EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Can the minister inform the House as to how many units we may be looking at here and the method in which these units are going to be obtained?
Speaker: Minister. Minister Kattuk.
In Nunavut we have a large number of the Nunavut communities that are short of staff housing.
As this time I cannot tell you exactly how much additional housing we’re going to be getting here in Iqaluit.
Question 473 - 1(5): GN Office Closure Decisions
I will direct my question to the Minister of Community Government and Transportation.
This morning when I woke up I turned on the radio, I heard about all the offices being closed, and there was just a little wind blowing when I looked out the window.
Then I went here to check out my e-mail and there was nothing about the closure.
I heard on the radio again this morning that the Legislative Assembly was closed even though Friday’s we usually start at 10 in the morning.
How does it work with the closure of Government offices here in Iqaluit?
What’s your policy on storm closures?
I believe every single one of us looked out our window to see how strong the blizzard was and especially when we heard that the Government offices and schools were closed.
Mr. Speaker, at times we wonder why the offices are closed when we can see everything out there.
However, in regards to the question, my staff at the Emergency Measures Office, Human Resources staff and also the City of Iqaluit first talk about what they’re going to be doing.
Perhaps there is a need to review this because at times it seems like the offices sometimes close prematurely.
We have a community education policy where they close down the schools if the wind is a certain number of kilometres per hour.
If they reach that point and over they close the schools.
If we are going to be closing the Legislative Assembly, who would have the authority to do so?
Speaker: Mr. Nutarak, that question is better directed to myself and unfortunately, I can't speak to questions in the House.
I guess that I would ask you to steer away from that issue.
I’ll make a decision.
I am asking that question on behalf of the government employees.
Because the wind wasn't very strong, there were a lot of people down at Northern store doing their shopping.
They looked extremely pleased that the offices were closed.
I am asking about that by just using the Legislative Assembly as an example.
Who has the authority?
Ms. Thompson, I believe the question is directed towards you regarding the closure of the government offices.
I think it is disturbing to find government employees shopping when they can't go to their offices, because we have closed the offices.
We need to review this policy of office closures. I think that the EMO office being the lead office for closing of government offices, we’ll look at the policy and see how we can improve upon it.
I do know that in Rankin Inlet, we only close the offices when you cannot see two feet in front of you.
I think that is true in other communities.
It is very surprising here in Iqaluit that we closed the offices here and I'm not talking for the schools because that involves children.
When you see government, employees wandering around and going shopping instead of going to their offices it is a little bit disturbing.
So I will ask my staff to look at the policy to see how we can improve upon the closures for government offices here in the city.
Question 474 – 1(5): Assistance Agreement for Mine Training Recipients
Mr. Speaker, I will direct my question to the Minister of Sustainable Development.
A few days ago, I think it was on February 26th, on a Tuesday, I made a Member's Statement on behalf of the people of Nattilik in regards to the transportation to and from the mining companies.
They pay their own way from Cambridge Bay to their communities out of their own pocket.
My question to the minister is what kind of agreements do you have with the Inuit organizations.
That is the question that I have for the minister.
It is a good day, it is not cold out.
In regards to the mining companies, we have an agreement, a memorandum of understanding between the mining company and the communities in the Kitikmeot and Keewatin areas.
Those agreements are between the companies and the Regional Inuit Organizations.
In your particular concern, it would be the Kitikmeot Regional Inuit Association.
Do I understand the agreement is between the mining company and Regional Inuit Associations?
And if that is the case how involved is the Department of Sustainable Development. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Regional Inuit Organization and in this case the Kitikmeot Inuit Association and the mining company are the ones that negotiate and conclude their agreement.
It is the Inuit Impact and Benefit agreement that is negotiated by between those two parties and the RIA are the ones that deal solely with the mining companies.
So I understand that it is between the mining company and the Regional Inuit Association.
But as Members of the Legislative Assembly and you as my colleague, we are the Government of Nunavut and your department has the responsibility to ensure there is better co-ordination and if there is impact on the population.
A professional employee should be able to go back and forth to work between their company and the mining company location, without personal expenses.
Are there any budgeted monies that can be used in transporting employees back and forth between their communities and the mining company location?
This agreement is between the mining company and the RIAs. I don't know how much they budget for transporting the employees.
What I am talking about is the Inuit Impact and Benefit Agreement.
The government is informed about the amount of dollars used.
I would like to know if the Department of Sustainable Development could give financial assistance.
