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The NWT's regulatory regime is going to be drastically altered in 2015 with the elimination of regional regulatory boards and the creation of a single super board.

That became inevitable when the Conservative government lumped changes to the regulatory system and Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act into Bill C-15 - The Northwest Territories Devolution Act.

With the changes come concerns that regional voices will be diminished and community interests weakened when development projects go through the review process. Last week, the Gwich'in leadership came out publicly in opposition to the regulatory changes.

Those valid concerns can be alleviated with strong legislation. Equal regional representation on the so-called super board combined with regional panels - already included in the Bill - will, if done properly, ensure public opinion still factors strongly into all regulatory reviews.

Our regulatory system serves three purposes.

The first is to safeguard the environment with stringent controls to protect land, water and wildlife or denying development outright when the environmental damage cannot be adequately mitigated.

The second is to deal with development applications quickly and efficiently, providing developers and investors the confidence they need to invest in local economies.

The third is to protect the interests of regional populations by ensuring proper consultation and, if development moves ahead, ensuring local benefits.

As long as the public continues to engage in the regulatory process by voicing either opposition or support for proposed development, we believe the super board can be effective. Public engagement in the past has been enough to either help development along or force regulators to scrap it.

Will the new super board be an improvement over the current system? Unfortunately, no amount of legislation can fix the real problems of the past - Ottawa's inefficient management of its role in the Northern regulatory system.

The irony of this overhaul is it would not have been necessary if the federal government from minister on down hadn't repeatedly dropped the ball.

Gwich'in president Robert Alexie Jr. says his people have made numerous applications to have people appointed to the regulatory board. None - we suspect for partisan reasons - have been approved.

Too many development applications, having successfully navigated the Northern boards, collected too much dust waiting for approval from the federal minister of the day.

As well, whether it is the old system or the new system, the board cannot do its work without sufficient staff. Nor can the integrity of the process be maintained if the board seats are stuffed with Conservative appointees.

The federal government, having taken the drastic step of re-designing the Northern regulatory regime, which it created in the first place, has a chance of doing it right this time.

Hopefully, hard lessons have been well learned and history will not simply repeat itself.

Alarming statistics about the high rate of violence against women in Nunavut are one of the reasons behind a call by the president of the Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women for the development of a strategy centered around prevention.

On the heels of last month's statements by Qulliit president Charlotte Borg on the need to create a family violence prevention group, a similar call for action came from Assembly of First Nations Chief Shawn Atleo.

Last week, Atleo appeared before a Special Parliamentary Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women, which was established to propose solutions to the root causes of violence against indigenous women and girls.

In Nunavut, the rate of violent crime against women is eight times higher than the rate in the rest of Canada.

A look beyond the numbers is helpful to better understand the severity and the high incidence of family violence in the North. It is sisters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, daughters and granddaughters who are the victims. In Nunavut communities, family violence is happening in homes, in public places, in vehicles and on the streets.

Not enough is being done to stop the legacy of abuse. There are only four shelters available in the territory's 26 communities, and the resources available to a woman who wants to leave an abusive relationship are not only severely lacking but are virtually non-existent in many remote communities. That is unacceptable. There have been repeated calls for a family violence prevention strategy in Nunavut, but not much progress has been made.

There needs to be a number to call and a place to go for a woman in an abusive situation. There needs to be a mechanism to remove abusive men from the family home so the women and children can live safely. And there needs to be support for initiatives by the community at large.

A suggestion by the Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women to establish a council involving itself, the YWCA Agvvik, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the RCMP and the territorial departments of Health, Family Services, Justice, Education and Housing must be followed in earnest.

The initiative must also increase awareness among the perpetrators, educating men that it's not OK to use violence against women and girls.

The initiative should encourage reporting, so action taken will realistically address the issue and resources can be established that meet the need. Central to action being taken is a need for funding.

The numbers used to describe the level of violence against women in Nunavut are frightening.

