EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Please provide the copies of your tabled documents to the pages.
Tabled Document 049 – 2(2): Interim Financial Report (Unaudited) March 31, 2004
I wish to table the following document, the Interim Financial Report (unaudited) March 31st, 2004.
Tabled Document 050 – 2(2): Sole Source Contract Report for Government of Nunavut Contracts from 2000 to Date
Yesterday in the House the Minister suggested that after more than half a decade in office, the government still finds it difficult to compile and table some basic information about its contracting practises.
Mr. Speaker, to get the ball rolling on this I am going to table today a list of Government of Nunavut sole sourced contracts that was provided to me by a concerned citizen.
I would invite the government to review this list and publicly indicate wherever there are, in fact, any errors.
Mr. Speaker, if the government would just listen and table this information itself, on an annual basis, we wouldn’t need to be asking questions all the time.
I would like to ask if we can get back to Item 5 in our Orders of the Day.
Speaker (interpretation): The Member is seeking unanimous consent to get back to Item 5 in our Orders of the Day.
I would like to recognize these individuals from Taloyoak; Patrick Angujjuaq, Uriash Amarok, Bryan Paunngan, Lawrence Uvingayaaq and the fifth one is from Coral Harbour.
(interpretation ends) These five young men are here over the weekend for some wrestling matches.
I am sure that they are getting ready for bigger and better wrestling matches in either the Arctic Winter Games or other games down south.
Motion 004 – 2 (2) Extended Adjournment – Notice
I give notice that on December 2, I will move the following motion: I move, seconded by the Honourable Member of Nattilik, that not withstanding Rule 4, that when the House concludes its sitting in Iqaluit, that it shall be adjourned until February 22, 2005 and Mr. Speaker, at the appropriate time, I will be seeking to deal with my motion today.
I would like to ask for further consent of this Assembly to deal with my motion today.
Motion 004 – 2(1): Extended Adjournment
I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Nattilik, that not withstanding Rule 4, that when the House concludes its sitting in Iqaluit, that it shall be adjourned until February 22, 2005, and further that any time prior to February 22, 2005, that the Speaker satisfied with the consultations with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet in Iqaluit at an earlier time during adjournment.
The Speaker may give notice and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such notice and shall transact its business as it has been duly adjourned to do at that time.
The motion is in order to the motion.
Abstention.
Bill 1, Supplementary Appropriation, Operations and Maintenance Act 2003-04.
Bill 2, Supplementary Appropriation, Operations and Maintenance Act 2004-05.
Bill 3, Supplementary Appropriation Capital Act Number 2, 2004-05 with Mr. Evyagotailak as the chair.
In accordance with the authority vested in me, by Motion 3-2 (2) that the Committee of the Whole will stay in session until it reports itself out.
Before we start the Committee of the Whole, we’ll take a break for 20 minutes.
>>House recessed at 15:41 and resumed at 16:08
In the Committee of the Whole, we have the following items to deal with.
Bill 1, Supplementary Appropriation, Operations and Maintenance Act #4 2003-04.
Bill 2, Supplementary Appropriation, Operations and Maintenance Act #2 2004-05. Bill 3, Supplementary Appropriation, Capital #2 2004-05.
We wish to proceed with the review of Supplementary Bills and supporting documents starting with Bill 1, then Bill 2, and concluding with Bill 3.
If you agree, we can start with Bill 1.
I would now like to ask the Minister Aglukkaq for the Department of Finance to make her opening remarks.
I am pleased to appear before your committee today to speak to the following three Bills.
Bill 1. 2003-04 Supplementary Appropriation, Operations and Maintenance #4; this Supplementary Appropriation will provide additional funding in the amount of $20,000,27 for the retroactive cost of the new Nunavut Employees Collective Agreement and the year end accounting adjustments.
Bill 2. 2004-05 Supplementary Appropriation, Operations and Maintenance #2; this Supplementary Appropriation will provide additional funding in the amount of $45,000,502 for such item as the following: $13,479,000 for the retroactive cost of the new Nunavut Employees Collective Agreement; $10,000,000 to increased healthcare cost; $9,000,700 to address increased utility for Nunavut Housing Corporation and Community and Government Services; as well, $3,000,113 for the continued investment in the Nunavut Telehealth Network.
Bill 3. 2004-05 Supplementary Appropriation for Capital #2; this Supplementary Appropriation will provide additional funding in the amounts of $56,000,537 of which $54,000,844 is for capital carryovers from the 2003-04 fiscal year.
This is for capital projects that were not completed in 2003-04 and there is no net affect on government operations as funding is being transferred from one prior year capital appropriation.
Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to answer any questions from the committee members, as well as I have two witnesses I would like to invite as well.
