EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I want to clarify for the member that residents in Nunavut do qualify for the program, but it’s just cost prohibitive for them to be able to access the program.
As we have indicated and we have seen coming out of the federal government over the last number of years, there has been some recognition of the uniqueness and challenges that we face in the delivery of programs throughout our territory and some of the unique challenges and needs that we face.
So I’m hoping, with the small steps, like the initial change in the way that we were funded for the Northern Housing Trust, where we got a substantial chunk of that money over and above a per capita basis, the same thing. When the last budget came out with the $100 million that they announced for Nunavut for housing over the next two years, again this is outside of the per capita formula.
So I think there has been some recognition from our federal government that we do have unique circumstances and challenges of being able to deliver where it’s the fact that we’re being funded on a per capita basis does not work for us.
I would suggest that maybe under the Energy Secretariat, which is my understanding, Mr. Speaker, that after March 31 to April 1, the transfer of the functions under the Energy Secretariat will be under review, that may be one of the things that they have a look at and say, “This is something that we will need to go and talk to our federal counterparts about changing.”
I would like to ask the hon. minister when he finds out if there are any changes in this $5,000 grant for the energy retrofit –homes program that he let the rest of us members know about it.
By the time any changes happen to this program, it will be after March 31 of this year.
It won’t be my responsibility, but I will make sure that I pass on that commitment I would make on behalf of whoever’s responsible for that after March 31. Right now, it’s under the Energy Secretariat.
If we’re able to convince the federal government or Natural Resources Canada to make any changes to the program to make it more suitable for Nunavummiut, we will expeditiously pass that information on to all members so that they can inform their constituents of any possible changes.
Question 102 – 3(1): Community Growth and Health Services (Aupaluktuq)
Mr. Aupaluktuq (interpretation): Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) I would like to direct my question to the Hon. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Curley.
First of all, I wish to formally state that I acknowledge the vast, complicated, and sensitive nature of your portfolio.
Mr. Speaker, as the Member for Arviat noted in his statement the other day, his community has undergone such a significant growth in population that it is now the second largest community in Nunavut. In fact, First Air has increased services by adding Arviat to its flight list.
Mr. Speaker, Baker Lake is not far behind and is currently the fourth largest community in Nunavut. However, the level of services, especially in the area of health care, has not been increased in a very long time.
Can the minister advise this House how often the level of health services is each community is reviewed and specifically, whether his department has given any consideration to hiring a full-time doctor for the community of Baker Lake?
Hon. Tagak Curley: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation) I want to thank the member for the question.
It’s totally right on the mark that Baker Lake has significant growth in its population, especially since the mine opened near the community.
It’s not just the Department of Health and Social Services that has to deal with the impact on people and communities.
With respect to this issue, I know that it’s gotten better than the previous year. There was a document tabled last year to initiate a Nursing Recruitment and Retention Strategy in Nunavut and it included wage levels and so on.
This process has been completed and we now expect to retain nurses longer in the communities.
But with regard to doctors and physicians, we will have to review that to determine which communities require full-time staff.
This is something we are still looking at. Nevertheless, we will continually review the matter of doctors as the number of emergency cases increase and when there are too many cases.
We hope to be able to state that in the future, but at this time, I cannot state when this would occur.
Mr. Aupaluktuq (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) I recognize that there is a shortage of nursing staff and other medical staff across the country.
Can the minister describe what initiatives his department has in place to recruit full-time nurses and doctors to come and work in Nunavut on a long-term basis?
I think I stated earlier in my response that now that the Nursing Recruitment and Retention Strategy has been tabled and approved by the government, I think our nurses now currently have competitive bonus packages as well as for nurses that are recruited.
So we think that we are making progress with that.
We also know that in some parts of Nunavut, the agency nurse provisions that are being applied is slowly decreasing and I believe that within a year, we will see some statistics that will confirm that we are making some headway into having more permanent as well as an increase of nurses in communities.
But I can tell you, as far as my department is concerned, that there is a significant vacancy rate with nurses in terms of the staff positions that we have.
We have 244 positions available but only 124 of them are filled, so we have over 100 vacant positions throughout Nunavut.
Mr. Aupaluktuq: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the minister for his response.
I just have a final question, Mr. Speaker.
Can the minister indicate how many positions are currently filled by agency nurses?
Hon. Tagak Curley: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the member for the question.
I stated earlier that we are slowly starting to see some reductions in the number of agency nurses.
With respect to the total, we have 39 agency nurses as of January 31, 2009 and it breaks down as follows: Iqaluit, because it’s the largest base for the nurses that we have, had 4 agency nurses; Baffin in total, outside of Iqaluit, had 19; we had 9 in the Kivalliq; and the Kitikmeot had 7 agency nurses; and that adds to 39 agency nurses throughout Nunavut.
