EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
The minister mentioned a couple of times that he was in the Kitikmeot and I appreciate his many visits there which is good to see.
It’s not often you see ministers over there as often as you see Minister Picco which I think goes a long ways to show what how he feels about the Kitikmeot and it’s strategic value to Nunavut.
In your meetings with the mining officials in Cambridge Bay, then in Yellowknife, and Diavik, have you discussed the possibility of partnerships with them to offset some of the infrastructure costs and capital costs that would require the government to go on their own, if they chose that route?
I’ve had some very good conversations with several of the key major mining players in Nunavut at that conference about training opportunities.
One conversation I had, for example, with Mair Markand on the Doris North Project was similar to talking about what kinds of training expectations that they had for the Government of Nunavut and where I could follow them in developing those types of training plans.
Under any mine agreement that is signed in Nunavut, because of our land claim that is in place, those mining companies have to sign off on an IIBA, and the majority of the IIBAs would include a training component.
We are able to use that training component under the IIBA to purchase the necessary space and skill sets and instructors and so on to deliver the program.
So what I would suggest, at this time, is that once a project is going forward, we have some very good people, Fiona Buchan-Corey, and others who work for the college in the Kitikmeot; they can be directly in contact with those people to facilitate the type of training that is needed.
What I need is that window of six or nine months before an actual project to start the training. If it’s a two-year program for example, and Miramar came to me and said we will need 15 heavy equipment operators in two years time, then we would be able to put that program in place and start delivering it.
And so, at the two-year expiry of that program, those people would have jobs. And that’s what we’re doing right now with the Morrisburg facility, where we graduated over 40 heavy equipment operators, and I believe something like 80 percent of them are already employed.
So that’s the type of thing we would do.
The minister mentioned earlier that there were accommodations being built for the students to attend the Nunavut Trades School in Rankin Inlet.
I wonder if the minister has plans to expand the facilities in Cambridge Bay for the students that will be coming there to attend the training facility at the high school.
I ask this question because the accommodations that are there now, I don’t think even meet the current needs of the current Nunavut Arctic College Campus.
We’re quite pleased and proud of the facility that we have in Cambridge Bay. The member is correct, it’s the newest student accommodations that we have anywhere in Nunavut, and they’ve met all expectations.
My understanding is that they’re not to the point of over-utilization yet. And again, it depends on what course offerings are made in the community.
And that’s something that we are reviewing right now; we’re looking at logistically what types of spaces they need in the community, given, in co-operation with what program we’re running.
So if we’re going to run a program, we need 40 extra beds for example, and if that’s in the long term process, then we plan on the accommodations, but my understanding right now from the information that has been provided to me is that we’re not over-utilizing the current accommodations that are available, and we do have room to grow there with those accommodations.
I realize what he is saying; that they’re not currently using all the accommodations, but it’s not that large a facility.
It’s 20 units, I believe, and it wouldn’t take much to over-utilize it, or reach capacity.
If you have 15 families in there now, and you run a mining training course for six to eight weeks, or longer, with 10 to 15 individuals, it could quickly exceed its capacity, and I foresee a great demand for mine training in the next year to ten years.
So, again, I ask the minister if he could give me any indication if they’ve got any firm or more concrete plans for student accommodations in Cambridge Bay to support the training facility?
When we’re doing our planning, if the facility is underutilized now, we would base the utilization of the facility on the program content that we’d be delivering in the given community, or campus.
So, in this case, there are 20 units available and 60 beds in that facility presently.
As I said earlier, it’s the newest accommodations that we have built under the college. We’re quite pleased with them and all feed-back that we’re hearing is that they are well designed, and so on.
And that’s the design we’d like to use in other communities. The short answer is no, I’m not looking at increasing any of the accommodations on the ground. I have no plans to do that right now.
My next step in Cambridge Bay would be to actually do something with the campus.
Right now, the campus is located in several different buildings and ATCO trailers and so on.
I would like to build an actual campus for Nunavut Arctic College in Cambridge Bay. And that would be my priority going forward into the new capital planning area.
Again, it’s all contingent on how much money is available in the fiscal situation within the government.
I’m almost tempted to call him the Amazing Kreskin because he read my mind. My very next question was going to be a question about the status of planning for the new Nunavut Arctic College campus in Cambridge Bay.
I’ve discussed this numerous times with the minister and his staff over the last couple of years. The facility is probably 30 or 40 years old.
I’m wondering if for the record if you could give us some more detail on the planning that’s gone under way thus far towards a new campus for the community and for the Kitikmeot Region.
