EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Tabled Document 267 – 3(2): Chesterfield Inlet and Coral Harbour’s INAC Water Use Inspection Report (Ningeongan)
I also wish to table today copies of the most recent water use inspection reports which were prepared by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada for the communities of Chesterfield Inlet and Coral Harbour.
As a courtesy to the government, I wish to advise that I will have detailed questions on this matter at tomorrow’s sitting.
I encourage the Minister of CGS and his staff to be prepared.
The Minister of Community and Government Services has a document to table.
Tabled Document 268 – 3(2): Qulliq Energy Corporation’s Corporate Plan 2011-2016 (Kusugak)
As the Minister responsible for the Qulliq Energy Corporation, I am pleased to table the Qulliq Energy Corporation’s Corporate Plan from 2011 to 2016.
The Member for Quttiktuq has a document to table.
Tabled Document 269 – 3(2): Correspondence to the Nutrition North Canada Advisory Board (Elliott)
Tabled Document 270 – 3(2): Correspondence to the Nutrition North Canada Advisory Board (Elliott)
I am pleased to table two letters that I recently sent to the chairperson of the Nutrition North Canada Advisory Board outlining a number of issues of concern with respect to the important new federal program.
I urge all members to review these documents with care.
Tabled Document 271 – 3(2): Speaker’s List of Outstanding Statutory Tabling Requirements (Speaker)
There are no more hands up, so we can now move on to... .
I am sorry. I have a document to table.
I wish to table today a list of outstanding statutory tabling requirements. This list is current as of the end of the November 4, 2010 sitting of the House.
Item 14 in our Orders of the Day.
Notices of Motions. (interpretation ends) Item 15. (interpretation) Notices of Motions for First Reading of Bills.
Bill 52 – Supplementary Appropriation (Operations & Maintenance) Act, No. 4, 2009-2010 – Notice
I give notice that on Thursday, February 24, 2011, that Bill 52, Supplementary Appropriation (Operations and Maintenance) Act, No. 4, 2009-2010, be read for the first time.
Speaker (interpretation): Proceed.
Bill 53 – Supplementary Appropriation (Capital) Act, No. 4, 2010-2011 – Notice
Bill 54 – Supplementary Appropriation (Operations & Maintenance) Act, No. 4, 2010-2011 – Notice
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, since I’m standing up anyway.
Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, February 24, 2011, that Bill 53, Supplementary Appropriation (Capital) Act, No. 4, 2010-2011, be read for the first time.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, February 24, 2011, that Bill 54, Supplementary Appropriation (Operations and Maintenance) Act, No. 4, 2010-2011, be read for the first time.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you Minister. (interpretation ends) Item 15. (interpretation) Notices of Motions for the First Reading of Bills.
There are no more hands up. Motions. (interpretation ends) Item 16.
Item 17. (interpretation) First Reading of Bills. (interpretation ends) Item 18. (interpretation) Second Reading of Bills. (interpretation ends) Item 19. (interpretation) Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters.
>>House adjourned at 15:17 and Committee resumed at 15:51
We wish to commence our review of Tabled Documents 207 – 3(2), 209 – 3(2), 210 – 3(2), and 212 – 3(2). (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Are we in agreement to deal with the tabled documents?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) Minister Curley, do you have witnesses that you would like to bring to the table?
Minister Curley, if you could please introduce your witnesses.
To my right is the Nunavut Housing Corporation President, Alain Barriault, and to my left is our Chief Financial Officer, Lori Kimball. (interpretation ends) Thank you.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister. I would like to welcome you and your staff to the committee meeting.
I would like to ask members if they have any general comments or questions before we begin.
I believe there are no general comments.
Our first item is Tabled Document 207 – 3(2). Are there any questions on this document?
(interpretation ends) Do you have any questions on document 207?
My question is on this contracting here.
A lot of these projects were done by LHOs.
At one time, they didn’t have the figures on it. So I would ask the minister if they have the figures now as to how the cost compared with LHOs as to the contractors doing the projects.
We will have the finance officer here on my left, Lori, respond to that.
In regard to what is cheaper, LHO delivery or contractor delivery, it really is unique. Area by area, we have seen in some communities that delivered with better costs than contracting and we have seen other communities where the costs ran over budget. There were quite a bit more than with contractors or using contractors, so there’s a wide range.
There is no one answer for that question.
The reason why I bring that up is because I know in some communities, and I will not mention which one, but it was actually the housing corporation that had hired somebody for the project through to LHO, and then there was some M&Is that were done in that community.
Apparently, the guy who was running the job for the housing corporation, his brother-in-law got the contract for the M&Is and the local contractor was left out of the loop.
Apparently these jobs were done at the same time and basically they used the same housing, they used the same equipment, the same vehicles, and they said they were done at the same time.
