EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
We’ll have more resources, but the people that it will impact are the people that are out there in the communities, and at the community level. If they are looking at different options like that of revenue generation then there is a thorough consultation done to make sure that the input of Nunavummiut is taken into account especially on something like that.
And take it basically away from the government’s decisions to make; I don’t think it’s the government’s decision to make. I think it’s the people’s decision to make.
Hopefully, if that’s a direction that the government wants to look at, that that would be the process that it follows.
Go to the people first to see if that’s really...you know…do we have to resort to that to be able to make money to provide services for our people.
Quite frankly casinos have not been in our forecast, but since you brought it up, I’m happy to have a discussion about it.
It’s very difficult to predict what the results of consultations would be.
It’s a good process, it’s an open process, and I thank you for suggesting that again because I think it’s favourable to have consultations.
At this time we do not consider casinos as a revenue source for the government.
As the ministers, we have not even had discussions about it.
We’re on pages J-8, J-9, and J-10.
I want to start by directing some questions to the minister on her opening comments. She made a statement in her opening comments on page 2, where she said; “Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to be able to say that as a whole, municipal performance is better than ever.”
I ask the minister if she could expand on that statement. What does that statement mean: “... is better than ever.”
I have gone to all the communities except for Clyde River, Cape Dorset and another community.
There are only five communities that I have not visited.
But I have promised to go to Clyde River, Arviat and Cape Dorset.
It’s good to see that the hamlets are trying to run their affairs effectively.
If you look at J-7, there under the business plan, you will probably be proud of it, too, that the hamlets are not having financial difficulties.
The senior administrative officers and the hamlet councils are in a better position right now.
I know that there are a lot of problems that are encountered by the hamlets but we all go through hardships.
Although they have buildings that are not very new, they have facilities such as arenas and they have been in a better position since a long time.
I feel that if you can look at our business plans on J-7, they are in a better position as opposed to previous years. It’s under business plan page J-7.
I would like to thank the member for the question he asked.
I agree with the minister that they are improving but what I have noticed over the year is that there are ups and downs even if the chart that’s there on page J-7 shows that.
There are ups and downs like the stock market; you just don’t know what you’re going to get the next day or the next month.
When we have municipal elections, the mayors and councillors change.
We have high turnover in the staffing at the hamlet levels in key areas such as senior administrative officer and accounting staff in particular. They’re on top of the finances every day. When they turnover, if you have a good senior administrative officer or a good finance manager and they leave, and when they’re replaced with someone who’s not as experienced or doesn’t have the sufficient training, you could run into difficulties.
I’m aware of the fact that in Kugaaruk, for example, the Senior Administrative Officer there, Mr. Elwood Johnson, he’s been into that community twice to help them with debt recovery.
I’m aware that the mayor of the community, I think he just recently wrote to the local newspaper expressing his concern that that Senior Administrative Officer was going to be leaving this November.
I wonder how the minister and her department helps communities to provide stability in the senior administrative officer position and the finance officer position within the hamlets long-term so they won’t have a good year followed by three bad years, followed by a couple of good years.
I think the communities like stability and stability is probably what you should strive for within the municipalities.
If the minister could answer that question.
I agree with the member totally.
We all have ups and downs and from, time to time problems do arise unexpectedly.
I agree with you totally and we agree that we’ll do our best to help with training through the Municipal Training Organization.
I guess we’ve gone a long way since the 60s and 70s to now.
I think the member will know what I mean because he has been a mayor in his community and he also belonged to Nunavut Association of Municipalities and those were good, productive years that brought us to this date.
Of course, Mr. Johnson is an asset and we’re all going to miss him.
Community and Government Services, they try and help assist and also the community development officers; they assist in training for senior administrative officer when they’re asked to.
Yes, that’s a very good question about what they would do about retention to keep them for a long time because some of the senior administrative officers are staying longer. I guess the best answer is to build our capacity in our communities, and to train our own. In that way maybe we would have more stability in the hamlets.
(interpretation) That’s it, Mr. Chairman.
On J-7, in your description of community support, you describe some of your roles are to monitor and evaluate municipal operations.
Could you expand on what you mean by monitoring municipal operations?
What exactly does the department do, or how do they do it to ensure that they’re right on top of municipalities to identify any problems that may arise or develop as a problem?
I’ll try and attempt to answer that.
What we mean there is that we do receive financial statements on a monthly basis from the communities, and also the regional staff, and sometimes other staff does community visits.
