EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
As part of the retrofit that we did with the GN buildings in Iqaluit, we had an arrangement with a southern contractor that would come in and do the retrofit to all of our buildings to look at options to reduce the costs of energy like shutting off all lights overnight or full consumption monitoring.
The agreement with vendors is for 10 years.
We have a 10-year arrangement so that all the cost savings we achieve will go back to offset the investment that is put in place to reduce the energy savings. Based on our current analysis, we should be able to recover the full cost of this investment and reducing the consumption with the building very a 10-year period.
I’d like to go on to talk about communications.
I am wondering if the GN is thinking about updating the version of cell phones or internet, seeing that now we have faster internet and cell options available here.
As a government I think we use a lot of internet services and telephones in Nunavut. We are watching to make sure that we get the best internet services to see if there are any new internet services that we can utilize.
If you want to get some more information, I will have to pass the question on to my deputy minister to elaborate, if it’s okay with you, Mr. Chairman.
With respect to the upgrades in the cell phone services within Iqaluit; 3G is now available but the existing signals within the community is not very strong in all parts of the city.
There is an arrangement with Bell Canada that they’re putting in a new tower in the fall of this year.
Once that new tower is installed then the department will look at upgrading from the existing cell phone devices to 3G network phones.
That’s good news to hear.
I have one more question, that’s it, after this for opening comments.
When we talk about the joint emergency preparedness program where you lost the funding from the federal government you say that you’re actively looking at other sources of revenue.
Can you elaborate a little bit on what you’ve done so far in finding funding to replace this program?
Chairman: Qujannamiik. Hon. Minister.
Hon. Tom Sammurtok: (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We are in discussion with the federal government with respect to getting more money from the federal government.
As the GN, what we do is we use our funding with respect to emergency funding because some of the money that we used to receive is only half.
We have just half of the money that we used to have so we’re talking with the federal government to see whether they can give us more money.
Where do I start here? On page 4 of your opening comments, if the Chairman will allow, I’d like to take it a little deeper than the just the AWG funding that the Department of Community and Government Services has provided.
I’ve had a couple organizations approach me in the last few months where they’ve identified a gap in funding for recreation programs.
The application format, from the way I’ve been led to understand, is that the fiscal year cut-off of April 1 creates a challenge for people to apply for funding in a new fiscal year. We’ve just gone over the fiscal year and this is how it came to my attention.
It appears as if there’s a gap in the funding application process. Would you be able to correct me or elaborate on if the department can take some remediation factors to allow proponents to apply for funding that may have crossover funding from one fiscal year to another?
For proper clarification, exactly how that is, I will get my deputy minister to respond to the question through you, Mr. Chairman.
There is an application based-funding program for small recreations for municipalities. If those funds are not spent, because they’re O&M dollars, if they’re not spent before the end of the fiscal year, those funds are lapsed.
I’ve been in discussion with our sports and recreation branch and what we’re looking at is exploring the option if there’s some way that instead of application-based funding if we could look at, similar to the mobile-block funding, is looking at some sort of block funding arrangement where we would get a contribution to all municipalities for minor recreation. So that’s something that we’re exploring in our future business plan.
I thank the deputy minister for those comments.
Just to take my example a little bit further, if there’s an organization that’s looking at putting a sporting event together that is a weeklong sporting event, if it starts on March 28, for example, and carries into April 3, it appears as if there’s a gap even at that level.
Will that also be taken into consideration when you’re reviewing this program?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) I can give one short answer, yes.
I’m going to switch gears to going to page 5. At the very last paragraph, it talks about the “development of a regulatory framework for the Nunavut Building Code Act.”
I understand that some preliminary work is being done right now and that it will be completed by the end of the fiscal year.
Will this panel be expecting some increased PYs as far as building inspectors to deal with the Nunavut Building Code Act?
Yes, this will result in looking for PYs in future years.
Mr. Hickes: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the minister for that response.
Also in that paragraph, it talks about the Building Advisory Committee that was established and recently held its inaugural meeting.
Is that advisory committee made up of staff members or are there members of the public included on that committee?
The Building Advisory Committee comes from the government departments and some outside of the government departments.
Would he be able to advise this committee on how many members are currently a part of the Building Advisory Committee?
Just to remind the people at the witness table, if you need to confer, that’s fine; just make sure that if you don’t want us to hear what you’re saying, just mute your microphone. (interpretation) Thank you. (interpretation ends) Hon. Minister.
