Power status quo must end Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, May 13, 2016
If the recent 12 per cent power rate increase application made by NWT Power Corporation is approved, ratepayers will, by 2018-19, be paying 40 per cent more for power than they were in 2012.
That's how these seemingly small, incremental increases add up over time, with previous rate hikes essentially compounded by any new rate formula.
The rate increase is not yet a foregone conclusion. The application will face a review process, including public briefings, over the coming weeks.
Already, the NWT Association of Communities has made its position clear. The apparently endless rate increases are drive up the cost of living, which hurts individuals, businesses and communities.
No one can fault the association for letting out a battle cry against the inexorable rise in the cost of living but Northerners don't yet know the details of power corp.'s application.
It may be the rate hike is entirely justified by costs the power supplier is facing. If that turns out to be the case, any lobbying to avoid the rate increase will be futile.
The real danger here is that the politicians again sniff an opportunity to play the good guy and dole out another $50 million or so to alleviate the impact of the power hike increase on Betty and Joe Ratepayer.
If the power hike is justified, the public and the GNWT need to face up to the prospect of ever-increasing power costs so long as the status quo is maintained.
The band-aid solution of protecting ratepayers by spending their tax dollars on power rate subsidies is futile and stupid. If the territory is going to spend tax dollars to combat the ever rising cost of energy in the North, it should be spending that money on alternative energy solutions, such as more hydro plants, wind, solar and even nuclear technology.
Imagine what could have been done in this area had the $49 million spent the past two years on subsidizing diesel due to low water levels in the Snare hydro system been applied in this direction instead.
Clearly there is no end in sight to the demand for more money from power corp. Whether or not the demand is justified is beside the point. As long as the territory is tied to the cost of diesel for its energy, it will always face energy cost insecurity.
If ratepayers seek a long-term solution to being tied to the cost of diesel, they must let the politicians and the GNWT know they demand concrete, alternative energy solutions.
At the same time, ratepayers must recognize power bill payouts by the GNWT are not sustainable. It's likely going to cost more for power in the future. Spending money on subsidies instead of innovation is merely throwing good money after bad.
Census participation a civic duty Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, May 13, 2016
Residents filling out their census forms may never get a bucket of medals, an honourary title or a certificate of appreciation but this should not take away from their contributions to the territory.
The act is important for all Canadian residents but Northerners especially can have a particularly powerful impact because every person counted brings $36,000 in annual funding from the federal government.
Consider that the Stanton Territorial Hospital Foundation's annual gala that brought in almost $130,000 in December. That amount includes proceeds from 260 attendees, auctions and donations from sponsors.
To bring in around the same amount of money, four people would have to be counted in the census.
As well, public policy planning depends on information from the census. In order to be sure there are enough medical professionals, educators and other public services available for Northerners, planners must have an idea how many residents are in the North, their ages and what their needs are.
All residents must do to lend a hand is fill out the census in accordance with the law.
The official deadline has already passed - May 10 - but residents have been told they still have time to fill out their forms. It is not too late to do what is right and good for the North.
Let wildlife beDeh Cho Drum - Thursday, May 12, 2016
Tales from the south of people feeding bears and other wildlife often leave Northerners shaking their heads.
Those who have spent any amount of time in the North know wildlife is to be respected and kept at a distance, allowed to go about its business in peace.
That is because wildlife is just that: wild. Moose, bear, elk -- the species does not matter. Each can be dangerous to humans who disturb them in their natural environment.
Lately, a moose has been hanging around Fort Simpson.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources suspects she is a pregnant cow.
The moose has elicited some sympathy from community members because of her tick-laden condition which has turned parts of her hide white and caused some of her hair to fall out.
Now, she is suspected to be in the midst of, if not finished, birthing her calf.
It is more important than ever to let the creature be, especially in her vulnerable condition.
Most residents know not to approach a wild animal -- and not to go crashing through the bush to get a picture of a calving moose.
Yet there have been reports of some people doing just that.
For the safety of everyone, human and animal alike, steering clear is the best option available. Signs have been erected by wildlife officers warning people of the area the moose has been spotted. It is just good common sense to be careful in that area.
The moose is not here as a sideshow. She is not here to be gawked at, sought out or harried. She is here to find a safe place to drop her calf.
She doesn't know whether the intentions of someone trying to take a photo of her are good or nefarious but her instincts will be either flight or fight -- which could have bad consequences for the person intruding on her space.
