EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
For a number of years now, I’ve also been pushing the government to start including information concerning actual expenditures in the budget documents so that all MLAs will have a much clearer picture of where our dollars have been spent.
The Government of Nunavut’s response to this concern is that it will implement the changes as soon it is practical.
And I would just like to ask the minister if she has any indication on when these changes will be made.
Minister of Finance, Ms. Aglukkaq.
The same question was raised in the House last week, I believe it was Member Peterson, and the response I had provided at that time was the department is exploring different mechanisms of reporting finances to the House. And, in the Auditor General’s report, on page 19, we talked about exploring accrual-based accounting of reporting expenditures to this House.
At the same time, we are also trying to address the reporting on a timely basis of public account reports.
The last few years, we have been very consistent in putting those forward to the House in May.
And of course, all members know that those reports are due in the House by December or the first sitting days.
So, there are a number of issues.
We’re looking at trying to address that, and I had mentioned at that time as well that it takes time.
We had just established a free-balance system and what-have-you and then we have to look at and explore the best way to report to the House on our finances.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you, Ms. Aglukkaq.
I’m aware that question was asked, but there was no indication given as to when.
So, I would just like to ask the minister, do they expect it next year, a year from now, two years from now, three years from now?
When do they expect to have that review, so that we can be able to see the actual information and costs on that budget document?
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We will continue to, in this fiscal year, and implementation will occur soon after that. But, we have to look at what options we have and the best reporting mechanisms that we can develop for our government.
I appreciate that finally, hopefully next year, we’ll be able to see some actual numbers in the main estimates.
Another question relating to the main estimates, and I know I asked the ministers on how the budgets themselves, or the numbers in there, are developed, and they’re based on targets over the last number of years to get their base to go from.
But just on that again, I think it is an inaccurate reflection of what a department might need.
I’m just wondering if, for the whole budgeting process to able to provide more clarity to what a department actually needs, if the government would look at going to something like a zero-base budgeting approach to developing their budgets, as opposed to just targets from the past that may, you know… . So many formulas that don’t work and how things are, where the departments have an opportunity to show what they need.
Like I said before, we’ll look at options for best reporting to the House.
You know, the main estimates are developed based on targets and what we can actually afford.
We always need more money, we know that, we are short funding for health, we are short funding for infrastructure development, housing, what-have-you.
Within the dollars that we do have, we try and allocate that based on the needs and priorities across the departments.
Just to go back, we are looking at what options we have for reporting our finances to the House.
We are looking at working on that for this fiscal year.
I would like to ask the minister if she would be willing to provide to this House a list of actual expenditures by department, by month, and show where money is being spent and when.
I would have to look at that.
That would be like providing monthly variance reports to the House.
I don’t know if that has been the practice in the past.
It would require some consideration to finance staff, along with the other departments, so I will look into that.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Aglukkaq.
Question 156 – 2(1): Problem with the Utilidor System in Resolute Bay
When I went to Resolute Bay, and as a member of the previous Legislature, I have been working for quite some time in regards to the utilidor system in Resolute Bay.
They have had a lot of problems with the utilidor system because the summers are not very long.
What they do is patchwork construction on it.
I would like to ask the Minister of Community and Government Services what has been done to date on the problem with the utilidor system.
I know he has been working on it for quite some time, as well as the previous member for Resolute Bay.
In regards to the utilidor system, just in the winter of 2003 we had emergency funding of $225,000 to repair that utilidor system.
I am happy to say today, Mr. Speaker, that for the three years coming, there is a three-year plan in place to repair the utilidor system.
The sewage is being spilled into the ocean.
Would there be something that could be done to make sure that it is diverted away from the ocean?
Just to clarify to the member… .
First of all, the three-year construction phase for the utilidor system in Resolute Bay, what we in place, first of all is, in the three year plan that I was talking about. We will be getting some funding from Canada Strategic Infrastructure Funding, from the federal government, as well as the Nunavut government.
Will the work for that be put out for tender?
The additional work will be tendered this year.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you. Question period is now over.
Tabled Document 026 – 2(1): Northern Mine Ministers Conference Dawson City, Yukon “Preparing for Resource Development (Peterson)
I would like to table this document that was prepared by the Kitikmeot Inuit Association for the Northern Land Ministers’ Conference in May 2003.
The document is entitled: Preparing for Resource Development.
I especially would like to draw attention to the recommendations to include training local people in advance, with that being a partnership approach including all levels of government and resource developers, aboriginal groups, and other stakeholders.
