EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Mr. Speaker, we’re not even on the field, we’re in the bleachers, because Mr. Speaker, in this case, our federal partner was not able to acquiesce to our request.
Mr. Speaker, following up on that meeting, we met as provincial and territorial jurisdictions, and Mr. Speaker, unprecedented, in these types of negotiations, and I can say with some authority having sat at many different tables on the federal, provincial, territorial side since 1999, that we have the acquiescence and the support of every jurisdiction in this country to give the three territories, Mr. Speaker, extra funding for the three territories, recognizing that the per capita amount wasn’t working for our situation.
Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Mr. Speaker, every jurisdiction supported us, and yet the federal minister wasn’t able to acquiesce to our request.
Mr. Speaker, this followed a letter from the Premier to the Prime Minister, because we were at an impasse, and I updated this House last spring on that. Mr. Speaker, we followed that up with a meeting this fall in Ottawa, just recently, about a month ago, where the same request was brought forth by the three jurisdictions, by the three territories, and again Mr. Speaker, we received unanimous support from the other jurisdictions for per capita and base funding.
Mr. Speaker, the minister was not able to respond favourably to us.
Mr. Speaker, on top of that, $100 million out of that $5 billion, is allocated for Aboriginal communities, on or off reserve, First Nations.
Mr. Speaker, when I questioned the minister within the jurisdictions, within our meeting, and said, “Mr. Dryden, how much of that money can have an uptake for the people of Nunavut, because 85 percent of our population is Inuk?”
Mr. Speaker, the response from the minister was that there were no monies available under the $100 million announced for Aboriginal Canadians because under this program, Inuit were not included.
Mr. Speaker, to say that we were frustrated would be an understatement. Again, Mr. Speaker, after that comment by the minister, we had the support of all jurisdictions to move forward with the per capita and the base amount.
I also went and met with Mr. Dryden and the Premier wrote a letter to Mr. Dryden and to the Prime Minister again about our frustration and still Mr. Speaker, there has been no movement.
What we would hope to have come out of today’s motion Mr. Speaker, is that the Members of this House supporting the government in going forward on a per capita and base amount and we’re only again, Mr. Speaker, asking for $2 million extra, on top of our per capita amount.
With this motion passing here today in this House, we can send a copy to Mr. Okalik, our Premier, who right now is in Kelowna, British Columbia, meeting with the other First Ministers about Aboriginal issues specifically and Mr. Speaker, being able to bring forward our concerns that again, Nunavut is not being kept up with the Pan Canadian Strategy, like the other two territories.
Specifically on the Inuit issue Mr. Speaker, it’s that we’re not included in those Aboriginal monies that were brought forward.
Mr. Speaker, the Premier would well welcome this motion going forward so that he has extra ammunition on our behalf at this federal, provincial and territorial meeting.
With that, I would ask the support of the Members of the House on this motion. And again, Mr. Speaker, in my several years of history in politics, I have never been in the position, or have seen a minister or a member in a position where we had to do this type of motion to get some support from our federal partner.
With that I would respectfully ask for a recorded vote at the appropriate time, and respectfully ask for the support of our members and colleagues on this motion.
Speaker (interpretation): The seconder, Mr. Barnabas.
I’m very pleased as an Inuk to support this important motion today.
(interpretation ends) Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleagues will agree that investing in our children is an investment in our future.
I believe that children across the north deserve the same opportunities for early learning and childcare that is offered to children in Canada’s provinces.
Mr. Speaker, when the federal government announced its national vision for childcare across Canada, it was assumed that the principles of equality, accessibility and universality would apply to all.
Our government has long made the case to the federal government to explain, describe and insist that per capita funding does not provide for the needs and requirements of a northern population in the same way as it does for a southern one.
Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the needs of our children, we must make an effort to ensure that they receive the same level of support as other children across Canada.
Mr. Speaker, I urge the House to support this motion. The federal government must take into consideration the realities of living in the north, including the realities of long distances, inadequate infrastructure and isolated communities.
Mr. Speaker, a national vision should mean looking to each and every corner of this nation and ensuring that all are treated fairly. Fairness must take into account the specific circumstances of our different regions.
Mr. Speaker, I also urge all of the members to support the motion before us today.
I’m very disturbed at what our minister had to say with negotiations with Mr. Dryden.
It speaks back to what I have been encountering in my many years in politics as a municipal politician and now as a territorial politician, that our requests for help seem to be falling on deaf ears in Ottawa.
We had it years ago at the municipal level. We proved that per capita funding does not work for Nunavut because of our small population. It took us years and years to struggle to get recognition that we need help at the municipal level.
And finally, the government came through to help us. We were able to access funding from the Strategic Infrastructure Fund, the Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund, and the gas taxes, and that was supported by the provinces, the cities, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and others.
