EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I wonder if the minister could undertake to provide that information and investigate, and ensure that all the coverages or insurance are available to them and if necessary make resources available to them to buy life insurance as well.
Those are very valuable comments that member made.
Yes, we will review the matter and review all aspects of what was brought up here today by the member and once we have that review done we would like to return back to the committee here and to the member.
On Page J-19 of the Business Plan, there was a priority from 2006-07 where it says “Develop a policy regarding inspections including fire prevention for mines and isolated entities.” The status was discussions have begun with some of the mining sector and that you’re going to meet with the Department of Economic Development to discuss next steps to ensure that there is no more red tape then necessary in effectively implementing the program and for the policy to be in place by fiscal year end.
We’re at the end of the fiscal year; can the minister tell me if that policy is in place?
No. That policy is not in place yet but it is still being worked on.
Can the minister tell when she thinks they’ll have the policy in place?
Summer is more favourable and more promising.
I look forward to seeing a copy of that policy when it is place. I have an interest in mining and red tape.
Same page. J-19. There is a reference to an enhanced territorial emergency operation centre.
Could the minister tell us what that Territorial Emergency Operation Centre does and where they are located and who the members are.
I will get Ms. Hine to answer.
The Territorial Emergency Operation Centre would be located here in our Headquarters with our Director of Protection Services and the Fire Marshall’s Office.
Branch Summary. Protection Services. J-12 and J-13.
On page J-13. Community Search and Rescue Organization Program $500,000.
The search and rescue organizations are very capable when they start working together but RCMP is usually the leader of the organization.
I have a friend who is in search and rescue. My friend said he did not listen to the RCMP recommendation that the RCMP said they are going to stop search and rescue for the body.
I am not going to mention the individual’s name but the search and rescue Inuit team did not give up looking for the body but the RCMP told them that after certain many days of searching they had to stop looking for the body.
So they stopped all the supplies for the search and rescue team.
Is that a policy?
It’s true what my colleague said that the RCMP is responsible for this line item and RCMP have their own policies and regulations.
And our department has a separate policy. We really want to have a close working relationship with the RCMP in all the communities because we want to say that the search and rescue organizations will search for people in bad weather.
I know that the communities know their community more so than the rest of us.
We want to work with the Canadian Environment department, the RCMP, the Canadian Rangers, the Hamlet Council offices and the municipal councils and elders.
So we utilize all of these. We will provide the training aspect of this and if they need equipment, we do provide assistance for the equipment.
Mr. Arvaluk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. ... no interpretation ... I believe that the municipalities should have the responsibility because they can communicate with the family members and the RCMP cannot communicate with the family members.
So it would be better to have the municipality or the hamlet council to operate this community search and rescue. They would have the final decision rather than the RCMP.
So that’s my request if you can consider that.
We held a training program this winter in Cambridge Bay, Rankin Inlet, and Iqaluit, with the individuals from municipalities in December. We are still planning for future training needs.
So we’re focusing more on the needs of Nunavummiut and I expect to see a mandate to include the communities, especially the elected officials in the communities.
I’m not sure what it’s called in Inuktitut but in English it’s a protocol.
Who will be the leaders who will have the last say and so on?
Are you taking about that, and if you are, when can we see something?
I will have Ms. Hine respond to your question.
That was a good question from the member.
We are trying to work on the protocol, and that was, I guess, the reason we were holding these regional workshops; it was to get everybody at the table so we could actually talk about what the protocol is, whose mandate fits in where, and so we don’t have any gaps. We try to eliminate any overlaps that we have.
We will continue to work to come up with the protocol that the member has asked for. I’m not sure exactly the timeframe, we hope to have something finalized this year. We certainly will continue to do everything we can within our own protection services and emergency management to deal with any issues regarding search and rescue to the best of our ability.
Would you also consider a similar insurance policy for approved search and rescue members like my colleague Mr. Peterson was talking about for firefighters?
Of course we can. We want to make sure that we deal with it and we will include search and rescue organizations.
We can work further on it and see what we can put into the works.
We’ll make sure that we start working on it as soon as possible and I personally believe that there should be insurance provided for those organizations and we’ll also work closely with the communities while this is getting prepared.
We are on Community and Government Services. Branch Summary.
J-12 and J-13.
Those are the same concerns that I had but we would like to work together, I would like to focus on, I didn’t write the page down but it’s in the business plans and it’s in regard to the SAR Protective Services, it just says (interpretation ends) enhance capabilities based on (interpretation) services to enhance community based Search and Rescue capability and preparedness across Nunavut.
