Enterprise councillor wears three hats
Chaal Cadieux works at a mine and volunteers in the community when he's not working as a hamlet councillor
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Monday, April 13, 2015
ENTERPRISE
Even though he spends two weeks at a time away from Enterprise for work, Chaal Cadieux does his best to stay involved in the community.
Chaal Cadieux: diamond mine worker is also a councillor with the Hamlet of Enterprise and a community volunteer despite two-weeks-in, two-weeks-out work schedule. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo |
As an underground equipment operator at Ekati diamond mine, he works on a two-weeks-in, two-weeks-out rotation with contractor Procon Mining and Tunnelling.
Despite this schedule, Cadieux is a councillor with the Hamlet of Enterprise and stays involved in the community as an active volunteer.
"It's challenging," he admitted. "You're trying to do council meetings on the phone and you're trying to organize things over a distance. Even though we've got decent communications at the mine, it's a challenge. It's not like being there in person, that's the thing."
While at the mine, he keeps in touch with Enterprise by telephone and via the Internet.
As a hamlet councillor, he often participates in meetings by telephone and follows the agenda package on a laptop computer while sitting in his room at the mine site.
"You have the package ahead of time so you know what the issues are, and each individual item is being discussed at the meeting," he said. "So you can hear what people are saying and, if you know what you want to say beforehand, you can respond. It's definitely more cumbersome than being there in person, but it's effective. You can still get your say in there."
Along with hamlet council, Cadieux is involved in organizing the annual Itzago dog sled races and volunteering with the Gateway Jamboree music and cultural festival.
Plus, he is part of a nascent initiative to create a district education authority (DEA) in Enterprise, since the community has a number of children at or nearing the age of kindergarten.
"We're working on getting a DEA established so that we could get our own small school here," he said, adding the school would be for kindergarten to Grade 3.
"I liked attending school in Hay River and everything, but I just look at my kids and I just think that if they could just walk to school that would be awesome," he said. "If they could get to come home for lunch that would be awesome, too."
Even though it is a challenge to stay involved in the community while working at a mine, Cadieux says it is worth the effort.
"When you're in a small community and you have kids, if you're not involved, it's not like you can blame anybody if there's nothing going on," he explained. "It's like you have to be involved because it's just the way that the numbers are. You have to look out for your own interests, basically, at this size of a community, and getting involved is the only way to do that, really."
Cadieux said he also likes the idea of being part of a small community and likes staying involved through volunteering and helping to organize events.
The 37-year-old is into his second year on hamlet council after being elected in December 2013. About six years ago he did another council stint that lasted about seven years.
He has worked at Ekati mine for eight years, starting in 2007 with Kingland Ford.
"And about a year later I went over to Procon, and I've been with them ever since," he said.
Cadieux credits his ability to work away from Enterprise for two weeks at a time to his wife, Stephanie Kotchea.
"She's here half the time by herself taking care of everything - the kids, the house, answering the phone," he said.
"It's like without that person in your life and without having that stability, you wouldn't be able to do this."
Cadieux mentioned he has known workers at the mine whose families don't stick together because their partners can't handle the work schedule.
Despite those challenges, there is a positive side to the two-weeks-in, two-weeks-out life of a being a mine worker.
"On your time out, you have two weeks. You have a lot of freedom during that time out. It's like having a vacation every month."
Cadieux has lived in Enterprise since 1983 when his family moved there from Yellowknife, where he was born.
"One of the values I was taught in terms of finding happiness in this world is that you have to find the balance between the community's need and your own needs," he said. "You'll find that, if you're contributing to your community and you're participating that way, not just focused on your own needs, you'll have more fulfillment in your life."
