Editorial page

Friday, February 12, 1999

Rights and responsibilities

Yellowknife North MLA Roy Erasmus has taken up the cudgel left by former premier Don Morin and is swinging it at the conflict of interest process.

Erasmus has expressed concern that the constitutional rights of all MLAs -- as individuals -- are threatened by the powers of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner.

A three-person panel is now reviewing those powers after last fall's test of the rules during the Morin Inquiry. A review isn't a bad idea. We suspect that some MLAs were surprised at the authority they had vested in the commissioner's job.

However, Erasmus seems to have confused his rights as a Canadian citizen and his rights and responsibilities as a legislator. When former premier Don Morin's lawyers argued that the Conflict of Interest commissioner's decisions were threatening their client's rights, NWT Supreme Court Justice John Vertes rejected the argument. The judge reasoned that the process was created by the legislature and therefore covered by parliamentary privilege.

Parliamentary privilege exists to protect legislators. It allows legislators to create boards or tribunals or special committees and give them the power to act within the context of the legislative assembly. That kind of independence is crucial to the success of responsible government.

While MLAs are not above the law, they must be independent of the courts.

It is important that MLAs understand that. Erasmus is right to raise the issue if he has concerns. But the real issue here isn't the infringement of MLAs' rights, it is the responsibilities that come with privilege.

When Vertes rejected Morin's lawyers' case, he was basically saying, "You made the rules, this isn't the place to challenge them."

MLAs can't go running to the courts every time a system of their own making doesn't work in their favour. With the privilege of being a lawmaker comes responsibilities.


Coming clean

It was refreshing to see the justice system exercising compassion recently in the case of Patrick Alexander.

Alexander, who had two outstanding charges of escaping custody dating back to May of 1994 over an incident involving drinking in public, decided recently to turn himself in after more than five years of evading authorities.

Appearing before Judge Michel Bourassa last week, Alexander's lawyer explained that his 45-year-old client had quit drinking and was a full-time student about to be married.

Bourassa, agreeing this was a chance for redemption, sentenced Alexander to one day each for the two counts of escape and a total of $800 in fines that can be worked off on weekends.

It's nice to see justice has a heart.


The ties that bind

The 18-year-old from Fredericton who received national attention recently for taking her father to court for financial support deserves to be commended.

It couldn't have been easy for Caitlin Stevens to move forward with a case that was sure to place private aspects of her life in the spotlight. She and her father, who is living in Yellowknife, settled out of court, her father agreeing to pay her $400 a month.

The action may set a precedent for other children across Canada. The real motive for the action, however, in Caitlin's case and probably many of the other cases sure to follow, is not to gain financially. The motive is probably more about gaining a mother or father. Sad, but true.

Caitlin Stevens is a child any parent would be proud to have.

And more than likely, her father agrees.


Appreciate what we have
Editorial Comment
Glen Korstrum
Inuvik Drum

A man dying of cystic fibrosis missed out on the opportunity for a lung transplant this week because intensive-care units were jammed.

A healthy set of lungs from a 31-year-old donor was available but two other transplant operations were taking place and the hospital did not have enough intensive- care beds.

Inuvik?

No, Toronto. This shows how a smooth-functioning health-care system is a concern even in Canada's largest city.

When staff tried to transfer one of its intensive- care patients to another hospital to make room for this potential transplant, they couldn't. All other intensive-care units across the city were tied up.

It is cases like this that serve to remind everyone that as easy as it is to critique the quality of various services in Inuvik, the same concerns are being raised all across Canada.

Often the attacks come with a political motivation to get more funding for this or that. The strategy is, "the best defence is a good offence -- attack."

But politics being the dangerous game it is, attacks can often backfire and cause more harm than good. This is the "what comes around goes around" scenario.

So, as Mackenzie Delta MLA David Krutko gets set to table two more petitions in the NWT legislature remonstrating area health care, it's healthy to keep in mind that speaking out could prompt qualified professionals to wonder whether it is really worth sticking around to hear the debate.

Krutko was simply forwarding complaints from constituents -- what a populist politician is supposed to do even if it means being seen as a bit of a maverick.

He tabled one petition and Health Minister Kelvin Ng dismissed it by saying everything was "adequate."

That only encouraged eager signature donors to find other petitions.

Finance Minister Paul Martin has hinted that when he releases the federal budget later this month, health will be the overwhelming priority.

Money that trickles down will help Beaufort Delta residents get better care either through better trained or more staff and better or more equipment.

In the meantime, it is worth a thought that health funding comes from tax dollars, and whenever there is a desire for more funding, that means higher taxes.

Currently, area residents enjoy massive subsidization from the rest of Canada.

