Monday, June 22, 1998
Guns can be found in most homes in most communities in the NWT, as they can in much of rural Canada. This doesn't have to be a problem, but too often someone dies because of those guns.
That makes it a very serious problem.
Newspapers tend to make a big deal out of every gun-related death and injury and for good reason. Most accidents are easily avoidable. The recent shooting of a 10-year-old girl in Kugluktuk, found dead after she and her friends found loaded, unlocked guns in a shack, is a perfect example.
Governments, ours included, tend to react impulsively to such incidents with ever-more restrictive laws governing who owns which guns and how they should be handled.
The truth is most gun-related accidents involve rifles and shotguns, not automatic assault firearms or handguns, and most occur in rural areas, not cities.
In a part of the country where owning a gun is a matter of feeding the family, no one wants to see rifles and shotguns made into forbidden fruit. To keep firearms safe for everyday use, independent, grassroots initiatives are needed to ensure their safe storage and handling.
The hamlet of Gjoa Haven recently bought $26,000 worth of gun lockers to be installed homes throughout the communities. Along with comprehensive public education campaigns, this is the way habits are changed -- at the community level, not from Ottawa.
The only cost for such safety procedures is not being able to reach for a loaded weapon every time we want to go hunting. All it takes is a few seconds to unlock the gun locker and load the gun.
The alternative is poorly-targeted and broad-based legislation, usually written by big-city lawyers with little knowledge of Northern Canadian realities.
While the idea is nice, just how the Nunavut Council for People with Physical Disabilities will ensure leaders actually take their concerns seriously remains to be seen.
People living with disabilities have received shoddy treatment at the hands of past governments. What will make this new legislative body any different?
Members of the council must act as watchdogs at all times during the building of their territory. If a building isn't accessible or if a disabled hunter is passed over for the income support program, the council shouldn't forget that the Canadian Human Rights Code clearly points out that such acts are illegal and are not in keeping with the mandate of Nunavut.
Aboriginal groups in Nunavut and the West seem ready to join together to try and get Ottawa to start ensuring benefits are made from the North's vast untapped resources.
The Dogrib, who are already seeing many benefits through jobs in the diamond industry, agreed recently to set up a new task force with Inuit groups in the Kitimeot and the NWT Chamber of Mines. The task force's goal is to prepare a plan for Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart, who is working with the GNWT on a joint economic development plan for the North.
This action by both the Inuit and the Dogrib proves that division or not, the need for unity is now.
Plans for a circumpolar university are as visionary as they are necessary for the future of northern education.
By abandoning the traditional central campus and embracing new technology, planners have opened the door to a Northern university that will educate Northerners for the rest of the world and educate the rest of the world about the North.
With an emphasis on getting funding from the social, environmental, and industrial sectors in various countries that will benefit from a circumpolar knowledge base, planners are building a solid financial foundation.
What we need now is the university's name so that people can start talking about it. Technology is wonderful but it's people that make things happen.