Tabled Document 027 – 2(1): National Diamond Strategy: An Industry Response
Again, I would like to table this document entitled The National Diamond Strategy: An Industry Response; it was prepared by the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Chamber of Mines, the Mining Association of Canada, and the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada.
It contains a lot of good information about Canada’s diamond industry, an industry in Nunavut that will play an important role in the future.
Bill 2 – Appropriation (O&M) Act, 2004-05.
Mr. Arreak will be chairing the Committee of the Whole and we will have a 10-minute break.
>>House recessed at 15:00 and resumed at 15:28
Chairman (Mr. Arreak) (interpretation): The committee will come to order.
For the Committee of the Whole, we have Bill 2 to deal with.
We shall continue with the 2004 and 2005 main estimates for Community and Government Services.
Chairman: I will ask Mr. Kilabuk and his officials to go to the witness table.
Mr. Kilabuk, can you please introduce your officials for the record.
To my left is my deputy minister, Tom Rich.
And to my right, Mike Rafter will also be here with me today.
Please turn to page J-11 of the 2004-05 main estimates.
Any questions on this page?
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Please list my name down.
I hope you had a good rest during the weekend. We were just about to finish this department, but there is now two, since the Petroleum Products and Energy responsibilities are spread out in other departments, and I believe that one department should be able to respond and be accountable to that.
When Nunavut government was going to take on the corporation, they had no plan whether it is going to be a better investment, and that is what is going to be my concern.
You stated as the minister that you would start working on the plan, and we do appreciate that, but once you start dealing with this issue next year or this coming fall, we expect to see some plans, carefully laid out plans.
The concern that I have at this point is the transfer, because we are going to be using an extra $500,000 as a contribution, just for the transfer.
If there was going to be no transfer, it would not have cost us $500,000.
In regards to revolving funds for the fuel that were sold, they had $86 million in revenue and their expenses were overspent.
So, then they were left with a $400,000 deficit.
(Interpretation ends.) Out of Northwest Territories, this was a million.
More right now.
(Interpretation.) For that reason, how are you going to make it into a good investment?
It seems like the staff is not going to be downsized, but the expenses were higher than last year’s and the report has not been tabled yet.
Those are in your projections, this $400,000 deficit, for 04-05, on page J-17.
For that reason, I just want to tell you, will the overhead be too expensive to transfer all of the Petroleum Products and it becomes part of a Crown corporation?
Yes, they do need to make money. So, I would like you to make a few elaborations on that.
In regards to my colleague’s concern, yes, they are understandable and we have been following the previous system that was being used, so I understand his concern.
The directions for transfer, I am sorry, I will have to find my right page. Mr. Chairman, for the transfer of Petroleum Products into Qulliq Energy Corporation, in regards to my colleague’s concern, we will work and keep the members informed.
We have plans to make sure that is better than the previous system and I will have those things looked into for the expenditures and others.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): I would like to ask a question again.
I know that leads to J-17.
In the projections, they do not go over, thinking that, I wanted to get clarified, the Department of Finance is also responsible for part of the fuel, that is $10 million, the fuel stabilization rider.
I’m sure it is not within the department’s but it is to purchase fuel, to make the fuel prices stabilize.
At that time the Power Corporation was transferred, and I’m sure your officials will be assisting, perhaps when we go to the Department of Finance, this $10 million dollars, is it a subsidy?
And we asked the question and that question in the Auditor General’s report in 2000, the fuel stabilization rider, and it has to be levelled back through the power range. I’m sure some of the members have been asking about this issue. When it becomes a subsidy, will we be able to see it in the power bills?
And how long will the subsidy program run for?
So, you don’t necessarily need to respond to those questions.
I’ll leave it at that and thank you.
Yes, my colleague’s comments are well taken and, yes, various departments are responsible for fuel on stabilization riders and I will work with the appropriate ministers.
I, too, would like to have clearer plans.
And we’ll work on what we have heard today.
We will just do a bit of a preamble. In Montreal and Toronto, the price of fuel today is 96 cents per litre and for 2004-05 the price of fuel, I’m sure, is going have an impact on issues for Nunavut.
And also it will have an impact on transportation.
So, I would like get clarification.
Does the government have any plans for this?
Or, do you any plans to subsidize the increase of fuel?
As I have mentioned before, because we have been reviewing the fuel increases, it has been very difficult to keep up, especially within the last few months.
It has been very difficult to keep up with fuel prices. The price went way over what we had expected.
Yes, we’re keeping a very close eye on it, we’re monitoring it very closely.
The communities, we’re looking for ways how we can subsidize the community user.
His question… . It is an appropriate time to ask the question because today, my federal colleagues in Canada had a teleconference in regards to the increasing fuel prices.
