EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I think this government cannot afford to have the government civil service to be given certain fixed amounts of that kind without strict guidelines for approval processes because we are still having a hard time building houses and schools and everything else.
I guess my question to the minister is, is there a policy direction from your directorate on an approval process for the travel and transportation to ensure that there is no freewheeling in your subordinates to take advantage of those budget allocations that you give them.
My Deputy Minister advises me that travel is very well monitored out in the field and there is an approval process for people traveling whether it is through the regional office or headquarters.
It is monitored very closely so that they do not abuse their travel benefits.
Total operations, 4 million 299 thousand.
Total expenditures, 5 million 379 thousand.
Page 6-8.
Public Works and Services, branch summary, operations.
Total operations and maintenance, 63 million 344 thousand.
Arvaluk.
Here under contract services, I support that the government is leasing from private companies for example Nunavut Construction Corporation to provide the offices and so on and I am sure that we are utilizing other private businesses and also leasing offices or office buildings for example in Coral Harbour.
I am not quite sure how the substantiation sheets work because I do not have a copy in front of me. But we were told that the office has four rooms that are being utilized by the Department of Social Services and there are three other Nunavut Government, three other spaces but we do not have any Nunavut Government employees in my community.
One of them is being utilized by the Hunters’ and Trappers’ Organization.
One by the Community Economic Development Officer and also Tunnuq Harvest is renting one office and the Nunavut Government is utilizing one office.
The three organizations that are named have made an agreement with the Nunavut Government that they could use those offices rent free and I think that the Government pays 10 thousand dollars a month for three years and my question is, is this still going on and is that included in the 47 million 550 thousand dollars.
That was very clear and I know the building that you are referring to in Coral Harbour, I know which building it is because of course the hunters and trappers had their meetings this summer when I was over there.
If that building is going to be used for 10 years and we are referring to the same building, I could have my Deputy Minister look into it right away because he doesn’t have the required information in front of him.
I think that was an excellent question and we will find out about this whole thing and the 10-year agreement and find out how many buildings are on these long-term agreements.
I would like to thank the minister for her concise answer and also the fact that I know that we have an office supplied by them in Coral Harbour.
I do believe in Nunavut perhaps there is an office that is being rented by the government through rental lease agreements.
I am not trying to point out deficiencies, but when we were under the GNWT, we were able to find out who we were actually renting office space from.
Whether or not that office space is up to standard or not.
For Nunavut residents, under the contract agreement that building is owned by that company and that agreement was handled through the GNWT so I think Public Works should review these lease agreements to see if they should be renewed or if the agreement is too steep or not for the Nunavut Government.
Hon. Manitok Thompson (interpretation): I understand his explanation and concern.
We are always concerned about if we are paying too much money for a particular building.
My Deputy Minister just told me that some of the rental lease agreements are annually reviewed and we can always review them again to ensure that the money is not wasted.
I have a different question.
Under contract services, does that include government staff housing that the government pays for.
The staff housing is paid for by the staff member that is leasing the house.
Is that under the 47 million 550 thousand.
Is that included there.
All the staff houses are rented by staff or by other departments and they are included in that amount.
So these are for the rest of the Nunavummiut for the purpose of using the good money of the government, at least the tax money that comes very little to Nunavut.
What is the ratio between what the government pays for staff housing and what they actually charge to the client or staff member for using the staff housing. What’s a fair return on average you get like for example, if your lease is 47 million 550 thousand dollars, what do you get in return from your staff.
My finance controller might be able to answer this question directly.
I do not have the figures available since he works on this, he'd be able to answer it better.
We actually don't have the exact figures as to what's staff housing, most of it is payroll deduction, which is taken off at the Department of Finance, payroll division level.
However, I will undertake to obtain those figures up to date and give them to the member.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Galbraith. Any further questions.
Perhaps I could ask what is the policy of this government, what they should charge their staff members for using staff housing, I'm talking about mostly Mr. Chairman, is for example new NTEP graduates in Chesterfield Inlet, I'll use that as an example.
First year teacher, as a first year teacher, they do not make very much money.
Even the second year, even for six years they don't make very much money until they start getting some recognition as a specialist, specialty field, vice-principal-ship or anything, as long as they're staff members, they have a hard time paying for their rent.
Some of them have moved into public housing, because in public housing, the housing association only charges 25%. What is the policy of this government for the purpose of fairness for those staff members, especially low paying staff members who cannot afford those fixed rental scales for the staff housing.
