EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Can the minister clarify how the department addresses the issue of liability in the community facilities that are used by the public?
The inspectors that inspect those community infrastructures such as the fire marshal and others, as long as there is no other facility in the community that can be used, there’s nothing much that we can do and I’m not really sure exactly what it says in the report and the overcrowding of the community hall.
I know that they are using that facility today and I’m sure that they have to do some changes or to do some expansions on that facility because of it being old and overcrowded.
Mr. Barnabas (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the minister for the response.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question about...the facility was condemned, but they had to reopen it because they needed some rooms for office space. What’s happening with that building because they condemned it and they closed it down and they reopened it again for office use?
I had the opportunity to see that facility that the member is talking about. It’s very old.
I agree with the member that it’s very old, and after I saw that facility, apparently they did some renovations to that facility and they made use of it because they didn’t have enough office space in the member’s community.
What my department is going to do is go over there and do a re-inspection of those facilities in that member’s constituency and there’s an amount of money that we have requested to do renovations and expansions of those facilities. We have not had any information as to which communities will be a priority to upgrade their facility and we are expecting that to happen.
Question 142 – 2(3): Medical Charters for Sanikiluaq (Kattuk)
I’m going to address my question to the Minister of Health and Social Services.
Mr. Speaker, earlier today, I spoke about the trouble of service in the medical air charter that travels from Sanikiluaq to Winnipeg.
Can the Minister of Health and Social Services provide an update on the status of contracts for medical air charter travel for Sanikiluaq?
From what I understand, we are starting discussions today on the contracts for those services. The terms and conditions of the contracts have been agreed to by the participating airlines. The next step would be to finalize those contracts with the service provider.
I thank the minister for the answer. My first supplementary is: can the minister clarify for this House what are the contract requirements for the size of the aircraft and washroom facilities for flights between Sanikiluaq and Winnipeg?
I think I need to clarify, we are working with an old contract, but we are working towards a new contract. I said earlier that we have agreed to the terms of the contract by the participating airlines, having said that, the existing contract for the services between Sanikiluaq and Winnipeg are for any flights that are longer than one hour. There is a requirement for the service provider to have an aircraft with washroom facilities.
Thanks again for that answer.
Again, I want to urge the minister to commence consulting with representatives from the community of Sanikiluaq on medical travel air charter services before entering into any new contracts for this service.
As in the past when a decision was made to have Winnipeg/Kivalliq to provide Health and Social Services for Sanikiluaq, there were some consultations with the municipality at the time.
I will commit to consulting with the members of the hamlet council on the new arrangements as well as the member from Sanikiluaq.
Question 143 – 2(3): Inuktitut Translations of Job Advertisements (Curley)
My question is directed to the Minister of Human Resources. I asked the minister during the Committee of the Whole about employment.
I know we are about 40 percent Inuit employment at this time.
Some people in Nunavut really don’t know how you advertise positions for government employment. Some of them did not have Inuktitut translations in the positions. Does the minister know if that has been done in Inuktitut?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We were asked questions from the committee members in regard to advertisements of positions for employment in the government.
We put them in Nunatsiaq News, Kivalliq News, and News North. Although we give them to the newspapers to put them in the ads, we also send them out to each hamlet council. So they advertise them also on television and on the radio.
The one in question that we had problems with is we talked with people at the radio station to advertise it.
What we are doing at the present time is my department is speaking with the community radio stations in order for them to do some advertising for employment positions that are open within the Government of Nunavut.
Also, as the Department of Human Resources, we would like to find out from the radio stations in the communities whether we could work with the radio stations so that radio personnel could do announcements about the employment opportunities available with the Government of Nunavut, and whether there would be any problems encountered if we were to do that.
We would like to understand clearly as the people of Nunavut that those avenues that you’ve stated you’ve used to advertise positions that are open in the Government of Nunavut for employment; do you pay those advertisers, and do you also pay the local radio stations to advertise jobs?
Can the minister agree whether those community radio stations can be paid to advertise those positions that are open in the Government of Nunavut for employment?
You should be able to pay community radio stations to do those announcements, just like you do with newspapers.
What would the problem be if you were to pay the radio stations?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s very, very expensive, and the member is right, that it is very expensive if you’re going to make announcements on the radio because they have to be in three languages; Inuktitut, English, and French.
If we were to advertise those, we want to find the best way of doing it, and the Government of Nunavut to have a member to local radio stations so we can give them information that we would like the public to hear, such as available positions with the Government of Nunavut.