They worked during the day at the trust and then in the evening, they worked doing these two M&Is, and I just don’t see how that’s possible to be doing that. Number one, I am sure Workers’ Compensation has rules as to how many hours are worked. Is the corporation aware of such situation?
I’m not aware of that, but I’m sure that our president, Mr. Barriault, will respond to that.
We are not aware of any cases of that occurring.
If the member does have any specific cases he would like to take to our attention, then we could investigate that.
We are aware, however, that some of the staff who were employed for the housing trust projects as LHO employees also assisted LHOs in doing modernization and improvement repairs on their own buildings.
If there are any specific concerns, then we can address those on a case-by-case basis.
I will bring the information to it.
It was brought to the attention of the Nunavut Housing Corporation in Cape Dorset, but apparently they didn’t do anything about it.
I’m not talking about them using employees from LHOs to do other stuff, I’m talking about some of these employees who are working also for the trust are also working for private contractors that got the contract who happened to be the brother-in-law of the guy in charge of the housing trust and there seems to be quite a conflict there.
I can understand if they only chose to use somebody at the trust and they used them to do their own work, I have no issue with that, but I think this is a serious breach.
How do you keep track of where they are working and where they are billing the time to?
As I stated earlier, we would be glad to investigate any specific situations.
If the member can bring that to my attention, I will follow up on that.
I would like to apologize for not having informed the regular members that if you have questions, you can ask from any of the documents that are presented before you, not necessarily just one document. It is wide open. Any other questions?
I thank the minister and his staff for appearing as witnesses.
In the Nunavut Housing Corporation contracting report, I have a question on page 2 of 19. Summary of Section A - Major Construction Contract Types. Under NNI Status, I have a question.
What is the difference between NNI, NTI/Inuit, and local? I thought that would be one and the same.
Hon. Tagak Curley: Thank you. (interpretation) Maybe I ought to state the explanation in Inuktitut with respect to NTI.
With respect to Inuit owned companies here in Nunavut, they are increasing in number.
NTI is responsible for administering their status as per the NLCA and they have certain criteria used to determine which company is indeed an Inuit company.
About 15 years ago, NTI introduced the policy to define Inuit owned companies by giving them a certificate. This was also when I was involved.
The certificate identifies the company as an Inuit owned company.
If the Inuit ownership is above 51 percent, whether that is a sole proprietor or otherwise, if NTI recognizes the ownership as being Inuit, then a certificate is issued.
If you go to any Inuit owned company operating, you will see their certificate on their wall.
With respect to the NNI Policy, it was negotiated prior to 1999 by the parties and it was grandfathered as a GN policy that replaced the BIP.
If there is an RFP and you bid on a contract, whether to CGS or other departments, then your status as an Inuit company and the number of Inuit hires you have can also be issued as points in your bid, even if your bid was higher.
That is the difference between them and I am explaining the NNI Policy in Inuktitut so that it can be more understandable. NNI is a GN policy and is not part of the NTI administered programs.
That is what we call NNI.
With respect to NNI, what do the acronyms stand for? Nunavummi Nangminiliit Inuit… .
I cannot remember what it stands for. Is it Nunavummi Nangminiliit… ? What does the “I” stand for?
Yes, I understand that they get a credit or percentage. Perhaps 7 percent is the largest benefit you can get under the NNI Policy.
NNI stands for Nunavummi Nangminiliit… . I cannot remember what that “I” stands for. Can you enlighten me, please?
NNI stands for Nunavummi Nangminiqaqtunik Ikajuuti. Ma’na.
Mr. Ningark: You are more articulate in Inuktitut than I am.
Under the Nunavummi Nangminiqaqtunik Ikajuuti, how many points do you get under this, 7 percent?
Hon. Tagak Curley (interpretation): In following the NNI Policy, the criteria has different aspects, such as a Nunavut company owned by Inuit would receive points. When the bid is being evaluated, they also look at the number of Inuit hires and that also receives points based on the criteria.
If you qualify under all of the criteria, your bid can receive over 20 points to lower it. (interpretation ends) So they would get a credit, (interpretation) even if your bid is higher, by 20 percent. For example, if the company receives 21 points, then their bid is adjusted accordingly and it can make their bid seem smaller. That is how the process works.
That’s why this NNI Policy is utilized heavily by the companies that don’t seem to be Inuit owned companies.
Once they get a joint venture Inuit partner, they state that they are an Inuit company.
This is usually in the RFP process.
Also, if they are registered in Nunavut and they have an office, that’s when they are eligible for Inuit firm status.
Just so we’re clear, it’s a legally registered company. You have to be registered, either have a local licence from the municipality or you could be an incorporated company, so that constitutes who owns the company. The mechanism would indicate exactly who owns the company.
If they’re an Inuit owned company, if you’re local, it’s not hard to figure out.
