EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Ms. Ugyuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) The government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities indicates that your department awarded a $454,000 contract to a company to provide pharmacy and inventory management services in the Kitikmeot region in 2009-2010.
In March of 2011, you indicated that your department would be changing the way pharmaceutical services would be delivered in the territory.
Do you anticipate lower costs for pharmaceutical services in the future and how will you ensure that current fiscal year costs for the Kitikmeot region will be less than the amount reflected in this contract for 2009-2010?
That’s contract 1758.
Hon. Tagak Curley: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I can be provided with… .
Did you reference the contract number or not?
If she would repeat it again, please, the contract number that she referred to.
Ms. Ugyuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) The contract number is C1758.
I’m going to have the deputy respond to that.
Mr. Ma: Mr. Chairman, just bear with me.
I’m just trying to find 1758.
From what I can tell, the contract to this particular vendor, in terms of the member’s question, should be reduced as we go forward.
I think that was the gist of her question, if I recall.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Ma. Ms. Ugyuk.
Ms. Ugyuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) Annually, how much do pharmaceutical services across Nunavut cost the government and do you anticipate achieving any cost savings with the proposed new method of service delivery?
Hon. Tagak Curley: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll have my deputy respond to that.
Bear with us, Mr. Ma is also new as a deputy minister in that department. I’ll have him respond to that.
The minister is quite correct; I’m not as crisp as I normally would be. I’m still learning about my portfolio. I would normally throw the numbers right off the top of my head.
Somehow, in the back of my mind, I think the number is around $2 million, but let me confirm that. We will undertake to provide that information to the member.
If it’s around $2 million across Nunavut, how much do you anticipate the cost savings?
We will provide that in more detail.
I know the hon. member should be aware that each contract, with the exception from the day that the contracts were issued to the regions during the period, expired.
Once they have expired, there have been some improvements with the pharmacy management services for that region.
As a result, there have been significant improvements due to the fact that some of the requirements were reduced with Kitikmeot and also Kivalliq. In the Baffin region, we do know that the local pharmacy, as of this spring, I believe, had opted out in providing some of the services that are provided to the Kitikmeot and Kivalliq.
So each region is slightly different and therefore, the amounts have significantly reduced, but we will actually provide the details to you before the session is over.
The government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities indicates that your department awarded a $474,000 contract to a company for an “Integrated Electronic Health Record (EHR)” and an additional $258,000 to the same company for a “Nunavut Interim EHR Privacy Lead and Support.”
At what stage is the electronic health system and when will it be fully implemented across Nunavut?
We will have Debora Voth respond to that.
Currently, the electronic health record is implemented in Iqaluit and in Cambridge Bay.
We anticipate that it would be rolled out in Rankin Inlet in the fall.
After Rankin Inlet is online and Pangnirtung in the fall as well, after they are both online, we intend to bring online two communities at a time. Our rollout will follow CGS as they implement the LAN-WAN in particular communities across Nunavut.
We will follow them and implement the eHealth record system.
Is it my understanding that if all regional and Pangnirtung are finished, there will be two additional add-ons from each region or the whole of Nunavut?
To start with the implementation, we are implementing in the regional hubs, and then after that we will be going out into the communities to implement at the health centres. After the regional hubs are all online, which would be the fall, then we will start to implement in the smaller communities, following the LAN-WAN project of CGS.
I’m having difficulty comprehending fully. (interpretation ends) After the regional and Pangnirtung start or finish, you’re adding two communities from Nunavut at a time, or is it three regions two at a time?
Ms. Voth.  Ms. Voth: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is two communities across Nunavut at a time.
The government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities indicates that your department awarded a $116,175 sole source contract in 2009-2010 to an individual to act as a budget management financial consultant. What specific services did this individual provide and why couldn’t your department’s own employees do this work? It’s contract C226.
Hon. Tagak Curley: Mr. Chairman, Ms. Voth will respond to that.
The budget analyst that was hired under that contract is working at the hospital facility in the medical affairs office. She manages the financial portfolio for the physician services, which is substantial. I believe the budget for physician services right now is about $17 million.
I know that Mr. Sandy MacDonald, our Director of Medical Affairs, is working on job descriptions and working with Human Resources to staff that position indeterminately.
The government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities indicates that your department awarded a $110,000 sole source contract to an individual for a Nunavut Oral Health Strategy. Will you commit to tabling this strategy in the Legislative Assembly? That’s contract C224.
Yes, we’re working on that.
We will table that report once the strategy is completed.
