It's not surprising to hear the head of the Canadian Medical Association, Victor Dirnfeld, condemn the federal government recently over its drastic cuts to health transfer payments during his visit to Yellowknife.

Federal Finance Minister Paul Martin has cut almost $6 billion from annual transfer payments to provinces and territories, which is obviously having a negative effect on the health care system in the North.

The NWT Medical Association should be genuinely concerned, now more than ever. It should be concentrating efforts on ensuring its own government, the GNWT, acts like its provincial counterparts, who are busy scrambling to deal with these cuts as responsibly as possible.

The justice system in Canada is concerned primarily with two concepts: rehabilitation and deterrence. Fortunately, it has nothing do with revenge. This is perhaps the best possible system we have come up with, but it does have some unavoidable consequences, among them an apparent disregard for the needs of victims of crime.

After testifying, victims often have little role to play, and beyond a sense that "justice" has been served, are offered little in the way of reparations for damage done. It may sound cruel, but keeping the demands of victims and the rights of the convicted separate is essential to keep vengeful elements from the system.

Recently Yellowknifer has come across the stories of a Ndilo man who lost his home to an arsonist who, although sentenced by the courts, could not be forced to pay for the damage done. Then there's the case of the former Yellowknife man who was acquitted of sexually abusing his daughter, but still ended up losing his job, family and most everything else he valued. Surely such tragedies should not be ignored.

That makes the role of Victim Services all the more important. The number of counsellor volunteers working in Yellowknife with this vital agency recently doubled from five to 10. They help victims of crime cope with sexual and spousal abuse, vandalism, theft and other violations of personal and property rights.

Without this service, the justice system would seem a whole cold less compassionate.

Our main complaint is that the service is run by volunteers. Surely funds could be found to pay for more staff. By producing volunteers, the community has shown it supports Victim Services and understand the need for such an agency. Their commitment should be backed up by taxpayer support.

The findings of the territorial government's latest study on the feasibility of running an all-weather road from here to Tuk could be written today.

The latest study is going to look at three major areas: namely the engineering aspects of the road, what it will cost and something called the socio-economic impacts of the road. That last one is the government's way of measuring whether cheaper groceries, building materials and everything else that can be sent in by truck rather than barge or plane in the summer are going to be bad for the people who live in Tuk.

Let's write the report now and save the government a half-million dollars or so. An all-weather road can be built; it's going to be as expensive as building 180 kilometres of new road in the North and the socio-economic impact is going to be slight. We're not dealing with a community cut off from the rest of the world now and the bootleggers already own boats.

It looks blindingly obvious but it isn't. The Tuk road, joining a community of about a thousand to the rest of the world isn't the only one being studied. There is also a proposed extension of the Wrigley road to tie it in with the Dempster for the benefit of the few thousand people who live in the Sahtu; the building of another highway in the Slave district for another scattered handful of people; and not insignificantly, the upgrading of Highway 3 from Rae to Yellowknife.

Watch that last one: that road runs through voting country. And runs to the legislature, which will decide what, if any project, goes ahead. And to a city and a business community not at all shy about lobbying for what's good for it. In fact, one gets the feeling there will be a suspension bridge spanning the river at Fort Providence and a six-lane highway running to Yellowknife before there will be a dirt track laid anywhere else in the western NWT.

The road to Tuk is an important one, and not just to the people in the small community who have been begging for it for years. It would be a tourism draw, a solid-gold piece of infrastructure if petroleum companies come back to the Delta and it would inject some much-needed life into the local economy and construction sector. This whole area could use the road and it wants the road; the problem is getting the territorial government -- which has become quite adept at taking things like jobs out of the Delta -- to agree to build the thing.

Here's hoping they get on with it this time. And if they find another excuse not to build it, maybe the GNWT could just send us copies of all the million-dollar reports it has done and we could lay the road ourselves out of the paper.

Patriotism, Samuel Johnson once wrote, is a scoundrel's last refuge.Considering the ruckus coming out of the Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa in recent weeks, it's obvious that Johnson must have known Preston Manning and your average Reform MP.

While espousing policies -- two-tier health care, the death penalty, un-cooperative federalism and immigration policies that would mean most of us wouldn't be here in the first place had they been in place for our forefathers -- that are positively American in their origin, our Reform MPs recently decided to wrap themselves in Canada's flag to prove their love of country.

It seems that Preston and his cowboys need to wave Canadian flags at members of the Bloc Quebecois when Bloc MPs are speaking in the House.

And, one overcharged Reform-zealot-staffer, even took it upon himself to wave a life-sized Maple Leaf in the face of a Bloc MP to demonstrate his patriotism.

Luckily, Mr. Speaker ruled against Reform and then fellow members of the House put a stop to this juvenile strategy when the matter was put to a vote.

Hopefully, our MPs can now return to debating the nation's business and leave such games where they belong -- the schoolyard.

But, the whole wasteful exercise should have all Canadians thinking.

One need only look south of the border or to numerous places overseas to see the danger of blindly following any politician who wraps themselves up in the flag.

What's next? A House of Commons Un-Canadian activities committee?

Love of country is a feeling, not a prop you should pull out when you need to hide your ideas. And, history has taught us that people who cover themselves with flags are often naked underneath.

Like it or not, Bloc Quebecois MPs were elected by the people of Quebec to serve in Canada's House of Commons. While they may hold views repugnant to most Canadians -- as one could argue Reformers do -- they have earned the right to sit in the House. And, they have followed the rules and even been respectful of our Parliament. You might recall that Lucien Bouchard, unlike Mr. Manning, refused to occupy the home of the Leader of the Opposition, Stornoway, when he was entitled to do so.

And, while Reformers might not have noticed, our nation's flag waves proudly over the Centre Block of Parliament that Bloc MPs must walk into each day. In fact, this flag is never brought down and is lit up at night by spotlights. In addition, another Maple Leaf is clearly visible next to Mr. Speaker's chair in the House each day.

While that might not be enough for Preston Manning, it's good enough for the rest of us.

Our patriotism is in our hearts -- not hung limply on our sleeves.

It's time MPs got back to business and if this means ignoring Reform's games, so be it.

Another special thank you this week to Aurora College's Sharon Clarke. Sharon submitted a large group of photos from Jean Marie River's Mudball Carnival and this week's edition is better for it. I suspect the folks in JMR would agree.

The order issued by conflict of interest commissioner Anne Crawford obliging the territorial government to cover Hay River MLA Jane Groenewegen's legal expenses is justified.

Denying funds to present her case in the complaint against Premier Don Morin, which is what the government's management services board chose to do, integrity of the complaint process, is the opposite of what the government should be trying to do.

Speaker Sam Gargan's office has refused to say whether the premier, is getting his legal bills paid for. We hope they are, for the same reasons Groenewegen's bill should be covered.