Features

Statistics Canada has revealed that the Northwest Territories is losing people, even if ever so slightly. This is not good news for Yellowknife.

While those numbers are being questioned by territorial statisticians, who argue that Stats Can missed some NWT residents during the 2001 census, it's unlikely the margin of error is so great that our territory would be nipping at the heels of Canada's fastest growing provinces: Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

With the NWT's hot economy, we have to ask why that's the case. The resurgence of the mining industry has attracted many workers to the territory, but some of them are not planting roots.

This is felt here in Yellowknife, where the city isn't realizing additional revenue to support the services it must provide to residents.

Therefore the GNWT should take stern measures to ensure there is incentive for workers to settle in the territory, rather than to fly-in and fly-out of work camps that are larger than some NWT communities.

The idea of a one per cent payroll tax on employees who work more than 50 per cent of the time in the NWT was introduced in 1993. It was increased to two per cent in 2005.

Those who reside here and file taxes here have the taxes fully refunded if they make less than $60,000 a year, so it's designed to wrangle dollars from higher-income and transient workers.

The numbers from Statistics Canada show us that the payroll tax isn't an effective mechanism for encouraging employees to stay. It's time for the GNWT to look at more convincing options to encourage out-of-territory workers to make their homes here.

It's been a long, slow haul, but the concept of recycling has taken hold in the NWT and Yellowknife has led the way.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources announced in December that the territory had reached the 50 million mark in containers collected. The percentage of people who drop their containers in a large recycle bin or redeem them at a depot at 10 or 25 cents apiece has climbed to 82 per cent. The best part is that consumers are covering the costs of having the recyclable items shipped south for processing via deposits and surcharges. It's not costing the government anything.

The volumes are rather impressive for a relatively small population: 387 tonnes of aluminum, 239 tonnes of plastic and 35 tonnes of juice boxes salvaged since 2005.

There's still room for improvement, however. We should strive to increase the recovery rate and broaden what we set aside for recycling purposes, saving our landfills from being cluttered and finite resources from going to waste.

The leadership of the Dehcho First Nations have a difficult decision ahead of them.

The decision concerns the future of Grand Chief Herb Norwegian's role in the Dehcho First Nations (DFN).

Norwegian pleaded guilty to a charge of assault in territorial court on Dec. 11 and was subsequently convicted.

The charge arose from an incident on Nov. 11, 2007, and involved a woman. According to court records the assault involved a backhanded slap across the victim's face.

When Norwegian appeared in court in Fort Simpson he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one day in jail, 50 hours of community service and six months of probation.

While Norwegian's court case has finished, the ramifications of the conviction are just beginning to ripple out across the Deh Cho.

On Dec. 13 a teleconference call was held where chiefs and elders of the Dehcho First Nations discussed what their next step would be. A subsequent teleconference call on Dec. 17 has lead to the calling of a special assembly to discuss and review Norwegian's leadership.

As leaders prepare for the assembly that will be held at the end of January they have to dwell on some heavy topics. The question for the leadership is how his conviction affects Norwegian's position as grand chief. Should Norwegian be allowed to continue in his role?

At the core of this issue is the question of what criteria a chief or grand chief has to be measured against.

Everyone knows that being a leader can be a difficult role.

The difficulties of the position narrow down the number of people who want to hold it.

What standards should the remaining candidates be held to? If Norwegian is allowed to continue as grand chief what kind of message will be sent out to the membership? Is assaulting someone permissible behaviour?

If an example is not set in this case what other actions will the leadership be willing to accept in a grand chief? Where will the line be drawn?

The same question will arise if the leadership punishes Norwegian. If assault isn't all right what other crimes will bar a person from being a leader?

There is then the question of how many people will be left with clean enough histories if a list is created.

In making their decision the leadership will have to be very aware of the precedent they are setting. Once they open the door on the behaviour and history of chiefs they'd better know how far it will be allowed to swing either way.

Setting out a clear set of criteria for both chiefs and grand chiefs across the Deh Cho would be beneficial. The criteria would serve to warn people about the actions that would bar their advancement in leadership and may make potential candidates think twice in the future.

I walked into Samuel Hearne on Friday afternoon only expecting a good entertaining hockey game. Instead, I got a lot more from my visit.

