EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
It took a long time to study the gas, when was it that you finally found out it was bad gas?
When we sent out samples to England, that’s when we realized that there was an additive missing in the gasoline of Nunavut but we’ve never found out, when we did our own testing; it was at the end of April that we finally got the results that the gasoline in Nunavut was inferior.
So, that’s the time we found out.
You said it was tested in England, that test in England, how expensive was it to send a sample out to England.
How much did it cost to send it out, altogether, how much did it cost to have it tested in England?
NTCL paid for the cost.
I don’t have the information in front of me right now but NTCL paid for the cost for that testing.
You mentioned that you don’t have that information at the moment.
When you have that information ready, would you be able to let us know about that information.
Hon. Peter Kattuk (interpretation): I can’t say when that will be available and we have to review and find out the results first.
Once we find out the results, we will inform you, but at the moment I can’t tell you when that will happen.
I didn’t get the answer yet and I know you can’t tell us when that will happen.
Once you find out the cost, can you let us know how much it cost to send it overseas?
Hon. Peter Kattuk (interpretation): Yes, once we find out the testing results, we will let you know.
But, I can’t say when that will happen.
We will find out how much it cost to have a test in England and once we do that we will let you know.
My next question is, I am representing Repulse Bay, there are people with a skidoo who broke down, and there are more breakdowns in other communities as well and we would like to know if you have any plans to help those people in communities with the broken machines?
Chairperson (interpretation): I will let the Finance Minister answer this question.
Earlier I indicated that the government would be looking at developing some form of program to assist individuals that have been adversely impacted; those that have had their machine break down, in trying to resolve that situation in a satisfactory manner.
And the other question I have is, the springtime is coming. We will need gasoline more and more and the bad gasoline is still in the tanks.
To my understanding in Repulse Bay, there is one empty gasoline tank in Repulse Bay and there are 45 gallon drums as well.
If they need the gasoline, if this is in case of emergency, how can we help those people in the communities with bad gas?
There are lots of communities with gas problems and spring time is just arriving and there will be more and more people going out on the land.
In the communities in Nunavut, Baffin and Kivalliq, I can’t answer what our plans are at the moment to help the people in the communities about the bad gas.
I can’t say exactly what we will do at the moment and with what level of urgency.
I have more questions, I can go on and on but it would take time.
Correct me if I’m wrong. I think it would be better to make a motion to do something about the bad gas issue; otherwise we’ll just go on and on.
I’m happy we’re working with you well.
I wish to express my welcome to our witnesses to this chamber.
I don’t have anymore questions as most have been already posed, but first of all, there are the snowmobiles we are using today and we will continue to use the water cooled machinery.
Using bad gasoline, I wonder if it will be something to clean up the machinery, money to help clean up the machinery that we’re breaking down the residue.
Hon. Peter Kattuk (interpretation): I will let my official answer, Mr. Wispinski.
I would like the question restated please.
Chairperson (interpretation): Mr. Iqaqrialu would you rephrase your questions please.
Since we’re using the bad gasoline today, even though we’re deliberating on it, and we’re saying that it’s not good gasoline, because there’s no other good gasoline we can use.
Perhaps if you can provide some funding to clean the residue on some engines and some motors if I’m not coming across to you I can make it clearer by saying, in the month of March I went fishing using the bad gasoline.
I was afraid my engine would seize up so I used naphtha instead so my engine could be cleaned out so I was looking for ways how to clean up the engines.
So I was wondering if there’s a chemical or something to clean up the engines from the residue.
I’m not aware of any chemical that would effectively clean out the engine deposits and I guess as far as the funding is, I believe the Finance Minister has said what the government plans to do with funding and repairs.
The Minister of Finance stated that there was money available to do something about the bad gas that we wouldn’t keep asking for money in the coming years.
Can we have money to clean up the gasoline?
I’m not in a position to answer questions about the financial position of this government.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): I’m not talking about finances, I’m not asking questions in regards to the funding but I just mentioned Mr. Minister’s response.
What I’m trying to say, I don’t know if I’m coming across clearly, I was wondering if there’s some chemical to clean, perhaps use another type of gas or some kind of oil to clean the engines.
So I was wondering, my question is, is there something to clean the engines, to clean the residues or deposits from the bad gas?
Chairperson (interpretation): I’m sure it’s clear now.
I’m not aware of any chemical that would effectively clean the engine after it’s been used and I’m in no position to recommend any chemical that would be effective in cleaning that, in cleaning the engine.
I’ll personally try and find out some solutions to clean the engines, but if he can’t respond to me my other question is that we have stated that NTCL purchased the bulk fuel.
We don’t know how they had purchased the fuel.
