EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
On March 19, 2009, during his appearance before the Committee of the Whole, the minister stated that “During the community consultations last winter and the department’s participation in the regional mayors meetings, concerns were raised regarding the replacement of the aging mobile equipment fleet and depleting granular stocks.”
Mr. Chairman, members were pleased to note that the department’s proposed 2011-12 capital estimates includes funding for granular projects in the communities of Arviat and Chesterfield Inlet.
Members were also pleased to note that the department’s proposed 2011-12 capital estimates includes a quarry development project in Kugluktuk with a budget of $1 million.
This pilot project will be for all Kitikmeot communities with each community purchasing or using existing equipment.
Members look forward to receiving an update on the status of this pilot project and, if it successful, strongly encourage the department to expand the initiative to other regions.
Mr. Chairman, the department’s proposed 2011-12 capital estimates includes a further $7.0 million in funding for water system upgrades in the community of Kugluktuk.
This is the department’s single largest capital project for 2011-12.
The department had budgeted $1,826,000 in the 2010-11 fiscal year and $7,365,000 in 2009-2010 for this project.
The substantiation sheet for this project indicated that despite the community having received a new water treatment plant in 2003, Kugluktuk’s “filtered water does not meet the Canadian drinking water guidelines for turbidity.”
It is unclear as to how many of Nunavut’s communities currently meet national guidelines for drinking water quality and how many do not.
During the Legislative Assembly’s consideration of the department’s 2009-2010 capital estimates, members again recommended that the government commit to tabling a report on water quality in each of Nunavut’s communities before the end of 2009 calendar year.
The standing committee also notes that the Canada-wide Strategy for the Management of Municipal Wastewater Effluent was endorsed by a number of jurisdictions.
The standing committee notes that the current issue of the Journal of the Northern Territories Water and Waste Association contains important observations on the issue of wastewater management in the north.
Mr. Chairman, members also note a joint announcement made on July 8 of this year by the federal and territorial governments to fund two water and wastewater infrastructure initiatives in Rankin Inlet.
Members also note that on September 15 of this year, a joint federal and territorial announcement was made for six infrastructure initiatives, one of which is for the construction of a new pump house for water treatment in Baker Lake.
Members also note that on September 16 of this year, a joint federal and territorial announcement was made for the construction of a new sewage lagoon for wastewater treatment in Kimmirut.
Members look forward to receiving ongoing updates on these significant projects.
On September 23 of this year, the GN issued a news release which stated that the GN “completed the pilot beverage container recycling programs which operated in Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, and Kugluktuk.
An independent evaluation of the projects indicated recycling would not present a cost-effective means of addressing waste-management concerns.”
While members were disappointed to hear this announcement, members note that the news release also stated that “The Department of Environment and the Department of Community and Government Services (CGS) are working together to examine Nunavut’s solid waste management practices as a whole.
CGS will take the lead on establishing a Nunavut-Wide Solid Waste Strategy which will involve a comprehensive review of the current state of solid waste management in the territory.
… The strategy will examine a number of options for solid waste management for the territory, including recycling, incineration, gasification.”
The standing committee was pleased to hear that both departments are working together on solid waste management and look forward to ongoing updates on this important issue.
Members also urge both departments to continue lobbying the federal government for funding to upgrade Nunavut’s wastewater facilities to meet these proposed and new federal regulations.
Mr. Chairman, the department’s 2011-12 draft capital estimates documentation indicates that $2.25 million will be provided to the City of Iqaluit in block funding through the federal government’s Gas Tax Fund.
Members recommend that the minister table an annual report on the city’s spending under this agreement so that all Members of the Legislative Assembly and the general public will have a clear picture of how the funds have actually been used.
Members also urge the department to consider entering into such agreements with other communities that can demonstrate the capacity to manage such an arrangement.
Members note that the department’s draft 2011-12 capital estimates include $5 million in funding for small capital projects, which includes such items as mobile equipment repairs, community planning studies, block funding, granular programs, and spill response equipment.
Members encourage the department to clearly list the breakdown of these projects in the annual capital estimates document which is tabled in the Legislative Assembly, given that they amount to approximately 15 percent of the department’s total planned spending.
Members also note the department’s draft 2011-12 capital estimates includes $440,000 in funding in its small capital projects for snow fences in the communities of Cambridge Bay, Chesterfield Inlet, Gjoa Haven, and Repulse Bay.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening comments on the proposed 2011-12 Capital Estimates of the Department of Community and Government Services.
I suggest to members that wherever possible you ask your detailed questions during the page-by-page review of the departmental estimates. Do members have any general comments?