I encourage mayors and councillors to call me. I think communication is the best tool we have. It cuts off more problems if you have better communication.
So basically, the most important part is about financial statements. We make sure they’re healthy.
I know that Community and Government Services is always working closely with the communities to make sure that their financial statements are up to par. We are often asked to come and visit the communities.
Minister, do you have staff in each regional office that works with the hamlets, works with the senior administrative officer and the finance officers to review financial statements, to  prepare financial statements?
Could I get a reply to that?
In the regional centres, in the Kitikmeot, Kivalliq, and Baffin regions, there are ten staff members who visit the hamlets in the communities.
If asked to come to their communities then they usually go. We usually give help to the communities if they request our help.
Yes, the regional offices and Community and Government Services and the hamlets work together.
Chairman: Thank you, Minister, Madame Minister.
I guess I could narrow it down: do you have a certified general accountant or a certified management accountant? For instance, do you have a designated accountant who can work specifically with hamlets on their hamlet finances to prepare financial statements, work to develop budgets, and so on and so forth, and those types of documents?
I know there are staff out there helping, like you said; ten staff.
But is there one person designated where their only job is to help the hamlets to work on their financial statements preparation, audits and that sort of stuff?
Yes, we do have accountants, and those accountants work with the communities.
On some occasions, if we require accountants, we then get special contracts.
We do have them on staff.
They are very important and they also train people in the communities to keep track of the hamlets in the communities.
Further along there is a description there it evaluates the municipal operations. I know there is a report that was prepared by the Municipal Training Organization, entitled, ‘The Nunavut Municipal Performance Measurement Program’ for the fiscal year 2005-06 data.
Is it a requirement of the Department of Community and Government Services that the Municipal Training Organization puts the report together for your department?
The report that are produced every year, and this report is put out every year by Municipal Training Organization stating what they have done: what training they have provided and which ones are completed. All those are in there.
There is actually very good information that in there, quite a bit of information, charts and graphs.
I supposed it’s like a snapshot in time that shows what happened in the last year.
I’ll ask my next question about how you identify current conditions. If a hamlet runs into difficulties, do you have a group of people, or an individual that will go into a hamlet and evaluate whether current issues, development and make recommendations to you, as the minister, on how to proceed.
Yes, that’s how we work, exactly as the member said.
I also thank the member for saying those and we try and assist all the hamlets within Nunavut before we produce an annual report.
Sometimes our staff ask the specialists if they need their assistance.
When a hamlet is identified as being in difficulty, or is in difficulty, can a request come from the Mayor and council for help. If it doesn’t come from them can you unilaterally make a decision to go in and work with the Mayor, council, and staff to rectify their difficulties?
We track the performance. We like to be invited by the, like you said, the Mayor and the hamlet council.
Invitation is always the healthiest way.
I thank the minister for that. I agree with you.
It is good to be invited, but sometimes people don’t invite you because they don’t want to let anybody know that they’re in difficulty so you have to go in and deal with the issues.
But when you do that, and a report comes out that this is what has to be done to correct it,  how do you communicate that to the Mayor and council to get their agreement or support to concur with your recommendations?
On occasion we go to the communities but we work with the Senior Administrative Officers and they work with the staff.
For example, in the regional centres, our regional directors work mainly with those if they have to get together, or if we notify the communities before we go there.
The reason I’m kind of harping on this is because it just seems odd to me that a hamlet will only take six months or a year to run into difficulties and then it takes two to three years to work themselves out of those difficulties.
So if your department was monitoring them more closely to identify that they are in difficulties earlier than say six months or a year into their fiscal year, you could then take corrective action to reverse whatever they’re doing. That way, you don’t have these two or three-year cycles where hamlets are forced to make tough decisions that affect a lot of employees and affect services in the communities.
I’m just trying to get a sense of how you as a department can get in there earlier and work with the hamlets, negate the problems, or quickly turnaround the problems, and avoid the two to three-year recovery period that we keep hearing about year after year after year.
There always seems to be four or five hamlets in some form of great difficulty where employees are being laid off, or wages are being slashed, or services are being cut.
It puts a lot of people in a lot of pain. It’s usually the support staff that are affected first, but also the people within the municipality are also affected.
I’m trying to get a sense of how your department could get in a little faster and help hamlets before they dig themselves into holes so deep that it is going to take years to work themselves out of it. If the minister could comment on that.
Hon. Levinia Brown: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have a good monitoring system but hamlets make their own decisions, too.
