EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I just remembered the minister’s comments about non-decentralized communities being assisted in regards to tourism.
I wonder if the minister can tell me what kinds of plans or consultations have happened thus far with those smaller communities in regards to tourism.
What we are doing is putting a strategy together.
In October of 2001 and also November 2000, we met with the hamlet council in that community and it was supported by the community.
The plans were supported by the community and I will look at the consultation process that has happened thus far.
It has been about four months since that happened so, I will look at that and I will work with the member to see what kinds of consultations were done in those communities. Because we did have a meeting with the hamlets and we will find out from the stakeholders.
Mr. Irqittuq (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker and thank you for the minister’s response.
Mr. Speaker, the people that are doing the consultations with the community, does the minister attend those meetings with them or does he just send them over there to get feedback from them.
I have not attended the meetings but I sent my officials over to Hall Beach.
I’m not trying to interfere with what’s happening but I just wanted to find out the answers to my questions.
The smaller communities would like to see more senior officials visiting their communities.
Perhaps I could suggest to the minister that either his deputy or his assistant deputy could attend when they’re meeting with them in regards to tourism.
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk (interpretation): I’m not exactly sure which of my staff went to Hall Beach and I know that I have to work very hard with the community to promote tourism especially in the smaller communities as well as the larger communities.
One of my senior officials can attend the meetings in the coming months to make sure that one of my senior officials attends the planning session with the community of Hall Beach.
Question 434 – 1(5): Progress on Support to Iqaluit Re: Infrastructure
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the no longer new Minister of Community Government & Transportation.
Mr. Speaker, last November I asked her predecessor some questions in regards to support and assistance to assist the City of Iqaluit in coming up with a plan to try and resolve the problems that it faces regarding municipal infrastructure.
I recently asked the minister when she was appointed to her new portfolio, I wrote a letter congratulating her on her appointment and asking her if her and her department would work with the City to come up with some type of a plan to deal with the crisis that they are facing.
I would like to ask the minister if she has had an opportunity to meet with the City officials on this and if there has been any progress.
At the request of the Member for Iqaluit, Mr. Tootoo, and also the other MLAs for Iqaluit, who asked me to meet with the Mayor, I did meet with the Mayor and his staff and we had a very successful meeting in my office about block funding for the City of Iqaluit.
We have now given it to our officials to talk about how we can best serve the City of Iqaluit.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for her speedy response in meeting with our City officials.
I would like to ask the minister if she has any idea, as she mentioned the idea of block funding, whether that is something that is seriously under consideration with the City or is it just something that is out there to talk about, an option to look at.
Are there any other options and what kind of a time frame, if they have developed any, that we may be looking at.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.,
We had a serious talk about the block funding approach and the Mayor was amenable to this approach.
So we are serious about taking that approach.
It would have to go through FMB, it still has to go through the process but that’s the approach we have taken and we are taking it very seriously as a department.
I know the City Council is also, through their Mayor, serious about this.
Mr. Speaker, I am very happy that the minister and her department are taking this issue very seriously as I know I guess if some of the issues that the City is facing are ignored, it could end up as a huge potential liability, not only to the City but to the government as well.
I would like to ask the minister if she has any plans for future meetings with the City to continue working on moving this plan ahead.
We will keep the City informed on the process, but right now we have to get the block funding approach negotiated with the officials of the City and my department, and we will try to process this as fast as possible.
Question 435 – 1(5): Tourism Promotional Magazines on Nunavut
It’s going to be a long preamble here but I will try to make my question short.
Mr. Speaker, we all know there is a large event happening in Nunavut with the Arctic Winter Games and at last count, there are thousands of people showing up.
Most of them are northern residents but also there is going to be a large, large contingent of CBC reporters and media from the south covering the Arctic Winter Games.
I just want to go on with a little story here before you cut me off.
I got on a plane to come to the illustrious capital on Monday and for reading material, I like to read sometimes, I look at the back of the airplane and there are three magazines.
I go great, the airlines are catching on.
So I go from Baker to Rankin and I read these magazines and didn’t think anything about it.
Then I get onto a Canadian North jet from Rankin Inlet to the illustrious capital and there are three magazines there again.
Mr. Speaker, I check into my lovely hotel room in Iqaluit, there are three magazines there again, and I am going wow somebody is doing their homework around here.
Mr. Speaker, the three magazines that I am talking about are the Up Here magazine and I see it and I say, well Polar Bears that’s a sign of the Arctic.
And there is another tourism scene and it is fast approaching us in Nunavut, and we all know about September 11th and the devastating effect it had on the tourism industry.
