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Nunavut MLAs mark more than 1,000 days in office

"We swore our oath on what seems to be a very distant spring morning"

PATRICIA D’SOUZA

When MLAs and cabinet ministers gathered for the fifth sitting of the Nunavut legislative assembly on Feb. 20, they faced a crowd of onlookers packed into the assembly chambers in Iqaluit.

The assembly will sit no later than March 7, in order to accommodate Arctic Winter Games participants, who will begin descending on the city in mid-March.

"The members of this house have now been in office for over 1,000 days since we swore our oath on what seems to be a very distant spring morning in the final year of the 20th century," Iqaluit Centre MLA Hunter Tootoo told the assembly on the first day of sitting.

"As we look forward to the final two years of our mandate, we must ask ourselves a question. Have we remained true to the trust the people placed in us when they elected us to the first Legislative Assembly in Nunavut?"

Among the proposed new laws expected to be introduced and discussed in the house during its current sitting are a new Education Act, and new versions of the Hamlets Act and the Cities, Towns and Villages Act.

Ng introduces MLA pension enrichment bill

Government House Leader Kelvin Ng quietly introduced legislation into the House on Feb. 27 that’s intended to enrich MLA’s pension plans.

Ng asked the assembly to give third reading to Bill 21, the Supplementary Retiring Allowances Act and Bill 23, an act to amend the Legislative Assembly Retiring Allowances Act.

According to documents obtained by Nunatsiaq News, MLAs have been pondering three options for boosting the monthly pension payments they would be eligible for upon retirement. The subject has been under discussion in behind-closed-doors caucus meetings since the middle of 2001.

Right now, MLAs who complete just one four-year term are eligible for a reduced monthly pension if they are defeated or decide not to run for office again.

MLAs were considering the new pension legislation as Nunatsiaq News went to press this week.

Finance bills pass second reading

Finance Minister Kelvin Ng submitted Bill 20, the Interim Appropriation Act, for first and second readings and Bill 19, the Supplementary Appropriation Act, for second reading this week.

The interim figure of $169.3 million covers operations and maintenance from April 1 until June 30 — from the end of the fiscal year until the introduction of the new budget this spring.

The supplementary figure, the third non-budgeted amount to go before the House, includes $2.4 million in operations and maintenance costs and $200,000 in capital expenses by the department of finance.

Both bills have been referred to the committee of the whole.

GN makes advance payment to Horne victims

Included in the supplementary amounts of Bill 19 was $443,000 to the victims of convicted child molester Ed Horne.

Finance Minister Kelvin Ng said an agreement was made through an alternate dispute resolution process to pay a total of $1 million to a group of victims. Since the litigation began before division, the government of the Northwest Territories is paying 55.66 per cent of the cost, while the GN is paying 44.43 per cent.

"This is an advance payment in a gesture of good will and it’s expected that there will be some significantly additional liability as the result of future settlements," Ng said. "So this is really just a, I guess if you want to look at it as an advance down payment on potential future payments."

In January, 2001, 49 men from Sanikiluaq, Cape Dorset and Iqaluit filed a lawsuit against the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, alleging that the territorial government failed in its duty to protect them from sexual abuse, and failed to ensure that they received adequate care after the abuse was disclosed.

The suit was filed on their behalf by lawyer Geoffrey Budden of Mount Pearl, Nfld., and New Jersey lawyer Stephen Rubino.

Housing Minister promises new units

Housing Minister Kelvin Ng announced that 26 new housing units are planned to be built this summer.

Funding for the project comes from the new Affordable Housing Program, a joint effort between Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the GN.

The new units are in addition to 52 units announced last fall. In total, the Nunavut Housing Corporation will build 78 units in 2002-3.

Gun forms hard to fill out if you can’t read

Akulliq MLA Ovide Alakannuark told Justice Minister and Premier Paul Okalik that many gun owners in the territory are having difficulty with the new federal gun registration forms.

"The forms are not in Inuktitut," he said. "And they’re very hard to fill out if you can’t read."

Okalik said he had recently spoken to his federal counterpart, Martin Cauchon. The federal government is responsible for the gun registration forms, since the law falls under federal jurisdiction. "We’ll keep talking to the federal government," Okalik said. "We’ll be in meetings with the feds again soon."

Speaker rules on private correspondence

Arviat MLA Kevin O’Brien, the speaker of the legislative assembly, ruled that an anonymous e-mail quoted by Finance Minister Kelvin Ng during the last sitting of the assembly in Cambridge Bay could be tabled only with the names of the source and recipients disclosed.

The e-mail related to a strike last year by government of Nunavut workers and suggested that the union was intimidating employees.

