EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
And also, the agencies, such as the Nunavut Power Corporation, that have full insurance had to be moved because this building was condemned.
If there happens to be a fire or if there was an accident within the building, what kind of insurance contingency do you have for that?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): I can’t give you a guesstimate. I can’t guess a response for you at this time, Mr. Speaker.
This situation has been occurring for quite some time but we’re lucky that there haven’t been any fires and no one has been hurt in that building.
However, I would like to ask a question. We are experiencing a shortage of offices in that community, and with the lack of office space, some staff are forced to move out of the hamlet office.
What kind of plans does your department have? How much funding will you be providing for that office?
Do you already have plans, or a set amount of money to be used for that building?
The Department of Community and Government Services should respond to that because we don’t have that information within the Department of Finance, Mr. Speaker.
Question 401 – 2(4): Community Development Fund (Peterson)
Mr. Speaker, earlier today, in my Member’s Statement, I spoke about the Tahera Diamond Mine closure.
They’re in bankruptcy protection until June 2008. I also mentioned there were jobs lost in Cambridge Bay and businesses were hurt.
In my Member’s Statement, I mentioned the federal government’s announcement in January about a Community Development Trust that is targeted at communities that are vulnerable because of their dependence on a single employer or sector under pressure due to exchange rate fluctuations, declining demand, notably in the U.S., or other factors.
I also mentioned that there is $3 million to each territory in per capita funding after that.
So my question for the Minister of Finance is: has the Government of Nunavut determined how it will use its share of the Community Development Trust funds when the federal budget is approved?
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) At this time, we haven’t identified or received the money yet from the Government of Canada as far as the monies to be set aside by legislation.
So we’re waiting for the money.
We will be entitled to about $3.8 million out of the fund.
So we’re hoping that it will be passed before any election is called so we can utilize the dollars that have been identified. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Premier for answering my question.
I certainly hope that that money is approved by the federal government because Cambridge Bay could sure use some help, not just Cambridge Bay but the entire Kitikmeot, because employees and businesses that are affected come from right across the Kitikmeot.
Mr. Speaker, my next question for the Minister of Finance: can the minister tell the House if there’s a special committee within the Government of Nunavut that is specifically tasked to help communities address emergency situations when a major employer, such as a mine, ceases operations?
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) We have gone through a number of closures, unfortunately, during our two tenures of government.
We usually form a committee with ED&T and they work out, with Environment, what needs to be done and we try to find ways to take advantage of opportunities that come our way with closures, whether it be cleaning up operations, or trying to make the best of the situation.
So I’m sure that we will start working on that as a government. We are hopeful that the company will come out of bankruptcy protection and continue production, but at this time, it is hard to say. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I guess I will ask the Premier directly instead of the Minister of Finance.
Can the Premier tell me and tell the House if the Department of Finance has calculated the financial impact that the closure of the Tahera Diamond Mine would have on Nunavut’s economy, and if so, what is it?
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) I’m not aware of any calculations at this time but we’re all hopeful that the company will recover.
We’re all trying to remain optimistic but it’s a difficult situation.
We’re all hopeful that things don’t turn that way and we’ll continue to try and assist the company in our own ways to try and regain stability.
I guess we’re all hopeful that Tahera can survive and come out of bankruptcy protection with a recovery plan and carry on in the years ahead.
Mr. Speaker, my next question for the Premier: can the Premier tell me if Tahera Diamond Mine has contacted the Government of Nunavut for any financial help to keep their mine open, and if so, was any financial help provided?
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) I’m aware that they want to try and get our fuel tax rebate in place.
We had approached them prior to this that we would like to get a Development Agreement to take advantage of the fuel tax rebate but there’s no agreement in place yet.
In its place, we have been trying to offer help in terms of identifying other ways of taking advantage of the fuel tax rebate.
So we’re hopeful that we can get an agreement so that we can do our part and get them assistance at this time, but other than that, I’m not aware of any other ways that we can help them at this time. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Members, as I stated earlier before, I wanted to thank Mr. Kattuk for coming back and thank him for coming straight to the Legislative Assembly.
Question 402 – 2(4): Update on Polar Bear Study at Sanikiluaq (Kattuk)
I feel welcome here, too, but I would like to ask a question to the Minister of Environment.
I know that he knows the response to the question that I’m about to pose because, in the earlier days, we met with the HTO in Sanikiluaq in regard to polar bear management.
As he stated at that meeting that there’s going to be research or a survey done on the polar bears and that the research was going to be completed by 2008, my first question is: has that research been completed yet?
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Kattuk, and welcome.
