EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Speaker (interpretation): The member is seeking unanimous consent to return to Item 5, Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery.
Mr. Kilabuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize an individual here in the Gallery.
He is the Mayor of Pangnirtung. I would like him to stand up and be recognized.
His name is Manasi Evic.
Speaker (interpretation): Welcome to Gallery.
I would also like to recognize an individual in the House today who helps out a lot in my community. This individual helps me and she is here for a meeting at KIA.
Speaker (interpretation): Welcome to the Gallery. Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery. Going back to the Orders of the Day.
Reply to Opening Address 001 – 2(3): Mr. Patterk Netser
I would like to deal with this first of all. Please be patient with me.
(interpretation ends) As a Former Vice-chair of the Keewatin Divisional Board of Education, I have always wondered why the new Government of Nunavut decided to dissolve the divisional boards of education early in its first term.
It seems that this major decision was made all of a sudden by the new government as one of its first announced decisions, with very little or no public consultations at all.
I remember that the executive council at that time came out from a Cabinet retreat that they had in Kimmirut.
I believe that it was announced right away on the radio that divisional boards of education and health boards would be dissolved across Nunavut.
A lot of people were in complete shock when they heard this.
I later learned that it came from a federal agency - Consulting and Audit Canada - an independent arm of the Government of Canada which operates something like the Auditor General’s Department, had done an independent review of the divisional boards of education and determined that the cost of board travel, honoraria, meeting space, etcetera was too high.
They told the new government that these costs could be eliminated if the boards were dissolved.
Now I wonder if anyone looked closely at exactly what those divisional boards of education were doing to give Inuit meaningful participation in the running of our local schools.
The only other reason I heard at that time was that dissolving the educational boards would somehow lead to a better education system with the elected Members of the Legislative Assembly back in charge.
But, Mr. Speaker, I believe that Members of the Legislative Assembly have more important things to worry about than things for instance, a snake in a school. For example, as welcoming the government’s announcement as the new trades school for Nunavut.
Now it’s our job; as Members of the Legislative Assembly, we need to make sure that the Trade School reaches out to the needs for trades training in all Nunavut communities.
As a Member of the Legislative Assembly for a smaller community which did not get many benefits from decentralization, I’d like to make sure that the new trade school based in Rankin Inlet will offer decentralized courses in other appropriate communities throughout Nunavut.
Coral Harbour, for example, with its limitless supply of gravel and its abundant supply of heavy equipment, would be an ideal site for heavy equipment training.
We should focus our energies, as Members of the Legislative Assembly, on ensuring these important, big projects are budgeted, planned, and properly put in place in a fair way for all communities, big and small.
These are the kinds of big things the Members of the Legislative Assembly and ministers should be concentrating on and not operational issues on problems that we seem to be doing now.
Speaking of important jobs as Members of the Legislative Assembly for Pinasuaqtavut, we had made a public commitment to draft a new education act, the first place for Nunavut education act. What a chance we now have to create a real Nunavut education act. I think the key to making a made-for-Nunavut Education Act is to concentrate on whom really is in charge of the education system.
Why not put our parents and communities back in charge? This is not something that we should be afraid of.
Putting parents and communities in charge of our school system again will give our school system direction and rules that come from our communities.
This change would give the people of Nunavut real ownership of their school system.
As Members of the Legislative Assembly, we should not even need to decide all the policies on bilingual education and Inuit curriculum and language development when we are developing this new Education Act.
We just need to return to the authority to run our school system back to the elected, respected education leaders from our regions that will do the work for us.
They will do it in a way that will reflect the unique languages and cultures of all of our regions in Nunavut.
The Keewatin Divisional Board of Education in my experience was a good example of a board composed of respected community and education leaders from our region. Now we just have one person in the Keewatin running all of our seven communities, which is not right, who had in many cases served for many years on local and regional education authorities and knew our education system well.
When the Nunavut Government fired them, they were overseeing all aspects of education in our region; from hiring and orienting, and managing teachers and education staff in the region; to curriculum development; policies on attendance; the roles of LEAs; the evaluation of staff and students. The board hired the Director of Education, who reported to the board and was accountable to the board.
The board also controlled the entire school budget for the region apart from operations and maintenance.
They were even allowed to apply interest on money earned. They helped to expand the education programs in the region. The boards funded curriculum development, professional development workshops and had a network of teacher consultants, who worked with the teachers in the field.
To assist in implementing the curriculum, students had active on-the-land programs and spring activities.