"It is not known how the document came to be in the possession of the minister," O’Brien said. "I have considered the implications of pursuing the issue and have concluded that there is no reason for doing so in this instance."

Funding first, action later

Nattilik MLA Uriash Puqiqnak questioned the new minister of culture, language, elders and youth, Jack Anawak, about his immediate priorities for the protection of Inuktitut.

"I would like to ask the minister what specific things his department plans to do in the next six months to strengthen Inuktitut in the Kitikmeot communities — especially the Kitikmeot communities," Puqiqnak said.

Anawak told the house of his recent discussions with federal Heritage Minister Sheila Copps to get more funding to preserve Inuktitut, but he could not describe his immediate language plans.

"For the next six months," Anawak said, "I can’t really identify what we are going to be doing to promote or strengthen Inuktitut, but we know the funding from the federal government for languages is not enough compared to funds for French language services."

He added that he will be working with Eva Aariak, the language commissioner, and Peter Kilabuk, the minister of education, to speed up work being done on the Official Languages Act.

Puquqnak pressed on: "What can be done within the government of Nunavut to train more professional translators?" he asked.

Anawak replied that the department has not progressed beyond the discussion stage, though it has been trying to promote broader use of Inuktitut. "We encourage departments and other organizations to produce documents in Inuktitut that will have to be translated into English," he said. "So that is one way of encouraging training within Nunavut."

Photo ID cards ready soon

Although her department’s plans to supply photo ID cards to Nunavummiut have been known for several months, Manitok Thompson, the new minister of community government and transportation, formally announced them this week.

Thompsons said that "in the near future" all Nunavummiut may get photo ID cards at Motor Vehicle offices around Nunavut.

"With the support of my cabinet colleagues, I am pleased to announce that the first card will be issued free of charge," Thompson said.

The new piece of personal documentation will be called the "General Nunavut Identification Card."

Housing minister promises rent scale review by April 1

Uqqummiut MLA David Iqaqrialu asked the new minister of housing, Kelvin Ng, about his department’s plans for a rent scale review.

"Some people pay rent from the money that they get from their employment and some get a full subsidy," Iqaqrialu said. "Even though there is the same rental scale, there are some people treated differently than others."

Ng said that the department has met twice on the issue: once in March 2001 and again in October 2001. "The target date is, quite frankly, April 1, 2002," he said. "The target dates on trying to implement any changes for that would obviously be before the major fall construction schedule, sealift schedule."

Miles of piles across Nunavut

Baker Lake MLA Glenn McLean pressed on with the housing minister, asking Kelvin Ng if his department would consider asking contractors submitting bids for public housing units to estimate the cost of using gravel pads and wedges instead of piles.

"A lot of the local small contractors like the idea of the pads and wedges over piles because it is no secret that there are one or two major piling companies in Nunavut," McLean said.

"I know by talking to contractors in the Kivalliq region that you can save upward from $10,000 to $20,000 per unit by not going on steel piles on public housing units. If you use pads and wedges, you may save that over 30 to 40 units. You are looking at maybe $300,000 to $400,000 that you could deliver in a community."

Ng seemed agreeable to the request and promised to look into it. "Yes, we will take a look at whether or not this is feasible and proceed based on that evaluation," he said.

High turnover rate "expensive" for government

Hunter Tootoo took the new human resources minister, Peter Kilabuk, to task for the high employee turnover rate within government.

"I would like to ask the minister if he would agree that having a very high turnover rate within the public service isn’t good for the government insofar as it adds additional costs as far as advertising, interviews and the cost of removals," Tootoo said.

Kilabuk agreed with Tootoo, but said he did not have specific numbers. "I apologize, but I don’t have the statistics in front of me in regards to the casual labour that has to replace the people that have been removed," he said. "And, yes, it is expensive."

He later corrected himself, saying he did have the numbers, they just weren’t in front of him. "I apologize. I do have the numbers, but I don’t have the statistics here with me." He agreed to have his department compile the figures by department and by year.

Tootoo cited the public service report for the years 1999-2000 and 2000-1, tabled on the last day of the assembly’s last sitting. "It talks about the fact that data collection on workplace profiles hasn’t been a priority of this government and tracking information like the information that I have been asking about on turnover rates," he said.

Kilabuk said the department has been developing a proposal to look at collecting human resources data, to which Tootoo replied that the data collection system was to have been put in place a year ago. "The minister’s predecessor has indicated in the past that the department was developing a new human resources management system. He indicated, I believe, it was supposed to be ready last March or April," Tootoo said.

"Boy, it must take an awful long time to develop a human resource system," he added.

Minister admits education standards low in Nunavut

Peter Kilabuk also became the target of Rebekah Williams, who asked him about the standard of education in Nunavut. "Does the minister agree that the education standards in Nunavut are lower than other Canadian standards?" she asked.

