Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

If you found yourself daydreaming about future shopping adventures upon reading last Wednesday's Yellowknifer story about the new uptown mall, you're probably not alone.

Center Ice Plaza, a 45,000 square-foot property owned by Polar Developments, is scheduled to open this summer.

It has space for 10 retail shops, three kiosks, and it includes a big roomy courtyard to boot.

That sucking sound you hear, by the way, is that of another two downtown businesses uprooting and heading for the upscale digs at Center Ice.

The Bank of Montreal, currently inside Centre Square Mall, will set up shop in a building outside Center Ice. L'Heritage restaurant across the street from Centre Square is moving into the new mall.

Who could blame them? The bank faces 50 Street - ground zero for much that ills the city's downtown core. The entrance there often reeks of cigarettes and urine, as do many of the nooks, crannies and alcoves around Centre Square. That can't be very good for business.

The city has struggled to keep downtown viable the last few years as more businesses look uptown for a fresh start. The latest city plan calls for a revitalization project on 50 Street this summer. We can only hope it's not too late.

Centre Square Mall itself, constantly struggling with the conflicting priorities of trying to bring in customers while fending off drunks, street addicts and loiterers would be well advised to undertake a modest remodelling by putting its entrances right at street level, removing the alcoves, keeping its entrances clean and improving accessibility for baby strollers and those with disabilities.

A favourite activity for Yk tourists is fishing the area's lakes. Many travellers come here for the sole reason of chasing prize catches. They discover other attractions in the process.

The GNWT, with this in mind, has been advertising nationally our rich fishing holes. But tourists may have to chase more than just big fish as it's becoming more and more difficult to pick up a fishing licence.

Retailers, whose incentive to sell the licences is profit, are only making 50 cents per licence now, and at least a few vendors have stopped selling them.

This includes Gastown on Old Airport Road, which was a convenient spot to pick up a licence on the way in or out of town.

The government could only identify three locations that still sell the licences: the Co-op and two government offices which are only open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.

This could pose a problem to anyone looking for a licence after hours or on weekends. And what about statutory holidays?

The onus is on the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to increase vendors' profits on selling licences. With the 2009 fishing season already open, the GNWT has to do more than just "look into" the problem, as a spokesperson said last week. The lack of access to licences means there will be fewer people fishing, or at least fishing legally. The territorial government must pressure Ottawa to move quickly.

I almost always use the term post-secondary when writing on the virtues of continued education.

It's my own personal swipe at the ill-conceived notion among those afflicted with self-importance that university is the end-all destination when it comes to life after Grade 12.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

While a university education is a tremendous achievement and one to be strived for, there are also great opportunities awaiting those who graduate from community colleges and trade schools.

And that's especially true in Nunavut right now.

There are many students out there -- for a number of vastly differing reasons -- for whom a university education simply isn't in the cards.

These students almost always lose interest in scholastic achievement if they get it in their heads that they're somehow inferior academically if they can't reach such a lofty goal.

But these same students often see a spike in their self-esteem, self-confidence and interest in schooling when they're presented with a goal that's shown to be within their reach.

Tradespeople are in great demand in Nunavut, and that demand is going to increase during the coming decades.

And tradespeople who are good at their vocation make darn good money.

The Government of Nunavut is to be commended for initiatives such as the Nunavut Early Apprenticeship Program and the long-awaited trades school in Rankin Inlet.

That applies as well to schools across the territory encouraging their students to participate in the Skills Canada Nunavut Competition.

There is nothing easy about earning a trade ticket. It takes hard work and dedication.

That said, there are, in all likelihood, far more students in the Kivalliq and across Nunavut who are a lot more comfortable with a wrench, saw or scissors in their hands than they are discussing Friedrich Nietzsche's version of a perfect society or Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.

In fact, there are many examples in Kivalliq schools of students whose daily attendance had become so low they were looked upon as dropouts in waiting.

Their interest was rekindled by the introduction of some form of trades or apprenticeship program at their school.

These same young people are now attending regularly and pursuing a trade they're comfortable with and excelling at.

One Kivalliq student who fits that description recently won a gold medal at the Skills Canada Nunavut Competition in Iqaluit.

Nunavut will need its share of homegrown doctors, lawyers, business experts, etc., if it is to reach future self-sufficiency.

It will also need its share of homegrown plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, hairdressers, secretaries, electricians and a whole host of other vocations.

Nunavut will need university graduates to chart the future of this territory.

And it will also need tradespeople to build that future and keep it running, for blue-collar workers are every bit as important as white-collared planners.

In light of the money the federal government is putting into saving car companies and national building projects, how big is Canada's national debt? How big can it grow before Ottawa starts cutting back transfer funds to the NWT?

The answer to that question is critical to all Northerners. Everyone knows the NWT's biggest industry is government. Northern retailers, airlines and hotels live on government spending.

The territorial government expects to spend $1.3 billion this year. Of that, Ottawa gives the NWT $950 million, roughly 70 per cent of the territorial budget.

The territorial government spends that $950 million and collects back another 26 per cent or $247 million in taxes. With the exception of the diamond mines, most taxes come from employees of government and Northern businesses which depend on government spending and employees.

