Evidence of meeting #39 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was training.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
I think Ms. House wanted to get in on that same line of questioning if she could.
There's still time, so go ahead.
Executive Director, Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association
I just wanted to let you know that when you're bringing people together for a meeting such as development for board members or training for managers or whatever, the cost of one meeting in the territory here is upwards of $60,000 for a three-day meeting.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Right. There's also another question that I really want to ask. We did hear from the broadband folks here. Is there an ability to use video conferencing here in the communities across the north?
President, Nunavut Arctic College
The health and social services department has a telehealth channel. A lot of investment is being put into improving that, the basic services here, but as the lady at the end pointed out, it's not always well received in the south.
On the comment I made about looking at your own costs here, I should say to look at your own costs here and double that, because you only came from Ottawa. Try coming down from Grise Fiord.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
No, I understand that the costs are enormous. I'm just trying to figure out whether in fact there are other opportunities--
President, Nunavut Arctic College
Telehealth is here and other opportunities are here, but they need improvement.
Conservative
Chief Executive Officer, Nunavut Tourism
There are not a lot of public video conferencing facilities in communities. There is one here in Iqualuit that the chamber of commerce has, and they will rent it out to people, but in a lot of the communities there are no facilities because you can't use the telehealth facility for public things. Even in Rankin and Cambridge Bay the facilities do not exist. The cost to put them in is really high and the broadband width is not there.
We even have a problem with the broadband width in regard to some of our members having websites and being able to market themselves and participate in what is sort of the e-economy--that's how every one is doing tourism research--and they cannot function that way because the capacity is not there.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
I understand the capacity is going to be increased in the next couple of weeks, so that will certainly benefit the various communities in the north.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
Very good, Mr. Payne.
Thank you very much.
That will conclude our meeting for this panel and for the day. Before we wrap up, there are just a couple of things I wanted to go over.
One is that, as you can probably imagine and as was alluded to earlier in our discussions, it is quite an undertaking to come here for a two-day meeting. That's particularly true of our committee because we have to bring all this paraphernalia with us. So there's a team that supports us here while we're on the road, certainly here in Iqaluit but also last week in Yellowknife and in Whitehorse. We had almost the same number of staff members supporting us as MPs. So I don't know what you take from that, but I can tell you it is a wonderful team and I wanted to just send my thanks.
In addition to our Inuktitut interpreters today we had a team here from AVW-TELAV, Chris Ferris and Gerry Saumur. They do work after we're gone and they pack up all the stuff.
We also had our interpreters--it took three interpreters to do all of our French and English interpretation--and they included Josée Beaudoin, Carol Card, and Annie-Joëlle Tailleur.
We also had a team here, and I mentioned them earlier today, the proceedings and verification officers, to do the transcription. That was done by Anna Joynt and Stéphane Monfils.
We also have a logistics officer, someone who actually does all the planning. She was out here by the entrance door here today, and that was Julie Geoffrion. Julie is at the back there.
Last but not least are the two gentlemen who sit on either side of me here. Mr. James Gauthier is the research analyst. He prepares all of the documents that go into our briefing materials ahead of time. And the clerk of our committee is Graeme Truelove, who sits to my left here.
So that's the whole team that puts this together, and I can tell you, and on behalf of all the members of Parliament, we sure appreciate the work that they do.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
As just an administrative item, we have a site visit tomorrow to Nunavut Arctic College. We'll be going there in the morning.
The 39th meeting of the standing committee is adjourned.
Thank you.