Going to his opening comments, it stated that they’re going to be building a complex in Rankin Inlet and visualizing it, I’m not exactly sure how they’re going to build it, but here in Iqaluit, when we increased the population, we became a town so that we can help with funding for capital projects as a tax-based community. The population was a lot smaller than what Rankin Inlet currently has.
My question is, first of all, whether Rankin Inlet is considering getting town status.
I would like to thank you for asking the question. In regard to becoming a taxed community like Iqaluit, I haven’t been informed by Rankin Inlet what kind of plans they have or if they are even considering it.
I have not been told anything of that sort.
I wish to thank the minister for clarifying that. Yes, we have to search for ways to collaborate on certain issues that the communities are clamouring for.
It pleases me that Rankin Inlet is becoming more developed and they are receiving an influx of employment opportunities into that community.
With that being the case, we should be looking at devolving power to the community as it grows and becomes more capable.
That would be a good model to emulate, perhaps to look at changing the status in line with giving them an opportunity to raise revenue.
From my perspective, the analogy that fits Rankin Inlet is that of a teenager who is almost an adult, as they are developing local capacity, similarly to the way Iqaluit developed into what it is today.
Iqaluit went through those growing pains as it changed its status and became more responsible for its affairs.
The city still needs to complete more work before the ideal is reached, but Iqaluit is able to provide assistance, especially to its fellow local governments. Based on their experience, they can offer advice to their fellow communities.
They can advise that changing your status is not a fearful event.
However, it is only through collaborative efforts that we can develop more towns and cities in Nunavut.
I would like to encourage the minister to explore as many options as possible for Rankin Inlet, especially in providing assistance.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. All communities, when they can, have to help according to their growth, possibly by way of raising funds, becoming a tax-based community, and looking at other means of getting additional revenue.
A lot of the communities don’t just want to get handouts, but I know exactly what Mr. Okalik is saying and I agree with him.
In the minister’s opening comments, he stated that they were exploring ways to convert the garbage into power generation by using incinerators and steam. As per the minister’s comments and as is their usual practice, they will be hiring a consultant to explore these options for their department.
What timeframe are we talking about prior to reviewing the report from the consultant? He seemed to imply a timeframe, so perhaps the minister can elaborate on the details. I would be happy with the verbal clarification.
When we are discussing community waste management, it applies as a concern for many communities and is becoming an issue that many communities see as a problem.
It is not conducive to have to gouge out pits on our beautiful lands and then just fill it with refuse and create another landfill.
Once a landfill has been covered over, the land cannot be reused.
That is not a situation we want to find ourselves in up here in the Arctic. We need knowledgeable staff to deal with this issue and that could be a position anywhere in the government or even in our Department of CGS.
We do not have waste management experts in our department, which is the reason why we end up hiring consultants to look at these issues. They are currently working on a report on this matter.
As I stated earlier, after the consultant completes their work, we are expecting that they will submit a report that identifies all of the issues. If all things fall into place, we will be able to submit the report some time near the end of December.
Hopefully that is understandable.
I feel envious that other communities still have the option to cover their garbage in a landfill. Here in Iqaluit, the city seems intent on creating a veritable mountain of garbage.
I urge our hon. minister to take a trip to our dump area, where he can see for himself just how big that mound of garbage is and it just keeps growing. The dump is an eyesore.
Furthermore, when you are going boating and passing through that area, you see lots of old garbage bags. When you go boating, you can see garbage bags in the water and we never used to see them previously. That is why we need to improve the way we conduct waste management.
I will be in support of the minister if he chooses to initiate change on our current waste management system and I believe that it is something we have to review in the most expedient manner. It seems like it is an urgent issue we have to resolve in the future, not just here in Iqaluit but in all the communities of Nunavut.
Hon. Lorne Kusugak (interpretation): Exactly, as residents of Nunavut, we have to take care of our waste management, especially the matters we can deal with.
I agree with you on your assessment that the garbage is piling up into large hills and when you do visit that area, the debris is piled high into man-made mountains.
In Arviat, there are no hills that equal this mound that has accumulated here in Iqaluit that is entirely composed of garbage that you referred to and I do grasp the background of your statement.
As Inuit practicing our life on the land, we have to be cognizant of the garbage we may leave that ends up on the land.
Many people have noticed old diapers and other bags from the stores, old meat that has been left to rot, and this is not something we want our residents to practice.
If we brought the products onto the land, we are able to bring it back to the communities.
