For the female nurses who worked alongside and were paid less than male renewable resource officers in the past, pay equity is justice.

For a territorial cabinet looking at a bill in the neighborhood of $100 million, it's an unwelcome burden that threatens to set back the battle to reduce the deficit by several years.

The question is, what to do about it?

For the Union of Northern Workers, the answer is clear -- the employer must pay up. For a government struggling with more responsibilities than money, the answer is not so simple.

The fiscal pressure has put cabinet and management in a state of denial. While saying they want to resolve the pay-equity debt fairly, they grasp at every straw to postpone the day of reckoning. Transparent attempts to undermine the union's position instead undermine the government's integrity.

The only statement that rings true is Finance Minister John Todd's often-repeated belief that the government simply can't afford it. But not being able to afford to pay a bill doesn't mean the money is not owed, unless bankruptcy is declared. The bill must be paid and the amount must satisfy the party owed. And it's a bill that increases every day.

For its part, the union must recognize the middle ground and resist the temptation to push the government to the wall. It will be neither cabinet nor management who suffers due to unreasonable demands, it will be the people of the NWT.

The government's best approach is an honest one. Rather than throwing around $200-million figures to alarm the public, the union's bottom line must established and a payment process begun that causes the least pain while settling the debt.

Any other strategy, judging by the failed strategies to date, will cost even more money, which the public neither wants nor their government can afford.

It was inevitable that the city would find itself forced to install three sets of three-way stops along the airport service road.

Eight serious accidents, including one extrication of a victim of an accident, over the last five years, plus widespread lack of adherence to the 30-km/h speed limit justifies some degree of enhanced speed control on what has become a dangerous stretch of road.

As for those who are uncomfortable with the new stop signs: you'd better get used to them. because they're not going away. Just remember that it could have been worse. The city could have installed a whole series of traffic lights instead.

City hall calls it "Unsightly Land Bylaw No. 3979." It gives city officials the power to clean up private properties without the owner's consent, and then bill the cost to the owner.

Sounds a bit draconian, but the city's lawyers say it doesn't violate anyone's rights, and it's goals -- "to prevent the existence and proliferation of unsightly land" seem reasonable. We all want a clean and proper city.

Still, we can't help but feel uneasy with the idea of some bureaucrat determining the difference between acceptable clutter and unacceptable filth. City council must proceed carefully to ensure that the guidelines for those policing the bylaw are clear, concise and enjoy a wide consensus.

Residents of Chesterfield Inlet are looking for their share of the $350-million healing fund announced by Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart in mid-January.

They say they have been forgotten by both the church and the government and now want funding to deal with the pain and suffering still felt by many in their community. And it's only right they are included in the process that comes more than 25 years after the school closed.

As the location of the region's residential school, they have to be brought into the circle of healing and afforded access to their fair share of the healing fund. It's absolutely integral to the health and well-being of the community to finally deal with the abuses experienced in the residential school.

Chesterfield Inlet officials haven't yet heard whether or not they will receive any funding from the healing fund, but they are anxiously hoping they will get what they need to heal each other.

"If any money was to come into Chester, it would be some good brought in the community," said Mayor Anthyme Kadjuk. "There could be some used to heal the whole community with this fund."

One could only imagine how the abuse experienced by students at the residential school has affected the people and contributed to the general malaise of the community over the last quarter-century.

While the focus of healing should be on the students who attended the school, there should also be support given to the community that had to deal collectively with the fallout from the abuse. For many, this support hasn't been there over the years and it's time that something be done to recognize their suffering and help them deal with it.

They see the healing fund as an answer to what they have been looking for as a means to begin the healing process. It's long overdue, but it's better late than never at all.

The people of Chesterfield Inlet deserve a second chance, an opportunity to set their community on the right track to the future. Their new beginning didn't come after the closing of the school -- and it didn't come after the apology by the Roman Catholic Bishop was made in Igloolik in 1996, either. They're right when they say the apology should have been made in their community to give the residents an opportunity to hear it for themselves. This would have provided them with some closure.

They say now is the time for healing, and they want to take full advantage of the money that has finally been set aside for victims of abuse at residential schools. There has been no closure, no healing of the wound that has marred Chesterfield Inlet.

The money, they say, isn't a cure-all, but a starting point for their people. Leaders of the community of 300 want answers about what they will receive out of the $350 million healing fund, and it's time they receive them.