Mr. Mrazek: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The government has a staff housing allocation policy in place and a part of the policy is a rental rate, which the rent is collected per units, it's based on the square meters or square feet and it's been inherited from the GNWT.
We recognize that this is not ideal for the reason that rent is the same, like, under the new unit or the older unit disregarding the quality.
However, in the new staff policy framework that is being developed it will take into consideration the revision of those rates as part of the things which have to be done with the new staff framework policy.
As far as the rent, I think we have two cases last year when the rate was excessive over 25 % or 30 % of the gross salary.
There is a hardship allowance program that is administered, I believe through the Finance and Administration Department.
In cases where the employee is making minimum money and will qualify because the rent is high.
But if I recall, I think there have been two cases across Nunavut last year in this situation.
So I hope that answers the question.
I guess that answers a question, but it still doesn’t answer, because we traditionally have a method for Inuit that are living in northern rental housing and later on in public housing.
The regular citizens who would be called staff that come from the south will be housed in those staff houses and they are charged for the rent as you described, based on the square footage of the building.
However, especially in the past two years, through your employment drive for aboriginal people in Nunavut, and your target of 84% down the road, that you have been successful enough to realize that these rental systems has, not on purpose, but has discouraged people from taking training and paying their high rent for living in government staff housing in comparison to public housing.
Then again people who rent through the private sector especially in Iqaluit, you pay that much more even.
So I guess what I am asking the government, is there any way to recognize that there is a need for public housing for those who can find jobs and are already in public housing and those government staff members who should not be penalized on their rental scale, wanting to work.
With the view that the government is responsible for both, the public housing and the staff housing, to make it fair to all citizens when they are setting up the rental scales, especially in the smaller communities where the options are not very high.
I would like to remind you again that when you are going to ask a question, try to minimize your comments. Minister Thompson.
Hon. Manitok Thompson: We are already trying to harmonize the assistance for the public housing rent scale with the staff housing policy that is in draft right now.
We are trying to make sure that it is consistent across the board, so whether you are in public housing or staff housing the rent scale is consistent.
Right now I have all the communities represented in Rankin discussing the rent scale and I do know that Public Works and Services staff is also working on that, the same work of the housing policy.
So yes we are trying to address this issue.
Mr. Arvaluk (interpretation): There are two questions, but that’s fine.
Mr. Chairman, 47 million 550 thousand dollars, I know you will try to address these issues but it would be good if you could tell me if you actually have a plan to do something about it to harmonize the public housing and the government staff housing, especially in the low market areas outside of Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet and Cambridge.
Is this 47 million 550 thousand dollars total leases for government offices, staff housing and everything else that you rent on behalf of the government.
Chairperson (interpretation): I must apologise James, I made a mistake.
Hon. Manitok Thompson: I just want to say that I'm not only trying, we are already in the process of addressing the problem by hiring a consultant that is working closely with the housing rent scale policy and staff housing policy, so the same guy is looking at both pictures at the same time.
So we're already doing that.
I'm going to ask Mr. Galbraith to help us to answer the details of which leases we have.
That the particular amount of money includes a multitude of contracts, obligations including staff housing, commercial housing, the maintenance of the offices including the cleaning contracts, security contracts and the contracts that we have for the maintenance of our owned building as well as our maintenance program is also involved with their operations.
Do you want to continue.
Mr. Galbraith just responded to the question I was going to raise.
I wanted him to explain what that money is used for and I'm wondering if the leases that are going to be done if that's included in that but he responded.
Hon. Manitok Thompson (interpretation): We will be looking into this.
The money isn't spent yet of course but we're working on the projected expenditures.
Do you want to continue Mr. Irqittuq.
Staff housing is something I've had interest in for quite some time.
The deputy was mentioning earlier about the program where if employees were deemed to be making not enough money and the rent was too high that there was a subsidy there for them.
I'm not sure the title of that program but in the past, if the rent was more than 30% of their income, then the government would subsidise so that the maximum rent of that individual was 30%.
Is that the same program that he was talking about.
Mr. Mrazek: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. yes, there is a program which I believe is called a hardship allowance.
I think it's available through the Government of Nunavut through finance and administration.
This program is a program that we carried over from the NWT and has been in place since division.
Mr. Mrazek: I believe it is the way Mr. Tootoo described this.
It was inherited from the GNWT.
This program, is the onus on the employees to ask to find out if they qualify for this program or does the government say okay you make less here, you are paying more than 30 percent of your income therefore you can here fill this out as something is part of their documentation or something. Or is the onus, I am just wondering who initiates or provides information about that program.
The question is directed to Public Works.
I think it is under Finance.
