EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I gave him a wide open pass right in front of the net, but he kind of just let it go between his feet and his stick like he was just a statue sitting there.
So I am sorry, Mr. Quirke, that he’s a true Montreal type player and I was very disappointed in him at that time.
Anyway, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody and congratulate everyone for a job well done, fun was had, and funds raised for a good cause.
Member's Statement 076 – 2(2): Thank the Elders and Pages
Today I just want to say hello to Qamukkaq, the old lady and especially all the elders in Taloyoak and Gjoa Haven.
It’s stormy here.
So, I think it’s very nice weather in the Kitikmeot right now.
Also, the two pages that were here from Taloyoak, they are home now with the help of Johnny Quttuq.
I would also like to say thank you to those two pages that they were here.
I will be going home in December after the session is over.
I’ll also, I would like to say and smile at my parents.
Back to orders of the day, Item 4.
We have 60 minutes for question period.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent to go back to Item 5 on the agenda.
Speaker (interpretation): The member is seeking unanimous consent to go back to Item number 5 in our orders of the day.
Return to Item 5: Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
I was busy reading and I didn’t hear the switch, but I would like to take this opportunity to welcome to the gallery a former Sergeant-at-arms from Pangnirtung here.
I’m sure he’s enjoying coming here watching our current Sergeant-at-arms work and having fond memories of the times when he was the Sergeant-at-arms.
I would like to recognize this individual behind me, Janet Issigaittuq.
She is my CA in Iglulik.
She is here this week to work during the session and to get a bit of orientation during the session.
So, therefore I would like to notice Janet Issigaituq from Iglulik, my Constituency Assistant.
I don’t see any more hands.
Going back to Orders of the day, Item 6, Oral Questions.
Just to remind you, we have 60 minutes of oral questions.
Question 102 – 2(2): Clarification of Newspaper Article
Mr. Speaker, my question today is not for the Minister of Energy.
I think he ran out of energy on the ice last night so, I’ll take it easy on him today.
He didn’t bring his energizer rabbit ears to go on his helmet last night so that might have been what happened because he wasn’t running on all generators.
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister Responsible for the Department of Human Resources.
On November 19, the Friday before last, I tabled an article from the news paper.
I have one question to start off with the minister and I will quote from the article, which is a quote from a letter that was sent to the individual in bold and it says that “...we are a representative of government and have an obligation to hire on the basis of fairness and equity, and if the community feels, however inaccurate, this process is not fair, then we are obliged to ensure fairness and equity.”
I guess my question for the minister, if I could ask him if he could explain exactly what that means to the Members of the House and the people that are listening out there.
Speaker (interpretation): Minister responsible for Human Resources.
I know that this issue involves one individual, so therefore I can’t discuss this matter in regards to his question, so therefore I can’t respond to his question because I don’t have the information in front of me, but I can say that once I have the information, I will be able to respond to you by correspondence.
I know I am not talking about one single individual, I mean that is how I tabled the document over a week ago to make sure that the information should be readily available in anticipation of questions of tabled documents.
So, my question for the minister is this: if we go by what is said in here, I would just like to ask him if in the community, say here for example, if let’s say the Minister of Education hired someone that people in the community didn’t think it was fair, how many people and who would they have to tell if they didn’t think that it was a fair process for them to act on it?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): In regards to the member’s question as I have stated before, that I don’t have the information readily available in front of me.
So therefore, I can’t respond to his question.
Maybe while he is getting the information, I don’t know how much longer he needs to get the information, but hopefully his staff with human resources could explain if that is in fact the policy of this government, if the community doesn’t feel it’s fair, or they have the right to terminate someone’s employment.
That’s what I am asking, is that policy of this government?
As I have stated before, I will respond exactly the same way because I don’t have any information with me right now.
Once I have the correspondence information, I will provide the information to the members.
Question 103 – 2(2): Tabling of P-3 Project Issues
My question is for the Minister of Finance and it concerns private-public partnerships in the government capital planning process.
Private-public partnerships are increasingly being recognized as one method for government and the private sector to develop large projects across Canada.
The question for the minister: has the Financial Management Board further reviewed P-3 issues with respect to Government of Nunavut capital planning?
If so, will she reveal to the House and the public what the board’s thinking is on this?
There have been some reviews conducted on that P-3, private-public partnership, I believe it is called P-3.
Anyway, I don’t have the information readily available in front of me, but I would be prepared to provide the House with the information on the actual review of that policy.
In Arviat the Minister made a presentation to full caucus on the capital planning process.
In the section on departmental allocation, allocations, the Minister’s presentation made the following statement; quote, special projects such as a new health care facility and court house are outside the normal capital planning process.
Financial Management Board has approved funding for them which is separate from the targets.
