Please sir, can I have some more?Northwest Territories/News North - Monday, April 13, 2015
Watching the legislative assembly unfold every day can oftentimes seem like watching a table reading of Oliver Twist.
Regular MLAs on one side of the room take turns begging cabinet members for infrastructure improvements in their regions, projects rationed out as if they are the GNWT's "three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and a half a roll on Sundays." Hay River North MLA Robert Bouchard routinely implores the Department of Transportation to start dredging the Hay River since the federal government stopped doing it in 1994. Mackenzie Delta MLA Frederick Blake Jr. has a replacement for Moose Kerr School, which was built in 1969, on his wish list. Nahendeh MLA Kevin Menicoche has recounted standing with Industry, Tourism and Investment Minister David Ramsay in a Highway 7 pothole so big that "it reminded (him) of a roller-coaster."
Banging their empty copper bowls with spoons, each MLA has taken a turn to ask, "Please sir, may I have some more?"
And it's no wonder the territory's infrastructure is starving for upgrades after the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) revealed last week its funding formula leaves an annual $40 million shortfall.
According to Hay River Mayor David Cassidy, the department was aware its funding formula was flawed at least as far back as September 2013. Three months later MACA announced it would review the way it calculates these numbers for the first time since 2007 and despite the fact MLAs requested the department fast track the review so it would be ready for consideration before the 2015 budget, the new formula will not be presented to the legislative assembly until after the election. When MACA finally presents these new numbers to political leaders, it will be a full two years after the department first announced it was embarking on the review. This is really unfortunate, because imagine how far $40 million could go in improving the territory's remote infrastructure this year.
In the meantime MLAs will continue to grovel, like Sahtu MLA Norman Yakeleya when he showed Health Minister Glen Abernethy pictures of the Tulita nurses' residences furnished with mousetraps and water-damaged furniture last fall, or the Yellowknife MLAs when they begged for a safe pedestrian walkway along Highway 3 between the legislative assembly building and downtown.
Ministers will no doubt say they have a policy and they're sticking to it.
At least one community, Colville Lake, is taking matters into its own hands in its quest for a school big enough to accommodate its burgeoning student population - community members are planning to construct a building themselves and invite the GNWT to lease it.
The one silver lining in all of this is that it's an election year. This is the perfect time for municipalities across the territory to urge their residents to vote for politicians who make community infrastructure a priority -- politicians who possess the creativity and political will to find ways to work around a bureaucracy that moves slower than molasses so residents across the territory don't have to beg for access to the things they need.
Food studies students' enthusiasm is inspiringNunavut/News North - Monday, April 13, 2015
It may seem overwhelming to consider how best to offer assistance to low-income Nunavut families in need of healthy food to feed their families.
The administrators of the Helping Our Northern Neighbours Facebook group, which has been matching needy Nunavut families with sponsors in the south, are learning as they go along how best to provide food and essentials of life to those in need.
The group is changing its tactics in the future to focus more on providing food to food banks, church groups and organizations in Nunavut and other parts of Canada, to better distribute the assistance, prevent abuse and provide the necessary ingredients for families with children to eat healthy foods.
Ingenuity is one of the ingredients in discovering how best to help the hungry.
That was demonstrated this past summer when it was reported in a controversial documentary by Aboriginal Peoples Television Network that Inuit elders in Rankin Inlet were taking discarded food products from the hamlet's dump. What was being taken was boxed and packaged unsold products from the Northern store, mostly cut and washed fruit and vegetables that were arranged in clear, plastic containers with a mix of items such as strawberries, pineapple, melon and cantaloupe.
The items didn't sell because the price reflected the labour required to cut and wash the raw ingredients, place them in the package and label them. Consumers could purchase a good quantity of raw fruit for the same price as the processed fruit container.
Consider then the lessons that are being taught in the classrooms at Netsilik Ilihakvik in Taloyoak, where students are enthusiastic about the Food Studies course being taught by principal Gina Pizzo, who has transferred the popularity of reality TV cooking shows to her pupils.
Young people are challenged to create dishes from raw ingredients, are shown how to wash, cut, cook and arrange plates of healthy food for consumption at the school and at home. The result of one classroom session included sushi, which was extremely popular once the students got the hang of rolling raw fish and seaweed in rice sheets.