This was going on in the other two regions of Nunavut as well from what I have heard. Now these boards cannot just be put back into place overnight. The boards will need development and training to ensure that they understand their proper role; which is setting work policies within defined limits, understanding and respecting their relationship with the department and the minister.
The boards would be accountable to the department for financial administration and also to respect government legislation, policies, and regulations. The board would negotiate their annual budgets with the department and the minister.
The divisional board chairs are appointed by the minister and are therefore accountable to him or her.
It took a full ten years or more of board development for the divisional boards of education to get where they were when they were dissolved back in 1999.
The board members and chairpersons had years and years of experience to draw on by 1999, when they were told their services were no longer required.
I know, too, that the boards had earned and won the respect of the educators throughout the region because I served under one of them, Mr. Speaker; who worked for them.
They had not necessarily won the admiration of the ministers and officials of the new Government of Nunavut because they were aggressive in their demands for adequate funding for the programs and services required for Nunavut.
When the new government could not offer the same level of funding as before, sometimes tensions arose. The boards were independent and cared passionately about being able to continue and deliver quality programs.
Maybe some of their demands were seen to be too aggressive or demanding. However, the board chairs understood that the minister and the Assembly would have the final say in how much money they would get.
Mr. Speaker, when you consider the cost of the whole education budget, the divisional boards of education did not really cost that much to operate.
Their costs, which were mostly travel, which is what this Nunavut Government is doing now, and part-time honoraria, they were very small compared with the overall education budget for their respective region most of which is spent on teachers’ and officials’ salaries.
Recently, I was thinking about those days when I served on the divisional board of education. To me, those divisional boards of education were a very effective way of getting our communities and our most respected community leaders involved in the delivery of education programs and setting the priorities for the region.
I expect that there are still lots of people in our regions who were active on those divisional boards of education who would welcome the chance to serve again and give Nunavut the benefit of their experience.
As most of my colleagues know, the idea of boards of education being delegated authority to deliver programs is not new to the north. Boards of Education were created when we were under the Government of the NWT back in the 80s.
The basic idea behind divisional boards is the same idea as school boards in southern Canada. You are putting parents, not bureaucrats, in charge of how the school programs are delivered.
The superintendents or directors reported to the board and the board administered the budget for the education program in the region.
The department and minister work with the board, including annual budget negotiations and the minister and government can also give broad direction to the boards and determine a funding formula for things like school staffing, as well as dealing with collective bargaining.
The minister and his department still have lots to do in negotiating budgets and monitoring what the boards are doing to make sure they fit government policy.
In Pinasuaqtavut, our Assembly declared its intention to reflect Inuit traditional values in our government system. Mr. Speaker, I believe there is a simple way to guarantee that Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit is reflected within our school system.
Put Inuit boards or divisional boards back in charge of delivering education programs.
Nunavut is supposed to be about expressing our values in our system of government. Inuit values that is, Mr. Speaker, in everything we do.
What better place to reflect Inuit values and priorities than in the people who are in charge of our schools - the place where our youth prepare for our future.
We should turn the administration of the schools back to the communities.
This is not the politicization of the school system. It would be the opposite. The board’s main role will be to set policies and priorities, Mr. Speaker.
They need to be given full support and development to ensure that the board members understand fully that their role will be primarily to set policies for education in the region leaving the day to day operations of the school system to the superintendent.
It worked in the past, especially in the three regions of Nunavut, where Inuit were proud of the education system they were running. Let’s consider whether it could work again in Nunavut.
Right now, the way I see it, there are no regional boards of education there to buffer for complaints and concerns expressed by community representatives on the board to be dealt with in a professional manner by the director who reports to the board, not the minister.
Right now the district education authorities are feeling powerless. Without the backup of divisional boards, it seems like the school principals are the authorities in our communities, which is not right again, Mr. Speaker.
So the Minister of Education has to get involved in petty little problems and especially in situations where our local District Education Authorities feel powerless to influence the administration, so the minister gets flooded with complaints about the operations of schools.
This is not a job for ministers, Mr. Speaker. The minister has more important things to worry about; a new education act for Nunavut, setting up a new trades school, revamping the Arctic College.
The civil servants, not the people in our community are now in charge of our schools.
They are often well intentioned, but they usually don’t understand our children, and our communities as well as we do because we have an entirely different culture, Mr. Speaker.
I think we should be open-minded about our future in education.
There is no need to cry over spilt milk, or dwell in our past.