But I would like to say they had mentioned that you had purchased the gasoline from United States, why did you purchase gasoline out of Canada?
So I was wondering if you could look into this.
Hon. Peter Kattuk (interpretation): Today, the company that purchased the bulk fuel, why they had purchased their fuel from the States.
We still haven’t understood them so we’re reviewing it and we’re also looking into it and NTCL is working with us in regards to this concern.
I will ask them to focus on your question.
Chairperson (interpretation): Would you like to continue Mr. Iqaqrialu?
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): Yes, Thank you.
I’m saying that NTCL and the Nunavut Government and your department, since you purchased bulk fuel from this company, I was wondering why you bought that gas from that company who was selling bad gasoline.
So are you going to look for that answer or clarification from them?
Yes, the company where we purchased the fuel, we still don’t know what we’re going to be doing about it to date.
We still haven’t come to conclusions about it yet, but we are working closely with NTCL in regards to the bad gasoline.
To date we still haven’t made a decision as to what we’re going to be doing with the company that we purchased the bad fuel from.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): Thank you. Why haven’t you considered this?
They’re the ones that we bought our bad fuel from, after all.
Perhaps they are the ones that should be blamed.
Perhaps it was just NTCL’s fault, when they purchased the bad fuel.
Like I have been stating that they do testing before the fuel is dispersed to the fuel tankers and also when they deliver the gasoline to the communities, they also test it again.
The company that we purchased our bad gasoline from, I don’t know if they were aware of selling inferior fuel when it was being deposited into the fuel tankers.
Once we meet with NTCL, we’ll go into details about those things but the company that we have purchased the bad gasoline from, we haven’t really consulted with them, but we will.
Yes, we know that there’s bad gasoline.
It came from the place where we purchased it from.
We all know that we purchased inferior gasoline from the company.
We now know they sold us bad gasoline.
Starting from today, would you be willing to work closely with the company that sold us bad gasoline?
The process in regards to dealing with bad gasoline, we will follow the proper procedure.
We keep hearing the results that are coming out, as they come out.
We will investigate and talk about how this situation progresses and where it actually started from.
We will also consider that part once we meet with the officials.
And we’ll start from the beginning to the end.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): Thank you. Perhaps the company we purchased the bad gasoline from, perhaps they are very intimidating.
Are we intimidated by them because they issued us bad gasoline?
Companies that sell gasoline worldwide have to sell good products because that’s their business and it’s already out there.
We are already aware that businesses, private businesses have to meet certain standards.
If I purchase something from the store, for example, a bad piece of meat, I would have to return it because it’s bad.
Likewise with gasoline because we have purchased bad gasoline it should be the same process.
Since we purchased bad gasoline we need to consult with the company that we purchased the bad gasoline from.
This is just a comment and I’m sure it’s clear.
So, my question will be, in the communities, if a community was requesting compensation would you be giving them support by agreeing to their requests?
We have not been told by anyone in the communities but as a government we have stated that there has been some engines impacted by bad gasoline and we are now in the process of working on it and to rectify it but we have not heard any requests from the communities at this time.
While we are trying to resolve the bad gasoline situation to date we don’t know how the communities will be requesting but according to the requests that are being made we will come to solutions with individual communities but to date we have not seen or received any compensation requests.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): Thank you, for responding. I don’t know, I think it was in Alberta, for 3 or 4 years now, they were experiencing contaminated water.
Water with e -coli.
It’s the same thing with our gasoline because the gasoline is deteriorating and breaking down our engines.
Since, they had done testing, and their water in Alberta and they tried to rectify the situation perhaps if your department is willing to look for all the solutions to this bad gasoline experience perhaps your department can work closely with us so that we can give you support.
Yes, we’ve already appointed an individual to work to resolve this situation and we know that he’s very enthusiastic in working this out but we’ll have to work, once we have new information we’ll use the media to release the public information as we go through this process.
In part of the minister’s open comments, rather, first of all, on March 26, 2002, you had a press release.
I’ll read it. (interpretation ends) In addition, gasoline in two regions does not contain a deposit control additive.
DCA, the additive which helps keep engines clean is a requirement set by the Canadian General Standards Board. (interpretation) I seem to understand that the Canadian General Standards Board states that that additive should be in there to keep the engines clean (interpretation ends) …that the gasoline meets specifications of the Canadian General Standards Board except for the deposit control additive.
(interpretation) Now I understand this.
Can the minister elaborate to me on the news release and also his opening comments?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Ms. Williams.
The news release that was released on March 26, 2002, was in regards to testing of the bad gasoline.
The deposit control additive which was missing, although it contained a lot of additives, the deposit control additive was not added.