Ten years ago, right after division, the territorial budget was $708 million, of which the federal government provided 81 percent, seven per cent more than it does now. Over those 10 years, the territorial budget has increased an average of 6.6 per cent each year, a third of which was eaten up by inflation. With this, we are expected to build and maintain roads, bridges and pay for all the social costs that come with development.

The picture is crystal clear: Despite the huge growth in the territorial economy, Ottawa keeps our main industry very close to stagnation levels, pulling out cash at the same rate it is being made. Our politicians are more caretakers of a budget than leaders of a resource-rich territory.

As of 2008, Canada's debt stood at $457 billion, down from a high of $554 billion in 1999.

The Toronto Dominion bank is predicting an $81 billion deficit over the next two years, which will bring that national debt up to $538 billion.

How long before the debt is so large that Canadians start grumbling and looking for a government that will rein in deficits. The money Ottawa pays to provinces and territories is often the first place they start looking.

Premier Floyd Roland and Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger have already had a taste of how Northerners react to attempts to cut costs. They tried to reduce staff but the Union of Northern Workers mounted a successful campaign to kill that idea.

If a government can't cut staff, the only option left is cutting boards, programs and services. That's why they attempted to cut medical costs going to middle-class seniors; amalgamate school, health and housing boards, and did cut scholarships. All raised howls of protest.

The territorial budget is at its highest level. What's going to happen when the cuts start coming?

The only way to escape the shackles of Ottawa's bureaucracy is to build the NWT economy.

To do that, we must take ownership of our resources. Most importantly, it doesn't matter whether it is the territorial governments or aboriginal governments splitting up the pie as long as they are Northerners.

Right now, it appears the strongest leaders, the people who have any pride of ownership and are willing to fight for their rights beyond six per cent growth a year, are outside the capital in the Beaufort Delta, down the Mackenzie valley, Tlicho and south of Great Slave Lake.

Unless these people take charge, the NWT will be doomed to lap dog politics, shrinking government services and more fly-in, fly-out economics.

Even though Nunavut has made strides in Inuit employment in the public service, there's still a long road ahead to proportional representation.

Looking back, the proportion of Inuit in government jobs actually decreased slightly after division, to 43 per cent in 2001, from 45 per cent in 1999. Since then, it's been rising steadily, driven by Article 23 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement which requires the public service to aim for the same percentage of Inuit in government jobs as in the general population of Nunavut.

The Government of Nunavut reached a 50-per cent Inuit workforce in 2007, and that has since risen to 52 per cent.

But at the same time, there are still hundreds of government jobs going unstaffed.

After peaking at 84 per cent in 2006, the percentage of jobs filled in Nunavut's public service began dropping, and now it's back to 77 per cent, which is where it was in 2000.

Recruitment and retention of staff in the North is an enormous challenge due to the high cost of living and the lack of affordable housing. And unless graduation rates in Nunavut improve dramatically, Inuit employment in the public service may hit a glass ceiling.

Post-secondary education is the key that unlocks finance, science, health and management opportunities ... areas in the public service where the number of Inuit staff is low.

If Nunavut's public service is to ever boast a full and representative staff, money saved from positions currently vacant should be redirected towards education. The education system needs to engage students and prepare them adequately for further academic pursuits. That will put Nunavut's sharp, young minds in position to fill more of the highest-level careers in the public and private sectors.

Iqaluit city councillor Jim Little came under fire recently for attempting to expedite a committee meeting by skipping the translation of documents into Inuktitut.

Translation comes at a cost and it adds to the complexity of organizing any kind of public event or publication.

But it also allows people to understand completely what is going on and to express themselves with confidence in their language of choice.

It is symbolic of respect, openness and an eagerness to understand one another's point of view.

Nunavut's official languages are English, French, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun. Translation is a must in any public government in the territory. It's important that elected officials at all levels endorse this, and not try to dodge it under any circumstances.

The Child and Family Services Act was meant to protect children who may be in danger from their family, either from abuse or neglect.

Great Slave MLA Glen Abernethy recently highlighted a perceived lack of checks and balances in the act to the government -- and called for a review of the Child and Family Services Act to correct this.

Abernethy pointed to an example in which a separated parent is not permitted to have custody of a child due to an assault charge filed against the other parent, even though that charge has not yet been ruled on by a judge. The child and family services unit of the Department of Health and Social Services made this decision unilaterally, without any possibility of recourse by the first parent.

Media coverage of Abernethy's example deliberately lacks details. That's because news media are not allowed to mention the names of any family members involved in proceedings, in the interests of protecting the children. That's understandable.

However, news media are not even permitted to attend family hearings. Nothing of the hearings is known until a judgment is rendered. This is another weak point in the law. How can members of the public - including decision-makers - ensure faulty judgments are not made?

Parents and children who believe they have been wronged by the process have little recourse in the courts. Personal biases, Abernethy said, can easily creep into such proceedings. This creates room for a heavy-handed exercise of power by authorities whose orders are absolute. A thorough review is in order.

If approached correctly, next year's Winter Olympics in Vancouver presents a golden opportunity to promote the NWT as a place to visit and do business.

