EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee encouraged the minister to publicly clarify the department’s strategy for ensuring that it is in compliance with existing requirements, and to indicate what plans the department has to work with other partners to streamline the regulatory process.
For example, the standing committee knows that the current 2007-08 Business Plan for the GN’s Department of Environment indicates that it has been working with the Nunavut Water Board to review water licenses and conditions for development projects, and that it has provided a number of recommendations in this area.
Mr. Chairman, the provision of safe drinking water to our communities is a fundamental function of government.
One of the department’s ongoing capital projects is the construction of a new water treatment plant for Kugluktuk.  The department’s substantiation sheet for this project indicates that “the existing water plant is not able to produce drinking water that meets the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality.”
These guidelines were updated in 2004.
Mr. Chairman, it is unclear as to how many of Nunavut’s communities currently meet these guidelines and how many do not.
The Public Water Supply Regulations made under Nunavut’s Public Health Act provides standards for the quality of public water supplies in the territory. These regulations were inherited from the Northwest Territories in 1999.
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee notes that the recent report released by the Government of the Northwest Territories indicates that a number of NWT communities fail to meet minimum requirements for the testing of drinking water.
The report also indicates that while all NWT communities can meet territorial regulations, not all can meet the Canadian guidelines.
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee strongly recommends that the minister’s department undertake a similar review of Nunavut’s situation, and that the report be publicly tabled in the Legislative Assembly.
Mr. Chairman, the GNWT report to which I made reference indicates that Nunavut and the Northwest Territories are the only jurisdictions in Canada that do not have a mandatory operator certification requirement for persons working in water treatment plants.
The standing committee was pleased to hear the minister indicate that the Municipal Training Organization, which is funded by her department, has developed a course for municipal operators in Nunavut.
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee also recommends that the upcoming 2008-09 business plan for the department clearly address this issue.
The standing committee is also aware of the upcoming new federal regulations concerning national standards for sewage treatment.
The standing committee also notes that the September 12, 2007, announcement by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment concerning the development of a national strategy to improve the handling of municipal wastewater and of an economic plan for sustainable funding of the initiative.
Mr. Chairman, the Nunavut Community Infrastructure Advisory Committee was formed in April 2005. It is composed of representatives in Nunavut Association Municipalities and the GN. It was involved in priority-setting for projects receiving funding under the federal Gas Tax Initiative and the Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund.
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee noted that the 2007-08 Business Plan for the Department of Community and Government Services indicates that one of its priorities is to “continue the work of the Nunavut Community Infrastructure Advisory Committee.”
While the standing committee recognizes that the needs of the communities greatly exceed available GN resources, a collaborative approach of capital planning and priority-setting is important.
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee encourages the minister to continue her efforts to lobby the federal government to address Nunavut’s infrastructure deficit.
Members are hopeful that the infrastructure investment plans announced in the federal government’s 2007 budget will help enable Nunavut to achieve progress in this area.
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee was pleased to note that the 2007-08 Business Plan for the Community and Government Services indicates that one of its priorities has been to “establish a brand new granular program.”
Although there was no funding for granular programs in the department’s 2007-08 Capital Estimates, $192,000 is budgeted for 2008-09 for granular programs across the territory.
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee is also pleased that the department recognizes that the quality of granular materials varies greatly between communities, and has initiated a Nunavut-wide study on the issue.
The standing committee looks forward to the minister tabling this report at the earliest opportunity.
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee notes that 2007-08 was the final year for the GN-Iqaluit Capital Contribution Agreement, which provides the funding for the city for capital projects. It is the standing committee’s understanding that department is currently negotiating an extension to the agreement.
$2.4 million has been budgeted to be provided to the City of Iqaluit in 2008-09.
The standing committee recommends that the minister table a 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.
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee also encourages the department to consider entering into such agreements with other communities that can demonstrate the capacity to manage such an arrangement.
The standing committee notes that the department’s 2008-09 Capital Estimates include $3,895,000 in funding for small capital projects, which includes such items as fire trucks, community planning studies and granular programs.
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee encourages the department to clearly list these projects in the annual capital estimates document which is tabled in the Legislative Assembly, given that they amount to over 15 percent of the department’s total planned spending.
Mr. Chairman, all Members of the Legislative Assembly receive, from time to time, official correspondents from the GN that outlines budget transfers between capital projects during the course of the year.