Because of course these questions are posed to me and I have to respond to the people who are employed and presently are moving back and forth between those two locations.
We are looking at how we can be more involved with the mining companies in Nunavut.
We will look at the long term and we will be more involved not only with the mining companies but also for gas exploration and renewable resources and non-renewable resource development in Nunavut.
We would like to become more involved in the future on those issues.
Question 475 – 1(5): Group Home to Elders’ Care Facility
Mr. Speaker, my question today to the Minister of Health and Social Services.
It is the never-ending story of the Baker Lake group home.
Last night Mr. Speaker, there was a meeting and 40 of the public attended.
A lot of elders showed up to the meeting at the hamlet council and a council resolution was passed that the group home be turned into a seniors’ care facility.
Can the minister let me know when this can be done?
Mr. Speaker, I believe it was yesterday that Mr. McLean tabled a petition, indeed calling on the Department of Health and Social Services and the Government of Nunavut to set up an elders’ care facility for geriatric care in the community Baker Lake.
Mr. Speaker, I’m pleased to say that following up on that petition and the representations made by the people in Baker Lake that we are looking at that opportunity.
That’s good to know that the minister’s department is looking into that issue and like I say, they’ve been looking into other issues in my community over the last three years with not much success.
Can the minister be more detailed and give me an answer if they will look at doing this in the immediate future or three years from now or next month or something like because I know there is some planning around this facility for the last couple of years.
Can the minister be more detailed on when he’s going to do this?
Mr. Speaker, I could be quite detailed but I promised the members that I would try to keep my answers short.
So I would suggest to the member that the short answer would be that I would hope to be able to do this in the coming 10 to 12 weeks.
It’s nice to hear the minister say that he’s working on it for within the next 10 to 12 weeks.
I can go back to a Written Question where it was supposed to be in November and now we are into February.
So I’m hoping the minister is accountable for the date Mr. Speaker, and it’s something that the community believes firmly in and I will be holding the minister accountable for that date.
No question there, just a comment.
Question 476 – 1(5): Building Design/Foundations
I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Community Government and Transportation in reference to my earlier Member’s Statement about the foundations for buildings.
Hopefully two years from now we’ll be erecting some buildings in Clyde River, although it’s very costly to build buildings, even designing them is very expensive.
There was 400 thousand dollars budgeted for one but it was not enough.
I would like to see programs set up so they can have more people trained in these areas such as making proper foundations for our conditions.
I wonder if there could be more training for people on this issue.
In response to the question from the Member for Clyde River, I understood him clearly about the technical issues when you are working with engineering issues.
When you are preparing to build houses you have to go on those first steps by planning for building in the communities.
We perhaps can look into this so we can have more information in regards to training people in the community over there.
Perhaps we can get the program set up so through Arctic College in order to implement new programs to teach people about the foundations and other building pre-construction activities.
I think once you have a grade 12 education, then you can decide to take advanced training.
The goal is to provide an option to pursue an engineering job.
We can review those issues and the education programs in those areas.
I like the idea that she will be reviewing those issues and perhaps they can be sent to university somewhere to learn technology and engineering and so on.
I know that it is very technical to learn anything like that especially when you translate it to Inuktitut.
Perhaps in Nunavut we can start something like this, to start new educational programs.
There are numerous jobs that are out there that they could create for the people in the communities, and also through Hamlet offices.
I think we should be given more options to create new programs in the education field.
Can this be reviewed through your office and is there a possibility to create a new program in Nunavut.
I am not the Minister responsible for Education.
As I said before, once you complete grade 12 you have options to take any kind of program to further your education.
Perhaps we can look into those opportunities.
I am sure there are people in Nunavut communities that are interested in this field.
I understood her response but if our older residents wanted to take these courses, what would the minister do so that the elders are able to take these courses.
Last summer there was a mining course that was held and elders were able to take it.
They were taking a prospecting course with Nunavut Arctic College and if we were to have engineering courses in Nunavut, the Nunavut Arctic College instructors would have to respect the needs and language use.
This is something that we can do and work with the Minister of Education so that these kinds of courses are available to unilingual individuals or people within the communities.
Question 477 – 1(5): Support for Grave Workers Payment
Mr. Speaker, I'd like to direct my question to the Premier in regards to the relocation of graves.
I have raised questions about this with the Department of Health and Social Services and the minister hasn't given me a proper response.
It seems to me that his responses are directed from somewhere else, perhaps the Premier’s office.
