EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
The school is at 94 percent occupancy.
It would be one of our top three or four schools to do if we had the funds to be able to do it.
But, I don’t have that money within our budget.
Although I understand the concern the member is raising, a motion in the committee is something that we appreciate, and we’ll be able to look at it to see if there is an opportunity to bring the current project forward.
But, to do that I would need about $9 million more in my capital budget for next year because of the way the capital plan is forecasted.
So our intention is to try to revisit the capital plan in the next year and especially the needs for the school.
Because of that, as a Member of Cabinet I would be abstaining from the motion.
Chairman: Thank you. (interpretation) Mr. Arreak did you want to make a comment.
It seems like the smaller communities are always left for last.
We would have a workshop. We would be putting in all the requirements in that school and we have to keep on par with the larger communities. The smaller communities are always left for last.
To the motion. (interpretation) Question has been called. All in favour of the motion.
To the motion, we have four yeas, no nays, and seven abstentions.
My question is: last year in 2005-06, the Inukshuk High School renovations, it had the same amount of money last year and it’s $1.4 million for next year.
In 2007 to 2011, there’s $15 million…(interpretation ends)…for the same project. (interpretation) I’m not really clear…(interpretation ends)…excess of $18 million will be used for renovation of that school.
It practically justifies for a new school for that kind of money and in the process of renovating a school in excess of six years, I really can’t picture how we can accommodate the students at the same time as renovating this for the next five or six years.
Mr. Minister. (interpretation) Just a moment. (interpretation ends) I would like to remind the Members of the House that there are to be no cells in the Gallery.
Chairman: Thank you. (interpretation) Mr. Minister.
First of all, the Inukshuk High School is almost 25 years old, it’s one of the oldest structures, as a school, in Nunavut, and it’s estimated, the finishing cost of that school is about $30 million.
So, over the last couple of years, we have been using technical studies and evaluation reports on the school to see what the best way to go is. If we replaced the existing school and built a new school, it would cost over $2 million just to demolish that building and build on the same site.
So, the best information that we have right now in the way of moving forward is to do a major renovation of the school.
The walls are structurally sound, the building itself is structurally sound; we need to be able to correct the ventilation systems and so on. A lot of this work will be done in the school with the students in it or it will be done during the off-season also. So, what that means is as soon as school ends around the end of June, July/August, a lot of the component work would be done.
But at the same time, if we count the school as consisting of wings, if the wings of the school can be made inaccessible for students and the contractors would be able to work around them.
A good example of that is what’s happening right now at the Aqsarniit School where a major addition is being put in place and the school continues to function.
That major addition includes the addition of the gym; it hasn’t really affected the situation for the school.
Mr. Alagalak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Minister.
Maybe because we didn’t really know what kinds of renovations were needed? Another question that I would like to ask is about the community-learning centre. Is that amount of money going to be used only for the design?
The member is correct. The money you see in the budget is for design, as well as the acquiring of a lot in the community of Pond Inlet.
I would like to get back to G-6, I just realized that I wasn’t here when you were discussing G-6.
Chairman (interpretation): The member is asking to return to G-6, agreed?
Okay, we are on G-6.
I have a question on that page in regard to the folk school design.
I know that the folk school is going to be pretty big, but some of the members have not had enough information as to where this folk school would be. I know it would be in a Nunavut community, but which community, if you can tell me.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Alagalak. Mr. Minister.
I know a lot of the members are very supportive of myself as a Member of the Assembly and I’ve asked that Apex be the community where the Folk school would go.
No, we have not made that decision yet Mr. Chairman.
There is a working group on all aspects of the Folk school, which includes the curriculum, academic standing of the school itself as well as incorporating Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
A working draft was presented to myself and Minister Tapardjuk and Minister Tapardjuk is taking a lead in the school with the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth.
The Department of Education is assisting, especially in the capital project side because we have the expertise in Capital Planning. We have not identified the location of the school yet.
I believe the Minister of Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth is actually working with the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit Elders Group Advisory Committee to find out what direction they should move in that regard.
Hopefully we would be in a position in the very near future of making an announcement on that. Once we do know which community would be the optimum for the school then we will move forward in a more concrete way as to how we would actually plan the foot print of the said building or school.
Mr. Alagalak (interpretation): Yes, thank you for the information. I am not really in agreement right now because I wouldn’t know which community it would be located in.
Like we have money set aside for the school. It seems a little bit premature and when we don’t know where it is going to be and I know it is going to be very expensive for the foundation of that school. So I feel the design and the foundation planning would go together.
