EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
If a community has emergency crews or emergency measures and police, they have plans that would be put in place in the event of an emergency.
I understand very well where the member is coming from.
We have to have plans in place. Community and Government Services has been working with each of the communities and also with the regional staff that go to the outlying communities to ensure that those plans are in place.
Mr. Barnabas (interpretation): Maybe to rephrase my question, Mr. Speaker, the size of the populations is increasing in the communities.
What was considered a small community 22 years ago has dramatically increased in population, but the community hall has stayed the same size as it was 22 years ago?
My question is: are these community halls large enough to accommodate the population in a community, and are there reviews done to make sure that they meet the population size?
Of course there is a requirement to make sure that there are reviews done. There are some communities that have community halls that are too small and the health centres have to meet the requirements.
We have 42 schools and that is a huge chunk of the government pot of money.
We have the Nunavut Infrastructure Advisory Committee which is now in place.
They’ll be reviewing the capital plans.
They will also be prioritizing which community will go first in doling out these monies.
Question 047 – 2(3): GN Response to NAM Resolutions (Peterson)
My question is for the Minister responsible for Community and Government Services.
Mr. Speaker, this year and last, I tabled the 2004 and 2005 Nunavut Association of Municipalities Annual General Meeting resolutions in this House. The resolutions addressed the important issues raised by the Mayors of Nunavut communities that they directed to the Government of Nunavut for action.
My question for the minister, Mr. Speaker; would the minister tell the House if the Government of Nunavut has reviewed and responded to the 2004 and 2005 Nunavut Association of Municipalities AGM resolutions?
Would the member rephrase his question please?
Speaker (interpretation): Mr. Peterson, if you would rephrase your question.
Every year, the Nunavut Association of Municipalities holds an annual general meeting and it’s usually in April. At the end of the meeting, they pass resolutions that the mayors have brought up on behalf of their constituents. They are basically Nunavut-wide, common to all Nunavut communities.
Mr. Speaker, to pass these resolutions, they need to direct them to the Government of Nunavut for action.
They have asked me on two occasions to table the resolutions in the House, which I have done.
My question for the minister: has her department taken those resolutions, reviewed them, and responded to the Nunavut Association of Municipalities for the fiscal year 2004 and the fiscal year 2005?
We review the resolutions and deal with them.
If there’s a requirement for the framework or if there has to be another review, we do that also; it’s a long process.
Could the minister probably just give us a little bit of a clarification to the House of how her department deals with NAM and their resolutions when they receive them?
The resolutions that the member is talking about that come from NAM; there are different resolutions from different communities. So the deputy ministers usually review those resolutions and decide on what to do.
The Nunavut Association of Municipalities represents 25 communities, but has one executive director, so you can imagine it’s a lot of work for her to follow-up every year on resolutions and whether there has been action or not.
So can the minister tell the House whether her department actively tracks NAM AGM resolutions from AGM to AGM until the issues that they identify are resolved to the satisfaction of the Nunavut Association of Municipalities?
My department, CGS, has a tracking system. What they do is that they track down those resolutions and deal with the ones that have not been resolved.
It’s reassuring to know that the Community and Government Services does actively track resolutions.
Mr. Speaker, can the minister commit to table the Government of Nunavut’s responses to both the 2004 and 2005 NAM AGM resolutions in the House this week?
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker and I would like to thank the member for his question.
Even though I was not the Minister of Community and Government Services, I can ask my staff to provide the results of the resolutions, and with them, I can table them in the House.
Question 048 – 2(3): Update on the Affordable Energy Fund (Tootoo)
My question is for the current, unattached Minister of Energy.
I was looking through some old papers, looking for some articles a couple of weeks ago, and I happened to come across an article with the honourable member’s photo in it, talking about why they were freezing power rates.
At that time, that was June 9, 2003, one of the things it said in there at that time, was …within the next year that the power, in addition to, during this fifth financial year, Nunavut Power will design an affordable energy fund...
I would just like to ask the minister that since 2003 how their designing is going?
I am very pleased to say to the House, and I am sure that all Nunavummiut are ecstatic in knowing that Mr. Tootoo reads on a regular basis and is able to do research back to 2003.
In June 2003, the announcement that the member is talking about, when we froze the rates for one year, that was after the process that we had in place with the URRC.
I asked the Power Corporation to come forward with the General Rate Application, which is the process that we just went through.
The affordable energy fund is a hypothetical fund which was called for in the Ikuma I and II Reports. There is no fund.
It’s hypothetical. Hypothetically speaking it may happen at some point in time. It hasn’t occurred.
It is something that I still believe is good for Nunavut, but we haven’t been able to bring forward with the support of the members.
So the minister is saying don’t believe everything you read in the paper put out by the government, with his picture on it.