So I open the first magazine and there is a great article there about polar bears in Churchill and who to contact and stuff like that.
There are other articles in there about the various parts of the NWT and then there is an article in here about polar bears in Nunavut and how many darts we put in them.
So on the back part it is a lovely magazine about the Northwest Territories and travel destinations and outfitters to get hold of.
And there is another magazine about the Northwest Territories and all the fish you can catch.
And I am going boy the people visiting Nunavut are going to really, really get a dose of NWT tourism brochures and stuff like that and I am saying to myself and going into the hotel room going, the Minister responsible for Sustainable Development and Nunavut Tourism, when could we expect to see something about Nunavut.
I’ll try to make my answer shorter than his question. (interpretation) Yes in regards to tourism, yes there is information.
I would like to work closely with Nunavut Tourism to make sure that they have more information about Nunavut and we will do our best to provide information as soon as we can in regards to tourism in Nunavut and tourism promotion.
We are going to be providing some television spots as well on TV about Nunavut tourism.
That is what we are doing at the present time.
What we want to provide is also some pamphlets about tourism attractions in the Nunavut region.
I realize Mr. McLean's preamble was long winded but I gave him extra grace time because he didn’t have a statement this morning.
You are being very gracious on a Monday. Mr. Speaker, my supplemental to the minister is I know that there are going to be brochures printed and I know that they are coming.
The fact of the matter is that we should take every opportunity to maximize the potential on attracting outside dollars and I have been saying that in the House for three years.
In the minister's budget is he going to try and increase Nunavut’s tourism budget so that he can get this promotional material out in a quicker and timely fashion so that operators out there in Nunavut that are waiting for tourism, waiting for some kind of promotion, will benefit from this.
Question 436 – 1(5): Fisheries & Oceans & Department of Sustainable Development Using Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit
My question is directed to first of all the Minister of Sustainable Development.
I spoke in my Member’s Statement about the Sylvia Grinnell River and the banning of nets in that river.
My question to the minister is whether the Nunavut Government has done any work or studies of the wildlife and marine mammals using Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the HTO in Iqaluit will be working with our department so we can assist with the preservation of the fish in Sylvia Grinnell River.
The different organizations responsible have been working closely on this.
I am sure that you are going to be doing that in regards to the preservation of the fish population in Sylvia Grinnell.
What kind of research have you been doing to find what pollutants may be in that river?
The Hunters’ and Trappers’ Organizations and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans are working on that.
The responsibility for fish management is with DFO.
When I am directing my questions to the ministers, they tend to talk to each other instead of concentrating on my question.
I don’t like that, because it is as if I am asking questions for nothing.
Are you working together and do you know what kind of contaminants are in the Sylvia Grinnell River, what are you doing about it, and what kinds of studies are being done.
We have to know exactly, and you especially Mr. Minister, you have to know what kind of contaminants are over there.
As the Minister of Sustainable Development, you are the one who should be responsible for the management and also to keep in close contact with the Department of Fisheries and HTOs.
Of course we have to work together and that’s why I talk to my colleagues when we are going to be responding to your question.
The Department of Fisheries & Oceans with the Federal Government are responsible for the waters.
We do work with them, but it is their responsibility and they are working with the local HTO.
I am sure the HTO is keeping close tabs on what contaminants there are out there and what hazardous materials.
I know that they are in close dialogue and they are looking at what they can do to protect the river.
Of course it is the responsibility of the Nunavut Government to help them out when it comes to the wildlife and the environment in Nunavut.
If it is going to be beneficial to Nunavut then of course we will be involved.
My last supplementary came very fast.
We will definitely give our full support but I know that we only give support to the researchers and we tend to do that without including the local people, or the people who first inhabited the land.
We tend to study everything scientifically without including Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
Even if they’re doing something wrong or if they’re not including Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, are we going to still give them support?
I’ll try to make it as clear as possible.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans are working with the HTO and the HTO membership is all Inuit.
They’re working closely together.
They keep in contact with each other because of course these days the Inuit are more visible.
They are being involved when it comes to decision making about the management and the preservation of the land and the ocean.
We are trying to integrate more Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans from the Federal Government and also the local HTO are working together and of course the new government will give them their support.
There is a closer working relationship today than in the past.
Question 437 – 1(5): Fuel in Nunavut from Same Suppliers as Previous Years
I will direct my question to the minister responsible for Petroleum Products.
The petroleum products that we use up here, do they all come from one source or do they come from different sources.
