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Junk tax a good idea NWT News/North - Monday, May 31, 2010
Within that age bracket, more than 2,200 residents suffer from the disease, meaning diabetes directly affects seven per cent of adults over 20. That's about the same proportion as the rest of Canada. Compounding the problem is the fact many Northerners are considered obese, a major risk factor in the development of diabetes. In 2008, Statistics Canada reported 61 per cent of men and 64 per cent of women were obese. Where the obesity rate of men has been about the same since 2003, the rate of obese women has spiked by more than 15 per cent in the same time period. In 2005, Statistics Canada reported more than 20 per cent of the NWT's children were considered obese. Sugary and high-fat foods are major contributors to both health issues. Finding ways to encourage people to eat healthier would be a major step towards solving the problem. Unlike in the south where high-fat, high-sugar diets are a poor lifestyle choice, sometimes they are difficult to avoid in the North. Junk food keeps longer, is more readily available and is generally less expensive than fresh food in small and remote NWT communities. Toby Neuendorf, Fort McPherson's new senior administrative officer, has suggested communities tax unhealthy foods and use the revenue to fund recreation, health and cultural programs. The idea is a good one. Better would be to use the money to help communities buy and/or reduce the cost of healthy foods. Combined with Indian and Northern Affairs' (INAC) changes to the Food Mail program - now called Nutrition North Canada - consumers would not have to choose between an $8 carton of milk and a $4 bottle of pop. Designed to lower the cost of food and improve the quality of fresh and healthy products, the program will give more control to Northerners and Northern retailers when it comes to food prices and quality. As it appears on paper, the only flaw in INAC's new program is that some communities are not eligible to receive the subsidy because they were not using it in the past. One of the criticisms of the old Food Mail program was it was difficult to access. Communities without Co-ops or Northern stores may have not had the necessary resources to tap into it. Nahanni Butte, a community which relies on an independent retailer for groceries, is now deemed ineligible for a Nutrition North Canada subsidy. But, the store manager there said it is a program that would benefit her store and her customers. Excluding communities in the first year of the new subsidy program does not make a lot of sense. An all-inclusive analysis period should have been put in place to determine if more communities use the easier-to-access system. Then, after the first year, funds could be reserved for communities that do use the program. It is also vital to ensure strict oversight on the new subsidy program. Savings must be clearly identified in the stores and passed to the consumer. With changes to Food Mail and recently announced reductions in power rates, small NWT communities should finally see lower costs.
Will the cost of food go down? Nunavut News/North - Monday, May 31, 2010 Remember the $200 Arctic Bay turkey last Thanksgiving? That price was admittedly a mistake made by store staff who labelled it wrong. The actual price of the frozen turkey was around $90 - still outrageous by southern standards. That price and others, if changes to the federal Food Mail program do what's intended, should come down over the next year. Changes to the program announced May 21 will put the responsibility for delivering nutritious food at subsidized prices in the hands of grocery stores instead of reduced shipping costs through Canada Post. Starting next April the grocery stores can use the subsidies to bring up nutritious food by any shipping method from any point of entry. There's no debate that food in Nunavut is expensive, and the health of Nunavummiut is suffering because of it. In 2004 a study on food security in Kugaaruk found that five out of six Inuit households could be classified "food insecure," and nearly half were "extremely concerned" about having enough food to feed their family. The study found one of the main reasons families were worried about having enough to eat was they couldn't afford to buy adequate supplies of nutritious perishable food such as milk, fresh fruits and vegetables. Another reason was this kind of food was sometimes not available in the community, or if it was, its quality was poor. This was resulting in diets of cheaper, available, less nutritious food low in the vitamins and minerals especially critical for the health of children and pregnant and nursing mothers. More than one in four of the respondents in the Kugaaruk study described their health as fair or poor, with high rates of obesity and low rates of physical activity - raising their risks of diabetes and heart disease. Food Mail was supposed to help get healthy food to Northern residents at affordable prices. But it failed because it expected competition would force retailers to keep food prices low, revealing the feds' poor knowledge of the region the program was meant to serve. The concept known as "competition" rarely exists in Northern communities, because competition requires choice. When one store has the last case of fresh milk in the hamlet, a parent has no choice but to pay the price the store demands or go without. The key to the new program's success lies in holding retailers accountable to their customers for the prices and quality of the food they sell. This is meant to be accomplished by an advisory board, though Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl also urged customers to voice their complaints directly to store managers. The community's subsidy rate is also to appear on every receipt issued by the grocery store. Whether this will be enough to ensure fair play when it comes to food pricing remains to be seen. But it's certainly better than what we have now - no accountability at all.
Two-year reprieve Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, May 28, 2010
In Yellowknife, power rates will be frozen until 2012. As well, the government is creating seven rate zones, which will offer much needed relief to residents in 22 NWT communities that had been paying exorbitantly high rates after the power subsidy cap of 700 kWh.
