EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
There are ten; the first time there were seven, there were going to be ten communities, including the communities that did not get units last year.
That’s how it’s going to be.
If there was additional funding we would try to build additional units but we could only build 10 units with this funding.
There are going to be 10 communities that will be receiving public units.
The communities that received construction last year will not be receiving any.
Mr. Alagalak: (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman, last one. The communities that were included in the 10 communities that are not in dire need of units, just looking at the community, even though there is no need for housing and just because you didn’t build units last year, are you going to include them in the communities that will be receiving units?
All the communities have a shortage of units in Nunavut.
There is a long waiting list.
If we had adequate funding, we would like to build but, we have to consider the communities that did not receive any units.
All the communities have a long waiting list. So, we would like to respect them too.
Mr. Arreak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask that they construct units that are joined together like duplexes.
I was wondering: do you have any plans to construct units that are houses on their own?
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk (interpretation): Yes, we would like to construct units that are cheaper made, but some time in the future, if we were to receive additional funds for public housing and the programs for homeownership, when you provide homeownership, they use single dwellings for that.
But, to date, we’ve been constructing apartments, or duplexes. We have reviewed to make sure that we can build more units.
Chairman: Thank you, Minister. Mr. Arreak.
A lot of times my constituency they ask these kinds of questions and they request information in regard to that and I thank the minister for responding.
Now I know what answer to give to my constituents. The material for houses usually comes in the fall, and they start building in the fall time.
Because of the cold weather coming, they build homes really fast because they have only about three months to build them.
When the materials come in, in the fall, I wonder, wouldn’t it be better, or has this been thought of, where they start building them in the spring time?
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe those communities that are allotted homes, it’s up to the individual communities as to how they wish to build those homes.
This certainly can be considered by the Local Housing Organizations.
Because of a severe shortage of homes, they wish to start building them right away. This can be up to the discretion of the community.
If they think it would be better for them to start building in the spring, but as we all know, we want to get houses as fast as we can so they can be inhabited as soon as they finish.
I’m only talking about public houses.
Yes, we know that they want to start constructing homes right away when they get the material. They may not be built properly because they are in a hurry to finish them and the weather is getting too cold. The life expectancy of those units is lower.
I asked a question; if it can be considered that they can start constructing when the weather is nicer.
Maybe in some prominent communities, the springtime and summer is longer, but for those other communities, it would be up to the discretion of the individual communities.
Mr. Arreak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I realize that this will be considered and we certainly appreciate the construction workers.
We are hearing that all of the materials didn’t come in so they have a shortage where the materials were landed and it has been considered that they would be brought up by plane.
You certainly can assign that money into building homes. I wonder if they are considering that; it will cost a lot to fly them up.
For about five or six years, with this present government, we are trying to look at different ways to build houses and to do the best we can.
Sometimes we have no choice but to fly some materials in and we certainly can look into this.
Our staff can look at some ways as to how to improve this situation to make sure all of the material is shipped up at the same time.
Your concern is well taken.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister and Mr. Arreak. (interpretation ends) Mr. Curley.
I would like to welcome the minister and his staff.
First of all, I just want to make a comment.
As an individual MLA, what I want to say is that the Nunavut Housing Corporation; I just want to let the minister and his staff know that not very many people are thankful for what they do, but this is pointing fingers.
We are certainly proud that you work really hard and not too many people seem to thank you, either from an MLA or from the public, but we understand that your hands are tied too, sometimes, when you are dealing with social housing, and I would like to thank the minister for working so hard, but we want our concerns to be known.
So, for that reason, I have no doubt that you are working hard and the information that we are getting to improve, we will certainly expect those.
My concern was what the MLA for Arviat raised, asking where those units will be given to the communities; which communities are they going to, that $5 million.
I believe they’ll be about 20 units. I am kind of hesitant to approve something when I don’t know which community they’ll be going to. (interpretation ends) It’s just like giving a blank cheque for $20 million and I am promising to build 20 houses in unknown communities.
That would not be a good service to the public.
I will be asking later that we defer that item until the minister has tabled that.
It could be today, but that information should be printed and should be given to all members, as we deal with it.
We are not rushing; we have all week to approve your budget yet.
I have other comments that I want to deal with. One is first of all you made a statement the other day that you will build how many odd houses. You indicated that you built 270 units or something over three years.
You stated that the other day in here.
Anyways just to get it on the record.
When the public listens to that they could see that this could be a new program, but it is a program that has been going on for two years about your distribution of housing during the last years indicated that 85 units were built in 2004-05, about $97,000 last year, 2005-06.
