EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Also in Repulse Bay, again, the airstrip is too short for the community.
We should look at relocating the airstrip some time in the future so they could have a longer airstrip.
There are a lot of concerns out there from the Hamlet Councils and I do agree with the previous comments that were made.
I have no other names.
Ms. Williams (interpretation): Thank you.
I put up my hand and you said my name right away.
Welcome and don’t fall asleep.
I have a few comments and smile once in a while.
I have a few comments that I would like to make Mr. Chairman.
The first item is about something that was in the opening comments.
It is about the pilot projects that will be done in three communities.
However, the names of the communities were not mentioned.
I think that will be beneficial to the communities, but usually the smaller communities have a hard time getting on with providing those services.
Looking at this, Community Government will provide services and provide workshops or provide training courses for example, to the Hamlet Councils.
The reason why I mention this is because in many communities usually it is the SAO who makes the decisions instead of the mayor.
It says here that there will be training opportunities for the Hamlet Councils, I would like the communities to be aware that your department will be providing the required training.
In order to represent the communities properly they have to be well trained, but I would like the mayors of the communities to be the decision makers and not the SAOs.
Also, another issue that I would like to bring up is the lack of recreational facilities, especially in the smaller communities.
In my riding they have recreational facilities and usually what they do is use the school gymnasium after school hours.
It is the most utilized facility and in most communities, the buildings are aging and getting too small with the increase in population and we don’t see any time soon these facilities getting enlarged.
So I would like your department to think about that, especially you should work with the communities.
I was just talking with the Mayor of Arctic Bay and the main concern that the mayor had was a lack of recreational facilities.
The school gymnasiums are used all day during the day by the school population and then open to the community in the evenings and they are used constantly.
You said that you would provide money for training, for fire prevention.
I have not heard about any training that went on in the communities but I would like to urge your department that there should be training provided for the Fire Department and the crew, and also to get new fire fighting equipment.
You prioritized safety issues, and I think that firefighters should be given ongoing training and be provided with the proper clothing and equipment.
I do know that the smaller communities are usually left behind but I think that they do have to keep up to par with the provision of services and they need the same kind of training.
Also here you talk about providing roads and access roads, safe harbours and road links.
We have to work on the roads in most of the Nunavut Communities and I am very glad that your department is working on that.
I think it would be best if we start implementing these right away.
I will leave it at that but I am only making reference to the documents in front of us.
So I would like to urge your department to start implementing these things.
I would like to remind the members that if we are going to speak in one language, please stick to that language without making additions in another language.
It is inconvenient for unilingual people whether they are listening in Inuktitut or English.
So I would like to remind you if you are going to be making comments please try and stick to one language.
That is also for the benefit of the interpreters.
I am not speaking English. I am very proud of the Minister of Community Government & Transportation.
Here I am saying an English word.
Block funding is provided to the Hamlets and Community Government & Transportation, have been urging the Community Governments to be involved in the five year planning process.
Some the communities are very experienced in that department now and they are now prioritizing their capital acquisitions and what they think should be a priority in their communities.
They also work with Hamlet Councils in setting up their plans.
Not only for the provision of services, community governments are involved in the planning stages for capital projects like arenas and recreational facilities and leisure activities.
For example in Gjoa Haven, their dump is too close to the community and they are involved in that planning.
Some of the hamlet councils are also making suggestions on how they can improve housing or public works or the nursing station.
They work with these various government departments who also work with them.
But, still, too many hamlet councils are only involved in the administrative matters of their communities when the whole community is involved.
There is the heavy equipment that they deal with and also the provision of services and they should be more involved in the whole community and not just concentrate on the services that are provided by the hamlet council.
A little bit later after my comments, I would like to ask the minister a question.
Most of the Hamlet Councils have SAOs who used to work previously with the Hudson Bay company where they gained their experience and then they went to the co-ops and from the co-ops they went to the housing associations gaining their experience and their knowledge and they end up as the SAOs of the Hamlet Council.
I am not opposed to that and I'm not saying that we should not go up the ladder but a lot of them are not, don't know anything about how we should plan our finances, how we should operate a community and how we can become more self-sufficient.
Or even how we can generate revenue with the funds that we receive, they are not taught or educated about those aspects of their work because of course they learned everything on the job.