The government’s 2007-08 annual report on procurement activities indicated that your department awarded over $3.4 million in contracts for agency nurses. However, neither the government’s 2008-09 annual report nor the 2009-2010 annual report contain any information on expenditures for agency nurses. Did your department spend any money on agency nurses in 2009-2010 and, if so, how much did it spend?
The deputy minister will respond to that.
I’m just trying to find the right page in the report that was tabled by the Department of Community and Government Services.
I believe, in the reporting for the current report, they exempted that out. I just want to make sure that I’m not actually wrong; I may actually be wrong.
So I stand corrected by Ms. Voth. I was actually making reference to the procurement activity report on page 6, but I was wrong.
With respect to agency nurses, it’s likely the length of the contracts. So depending on the length of a contract, it would be reported in a particular year.
As I recall, we have actually issued another request for proposals for standing offer agreements with agency nurses in the current year, so that’s probably the reason why you don’t see it, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Ma. Mr. Schell.
How much is the government currently spending on agency nurses and how does it award these contracts?
Debora will respond to that.
We are still wrapping up year-end for 2009-2010. However, it appears that the cost for agency nurses will be in the order of about $5 million.
How did we award this?
We went out for a standing offer agreement for agency nurses, we actually quoted the rates that we were willing to pay, and we received I believe it was six responses. So now we can choose from six different agencies where we would like to pull those nurses from.
We have one standard rate that we pay. I shouldn’t say one standard rate. It all depends on what kind of nurse that we’re ordering up, which community they’re working in, but we have set standard rates that we pay, so it does not matter which agency that we hire from.
The government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities indicates that your department awarded a $261,800 contract in 2009-2010 to a company for tobacco reduction training.
What did this project achieve and why can’t your department perform this kind of work itself?
That’s contract C1703.
As most members know, the department is working on a tobacco cessation strategy or framework.
That contract would likely be related to that work. I know that there were different promotional materials that were developed. I actually don’t have the details of that contract in front of me, but I suspect that’s what it’s for and we can certainly confirm subsequent to this appearance to the member.
Will you commit to tabling a copy of the department’s tobacco use reduction strategy in the Legislative Assembly?
Once the strategy is brought to my table, certainly we will share it with the cabinet as well. Once these processes are done, we will be happy to table the strategy in the House.
Mr. Schell, one more?
In reviewing the government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities, it has been noted that over $2,735,000 in contracts for the Department of Health and Social Services were sole source emergency contracts. What factors lead to this type of contract?
Ms. Voth will respond to that.
This type of activity will mainly happen in the Mental Health Program, where we have to repatriate a client out for services on an emergent basis. We do have relationships with facilities in the south where we can very quickly move somebody down for treatment where they’re not going to do harm to themselves or anyone else within their family. We send them out as quickly as we can and then we negotiate the contract after the client is actually at the facility.
So that would be an example of an urgent basis.
I have Ms. Ugyuk.
The government’s most recent annual report on procurement activities in 2009-2010 indicates that your department awarded over $5 million in residential care contracts, not including psychiatric or substance abuse treatment contracts, and over $12 million in specialized care contracts.
What specific steps are being taken to reduce the dependency on out-of-territory contractors to provide residential or specialized care services for Nunavut residents?
I think the member should know that we are pretty well dependent on facilities down south for the kinds of illnesses that Nunavutmiut cannot be treated in Nunavut.
Therefore, that accounts for a whole number of contracts for residential, but I’ll have the deputy minister add further to that.
As the minister indicated, this area is largely dependent on patients or our clients.
He also made mention of this in terms of his opening comments, but this is an area we’re actually looking at seriously at this particular point in time. Just by way of background, the annual budget for this is in the $20 million plus range, so obviously we need to pay attention to it and I think we are starting to pay attention to it.
We are looking at a number of different ways to provide the service.
At this point, I’m a little bit reluctant to get into too much detail, so I’m going to kind of just talk generally with respect to the question.
Because of the dollar amount, we are looking at opportunities, perhaps, to review the level of service these clients get.
So if they’re getting a higher level of service but they no longer need that, we will reduce that level so the costs would come down.
We’re also looking at ways to perhaps consolidate where the patients are because generally these contracts are spread throughout Canada and there are a number of main providers.
We would like to move towards maybe just having three or four, let’s say. Because of the unfortunate number of people who are down there receiving this care, we’re also looking to negotiate, if you will, a bulk rate.
The minister mentioned as well some of the standing offer agreements that we have done recently with agency nurses and other contracts to reduce sole source contracts.
So again this is another area that we’re looking at.
So I would hope that later this year, the minister could provide more of an update, but those are some of the things that we’re looking at right now at this point in time.
Ms. Ugyuk: How does the department evaluate the performance of the service providers?