In the past I have also asked the minister about this particular fund and the minister of the day indicated that it would be part and parcel of the total General Rate Application. I believe that he had indicated that based on getting advice from the former minister, that that is what it would be. It would be part of the General Rate Application.
Was the affordable energy fund, as the minister of the day indicated, part of the General Rate Application that the corporation put forward, or was the House being mislead at the time?
I would like to seek clarification from the member and ask him if he is referring to the affordable energy fund, the AEF, that was proposed in 2001 and 2002, which was mentioned in 2003 June 9 article of Nunatsiaq News, and is that the same fund that the member has brought up this past spring when we tried to vote some money in the House, that he voted against?
Speaker (interpretation): Can you clarify your question, Mr. Tootoo?
I think that is the first time a minister asked a regular member a question, another first in Nunavut.
And it wasn’t the Nunatsiaq News; it was a News North article that I was referring to.
I read the question from Hansard. It was May 13, 2004 when I asked the minister if it would be in there and he indicated on page 71, “It will be part of the comprehensive package when we put everything together in one, and put it all forward with the General Rate Application.”
That is what I was referring to, the affordable energy fund that is outlined in the Act to Amend the Power Utilities Act, and certain other Acts in consequence.
So, it has nothing to do with... I don’t know where he’s...the lights aren’t on over there.
I don’t know, but it’s got nothing to do with the Petroleum Products Division Fund that he was referring to.
It has to do with doing what they say, instead of just saying nothing.
I believe, I stand to be corrected on this Mr. Speaker, but, the minister he is referring to is Minister Simailak, and I believe Mr. Speaker, what they were proposing to do in the GRA application process that came forth, and as the member knows, we just went through that in the Spring of 2005.
So, Mr. Speaker, when you put together plans, I’m sure Minister Simailak had said that in 2004, which at that time, that was the intention.
But, Mr. Speaker, as we know, things change. Between May of 2004 and indeed January of 2005, in that seven or eight month period, things changed.
Mr. Speaker, the comprehensive GRA package was brought forward, went through the Utility Rate Review Council, went through a public process and indeed, ended up with the recommendation of the three-cent increase to the rates on April 1, 2005.
I would like to thank the minister for telling us what we already knew.
But, still, my question to the minister, as was indicated; was any thought of an Affordable Energy Fund included in the General Rate Application, as put forward and stated in this House by the minister?
The Affordable Energy Fund was a fund that was, the idea, the genesis of that fund, came out of the Ikuma II Report, and the idea was to take all monies, all dollars, all values voted in the House for energy related matters, including subsidies, including fuel purchase and so on.
I believe there was about $200 million in total and those monies would be transparent.
You would see where those monies were being spent and it would give a better idea for the people of Nunavut to see what the total cost of energy and energy related matters would be.
Mr. Speaker, in the context of putting forward a General Rate Application, all factors including employee expenses, operations and maintenance costs, the actual cost of producing and generating electricity in a community, would be contingent on the dollar values that would be presented, meaning Mr. Speaker that those costs had to be factored in.
In this case, the Affordable Energy Fund is monies that have already been spent. They’re monies that are in the process that have already been budgeted for.
So, Mr. Speaker, in that context, that was the inclusion that I believe Minister Simailak had spoken about in the package.
Did the GRA itself contain amounts of monies that would be included in a rate increase, because that’s a general rate increase, the General Rate Application, the GRA, did that include monies to be budgeted for.
Mr. Speaker, my remembrance of that, that it did not.
It did not, I guess was the short answer to that and I appreciate the minister for transparently putting that out there.
As he indicated, the whole idea behind that was for transparency and openness on what it does cost for fuel, which was the genesis behind it, was the word that that the minister used.
Is he saying that they don’t want to be transparent and let us know what the government spends on fuel, or is it that they don’t know what it is that they spend on fuel?
Because, I mean, that was like three years ago, they said they were going to do it. And, it still hasn’t been done.
So is it because they don’t want us to know what it is, or they don’t know what it is?
I think it’s very important to be clear. Mr. Tootoo is bringing in about six different issues and they’re getting mixed up.
Fuel is only one component of the Affordable Energy Fund.
The Affordable Energy Fund idea was to include all the costs that were associated with providing electricity, and energy related matters in the Government of Nunavut, whether that is purchasing fuel for furnaces, for schools, and for hospitals and so on.
Whether that be the fuel purchased to produce electricity or Mr. Speaker, if that included what POL has to buy every year to supply Nunavummiut, whether it is AV, or aviation gas, and so on. Mr. Speaker, we had tried in the past session to set up the Qulliq Fuel Corporation, QFC, Mr. Speaker, I believe there was a half million dollars for that in the budget.
Mr. Speaker, the member knows that this was voted against by the House.
And Mr. Speaker, the money wasn’t forth coming to set up the Qulliq Fuel Corporation.
So there are few different issues.
You have three questions that you can ask during Oral Questions.
