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Justin Trudeau is embarking on a trip northward in attempt to convince Northerners that this time his party takes the territories seriously.

He's come North to talk to the people, take in the sights and attend a rather pricey $600 fundraiser.

Despite the young leader's glamour, building inroads in the NWT is going to take a lot of work because the decades of neglect under the Liberal regime are not about to be forgotten nine years out of office.

Whereas the Liberals saw the North as little more than a storehouse for natural resources, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives see it as an opportunity for development and financial boon. Harper, even before he became prime minister, trumpeted the North as the country's future to economic greatness.

Nonetheless, the opportunity to retake the NWT seat is greater this year than any since Ethel Blondin-Andrew's 18-year run ended in 2006 when the Liberals lost power.

NWT MP Dennis Bevington has worked hard to bring Northern issues to the table despite attempts by the Conservative government to marginalize him. But he has hinted he may not run in the next federal election, depending on when it's held, and the NDP itself is facing a problem with plunging poll numbers. NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has simply not resonated with voters – unlike the late Jack Layton, a personal friend of Bevington's -- and it's showing.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, appear set this year to run another former MLA with plenty of personal baggage in the form of former premier Floyd Roland.

This is where Trudeau can jump in and try to show Northerners the Liberals are a viable centrist alternative to the NDP.

But it all comes back to history.

Past Liberal governments accomplished next to nothing when it came to the North. Never have.

Harper could be doing more but he's already done so much more than the Liberals have ever done. Devolution over resources, punted around hopelessly from one Liberal prime minister to another, will be a shiny crown to wear for whoever gets the Conservative nomination in the NWT this year, Roland or whomever.

There are several issues Trudeau should pounce on right away: the failure of Nutrition North, the outrageous high cost of living, and the stinginess of the Conservatives on infrastructure. Remember, the GNWT had to build the Deh Cho Bridge by itself.

The timing is right for Trudeau and the Liberals because the Conservatives are fast becoming a tired old government, much like the Liberals were under Jean Chretien in the early 2000s, and with the right mindset, voters may send Harper a message that things aren't what they used to be and they want a change.

But the North was never a priority for Liberals and people don't forget. That is the issue this second Trudeau must solve if he hopes to retake this seat.

Reflecting on the year that was, it is clear that late 2014 was a painful period for Fort Simpson.

From the death of Liidlii Kue First Nation Chief Minnie Letcher, to the loss of Destiny Nahanni-Hope, to the passing of elders, it seemed the losses just kept coming at the end of the year.

The pain caused by these losses led to several pointed questions for Premier Bob McLeod when he was in the village in early December.

Rita Cazon recounted how someone she knows who is depressed was simply told to call a hotline over the holidays because no counsellors would be available.

She rightly said that wasn't acceptable for people in need.

Cazon and others at the meeting expressed the need for action on mental health and addictions programming to help the people of the Deh Cho region.

The premier's response to what was brought up?

That the territorial government is working on a strategy to deal with addictions and mental health.

That's clearly not enough.

The 17th legislative assembly has several more sessions before the territorial election in November.

There's still time to take action that will help those who need it. Let's see our politicians move on the issue and help their vulnerable constituents.

It's unfortunate that the minister of Health and Social Services wasn't present.

When similar questions were raised in the legislative assembly this past fall, he spoke about a mobile additions treatment centre in the works, but not yet ready. It would spend about 48 days in a community treating those in need, then move on.

MLAs rightly pointed out this does nothing for those in a community facing an immediate need.

The premier has said that after the death of Nahanni-Hope in Wrigley in December, counselling was made available.

That's good. Hopefully that service was used by those impacted.

However, we should commend the actions of John Dempsey and his bosses who run the Northern Store.

Dempsey recognized the need among his staff members and got permission to bring in crisis counsellors to the village. The service was also opened to community members. That's both good management and is an example of good corporate citizenship.

We hope that there isn't a need for such steps this year.

Let's talk New Year's resolutions and remembrance.

It's that time of year when we start looking to the 365 days ahead and the changes we want to make. We also often reflect on what we learned in the past year, in order to help inform what those changes should be. And, of course, we also look back and just remember the good times of 2014.

