EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I would like to say to my colleagues in this House that I have seen animals being abused on television such as trying to burn them. We are not to treat these kinds of stuff in our lives.
The way of the Inuit is that the animals, if we leave part of the animal on the ground, then we know that it’s going to be eaten by scavengers.
Its part of our land because it goes back into the land, but what we do is we bury them, we don’t burn the parts that we are not going to be taking.
Products such as seal meat and then the media asks questions of the Minister for Environment.
I will also be asking oral questions in this regard.
Member's Statement 182 – 2(2): Recognition of Long Service Awards
I rise today to congratulate and thank a group of my constituents for their service and dedication to their jobs.
Last night ten of my constituents were recognized at a ceremony in Kugluktuk for their long-term service with the Government of Nunavut.
No less than six of them work for the Department of Education.
I would like to recognize:
Dianne Akana, who works for Education, Agnes Allen, works for Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, Monica Anghiatok, Environment, Tom Money, Education, Baba Pedersen, Economic Development and Transportation, and Russell Sheppard for their five year long-term service awards.
Helen Akana, Barbara Harvey and Mavis Mulgrew received 15 year Long-Term Service Awards.
And Millie Kuliktana, Education, who has done tremendous work in the area of language and education, received her 20 year Long-Term Service Award.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating these individuals.
Member's Statement 183 – 2(2): High Costs of Airfares
I rise today in regards to the high cost of airfares to the High Arctic.
Mr. Speaker, if I was to go from Nanisivik, Arctic Bay, and I have to pay over $2,000 to get to at a distance of about 200 miles.
I would also like to say; from Grise Fiord to Resolute Bay, it’s twice as much as from here to Kimmirut.
It’s the same airline.
So for that reason, for those people who would like to go and see their extended families in other communities; from Arctic Bay to Igloolik and Pond Inlet, those communities are close together.
During question period I will be asking the Minister responsible for Transportation.
Member's Statement 184 – 2(2): Economic Development in Chesterfield Inlet
I rise today to speak on the issue of economic development in Chesterfield Inlet.
Members of this House may recall that the Aqiggiq Hunters’ and Trappers’ Organization in Chesterfield Inlet is investigating the feasibility study of re-opening the Iqalukvik Fish Plant.
This Fish Plant was established in 1985 and operated on a seasonal basis processing arctic char.
The Nunavut Development Corporation’s 2005/06 Business Plan indicates that the Kivalliq Arctic Foods will be partnering with Aqiggiq Hunters’ and Trappers’ Organization and that the partnership will inject approximately $20,000 into the Chesterfield Inlet economy.
This is a good start but much more can be done.
If the equipment at the Iqalukvik Fish Plant were to be upgraded, then value could be added in Chesterfield Inlet.
This would result in more jobs for my constituents.
I understand that the Government of Nunavut’s Safe Harbours, Healthy Community Investment Strategy, identifies Chesterfield Inlet as a community that needs improvement regarding boat safety and has the opportunity for a commercial fishery.
Chesterfield Inlet is a non-decentralized community and I would like to remind members that one year ago Cabinet expressed its commitment to creating new economic opportunities in non-decentralized communities.
It is time for this government to put its money where its mouth is and seriously invest in economic development in non-decentralized communities.
At the appropriate time I will be asking questions on this issue.
Member's Statement 185 – 2(2): Environmental Design Award
It is with great pleasure that I rise in this House to congratulate the City of Iqaluit on receiving Environmental Design Research Association’s Place Award for the proposed design of the downtown area.
This may very well be the first time that a Canadian project has received this international award.
A jury of professionals judges each entry and chooses only two winners from each of the three categories.
It hasn’t even been five years since Iqaluit became our newest and coolest Capital City.
In the last five years great strides have been made to improve the City’s image and to promote the City internationally.
I am proud to count myself as a resident of this fine City and I would like to ask all members to join me in congratulating the City of Iqaluit on the receipt of this award.
Member's Statement 186 – 2(2): Wedding Anniversary
I rise today to announce that Lizzie and Ollie Ittinnuar are celebrating their wedding anniversary.
I have known them since I was very young.
The two are much respected elders.
In 1965 we used to be sent out, even when we were young, by the federal government.
When my husband got down to Lynn Lake we got married over there and we were always spending some time with them.
They were also welcoming and good company.
In the beginning of the 1980s they promoted the drum dancing and to get the elders together to teach them drum dancing.
I would like to remember that couple for promoting the traditional culture in the communities.
Member's Statement 187 – 2(2): Recognition of Ipeelie Kilabuk
I rise today because as Members of the Legislative Assembly, we enjoy ourselves, and we know that when previous members, they are always pleased to be members of the legislature.
