EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I seek consent to waive the two day notice requirement to allow for first reading of Bill 30, the Appropriation Act 2003/2004.
The Minister is seeking consent to waive rule 62 (1), so that the bill can have first reading today.
Bill 30 – Appropriations (Operations and Maintenance) Act 2003/2004 – First Reading
Hon. Kelvin Ng: Thank you, Members, Mr. Speaker.
I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Baffin South that Bill 30, Appropriations (Operations and Maintenance) Act 2003/2004, be read for the first time.
The motion is carried and Bill 30 has had first reading.
Bill 30 – Appropriations (Operations and Maintenance) Act 2003/2004 – Second Reading
I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Baffin South that Bill 30, Appropriation (Operations and Maintenance) Act 2003/2004 be read for the second time.
Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this Bill is to seek Legislative approval, for the Operations and Maintenance requirements for the Government of Nunavut’s Departments in the amount of $699 million 970 thousand to allows for the delivery of programs and services effective April 1st 2003.
Mr. Speaker, as well, attached to the Bill of the Business Plans of all of the Departments of the Government of Nunavut.
All of those in favour.
All of those opposed.
The motion is carried and Bill 30 has had Second Reading and accordingly the Bill stands referred to a Committee.
Before we proceed with Committee of the Whole, I would like to read the following message that comes from the Commissioner of Nunavut, Mr. Irniq.
And it reads: I wish to advise and recommend to the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut the passage of the following Bills on the 6th Session of the First Legislative Assembly in Nunavut:
Bill 30: Appropriation, Operation and Maintenance, 2003-2004.
Bill 31: Supplementary Appropriation Act, #3, 2002-2003.
Bill 32: Supplementary Appropriation, Operations and Maintenance, #2, 2002-2003.
Signed by Commissioner, Peter Irniq.
Consideration of the Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters, Bill 22, Bill 23, Bill 30, Minister Statement 95-1(6), Tabled Document 30-1(6) with Mr. Iqaqrialu in the Chair and also on Bills, Bill 24.
Before we go to Committee of the Whole, we will take a ten-minute break.
>>House recessed at 16:28 p.m. and resumed at 16:47 p.m.
We will continue on with the issue that we did not complete the last time we were under Committee of the Whole.
So I would like to ask the Minister if he’s ready to go down to the witness table with his officials.
Mr. Chairman, yes, I would be very pleased to go to the witness table with some of the presenters that we have here this afternoon and staff.
Does the Committee agree that he identify his officials?
Sergeant-at-arms.
Thank you, Minister Picco, if you could introduce your officials.
Mr. Chairman, with me today, on my immediate left is Mr. Andrew Tagak Sr., the specialist with Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit within the Department of Health and Social Services.
On my immediate right is Acting Deputy Minister of Health and Social Services for the Government of Nunavut, Dr. Keith Best.
We will deal with Minister’s Statement 95-1(6) and we will continue on with that, mental health and suicide prevention.
We will just go on with that Tabled Document 30-1(6).
The Members can make their general comments.
Since some Members were late coming to this session due to bad weather, I am glad that they have been able to make it here before we complete this item.
So therefore I will allow them to speak first.
For those Members who did not have the opportunity to make their general comments, this is a very important issue, on suicide prevention and mental health.
We are still on general comments with those who did not make their general comments for ten minutes.
So, we will get back to general comments for ten minutes since we stopped there.
A few days ago, we dealt with mental health and suicide prevention and I am very glad that we are able to speak to this issue during the Committee of the Whole.
Although we know that we spoke about this issue through Members' Statements and through Oral Questions to the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services and they have been asking how they can eradicate or reduce the number of suicides.
We have heard that although we don’t seem to be moving forward by deliberating on this issue, this is a very heavy issue and we all want to eradicate suicide but we have to start talking about this problem because we should not give up on some of the things if they don’t resolve right away.
I believe that the Government of Nunavut can look and focus mainly on the reduction on the number of suicides.
I know it is very difficult to eradicate it.
I believe that as the Nunavut Government, we can help give support to problems within our community.
For that reason, a few days ago, when I was acting Speaker, I was unable to speak to this issue.
I would watch the proceedings and watched the proceedings during Committee of the Whole when they deliberated on suicide prevention and just watching it, I know it is very hard to deal with and it makes you emotional.
And when you want to speak to this issue further, you cannot find the words to describe it.
So, therefore, I am very appreciative of the fact that we can deal with this heavy issue on suicide.
Yes, we need to reduce the number of suicides by deliberating with each other.
Before the creation of the Nunavut Government, traditionally we used to live in the outpost camps when I was a child, we were taught survival and how to want to live.