Thousands of people from around the world will be at the games so it makes sense that the NWT has a presence there.

The Department of Industry, Tourism, and Investment plans to share office space in a building near the Olympics site with the other two territories.

A deal hasn't been signed yet, but the territories have their eyes set on an eight-storey downtown building in Vancouver's waterfront district for its "Northern House."

A pavilion would cost up to $300,000 for just three weeks.

The territories hope for a comparable price on a yearly lease, one they can rent out for years after the games to take advantage of Vancouver's position as the Pacific gateway to Canada.

Deal or not, it won't make any sense to open a visitor's centre without a storefront presence on the ground level.

They can have the nicest digs in the world but if it's up on the eighth floor somewhere, no one will know it's there and it will be a waste of time and money. To that end, the government must also keep track of the number of visitors coming in to determine how well the project is working.

When five hunters from Wrigley went on a caribou hunt for the community, they didn't go alone.

Two teenage boys from the community accompanied the hunters.

The hunt, as Chief Darcy E. Moses explained, was a perfect chance to teach the two boys about the proper way to hunt caribou, including which parts of the animals can be harvested and which parts need to be respected.

The explanation seems so simple and self-evident.

To the hunters it was only natural the boys should go on the hunt to begin to learn how to harvest a traditional food source.

This process, however, is not as natural as it used to be.

In the past, youth in the Deh Cho would have learned how to hunt by accompanying and imitating family members.

The skill would have been acquired as a vital part of the process of becoming an adult.

The importance of hunting and trapping, however, has diminished with time.

Now, there are so many other activities and distractions that capture the interest of youth, including video and computer games.

Today, the natural habitat of for most youth isn't a hunting camp but a living room couch with a game controller in their hands.

The decreased amount of time spent on the hunt is partially due to the fact that hunting is no longer the primary means of obtaining food.

For most, it's now a way to supplement what they can buy in a grocery store.

But that doesn't mean youth can't like hunting and trapping just as much as they like playing video games.

When students are taken out to cabins for either activity, they often return and tell stories about their exploits with enthusiasm that's normally reserved to describe new video game releases.

Brandon Moses, 14, who went on the caribou hunt, is a perfect example.

Moses was clearly excited as he described how be bagged his first two caribou.

The enthusiastic tone of voice continued as Moses talked about learning how to skin the animal.

Being at the hunt was a lot of work and there was no time to laze around, but Moses said he still enjoyed it.

Many students who participate in the Take a Kid Trapping Program also display this kind of enthusiasm as they talk about breaking trail, setting traps and checking for any catches. Students in a number of communities, including Nahanni Butte and Fort Liard, were able to participate in that program this winter.

It's encouraging to see individuals, schools and communities ensuring the younger generations learn about hunting and trapping.

Both activities are now more like pastimes than crucial skills, but they are still important ways to connect with the land.

Youth should be included on hunts and harvesting activities whenever possible to ensure that connection is maintained.

On Sunday I had a chat with a friend who, like me, has come from away. It was our first Muskrat Jamboree, and of course we were often wowed by all the events, sometimes spiritual, sometimes wacky.

We talked on Sunday and she told me of everything she had seen until then, including the drummers and dancers performance on Friday, which stood out most in her mind. She was taken by the deft and graceful movements and the passion.

But beyond that she admired the inclusiveness of the dance - how the dancers didn't just tolerate the participation of children and curious outsiders, but thrived on it.

That insight seemed to capture my feelings about the four-day festival.

Like her, I was also entertained, shocked and in some cases left in awe as I took in the day's events. The muskrat-skinning contest remains firmly planted in my head, especially Barbara Charlie's mind-boggling efficiency at the task. In the 60 or so seconds it took her to do the job, you couldn't help but be struck by the woman's resourcefulness and toughness, among many other qualities, I'm sure.

The dog races were also remarkable.

Like with the drummers and dancers, outsiders were encouraged to take part in any and all traditions. I clearly remember jamboree chair Roy Ipana coaxing the crowd to pick up a harpoon or to give skinning a shot. It took a while but eventually more and more people decided to get involved. Even if they happened to mangle a muskrat, Ipana was right over their shoulder smiling with a few encouraging words, such as "at least you tried."

The fact that the Muskrat Jamboree continues after 52 years is a statement in itself. Things have changed, traditions have evolved, but the fact that so much remains in the Delta is comforting and refreshing.

The annual festival gave me a deeper insight into the culture and traditions, as well as a dramatically-different style of fiddle music than that I've grown accustomed to and passionate about, having roots in Cape Breton.

But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't moved by James Rogers' distinctive old-time country playing, which is why I chose to feature him and his son Daniel in this week's Drum.

As an outsider looking in, the Jamboree tells me there is vitality and strength in the Delta culture and there appears to be enough people willing to preserve the vital aspects of it.

In the same edition, a comment by Iqaluit Coun. Jim Little in the story "Safety committee falters over procedure" should have read in full, "I was not in any way trying to put down the Inuktitut language here."

As well, last week's editorial should have made reference to a suicide intervention training program, and demand that the government continue to strengthen education and language legislation.

Nunavut News/North apologizes for the errors.