Human Resources Committee on March 7th, 2017

[Marie-Christine Vanier]

It comes to the Kativik Regional Government.

No, it comes to

the Kativik government.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Is it being issued to the province, which then issues it to you?

[Marie-Christine Vanier]

I would like to refer to my office before answering that. I'm not quite sure where it goes beforehand.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

That's okay.

Do you see other funding? I'm just trying to figure out where your sources of funding come from. Is it CMHC, or INAC? Where do you see housing funds coming from?

[Marie-Christine Vanier]

I'm not sure.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Okay.

Moving on to another subject now, we have housing funds, but what about wrap-around services? What kind of wrap-around services are you getting?

[Marie-Christine Vanier]

I don't understand.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

What about wrap-around services? It's great to have a house but what about services like mental health services, learning how to write a resumé, and overall services that help one move forward?

If you have mental health challenges, are there services to address those needs?

[Marie-Christine Vanier]

Yes, there are some initiatives with the health board, I guess.

[Dr. Françoise Bouchard]

The Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services is responsible for providing health services in the area of mental health.

In terms of programs like curriculum vitae writing, and things like that, there are programs that address adult education through the Kativik School Board. At the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services, we are responsible for the planning and delivery of health services regarding mental health issues.

Clearly, this is a big challenge, because in a trans-cultural setting, mental health has to be addressed with the competencies required. Access to specialized services is always an issue. To be able to recruit and retain resources in the north is toujours a challenge at this time. We do not have enough psychologists. We do not necessarily have all the time and resources required to provide those services. Clearly, it is an area that is being addressed right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to cut Dan a little bit short here.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Argh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

The reason is that I had previously asked if anybody else wanted to ask questions and I think we've had some reconsiderations. In the interest in playing nice in the sandbox, we have Nicola next, followed by Pierre. Madam Boutin-Sweet has asked for a brief question as well.

We do not have time for two, let alone three, because I do need five minutes at the end. I'm going to limit the next three questions to three minutes, please, starting with Nicola.

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to greet the witnesses and thank them for being here and for their precious co-operation.

We are talking about a population of 12,000 people with a high birth rate. It is reasonable to assume that families are quite large and have four, five or six people per family. From 2,000 to 3,000 homes were built over a 30-year period. Given the conditions that have been described to us, after 30 years they are outdated or are in very bad shape.

Have you investigated best practices? I will tell you why I am asking you that. It will give you time to think about it.

In the work I used to do, I had the opportunity to travel in the north but I never went, as opposed to you. However, when I saw photographs I thought that those homes were completely inappropriate given the reality of the north—they are even inappropriate to the south. You can imagine the difficulty there is in adapting something to northern realities when we can't even adapt it to southern conditions. However, there are architects and engineers with good brains, artists, people who do manual labour and are very creative.

Have you tried to survey the best practices to design buildings that would be better adapted to the location and conditions as regards their architecture and the materials used?

[Marie-Christine Vanier]

Construction in the north certainly requires specialized materials, given the strong winds and intense cold.

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

That was not my question.

Have you examined the best practices?

[Marie-Christine Vanier]

Not to my knowledge.

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

What prevents you from surveying the best practices in your daily work? You read on this topic and you are in contact daily with people. Why does no one study the best practices? Would it not be a good idea to start doing that today?

[Marie-Christine Vanier]

The KMHB construction team does that, in close co-operation with the Quebec housing authority, the Société d'habitation du Québec, SHQ. The SHQ functionaries have been piloting that file for a long time, in fact since the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. Another interesting initiative is Habiter le nord québécois—living in the Quebec north—a project put together by researcher Geneviève Vachon.

It is a five-year study slated to go from 2015 to 2020. The objective is to have the buildings correspond better to the Inuit way of life and their cultural identity. as well as to the location of Nunavik. Some specialized architectural firms are partners in this study. Partnerships are also created directly with the communities. The researcher goes from community to community with her team. That is what is being done currently.

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

How many houses were built over the past year?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I have to cut you off there. I'm sorry.

Pierre Poilievre, please, for three minutes.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

To revisit something Mr. Ruimy said, he basically proved my point. He said that British Columbia's carbon tax collects over a billion dollars from taxpayers and gives back only $500 million in tax relief. The rest is all in business incentives, which means handouts to interest groups that are able to effectively lobby for that money. That doesn't make it “revenue neutral”, Mr. Chair, just to correct the terminology. “Revenue neutral” doesn't mean that a government spends everything it gets. It's the equivalent of Field of Dreams: “if you send it, we will spend it”.

What we're talking about here is a revenue-generating carbon tax that expands government at the expense of taxpayers, and disproportionately at the expense of low-income rural and remote taxpayers, who are more dependent on fossil fuels for their energy. What we've seen today is more evidence that the increases in those costs disproportionately fall on communities in the north, because they must heat homes in a colder climate and must transport the essentials of life over longer distances.

I put that on the record to correct earlier statements. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

Finally, Madam Boutin-Sweet, please, for the last word.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a very brief question. One of you said that rents increased by 8% per year. What is the reason for that?

[Marie-Christine Vanier]

Those are the rental increases we see every year.