EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Mr. Speaker, before some presentation to the members the mayor gave an overview of the many logistic, financial and administrative needs of our capital.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the members for attending and also thank the mayor and councillors for Iqaluit for hosting this very informative session last night for the members and for the councillors and the mayor here in Iqaluit.
Member’s Statement 251 – 1(6): Cumberland Resources Feasibility Study
Mr. McLean: Mut’na Uqaqti.
I want to read a transcript from one of the newspapers and yes, we should believe something that the newspapers print.
Prospects right for Baker Lake gold mine.
Rankin Inlet, Nunavut.
A gold mining company operating about 70 kilometres north of Baker Lake is taking its exploration a step further.
It means a lot for the community of Baker Lake’s Louis Manzel.
Vancouver-based Cumberland Resources has launched a feasibility study to consider opening the Metal Bank Goldmine.
The company says the Metal Bank project is Canada’s third largest undeveloped goldmine.
Cary Curtis is the Interim President and Chief Executive Officer of the company, made the decision in October.
Three million ounces is what we found now and the feasibility study will basically examine how much of those three million ounces is mine-able he says.
That would include Mine design, transportation studies, the operating costs, detailed design work, and the Mine building.
The Kivalliq Inuit Association shares the company’s excitement about the potential of a mine.
Louis Manzel, who works with the KIA Lands Department, says his organization is excited about the mine’s potential.
It means a lot for the community of Baker Lake and the rest of the communities in the Kivalliq.
He says that the Cumberland Resources feasibility study is looking at $122 million in investments to the Kivalliq.
We are talking about employment, goods and services, and infrastructure for the whole of the Kivalliq.
Cumberland Resources says the 4.5 million feasibility study should be complete in about a year and half.
If the numbers add up, it says the Mine could be operational by late 2006.
I want to reiterate, Mr. Speaker, that I have been standing up here for about three years in a row saying the same thing as my colleague from Kugluktuk, about mine preparation and training.
I still want to point a finger at the Government as a whole, saying today that as of today we do not have one person trained in the Mining industry.
We are talking about outside dollars going to other companies that bid on fuel contracts what about this.
If we are going to employ a couple of hundred people in the Baker Lake Metal Bank Project, are these people going to come from the South and where do they pay their Income Taxes, in the South.
So the net revenues to Nunavut if we don’t hurry up and train some young people in this territory it is all going to go south again.
Which is a sad, sad story and a tragedy for Nunavut.
I would like to recognize a couple of people that were residents of Cape Dorset at one time as Teachers and also the Principal of the High school.
They have contributed a lot to the community as the Principal and a Teacher, Selinda Van Horn and David Small.
David Small contributed a lot towards a Hockey team in Cape Dorset and I believe they won three consecutive gold as Midgets in the Baffin Island.
I have no one to recognize in this Gallery but I would like to recognize the people of my constituency, Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak.
I just want to tell them that I would like to assist you with your day to day operations from here.
Question 250 – 1(6): Highway Construction – Rankin Inlet to Chesterfield Inlet and Baker Lake
I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation.
I forgot to mention the question that I was going to ask about building roads.
I am sure my colleague, Mr. McLean mentioned about the mining companies.
I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation if there has been talks about building road to because there is no gravel in Chesterfield Inlet presently, whether there could be a highway built from Rankin Inlet to Chesterfield Inlet and Baker Lake.
Mr. Speaker, the Member for Chesterfield Inlet has mentioned this numerous times and I can understand what he’s talking about.
Mr. Speaker, this coming January we will be doing a study of the highway that proposed from Manitoba to Kivalliq communities such as Chesterfield Inlet, Whale Cove and Baker Lake to see whether it could be feasible and that has been in the plans by my department and especially because there is no gravel sources in Chesterfield Inlet.
Just recently, Mr. Speaker, we talked about the gravel sources that should be could be accessed by the people of Chesterfield Inlet.
Those are the things that we have had brief discussions on and as well Kivalliq Inuit Association had a meeting with transportation officials from Manitoba to find out what plans they can have in place, thank you Mr. Speaker.
The plans that the Minister is talking about is occurring in January for a highway from Manitoba to the Kivalliq communities will probably take a little while to plan.
My question Mr. Speaker is, whether you will be working with the Federal Government to do a feasibility study on the road to Manitoba, from Manitoba to Kivalliq communities, will you be asking the Federal Government for some funding to for the roads to be built in those communities.
To make sure that the extended from time to time when they start building the roads, thank you Mr. Speaker.
We will be looking into what the Member is asking about and as a Minister of Transportation, I believe that the in any community the wishes of the people should be carried out and especially the roads, access roads in the communities not just in Kivalliq region but in the other communities of Baffin and Kitikmeot.