The deputy minister will respond to that one.
Again, in my previous answer, I somewhat alluded to this. Like I said, because of the number of contracts and the dollar values involved, we’re seriously looking at whether we’re getting value for money, if you will, from our providers and that is certainly one of the areas that we’re looking at.
We want to make sure that what we have contracted these providers to do for us, they are actually doing that and that we’re getting good value for money.
I don’t know what to call it at this point, but we’re developing rating criteria, if you will, and we have plans to visit some of these homes to ensure that what we have contracted for is actually what we’re receiving.
To what extent has the opening of the new continuing care facilities in Gjoa Haven and Igloolik reduced departmental costs in this area?
At this point in time, it’s not that significant yet. We are working on it and I’ll explain why.
Obviously there’s a limited capacity in terms of the number of patients that we can actually take in both homes in Gjoa Haven and Igloolik.
I think the minister has stated in the House as well that in Igloolik, we’re having some difficulties in terms of recruitment, although we are in the process of recruitment.
So even if we’re staffed up, I think the number of patients that we can take in each one of these facilities is nine or ten people. So that’s just a small drop in the bucket, unfortunately, in terms of the number people that we have that are receiving these types of services. I’ll leave it at that.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Ma. Mr. Aupaluktuq.
Looking at your Lease Activity Report 2009-2010 on page 10 in regard to the Kivalliq Medical Boarding Home, it shows that the expiration date would be March 31, 2023 and the annual value that is shown in the lease activity report is $814,517.04.
At the end of the 20-year lease period, the government will have paid $16,426,509.
Will the government own this facility at the end of the lease period and, if not, will it need to renew the lease for a further 20 years?
Hon. Tagak Curley: Yes, Mr. Chairman, we need a bit more help with that.
If you have any reference to the number, it would help us out.
We have over 428 contracts, and if you do have the contract number and page number, it would help us be able to respond to it.
So maybe he could provide clarification for that.
As noted earlier, it was on page 10 of the lease activity report and the reference number is B62.
The lease number is LS-600-0001, which would be on page 10 of the lease activity report, the second last from the bottom, Mr. Chairman.
I believe that refers to what we normally know as the Kivalliq Boarding Home in Winnipeg, but Debora Voth will explain the details of that.
This contract is for the Winnipeg boarding home and it is funded by the NIHB program, so by our partners in Health Canada.
At the end of the contract, no, we will not own the building.
I do have one more on behalf of a colleague here in the Kivalliq that I would like to ask as well. In the procurement activities, the department awarded over $1 million for two contracts to the Municipality of Rankin Inlet.
Mr. Chairman, those are contract numbers C1770 and C1760.
These two projects include “Support Services for Disabled Services” and a “Support Independent Living Program.”
What services were provided under these contracts?
I’ll leave it at that and then I’ll follow up with another question, Mr. Chairman.
Hon. Tagak Curley: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the question.
I believe Mr. Peter Ma will be prepared to respond to that one.
I’m just looking at one of the contracts.
This particular contract was to provide support to individuals with disabilities. There are a number of objectives that we had with respect to this. Some of them were to work with individuals to prepare them to enter the workforce and provide ongoing support to these individuals who live in the community.
That’s one of the notes I found.
If you give me a few seconds, I can try to find the other one as well, as there were two separate contracts, Mr. Chairman.
Just for clarification, the two contracts were C1770 and 1760.
My other follow-up question, Mr. Chairman, is: are there any other municipalities in Nunavut being considered for similar contracts to provide disabled services or independent living services?
Right off the top of my head, I’m not sure, but Chesterfield Inlet may have some disabled individuals over there.
I’m not sure what the private company is, but I think that’s mainly the two that I do know, besides the children’s facility at Rankin Inlet.
Do members agree that we have concluded with the Department of Health and Social Services?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) Do you have closing remarks, Minister Curley?
Hon. Tagak Curley: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes. (interpretation) I wanted to thank the members. (interpretation ends) I know that these are very huge expenditures.
You only scratched the surface of the whole amount of the contracts that we do provide, but I can assure the members that we are making progress. We’re reducing the number of contracts. There has been a significant amount over the past fiscal years and we’re going to continue to monitor them.
We will surely be ready to respond to further Committee of the Whole hearings if we are once again requested. (interpretation) So I would just like to thank you all.
I also thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman: Thank you, Minister Curley and your officials. (interpretation) Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses out.
Thank you. (interpretation ends) I would now like to ask the Minister responsible for Finance to make his opening remarks.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
The Department of Finance, in the conduct of its business, does not issue a significant number of contracts nor are the overall dollar values significant.
