EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
On February 3, I was a speaker at the Economic Club of Canada’s event on Inuit Perspectives on Canada’s Arctic Future. Terry Audla, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, and the Hon. Leona Aglukkaq, Canada’s Minister of the Environment, also spoke on the panel.
Mr. Speaker, the Economic Club of Canada is a national non-partisan organization with a mission to bring members and guests face to face with important, relevant and influential leaders.
This event was a discussion aimed to explore regional perspectives on the vast opportunities and complex challenges for economic development in the Arctic. This included highlighting areas of success and ongoing work.
Mr. Speaker, it was an opportunity to address challenges of Nunavut to Canadian business, industry, and government leaders, some of who were unfamiliar with our territory.
I am always eager to bring the Nunavut perspective to larger audiences and benefit from the ability to discuss our realities to others.
Minister’s Statement 134 – 4(2): Certificate in Aboriginal Language Revitalization (CALR) (Quassa)
Hon. Paul Quassa (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good morning, my colleagues and fellow residents of Igloolik in Aggu and Nunavummiut.
(interpretation ends) Mr. Speaker, as Minister responsible for Nunavut Arctic College, it is my pleasure to share with my colleagues’ news that Nunavut Arctic College is delivering the award-winning Certificate Program in Aboriginal Language Revitalization (CALR).
This has been developed by the University of Victoria’s Department of Linguistics and the Division of Continuing Studies in partnership with the En’owkin Centre.
The first three courses are being delivered in Cambridge Bay.
Developed in partnership with post-secondary institutions and Inuit communities, the Certificate Program in Aboriginal Language Revitalization enables individuals concerned with language loss, maintenance, and recovery to develop both [knowledge] and practical strategies for language revitalization activities in Nunavut and beyond.
Mr. Speaker, this is designed to honour traditional knowledge and practices, to recognize and accommodate the realities and needs of diverse communities, and to provide a foundation for both language revitalization activities and for further study in education, linguistics, or other related areas.
This program delivery has been made possible with funding from the Department of Culture and Heritage through the Inuit Language Implementation Fund.
Members’ Statements. (interpretation) Member for Baker Lake, Mr. Mikkungwak.
Member’s Statement 265 – 4(2): Firearms Licensing in Baker Lake (Mikkungwak)
Before I proceed with my statement, this upcoming Sunday will be the birthday of one of my daughters, so I wish a very happy birthday to Tina Mikkungwak.
In order for the people of Baker Lake to hear the news, from March 17 to 21, 2015, the Canadian Firearms Program will be in Baker Lake.
Russell Akeeagok will be going to Baker Lake to fill out forms for the Canadian Firearms Program.
They will offer firearms licence assistance and the representatives will be available to offer firearms licence assistance, deliver firearms safety education instructor training, and promote the safe use and safe storage of firearms.
The event will take place from March 17 to 21, 2015 at the Baker Lake RCMP detachment. They will start at 9:00 in the morning to 9:00 in the evening.
There are a lot of people in Baker Lake who do not have firearms licences. The RCMP detachment will be available to provide that service.
Member’s Statement 266 – 4(2): Cape Dorset Walrus Hunting Rescue (Joanasie)
Mr. Joanasie (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good morning to my colleagues and all Nunavummiut.
Mr. Speaker, a wonderful day today where I want to acknowledge two individuals from Cape Dorset, who fell through the ice as they were hunting walrus. However, this unfortunate incident also has great news as the men who fell through were saved by their fellow hunters.
The hunters who fell through were Nuna Parr and Mosha Ragee. Another hunting party was close by luckily and they were able to reach the hunters who fell through the ice.
I want to expressly thank those men who took it upon themselves to save their fellow hunters, and to especially recognize the fact that our hunters occasionally have to navigate dangerous conditions in order to procure country foods for their families and communities and sometimes life-threatening situations occur.