Is this just a comment, Mr. Chairman,
Committee Motion 002 – 2(3) Deferral of the 2006-07 Capital Estimates of the Dept. of Education (Curley)
I didn’t have any opening comments.
It seems like we are giving the Department of Education a blank cheque.
We will scrutinize $710,000 as a lot of money.
(interpretation ends) It is a blank cheque right now. No commitments, no location, no studies, no feasibility cost analysis nothing.
I have a motion Mr. Chairman, I would like to propose the following motion.
I move that $710,000 allocation of 2006-07 Capital Estimates be deferred until site and location have been determined.
I think perhaps if all the members could be in attendance in Committee of the Whole.
There is a motion on the floor. Please provide a copy of the motion to the table, Mr. Curley.
Can we be provided with a copy Mr. Curley?
Mr. Curley: It is too important to give a blank cheque to the minister. We are dealing with a huge amount of expenditure.
For that reason I would like to possibly have a few minutes break while the motion is being typed and considered.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Curley. We will take a 10-minute break.
>>Committee recessed at 16:54 and resumed at 17:16
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you for coming back. (interpretation ends) Mr. Curley, your motion is out of order, as the committee had already approved that item on page G-6.
Mr. Curley: Why did it take so long to defer such a simple item?
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Curley. You have to bring that up with the Clerk of the Assembly.
We are on page G-7.
Committee Motion 003 – 2(3): Deferral of the 2006-07 Capital Estimates of the Department of Education (Curley)
Mr. Curley: Given the fact that I enjoy some privilege in the House, I also enjoy being an MLA where I get all kinds of free items here and there.
I have concerns because I think there needs to be some further discussion, at least a new open transparency with providing information to the committee of the whole.
I have another motion and I move that this committee deserves further consideration of the 2006-07 capital estimates of the Department of Education until the site location of the proposed Folk School has been identified.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Curley. Could you provide a copy of the motion on the table?
Before we proceed with the debate on the motion, I have a few comments to make as to the procedures. # 1, every member has the right to speak once to the motion for a total of 20 minutes. # 2, the mover of the motion speaks first. # 3, the mover of the motion has the right to the last reply which closes the debate to the motion.
Members of the Assembly in the Committee of the Whole have always asked the government to have more transparent information.
I think that’s the key to ensuring that public expenditures, or ideas, or proposals, or initiatives of the government have the opportunity for the public to comment, and that communities or our constituencies have an opportunity to also at least communicate with us to work on some of these screening requirements when they contain huge amounts of dollars.
For that very reason, this deferral doesn’t mean we will not approve probably the whole budget.
It probably means that he probably has to deal with it over night and maybe during the day and get right back us.
There is one other item that I would like to consider later, and maybe he could improve all of them.
There is for instance, one proposal for a trade’s school and know the location as well.
It may be fine for the Cabinet to have a huge amount of dollars, more than half a million allocated without having site plans or whatever discussed but, if that’s the nature of the practice, if we’re going in that direction, it’s troubling, because it’s like giving the government a blank cheque and, who knows, the circumstances may change.
They may want to apply it to something else. So, for that reason, I would like the committee members at least, to defer this out of... like I said earlier, it could probably be just for a day, or overnight.
Just very quickly on the member’s motion. I understand that in circumspect, there are questions on how the money would be allocated and maybe if I just give a little bit of a history of it, and what our intentions are, and then a follow up to the member’s comment.
Coming out of the retreat that we had in Arviat, there were two major proposals that we discussed there. One was the formation of our own trades’ school for the first time in Nunavut and the other was to move forward on a plan to develop a folk school, or cultural school for Nunavut.
Out of that meeting last fall comes the budget that we’re presented with now for this upcoming year. We allocated money to do the study on a trade school, that’s the feasibility, and the study on the feasibility of a folk school.
Part and parcel of that; myself and the Minister for the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth had visited Greenland with senior staff to look at the folk school in Greenland.
And, now the next step, is the design money that’s in place.
The Minister for the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth is taking a leadership role here in deciding and with the cooperation of all members where that school should go.
So, the first process is when we had this money in place, the design-build money is also used to facilitate the design and where, logistically, technically, and administratively, where that school would be located.
We haven’t gotten to that point yet, but we need the money to do that. For all the members sitting at the table, when we approve this budget, the money will not be expended until April 1, 2006. That’s the fiscal year.
That’s what we’re doing right now.
So, we’ve got; December, January, February, March, right up until April 1, before that decision is made, before that money is expended.
This morning we talked about when our next session would be.