Mr. Speaker, after our minute of silence, it reminded me of a previous member of Ipeelee Kilabuk, who was a member of the legislature in the past, and when we first started, he was very supportive of me.
I would like to ask the members of the House, Aitainnaq Mary Kilabuk, her family, her children, and her friends, to remember her in prayer and to pray for the family members.
This day, there were five members of our family that passed away on this day.
I would like to thank him for supporting us.
Member's Statement 188 – 2(2): Economic Development in Nunavut
I rise today on an issue that has been raised many times in this House by both myself and my colleagues – economic development.
It is disturbing that there is no clear delivery mechanism for Nunavut’s share of this money and that there is no concrete plan in place to ensure that the money is used to move forward with Nunavut’s long-term goals.
This House has been informed, on numerous occasions, that the Nunavut Economic Forum is responsible for implementing the Nunavut Economic Development Strategy.
It is worrying that the Forum has been without a permanent Executive Director for more than four months.
The forum is made up of at least 37 organizations – it is not clear what mechanism is used to determine unified goals from this diverse membership base.
The development and release of the Nunavut Economic Development Strategy was only a first step towards economic development in our territory.
A realistic step-by-step implementation plan, with concrete mechanisms for measuring the efficacy of all initiatives is necessary.
It is one thing for the Economic Development Strategy to name the Nunavut Economic Forum as the implementation body.
It is a different thing to then empower the Forum with the necessary resources to complete implementation.
Mr. Speaker, I believe that a process needs to be put in place to ensure that the worthy goals of the Strategy are met and I will be asking the Minister questions on this issue at the appropriate time.
Return to Oral Question 178 – 2(2): Items Deleted in the KPMG Report
Question 178 – 2(2), Items deleted in the KPMG Report asked by Mr. Peterson on March 3, 2005.
On March 3, my colleague, Mr. Peterson, raised a question in which he referenced page 46 of the KPMG Profile Document dated June 10, 2002, which mentions a separate “Final Report” of the project.
I committed to looking into the existence of this Final Report.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say that the Final Report referenced on page 46 is in fact a KPMG Strategies and Recommendations report dated June 12, 2002 that was tabled last week along with the Profile Document.
Together, the Profile Document and the strategies and recommendations report constitute the entire medical travel review report also known as the KPMG report.
There are no other documents related to this report.
Mr. Speaker, my colleague also asked about the cost to the Government of Nunavut to prepare the medical travel review report.
The department paid KPMG Consulting $406,345.42.
They produced a report subsequently to assist in the development in the request for proposal for medivaced and scheduled medical travel services for Nunavut.
Our pages are from Chesterfield Inlet to page, one from Chesterfield Inlet and pages from Coral Harbour.
My brother’s son, Aqiak and Bridgette Nakulaq, she’s from Coral Harbor.
From Chesterfield Inlet, Rebecca Sammuqtuq.
I would like to welcome them to the house.
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery. Mr. Picco.
Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome to the gallery a guy who has been sitting over there, our Sergeant-at-arms.
I noticed the last few days when the house was sitting, the members can get up in the Committee of the Whole and come in and out and attend to business, but our Sergeant-at-arms only gets the break for 20 minutes in the afternoon and then for supper and for the rest of the time he has to sit here.
So I wanted to thank this opportunity to thank Mr. Simonek Kilabuk, the Sergeant-at-arms, for sitting there and being in the gallery every day.
Today, I would like to acknowledge and recognize the past Member of the Legislative Assembly, my uncle’s daughter, and she’s been helping the Legislative Assembly members, Naimee Kilabuk-Bourassa and the rest of her interpreting colleagues.
Question 242 – 2(2): Tracking Expenditures
I just wanted, before I go into my question, to be careful: there are two Akats in the House now.
Over the years, the government has spent a considerable amount of money on developing its financial management systems. There are things that have been identified as areas that needed improving and have been improved by the Auditor General.
I was just wondering if the minister could outline the systems that are in place and how the government tracks its expenditures.
There are a number of systems in place within the government.
I’ll just try and go through each one of those.  There is one, the FreeBalance system, that’s the accounting system, and that was implemented on April 1, 1999.
This software is being accessed by most users within the government system.
The other one is the Access direct system.
It is replacing another system called FirstView, and that was implemented in November 2000.
That is used to track expenditures for credit cards and reconciling transactions associated with credit cards.
The other system is called the P2K system; it is also known as Personality 2000.
That is scheduled for implementation on March 31, 2005; that is the new payroll system.
There is another system that is called CaseWare; it is a stand alone system that produces the public accounts.
There is the T-4 Time Saver system as well; these are programs to assist government accounting in issuing T4-As.
Another program that we use is the Blue Link.
That was purchased in response to the Auditor General’s report in regard to collection activities within the GN to meet the second language requirements.