And even if we don’t end up building the road at the same time we will be thinking about doing extensions from them, thank you Mr. Speaker.
I think the Members know that the there has been a supply ship that they disturb the marine wildlife, have you had any considerations, say for instance, if there was to be one docking facilities, say for instance, in Rankin Inlet, so that they could just offload over in Rankin Inlet and then by road, take the goods to the other communities in the Kivalliq region.
During the GNWT days, this was discussed at times; if they could have one docking facility in the Kivalliq region and to offload there and transport them by road to the other communities.
So, in conjunction with the meetings with the Manitoba government, and the mayors have discussed this before, and we will be doing discussions on these types of things when we’re discussing it with the Manitoba government.
And I would like to thank the minister and my last question, Mr. Speaker, is when will this be done and how soon will you be dealing with this?
The money for doing the study is being requested by the KIA from DIAND, and I don’t think they have responded yet.
And what KIA has done is to try to get some more funding to do a study on the Kivalliq region and as the Government of Nunavut, we have some money set aside to do a study.
As well as the Manitoba government have provided some money to do this highway study in the Kivalliq region from Manitoba as well as DIAND.
I’m not exactly sure at this time, Mr. Speaker, how soon it will take, but there has been some correspondence from various organizations and federal and territorial government in regards to the road access from Manitoba to Kivalliq region.
Perhaps in January, when we do our initial meeting, we will then find out then.
Question 251 – 1(6): Update on Polar Bear Study
My question, Mr. Speaker, is directed to the Minister of Sustainable Development in regards to the memorandum of understanding that was signed in 1996.
I just want to know what status it’s at right now because I have heard they will be doing another study, so I would like to know what’s happening with that memorandum of understanding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, I thank the member for her question.
First of all, what they are doing now is they are doing an agreement at this time, but the delay is there has to be community consultations at the affected communities so that they can include the people in the polar bear quotas.
Yes, I appreciate the response of the Minister, because the people up there would like to rush that.
And I just wondered whether there is going to be a lesser quota for polar bears in those regions in my community.
There is going to be community consultations and the people are going to be asked what their thoughts are in regards to polar bear quotas.
Perhaps there will be an increase in the polar bear quotas.
We will be working with the communities as close as possible to find out from them what their wishes are.
I am sure that there is going to be options for them to consider when we do the community consultations.
I'm very pleased to hear his response that the communities that will be visited, they will be asked as to what the quota might be.
Was there a study done recently done on polar bears?
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk (interpretation): Thank you. I cannot exactly say what year it was but there was a study in one of the communities for sport hunters.
That is why sport hunters can go up because of the result of that study.
There will be a further study as to the status of the polar bears after 15 or 20 years count the population of the polar bears.
This is a very important statistic.
We get a lot of valuable assistance from Polar Bear Biologists.
We are not the only region in the world that gets polar bears; we also work with other circumpolar regions and do studies on how many polar bears there are in the world.
We have to keep a very close eye on the polar bears.
My final supplementary today but not the last question on this issue.
What kind of impact does the polar bear technical committee, the international committee, have on the polar bear quotas in this region?
The quota for polar bears in Nunavut is done by the NWMB and by the Department of Sustainable Development.
The quotas are set by those two organizations.
Question 252 – 1(6): Airport Staff Transfer to GN from Hamlet
I will be directing my question to the Minister of Transportation.
The Hamlets are usually given employment opportunities for Public Works, or Health and Social Services.
I have heard a rumour that airport operations will be gradually transferred to the Government.
I once worked for the Hamlet and I was working at the Airport, I was paid by the Hamlet, but I had heard a rumour that the airport operations will be handed over to the government.
I want to know what the status is, if this is true.
The hamlets are given the funding to operate airports and I believe that in Hall Beach and Resolute Bay, they are looked after by private contractor.
But some communities want to be able to run their own airports and that’s why they are under the hamlets.
We are not saying that we will run the airports again, but it’s up to the individual hamlets that if they wish to give up that responsibility than we are willing to take over.
We’re not trying to take over them completely.
Mr. Nutarak (interpretation): If the hamlet council wish to give up the responsibility of the jobs, for housing or for social services, how will their funding be affected?
Will it be targeted, for example these funds are targeted to Housing or Social Services?
If they decided to relinquish the responsibility, can they reallocate the funding until that transfer is completed?
The hamlet councils who has the responsibilities of looking after different programs and if they decide that they don’t want to look after a particular department and if they had made that suggestion, as Municipal Government and Transportations we would go negotiate with them and have discussions as to exactly what they wish to give up.