Nonetheless, yes, I will commit to working with all of the communities to support them with waste management issues they may face, especially with good practices.
I am very pleased that we are working to move ahead with this issue.
I am also very pleased that my colleagues are in support of this matter.
On page 8 of the minister’s opening comments, he was talking about the Building Canada Fund and the Gas Tax Program. With just different things I have heard in the past, is there a deadline or a sunset time for the Building Canada Fund in terms of… ?
With all of the capital carryover projects that we have, the 123 I think it is, is there a threat of possibly losing some of that money because they are not being finished?
There are different deadlines on these different funding arrangements that we have; they range from 2014 to 2017, Mr. Chairman.
I was asking because I know Grise Fiord’s 11,000 square feet community hall is a big chunk of the Building Canada Fund, so I want to make sure that that was going to be finished for the community.
At the same time, I know there are gas tax projects in Resolute Bay for the landfill site, and Mr. Okalik was asking questions and I had asked questions to the minister throughout the year.
There was a tender in the paper for work at the dump and the landfill site in Resolute Bay and then that was pulled. The explanation for that, the reason it was pulled was because of the study that you are doing.
Are you saying that the study will be done by December and the $1.8 million that is allocated in gas tax will be used in the next fiscal year to help with the dump?
Thank you, Mr. Elliott, for your questions.
Yes, the Grise Fiord facility that you are talking about should be done on time, just to update you on that, and yes on the second part of the question in terms of Resolute Bay.
On the same page, you were mentioning the RECAPP database for capturing life cycle of buildings and facilities.
With the consulting firm that went around and checked up on what GN assets and hamlet assets in the communities, were you using information from that collected to fill this database?
Hon. Lorne Kusugak: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I thank the member for the question.
Yes, part of the information that would fit into the RECAPP database was, in fact, taken from that or part of that was taken from there.
Mr. Elliott: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just wondering if we could get some more information on that database itself. Is this again another contracted firm that has constructed the database or is there capacity within your department to maintain it, fix it, upgrade it, and add information to it?
Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Kusugak.
Maybe I could ask my deputy to get into a little more detail in terms of that whole last bit. Mr. Chairman, if you would allow her to respond.
Chairman: Yes. Thank you. Go ahead, Ms. Lausman.
Ms. Lausman: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. RECAPP is actually an industry standard database for doing real estate planning on conditions of different components of the building. The government purchased it, I think, in 2005, some time ago, and we manage that database.
What we do is continually update the data that goes into it and it’s based on condition assessments of components of buildings.
So it’s an ongoing, very active data capture of the continuing condition of various buildings. It takes a lot of time to actually populate the database with existing building assets, and we saw the need and the desire to actually include the hamlet assets in there as well.
It’s just the way it read, it sounded like you’re currently underway in doing it, but if it’s been going on for the last five years, it doesn’t sound like a new project; it sounds like an existing project.
How long do you think it will take until all of the assets are actually put into the database?
It’s actually a continuous, ongoing effort. We like to do a snapshot of the condition of every asset every five years and we are doing that right now.
We’ve got engineering consultants who will be visiting every community to really get into the actual condition of the assets themselves. We are building on the information from the sustainability plans that took more of a general sort of inventory of our assets and the various components of it.
On page 3 where it talks about the Nunavut integrated community infrastructure sustainability plans, I was lucky enough to participate in the recent workshop that was held in Arctic Bay.
It gets the community thinking about 5- to 20-year planning in terms of what the community will need in terms of growth and whatnot.
How often will those plans be updated?
I know it’s sort of tied in with the gas tax funding. Is there a timeline as to how often those will be updated?
Hon. Lorne Kusugak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
It will be a working document and the document will be that of the municipalities.
So we’re hopeful that the municipality will keep updating the document as it sees fit and keeping it working.
The onus here is on the municipality to ensure that their sustainability plans are ongoing.
It would be one that they would be updating hopefully annually, and our department would be able to help them out if they need to in looking at that stuff.
It is the municipalities and hopefully it would be updated on a regular basis when it needs to be.
One of the things that came out of our meeting that just raised some questions for me was the fact that once the sustainability plan is done… .
Originally hamlets, I think, were asked to come up with their top ten list of what they felt was needed in the communities and then from there, it went up to the Nunavut Community Infrastructure Advisory Committee.
But now with these new infrastructure sustainability plans, there is actually more thinking and more meat to the decisions being made and hopefully give some of the hamlets a better insight as to what expenses would be coming on the other end as well.