We’ll all be back here and have an opportunity to say at that point in time, with the budget, we will say have you come up with a decision, have you done your review. The minister needs this money to be put in place so it can start that design capacity stuff; what will the program be, how big will the school be and so on and so forth.
If this money is deferred right now out of the budget, then that project is going to be put probably a year behind schedule. It will be 2007 before we start the project.
The other important point to point out is that we need to indicate to the federal government on the Northern Strategy monies that we actually have a plan for the money.
So the actual cost of the folk school comes from our federal northern dollars. This is the only money that the Government of Nunavut has in the budget for a folk school.
So, the Minister for the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, working with the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit sub-committee group, he will be putting a call out to that group and he will be going to every hamlet in the next few weeks on behalf of the Minister of CLEY saying money is now in the budget to design and build a cultural school in Nunavut.
Is your community interested in having that school in your community please put forward a proposal?
That proposal from every community in Nunavut will go the Minister of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth and he will bring that forward to the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit group who are recognized individuals who know about culture and so on and they will bring that recommendation back to the members.
So this $710,000 is just small step on doing that.
And like I said before this is a process that we have in place and it comes from the recommendations of our Full Caucus meetings last year in Arviat.
And with that I would ask the members to not support the motion and we move forward on the deliberation of the budget for Department of Education knowing the Minister for Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth is soliciting that information in the coming days once the money is approved here over the next few days so that he can contact each community.
And each Hamlet will have an opportunity to say why they should have that facility. That is how we will pick the location with all Members of the House here and with input from every community.
With that thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I don’t have anybody else on my list. The mover will be able to make comments before we vote.
Mr. Curley: I hope what the Minister just indicated had been presented to the Standing Committee on Education and Health.
Because from what I gather from yesterday from the Deputy Chairman of that Standing Committee made opening comments and mentioned they had two concerns.
One was some of these items were not finalized yet of the location and these have not been finalized.
That is the fact.
Whether you made that assurance that you are just presenting it right now or are you just presenting in attempt to approve your whole budget without any conditions. I think it is an unusual practice that we will allow you to carry such a practice.
I’ve never seen any major items of that amount presented when you could easily put in a supplementary even in January provided that you have done your consultations or other departments.
I don’t think there is any way this item will attempt to defer the Bill for the Trade School when the site and the location of the facility hasn’t been determined by the government.
It is for that reason that I introduced that item.
We will now vote on the motion.
All those in favour of the motion please raise your hands.
All those opposed. Abstentions.
The results are: two yeas, eight nays, and one abstention.
(interpretation ends) We are page G-7. Tangible Assets. Qikiqtaaluk Region.
Mr. Curley: I would like to ask the minister, with respect to the five-year plans for the two schools here in Iqaluit, not including last year’s figures or the year before, for the ongoing improvements of the Aqsarniit School addition for the next two fiscal years came to about $8,210,000, that’s not including last year’s costs which was about $5 million, as I recall, and if you add Inukshuk High School’s spending requirements up until 2011, we are talking in total, from the beginning of last year, not including the cost of construction last year, from this coming fiscal year projected for 2011, we are talking about $39 million.
I would like to ask the minister: how can one community like this enjoy such a privilege of having access to capital when other communities have to compete for capital dollars when you consistently have a huge amount of capital projects for one community?
Capital costs are extrapolated over a period of time and those costs have to be contingent on what is needed.
So, just previously before we got into this line item, we discussed the situation around the Inukshuk High School and what was occurring on that file.
The school is at over 100 percent occupancy; it’s 35 years old; to demolish the current school, it would cost you over $2 million. So, the best usage of our money is to be able to renovate the school.
The member is aware that as soon as I go in there and start renovating a facility, I have to bring it up to code.
Those costs and so on indicate and direct that you have to bring it up to that standard and that standard costs dollars. The allocated monies there would be able to do that.
On the Aqsarniit School, again as the member knows, the school enrolment rates in Iqaluit because of such a population growth, have forced us to be able to upgrade that school and add onto it to be able to accommodate all of the children in the community who need to attend the school.
In Aqsarniit’s case, it’s done over two years and it was planned originally as a middle school of grades six to eight, and the growth in the federal funding, incremental funding paid for that, from the feds, when we first set it up, and only allowed for 11 of the 20 classrooms that were supposed to be budgeted at that time.
At the present time Mr. Chairman, instead of having grades six, seven, eight in the school, there’s only grade six and seven because of the maximum utilization of the school, that’s why we needed the expansion.
It’s cheaper, again, for us to expand that school than to try to build a new school. Nakasuk School, which is in the age group of Inukshuk High School, would be too costly to do that.