We want to do our best to try and make sure that those positions that are open are heard by the public in the communities and in Nunavut. Those are the things that we are looking at right now.
After we take a look at it to see how best we can do it, we will use... as members of the cabinet discussed that before we can do those announcements on local radio stations in the communities, and how much money we would have to pay local radio stations if we were to use them to provide information or ads for positions that are open within the Government of Nunavut.
Those are the things that we are looking at right now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Perhaps I just asked a question.
It’s evident now that the local radio stations are very beneficial to communicate anything to the communities if you need to communicate something urgently because you could use a local radio station better than written form.
It’s very expensive to advertise in the written form.
Perhaps you can say yes to me that with this fiscal year, you will use the local radio stations, if you want to see Inuit more in the work place of government, that sometimes positions are hired when people have not even heard about the employment opportunities.
Perhaps 47 percent is quite small. The Inuit level of employment has to go up to 57 percent.
Speaker (interpretation): Thank you. Mr. Tapardjuk.
I can say yes to that request in order to get the information out to the smaller communities to make sure that employment opportunities are announced to the smaller communities.
I can say yes to this and commit to it.
Perhaps Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs has a staff member who is a communication officer and they do send their communiqué to the communities and we can review that, perhaps, as the Government of Nunavut, become a member of the local radio stations, that way we can announce all the employment opportunities.
If we need to pay for them on top of that, we are reviewing how it can be best done. So if we need to be approved by the cabinet after we finalize it, we’ll give it to them, but Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that I will commit to ensuring this goes ahead.
We’ll have to review the costs and other issues.
Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member. Perhaps, starting this coming spring, we can start considering how we can communicate the employment opportunities to the smaller communities.
Question 144 – 2(3): Trades School in Rankin Inlet (Peterson)
On the weekend, an announcement was made that a trades school would be constructed in Rankin Inlet and I think it’s probably going to cost around $10 million.
Mr. Speaker, it’s evident in the Kitikmeot that there is a tremendous need for a skilled and trained workforce to support the mining industry in our region.
My question for the minister: what is the Department of Education doing in the Kitikmeot to establish training facilities or programs to train people for jobs in the mining industry?
As the member indicated, last week, we did have a good announcement on the formation of a trades school specifically dedicated for Nunavut.
At the same time, during that announcement, we announced that in the community of Cambridge Bay, and specifically for the Kitikmeot Region, and in line to what we’re seeing in mines training, we’re moving very aggressively to work with the school there.
The school shop is underutilized and needs to be upgraded and we’re dedicating almost $1 million to that facility in Cambridge Bay, where we’ll be able to deliver mines training as well as some other trades training in the community of Cambridge Bay, for the Kitikmeot residents.
I’m reading the news release, and it doesn’t specifically mention where the facility is in Cambridge Bay, so it’s good that he clarified that.
My supplementary question for the Minister of Education: can he give an indication to me and the House if the Department of Education has completed a labour force survey that shows how many jobs will be available in the mining sector in the Kitikmeot over the next ten years?
Under the Labour Market Development Agreement, under the LMDA, as well as under the Adult Learning Strategy, the upcoming Mines Strategy Focus Group, and the Mines Training Strategy, which hasn’t been released yet, we are looking at and anticipating several hundred positions within the mining sector specifically in the coming years.
Mr. Speaker, some of those mining projects have been outlined, and in Mr. Simailak’s speech yesterday, again, some of these were reiterated.
One of the projects, for example, on the horizon is the Baffinland Ore Mine, which can have a life expectancy of 75 to 100 years and may have over 1,500 person years of employment.
So there is a considerable amount of work being done through the Adult Learning Strategy and the Mine Training Focus Group to look at number of positions; what their skill sets are; and how we can respond to them. That’s why the announcement for Cambridge Bay is so important.
Can the minister give me an idea of when the Cambridge Bay Trades School will be opened to train students, and what courses they’ll be learning?
Has that all been based on consultations with the mining industry and the local community?
There has been considerable work done with this upcoming Mines Training Strategy as well as the Adult Learning Strategy. Some of the programs that we see going into Cambridge Bay include mine training components; mine training specific programs that they may include, for example, millwrights, which is something that is needed in many of our mines because of the facilities and the infrastructure in place and on place in a mine.
It is very important to point out that many of these mines are actually located away from the community; meaning that many people have to fly in.
These are campsites where you may have 150 to 200 people. The jobs at those sites include everything from clerks to cleaners, administration people, security, heavy equipment operators, and so on.
