Nunavut MLAs set to start crunching numbers this week

The Nunavut legislative assembly’s fall sitting will start Oct. 21 in Iqaluit, when Finance Minister Keith Peterson is likely to table the Government of Nunavut’s capital budget for 2016-17. When MLAs finish their line-by-line scrutiny of the capital budget, they’ll start their mid-term leadership review of the premier and cabinet’s performance since the 2013 election. It’s not yet clear when that leadership review will start. (FILE PHOTO)

When Nunavut MLAs converge on Iqaluit this week to begin the Legislative Assembly’s 2015 fall sitting on Oct. 21, two items will dominate the agenda: the government’s capital spending priorities for 2016-17, and a mid-term leadership review.

“The main order of business will be the capital budget estimates for the next fiscal year,” John Quirke, the assembly’s veteran clerk, told Nunatsiaq News.

The government’s capital budget — which authorizes money to pay for new or improved buildings, infrastructure and equipment — is usually passed in the fall to give contractors enough time to bid on tenders and prepare for the following year’s sealift season.

Finance Minister Keith Peterson is expected to table the government’s estimates, department-by-department, on the first day of the sitting.

After that, MLAs will go through the budget line-by-line in committee of the whole.

Last year, the Government of Nunavut’s capital budget estimates totalled $205.6-million, over a third of which was earmarked for Iqaluit’s airport project: $77.26-million.

The next biggest capital spending estimates from last year belonged to the education department ($37.8 million,) the Nunavut Housing Corp. ($30 million,) the Department of Community and Government Services ($27.9 million) and the health department ($17.1 million.)

Once MLAs have gone through the estimates and dealt with anything else brought up in the assembly, Quirke said the midterm leadership review will begin.

“The start date is a moving target right now, depending on how the house business proceeds in the next few weeks,” he said.

The mid-term leadership review provides regular MLAs a chance to question the premier and his ministers about the work they’ve done during the first two years of their four-year term.

It also gives the public a chance to hear those questions, along with the ministers’ answers.

Quirke said that, as was the case in previous years, regular members will have to limit their questions to either a set number or a set time-period.

But Quirke said those specifics have yet to be decided.

Before the leadership review begins, Quirke said other pieces of business MLAs are likely to talk about include:

• documents to be reviewed by committee of the whole, including the annual report on poverty reduction;

• the justice minister’s response to a standing committee’s review of the Auditor General’s report on Nunavut’s correctional facilities;

• standing committee reports on Nunavut Tourism, the Nunavut Development Corp., Nunavut’s Privacy and Information Commissioner and the Nunavut Business Credit Corp; and,

• amendments to the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act, the Languages Act, the Elections Act and the Plebiscite Act.

This sitting of the assembly, which is the third session of the fourth assembly, will also include a ceremony honouring the most recent appointments to the Order of Nunavut:

• veteran politician Tagak Curley;

• the retired Roman Catholic missionary Robert Lechat; and,

• the former MLA and founding president of Arctic Co-operatives Ltd., Bill Lyall.

The newly sworn-in commissioner, Nellie Kusugak, will preside over an Order of Nunavut investiture ceremony Oct. 29, Quirke said.

This session is scheduled until Nov. 10, Quirke said, but may finish sooner.