I don’t mind if the member wants to refer to me as the Amazing Kreskin. I would be upset if he referred to me as Nostradamus or something like that. So I would stand to correct him on the usage of people of history.
Mr. Chairman, there have been preliminary discussions with the Hamlet in Cambridge Bay on the creation of a new campus.
Again, these are in very preliminary discussion phases. I have spoken to the director of the campus there, Fiona Buchan-Corey, about the need for the campus.
And to be honest with you, the last time I was in the campus, it was quite embarrassing.
It is a very old complex of buildings, as I stated earlier, and it reminds me of something we used to see in the 70s in the old prevocational training days that some of us remember.
So, again, if and when we can bring the functional program forward with the dollar values attached, then that would be the priority of the college, is to get a functional, stand-alone campus there.
Again, because of some of the issues that the member has talked about including the opportunities for mining, we would like to have a better facility there in the Kitikmeot Region.
I want to welcome the minister.
I might be jumping ahead.
I want to ask the chairman first.
Can I go down to the next box in G-6?  Chairman: Mr. Kattuk, you can go to the bottom of the page because it’s still under G-6.
Mr. Kattuk: Thank you. The minister and I know that we have been talking about a new school for my community. I know that we have been talking about it for a long time now, I guess since 1999 and still, it’s not satisfactory to the community.
Look what’s happening here in the capital estimates or capital plan…(inaudible)...from the youth that was sent here for the youth parliament. He asked a question about the new school.
Also at that time there was a public meeting in the community and they wanted to see the new school up or under construction next year, but it looks like that $1 million is not going to build a new school.
I want to ask the minister: is that $1 million for planning, or is it for bringing in the material?
I appreciate the member’s question. We’ve had some discussion on the situation regarding the Sanikiluaq school and it’s very similar to what you see with the Qikiqtarjuaq school.
The Sanikiluaq school is at about 150 percent occupancy.
I have been in the school many times, as the member knows. Some of the issues include the adequate cash flow that we need to put in place under the capital plan.
In the past 10 or 12 weeks, as the members know from Minister Simailak’s financial update of the government, we are in a very serious situation with our financial resources and we have to be cognizant of that when we do the capital plan.
What happened is that we are looking at a different programming for the capital plan so that each department is allocated a certain amount of money and a window over a five-year period for that capital plan, and we have to fit projects into that capital plan.
And so, based on contracts that we saw in the projects moving forward, I wasn’t able to move that project up into the capital plan, but after the budget is passed and laid on as we get six or seven months into this fiscal year and depending on our fiscal situation and so on, I’m prepared to go back and look at the Sanikiluaq project, as well as the Qikiqtarjuaq project, which was mentioned in an earlier statement, to see what we can do with those projects to see if we can move them forward.
The money allocated in the budget is set; it is little different than the Qikiqtarjuaq one. In Qikiqtarjuaq, we didn’t have anything in the budget for it and what I planned to do was move it from 2010 in the capital budget down to 2006-07. We had done that and then I had to take it back out again because of the cash flow problem the government was in.
In Sanikiluaq’s case, it’s the same thing; even though it was in the capital budget, based on the contracts we had signed in place and based on the projects that are going forward, which means work have already started out on the site work and so on, I wasn’t able to cash flow that project because I don’t have it in the budget.
So the $1 million is there and that’s for the final phasing of the design and pre-planning stages of the school itself. So you have the design, you’ve got all that type of work done, the architectural drawings and so on would be in place, and so on.
The next step for this school would be the actual construction. The problem is the cash flow; I don’t have the money available within the amount of money that’s been allocated to the department to be able to start the construction, and that’s why the one year delay on the project.
I thought you did the planning at least two years ago and I think you spent some money on that. I’ve seen the design hanging up in the school, the building design.
So is this for the painting, so, or are you telling me that another design will be drawn up, is that what you’re telling me?
For correction purposes, no, I wasn’t saying that. What I’m saying is…again, I’ll give out the timelines. In six months it will be April 1, 2007.
What I’m saying is, based on the cash flow within the Department of Education right now and the budget we’re looking at, the best I can do is have the construction start by April 1, 2008. That’s in a year’s time, a year and a half time. I can’t do the construction this spring or fall.
The extra million dollars there, is what I’m saying, is that the project right now is tender-ready. That means, we’ve got the, as he said, we’ve got the design and all that is ready to go. What we need to do now is present that tender-ready to the public.
That’s where we are with it.
I just had that lapse in time, that delay in time, between actually putting the tender out and the actual construction. I cannot put the tender out right now and say, bid on the school that will start construction a year and a half from now. You need to have a tighter timeframe than that, a closer period from when you put the tender out to when the construction would begin.
