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Editorial Monday, April 6, 1998 One man acts, a community mourns
A despondent man, his marriage in tatters, turns to alcohol. No one will ever know his final thoughts, but rage, frustration, hatred, love, revenge and remorse would probably make the list.
Crossing the line from depression to insanity, he shoots three of his children dead before turning the gun on himself. It is the profound tragedy of a man who cannot cope. It could happen anywhere. About two weeks ago, it happened here.
Left behind are a grieving mother and a son who escaped. Also left behind is a community reeling from the horror of it all. This is a tragedy that leaves no one untouched.
It happened in a community like most Northern communities: one that is dealing with a rapidly changing times, a disproportionately large population of young people who need schooling and jobs, and a culture that is threatened by a loss of tradition and the relentless tide of satellite dishes and VCRs.
The challenges that Northern communities face include the alienation of a younger generation struggling to bridge the chasm of two cultures.
Northerners are working to overcome these challenges. In various communities across the North, these challenges are being met with varying degrees of success. God knows there is room for improvement.
But in facing these problems it is important to keep an eye on the road ahead. We know what the problems are and we know what the symptoms are. A gut-wrenchingly high suicide rate is one of them.
The tragedy in Kugluktuk is the story of one man unable to come to grips with his personal problems. He had been drinking. He had a record of spousal assault. His wife had divorced him and moved on with her life. As is far too often the case, the children were caught in the middle.
Nothing can diminish the horror. But let's not compound the tragedy by scouring the community looking for blame. It is solutions we need.
The people of Deline deserve immediate action from Ottawa on their concerns about the uranium mine that once operated near their community on Great Bear Lake.
If the Canadian and U.S. governments, who used the ore mined by Deline's young men to build the world's first atomic bombs, knew the dangers of working with uranium as early as the 1930s, they should have had the decency to let the people know.
The community's request for crisis assistance, a comprehensive environmental and social assessment, full public disclosure and cleanups seems more than reasonable in light of the detrimental damage that seems has been long inflicted on the community.
If, as our government says, for every dollar the NWT spends on roads, Alberta makes 80 cents from increased traffic, then the idea of asking Alberta to cough up some funding for roads makes a certain amount of sense.
Both sides of the border benefit from cross-border traffic and roads are expensive projects, so why not share the costs? There is a precedent: the Yukon and the NWT share the costs of the Dempster Highway that serves primarily as the Mackenzie Delta's land link to the rest of the continent.
It whole idea is a dangerous road, so to speak. If, for example, the Alberta government argues that the North benefits greatly from hundreds of kilometres of Alberta-maintained highway, we could find ourselves facing the prospect of a hefty bill from Ralph Klein.
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