They taught us all how to survive, how to not expose yourself and they taught us how not to get our kamiks wet.
Our parents worked very hard to teach us how to survive because they wanted us to remain alive.
But today, it is clearly different now, it seems like the young people out there have many different things that could interfere with their lives because we see things that were not around when I was younger.
For that reason, their parents are leaving behind the young people and at times, their parents break up even though the young couple have children on their own.
So, they go through hard times.
I know that it must be hard on the young person who becomes orphaned.
And I know that this is a heavy issue to carry as a young person.
We used to have many plans in Nunavut and there are other opportunities out there still, opportunities out there that can help us and have those programs effective and be supportive in all of the three Regions.
There is a Baffin Regional Correctional Center in the Baffin Region and we do not have correctional centers in other Regions, even though the inmates go to correctional centers to get help.
They leave their family behind when they are incarcerated and their families cannot even go to see the inmates because they cannot afford to go visit their relatives who are incarcerated.
So, these are some of the hardships that people have to go through and we have seen, for example, there were a couple of Kitikmeot Inmates who were housed here in the Baffin Correctional Center when they should be incarcerated in the Kitikmeot Region and they had committed suicide at the Correctional Center here and that is just one of the examples I could use.
That is why we have to work to reduce the number of suicides.
We have to find solutions and it is evident that we need to find solutions.
At that time during the fall, I went through hard times as a parent and as a father.
All of my family members thought that we had lost one of our children.
But he survived the attempt and we try to give him full support and are really happy and glad that he’s alive today.
I do want to pave the road of the future for our young people.
I know that it is very difficult to deal with and hard and difficult when you experience it.
Yes, we will have to find some sort of solution to this problem.
We are just at the initial stages of where we are looking for solutions by deliberating with each other.
We want to eradicate and reduce the number suicides because we have seen our lives being denigrated and we want to expect to overcome those.
I will give Mr. Alakannuark an opportunity to make his general comments.
I would also like to thank you all that I am able to participate in these discussions.
I don’t know how I can just support or help on this issue but it is about time that we take a stand against suicide.
We have been talking about it for a long time and usually what happens is we have a discussion on the issue of suicide and suicide prevention but we don’t have an action plan; we don’t have a strategy.
I think every single individual has been affected by suicide.
It has been a heavy burden on all the individuals over here.
What can we do to resolve this issue?
What can we do to give support and help to our youth out there?
How do we get the message to the young people that survival is a basic instinct that we should go by?
We used to be young before but we got the help of our parents who gave us the foundation that we can go on.
What can we do for the young people of Nunavut?
It is up to us; we should take the initiative to help and support the people of Nunavut.
There are suicides committed in very short time spans and when you hear about suicide from the other Nunavut communities, everybody is affected and hurt by it.
You feel for the parents of that child, for the relatives and for the whole community in general.
I have gone through this myself personally and you come to the point where you feel so helpless and you don’t know whether you’ll be able to go on or not.
You might have many children or grandchildren at that point and you have many questions where you ask whether you’ll be able to go on or what you can do.
But of course, we have all gone through this and we have been able to go passed that hurdle.
That is why we are still standing today.
If that is the case, it is up to us.
We are working hard but we have to have some kind of a plan that we can implement.
Some kind of a strategy, some kind of action formed.
There are many survivors out there, whether they are male or female who have questions, who have broken hearts, who do not know whether it is better for them to keep going or not.
I am sure they think that they feel guilt or accusations from the rest of the community members.
We feel for those individuals, we love them as their life is precious.
Their life is precious to us and at times the survivors’ lives seem to disintegrate afterwards.
After a suicide, after their immediate family member committed suicide, I think that is why there is such a large of number of completed suicides.
It is up to us now to help them out and if we do not do anything, the numbers are going to keep increasing and the frequency is going up.
If that is the case, I am speaking from the heart and it hurts, it is painful and I am smiling and I see other people smiling, but they are hurting inside.
There is not one individual who is not feeling pain when we are talking about the issue of suicide.
It is up to us as a Government to help, to slow down or to decrease the number of completed suicides.
Each individual community can take a stand against suicide, the elders and the mental health workers, for example.
They have two different concepts of counselling that they use.
They are the counsellors for helping, the professionals are helping to the best of their ability and they counsel all of the people in need.
But in the traditional fashion, the elders can show compassion to the individual, real compassion, the real feeling of wanting to help.
So, there is a slight difference there and I think that the best way to combat suicide is to start at the grass roots.
We might talk about it until we are blue in the face, but it is not going to do anything. It is not going to go anywhere.
