EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Whenever the government conducts a survey, whether it is for polar bears or other types of animal population studies, we try to provide local benefits to all of Nunavut. We try to reinforce the fact that Nunavut is being a good steward of its renewable resources, that we manage our populations through scientific and other means, and that we’re not just abandoning our stewardship and required surveys.
This survey will also provide much needed data we require to this end.
Does the minister know when the polar bear surveys will be completed?
This particular polar bear survey has no completion date at this time and we will continue to conduct the survey insofar as we can continue to fund this comprehensive survey.
At this time, this study began in the Baffin Bay area and will continue throughout the rest of the management area this calendar year. As per my earlier statement, the results of this survey may be available in 2013. At the very least, the preliminary results should be available.
The survey I was speaking of in the Baffin Bay area may be completed this year and definitely by next year, but the polar bear surveys will be ongoing in the other management areas.
This survey that you stated will be ongoing will eventually reach other management areas, starting from the area you mentioned.
When these management area survey requirement dates are reached and the survey finally reaches their area and the results are in, is that the only way you can change the quota, only when you have all the data?
We are asked to harvest only a few female polar bears, with the majority being male polar bears.
Most communities are asked to follow male-centric ratios and I was wondering whether this can be looked at only after this survey team finally completes the surveys in our area since you said this was an ongoing population survey. Do I understand that only after a management area is completed, this can be looked at? Based on your statements, the initial results will be available in the year 2013.
Will we be able to put a more equitable ratio allowing more females to be harvested than our current polar bear quota, which penalizes communities if they go past a certain number of females killed?
I was wondering if the minister can respond to this aspect of the current situation.
Indeed, although the number of surveys has increased and when the required survey dates for these areas are reached, we will continue to conduct these surveys.
Out of the questions the member asked, I will answer the last one.
With respect to the statement about limiting or restricting the female polar bear harvest, that is not a legal restriction. It is a management decision made by the local HTOs within the parameters of the MOU that they have agreed to for their management areas.
The particular female and male ratios are set and usually the communities pick the male-centric ratio.
At this point, this ratio still stands and there are no restrictions on harvesting females.
However, when this ratio that is agreed to governing the MOU is surpassed, it may affect their quota for the following year or vice versa. If they have harvested more males in a given year or have not reached their quota, these are placed back into the overall quota for that area.
That is how things are currently managed.
Thank you, Mr. Minister, for your answer.
Yesterday or another day, you referred to surveys.
I believe you said that Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit would be applied in all the planned population surveys.
I don’t exactly understand this statement. Perhaps being of a younger generation, I don’t know how Inuit conducted surveys on polar bears.
I wonder if there is any written statement on how Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit is to be used in population studies of any animal surveys. I would be happy if you could clarify that.
Furthermore, when speaking about polar bear quotas, I wonder where this ratio includes the penalizing of a community stems from. Where is this allowed in the NLCA?
If a community over-harvests females in a particular year where our quotas were already quite limited, we are then penalized.
So I wonder where it states in the NLCA that a community shall be penalized.
Minister of Environment, Minister Arreak
Hon. James Arreak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we refer to the term Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, it includes many things, particularly the lessons Inuit have learned over time and through their survival and subsistence on wildlife species. This includes sharing with other clans the lessons learned from our ancestors and passed down since time immemorial.
It includes our present amalgamation of knowledge of subsisting on and living with the animals, including polar bears, caribou, and other primary food source species throughout Nunavut.
This accumulated knowledge of the behaviour and cycles of these animals of Inuit passed down through generations and is still known by some today, which forms Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
With respect to the NLCA and wildlife matters, the NWMB has been empowered to manage wildlife matters under Article 5 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, which deals with wildlife issues. Further, when they are establishing quotas on particular species under the NLCA, they have to submit their decision to the appropriate minister who can then accept, reject, or vary their decision.
These are the powers given to the minister under Article 5 of the NLCA.
In following the process laid out therein, that is how we arrive at these MOUs with the various communities.
Question 245 – 3(3): Audit of the Nunavut Housing Trust (Elliott)
I want to follow up on some of the questions that I had asked yesterday. We learned yesterday that the minister was putting forward, through the Deloitte and Touche accounting firm, to do a forensic audit into the Nunavut Housing Trust and Affordable Housing Initiative programs. In his reply, the minister had said, “Basically that’s what the federal government is looking for in order to give us some more money for more public housing.”
After I was reading the Hansard and thought about it, I’m just wondering if the minister could clarify if that’s what federal government officials had told you was that they needed to have a forensic audit to be able to give our territory the needed money to build the houses that we need, according to the housing survey.
