EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Members appreciate the minister’s commitment to provide the committee with the final results of both assessments once they are complete.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening comments on the proposed 2011-12 Capital Estimates of the Department of Education.
According to Rule 77(2), subject to the discretion of the Chair, a member may speak more than once to a matter under discussion but not until every member wishing to speak has spoken.
I would like to thank the minister and his officials for coming to the witness table today.
In your opening comments on one of your unnumbered pages, it says that you are doing condition ratings on schools throughout Nunavut and you have 13 out of 43 schools done.
When do you anticipate completing all of the school assessments?
I apologize to the member because that used to drive me nuts, not having page numbers on there. My copy has page numbers on, so I’m sorry if yours don’t and I’ll make sure that that doesn’t happen again.
Mr. Chairman, my understanding is that we have four more schools that are going to be completed with the assessment by January and hopefully by next fall, we will have all the rest of the schools completed.
Can you identify at this time which communities are complete?
Hon. Hunter Tootoo: Yes, I can, Mr. Chairman.
I just need to find the right tab.
As of today, the two schools in Pond Inlet have been assessed, two schools in Cape Dorset, three schools in Rankin Inlet, two schools in Cambridge Bay, two in Baker Lake, and two in Kugluktuk have been completed to date.
With 13 communities done, that means there are probably another 30 schools to be done and you already stated that it will probably take until late next fall before they are all completed with the assessments.
Will you be waiting until the assessment is complete before taking action on any of the conditions that need to be repaired?
No, we will take action as required, when needed, and has been identified.
Do you already have an action plan in place to deal with the conditions of the schools at the present time and, if you don’t, when will you have one?
The action plan in regard to the schools that have already been assessed, the report is being put together. We’re hoping to be able to have that complete within the next month or two.
As the next assessments are being done and brought in, they will be processed in a similar fashion.
Once the reports are received on the schools, a plan will be developed to address the problems that have been identified.
Also, Mr. Chairman, I think some of the things and why it is taking so long is because some of the problems that are being identified are being addressed on-site during the inspection.
So that’s helped too and that’s why it is taking a little longer.
With regard to the assessments that are being done and have been done on the 13 schools, are we finding any major renovation issues to the schools that have been done?
Some of the things that have been identified that they are finding in there just deal with poor maintenance and I outlined them in my opening comments.
We found filters that hadn’t been changed. I can’t remember what community it was, but in one specific school, the building maintainer, when asked by the inspector to go down to the air handling unit, didn’t even know where it was. So it was quite obvious that some of the filters looked like they hadn’t been changed in quite a number of years.
There haven’t been major issues that have been found. There have been a lot of little minor things that have been ignored over a number of years.
Some of the things also that they are still looking at, they are finding, in some cases, where there may be some minor adjustments to foundations.
Schools already had a jack up here, a jack up there to level, and keep it on the up and up, if you want to call it that. The air handling units again, you know, about the majority of them have needed to be completely cleaned and rebalanced.
Some of the heating issues; in roughly about 90 percent of the schools that they have looked at, there have been problems with that. Their doors stuck open.
There are zone valves that have been closed and other safety issues like stairs and railings that have been addressed, as I pointed out in my opening comments. So those are some of the kind of issues that have been identified and will be addressed.
On a different page of your opening comments, you stated that you have noticed a substantial increase in the cost of operating buses, anywhere from a 6 to 105 percent increase over the 2009 operating year.
Can the minister explain why there has been such an increase in the operation cost of buses?
These are all just the contracts that are in place with the individuals or businesses to offer busing services in the communities. With the cost of doing business in Nunavut now, we have seen your power and fuel rates go up and things like that.
So there are a number of factors; I couldn’t nail it down to any specific one and any particular circumstance, but it’s just a combination of a number of different issues.
All of these are with the private contractors in the communities.
So it’s the bids that we are seeing coming in that are coming in much higher than they have been in the past.
One final question: with regard to the increase in the budgets for busing contracts, would the age of the buses have anything to do with that?
Are our buses aging?
My understanding is that it’s not due to the age of the buses.
But as I indicated in my opening comments as well, the ones that we have out there, if we don’t receive any requests for additional buses, we will be looking at, on a community by community basis, addressing, hopefully proactively, some of the maintenance on these buses for enhancements or repairs on them so that they do last longer and don’t cost us more money.
I have nobody else on my list here for opening comments… oh, Mr. Okalik.
I wish to extend a welcome to the minister and his officials who are at the witness table.