Last year it was approximately 20, if you were lucky you will probably build a bit more with $5 million for this year.
I just want to put that on the record. This is an ongoing program and it’s expiring with the federal contribution side. We look forward to seeing an extension, at least a new program, as you negotiate with the federal government.
We give you all our blessing and support for that.
The minister doesn’t really have to address that one.
I am just pointing those for the record.  We live in probably one of the most expensive places for building housing in all of Canada.
I know for the record that the cost of shipping is a significant part of any housing budget that the government has.
Do the minister and his staff know approximately what percentage of the cost is related to freight for housing; like public housing?
We have a benchmark of roughly $250,000 per house.
Could the minister indicate too for the record roughly what the percentage of the cost is for freight costs for delivering a house, total cost of the house?
It differs from year to year so it’s kind of hard to pinpoint as to what percentage it is.
Maybe my staff knows more about the percentage freight that he is inquiring about.
Those communities that we have agreed to make new houses are Pond Inlet, Kimmirut, Gjoa Haven, Taloyoak, Cape Dorset, Coral Harbour, Arctic Bay, Qikiqtarjuaq, Baker Lake and Rankin Inlet.
Those are the communities that will be getting new houses.
If we were lucky enough to get some funding, it would be good to do all of the communities.
I will be meeting with the Federal Minister of Housing in the month of December as to how he can make improvements.
Maybe one of my staff, the president or the vice president can elaborate more as to what percentage of it is spent on freight.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Thank you. I was wondering whether one of the staff members of the minister might be able to respond (interpretation ends) about the last part of my question related to freight costs, what percentage, roughly, is the freight cost for building units in Nunavut?
Okay, Mr. Scott, sorry.
Just to give a rough, ballpark percentage, I do have a breakdown between material and freight, but the last couple of years, has been roughly 40 percent of our total construction cost, so that is as related to material and freight.
The best guess on that is probably a little bit more than half of that amount would have been the freight component, but to get better numbers, I could get them from the office and provide them to the minister to give to the member.
So, the labour, over the last few years, constituted about 60 percent of our total construction cost, which has been a switch from five to ten years ago, when the ratio was the other way around; it used to be about 60 percent for material and freight and 40 percent for labour.
Minister, when you refer to your staff, please give me their name right away, that way I can just go direct to them.
Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Mr. Scott.
That is quite important, Mr. Minister and Mr. Scott, but I’m not fully convinced that those approximate rates are up to date or not.
I think it’s important that, if at all possible, the department do sort of a statistical evaluation of all of the costs that were incurred during the last I don’t know how many years.
The longer the better, at least five years, if we can have that stat document; it’s important for us to know where the public money is being spent.
I don’t think we should be doing it out of the sky and grab anything solid from there.
I know that the private sector does its cost analysis. I know they have a pretty good idea of where their costs are going.
They are not going to release that information now, but I think it’s important that the Housing Corporation does that because the cost of living in Nunavut is the most serious issue for consumers and people of Nunavut.
If they don’t understand the cost of delivery in the government we’re not doing the public or the consumers any good. We need those figures.
I believe the transportation is the most complicated and the most important part of the family and business relationship in Nunavut.
It’s for that reason that I’m dealing with this.  My second part leading to that is: has the Housing Corporation ever considered ways or modes to deliver or reduce the cost of shipping materials to communities for public housing?
When we talk with the federal government or when we have a meeting with the provincial government, we try to make it very clear as to the best way for delivery purposes of those.
I think it’s going to be in April and May, if we try to access some funding from the federal government. And, it’s very expensive. There was somebody that came up to try to find out how much it would be, the cheapest way to deliver, or for those housing materials, and the best way for delivery to the communities.
We tried to explain to the federal government that the best way to deliver to the Kivalliq Region, say for instance, from Manitoba, we tried to relay those messages to them.
Say for instance, if we can have Arviat as a port to deliver materials, and what would be the cheapest way to deliver materials from which province, to the Baffin Region, the Kitikmeot Region and so on.
We can find out and do a survey to find out the best way and the cheapest way to deliver materials to the communities.
One of the things that we are looking at for the 2006-07 sealift season is using containers for our bulky materials that are coming, as opposed to crating everything. A tremendous amount of cost is associated with crating all the material, and the use of containers puts a substantial reduction on some of the freight and marshalling costs of the material.
So, that’s one thing that we’re looking at. We haven’t done the complete analyses of that.
It looks good for next year. We are required to use the Government of Nunavut approved shippers and we comply with that requirement. So we don’t have a lot of flexibility on using alternate shipping routes or shippers.