I am ecstatic that this turned out to be a piece of good news instead of bad news. Our community of Cape Dorset will celebrate this event by having a community feast and games.
This is currently being planned to mark that occasion.
I just wanted to share that piece of good news and the fact that we will be celebrating their continued presence in our community, and I encourage them to continue their livelihoods.
Member’s Statement 267 – 4(2): Congratulations to Pangnirtung Hockey Players (Mike)
I rise today to extend my congratulations to the hockey players from Pangnirtung. There are two levels of hockey played in Pangnirtung.
There was recently a tournament in the Baffin region, with the younger players at level (interpretation ends) Junior C (interpretation) and the Baffin region hockey team is named the (interpretation ends) Blizzards, (interpretation) who won the tournament.
They started preparations to go to PEI for another hockey tournament.
The Junior C tournament will be held from March 24 to 30, 2015.
There are four hockey players from Pangnirtung.
I would like to congratulate them and announce their names.
From Pangnirtung, there were only four, but their names are:
Scott Angnakak,
Joanasie Dialla,
Corey Alivaktuk, and
Joseph Kilabuk.
They will be participating in the PEI Games.
We also had a bantam tournament in Iqaluit. From Pangnirtung, I would like to recognize individuals who participated:
Mathew Etuangat, who was the Most Valuable Player,
My son, Petoosie Mike,
Gregory Attagoyuk,
Nathan Veevee,
Davey Nakashuk,
Trevor Alivaktuk,
Aaron Veevee, and
Adrian Kullualik.
Also included were their coach and hockey players from Arctic Bay and Cape Dorset.
I would like to congratulate all the individuals who participated in those tournaments and I am very grateful to the people who organized those hockey games.
Member’s Statement 268 – 4(2): Questions about Senior Management Positions in Health (Hickes)
During our Committee of the Whole proceedings last week with the Department of Health, I feel that I may have gotten a little too detailed in some of my questions.
When I was questioning the minister on the amount of acting positions in the senior management positions across his department, it was a concern to me with regard to the number of people in senior management positions in acting positions. In my lines of questioning, I maybe made an error in listing the specific positions.
I feel that I may have insulted some of the people that are currently sitting in those positions and I apologize for that if that was the perception. At the same time, I think that all of us as members have to realize sometimes the rippling effect of some of our comments in the House and how it can be perceived by the public service.
As I stated yesterday with questions to the Premier, I very much appreciate a lot of the people that make their home, for however long, in Nunavut to share their expertise and their knowledge and to help us grow as a territory.
Obviously, I always want to see Nunavummiut working more in senior management positions, but until such time as we have the internal capacity, we are heavily reliant upon importing the skills that are necessary to move this territory forward.
If I offended anyone in my comments last week, I sincerely apologize, and I very much appreciate all the people that come to Nunavut and provide us with their knowledge and expertise.
We will move on. Item 4.
Question 452 – 4(2): Access to Medical Specialists (Shooyook)
Mr. Shooyook (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I say “good day” to my colleagues and to the people listening to the proceedings. Welcome.
Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health.
Mr. Speaker, in Nunavut, diagnostic assessment is very hard to access, especially due to the lack of equipment in the communities, and it is almost impossible to access it when you have only a few flights a week, just as an example.
When patients miss their appointments due to overbooking or missing flights, then they have no other choice since there are no other flights available.
This is very problematic, particularly for communities that are far from Iqaluit where the majority of the diagnosis occurs for medical patients requiring treatment. This is specific to non-residents of Iqaluit and who have no access to doctors.
The problem lies with patients who aren’t able to attend their appointments, although they require urgent medical attention. Sometimes they have to wait many days or up to a full year to see a specialist.
That creates problems for the patients.
It is very difficult for the patients.
I would like the minister to tell me if we are going to improve the situation in the future.
We raised this issue during Committee of the Whole.
If there is a problem with patients making their appointment or getting on the plane, there is a phone number that they can call. We try to set up the appointments as soon as possible.