Question 103 – 3(1): Children and Youth Advocate (Elliott)
My questions are directed to the Minister of Health and Social Services.
With the demographics of Nunavut, youth and children make up the highest percentage of our population.
I believe strongly that a youth and child advocate and maybe even an elder advocate is a must for our territory.
What are the views of the minister on a child advocate and youth advocate?
I will have to ask you to rephrase your question. You are seeking a personal view of the minister.
Mr. Elliott: Okay, I’ll try this one then. Could he state in terms of his department’s views on a child and youth advocate?
I think my colleague from the Cabinet already indicated that the government is committed to putting forward legislation to improve the lives of a number of disadvantaged individuals, which includes children and the Cabinet included elders and women while we were at the Cabinet Retreat in Cape Dorset.
All of these three areas, which are very important disadvantaged groups, I can tell you that the government is committed to bring forward legislation and I believe that these will eventually become enough.
Our department plays the role because it has the largest social agency involved in it and we are certainly supplying all that information where possible.
Eventually, these proposals will be put forward through the House after the Cabinet has approved them.
I thank the minister for that. I guess my first question leads up to my second one.
With a lot of the issues faced by his department, I guess a lot of them we have been discussing over the past week, is it easier for the minister and his department to handle issues in terms of having an ombudsman or a child advocate in place?
Hon. Tagak Curley: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, at this moment, I am not prepared to indicate which one is the best mode to bring forward legislation. That would have to be the collective decision of the Cabinet.
And certainly, for my department, I can say that the advocacy responsibility, should it be under the Child and Family Services Act?
That’s the question we are dealing with.
We are dealing with whether or not it should be a separate legislation to bring forward to the House, but that will be responded and dealt with by the Cabinet as a whole.
I have no more names on my list, so we will move on to (interpretation ends) Item 7.
Tabled Document 028 – 3(1): Poster for the Launch of the Arctic Bay Atlas Website (Elliott)
Earlier today, I invited you and my colleagues to the launch of the Arctic Bay Atlas website. I would like to table a poster on this initiative and encourage members to distribute it widely.
Tabled Document 029 – 3(1): Brochures for Government Support for Economic Activities (Taptuna)
I pleased to table in this House today copies of five informative brochures for Nunavummiut who are seeking government support for their economic activities.
Tabled Document 030 – 3(1): Annual Report on the Operation of Medical Care Plan 2007-2008 (Curley)
Tabled Document 031 – 3(1): Nunavut Food Guide (Curley)
I pleased to table the following document: Director of Medical Insurance Annual Report on the Operation of the Medical Care Plan, 2007-08. This is very important information for all members. I urge all of you to read it.
I am also pleased, Mr. Speaker, to table the following document: the Nunavut Food Guide.
Tabled Document 032 – 3(1): Report on the Atlantic Council February 27, 2009 (Shewchuk)
Tabled Document 033 – 3(1): Report on the Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment February 17, 2009 (Shewchuk)
I am pleased to table a Ministerial Meeting Report on the Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment Meeting that occurred on February 17, 2009.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to table a Ministerial Meeting Report on the Atlantic Council of Fisheries and Agriculture Ministers Meeting that I attended on February 27.
Motion 020 – 3(1): Early Adjournment (Elliott)
Orders of the Day for March 30:
This House stands adjourned until Monday, March 30, at 1:30 p.m.
>>House adjourned at 11:59
Monday, March 30, 2009
Pages 472 – 503
Opening Prayer 472
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters 472
Report of the Committee of the Whole 501
Third Reading of Bills 501
Assent to Bills 502
Orders of the Day 502
Monday, March 30, 2009 472
Bill 01 – Appropriation (Capital) Act, 2009-2010 – Health and Social Services – Consideration in Committee 473
Bill 01 – Appropriation (Capital) Act, 2009-2010 – Environment – Consideration in Committee 485
Bill 01 – Appropriation (Capital) Act, 2009-2010 – Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs – Consideration in Committee 489
Bill 01 – Appropriation (Capital) Act, 2009-2010 – Culture, Language, Elders and Youth – Consideration in Committee 491
Bill 01 – Appropriation (Capital) Act, 2009-2010 – Human Resources – Consideration in Committee 496
Bill 01 – Appropriation (Capital) Act, 2009-2010 – Legislative Assembly – Consideration in Committee 498
Bill 01 – Appropriation (Capital) Act, 2009-2010 – Third Reading 501
Bill 02 – Interim Appropriation Act, April 1 – July 31, 2009 – Third Reading 501
Bill 03 – Supplementary Appropriation (Capital) Act, No. 3, 2008-2009 – Third Reading 501
Bill 04 – Supplementary Appropriation (Operations & Maintenance) Act, No. 3, 2008-2009 – Third Reading 502
Bill 01 – Appropriation (Capital) Act, 2009-2010 – Assent 502
Bill 02 – Interim Appropriation Act, April 1 – July 31, 2009 – Assent 502
Bill 03 – Supplementary Appropriation (Capital) Act, No. 3, 2008-2009 – Assent 502
Bill 04 – Supplementary Appropriation (Operations & Maintenance) Act, No. 3, 2008-2009 – Assent 502
Speaker (Hon. James Arreak) (interpretation): Before we proceed, I would like to ask Mr. Ningark to say the opening prayer.