The Keewatin Region and the Baffin Region get their petroleum products from the same source.
In the Kitikmeot they get their petroleum products from a different source.
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
I understand the Keewatin and Baffin get their petroleum products from the same source.
We recently heard that the octane level is good but that other products are causing problems.
Can the minister tell me if the products that we’re getting are exactly the same as last year or what is the difference in the colour, the odour, and what differences are there between what we had last year and what we have this year.
The colour and the taste last year, well today I can’t respond to whether there was a difference in the taste or the colour or the odour.
But it was in October 2001 that we first heard complaints about bad gasoline.
When we hear complaints from the communities in regards to the quality of the gas, the Department of Public Works and the Petroleum Products Division will take samples to find out the quality of the gas.
The results come in to our department and we are told that the quality of the gas is good.
When the test results tell us that, we think that everything is okay.
We are going to be trying to do our best to help the people of Nunavut.
In your Member's Statement, you talked about the possible effects on hunters.
It is something that I will work diligently on because of course we have been hunters since the dog team days and now we have machinery that we use to go out hunting with that uses gasoline.
The gasoline in Nunavut is okay, because those are the results that we got.
If we find otherwise, then we will work to rectify it.
Surprise, surprise, surprise. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
So your department doesn't know if there was a difference in the gasoline that we had last year and the gasoline that was brought in this summer and that we are using this winter.
We have big huge tanks and your department can’t tell the difference in the colour, odour and so on.
You just tell us it is okay.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister if there were any tests done here in Iqaluit.
What happens to the products when it is minus 35?
What happens when the hunters are using it when their machines are hot or when it has been not used much?
Have there been any studies done on what kind of impact the cold has.
We don’t have a testing centre here in Nunavut.
We have to send the products outside of Nunavut to get them tested.
The samples that we send out are from the pumps and not the tanks.
When we start getting complaints from the communities we take it seriously.
We will have more studies done on how these petroleum products are affected in the cold weather.
We will do that and possibly what I can say is that we just sent samples overseas.
We don’t have the facilities where we can do the studies of all the products, their quality and so on, here locally.
I know it takes a long time because we have to transport the samples very far away.
They have to be properly packaged to be transported, to England for example.
We haven’t had any results from the samples that were sent to England.
Across the ocean, to the Queen’s Land, to England.
But we know they don’t go anywhere near minus 10 over there.
I am very glad that our testing is done, and you say we don’t have any testing facilities here, only abroad.
But what’s happening here is that the gasoline has an effect on our engines because of the changes with the gas in the cold climate.
There has been no testing done on the machinery, just something that has been pumped out of a tank.
Is it possible to have tests done on the two cycle engines on snowmobiles and see what kind of effect it has on the machinery.
I have asked to have the gasoline tested in the cold, for example in the minus 40 range.
I have also told the headquarters personnel to talk to the repair companies and see what kinds of problems they are encountering, for example, the machinery shops, garages and so on.
I would like them to talk to the local companies, for example the garages in Iqaluit, and see what kinds of problems they are dealing with as a result of the gasoline that they are using.
Sorry, Mr. Arvaluk, you have used up all of your supplementary questions.
Question 438 – 1(5): Firearms Certificate Applications Not Translated
I would like to direct my question to the Minister of Justice about the gun registration forms.
They aren’t translated into Inuktitut and they are very hard to fill out when you can’t read the forms or if you can’t find anyone to help you fill them out.
What can we do so there are Inuktitut forms available for unilingual Inuit?
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker and thank you for asking your question.
I mentioned this issue at a recent meeting with my federal counterparts and we were talking about how this has been problematic for the people of Nunavut. The minister has stated that he will look into it further.
In regards to forms, it’s the responsibility of the Federal Government.
There have been concerns that were compiled by Nunavut Tunngavik and I can check on their progress.
We will keep talking to the Federal Government and see what they can do for the people of Nunavut.
Mr. Alakannuark (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker and thank you Mr. Premier for your response.
In what year can we hope to see the forms in Inuktitut?
The forms are the responsibility of the Federal Government.
We can tell them, but of course the legislation is under Federal Government jurisdiction.
We’re looking at how we can make the legislation more applicable to the people of Nunavut.
Is there any way the gun control registration forms can be translated.
Is there any way that we can have them translated soon?
In regards to your question to see if we can get them translated, we are going to be meeting with the Federal Government again soon and we’ll bring it up.
But I don’t have any other answer for you at present.
This is ongoing with the minister from the Federal Government, he’s willing to discuss it with us.
