EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I want to just say here, Mr. Speaker, that I was so grateful for the Canadian High Commission officials, particularly Mr. James Wright, the Canadian High Commissioner, who made his services to his staff available to me and my daughter, who joined me in London.
Mr. Speaker, I encourage all members here to contact the Canadian Embassy if they’re ever in London because the service that is provided by the Canadian officials is excellent and they will make your stay a very pleasant one.
Member for Rankin South and Whale Cove, Mr. Kusugak.
Member’s Statement 037 – 3(2): Jordin Tootoo (Kusugak)
Hon. Lorne Kusugak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) I would much rather be wearing a Nashville Predators tie today.
Having said that, I would like to wish Mr. Jordin Tootoo, our hockey hero in Nunavut, a pleasant holiday in his home community of Rankin Inlet and I hope he is enjoying the beautiful spring we have.
I appreciate all of the effort and work Mr. Tootoo puts into helping and supporting youth in our community and throughout Nunavut.
He has been very busy working with the children at home and giving them awards during school award ceremonies.
He is often surrounded by kids and he always has time for them, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for doing that.
Unfortunately, my Montreal Canadiens picked this year to lose to the Boston Bruins and therefore, I have to wear this tie.
I am hoping that next year, my colleague over to my right from Arviat will be wearing a beautiful Montreal Canadiens tie.
But after I put this on, I realized, Mr. Speaker, that the Boston Bruins did deserve to win the first round of the playoffs, but I know now, having put this on, how they felt during round two of the playoffs because right now, Mr. Speaker, I am choking.
Speaker: Thank you, Mr. Kusugak.
Member for Iqaluit East, Ms. Eva Aariak.
Member’s Statement 038 – 3(2): Nunavut Arctic College Graduates of 2009 (Aariak)
I would like to welcome all the people in my riding.
Yesterday, I was invited to the Nunavut Arctic College graduation ceremonies. I was quite proud and very pleased to see that many graduates. I saw students getting diplomas for nursing, teaching, especially the Fur Production and Design students who took the two-year course, including my daughter, who also graduated from that program.
This is a new program that was introduced to teach Inuit culture and also contemporary styles together with our traditional sewing customs.
It’s something that instils pride in people. It also shows the Inuit culture and traditions along with contemporary styles being melded together to create unique garments.
It’s an honour to see people completing their education.
I would also like to congratulate the teachers who graduated from Arctic Bay and there will be another teacher graduation event in Igloolik. They are going to increase the number of Inuit teachers in Nunavut, which is what we want to see.
I urge the people of Iqaluit and also Nunavummiut to apply for those courses as they are starting again in the fall.
If there are no more, we will go to Item 4.
Return to Oral Question 001 – 3(2): Health Care Concerns in Akulliq (Curley)
I have a Return to Oral Question 001 – 3(2) regarding health care concerns in Akulliq.
On June 4, 2009, the Hon. Member for Akulliq, John Ningark, described a situation concerning two of his constituents from Kugaaruk who were diagnosed and received medical care elsewhere in the territory.
Mr. Speaker, the member provided me with additional details regarding this matter and today, I would like to advise the House that my department has conducted a review. I am issuing correspondence directly to the member on the outcome of this review.
As this matter deals with the personal health information of two Nunavut residents, I will not be providing any further information in the House with regard to the member’s question, but the member will be able to peruse that information in the correspondence I have sent him.
Return to Oral Question 012 – 3(2): H1N1 Flu Virus (Curley)
Hon. Tagak Curley (interpretation): And again, this is a Return to Oral Question 012 – 3(2) regarding the H1N1 flu virus.
On June 5, 2009, the Hon. Member for Hudson Bay, Mr. Rumbolt, asked if there had been an increase in flu-like symptoms in Nunavut.
Mr. Speaker, I have consulted with our Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Isaac Sobol, and have been advised that several communities in the Kivalliq and Kitikmeot regions are experiencing significant outbreaks of the flu.
Mr. Speaker, the member also posed a question regarding suspected cases of the H1N1 flu virus.
I want to take this opportunity to inform the member and the House that with regard to reporting cases of the H1N1 flu virus, the Department of Health and Social Services will continue its practice of reporting laboratory confirmed cases of H1N1 only.
Citing suspected cases is purely speculation and does not necessarily give an accurate picture.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to assure members and all Nunavutmiut that my department is closely monitoring the situation and will provide updates as required.
Returns to Oral Questions. (interpretation ends) Item 5.
Today, I would like to recognize three people here with us. The first one I will start off with is my daughter, Teia, who is paging on your right. She is playing in a soccer tournament and her foot is sore this morning, so if she is a little slow getting to you, that’s why.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to recognize Carol Tootoo sitting in the Gallery. Along with her is her sister, Verna, who is up visiting from Saskatchewan.