Going from on level to another.
A little bit later I will be asking questions about the hamlet councils and the procedures they have when they are recruiting staff and what kind of assistance they can ask from your department.
We also have a clerk that used to be a deputy minister what did we do when we were recruiting for a clerk.
So that is what I'm getting at, those are the questions that I would like to pose later.
Like I said earlier, the hamlets are making plans, making five-year plans, and they also decide what they should be getting year to year.
They can do all that but after the plans are completed some of the stuff that they want to get are moved to another community.
When we are looking at the Capital Estimates, we see that it is not going to one community but it is going to another.
We see which community will be getting what.
So when we get there to that particular community we are told that they don’t want what they are getting.
They had asked for something else.
So I will be asking those types of questions of the minister later when we get into the details.
Of course, we can make additions and we do have to approve the Capital Estimates.
My question will be, I think each community should be getting what they want.
I know we will be getting into it later but I can use the example of Chesterfield Inlet.
They will be getting a dump truck, I am not sure when, 2002-2003.
What they are actually looking at is getting a dump truck that is privately owned.
We have a very poor water truck, we have a very poor sewage truck.
Is it not possible instead to contract that private company so that they can provide the equipment and the services.
It might not be a dump truck but we should be able to use and contract private companies to provide the equipment that is needed at the community level.
So what we are finding out is that what was actually prioritized by the communities is not here, possibly because of a lack of funds or maybe they submitted their priorities a little bit late.
As a last comment Mr. Chairman, the minister’s department or the hamlet they used to be settlement councils then they got hamlet status.
I think that they should be empowered to make decisions on whether it involves the school or the nursing station or any other service that is provided.
As long as it is within their jurisdiction.
Like we heard today the gun legislation is the responsibility of the federal government and we cannot make any decisions on that.
I think we should empower the communities and have them run the operations of the community as a whole.
Mr. Chairman, I was just going over the minister’s opening remarks and I have some comments that I would like to make.
In the first part he talks about the government’s transportation strategy and I know that we all had a briefing on that earlier this year.
I just want to reiterate one concern that I raised then, and I will raise it here.
I think we have to be careful when we are looking at the strategy that we don’t promote or set up the promotion for the establishment of monopolies.
I think all, or most people know that the only people that benefit from a monopoly are those that have it.
You know, I think, you know, in the desire to try and find some cost savings and a cheaper way of providing services, you know, an indication, an example I could use is the Minister of Public Work's statement earlier today about awarding a sea-lift contract for all government stuff, services for two years to one carrier.
You know, I was wondering if moves like that, you know, what the impact of something like that is on other carriers.
You know, is that going to end up forcing the other carriers out of business.
And if so, I think, you know, all we have to do is look at the Air Canada merger where oh don't worry, you know, if you let us merge we are going to, things will get better and prices won't go up and things like that will keep things the same, you know, and sure enough after a year of the promise of they say oh we'll keep it in place for this long and, you know, as soon as that time is up people are being laid off, prices are going up.
I think, you know, when we look at something like this we have to ensure, not only for the short term that it's a good thing but have some guarantees that in the long term it's beneficial as well.
I think in the long term as soon as you have a monopoly then you're stuck with whatever they give you.
I think that's something that needs to be looked at very carefully.
On another area that is mentioned in his comments is the airport capital assistance program.
I know based on the latest regulations passed by the federal government in regards to having, I'm not sure what the exact term is, but basically a fire truck at every airport.
You know, requiring that by law to happen, you know, I think, you know, that alone is going to have a huge impact on us as a government if we are going to have to come up with the money for that.
I think that, you know, when, I don't think it's fair for the federal, maybe an argument that is hopefully being used already is that, you know, by the government, is that you know, we took over the operations of the airports based on those types of things not being in place.
They used to be there but as soon as they got rid of those services at the airports, transferred the operation and the responsibility to maintain those airports to the other jurisdictions and they passed a law again saying that those services have to be back in there.
I question that myself and hopefully that's an argument that the department used, because I don't believe, you know, that expenses incurred for those purposes should come from within our limited resources that we have already.
I think that if it's something that the federal government wants us to do, they should give us the money to do it.
I hope that that's the direction that the department is taking on that because I think, you know, we all know we have very limited resources to begin with.