The Ontario Government did a survey close to Belcher Islands, but within this year, we want to start a survey, including Sanikiluaq and the Foxe Basin area, a polar bear survey along the Foxe Basin area, including the Sanikiluaq region and the survey will also include Belcher Islands.
With regards to the research that was done previously, what were the results? What were the findings on the numbers of polar bears at that time?
The research that was done previously, to date, we still have not seen the results yet, but I can look into where they’re at with their research and what the results have been. Once I get the results, I will inform the member.
As the minister stated that his department will do a survey or research the polar bears, can the minister tell me at what level will the researchers do their study?
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We usually do a three-year survey on each management area.
So after the three-year research has been completed, we’ll have the results.
I would like to thank the minister for his response. In regard to the statement that you made about the results from the previous survey, once you get the results, could you commit to providing that information to me and to the Legislative Assembly?
Yes, once I receive the results, I will provide that copy to you.
Question 403 – 2(4): Update on Inuujaq School Conditions (Barnabas)
Mr. Speaker, can the minister provide an update of the foundation and the problems at the Inuujaq School in Arctic Bay?
There have been some serious ongoing issues with the foundation of the school in Arctic Bay.
We’ve had a team of technical experts, Mr. Speaker, go into the community and review the situation.
We believe that we will be able to rectify those concerns this summer.
How much money will be used to fix the problem there?
What’s happened in Arctic Bay is there has been what is referred to as permafrost destabilization.
Because of that permafrost destabilization, indeed, part of the school had moved off kilter, as it were, which caused a lot of problems inside the school itself.
It’s an expensive problem to fix; right now, Mr. Speaker, we have an estimate of about $950,000, almost $1 million to fix that problem.
We also have seen other schools and other infrastructure in Nunavut, whether through global warming, climate change, or what have you, there have been issues with the destabilization of permafrost and that is the case in Arctic Bay.
Question 404 – 2(4): Overview of Presentation to Senate Committee on Poverty (Peterson)
My question is for the Minister of Education/Minister of Homelessness.
Mr. Speaker, I raised the issue of poverty in the House on Friday.
Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to read that the minister addressed the Senate Committee on poverty on Thursday while they were in town.
Poverty is a crisis situation that affects many of my constituents and quite a few other folks across Nunavut.
I wonder if the minister could take some time to provide the House with a short overview of his presentation that he made to the Senate Committee on the issue of poverty in Nunavut.
Minister of Education and Homelessness, Minister Picco.
I had a prepared statement; I believe it was 10 or 12 pages and I actually got away from the prepared statement and actually spoke.
I would suggest to you, from some personal knowledge of the situation of poverty and homelessness in Nunavut, what I tried to explain to the Senators, first of all, it’s not acceptable that when you have a senior parliamentary body, like the Senate of Canada, decide when the majority of the members decide not to come to Nunavut because it’s too expensive for them to come here to hear from rural and northern areas of Canada about poverty and so on.
What I tried to do is frame it in that light and suggest to them that there are a lot of issues around poverty.
The first part of poverty is when you deal with the many socio-economic factors that many people in Nunavut are dealing with, which includes overcrowded houses and a lack of a sustainable infrastructure system.
In the south, Mr. Speaker, it’s very important to point out, that the federal government maintains the Trans-Canada Highway from coast to coast, and indeed, up the Mackenzie Valley.
In Nunavut, we have no highways, so we would expect to have that type of infrastructure supports.
So there was a lot of discussion around the socio-economic impacts of poverty in the north – overcrowding, homelessness, and the lack of infrastructure – which leads to some of the economic issues that we have been talking about in the House.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the minister for that brief overview.
I’m sure he would speak eloquently and much longer if we gave him the time.
Mr. Speaker, I have used this chart over the last couple of days to highlight the serious issues that we have here in Nunavut; it’s statistics from the National Council on Welfare and it shows the provinces’ and territories’ issue on poverty.
There are some very alarming welfare stats for Nunavut.
While most other provinces and territories, as of March 31, 2005, showed a decrease or a negligible increase, Nunavut required a whopping 60.5 percent increase, showing that nearly 44 percent of Nunavut’s population is on welfare.
Mr. Speaker, my question for the minister: can the minister confirm if these numbers are the same figures that his own department is seeing?
Why is nearly half of our population on welfare?
Some of those numbers are misleading. What happens in Nunavut, unlike anywhere else in the rest of Canada as the example, is that the only strong economic opportunities that we have in our communities is on a seasonal basis and that’s usually during the construction season from May to September.
At that time, in most of our communities we have an opportunity for outfitting, there are tourism opportunities, construction, as we said, and so on.