When we think about mines we want to get away from the traditional idea of someone with a pick and a shovel, mines have moved a lot away from that component in that type of job over the past several years.
We would hope to be in the position by 2008 to have that facility in place in Cambridge Bay.
That’s encouraging news for the community of Cambridge Bay. The minister has heard me speak about this over the last couple of years.
There is an important initiative in the Kitikmeot called the Lupin Mine that we are trying to acquire for a mine training school. So my question for the minister is: will the Government of Nunavut support the acquisition of the Lupin Mine for mine training school in the investment of capital funds? If not, why not?
I counted four questions there.
I am going to try to keep my answers quick today. Very quickly, we have reviewed the situation with the Lupin Mine.
I believe Mr. Lyall and some of the proponents in the KIA are to be in town next week. I have put some time aside so that I will be able to meet with them.
Capital dollars have to be approved by the Assembly. There hasn’t been a proposal brought forward by this Assembly to approve any monies to buy or to acquire the Lupin site.
What I had committed to doing is that if the training program was opened there, let’s say a heavy equipment operator or something, that is run by the KIA, then the Government of Nunavut would be very interested in purchasing seats and helping supply some revenue generation towards that project and in that vein.
Question 145 – 2(3): Humane Harvesting of Seals in Nunavut (Arreak)
Just recently, we heard that Greenland did not want to purchase the Canadian sealskin pelts because they say that we skin the seal when they are still alive. We don’t do that here in Nunavut. The worldwide interest people should know that we don’t harvest seals like that, and we don’t club the seals either.
I was wondering if your department has already resolved this situation.
We went to Greenland along with our Premier and we had a great meeting with the Home Rule Government.
We started meeting on strategizing, and also, we had agreed that our officials will work together as to how we can provide support to each other.
Thank you, minister, for your response.
I know you are working on this issue.
Do you know if our sealskin market is going to go down or the prices will go down because of this issue?
Yes, it’s evident that it’s going to have an impact during the next term.
Currently, the prices of seal pelts are the highest since we started dealing with sealskin.
As a government, we will work hard to make sure that the sealing strategy works and we want to make sure that we try to market the sealskins to the world countries that purchase the skins.
Question 146 – 2(3): Kivalliq Winter Trails (Alagalak)
In my Member’s Statement I made a comment and I will bring it up again this time around. (interpretation ends) Would the minister arrange to have the Kivalliq winter trails marked and groomed for this season?
Our government will fully support the building of the road in the Keewatin region. We are having discussions with the communities and also with the Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated. All of the stakeholders will be consulted and I would like to assure the member that the government is in full support of the building of the road from Manitoba to the Keewatin.
I don’t think he understood my question.
I’m not talking about the Manitoba-Keewatin road.
I’m talking about the road that’s being currently utilized.
It’s a trail that is constantly being used by the snowmobiles; I’m talking about ice roads and trails that are used by Bombardiers and other heavy equipment vehicles.
As I stated earlier, a lot of breakage is done when they are transporting goods from Churchill to one of the Keewatin communities, for example. Is it possible for your government to build better roads that would be utilized?
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk (interpretation): I apologize.
I didn’t understand first of all.
We do want to provide services that are good for the communities. I can tell the member that there is a very heavily used trail between Iqaluit and Kimmirut.
Of course it would be easier to build a more permanent road in the Keewatin because of course it’s flatter than the Baffin region.
We have to first of all do a feasibility study to see some options on how we can make permanent roads.
Once we have all the initial studies done, then it would be up to the government and the communities to decide how they would go about it.
We would help the Inuit so that they could have better transportation in between the communities.
It won’t be very expensive, but I am not exactly sure what you wanted to do.
I think that it’s urgent right now to build permanent roads because there are mines opening up in our region.
How are you going to be working with the local governments in the Keewatin region? When are you going to be consulting those communities?
The Keewatin Chamber of Commerce is going to be having a meeting in Rankin Inlet and I will want to make a point of attending that meeting.
I’m sure that they will have suggestions that we could consider because there will be representatives from the smaller communities.
I’ll see what I can do on this issue of building a more permanent trail or road in between communities.
What about the various private companies located in Rankin Inlet?
Once they have a project to do they start it right away.
Why is it not possible for them to get started right now?
We’ll see how we can speed up the process and what kind of impact it will have.
If we could get funding from the federal government and from birthright entities and different businesses, we’ll look into it and see what we can do to make it a reality.
