by Arthur Milnes
Northern News Services

FORT SIMPSON (Dec 19/97) - Councillors in the Village of Fort Simpson have agreed that the issue of liquor rationing should be placed before the community's tri-council for discussion.

The president of the local Metis Association, Marilyn Napier, and Liidlii Kue First Nation chief Rita Cli also say there is no harm in placing the issue on the table for discussion.

Village councillors made the decision during a regular meeting held Monday. The issue was first raised at a meeting of the village's community development committee the week previous.

"It's (rationing) encouraging people to go to Hay River, and it's promoting bootlegging and in my opinion, it promotes binge (drinking)," said deputy mayor Bob Hanna. "Somebody comes back from Hay River with a couple of cases of booze and naturally they have a big party. The next thing it's gone and they're looking for a bootlegger."

Hanna also said in an interview that the ration system -- one 12-pack of beer, or two bottles of wine or one 26-ounce bottle of liquor, per person, per day over the five days the Fort Simpson liquor store is open each week -- simply means that dollars are fleeing the village economy. Once in Hay River, he argued, people also do a great deal of shopping in other establishments, besides the liquor store.

Veteran councillor Tom Wilson, who said that rationing was imposed in the village without a plebescite and by a decree by the then-commissioner in the early 1980s, argued that times have changed since then. He said that groups like the Metis Association, RCMP, Liidlii Kue First Nation and many others, have done a great deal work in educating the public about the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption.

Liidlii Kue chief Rita Cli, interviewed earlier on Monday, said she'd like to see the issue put before the public in a vote.

"My recommendation would be that they bring it to the general public and let the public decide," she said. "It's the people's choice."

In 1995, voters in Fort Simpson rejected the rationing system in a non-binding referendum held in conjunction with that year's municipal election.

Fort Simpson Metis Association president Marilyn Napier said she saw no harm in discussing the issue at tri-council.

"It's a big issue and I think that tri-council should discuss it," she said.

For his part, village mayor Norm Prevost said he also had no problem discussing the issue.

"It's something we can discuss," he said. "But my personal view is that we leave it (the ration system) the same."

Reached by telephone at his home in British Columbia, retired NWT commissioner John Parker said he remembers well the night he imposed rationing in Fort Simpson.

The date? Nov. 18, 1980.

"I remember the factions at the meeting very well -- there were a lot of people there... at the community hall," Parker, who served as NWT commissioner from 1979 to 1989 and was deputy commissioner from 1967 to 1979, said. "I remember coming down on the side of those who wanted restrictions... The weight of (the opinion present at) the meeting went that way."

Reading from his personal notes from the meeting, taken that night, Parker said that the meeting was chaired by Herb Norwegian and that then-local chief Jim Antoine gave a powerful presentation asking for more controls. He also said that then-MLAs Nick Sibbeston and Tom Butters and members of the NWT's liquor licensing board were also in attendance.

According to the notes, about 140 people attended the gathering which lasted until close to midnight.

"We may well have been making regulations as we went along," Parker said. "The rationing system didn't necessarily have a sound basis in law (rather) it was something that was utilized."

He said that today, it would be the premier and cabinet who would have to make such a decision.

"We never said this (rationing) was the answer," he said. "I always felt it was a temporary measure until people decided that they felt they could handle more open availability of liquor."