The standing committee has stressed the need for these documents to provide significantly more detail, so that members are kept informed of the exact status of the capital projects that have been impacted by such transfers.
Mr. Chairman, members are pleased that significant investment is being made in community halls. This standing committee has consistently highlighted the importance of community halls and their positive impact on community health and wellness.
Mr. Chairman, the committee also recognizes the need for the department to address the issue of bulk fuel storage in our communities. The growth of communities and more stringent federal regulations will require the department to modernize and expand existing storage facilities.
Improvements in this area may, in the longer term, help to reduce the need to periodically re-supply communities by air, as was required this summer when a number of Nunavut airports ran low on aviation fuel.
Mr. Chairman, on October 22, 2007, the government announced this year’s fuel price increase.
The standing committee notes that the regulations enabling the GN to implement its new hedging strategy were published in the June 2007 edition of the Nunavut Gazette.
Members look forward to evaluating the success of this new strategy in addressing the high cost of energy.
Mr. Chairman that concludes my opening comments on the 2008-09 Capital Estimates of the Department of Community and Government Services. (interpretation) Thank you.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Curley. (interpretation ends) Before we proceed, I would to remind members of the following: according to Rule 77(1), you have 10 minutes to speak, and according to Rule 77(2), subject to the discretion of the Chair, a member may speak more than once to a matter under discussion but not until every member wishing to speak has spoken.
I suggest to the members that wherever possible you ask your detailed questions during the page-by-page review of the department’s estimates.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome the minister and her officials to our Committee of the Whole meeting today.
I would like to congratulate the minister for doing as much as she can in this proposed capital plan budget with the little resources that you have.
I believe it’s not a big secret that in Nunavut our municipal infrastructure deficit is between, I believe the number is $500 million to $600 million.
So you’re trying to help 25 communities get community halls, tank farms, ice arenas, sewage lagoons, and treatment plants with I think it’s $20 million, roughly in that area. So it’s just not enough.
It absolutely astounds me that we can’t get more financial assistance from the Government of Canada to help our communities so our residents can enjoy a good standard of quality of life that most Canadians down south take for granted.
It’s absolutely astounding, and I know as a former Mayor and President of NAM, I was in Ottawa a few times lobbying with the ministers with me.
On one occasion, we lobbied the Minister of Finance at the time, and our back of the envelope calculations at that time were about $265 million. We gave our presentation to the Minister of Finance at the time in Ottawa when Minister Martin subsequently became the Prime Minister of Canada.
So we took it to the highest levels in Canada, at the time, the serious infrastructure shortages that existed in Nunavut.
We also lobbied our parent organization at the time, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, who took up our cause when they understood the serious situations that exist up here. They helped us lobby very successfully in getting that one percent base allocation formula put in place.
One percent doesn’t sound like a lot but when the federal government is announcing a $2 billion federal infrastructure program, one percent of that is $20 million for us, plus the per capita.
I think they should… the Government of Canada; they absolutely have to help us up here. There’s no way around it. I can’t see how they can’t recognize that there is a huge need up here for infrastructure.
Unfortunately, in Nunavut, we live in a part of Canada that is remote.
The wear and tear on our building and facilities has probably exacerbated because of the weather conditions.
It’s very difficult to construct up here. The facilities are probably costing two to three times what it would cost in the south.
So there has to be some recognition of that at the highest levels in Canada.
I know the minister has talked about going to Ottawa and continuing to lobby, and preparing documents that show the disparity between the North and the South. I hope that lobbying works out.
I know we have an opportunity in the North. We talk about sovereignty and we heard announcements this summer from the Prime Minister of Canada of building a deep water port in Nanisivik.
There’s some talk that there should be another port somewhere, but to me, sovereignty includes establishment and support for communities in Nunavut. There are 31,000 people in Nunavut all along the Northwest Passage and as far up north as Grise Fiord.
So if they want to help us assert sovereignty for Canada along the Northwest Passage and into the High Arctic, then what better way could they show that then by helping us build and develop our communities where people actually live and are going to live for centuries to come.
To me, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. So the funding that we’re getting from the federal government, to me, is just a drop in the bucket.
When the Minister of Community and Government Services has to appear before the House every year for capital estimates and the best you can offer the communities is $20 million to $25 million, when our municipal deficit is $500 million, it’s a tremendous juggling act that your capital planners must undergo on a daily basis back in their offices.