First of all, I would like to correct the wording of forensic audit. It’s not a forensic audit, but it is an audit. Basically the federal government is not convinced that we have everything in place in order so that the same event doesn’t happen again.
They’re not convinced that it was just simply an over-commitment. Basically they would like some more details as to exactly what happened.
Like I said yesterday, we’re not going to be trying to… .
There’s no witch hunt here, but we want to know who is responsible for making decisions that created this monstrous overrun and hopefully we can correct it.
Like I say, we just want to know who made the decisions, why they made the decisions, and if it was a mistake, we will accept that.
From my understanding, there’s a big difference between a forensic audit and an audit, which then brings me to my next question. The Nunavut Housing Corporation already paid for an audit and now we’re doing a second audit.
What specific details is the federal government looking for, which obviously is different from the first audit, to be able to release the money or provide us with more funding?
Specifically, what details does the federal government want?
The original audit was basically just on financial issues and it was determined that there was no money missed as far as people didn’t take money out of it. It was spent and it was spent on materials and housing, etcetera.
What we’re trying to find out is why there were over-expenditures. We’re basically looking at both the housing trust and the initiative and find out, on all the different programs, on the SIP units, on the stick built, on the five-plexes, and on the contracting, how it was done.
Was it done properly? Were there some irregularities over there? That’s basically what we’re looking at.
We’re not looking at the money issue in general, but we’re looking at the procedures that were done to award these contracts, how these SIP units came about, and who decided to build these SIP units which have cost over $600,000 when you compare that to a stick built at $400,000. We just want to find out those issues.
Again I’m a little disappointed because we went through the whole exercise of having the Auditor General of Canada come and went through that exercise with standing committees in trying to find more information.
I thought we were told as a committee and as a House that everything was on track and that the mechanisms were put in place to make sure no other overspending occurred and whatnot.
So I don’t know why the federal government is not happy with the corrective measures that we have done.
We have moved things from Arviat.
I guess that involves the financial aspect of it.
The next question would be: once this audit is done, will that satisfy the federal government to be able to allow more funding to come through for housing?
Obviously, we all know and the Minister of Finance, in his Budget Address, did say that housing is one of the biggest priorities that we have for the government.
If we can’t satisfy the federal government that we’re going to be able handle money properly, then we have wasted another year.
I do understand your concerns on this, but we’re just determining the terms of the audit.
I’m convinced that once this audit is done, it will bring up exactly what the federal government is looking for and that we will be getting money for housing.
I think, again, I want to ask the question. I’m glad that the minister will be happy and convinced that this will allow funding to come through.
My question was: is it going to be good enough for the federal government? Can you give us assurance that… ?
Obviously you’ve had conversations with the federal government.
They have instructed you to do other things to make sure that things are in a row, to make sure that everything is set for us to be able to receive more funding.
So your assurance is great on a territorial level, but honestly, the money comes from the federal government and I want assurance that the federal government is happy with that.
Every time the Premier has met with her federal counterparts, it has always been the first thing that has been brought out is the mismanagement, they call it, of the housing trust and the incentive program and they’re not happy with just simply saying it was an over-commitment.
Basically they’re looking at why it went wrong in more detail.
I’m convinced that when we can prove to them that this is what happened… .
I’m not saying anybody did anything illegal, but there obviously have been mistakes made and we want to make sure that all the mistakes that were made, there is something in place to correct it. I’m convinced the federal government will give us money for housing once this report is done.
Question 246 – 3(3): Review of the NNI Policy (Curley)
I have a question to the Minister of Economic Development and Transportation, whose department is responsible for the government’s NNI Policy.
Yesterday, the Minister of Finance’s Budget Address informed us that the government will take steps to “properly apply” the goals of the NNI Policy and “address fairness in government procurement.”
It begs the question: was NNI not applied properly? Can the Minister of ED&T explain clearly what role his department will have in this process?
Mr. Speaker, the NNI Secretariat is within my department. It’s a division within my department. The secretariat’s main job is to make sure that the policies are looked at and everyone is agreeing within the means of what the policies are within NNI, and they make sure that some of these things are in place.
They also have the NNI appeals board through that. It’s an advisory. The NNI Secretariat is an advisory to the appeals board.
When there’s an appeal, it’s a quasi-judicial board. The minister and the government have no influence or say in what they are discussing during an appeal process.
In 2010, the NNI Review Committee produced a comprehensive review report on the NNI Policy, which still, I believe, has not been completed.