It was a surprise to me when she walked in the door because I haven’t seen her for years and I didn’t recognize her, but I would just like to take this opportunity to welcome her to Iqaluit and welcome her to Nunavut.
If Pete Chartier is watching down in Buffalo Narrows, he will be a little surprised to hear that as well as he is someone who always watches the proceedings here.
I would just like to welcome them to the Gallery.
As I stated earlier, there were some graduates from the fur program and I would like to recognize one of the graduates.
Carol Tootoo was in the Fur Production and Design Program at Arctic College.
Question 054 – 3(2): Telehandler Purchase (Schell)
This is one for the housing minister and it’s in regard to yesterday’s questioning.
He did give me a page here, I haven’t got it here right now, but he did agree that both tenders were for 22 units. When you look at the prices, the New Holland one was a bit cheaper. But I’ve got to tell you that there’s a difference.
One is a piece of farm equipment and the other one is industrial equipment.
If you look at the differences, the Toromont CAT has outriggers, which is a cost of $9,000, it has a lift kit on it, which is not included in the New Holland, which is $5,000, and if you take the NNI Policy into account, that’s another $4,000, so the CAT would have been $1,000 cheaper.
If you’re just like me going down south and going to a Volkswagen and a Porsche dealership, I would come back bragging to my friends that I got a good deal on a Volkswagen.
So my question is: who did the evaluation of the two bids to determine which is the better deal?
What the Housing Corporation determined was that they needed a piece of equipment to do a certain job. What was looked for was asked for. Like I said yesterday, there was a request for quotations to four manufacturers, one being CAT and the other one being New Holland, a Kubota dealer and a Case dealer.
The member, as he had indicated, said he got a good deal on a Volkswagen. Mr. Speaker, after receiving the submissions from both the New Holland dealer and the CAT dealer, it was determined that both pieces of equipment are capable of performing the duties and the needs that they were required to do.
But, Mr. Speaker, I’m sure as the member, as an astute businessman, would say, if you have two pieces of equipment that will both do the job for you that you need to do, why spend $60,000-some more for a piece of equipment if you have the opportunity to purchase a piece of equipment for less money that will perform the work that’s required of it?
I know the hon. member here keeps on telling me that New Holland doesn’t need outriggers on it because it’s self-balancing and everything, but I’m sure he hasn’t checked with workers’ compensation to see if that’s the case with industrial equipment.
There are different rules for farm equipment than there is for industrial equipment. And if you put somebody in a basket and lift them up, I’m sure that workers’ compensation would have something to say if you have a unit without outriggers.
Number one, when you tally it all up, CAT was the better deal with the added equipment in there.
Number two, I asked and there’s even an article in here in the quote here and it says right on the bottom of this farm equipment, “I hereby certify that I am engaged in the business of farming and that the goods shown on the invoice will be used exclusively in the conduct of business.”
I know what it’s there for because farmers get a special rebate on farm equipment.
But it’s quite obvious that this company deals with farmers, not with commercial equipment.
So what my question is: who did the evaluation?
Somebody had to at housing or somewhere to determine which the better deal is.
Who did the final evaluation to determine that New Holland was the right equipment?
I can find out exactly who did that, but I just want to assure the member that… he keeps referring to these different pieces of equipment that are standard and part of the CAT piece of equipment.
I know he is fully aware of the capabilities of that piece of equipment as I believe he owns one in Cape Dorset.
The reason that the New Holland equipment or zoom boom doesn’t require those outriggers is because it has a lower centre of gravity and because that is not required.
And also, Mr. Speaker, he referred to the bucket going up with somebody being in there. The New Holland equipment, as far as I’m aware, has a self-adjusting bucket.
So with the CAT telehandler, or zoom boom, or whatever name you want to call it, the reason they need this thing in order to extend the bucket on that piece of equipment is the entire machine has to be levelled off, so it can’t operate on a bit of a slant. The bucket can’t adjust if it’s going out, it only goes out straight.
With the New Holland equipment, if it’s sitting on a little bit of an angle, the bucket can be sent out and it’s got a self-adjusting bucket so that it does go out straight. So that was one of the factors too that was looked at in there.
But as for his particular question, I’m sure it was more than one person or at least two people involved in that.
I’ll find out exactly because I don’t want to give him any bad information. I’ll make sure I find out and provide that information to him on exactly who did the evaluations on the equipment.
Well, it’s quite obvious that they don’t have a clue what the differences in the two pieces of equipment are.
I do have a CAT telehandler and I can tell you that it has the same feature that levels and you don’t need the outriggers to level it.
The reason you have the outriggers is for stability when you boom out with people in it.
And I can just about guarantee that if you went to workers’ compensation, you would have an issue of using that New Holland piece of equipment with no outriggers on it.