If the patients can’t make it to their appointment, they are given later appointments.
As we are aware, specialists who come to Nunavut are only here for a few days. That creates a problem for patients.
According to my knowledge, it only occurs 1 percent of the time.
For the majority of the time, the patients make it to their appointments. Only 1 percent doesn’t make it.
As I stated, we need to catch up on that. We want to review the matter because we cannot control the doctors. We need to consult with them as to how we can provide better service.
Actually I wanted to be very clear on this issue as it was raised by the Member for Tununiq and some communities are undergoing difficulties in experiencing this facet of transportation.
Things that create problems include when patients don’t leave on that plane, all of their options are closed.
In this case, I use the example of a patient with a heart condition who requires an EKG checkup and their travel is set for a particular day with the appointment set for their arrival.
When a flight is delayed or cancelled either due to weather or mechanical issues, that patient may have to wait for an entire year for a follow-up appointment.
This has a tremendous effect on the patient’s life and we need to resolve this situation in our future.
I doubt it could be resolved today.
With respect to doctors in Iqaluit, let’s say, will there be specialists such as cardiac specialists that arrive from Ottawa?
As the minister, will you commit to receiving such doctors in Iqaluit, yes or no?
We are trying to move doctors to Nunavut and trying to spread the doctors throughout the territory as a pilot project so that the patients don’t have to go through difficult times.
We are trying to spread it throughout the communities.
We are checking to see how some of these issues can be researched.
Nonetheless, we are also limited with the services available at our general hospital here in Iqaluit.
Renovations are ongoing, but the work hasn’t been completed as of yet. Once the renovations are complete, we can turn our attention to the other matters the member wants reviewed.
I also thank the minister for his response, which cleared up my misunderstanding and I really appreciate the minister for that.
Nonetheless, has your department ever considered, albeit in light of our limitations fiscally that I am aware of, patients with medical conditions being forced to wait up to a year?
This is very painful to hear about and causes discomfort to us.
There are people who could have been healed if treatment was immediate, but when they wait long periods, it is sometimes too late by the time the patients reach medical facilities with no hope of recovery and we can’t bring them back to correct the errors.
As a government, we have to be more aware of these services and how we can provide the services at hand.
Alternatively, if funding was available, although the air connections are not conducive to this idea, but Arctic Bay and the other High Arctic communities are geographically close to Pond Inlet.
There used to be a doctor there, and I wonder if the department has any plans for any local doctors in any of our communities.
I would like the minister to provide a clear response so I can understand.
Yes, we have initiated our discussions with the airlines on options for certain areas, particularly for communities that only receive a few flights a week.
The airlines are open to discussing these issues, but I imagine we will clarify that in the short term as to what arrangements will be forthcoming.
With respect to your question about doctors and placements in communities, this isn’t a simple fix. Doctors aren’t too keen on moving here, but we try to encourage more doctors to move to Iqaluit, which is the largest community in Nunavut. Unfortunately, some doctors aren’t willing to move north.
The provision of doctors isn’t an easy process, even though we continue to encourage them to move to the territory.
We are conducting more research as to whether we can send more specialists, but that depends on the completion of the renovations at the hospital here. We want to use that space for those specialists.
Question 453 – 4(2): Budget for Fuel Resupply (Hickes)
I have questions today for the Minister of Finance.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in my questions to the Premier speaking about alternative energy, there were some comments in his responses that I would like to expand upon a little bit further to the Minister of Finance.
In the Premier’s response, he said that right now, there are no other… . Sorry.
Where the Premier had stated with the global decrease in oil prices, it has created more competition for federal energy infrastructure dollars. As a territory, as we all know, we’re heavily reliant upon fossil fuel to meet our energy needs.
The decrease in oil prices, however impact it has on other jurisdictions and shortfalls of their revenue, doesn’t impact our revenue. If anything, it gives us an opportunity with regard to our annual fuel resupply purchase.