For 2009-2010, the value of contracts issued by the Department of Finance accounted for 2 percent of the overall government total.
With respect to the number of contracts issued, the Department of Finance comprised 4 percent of the overall government total.
Of the 69 contracts issued in 2009-2010, 34, or 61 percent, of the contracts were for the government’s annual insurance premiums and the purchase of liquor products through the Nunavut Liquor Commission.
These two activities accounted for $1,957,985.96, or 40 percent, of the $4,865,651.75 issued in contracts by the department.
Other contracts issued by the department were to support the government’s initiative on strengthening financial management, the Liquor Task Force, and the preparation of the public accounts.
I would be pleased to answer questions from the members of the committee.
Hon. Keith Peterson: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do. Thank you.
To my right is Chris D’Arcy, Deputy Minister of Finance. To my left is Jeff Chown, Comptroller General.
Welcome to your officials as well.
We can now move on to questions pertaining to the Minister of Finance.
This is in response to the opening comments by the Hon. Minister of the Department of Justice. As well, welcome to the witness stand as well as your officials. He mentioned the liquor task force.
Mr. Chairman, if I may, I just want to quickly ask how many communities have been visited and how many more plan to be visited.
I don’t have the precise details, but I think approximately 13 or 14 have been visited. Six were planned to be visited, but due to weather, they had to reschedule. So I would say that about 11 communities remain to be visited, including the ones where the travel was cancelled.
Again I would like to remind members that I would appreciate if your questions are related to the tabled documents that are before us.
Thank you for allowing me to ask that.
I just wanted an update on there.
My question is on page 50 of the procurement activity report regarding contract C233.
The department awarded a $147,950 contract to the Northern Learning Institute to undertake an evaluation of the implementation of the Family Abuse Intervention Act.
The Northern Learning Institute is a subsidiary of the Nunasi Corporation.
The company’s report was recently tabled in the Legislative Assembly.
My question, Mr. Chairman, is: as of today, how many of the report’s recommendations have actually been implemented by your department?
Mr. Chairman, that contract was issued under the Department of Justice, not the Department of Finance.
Chairman: Thank you, Minister Peterson, for the clarification.
Mr. Aupaluktuq: I just want to clarify as well that he did answer the question, I believe. If the member for the appropriate department is willing to respond, I would like a response, but if not, I would like to continue on later in the House with further questions.
I do not have any more names listed.
Do members agree that we have concluded with the Department of Finance?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) Minister Peterson, do you have closing remarks?
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the members for their scrutiny of our contracts not only for the Department of Finance but for the government.
As I stressed before, accountability and transparency is welcome.
I recall, as a rookie MLA in the Second Assembly, we weren’t getting these kinds of documents.
So we’re very pleased that we’re able to present these documents to you and have questions.
Chairman: Thank you, Minister Peterson. (interpretation) Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses out.
I would now like to ask Minister Peterson, responsible for the Department of Justice, if you have opening remarks.
Good afternoon again, members of the committee and Chairman.
Contracts issued by the Department of Justice for 2009-2010 total $29.2 million. $26.6 million of this amount was to award the construction contract with NDL Construction Limited to build the new Rankin Inlet Correctional Facility.
With the exception of this large capital contract, the Department of Justice only issued a further $2.6 million in contracts during the fiscal year.
The remaining contracts were awarded mainly for court circuit airline travel, software/systems related requirements for the Courts Division, and correctional facilities supplies, services, and training.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the minister’s officials in.
To my right is Janet Slaughter, Deputy Minister of the Department of Justice, and to my left is Christine Bens, Director of Corporate Services for the Department of Justice.
Welcome to your officials.
Questions from members.
In 2009-2010, your department awarded a $147,950 contract to the (interpretation ends) Northern Learning Institute (contract C233). (interpretation) I would first like to know how they were awarded the contract and what the term of the contract was.
Was it based on the lowest bid or was it based on their legal expertise?
I would like to know how the contract was awarded, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I believe it was issued through an RFP through the Department of Community and Government Services.
Mr. Tapardjuk (interpretation): The person I would have directed this question to isn’t here.
What I wanted to know was: prior to the contract being issued, is the selection based on the best proposal or the lowest bid?
This is especially when the review is going to be comprehensive and I wanted to get an answer, but that person isn’t present. Mr. Chairman, can I ask if we can request an answer later on?
The question is: were they selected for the contract due to their being the most qualified or because of their low bid?
Further, there are a number of recommendations listed in the report.
How are the recommendations being addressed by the Department of Justice?
Mr. Chairman, I don’t have the details of how that was awarded. It was through an RFP process, so presumably it was open and public. I can get the specific details of how it was awarded.