The communities have to start combating the issue of suicide and put some kind of action plan to work.
I would like to make a few comments on this issue.
I will try to be as clear as possible because I did not have an opportunity to make my general comments.
Suicide is now very evident in Nunavut and we have to look at solutions or action plans in order to combat the issue.
We have no other alternative now but to take the initiative and to look at what we can do to help the youth and the people of Nunavummiut and where we can work together when we are working on the issue of suicide.
This morning I was sitting with two of my colleagues and we discussed the issue of suicide and what we can do about it as Members.
We had a discussion and it is very evident that it is the hardship that is being experienced by many people in Nunavut.
There have been attempted suicides and there are survivors out there.
Not very many but there are people who attempted but did not complete their suicides.
The counsellors and the professionals know them as suicidal but they attempt again.
We have to look at the long term and talk to the survivors, or the people who attempted suicide.
They can discuss what made them attempt suicide, and what they experienced.
If we hear from the survivors we can look for solutions there, and the counsellors and the professionals can also change the way to do counselling so that it would be conformed to meet the needs of the survivors.
As you probably already know, there will be a conference here in Iqaluit and there will be many participants and keynote speakers who will be involved there.
What we have discussed last week and this week, the information that is compiled on these discussions could be given to the conference participants.
We have been discussing this issue for two days.
We can very strongly word the comments that were made in this room and give a copy to conference participants.
We can work closely together with the conference organizers to see what we can do for the issue of suicide prevention.
I know that it is going to take years to work on all those issues.
It is now very evident that we now have no alternative but to combat this issue.
We have been working on it for a long time and we will be working on it for a long time in the future.
We will have to work together with the communities and bring awareness out there at the grass roots level.
We have a lot of work to do ahead of us.
And also in having casual conversations, as we did this morning, we know that it is evident that it is a concern and that there is a lot of people who would like to make comments on the issue of suicide.
We have to talk to the survivors, we have to talk to the suicide prevention coordinators, and we have to talk to the stakeholders in order to come out with an action plan.
I will now give Mr. McLean an opportunity.
First of all, I want to make it very clear to Minister Picco and his staff that I personally do not look at him to solve this problem.
It is an epidemic and most epidemics can be stopped with medications, and flu shots, and stuff like that.
This is an issue that cannot be stopped by the Department of Health alone.
It is a global issue in Nunavut.
And I say epidemic in the way that it is happening, in the amount of it that is happening.
The sad statistic today, is that our children, all of us in this assembly have children and grandchildren, and their odds of committing suicide are eight times higher than anywhere else in Canada.
To me that is a tragedy.
Why are our young people taking their lives?
Why are they eight times more prone to take their lives? Why are they three times more likely to attempt?
That is a global issue that is just not the one community.
Is the issue, are young people trying to take their lives and trying to commit suicide because of poverty?
That could be an issue.
Are they attempting this and taking their lives because they see no future ahead of them?
Are they attempting to do this because, they look out their door or their window, or something like that and they have low self-esteem and they don’t see anything happening to their lives in the future?
You look around our communities, I still say that Nunavut is probably one of the most beautiful places in the world to live, not that I have been around the world that much.
But I’ve travelled Canada and parts of North America and Greenland and I still say that Nunavut offers more things than living in Toronto and beating traffic and the concrete jungle.
We have an abundance of opportunities to go out fishing and hunting and living on beautiful land and stuff like that. Has that been lost to the youth?
We talk about culture in the schools.
Are young people proud of their culture?
When people, especially young people start taking their lives and giving up at that young age, it happens everywhere in the world. But, the statistics that show that our children and grandchildren up here are eight times more likely to take their lives and two or three times more likely to attempt to take their lives, is a foreign state in a country that is supposed to boast the second and third best living standards in the world.
Well, hello out there, Canada and the Federal Government that is not happening up here.
I know we are not even on the map with the Federal Government when it comes to other issues.
It really frustrates me when I hear we have the best country in the world.
I am a Canadian.
I am a southern Canadian who moved into the north.
I am proud of Canada, but when we get statistics like this, what are we doing?
We talk about it.
I want to reiterate, I don’t blame the Department of Health and Social Services in Nunavut.
I don’t blame anybody.
This is a corruptive epidemic affecting every community and family in Nunavut.
And yes, I was told not to talk about it.
We were all told not to talk about it.
Until we start talking about it and getting together as a territory and as a Canadian Government assisting us somehow and if they can’t assist us, maybe it is time to go to somebody else to ask for help.
Maybe it is time to go to the United States. Maybe it is time to go to Europe and say, you know, what are we doing?