It is administered under Finance if I understand correctly but I will get Madam Minister to respond if she wishes.
Hon. Manitok Thompson: We are not sure how if it is initiated by the employees or it is the department that initiates that.
It is probably from both ends.
I would not know because it is not my department that deals with that.
It is the Department of Finance.
I look forward to asking the Minister of Finance about that and that the numbers of people that are on it or eligible for it.
Mr. Chairman, the minister was asked, I cannot recall who had indicated that they’re looking at setting some new rental rates.
I am just wondering when they plan on or when do they hope they will able to bring some new rates forward.
I may have confused the members by talking about the rent scale that is being set up that is being worked on this week by Housing Corporation in Rankin.
I was saying that it would have to be consistent with the staff housing rent scale and right now there is a big difference between the rent scale of the Public Works staff housing and also the Housing Corporation.
I could not tell you at this time when we would be able to implement that.
Right now, we have delegates from all over in Rankin just looking at the whole picture and finding out what is the best way for setting the rent scale for public housing.
This issue of rent scales have been raised for staff housing in this House and it is something we have to, I think we have to harmonize or talk with the Housing Corporation how we can make it consistent.
I could not tell you how or when that would be implemented because we are just aware of the problem that needs to be addressed by both departments.
I believe the minister was talking about the public housing rent scale and I was more interested in staff housing.
How the staff housing rents are assessed and I believe Mr. Mrazek had indicated that we have basically adopted the scale that was brought over and developed prior to division and used by the GNWT and I'm pretty sure that I heard him say that they are looking at revising that scale.
The staff housing rent scale, I guess is the one I am asking about because I know there are some disparities in some of the staff housing that is available. If you take a look from anywhere like in town here, you have something in the High Rise, you know, an apartment to White Row that's, some older type units as opposed to the new Urbco units or NCC units up the hill.
I've had concerns raised to me by individuals living in those things that they, it isn’t right that they're living in something that's 30 years old and paying the same rate as someone that's living in something that's brand new.
And I'm just wondering if something like that, those issues will be addressed in the formulation of this new way that they are going to be assessing staff housing rent.
That's the same question raised by Mr. Arvaluk earlier.
But even though that is the case, I'll get the minister to respond.
Hon. Manitok Thompson: The member has raised a very good question on this.
I know that there are employees out there that have had concerns over this for some years.
I will be coming forward with a response to my cabinet members and also to this Legislative Assembly in the fall session on the progress of what we have been doing in this regard.
I believe the minister indicated the contract services that's 47 and a half million dollars, that’s where all our leases are paid for staff housing and I know that, that's not all the leases, there's other leases and things in there as well.
But does the minister or her staff have a number of a total of what the Government of Nunavut pays specifically for staff housing.
We can get that information to the member as soon as we can get it from our finance person.
I don't think we have it here right now.
But we can get it to the member as soon as we get it.
Could be this week.
I look forward to seeing it, I realize it's probably a substantial amount.
With staff housing and the way that rents are collected, I'm just wondering, has the department, has there been more staff housing filled, say this year over last year.
What percentage hires are we with the staffing capacity that we're building up, what percentage higher in staff housing are we in staff housing over last year and do we have enough staff housing or the projected, what's the projections on that.
Chairperson (interpretation): I'd like to remind the member that another member raised those questions earlier.
Just to let the members think about questions that were raised earlier.
We are dealing with the capital estimates under Public Works and Services.
With that, I will ask the minister to respond.
There are 11 communities where NCC built staff houses.
Some of the units aren’t occupied yet.
I can’t really say whether there will be a shortage of staff housing units, but if they were to all be filled we would have to look into this.
But to date they are not presently filled.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you. Ms. Williams.
I am trying to smile because we are often told to smile.
My question to the minister is, what kind of units are there in Iqaluit for staff housing.
Because the staff members often pay the same rates and some units are new and others are very old.
In some communities, probably here in Iqaluit also, we have a rate chart that we follow.
This uses the square footage of each unit and there are set rates based on the size of the unit.
The staff housing units follow the rates for square footage.
In the spring I will be able to let the members know what we are doing and give some clarification on what we have decided to do.
Ms. Williams (interpretation): That is very interesting I am glad to hear that we will get an update in the fall.
Some staff members, there are a lot of good staff members in the communities and I think the units should be set up so that they get what they pay for.
I think the member misunderstood me.
We're not saying we're going to be renovating staff housing units.
But what we've said was that what we do is we use the square footage of the unit.
We're not saying that we're going to be getting some funds to build new housing units for staff or renovating the new ones.