That was just a news release to state that deposit control additive was not in the gasoline.
I don’t have that detailed information in front of me.
Even though, after that, the researchers found out that there was the deposit control additive missing, so we released a news release but the Canadian General Standards Board. I apologise, the Canadian General Standards Board had stated that it has all the additives but in the requirement set by the Canadian Standards Board, they had told us that the deposit control additive was missing.
That’s what the news release was about.
I’ll go onto my second question.
But I didn’t understand and I don’t think I got the response that I needed to have.
But I’ll go onto my next question.
When the minister and his department asked the Alberta Research Council, when they asked them, did they asked them here’s the gasoline from Nunavut, check to see if it will meet the requirements.
Or did they ask here’s gasoline from Nunavut; find out what’s wrong with it?
These are two very different questions.
Can the minister tell this House what kinds of questions or what kinds of things he requested from the Alberta Research Council?
Did they ask them find something, there’s something wrong with this gasoline, find out what’s wrong with it.
Can the minister tell me this?
When the communities started reporting bad gasoline, we had to send a sample out to the researchers and to the testing labs.
But I will ask my deputy minister to respond to the question as to what kind of request we sent out along with the sample.
I’ll have my deputy minister respond.
If I understand correctly the question was what the government was asking Alberta Research Council to provide on the test of the gas. Is that correct?
My question is did the Minister and his department ask the Alberta Research Council to see if this gas meets the requirements?
That’s one question.
Did they ask that question or did they say here’s gas from Nunavut there’s something wrong with it, tell me what’s wrong with this gas.
These are two different questions.
When we were receiving complaints and becoming suspicious that the gas is not performing the way it should be, and the government contacted the Alberta Research Council and the message was very simple, samples have been sent and we ask you to provide the testing, providing that the gas will or not conform to the Canadian Standard Board.
Further testing was done later to expand on that testing.
That’s probably why we just keep getting this it meets the standards but there’s something wrong with it.
And when we are saying this is good gas you can use it but at the same time hunters are telling us there’s a problem we’re telling the public we don’t believe you.
That’s what we are saying to the public.
My next question is can the minister explain why Nunavummiut in the Baffin and Kivalliq regions are still being charged the same price for a product that the government admits is causing engine damage?
We have not really talked about it as a Cabinet so, to the member’s question I would have to say that it would be, I cannot by myself decide to lower the gas prices for those two regions without consulting the members of the Cabinet.
Chairperson (interpretation): Anything else Ms. Williams?
My next question is that the Minister has urged Nunavummiut to be careful when they are going on the land or going boating.
What can they do to be safe?
Should they stop boating, should they stop ski-doing because the government or the Minister is not telling the public this is how you can be safe you are just basically telling them be careful but still using the same gas.
What does he mean by urging the Nunavummiut to be careful about going on the land and boating by snowmobiling backwards or what does he mean by that?
What I mean by wanting hunters to be cautious is that they should provide themselves with more survival gear when they go out on the land.
I guess that’s what I meant for them to watch where they’re at and to have more survival gear when they go out hunting.
That’s what I mean when I say for them to be cautious because sometimes the men they go out hunting along with the women.
They usually bring along survival gear, so the caution that I’m saying people out there is that they please be cautious when you go out on the land, make sure that you bring along more survival gear because the gas is not good, and you might be stuck out there because of the bad gas.
So make sure that you bring more survival gear and better survival gear and expect to stay a lot longer but it doesn’t mean that we’re going to be, that I’m telling them to go backwards.
Drive backwards.
And that’s what I mean by cautioning them to make sure that they bring themselves more survival gear and be expected to be out longer than they expected.
My last question we can understand today in some parts that the public here in Nunavut, communities and whether you’re a non native or native that uses gas, the government is not going to say anything what they are having planned in place yet, to remedy this problem the bad gas because they have nothing to specific to tell the public in regards to the bad gas and what kinds of remedies they will be doing.
So we are in the same state the public is not being informed of any remedies that might be coming, I don’t think the public has any faith in us anymore.
Hon. Peter Kattuk (interpretation): Yes, the member’s comments are very good; I didn’t really hear a question.
Couple more that I’d like to address.
First off in the minister’s opening comments, it stated that a letter of notice was sent to the supplier NTCL.
Could he explain what he meant, what does he mean by that?
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you. Mr. Kattuk
That was also a question that one of the members asked earlier and what I did was I had my deputy respond as he corresponded with NTCL and I would like him to answer that question.
The letter has been sent to NTCL to advise them officially that the testing of the gas confirmed that there were no control additives.
We also told them that we are doing the testing of the snow machines, and the last thing we basically asked for was their co-operation in how to resolve the problem.
