Teachers in Pond Inlet are getting a tough lesson in basic economics: when expenses exceed income, something has to give. They're facing massive rent increases because the GNWT sold the teachers' residences to Toonoonik Sahoonik Co-operative.

Some teachers are, in fact, looking at paying out more than they earn. That will certainly put a damper on any kind of recruitment program.

The situation begs a couple of questions: How on earth does the government expect people to work in communities where it ends up costing them money? And what was the point in selling the residences in the first place?

Spending money effectively on education is an investment in the future of territories. Next to health care, education is the most important area of government funding.

In order to attract good teachers to the communities the GNWT is either going to have to offer a salary that reflects the cost of living or underwrite some of the expenses. Housing is perhaps the simplest and most cost-effective subsidy the GNWT could offer.

Incentives have always been necessary to lure expertise to the North. It will continue to be necessary until enough Northerners have been trained to fill the needs. That won't happen unless we have the teachers here to do the training.

If the GNWT's accountants think that selling the residences is a cost-saving measure, they should think again. We won't get the teachers that we need if they can't afford to live here.

What was the point of spending money building schools if there is nobody to run them?

Education shouldn't be exempt from scrutiny. But at this point the cuts are threatening to kill the patient.

Above all, we must conserve and preserve our wildlife stocks for the centuries to come. And that is why it is not appropriate for anyone to waste wild meat or to travel here from another jurisdiction without asking permission to hunt game.

Without a central office keeping track of who is hunting and how much they are taking, it is impossible to determine whether or not measures must be taken to limit hunting to properly manage the wildlife.

After all, a world without caribou stew and muktuk, among other tasty traditional foods would be a sad world indeed.