Sergeant-at-arms, could you please escort the witnesses in.
For the record, Madam Minister, please introduce your witnesses.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: To my right, Bob Vardy, Deputy Minister for the Department of Finance; to my left is Paul Ferretti, Director of Expenditure Management.
Chairman: Welcome to the Committee of the Whole.
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 the 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.
We are in Supplementary Appropriation, Operation and Maintenance #4 2003-04.
I would just like to take the opportunity, with the witnesses at the table, first, I welcome them here.
I understand they had a hard time getting in.
So, I am glad that they could make it.
But I think that one thing that I know of that I pushed for a number of years and I know the former Health Minister, Mr. Picco, and as we have seen in other areas that there doesn’t seem to be as accurate a budgeting process as could be.
It’s getting better, but it still needs some improvement and I think that going back to the way that the government does it, departments’ do its budgeting is based on historical figures from the past.
I don’t know if all members recall, and I am sure that the minister and her staff do as well, is the budget that we inherited from the Government of the Northwest Territories was basically a slash and burn budget.
So, that’s what we inherited, I don’t think that in anyway really reflects the actual needs out there.
I think that we should take some time, not all at once, but may in an area-by-area, some type of a process to take a look at doing some actual, okay, what do we really need and never mind numbers that we are going on from before.
Hopefully something like that will help to continue to improve the process, our budgeting process for the government and then we could spend time in Committee of the Whole looking at Supplementary Appropriations.
Do any of the members wish to say their comments, members?
We will now proceed to page-by-page review of the supplementary book, starting with page 4. 2003-04 Supplementary Operations and Maintenance #4.
Legislative Assembly, Operations and Maintenance, Branch Arrears, $12, do the members have 2003-04 Supplementary Appropriation, Operations and Maintenance #4?
Do any of the members not have any?
Can one of the staff please, do you have, oh, sorry.
Okay, Mr. Peterson.
Thank you, to the Minister and Mr. Reddy and Mr. Vardy.
I would like to extend a special thank you for Mr. Vardy for loaning me his hockey equipment on Sunday here.
I did him proud.
I scored two goals using his equipment.
So, I might make a comeback.
I just want a point of clarity, Mr. Chairman, because we are going to be seeing this reference throughout.
What is the difference between the terminology, “retroactive costs of compensation benefits, northern allowance?”
And then when we look down on the same page, there is, “yearly adjustments for employee leave benefits.”
What is the difference in that terminology?
The retroactive costs are back dated to the 2003-04 for the collective agreement that was signed.
It was signed last...I think it was June, this summer, and it went back to 2003-04.
So, we have to show the expenditures in that fiscal year through a supplementary bill.
As well, the amounts charged to the leave and termination accruals are made to general accounting standards.
Again, where costs are charged to appear in which the expenditure occurred.
So, we have to go back again to identify that.
In the case, there will be some differences between regular departments, as well as Department of Education in those amounts, but those figures include leave and attendance for the fiscal year, for both ending staff or teachers bargaining units and what not, it includes all the accrued leave and attendance in that fiscal year.
I just needed to clarify this because I just thought we should get clarification on the first page because I see four or five other times on subsequent pages.
That clarifies it.
Legislative Assembly, Operations and Maintenance, Branch, not previously authorized, Various Total Department, $295,000, does the committee agree?
Can’t hear you.
Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs, Operations and Maintenance, Branch, not previously authorized, Various Total Department, $420,000, does this committee agree?
It might be a good idea if we could ask a question here.
At the bottom in most of the pages they reference allowance for doubtful accounts.
So, I am wondering about the amount on this page, that’s $6,000, but is larger on the subsequent pages. Would Mr. Vardy or the minister explain what the allowance for doubtful accounts are, and if there is a listing for allowance for doubtful accounts that they are showing on these pages.
This section on allowance for doubtful accounts is basically receivables that we feel we will not be able to collect from various agencies for various reasons.
In most of the departments there will be a line associated with that.
I would just like to inform the House that there are initiatives on a regular basis to try and collect that, but however, we still have to record it in the books the figures that we feel that we will not be able to collect.
Any other questions Mr. Peterson?
Can the minister tell us if it’s possible to get listings of the allowance for doubtful accounts.
It’s such a small amount on this page, but there are large numbers on subsequent pages.
So, I am wondering if we could get that information.
Also, if the minister and her officials could take us through the process that they put in place to monitor doubtful accounts and the collections process.
At any time when the Government of Nunavut writes off any doubtful accounts, that information is tabled in the House and the organizations are listed, but for the ones where they have not been written off, I mentioned earlier, we have continued to try and collect that wherever we can.
