EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
So that was one of the recommendations that we followed.
But I can commit to the member, Mr. Chairman, that if there is a concern with the understanding of the report, because it has been translated, it is a weighty volume, we can arrange to sit down and maybe go through the report itself and talk about the recommendations themselves.
We also have available the summary, and the summary is about thirty some pages and that is a condensed version of the larger report.
Maybe that would help the member too for understanding purposes.
If the member would like to make a motion you could but before you do that you have to give other members the opportunity to ask questions, and the motion will be after the questions.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): I'll give the other members a chance to ask questions and get back to my motion later.
Following the list that I have.
Mr. Chairman, my colleague brings up a good point in reference to the detail and in some cases the areas that are technical and complicated.
Having said that, I've had an opportunity to review the short version and vaguely went through the larger document.
I'm not concerned as to what is in the document, I'm concerned about what is not in it.
We talked in the last week in reference to the price of fuel, and we indicated that harvesters will pay an extra one million dollars to fuel their machines and equipment for their harvesting.
The price has just risen over Christmas.
Having said that, Mr. Chairman, I note that, maybe I've missed it, but in the report it does not identify or ask, the criteria is not set out, to look at other alternative sources of power, for example hydro. I go back earlier statements in the House, in reference to the power grid from Manitoba to Nunavut, and the cost implications and savings that could be there.
I'm curious as to why the minister did not include that aspect in his study.
It would seem to me that is first and foremost.
We are in most cases totally at the mercy of other people and other countries when it comes to the pricing of our fuel.
There is no guarantee that it will stop at thirty dollars a barrel, which it’s at now.
I would assume the minister is looking toward trying to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels for many reasons. Not only the price of fuel and it being unpredictable, but also from an environmental standpoint.
I’m talking about the savings that could be there if we were to look at a hydro line.
So my question to the minister is that, given that the report is very detailed and in some cases very complicated, I think overall that it is a good report but there is one factor that isn't addressed, and I'm curious to why the minister did not put this in the criteria.
Hon. Ed Picco: Thank you Mr. Chairman, Thank you member for the comments and questions.
On the first page of the summary that the member referred to you will see the reason for the report is spelled out, and those reason are as follows.
The options to assess the needs of Nunavut’s energy, Nunavut's future electrical energy needs.
Fundamentally the Nunavut Government must decide on one of two choices, to continue with the Northwest Territories Power Corporation or go it alone.
If the choice is to work out a shared arrangement with our western partners then several critical questions need to be met.
So, Mr. Chairman, the basic thrust of this report was to see if we needed to set up our own power corporation, or should we stay with the west.
The answer was we needed to move forward on our own power corporation, and then the report flows into what we need to do logistically and administratively to look at setting up that power corporation.
Looking at alternative energy sources and so on were touched on in the report but were outside the scope of the report.
Because the report is premised on should we maintain the transition agreement that Mr. O'Brien is very familiar with, that was signed off with the Government of the Northwest Territories, and the timelines being that if we didn't come to an understanding by April 1, 2000, then the transition agreement set up for the separation of the corporation east and west would be in effect.
So I hope that helps answer Mr. O'Brien's question on alternative energy sources and why they weren't touched on in the report, because that was not the mandate of the report.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you minister.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to qualify my point and my comments.
I know there was a very talented group of individuals that were pulled together to do this report.
There have been many meetings and gatherings to come to this final conclusion.
I just fail to see why the minister would not include this very important aspect of energy.
I think it is very clear we have no control over the price of fuel oil and it would just seem to me that I would be logical that it would be included in the study.
I commend you on the report but it’s not what is in it, it is what is not in it.
It’s obvious that this is not the conclusion of your study.
When would the minister be contemplating on reaching out to this area.
I think the time is here and there is no question in my mind and everybody else’s that the sooner that we lower our dependency on fossil fuels the better off we will be in many ways.