If you are a partnership company, you would likely be able to get that through the limited company or incorporated company. So it’s a legal provision. It depends on the number of who owns the majority of the shares.
NTI would have to do quite a thorough analysis and assessment whether or not, in fact, it’s legally Inuit owned.
They do a search on who owns the shares in the company.
The contracting managers, like the housing corporation, or CGS, or any other agency, don’t make the determination of who is an Inuit owned company.
We depend on NTI’s documents.
They are the ones that do the assessments.
If they have a legal document, like a certificate from NTI, that’s accepted that the company is also licensed under the NNI Policy.
Also, the contracting agent, like the Housing Corporation or CGS, has a registry also. They are registered in their legal registry kind of thing, no so much a registry but at least a record of a company that proves or claims to be an Inuit company or any other Nunavut owned businesses, which normally means non-Inuit companies.
So they have a whole slew of lists of companies. One is the NNI criteria; NTI criteria provisions.
I know it can get complicated.
On a major or any other construction contract types, one is the reporting process between the construction and the Nunavut Housing Corporation?
Is it quarterly?
How often are you made aware of the projects as it moves ahead, phase 1, phase 2, and so forth?
Maybe the member can clarify his question. If he’s talking about a project, there are a whole slew of them and they depend on a number of progresses. One is you may use some progress by, whether the… .
They are probably up to standard. The inspectors are really quite important. First of all, the structural engineers have to go in when the piles are being built.
So that also requires another set of inspectors and so on.
Also, once it’s shelled, you know, closed in, the housing corporation normally goes through an inspection process so that all of the codes are properly done.
But it depends, really, exactly what the member is asking about. I can have Alain Barriault explain a bit. If he’s talking about a construction phase, we can go through it in detail.
He may want to clarify his question. Thank you.
Perhaps, Mr. Ningark, you can do that.
The Chairman has told us that we can talk about the Nunavut Housing Corporation contracting report and we can also talk about the Nunavut Housing Trust.
I believe there was a $200 million funding for housing projects.
Yes, I am talking about timeframes for construction projects. I believe the reporting was not up to par and that’s why the housing trust got into a mess.
So was there any expectation that reporting would be made quarterly, yearly, on how well the construction was doing?
So that’s my question, Mr. Chairman.
It’s about the project, about the timeframe, about the reporting system.
Hon. Tagak Curley: We will have Mr. Barriault respond to that.
Chairman: Mr. Barriault.
Mr. Barriault: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the member.
The Housing Corporation tracks all of its construction budgets on an ongoing basis.
So each separate construction has a budget assigned to it and costs, as they are being invoiced and paid for, are tracked through our financial management system.
In addition, we provide monthly reporting to the GN Department of Finance on our capital budgets as well as our operating costs.  So we have a number of different reporting mechanisms and different financial controls.
If I may, all of that mess that we got into with the housing trust, was it an oversight?
What did happen? I know it has been asked over and over, but what really did happen?
Why did we get into the deep mess with the Nunavut trust funding of $200 million?
The main problems that resulted in the over-commitments were a lack of proper budgeting and a lack of tracking and forecasting of costs to completion.
Originally when the Nunavut Housing Trust was conceived, the assumption was made that all of the houses could be built at a given price and that there would be no cost increases during the length of the housing trust program, which was over a number of years.
All of these assumptions were based on building five-plex units only. However, during the course of the housing trust, there was a variety of building types that were built that had different cost factors, and the costs of materials, labour, and fuel all increased from year to year.
In the end, adjustments were not made to reflect these costs.
So what wounded up happening is that there were more houses committed to be built than there was budget to do so.
So when the problem was identified with the new management of the housing corporation, we realized that there was not enough funding to build the 725 houses which were committed, and this is the issue which was brought forward to cabinet at that time.
Rather than reduce the number of houses to be constructed, housing was determined to be a priority capital program and as such, additional funding was allocated so that the original number of houses could be built. But effectively, it was a matter of lack of controls and forecasting which are now in place.
I was going to start by asking questions from the Nunavut Housing Corporation contracting report, which is Tabled Document 207 – 3(2). On page 14 of 19 and 15 of 19, it starts from line 1 all the way down to around line 63. The majority of those entries are for contracts which are sole source contracts awarded for financial services.
I was just wondering if the minister could explain why.
Again, just going from his news release that he announced seven positions or something that they are moving from Arviat, which I think Minister Shewchuk alluded to in his Member’s Statement about having positions leaving his community where of concern, why is there so much being spent on financial services if you have people who are already working in those positions?
If you could just explain.
We have a total of eight positions that are being relocated from Arviat in the Finance Division to Iqaluit, but there are only three indeterminate employees affected as a result of this move.
One of the challenges that the Nunavut Housing Corporation has had over the years is to fill these higher level finance positions, so we’ve had to rely on a number of consultants to fulfill these functions.