The changes are great news for some customers, specifically those in homes with four or more people who struggle with the high cost of living in the NWT. This will put money back in their pockets.
However, as Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro said last week in the legislature, the changes are little more than a quick and temporary fix to the problem of high power costs.
After the two-year period is up and the $13-million contribution from the territorial government is gone, then what?
Bisaro said power corp. costs never seem to go down, only up. Meanwhile the utility needs to maintain steady revenues.
To its credit, the power corp. has realized savings by reorganizing its head office, but that can only go so far.
The bottom line is that, barring a huge shift to cheap hydro power across much of the territory, we will find out the true definition of rate shock.
Understandably, Thornton's restaurant owner Luke Wood was not pleased when a bylaw officer showed up at the end of a busy brunch service two weeks ago and demanded he remove his remaining pile of scrap siding from an adjacent parking lot.
He was in his chef's clothes, and he had assumed he had until the next day to get rid of it. When Wood refused to move the last few pieces of siding - the rest had been moved after bylaw's initial visit the previous Thursday - the officer handed him a $200 ticket.
In light of other junk-related issues in Yellowknife, it doesn't appear bylaw was being consistent in this case. We can recall a situation last year where a Northland resident was given nearly a year's notice to move his junk and abandoned vehicles from his yard before the city finally came and hauled them away.
What was the hurry at Thornton's? Was it because the complainant was city councillor Paul Falvo, as Wood suggests?
On the other hand, the siding had been posing a hazard in that spot for a year, even if the bylaw warning didn't come until recently. Yellowknife has a problem with junk-filled yards and residents must realize leaving it lying around for months or years could very well lead to a visit by bylaw. And so it should, hopefully with more consistency next time.
The importance of the road system can easily be gauged by the quantity of conversations that are dedicated to it. Drive between any two communities in the Deh Cho and before you're ready to return home you will have probably fielded at least three queries related to the state of the road you drove on.
The Department of Transportation's plans for the road system this summer will probably interest quite a few people. The plan certainly includes some highlights but also some areas need further consideration.
On the plus side is the amount of chipsealing being undertaken or planned. This season approximately 70 km of chipseal will be extended from its current limit at the junction of Highway 1 and 3 back towards Fort Simpson. By 2012 or possibly earlier the chipseal that now ends at Checkpoint will be pushed as far as the Jean Marie River access road.
Between these two projects there will still be a very long section of gravel highway but the chipsealing is a start towards the often cited goal of having a fully paved Deh Cho connection. The route would allow tourists to drive up from Alberta, through the Deh Cho on Highway 1 and into B.C. on Highway 3 without having to leave a chipsealed surface. Local residents, of course, would be able to take advantage of the benefits too. As long as chipseal is well maintained it's a dust free pleasure to drive on.
Highway 7 is in bad shape again.
It's not as bad as it was two years ago when portions of the highway were compared to a "bog" with the consistency of "clam chowder" but it's still less than desirable. The highway is probably only a few heavy rains away from its 2008 state.
The department does have plans for the road including laying more gravel over the troubled areas and conducting structural capacity testing to judge where future work is needed. Close attention will have to be paid to the future plans.
While more gravel will help in the short term, the Deh Cho deserves and needs a highway that won't deteriorate every spring. Residents must pressure the GNWT to spend as much as possible to repair Highway 7.
With the right application of pressure travellers won't have to search for adjectives to describe road conditions in the Deh Cho. All they'll say is "the road was good."
The group, made up primarily of people with public health backgrounds, has worked here as well as Ulukhaktok and Tuktoyaktuk and communities in Nunavut, trying to get residents to eat better and raise awareness about the benefits of living a healthy, active lifestyle.
In the process they've hired residents to help them. Some of the activities have included pedometer challenge programs to get people walking more. Cooking classes centring on traditional foods have been held regularly. The program also included a 12-month research component, monitoring eating habits of a selection of residents in each community.
The lead researcher Dr. Sangita Sharma was in town last week to talk about the results. The good news is that people in those communities are beginning to make wiser nutritional choices. Where the programming was offered, people are more than twice as likely to eat yogurt, and four times more likely to consume whole wheat bread as well as eight times more likely to reach for unsweetened juice.
The bad news is that for many the transition to a healthy lifestyle has been very slow. According to her research, peopled consumed less fresh fruit and vegetables.
The average four-person family spends a staggering $27,000 on junk food a year.
A lot of Healthy Foods North's funding came from both the territorial and the federal government. If they decide not to renew funding for the program what do they plan to do to keep the momentum rolling? What alternative public health programs would they like to support? How do they intend to tackle the problem over the long haul?
Obviously the trend of unhealthy living won't change overnight. It will take time. If Healthy Foods North does manage to get more funding or a similar program is launched, hopefully it will have a major focus on youth, particularly on elementary schools.