These are municipalities and these are places where our citizens, including where our children live. I’m very upset when I hear that we can’t even get $2 million to help our daycares, to help our children…
…it seems like the Government of Canada is treating our citizens, and even our younger citizens, as third class citizens.
I sympathize with Minister Picco’s comments that he has to do this, but I remember a statement made to me many years ago when I made a clarification to a standing committee on finance, an MP told me, he said, “Mr. Peterson, never be ashamed to ask for help on behalf of the people you represent.”
I’m very glad that Minister Picco asked for help, and I will be supporting his motion.
Like my colleague from Cambridge Bay who is disturbed, I guess I’m more appalled by these comments on the way that Nunavut is being treated by our federal government.
Mr. Speaker, it’s no secret, in the past, that the federal government has acknowledged and given us additional funding because they have acknowledged that per capita funding does not work in the north.
At that time, I think the Minister of Education was actually the Minister of Health, and the three northern Premiers walked out and wouldn’t sign a health accord.
Here we go again. It’s embarrassing that northern territories are being treated like a third world country by our own federal government.
I have heard the word is a pan-Canadian plan, I guess not, a national vision, if you want to call it a national vision; if that’s what they call a national vision, then maybe they are snow blind Mr. Speaker.
It just frustrates the minister and me, I can sympathize with him.
Maybe we need to do what Newfoundland did and throw out our flags and send it back to them.
If they are not going to treat us with dignity, respect, and with honesty, give them their flags back.
It seems very convenient for the federal government to acknowledge Inuit as aboriginal when they want to, but not aboriginal when they don’t want to. Let’s get it right.
I think that every single Inuk in Canada would be surprised to hear that we are not aboriginal Canadians.
I think we were here long before Mr. Dryden, long before Mr. Martin, long before any of the Liberal MPs that are in Ottawa making these stupid decisions and coming up with these policies, long before that.
If they had to learn to walk in our ancestors’ shoes in this territory, I could bet you if I was a betting man that they would not have survived.
I think that what we need to do is show them what I think they have done over the last number of years in Nunavut and across the north have been complacent.
They’ve taken for granted they’ve got their seats here.
You see all across the country right now what people are calling vote buying on the programs the federal government is coming out with.
A perfect example is the billions of dollars going out to Residential School Victims. They are not worried about us.
They know that there are lots of seats across the south that they are trying to make people happy so that they can remember who helped them out.
There was an announcement that they were not going to do anything with the Trust Fund. So they are trying to let corporate Canada know and remember whose there to help them out.
I think we need to show them that we are no longer complacent with the north and they do need to worry about the seats that they take for granted up here and start acting and treating us the same as they do with all other jurisdictions in the country.
It is pathetic; the way we are treated on this.
A couple of years ago, per capita funding works this year and now it doesn’t and that is the way it is. Let’s get their story straight and stick to it and not change it whenever they feel compelled to do so.
So with that Mr. Speaker, I join with the Minister of Education and with my other colleagues in supporting this motion and urge other members to do so and I hope and I sincerely hope that Mr. Dryden and his colleagues in Ottawa are listening to this today so they can hear first hand how frustrated we are with the way we are being treated by them.
Comments to the Motion.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): I, too, would like to state my support for this motion and the federal government had stated that Nunavummiut can not just trust the federal government when they say they are going to be providing support when Liberal government states that we are way behind.
Ken Dryden, look at early learning and childcare in Northern Quebec and if he goes to Northern Quebec and see daycare facilities and early childcare facilities are taken care of very well.
Even though the community is so small, the facilities are very good and I am very envious of them.
Actually I am making this statement Ken Dryden I know they are in a province but they do live in the north. The Northern Quebec Inuit do have the same culture as Nunavik residents that are supported very well by the Quebec Government and I am sure they probably have more authority and one thing I’d like to state is the Liberal Government, I don’t believe them anymore.
Lots of people believe in the Liberal Government but it is not adequate for what they are doing.
We need to look into it like back then when Indian Affairs used to take care of us and the federal government just believed in DIAND, but now they have to listen to the Premier and the Minister.
I would tell Ken Dryden to come up here and find out for himself.
I will be in support of this Motion Mr. Speaker, that Nunavummiut need to understand now that we can no longer trust the Liberals.
Comments to the Motion, Mr. Kilabuk.
I too am in support of this Motion.
Our schools and daycares require additional support and if we look at the daycares and facilities they are overcrowded.
Even the parents and the mothers want to work so that they can make extra money and these are the people that we are trying to care for.
The federal government needs to invest more to our children.
We are urging the federal government to invest money in our children.
