EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I’ll be asking some questions and raise that based on some responses that were provided to this committee and what the Community and Government Services officials, as far as what’s treated, how projects are looked at and when they would be considered a new project or a continuation of an old project.  I have some concerns ooking at projects in here over the years; it appears that there seems to be a discrepancy in how and if that same procedure is used throughout.
It doesn’t seem to have been the case for what and for sure for the one in here.
Again, I look forward to hearing the response to these questions from the minister, and like my colleagues have indicated, I do have some concerns and some doubt over the capital budget that we see before us here for the department.
We will now proceed to page-by-page review of the departmental estimates starting with page H-6.
Health and Social Services. Detail of Capital. Directorate.
Tangible Assets. Headquarters Region. Total Headquarters Region. $1 million.
There’s half a million dollars I know, again, is not a whole lot of money for Minor Projects and for Small Capital.
I’m just wondering if the department has an indication as to how those funds are going to be used.
The Minor Projects; $500,000 will be used to replace obsolete equipment or vehicles that are in poor condition, or purchase additional equipment that require new equipment.
In terms of the other, Small Capital; funds to be used to do some minor repairs and renovations of buildings.
So it’s telephone systems or that kind of expenditure.
For Small Capital or Minor Projects, do they have a listing of priorities or projects that they would like to address under those areas by community?
From what I understand for these two categories, the way it’s set up, is based on need, and the regions would put forth their needs for various small capital or minor projects. That’s all there, too.
Page H-6. Total Headquarters Region.
Mr. Barnabas (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) I have raised in this House a number of times to describe the condition of the Arctic Bay Health Centre, and I have even tabled photographs and described many problems in the facility.
The Arctic Bay Health Centre is now one of the oldest health centres in Nunavut.
Chairman: Mr. Barnabas, I will have the committee approve the Tangible Assets for Headquarters Region before you ask your question. Total Headquarters Region. $1 million.
Mr. Curley: Mr. Chairman, I need your guidance in this area because I’m not sure where I’m going to speak for the Kivalliq region with that detail because the Kivalliq region is not in there.
I would prefer to address them now, while we’re in the minister’s responsibility, alright?
Chairman: Alright.
I’ll give you a chance to voice your opinions after we have approved the headquarters region, any time after this capital item.
Mr. Curley: Mr. Chairman, the headquarters region is obviously related to projects that are associated with the whole health budget for all of Nunavut, not just for the headquarters, in my view.
So isn’t it the appropriate place to do that? It’s up to you and I’ll abide by your final ruling.
Chairman: Alright, I’ll do that.
Total Headquarters Region. $1 million.
Mr. Curley: Mr. Chairman, my question is specific.
When allocating for minor projects, how do you determine which projects qualify to a particular location?
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Each region would put forth their proposal based on needs. They would forward that to Rosemary and Rosemary works with each region to allocate minor capital projects to various regions.
Can you clarify who Rosemary is, minister?
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Rosemary is the witness sitting next to me here, as I introduced her earlier.
Chairman: Alright. Thank you, Minister.
You mean Ms. Brown.
Mr. Curley: So if a region, or a community, or officials from the region don’t put forward a new request for minor projects, they don’t get a penny as is the case with the Kivalliq region.
I have a question on exactly what you have with the so-called Minor Projects and Small Capital, we would actually say $300,000 or less, but that is not the case, they’re both more than $300,000.
So can the minister outline in detail exactly what kinds of projects are allocated within this $500,000 to $1 million figure?
I’m going to have Ms. Brown explain what funding was allocated to the Kivalliq region under Minor Projects and Small Capital projects last year, and explain the guideline used to allocate that funding and I’ll ask Ms. Brown to elaborate on that.
Mr. Curley: That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking about the detailed breakdown of the headquarters projects. What are they?
(interpretation) I think the minister doesn’t understand my question.
What is the $500,000 in Minor Projects, Headquarters Region, going to be used for?
It says the amount is not even $300,000, but both of them are $500,000 each.
What are they geared towards?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Curley. Minister Aglukkaq.
The $500,000 for Minor Projects and Small Capital projects of $500,000 is for accounting purposes located in the headquarters operation.
That funding is used for various projects identified by the three regions. So the three regions would identify their minor projects and submit those to the head office, and the head office would then prioritize those and distribute the funding.
It’s simply for accounting purposes that it’s not divided up.
The $500,000 is not divided by three regions.
It’s basically for accounting purposes held at the headquarters office and distributed based on need in submissions from the regions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Curley: Thank you. That’s important to note.
My question is: it says here that the so-called small capital projects supposedly should be up to $300,000 or less.