Because the cash flow is not there, because of the reductions we have done on the capital plan across Nunavut in all of our capital budgets, because of the fiscal situation we are in, this is one of the projects that I’m not able to pull through.
Mr. Kattuk: Taima.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Kattuk.
In regard to the Nunavut Trades School, we are getting units from Housing Corporation and I met with them, I met with Arctic Bay Development Corporation and people from Housing.
Even though the trades school will be opening, it feels like the units are set to fail, and even though they want training on construction, the Department of Education is not providing any funding for the training. For example, if you’re going to become an electrician, or plumber, or carpenter, the communities are being provided with the units.
It’s up to the community to train and the Department of Education is not providing any funding for the trades’ programs.
What will the Department of Education do while we’re being given the pilot project and the material already came in through sealift and the Inuit have the expectation that they’ll get training and yet they are not given funding from the Department of Education.
How closely are the Department of Education and Housing Corporation working together on that?
I just want to make sure that I understand what the member is trying to say, correctly.
There are two types of processes to do training.
One process is that if Levi Barnabas’ company comes forward and they’re going to be building 15 houses in Arctic Bay, and they say, we want to hire local people, we want a carpentry program to be run here.  They make that request, the college, we look at the funds that are available.
There could be sponsorships through Kakivak, FANS, Student Assistance, EI, whatever that program is, and we deliver the program.
The second type of program that could be delivered is actually when one group purchases the seats in a program.
This means the Nunavut Housing Association or Corporation comes forward and says that there are seven units being built in your community.
They’d like to have a Pre-trades Program delivered and they purchase the seats from the college and the college delivers the program.  What is happening right now with Nunavut Housing and the new projects and the new units that are being built and in this case they are older units that are being brought into the community and that is my understanding what the member has said.
It is the same type of situation where the hamlet could contact the Department of Education and Nunavut Arctic College, for example, and say we’ve got 20 units on the ground, ten units, five units. We have work to be done. Are you available to deliver the program or service; then the program could be delivered in that community and the hamlet itself could sponsor the program itself.
So there are all kinds of avenues there for this type of program.
With the program that is in place with the Nunavut Housing Corporation on the development of the new housing units for Nunavut that were announced in the budget, we have a training program in place at a community-by-community basis and that is something that we will be putting in place as those units come off the ship next spring.
We can do that but those instructors are not available.
And it seems that we get instructors from the Department of Education. So for example if I am a young person and I would like to become an electrician then how will I do it?
Will I be training on the job because there are no instructors available?
They aim at the communities and it is going to fail because there are no instructors, and if I am going to become a carpenter, I can train on the job with those units from the Housing Corporations.
Will the instructors teach those trainees? How is it set up?
I don’t know how it is set up because it seems like it will just impede the purpose of this program.
We are getting outside the scope of the capital, but the member is making a good point on what is available with instructors and so on.
And so as an example, if you are an electrician, carpenter, or plumber, or any of these construction trades, you have to work under a journeymen when you start and a journeymen is a person that has passed all the qualifications necessary to be called a carpenter, plumber, and so on, and they have their inter-provincial seal.
That is only one component of a training program. If you want to be a carpenter, plumber you’ve got to have an academic grade 10, 11, 12, and you have to subtract, multiply, and so on.
So any type of component program will include an academic portion as well as a work term portion or hands on portion.
If the member for example has a request from the hamlet and say look we have these units and we’d like to hire 10 people and we need them trained, by all means bring them forward to the Department of Education to myself, as minister, and to the college, and see if we can facilitate something.
We have money within our budget to do that.
I don’t want to try and simply this Mr. Chairman, but it is not an onerous program. Right now, we are running pre-trades programs across Nunavut; something I am sure we’d be able to do with the member’s community, if he would send me an e-mail or get in contact with me after this session today and maybe there is something that we can facilitate.
We have the president of the college here and I am sure we can do something to help out in that case.
Mr. Barnabas (interpretation): It’s easier said than done; maybe I’ll go on to a different one.
The schools in my constituency have not been renovated probably for over ten years. And there is population growth, even in the smaller communities.
I was told before when I first became an MLA that they will deal with the bigger communities and then deal with the smaller communities later.
Even up to now, we are not being looked after, where in some bigger communities they are getting additional schools or getting renovated.
What is the position of the minister in regard to the schools in the smaller communities?
Every community in Nunavut has a school and each is pro-rated based on the school needs, we don’t look at the community, we look at the school needs, the age of the school, the condition of the school and so on.
In the member’s case, the smaller communities, and Inooyaq School in Arctic Bay is an example, the last major renovation there was in 1998, eight years ago. That is not that long ago.