We're just talking about the amount of rent that staff are paying for staff houses.
I understood what she said but I'm just saying that I'm glad to hear that the minister is saying that they're going to be doing a review.
Whether you be in Grise Fjord, Rankin Inlet or Iqaluit, the staff rents paid for units, she mentioned that it will change.
I know that you won't be building new staff housing or renovating the existing ones.
I'm just saying that we have to plan a better way of charging rent for our staff in staff housing.
Hon. Manitok Thompson (interpretation): I'm saying also that we're not going to be providing new staff housing units but we're just talking about the amount of rent that the staff is paying for the staff houses.
If there are any new staff houses available, we will be looking into finding units for them.
In Iqaluit, if you're using an older house and if you're using a newer house in Rankin Inlet and if you're using an older house in Arviat, what we do is we go by the square footage of the unit for the staff to pay their staff house unit.
Even if I have a new unit or an old unit, I still have to pay the same amount because we go by square footage.
I don't have any more hands up from the members.
Getting back to page 6-8.
Total operations and maintenance, 63 million, 344 thousand dollars.
Total expenditures, 63 million 344 thousand dollars.
Any more questions from the members.
Page 6-9, Public works and services, branch summary.
Total operations and maintenance, 11 million 176 thousand dollars.
Under informatics, I think it's trying to say that it's got something to do with the internet.
Perhaps if you can give some clarification, it's got something to do with decentralization.
Last year it was 10 million 40 thousand, but they said that it would be increasing to 5 million something.
But this last year they expended 15 million 904 thousand dollars.
That’s 11 million, 176 thousand dollars for 2001-2002, is that going to be enough and the Minister of Finance said that they had to have some money set aside because there was an unexpected shortfall of 1 million 864 thousand dollars.
I was trying to get your attention and I will pass the question to Mr. Mrazek to answer.
Chairperson (interpretation): I am sorry, Ms. Thompson.
Informatics is dealing with all the telecommunications and the whole networks for the entire government.
That would be a very brief description of the function of this branch.
You will notice that we have 11 million 176 thousand dollars in the budget.
This is the best estimate we could come to.
We are making every thing possible to stay within the budget and we have a number of significant spaces last year regarding the additional work which has been looked into.
We have to co-operate with all the client departments and sometimes the expectations are too high.
But I believe between the Chief Information Officer and the Director of Operations, which is between the two departments the funding will be achievable for this fiscal year.
Mr. Arvaluk: I hope I hear him correctly that there will no requirement for an additional 5.8 million in the middle of next March for the budget.
This 11 million 176, that is the most accurate information that they have and they are not expecting acceleration of decentralization for this coming fiscal year.
The 5.8 million, which Mr. Arvaluk was referring to, was for additional expenditures for this fiscal year.
The 11 million is our best estimate and providing the operations of the informatics remains the way it is, we strongly believe that we can live with that number.
For the compensation and benefits, different question Mr. Chairman.
That 3.5 million, what does that represent, how many PYs does that represent.
Are these PYs for that amount all in Iqaluit.
We have 49 positions, but 26 are filled and they are not all in Iqaluit they are from different regions.
Mr. Arvaluk: I better come down to earth.
It sounds very high for the size of the government and size of the territory and size of the population.
Around 49 PYs working for informatics.
Is that required.
These are the repair people and technical people, fibre optics people and hardware repair people and that entire total for the GN. Thank you.
Hon. Manitok Thompson: I'm going to give it to.
Could we call you Patrick, it's too hard to pronounce Galbraith right. (interpretation) I will give it to Mr. Galbraith to answer because he has the breakdown of the staff.
Chairperson (interpretation): He is your helper so treat him properly.
It does not only encompass the repair people although there should be one repairperson and sometimes, a lot of cases two repair people in each community.
We use the word repair people.
But we're talking about data base administration, software administration, the telecommunications portion of the informatics and all the supporting staff.
Forty-nine people, if you look across the board, compared to the Northwest Territories is indeed not excessive at all.
In fact, it's lower.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Galbraith.
Eleven million 176 thousand dollars total expenditures.
We have no more names on my list.
Chairperson (interpretation): Opposed. Carried. Total expenditures, 11 million 176 thousand dollars.
Any questions. Agreed.
Moving to 6-11, Public works and services, branch summary, decentralization.
Total operation and maintenance, 1 million 200 thousand dollars.
Total expenditures, 1 million 200 thousand dollars.
That has already been agreed to.
Are there any more questions from the members.
Five million 165 thousand dollars.
That was already agreed to.