Perhaps to start with the opening comments of the minister, on the first page of the comments, it states that in Repulse Bay, their school is now overcrowded due to the number of students. They are running short of space and I would like to know if this situation will be allowed to fester.
Overcrowding is not something we want to impose on any community, so I would like to know when they are planning to resolve that problem.
When do you expect a larger facility or an addition to the existing school? Is it in the short term or not?
That will be my first question since the MLA for that community is unable to attend our session today.
The school there is in fair condition, but the student enrolments and the population growth necessitate the consideration of an addition.
Right now, the school utilization is currently at 108 percent. Like I said, the capacity is 263 students and the enrolment is 285.
The department is in the beginning of the process, with the assistance of Community and Government Services, to begin community consultation this fall for the planning stages for the school addition there.
I would like to thank the minister for his response. In looking at the opening comments, it says 272 students, but he stated 285 enrolments in his response. There are more students in your response to my earlier question than what you stated in your opening comments.
Is this funding for planning for next year’s use? When do you expect to get an addition to that school to make sure that there is enough space for the students?
Also, when can you expect to complete that addition in Repulse Bay so that they will know what to expect in the future?
I believe, for the 2011-12 year, there is $1.2 million for the planning and design of the facility. We are looking at hopefully within the 2012-13 year for the construction phase.
Mr. Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the minister.
I do want to see that occur anywhere in the communities of Nunavut. We do not want to see overcrowded students because we have to protect the students so that they can complete their education.
I am finished with my questioning on the opening comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In regard to Mr. Tootoo’s opening comments, he was talking about in light of financial situations and stuff like that. We had Minister Curley before us talking about the aging infrastructure of the health centres across the territory.
It seems like you are saying the same is occurring with the infrastructure for the schools across the territory.
Is there some type of a plan in place in terms of what you will be doing to ensure that these schools can be built? There are only two that are going to be.
I know one of the top priorities in terms of Arctic Bay is a new high school since it is starting to get pretty crowded.
I know Mr. Ningeongan had been asking as well. So is there some type of a long-term plan?
There are a number of different factors that the department uses when it prioritizes projects.
Whether it is an addition or a replacement project that is necessary in any particular community, one of the things that it is based on is the utilization rates of the schools along with the enrolment rates, the age of the school, and a lot of this information.
We have that in our capital database and that information is what we use in order to prioritize what projects that get brought forward.
Now, given the perfect situation and there are all kinds of money out there to get it done, I am sure that is another restriction that we do have on there, as I had indicated in my opening comments, is working within the resources that we have available to be able to address those concerns.
We have a very stringent prioritization process.
I think, with the update that is going on with this assessment, it will also assist in updating all of our information on our schools to be able to help us continue to keep identifying where the priorities are needed and what needs to get done.
Again, the next step after that is ensuring that the fiscal resources are available to be able to move forward on that. We will do what we can with the dollars we have available.
In terms of the assessment and the assessment team, is this a contract firm that is doing this or are these actual Department of Education staff who travel to the communities to do the assessment?
This is a service that is being contracted out to the private sector and it was awarded to a firm called Indoor Air Quality and they’re based out of Ottawa.
Again, I know one of the things that the government has talked about is having the different departments work together and not work in silos.
We have been finding out that CGS has the Nunavut community integrated sustainability plans where lists of GN assets and hamlet assets are being collected. The Department of Health is doing the same thing.
Are they piggybacking on this contract to help the departments out?
Do we have Department of Education going in and figuring out what their assets are and how old they are and then we have CGS contracting other contractors to go in? Are you guys all working together? I know you can’t answer for other departments, but are you working with other departments on this or is it just strictly the Department of Education?
I think, in the old system, the light used to go off, so I used to know that it was off.
Mr. Chairman, right now, the contractor that’s out there, I believe, there was an RFP put out to do the specific assessment on the schools.
This contractor is also on a standing offer agreement with Community and Government Services.
All of the information that’s generated out of these reports is fed into the Community and Government Services database on our government assets.
That’s excellent, finally people working together. That’s great.
You guys have a database as well that you spent millions of dollars creating, and then there’s the RECAPP database that CGS is spending millions of dollars on. Are they separate databases in terms of the way you guys track your aging buildings?
Are they two separate databases? You had said that you are working together, but do they feed into the same database or are they separate databases?
I thank Mr. Elliott for that compliment. I agree with you.
It’s nice that we are now, as he pointed out, not working in silos and we are looking at becoming more effective and more efficient in working together. I think good communication between the user departments and the central department that looks after our facilities is essential.
I think what we’re finding now as a result of this assessment that’s going on is the result of some of the things of what has happened in the past is a result of that not happening.