I was not part of the decision made in the first Assembly, which led to the dissolution of the Divisional Boards of Education.
I thought they were working well, and I think they worked well because respected leaders were in charge.
Now that the boards aren’t there anymore, apart from the overworked Minister of Education, who is constantly trying to respond to concerns from communities which are often brought to him by Members of the Legislative Assembly, there is no other place people can go to with their complaints and concerns.
So they go to their Member of the Legislative Assembly and try to deal with them through the minister, which is often very difficult when you come from a small community and everybody knows each other and who they are related to.
That often is a very difficult thing to handle, Mr. Speaker, but why are we worrying about this day-to-day operation stuff?
Like the minister, we should be focusing on important things like creating a new education act that is going to work in Nunavut, for Nunavut.
I am fortunate enough to be on the Standing Committee on Health and Education, so I will have a good opportunity to participate in the development and the review of this new legislation.
Recently, there were 40-some district education authority representatives here in Iqaluit from all over Nunavut that had these consultation meetings, and that got me thinking about the divisional boards.
At the meeting, it was reported that the delegates were being asked by departmental officials what authority should the District Education Authorities have; authority over suspensions, testing, hiring, principal evaluation, teacher evaluations, setting budget priorities, or setting policies?
Why not all of those things Mr. Speaker?
That’s what the divisional boards ended up doing after about 10 years of solid board development and experience.
They were operating, in charge of the school system, in the regions.
And when they were dissolved, these boards, without so much as a thank you, and surrendered all that authority to a bureaucracy that comes and goes.
The officials in the Department of Education are undoubtedly trying to do their best, but many are from the south, and new to the north, and sometimes with only a romantic idea of the north and its people.
They don’t know us, and we don’t know them. So we are always asking the minister to fix problems in our schools, big and small.
We don’t need politics in education, Mr. Speaker, we need professionalism.
Once the policies and priorities were set by the divisional boards, they then left the running of the schools to the professional educator. The boards hired the best directors, managers for the school system. Once the boards’ policies were in place, then the boards gave the director and managers the freedom to do their jobs.
The directors did their job, knowing every step of the way that they would be evaluated according to how they followed the board’s policies for the region.
The policy guidelines set by the boards’ required careful deliberation and continual review by the boards.
The policies then gave the managers clear guidelines to follow in delivering school programs in the regions. The policies were made by the community leaders in the region. This is the way it worked in the past.
This is the way it is supposed to work. It is not happening right currently.
Without boards to set policies appropriate to regions and communities, our overworked minister has to try to run the Nunavut education system as if he is the chairman of one giant school board. It is an impossible job, even for our hard-working Minister of Education.
He just can’t be everywhere at once no matter how early he comes into his office every morning, and I know he is probably the first one here every day and we all know that he’s a hardworking, stripe-tied, Minister of Education.
We should no longer ask the minister to worry about these problems, which mostly relate to school operations, sometimes about minor issues we would never have the time to fully understand even if we tried.
In replying to the Commissioner’s Address, I would like to urge all members, including those amongst us who participated in dissolving the divisional boards of education, to have an open mind, not narrow-minded like some people are, to consider giving the authority to run our schools back to community representatives in each of our regions.
I especially hope that the Minister of Education, even though he was part of the cabinet that dissolved the boards, will pay attention to the recommendations of the public and Members of the Legislative Assembly on what powers should be given to DEAs, and what else should go into the new education act so that is truly a made-in-Nunavut education act. I do hope that the minister will have an open mind about what we need to have: an effective education system which respects and incorporates Inuit traditional knowledge and values by putting the communities back in charge of their schools where they belong.
Tabled Document 073 – 2(3): Towards a Representative Government – Statistics as of September 30, 2005 (Tapardjuk)
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Mr. Speaker, I would like to table the following document: Towards a Representative Government; Statistics as of September 30, 2005.
Please provide the copies of the Tabled Documents to our Table Officers.
Tabled Document 074 – 2(3): CCHSA Accredited Health Services Organizations (Curley)
I would like to table these documents: CCHSA report by June 30 (interpretation ends) list of health organizations accredited by the Canadian Council and Health Services Accreditation as of June 30, 2005.
Bill 12, Appropriation (Operations & Maintenance) Act, 2006-07, with Mr. Netser in the Chair.
We will take a break for lunch and we will be back here at 1:00.
