EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
The second piece, as an organization, we are trying to develop better coordination of managing patient files from the hospital and from the health centres and the boarding home and so on.
So these are system improvements that we are trying to make overall in the territory.
So again, to summarize, I don’t believe this motion supports decentralization, moving jobs from Cambridge Bay and Pangnirtung and dissolving two jobs in Pangnirtung and this motion is basically saying ‘leave this as is, don’t fix it’ and then what?
So I would encourage the members to look at what we’re trying to do and again the jobs here are still here. You are more than welcome to walk to the hospital and meet the staff and they can walk you through the process that’s in place.
I think they are doing a phenomenal job considering they process 13,000 tickets in 12 months and trying to coordinate that with the other staff.
So I urge the members to reconsider this motion and not support this motion because it means status quo.
I would like to just ... I don’t want to reiterate what the minister has said. I think it’s important to point out that concerns had been raised in the House with the position that’s mentioned here about the Pangnirtung client service office.
Those concerns have been taken seriously by the minister, I know because we had discussed them in Cabinet, and I’ve had an opportunity to discuss it with her one-on-one, and the minister has put several changes in place, and she actually wrote all MLAs with an open letter on March 6, I believe, and informed them that the office in Pangnirtung now has longer hours so that we can deal with one-on-one basis with clients. They’re open until 6:00 p.m.; they’re available for emergency requests now on weekends and so on, and it’s very important that we’ve actually trained local people in Pangnirtung to take on these responsibilities.
I’ve had an opportunity, to experience, firsthand, the medical travel service, not once but twice in the last year and a half. I’ve also had an opportunity to visit every boarding home in Nunavut several times, and I’ve had an opportunity to be with people who have been escorted.
I can tell you, and any Member on this side of the House, and on that side of the House knows that when you’re dealing with, as the minister has said, 17,000 or 20,000 travel arrangements in a 12-month period, I would ask you to go over to Mac Travel or any of the other travel agents and ask them whether they are doing 20,000 in one year.
The statistics have come back, through an audit with the Department of Health; about 1.5 percent of the travel arrangements out of 20,000 are complaints. When you look at weather issues, when you look at some of the miscommunications, when you look at some of the logistic and some of the administrative problems and questions, you expect to have concerns and complaints raised.
I believe the minister has been proactive, has heard some of the concerns raised, and we hear them, too. We’re not immune to hearing them, we have constituents, and we have families.
I believe that the Pangnirtung client travel office is now up and working and it is pretty effective. Like in any other arrangement, adjustments and fixes can be put in place, and I believe the minister and the department are trying to do that.
I will not be supporting the motion.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Picco. (interpretation ends) To the motion. (interpretation) Member for Iqaluit Centre, Mr. Tootoo.
I just wanted to say that I wasn’t planning on speaking to the motion, and after hearing what I’ve heard, I think I have to clarify something and it’s caused me to completely decide that I’m going to support the motion.
The Minister of Health and Social Services indicated in her comments that those were two new positions and that the other positions were still here. When we met with the minister in the standing committee, she had indicated after four hours, I believe she had said that there was actually a position that was taken from here and moved to Pangnirtung.
That function being transferred means there are less people doing that job here than there were before.
I think what she had indicated doesn’t accurately reflect what the department has done, and for that reason, I will be supporting the motion.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Tootoo. (interpretation ends) To the motion. (interpretation) I have no more names on my list.
The mover of the motion has the closing remark. (interpretation ends) Mr. Arvaluk.
I thank the minister who is seconding the motion.
It’s too bad the minister did not talk with the Baffin Ministers but perhaps there are not enough complaints, maybe because they gave up.
But there are a lot of people in our communities in the Baffin region that have always constantly complained about the discomfort that they have.
Some of them even have to use their credit card to buy a ticket when they can’t get any answer on the telephone and I talked with the nurses and they stated that they are not supposed to give the patients an open ticket, but sometimes the nurse said that it would be better to give a patient an open ticket and the seconder of the motion stated that he supports the motion because it states that the elders and the people have to be looked after in accordance with the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and we have to be able to follow that Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and I would like to have a vote.
Speaker (interpretation): The discussion is now closed and we will proceed to voting.
In favour of the motion, please raise your hands.
Opposed, please raise your hands.
Abstentions, please raise your hands.
Members, these are the results of the vote: in favour: seven.
Against: nine.