Hon. Ed Picco: Mr. Chairperson, this is a good report and it spells out the different options that are available to the people of Nunavut, as Mr. O'Brien has said, but the focus of the report was to see if we should have our own power corporation and should we separate from the Northwest Territories, that was the focus of the report.
If you go through the report Mr. Chairman, you will see, for example, on the summary we talk about electrical versus fuel.
We talk about the opportunities of economies of scale.
Another recommendation from the report was to integrate the petroleum products division into the new Nunavut Power Corporation, and that would save a lot of money because of the economies of scale.
There are also other technologies that are out there, and with the technologies that are moving very fast, we realize that at the present time we are held captive to outside sources for our fuel because we have to use diesel to generate our electricity, but there are also other alternatives on the marketplace other than going to an electrical line from Churchill.
One of those options is the hydrogen cell, actually there is a company working out of the Keewatin, I believe coming out of Arviat or Baker Lake doing some work in that area.
There is also the secondary stage drop type of generators.
Instead of having a generator in a river you can put the generator in a lake or pond and that can generate several megawatts of electricity.
That was described in detail last week when we met with the Manitoba hydro officials.
We could go ahead and spend three hundred or four hundred million dollars to build a hydro line and the technology might move past that point, like we’re seeing in other countries or states like California.
That was not a part of the report itself, studying what options are available in the generation of energy.
The report was predicated on finding out if we should separate or set up our own power corporation.
The next step for the Nunavut Power Corporation, Mr. Chairman, would be to look at what Mr. O'Brien is talking about.
I've already committed in the House today to make sure that the Ikuma committee would take an in-depth look at the Manitoba hydro proposal to see what is feasible and what is not feasible from the Nunavut point of view, because that is the report that has been put together for the government of Manitoba with some assistance from the Northwest Territories.
But it is technical, and they say it is technically feasible.
They have not attached a real price tag for us.
That is what we need to do now, to see where we go from here.
To get from point A to point B.
I hope that helps answer the member’s question.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you Minister Picco.
Mr. O'Brien: Thank you Mr. Chairman, my final comment.
Mr. Chairman, I still have difficulty in accepting the fact that this wasn't included in such a major report.
The minister has explained himself and I will have to accept that.
I think to a certain degree we may have missed the boat.
We could have got the jump on this issue sooner than later.
Mr. Chairman, the costs the minister speaks of in regards to the hydro line, I think for the most part when we talk about 200 million dollars for the cost of a hydro line or 400 million dollars or whether we go on and say 1.2 billion dollars for a road linkage, I don't think we should be concentrating on those figures, because let's face it, those costs would have to be picked up by the Federal Government.
We are not in a situation where we could, and I think the Finance Minister would agree with that, unless that surplus is greater than he is telling us, to cover a project like this.
I may have to ask the media about the amount of that surplus.
Minister, given the fact that it would require federal dollars to take on a project like this, what would your next step be.
I know you have indicated the next step to further this along, when do you anticipate this happening.
When can we hope you would initiate another extension of the report, before we spend tens and tens of million dollars of dollars replacing generators and so forth, with existing plants and building new plants.
In some ways we can get the jump on this and access some hydro from outside sources.
One last example, it is my understanding that if we wait too long the mining activities that are now coming forth whether it be the Rankin or Baker Lake areas, their needs for power, energy will be immediate and one example given to me for outside this area right here, for a mining company to build a power plant of their own it would be in excess of 40 million dollars.
If we could get the jump on this we would have these companies tying into this line we speak of which would help subsidize the cost of this.
Not only from an infrastructure standpoint but from the purchasing power.
I think this is an issue that is critical and I think it should be dealt with as soon as possible.
I'm somewhat disappointed that it wasn't included in the report.
The fact is it is not.
I would ask when do you anticipate taking the next step to review this.
Minister Ed Picco.
Hon. Ed Picco: In the recent mining development in the Northwest Territories the diamond mine, they were within 200 kilometres of the Snare Lake hydro project.
