Nunavut MLAs start their winter migration to Iqaluit

John Quirke, clerk of the legislative assembly, says budget discussions will dominate the upcoming winter sitting of the assembly, which begins Feb. 24. (FILE PHOTO)

If you want to know what your Nunavut MLA will be doing for three weeks starting next Tuesday, just think of pages and pages of numbers.

The Government of Nunavut will present its operation and maintenance budget estimates for the 2015-2016 fiscal year after the territory’s legislative assembly’s first sitting of 2015 gets underway in Iqaluit Feb. 24.

It’s a continuation of the fourth legislative assembly’s second session, which began March 20, 2014 with a commissioner’s address, the equivalent of a speech from the throne.

MLAs will welcome the new member for Uqqummiut — Pauloosie Keyootak — Feb. 24, at the start of winter sitting. He’ll take his oath of office at a ceremony to be held that morning.

Finance minister Keith Peterson is expected give his budget speech and to table the budget in the legislature Feb. 25, just after 1:30 p.m.

“This is basically our main budget session,” said John Quirke, the clerk of the assembly. “Operational and maintenance estimates for the whole government will be before the house for the fiscal year 2015-2016.”

“There will also be some supplementary budget estimates, and bills coming forward at the same time. But the main purpose here is the main estimates,” he said.

Last year’s main estimates provided for nearly $1.4 billion in spending, with 22 per cent of the budget going to the health department, 16 per cent going to community and government services, and 13 per cent going to education — the three departments that eat up the biggest chunks of GN money.

According to last year’s budget, 90 per cent of the GN’s revenues came from Ottawa and 10 per cent was generated within the territory through personal and corporate income tax, the payroll tax, the tobacco tax, the sale of fuel, Liquor Commission sales, and other small sources of revenue.

After Peterson tables the budget, the assembly will proceed to committee of the whole sessions, Quirke said. That’s where MLAs will pore over each department’s budget, line by line.

“Normally, the practice is [that] we start off with the largest department and work our way down,” Quirke said.

“Right now, I believe the largest department — so the first one on the block — would be the health department.”

The GN’s health department took multiple beatings during the last sitting of the assembly which took place in October and November 2014.

A nursing scandal erupted when CBC published a story alleging that the government’s mishandling of repeated complaints against a Cape Dorset nurse put the entire community’s health and safety at risk.

Monica Ell, who was minister of the health department at the time, called for an external independent review of the case “immediately”.

That wasn’t the only issue Ell had to respond to.

The MLA from Gjoa Haven decried a shortage of nurses in his community; the Hudson Bay MLA told the story of a Sanikiluaq man, forced to seek medical treatment outside of territory, who was pressured by the GN to revoke his Nunavut residency; and the Baker Lake MLA who confronted the minister with numerous constituents’ complaints about the Kivalliq patient boarding home in Winnipeg.

Shortly after that sitting of the assembly, Premier Peter Taptuna shuffled his cabinet, putting Iqaluit Sinaa Paul Okalik in charge of the battered health department, and moving Ell to economic development and transportation.

At the same time, George Kuksuk, the MLA for Arviat North-Whale Cove, was shuffled out of ED&T and into the much smaller, lower profile department of Culture and Heritage.

In addition to reviewing the operational and maintenance budget for the upcoming fiscal year, Quirke said four bills introduced in October will be scrutinized by standing committees during the winter 2015 session:

• Bill 1, the Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Plan Act, which deals largely with the management of the pension fund used by many government employees;

• Bill 11, an act to amend the Corrections Act;

• Bill 12, an act to amend the Tobacco Tax Act; and,

• Bill 13, an act to amend the Vital Statistics Act.

“If everything goes well with the review of those four bills, they should be brought back into the house for committee of the whole consideration,” Quirke said.

The Auditor General of Canada is expected to table a report on corrections as well, Quirke added, which, like other audit reports, is likely to make headlines in the upcoming session.

“We know that the Auditor General is tabling similar reports in the Yukon and [the Northwest Territories],” Quirke said.

Also, four reports submitted during the last legislative session must get a response from members within 120 days, Quirke said, according to assembly rules. The territorial government has already requested a 30-day extension to respond to one of those reports, a reaction to the Auditor General’s report on the department of Child and Family Services.

The other three reports awaiting response from the GN are:

• the annual report of the Information and Privacy Commissioner;

• the annual report of the Languages Commissioner; and,

• the annual report and corporate plan of the Qulliq Energy Corp.

The new Uqqummiut MLA will be sworn in during a ceremony at 9 a.m., Feb. 24.

Keyootak, whose riding includes the communities of Qikiqtarjuaq and Clyde River, won a byelection earlier this month after the constituency’s previous MLA, Samuel Nuqingaq, was booted from the legislature last October.

The legislature’s winter 2015 sitting is scheduled to run until March 17.