Because of that, more people are actually involved in the wage economy.
Once the fall comes and the winter and so on, a lot of those opportunities dry up, so there is a need for more people in Nunavut to access income support to be able to maintain their families.
So, Mr. Speaker, the quick numbers are that there was a $7 million increase in actual income support monies paid out from 1999 to 2006-07 during that eight-year period.
Also, at any given time, the numbers that we have demonstrate that about 48 percent of Nunavummiut would be uptaking on the Income Support Program.
I’m glad that the minister mentioned income support programs. Since I’ve been a Member of the Legislative Assembly, I have seen the Income Support Program increase significantly. That’s over four years.
Having looked through the Department of Education’s budget for 2008-09, I see that there’s a hefty increase of $4 million to the Income Support Program which will bring it to over $30 million annually.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, it is one of the Government of Nunavut’s biggest cost items, probably second only to medical travel.
My question for the minister: can the minister tell the House if he thinks that massive annual increases every year in the Income Support Program are sustainable to address the poverty issue in Nunavut?
I think, quickly, when we look at the numbers, the numbers can be a little bit misleading.
I’m sure the member remembers that we actually increased the amounts paid out by 15 percent, meaning we increased the amounts that people would be eligible for by 15 percent. Therefore and thus, you would expect that the amounts of monies in the budget itself would increase by that same number.
After saying that, Mr. Speaker, I think it’s important to note that we do see a need for an Income Support Program in Nunavut.
That program and support is a program of last resort for Nunavummiut, meaning they haven’t an opportunity for full wage employment, or indeed, maybe have not qualified for unemployment insurance or another similar program that would be eligible for them.
The other point to make is that we have such a young population, Mr. Speaker. Many of our population are between the ages of 18 and over and because there is no opportunity for employment, they have to have an uptake on the Income Support Program.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t think anyone doubts that we need an Income Support Program but we need a sustainable Income Support Program and the increases are very substantial every year.
Mr. Speaker, last year, the Government of the Northwest Territories conducted an extensive review of their programs and support for those on the lower end of the socio-economic scale in the Northwest Territories and they focused on poverty or those in poverty.
The Government of the Northwest Territories drew information about all of their programs together and the results were comprehensive and sweeping changes to the whole range of the services offered to folks who are in the lower end of the socioeconomic scale.
In Nunavut, we have similar programs and similar socio-economic challenges.
My question for the minister: can the minister tell the House, does he sees an urgent need for a similar extensive review of Government of Nunavut programs and services that are targeted to help folks who are in the poverty range?
I think the point to make here very quickly is that the issue around poverty is real in the north, not just as the member has mentioned in Nunavut but in the Northwest Territories and in rural remote parts of Canada, and that was what the Senate Committee last week was doing here.
We need to be able to look at the socio-economic factors that cause the issue of poverty. First and foremost, we have to deal with the issue around housing, and we know that overcrowded housing and so on; people not having enough to eat; the lack of economic opportunities; those are the three major areas where you need to be able to look at. How do we increase that?
We have, for example, undertaken 700 new houses; we’ve put an apprenticeship training program in place at the local level; more local people will be working on those construction projects; we have put programs in place under the Income Support Program, like being able to help people if they see a job in another community, we help them make that move with transitional allowance for that; we put programs in place under the income support for young girls, for example, who have found themselves in the family way, who are pregnant, so that they could actually find daycare and be able to go back to school.
So we need to be able to look at those types of factors; education, as well as the other socio-economic factors. That type of review is ongoing within the department but also throughout the government.
I would like to remind the members to keep their questions and supplementary questions as short as possible and that also goes for the responses.
Question 405 – 2(4): Capital Estimates Approved Last Fall (Tootoo)
My question is for the Minister responsible for Finance, again dealing with his Budget Address for this O&M budget that we’re looking at here as it seems to be consumed a lot by capital projects.
In his Budget Address, he had indicated that the members had approved $98.3 million in capital projects.
I’m just wondering if he could confirm if that’s the capital budget that we approved last fall and that it does not include all of the new items that he mentioned in his Budget Address. If he could provide us with a revised number would be with all of those new announcements.
During the session, we identified everything that was slated for capital projects in the regions, Mr. Speaker.
I would assume that that number is going to jump considerably when they bring... I assume that the minister meant that he would be bringing forward a Supplementary Appropriation Bill to deal with those projects.
Mr. Speaker, I know last year we approved a little over $88 million in capital carryovers for projects that weren’t being completed, and I know that his predecessor had indicated that, over the past two years, capital carryovers have increased significantly.