Why then are they categorized as small capital when they, in fact, are half a million dollars? Thank you.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, the $500,000 is for the three regions and the money is stored at the head office. Each region would submit their needs to the regional office and that money is distributed.
The way that it’s described here is that anything less than $300,000 would be considered for it as a project at one time. Anything beyond $300,000 would not qualify under this Minor Project or Small Capital category.
Mr. Curley: I assume the minister’s office or department would have a guideline for minor projects.
Why are the minor project guidelines, if any, required when, in fact, it doesn’t appear to be followed in this regard? I believe the $500,000 shouldn’t be, in my view, be stealing from the little guys who qualify for small minor projects in the amount of $300,000 or less.
So why do you terminate small projects when $500,000 is not a minor project, in my view?
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, the $500,000 is a territorial budget for minor projects for the 25 communities in the three regions and the same applies to the minor repairs.
So for example, if they need to replace a porch in one of the health centres, a door has been broken and whatnot, that would fall under minor capital funding.
Anything beyond $300,000 would not be considered on one project, and that $500,000 is there to maximize the dollars for minor projects throughout the region.
In the past, I believe in 2004-05, the $500,000 used to be divided up into three regions and we were finding at that time that we could not accommodate any request from regions because the funding was too little.
So by consolidating the funding, $500,000 for minor capital and so on, at headquarters, we were able to exercise more flexibility in regional submissions for minor capital, as an example.
Mr. Curley: My next question is, in terms of the $1 million allocations for Minor Projects and Small Capital, do you have a number of locations for these two items, and if so, which communities are planned for that?
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The funding would be allocated based on submissions from the communities and the regions, and once that information is collected, then that funding would be allocated for those minor projects.
Chairman: Thank you, Minister Aglukkaq. Mr. Curley.
Mr. Curley: Thank you. What the minister is telling this committee is that up to now, you have not received any submissions for any funding from any region, you just have an allocated amount of $1 million for Minor Projects and Small Capital, and that is yet to be distributed to the regions. Do I understand you correctly in saying that?
Page H-6. Health and Social Services. Detail of Capital.
Directorate. Tangible Assets. Mr. Tootoo.
Like Mr. Curley, I have a question to ask here that’s not in here.
There’s a substantiation sheet in the department’s book on the project. I figured before we get into any specific area that probably might be the best place to get a response for.
Mr. Chairman, it deals with the Kitikmeot medical boarding home facility, which I believe is a couple of years behind schedule now.
Mr. Chairman, the substantiation sheet indicates that in May they received a bid for a little over $1.7 million and it was deferred until sufficient capital funds were available.
On the construction amounts in there, there’s a budgeted amount of $2.1 million. I’m just wondering if I could get… $1.7 million is less than $2.1 million, so I’m just wondering if I could get a clarification.
I’m sure there’s probably a good reason for that but I would just like to hear it on the record.
I’m going have Ms. Brown explain that.
In the budget that we had for 2007-08 for the medical boarding home, it was $1,003,000, which we were going to be short that amount of money for the boarding home.
The $2.1 million is the value of what we feel the renovations will be, given the input from CGS, that by the time we get to do the renovations in 2011-12, we figure, with inflation, it will cost that much more.
When we look at the overall view of things and some of the things that we’ve seen throughout this capital budget, it sounds like it’s just a $700,000 difference in the bid to what was budgeted for, and then you see some projects that have come in over double from $17 million to $30 million, which we’ve already seen in the capital plan.
How is it determined, then, that, “Okay, we don’t have $700,000. We’ve come in over our budget, so we’re not dealing with that one until the future.
We’re going to find the money for this one and move ahead with it, but this one here doesn’t get it because we don’t have the money for it.”
Maybe just get an explanation as to how that’s determined.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: I’ll get Ms. Brown to answer that.
At the time when the bid came in, we were also looking at the potential for staffing at the Kitikmeot Health Centre in terms of both physicians and nurses. We felt that this project, the Kitikmeot Boarding Home, could be deferred until the building could be opened at its in-patients.
The Department of Health is also looking at an overall boarding home strategy for all of the facilities in conjunction with Health Canada. That will allow the department time to get more information about possible input of funding from Health Canada for this facility.
Unfortunately, now, we have had the fire in August, which has now compounded the problem.
At that time, in looking at the $1 million, it’s just over a million dollars that was sitting for the medical boarding home.
We were also in a situation where the two continuing care centres, one for Igloolik and one for Gjoa Haven, were also coming in over budget.
Because this was a major GN priority, we applied to FMB to be able to temporarily, at this point in time, use the money from the medical boarding home and defer it for a few years until the staffing situation in Nunavut could be improved, physicians as well as nursing, and sort out the boarding home strategy.