The students also learned how to carve vegetables and fruits, making tomato roses, radish and carrot flowers, orange fruit salad bowls, swan apples, spritzes of celery, kiwi flowers and Japanese vegetable wraps. What is being developed is a love for cooking among young people, which is bound to provide healthy benefits to entire families and to the larger community during celebrations and feasts.
There is no reason to be overwhelmed by the vast numbers or widespread need for healthy alternatives when one considers the potential impact of individual ingenuity.
Just as a casserole makes a little meat go a long way, cooking classes and education about transforming raw ingredients into healthy meals for a relatively low cost provides some relief from food insecurity.
Health minister in denial Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, April 10, 2015
Those who believe the current drug and alcohol treatment model in the NWT is getting the job done may not have looked closely enough to our western neighbour.
Either the Yukon is experiencing an addictions problem six times greater than the Northwest Territories, or what is being done here is not working. According to the Yukon government, the territory's drug treatment centre in Whitehorse averages around 1,000 patients at its 24-day residential treatment program each year.
Somehow the NWT, with a population of more than 43,000 people - nearly 7,000 more than in the Yukon - only sent 164 people south for treatment in the first year since Hay River Reserve's Nats'ejee Keh Treatment Centre closed in 2013.
According to the latest Statistics Canada figures, the drug offence rate of Northwest Territories far outpaces other Canadian jurisdictions - more than 1,000 per 100,000 compared to the national average of 305 per 100,000. The territory also leads the way in alcoholism rates. The national average for people reporting having had five or more drinks at least once a month in a year was 17.3 per cent; the NWT's average is nearly twice that - 31 per cent.
Health Minister Glen Abernethy insists the status quo - of offering a mixture of on-the-land programs and facility-based services down south -- is working well, and is the most economically efficient way of providing these services.
But anybody who has lived for even a short while in the territory is bound to be skeptical at such pronouncements. Saying that there is no better way simply does not seem true.
If everything is going so swimmingly well why did city council candidates identify "downtown revitalization" as the main campaign issue in the last municipal election? Downtown revitalization in Yellowknife is not a mere matter of throwing on a few coats of paint and laying down some cobblestone. For many people it's code for coming up with the solution required to combat an urban decay wrought by vagrancy and drunks.
Clearly the Yukon government felt having its own residential treatment centre in the territory's largest city was worth the $21 million it cost to build it.
If 1,000 people a year are using it that is a remarkable figure and evidence that built-in-the-North treatment centres may work here too providing the government has the will to make it work.
The first thing the GNWT should ask is what is it that our western neighbour is doing that has so boosted the number of people seeking treatment?
Accessibility would seem to top the list. Whitehorse has a drug treatment facility downtown and is doubling the number of beds to 20. The NWT closed its Hay River treatment facility in 2013 and the Yellowknife treatment facility in 1999.
Within the territory, the NWT does offer non-medical detox through withdrawal management services at the Salvation Army but there are no formal detox beds at Stanton Territorial Hospital.
Not so for the Yukon, which offers detox services to voluntary patients over the age of 16 who are willing to take a breathalyzer test. Those with a significantly high blood alcohol level are sent to the hospital.
It's true, the NWT does offer on-the-land treatment but that does not adequately address those with addictions concentrated in urban centres.
None of this is to say the Yukon government has found the magic bullet to tackle addiction. But the fact remains the GNWT cannot claim that what is being done is even remotely sufficient. Everyone knows the NWT has a drinking problem. Why are so many people getting treatment in the Yukon and so few are receiving treatment here? This is a question Abernethy has so far failed to answer.
Council in need of a permanent homeDeh Cho Drum - Thursday, April 9, 2015
The downtown strip in Fort Simpson will soon look drastically different.
Construction on a two-storey office building at the corner of 100 Street and 100 Avenue slated to begin later this spring will mark the beginning of a transformation for the west side of the village.
The $10-million project, being built by Nogha Enterprises Ltd., is not a self-serving venture. While the company will occupy space on the second floor of the building, along with Liidlii Kue First Nation, the project is happening because they wanted to improve the quality of business in the village.
Project Manager Barry Potter, of Alberta-based Potter Consultants, said the project wasn't about finding a new home for the band office or the company, but a venture for the community, by the community. By providing office space for current businesses looking for a new home, home-based business owners looking to expand or travelling business people - in and out of the community on a regular basis but looking for a more formal setting to work in than their hotel beds - the 24,000-square-foot space will have a positive impact on the foundation of business in Fort Simpson.