They didn't run an electrical hydro line from that station to the diamond mine, 200 kilometres away, to give them a power supply.
So what that means Mr. Chairman, is that just because we have a hydro line doesn't mean they will hook up to it.
What discussions need to take place Mr. Chairman, is as the Nunavut Government is doing a comprehensive review of the pre-feasibility study, some discussions would have to take place with the mining companies to find out what they consider their peak load would be and would they be prepared to tap into this line.
But that is all outside the scope of the report that were talking about today.
The member did ask me when we would be doing the comprehensive analysis of the pre-feasibility study by Manitoba.
In the House today I said we would be looking at that in the coming months, I would expect that it would take maybe three to four months maybe longer.
It would be inter-departmentally with the co-operation of some of the other departments including the Executive and Sustainable Development.
Again the report, the pre-feasibility study by Manitoba Hydro has severe implications for the land claim beneficiaries, environmental assessments, if they began to do the feasibility study today for that project it would take between a year and two years to complete that study.
My understanding is from my briefing last week they are looking to three to five years for construction.
So you are looking at six to seven years down the road, for that line and anything can happen in six or seven years.
So the first thing this government has to do, the Nunavut Power Corporation, once it is set up, is analyse that report from Manitoba to see what is feasible and so on.
That is our next step.
And we will do that in the next three to six months and Mr. Chairperson, as I committed in this House, once that report analysis is done it will go to the proper committee of this House and then to the House itself.
Mr. Akesuk (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Chairman, I don't want to say the interpreters are no good and I don't want to say the translators are no good, since we have different dialects.
When they say options in English in the translations we could not really understand part of the terminology in Inuktitut.
The Assembly has many rules and procedures, the person that is sitting next to me could not really understand it.
Could you say the proper term for options in Inuktitut.
The summary, I feel we should find the proper term for option and I just want to elaborate that to the rest of the unilingual members that they thought it was going to be a policy and it is only going to be an options report document.
I hope they can understand what I'm saying.
I'm not trying to say the translators are bad it is because their dialects are so different that’s why we had a misunderstanding.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Akesuk, for the clarification.
And it’s not a question it is more of a comment.
Mr. Chairman, the report indicates that one of the recommendations is that we have our own Power Corporation.
My question to the minister is by doing this, by having our own power corporation, will it cost the Nunavut residents more or less than it does today prior to the split.
Hon. Ed Picco: Thank you Mr. Chairman, Thank you to the member for the question.
Mr. Chairman, there are some start-up costs associated with the start up of our own power corporation but the actual delivery of power to Nunavummiut we don't actually see that as costing us any more and indeed in our analysis it may cost us a little less.
Mr. Chairman, the minister indicated that aside from the initial start up cost that we will be faced with…maybe two questions.
One, what would they anticipate those costs will be.
Two, he has also indicated that it would cost us less than it does now, through the analysis he performed.
Is the minister then indicating that we will be seeing, if this option is pursued, that we will see a reduction in power rates if this option is pursued.
Minister Picco.
Mr. Chairman, maybe for illustration purposes if the member has the report in front of him he could turn to note 1010 Option A - Minimum Outsourcing.
He will be able to see some of the analysis for himself done by the working group and it is in the tabled report.
If he gets that then I will follow along and go through the analysis and the members can follow and see the analysis also.
Mr. Tootoo: The document is not numbered.
The number was 1010?
Chairperson: Mr. Picco
Hon. Ed Picco: 1010 Option A - Minimum outsourcing.
The reason why I've asked you to look at that Mr. Chairman, is because as the member knows and the Assembly knows that part of Ikuma report was to find out what level of outsourcing we would have in place and what that means is, on April 1st, 2001, would we have the capacity in Nunavut to do all the billing, invoicing, payroll, capital planning and so on.
So we have to purchase that expertise from one of the other utility companies.