I know that the final numbers will not be available until the delivery occurs this summer, but I would like to ask the minister: what was the budget allocated for the fuel resupply for this upcoming year and what is the anticipated real cost?
You kind of caught me off guard with that question. Mr. Speaker, as the members know, the Government of Nunavut is always looking for ways to reduce our costs.
I know that the Petroleum Products Division under Community and Government Services has been actively purchasing fuel in anticipation of providing some savings in the future.
We have talked in the past about hedging. Our form of hedging is pre-purchasing and stockpiling the fuel in other jurisdictions for delivery later in the fiscal year.
Although the minister didn’t provide any numbers in that response, with his comments, it is quite safe to assume that there will be substantial savings for Nunavut in our annual fuel resupply, maybe even in the tens of millions of dollars, Mr. Speaker.
To assist our Premier in his negotiations for further energy infrastructure dollars, I have a suggestion for the government. Why don’t we show that we are serious about alternative energy and take this year’s savings that we can save on in the resupply and invest in smaller scale alternative energy projects like solar and smaller scale wind projects?
To me, this would show that the Government of Nunavut is serious about alternative energy and it would show the federal government that we need to expand upon it.
We can look at some of the smaller community pilot projects right now and then look at more serious infrastructure projects down the road when we have proven that we are serious about alternative energy.
I would like to get the minister’s comments on that.
Mr. Hickes theorizes that the Government of Nunavut purchases all of our fuel for the upcoming fiscal year, which is not the case. We don’t have that capacity nor do we have the storage capacity to purchase an entire year’s supply.
As Mr. Hickes pointed out in the preamble to his earlier question, we do purchase some fuel.
The fuel is delivered to communities later this year. The fuel that we pre-purchase plus the fuel that we purchase later in the year, the spot price establishes that price when it is delivered from the tanker into the community. PPD takes into account a whole number of other factors to establish the fuel rate.
I have no idea what the final savings will be, if any.
Perhaps, the way the global crisis is going, fuel later this year may be back up to $100 a barrel, for all we know. It can happen that fast.
While I do understand that those final prices are not in, with the amount of fuel that has been purchased to this point, I think it would be safe to assume that it would fall under the budgeted amount that would have been allocated to the fuel resupply for this year.
Even if not, maybe this government should start taking a look at exploring alternative energy solutions and invest in the future of Nunavut on a smaller scale to start with.
We’ve got projects like Nunavut Arctic College here in Iqaluit that has solar panels that, over the years, have saved tens of thousands of dollars. If we take a look at just using solar panels or smaller scale wind, as an example, on some of our hospitals, some of our schools, some of our health centres, and other government infrastructure, it’s an investment into savings in the future on a money that is invested now.
I would like a commitment from the government that if savings are realized from our annual fuel resupply, this will be an option that will be explored instead of leaving the money in general revenue.
As I indicated and Mr. Hickes mentioned earlier this week, I’m not fond of giving commitments.
I think, if you tally up my commitments over the years, it would probably tally up to maybe one and I can’t even remember which one that was.
Mr. Speaker, I know the Premier mentioned yesterday in his comments that we did have significant pre-purchase savings, but again, we’ve got so many demands in the Government of Nunavut that the savings from pre-purchasing fuel could be used in other priority areas.
We have many priorities. We talk here about health centres, community halls, ice arenas, office buildings, you name it. We have priority areas everywhere.
As the Minister responsible for the Qulliq Energy Corporation, I am an advocate for alternative energy. I’m also an advocate for efficiencies and effectiveness.
We will take your concerns and suggestions into serious consideration.
Question 454 – 4(2): Liquor Licensing (Enook)
Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the new Minister responsible for the Liquor Licensing Board.
As the minister is aware, the Liquor Licensing Board may issue different types of licences to commercial establishments to sell beer, dining room licence, club licence, and cocktail licence.