These monies have been very well used and we moved that $500,000 to this line.
I would like to tell the minister that we do appreciate the fact that the search and rescue organizations were able to get together in the regions so that they could be provided SAR training.
Are we going to see some more training programs? I can see here that there are certain SAR recruitment as well as communications systems, but I think the minister might be ready to give us an update on this line where these training programs are. Did the organizations benefit from these training programs?
Some of the people who are involved in these search and rescues have been volunteering very long and I think that they should be awarded for their contributions.
Could you include that in the programs under this line?
Yes, that is very interesting to see since training has been provided to the search and rescue organizations that have long been committed now to what they are doing.
Some of these organizations through their efforts and commitment have been able to find more of the people who are lost out there.
We would like to provide more training and for the search and rescue organizations to become more self-sufficient.
For the long-term volunteers, they work extremely hard and are fully committed. They go out there into the land in blizzards and bad weather.
In regard to the search and rescue organizations and awarding long time organizations, I will make sure that my staff are listening and getting something going.
And even recognition awards are appreciated and I would like to see more of these awards going to the volunteers.
I would like to thank the minister. I am sure that you can design what program is going to be set up.
This would be something aside from the Commissioner’s Awards because they are on-the-land programs.
When we are talking about protection services we are talking about fire prevention, fire equipment and search and rescue organizations.
Very few of the communities, like Rankin Inlet, when we get a local fire marshal, usually the person who is appointed is a non-beneficiary.
What kind of qualifications or education is required to be appointed to be a fire marshal?
Some of these individuals have been working with the fire department for a long time and I am sure that they have witnesses.
Could the minister give us a briefing on what kind of qualifications they need to become a fire marshal?
There was one individual who was only 24 years old and I am sure he or she is very capable but I think we have to provide more training for Inuit.
I will have Mr. Rafter to respond to your question.
Over the past couple of years the department has been providing more and more training.
It continues to be an area of focus for the department.
In 2005, we provided nine training opportunities in the area of fire prevention. As well, in 2006 it increased to 29.
So it is a real focus for the department.
Participation in the program across the territory has gone up substantially over the past couple of years by some 150 over a span of one year, in 2005 and approximately 200 in 2006. We have provided training opportunities for approximately 345 participants. Training has been offered in the area of fire fighter training at the general level as well as a level 1 and a level 2.
There has been fire inspection training and fire inspector training as well as a fire extinguisher use and recharging the fire extinguishers.
I think that the Municipal Training Organization sets the annual program in terms of setting the business plans each year. They’ll certainly take this into consideration and continue to make this an effort for the department.
Very useful information.
I’d like to ask the minister whether or not there are any other certification requirements like for instance is there an academic standard somewhere or is there particular basic skills needed in that or do we have all the capabilities now for training within Nunavut or do they have to spend some time down south.
I’ll have Mr. Rafter to respond to your question.
Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Rafter.
The member is correct in his statement that it would require some additional training in the south over time.
These courses that can be taken only down south, can they eventually be developed through Arctic College or something to that effect? If possible, how should we go about that?
I will have Ms. Hine to respond to your question.
That’s a very good question that the member asks. As you can tell from the statistics that we provided earlier, on the increased number of training opportunities that we are offering here in the territory, we are trying to take every opportunity that we can to deliver training here in Nunavut for as many participants as we can.
Some of the things that we do is one we use the Municipal Training Organization, which is already established. They help to provide some of the training courses for us. In times where we need somebody with the proper certification we actually bring the trainers here to Nunavut so that we can train more people.
We are trying to take all that steps that we can because we are showing success. If you attend one of these banquets at the end, that the minister and I have had the opportunity to do recently, and you see the level 2 instructors with their uniforms on, it brings pride to you, as if I was their own mother, I think.
To see how proud these individuals are that they do wear the uniform.
As with everything else, if we had additional money and resources we could then be developing more and more courses here. I think it is something that we should be striving for is to offer these courses in Nunavut, whether it’s through Arctic College, or again through other partnerships with southern institutes.
I think it is something that we should be striving for.
A very, very informative statement from the minister and her deputy.
I certainly would like to compliment all of you with 345 people taking advantage of additional training really means a lot to the communities. I share your pride with the fire prevention workers.
I’ve seen some of the young guys in Rankin Inlet wearing the uniform and you cannot help but being proud of them. I say that because recently one of the mothers of the particular son died recently and she was always very proud of her son doing the volunteer work.