Luckily, Facebook has developed its own tool for helping us remember the momentous events of the past year - at least those that we chose to share on social media.

The people of Inuvik are plugged in. Upon moving to town, this was evident from the get-go. Various Facebook pages co-ordinate the social engagements of the community, and many people turn to social media to have a dialogue on local issues.

Social media can be an excellent tool for opening discourse and connecting with others, but it can also be a black hole of unrealistic comparisons and lifestyles that seem too good to be true - which they usually are.

It's likely that a fair number of your friends (or more-so acquaintances if you aren't particularly selective) have clicked the link on Facebook, and had this year in review formulated from their last year of posts. Whether you've made one of your own, or prefer to reflect on your year without the assistance of technology, keep in mind that what you see on social media is a highlight reel, not an actual reflection of life.

If it seems like everyone in your mini-feed spent the year travelling, laughing with friends, dressing up for a big night out or announcing job promotions and engagements, just keep in mind that out of 365 days, those were only a handful. And, chances are, you had a handful of pretty great days as well - whether or not you felt the need to announce it over social media. Some would argue that if you had the thought to update your status, you probably weren't enjoying yourself that much.

Perhaps we need to be less focused on reflecting on the past year and just welcome the new year, with all that it brings.

Thoughts of envy and wishes that your life looked more like the sparkly reel produced for your friends - or that random person you met that one time and decided to become cyber-friends with - will do little in the way of positive outcomes.

If you plan on making big changes in 2015, go ahead and make them. If reflecting on your past year helps you to see where those changes can be made, then reflect. But make sure it's your own life you're looking at, and all parts of it.

The fact is, real life rarely looks like the Photoshopped version of perfection we maybe think it should, but it is a million times more rewarding to live by your own rules with both feet in reality.

Greg Robertson receiving a lifetime achievement award for his tourism business shows the industry is still going strong and has managed to evolve with the times.

The outfitter recently received the Mike Stillwell lifetime achievement award for his long career and his tourism business, Bluefish Services. The licensed outfitter, known primarily for his fishing trips on Great Slave Lake, has been in operation since 1982, and recently added a unique attraction to his business.

Four years ago, he purchased a Snobear – a self-contained ice fishing machine – and modified it into an excursion vehicle to take sightseers out for day trips. Robertson said he added this component to his business to make ice fishing more comfortable while offering his guests a neat ride in which to view the beauty of the North during winter.

This is the passion and ingenuity governments should be tapping into if it wants to advance the tourism industry. There will always be attractions such as fishing, aurora viewing and dog sledding but to attract more visitors and keep tourism vibrant, there needs to be variety and more visual cues for visitors – particularly those from Japan, and increasingly China, who dominate the winter tourism market in Yellowknife – that they are welcome to be here.

That is where lateral thinkers are needed. Bill Tait, the former president of Raven Tours, followed by Aurora World, was one of the first to see the potential of marketing aurora tours to international tourists. Current outfitters such as Robertson's Bluefish Services, Aurora Village and Beck's Kennels carry the torch.

Areas to expand winter tourism include the touring of the winter roads – made famous by Yellowknifer Alex Debogorski and his reality TV show Ice Road Truckers – and to the smaller communities outside of the city.

These would seem obvious places to develop to their tourism potential but go to Lutsel K'e – gateway to a proposed national park – one would quickly realize that tourism there – other than the one fishing lodge that has been in existence for many years – hasn't been given much thought at all.

This is where the territorial government, and in Yellowknife, the city, come in. Where is the signage in Japanese, Mandarin and Cantonese? The development of roadside and community attractions?

Premier Bob McLeod is heading up another trip to China – his fifth, at a cost of $300,000 – but what kind of bang is the territory getting for its buck? Would this money be better spent on providing grants to potential tourism operators in the territory who have the ideas and the ambition but lack the capital to get them off the ground?

Aurora tourism was up 112 per cent in 2013 from the previous year with 15,700 visitors to the territory that year. But as long as government relies entirely on the few upstarts and visionaries who have managed to survive despite a lack of tourism infrastructure, this market will remain much smaller than it ought to be.

With the shrinking Canadian dollar – now at $.86 US – the time to take advantage is now.