Also, spending is easier than saving and recovery but I concur with what the member’s saying because sometimes that does happen.
So we need to make sure we have good communications with the communities, with the
mayor, and with our regional office but we do have community visits that seem to always work because we talk about issues. It’s easier when the staff goes in the communities and they meet with the council; they open up and they have discussions.
So that’s one way of doing it but I encourage that the visits are on a regular basis because sometimes, like I said, they can communicate with each other and we find out the problems earlier than later. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the minister for the answer.
On page J-15 of your business plan, there’s a comment under 2006-2007 priorities related to a land review process.
The status of the land review process states that there would be a study where we expect firm recommendations to be forthcoming before the close of the fiscal year, which has only a couple of weeks to go.
Can you give us an update today on the status of those firm recommendations?
How does the committee feel if Mr. Maley comes to the witness table?
Is there any objection to having Mr. Maley come to the witness table?
Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort Mr. Maley to the witness table. Squeeze him in somewhere there.
Welcome Mr. Maley.
Can you respond to the question that was asked earlier?
Could the member please repeat his question?
Chairman: Mr. Peterson, please repeat your question.
I thank Mr. Maley for asking me to repeat it.
I asked; there was a land review process that is under way in this current fiscal year. There is a statement here under page J-15 that; we expect firm recommendations will be forthcoming before the close of the current fiscal year.
I wanted to know if they have an idea of what the firm recommendations are going to be in respect of the land review process.
For the record, Shawn Maley, I will introduce him. He works for Community and Government Services and he is at the witness table.
In response to that, the land review process was initiated; the need was brought forward for a number of reasons. One was that there were some complaints about some slow processes related to land transactions.
There were some questions about how municipalities were to proceed with quarries and so forth.
So the department committed to a process to review these types of land transactions and so forth.
We’ve completed that, and we will be able to share that in the near future, keeping in mind that the process was not totally in our control; part of it was with land registries and some of the municipalities.
But, we have completed that and we’ll be able to bring forward our findings in the near future.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Maley.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Mr. Maley for that answer. I think Mr. Maley probably knows where I’m going with this line of questioning.
I’m sure it’s not just a situation that is a problem in Cambridge Bay.
It’s been a problem that has probably been affecting us for 20 or 25 years.
It seems like the lands department in every community in Nunavut has issues in terms of approving, or reviewing applications, and then going through the necessary paperwork.
There is a lands officer to go through the necessary paperwork to make sure that the legal documents are complete and correct, and that they cannot be challenged. What we’re finding in many Nunavut communities, particularly where people are trying to sell or buy houses, or property when the bank says the lawyers are dealing with the lands departments.
They’re running into difficulties in the process, to secure legal documentation for properties for loans or mortgages.
It’s jeopardizing homeownership, it’s jeopardizing some businesses that are seeking financing from banks, and even from the Nunavut Business Credit Corporation, when the legal documents are coming back incorrectly prepared. On top of that it’s costing homeowners, and potential homeowners and businesses thousands and thousands of dollars in legal fees to deal with lawyers.
It’s really a big issue.
I am wondering how this new process; this new review; when it’s complete; will it be a system that, when all the recommendations are enacted; will it result in a potential turn around time on land applications, and lease documents, and other documents?
Would it be within a month turn around, similar to what happens if you’re down in a city like Edmonton, or Calgary, or Victoria where you make an offer on a house or a business?
They have to pay for it. If you turn around in a month, it’s not going to drag around for six months. Is that what you’re striving for?
Your time for questioning is over.
Madame Minister, who is going to respond?
Thank you, member for your supplemental question.
That’s the plan. We recognize that the process hasn’t been completely smooth.
As most of you are aware municipalities took over the responsibility for land administration back in 1996 and since then; and currently since the creation of Nunavut; we’ve provided, and continue to provide training for local lands officers.
Currently this year I think we’ve had about 27 people go through some of our MTO training.
There have been issues outside of the department’s control as well, with land titles, and so forth.
This year we’ve gotten together with all the parties involved and we’ve tried to streamline the process. Our goal is, as the member stated, to have a short period of time between when the transaction is initiated and when it is concluded.
Our regional offices have lands officers there to assist.
Also there have been problems with the land assembly itself; some land not being surveyed; some title under minister’s caveat, because land titles, because it is a property transaction it has to be completely formal.
We have had some problems there, but I think we’re almost there. I think that with the community’s cooperation and land titles I feel a lot better about where we are now. We’re hoping that this year the members will see some of those improvements.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Maley.