I’m wondering Mr. Speaker, a question for the Minister, could she outline what process the Financial Management Board used to approve funding for these projects.
At the full caucus meeting or any full caucus meeting that have discussions and a lot of those are information that are discussed remain within those walls the discussion of full caucus.
In terms of what I presented at the full caucus retreat, I don’t have that information here in front of me.
What we do have in terms of arrangement, under the P3 arrangement within government, when we have capital projects or any projects, we try to deal with the arrangements that are most viable for the Government of Nunavut in terms of finances and what the best arrangements are.
We review projects on a project by project basis and proceed and having said that, I want to reiterate that information that we share in full caucus or regular caucus or regular caucus meetings is in camera and I’m not prepared to discuss those in the house today.
I apologize to the Minister if I’ve breached confidentiality.
In February 2000, Nunatsiaq News did a story on P3’s entitled, “Decisions looming on whether P3 hospitals live or die”.
The former Minister of Finance is quoted as saying, “...policies and procedures study commissioned by the Financial Management Board in May 1999 to guide the Nunavut Government through the development of the award in management of P3 projects is virtually complete”.
My question for the Minister, can the Minister tell the house if the policies and procedures study on P3’s is complete and whether she’ll table it in the house for the members.
I didn’t read the article in Nunatsiaq News.
I don’t know what the former Minister of Finance had stated to Nunatsiaq News.
However, what I can say and within the government is that we have done a review on the P3 arrangements and I also believe we have policy and I said in my earlier response that I am prepared to share that information with the House, but I don’t have it in front of me today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Final supplementary, Mr. Peterson.
Thank you to the minister for her answer.
We have, just on municipal infrastructure alone, we have a $300 to 350 million deficit. Then there is the infrastructure for economic development for roads and ports.
We’ll probably need $2 or $3 hundred million.
Our capital planning process, on an annual basis doesn’t even begin to tackle that issue.
It seems to me that P3’s would be an important way for the Government of Nunavut to consider raising finances and helping us with our economic development municipal infrastructure issues in Nunavut, particularly if we’re going to develop our economy in years.
Going forward as a stated priority of the government, I’m wondering if the minister could tell us if the Financial Management Board in cabinet is actively and seriously considering the development of a P3 policy to guide the Government of Nunavut in the coming years.
A couple of things.
In terms of trying to continue to seek funding for the Government of Nunavut to address our shortfalls in not only capital projects, but also in trying to continue to deliver programs to Nunavumiut through our programs of operations and maintenance.
I think we’ve done, and we continue to do that, and I provided a fiscal update to the House where we were able to get an additional $1.9 million, $2 million and a 3.5 beyond that, plus some funding through the Economic Development Forum as well as through Health.
So yes, we do continue to try and address the shortfalls we have in our infrastructure and in our budgets.
That will be an ongoing effort as stated in the past.
I mentioned again in my first response that we do have a P3 policy, and I am prepared to table that information in the House.
It has been reviewed in the past and I also want to say that wherever possible, we try and go around the pursuit of P3 arrangements.
But, it also has to be financially viable to us, as we all know in this House, we have a shortage of funding to address all the needs of Nunavumiut, as it relates to program delivery and the development of infrastructure.
Question 104 – 2(2): Wildlife Officer for Sanikiluaq
I would like to ask the Minister for Environment.
I think that it was in September that we talked about the wildlife officer in Sanikiluaq, but he has since left.
I just wondered what he will be doing in regards to the HTA in Sanikiluaq, and what he is going to do with the wildlife officer position for Sanikiluaq?
I would like to thank the member for asking me that question.
We would like to have wildlife officer positions in each community filled.
What we are doing is we are in the process of hiring the individual wildlife officer for Sanikiluaq, but we are having problems with staff housing for that individual.
So, we are getting an Inuk wildlife officer in the job offer.
Mr. Kattuk (interpretation): The staff housing, as I understand, there are three vacant houses in Sanikiluaq at present.
I was told that sometime in November that the wildlife officer would be available to start his job in Sanikiluaq.
I just wondered whether that job advertisement has been advertised in the paper.
I said that this month there would be a wildlife officer in Sanikiluaq.
It takes a little while for us to hire wildlife officers and I will let the member know exactly what stage we are at in doing our hiring.
There are also some other communities that are without the wildlife officers.
I just wanted to assure the member that we should be able to hire the wildlife officer as soon as there is housing available for that individual.
Mr. Kattuk (interpretation): This is just a comment, Mr. Speaker. There are a lot of residents in the community that do not have any employment.
I would like to make sure that there are people being hired from the communities because there is going to be the grading of sealskins and other fur bearing products.
This is just a comment for the members.