However, politicians, health-care providers, social agencies and the groups becoming involved in a prevention strategy should not be afraid of how much money it will cost for meaningful changes to happen.

Yellowknifers have a love-hate relationship with the city's bus system.

For those who use it, it is a much-needed service that gets them around the city, saving them time and money.

So too there have been numerous complaints about lateness, awkward stop locations, even the size of the buses not being compatible with the city's streets, evidence it's a transportation model operating in a much larger southern city transplanted to a much smaller Northern city.

City councillor Niels Konge's call to scrap the bus service drew immediate criticism, but he did raise valid points. For one, the length of the bus routes have been a bone of contention for riders and even drivers for the amount of time it takes to service so many parts of the city.

There have been many complaints about buses being late, especially on Saturdays. Konge also cited the $1.28 million taxpayers will pay next year for transit.

These criticisms echo similar ones identified in a 2008 study, such as crowded peak-time buses, empty off-peak-time buses and revenue issues related to different fares for adults, children, students and seniors.

Ridership remains flat, with people hopping on about 175,000 times per year. That may sound like a lot, but the buses are often near-empty for most of the day, save the weekday morning rush.

Despite the problems, there are plans to expand the service, costing anywhere from $62,000 to $559,495 per year, depending on the routes and services implemented.

While there are inefficiencies, cutting bus service outright is not an option. Too many people rely on it and it offers a cost-effective solution to reducing traffic. A regular fare costs $2.50 and a monthly adult pass (tax deductible) costs $63, roughly less than a tank of gas for the average truck.

There has already been much discussion about the buses being too large for the population and city streets. On some roads, especially in Old Town, riders and drivers have to hang on as the huge vehicles pitch and shake over the winding streets.

The introduction of the low-floor buses over the summer showed those large vehicles, built for streets in southern cities do not work in the North.

Before city council looks into expanding the bus routes, they should also be looking at making public transit more efficient and reliable as a whole.

Part of the problem is the contract process that leaves the configuration of the services up to the contractor, who doesn't appear to take into consideration the size of the buses compared to the number of people who ride it and the conditions of the city streets. Contractors, not surprisingly, operate on past practices and simply present their proposal to council with a profit margin.

The perennial questions are:

• Why can't smaller buses service routes during off-peak periods?
• Why can't long routes be broken up and smaller buses used?
• Why are the buses not on time more consistently or don't show up?
• Why can't the bus go to the hospital all year?
• Why aren't more people riding?

As difficult as it may be, resolving the issues raised by the first four questions may well resolve the perennial issue in the fifth - encouraging more people to ride the bus. A new approach is needed.

Once again Deh Gah School in Fort Providence is at the centre of something new and exciting.

The school is collaborating in a three-year pilot project to discover if having a physical literacy co-ordinator in the school will make students more physically active. The other partners in the study include the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) and Sport Canada.

This project is a great opportunity for the students in the school and the broader community of Fort Providence. Although the study will take three years to collect its evidence, it's difficult to see how the co-ordinator position could do anything other than make students more physically active and increase their physical literacy.

Patrick Kippax, the co-ordinator, has implemented a number of initiatives since starting in April, including running twice-weekly physical fitness classes for students that focus on developing their fitness levels. He has also been developing a physical literacy curriculum that will be incorporated into the gym classes for kindergarten to Grade 6. The curriculum will make students more comfortable with the fundamental movement skills that all sports are based on.

The students can only benefit from this project and Kippax's work. Study after study have found that youth in countries like Canada aren't getting enough physical activity. The result of increasingly sedentary lifestyles is obesity and a rise in type 2 diabetes. By getting students more active, the project could reverse these trends.

The project could also lead to long-term benefits for the students. If youth become comfortable with, and grow to enjoy different types of physical activities and sports at a young age, they are more likely to stay physically active as adults. The healthy habits that are being taught through the project could save the students from a variety of health problems as they age.