Hon. Tom Sammurtok: My apologies, Mr. Chairman.
I’m not very good at looking at colour-coded stuff here.
However, there are 13 members of this advisory committee and it’s a mixture of both members from the government and also the public. (interpretation) Thank you.
Would you indulge me with the breakdown?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok: Thank you.
I’m not sure whether the member wants actual names of these people or what positions they may be in at this point.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) I think the member is indicating that he doesn’t necessarily want the names; just a general breakdown of where the members are from, if I’m correct.
Yes, apparently I am. Hon. Minister.
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) Maybe if I give you what these people do. That will give you an indication of where they’re from.
There is an architect and an engineer, representatives from the building officials office, representatives from the Fire Marshall’s office, representatives from the Nunavut Housing Corporation, a representative from NTI, a representative from the Nunavummi Disabilities Makinnasuaqtiit Society, and another one from a private developer, a representative nominated by the Nunavut/NWT Construction Association, a representative nominated by the Nunavut Association of Municipalities, and three other additional members that a minister may consider as appropriate for this membership. (interpretation) Thank you.
Chairman: Thank you, hon. minister for that information.
So there are still a couple of positions to be filled.
On page H-6, half way down, there are two short paragraphs that, to me, I think are linked. It talks about the Property and Asset Management Division is pursuing process improvements on the preventative maintenance and life cycle renewal initiatives. It’s also talking about undertaking a program review to update the maintenance management standards to examine gaps in existing delivery standards.
Would you be able to give this committee some examples of some of the gaps that are identified that you are looking to review?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) Mr. Chairman, if I may get one minute consultation here with my staff?
Some of the gaps that we’re trying to identify is the staffing maintainers that we require to do the maintenance work within the communities.
Since 1999, there has been a significant growth in the number of GN facilities across the territory.
There haven’t been any changes to the staffing levels to address those increased maintenance.
At the same time, there has been no funding other than for utilities that’s been provided to CGS for preventative maintenance. There certainly have been no monies allocated for life cycle renewal.
So, basically, we wanted to undertake this review to determine what funding requirements that would be required to ensure that we carried the preventative maintenance, as the same time to look at life cycle renewal option so that we can extend the useful life of our facilities.
At the same time we’re looking at what the human resources that would be required to give us the capacity to be able to undertake the preventative maintenance requirements across the territory.
You deputy minister has just stated that there has been very little, if any, maintenance dollars allocated in the budget. How are you currently taking preventative maintenance initiatives so that we don’t have larger expenditures needed down the road on infrastructure failing?
I would like to refer this to my deputy, Mr. Green.
Community and Government Services currently has about 16 million dollars in its operation budget for preventative maintenance across the territory.
Currently we use this funding to address any issues that come up for preventative maintenance and do our regular inspections as required to ensure that some of the building components are operating as they should be.
One of the things that we struggle with is the deferred maintenance.
Because we don’t have the proper life-cycle renewal costs, usually what happens is that maintenance to buildings get deferred and as a result the buildings do not typically last to their life-cycle requirements that it should be.
This is part of a gap that we’re looking at in the industry standards, to see what’s required to meet the current preventative maintenance requirements and also at the same time to look at what’s required in life-cycle maintenance to maintain those buildings so that they can last to their useful life.
Once we get this report done then we can take a look at bringing forward requests for funding in the future business fund process.
Also on page 6 on the very bottom, I know you’ve already spoken a little bit to the energy management pilot project here in Iqaluit and I understand that it’s more on a commercial scale that you guys deal with.
But are there any cross-over energy management practices that could be shared with your colleague, the Minister of Housing, to help alleviate some of the high costs of housing utility costs in Nunavut?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What you’re talking about, we can do that. (interpretation ends) Yes, we can work with the Housing Corporation.
I’m not referring to any numbers but I would like to fully understand, like you were talking about the reservoirs and water.
Some communities don’t have good water. Some of them have artificial lakes that are called reservoirs.
The high arctic communities are in an impossible situation right now. They don’t have a lake that they can rely on for water.
I was told by them that the reservoir is melting; I guess the permafrost under it is melting. The high arctic people in Grise Fiord are very concerned about this.
I asked them, is there a possible alternate spot?
They said, “Yes. There is a river or stream nearby that could be utilized” but it obviously would be very expensive to start using that. They said they can wait for this to be done but they are very worries about the melting permafrost under the reservoir.
Have you looked into that community? It looks like they will no longer have any water available for them in the near future.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Shooyook.