Motion 009 – 2(4): Performance Audit of the Department of Health and Social Services (Tootoo)
I would like to move the following motion:
WHEREAS the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Health and Social Services has incurred tens of millions of dollars in over-expenditures and budget shortfalls since 1999;
AND WHEREAS the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Health and Social Services has contravened the provisions of the Financial Administration Act with respect to over-expenditures;
AND WHEREAS the Auditor General of Canada last performed a comprehensive audit of the Department of Health of the Government of the Northwest Territories in 1992;
AND WHEREAS the 2007 federal budget will provide the Government of Nunavut with an additional $23 million in funding to support its efforts to strengthen its financial management practices and systems;
AND WHEREAS the Members of the Legislative Assembly are of the view that an independent, objective and comprehensive performance audit of the Department would provide valuable information and recommendations for the Government of Nunavut to use in determining how best to allocate its resources;
I already mentioned the rules of the motion.
I am pleased to be able to speak to this motion here today, and if you look at it, I think I’ve lost count of the number of times since 1999 that the Members of the Legislative Assembly have been put in a position where we really don’t have any choice except to vote for supplementary appropriations to cover over-expenditures in this department.
Obviously, if the department has already spent the money on things like medivac flights, we really have no choice except to rubberstamp the supp.
It wasn’t that long ago, that I and other members were in the Tuktu Committee Room listening to the government witnesses during our hearings on the Auditor General’s Report telling us that the department had finally turned the corner and got the department’s spending under control.
However, it’s clear that the haemorrhaging is continuing. The department is bleeding red ink.
We have to send a message to our constituents that we will comply with our own laws.
I’ve been saying for a long time that it is clear that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the budget development and financial management systems in place where we continually face this situation.
The recent move of Health and Social Services staff to the Department of Finance tells us that the department and the government have enough on its plate now just getting the bills paid.
Indeed, if you looked at some media coverage in the Northwest Territories that places like the Stanton Hospital are going public with what they refer to, and I’ll quote it, “Problems in dealing with Nunavut patient billing issues.”
They don’t have the time to conduct the sort of in depth audits and reviews that is required.
I look at this as a positive motion, which is designed to help the department and the government as a whole.
Since 1999, we have had a number of Ministers of Health and Social Services. Every single one of them has struggled with the financial pressures that accompany this challenging portfolio.
As I noted in my motion, it has now been a decade and a half since the Department of Health underwent a comprehensive audit. It took place in 1992. I have a copy of that report here with me today and we have not had a comprehensive audit of this nature since then, and I think that the time has come for this to happen.
I view this like a trip to the dentist. It may not be the most pleasurable experience but the end result is that you get better.
The worse thing to do is to let the problem get worse.
This audit won’t cost us a dime; the Auditor General’s Office does not charge the Government of Nunavut for the valuable work that it performs.
If the recommendations turn out not to be helpful, well, we’re no worse off than when we started.
However, I’m extremely confident, that they will be extremely beneficial, and I ask all members to support me in this motion.
I apologize. (interpretation ends) To the motion. (interpretation) The seconder, Mr. Alagalak.
I will be supporting this motion, obviously. It has been way too long since we have done a review of the Department of Health and Social Services.
You have to have a review done and get some recommendations to make improvements on this issue of over-expenditures.
When you have over-expenditures year after year, it’s very hard to get your budget in line again, and our constituents become aware of the chronic problem and then look at exactly what the government is doing. We usually have to ask for supplementaries that could have been used for other programs and services that would benefit the communities and Nunavummiut.
We hope to have this department keep within its budget and I think it’s very important to have audits or reviews done on a regular basis.
This is public money that we are talking about and it has to be used to benefit the taxpayers.
We are responsible for the finances and if we can keep within budget the constituents out there would have more confidence in the government.
That is not only for the people of Nunavut. There are other people out there that are looking at the government and if we have an audit done on this department, then we will find out where the problems are. Even if you set up your budget and try to be as accurate as you can there are times when we have to ask for supplementary appropriations.
We have to realize that there are cost cutting measures that we can put in and I think we owe it to our constituents to make sure that we stay in line.
I thank the members for bringing this forward.
I think it’s no secret the challenges that we have faced as the Department of Health and Social Services in our territory in the past eight years. The challenges continue to be a challenge in our territory in addressing these concerns.
I have spoken to my colleague, the Minister of Finance, and in addition to the other initiatives that we have undertaken over the last year to try and start fixing the way we do business around financing, and I think those initiatives will help.
In terms of the recommendation to have the OAG report, that will be put forward to the OAG to consider conducting this audit going back to 1999, and I believe those are part of the normal processes of the OAG office.
Whether this can be done right away is something that we would have to discuss with our colleagues in Finance and the OAG and they set their work schedule and I believe they identify which departments they will audit in Nunavut on an annual basis.
So how quickly something like this, dating back to 1999, can be done will remain to be something that we need to clarify and bring forward.