>>House recessed at 12:07 and Committee resumed at 13:08
Chairman (Mr. Netser): Thank you for coming back members. (interpretation) During Committee of the Whole, we have the following item to deal with: Bill 12 – 2006-07 Main Estimates.
We wish to proceed with the review of Bill 12 and that we proceed with the review of the Department of Human Resources’ Main Estimates and Business Plan.
If time permits, we will commence with the review of Department of Health and Social Services.
The minister and the chair of the standing committee made their presentations yesterday.
Mr. Tapardjuk can go to the witness table.
Mr. Tapardjuk and if Kathy Okpik can go down, maybe your staff can also come down.
For the record please introduce your witnesses.
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the committee. To my immediate left is Kathy Okpik, my Deputy for Human Resources. On my right is Tom Thompson, Assistant Deputy Minister for Human Resources.
Welcome Tom Thompson and Kathy Okpik.
I don’t have anybody on my list for comments but members have 10 minutes for general comments.
We’re on D-5. (interpretation ends) Directorate.
Total Operations and Maintenance. $223,000.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman I’d like to raise a question on policy in regard to Article 23.
The minister stated that we are at 47 percent, and by 2010, they want to reach the goal of 51 percent.
I’d like to ask the minister: do you think it’s impossible that we’ll reach 51 percent, or can it jump up to because the population is about 85 to 90 percent of Inuit?
Because we don’t have the statistics in front of us, when we say 85 percent, we understand that the majority of them are Inuit. We don’t indicate what the percentage is of the non-Inuit.
If I were to say at this time 47 percent of Inuit work for the Government...if everything goes well and we reach our goal of 51 percent so it might stay at that rate?
Hon Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, it’s true that on June 30, 2005 it was at 47 percent and it was still 47 percent by the end of September.
We would have liked to see it increase, but we have identified 2010 that we want to reach our goal of 56 percent.
So we still need to fill positions of 288 in order to reach that goal.
We are planning; we are trying to plan how we can reach that goal but the internship program and other programs, training programs looking at those intern programs, we are hopeful that we will reach our goal of 56 percent Inuit employment in 2010.
So we still have to employ 288 Inuit and we are trying to work closely with the departments on how we can acquire Inuit to work for the government.
It’s possible and we are hopeful that we will be able to attain that goal.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Yes, I would like to thank him.
As I stated earlier, I made a mistake, if the population of non-Inuit is 15 percent, they hold a percentage too.
When you give directions to the human resources who do the hiring...I am thinking, just recently, I received a letter from a government employee who is an Inuk.
A lot of times, they hire casual employees when they are short and they were saying that Inuit can get jobs.
His or her supervisor answered saying, even though I have the letter, I don’t want to table it, that person was told that Inuit are not capable; they don’t attend there regularly.
I wonder why those kinds of people in the managerial positions should not be working and apparently, this is not the first time that it has happened.
That supervisor had said that to that person, so I told that person that he or she should apologize.
Maybe there should be more sensitivity because a lot of times the reason that non-Inuit are up here is to work.
So when that happens, what can we do?
We are not aware of those situations but if we are told or if we can get correspondence to me or to my deputy and if we were more aware of those kinds of situations, we certainly can discipline those people because they know that they are not supposed to belittle their co-workers.
We are presently reviewing our policy in regard to harassment that they should treat everybody equally.
Once we get that policy, we will be able to have more ammunition to be that way, but only after the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit is to be included in there.
So those are the things that, hopefully, will remedy the problems that we are encountering and we are hopeful.
Yes, I would like to thank the minister and I am happy to hear what you said.
If I were to give you names, they might have problems with the department and I haven’t told the other staff because in Keewatin the directors can’t really talk to us except the Community and Government Services Director who’s been there for a long time so we can talk with him. The other departments have directors who don’t seem to care.
This is not the first time that I’ve received a letter and there’s a person within the office environment who was racist and I still didn’t do anything about that.
I think the morale over there is very low. If they have an opportunity they would attain a different job but I don’t think we should just be listening to these because, according to the policies, they shouldn’t do that and they’re human rights even.
Maybe the minister shouldn’t just sit and wait but advise their Directors or their staff that they shouldn’t be doing that because as a Member of the Legislative Assembly I don’t want to write letters in regard to what I have received.
Can you start that?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): We have employees who deal with harassment or that kind of thing or if there is a good enough reason we do it in confidentiality.
If I were to discipline or investigate a situation in a particular community or area, maybe you can check into this further and we certainly can you can advise me and let me know after how we can deal with it and we do this on confidential basis.