The other program that we use, again as a stand alone system, is called Simply Accounting; that system tracks the land leases from 1999 onwards.
That is quite a list of software.
I am very happy to hear that Human Resources has Personality as outlined in the P2K system.
My question to follow up on that for the Minister of Finance is: she had indicated that their accounting package that tracks all the expenditures, and that, of the government’s FreeBalance system… .
I am just wondering: if that has been in place since 1999, are there records that show what all the expenditures have been?
That every expenditure that goes through the government system is incorporated and is in that FreeBalance system?
In order to track the $900- and some odd million, we have that system in place.
Every single expenditure of government is tracked and recorded and entered into the system.
My question to the minister is: within that system everything is in there; how is it broken down?
Is it broken down by object item, the same as we see in the main estimates?
The departmental budgets are broken down by departments, as outlined in the main estimates.
There is Directorate, Government Ops, or whatever.
Each department is outlined; they are coded accordingly and tracked through the line items, the travel, O&M expenditures, and are further broken down that way.
My final supplementary question is on the system: how often is that input into?
Is it input into at the time of expenditures, or something that is done every week, every day, every month, every quarter, or whatever?
I would just like to ask the minister to clarify how often that information is input into that system.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Mr. Speaker, the system is used every day to track dollars or to follow up on invoices paid, to follow up on amounts in the system that were committed and whatnot.
So, it is used everyday.
The member for Cambridge Bay, Mr. Peterson.
Question 243 – 2(2): Economic Development Implementation Plans
My question is for the Minister of Economic Development.
In my member’s statement today, I addressed the issue of economic development and the implementation plan for the Nunavut Economic Development Strategy.
My question for the minister is, can the minister inform the House as to what specific implementation measures are currently underway?
We are currently working on this issue in our department.
In regard to the Nunavut Economic Forum, they wanted to work at arm’s length from the government.
The Nunavut Economic Development Forum was to make some recommendations to the Government of Nunavut.
That was my understanding, and because of that, the Nunavut Economic Development Strategy is being implemented by our department and we are currently working on all aspects of that.
We had discussions with NTI and other stakeholders to find out where we can make improvements or to get other ideas on this issue.
I have a copy of a news release from February and it’s from Alistair Campbell who is in charge of the Nunavut Economic Forum.
He commented that there are 91 goals and strategies that are supposed to be completed by the end of this year.
He said that the municipal and territorial governments have a lot more work to do on the strategy.
So, I am just seeing that there’s a lot of work.
I wonder, can the minister tell the House what body is really responsible for ensuring that each goal and strategy has a concrete implementation plan associated with it?
The way I understand it, the Nunavut Economic Forum was set up as a body to make recommendations to this government.
So, with that being said, I would assume it’s this government that’s ultimately responsible for implementing the recommendations in the strategy.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Mr. Minister.
Will the minister commit to tabling the implementation strategy during this session?
I will commit to doing that.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the minister for making that commitment.
Can the minister tell the House what mechanisms are in place to measure the Nunavut Economic Forum’s progress in implementing the Nunavut Economic Development Strategy?
We are going to hold meetings with the Nunavut Economic Development Forum and also with the federal government to make sure that all three of us will be fully informed on the progress of this implementation.
Question 244 – 2(2): Custom Adoption Policies
It was last year that I asked the minister about traditional adoption. The custom adoption committee was not making any money, except when there was an actual adoption.
It seemed like the only way that they could generate revenue was to have a court assist them on how many babies were being adopted traditionally.
This policy didn’t work.
Could the minister tell us if they looked into this issue, and if they didn’t, when would the minister do that?
The committee would receive an honorarium after the adoption is completed.
This is the current status today, but if you would like to see any changes, I could look into it and direct my staff.
It’s working fine to date.
What they do is go through the whole process to get a child adopted, and this committee then reviews the whole thing and the adoption takes place.
First supplementary, Mr. Curley.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): It might be okay with the government, but there are so many commissions out there and other boards and agencies created by the government.
We have the integrity commissioner, the privacy commissioner and the commission this that and other thing.
Because of that, the minister has to do a review on the custom adoption, because with the current practice the child could be adopted by anyone, even out of Nunavut.
There are a lot of adoptions up here and because of that, I would like to ask the minister to do a review and to make sure that they are treated as a commission and be paid.
I would like to thank the member for making that suggestion.
I will look into it because, of course, it’s very important.
I would like to thank the member.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): The committee works extremely hard. If there was any proper procedure… .
At the same time, there is a possibility that they can be sued.
Government employees have to be bonded and insured, and I believe that this committee has to be bonded also.
With that, could the minister give us an update and a report on this issue not too long from now.
There are quite a lot of reviews to be done and we will include this.
If I have to commission someone to do it on behalf of our department, I will do so.