This is what it is and how thick it is, “Produced for the NNI Review Committee, NNI 2008-2009 Comprehensive Review Report.” One of the concerns identified in the report was, and I will quote directly to be perfectly clear:
“A majority of participants in the community consultations as well as some key stakeholders indicated that the existence of ‘shell companies’…” They are known also as potato companies, brown on the outside, white on the inside, larger. “…is a significant concern.
These are firms that are majority Inuit-owned or Nunavut-based (51% or over) but the management of these firms does not rest with Inuit beneficiaries with Nunavut residents.
Similarly, there were significant concerns expressed regarding the fact that a large portion of the revenue and profits associated with the operation of these firms do not make it into the hands of their Inuit or Nunavummiut ownership.”
My question for the minister is clear: what does the government plan to do to address this critical issue and this unfair practice?
Again I thank the member for that very important question. Mr. Speaker, he’s absolutely right.
There was a comprehensive review in 2008. It was in-depth but mostly administrative. The review was basically on operations and administrations.
For Inuit ownership, this government has no say in who becomes an Inuit owned company. Our partner, NTI, or Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, has only that jurisdiction. We have no authority as a government to say who becomes an Inuit owned company.
As a government, we don’t do that.
Only NTI has that authority.
As the member is well aware when he was in cabinet, he participated in improving and participated in reviewing the improvements that we wanted to do with NNI. Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, there is a process that has already been put in place by the Premier’s Office to speak in more detail on how to improve the NNI Policy with NTI.
NTI has to be on board with this; they manage the article.
In partnership with NTI, we intend to further improve NNI.
Mr. Curley: Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of Finance confirmed that Article 24 and the NNI Policy had not been properly adhered to and has not been consistent in applying the policy when dealing with the Inuit firm contracts, and so on.
I also wanted to indicate to the members here that Article 24.3.4, if you read the article, the obligation specific to the territorial government, obligates the government to take the lead… .
An Hon. Member: A point of order.
Speaker: Alright, Mr. Curley, a point of order has been raised.
Minister Kusugak, it’s your point of order.
Our friend has said that the finance minister said that that article was not being fairly dealt with.
That’s not what the Minister of Finance said, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Curley, maybe you could just clarify if you were quoting from the Budget Address. Mr. Curley.
Mr. Curley: Mr. Speaker, I made it clear earlier that when the Minister of Finance inferred that the article, NNI, had not been properly consistent, I think the Minister of Finance indicated or stated to the House that it was their government that wasn’t applying it consistently.
Otherwise, the government won’t go ahead with the review. That is on that principle, that issue that I’m referring to in the preamble of my question.
We will have to review the wording in the Budget Address and the wording in the Hansard tomorrow from the member, and then I’ll deliver a ruling on that in the near future, as soon as we have an opportunity to do that.
I will allow questioning to continue.
The minister indicated earlier that only NTI has a certain authority with respect to Article 24. If all the members read Article 24 specifically, which is only about three pages, Article 24.3.4 obligates the territorial government to establish policies in consultation with Inuit DIO. That infers NTI.
So the government has the first lead responsibility to creating the policy.
My question to the minister is this: the Department of ED&T supports the operations of the NNI Contracting Appeals Board. Yesterday, I asked how the business community can have confidence in the government’s procurement activities given that it appears perfectly willing to ignore the contracting appeals board’s recommendations.
Will the minister commit to ensuring that the government’s review of the NNI Policy gives careful consideration to making the recommendations of the contracting appeals board’s binding on the government, yes or no?
I just want to point out that the question is still valid. It has nothing to do with the point of order that was raised and we will be doing a ruling on it as soon as we can.
Mr. Speaker, in the department, we’re constantly trying to improve how things are done administratively. We’re trying to become more efficient.
We created a new position just recently to implement audits and whatnot to streamline whatever we’re trying to do within the NNI Policy.
The member referred to potato companies earlier in his line of questioning, and we don’t have anything to do with potato companies.
We have no authority or jurisdiction to name Inuit owned companies into the registry.
Only one entity has that option and has that authority, and that is NTI.
Mr. Speaker, within the department, we’re absolutely trying to improve our processes on how we do things.
Again, I had mentioned earlier that we’re trying to improve that. We’re absolutely trying to get our partners to sit down and revisit this. We don’t want to wait another five years, like it calls for in the land claims, to do a five-year comprehensive review.
We want to deal with this immediately. We’re asking our partners to come to the table and make this more efficient and better for our Nunavut companies.