In terms of looking at providing that information, where we have not provided the writeoff of that particular amount, again, we would have to go through the listing and through the privacy issue of seeking permission to release that information.
However, in the other question that I am going to have, Bob Vardy walks through the process of the second question.
The process of collections in the Department of Finance is, any account that is overdue is flagged and our collections officers make contact with the party following the amount to government and make efforts to collect the money.
Sometimes it’s achieved through telephone calls, it’s followed up with letters, sometimes we have to set off amounts that is payable to those individuals or companies to offset the amounts owing.
The reason I draw attention to that, if we add up all of the allowance for doubtful accounts, we are at close to $1,000,000 for that particular year and we are talking about the last fiscal year.
Are these people that set up the allowance for doubtful accounts, have they received money through contributions from the government. How do they get money that they owe us?
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Do you want to answer that?
The amounts owing is the total amount owing at that point in time, which is March 31, 2004.
A lot of the doubtful accounts go back to the time of division.
A lot of the companies involved are no longer in existence.
Some of them are bankrupt.
Some of the individuals have left the territory and they are very difficult to find.
It’s likely that a high percentage of those will have to come forward for a writeoff before long, but it’s something, every cent owing to the government, we think it’s important and we go after it.
Like every government and every organization, you never collect 100 percent.
Does the government assess whether it’s worth collecting some of these accounts? What I am trying to say is, is that worth going after them or is it better off to cease trying to collect because many of them have left the territory, or many of them bankrupt?
At what point do you decide not to try and collect from the people that owe the money?
At a certain point, the decision is made not to collect and at which point that information is written off and presented in the House in terms of how much time and energy and human resource staff it takes to get to that point.
Maybe Bob can answer that question in more detail.
However, I suppose in certain types of situations where a person is perhaps deceased, it is one example where we can put a stop to try and collect that and put forward that is a writeoff in our books, but perhaps Bob can elaborate more on that.
I think that Minister has covered it.
Each case is different and once we move into a situation of having accrual budgeting, we can bring our budgets and our financial statements in line and we will have a line item for doubtful accounts, and then you don’t have to come here through the Supplementary Appropriation process.
But I have asked our government accounting staff, after the questioning from regular members yesterday, to see if we can do a more precise estimate under doubtful accounts and breakout anything that could be collectable from anything that we see for certain that can be written off at this stage or that we can recommend to be written off.
Thank you, Mr. Vardy.
When a company or an individual who receives a contribution from the government, let’s use an example of say $100,000, if they don’t provide in the accounting for that entire $100,000, is that all deemed collectable and then eventually it would be set up as amounts for doubtful accounts?
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: I will get him to respond to that.
I think the member is referring to contribution agreements.
A lot of those are from other government departments.
When there is no accounting for expenditures under those contributions, we have to take every effort to ensure that, in some cases, we have to work with the parties to reconstruct their statement because sometimes it is not deliberate misappropriation of funds by those third parties, it might be just a case of poor book keeping.
If there are cases that we can determine that monies were spent for purposes other than what was intended, there are efforts to correct those funds.
The minister made a comment.
There was a commitment made yesterday, I don’t know if it was her, or staff, that they would provide a listing of that.
Maybe I could get a better explanation as to why we don’t have that list.
The information that he requested yesterday is tabled, I don’t know how many pages that there are.
That still has to be translated.
When we met yesterday morning, at ten o’ clock that was when it was initiated, so it is not available to be distributed in the House today, however, we have listing to speak to each member’s questions for projects specific initiatives.
Chairman: Thank you, Madame Minister.
Mr. Tootoo: If that is the case, Mr. Chairman, I am going to ask that each, the executive and one of them will say that is a doubtful account for $6,000, I know that that is not a lot.
Why would you have to write off there?
I could see in finance the payments were made for facilities or different things like that through the consolidated revenue fund.
What is the $6,000 for?
One top of that is when can the minister expect to have that list ready for the members to have a look at.
The list that I committed to providing, during the Regular Caucus briefing on the sub-bills, yesterday morning was related to the capital projects.
It didn’t relate to collective agreement initiatives.
We all are trying to work on getting the appendices that we have had in our files translated.
It is in charts, accounting formats.
They won’t be done today, or maybe tomorrow.
The other area in terms of the figure he makes reference to the $6,000 on page five, perhaps I can clarify again, and we are not requesting that these amounts as write offs in this document.
I was saying earlier to Mr. Peterson’s response that doubtful accounts, when we do write them off, that information is listed and tabled in the House.
What we have to account for in the sub-bills is to show receivables that we feel that we are not able to collect in the fiscal year that the expenses were incurred.
I was in no way shape or form. I don’t think that I said that these were going to be written off.