We are working on that matter right now.
Mr. Shooyook, you have a supplementary?
Wait a moment, Mr. Shooyook.
You must turn your microphone on.
Mr. Shooyook (interpretation): Thank you for the good response.
I understand that it’s being worked on.
I understand, so the matter stops here.
However, I would like to move to another subject: cellphones. I was given a cellphone when I became an MLA.
We have no cellphone service in our community. We have nothing that will make it work. It works when I’m in Iqaluit, but then I’m home for six months at a time and it’s just like an object that I can look at and it’s not really convenient.
People see me and they say, “Wow! You’ve got a cellphone.”
However, once I get into my community, it doesn’t work anymore.
When will our community receive cellular phone services so that the cellphones work there?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Shooyook. (interpretation ends) Hon. Minister.
That’s a good question from my colleague.
The government has nothing to do with the operation of cellphones.
They are handled by phone companies and other companies.
Not questions, but general comments. (interpretation ends) General comments.
The first question I have has to do with the middle of page 3, the Municipal Funding Program.
Let’s say, for example, there is a sudden population boom in Baker Lake because of a mine opening nearby.
The hamlets get operating funds and they have a transportation budget that they can use during the year.
When there’s mining happening near Baker Lake, the municipality is still doing the same thing.
The funds that they used to get before the mine came are still the same.
Still on the same page, at the bottom of page 3, what assets are you referring to here?
The $45,550,000 that I mentioned is the total contribution that we gave out to the municipalities for their operations.
There is a slight increase from last year so that the hamlets, if they’ve got a new office building or new trucks, their transportation budgets or operation budgets were, they need to get increased operation budgets as well.
That’s why our proposed funding is a little bit bigger than last year.
On the same page, page 3 in the top area I understand the way it’s written, but my question is about petroleum products.
There are requests for proposals for competitions that come out to the communities to see who will have the contract.
Do these contractors end up working for the government or are they contracted out?
Maybe once we get into the page by page review you will get your answer.
However, if the minister wants to answer, Hon. Minister.
If I understand your question correctly, the petroleum product contracts, the transportation of petroleum products are done by our contractors.
We have various contractors in Nunavut where individual businesses or co-ops have the contracts.
The distribution is handled by the contractors.
Thank you for allowing my question and I’d like to thank the minister for responding to my question properly.
On page 7, at the very bottom, regarding the search and rescue and it goes onto the last page, this effects all of Nunavut whenever a search needs to happen in our communities it’s because of the cold temperatures that’s one of the factors.
However, the search and rescue organizations in our communities, I’ll use Baker Lake as an example. I’m quite familiar with it.
The search and rescue committees don’t even have an office space. Can the search and rescue organizations be helped in the communities?
At the present time, when I became the minister of my department we instituted a meeting amongst ourselves working with the Nunavut Association of Municipalities, the hamlet councils and NTI, looking at how issues relating to the search and rescue in terms of offices or supplies, how they could be addressed.
We are beginning to move forward on discussing these things.
Please be aware that we are trying to elicit general comments and when we go page by page these specific things could be dealt with. I would appreciate if we could try and get to the way we’re supposed to do it.
If you think you need to ask a question, then I suppose I could provide you with a lot of leeway.
What you said is quite understandable. Thank you for that.
In relation to the search and rescue, I have another question. Are you looking at this from a global perspective, in terms of looking at all of Nunavut? Whether they could have regional conferences, like one in the Kitikmeot, the Kivalliq, and then for the Baffin?
(interpretation ends) Thank you?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Mikkungwak. Thank you for being understanding.
I know that I like asking a lot of questions, too. I needed to be reminded very now and then while some else is on the chair.
If you would not mind providing some kind of answer in relation to his question, we can deal with that. (interpretation ends) Hon. Minister.
We can deal with that and we will be addressing it. We will be looking at a number of ways to move forward on it.
However, as I stated earlier, we want to do more work in the area of emergency measures and search and rescue. However, we, as the GN, are the only party that is providing money. Money is an issue in terms of slowing things down.
Mr. Mikkungwak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In reference to search and rescue, I know that it was introduced this year alone.
It’s a new initiative which is 200 hours tax exemption for people that have been involved in search and rescue. As we know, people that are assisting in search and rescue needs someone to monitor each and every individual while they’re out searching. Is there future consideration for some kind of database system to assist search and rescue organizations across Nunavut?
Whenever a search for a lost person is to be initiated, my department is the specific organization that is responsible for the emergency measures groups.