I would like to raise this question to the Premier.
The people that were moving the graves haven't received compensation for their work, so I would like to ask if there is a lack of support for this from the Premiers office.
Speaker: The question is directed towards the Premier.
We support this cause very much but it is the responsibility of the federal government to compensate these individuals.
It was under the federal government at the time.
If we were responsible for this we would have pursued getting compensation, but it was under the responsibility of the federal government at that time.
At the time when there was an issue of victims that were abused at the residential schools, and other issues being raised, wouldn't this be treated the same way as those victims?
The residential school students were taught and were under the responsibility of the territorial government.
During division there was an agreement that if the GNWT were faced with this issue that we'd also be responsible for Ed Horne’s victims.
In regards to the relocation of the graves, it was the responsibility of the federal government at that time.
The staff were the responsibility of the federal government.
That is why it is a little bit different.
We are in support of getting those workers compensated and they were under the jurisdiction of federal government.
I would like my colleague to know that we are in support of his request, we have written to the federal government, and they are now reviewing this.
Although we want them to respond right away we aren’t able to rush them.
Mr. Speaker, how does he know that it’s the responsibility of the federal government?
If you remember in the past before we actually had a territorial government, the federal government would appoint individuals as settlement administrators.
The federal government wrote a letter at the time they had a settlement administrator and they mentioned the name and my colleague has that document.
We can table the letter so the members can see it.
They were under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government at that time.
I knew the GNWT was funding it because at that time Commissioner Hodgson was the Commissioner of the NWT and that’s the time when they relocated the gravesites.
I was wondering if the Premier is willing to give me a copy of the correspondence that was received from the federal government saying that it was their project, that they are responsible.
I will be able to table the letter that came from the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs and provide that information to the member.
Question 478 – 1(5): Homeownership Repair Programs & Eligibility
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to direct my question to the Minister responsible for the Nunavut Housing Corporation.
For homeowners that want to renovate their homes there is money available.
How many years would the individual have to live in the home in order to be able to renovate it?
Mr. Speaker, I believe, it’s my understanding that it depends on the condition of household more so than the length of time the individual has been in his residence.
It is more based on what requirements there are for a possible upgrade in respect to being eligible for the program.
I seem to have heard before that the individual would have to live in the house for five years in order for that person to be eligible for renovations.
I’m just wondering if an individual could be living the home for just a little while in order to get renovations done.
Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, it is my understanding that it is based on the condition of the unit itself, but if I am incorrect, I'll confirm that with the member to make sure that is the case.
Question 479 – 1(5): Closure of Mine Plans – Little Cornwallis Island
I have a question for the Minister of Sustainable Development about the mine at Little Cornwallis Island.
Can he update me on the closure of the mine?
We are presently working on this.
We have been working with Cominco Mines for two years looking at different needs and how it has affected the land.
We are working closely with Cominco.
Our officials will also be working with the Water Board, as to how it has impacted the waters.
We are hoping that we will have a good working relationship.
The government, the Water Board and the mine will work together during the closure and look at ways as to what we could do the final clean up of the mine site at Little Cornwallis Island.
The minister stated that he is hoping to work with these groups in the future, work closely with them.
What is the working relationship like at present?
At present, we are working with these groups.
During the mining symposium in Toronto we had discussions with these groups and we talked about how we would like to work closely together in regards to how this has impacted the land.
Presently we are working well with them and the mine has also stated that they want to work closely with the government.
The mine is on Little Cornwallis Island and its Inuktitut name is Maqullika.
I would like to ask, using Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit is important, and if it was important to the minister also he would also visit and see it for himself rather than relying on documents and briefings, has he gone there?
I don't know if I understood you clearly.
So, if I don’t respond to your question please rephrase it.
Yes, our department wants to work with the communities and also through the member responsible for the constituency to see how we can learn from the closure of the Nanisivik mine.
I think it is this year that the mines will close and we will be working closely with the communities.
I am asking the minister he has used Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit in dealing with this and has gone to see it for himself instead of managing it from afar.
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk (interpretation): I apologize I have a cold Mr. Speaker.
If we are going to close the mines using Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, we've never actually closed a mine with the use of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
The closure of the Nanisivik mine will be a good learning experience.
We will learn well from that.
Perhaps after the mines are closed Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit will come out and will be implemented.
We will work closely with the communities adjacent to the mine during the closing process.
Speaker: Members will note that Question Period is now over.
Ms. Williams. That was your final supplementary.