We have all agreed that we’ll have to work together and look for assistance and discussions are still ongoing.
We can’t really identify how much increase there will be in fuel, but we know how much it cost last fall, before the delivery of the fuel, and the estimates we used were from last year’s expenditures.
And these are just estimates.
We are under Community and Government Services.
Operations and maintenance. $35,879,000.
Chairman (interpretation): Go onto the next page.
G-13.
First of all I would like thank the minister and his officials for appearing here, and also part of this is search and rescue.
All of the communities do have search and rescue and we have to search by land and water when there is an emergency.
The question that I would like to ask… . I would like to know if there is going to be privatization or through another agency.
Search and rescue met in Rankin Inlet last year.
Up to today, the status is still the same.
There have not been any privatizations or any transfers.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): When they met last year, emergency search and rescue organizations, I think that that is what they are called… .
They are a non-profit group.
They wanted to privatize this, and I would like you to humour me on this.
We know it is very, very difficult when we have to search. Even like the military at times, we are going to use military aircraft.
They use it here in the Baffin region when they come to Iqaluit, when they are going to be searching.
It seems some of the communities do not use military aircraft.
Is it the same in all of the regions and the communities?
Yes, I have experienced it myself.
For example, the communities, when it is too difficult and they cannot do it by themselves, and if they do need an aircraft, that they go to an outside community.
When this has to happen, we go down south to get a Hercules to do search and rescue.
Since I have been the minister I have never experienced that yet; it just goes to major communities.
I have experienced that it’s when there is an emergency, they go through the military or the RCMP.
That department is not here.
It has happened several times when someone is lost in the Kivalliq for a number of days, and the search and rescue aircraft was here for seven years.
I know that I have witnessed the aircraft coming here more than once.
There are a number of issues that can make this work better and also the reports that we received, it is with the, to make sure that they are all followed up.
Last year we went on local radio stations, certain rescuers and rangers were 185 miles out of Rankin Inlet and told to return during a blizzard.
We told them not to move, the two officers did not listen to the Inuit and they were separated from each other and got lost.
I am sure Levinia recalls, it was just before Christmas.
They were temporarily left behind, the two officers.
However, when they were found by the Inuit, a Hercules was sent right away from Churchill.
This does not happen for Inuit.
We know that the search is run in different ways.
I have do not recall anyone, however, asking for an aircraft, and I have never heard that they were refused.
Like when the Hercules is searching elsewhere, and this is where it differs, I have not heard any refusal to search.
Yes, we work closely with the RCMP and also our military, our armed forces.
Yes, definitely, I will look at this again if there are concerns that everybody be treated equally when there has to be a search and rescue done.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): I will ask another question later.
I have a question under J-13 on contract services.
There has been a $200,000 reduction from there.
Yes, the contract services, that is true.
There was a reduction, 56 percent, $251,000.
The $200,000 is that it is a lot easier that they go to the community base, community assets protection program, and also the $57,000 was removed from there as well.
There was not enough funding at the time.
Yes, I do have a question that I would like to ask to Mr. Minister Kilabuk, on search and rescue. It is really important to the communities, such as when someone has to be searched and there is not enough funding most of the time.
In our community we do have a body that does search and rescues.
Like I stated, they would like more funding for training purposes for the search and rescue.
Last year, since they are associations, and when they are all new that they really do not follow all the procedures.
Since we are looking G-13, there is funding available for fire training.
Also the search and rescuers should have training in search and rescue, especially the mobilization.
We have to make sure that we know what we have to bring and what we have to do. They should be written down so that everybody could learn from them.
Also, they could get another community that is in a stable condition in their search and rescue to train other groups.
Mr. Minister, I would like to know that if there is any funding available for training for the future, for the days coming, if you can tell me.
To my colleague, since I have been the minister of this department, we have made a new policy for search and rescues.
They do have upfront money as well, and we will be giving them funding annually.
This is how we began this and this will be continuing.
Also, when there is an emergency, we do get funding from the federal government.
We do get pretty close to $150,000 that goes to different communities in preparation for search and rescue and for emergency cases.
Also, they do receive their funding through the regional offices.
Right now we are working on it in two ways.
On the issue of search and rescue outside of Nunavut, we know that they do have a lot of problems in other communities, that they would like to get more help from the surrounding communities.
When there has to be a search and rescue done, we know that in the past that we have heard that the Canadian Coast Guard, if they are asked to help the local community, search and rescue would stop and the other ones would take over, the Canadian Coast Guard.