We maintain the surveillance of the progress in terms of hours that are utilized. So they are usually quite simple to follow. It’s quite easy to be able to incorporated that into the tax exemption.
In your opening remarks, again in relation to search and rescue as these are important issues, we are also now able to see something in print that promises to address this issue by the government. Lastly, I use SPOT devices myself that use batteries.
Naturally, anything that runs on batteries will eventually die off. The person may have this kind of useful device. However, once it runs out of batteries, the device goes dead.
Inuit knowledge could also be used for a person to survive and so it’s not just these devices that would save people anymore and so I would be asking more about this issue when we go page by page.
However, I would like to indicate that Inuit can also have pretty common knowledge on how to survive and return home.
This is just a statement, not a question.
My colleague touched up on this subject on page 3 on the new municipal funding program. It states that the program formula provides transparency on how department’s fund municipalities.
I do not want a breakdown on the whole formula, but is it funded partially by per capita base?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) I would like to defer that answer to our director of finance, Mr. Moyo.
Mr. Moyo: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The municipal funding program is not based on per capita basis.
It is based on the value and number of infrastructure assets that are in place in each community.
Community and Government Services revised this formula beginning April 5, 2013, and we committed to reviewing it every three years.
So, at the end of 2015, we will be reviewing it again to make sure that we provide adequate funding to municipalities as they need it.
The review will also include whether or not there has to be a per capita element built into it to care for the different populations in each communities, for example.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Moyo.
Just for clarity; the more assets the municipality has, the more funding it gets?
Although I know the reason, I would like our finance person to reply to that, if possible.
Chairman: Mr. Moyo.
To be specific, the funding formula is really to fund municipalities for the operating and maintenance costs, particularly utilities, power, water, wastewater, maintenance costs, and salaries and wages.
To answer the member’s question, yes, the more assets and the more maintenance is required on those assets, the more funding a municipality will get.
I am going to use the community of Arviat as an example for further clarification.
Arviat is rapidly growing, infrastructure is needed, and my understanding now is you are funding it at the current needs.
If the needs increase, is there a mechanism to increase the formula so that the community gets adequate funding to provide the needs towards the people?
The growth of the municipalities is always (interpretation ends) If I may switch to English.
All of the assets and the level of funding are taken into consideration during our capital planning process. If there’s increased infrastructure in a community or a decrease in the infrastructure in the community, appropriate funding will be applied. (interpretation) Thank you.
Mr. Savikataaq: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the minister for the clear response.
On a different matter, you can rule me if I’m out of order on this or not, Mr. Chairman.
My colleague asked about search and rescue.
In your statement, you said you’re working hard to improve search and rescue response programs.
As the minister is aware, Arviat is flat. It’s a really flat place.
Cell phone availability would be greatly enhanced with a large tower. I know that the hamlet has been talking and working with NorthwesTel to get better range because most of the searches happen within a 60-kilometre area of the town.
If cell phones were available during a search, as opposed to satellite phones, there are a lot more cellphones available compared to satellite phones.
Is the minister having any talks with the hamlet or cell phone providers to provide such a service?
I will allow that question.
We have been having discussions; however, I want the hon. member to understand therefore I would like my deputy minister to provide an answer.
Chairman: I will allow that, too.
Community and Government Services has had ongoing discussions with the cell phone providers to look at types of towers that would be required, the cost for those towers and to look at the cell-phone range to see if that would be a cost-effective approach to try and reduce the cost of search and rescue if cell phones were available within a certain ratio.
We’ve had those discussions with providers and we’ll continue to have those discussions and see if that’s an option that, as the government, we want to pursue.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Green. (interpretation): Moving onto page J-4.
Departmental Summary. Directorate.
Total Operations and Maintenance, to be Voted. $9,491,000.
Turn to page J-5.
I have a few questions along the same line as the questions Mr. Savikataaq was asking concerning the municipal funding program. It shows a slight increase in the amount going to municipalities.
I am wondering when you implemented this program; did you find that all of the municipalities were under funded? Of if some of them were over funded?
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Rumbolt. (interpretation) Just to remind members, if you have any questions on page J-5, please raise your hand ahead of time.
Hon. Minister, you can respond now.
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) A short answer to that question is there are some that are under funded, and there are some that are over funded. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rumbolt.,
Where there are communities that were over funded in the past, what action was taken in order to correct the amount of funding that they were receiving?
Hon. Tom Sammurtok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) If I may defer that response to my deputy minister.