We’re on Community and Government Services. (interpretation ends) Branch Summary.
Total Operations and Maintenance. $63,248,000.
On page J-15 of the business plan it states there is a priority for 2007-08 continuation of Water and Sewage Pilot Project will roll out to some additional participating communities.
Could the minister expand on that description, or what does that all mean.
What is the role of that; is it going to be three communities, five communities, or 25 communities?
I would like to thank the member for the question.
It’s not within my briefing notes so I will ask Mr. Maley to respond to that question.
As you know we’ve commenced with the pilot project this year. The whole intent of the pilot project was to provide more flexibility with the municipality, in terms of the Water and Sewer program, but at the same time contain costs for the government by maximizing community efficiencies.
What we were finding before was that communities that were astute were able to deliver water adequately but then spent a lot of their time trying to hide some of the funds that were generated by water and sewer.
So in recognition of this, our concern was costs in terms of the government’s costs, as well as ensuring that efficiencies are achieved, we rolled out a pilot projects where communities were more in control of the funds but agreed to deliver a certain amount of water.
This has been very successful in Chesterfield Inlet, Kugaaruk, and Pangnirtung.
Thank you, Minister, for the briefing.
And so, we’re going to wrap up the program at the end of March and look at how we did. Indications so far are very good and there are a lot of Senior Administrative Officers interested.
So we’re hoping to identify three to five communities this year to continue on with that three to five more additional communities, depending on their financial health and so forth.
But that’s the intent this year, three to five communities.
I thank Mr. Maley for the answer.
I just wanted to ask him about ... he made a comment that hamlets were hiding some of their funds.
Just exactly what were they doing with the water and sewage subsidy program funds?
I suppose hiding is probably not an appropriate term...
...but what I meant to say is that communities were spending a lot of time examining the rules and trying to find efficiencies by playing with the rules themselves, and I suggest it didn’t make any sense.
We agreed to pay a certain amount for water delivery, they delivered it, and therefore we should pay them that.
Instead, because of the water and sewer program had a bunch of rules, it was kind of like an onion, it was layered with all different rules and it was just an opportunity for stick handling around with rules to make things work better for them.
So the pilot project allows us to look at and understand our costs and pay for that. They deliver the water.
If they make a profit, they get to keep it and they can use it in other areas, and they don’t have to sneak around doing it.
So it rewards their efficiency and at the same time we now understand how much it’s going to cost us as government and we get water delivered for that.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Maley.
I guess Senior Administrative Officers can’t be accused of hiding things from the government; a good Senior Administrative Officer.
With respect to water and sewer in the communities, who’s responsible for setting water rates within the communities?
Yes, the municipalities themselves set the rates.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Madame Minister. (interpretation ends) Mr. Peterson.
So when they set the water rates, could you give us an idea of what process they go through to set the water rates?
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When they set the rates, they need a municipal bylaw for setting up the water rates.
When the hamlets set the water rate in their community, and an individual, or a company, or a group of individuals disagree with the water rates, what are their avenues for appeals?
Yes, the by-laws are very important. They set their rates through their by-law.
For groups that are not happy, or pleased with the rates, they have the opportunity to voice their concerns with the first and second reading.
Before the third reading of the by-law, they have to notify the public, or put the by-law in a public place. At that time, individuals who would like to make complaints on the price of water rates have that opportunity to do so.
I understand that part. I understand also that there should be an element of fairness in the water rates.
So if there is an increase in water rates at the municipal level, it’s not fair to discriminate against a small group of people, say 20 people out of a population of say 1,500 people.
What can they do to appeal the process if that water rate is going to unfairly discriminate against them and result in them having to pay an enormous amount of money, when their neighbour next door, across the street is paying 10 percent of what they have to pay?
All I can say is that there is no appeal process because municipal councils are elected and are accountable to their residents.
When they set the by-law, everybody in the community should be aware of that by-law.
I’m sure the department has probably reviewed this, but, similar to the Qulliq Energy Corporation, which is a public utility, was any thought ever given to the notion that the municipality, because they provide a utility, say water, that they are also a public utility and should be subject to the Utility Rates Act?
I will reroute that question to Mr. Shawn Maley.
Really, the process that we have in place right now is still a carryover from the GNWT days.
I can say that it hasn’t been problem-free.
There has been at least one occasion where an appeal process may have been helpful in resolving some of the problems.