This Mr. Speaker, reminds me of the time in the 1800s when the bowhead commercial whalers and before that they started arriving or coming up north.
And many of us today are ancestors of the commercial bowhead whalers or we are descendants of the Hudson Bay company trading post.
Since the 1800s the federal government have been saying that Inuit require assistance so this reminded me of the time when Inuit worked hard for the traders and whalers and their pay was in tobacco and biscuits.
They worked hard and that is how the commercial whalers paid the Inuit and the federal government didn’t do it and they weren’t responsible.
And Mr. Speaker, if I could ask today perhaps the federal government owes us recognition.
If I ask that question of the federal government, that they owe us because there have been relocations since the 1800’s.
Since then in reading the history books from those years, they say that the whalers use to do research and they would say that the Inuit are incapable, and they are poor and useless and that was the thought of the federal government 150 years ago and even still today the federal government has raised us that way and it is embarrassing and it is shameful.
Mr. Speaker, we are not going to agree and say yes to tobacco and biscuits only payments.
I would like to make a comment to the Motion because I am in support of this Motion.
We are saying that our children are our future and we do want to have a great future on equal levels to other Canadians.
Funding by per capita is going to be insufficient when everything up here is so expensive even daycare.
At times they have to close because they can’t even afford to pay for their fuel or heating fuel or the electrical bills cannot be paid.
For that reason, this funding could be used to support the daycares in the north in the cold environment. Back when the commercial whalers started coming up here and when they started looking for the Northwest Passage they started coming up north.
They used to see people living off the land and if the Ottawa politicians don’t remember us, we are still the same Eskimos living in the north since the first time they heard about us and Inuit used to help these newcomers survive in the north.
We are the aboriginals of Canada.
I would also like to make a statement as an elder.
I fully support the individuals who made those comments and also the mover of the motion.
It is very interesting to hear and to recall what has been happening since the early 1800s. I had an Inuk mother and I was very young at that time but listening to stories that were being told it seems like the family allowances were started in the 40s.
At that time my father worked for the RCMP, he was a special constable.
Some of the stories that he told were very hurtful.
It was a time when the Hudson Bay Company and the RCMP were first coming up here. They would order supplies based on the income that was coming in.
They would order cocoa for the children and it was pure cocoa without getting any of the ingredients that have to be used in order to make it drinkable.
The family allowances weren’t provided until the Inuit found out what they were used for.
They want to be used again and the federal government has to listen to the Inuit of Nunavut.
We have to be treated the same way as the rest of the Canadians.
Would the mover would like to make final comments.
First of all, I want to thank the members for their comments and their support in favour of this motion.
Once the motion is brought to the floor and voted on, we’ll be providing a copy of it and a vote number, because we’ve requested a recorded vote on the vote for the Premier.
The Premier will be able to use this information during his discussions with the first ministers and the Prime Minister in Kelowna.
With that, I appreciate the member’s support. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
There is a request to have a recorded vote.
All those in favour of the motion please stand up.
All those opposed. Please stand up.
Bill 1, Appropriation (Capital) Act, 2006-07 with Mr. Netser in the Chair.
We will take a brief break and we will come back at 4:15.
>>House recessed at 15:51 and resumed at 16:26
Chairman (Mr. Netser): In Committee in the Whole we have the following item: Bill 1.
We wish to continue with the review of capital estimates for the Department of Education followed by the Department of Economic Development and Transportation.
Yesterday, we had the Minister of Education and his officials and we heard the opening comments from the minister and the Chair of the Standing Committee on Health and Education.
Did you hear that Mr. Picco.
(interpretation ends) The Minister of Education and the Chair did their opening comments and I would like the minister and his officials to go to the witness table right now.
Mr. Picco, could you introduce your staff for the record.
Mr. Chairman, it gives me great pleasure to be joined at the table today during your excellent chairmanship for this Standing Committee I mean Committee of the Whole.
With me on my immediate left is Mr. Lorne Levy, Capital Planner for the Department of Education and to my immediate right Tim Enualuk who of course is working with Mr. Levy on the Capital Planning side.
It is a mentoring program as our Capital Planner and Tim is really taking off.
Those are the officials that will answer the questions of the Committee.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Picco and welcome Mr. Enualuk and Mr. Levy.
Following rule 77 (1) the members have 10 minutes to make general comments and following 77 (2) you have permission to speak more than once to a topic.
(interpretation ends) May I remind the members wherever possible to ask detailed questions during the page-by-page review of the capital estimates. Do you have general comments on the Department of Education?
We were on page G-6. Education. Corporate Services.
Tangible Assets. Headquarters Region. Total Headquarters Region. $2,030,000.
Going to G-7.
While we are on the Qikiqtaaluk region I have a question. (interpretation ends) What criteria are used to determine which projects will proceed as a priority?