Upcoming conference a solid concept
Editorial Comment by Darell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Another year has passed us by as Nunavut nears the end of its 15th anniversary.

As in our first 14 as a territory, the year had some triumphs, some failures, and some decisions that had many shaking their heads in bewilderment.

Arguably, however, the two most disturbing trends continue to be the serious disconnect between the federal government and Nunavut (see Nutrition North for glaring example), and the vocal minority who insist on keeping skin colour at the top of the problems-that-can't-be-overcome list, complete with conspiracy theories on how southern Canada is plotting to commit genocide on the Inuit way of life.

There is a slowly rising voice of Inuit trying to be heard with their message of we can't move forward if we continue to live in the past.

But, unfortunately, theirs is a message of reason and co-operation, not one of sensationalism, nor of headline-grabbing themes that cause southern media feeding frenzies like we saw in Rankin Inlet to close out 2014.

I've long come to the sad realization there are folks who get their voices heard by dropping the old standbys of colonialism, genocide and, in some cases, white privilege, without grasping the true definition of each.

One of the more recent targets of those who drop the colonialism bomb is the upcoming Nunavut at 15 conference being hosted by the Northern Institute in our nation's capital on Feb. 4 and 5.

Despite the call for a non-partisan mutual forum to discuss how Nunavut is doing - in terms of meeting the goals set in both the preparation stages of the land claim agreement and the official creation of our territory in 1999 -- the conference is being dubbed colonial in some quarters because it's being hosted in Ottawa, not Iqaluit.

National and southern media outlets are all too happy to play that up because they're not particularly enamoured with its structure.

In what this humble scribe sees as a smart move, media covering the event will not be able to quote speakers directly from the forum, having to, instead, ask them during breaks if they're willing to go on the record.

Much the same approach was taken by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission when those who spoke of their residential school experiences were given the choice to speak in a public forum or in private.

The approach allows participants to speak openly and honestly without fear of their remarks being taken out of context and, perhaps more importantly, without fear of whether their opinion happens to be in vogue.

To top it all off, the conference promises only speakers who actually know what they're talking about.

There's a brave new concept you have to support!

The plan is for a summary of the conference to be posted on the Northern Institute's website.

The early list of speakers is a solid one, including, among others, Premier Peter Taptuna, Languages Commissioner Sandra Inutiq and former premier Eva Aariak.

What remains to be seen is who among the country's movers and shakers will deem the conference important enough to attend.

You can be sure that, far more than the conference location, will be a good indicator of who is on our side and who, perhaps, is not.

It's easy to romanticize about the importance of the year that was as calendars change over to 2015. Nonetheless, we at News/North are holding fast to the notion that 2014 will go down in the books as a remarkable year in the Northwest Territories.

Over the past 12 months, devolution has taken effect; courts in the territory and elsewhere have heard landmark cases about indigenous rights; residents, politicians and industry have been locked in heated debates over what the future of resource development should look like; a grassroots movement to raise awareness about Canada's missing and murdered indigenous women has taken root and started important conversations about violence and gender equality; accusations of assaults by police have arisen; and the future of caribou and the people who rely upon them has returned to the forefront, among other things.

Power play

Bureaucrats are currently wrestling with the $250-million question of how to power the territory.

An unprecedented lack of water in the Snare Hydro System has turned Yellowknife into the North's largest diesel community. This, along with a technical report that found the proposed hydro grid expansion linking the North and South Slave would cost over $1 billion, has killed the dream that was creating a connected hydro grid in the NWT.

The biggest issue impacting daily life is poverty, driven in large part by the cost of living in the North. On this, there appears to be consensus -- but what to do about it remains unclear.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger is poised to invest big money into energy – as long as the federal government approves the GNWT's request to raise its debt ceiling by $1 billion.

But before we can fix our energy problems, the monopoly currently enjoyed by the Northwest Territories Power Corporation and Northland Utilities Ltd. has got to go. Those who don't agree that there is a power monopoly in the NWT need look no further than to what happened when Borealis GeoPower proposed to build a geothermal plant in Fort Liard.