We are moving forward and taking steps to address that.
My understanding is that our database is a rather small database. I think it was about $8,000 to set up, so it’s not in the millions.
Although we could probably use a little more to get an even better one, the one we have on the ground that costs us around $8,000 is serving our needs.
Again, that’s used to determine our own capital needs and the reports from that feed into the Community of Government Services database as well.
In terms of staff housing, one of the concerns I know of a lot of the regular members is education is very important and quality education is what keeps coming up as well.
I think we want to try and keep our teachers happy, but a lot of teachers seem to have to either double up or move into houses where they have to share accommodations with someone.
I know some of our new Inuk teachers in Arctic Bay who just finished the NTEP program wanted to move into staff housing and ran into difficulties because there were not enough staff houses allocated. Is your department working on some type of a long-term strategy to help with that?
I must say that Mr. Elliott thinks along the same lines as the representatives who are here from all across Nunavut attending the DEA annual meeting that’s going on for the coalition today. Those are some of the exact same questions that they were asking me about this morning.
The department does inform us with any new infrastructure requirements going into a community, whether it be the Department of Education, or Justice, or whatever department. When we’re in the planning stages of that, any staff housing requirements to go along with that are requested to the Nunavut Housing Corporation because it’s the corporation that looks after the staff housing.
A good example of that I could use right now is one that Mr. Rumbolt was asking about, the new school going up in Sanikiluaq. There are corresponding staff housing units going up in the community to accommodate that increase to the infrastructure in the community.
So that is something that we are working with the Nunavut Housing Corporation on.
Also, Mr. Chairman, another thing that we do is not always government owned staff housing units that are out there; there are some leased ones.
Thanks to some of the concerns, if you want to call it that, brought forward by the staff, the teachers, and the district education authorities, it has enabled the Nunavut Housing Corporation to put a little bit of pressure onto the landlords of those units to be able to properly maintain them so that they are in better shape than they have been in the past.
In terms of wiring and some of the small capital repairs you were talking about, there was talk at one time about all of the schools receiving fibre optic in terms of their computer wiring within the schools so that they would have access in all classrooms.
Has that happened and then rolled out all across Nunavut or is it slowly being phased in?
In the past, that was one of the plans that was in there, but it is not included in any of the minor capital projects that have gone in here.
Do you have another comment there, Minister Tootoo?
Just the one that I had indicated in my opening comments, I believe, is the office communications wiring in Rankin Inlet. There was $28,000 there for that.
I would like to ask a question regarding Gjoa Haven and the Qiqirtaq High School.
It says here that there is $1.5 million that will be used for studies to see if it is safe and to see what should be done.
The study will be done in 2011-12.
Thanks, Jeannie, for the question.
We are looking at having the studies done in 2011-12 and we are roughly having about $1.5 million set aside for the fiscal year 2011-12 to take care of any health and safety issues that are identified as a result of the assessment.
Ms. Ugyuk (interpretation): If I understood correctly, the issues that are causing the problems should be dealt with prior to the new fiscal year. I believe that it might be better to do that prior to the year-end.
I apologize if I missed a part of it. The rest of that project and renovation are planned for… right now, they were bumped back a year from 2011-12 to the 2012-13 fiscal year to be done.
I have no more names on my list here.
We will now proceed to the page-by-page review of the departmental estimate starting with page E-3. Education. Branch Summary.
Capital Expenditures. Total Capital Expenditures. $10,152,000.
Details are on page E-4.
I just have a quick question for the hon. minister.
Only two new schools are included in your department’s five-year plan.
Have any other communities been identified as potential candidates for a new school and, if so, which ones?
Within the five-year plan, we are looking at either renovations or additions, or new schools in… I’m sorry.
The print is really small here. I think I need to borrow your glasses, Mr. Chairman.
Arviat has some planning dollars in 2012-13; Arviat, Igloolik, Gjoa Haven, and Baker Lake.
I am pleased to hear that Baker Lake has been identified in the five-year plan.
Is there any specific date as to when they might start processing the Baker Lake school and would that be the middle school?
First, I want to apologize. I forgot to mention Coral Harbour as well on that other list just previously, but that is on the list too.
Right now, the planning stages are for a new middle school in Baker Lake. We are looking at it being planned in the 2013-14 fiscal year.
I have one very quick question.
With regard to the new school in Sanikiluaq, is it being built on budget or can we expect some cost overruns?
From the information that we have been provided by Community and Government Services that we are looking at right now, it will come in on budget.