Have a very good afternoon, Nunavummiut and the residents of Clyde River.
We are done with the opening prayer.
Mr. Schell: Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding Rule 27(2), I seek unanimous consent of the House to proceed immediately to Item 19 on the Orders of the Day.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Schell.
The member is seeking unanimous consent to proceed immediately to Item 19 on the Orders of the Day.
We will now proceed with Item 19 and the Committee of the Whole.
We will deal with Bill 1 with Mr. Ningeongan in the Chair.
Please remain in your seats as we are immediately going into Committee of the Whole.
(interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) I would like to call the committee meeting to order.
Mr. Arvaluk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) We would like to continue with the review of Bill 1 and the Department of Health and Social Services, followed by Environment, Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs, Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, Human Resources, and the Legislative Assembly.
Are we in agreement to continue with the capital estimates for the Department of Health and Social Services?
Chairman: Thank you. (interpretation) Before we begin, on behalf of John Ningark, I would like to recognize Steve Mapsalak and welcome him to the Gallery while we proceed with Committee of the Whole.
Minister Curley, do you have witnesses that you would like to bring to the witness table?
Mr. Chairman, (interpretation) yes, I have officials here with me that I would like to bring to the witness table. (interpretation ends) Thank you.
Thank you. (interpretation ends) Minister Curley, for the record, please introduce your witnesses.
On my right is Deputy Minister Alex Campbell and on my left is the Director of Capital Planning, Rosemary Brown. (interpretation ends) Thank you.
Members, turn to page H-3.
We have not completed questioning for the capital estimates.
I do have a few more questions.
On Friday, or sorry, Thursday, going back in time when we were in the dark, right? The question I was asking was in regard to the boarding home.
Just as a refresher, I was going to ask about the contract.
I believe Minister Curley had said that we needed to wait a week or so until the legal aspects have been worked out, but there is a contract in place and a contractor that will be doing construction.
I would first like to say that Alex Campbell will be making a supplementary response afterwards.
For the information of the members, the contractor is the one who owns the business operation. This happens after the contractor has gone through the RFP stage and has determined the costs of the contract and is awarded after the government has chosen the best price offered.
With the help of Community and Government Services, we would decide who would be awarded the contract with a 20-year term.
There was a case where there were court proceedings with the last contract.
It has not been delayed, but that is one of the reasons why it hasn’t proceeded because Qikiqtani Inuit Association made an appeal in the awarding of the contract.
Now that it is resolved, the contractor can start working.
If you would like further information on that, Alex Campbell can elaborate.
The minister has already indicated the status of the current process. It’s just a matter of officially awarding the contract and getting the contract documentation completed with the successful bidder, and then the work should proceed in the next several weeks.
My next question is: when will that boarding home be open for public use?
I will have Alex respond to that question.
Originally, the project was supposed to be completed by the end of December this year and we’re still hoping that the project will be completed by the end of the year.
However, given the delays, we probably expect to open the facilities on April 1, 2010 for sure, but it could be sooner if the work proceeds this summer.
My next question is in regard to the existing building that’s already there, the Tammaativvik. What will happen with that building?
I will have Alex respond to that question as this is a government facility and I’m sure it will be put to good use for other purposes. (interpretation ends) But Alex will provide the details.
Mr. Campbell (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) The facility itself is owned by the government as the minister says and CGS is the custodian of that building.
Originally, the building was for the Department of Education for a youth hostel, so the first right of refusal will likely go to the Department of Education and back into the system.
That’s all I know at this point, Mr. Chairman.
So the 90 beds that will be made available with the new boarding home will be adequate to meet the needs of the people in the Baffin.
Hon. Tagak Curley: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation) The reason why the RFP went ahead is that the present building is too small for the number of patients who stay there.
It was originally built as a temporary solution because we were not exactly sure how many people will be coming down and staying at that building.
We can’t control factors that increase the number of people coming down for medical purposes, such as pregnancy.
Sometimes there are a lot of children and adults who can be sick at one time, but the department believes that 90 beds would be adequate for the present time.
I’m glad the minister mentioned about pregnancy.