News/North would humbly suggest that the government think small. Stop being distracted by grand-scale projects that rely on industrial customers. The NWT's diamond mines – none of which are expected to survive beyond a couple decades -- have never said that they want to purchase power from the territory, so let's let it go.

Instead, focus on small-scale projects that will provide residents with affordable, sustainable power.

The climate is changing, now what?

Climate scientists have upped the urgency in the alarm they have been sounding for years: the climate is changing and without immediate action there will be serious consequences.

In 2014, the messaging from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) changed from – and this is paraphrasing – "we need to cut emissions or bad things will happen" to "bad things are happening and we need to get ready."

It's not hard to see the effects looking around the NWT. In the Beaufort Delta, the shoreline has eroded to the point that homes will have to be moved back or be swept into the sea, and hunters are dealing with ice conditions the likes of which they have never previously seen.

Then there were the fires. This past summer saw the worst fire season on record – highlighting a drought that is not only negatively impacting the land and animals, it is now hitting the government's pocketbook.

All the more reason for the government to double-down and invest in community alternative energy projects -- for both power and heat -- such as wind, biomass, geothermal and solar power. Not only will it reduce carbon emissions, it will save money long term.

While there are definite glimmers of possibility as the Northwest Territories embarks into the new year, there are plenty of potential pitfalls ahead.

There is no end in sight to the persistent and worrisome population drain despite GNWT efforts to reverse it. The territory, despite the government's devolution deal, remains vulnerable to rising costs and a lack of money to pay for massive infrastructure needs.

As 2015 unfolds, we will see whether the GNWT can rise to the challenge.

The new year brings much promise but also many reasons to be wary. We wish our government leaders and everyone else the best of luck in navigating this uncertain year.

It was quite a year for Nunavut on the national and international stage in 2014.

Historians lauded the discovery of the lost ship HMS Erebus, missing since Sir John Franklin's ill-fated voyage in 1845. Where dozens of explorers and searchers had failed before, modern technology and determination by the Harper government was finally successful when the wreckage was finally found, under Nunavut water in an area that was described previously by an Inuit expert in Gjoa Haven as a good place to look.

Nunavut performer Tanya Tagaq of Cambridge Bay made national headlines by winning the $30,000 2014 Polaris Prize, awarded in Toronto in September, for her album Animism. She shocked the audience when she pointed to her sealskin armbands and proclaimed seal meat as delicious, before uttering a few choice disparaging words at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for its stand against the seal hunt in Canada.

In Clyde River, meanwhile, the hamlet has banded together with Greenpeace in its efforts to stop seismic testing in Davis Inlet and Baffin Bay to map the water for future oil and gas development after a multinational company received approval from the National Energy Board. Greenpeace, known worldwide for its efforts to protect the environment, is helping to bankroll legal services by a high-profile lawyer.

A significant black mark against Nunavut was the fire at the Iqaluit landfill, colloquially referred to as "Dumpcano," which burned for an atrocious 100 days before being finally extinguished on Sept. 16. Residents with health problems were forced to stay indoors and others were affected by the toxic smoke, depending on wind direction, while requests for help by city officials from other levels of government fell on deaf ears and the Iqaluit fire department struggled to come up with a game plan.

But nothing has cast a darker shadow on Nunavut in the eyes of outsiders than the damning report by the auditor general of Canada on Nutrition North, the food subsidy program administered by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. It concluded that there is no way to determine if subsidies are being passed on to consumers. The resulting coverage, including images of food products displayed on Nunavut grocery store shelves above outrageous price labels, have outraged Canadians and prompted a startling response.

Now, people in southern Canada are holding fundraisers, organizing assistance online and shipping groceries north like Nunavut is a Third World country hit by a natural disaster.

The issue was exacerbated by Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq's response, which ignored pointed questions in the House of Commons and called out an elected leader in Rankin Inlet for drawing attention to food insecurity in a televised documentary which showed elders picking food from the dump.

The territorial government's primary focus is on education, but how can young people learn when they are hungry and don't have a stable place to live?

In the year ahead, leaders at all levels need to wake up to the severity of the trouble Nunavummiut face in finding healthy, affordable food and adequate housing. There is no single solution but, just as there were many people involved in making the news, there must be multiple efforts to address issues of basic need.

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