We are on H-6. Total Headquarters Region. $1 million. (interpretation) Do you agree?
I have two members on my list already.
Yes, I will go back to the question, Mr. Chairman, that I was trying to ask. I apologize if I went too far ahead.
I have raised in this House a number of times to describe the conditions at the Arctic Bay Health Centre. I have even tabled photographs and described the many problems at the facility.
Can the minister explain to me why the Arctic Bay Health Centre has been dropped off the five-year capital plan?
Back in 2004-05, the Department of CGS had completed a technical review of the facility. That technical review was given to the Department of Health as a base to start the process of developing a program study to figure out the size of the building and what would be delivered and so on.
To respond to the technical review conducted by CGS Technical staff at that time, $15,000 was allocated to the Department of Health and Social Services to start the process of doing the program review of this facility, which would include identification of the site, basically, what programs would be delivered out of the health centre, which would form the basis of a submission back to CGS to start the process of a tender call, and design and architects and so on.  That $15,000 remains within the Department of Health and the plan is still for the Department of Health to do the program review for the facility in Arctic Bay.
The challenge that we have in meeting all of the capital needs is the limitations of the capital funding within the Department of Health as well as the government, and what we are trying to do is still keep that project rolling within internal allocations to complete that program review and possibly use the Taloyoak and the Repulse Bay design for Arctic Bay considering that they are similar in size and so on.
So the process is we are still proceeding with Arctic Bay within the limited capital budget that we have as a government.
Earlier this week I received copies of the technical status evaluation reports for both the Taloyoak and Arctic Bay Health Centres.
I have looked through both of these reports in detail but I can tell you I’m not an engineer.
When I look at the results of these evaluations, it’s not clear to me that the age and condition of one building is significantly worse than the other.
Can the minister explain exactly what specific aspects of the evaluation reports were used by her department do determine that the Taloyoak Health Centre was in greater need of replacement than the Arctic Bay Health Centre?
The projects for Taloyoak and Repulse Bay have been in the capital main estimates since the first government.
That’s 2002-03.  Those two projects have been in the books for two governments now, and the direction I had given the department was to try and complete the commitments of the previous government as well as this government for projects that were started back in 2002.
If you go to the main estimates of that year, many projects, such as the Igloolik Health Centre, the Iqaluit hospital, the Pangnirtung replacement, the Pond Inlet, the Rankin Inlet Health Facility, the Cambridge Bay Health Facility, those projects all got completed with the exception of two projects: Repulse Bay and Taloyoak. So those are projects that have been ongoing since 2002 that I have instructed my staff to complete.
The technical assessment that was completed by the government’s CGS Department is the same process for any other capital projects followed by the government.
We are a client to CGS. They have the expertise to do an evaluation of our facilities, and based on their review, they come forward to the department and say, “Look, this should be a priority and you should look at doing a program review,” and so on, which is what happened in Arctic Bay when the technical assessment was completed in 2004.
The technical assessment came to Health and we responded to that by saying, “We need to do the program study part,” which is used to design the size of the facility, and that process is still in the works and we hope to complete that review by this year.
Can the minister explain to me why the Taloyoak Health Centre Replacement Project has been given priority over the Arctic Bay Health Centre Replacement Project?
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Mr. Chairman, the priorities for the department is to finish off the 2002 commitments and the 2003 commitments, which includes Repulse Bay and Taloyoak Capital Projects.
At almost every capital budget session since the 2000-01 Capital Estimates was brought forward, the Legislative Assembly has approved capital funding for renovations to the Taloyoak Health Centre. More specifically, funding for the Taloyoak Health Centre Renovation Project has been approved in six capital sessions since the year 2000.
The Legislative Assembly has also approved carryover funding for these renovations every fiscal year since 2003.
Can the minister explain what the approved funds for the renovations at Taloyoak Health Centre has been spent on over the past few years?
I’m going to ask Ms. Brown to explain that.
Ms. Brown: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to the existing budget for the existing Taloyoak project to date is $835,000. Some of it is in this fiscal year’s budget because of past carryovers and it has been for the design of the building.
There was about $200,000 that was transferred, I can’t remember the exact figure, I think it was $266,000 transferred out of this budget for the emergency repairs for the Sanikiluaq Health Centre.
At this point in time, the only budget that Taloyoak has is for the design.
The $200,000 in 2008-09 would be to complete any design issues prior to going out to tender, if the building code changes, or the projects identified by the architect are no longer available by manufacturers.
Construction money, like for Repulse Bay or anything else, we are only looking at 2008-09 approvals from the government, and the planning for the construction of the Taloyoak, the construction funds will be in 2009-10, and that’s when we would be asking for them in the capital plan and for 2010-11.