This is more of a suggestion from speaking with a lot of the women who come down in my constituency on maternity and the special needs that they have in terms of having their baby and the concern they have with other people who are in the boarding home with different sicknesses.
The suggestion was brought up that maybe with a special maternity ward for women in the boarding home with special needs, they could be handled better by themselves there.
Has that been thought about by the department?
The department hasn’t forgotten those special needs patients, but there are certain financial restraints.
If we could set it aside on a separate basis, assuming money was not an issue, we would. As we stated a few days ago, the funding that we receive to pay for patients staying at medical boarding homes that we operate come from the federal government.
We haven’t considered setting a separate facility for pregnant women or for special needs patients. What we can possibly consider is to have one floor for general patients and the other floor for specialized needs.
We’re talking about a 90-bed facility once it’s built, but there definitely is going to be a lot more room.
Currently, there are only 38 beds at Tammaativvik.
It’s nice that you brought up the part about financing and I recognize that there’s only so many dollars that go around and whatnot. But getting back to the Arctic Bay, Repulse Bay, and Taloyoak nursing stations that were on the books last year, I guess money was spent last year on them and no money is allocated this year.
With the Conservative government’s announcement of their new economic action plan, there was a lot of federal dollars and you had mentioned about federal dollars in that plan to help.
I know they have had the distinction between First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, and some of that documentation is hard to read.
Is there new federal dollars in this year’s budget from the federal government that your department has spoken to the federal government about?
Maybe if I should remind the member that there are details of capital items that we’re focusing on this afternoon listed on page H-4.
If you could try to maintain focusing on the capital items and the questions that you’re asking could be asked at Oral Question Period. However, I will ask Minister Curley if he wishes to respond.
We will be able to discuss these issues further under O&M.
We don’t get a lot of extra funding from the federal government.
In February of this year, when Ms. Aglukkaq, our MP, was in Rankin Inlet, she announced that over $400,000 would be used for smoking cessation/prevention among young people in Nunavut.
The rest was for other smaller items under health and there were quite a lot for public health, First Nations’ nutrition, and other types of programs.
They are currently being funded and some of them will expire during the course of the year, but our department is urging the federal government to continue with the funds that we are spending.
Our counterparts in the NWT and the Yukon are also pushing for the same thing.
I’ll leave it to Alex Campbell to make a supplementary response.
Mr. Campbell (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) The member is correct that the Conservative federal government did come up with a stimulus package for Canada.
The eligibility of some of the projects are such that some of our health facilities are not within that criteria and if they were, there’s not enough funding in that federal program to build all three buildings or let alone build one of the facilities.
The government is presently working with… through CGS, the deputy minister is working with the federal government to try and lobby more of the criteria to be relaxed a little bit for Nunavut. As usual, some of the federal programs are on a per capita basis. In those cases, we lose out quite a bit when it comes to getting our share of the federal funding arrangement.
So in a nutshell, yes, we have put in some our requests forward to CGS, who is coordinating this process for us.
But as I said, some of our projects have a lot of dollars attached to them and we’re not getting that kind of funding from the federal government.
Thank you for that answer and I apologize for asking the question.
It’s just that I felt that since all of these promises year after year after year, in terms of Arctic Bay getting a nursing station, Repulse Bay getting a nursing station, and Taloyoak getting a nursing station, I had people over the weekend contacting me and asking me about the status.
People from Arctic Bay want to know what’s going on with the nursing station and why nothing is being done this year.
And I think they appreciate the fact that there’s only so much money to go around, but at the same time, if there’s no money this year, where is the money going to come from next year? And that’s what I was getting at, if they knew something within the government that there was money coming through this action plan.
But I guess my question now would be: are you anticipating building one nursing station, or two nursing stations, or three nursing stations next year?
I know exactly where the member is coming from and he’s been asking questions about the three health centres ever since we got here.
We had funding available last year and the designs for the three health centres have not been completed.
Once the designs have been completed, we will have a better idea of how much it will cost.
The planning and design has to be completed prior to committing any monies, but we can see that the three health centres’ architectural designs are almost completed.
As I stated earlier, once the architectural designs are done, we will have to consult with the hamlet councils in those three communities and it would be good if they agreed.
We will then have an idea of exactly how much it’s going to cost.
But as minister, I would like to see those three health centres built. As my colleague, the Minister of Education, stated, it would be good to build all the required facilities, but there are other projects that have to be done and there are a lot of communities that would like to get a new school.
I will be telling my Cabinet colleagues that these three health centres are of a priority with our department, but I can’t tell you how many will be built at this time because it will have to be a Cabinet decision.
We will have about $800 million or $900 million in total and only a portion of it will be used for capital projects.
It’s obvious that we will be dealing with them over the spring and summer.
I appreciate everyone’s time and patience. I have actually been given quite a bit more time than usual because of the way this has turned out.