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In the Legislative
Assembly
June
23, 2006
First Air 748: A wing
and a prayer?
Levi
Barnabas, the MLA for Quttiktuq, said that he's worried about the safety of
First Air's aging fleet of Hawker-Siddeley 748 turboprop aircraft. (FILE PHOTO)
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Residents of the High Arctic
found a new reason to grumble about the loss of jet service through Resolute
and Nanisivik, after one of First Air's HS 748 aircraft made an unexpected landing
while flying on one engine.
Last Thursday, June 15,
a First Air flight from Resolute to Iqaluit overflew its regular stop at Nanisivik
because of poor weather. Shortly afterwards an engine indicator lit up.
The pilots, following standard
protocol, switched that motor off and landed at Hall Beach, the nearest airstrip.
Several hours later another
plane arrived and took the passengers to Iqaluit.
That afternoon, Levi Barnabas,
MLA for Quttiktuq, raised the issue in the House and said the Government of
Nunavut isn't doing enough to ensure the safety of airline passengers.
"It is time for the
government to take an action to ensure that airline services to all communities
are safe and reliable. No one in this house wants... the terror and tragedy
of a plane crash," Barnabas said.
The company has been in
the bad books of High Arctic residents ever since it dropped jet service to
Resolute in December.
The route is now flown
with the slower HS 748,which First Air describes as an improvement, because
of an increase in the number of flights from two to four a week.
But High Arctic residents
have complained the smaller planes are often too crowded and end up leaving
passengers behind.
And in February, a First
Air flight was forced to perform an emergency landing in Nanisivik after an
engine failed, which some passengers said caught on fire.
Rick Cran, a communications
officer with First Air, reassured passengers that the planes are safe.
"We comply with the
highest level of standards in our maintenance program," he said. "They're
safe."
The HS 748 is still used
in many countries. Most were manufactured in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s.
June
23, 2006
More flak for Aglukkaq
Members of the legislative
assembly continued to take shots at Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq throughout
the most recent sitting, which ended last week.
Hunter Tootoo, MLA for
Iqaluit Centre, asked Aglukkaq questions about the state of funding to Pairijait
Tigumivik Society, which operates Iqaluit's elders centre as well as the Tammaativvik
medical boarding home.
According to a letter tabled
in the legislature by Tootoo, written by Loseeosee Aipelee, the society's executive
director, the existing boarding home will be too small to serve patients at
the new hospital.
Aipelee also says the elders
society has been consistently underfunded by as much as $200,000 each year for
the services they provide.
"Does the minister
feel that it's right that a non-profit organization should carry the deficit
for providing a service to the government for the Department of Health and Social
Services?" Tootoo asked on Tuesday, June 13.
In response, Aglukkaq said
more than 20 meetings have taken place between her staff and members of the
elders society.
But she said before more
funding is committed, her department needs to be assured the money is being
spent for approved purposes.
"We need to know whether
in fact they are meeting the contract requirements, or providing additional
services outside that may be driving the cost," she said.
"We don't know for
sure at this point in time whether the costs and deficit incurred by the society
is strictly as a result of the services that we've asked them to provide. That
is a concern we have."
James Arreak, MLA for Uqqummuit,
asked Aglukkaq on Tuesday for an update on his long-standing demand for steady,
reliable "core" funding for Clyde River's Ilisaqsivik Society.
Ilisaqsivik provides health
and wellness programs for mothers and children, literacy programs, access to
computers and counseling. It also supports a men's healing group, women's sewing
circle, an elders' group, youth council and Sukkakut, a group for women.
Aglukkaq said that she
is "a strong believer" in what Ilisaqsivik does, but improving its
funding becomes complicated, because the money comes from the federal government,
funneled by the Government of Nunavut.
She said her department
is working on making the process less complicated for Ilisaqsivik and similar
groups around Nunavut.
"I'm trying to come
up with a framework that can be used by other communities around those different
levels of funding government agencies," she said.
And throughout the session
Rankin Inlet MLA Tagak Curley continued to hound Aglukkaq about the number of
nurses in Rankin Inlet. He also said he knew of an elder who was given the wrong
medication because he had no translator.
Aglukkaq said all six registered
nursing positions are filled, and reminded Curley that a new medical travel
policy was on its way.