And the new Joamie School was actually expanded by classroom size and now is already up to its utilization rates since the fire. So, the only real option we have is to expand the Aqsarniit School.
So, once you factor it over five years, that’s why the dollar values speak for themselves.
Mr. Curley: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister: what was the total construction cost for Aqsarniit School last year?
The previous year’s expenditures were around $2.7 million in the budget.
My question to the minister again is, that $2.7 million last year, how old is that school?
Hon. Ed. Picco: The Aqsarniit School was build under the incremental infrastructure money provided to the Government of the Northwest Territories for division purposes.
Incremental infrastructure money provided to the Government of the Northwest Territories indicated that they had expected the population growth, at that time, probably around 10 to 12 percent and school enrolment growth that would match the need for that new middle school.
As I suggested to you earlier Mr. Chairman the school was planned to have 20 classrooms but because there was not enough money under the incremental infrastructure program only 11 were built.
At the same time Mr. Chairman the construction began in late 1997-98 and was completed in 1998-99, so roughly the school is about six years old.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Minister, Mr. Curley.
Mr. Curley: I’d like the minister to clarify for the committee because he indicated correctly that the school was originally built with incremental money from the federal government.
I don’t believe the figures that I asked from last year were incremental money.
Is that correct and if so, how much has the Government of Nunavut spent besides incremental dollars (inaudible) last year?
Hon. Ed. Picco: Thank you Mr. Chairman, just to be very clear, the incremental infrastructure money was transferred to the Government of the Northwest Territories and was used it to build the school. It was built in 1999, about six years ago, and the money that I just spoke about earlier, the $2.7 million, was the money that was in the budget last year for the beginning processes for the school. That was the money spent up to then, $2.7 million.
So that’s correct and the member is also right, that wasn’t incremental infrastructure money, that was money from the Government of Nunavut, $2.7 million. There is also money budgeted for this construction season and in the budget right now is to complete the project, which is in the year 2007.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) My question is (inaudible) there are other communities that have just as much pressure in terms of school capacities and so on, shortage of school space. (inaudible) …enjoy the same benefits, the same privileges as headquarters enjoy with Government of Nunavut dollars.
As we talked about earlier, it’s based on a pro-rated amount based on what is the definitive need for each community and which school is in most need of a program.
We try not to do it based on a community, we base it on what the school need is. We are delivering schools not money to communities.
In this case the top three programs are, just as an example, Gjoa Haven is at 132 percent current utilization. That means 132 percent occupancy. So that is one of our number one projects and that is moving forward.
Peter Pitseolak School in Cape Dorset was at 115 percent occupancy and we’re moving forward with it.
If I just looked at Rankin Inlet as an example, the member’s community, Leo Ussak School is at 79 percent. If I look at Inuksuit School that Mr. Arreak talked about earlier, that’s at 94 percent and that’s why we want to be able to bring that up in the budget as Mr. Arreak’s motion spoke to earlier today.
So the top three, 132 percent, 115 percent, and 115 percent in utilization, projects are already underway and that’s probably the reason why, Mr. Chairman, you see the numbers we’re talking about here.
Mr. Curley, are you finished?
I’m just wondering, the Aqsarniit School, if the minister could let us know, what it was initially... the middle school is referred to as... what grades was it initially supposed to house in that school?
Originally the middle school when it was first planned, it was planned to be a grade six, seven, and eight school.
But, because of the limitation in size, when it was originally proposed by the Incremental Infrastructure Committee and the federal government, they had planned on putting a 20-classroom school in place.
And, as we know, it was only 11 classrooms, that was the only money that was provided to us to build.
So, at the present time the school is providing grade six and grade seven. One class of students isn’t being able to be accommodated because the school is too small.
Under page G-7.
Tangible Assets for the Qikiqtaaluk Region.
Total Qikiqtaaluk Region. $11,000,694.
My colleague, when he moved a motion, he made comments to his motion that the smaller communities seem to be neglected.
I believe that under the Department of Education, there is nothing in there for my constituency.
One issue that I always keep bringing up is that when capital plans are made at the local level, especially for Repulse Bay, it’s evident that although they make their capital plan and they put a figure in, and when it’s time to deal with the capital estimates, then the figure is no longer there.
When this occurs, it seems like they’re just doing it to show things that we’re doing good, but once it’s time to deal with the capital estimates, the figures are no longer there and they disappear from the line items.
The adult learning centre is very old now. We had heard that next year they would be constructing a new adult learning centre.