Wednesday, April 15, 1998
One of the bright points of the last couple of decades has been the increasing awareness that everybody has a useful role to play in society. One of the voices demanding to be included in the mainstream is that of the disabled.
That voice is more than welcome.
With our historical exclusion of the disabled because of prejudicial assumptions, we have deprived ourselves of unknown skills, aptitudes and talents. In the end, the exclusion of the disabled has been our loss.
Part of the process of awareness has been rescaling the physical environment so that schools, workplaces, churches, offices, stores and restaurants are all accessible to those whose mobility is restricted.
A workshop held last week in Yellowknife brought these issues to the forefront. According to Rae Celotti, the program co-ordinator, the purpose of the session was to bring together employers and disabled people.
The need for increased awareness on everybody's part was made clear when the Explorer Hotel had to scramble to accommodate a guest who had come to town for the conference.
The Explorer's experience, which had a happy ending, stands as a lesson for all us.
As the Explorer well knows, there are costs attached to increasing accessibility to the disabled. But these expenses are nothing more than the price of doing business in an open, accessible society.
Today, it is no more acceptable to judge somebody by their disabilities than it is to judge somebody by either race or sex.
We all have talents, we all have skills and we all have limitations. What we must be working towards is a society that recognizes people for their abilities rather than their limits.
Today, by voting for or against the city borrowing $2.8 million, Yellowknife property owners will decide whether a $9 million twin-pad arena gets built.
In the past year, the goal of providing more ice surface often got lost in harsh debate over the way the City Hall does things in general. A no vote does not necessarily mean the arena won't be built but it will delay the process. A yes vote will put an end to the debate allowing the city to move on to other matters.
It is critical that those eligible to vote, do so. The more voters participating, the more credible the decision.
It's never fun being left out. But in the case of the NWT's failure to recognize the rights of those who find themselves attracted to others of same sex, it's just plain embarrassing.
With the Supreme Court of Canada's recent decision ordering Alberta to read homosexual rights into the provinces' human-rights legislation, it has become even more clear that we are behind the times. Only P.E.I. is similarly handicapped, but the island's premier has promised to do something about it soon.
Sooner or later a court will force the NWT to get with the times. The legislative assembly cowardly voted against amending our laws just a few months ago, but it's never to soon to set things right.
Turn down the lights, get a raise
Jennifer Pritchett
Kivalliq News
The hamlet of Rankin Inlet is taking a bite out of energy costs and putting it back into the pockets of its employees.
The 1998 budget, tabled in a public council meeting last Wednesday, recommended that all full-time hamlet employees receive a one per cent raise this month and another one per cent raise at Christmas if the municipality's energy costs decrease. The raises are expected to cost the hamlet $20,000 per year, roughly the same amount estimated to be saved by a serious attempt to reduce the amount of energy.
Never before done in the community, the initiative has great potential for saving and is expected to put the funds saved right back into the employees salaries. Sounds like a good deal, considering it will be the employees themselves who will have to monitor the power and make the extra effort to keep energy costs at a minimal. That is, with the help of audits to measure the amount of energy saved and to help identify the best ways to continue to decrease costs.
It would be hard to argue with a government initiative that doesn't even seem primarily motivated by cost-cutting. It seems to be directed by the desire to use money more wisely and to reward its employees for their efforts. If the hamlet is serious in its bid to slash energy costs, it might have tapped into its finest resource -- its workers are at the frontline as far as getting any energy reduction program to work.
They are the ones who determine is the coffee pot is turned off or if the lights are turned down.
And there seems to be no reason why the program can't work. In fact, most employees would likely make an extra effort to watch energy consumption if it meant there was something in it for them. Could this be a model for other municipalities to investigate the possibility of giving their employees a raise? To any employer, there's nothing like a raise that doesn't cost them a red cent.
This initiative could be particularly important for the North, where energy costs are astronomical. Government budgets are typically shrinking from year to year, so it's entirely likely an energy-efficiency measure could be the answer to top up some of those dwindling funds.
Programs such as this one contains some promising potential for any organization, be it government or otherwise, that is trying to save money. Furthermore, the Rankin Inlet approach to get its employees involved would seem to be the best place to begin. The only question is, if employees slash energy costs twice as much as expected, do they double their raise?
The approval of the energy program is subject to the approval of the Rankin hamlet council at their next meeting.