Mr. Curley: Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I believe that it is essential that all MLAs have the opportunity to review any proposed changes to the NNI Policy before they are approved by the cabinet.
Will the minister commit to ensuring that any proposed changes to the NNI Policy are provided to all Members of the Legislative Assembly before they are finalized, yes or no?
Again, before we change any criteria or policy, we have to have approval from NTI. Of course, Mr. Speaker, with this forthcoming, the Legislative Assembly will have an opportunity to take a look at it.
It is part of the land claims agreement. I’m pretty sure that we will have to get House approval to make any kind of changes on such things as Article 24. Also, we do have to have approval from our partners within the land claims group, that being Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated.
Question 247 – 3(3): Housing Inspections (Aupaluktuq)
To add to my colleague’s, Mr. Elliott, questions yesterday and today, I would like to direct my question to the Minister of the Nunavut Housing Corporation, the Hon. Fred Schell.
Mr. Speaker, with shortage of housing, there are a number of incomplete units and some units couldn’t pass inspections in my community of Baker Lake.
As well, some local contractors have asked how and why inspections didn’t pass without being advised of what work needs to be done in order to correct these inspections.
Mr. Speaker, many constituents have asked and enquired of whether our local housing needs and demands are met and if the required work for housing needs was done adequately and openly.
My question to the hon. minister is: can the minister ensure Baker Lake housing matters are addressed by including my community of Baker Lake to address access to housing issues and also to be included in any present and any future housing audits, as it would be very much welcomed, and if it were made public as well?
These are the questions that have been asked on behalf of constituents.
We are having issues with some LHOs.
One of them, of course, was Cape Dorset when it was handled by the hamlet. That’s why we’re forming an LHO there in Cape Dorset because we had the same issue.
Money was spent there, but none of the houses were fixed.
I know that’s an issue in a lot of communities.
We are going to be doing more inspections and more assessments on these units in all the different communities because we do know that they get a certain amount of money and their job is to repair these units. I know that a lot of the times, they’re not doing that.
That is quite good to hear since this issue affects many people in Nunavut, particularly related to housing.
Some young people are just starting relationships while some families are growing, but in some families, adults are still being looked after by their elderly parents.
I wonder if this issue has been looked at when NHC is conducting one of their housing surveys.
I had raised this issue in one of my questions. Whenever any housing survey is being contemplated, Baker Lake should be included along with this issue of adults living with their parents.
I will be raising this matter at the appropriate time, but at this time today, I just wanted to raise this matter.
I have no other questions. That was just a comment, Mr. Speaker.
Question 248 – 3(3): Uqausivut Implementation (Tapardjuk)
I would like to direct my question to the Minister of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, Minister Arreak, who I call my Annuraaqatik from time to time.
When the Minister of Finance was making his Budget Address yesterday, he referenced that the Inuit language is of utmost importance to the government and particular funds were being set aside to that effect and noted that implementation plans were being completed.
The Minister of Finance announced that the Minister of Languages had just established Uqausivut, which outlines what the government is planning on doing to implement the language laws.
The government states that the implementation plans for kick-starting the incorporation of the language legislation requirements may be ready in time for the spring session.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Languages if this will actually occur. The period identified is two years for the completion of the implementation plans for the language legislation enforcement and this is already delayed.
I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if I can ask the minister whether or not the announcement about the implementation schedule is indeed accomplishable and can we truthfully expect it this spring.
I would like to thank my Annuraaqatik, Mr. Tapardjuk, for raising that question.
Yes, the plan is indeed scheduled to occur within this timeframe, with the implementation plan for the Official Languages Act, and it is currently being completed.
I have tasked a committee to work on refining the details and this committee will be quite important to this government. This committee will flesh out the Uqausivut plan by meeting regularly.
At this time, this process was just initiated and the plan is to hold a weekly meeting to discuss the details as required or every other week in order to complete their work and be prepared for the spring session.
Uqausivut was tabled in June of last year and the government requested feedback from the public about the legislation and whether certain parts required revision or reworking.
We received 35 responses outlining concerns about the document from the general public. Additionally, we have recommendations from the NTI board to meet with the Languages Commissioner with representatives from our department to discuss the issues related to the implementation of the Uqausivut plan.
We will try to complete all of this work prior to the spring sitting of the Legislative Assembly.
I also wish to thank the minister and our expectations are that these plans can now be tabled in our spring session.
The delay is conspicuous and further, it makes one wonder whether or not this government is indeed serious about incorporating the Inuit language into its operations.