Health care can always be improved. But in the meantime, it may do everyone a lot more good to be thankful for the level of service we do have.


It'll make your head spin
Editorial Comment
Derek Neary
Deh Cho Drum

It's great that Nahanni Butte, Fort Liard, Wrigley, Jean Marie River and Trout Lake are on the verge of having the Internet made available to them.

I can remember hearing that term "information highway" years ago and being quite indifferent to it. It quickly became cliche and, for me, it was quite vague, undefined. I was tired of constantly hearing those words on the news. Frankly, I didn't understand what they meant. Not having used the Internet until university, when it was often referred to as the World Wide Web (WWW), I couldn't conceive just how much information is available through this medium.

The schools in the Deh Cho region are about to be equipped with a phenomenal tool. Being relatively remote with limited access to library materials, these communities will now be able to find out practically anything about anything.

With numerous search engines available, all you have to do is type in a place, name or subject and, voila, instant information. Of course, the problem then becomes weeding out precisely what you are looking for. Many topics will result in the retrieval of hundreds of thousands of Web sites where, with the click of a mouse, you can visit to determine if it's what you wanted. Rather than broad topics, you have to carefully choose your cue words and hope to pare down the number of sites that match your request.

For example, if your child is doing a report on something as general as "snow" and plugs that word into a search engine, then more than 190,000 matches will come up. In addition to information on snow flakes, there's offerings on ski reports, Snow Lake, Manitoba, Disney's Snow White, a product called the Frost-o-Matic, profiles of baseball player J.T. Snow and basketball player Eric Snow and much, much more.

Unfortunately, there's also a lot of junk out there on the Internet. Like television, there's plenty of promotional material and mind candy. The potential for good outweighs the bad, however. If used properly, the Internet is a great way to find the information you're looking for and who knows what else you may discover along the way.

E-mail, or electronic mail, will now be readily available as well. For those who enjoy the process of sitting down with a pen and paper and jotting down a letter, perhaps e-mail won't appear to be much of a blessing. On the other hand, for those who can't bring themselves to write letters or who can't stand the thought that everything in it will be outdated by a week when it finally arrives at its destination, e-mail is a godsend. You can type a message on the computer and get it to someone across the country or around the world within a matter of seconds. If they check their mail frequently, they could respond the very same day.

This opens up the possibility of students having pen-pals with whom they can correspond frequently rather than two or three times per year.

The possibilities are endless.


Best to vote with your mind
Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News

We're now just five short days from the big election and, as the time grows ever closer, as a journalist who has covered elections at the municipal, provincial and federal levels, I'm troubled by some of what I see in the Keewatin.

In the months leading up to the election, there have been some occasions, albeit few in a public forum styled setting, for residents to take the opportunity to really grill candidates on their platforms and where they stand on specific issues.

However, this has not been the case throughout most of the Keewatin, at least not to the level it should have been. Although a worthy topic to some degree, there are far more important issues to be dealt with than that of artificial ice -- and this comes from a hockey playing fanatic.

Health care, schooling, housing, decentralization, proper training and, oh yes, a little matter of a $30 million slush fund the new MLAs will be deciding what to do with, are all issues of grave importance, which the vast majority of candidates have danced around without really addressing the issues and where they stand on them.

How many of the election hopefuls are really 100 per cent behind the Nunavut government's plan for decentralization and know the costs involved? How many know the statistics on other government's attempts at decentralization and how they worked out?

Take a moment to think about the candidates in your riding and what they've really told you they'd like to accomplish if elected. Forget if Sam (a name picked entirely out of thin air and in no way is meant to represent any of the candidates either by name of nickname) grew up in your neighbourhood and you've known he or she a really long time.

Is Sam really the right person for the job? Which candidate's position do you understand the most and which candidate do you believe can do your community the most good?

It's tough on election day, separating one's personal feelings from one's logic and common sense. However, too many people still vote with their hearts in this country, rather than their minds.

While every election across the land is important in its own right, the first to elect Nunavut's leaders is of extreme importance and destined to be of historical significance. Will the history books tell us the people of Nunavut elected a strong, determined government which led the territory confidently, yet cautiously, into a new century?

Or, will they tell us those elected were done so through popularity and proximity and doomed to fail at their task?

The success of our upcoming election is made even more important by the eyes of literally thousands of onlookers whose own paths will be made all the more smoother or rockier by Nunavut's ultimate success or failure.

Come next Monday, hopefully, the vast majority of Nunavut's residents will exercise their right to vote. And, hopefully, they will exercise that right with their minds, not their hearts. After all, the hearts have already spoken. Nunavut has become a reality. And, while the heart must always have a voice, the mind must always have the final say.