One of the other things that I'm happy to see here and I'm just wondering if, I'll be asking later is a commitment to provide less regular funding, I guess is a way to put it to the municipalities as far as quarterly funding or semi-annual funding instead of a monthly requirement.
I'm happy to see that in there and hopefully, he indicated that some have and some haven't, so I'll be asking some questions on that.
Further along there, and I'll be asking some questions on it, is the capital planning.
I know that for, this will be going on the third year now that the municipalities, you know, feel or have, I don't believe have been adequately consulted as far as what their priorities are for capital expenditures in their communities.
I know, for my community of Iqaluit, for example, it's raised concerns and I'm happy to say that the department has been working with them.
But I know that other communities as well have also voiced some concern on that so hopefully we will see some progress made in that before this five year plan is put into place that the communities have an opportunity to provide some feedback on the plan.
I think, as one of my colleagues has indicated, that when you try and force something on someone, it's not received as well as, is this something that we want.
That's why I think there needs to be more of a better process established there for that.
Also, in here it indicates that your department, along with the department of Finance and Public Works will be identifying the priorities and again, this is the established government’s priorities.
Again, I can't reiterate enough the need to be able to get that feedback from the communities as well on what their priorities are.
I'm not saying that their priorities are going to take over everything but at least be given an opportunity to have some input if it's something that's okay, we can do this.
Or no we can't.
An explanation is given and they've had the opportunity to have some input instead of none at all.
Another area that I'd like to see some movement and I'm going to be asking about it.
There was a comment here about a special advisor for community development.
I know that prior to division, the push was on for community empowerment and that seems to be a word that I haven't heard very much since division.
I think the move to truly empower the community is to be able to administer and deliver some of these programs and services themselves, falls in line with what we've identified as a government in the Bathurst Mandate for sustainable communities in allowing for the communities to look after themselves, provide additional employment not only in the decentralized communities but in all the communities.
They all have more capacity and more responsibility, which will enable them to hire more people within the communities.
When we talk about a number of members mentioned the need for recreational facilities.
I think it's very important that we have recreational facilities within our communities.
I think prior to division, there was a push on to get your basic recreation facilities in all communities.
I don't think we've reached that yet and that's something that we need to continue to strive for to make sure that all communities have their basic recreation facilities needs met as well because it is important.
And proven, if you look at numbers that I'm familiar with in the past with my involvement with Sport North is that the lack of recreational facilities in a community, it is something that I've seen, it was done by region.
And the region with, where all communities had your basic facility like an arena or community hall or gymnasium, things like the suicide rates in those areas were lower than regions of the territory of then NWT that didn't have all those services available or those facilities available in their community.
I think it's, like you say, it’s a juggling act I guess you could say where do we try to address and how do we try to address all these different needs.
I look forward to asking more questions on that as we proceed Mr. Chairman, but I guess that’s all I have for opening comments.
Also I would like to welcome the minister and his staff to the chambers.
At this time I would like to ask my colleagues for a chance to speak.
Could Mr. Nutarak come to the Chair at this time so I can have a chance to speak, if that is fine with you.
Mr. Chairman, last year when the Nunavut Government was being established, my community was told that they could not be given community empowerment and this was said in a press release.
Even after that press release, I was able to get my community to stand up on its own and this was done through Community Government & Transportation.
I would like to thank this department for helping my community greatly.
I would like to reiterate some more.
For the smaller communities at times there are funding problems.
Some of the problems in these smaller communities come from the lack of funding and the fact that they cannot raise any funding besides that received from the Government.
I would like to ask Community Government & Transportation to continue to assist the smaller communities to develop more community empowerment for the smaller communities so they can look after their own community.
In developing the hamlet status for the smaller communities and the settlements, I think that people should be proud of people that work in hamlets and do the administrative work and believe in the fact that they can improve their status as administrators of the community.
When we were told that we could not improve our status as a community, how come our community was told it was impossible to transfer Housing or the Department of Public Works.
Even though they are told that they can’t be authorized to look after these services.
One community has only one authority and they are handling several departments through the Hamlet.
They are looking after the Hamlet administration as well as the utility services, housing programs and when all these programs are all separated then each of them suffer.
If we can get block funding to look after all of these programs we realize in my community because the block funding was separated to each program our community was not getting any better in their ability to administer their programs.