I didn’t hear a question there but thank you, Mr. Schell.
Question 055 – 3(2): $2 Million Training Fund (Elliott)
My question is directed towards the Minister of Finance, the Hon. Keith Peterson.
Yesterday, in our deliberations during the Committee of the Whole, he was explaining how there was money from different PYs over a couple of years which added up to $2 million that was then being transferred into training.
Is it a common practice within the government to take PYs that are supposed to be put into paying employees and then resurfacing it into some other type of activity in terms of training?
Mr. Speaker, as everybody knows, in the last several years, there has been a capacity issue in the Government of Nunavut. In most departments, our staffing is anywhere between 70 and 85 percent.
The Department of Finance’s average is in the 70 to 80 percent range with indeterminate, term, casual, and contract employees.
So we determined that funding of 20 percent, there is some room there.
So what we did is budget to actual. It’s not a common practice but it’s something we encourage.
So we used the extra funds to move around in the government. In this case, we decided to fund the human resource strategy and we worked on it with the Department of Human Resources to use those funds to train Government of Nunavut employees.
I hope that the minister doesn’t get me wrong because I think it’s a great idea that we’re actually training and mentoring people and trying to have more Inuit employment to try and solve some of our capacity problems.
In terms what he said, I just wanted to understand if I heard him properly. He said that it’s not a practice but it’s encouraged. Is that what the minister said?
We’re taking the lead on the initiative this year. As the Department of Finance, we obviously don’t tell the other ministers what they can or should do with their funding.
We recognize that it’s probably going to be impossible to fund 100 percent of the positions in our department, so why leave that funding available? So we will use the extra funding and move it elsewhere in the government for important initiatives.
I again thank the minister for that answer.
I still feel I’m trying to learn my role as an MLA and I think my job on this side is to hold the government accountable for what they’re doing.
Again, I support training in the sense that I feel we should have more mentoring programs and maybe that’s what we’re going to find out with the Auditor General’s report - Human Resources needs to look at how they do their business or restructuring.
On my side of the House, as a regular MLA, when I’m looking at PYs being increased across the board for most positions when we’re doing O&M, I find concerns in the sense that I’m approving money for people to be hired.
If it’s money that’s going to be used for training, maybe it should be separated instead. We realize that there is a problem, we need training and we need capacity. This is going to be set aside for training.
As regular MLAs, we can actually do our job in a sense that this money is allocated for training, not for positions.
With the increase of PYs, is there an intention that there’s possibly going to be more training coming about through different departments?
Mr. Speaker, I’m not sure if I follow the logic of Mr. Elliott, but as I said earlier, it’s recognized that there’s going to be a capacity issue in the government. We recognize that.
So we need to train people to move around in the government, give them training to move them up in the government, open up entry level positions, and move people throughout the system. Some departments will staff to full capacity using casuals, term and indeterminate employees.
The Department of Finance recognizes that we can’t because most of our employees require financial and accounting skills. It’s very difficult. As acknowledged and recognized in the Auditor General of Canada’s recent report, we just don’t have those types of employees throughout the system in the government and throughout Nunavut.
So we’re making the best use of the funds that the Government of Nunavut has and allowing the Department of Human Resources to see where that human resource strategy is funded through funds through our department that we move through the government accounting system, which is voted on in this House.
I apologize for not making myself clear.
I still feel that my role on this side of the House is we’re presented with a paper that says, “We need these numbers of PYs.”
And when I look at that and I’m making a decision as to whether I agree with where the money should be spent on a PY or not, I’m thinking that someone’s going to be hired and working a position to do a job to fill a need, a capacity to make sure that the government works properly. So that’s what we’re looking at or I’m looking at on this side of the House.
In terms of accountability to where we’re spending money, if that money is actually going to be accumulated and then used for training, to me, I’m not agreeing… well, I would agree to training if it’s presented to me as training.
I wonder why the government can’t do that in terms of making a bold statement and saying, “We realize we have capacity issues and we want to do training. We have these many PYs and we want to spend this much money on training.”
Is it possible for the government to present that to us so we have a better way of making sure we know where the money is being spent?
I appreciate Mr. Elliott’s support for the training of Government of Nunavut employees.
I think, yesterday, during the Department of Finance appearance in the Committee of the Whole, we talked about the human resource strategy and we mentioned the $2 million in consultations with the regular members throughout this whole budgeting cycle, so I think it’s no secret that we planned to do this.
I’ll leave it up to Mr. Elliott if he wishes to ask further questions or if he wants to approach me privately, or the Minister of Human Resources, or any other minister to talk about the training needs of their employees within their departments.
We have indicated many times that we’re open and approachable.
Question 056 – 3(2): Suitability of Telehandlers for Arctic (Okalik)
Mr. Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) I want to follow up on a question by my colleague for South Baffin. I appreciate the diligence of my colleague for trying to ask questions about farming in our Assembly.