I don’t know if he still works here, I remember Doug Sitland explaining that to me one time on how he had to move money around just to address some of the emergency issues, such as breaches of berms in the sewage lagoons. Of course, the federal government has their regulators who can fine mayors in communities if there are violations of federal regulations pertaining to water or sewage facilities. So I have to applaud you in your efforts to help us out.
I was a little disappointed, I guess I’m sort of getting used to this now, but in Cambridge Bay, of course, we have some major infrastructure requirements as well.
I know our community hall in Cambridge Bay is close to 30 years old by now, I think it was built in 1978 or 1979. I recall several times that we’ve asked for a new community hall, as well a larger one because our community has 1,700 people in it. That community hall was originally built in 1987 and was supposed to last 20 years.
I appreciate that the department was able to help us fix it up quickly after it was damaged in a fire but it’s still the original size.
It’s in pretty good shape and it will last for a long time to come but it is rather small.
I’m probably going to be asking you for an update on the status of our sewage lagoon and our dump relocation. I know those have been a couple projects that we’ve been talking about for the last couple of years. I think there’s money set aside for that.
I’ll also be very interested in talking to you about our metal waste dump.
If you’ve had an opportunity to visit Cambridge Bay in the last year and driven up towards Mount Pelly, our tourism destination in Cambridge Bay, one of the more interesting attractions to tourists these days is to drive by the metal waste dump and see the vehicles stacked two, three, and four levels up above the berm that was supposed to hide them from the sight of people driving by.
It’s become quite a serious situation there now, with more vehicles, buildings, and other metal being dumped there.
If you fly in over Cambridge Bay from the air, it’s a real mess. I’m sure you’ve had an opportunity to look at that.
I’ll end my comments with that, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
General comments. Mr. Tootoo.
I would also like to welcome the minister and her officials with her in the Committee of the Whole and also the officials in the Gallery that travelled from down south, I call Rankin Inlet down south from here, to the Gallery.
I couldn’t echo more the comments of the chairman and my colleague from Cambridge Bay on some of the challenges that all municipalities face as far as infrastructure goes.
When Mr. Peterson was mentioning the deficit of the infrastructure, I thought maybe that’s why the Department of National Defense is looking at using drones to patrol the Arctic because we don’t have the infrastructure to house real people.
One of the other things that were also mentioned by the Chairman and I know, as the Chair of Government Operations and Accountability, is a concern with all of the carryovers that have been happening over the last number of years. We’re looking at some general questions in that and also in ways that we’ve indicated. We’re looking at increasing the capacity in the project management area.
I think also some general questions in relation to the whole project development process.
I’ve been here since day one and I don’t recall just skipping these sheets with numbers and project titles and stuff like that on there.
As you indicated in your opening comments, the services your department provides to all the other departments is assist them in developing their capital plans from project identification to development of technical reviews and the project management. So I’ll be looking to ask some general questions in that area and how all of that is working.
I don’t’ know if that whole development part of it is part of the problem. Maybe we’ve been doing it like that all along and there could be ways to improve it.
So I’ll be looking at asking some questions on exactly how that’s done and see if there’s ways there that we can find to change things to improve them.  One of the things that has been mentioned with all these projects that get listed and even in all the ones that we have this year, it looks good to have all those projects in there but if we know, through experience now over the last couple of years that with the larger projects that are coming in, the tenders are coming in substantially over budget than there are.
Is this whole process, is it really accurate? How can we find ways to resolve tenders consistently coming in way over budget?
Maybe something’s wrong in that process there that we can try and identify to try to resolve some of that. Like I said, it looks good to have all these projects on here not just with your department but government-wide.
We’re doing all these different projects but at the end of the day you know half of them aren’t going to get done because they’re all going to come in way over budget. At least the optics of we’re doing with all of these projects is out there and people get disappointed when projects fall off the books or don’t get done. I think we have to do our best to not raise unrealistic expectations throughout the territory and do our best to provide accurate, substantive information.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I’ll leave that as my opening comments and look forward to asking the minister and her officials some general questions on that before we get into the details.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Tootoo. (interpretation ends) General comments. (interpretation) Thank you.
We’re now on J-6. (interpretation ends) Community and Government Services. Detail of Capital.