So I compliment all of you for that and look forward to continuing discussions on that so that we do have a very strong volunteer force with respect to fire prevention and fire workers in Nunavut. (interpretation) I’ll leave it at that, as that was more of a comment than a question.
J-12.
I’d like to ask a question on J-13.
Search and Rescue Organization Program.
We were able to put some funding into that last year, although it’s not much.
Is this funding for operations and maintenance? The search and rescue have to get new equipment because everything costs a lot today.
Is there any way that they can try to receive some funding from other sources, such as grants or contributions, or something.
To the question of the member, the communities receive funding in a small amount but for the smaller equipment, it’s received by search and rescue, such as GPS, personal locator beacons, HF radios, some Kenwood radios, as well as personal heater systems. And on top of that, they also get ongoing training and they appreciate that very much.
That way, all the communities, when they get together to take training, it’s very beneficial for search and rescue. I talked about the equipment and there’s not that much funding to purchase equipment for search and rescue. So those are the types of things that we get for them.
Yes, I know even if you have those types of equipment and if you don’t have any equipment to go on the land, then it’s very hard for them to go and do their search and rescues.
I know that in my community they hold bingos to try to get some funding to get the land equipment and so on. Even though they’re in a good position once they get their equipment but nowadays, there aren’t enough bingos to raise funds for search and rescue. They also try to get funding from the hamlet to buy larger equipment.
I think it should be a priority of the department to try to make sure that search and rescue receive boats, snowmobiles, and other stuff. I wonder where that equipment will be coming in from and what does the minister think about that equipment?
Madame Minister, I think that if you think it’s a hypothetical question, then it’s up to you to respond to the question. Minister Brown.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Madame Minister. Ms. Hine.
I guess I will start off first again thanking the regular members for their contribution to putting this money in our budget; it was before my time. I know how important it is for our community search and rescue organizations. So again, it’s money that’s being well spent.
As you can tell it’s not a large amount of money. We are trying to utilize it the best we can by providing training and the small equipment. I think it would be hard to argue about the possibility or how much better it would be if our Search and Rescue Committees were also getting funding for capital items such as snowmobiles and boats except at this point it would be, again, the priority of how do we find the money within the budget and where does it come from.
As I mentioned earlier, we are trying to work with other organizations that also have mandates regarding search and rescue. It’s not just to come out with a policy or a protocol but it’s how to come out with sharing in some of the costs that are associated with search and rescue.
We hope that in this year we will be able to come forward with a little bit more information on, not only as I said the protocol, but also how we can maybe find additional money for search and rescue from all the stakeholders, including the federal government.
I don’t know about some of the communities but in my community, they’re getting to be a very important part of our community. They don’t have any land or water equipment to do their search and rescue, even though they’re trying their very best to keep up.
I wonder if the minister can talk with the Canadian Coast Guard or other organizations such as Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated to see whether search and rescue can get other equipment besides the ones that they have, such as maybe Qamutiik, or outboard motors, or other equipment. Would that be possible for the minister to do?
Those are very good comments and for us to talk with Canadian Coast Guard or Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated.
We can talk with them and try to find out from them what kinds of assistance they can provide us for search and rescue.
At this time I’m not really sure how to go about it because we’re talking about capital dollar such as boats and outboard motors and I know that some communities have none.
I’m not exactly sure how I can go about it at this time because those are capital dollars that we are talking about.
I don’t know where we would be receiving some extra funding for capital money because the federal government does not provide us with those types of funding.
I appreciate the comments made by the member and I think we could talk with Canadian Coast Guard and other organizations to do that.
We’re on J-12. Mr. Kattuk.
Perhaps if you continue on search and rescue, first of all, I would like to thank the people that rescued me when I got stuck out on the sea ice.
There were people that rescued me and they had a 30 horsepower outboard motor and it took a long time for them to rescue me at that time.
When we reached shore, I realized that search and rescue is beginning to get a little bit bigger but I also have a concern just like Mr. Alagalak because they don’t have enough of those capital assets such as boats and outboard motors.
The Inuit are always in a hurry to try and help out their fellow Inuit because today everything costs a lot of money and search and rescue doesn’t have all those land and sea equipment.
I just want the department to be aware that some funding should be available for capital equipment because Inuit like to find people that are lost. I know that the RCMP are provided with snowmobiles and other equipment but it has to be so many hours before they can go and search for an individual.