If they didn’t want to hold those responsibilities and then we would work with the finances but we would have to do some negotiating and have discussions as to exactly how it would be done because the hamlet council, if they wish to retain the responsibility or not.
Mr. Nutarak (interpretation): This is my third supplementary.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to have my third supplementary.
In regards to the arctic airports, they are handled by the hamlets.
Have there been any negotiations as to which communities where the responsibilities are being given back to the government?
Just to let you know that you do have one more supplementary.
We have gone through that process already.
How many private contractors are there because we know that has been done in Rankin Inlet and Resolute Bay, while the majority of arctic airports are being handled by the hamlet councils in the communities?
How many communities have you negotiated with on transportation in regards to transferring the responsibilities for the airport?
I didn’t say Rankin Inlet, I said Hall Beach and Resolute Bay and they're looked after by private contractors.
What we call CARS; Community Aerodrome Radio Stations are being handled by some hamlets.
One of the purposes that, one of the reasons was after that September 11th, tragedy there was a tighter security on the airlines so we have asked the federal government that we be given more funding but in fact we were given less funding because some hamlet councils didn’t want to be held responsible for the operation of the airport.
Mr. Speaker, the hamlet who are responsible for the operation of the airports, its up the individual hamlets whether they want they wish to hold that responsibility, this has been a concern and they have had concerns that they are requesting more funding to run the airports from NavCanada.
So the funding that is given to the hamlet is for the operation of the airports and the request that they be increased for the operation after the September 11th tragedy so they want a better secure system for the operations.
Mr. Speaker, I can remember only one community who wish to give back the responsibility to the government.
Question 253 – 1(6): Capacity at Arctic College
My question is to the Minister responsible who is not present.
I don’t know who I should direct this question to in regards to adult education in the communities that are way too small.
They don’t have adequate spaces for the number of people who wish to go back to school.
I wonder how we can improve the Arctic Colleges in the communities.
At this time I can’t give him my response but we will be dealing with this further once we do the main estimates to estimates or capital budgets during the committee as a whole and we will be able to give this further, thank you Mr. Speaker.
Yes I understand his response but when will I be given the proper response, when should I expect a response for my question.
It depends on my colleagues; maybe we will be able to deal with it tomorrow.
We deal with Health and Social Services first and the next department we will do is the Department of Education.
If we don’t do it tomorrow, then we’re able to do it in two days but we will be discussing it as a committee as a whole.
My question that I asked, as an example, when there’s a high number of people who want to go back to school and for those adults who haven’t completed their education, they are not sure where to turn to.
Will there be any considerations to improving the Arctic College in the communities?
Education is very important, as a government, we think of it as very important, and the budget that we use is constantly increasing every year.
And all of the elected officials know that’s the case and we will be discussing it more and the capital estimates for Nunavut for Arctic College and maybe during the committee of the whole we’ll have more detailed discussion.
Question 254 – 1(6): Explanation of NNI Policy
My question is to our Premier.
Yesterday, when we were discussing fuel we were discussing the NNI policy.
I would like to ask him to clarify exactly what it is and how it’s applied.
The NNI policy has been in effect since the year 2000, and we’ve made the explanation on what it is.
It is used for Nunavut and as a government we’d like to see more training available.
We award various contracts and would like to see more benefits going into our communities.
But even though that’s the case, there’s an exempt clause in there that can be applied on the decision of the cabinet members and that exemption clause has been used only once.
But it’s applied to all the contracts that are given by the government.
The NNI policy, I thought was very important to the people of Nunavut and because of coarse it was an agreement that was agreed to by the government and NTI, now I find that there’s an exemption clause in there that can be applied by the cabinet members.
Why is that so?
Well, it’s not applied any time. We have to look at the benefits that are going to be gained by the people of Nunavut.
We all know that the price of fuel is very expensive.
We don’t have gas up here.
Nobody will you buy this fuel from.
We have to purchase it.
With that we use the exemption clause on the new fuel transportation contract.
We looked at the whole thing and the costs and the benefits.
Our questions were how are we going to keep the price down?
How much is it going to benefit the people of Nunavut?
There are so called Inuit companies but they are based outside of Nunavut.
With all those factored in, we made a decision to apply the exemption clause.
If there was a company up here, and especially if it was an Inuk firm, we would have used the NNI Policy.
I would like a response from the Premier about the NNI Policy.
Do you have any plans to use the exemption clause again in a big contract that is going to be awarded in the future? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Like I said we look at the benefits for the people of Nunavut.
From what I know all other contracts that have been awarded by the Government have been beneficial to the people of Nunavut, except the fuel transportation contract.
We are using Nunavut dollars, and we have to be prudent on how we use it.
We also have to see that there are the most benefits to the people of Nunavut.
Final Supplementary. Mr. Iqaqrialu.