Nothing good can come out of lingering around the moose and trying to catch a glimpse of it. This is an animal that is in a rather fragile state right now. Both tick-ridden and either pregnant or with a newborn calf, she is liable to charge anyone who gets too close -- accidentally or otherwise.
If it were any other creature, such as a bear, it would be left alone if for no other reason than because people know a bear attack is nothing to trifle with.
We should be affording this moose the same courtesy by letting her rest peacefully before moving on her way.
There's a river under ice roadInuvik Drum - Thursday, May 12, 2016
Along with the gorgeous spring weather for all to enjoy -- before the bugs come out in full force and drive people back to long sleeves and screened in porches -- comes something far less pleasant.
All the garbage dumped everywhere in town and subsequently ploughed away and buried in the snow has resurfaced, making for a less-than-attractive eyesore. And while the general detritus about town is bad enough, the junk that has been left on the ice road is something else.
The municipality sponsors a community-wide clean-up in which non-profit groups and sports clubs can earn some extra cash by taking on a section of town, but -- for obvious reasons -- no such thing exists for the river.
Government agencies are responsible for getting the garbage off the road before break-up and while they have by all accounts been responsive to larger items like trucks and drums, there is no way they can get all the smaller items thrown from cars or shed from snowmobiles throughout the season.
People who live here may take them for granted as a simple fact of life in the North, but in the grand scheme of things, ice roads are special. They are built on functioning ecosystems used by creatures and people alike in other seasons, and the damage done during the winter doesn't slip away into the ether when the ice melts.
The melt, furthermore, is hardly a surprise. It's not like it doesn't happen every year, bringing with it a slurry of outrage about the rubbish left behind, and a resulting flurry of last-minute action to clean it up before it causes damage to the Mackenzie River.
Of course, the easy solution to this is to just not dump trash on the ice road in the first place, but alas, this seems like a forlorn hope. There is no reason to not expect people to dispose of their garbage responsibly, and yet there are clearly residents who don't think it worth their while to make the trip to the dump or even just to keep their trash in the truck with them until they get to a garbage can.
What they fail to realize, however, is that all those public service announcements people saw for decades about pollution coming back to haunt them is more true here than anywhere.
What goes around, comes around.
NWT tourism abounds as visitor's centre crumblesYellowknifer - Wednesday, May 11, 2016
It isn't a stretch to say the territory's economy is on shaky ground. The need to diversify and seek new sources of revenue has been highlighted time after time by mine closures and a dwindling resource extraction industry.
But where to branch out? What industry do Northerners look to to bring in new revenue from outside the territory? The most obvious sector to turn to is tourism. New money - and quite a bit of it - funnels into the city dressed in Canada Goose parkas, with cameras slung around necks. Visitors to the territory brought in $146.6 million in 2015. That's 36 per cent more revenue than what tourism produced five years ago. Unlike other areas of the NWT economy, this sector is on the rise.
How unfortunate then that the city's visitors centre is not.
The Northern Frontier Visitors Centre, one of the first buildings tourists see when coming into the city and a likely first stop on their travels, is literally crumbling due to unstable pilings at the back of the building.
Several levels of government, including the GNWT and the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, invested more than $400,000 two years ago to repair and stabilize the building but the problem is getting worse. In fact the windows overlooking what used to be a scenic view of Frame Lake have been boarded up as a result of shattered panes.
The Northern Frontier Visitors Association is doing the best it can to keep tourists happy and interested in what the city has to offer. But this shouldn't be left in its hands alone after first efforts to fix the building failed.
The association and its centre are not the beneficiaries of a booming tourism industry - they're the vehicle. And it's a vehicle that requires maintenance in order to get the economy to more certain footing. Besides, having a visitors centre sinking into a swamp is just plain embarrassing.
The city and territorial government must address the catastrophic state of the building once and for all.
Permanent repairs may not be cheap but the long-term gains of having a high-quality gateway for visitors to the territorial capital is well worth it.
And the downside of leaving the building as is can't be overlooked.
Caution tape and exposed insulation doesn't exactly spell out a world-class tourism destination.
Fort McMurray's present could be our futureYellowknifer - Wednesday, May 11, 2016
The North knows all too well the devastation wildfires can wreak on communities.