The 2011-12 Annual Report of the Liquor Licensing Board, which was tabled in the Legislative Assembly on October 29, 2012, indicates that the board approved the renewal of 26 licences during that year.
Can the minister update the House today on how many establishments in Nunavut currently hold a licence to sell beer, wine, or liquor?
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) The Hon. responsible for the Liquor Licensing Board, Mr. Kuksuk.
Hon. George Kuksuk (interpretation): Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I also say “good morning” to my fellow residents of Nunavut and Arviat, as well as the people of Whale Cove.
Mr. Speaker, the question the member raised about the licences, these numbers change all the time. Some reapply, changing the number, especially when their applications are denied.
However, with respect to the actual numbers, I personally don’t have that information in front of me, so I can’t provide the actual figures he requested.
Unfortunately, I can’t provide that information today to my colleague, but once I do have that information pertinent to his question, I will be able to provide it at a later date.
The Liquor Licensing Board’s annual report was tabled on October 29, 2012.
Will the minister commit to tabling the board’s outstanding annual reports before the end of the current winter sitting of the House?
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) The Hon. Minister responsible for the Liquor Licensing Board, Mr. Kuksuk.
I will look into this request and see whether the information would be ready by that time.
I will check into the matter to see if the information can be provided prior to the end of the winter sitting. If we are able to get the information, we can provide it, but if the information isn’t ready, then it would have to be provided at our next sitting.
Section 43 of the Liquor Act provides that the Liquor Licensing Board may not issue any licence without first obtaining the approval of at least 60 percent of the votes cast in a plebiscite.
I would like to ask: can the minister confirm how many plebiscites have been held in the territory during the past three years?
Minister responsible for the Liquor Licensing Board, Mr. Kuksuk.
Mr. Speaker, as per my previous response, there is some information, but not related to what he is asking about.
Once I have the information, knowing my departmental officials are listening, I will provide that to the member.
Question 455 – 4(2): Patient Relations Office (Angnakak)
Mr. Speaker, as we are all aware, health issues and concerns can be extremely complex and there is much room for miscommunications, misunderstandings, and even mistakes.
The Department of Health established the patient relations office some time ago to assist Nunavummiut in resolving their concerns and complaints about health services.
Can the minister describe what kinds of details the patient relations office records about the different communications it receives and provides an overview of the kinds of issues that are most commonly brought up?
Minister of Health Mr. Okalik.
That office was created 2013 in our past year.
From April 1, 2014 to January 22, 2015, 147 people had called to this office.
Most had different reasons, but one consistent reason was travel issues from patients.
Some patients felt mistreated who went to a health centre.
Those issues were brought up. I cannot tell you everything, but I can guess what most complaints are.
Mr. Speaker, it is important that the staff at the patient relations office can communicate effectively with Nunavummiut who contact them.
Can the minister provide an update on exactly how many staff work at the patient relations office and how many of those staff are bilingual?
There are two offices, one in Cambridge Bay and one in Iqaluit. There are two positions in Iqaluit, but we are currently looking to fill one more position.
They are all Inuit staff. They support everyone who calls or asks for assistance. If they don’t know what the call is about, they can ask for assistance from a co-worker.
They are always available and their phone number is 1-855-483-3003.
Mr. Speaker, as I have noted, the patient relations office has been in operation for some time now.
Can the minister confirm whether there any reports of the office activities and its successes and challenges over the years?
If there are, would he commit to tabling them in the House?
We have limits through the law and we cannot disclose some of the complaints.
Once we review them to make sure that we follow the policy or law, I’ll be able to respond to the question.
Question 456 – 4(2): Unilingual Elders Medical Policy (Joanasie)
Mr. Speaker, the minister recently announced a change to the Medical Travel Policy, indicating that unilingual elders could have an escort if they requested one.
This was very good news for me as a regular member and for the people of Nunavut.