I never thought I would see that day yet. I know that there’s global warming but I didn’t know it was coming this fast.
So I would like to know from the Minister of Housing...
Harvesting takes place in the summer months when the temperature is quite warm.
Since we’re getting farming equipment to deal with our housing needs and housing repairs throughout our harsh climate, has this type of equipment been tested to operate in our conditions?
As I had indicated to my colleague from South Baffin the other day, one of the concerns was the New Holland equipment being able to operate in the environment that we have up here.
Mr. Speaker, I pointed out that the only change is they included an arctic oil package in there. So they’re confident that that piece of equipment will be able to work in extreme cold weather conditions. I also confirmed that the New Holland equipment does go through extreme cold weather testing prior to their designing and manufacturing.
Mr. Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) I have been following the transcripts as well, but I must say that Toromont has been a good company that has been operating here for some time and they have proven equipment.
And I’m asking: has this type of equipment been tested up here in our conditions?
I’ll hopefully be able to give the member positive results of how the testing and the equipment operated over this year at this time next year. The corporation is aware that that was a concern. It was discussed with the New Holland manufacturer, as I had indicated, and there were some adjustments made to the equipment to be able to address that issue.
Mr. Speaker, the corporation and the New Holland manufacturers are confident that that piece of equipment will be able to perform the duties required of it in the environment that it has.
Mr. Speaker, I know that the member indicated that the Case Toromont business had been up here for a while and provided good equipment.
I’m not disputing that, Mr. Speaker.
But as I indicated the other day, we received quotes from both companies. After the NNI adjustment of 21 percent on the Case Toromont bid, the Weagant New Holland bid was still just about $62,000 cheaper. So that was the reason behind going with that.
Mr. Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) So my colleague is saying that this farming equipment has yet to be tested for its ability to do the work in our territory and we have spent a considerable sum of money already.
Usually, in those cases, you try and test them first to see if they can last long enough in our conditions before making such a commitment. So I’m asking my colleague, the minister: why was there no testing taking place in our territory before making such a huge commitment of our tax dollars?
As I indicated, New Holland had indicated to us that their equipment does go through extreme cold weather testing and that they are confident that that equipment will be able to operate in our environment.
There are planes and all kinds of equipment that is bought by all levels of government and everyone else out there in the public. There’s no requirement to make sure it has to be tested up here first before it can be used.
I think going through the evaluations on it and ensuring that the equipment can perform the function that is required of it and also with the assurances from the manufacturer that it has gone through cold weather testing and it will operate up here, both the Housing Corporation staff and the New Holland manufacturer are confident that that will be the case.
Before we buy anything, we just can’t say, “Well, it’s never been used up here, so we can’t do anything until we get you to come up here and test it out first.” I mean that simply seems like a very irrational request to put out there to anybody if you’re looking at buying anything to be used up here in Nunavut, saying anything can’t be used until it’s tested up here.
So there would be like millions of manufacturers out there saying, “Well, we can’t provide anything to you,” when the government says, “We can’t buy stuff until it has been tested up here first.”
Mr. Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends) I wouldn’t be asking if I hadn’t known that we were dealing with farming equipment.
We’re in Nunavut and we’re not farming yet.
We hope to be farming one day perhaps, but we are not there yet. Our climate is getting warmer, yes, but we’re not there yet. So that’s why I’m asking and I hope that there’s at least a way to recover some of our dollars if these things don’t work out in the coming year.
What kind of commitments have we made so far?
I know that there are probably additional units that will be required in other communities. Hopefully the minister has not committed us to telehandlers and farm equipment in all of the communities yet because we would like to see if they work and survive in the Arctic first. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I had indicated, the Housing Corporation staff are confident and comfortable with the information provided by New Holland that that piece of equipment will work up here and perform the work that’s required of it.
The member and his colleague from South Baffin are seeing in the NNI, and I wholeheartedly agree with supporting Inuit owned businesses, in which case Toromont is, Mr. Speaker, and that’s why we have the NNI Policy.
They were given a 21 percent bid adjustment and their price, like I said, was still over $60,000 more expensive.
So I’m saying that after reviewing it, the corporation has determined that both of these pieces of equipment will be able to perform the functions required of them in our communities.
I think it’s not only from the corporation’s point of view but from the entire government that, as my colleague from South Baffin pointed out, if all you need is a Volkswagen, why would you buy a Porsche?
It just seems that if you have two pieces of equipment that can do the job that’s required, then you’re going to go with the one that’s the cheapest.
And Mr. Speaker, as far as looking at the contracting and procurement practices of the government, when a request for a quotations is requested, and that’s what was used in this case to get quotations, as I had indicated, from the four manufacturers, the lowest price wins and that’s what we went with.