Mr. Curley: Yes, I appreciate that response.
I think that’s something that could be applied right across Nunavut communities.
Although, I think when you look at the marine shipping companies throughout, most of them are container based. Obviously anything to save costs, crating is probably one of the most expensive and labour intensive kinds of ways of picking and, like nickel and diming right across the country and when you add all the costs into, that’s time consuming.
So, I appreciate Mr. Scott’s response to that and I look forward to hearing further exactly what the cost benefits analyses that they’re doing... would eventually find it’s way through the House, and I look forward to dealing with that a bit more even through the winter session.
But, I do have further question related to freight issues. Whether we like it or not, I think the Government of Nunavut plays a big part in continuing the policy of monopoly.
Maybe the minister would probably say no, they don’t support monopolies, they like competition.
No, this government continues a marine shipping monopoly. There are three zones for shipping in Baffin. Even if the dry cargo contract ends and the government re-tenders it, with the same criteria for three zones in Baffin, Fox Basin, High Arctic, and South Baffin area, even if one shipping company is the lowest bidder, they will not be given all three contracts for those areas.
So the government will issue one part of it to a shipping company and the other part to another contractor. Kivalliq is another zone that is independent of the Baffin communities.
The government buys into this monopoly, or promotes it.
We don’t have a free-market system.
Would the Minister of Housing take part in analyzing whether or not having a free-market for marine shipping would be a benefit for reducing the cost of shipping of goods and services into Nunavut communities because the bulk of the public infrastructure is handled through the Housing Corporation.
I just would like to ask the minister to see whether or not that is worth thinking about for the next five to ten years down the road.
The contract services for shipping are done by CGS, but Mr. Curley is saying that he would like the Housing Corporation to try to find out the cheapest freighting company that could provide shipping to the communities.
I think we would work with CGS to find out the cheapest freighter to freight those materials to provide the communities with the material and that is what we’ll try to do.
Mr. Curley, your time is up so if you have any further question you may raise your question after the members have completed their questions.
Thank you for letting me have the chance to ask questions.
We really appreciate the work that the Housing Corporation is doing, but the communities expect to be provided with services, especially the homeowners.
Last summer I got a telephone call from President Scott in regard to one of my constituents from Coral Harbour, who spoke to an Arviat official from the Nunavut Housing Corporation, he was expecting to have his home renovated, or upgraded.
We were very happy that that individual was able to get his house improved in Coral Harbour and he is also an older person.
So the individual was very much expecting the material for renovating his house, but whenever a ship comes in, the individual would go to see whether the material came in yet.
It is not just one person that I know of, but something happened why he did not get the material for renovating his house this summer.
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk (interpretation): Thank you. I am sorry to hear that and I apologize to the member on behalf of the member’s constituent.
Perhaps it was the people that were doing the shipping of materials.
We will assure the member that we will try our best to make sure that the material is put on board the ship, perhaps next summer.
What we would say if we were in his shoes because...I wonder why they are saying that when they don’t go through with what they promised.
There was also an individual whose house was being assessed, measurements taken of all his windows, and all the renovations that had to be done, and that individual expected his house to be renovated.
But I feel that those individuals that were expecting those kind of replacements or renovations done to their house should be given a letter of explanation of why it didn’t happen because it gets maddening. I received a telephone call and they were very upset about it.
So, they should be given a letter of apology, an explanation of what happened; why they didn’t get their houses renovated, or the material didn’t come in, and so on.
We will do that and we will make sure that these individuals will be given an explanation.
Chairman: Mr. Netser, Thank you.
Welcome to the minister and his officials back to our Committee of the Whole hearings.
Mr. Chairman, I wanted to follow up on some comments we made yesterday just to get some more information about what’s going on down south in Ottawa in terms of lobbying efforts.
Mr. Chairman, the Government of Nunavut and NTI put together the Nunavut Ten-Year Inuit Housing Action Plan. I’m just reading some stats here on some of the information; facts on Nunavut housing.
The number of households reporting the need of housing, there are 3,000, number of homes needed to keep pace with growing household formation, 273 annually.
The average cost of a new home; $250,000, and then the percentage of these homes; 20 percent, which equates to 790 of 3,638 publicly owned or maintained homes of the Housing Corporation that are now over twenty-five years old.
My question for the minister; when I read that kind of information and the authors of the 2005 Nunavut Economic Outlook say it’s a very comprehensive report, when I read those kinds of numbers, and I’m sure others read them, it gives me a real sense of a crisis in Nunavut.
