Mr. Peterson.
Next, we have Mr. Kattuk.
I will be making comments on some subjects that we do not all agree on.
As the government for Nunavut, we do make decisions that affect all the people of Nunavut.
My colleague Tagak Curley stated earlier, maybe not more than once have I stated, that we can operate a government as Inuit in Inuktitut, but we have to be more aware of the situation around us whether it be natural or human decisions that we have to make for our population.  I was not aware at that time that we do have government.
When we were growing up, we didn’t know that there was such a thing as government. We were told that we have to go to school and that’s the only time that I learned that there was a government. I was told that I was supposed to go to school.
For that reason, I believe that the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit should be kept within our area. Maybe in between the government and the Inuit, I have been lost as to which side is going to be more used: the Qallunaat side or the Inuit side. So I’m in between.
I’m proud of the efforts on both sides, but I still have some issues with some aspects of the education system.
The schools in the communities are overcrowded and are too small for some of the communities. Since we were elected in 1999, when the first government was established in Nunavut, we were told that the schools were too small for the population and the teachers were not qualified enough to teach Inuit cultural aspects of education.
That’s what was stated in 1999 when we were elected. Mr. Chairman, the schools are too overcrowded in some communities. Even if I kept saying that it’s all the same in all the communities in that way, I might not be correct, but within our constituency, I’ll be using my constituency schools as an example.
In 1984, we received a new school Sanikiluaq that was operated by the Northwest Territories Government, and then when we were getting a new government, we would be able to receive a new school.
So we were depending on that in 2006 that we would be able to get a new school in our community and there was going to be an opening of the new school. So on January 1, there was going to be an opening in 1984 and the opening was there, but there was no new school.
I can’t say that I’m pleased with that plan that has not been followed through and there was no new school in our community.
Perhaps the Inuit traditional knowledge is not recognized in schools enough.
Maybe we can start on the curriculum geared more towards Nunavut. I’m also proud that there was a consultation program going into the communities on the Education Act and that Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit was recognised and also included in the curriculum development.
I know that I’m not going to live forever, but I also would like to see my culture being used by my descendents.
I would like the teachers and our officials to look more towards our future so that we won’t lose our culture.
I would like to stress to the minister that when we do make legislation and policies, even though we are using the education system from the south and maybe we can also introduce the Inuit culture into the education system that we’ve got.
When we are going through the budget of the Department of Education, I will be presenting a motion in regard to the Sanikiluaq school. There’s not much funding for curriculum development in our school and also for the education commission in our community.
I am pleased to see you as the Chairman and I’m very proud to see you chairing the committee meeting today.
The teachers work very hard in doing their job in our communities, even though that’s not the same, as we know, for all teachers.