A group of Grade 10 students were in the library with the Turtle Concepts group. I eased my way into the corner of the room so I could watch what was going on.

From the first few minutes, I could recognize that something unique was going on.

A complete stranger to our school and community was encouraging our youth to speak to one another about compliments.

At first, the compliments seemed to fall on deaf ears, but once the trust was built, it wasn't too long before people were laughing with each other and smiling.

Seeing all this positive re-enforcement of these students was different for me. They all broke character and showed this writer that there is hope for the young people in our town.

If the older generations of our community had workshops like this one, I'm sure that things would be different.

Not to say that the school was an overly-negative place to begin with, but we can't deny a problem when it looks us right in the face and asks for our lunch money.

Bullying isn't limited to the confines of the school yard. Each and every day we are faced with challenges from our peers. Peer pressure is one of the simplest forms of bullying.

Students released their inner-most emotions and shared their common fears with each other.

Even the staff were given a lecture about youth in society today. After talking with a few members of the faculty, I'd say that whole school took a good lesson from their guests last week.

The week-long battery of discussions and presentations paid off in ways that we won't recognize until years from now.

With each session, more and more youth were able to break free of the chains of limited emotions that have held down generations of people in this community.

Turtle Concepts really showed Samuel Hearne a thing or two about self healing.

You can only be healthy from within, once you can let go of the hate you have for the people around you.

Students were urged to talk with each other about their negative emotions. Somehow, that man and his concepts about a healthy life changed the usual library into a room of change.

I've been through that school and remember some of the past troubles I had with my peers there.

Granted I probably didn't make it easy for some to like me, but there was always someone who felt the need to pick on me for some reason.

I grew to resent some of the people in my life. Having bad feelings like that is not something that is easy to admit, but I have learned to let go and take them at face value.

Like Dave told me, you have to accept people for what they are, not for what they have done.

If a bully has made your life miserable, don't hold that against them, instead, embrace the good things going for them.

Demonstrate that it's worth it to change your life in a positive way.

While we dislike ending the year on an off note, the situation at the Nunavut Business Credit Corp. has become so surreal, it's simply impossible to ignore.

In fact, the debacle has transcended being an embarrassment to the Government of Nunavut (GN) to become a downright threat to its credibility.

Who would have thought we'd ever see the day when former prime minister Brian Mulroney and former Nunavut finance minister David Simailak would have so much in common?

Yet here we are, listening to them claim ignorance and serious errors of judgment concerning large amounts of money they were both responsible for overseeing.

At least Simailak wasn't receiving large amounts of money in a gym bag from a shady character in a cheap motel room.

That was probably small consolation to Simailak as he tendered his resignation to Premier Paul Okalik this past week – a move the former minister had little choice in making.

But the script to this dime-store novel doesn't end there.

Nunavummiut can prepare themselves for more excuses, I mean explanations from the powers that be, when the acting chief-executive officer (CEO) of the Nunavut Business Credit Corp. steps up to face fraud charges levied against him during his time working with Eskimo Point Lumber Supply in Arviat.

In fact, Allan McDowell was hired to his position as acting CEO of the credit corp. despite the fact the Arviat charges were already on the books against him.

After a few adjournments and a failure to appear, McDowell will finally stand before the bench in Arviat on Jan. 28.

You can't mop floors for the GN if you have a criminal record, but that same standard doesn't seem to apply to being a member of the assembly or being put in charge of millions of dollars.

So, the GN's crack Human Resources department hires a CEO who allegedly defrauded Eskimo Point Lumber Supply, and stole cheques and a laptop from his Arviat employer in 2005.

Now, make no mistake about it, everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

But is this the kind of resume that usually lands a person a CEO's position in a Crown corporation?

Do high-powered executives not have to supply references like those of us who work for a living?

More to the point, does anyone in this government actually read resumes or bother to check references?

It couldn't possibly be the same person in charge of reading the credit corp.'s monthly financial statements for the past few years, could it?

The job of cleaning up the mess exposed by auditor general Sheila Fraser now falls to new Finance Minister Louis Tapardjuk, and we don't envy him the task.

But, on the bright side, if countless hours in the office working on the matter begin to bring him down, Tapardjuk can always go home and watch reruns of the Brian and David Show to brighten up his dreary days.

And he even has a new episode to look forward to on Jan. 28.

Now, heeerrrre's Allan!