I know that when those administrative processes were all ironed out we were able to raise our status and the community workers turn over is not so great.
So that is one of the reasons why the communities have a hard time maintaining their independence.
So we would like to have these people recognized because they work very hard in maintaining their community to keep them afloat knowing how little their funding is.
For instance when our community was broke there should be some employees that are more experienced in working with hamlets and the problems that are confronted by hamlet administrative processes, because they could not understand exactly what was going on.
That was one of the reasons why we were able to get over this hard time that we were going through because we were able to get workers that were experienced in looking after the finances that can be taken care of locally.
I wanted to speak on that aspect.
Can you please return to the chair.
Chairperson (Mr. Iqaqrialu) (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Nutarak for allowing me to make general comments.
Are there any further general comments.
If there are no further general comments then we'll go to the main estimates.
Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to ask general capital questions and I know I asked in this area with previous departments.
I'm just wondering if the minister could provide us with the process that they used in determining their capital plans for this year and what their priorities were over the next five years.
I was starting to laugh, not just on, because of the speaker but of what I was reading. I will read in English at this time
(interpretation ends) I think it was the first speaker that was speaking and I started laughing because in my briefing notes instead of community consultations on 2001-2002 Capital Plan it says community consolations on 2001-2002.
(interpretation) That's all I wanted to apologize for was that wording on the opening comments.
Chairperson (interpretation): Maybe you would like to add to this comment.
Hon. Jack Anawak: Maybe somebody can add to this but the way we looked at the community consultations and how we got to the numbers or the figures and the projects that we are doing this year.
Of course, we only had 13 million dollars for this year for Hamlet capital plans.
As much as we would like to get more, the government has identified education and housing as priorities and what we would like to try and keep going on is that, under the issue of education, is that healthy communities, the only way we are going to get healthy communities, not necessarily physically but also mentally is through I think, recreation facilities in the communities. I think that is a really a very necessary part.
There are basically three ways that we reached the capital expenditures.
First, projects which are ongoing commitments and which will reduce O&M costs such as the Baker Lake snow fence, the Rankin Inlet snow fence.
Projects that are required to fulfill statutory or legal requirements.
An example is, upgrade Rankin Inlet Waste Water treatment plant.
This project is required to bring the level of sewage treatment up to the requirements of the hamlet's water license.
Or, these are examples, Repulse Bay relocate sewage and solid waste.
The solid waste is only 400 metres from the centre of the runway and therefore has to be moved to conform to Transport Canada's three-kilometre separation requirement.
The last but not least is to address health and safety concerns.
So we have to make sure that those three are met, before we can get onto other projects.
We intend to have an ongoing, this is not going to be a consultation once a year in the area of Community Government and Transportation.
What we want to do is have a continuous dialogue with the hamlets in terms of, not just their capital plan but also the way their O&M is reached.
So sometimes, there are differences and I'll be responding probably later on to the question.
Sometimes what seems like a discrepancy between the government and the hamlet may be because of the safety requirements.
Knowing that the community knows better about it's needs better than we do but still the understanding has to be that yes, the community knows more but we also have to address the legal and statutory requirements to do some of these things or for safety and health concerns.
But we're going to have a continuous dialogue with the communities.
We intend to have, I intend to address the Association of Municipalities on these issues.
But again with the assistance and in consultation with Members of the Legislative Assembly.
I would just like to maybe, just one other thing and that is yes, we would like to make sure that the communities have more leeway in doing whatever they're doing.
I would also like to pass the message on which I passed on to the communities, and that is, as was pointed out earlier, I think by one of the members, that these people are more than, the council’s mayor and council are more than just municipal service councillors.
I want to impress upon them and impress upon you that we look at them as leaders within that community to deal with not just the municipal services of snow removal, water, sewage pump out, road maintenance, but also the mental well being of the community.
Or in the area of education.
But I just wanted to pass that on.
(interpretation) This other area that I wanted to cover even though I might try and answer the question that was asked earlier.
We will be consulting with the communities in regards to the capital planning process, but at this time, the variations in the community requests and also the government implementation of some of the requirements that we have to meet through the legal process, we started this consultation process in December and it's an ongoing process.
But from December until now, there have been quite a few changes.