As I indicated in my opening comments, and the minister in her opening comments indicates that their staff “provides a wide range of services to all departments to assist them in developing their capital plans,” and that “These services range from project identification and development to technical reviews and project management.”
I am just wondering if we can get an overview of exactly how that process takes place from conception right through to completion.
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also thank the member for his questions.
(interpretation ends) The Technical Services Division has initiated recommendations for changes to the current format for capital substantiation sheets.
In over budgeted situations, the GN may exercise the contractual condition that reserves the right to negotiate the tender price solely with the low bidder.
I am glad that they’re looking at making some changes because it seems like for the last couple of years things haven’t been that accurate.
I’m just wondering if the minister; could we get these binders full of substantiation sheets? In my experience, I can be corrected if I’m wrong by the minister or her officials, the department will come to the Capital Planning and Technical Services Division was identified where the different departments will prioritize what projects that they want to move forward on.
Maybe just from that initial contact from another department in there, can it be outlined what the process goes through so we get to see these substantiation sheets with everything on it to seeing it into the actual capital estimates?
I would like Mr. Dawe to respond to that, please. (interpretation) Thank you.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Madam Minister. Mr. Dawe.
I think the way the member phrased his question indicates that there is a clear understanding here of two different roles that CGS plays and that in one instance, we are putting forward requests for our own CGS money. The other aspect being that our Technical Services Division provides services to all departments, CGS included, but all the other departments as well.
If I read the member’s question properly, I think he’s picking up from that point forward, where a department will identify the work that it wants to do and no doubt has some idea of what it thinks the cost is going to be.
From that point on, the department certainly can and they often do get in touch with our Technical Services Division, and they are able to advise them on things like whether the cost estimate might be reasonable, how they might want to look at phasing things out over a period of time, and generally give them assistance in developing the substantiation sheets that eventually wind up before you.  The departments all come together through the Interdepartmental Committee on Capital Planning and that committee reviews all these substantiation sheets, and then more formally, passes them over to our Technical Services Division.
They will then review them and go back with recommendations that “we think this estimate might be a little bit low,” or “we think you might have to fund that one a little bit more,” or a little bit less, or whatever recommendations might be.
By the time those comments are all worked into the system, probably the sheet is revised. That’s the point at which they are then compiled by the Department of Finance and they become big capital estimates as they then appear before the government standing committee and the Committee of the Whole.
I’m just going to use a substantiation sheet and just pick one. I just flipped open a page. It’s not singling in on any one project or anything like that.
You go through it with some of the information at which department is straightforward, which fiscal year - straightforward, the community hall - straightforward, the FB project number, there’s a number there and in this case it’s 717066. Once that project is identified by the department, is it by another department, or are those numbers provided or assigned by the Department of Community Government Services to identify that particular project?
Mr. Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Tootoo.
Yes, that’s correct. They’re assigned by the numbers by the department.
Mr. Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Madam Minister.
I thank the minister for that. I just wasn’t sure whether it was assigned by the CGS Department or a different department.
If I understand the minister correctly, it’s her department that assigns those project numbers, and I would assume, to put into their project management database or whatever they have to monitor and follow those particular projects.
Can you confirm that that’s correct?
Each department is responsible to assign their own department by number.
I thank the minister for clarifying that. I guess one of the other things I wonder is it has always estimated capital costs and cash flow requirements.
Underneath that then, there’s usually the scope of work of the project.  Is the cash flow part of it where it shows the prior year’s costs and separate planning design, construction, the whole gamut that’s on there, and the scope of work, is that information that’s provided by the department that’s submitting it to CGS, or is that done by the Department of CGS Capital Planning and Technical Services Division?
Hon. Levinia Brown: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will let Mr. Dawe answer that one, please. (interpretation) Thank you.
Mr. Dawe.  Mr. Dawe: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Generally speaking, the information provided there that the member is referring to would depend very heavily on the type of project that’s involved and which particular department might be preparing it.
The scope of work would be something that the client department might define. So Health would let us know what it wants in terms of a health care centre. Our Technical Service Division would give them maybe a little bit of help in fine tuning it and define it to the point where we can pass it along to consultants when the time comes and that sort of thing.
So primarily, defining the project and defining the scope of the project is the client department’s responsibility. So that would be Health’s responsibility, or Education, or whoever the project is for.