Not to mention a potential new home for the village office and council. The village has operated out of the visitor's centre for over a decade and while no leases have been signed, the opportunity for the village to find a permanent home like this may not come again in the near future if it doesn't jump at the opportunity. Village staff informed council at a March meeting that the cost of maintaining the current office situation is cheaper, however, with required maintenance and upkeep piling up - a boiler isn't working and the heating system needs work - the cost to move into a new, state-of-the-art office building could prove to be nearly the same.
Potter said they are proposing the village occupy one half of the main floor, along with Parks Canada, who are also in talks to move their offices into the building. However, Potter said the project moving forward is contingent on having tenants signed on to help appease the bank financing the project - if their are no tenants locked in, lenders may be less likely to sign off on the financing, he said.
It's important the village do its due diligence and make sure the move makes sense financially. However, if it can be done without costing taxpayers too much more money, council should vote in favour of the move for two reasons. One, the town would be supporting business growth by contributing to the success of a centralized business and government complex which could help foster economic growth in a community stuck in years of stagnation, and two, it gives the village a home, rather than a resting place.
An opportunity like this doesn't come along very often in a community like Fort Simpson and it's crucial the town consider the future. If it decides not to move into the new building, will a chance like this come along again, or will it be another decade, maybe longer?
Council's choice OK but the process is flawedInuvik Drum - Thursday, April 9, 2015
As we've all heard ad nauseum from politicians over the last umpteen years, government is supposed to be transparent and open.
As we all know equally well, though, all too often that's simply lip service from government representatives.
The recent appointment of Natasha Kulikowksi to fill the position left open by the sudden death of Terry Halifax is a case in point.
I think many people would agree that Kulikowksi is a worthy appointment.
She's an integral part of the community, well respected in pretty much every way for her considerable efforts to help out.
Since she was also the runner-up in the last municipal election, council made a sound decision by reaching out to her.
The problem with her appointment comes simply from the process to decide to fill the position by appointment without an - ahem - open and transparent public debate on the question.
As a reporter, I've seen this situation happen before in other jurisdictions, where council had to fill a vacant seat as a result of both resignations and deaths. In every case I can think of, the debate of whether to fill the vacancy and how to fill it has been discussed in a public session.
In cases where an appointment has been decided upon as the proper course of action, it's common enough to reach out to the runner-up to see if he or she would still be interested in serving.
So the real disservice to Inuvik residents is the fact the council members addressed the situation with the vacant seat behind closed doors, rather than dealing with it in a forthright and public manner.
Senior administrative officer Grant Hood confirmed the discussions had taken place in a closed session meeting, but he didn't respond to questions as to why it was done in that manner and whether that's the way it's been traditionally done in such circumstances.
In the process of filling the vacancy, the council has done a bit of a disservice to a fine candidate in Kulikowksi, as well as to the residents of Inuvik.
It's a case of the right decision reached the wrong way. Hopefully, it's a teachable moment for all involved.
It begins with businessYellowknifer - Wednesday, April 8, 2015
There is a clear benefit to increasing business tourism in Yellowknife. As Bruce Jonasson, business development manager at Adlair Aviation, put it, "They're like tourists on steroids."
As well as bringing their official business to town, these travellers rack up car rental, hotel and other bills that feed the local economy.
But, is it the government's responsibility to push this sector of visitors in the same way it promotes tourism? Certainly, it has a vested interest in seeing this segment grow and can offer support to make business ventures such as cold weather testing in Yellowknife easier but the real responsibility lies within the business community itself.
Looking back at the tourism industry, it was business operators such as Bill Tait of Raven Tours who in the early '90s launched Yellowknife as the winter tourism Mecca that it is today - primarily with Japanese tourists in search of northern lights.
When the frequency of travel dropped worldwide following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. 2001, and again when the economic downturn of 2008 and 2009 shook the not-yet steady ground, reviving the struggling industry fell largely on businesses in the area. Innovators such as Don Morin of Aurora Village and Grant Beck of Beck's Kennels - who has been drawing tourists to the city for decades - ensured Yellowknife remained a prime winter destination.