How did we go from a renovation to a new project? We initially had the concept of the renovation and a new addition would be the best way to go from that community based on some of the information from the 2000 assessment by Technical Services, plus the facility plan that we completed in 2003.
When we had been working with the design architect and CGS over the past year, we had found that, with the new requirements for infection control during any type of renovations are very stringent now, with the code upgrades required, it would take, perhaps, five phases to do a renovation of that facility, plus the new addition, and those costs were approaching the costs of a new health facility, period.  We did not feel that going the renovation route was necessarily a good cost use of the government’s money versus going with the new.
The Repulse Bay Health Centre, which is also in the early stages, has a very good early design, adding about four or five rooms to what Repulse Bay would be, we could make the size of them the same, and then, we would approach CGS to be able to amend contracts to get out a common design, which, this common design, probably, mostly likely, could be acceptable to the community for use in Arctic Bay because Repulse Bay and Arctic Bay are very close to this.
CGS recommended this change of approach to a standalone building based on the consultant’s assessment and that’s why we have identified this in the 2008 Capital Plans Submission Substantiation Sheet as a replacement project, rather than a renovation project. So it is now been through the FMB and a standing committee, and as is before this committee.
Certainly, we hope COW understands that we are not favouring one community over another.
Taloyoak started first as did Repulse Bay, and as soon as we learned officially from TSD, Technical Services, about the state of the foundation and so on of Arctic Bay, we put it in the plan.  Part of the problems and the issues are the pressures on the community continuing care centres and the driving up of the whole government’s cost.
I don’t know if I’ve answered the question exactly, but there may be a little bit more information.
I don’t think I can agree with you that we’ve been putting so much money aside per year for renovations that’s approved by the Legislative Assembly, and then when there’s a renovation now, we want a total change.
I can’t understand and I don’t agree with you at all, and I’m sure that I don’t agree with a whole lot of people out there.
Anyways, besides that I have a question: on November 24, 2004, this House approved funding for the Department of Health and Social Services 2005-06 Capital Estimates, including $15,000 towards the replacement of the Arctic Bay Health Centre.
Can the minister clarify what this money was spent on?
That $15,000 that we had identified was in response to the technical report that was released from CGS.
The $15,000 would be used for putting in the functional program study for the possible health centre in Arctic Bay.
So the functional funding would be used, again, to identify site locations, how many patient booths would be required and so on for the facility itself. That project is still underway. We hope to complete that part of the functional program review for the Arctic Bay health facility this year.
Last week we heard from officials from the Department of Community and Government Services that when the scope of a project is completely changed from its original scope, then this becomes a new project.
Can the minister explain to me why we are being asked to approve funding for the brand new replacement health centre in Taloyoak as if it were a continuation of renovations when it’s clearly a new project with a new scope?
I’m going to have Ms. Brown explain the process that we follow with CGS related to projects.
The functional program in 2003 identified the Community of Taloyoak needed more examination rooms, needed space for dental, home and community care, mental health, and more social worker space.
In 2003, it was felt that the renovation of the existing building and an addition would cover the needs of the functional program. Over the past year we have found that the needs that were identified in 2003 would not adequately be met by a renovation and an addition because a new building costing about the same amount, the government’s money is better spent on a new building.
The scope of what we wanted to have housed in the building to service the community of Taloyoak has not changed.
We work closely with the Department of Community and Government Services and they have agreed with the consultant’s recommendation that we switch from a renovation/addition to a new building.
Now, this is not a new project because it has been going along for several years. At this point in time, we feel that the money that, so far, has been tentatively been approved in the past capital plans for 2007-08, and now being asked for in 2008-09 and the five-year plan.
We are not asking for new money for an increased scope of work.
The project, in terms of construction, has changed. It’s a renovation but it still comes under construction.
Yes, this is part of the recommendation to us which we have brought to the Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As promised, I’ll give Mr. Curley time to ask questions. Mr. Curley.
I didn’t realize my colleague has departed.  >>Laughter
Mr. Chairman, the minister, in her opening remarks, concluded by looking forward to my support for capital estimates for 2008-09. I would like to ask the minister: why did she want me to support her capital estimates when there’s not one penny allocated for Kivalliq region? Thank you.
In the past we have funded projects in the Keewatin.
We just opened a hospital facility in the Keewatin, we opened the Chesterfield Inlet long-term care facility, and we are proposing a new health centre, the Repulse Bay Health Centre.
So there are projects going to the Keewatin and are in our capital projects that we presented for the members’ consideration.
Mr. Curley: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think, for the record, it’s important that the minister respond to my question. Are you using these previous expenditures to justify why I should support your budget?