Community members in Fort Providence can also benefit. Kippax is running boot camps for women twice a week, and the school's gym and cardio room is open for women to use four evenings a week.

Schools are usually viewed as places where students come to learn academic subjects. The projects like this one that Deh Gah School is undertaking show that schools can take a holistic approach to students' development, including their physical development and health, and can also create positive change in communities.

Hopefully, the success of this project will lead the territorial government to create more physical literacy co-ordinator positions, so other NWT communities can also reap the benefits.

I can say with complete honesty I'm not looking forward to being in the dark.

Come tomorrow, when the sun doesn't rise, if you see a strange figure shambling around town wearing what looks like a hi-tech version of the old banker's visor, that's likely to be me wearing my rather odd sun therapy device, called a YumaLite.

I've been battling seasonal affective disorder (SAD) for quite a few years now, and I knew the polar night was likely to be a struggle for me.

So far as I can remember, my first brush with SAD came while I was in my second year of university.

It was a particularly unpleasant, rainy October where it seemed liked the sky opened up every day.

At the time, I couldn't understand why my mood soured steadily over the course of that month.

It didn't occur to me until years later, while interviewing someone with SAD when I was working at another newspaper, that I realized I had the same symptoms.

I had thought about coming North for more than 20 years before deciding to take the plunge, and it was largely my reluctance to tackle the polar night that held me back.

So this is going to be an interesting experience for me.

Whenever I hear the term polar night, I think of that rather gory but still enjoyable horror movie Thirty Days of Night.

I'm fairly sure that's not a good frame of reference, or at least no better than watching Ice Road Truckers ... but maybe no worse, either.

I know it will cause some chuckles around parts of town, but I might be grumpier than normal. Yes, it is possible, people.

I'm not always as mellow as I have been during my time here.

Hopefully, though, I'm going to avoid the worst of that. I'm planning on hanging around the tropical atmosphere of the pool ... and maybe I can get them to turn the lights up a little.

I'm also hoping to get out regularly to see the auroras and maybe do a little snowshoeing if we get enough of the white stuff. (Side note: where is the snow?)

Hopefully, I won't replicate an experience I had last winter, where I caught my snowshoes in a tree hidden in a snowbank north of Muskrat Road one crisp night.

The sound of a pack of wolves howling was all the incentive I needed to get back up in a hurry.

So it's not going to be all bad, but it will be an adventure.

Is the deck stacked against local retailers? Apparently not while people are decking the halls. But Christmas is a temporary, although sharp, spike in local shopping.

Online shopping, seemingly lower price points elsewhere, citizens routinely tripping south, where they do their shopping, and returning with filled action packers ... One might imagine a Yellowknife without a single retail outlet.

But that's not the case. Besides the ubiquitous Wal-Mart, we have clothing stores, electronic stores, furniture stores, stationery stores, and a book store.

In last week's Yellowknifer, Judith Drinnan said "use it or lose it" in relation to local shoppers and local stores.

"I am a bricks and mortar store and should my sales drop to a certain level, there won't be a bricks and mortar store."

This statement would throw responsibility onto the shopper. And, fair enough.

There isn't really anything that a person needs that cannot be found here, ergo bought here. But those are needs, not wants.

There is a difference, which throws the responsibility back onto the retailer. Buying and consuming aren't just about needs in this world. And that's where local shops can step up, by providing consumers with what they want.

Drinnan herself noted that in response to the many assaults on retail businesses over the years - such as online shopping - she has focused, over the years, on special orders. In other words, she provides personal service and she provides customers with what they want. She has adapted her business to her context.

This is precisely what James Croizier, owner of Ogre's Lair Family Game Shop says in today's story on page 21 ("City sidewalks, busy sidewalks").

"A lot of people ignore the issue of online shopping, but that's to their own detriment and eventually it could put someone out of business. You have to compete with online options," said Croizier.

And he should know. His is one specialty business that has been operating, in various locations, for more than 10 years.

A successful city requires a commitment on the part of everyone.