Question 439 – 1(5): Inuktitut Speaking Guards
Mr. Nutarak (interpretation): Thank you. I would like to direct this question to the minister responsible for Department of Justice.
At the Baffin Regional Correctional Centre, I don’t think there are that many guards.
We may have guards that work around the clock.
What are your plans for more training for guards and correctional workers?
Are you working towards that area or making plans to start training these guards to be more effective in dealing with inmates.
There are many Inuit people in custody so therefore we need better programs to respond to these issues.
We would like to be able to hire more Inuit as guards.
If there are any Inuit that want a career as guards, we do what we can to hire them and we need your support on this matter.
My colleagues, if you know anyone who is qualified in those areas, we could use your support.
If I was to be detained in such a facility as the correctional centre or the RCMP cells, the people in corrections are up here in Nunavut and they have guards 24 hours a day for their own safety.
But there are other problems as well such as not enough RCMP members in the communities.
This was one of our concerns since we are unable to get Inuit guards in our communities as well.
I understand that we have to be educated in this area so we can handle such a position.
There are some sensitive cases in those areas, especially when they have to be escorted by plane.
Usually the escort is an RCMP Officer when they have to be transferred from their community to their final destination, for example to Iqaluit.
I have another question about people being detained.
For example, if I were to be detained and prior to my trial they delay the matter, for example with people that are repeaters. If I were to be in this situation, a lot of times there are delays and it is very hard on the person psychologically.
Is there any way that they can go through healing programs or have counselling while they are being detained before their actual hearing?
We have provided such programs in the past, especially with adult offenders.
For example, in Pembrooke we have been meeting with people who are in that penitentiary down south.
Oral Questions. Final supplementary.
In regards to healing programs down south, how can we continue these programs?
How can we follow up in order to have ongoing counselling or visits to people in penitentiaries?
I have met some people and the person I met said he had gone through healing programs while he was suicidal in the detention facility.
I would really like to see some healing programs being done on a continuous basis.
I know that we have experienced this and we have provided healing programs.
At times we need to provide funding for operations and maintenance of these programs but it can be very hard to get the necessary funding.
But as I said earlier on, one thing we just completed was a new workshop down south.
We would like to see that again, we are working towards that direction where there’s a correctional facility, and they provide healing programs.
We're now working towards that and we have set aside some funding for the planning stages of this program.
Question 440 – 1(5): Gasoline Testing
Mr. Speaker, in following up my colleague’s question I would like to direct my question to the Minister responsible for Petroleum Products.
Even though we are not highly trained on this or we don't have expertise on gasoline octane levels, in December and January I used two snowmobiles, one broke down and thank God the other didn't break down.
I know our gasoline is bad.
The minister has said the fuel is acceptable and that it could be used, I don't want my preamble to be long, but we hear other members complaining about bad gasoline.
My older brother is a mechanic and he went to visit Taloyoak and bought some fuel from there.
He said that this fuel heats up really fast.
Since the minister said the results had come back, is it the octane level that’s bad in our gasoline. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, several communities have complained about their snowmobile engines breaking down.
They blame the bad gasoline but the results of the testing that was done came back and they say the fuel is acceptable.
We are looking for ways to do further testing as I have stated before.
We have sent some samples out for further testing but the results have not arrived yet.
To date we don’t know if it’s the gasoline that’s causing the breakdowns.
But in regards to his question about the octane level of the fuel or if it’s mixed with other forms of fuel, we have sent a sample for that kind of testing.
Members, Question Period is now over.
Keeping with tradition, we’ll allow the member to finish his two supplementary questions.
Mr. Irqittuq (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to complete my supplementary questions.
Mr. Speaker, we already know, as hunters, that the fuel is not acceptable.
When I go home to my community, I go hunting myself and I myself have seen the engines.
When the engine broke, I took it apart and I looked at it.
It had that colour the crankcase gets when there is room inside the engine and it gets that film of oil in there.
Did you say that you would be giving assistance to the best of your abilities?
When you’re working in an office every day it’s very difficult to know what kind of gasoline or fuel is arriving.
If the residents believe it’s the gasoline that’s causing all the breakdowns, we would welcome them sending us their samples.
Mr. Speaker, I asked that, since the minister said he would give assistance to the best of his abilities, I want to know if he in fact is planning to give assistance.
As I said earlier, if the residents of the communities feel that the fuel is not acceptable we can get the experts to test the fuel.
If we find their fuel is no good, we are ready and available to give them assistance.
Mr. Irqittuq, your final, final question.
This is the very first time that I have used my very last supplementary.