I hear this is what happens, that is, when you ask for the Canadian Coast Guard to come, the local search and rescues has to stop right there and let the Canadian Coast Guard take over.
The search and rescue in Nunavut communities, whenever their numbers get very small we would have to call from other communities that are ready or trained to do search and rescue.
I have seen my community and other communities work together, but we have to understand that the operations… . The way of operating has to be understood.
We usually call in for a search and rescue plane.
Even if they can’t land in that small community, they are able to search for people that are lost and we can use those search planes and then the search rescue works along with them.
Chairman (interpretation): Mr. Kattak.
Yes, I understand the minister’s response, but sometimes they don’t have guidelines, they sometimes don’t have a guideline and they don’t really have the knowledge of the surrounding community.
And, we can direct them to where they can search for those individuals, but because they don’t know the area, our communities, or our land, it is usually very hard for them.
That was just a comment, but in my constituency, I would like to say a few words, as I’ve said before in this House, that the hamlet were, or the search and rescue operated from Iqaluit region… . But, now it is based in Kivalliq region.
I just wanted to find out why that is.
The member is correct and the member voiced his concern to me and the agreement was that his community is being represented as one of the Baffin communities.
So, they will continue to use Iqaluit as a base.
And again, Mr. Chairman, what we do is, we have the search and rescue working together when they are searching for someone that is lost, and what they use is the RCMP and the Coast Guard when there is someone who cannot be found.
So, what we do is, as I said, they have to work with communities’ search and rescue groups.
In regards to the Canadian Coast Guard, if they have a rule, set a rule when they are going to be searching for someone that is lost, perhaps their law or their guideline says that they have to, perhaps the Nunavut government has to work with the Canadian Coast Guard.
It is very, very hard to try to search for someone who is lost and not knowing where they are going to be, if you don’t know the community and the surrounding areas to begin with.
So, for that reason, the Government of Nunavut and the Canadian Coastguard will have to work together to have a plan in place.
There should be an agreement between the Nunavut government and the Canadian Coastguard in order for them to search for people that are lost in a proper way.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Kattuk.
I do not think that is a question.
Mr. Minister, do you have a comment?
I would just like to remind the members that when we are talking about the Coastguard and the RCMP, they are starting to have the knowledge of our communities and the surroundings.
And, I would like to say that we really appreciate them and we have asked for their assistance previously, and sometimes we ask them for their assistance in order to look for somebody who is lost out on the land or in the city and we will remember to consult with the community.
I just have a question, I am a little confused here on J-14 and J-13, on protective services and the grants and contributions that show the total of last year’s budget amount, revised amount, and this year’s budget amount at $99,000.
In the main estimates under “Fire, training and equipment,” it is showing $99,000 this year and $224,000 last year.
I am just wondering if I could get a clarification on which numbers are accurate: the numbers from the business plan or the numbers from the main estimates.
I will get Mike Rafter to explain to the member.
Chairman (interpretation): Mr. Rafter.
In the business plan, there is a fumbling under the previous fiscal year with $125,000 of the contract services.
So, the $125,000 and the $99,000 is the total you see: $224,000.
It is a good explanation for it.
Mr. Chairman, I guess under this area under “Fire, training and equipment” and the fire marshal’s office, and I just note under here, it has an increase in compensation and benefits.
However, there is a decrease of two PYs for that division, and I am just wondering if I could get an explanation on why the increase with the reduction of two PYs, and which PYs have been taken out of the division.
Perhaps I could get my deputy minister to respond to that question.
Chairman (interpretation): Mr. Rich.
Mr. Rich: The difference in the compensation and benefits reflects the fact that the former department of Community Government and Transportation has historically under-funded positions.
So, the full salary dollars were not properly reflected in the budget.
So, this year what we did was in fact readjust to that, so that it properly reflected the budget amounts needed for the position, and I am going to have to double check on which positions that was because I do not remember exactly off the top of my head which two positions that was.
So, okay, I have it now.
It was the arctic operations officer position, which was unfilled and another Nunavut emergency measures officer position, which was also unfilled, and those positions, which have historically been unfilled in the department, were also not fully funded in the department, and as a result, they were eliminated from the organizational charts.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr Rich.
My mistake, it was three positions that were missing out of there.
It was 22 last year, under “Protective services,” and only 19 this year.
I wonder what the other one was.
I am informed the other position was one that was called security and protection services.
Again, it was another unfilled position for which there was not a whole bunch of funding.
Given some of the recent goings on, the results of the fire marshal’s report, and some of the other things that have been going on, I am just wondering if those things were the duties and responsibilities of those positions that were supposed to be functioning.
I would advise that it is the same staff that have always done it.