Question 105 – 2(2): Washroom Facilities on Airline Flights Over Two Hours
I would like to ask a question to the Minister of Transportation.
It is in regards to the airlines in the Kivalliq region.
When an airline flies for over two hours, we heard that they have to have a washroom on the airline, and I asked a question before, so I just wondered what stage they are at right now.
A lot of people don’t like the Kivalliq airline because it is being used for medical patients and it’s an inconvenience to the elderly people because they have to fly for a long time.
That’s a question to the Minister of Transportation.
Speaker (interpretation): Minister of Transportation.
I will look into the question of the member and I will respond in the near future.
Question 106 – 2(2): Billing by Nunavut Power Corporation
I guess I will have to go back on what I said earlier and ask the Minister responsible for Energy a question.
I guess a week an a half from now is not enough time to get some other people ready for something like that or other issues.
So I guess you will have to go back to poor Mr. Picco.
My question for the Minister of Energy is in the past year, the power corporation has, as you had indicated, switched over to a new billing system and at the time of switching, there were a number of people that raised concerns about their bills going up.
In fact, the prices have gone up, but it turns out, during that transition, the corporation realized that they were taking $18 off for peoples’ bills.
They were subsidizing it for $18, that’s a base charge or whatever, that they weren’t supposed to be doing that.
A few people complained about it and I understand that the minister of the power corporation decided to continue not collecting that money that they should have been collecting.
I would just like to ask the minister, how much has the corporation failed to collect through that process over the last number of years?
Speaker (interpretation): Minister responsible for the power corporation.
The member is referring to a correction of commercialized accounts billing error that was picked up by the Auditor General of Canada.
Over the last several weeks in this House, we have heard members saying we have to be cognizant and follow the Auditor General for Canada’s recommendations.
The power corporation is doing just that, and they are trying to recoup the amounts of money that the Auditor General says that was under-billed by the corporation.
As the member has pointed out, that it was reflecting the $40 monthly charge, which was omitted from the bill on commercial accounts.
So it’s a commercial account adjustment.
I do have the numbers with me.
I will go back to 2001 and 2002, there was $1,300,000.
To the following, the corporation picked up the slack and indeed, for 2002 and 2003, the corporation actually had to do a refund to the customer based at $532,000 for 2004 and 2005, that the member is talking about there was an under-billing of $362,000 again with the commercial customers and again, it was a number that was picked up by the Auditor General for Canada and that’s why we are trying correct it.
Again, as the members have said, to follow the recommendation of the Auditor General and the Auditor General’s recommendation is to pick up those outstanding balances and that’s the corporation’s intent.
I would like to thank the minister for answering Mr. Peterson’s question of the other day.
But my question has nothing to do with the commercial rates.
This was the residential base charge of $18 that when they switched over systems they realized that they were subsidizing that and should not be.
After some questions were raised, the corporation or someone decided to continue with the practise of not collecting that and keep subsidizing it, even though they shouldn’t be doing it.
That’s what I’m looking at finding out.
Maybe the minister could explain why that happened and if he knows how much money has been subsidized that shouldn’t have been.
Mr. Speaker, to clarify, he’s speaking about the domestic commercial rates, which is the base charge of $18.
He talked about the residential rate or is he talking about the non-government amount rate.
There are about 8 different rate adjustments and bases that are put on the bill, so could the member clarify.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t know if the minister was not paying attention earlier.
I said it was an $18 charge, an $18 base charge that appears on my power bill as a resident.
I don’t know whose other power bills it shows up on, but that’s the amount that I’m talking about.
Hopefully that makes it very clear for the minister.
I think then, he just answered his own question.
He is saying who is not being charged, but the member just told me it’s appearing on his bill.
Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the $18 is actually appearing on the customer’s bill.
Unless the member has a bill that says it’s not being paid, then that customer would want to pay it, then Mr. Speaker, that’s why I asked him for clarification.
He just answered his question.
If it’s on his bill, then my understanding is it’s on everyone’s bills.
I guess it’s pretty clear that no one over there seems to know anything today, it must be the weather.
I’m saying that it showed up on my bill as an $18 charge, and there is an $18 credit put on there as well.
That’s the credit, it wasn’t supposed to be there and was not discovered until they changed their billing system and they realized that they were over-subsidizing.
They weren’t supposed to be subsidizing that $18, so last spring I raised that issue here in the House, and the minister had stated that that charge was not going to be collected, it was going to be continued to be subsidized, so I’m saying, is how much revenue is the corporation forfeiting based on that decision.
I’m trying to go through my notes for 2003, I believe that’s the period that the member is asking about.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t have the amount of under billing or under collection on the $18 that the member is asking for.
It is my understanding that after the Auditor General’s comments on invoicing procedures, indeed those amounts were being picked up.