Although the family is in dire straits then they have to follow the rules and go look for people only at a certain time.
Have you had any talks with the RCMP regarding their search and rescue equipment because I know in Sanikiluaq they have two snowmobiles that could be used by search and rescue.
Do you have, as a department, access to those or not?
According to our guidelines we use the guidelines of the government.
We would like to work with the RCMP but they have their own equipment.
Because of all the policies in place we don’t have access to those. I think the RCMP have to wait at least 24 hours before they start searching for people lost out on the land.
I am not sure what their policy is right now but the equipment used to be available for the public, or the search and rescue to use.
I’m not sure if that’s the case right now but we have to get closer with the RCMP and with the Rangers to help the search and rescue.
There is also the Canadian Coast Guard that we work with because they have aircraft.
They sometimes have to use their aircraft to do Search and Rescue.
I am not really sure how to answer you right now in regard to the RCMP equipment and how much equipment that they have for search and rescue purposes but we can talk to them because we have to use every available help in order to search for people.
It gets harder and harder to conduct a search because we don’t have the adequate equipment, but if this can be worked on it would be good for the future.
In regard to fire prevention I know that the hamlets work closely with this department but there are instances where they don’t work closely together.
In regard to the units, they have fire extinguishers in the homes.
I think they have to be serviced every six months or so but they only service them or inspect them after so many years.
This has to be worked on by the firefighters in the community.
Maybe they are not provided enough funding to do that.
It’s probably because they don’t have the adequate funding that they don’t service or inspect the fire extinguishers in the houses. That $34,000 is way too small and maybe in the future it can be increased because the buildings have to have fire extinguishers and sometimes they freeze if they’re not inspected or maintained.
I am pretty sure that you got that page.
Total Operations and Maintenance. $5,386,000.
Chairman: Page J-14, J-15, J6, J-17 are.
I am sorry J-14.
Total Operations and Maintenance. $21,934,000.
I think you can’t see me on your left side there.
I have a question on the page J-20 of the Business Plan. Reference to Capital Program. Nunavut Community Infrastructure Advisory Committee.
We discussed that a little bit the last time the minister was here.
I’ve since had some emails from people who are at the community level who are concerned about the way that committee operates. They don’t have a problem with the committee itself, they say it works fine.
The committee prioritizes all the hamlet projects and they go back to the department. For one reason or another many of the projects aren’t priorities anymore because something else becomes a priority in the department. Mainly it centres around infrastructure that is subject to regulatory or environmental inspection by the federal government; the federal government comes along and says fix up that sewage lagoon or fix up that that water line or garbage dump so that the hamlets whose projects were prioritized, their projects become like second level.
Then the government directs the funds to the priority projects where they happen to be in Nunavut.  I wonder, minister, how you hope to address the concerns from some of the mayors in Nunavut that the Nunavut Community Infrastructure Advisory Committee is not actually working the way everybody hoped and expected it would be.
As everyone knows that the priority capitals, when they are being dealt with we did consultation visits to each community. Sometimes I went along; most of the time I went along.
At the time we saw their lists and their top priorities and when they were finalized the communities were quite happy because there was a direct involvement with the new Advisory Committee.
To answer the member’s question, we are doing second phase pretty soon now to visit the communities to see what might need modification and what might need changes.
However, I would like to say that the issue of balancing needs and funding is very difficult with the resources and the funding that we have.
It was one of the most difficult areas because not everybody was happy and we kind of knew that there were going to be some communities that were going to be upset because of the process.
The new process it will continue to improve over time.
It was the first time that we were exercising that process and when something new is introduced you have to find out the pros and cons and sometimes it doesn’t always work and sometimes we have to make difficult decisions and that’s where we’re at.
In November 2006 the capital was put before the standing committee. I believe one member didn’t see that, that’s my colleague from Rankin Inlet, because he was not here; he was off on medical.
We try our best to accommodate everybody but with the huge needs of Nunavummiut for capital, we couldn’t accommodate all those capital projects.
Can the minister tell us if ... you did your community consultations and you met with all the hamlets, all the councils … afterwards, did you sit down as a department to add up the total cost by hamlet and territory-wide, identified what the municipal infrastructure price tag is?
I will ask Mr. Rafter to respond to that, please.
It is true that the needs of municipalities across this territory outweigh the existing resources that the territory has to be able to dedicate on just the basic areas like ensuring that there’s clean water in a community, and ensuring that the environment is clean. They outweigh the existing resources by millions and millions of dollars.