Kilabuk said that they were, indeed, lower. "I don’t like to say that the education level is lower in Nunavut, but the Inuktitut language curriculum is the highest priority in Nunavut."

In a members statement, Kilabuk said that the number of high school graduates decreased to 128 students in June 2001, from 136 students the previous year.

Williams asked the minister to provide the number of graduates who went on to continue their education, but Kilabuk said he would be unable to provide a figure. "We can identify the numbers that we have funded, it is possible to do that, but we might not have all the numbers through," he said.

High cost of hired-gun nurses

Hunter Tootoo asked Health Minister Ed Picco what steps his department had taken to reduce its use of high-priced "hired-gun" nurses from agencies in the south. "To my understanding," Tootoo said, "it was just over $2 million in this fiscal year up to the end of November that it has cost the department for agency nurses."

Picco gave as an example, the situation in the Baffin region. There are 63 full-time nurses in the region, he said, and six short-term contracts. The region also has seven casual nurses, brought in on a temporary basis, and five agency nurses.

The Kivalliq region has six agency nurses, and the Kitikmeot region has nine, for a total of 20 agency nurses in the territory.

"I would like to be able to get that number down to none, but being realistic, we need at the same time to be able to fill positions in communities," Picco said.

Tootoo was undeterred. "If you divide that [20 agency nurses] into just over $2 million, that’s a pretty hefty salary for nurses."

The money, Picco explained, pays for the nursing agency’s fee — $90.10 per day according to a letter sent to Tootoo by Picco and tabled in the assembly — plus the cost of transporting them to the community.

The department has paid more than $2.2 million for agency nurses this year, according to Picco’s letter. "I would rather pay that money to an agency nurse to have someone in the community who’s qualified than to have no one there," he said.

GN lags behind on goals for Inuit employment

Amittuq MLA Enoki Irqittuq grilled Peter Kilabuk on the percentage of Inuit employees within the GN. "With the new government, what was the percentage of Inuit that were expected to be working in the government by this time?" he asked.

The goal is 85 per cent, the human resources minister said. In a minister’s statement, Kilabuk presented current staffing figures to the assembly. On Sept. 30, beneficiaries occupied 924 of 2,212 positions, or 42 per cent.

"My suggestion was that perhaps the policies dealing with the public service would have to be amended first before more Inuit can be hired," Irqittuq said.

Kilabuk addressed the issue of policy review in his statement. "We have extended the priority hiring policy for another five years," he said. "We are also developing a comprehensive Inuit employment implementation plan."

However, he did not elaborate on what the review would entail or when it would be complete.

Action required on problem grizzlies

Akulliq MLA Ovide Alakannuark was tough on Sustainable Development Minister Olayuk Akesuk for his department’s attention to grizzly bears.

"Do you have any plans for the re-sale or usage of the hides of grizzly bears? Do you have anything planned for the future other than confiscating the hides?" Alakannuark asked.

There is no monitored grizzly bear hunt, as there is for polar bears. Hunters shoot the bears when they become a nuisance in communities, but must submit the hide for study.

"We are currently working on the issue and we are in the first stage of planning in the Keewatin and the Kitikmeot region," Akesuk said.

Alakannuark pursued the line of questioning. "In regards to problem bears and their ransacking the caches, sheds and so on, what kind of compensation will we see for damages done by bears?"

"We will have to do a thorough study first of all," the minister said. "I think there is a blanket policy to cover damage to property.

Rankin school goes solar

Sustainable Development Minister Olayuk Akesuk told MLAs in a minister’s statement about an environmentally friendly energy project being installed in Rankin Inlet.

A solar wall being installed in Alaittuq School will preheat fresh air before it is drawn into the building’s heating system. As a result, less fuel will be needed to heat the building.

The joint project between the departments of sustainable development, public works and education, as well as Natural Resources Canada, will be tested for about three years. Organizers expect that it will reduce fuel consumption by 12,000 litres per year, which could save the school about $10,000 a year.

"Environmentally, using less fuel at the school means significantly less emission of air pollutants, particularly those attributed to causing climate change," Akesuk said.

Panel completes Workers’ Compensation review

Kelvin Ng, the minister responsible for the Workers’ Compensation Board, tabled the report of the Workers’ Compensation Legislative Review Panel, called Act Now.

The panel, made up of representatives of Nunavut and Northwest Territories, began reviewing the Workers’ Compensation Acts, and Safety Acts of both territories in Feb. 2001.

The report contains several recommendations to improve on the current Workers’ Compensation Regime, and provides definitions of the terms worker, employer and independent operator.

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