Images published in Friday's Yellowknifer of the fires that decimated Fort McMurray remind many in the city of what may have been had the fires been a little closer and the winds a little hotter in 2014.
Weeks of smoke, ash raining down on city streets and flames leaping across Highway 3 made for a nervous summer in Yellowknife that year. Last summer was marginally better with forest fires returning to close a number of NWT roads once again and putting cabin country on the Ingraham Trail at serious risk.
Since 2014, the city has made some efforts to "fire-smart" Yellowknife -- that is, to thin out forest undergrowth and identify areas most vulnerable to forest fires. But one senses, knowing now how quickly things can get out of hand, that the city will not be able to meet the challenges of a catastrophic fire as occurred last week in Fort McMurray.
For starters, neither the city nor the GNWT have a plan - at least not a publicly available one - explaining how it would evacuate residents should Highway 3 - the only road route out of Yellowknife - be closed due to fire. Last year, city officials said should a fire threaten the city and road access be cut off the plan is to move people to reception centres, such as the Multiplex and area schools.
This, after near panic broke out the previous year following a national media outlet report saying the city intended to gather people together behind an earthen berm near city hall in case fire breached city limits.
Having witnessed the fire's terrifying march through Fort McMurray, Yellowknifers are not keen being trapped like rats should a forest fire overwhelm efforts to stop it from reaching the city.
Have government officials approached airlines about their capacity to airlift people out should fire threaten the city? What is the capacity of area shipping to ferry people to the other side of Great Slave Lake?
Living in a city surrounded by forest, these are not unreasonable questions to ask.
Room for improvement, but badge still shinesEditorial Comment by Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, May 11, 2016
I recently had an interesting conversation with an RCMP friend who spent considerable time in the North.
After the usual exchange of pleasantries and getting caught up with each other, he talked about how many officers he knew, himself included, who weren't overly enamoured with the new acceptance standards for joining the RCMP.
That came as no surprise to me, as I had seen similar posts on social media by other officers I knew from their time in the North.
Then I was asked what I sensed the mood of the communities to be toward their police in the Kivalliq.
That question didn't overly surprise me either, as there's been much to do recently about the drastic jump in misconduct cases within the RCMP.
Having a 158 per cent hike in misconduct investigations, and 56 officers who could face dismissal over serious-misconduct allegations is nothing to sneeze at.
And, while the number of allegations in 2015 were absurdly high, it still only represents 1.29 per cent of the total number of RCMP officers.
While I have not sensed any more ill feelings toward the police than what one would consider normal from a very small percentage of the population, some trends are disturbing.
It would be nice to see the day when there are no longer any accusations of unwanted sexual advances coming from female officers.
Hearing those allegations gives one the same sick feeling in the stomach as when you hear of sexual wrongdoing by a member of the clergy or the coach of a minor sports team.
All such behaviour is unacceptable, but the odour is always more foul when it emanates from a person in a position of public trust.
Also a bit unsettling is the number of alpha-male-on-steroids types being attracted to policing these days.
Policing isn't for the faint of heart. It's a dangerous and often thankless profession.
But it's never a cliche to say those who wear a cop's badge never know if they'll be home again, when they leave for work in the morning.
Yet more and more, we see and read about police being overly-aggressive in the performance of their duties.
It's a scary combination, and it wasn't that long ago when an officer in Rankin Inlet told me he loved policing here because of how often you're involved in confrontational situations as compared to other jurisdictions.
Almost as disturbing are those who believe police misconduct would disappear if there were more aboriginal and other ethnic backgrounds on the job.
I put that statement right up there with the time I was told there are absolutely no gay Inuit. Enough said.
Any way you look at it, life wouldn't be much fun without police in this day and age.
We have little choice but to put our faith in the powers that be to effectively screen who gets to carry a gun to work every day, and are able to get the message across that police officers live under the same laws as the rest of us, especially when it comes to inappropriate sexual behaviour.
But, you just know, somewhere in our country this very minute, a police officer is watching himself draw in front of a large mirror.
Nobody's perfect, but the RCMP still run a pretty good track record in the big picture, even with room for improvement.
A dose of common senseNorthwest Territories/News North - Monday, May 9, 2016
In his interview with News/North last week, new NWT Chamber of Commerce president Richard Morland hammers home a crucial point about the territory's economy.
Regarding an economic boom enjoyed by the resource sector that ran from approximately 2004 to 2007, he warns that some people may have mistaken the high mineral prices that bolstered mines in the territory as normalcy, when in fact it was an aberration.