First of all, there are several different criteria that are used by the department in planning new schools.
They include, but are not excluded by, the attendance, the total enrolment of the school at a given time, as well as the projection on the school of where that enrolment would be, a condition report of the school, depending on how the school is functioning, the immediate needs of the population, and/or the community.
I guess probably most important of all, is the actual condition of the school, and that is if it’s in a good state of repair, needs to be replaced, and so on.
Those types of criteria are put in place.
They’re listed by community and by school. Some communities, for example, have more than one school. It’s not done by community specifically, but it is actually done by school and then by community.
Anything else, Mr. Arreak?
Mr. Arreak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In Nunavut how many schools are at over 100 percent capacity?
Right now there are three schools in the region that are over 100 percent occupancy.
Mr. Arreak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Qikiqtarjuaq is included in here and I think they’re 102 percent capacity, probably a little more. (interpretation ends) In the past two years how many schools have been closed due to structural or other physical problems, which are health or safety hazards?
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Arreak. Mr. Minister.
I just want to correct what I said earlier on the current utilization and capacity when I gave the number.
In actuality across Nunavut there are three schools that are over 100 percent on the current utilization, not Qikiqtarjuaq, in particular, or the Qikiqtaaluk, in particular.
The second question that the member asked is how many schools have been closed due to structural or health related issues in the past twelve months.
I am aware of three instances where we actually had some problems in schools. One of them was an issue just right now in Qikiqtarjuaq, which has been rectified where there was a concern with a discovery that fibreglass insulation had caused some concerns for some students where they had an allergic reaction. So the school was closed while we were investigating that situation.
Right now, it is my understanding that the school is now open. That, indeed, the process of dealing with the allergic reaction has been in place.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Arreak.
If the department invests over a half million dollars in the planning and design of a project but does not plan to begin on that project for another five years, what guarantees are there that the design will still be adequate after all that time?
The member makes a good point that when we are planning on schools and similar to other construction projects, or capital projects of the government, we try to identify in the first phase planning and design money, and then try to build in the total amount of the school expenditure or the capital project amount within the five year capital plan.
In this case, with the school in Qikiqtarjuaq we realize that the school needs to be replaced. Inuksuit School is right now at 94 percent utilization as of the current numbers that we have.
And, we do have some planning money within the budget to be able to look at the planning and design of a new school.
But, the actual dollars for construction and the member makes a good point, because in this case, it is four years in advance.
So, the design that we are working on today will fit the needs of the school three to four years down the road. What we try to do is to incorporate what the attendance will be and what the program at the school will be.
When I say program, I mean; is the school going to be a k-12 school, or is it going to be a middle school and so on? And then we also look at what the enrolment of the school will be to be able to design and plan for that school.
I guess the big concern is; will the money be there in three or four years?
And that’s the question that we have in a lot of our capital projects based on the long lead times.
Anything else Mr. Arreak?
In regard to that school in Qikiqtarjuaq, the school itself is way too small for the school population and the gym is in constant use.
I would like to propose a motion in regard to that school.
Chairman (interpretation): I apologize could you rephrase your question please?
In light of the comments that I made I would like to propose a motion Mr. Chairman.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Arreak. (interpretation) Mr. Arreak has a motion. Mr. Arreak.
Committee Motion 001 – 2(3): Inuksuit School Addition in Qikiqtarjuaq (Arreak)
I move that this committee recommend that the Inuksuit School Addition Project be moved forward in the Government of Nunavut’s five year capital plan in recognition of the unacceptable fact that while the Legislative Assembly voted to approve $600,000, in the 2005-06 capital estimates of the Department of Education for this project, which had already been previously deferred, the current schedule for this project will not see further progress until the 2010-11 fiscal year.
Mr. Alagalak: I need a clarification on this motion because I don’t exactly know what he’s talking about. Inuksuit or Inukshuk?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Alagalak. It says Inuksuit School in Qikiqtarjuaq if I’m correct.
The school in Qikiqtarjuaq is called Inuksuit.
Do you understand Mr. Alagalak? Mr. Alagalak.
Mr. Alagalak (interpretation): Yes, but what I don’t see here is exactly where it is in the capital estimates.
Chairman: Mr. Alagalak, it says here that they would like this project to be moved forward in the Government of Nunavut’s five-year capital plan.
Mr. Alagalak, was that clear?
Do you already have a copy of the motion?
Okay. The motion is in order.
I understand the member’s concern with the process and the motion that is being brought forward.
Last year, in the budget we had approved $600,090 for the planning and design for the new school in Qikiqtarjuaq.
Right now on our capital plan, the project for Qikiqtarjuaq is not until 2010 and 2011.