My next question again on the NNI Policy is - are we going to see economic growth through the use of the NNI Policy?
That is why the NNI Policy was established, so that we would see more benefits apply to the Inuit and to the companies in Nunavut.
With that there are the so called Inuit companies that have their headquarters outside of Nunavut.
I have talking to them and urging them to come and base their headquarters here so that we would see other spin-offs like tax dollars that are coming in and other benefits.
We have also lowered the tax base so that more companies would base their headquarters in Nunavut.
Question 255 – 1(6): Utilidor Hook-Up Subsidy
Mr. Speaker, as the member will recall when our sitting was held in Pangnirtung.
I asked the minister in regards to utilidor hook-up subsidies for some residence here in Iqaluit in the Uviuq loop area and in other areas that are going to be done in the near future, so that these homeowners won’t have to switch up or be forced to switch to hook up their utilidor service from the truck services that they’re currently on.
And the minister did indicate at that time to the regional director, Department of Finance, to the new group of city officials to try and come with something on it.
Mr. Speaker, last night at the reception at Mr. Picco’s so eloquently mentioned member statements that their discussions with some city officials maybe indicated that anything specifically with the new houses in the Uviuq loop and other upcoming stuff haven’t been discussed yet between the officials and the departmental officials.
I’d like to ask the ministers if you could update me and the members of this house on this.
I seem to recall my staff saying that they had talked with the staff of the city and I can check that again, but I will make a commitment to have my staff to check with the city and start talking with the city if they haven’t done so already.
Sometimes the politicians like us might not be aware of the nitty-gritty things that are happening in terms of talk between officials if that be the case that Mr. Speaker, I will talk to my staff again today.
But I did check back with them and I came back from Pangnirtung, and did a follow-up and I seem to recall one of my staff saying that they did touch base with the city on this issue.
Mr. Speaker, in discussing this issue with the city officials last night, they indicated that there have been discussions on the distributions on the funds that were approved for the lower base utilidor subsidies a number of years ago
Those were the only discussions that have take in place in that area, and I just want to clarify to the minister so she can ensure that the proper message goes to the department.
You know, what I’m looking for is a commitment for the department to work with the city to come up with some funding other than the money that was allocated a few years ago for the lower base utilidor subsidies and this for new areas and homeowners that weren’t included in that initial subsidy allocation.
I think I already made a commitment for my officials to work with the city.
The bottom line is it’s the city and they’re in power to take on some responsibility and they may have been hidden subsidies given to the homeowners in the past.
But we will certainly help the city and assist them where we can as soon as possible in this utilidor connections to the homeowners.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister’s response and that they’re looking at it but the homeowners that I mentioned and I mentioned in Pangnirtung that had said that they’ve approached the city and they’re being forced to hook-up to utilidor and they have to bear the full cost.
In some cases it’s over 20 thousand dollars to hook up to utilidor.
That’s just an amount that some people simply can’t afford to absorb.
It was identified as an issue and is something that residents had need support in doing in the past within the lower base area and this is something that, they’re just concerned because they’ve been told by the city that they won’t be able to get any subsidies because they’re not getting any subsidy funding from the territorial government.
So, that’s what they’re looking for, they’re looking to be treated the same as the other people that lived on the other side of the road that are getting their subsidy.
I didn’t hear a question other than being mediator between the owner and the city.
I’ve already made a commitment that we will address this in finding a solution for the home owners.
Question 256 – 1(6): Capacity Problems at Tammaatarvik Boarding Home
Mr. Speaker, I mentioned in my Member's Statements that I would be posing some questions to the Minister of the Department of Health and Social Services.
I think it’s become urgent with the medical patients who come down here for medical appointments.
They go through a lot of problems and I want to know when we’re going to rectify this matter.
Mr. Speaker, as I said yesterday in the house, we’re in the process right now of looking at trying to establish the occupancy rate of our boarding home.
In this case, the Tammaatarvik does seem to be full on different occasions and that may be based on specialty clinics being held at certain periods of time.
For example, if the visiting Cardiologist is in Iqaluit and doing a cardio clinic, and patients come in from all the surrounding communities and from Iqaluit itself, and that means that more people are in the community and having to be housed at the boarding home.
After that clinic is over, three or four days later, maybe there’s only half the beds being used or a quarter of the beds being used.
So we need to be able to evaluate and see what’s on the ground.
And to see indeed if there’s an expansion or extra beds needed or do we have to look at the leasing of a new facility.
Mr. Speaker, that process is under way within the department itself.
The reason why I’m asking this question is, could the minister, and I’m not sure how to phrase it, what about the people who are down here for psychiatric purposes.
They are housed in the same boarding home as the general patients.