I ran out of paper.
Question 049 – 2(3): Five Hundred Thousand Dollar Deletion from Petroleum Product/Energy Corporation (Tootoo)
And thank you and thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I know that Mr. Picco, the Minister for Energy is looking forward to this. He indicated that there was half a million dollars that was deleted in the budget for Qulliq Fuel Corporation.
Maybe he can enlighten me or remind me and that was my understanding that that was put on hold by the government itself.
So they didn’t need it and they didn’t plan on doing anything with it during that time frame. So maybe you can tell us indeed that this is something that they didn’t put on hold. That they were going to go forward with.
My recollection Mr. Speaker, we voted that out because of the government put it on hold for another year and they were going to look at that.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t want to delay the proceedings in the House.
I will just answer very quickly and say the Member is wrong. He is incorrect.
Mr. Speaker, I have to go back and look at Hansard and read it. We can do that Mr. Speaker and see what the minister said at the time.
Mr. Speaker, my question for the minister is that half a million dollars that was in there and it was deleted in the budget that it was to facilitate the transfer or looking at the transfer of Petroleum Products to Qulliq Fuel and the government indicated that they put this on hold and they weren’t looking at it and I think they tabled that vote as a result of some questioning by Members on this side of the House.
As a result of that money being deleted that it was just to facilitate the transfer and with that money gone has there been any positions that have gone by the way side as a result of that funding being deleted.
Were there PY dollars involved there or as far as we know it was facilitation fee.
Mr. Speaker, I think the member’s memory is a little bit faulty. Mr. Speaker, they were arranging things with the Qulliq Corporation. We had registered the name Qulliq Fuel so there is a registered name under the auspices of the Power Corporation.
The $500,000 that would have been voted, Mr. Speaker, was to set up the Qulliq Fuel Corporation which would have been the sole entity that would have purchased all the fuel supplies for Nunavut.
Mr. Speaker, the idea would have been to coordinate that with the energy fund which is something that we talked about where all the money would have been voted for all the energy related matters, would be transferred because it was in one item in the budget itself.
The half million dollars that we had put forward in the Assembly to begin the process of setting up the Qulliq Fuel Corporation, as a corporation, as a corporate entity included monies for example for reviews of some liabilities that might be in place, environmental concerns, clean-up of fuel storage tanks, and so on, because those were the assets that would have taken over by the Qulliq Fuel Corporation.
I think I will ask the minister to check Hansard tomorrow because he said under the auspices of the Qulliq Power Corporation, but it’s Qulliq Energy Corporation, which Nunavut Power is a subsidiary under, according to the Act, as far as I know.
My question that the minister never answered was there any lay-offs, or people that were out of a position because that funding didn’t go through? He had indicated that it was all just for liability issues and things like that. Were there any people’s salaries that were included in that amount?
The Qulliq Energy Corporation is a legal entity created by the Qulliq Energy Corporation Act in 2003. It replaced and expedited the mandate of the former Nunavut Power Corporation. QEC operates under several different brand names.
It operates under Nunavut Power; it operates under Qulliq Energy; and the Nunavut Energy Centre.
At the same time we have also registered the trade name of Qulliq Fuel. So maybe that helps refresh the member’s name under corporate structure of the power corporation. So there were positions available within the Qulliq Fuel Corporation, and when that money was not available to us then we had to refocus the process for the Fuel Corporation itself because there was no money to begin that process of setting up the corporate entity, known as Qulliq Fuel.
At the same time we had registered that trade name.
My question to the minister is, in the departmental budgets and business plans it shows PYs associated with the department in that. As far as I can recall with that half million dollars that was deleted out of there, there was no reference to any position to go along with it. So was that money being kept as an excuse to make some changes, or where was that funding coming from before?
Just to be very plain, if the money had been available, the $500,000, then we would have moved to the process of setting up the Qulliq Fuel Corporation. Having a corporation in place, the Qulliq Fuel Corporation, would have meant the transfer of some of the staff that were already in the government, whether they would have been from POL, or other government departments, who would’ve been working directly for the Qulliq Fuel Corporation. As the money did not get voted in the House, we didn’t transfer those positions, for example from POL.
Going back to the orders of the day. Item 7.
Item 10 in our orders of the day.
Tabling of documents. Tabling of Documents.
Tabled Document 020 – 2(3): WCB Annual Report 2004 (Akesuk)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to Table the Annual Report of the Workers’ Compensation Board.
Tabled Document 021 – 2(3): Letter to Andy Scott Minister of Indian Affairs & Northern Development regarding Food Mail Program (Okalik)
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to table a letter I wrote to the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, Mr. Andy Scott in regards to food mail.
Speaker (interpretation): Please send these Tabled Documents to the table officers.