So, we’ll have to confirm that for the member, and I should have that information for him tomorrow.
And, Mr. Speaker, if the minister is saying that it is being collected now and not subsidized, and the previous minister stated that it wasn’t going to be collected, I guess, when did that change.
Are they, or aren’t they.
I don’t know if they know.
So, I think people out there have a right to know if there is going to be a change on their bill or a mistake that’s made.
Mr. Peterson tabled a letter that showed this is why they were doing that.
You would think if they were going to do that to the rest of their residential customers, they would at least offer the same courtesy to them, to let them know that an error had been made and that they were indeed going to be, in turn, collecting those funds now.
So would the minister be willing to commit to looking into that, if that decision was changed, as of when and inform his customers, constituents, when about that change.
This is a bit of frustration here.
I believe that the Hansard will back me up on this.
The letter, Mr. Peterson, you keep missing information and mixing up the information.
The letter Mr. Peterson tabled was on commercial accounts.
That is the question I answered.
You asked about that and I answered it and now you have gone back to the residential $18 amount.
Mr. Speaker, the correction of the commercial accounts billing error that I have answered on behalf and for the member at the beginning, and he just brought that up again, saying that that was the question that Mr. Peterson has asked, we have answered that.
There is a $40 charge, and it has been picked up by the Auditor General for Canada.
Mr. Speaker, the $18 amount, the residential charge that the member is talking about, on the one hand he says it is not being charged, on the other hand, he says it is being credited.
So that is an offsetting charge that the corporation is not receiving.
The information that has been provided to me, as I have just indicated, is that that $18 has been and is being charged, as the member said just now in the House, he has it on his bill, but now he says that maybe it has been subsidized.
My answer to the House, Mr. Speaker, is that I don’t have the information, if the $18 is continuing to be charged. And I will have that information for him tomorrow. It has nothing to do with the question that Mr. Peterson, asked; that answer has been given.
I have to keep the House in order.
Mr. Picco. Mr. Tootoo. Please keep the House in order.
The Member for the High Arctic, Mr. Barnabas.
Question 107 – 2(2): High Cost of Nutritional Food
When I was touring the communities in my riding, there were comments being made about diabetes.
There were people making comments about the high contents of sugar in the products that are sold at the retail outlets.
The items with the high level of sugar content are cheaper than the better foods.
Has that resulted in the increase of diabetes?
I will try to answer the best that I can.
In 2000, there were 3.7 percent studied and 23 percent of those studied were overweight.
Around 50 percent of Nunavummiut were not exercising enough and therefore overweight.
In 2002, people with type 2 diabetes, was 1.7 percent and nation-wide, it was 4.8 percent.
I would like to thank the minister for giving us that information.
I realize these facts are made public by the government.
Are we doing anything to make sure that good food is made available to the people of Nunavut?
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, for posing those questions because of course, it has everything to do with healthy living and we have to educate the people of Nunavut about nutrition.
We have pamphlets or books available in both languages at Public Health and the nursing centers, and they have the Nunavut food guide available in all Nunavut communities.
If it’s possible, could you give us the information on how many children have diabetes and other categories?
Speaker: Ms. Brown.
We can table that information and also, in my briefing in 1997-2002, there were 41 new cases in Nunavut.
Yes, I can table that information.
Question 108 – 2(2): Emergency Plans for a Flu Epidemic
Minister of Health tabled a minister statement on November 17, Influenza Vaccination Campaign.
Last year in Cambridge Bay, we had a flu epidemic. It was quite serious. As the mayor, I had to meet with different officials in town to shut the town down to prevent the flu from spreading.
I am wondering if the minister could tell the House if all the communities in Nunavut have, since then, developed emergency plans to deal with a flu epidemic if they break out?
The Department of Public Health is responsible for that and they do have emergency plans.
I am wondering if the minister could tell us what the emergency plans are for communities when a flu epidemic breaks out.
I wasn’t wearing my earpiece.
Could you rephrase that question please?
What I want the minister to tell us is: What are the emergency plans that are in place in municipalities to deal with flu epidemics when they break out.
The public health is responsible and do have the plans.
The nurse in charge or the chief medical health officer is also in charge of the emergency plan.
In regards to the vaccinations and flu shots, it’s usually in the fall and there are different types of flus.
There is one that we can see in November, December, January and February or even a few more months.
When I was the mayor of the community of Cambridge Bay last year, it was a very difficult time because a lot of kids and babies were getting sick, a lot of school kids were getting sick, and many adults in the community as well.
I had to meet with the hamlet council, then I had to go talk to the district education authority, and then I had to convince everybody. In the best interest of the community to close our major buildings.
To the credit of the community, we did close down their stores, close down our schools and closed down a number of other venues where people could congregate where the flu could spread.