Replies to Opening Address. Item 10.
Standing Committee Report 016 – 1(5): Review of Bills 16 An Act to Amend the Cities, Towns and Villages Act, and Bill 17 An Act to Amend the Hamlets Act
Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Community Empowerment and Sustainable Development is pleased to have had the opportunity to review Bill 16, An Act to amend the Cities, Towns, and Villages Act and Bill 17, An Act to amend the Hamlets Act with the new Minister of Community Govt. & Transportation and her officials.
Mr. Speaker, given that Bill 16 and 17 address many of the same issues with respect to municipal governance, my report will deal with the contents of both Bills.
Members will recall that both of these Bills received second reading in the House on November 29, 2001.
This was the culmination of several years of hard work beginning with review efforts undertaken by the previous government.
The Standing Committee appreciates the work that has been accomplished by the Steering Committee and the Municipal Legislation Working Group to develop the Bills.
However, because of several concerns raised during consultations with Members of the Legislative Assembly and stakeholders, the Standing Committee is recommending that the Bills be permitted to fall off the order paper for this Session.
I will be taking some time to cover a number of these concerns, however I want to make it very clear that we would like to see the government reintroduce the legislation with improvements at the earliest opportunity.
Mr. Speaker I have discussed this with my colleagues of the Regular Members’ Caucus and every Member agrees and supports this.
Mr. Speaker, it is important to note for the record that good legislation requires detailed scrutiny.
We are very close to achieving a solid package of improvements to the way in which our communities operate and it is important that we do this right.
That is the nature of the work here.
Mr. Speaker, it is clear to the Committee that this legislation aims to further empower communities by broadening the by-law making powers of councils and allowing councils to form boards and commissions and enter into community agreements.
The committee is in full support of empowerment initiatives but strongly cautions the department to ensure that policies are put in place to ensure that training, support and resources are provided to match the increased powers and responsibilities that may be undertaken by municipalities.
It is also important that the range of by-law making powers given to municipalities are appropriate to this level of government.
Mr. Speaker, as Members are aware municipal councillors in the communities often have duties outside of their responsibilities as elected council members, responsibilities that oblige them to travel frequently.
Today's technology allows for such things as video conferencing and conference calls.
The committee was pleased to see that the Bills allow Council members to attend council meetings using electronic means.
The committee recognizes that each community is different.
The private sector is thriving in some communities but is less developed in others.
Where there is a limited private sector, the committee is aware that the ability of the municipal government to provide services is critical.
However, the committee is concerned that the municipal government not compete with the thriving private sectors in the delivery of goods and services.
If the prices being offered by the private sector are reasonable and they can in fact provide the service then community government should not be able to enter into competition with them.
Where this is not the case then community government should have the opportunity to provide not-for-profit services.
The committee recommends that sections with respect to municipal involvement in business be amended to address these specific concerns.
Mr. Speaker, the committee was pleased to note that the new Bills provide for the appointment of municipal supervisors in circumstances where the Minister is of the view that a municipality is in financial or operational difficulty.
This is a potentially positive provision that allows the Minister to take remedial action without having immediately to take the extreme step of dissolving the council.
However, the committee notes that the provision is completely open ended with respect to the length of such appointments.
The committee would wish to see the Minister indicate how long such appointments will be in effect before they expire or are renewed.
There are several sections in the Bills where certain municipal actions or decisions require Ministerial approval such as in the area of municipal borrowing.
While the committee is aware of the importance of this requirement as part of a system of checks and balances there is concern that undue delays do not occur while municipalities await Ministerial decisions.
It is for this reason that the Standing Committee would like to see a time limit for Ministerial approval specified in the legislation.
This could also employ the deemed acceptance concept whereby Ministerial approval would be assumed after a specified amount of time had passed in the event that no response was received.
This would be consistent with similar provisions that the Government provided for us in the Utility Rates Review Council Act last year.
Mr. Speaker, our productive discussion with the Minister made it apparent that further amendments are expected with respect to municipal legislation in Nunavut.
One of those changes would be to combine the Cities, Towns and Villages Act and the Settlements Act into a single Act dealing with municipal governance.
The committee fully supports this initiative not least of all because it would allow for a single Act to be fully accessible in Inuktitut and English.
The committee encourages the Minister to direct her officials to continue a policy of open consultations with groups such as Nunavut Association of Municipalities, elected councils and Senior Administrative Officers to ensure that the upcoming changes reflect Nunavummiut and their needs.