When you take that information to your federal colleagues, the Prime Minister, Minister Fontana, and I don’t know who else down there, your colleagues from provinces across Canada who I’m sure support you, what do they tell you?
Do they give you a sense about what they are thinking is going on up here or are they not thinking?
As the Minister of Housing for the Government of Nunavut, I do my very best to send the message to all other jurisdictions, of course, the federal government to make sure they know this is what we are going through.
Hopefully, the FMM will have a better idea of the housing situation here in Nunavut after they see the documentary that ITK did.
So, I think it’s important that, after the FMM, that I go see the federal minister. I have talked to him a few times, he visited Nunavut this year, he visited four communities, and I got him to tour some of the old houses that are still being lived in. So, I think he’s got an idea of what we are going through.
Again, the $1.6 billion will be a big topic in FMM, and right after that, I want to make sure that I get briefed on what the decisions will be before they actually do it. Myself, as the minister, I have tried my very best to send my message. I think ITK and NTI have done a great job promoting that too, and we are certainly involving them.
We want to see the Ten-Year Housing Strategy implemented over the next 10 years.
We’re asking for $1.9 billion for a 10-year period and I think it’s even going to cost more than that in 10 years time.
Again, we’re going to make sure that we work hard and we do our very best to make sure that we send our message.
Also, we’re not the only Inuit in the jurisdictions of Canada. Quebec has certainly been on our side, so is Newfoundland and Labrador and other provinces. So, I think we’re sending our message to them, and I think after asking them, we’ll have a better idea of what we’re getting in the future and that’s not the end of it.
I think there is still a lot of work like Mr. Curley said earlier. We do our very best to make sure that we try and meet the needs of our people in Nunavut with the housing crisis that we have in every community.
So, I believe that we’re doing our very best and hopefully the federal government will open up their ears to help us out in the future. And again, a lot of Aboriginal, it’s being used again, the word Aboriginal... on the last communiqué in our meeting, we said look, let’s put Inuit in there, because most of the time we don’t qualify for Aboriginal programs that are there for other Aboriginals.
So, our message, or my message during the meeting was to make sure that they put Inuit in communiqués now so that we will be recognized under programs that will be delivered in the future.
When you have questions to L-6, ask your questions.
Mr. Chairman, the Nunavut Economic Outlook made a comment in the report. They said that the initial response to the proposal from the federal government was not positive stating that the project was too ambitious.
So, I take it that they read it.
Could you elaborate a little bit on what that statement meant? Why did the federal government say it was too ambitious when it presents a more realistic current situation that we’re living right now? This isn’t a pie in the sky dream stuff.
This is stuff that is on the ground now happening.
Why did they say it’s too ambitious? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Peterson. Minister Akesuk.
The word ambitious, the federal government never consulted with us, with the comments that they put in the Nunavut Economic Outlook.
Again, my job as the Minister for Housing is to make sure that we send our message, I send my message coming from the territory, from the standing committee, from the people that are involved in housing.
Again, that’s something that I would make sure that I mention in the next meeting with the Federal Housing Minister, to say look; I don’t think these are appropriate. I think it’s something that hopefully they’ll learn in this FMM if the documentary or the presentation about the housing situation here in Nunavut is delivered in FMM. I hope that will send the message and open their ears more widely to our concerns here in Nunavut.
I thank the minister again for that comment.
In an ITK press release, on June 14, in reaction to the government’s response, the President of ITK said: “... that Inuit as a whole suffer 54 percent overcrowding in our homes, seven times the national average.
This results in hidden homelessness that isn’t covered under regular federal funding to fight homelessness.”
I know the President of ITK is attending this First Ministers’ meeting in Kelowna this coming weekend, or this coming weekend. According to the media reports he’s taking his photographs with him.
So, hopefully that will help open a few eyes there, or hearts. Yeah, hearts, eyes, pockets. It’s an election year coming up probably as well so.
In your opening statement yesterday you stated that you were having discussions with the federal government regarding incremental funding for housing.
Are you at liberty to clarify what you meant by that, or what kind of incremental funding are you referring to?
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will get Mr. Scott to respond to that question.
The 10-Year Inuit Housing Action Plan speaks to a long term sustainable plan and what’s on the table with the federal government as everyone is aware is $1.6 billion across Canada in a two-year fund that must be spent by March of 2007.
So it doesn’t address even the front end of the 10-Year Action Plan and we are looking at any contribution that we can get even a share of the $1.6 billion as a bit of a down payment to the long term housing plan.
We did meet with Minister Fontana on the 13th of November and discussed what we would like to see out of the $1.6 billion for a national housing budget.