The benefits of investing in business tourism can be proven by existing ventures, such as the recent visits of teams from Bombardier and Honeywell Aerospace who set up shop in Yellowknife for aerospace testing in the cold climate. It's these opportunities and the economic spinoffs that will encourage the government to put more behind business tourism. Offering the necessary infrastructure to support business tourism - whether it's appropriate roadways for vehicle testing or runways for aerospace testing - lie within the government's hands.
Enticing industry members to make the trip to Yellowknife, rather than to our sub-Arctic and Arctic neighbours, is the role of the business community.
North's heritage sport runs strongYellowknifer - Wednesday, April 8, 2015
As far as Northern sports go, the enduring popularity of the Canadian Championship Dog Derby is proof enough that the 60-year-old event will not be running into oblivion anytime soon.
The sight of barking dogs pulling a sled remains a common sight around Yellowknife even while the tar paper shacks and mine headframes disappear.
The derby marked 60 years in grand style late last month with teams from across the continent challenging themselves and their dogs in the 150-mile race. A dynasty also regained prominence with the victory of Richard Beck but he had to fight for it against Dave Turner of Oregon. There were five Becks in the top six at this year's event, cementing the Beck family's dogsledding dynasty.
Like the prohibition-era bootleggers who laid the foundations for NASCAR when they raced cars modified to outrun police, dogsled racing has its roots in practical applications. The original purpose of the derby was a social event among trappers who came to Yellowknife to sell furs they collected over the winter and then have a little fun by racing their dog teams.
The derby has captured imaginations for decades and is being pursued by future generations. Several novice teams got a taste of competitive racing with four-dog 32 km races and even children tried short two-dog runs. This bodes well for the future of dogsledding as it shows there is no shortage of people willing to get behind the sled.
Bill threatens your way of lifeEditorial Comment by Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, April 8, 2015
There are quite a few reasons to be nervous about the more than 60 pages of legalese that represents -- if you happen to have an affinity for Kool-Aid -- the mother of all action plans designed to make you feel safe and secure in the knowledge your government is about to make Canada a tough place for terrorists.
But simply being nervous about its contents only applies if you're well-grounded to begin with; exhibiting no overt signs of mental instability, emotional imbalance or unchecked paranoia such as an inherent distrust of all things related to Big Brother, and/or displaying a tendency to be a free thinker.
Should you not be oak solid to begin with, some parts of Bill C-51 could take you well past the state of nervousness and deposit you smack dab in the middle of slightly unhinged avenue.
To borrow a line, you'd still have the right to free speech, provided, of course, you're not dumb enough to actually try it.
At least not in any way that could be read or overheard by others.
If you Google Bill C-51, you'll discover all sorts of fascinating reading material.
Said material will cover everything from the eight things you absolutely have to know, without wasting another second of your life, to why it's our duty to sacrifice a bit of our freedom to fight the good fight against terrorism.
You can, however, expect to read a great deal more on the former point of view than the latter.
You'll even see Bill C-51 portrayed as a tool designed by men who've had their manhood threatened by terrorism or gay rights, although I'm not sure exactly how the author prompted herself to come up with that particular combination.
No-fly listings, personal information sharing, and information agencies being given policing powers are all things that should make one sit up and take notice.
The deal breaker for me is Uncle Stephen's desire to make it easy for police to legally detain a person who has not been charged with a crime, and to allow them to prosecute an individual for the spoken word as easily as they would an act of violence.
That trips the light fantastic too closely to the rhythm of a police state for me.
Whispering one's thoughts well off the beaten path, and trading opinions in the darkest recesses of the public domain for fear of having them twisted, misunderstood or used against you has suddenly become an all-too-real possibility.
I have read social-media postings left by friends this very week that could make them a person of interest should Bill C-51 become law, possibly as early as the end of the House's spring sitting.
And spy agencies, even a Canadian one such as CSIS, being given the power of threat reduction?
B.C. Civil Liberties Association senior council Carmen Cheung is right when she argues threat reduction power is policing power.
Secret spy agencies being given policing powers has already been done.
They're recognized by such cheerful abbreviations as KGB and Gestapo, and their results speak for themselves.
Should Bill C-51 become law, the type of freedom so many gave their lives to protect will slowly, but surely, fade from memory, and those most powerful among us will succumb to the mistakes of the past.