The utilization of the school is 62 percent as an example.
When we talked about, just now, Sanikiluaq which is the same size of community, their school is at 110 percent utilization.
So I’m trying to prioritize all the dollars that I have and deliver projects, not infrastructure, in communities based on those needs.
And I have provided those information sheets to the standing committee to show how we’ve pro-rated and prioritized how what schools should be done.
Mr. Chairman, I want to make it perfectly clear here, that the Premier or the Cabinet of the Government and never, at any given time, ever said: forget smaller communities, do larger communities, on anything that I’ve ever been aware of in government.
It’s always based in what is needed in a given community, not based on the community size.
I want to tell the minister, that Mr. Barnabas and Mr. Peterson were right because we have to understand what the capital projects are and they were based on capital projects.
It’s for education or for schools.
I have a question to the minister on G-6.
I was on the hamlet council and we were advised that the community learning centre was to arrive in the fall and we were told by the Department of Education, and on this page, it’s not on this page, and it says 2006-07 year costs.
Was it already previously authorized that it doesn’t appear on 2006-07 prior year costs?
Is that why it doesn’t appear; maybe it’s written 2005-06?
Just a couple of points on the previous questions of Mr. Barnabas on the updates of renovations in the smaller communities. Grise Fiord school had a major renovation in 2004, Resolute Bay 2004, and Grise Fiord was in 2001. Those are the two smallest communities in Nunavut.
On the quick question for the Member for Pond Inlet, the current community learning centre as the member has indicated is in poor shape and that’s quite obvious and I was there this past June. The program has been designed. We are using the current design of Baker Lake facility and I believe the Cape Dorset facility.
We are using a repeat design of Cape Dorset and Baker to kind of speed things up and so on. And that will help us be able to deliver the project.
The project is slated to go ahead for 2010-11 and this is an issue of cash flow and I don’t have the money available in the budget to be able to do it any faster, the project itself.
Then why was the hamlet council asked two months ago to enlarge the site that was set aside for the Arctic College learning centre before the summer comes? That was a couple of months ago, when in fact the department has already decided that they are not going ahead with it. Why didn’t they tell the Department of Education, Qikiqtani Education, up in Pond Inlet to tell the hamlet that this is no longer in the program?
The meeting the member refers to is the meeting that was held in June. It was a consultative meeting saying, look we are going to move forward and we are going to build a new facility in Pond Inlet. Here is a copy of the design and again as I said earlier it was the Cape Dorset and it was the Baker Lake facility design so that cut down on cost.
The question to the hamlet, of course, was on the site selection. We can’t go ahead and actually design the community learning centre, unless the hamlet comes forward and tells us where it is going to be placed, what is the size of the lot, and so on.
And there were some issues with the lot that was first allocated by the hamlet in Pond Inlet because it was too small and we wanted to make sure that we have a big enough lot for the facility so that was part of the meeting that was in discussion in June with the hamlet in Pond Inlet.
Mr. Arvaluk: Mr. Chairman, the minister didn’t answer my question because we had to have a special meeting just for the design because it is coming this summer and we found a location right away because Pond Inlet really wanted the community learning centre.
But my question was why the department didn’t tell the hamlet, through their department up there, that the community learning centre will not be built the way the hamlet had the information.
That is why I asked the question; was it already authorized and passed expenditure, and that is why it is not in the budget.
Why didn’t they tell Pond Inlet people that it is being shelved until the government has enough money to build one?
It is my understanding from two of the participants at the meeting the hamlet council was quite pleased to hear the community learning centre was going to be built in there and there were discussions around the lot and the time frame to do such.
I’ve asked my staff to follow up in their notes to see if there is any correspondence to that effect.
If there was misinformation that was provided to the hamlet and on behalf of the department I do apologize.
It is my understanding; from the participants at the meeting that the timeframe of the 2010-12 construction was explained, and that the immediacy for the meeting was the selection of the lot to make sure that we had a proper lot because the first lot that was offered wasn’t conducive. It was too small for the building of the facility.
So hopefully that helps clarify what would be occurring.
The major concern raised by the hamlet at the meeting was that they wanted to make sure that the CLC proposed learning centre was not downsized, that it was actually what was being presented.
Mr. Arvaluk: I’m surprised because when I go through the capital previously, in my own time, after it was presented, then I wouldn’t have spotted it, nor would I have spotted it in this presentation.
Why didn’t you tell me, or at least tell the House, that some changes were made due to the lack of cash flow with the Government of Nunavut?
Wouldn’t he at least publicly notify Nunavummiut communities so that we wouldn’t be surprised in the end?