Mr. Chairman to date, I think we looked at testing to deal with specifically with snowmobiles and they said earlier this extends to all motorised vehicles that use this gasoline.
Can the minister commit to looking at setting up some kind of process by which vehicles, whether they are outboard motors, snowmobiles, ATVs or cars or trucks, anything that uses this gasoline, can be checked to determine whether or not they have damage that has been caused by the use of this gasoline?
What we have been concentrating on is mostly snowmobiles.
But this advisor that we have hired or the consultant is in Iqaluit and I met with him this morning and he advised me that he would be going to the garages that fix motors to see how many vehicles have been damaged by this bad gasoline.
We can’t really say today, I know we’ll be working on this, but to see whether this bad gasoline has affected numerous vehicles, I’m sure it has but we have a consultant who’s going to be visiting the garages in Iqaluit to see how many vehicles have been damaged by the bad gasoline.
That’s what the consultant is going to be doing because I talked to him this morning.
I think I can concur with the minister when he says we probably will have problems with that but what I’d like to hear from the minister is that they will come up with a plan and a method by which to inspect and check vehicles that are out there.
Those of us in here that have vehicles, we’ve been driving around using this gasoline all year.
Our vehicles may or may not be on the verge of something happening to them as a result of the use of this gasoline.
Unless we test vehicles, all vehicles get some kind of a test that they pass, or have to get something done, where do we draw the line and say that, down the road next year, or the year after, that the damage was as a result of an issue that started off with the use of this gasoline.
I think there needs to be some way to have some kind of inspection, whether, and I think maybe the government should, maybe the department should hire some, a couple of mechanics that specialize in checking out these areas or something and have a travelling inspection team go around and, to the different communities and check those vehicles and if there’s something in there could potentially cause problems to the vehicle as a result of the use of the gasoline, that that happens.
I’m looking for some kind of a commitment from the minister to establish something like that to deal with that problem, because if we don’t there’s no end to the liability part down the road.
Someone a few years from now can say it was the result of the use of that gasoline three years ago and it finally ended up wrecking my motor.
I’d like to ask if the minister would he commit to doing something, or setting up something like that.
The member has suggested a very good idea in regards to the bad gasoline. Vehicles might have been affected. We will consider the member’s request and question and to have a plan in place as suggested by the member.
One last little line of questioning I have on here.
I couldn’t agree more with my colleague Ms. Williams who mentioned that fact that we’re still paying full price for a product that isn’t full quality so I think that’s something that the minister should take back to his cabinet colleagues and look at reducing the price of gas, because we’re not paying for good gas.
Anywhere else it would probably just get thrown away and people have that choice anywhere else.
We don’t have that choice here.
So I think that, that’s something this government should look at.
Reducing the price of gasoline in the effected regions because we’re paying for what we’re not getting.
The other question I have, I guess, is I know here in Iqaluit you have private contractors companies that distribute the gasoline and in the communities contractors/distributors.
Is the contractor in each community that distributes the gasoline, and I know if you look at, you know if we continue and we’ve admitted, we realize that the produce isn’t up to snuff.
It’s something wrong with it.
And we’re continuing to sell that product.
You know, where does the liability go? As far as I know if I was selling cars and they are Fords and they recall cars because there was something faulty with it, they’re liable for that and they fix that.
Where does the liability go on this?
Does it go, you know you worry about the small suppliers and the contractors in the communities who are selling this product that isn’t to standard you know, that could potentially lead to something tragic happening, or they ended up, who’s going to be liable for that?
And I’m not talking about for responsibility for the guy but the fact that we are selling a product that doesn’t meet the standards.
And, as a result of that, I’m sure that most of those suppliers out there are kind of wondering whether their insurance could cover them because they are knowingly selling a product that doesn’t meet the qualification as where their liability goes.
So, I’d like to ask the minister if he could respond to that.
I would like Mr. Mrazek to answer that question.
During our working discussions, how to resolve this situation with the gasoline there’s a number of legal issues associated with just about any other question.
It is being categorized and it’s being explored but it’s still in very preliminary stages and I cannot make any comments.
Can the Deputy Minister confirm that given the fact that that these contractors that are selling the fuel in the communities and the private distributors and areas that are private distributors that are knowingly and they got no choice selling the faulty products will not be held liable for any actions that it will fall back to whoever it is that’s responsible.
I won’t say where it’s going to fall back but that those individuals and usually those are the small business people in our communities won’t be held liable for their actions?
Chairperson (interpretation): Mr. Mrazek
Mr. Mrazek: Mr. Chairman as I said there are a number of the legal issues associated which is currently worked out and I’m not in the position to comment on preliminary situation.