Question 147 – 2(3): Procedures for GN Press Releases (Tootoo)
My question is for the Premier who is also the Minister of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs. It’s really a simple question.
I am just wondering, in the Department of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs, is there a function within that department that reviews any government press releases that come out to ensure that they’re releasing appropriate and accurate information?
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes.
I knew that he would be able to handle that and he did. In light of that wonderful response that I got from the Premier, my question is; on January 18, 2006 press release on new funds and staffing plans for the Baffin Regional Hospital, if he could explain how inaccurate information in that press release was brought through and put out there.
In the press release there is a quote. It says, “The department has approved $2.3 million.”
We just heard from the Minister of Finance a little earlier that it was the Financial Management Board that approved that money. I was surprised; I didn’t think departments could approve money like that either. I thought the Assembly had to do that.
Also, the fact that it says new funding that’s in this year’s budget that was released out prior to the budget being put forward in the House.
We are often called upon, as a government, to act in urgent situations. This was in our view an urgent situation that we had to reassure the people that wanted to work in our facilities that we’d do whatever we can to make sure that we have accredited institutions, where they can acquire more training. We also want to assure nursing students that they can work in our facilities, regardless of where they are and get accredited.
So in the interest of pursuing and improving our health facilities, we felt that we had to respond immediately. This is not the first time that we’ve done this. We’ve done it in cases where we’ve had fires, where we’ve had emergency situations relating to health and safety.
I regret that the press release may have misinformed some of the members.
At the end of the day it is the government that makes the decisions and the members, at the end, have to approve the budget that we have set aside for this set press release.
I would just ask the Premier in light of that response, I’m not arguing that they needed to be reassuring of people.
Also in that press release and in the Minister of Health’s comments yesterday, it states that nothing is going to happen there until they get re-evaluated in 18 months.
I can say that this will likely happen in 18 months and if we can ask the minister to refer to yesterday’s Hansard to look at that.
If it was such an immediate concern for them and those individuals, basically all this money is going for is hiring staff.
I know that this government in the past has said it has been pressed by regular members about information on stuff that was going to be coming out in the budget and ministers have gone to great lengths to not answer it by saying, “I can’t discuss that because it is going to be coming out in the budget.”
If this is a precedent, I find it hard to understand how this could be such a pressing emergency if it’s something that I agree, I am sure that Mr. Picco, as the Former Health Minister, has gone on the record many times in the past saying that they are chronically under-funded. All of a sudden, now it’s an emergency and they have to have funding.
How can we let it happen to let that information out there when members of this side of the House have been crucified in the past and threatened by not being provided with information?
And yet, the government seems to be able to do it as and when they wish when it really isn’t an emergency.
The Department of Health went out on the record and said it’s not going to change the services at the hospital.
I ask the Premier if he could ask them how they could justify that. I’m not saying that I disagree with it but how did they get a justification for this?
Hon. Paul Okalik: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned that we do have students that we employ and we want them to be fully qualified in their chosen professions. We have a number of nursing students that we are training.
And at the same time, we are always in need of physicians, and sometimes we require interns to assist the physicians. So we want to assure them that we are doing whatever we can, as fast as we can to make sure that the facility that they’ll be working under is accredited and that they will get credited for their further studies, and they’ll be physicians, or nurses, as soon as their terms are done.
So we want to make sure that we provide that additional healthcare with students and make sure that they are qualified at the end of the day during their terms in our facilities, throughout Nunavut.
So we felt that that was urgent, and that the people that are working at the hospital should make plans to implement whatever needs to be done so that the facility that they are working under is fully accredited.
Question 148 – 2(3): Daycare Operations (Barnabas)
Mr. Speaker, in my riding, and in the other communities, I have noticed that the communities are under-funded, and some of the daycares, due to mismanagement, or improper budgeting have run out of funds to heat the buildings. And because of freezing pipes, they have to spend a lot of money to have repairs done.
Of course, the people who are working or going to school have to put their children in the daycare.
(interpretation ends) Can the Minister of Education tell this House how many daycares are operating right now in Nunavut?
Very quickly, there are 45 licensed daycares in Nunavut.
Does the minister have plans to open new daycare centres?
Part of the fundamental shift in education that we talked about over the last year, is, as the minister responsible, I have asked that every new educational facility being built in Nunavut would include in that a dedicated daycare, or childcare space.
At the same time, any major renovations to a school would also contain a dedicated facility for childcare or daycare space.
So, Mr. Speaker, the answer to the member’s question is yes, by incorporating those facilities in new Government of Nunavut assets.