Can you help us because it certainly shows that the Federal Government are not helping us alleviate a situation that is horrendous.
If this happened in any community in southern Canada, there would be more people running around trying to find out why and trying to stop it.
Is it the old stereotypical view?
But I am tired of it and I am going to start talking more about it, the longer I live up here.
It has got to stop.
I think collectively, with the help from outside agencies, and I think it is time.
I am not so proud or not so big to ask somebody from someplace else in the world to come and help us.
If our Federal Government is going to sit back and ignore us when it comes to the issue of suicide, well let us do something about it.
And it starts at the community level.
But we have got to give the communities the resources at the community level to deal with it.
I don’t blame this government. I don’t.
It is not something that just popped up in the last five or six years; it has been going on for years, and years.
When you only live up here for a few years of your life from the south, and you move down south, it is easy to ignore a situation.
But, when you live up here and it happens to affect our families, our friends, and everything else, then it is time to start saying to the Federal Government, there are billions and billions of dollars in surpluses, they are bragging about how they are going to spend it.
They ought to come up here and help us with the situation that is horrendous, I am the first one to stand up in the Legislative Assembly to ask some other country to come in to help us.
The comment made by my colleague and I support him wholeheartedly on his comments.
The government, counsellors, church groups who are in the helping profession and young people who are helping their peers need someone to listen to them.
There are young people who are there to help their peers, but I wanted to comment on the issue of suicide.
Although I was not here the other day when you were talking about this, I will make this brief.
What I have to say is that I have a suggestion that might help in the suicide issue, but I am not going to talk about suicide in a manner that I feel will be uncomfortable for you.
I have gone through a suicide ordeal in my family within the last couple of years.
It has been a long struggle and it has been hard for us.
It was quite a little while that I had someone who committed suicide.
I wanted to make sure that as I work with this Legislature that I talk about suicide.
I know for a fact that we have to try to find out why people commit suicide.
I also believe and also feel that we have to start talking about suicide and not put people down.
We should stop putting down counsellors, elders, young people, because I know that not only young people commit suicide.
I, myself, have had a family member who was an older person, who committed suicide.
Anyone can go through hardships and helplessness.
I wanted to speak because as a Member of the Legislative Assembly, the problems, the stress, the crisis and the hurt a person is going through, whether they are a young person, an elder or older person.
Everyone has gone through it, and everyone has gone through these crisis situations and helplessness.
It too passes.
My colleagues, Members of the Legislative Assembly, and helping professions and other agencies, we have to start working together and talk about suicide and make sure that we take down the barriers where suicide is concerned.
A lot of the times when we are going through bereavement and there has been a suicide, we feel that we are the only ones who have gone through it, but that is not the case.
Others have gone through it.
We have to make sure we let people know that other people have gone through the same thing where suicide is concerned.
And there is help for them.
Like I say, Mr. Chairman, I told the Legislature that I was going to make this brief.
I can only talk about the experience that I have gone through and because of the experience I had.
I have come to realize that what I have been advised about previously when I was younger and I have been advised that all the things that an individual has gone through have been experienced by others and it will be the same again in the future for others.
All of the Members of the Legislative Assembly had a chance to make general comments on suicide prevention.
I will give the Members a chance to speak again, if Members would like to make additional comments on the issue.
Like I stated at the last meeting that we had, suicide is a very important issue.
We need to start doing something about solving the suicide problem.
I think there are two things that we are talking about right now, something to alleviate the problem at the present time, and the other one, I know that we cannot resolve this at the present time.
What plans or action plans are we going to set to make goals and objectives to make sure that my children and my grandchildren will strive to live?
And how do we prevent suicide?
These are the two things that we are talking about.
One that is the immediate problem: how do we deal with the immediate problem?
And also, what kind of goals and objectives are we going to set to combat suicide?
And when I am looking at my two adopted children and there are two things I notice that they do.
There is the TV, there are always programs on TV about war all of the time.
There are movies depicting violence, war and there are games that depict war and they are shooting at each other.
And although they had a game like that, there are some kids that were visiting him using those G.I. Joe weapons and they started playing with those G.I. Joe weapons.
I told them right away; do not point that gun at an individual.
And the other two children who visited my children started looking at me very strangely, how come he does not want me to play guns?
How come he is getting mad just because we are playing with guns, playing G.I. Joe?
And my kids told them, quoting me, do not shoot people, only shoot animals.
Mr. McLean and I have been from down south, I went to school down south, and I have studied how southern culture started in our country from England.
This department or the industrial age has started from the English.
Western culture is always looking for ways to improve society.