These were glory days. China was rapidly growing - and rapidly importing goods - creating a seemingly insatiable demand for all sorts of metals and minerals. In the past five years or so though, the Chinese economy has slowed down, cooling the resource sector with it.
"I've never seen prices like that in the other 23 years of my career and may never see them again," said Morland about this era.
These are sobering words for any exploration company looking to extract minerals from the NWT, where high prices are a primary factor in developing mines in areas with no infrastructure. For that matter, these are sobering words for any NWT'er as well. This is why Morland so wisely pushes the idea that, rather than thinking about the resource sector as either the saviour or demise of the NWT economy, it should be seen as an anchor to help other sectors spawn and thrive.
Resource development will always be the dominant industry in the NWT, so using it to grow other sectors such as green energy, tourism, construction and small business will soften the blow when the economy slows down. It's always better to diversify. As Morland says himself, it's simply adapting to market conditions. The territorial government can't keep putting all of its eggs in the resource-sector basket if that basket can't handle the weight.
Turning away from the resource sector completely is also a foolish idea. In January, Alternatives North issued a report advising the oil-rich Sahtu to abandon the oil and gas sector in favour of fostering a traditional economy. The conclusions of this report missed a giant opportunity - that the resource sector can bolster the smaller sectors Alternatives North so desperately wants to see grow. The government could siphon some of its resource revenues towards funding for small business start-ups and green energy initiatives, for example.
The Northwest Territories could certainly benefit from an injection of new ideas on how to tackle a very old problem - how an isolated, boom-bust economy like this one can adapt to cyclical market downturns.
It will be interesting to see what Morland - who incidentally has built a career on turning under-performing businesses into successful ones -- is able to do within his one-year mandate as chamber head.
Hopefully at the very least, he will succeed in helping the territory's leaders in the political and business community see this problem in a new light.
Foreign cargo ships pose threat to Canada's borderNunavut/News North - Monday, May 9, 2016
Consider it a warning shot off Canada's bow.
News that the People's Republic of China, the world's most populous country with more than 1.3 billion people, is eyeing the Northwest Passage as a shorter route for massive cargo ships should not go unnoticed.
China is the world's top exporter of containerized cargo and it has dedicated significant resources to developing a plan to take advantage of a longer open water season off the coast of Nunavut, a plan that would reduce that country's shipping costs by an estimated 30 per cent.
There is a reason China has observer status on the Arctic Council, along with other large exporting nations such as Korea, Japan, Singapore and India. Interest in Arctic waters is high. China has said that opening the Northwest Passage to marine shipping will change global maritime transportation and have a profound influence on international trade, the world economy and resource exploitation.
However, marine shipping is dangerous. There are already a number of reported incidents involving both liquid cargo and solid cargo vessels in the Arctic Ocean, in Hudson Bay and Davis Strait, according to 2015 documents from the Transportation Safety Board.
The shipping lanes also cross from international waters into Canadian waters, where Canada, as a sovereign nation, should govern and regulate traffic. In response to questions from Nunavut News/North to Global Affairs Canada, a spokesperson stated, "All waters of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, including the various waterways known as the Northwest Passage, are internal waters of Canada, which it has the right to regulate as it would land territory. No right of transit passage or of innocent passage exists in the various waterways known as the Northwest Passage. Canada welcomes navigation that complies with Canada's rules and regulations."
The federal government is working on the Northern Marine Transportation Corridors Initiative, which held meetings in Iqaluit, Yellowknife, Ottawa, Montreal and St. John's, N.L., last month. But that initiative will not result in specific regulations. Instead it is meant to inform the government's deployment of existing assets and provision of services.
Therein lies the problem. Canada has no military capabilities in Arctic Ocean waters and has limited icebreaker capabilities. The Canadian Coast Guard's icebreakers, built between 1979 and 1987, are not armed with weapons. If faced with the threat of foreign invasion of Canadian waters, Canada would have to scramble jet fighters or call on the United States for help.
New icebreakers and patrol ships are being built but are years away from delivery. Russia has several icebreakers, including a few world-class nuclear-powered icebreakers.
Canada must wake up and prepare to defend its Northern border. It's a question of environmental conservation, protection of sovereignty, regulation of commercial traffic and a demonstration of military capability.
To do nothing would encourage invaders.