It's not enough to say that shoppers need to buy locally. Retailers need to provide Yellowknifers with consumables they want, at affordable prices.

That is something to remember after the Christmas sugar rush.

In previous editorials, Yellowknifer has called on Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington and his New Democratic Party to offer up practical economic policies for the North, as opposed to broad partisan attacks on Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government.

Bevington's plan to tackle the personal income crunch in the North with a 50 per cent increase to the Northern Resident's Tax Deduction is a good first step towards addressing the high cost of living in the North. Bevington also wants a 'Third Zone' that provides a tax credit to residents in small NWT communities which suffer high rates of poverty and dismal incomes.

When asked to comment on Bevington's plan, former Liberal candidate Joe Handley pointed out high income earners would enjoy most of the increased benefit.

Handley's right but that need not be a fatal flaw if Bevington and NDP policymakers can devise a way to keep that money in the North.

Otherwise, as happens now, working professionals in the communities would use their travel benefits to spend the lion's share of their disposal income shopping down south on vacations and business trips.

Any effort that reduces the cost of living in the North and keeps the savings in the North will boost the Northern economy by attracting workers, increasing transfer payments and possibly by holding the line on ever-increasing costs.

That's why we applaud Bevington's proposal and invite the other parties to build on the proposal rather than bury the effort in partisan rhetoric.

The fact is, regardless of one's own feelings toward sports, hockey resonates loudly with Canadians and their willingness to open their wallets for everything from TV channels, to satellite radio and Internet programming.

And they also open their wallets to purchase almost anything connected to the NHL brand.

That's why ad rates are so high during NHL broadcasts -- especially during prime time hours and the playoffs -- and why the league, itself, will adjust scheduling to accommodate U.S.A. networks (hence those annoying 1 p.m. starts for some playoff games).

It's also the reason why the NHL's dumping of TSN (Bell Media) to ink a 12-year, $5.2-billion deal for its Canadian national broadcast and multimedia rights with Sportsnet (Rogers Communications) was a lead story for every media across the country this past week.

The deal is a huge blow to TSN, which, after this season, will be left with only the (lucrative) world junior championships and regional broadcasts of games featuring the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators and Winnipeg Jets.

The agreement marks the first time TSN will be without national NHL broadcasting rights since 2002.

The CBC, although putting on a brave face, is also a mammoth loser in the NHL's decision, despite still being committed to 320 hours of NHL programming in prime time during the next four years.

While the public broadcaster does get to keep Hockey Night In Canada (HNIC), all revenue from the show will go to Rogers.

The prestige associated with HNIC, and the ability to hawk its own programming during the broadcast are the only benefits to CBC in retaining the show.

In fact, Rogers will assume total editorial control of HNIC in the coming year.

That means the future of such Saturday night stalwarts as Don Cherry and Ron MacLean is now in doubt, and the ultimate direction the broadcast takes will be up to Rogers decision-makers.

In many ways, however, the NHL's switch to one national broadcaster should prove itself good for fans.

With Rogers having national rights to all games -- including every round of the Stanley Cup playoffs and exclusivity to games featuring Canadian teams on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday -- the deal guarantees the end of blackouts.

One thing that remains to be seen is what happens to the crown jewels of TSN's hockey team, Bob McKenzie and Darren Dreger.

McKenzie, a former editor-in-chief of The Hockey News, has more than one-half million followers on Twitter and is regarded as a definitive source by hockey experts.

Dreger is one of the most connected reporters in the game and is often the first with breaking news on the NHL.

It would be another win for hockey fans, and the network, if either decides to join the Sportsnet crew.

Cherry, on the other hand, is a national icon who has burned a lot of bridges during his run on HNIC's Coach's Corner.

And while there's no doubt many fans would shout their approval if Cherry were dropped, millions more would view it as sour grapes on the part of Rogers.

However it all turns out, TSN's slogan of hockey lives here has been left practically homeless.

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