June
23, 2006
Tapardjuk drops hints
about future
Louis
Tapardjuk, the culture minister, will soon announce where the GN will build
a planned cultural school. (FILE PHOTO)
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Several hints of announcements
and new legislation were made during last week's sitting of the legislature.
This month Louis Tapardjuk
plans to disclose the location of Nunavut's proposed cultural school, he announced
during the leadership review held two weeks ago.
As well, on Tuesday, June
13, Tapardjuk said a draft copy of a new made-in-Nunavut Languages Act would
likely be tabled during the winter session of the legislature this November.
The government has been
working on the new act with Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated and the Office of
the Languages Commissioner.
The government consulted
with Inuit organizations this spring. Consultations in all 26 communities are
planned for this fall, Tapardjuk said.
The act would give Inuktitut
the same status that French and English enjoy in the territory. The existing
act, inherited from the Northwest Territories, requires court decisions, bylaws,
regulations and legislation to be written only in English and French.
June
16, 2006
Kilabuk picked as house speaker
Members of the legislative assembly chose Peter Kilabuk as their new speaker last Friday.
Kilabuk replaces Jobie Nutarak, the MLA for Tunnuniq, who died in a snowmobile accident on April 22.
Earlier on Friday, Nanulik MLA Patterk Netser made a statement in tribute to Nutarak. Netser served as deputy speaker to Nataruk.
“Even though he was a small human being, he left a huge legacy behind,” said Netser.
Members unanimously appointed Kilabuk as speaker. James Arreak, MLA for Uqqummiut, was appointed deputy speaker and chair of the committee of the whole.
Levi Barnabas, MLA for Quttiktuq, was appointed as deputy chair of the committee of the whole, replacing Arreak.
A by-election will be held in Pond Inlet to replace Nutarak on October 16.
June 16, 2006
GN waffles on climate change
The Government of Nunavut continues to be all over the map when it comes to a position on climate change.
Environment Minister Patterk Netser rose in the legislature on Friday, June 9 to praise Sheila Watt-Cloutier, outgoing chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, who continues to win prestigious environmental awards for her climate change campaigns.
“Sheila is a tireless, dedicated advocate for the Arctic and the Inuit. In one of her recent speeches, she said an Inuk hunter out on the ice is a sentinel – a first line of defence and a warning about climate change,” Netser said.
“However, sometimes that sentinel, alone on the ice, needs help and a voice so the rest of the world can hear him. Sheila is that voice,” he said.
But this Monday Netser warned that if environmentalists are successful in classifying polar bears as an endangered species, this will hurt the sports hunt in Nunavut.
Watt-Cloutier herself takes the position that climate change threatens the existence of polar bears. Not Netser.
“Polar bears may be benefiting from climate change,” Netser said on Tuesday, addressing concerns raised by Hudson Bay MLA Peter Kattuk, who said he feared polar bears would move further north as the Arctic continues to experience record-breaking warm temperatures.
During last week’s leadership review, Iqaluit Centre MLA Hunter Tootoo said climate change could destroy a way of life enjoyed by Inuit for thousands of years.
“It’s something we can’t afford not to tackle head on,” he said on Friday.
But Rankin Inlet MLA Tagak Curley said he felt global warming might be a good thing.
“Some of us don’t mind if it gets a little bit warmer in some of the communities, because it’s pretty cold over here in the winter and it’s very hard to keep up with heating bills. And so, a few degrees warmer, it’s perfectly fine with some of us,” he said on Friday. “There are quite a number of people I think who have that same view.”
“There is also wildlife like seals and walrus that enjoy the sunshine,” he added.
June 16, 2006
Cabinet slow to ponder finance “recentralization”
The Government of Nunavut’s cabinet hasn’t decided whether it will follow the advice of Canada’s auditor general to “recentralize” its finance department.
“At this time we’re not sure if we’ll do that. We’re still considering,” said finance minister David Simailak, during the leadership review held last week.
He couldn’t say how long it would take to make that decision.
“It’s something we’ll have to some day consider. I can’t say when, but I can say it’s under consideration,” he said.
However, he did say the finance department continues to experience problems because of its decentralized staff, which are sprawled across several communities.
“The bandwidth is too small, and we have to wait many hours to get financial papers from one community to the other,” he said. “It’s too cumbersome, at this point.”
The legislature will adjourn today. The next sitting begins on November 21.
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