I would also like to say that, or identify that this not be restricted to the other initiatives that we are also doing internally. An audit or a performance audit is a way to identify issues and so on, but I do not want to be restricted to the OAG office in trying to deal with the challenges that we face in putting systems in place such as the medical travel or other things as we deal with the challenges within the Department of Health.
I think the Minister of Finance and I both spoke this session on how we’re trying to strengthen financial management. And some of the examples some of the members have heard is to try and get the Department of Health to focus on doing better analysis and trend analysis of initiatives in the north rather then being still focused on one thing, that being the payment processing.
So we haven’t seen the end result of those changes that so long as we’re moving forward I think the recognition has to be given that those things are something that we are continuing to trying to do to improve initiatives and deal with financial management.
And I believe that we need to do it sooner than later and not wait on an audit report, an audit report is important, but recognizing immediately we need to address the challenges within our own organization.
As minister, I am, as like my colleagues, I’m frustrated by some of the challenges we face in trying to move forward and predict medical travel expenditures as an example.
I’m as frustrated as you are, and I’m willing to work with each and every one of you to report some of those needs to change as we address the issues around it.
But at the end of the day we need to look at how we do business. The purposes of how we do business need to be evaluated if we’re ever going to get a glimpse of how the spending patterns work and to think differently from just processing.
And this is where I need to focus my staff to deal with analyzing and providing support to the regional offices and putting in the systems necessary to forecast better. And I’m committed to do that, I want to reassure my staff and my colleagues as well that we’re moving forward.
So in terms of moving forward on this, I have to then bring forward the concerns to the Office of the Auditor General office through the Minister of Finance in looking at an audit to 1999.
Just very quickly, on the motion to do a performance audit on the Department of Health and Social Services by the Auditor General of Canada. We believe that this will give us an opportunity maybe through this motion and through the independence of the Auditor General to look at the adequacy of the base that is in place through the funding that we’ve received from the Non-Insured Health Benefits.
We believe the federal government has the responsibility, fiduciary responsibility for Inuit for not only in Nunavut, but in Canada.
The biggest problem that we’ve experienced is the expenditure base that we have in place within the department, and within that funding arrangement that we have from our federal partner. We believe the audit will be able to demonstrate that inadequacy of the budget.
Second part as the House Leader, Mr. Speaker, It’s very difficult for the government to vote to agree to audit themselves. As a result Mr. Speaker, the cabinet will be abstaining from the vote.
I appreciate the thoughts of all the speakers on the motion.
As minister Picco pointed out, this is something that could be good and will be good for not only the Department of Health, but the government as a whole.
And if it’s going to be good for the government it’s going to be good for everyone in Nunavut.
One thing I want to clarify and I know I overheard Minister Picco clarify to the Minister of Health. The audit is not going back to 1999; the motion is that they do a performance audit on the financial management practices of the Department of Health and Social Services.
As far as the comments relating to, I don’t know if they’ll be able to do it.
You know if you look just recently in the last year and a half or two years, the Northwest Territories passed a motion to have the Auditor General do a special audit on the Workers’ Compensation Board and that was complied with quite quickly and some very good information was gained from that audit.
So I look forward to that happening with us.
Over the years I guess, probably even before division, there have been problems in Health. We have tried our best with our limited resources. I am not knocking the staff or anyone in this, but this is simply I think the best thing for us to do is have an objective outside look at things and give us a different perspective in looking at the whole thing.
If you are looking at it like the minister indicated, we wouldn’t want to pass a motion to audit ourselves.
That’s the whole idea, if you are trying to fix the problem, if you are looking at it from the inside you don’t always see it. And that’s why I think it’s important that we get an outside, objective view and a fresh look at how things are done.
Maybe they will be able to give us some good solutions to try and help alleviate the problems that this government has had with the Department of Health over the years.
Opposed raise your hand. Abstentions.
The results are those in favour: nine.
Those opposed: none.
Abstentions: seven.
To the motion that was made I will be writing to the Auditor General in regard to the motion.
Motion 010 – 2(4): Referral of Tabled Document 049 – 2(4): Discussion Paper for Ikummatiit – An Energy Strategy for Nunavut March 2007 to Committee of the Whole (Curley)
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. (interpretation ends)
WHEREAS the document titled A Discussion Paper for Ikummatiit: An Energy Strategy for Nunavut was tabled in this Legislative Assembly on March 21, 2007;
AND WHEREAS the Members of the Legislative Assembly are of the view that this is an important document which requires detailed scrutiny;
AND WHEREAS the Fourth Session of the Second Legislative Assembly of Nunavut will reconvene on March 29, 2007;
If there are comments to the motion. I would like to ask the mover if he has comments.
Yes, very briefly the energy strategy that was tabled, it is in regard to fuel and electricity.