We have gone now and narrowed that down to three different utility companies.
Once the new President and CEO of the Nunavut Power Corporation is hired, then that person would be able to look at the analyses of which of the REIs we’d want to put into place and then what level of outsourcing.
So, if the member has got 1010, on the cost impact of an independent power corporation, he will see the cost there and follow along.
He will also see the average cost/kilowatt hour based on those cost differentials.
The member then will note that we’ve taken all Nunavut communities and amalgamated them and averaged the cost out over a period of time and he will note then that the cost of Nunavut power, a kilowatt hour is anywhere from 41 cents to 63 cents and he will note on year five, 2005/2006, that the average cost per kilowatt hour will be 43.26 cents.
Mr. Chairman, that would mean a considerable decrease in some rates in some communities.
Now if the member would look at the page before that, page A14, he would also see the start up costs impact on the domestic customer and the annual increase will only be between 1 to 1.9 %.
Mr. Chairman, those are exciting numbers.
Those are real numbers, Mr. Chairman.
They’re excellent numbers Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I must commend the minister for his ability to be able to dance around these numbers on these dazzling charts here.
He does that rather well.
He must have rehearsed that a couple of times.
Mr. Chairman, these numbers look good, what percentage, he said it was 1 point something, the number he talked about is supposed to be on this page.
I still can’t find it.
I’m just wondering what, like I asked, what would those start up costs be in a number.
Not as a percentage of whatever, if I could please ask him to answer in terms of dollars and cents what those start up costs would be.
Hon. Ed Picco: Mr. Chairman, I’m not trying to dance around the numbers.
The numbers are in front of the member and the members.
All I’m saying is that the question was what the rate increase was.
I explained that there was no actual rate increase, and actually we’ll see some rates drop in some communities.
But it depends on what level of outsourcing we do.
If we purchase all of our services from let’s say Manitoba Hydro, then the costs are going to be more than if we get half of the services from Manitoba Hydro.
The graphs and the figures are in the book for deliberations or for questions.
But I’ll ask the ADM to maybe go into more detail on the costs, on the start up costs.
I would like the Deputy to go ahead and explain.
If I could maybe draw attention to that document note 1010 that the minister referred to earlier, it looks like there are three similar documents that go one after the other.
They map out three different scenarios.
One where you see us doing more of the work and building up the power corporation as quickly as we can for April 01.
The second option, which is option B, moderate outsourcing, is kind of a mix of the two in terms of somebody helping us to do some of that work and us doing some of that work in house.
Option C, is the maximum outsourcing model where you’ll see somebody come in to do a complete turn key or they’ll run the operation for us completely without us having to bring on any capacity for the power corp. So that’s what the three different scenarios are about.
They are all in the same chart format so that you can see how much each of those options might cost the Government of Nunavut.
When you look at note 1010, option A, there are numbers on the left-hand column that go from 1-20.
What we’ve done is for the first three lines, 1-3, that shows you what we would be paying if we stayed with NTPC for the next five years.
So you can see under years 1-5, across the top of that chart, the cost per kilowatt-hour that you and me and every other citizen of Nunavut would pay for power.
The next four lines from 4-15 are some of the costs that we’ve identified in setting up this power corporation.
Line 4 identifies all the one-time costs that include leaving or separating from the Power Corporation which totals 2 million dollars.
So if you look at line four, that totals roughly 2 million dollars.
There are legal and consulting fees, severance liability, head office costs.
All of these costs will have a large impact in terms of these one time activities for setting up this power corporation but even if you factor that into the annual operating costs of the power corporation, the net difference is actually, as Minister Picco had mentioned, they are very much to our favour.
So if you look at line 12, and you compare line 12 and year one, 39.54, to line 3, which is 39.61/kilowatt hour, you’ll notice that the rates will actually decrease for that first year.
Not by much but there is a decrease.
Year two, you look again at line 3 and you look again at line 12, and there’s a difference there again of a slight increase.