Tabled Document 022 – 2(3): Nunavut Lottery Financial Statements March 31, 2005 (Tapardjuk)
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to table the Nunavut Lottery Financial Statements at March 31, 2005.
Tabled Document 023 – 2(3): Working Draft Nunavut Adult Learning Strategy October 2005 (Picco)
Mr. Speaker, I gives me great pleasure to table the Working Draft of the Adult Learning Strategy, October 2005.
Notices of Motions Item 15, Notices of Motions for First Reading of Bills.
Bill 1, Appropriation (Capital) Act, 2006-07, with Mr. Arreak in the chair.
Before we begin we will take a break and return at 3:30.
>>House Recessed at 15:10 and resumed at 15:42
Chairman (Mr. Arreak)(interpretation): We’ll start now. (interpretation ends): In Committee of the Whole, we have the following items to deal with, Bill 1.
We wish to continue with the review of Community and Government Services. After that we wish to proceed with the review of capital estimates for the Nunavut Housing Corporation.
Madame Minister, please proceed to the witness table along with your officials.
Bill 1 – Appropriation (Capital) Act, 2006-07 – Community and Government Services – Consideration in Committee
On my left is my Deputy Minister, Tom Rich and on my right, Mr. Doug Sitland.
Welcome. (interpretation ends): We’re on page J-6, Community and Government Services, Capital Planning and Technical Services. Detail of Capital. Grants and Contributions, Qikiqtaaluk Region.
Do the members have any questions on this page?
I would like to welcome the minister and her officials back to our Committee of the Whole.
The City of Iqaluit has contribution agreements for $4 million annually. I think it expires in two years.
What will be the status of the funding to the City of Iqaluit after two years expires?
Will you renew a long-term contribution funding arrangement with them or will you force them to look elsewhere for funding?
I thank my colleague for raising that question.
At this time, I don’t know, and we haven’t had any discussions in regards to that.
I know with capital planning, the City of Iqaluit is much like the Government of Nunavut, they do their five year planning. I know most communities do that.
If the funding agreement expires in another two years, I’m sure that they want to have some certainty beyond that from the Government of Nunavut, whether they’re going to have access to this $4 million or not.
So perhaps Mr. Chairman, the minister’s officials could provide me with some more clarity in terms of whether the Government of Nunavut is assisting the City of Iqaluit beyond the next two years in terms of five year capital planning?
We will be having discussions on the five year capital plan in the upcoming winter and the gasoline tax funding will be included also.
I thank the minister for that response. The $4 million is a significant amount of money for the City of Iqaluit to receive every year.
What would be the likely consequences to the City of Iqaluit if they didn’t have access to this $4 million? Would that prevent them from leveraging other funds for capital projects?
Chairman: Thank you Mr. Peterson. Madame Minister.
Hon. Levinia Brown: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends): The funding has provided the city stability to allow them to make long range decisions. Beyond the current agreement, the Government of Nunavut has not decided on a formal method for the city. They are a tax-based community.
They use taxes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In the 2005 Nunavut Economic Outlook, there is a reference to a $650 million municipal infrastructure deficit. Could the minister comment on the amount of infrastructure deficit that the City of Iqaluit has?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Peterson. Madame Minister.
I’ll ask my Deputy Minister, Mr. Rich to respond.
Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Rich.
I don’t have a precise figure here. What we do, I would have to total it up. What we have is a long list of needs and priorities that we work with on a regular basis with the City of Iqaluit.
I don’t think in the last year or so we’ve actually totalled that up to get a single number. I can say though, that likely, over the next six to nine months, we will have a single number because part of the requirement for the city, and in fact all hamlets, to do over the next year, is a long range capital plan, a five year capital plan.
So, we’re using the ending of this contribution agreement that we have for capital with the city and the occurrence of the new Gas Tax funding and the MRIF funding to work with communities to develop that long range capital plan.
They’re not in place yet, but they will be in place over the next year.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Rich. Mr. Peterson.
I thank the minister and Mr. Rich for that response.
On this new committee that you’ve formed, for the municipal infrastructure, does the City of Iqaluit have a seat on it or are they one of the three Nunavut Association of Municipalities representatives?
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Whether Iqaluit has one in place, perhaps they do through their committee structure.
However, I am not too familiar with Iqaluit.
I think that committee will work and do a lot of good work. I know when several years ago when I was Mayor of Cambridge Bay we heard the City of Iqaluit had their own contribution agreement with the Government of Nunavut.
We were wondering how the Hamlets could get their own individual agreements as well. We learned we have to be a municipal taxing authority like the City of Iqaluit since they are the only municipal taxing authority. I know at one time you were looking at a couple of communities in Nunavut to become municipal taxing authorities.
It could be a bit of a concern to the residents of Iqaluit if the $4 million or some other amounts were not available on an annual basis to help with their municipal infrastructure projects, and of course, as a municipal taxing authority you have to raise your own taxes.