Mr. Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) I want to check on the status of the renovations of the Inuksuk High School here. I see that there is money set aside this year and I would like to know when it might be completed. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We are looking at having it completed in 2012-13.
As I indicated in my opening comments, this year, they had renovations to the orange section, installation of a new chair lift for special needs students and staff, there are new entrance doors, a special needs washroom has been installed, and there has been new communications wiring.
For next year, what’s going to be completed in there is there will be room-by-room renovation upgrades, including painting in the classrooms, hallways, stairwells, with floorings in the classrooms and hallways, and some new counters and sinks in all of the classrooms.
I don’t have anybody else who have any questions.
Mr. Ningeongan?
Mr. Ningeongan: Thank you, Mr. Schell?
(interpretation) I just wanted to get this clarified with respect to which fiscal year the project for Coral Harbour has been placed. I would like to understand to which fiscal year it has been deferred to.
As it is stated right now in the capital plan, we are going to have the planning dollars for the 2014-15 fiscal year.
Mr. Ningeongan, you’re done?
Anybody else got any questions?
If not, we will go back to page E-2.
Oh, sorry, we’ve got to approve this first. Education. Branch Summary.
Capital Expenditures. Total Capital Expenditures. $10,152,000. Agreed?
Chairman: Now we will go back to page E-2. Department Summary.
Education. Detail of Expenditures.
Capital Expenditures. Total Capital Expenditures. $10,152,000. Do you agree?
Chairman: Does the committee agree that we have concluded the Department of Education?
Chairman: I would like to thank the minister and his officials. Does the minister have any closing comments?
I appreciate the questions that the members brought forward. Also, as the Chairman pointed out in his opening comments, I am committed to providing information to the standing committee and to the Regular Members of the House.
Any updates or any changes with projects and timelines, as well as any of the minor capital stuff, any projects that get approved, as we committed, we would be providing and we will provide quarterly reports on that so that all members are kept up to date as to exactly what kind of things the department is doing with those minor capital projects so that they can see exactly what’s happening and where and why those things are happening.
Also, we will commit to providing members with updates as these assessments that are going on right now are being completed and update information to all members as we move forward.
Again, thank you very much for your time and for your comments and questions, and I look forward to doing this again, hopefully.
Thank you for showing up here and your officials showing up at the Committee of the Whole.
Will the Sergeant-at-Arms please escort the minister and witness out.
Chairman (Mr. Ningeongan) (interpretation): Thank you. We will now proceed. I would like to ask Minister Tapardjuk, Minister of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, to make his opening comments.
Bill 38 – Appropriation (Capital) Act, 2011-2012 – Culture, Language, Elders and Youth – Consideration in Committee
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Committee of the Whole.
The Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth capital budget for 2011-12 consists of two capital items in the amount of $60,000 for minor office renovations and $7 million for the Nunavut Heritage Centre.
The Vote 2 Minor Capital budget in the amount of $60,000 will help the department renovate its offices in Baker Lake, Igloolik, Kugluktuk, and Iqaluit as needed and purchase additional office equipment and furniture.
The $7 million for the Nunavut Heritage Centre will be used for the project design for the complex facility, and I’m sure that’s not going to be an easy task.
The design phase may take between 12 and 18 months to complete. The estimated cost for the design phase of the Nunavut Heritage Centre is between $8 million and $9 million.
When design information becomes available for the facility, CLEY proposes to initiate discussions with senior federal officials concerning opportunities for a significant federal contribution to the construction of the centre.
I would be pleased to answer any questions from the committee, Mr. Chairman.
Sergeant-at-Arms, could you escort the witnesses in.
On my right is my Deputy Minister, Simon Awa, for the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth.
I am very pleased to introduce the new member. The Department of CLEY had been without a deputy minister for almost a year as our deputy minister was suddenly feeling ill and has not been replaced since.
I am very pleased that we now have the new Deputy Minister of CLEY.
To my left is our Manager of Finance and Administration, Niki Nweze.
Those are my witnesses from CLEY.
Mr. Aupaluktuq (interpretation): Yes I do.
I am very pleased to see Louis Tapardjuk, Simon Awa, and Ms. Nweze, and I do apologize if I didn’t say your name correctly.
The Standing Committee on Social Wellness has reviewed the proposed capital estimates of the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth for the 2011-12 fiscal year, and I am pleased to provide you with the committee’s comments.
Committee members note that the department’s proposed capital budget for 2011-12 is $7,060,000, of which $7.0 million is allocated for the Nunavut Heritage Centre project and $60,000 is budgeted for minor capital projects.
Members note that these proposed amounts are exactly the same as in the department’s approved 2010-11 capital estimates.