I’m just wondering if the minister is confident that all of these capital projects, not only the $98.3 million but the new ones that were announced in his Budget Address, are something that can actually be achieved in the coming year.
Yes, we will work extremely hard to implement all of the programs, and if we need additional human resources, we will do so, Mr. Speaker.
I know in the past we have seen a lot of projects that have been delayed or postponed due to lack of funding, and I know that there have been budgeted amounts, and each department, we heard in the fall, has been coming back and saying they’re finding projects coming back in on tenders anywhere from 30 to 50 to 100 percent higher than what was actually budgeted for.
If that happens with these new projects, would the minister commit to coming back to the full Assembly to decide on which projects go ahead and which ones don’t so it’s not just the Members of Cabinet that can pick and choose which capital projects get delayed and which ones don’t, and that it would be something that all members would have a say in?
I don’t think we’ll see any further changes. When we’re dealing with the capital estimates, usually there are working groups that deal with the capital projects, and I don’t think we’ll see much of a change with that.
We have working groups who deal with those and all Members of the Legislative Assembly will be given an opportunity to have their say when we’re dealing with the capital estimates, Mr. Speaker.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that over the last few years, we have seen projects being put off.
This year and last year, a lot of projects have been put on and I know I have questioned in the past the accuracy of the budgeted amounts for those projects when they have been continually coming in significantly over budget on the bids.
All of the Members of this Assembly vote on the capital budget and if there is only enough money in there to do half of it when all of the tenders come in, all of the Members of the Assembly don’t have a say in which half of those projects move ahead.
That’s what I’m looking for, Mr. Speaker, is a commitment from the Minister of Finance that if something like that were to occur, as it has in the past, that it come back to the entire Assembly, as a whole, to decide on which projects move forward and which ones don’t.
We will be looking at the items. We would like to make sure that the projects go ahead. We will do a review and we will also be looking at how we can best proceed.
We have a working group already who reviews the list and they are representing the different departments.
I don’t think we can make too many changes at this point and we will be using the same process, Mr. Speaker.
We will go ahead with our Orders of the Day.
Tabled Document 179 – 2(4): Crown Agencies Council Activities Report from April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007 (Tapardjuk)
I would like to table the following: Crown Agencies Council Activities Report for Year Ending March 31, 2007.
Tabled Document 180 – 2(4): 2007-2008 Letters of Expectation to Crown Agencies (Tapardjuk)
I would like to table the following: the 2007-2008 Letters of Expectation to the five territorial corporations.
Tabled Document 181 – 2(4): Correspondence from Standing Committee Regarding Bill 13 “Energy Efficiency Act” (Tootoo)
It gives me great pleasure today to table copies of correspondence between the Minister of Energy and myself, as the Chair of the Standing Committee of Government Operations and Accountability, concerning Bill 13.
The first letter is dated August 23, 2007, from the standing committee to the minister and his response of August 29, 2007, from the minister to the standing committee.  I would encourage all members and ministers to carefully note the minister’s comments on page three of his letter to the committee in which he acknowledges the need for any legislation in this area to, and I quote again, “take into account the realities of Nunavut’s climate and allow exemptions for uses such as you mentioned namely in water LED service lighting.”
Bills 23, 24, and 25.
Before we proceed with Committee of the Whole, we will take a 20-minute break and when we return, Mr. Arreak will be in the Chair.
>>House recessed at 15:14 and Committee resumed at 15:42
We are going to start our Committee of the Whole proceedings. I would like to call the committee meeting to order.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Kattuk.
Does the committee agree to proceed with the Main Estimates for the Department of Health and Social Services?
I have a few remarks to make. Before we begin line-by-line proceedings, I have an announcement to make.
Members will have noted that in the 2008-09 main estimates, information concerning departmental grants and contributions has been included at the end of each department’s main estimates.
Additional information for members was distributed as a separate item at this morning’s meeting of the Regular Members’ Caucus.
This information indicates in which departmental branch a grant and contribution line item is located.
Minister Aglukkaq, do you have witnesses that you would like to bring to the table?
To my left is Alex Campbell, the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services. To my right is Raj Downe, she is the Assistant Deputy Minister to Health and Social Services.
Chairman: Thank you, Minister. We’re dealing with Health and Social Services.
Branch Summary. Directorate. On page H-4 of the main estimates.
Are there any more questions on this page?
I would like to welcome the minister’s officials back.
I just have a few questions in regard to that page in the business plan.
Mr. Chairman, there’s a line item that increased about $2.4 million from last year and that’s ADM Programs and Services.
I’m just wondering if we could get an indication of what that increase of $2.4 million is for.
Can the member just outline which line item?