That brings up another question. It seems like they have the same problem that we have across the board in terms of financial positions.
By moving these positions to Iqaluit, do you feel that you will actually be able to fill them?
If you had problems in the past, are we going to continue see these types of sole source contracts going for financial services?
Ms. Kimball: Part of the rationale behind the relocation is not just the difficulties we’ve had filling the positions, it is also the lack of the ability to communicate using current GN infrastructure.
As I mentioned the last time we were here, one of the challenges is we can’t share any files. Recently, the GN made a change. We can’t send any files larger than 5 Megs; the files that we have to track these large projects are up to 200 Megs.
Literally we would have to copy it onto a stick or a CD and mail it to Arviat to have communication back and forth. So that is going to be a huge help going forward is having everybody in the same office and we can be more productive.
That brings up another question. I understand the positions being moved and the idea that obviously we want good financial management.
You are saying that these are sole sourced because you needed the information quickly.
Why weren’t they tendered out?
A lot of these positions that are listed in these contracting reports are some that require specialized skills and a lot of those skills can only be obtained by having performed similar type of work or being familiar with the software or the systems that are in use.
Many of the software systems used by the GN and the Nunavut Housing Corporation are developed specifically for uses of the housing corporation, so there are limited numbers of people who have the familiarity and can be productive.
That is why a lot of these are sole sourced rather than tendered.
Part of the reason we’re here is, and I think Mr. Barriault talked about it, that things are in place now because of some of the problems that were occurring in the past.
Obviously going back in hindsight, proper budgeting so there was no over-commitment would have been nice, but now you’re saying that the tracking mechanisms are in place and things should start to run smoothly; another positive aspect.
I think that’s what we’re trying to find out as regular members, to make sure that things are being tracked properly. By bringing the positions here, it will actually give you guys the opportunity at the Nunavut Housing Corporation to do your job better. Is that what you’re saying?
By moving the positions here, we are hopeful and we are quite positive in thinking that we will be able to do our job better, that we will be able to fill these positions and not have to rely on contracted services so we can have indeterminate employees and continuity in those positions.
As a corporation, apart from the Government of Nunavut, do you ask or request assistance from the Department of Human Resources to help fill those positions? If it’s so hard to fill those positions, are you able to access that support from that department?
The Nunavut Housing Corporation does use the services of GN Human Resources to recruit its staff.
We continue to do so and we work closely with that department.
Getting back to the questions in regard to the moving of the eight positions from Arviat, I know that questions were asked earlier today to the Premier about decentralization and whatnot.
If eight positions are moved from Arviat, do they have to put eight positions back in? Is that something that Minister Curley could answer? In terms of discussions, are those positions actually going to be lost in that community or will they be replaced?
Hon. Tagak Curley: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s unrelated to me in my view.
The corporation has to be able to function and carry out its mandate pursuant to the legal instruments, and it had failed to do that, not only because of the eight positions that we moved here, it was also the management that was really not taking responsible actions and taking steps to ensure that proper budgeting that should have been directed by the senior managers were not taking place.
So it was the combination of a number of them that eventually caught up with the Nunavut Housing Corporation and senior managers at the previous administration were not able to nor did they take time to really correct what might have not been a problem.
Despite the fact that the Auditor General had indicated some serious concerns about the direction of the housing corporation, as well as the standing committees of the legislature of the day, it had to take this current management to identify the weaknesses and really recommend, which is unavoidable, to have proper management and controls as well as finance in one shop so that proper tracking of public funds can be carried out and ensure that the corporation is really at arm’s length without political interference, which we have been forced to do so during the course of the year right now.
It’s very difficult right now because of the way in which the corporation is structured.
It has senior managers acting as the board of directors. In my view, you can easily say, “Isn’t there a conflict in there if the senior managers only are directing the corporation?”
So in order to avoid that, this cabinet has, not only with the eight positions, recommended that there be a new board of governors in place so that they can make a proper decision on behalf of the people of Nunavut.
With these steps that we have taken, I think it’s on the recovery side right now and the financial tracking systems that we have now are current and up to date, and we certainly would like to see these continue. (interpretation) Thank you.
Perhaps part of Mr. Elliott’s question was whether or not there would be positions given back to the community of Arviat.
Minister, perhaps if you could also elaborate on that.
Hon. Tagak Curley: Thank you. I thought I addressed it because I thought that was separate and that was unrelated to me.
Since the inception of my constituency, a number of departments moved, including the Department of Education and Arctic College, to Arviat and the housing corporation moved to Arviat and to Baker Lake, there were other departments, as well as the power corporation at that time from Rankin Inlet to Baker Lake.
There was no consideration whatsoever whether or not a comparable position would be moved to Rankin Inlet.
So when they moved that, there were only about, I say, two-thirds of the current housing corporation staff was moved. It has increased. The incremental increase were nowhere even near that.