Friday, June 26, 1998
Const. Anna Marie Mallard, a modest woman, is probably tired of hearing about what a wonderful member of the RCMP she is. Last week she was named officer of the year by the Yellowknife's Law Enforcement Advocacy Program and that wasn't the end of the praise.
But we hope she doesn't mind one last word about her good work. Too often police officers are not given the respect they deserve for doing a job that not too many of us would welcome. Recognizing outstanding individuals in the field can only improve public-police relations.
So, way to go Const. Mallard. You have reminded us that police don't just protect our community, they are very much a part of it.
The stage is set ... well, almost set, for the upcoming Folk on the Rocks music festival set for July 18 and 19. And like the barn-raisings of our southern ancestors, Yellowknifers are pulling together to bring to life the innovative and Northern design of community architect Simon Taylor.
The efforts of Dave Ritchie, who took two weeks off work, Ray Simon and his YCC crew and the Steelworkers, who have coughed up some a welder and laborer, as well as the many Yellowknife businesses are proving that the city has what it takes to get this $90,000 work of art ready.
But with only three weeks to go, they still need your help. So if you're handy with a hammer, give the festival office a call. Who knows? You may have fun.
The proposal for an Inuvik co-op store and tonight's Mackenzie Hotel audio-link to a Canadian Radio/Television and Telecommunications Commission hearing in Iqaluit have one thing in common.
Both involve virtual monopolies about to be broken.
One difference lies in how Inuvik's current Northern Store exclusively supplies residents, while NorthwesTel services the entire North.
The root to keeping a monopoly, however, is charging what the market will bear.
The Northwest Company head office in Winnipeg could not give Inuvik Northern Store profits by deadline, but many people around town talk of the store "gauging" and charging more than it needs to.
One elder told me she gets upset every time she goes to buy groceries.
A simple maxim is: the market abhors profit.
Whenever business makes high profits, competitors fill the void to offer the same service at slightly lower rates to steal the customer base.
The process continues until customers get the lowest viable price.
With the feasibility study, Arctic Co-operatives Ltd. is showing a new large grocery store in Inuvik is at least worth looking into.
The telephone monopoly is more complicated.
NorthwesTel recently spent half a million dollars to provide phone service for 17 customers in Jean Marie River -- an investment they will never recoup exclusively from people in that community.
They did it not through altruism, but because they can charge exorbitant per-minute long-distance rates while being protected by the governing CRTC.
NorthwesTel posted a $12.1 million 1996 profit, for example, while last year's newly acquired cable subscribers ate most of their profit so they only made $1.4 million.
The CRTC is now hearing feedback on how important phone service is in remote communities before it decides whether to subsidize NorthwesTel with money from a fund various southern phone companies will be forced to contribute to.
Southern phone companies can then compete for long-distance service.
So, with telephone service, competition is coming at a graduated and progressive pace to ensure all people in even the most remote areas retain needed service.
The Northern Store's only hope to retain its monopoly might be to immediately drop prices to convince co-op investigators there is no way a co-op could compete.
The frustration expressed by a letter writer in today's Yellowknifer's editorial page is understandable.
The writer is upset that the secret meeting fallout carries on even after the practice has stopped and some of the key people involved have moved away.
The present council is also caught in the middle. They are being asked to pay for putting a legal stamp on what most aldermen already did by keeping their election promise to end secret meetings.
But whatever the cost and frustrations, the secretive ways of city hall had to stop. When the city was expanding by leaps and bounds, council was able to operate without much public scrutiny. How else could the city finance director have fallen into debt to the city for hundreds of thousands of dollars?
Instead, bad information and expensive decisions were simply smoothed over by new tax money and secrecy.
Now money is tight and the most efficient city government is an open city government, with free exchange of information and public discussion. The onus is on council to open city hall up further and resist the bad practices that have become 'the way things are done.'
Already we have Mayor Dave Lovell telling council they cannot share information with the public. Lovell also refused Ald. Kevin O'Reilly's request to set up a meeting between a city lawyer and council after former administrator Doug Lagore was designated the city's representative for the secret meetings court case.
Lovell has shown he lacks any leadership ability whatsoever. His main quality is unquestioning allegiance and he will back city hall to the bitter end right or wrong, at the expense of the voters.
It will be up to councillors to keep city hall honest as some of them are now doing.
Asking the hard questions in public and demanding the answers be made public is not an attack on city hall nor the integrity of the staff, it is the way democratic government works best.