These strategies that are tabled … but there are no cost estimates or just like if I ask a kindergarten class…we have to know…if we’re going to have a hydro project, and there should be timelines. We don’t get that information.
It seems like we have good visions but the motion says that ... if they’re going to be tabled documents, are they going to get cheaper, and if we’re going to make an investment, how much will it be?
Those are the things because we don’t have enough time for ten minutes, so we want the minister to have the answers to the questions we might have. I think he has an energy wizard somewhere in his pocket, and we want him to disclose all of that information.
I would like to thank the seconder, and I urge all of the Cabinet Ministers to support this motion.
To the motion. (interpretation) Member for High Arctic, Mr. Barnabas.
I support this motion because a lot of times we don’t have all of the information, therefore our constituents don’t have all the information.
We try and make decisions but once we approve something, we find out later that the smaller communities apparently were paying higher than the bigger communities.
So for that reason, we want to have all of the information that we need from there.
To the motion. (interpretation) I’m sorry.
First of all, I would like to thank the mover and the seconder of the motion and I know that the Energy Strategy has been tabled, and we’ve actually received quite a few requests from the general public to table, and some people from the media to review it.
I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, as we know when we tabled the Ikuma I and the Ikuma II, which was the genesis as it were for the Energy Policy that we have brought forward. We had a full debate in Committee of the Whole I believe it was in Baker Lake when that occurred.
Now, it gives us an opportunity to move three years forward and have that same type of debate during our May sitting.
I do want to say one thing to the mover of the motion, and that is over the last couple of days, and this is our last day, the member made some strong remarks ... well, I might have had an operation, Mr. Speaker, but I’m not deaf.
I heard those remarks, and I look forward to debate them with him in May.
With that, Mr. Speaker, as the House Leader, again, we will be supporting the motion.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Minister. (interpretation ends) To the motion. (interpretation) Question has been called.
Bill 2, Bill 3, Bill 8, and Bill 9 with Mr. Arreak in the Chair.
In accordance with the authority vested in me by Motion 4 – 2(4), the Committee of the Whole will stay in session until it reports itself out.
We will have a break for 20 minutes.
>>House recessed at 16:24 and Committee resumed at 16:55
Chairman (Mr. Arreak): I call the committee meeting to order.
In Committee of the Whole we have the following items to deal with: Bill 2, Bill 3, Bill 8, and Bill 9.
We would like to commence the review of the supplementary appropriations starting with Bill 2, followed by Bill 3, after that we will proceed to the clause-by-clause of Bills 8 and 9.
Are we in agreement to deal with Bill 2, Supplementary Appropriation (Capital) Act #3, 2006-07?
Bill 02 – Supplementary Appropriation (Capital) Act #3, 2006-07 – Consideration in Committee
Bill 03 – Supplementary Appropriation (Operations & Maintenance) Act #3, 2006-07 – Consideration in Committee
Chairman: I would like to ask Minister Simailak, Minister of the Department of Finance, to make his opening remarks.
I am pleased to appear before members today to speak to the Supplementary Appropriation Bills 2 and 3.
Bill 2 is the Supplementary Appropriation (Capital) Act #3, 2006-07.
This supplementary appropriation will provide funding of $77,183,000 for the following:
interdepartmental transfer of surplus capital funds to operations and maintenance within the Department of Justice;
the Qikiqtani General Hospital; and,
allocation of the Nunavut Housing Trust Fund.
Bill 3 is the Supplementary Appropriation (Operations and Maintenance) Act #3, 2006-07. This supplementary appropriation will provide funding of $21,929,000 for such items as the following:
interdepartmental transfer of surplus capital funds to operations and maintenance for the law enforcement contract, corrections, and the Legal Services Board;
agency nurses, medical travel, residential care services, and physician services;
the Petroleum Products Stabilization Fund; and,
local housing organizations.
I would be pleased to answer questions from members. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Do you have members you would like to bring to the table? Minister Simailak.
Chairman: Pardon me, minister. I think I said members. I meant witnesses.
Chairman: Thank you. (interpretation) Sergeant-at-Arms, will you assist the witnesses to the witness table.
(interpretation ends) Minister, for the record, introduce your witnesses. Minister Simailak.
On my right is Diane Moebis, and on my left is Peter Ma. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman: Thank you, Minister. (interpretation) Welcome. (interpretation ends) Before we proceed I would like to remind members of the following: according to Rule 77(1), you have ten minutes to speak, and according to Rule 77(2), subject to the discretion of the Chair, a member may speak more than once to a matter under discussion but not until every member wishing to speak has spoken.
I suggest to members that wherever possible you ask your detailed questions during the page-by-page review of the bill.
As there are no general comments we will now proceed to page-by-page review of the Supplementary Capital Estimates.