Question 245 – 2(2): Airline Services for the High Arctic
To follow up on my member’s statement, I would like to ask the minister responsible for transportation about the high cost of transportation in the High Arctic.
We rely only on airlines, and I know that these airline companies are independent.
My question to the minister is, has the minister had discussions with either Kenn Borek or First Air or other companies to make sure that there is an improvement in transportation?
I’ve spoken with Bob Davis, who is the president of First Air, and I will be meeting him again today. I will make sure that your message is conveyed.
At the mayors’ conference in Panniqtuuq, this same question was brought up by the mayor from your riding.
At that time, First Air stated that they would do a review, but I have not had an update.
I will make sure when we have our meeting this afternoon that I bring up this issue again.
I would also like to thank the minister.
For the information of my constituents, will you be able to table a report on your findings?
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you. Mr. Simailak.
Yes, after I have a meeting with First Air I will send out the information to the mayors in your riding and also to the member.
Question 246 – 2(2): Potential Economic Development in Chesterfield Inlet
(interpretation ends) In my member’s statement, Mr. Speaker, I talked about the potential that exists for a fish plant in Chesterfield Inlet.
Can the minister inform the House as to what support he has provided to the Aqigiq Hunters and Trappers Organization in Chesterfield Inlet?
The Nunavut Development Corporation is an outside organization and they have their own board and directors.
They set their priorities as an organization.
With respect to the member’s question, I have seen that Kivalliq Foods will be doing commercial fishing this summer, but I also know that the Nunavut Development Corporation is looking into the idea of economic development in the smaller non-decentralized communities.
It’s an ongoing process, and my department is asking the Nunavut Development Corporation to speed things up a bit so we can see some development happening.
Has funding been secured for Chesterfield Inlet under the Safe Harbours-Healthy Communities investment strategy?
I haven’t had an update.
We are going to be writing a letter to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and we are still waiting for some information on the report they had brought out and also the recommendations that were made.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans said that he will keep us informed.
Mr. Netser (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the minister for his response. (interpretation ends) The Government of Nunavut has not yet secured its portion of the $90 million economic development funding that the federal government announced last year.
Will the spending be used for projects such as the Chesterfield Inlet fish plant?
We are still having meetings with the federal government in regard to the $90 million.
There will be a representative coming to Iqaluit to meet with our staff in regard to the $90 million economic development fund.
We are currently negotiating, but we will have an idea of what portion will be coming into Nunavut for economic development.
We should have the answer before March 31.
Question 247 – 2(2): Update on Sealing in Nunavut
I wish to ask a question from my members’ statement to the Minister of Environment.
I forgot to mention that as Inuit we are not farmers.
We are hunters.
We go after the wildlife and we kill them.
That is what we do.
Personally, I feel that when you have a farm, the animals only reach a certain age and then those animals are killed.
As I heard this morning on the radio, animal rights activists are once again raising the issue of sealing.
I heard the minister being asked by the media about what the government will be doing in response, because sealskins provide income to some families and the prices are increasing.
Can the minister tell us what he is going to be doing next?
In regard to the sealing issue, next week the main cities in Canada will be visited by animal rights activists.
As government, considering the sealing activities Nunavummiut are involved in, we want to be able to try and promote our interests in sealing.
Back when Mr. Kilabuk was in charge of this department, we produced a film, Waiting at the Edge, which was geared towards the animal rights activists, to show them exactly what sealing is and how important it is for us.
Hopefully we can continue to make animal rights activists understand and start working more on sealing.
Maybe we’ll work on this for the fall session; we will have had the sealing strategy completed by then.
We, as Nunavutmiut, should understand who the animal rights activists are; are they just Canadian?
Are they from the international community?
The activists who are coordinating the protests are with the International Humane Society, and it is clear that their members are from all over the world.
Can the minister advise me: in Nunavut, how many sealskins or pelts were bought by the Department of Environment?
The quantity differs from year to year.
From the hunters in Nunavut, in this past year, we bought over 8,000 pelts and this was very successful.
We ship the skins that we buy to the North Bay auction down South.
I would like to support the government’s efforts in supporting the sealing industry in Nunavut.
Hopefully, I’ve understood you correctly.
We will be working diligently to support the sealing industry in Nunavut and seeing how we can work together.
Maybe we can work through the ambassadors and talk to them and correspond with them so that we don’t suffer undue effects in Nunavut.
Question 248 – 2(2): Ministerial Travel
My question is for the Premier, the Minister of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs.
Mr. Speaker, on March 21, 2003, the minister responded to an oral question made by our former colleague from Baker Lake, Mr. Glenn McLean, regarding ministerial travel.
Since it has been a year into our second Assembly, I would just like to ask the minister if he will be willing to table that same type of information on ministerial travel for this first year.