Governments like to play around with the idea of food subsidies, which is great in theory, but alone they don't make a lot more people want to buy more bags of oranges and apples. But that might change if government could set aside some money on something as simple as healthy eating programs at both the elementary and high school. The breakfast program could offer a different healthy meal each day, from whole wheat pancakes or French toast to eggs and bacon. Same goes for a lunch program, which could offer healthy vegetarian burritos, for example. Perhaps some parents could get involved in preparing meals. The simple reasoning behind this if you get kids eating healthy at an early age, the habit just might stick. Healthier kids also make for healthier, more focused students. The problem is very complicated but ideas are needed to move in the direction of building a healthier population.
What could possibly be wrong with that? It is robbing daycares of pint-sized clients, that's the problem.
Some parents may argue that it's a free market and they should be able to enrol their toddler wherever they want. The difference, of course, is that the Yk 1 school board is using $150,000 in public money to pay for its latest educational venture.
Surely the public school board means well. It has set out to attract youngsters eligible to soon begin kindergarten who could benefit from a structured learning environment, like getting a grasp of their colours and letters. Even more enticing for parents, there will be no charge to send their child to the summer school from June through August.
Linda Benedict, executive director of the Yellowknife Day Care Association, argues that existing daycares and day homes already offer basic lessons. She also says some may perceive the Yk 1 summer school as self-serving because it may land more students in public schools by fall. Whether that was part of the motive or not, there should have been some discussion with existing daycares and day homes. The public school board should have given first priority to low-income families and then charged fees to those who can afford it. That revenue should then have been turned over to daycares as compensation for kids who were pulled from their businesses.
Parents seeking childcare in our city have gone through some lean times while trying to find openings for their youngsters.
Benedict predicted the public school board's summer program - pitched as a one-time initiative - won't force her daycare to close.
We hope this holds true for the other operations. Northern Tikes and Kid's First Child Development Centre are already history. We can't afford to lose more.
The GNWT has finally exercised better judgement and withdrawn its request to have the courts decide whether the territorial government has the right to impose a caribou hunting ban on aboriginal hunters.
Last week, Premier Floyd Roland said the Feb. 12 legal motion isn't necessary because the GNWT has chosen instead to work with aboriginal governments on a political solution. It's about time. Who came up with the idea of a court challenge anyway?
Roland hails from Inuvik while deputy premier and Environment Minister Michael Miltenberger comes from Fort Smith. They've both been MLAs since 1995 and have had plenty of interaction with aboriginal governments.
Justice Minister Jackson Lafferty, who filed the question in the courts, comes from Behchoko and is in his second term in the legislative assembly.
These politicians obviously forgot the way to build government-to-government relations is not through the courts.
This issue is about not only preserving the dwindling Bathurst caribou herd, but fostering co-operation and understanding between the GNWT and the First Nations and Metis.
That's done through respectful words exchanged and hands outreached, not clutching court documents in an attempted power play.
Much of the outrage over premature reports on how the new food mail program would look should quell after it was officially unveiled this past Friday in Iqaluit.
In an interview with Kivalliq News a few months back, Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq said Nunavummiut had spoken, and were quite adamant they did not want to see individual food mail orders eliminated.
She also said she was lobbying hard to have some form of country food included in the new program.
And, if the new Nutrition North Canada program rolls out the way it's been indicated, Aglukkaq was true to her word and delivered on both counts.
A refreshing change of pace for a Conservative government which, all too often, adopts the attitude of knowing what's best for Northerners, no matter what they actually say on matters.
Contrary to the popular belief running rampant before this past Friday's announcement, individual retailers have not been excluded from the new Nutrition North Canada program.
This is a solid move on behalf of consumer interests, and will allow smaller retailers at least the chance to compete with the buying power of large operations such as the Northern store and local Co-ops.
There are still some very bright red flags in the new program, however.
The biggest of which is the government's contention a system will be devised to ensure our largest retailers do, in fact, pass on savings to the consumer.
In fact, the majority of Nunavummiut do not trust the larger stores to pass the savings along, and worry the new program will simply allow them to earn even bigger profits.
And, in the case of the Northern store, we're talking about an entity (North West Co.) that made $81.8 million in profits from $1.4 billion in sales this past year.
A large percentage of profit in anyone's books.
That being said, let's not forget the fact the Northern store and the Co-ops are here, supplying goods and employing a respectable number of people in our territory.
They are also near the top of the business community's list of frequent donors to a wide variety of events throughout the year.
However, it would be wise for the feds to remember they are businesses, and the program has to be completely transparent if it is not to be abused.
Taking for granted the feds will actually listen to it once it's established, we also applaud the choice of Elizabeth Copland to head an advisory board to give Northerners a direct voice in the program and provide advice to its management and effectiveness.
The decision to offer a higher rate of subsidy to nutritious perishable foods such as fruits, vegetables, bread, fresh meats, milk and eggs is also a solid one.
If the feds stick to their word and implement the new program the way it's been laid out, it's a solid plan that should benefit the vast majority of people in Nunavut, and put a smile on the face of a lot more folks than just shareholders in the Northern store and Co-op operations.
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