One of the things we noticed was he sort of gauged high priority, low priority, and it just sort of makes you think, “Well, what is stopping a hamlet from saying everything is a high priority and then passing it on to the Nunavut Community Infrastructure Advisory Committee?” When we asked questions about that, I guess there are no real policies or guidelines in terms of how that committee will make decisions.
Maybe the consulting firm that was there didn’t explain it properly. Are there guidelines… ?
In terms of once the sustainability plans get to the committee, how will they be evaluated? I guess that is the question I am asking.
How will they decide from the criteria?
Hon. Lorne Kusugak: The sustainability plans are just that and it is up to the municipalities to set out their priorities in terms of what is their, like you said, top 10 or top 20, or what is the priority of the municipality.
The municipality should decide on that and what this will help, I think, at the end of the day is when new councillors and new members of the hamlet go there, they will have a working document to tell them, “This is the infrastructure we have, this is where its at, and this is the infrastructure we do need,” and it will streamline that more often.
I know, when I sat on the council in Rankin Inlet, every year, there are new hamlet councillors going in and, more often than not, your priority list would change only because we really didn’t have a document such as this to tell us, “Okay, this is where we are and this is where we want to go,” and tweak it throughout the process.
In that sense, I am hopeful that the municipalities will be able to take a look at this and set their priorities themselves.
In terms of bringing those priorities and needs of the municipality to the infrastructure advisory committee, that infrastructure advisory committee has guidelines in which they follow.
I think it would be at that point where things, such as your questions, would come into play.
If I understand correctly, you are saying that the next time these plans are created, the hamlets will be responsible for creating them and there won’t be a mass contract put out by the GN to hire consultants to create these plans.
Hon. Lorne Kusugak: You know, Mr. Chairman, as I said before, once you create this document, it will be a live and working document, you won’t have to recreate it in the municipality.
The expensive and challenging part was to get that created in the first place.
Now that that document is there, the municipalities will be able to keep it going and as things change in the document, they will be able to work with it.
It will be the municipalities’ document and hopefully they will use it proactively and keep the document alive.
Mr. Elliott: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for that response.
You had talked about safe drinking water, and I know that the chair had comments about that as well.
I know one of the issues that you are very well aware of in Resolute Bay is the utilidor system and the aging system that Trow has been doing studies on what the different options are in the communities and helping out with consultation and making sure that things are being followed through.
There are people and hamlet council members who are on the advisory committee for that.
When will all of those studies be done in terms of a decision as to what will be coming for the community?
We’re looking at mid-February to have everything completed on that front.
Thanks for allowing me to ask that question.
One of the questions that I have now is with the problems we have in terms of financial difficulties within the GN… .
Reported originally, it was $29 million and possibly $40 million, depending on which option the government goes with, whether it’s trucked water and sewage delivery, as well as if it’s refurbishing the utilidor system that’s already there.
Once the decision is made in February and there is nothing in the capital plan for next year as to what’s going to happen, what are the plans for the government in terms of finding the funds to be able to assist with providing either a utilidor system, which is going to be a huge amount, or a water and truck system, which is going to be a huge amount as well?
As the member is aware, it’s hard to guesstimate what is going to come out of the report until the report actually comes out, and that’s not coming out until mid-February. At that time, we will have a lot clearer understanding of the issues with water in Resolute Bay.
Having said that, that is why our department is working in the municipality to ensure that the current infrastructure that is here, in terms of water needs in the municipality, are such that they should be able to operate efficiently as is for the next five years.
So it would allow us to take a look at the situation and where it needs to go.
In terms of when new buildings and infrastructure, I know that I had asked this question before and had emailed a couple of times regarding this.
In terms of new buildings and facilities that go to the communities, when you’re doing the substantiation forms and the cost analysis for the buildings, do you assign… ? Again, we’re doing capital, but if you are getting a new building, do you assign and attach O&M monies to that in the upcoming fiscal year for new buildings coming online?
The reason why I am asking that question is because I know that the Hamlet of Arctic Bay, with their new community hall that you came up to open, has not received any financial assistance from December, when it opened, until today in terms of money coming for the O&M of that building.
Thanks for that. Now I know that I can take that back to the hamlet and give them an answer.
That’s all the questions that I had, Mr. Chairman.
Hon. Lorne Kusugak: Just on that comment, the municipality is aware.
We work with the mayor and council and the administrators of the municipality. We’re working on that with them, and I am glad that you’re going to bring that forward to them again.
I would like to get more information on this issue that we currently face with respect to waste management and garbage that residents are throwing out. We have to reconsider our approaches to meeting this challenge as many communities are just stockpiling garbage.