I said why they would be in there as an allowance for doubtful accounts.
I am wondering what this is for.
I know it is for age receivable but for what?
In terms of the listing of what those amounts are.
What would they account for? We don’t have those listings by departments.
I mentioned earlier that we have to show in the sub-bills the receivables that we didn’t collect in that fiscal year in the sub-bills.
I was wondering if you don’t have a listing by department how come they have an amount by department in there?
Why do they come up with the number?
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That information is provided by the departments.
What I was saying is that it’s not in the supplementary books.
We have the back-up materials to come up with those figures like any other accounting process that we work with.
We have the background information with us in the government accounting.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Madame Minister.
Again, it’s something that I’ve been pushing for, for many years in here.
If you have it, why won’t you share it.
Is it a big secret.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Mr. Chairman, I think I’ve responded to that earlier as well to Mr. Peterson.
We share the information in terms of what we write off in the accounts in the House.
To actually share the listing of people that owe money to the Government of Nunavut, part of the process, would also interfere with the collection efforts of the Government of Nunavut.
The other issue is privacy issue.
We have to look at each case.
But there is information that is contained or gathered by government accounting that makes up these figures.
They don’t come out of a hat.
There are background materials for each of those items.
Mr. Chairman, I know, I figured that and I know that.
I know that there is back up information for that.
My point is, we have no problems listing people that we give money to.
All the students that owe us money, who we have given money to through student loans, I think have to be published.
Like the minister said, the writeoffs have to be published.
I don’t understand what the big deal is about being clear and transparent and providing information that states how public money was spent.
Like I said earlier, we don’t have the complete listing of every single item under doubtful accounts in the House.
To do that, I would have to bring in government accounting staff to go through the listing in the House line by line.
The other thing is I think is important to be aware of is that to list all of that would also interfere in our efforts to collect those funds from individuals.
I said earlier, and I’ll say it again, when we provide a writeoff, that information is presented in the House.
I believe the information you make reference to in terms of student financial assistance, that’s part of the listing.
Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs, operations and maintenance branch.
Various total department, $420 thousand.
Does this committee agree.
Chairman (interpretation): Page 6, Finance, operations and maintenance.
I would like to ask a question in regards to $8 million being requested by the government as a year end accrual to reflect the potential liability of the settlement of sexual abuse claims.
Is this all related to the same case.
When will the final settlement be reached.
It seems to be an ongoing thing.
The second law suit for this particular case involving about 70 more victims was filed in January 2004.
We have to wait through the court process to get to the end of that.
It has to work through the courts before we can.
I don’t know when it will be over.
When are the Nunavut Employee’s Union going to start their negotiations again.
It’s quite a huge sum of money for the Employees Union Act.
It’s very difficult to find out when or how much the agreement will cost.
Funding is not always readily available.
I know that it’s not going to be complete within one year.
I’m sure of that, and the employees expect to get a raise.
The union expects to get a raise and they have to negotiate their agreements.
During after the agreement was reached, have you heard how long this union agreement’s term is for.
There is no Inuktitut terminology.
What percentage, for example, in the first year they will have a 10 percent increase and perhaps the very next year, 2005-06, perhaps they’ll get a 3 percent raise.
Are there such agreements for future years.
Just to go back to an earlier response I provided the year is September 2006 not, 2005.
The collective agreement that was signed, it was a 3 and a half year collective agreement for Nunavut Employees Union.
The percentages for those years were 3 percent for every year and the last six months is a percentage and a half.
I think that it was back in 1999, that the agreement was reached.
I think that was the last agreement.
I know that it costs quite a bit of money after they reached the agreement and after they agreed again, that there is a supplementary appropriation for the union agreement.
In 2006, I know that the union will want a raise again.
We make predictions or forecasts as to how much it will cost in the future.
Perhaps the Minister for the 2005 main estimates up to 2006, can the Minister make a forecast in your house, what kind of costs she expects to see the union increase.
Perhaps by the next session she could be tabling that.
I’m just going to perhaps explain the process of it.
The supplementary bill before you for 2003-04, of course that was retroactive from when we signed the collective agreement.
That agreement is, as I mentioned earlier, three and a half years.
The next year’s operations and maintenance bills will include in the base, the increases that are retro, or not retroactive, but are agreed to.
We have to go back to 2003-04 because at the time the collective agreement was signed, we had already passed 2003 and 2004 budget years.
So, we have to account for the money the year that it was incurred.
So, we’re back tracking in our accounting.
In terms of trying to predict down the road after 2006, what to anticipate, I can’t predict what we will anticipate.
Those figures are negotiated with the collective bargaining teams.
Prior to collective bargaining, there are management teams that do research on various subject matters that are up for negotiation.