We expect that the cost for delivering power will go up every year because of inflation.
There’s going to be costs when it comes to replacing a generator in a community or what have you.
There’s going to be inflation costs as we go so you will notice that the numbers will go up over time but that’s consistent with your regular inflation type activities.
So I hope that helps to clarify the chart a little bit more.
I’d like to thank Ms. Gauthier for her answer, for clarifying the chart.
It makes a little bit more sense.
So looking at it, then in answer to my question, the one time costs that we’ll be looking at are roughly 3.8 million dollars in initial start up costs that we’ll be facing.
Of course that would be less the 2 million dollars that would be the Government of Nunavut amount and that’s the balance to be amortised, those costs over five years would be 1.8 million dollars.
The member is correct.
Chairperson (interpretation): Since I’m the Chairperson for the committee of the whole, please before you speak, I want you to be recognised by the Chairperson first.
Chairman, maybe in light of the time, I’d like to ask if we could move to report progress now and continue on with some more questions for the minister and his staff tomorrow in committee of the whole.
Chairperson (interpretation): Did you move a motion to report progress.
There is a motion on the floor to report progress and it’s not debatable.
Mr. Tootoo moved to report progress.
Since we are going to report progress, I would like to thank Minister Picco and his official, Laura Gauthier, Thank you for appearing before this committee.
Speaker: Back to the Orders of the Day.
Your committee has been reviewing tabled document 45-1(3) and would like to report progress and Mr. Speaker, I would move that the report of the committee of the whole be concurred with.
Speaker (interpretation): A motion is on the floor.
Seconder to the motion.
Bill 7 - Loan Authorization Act, 2000/2001 - Third Reading
Hon. Kelvin Ng: Mr. Speaker, I move seconded by Honourable Member for Rankin Inlet North that the Loan Authorization Act 2000/2001 be read for the third time.
Bill 7, has had third reading.
Thank you, going to the Orders of the day, Mr. Clerk.
Reminders for this evening, meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Services at 6:30 in the hotel board room.
Meeting at 7:30 for all members, Arctic College Board of Governor’s Hall.
Reminder for tomorrow morning, at 11:00 A.M., hotel boardroom, meeting with the elders.
Orders of the Day, Thursday, February 24, 2000, half past one:
Motion 11-1(3)
Minister’s Statement 41 – 1(3)
Tabled Document 20 – 1(3), 27-1(3)
This session is adjourned until Thursday, February 24th, 2000 at 1:30 p.m.
>>Assembly Adjourned at 5:02 p.m.
Thursday, February 24, 2000
Pages 598 - 648
(Uqqumiut)
Opening Prayer 598
Ministers’ Statements 598
Members’ Statements 601
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery 608
Oral Questions 610
Notices of Motions 625
Motions 625
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters 625
Report of the Committee of the Whole 647
Orders of the Day 648
Thursday, February 24, 2000 598
61 - 1(3): Redesign of Student Financial Assistance System (Arvaluk) 598
62 - 1(3): Community Based Justice (Anawak) 599
63 - 1(3): Federal Languages Agreement (Havioyak) 600
128 - 1(3): Apex Treatment Centre (McLean) 601
129 - 1(3): Funding for Cultural Programs (Irqittuq) 601
130 - 1(3): Implementing Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (Thompson) 602
131 - 1 (3): Lack of Involvement of Smaller Communities (Kattuk) 602
132 - 1(3): Passing on Cultural Knowledge (Iqaqrialu) 603
133 - 1(3): Question About Suicide (Nutarak) 603
134 - 1(3): Nunavut Social Development Council (Tootoo) 604
(Continued) 132 - 1(3): Passing on Cultural Knowledge (Iqaqrialu) 605
135 - 1(3): Success of Nirqamut Foods (Anawak) 606
136 - 1(3): Utilising Elders’ Knowledge (Puqiqnak) 607