The government has taken the Bill 15 issue to the people -- walking down the well-trampled path that the Constitutional Working Group has already worn smooth.

The Working Group did a comprehensive and very expensive job just months ago. Reams of reports were written and the handful of people who attended the meetings have spoken.

The hard truth is: nobody cared then, nobody cares now. Nine people showed up at Wednesday's meeting in Yellowknife and four of those were journalists.

Now, in the political hotbed of Yellowknife, we'd think this might be an issue to be debated, but if we are getting five concerned citizens here, how many can we expect to see in Rae or out in the Delta?

Despite this, some members of the Aboriginal Summit don't feel they're going far enough with the roadshow. They've called the six-whistle stop road show "biased."

Summit members Bill Erasmus and Gary Bohnet feel they should be going into more communities.

So, maybe we should fly them into Tulita, Kakisa, Jean Marie River and Lac La Martre so they can sit around and listen to each other spew tired rhetoric. Just what is the purpose of holding meetings to empty rooms?

This travelling yawn-fest is quite simply an opportunity for politically-motivated individuals to garner some free publicity under the guise of a consulting the people.

Rather than ferry these entourages around the territory, it would be cheaper to hire a telemarketer to call each and every name in the phonebook asking the question: "Do you feel you are adequately represented by government?"

Or perhaps send out a flier asking the taxpayers: "Can our government afford to spend $150,000 per year to hire five more MLAs?"

When we're cutting back on education, health and other needed social programs, we don't need to spend tax dollars to hold meetings nobody wants to attend.

It's a pity they didn't really think about the power they were wielding.

Two city councillors abstained from a vote last week to give the crew of HMCS Yellowknife the freedom of the city during Raven Mad Daze. They were apparently concerned that the ceremony gives the crew symbolic authority over municipal law.

If only the crew of HMCS Yellowknife and the people of its namesake city had given this golden opportunity some thought.

While in town the crew could have rescinded the garbage levy, retrieved all councillors from places like Halifax and settled the houseboat issue so that council would leave the houseboaters alone in the future.

Being nautical, the crew should have been able to identify with the houseboaters at least.

Ah, the missed opportunities.

It seems the nursing shortage has reached the critical stage and not just in the North. It has become a world-wide problem, with fierce competition among different countries to recruit qualified nurses.

The federal government has to do something about this now. It is being predicted that the situation will be a crisis for the next 10 or 11 years. Ottawa must take steps to solve this dilemma. We could be in big trouble otherwise.

I wouldn't even begin to guess at the reason for the shortage, although I've heard several being tossed around. One is that there aren't enough attractive incentives for nurses. This is easy enough to rectify. Put some of those cutback dollars into incentives and that fixes that problem.

Or how about low wages? Again, same solution. Extending nursing programs to four-year degree programs may also have contributed to the shortage. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Who wants to go to school for four years, only to come out and make peanuts? I'm aware that times are tough for both the government and the country in general, but nurses aren't exactly something we can live without.

I can remember that for a brief period in my life, just after graduation, I contemplated going to nursing school in Saint John, N.B. It was a two-year program back then and I would have been guaranteed a job after finishing (I also would have been following in my mother's footsteps). I decided not to (for reasons I won't get into), but one of my good friends went ahead and entered the program. She was lucky. She landed a job, as predicted, immediately after graduation at the Saint John Regional Hospital. In fact, most of the nurses in her class ended up with jobs right in Saint John.

In the years immediately following my friend's graduation, the nurses who finished the same program couldn't get hired locally if their life depended on it. Many of them ended up going to the United States for jobs and it wasn't too long after that the government did away with the two-year program and made it mandatory for nurses to attend four-year degree programs. In my opinion, this helped spur the shortage on its way.

Now, we are left with a serious shortage and the government has some major back-paddling to do. Let's hope it doesn't take 10 or 11 years.

Inuvik's bald epidemic?

I'm sure many people have noticed there are a lot more bald people around town this week. It's kind of hard to miss, actually. Everywhere you go -- the police station, council meetings, fire department, air cargo offices -- there are people with bald heads.

Coincidentally, a large number of people had their heads shaved last Friday night during Midnight Madness. It was for the Cops For Cancer fund-raiser, which proved to be quite the crowd-pleaser.

Everyone involved in this event deserves a lot of credit. First for raising about $15,000. That's an amazing number. Many individuals raised more than $1,000 and at least one raised more than $3,000 in under four days. Second, the group deserves praise for being brave enough to shave their heads. But the reason behind the event makes it all worthwhile. Cops For Cancer is held to raise money for cancer research and the shaving of heads is symbolic of all those individuals who lose their hair during cancer treatments.

Congratulations, both to the fund-raisers and those who made donations.

I'm going out on a limb here. There was a public hearing regarding the addition of five more MLAs scheduled for Tuesday evening in Fort Simpson. I'm betting that it was a poor turnout.

OK, call me a pessimist. Due to deadlines, I can't tell you exactly how many empty seats there were at the community hall on Tuesday evening. But I can tell the afternoon session was a dud.

The Standing Committee on Government Operations is scheduled to visit five NWT communities -- Fort Simpson is the only one in the Deh Cho. They are seeking alternatives to the idea of adding five more members to the Legislative Assembly.

It's a wonderful thing to live in a democracy and our territorial government has certainly done its utmost to consult with the public at every turn. They started these public hearings last year in when the Electoral Boundaries Commission toured the NWT. The three panellists spent several weeks collecting input from the public. I can't tell you how few people showed up in other communities, but in Fort Simpson there were about 10 last September. Perhaps there's some truth to the excuse about conflicting events and how busy this relatively small community is, but the reality is that apathy and ignorance are factors when it comes to such matters.

The Constitutional Working Group had fared even worse when they showed up a month earlier. While going through some back issues of the Drum, I came across a 1997 article by Ralph Plath entitled "The great debate that wasn't...people have other priorities besides the constitution." It documented the poor turn out for a constitutional forum in Fort Simpson. Different year, same story.

Regardless, the Electoral Boundaries Commission wrote a report and came back with a recommendation to add two seats in Yellowknife. Not surprisingly, only Yellowknife cared for that idea but the legislature wound up throwing it out. Then the Friends of Democracy stepped in and threw their weight around. Finally, Justice Mark de Weerdt laid down the law (and the formula) on how the ridings must be proportional to populace.

That results in three more MLAs for Yellowknife, and one more for each Inuvik and Hay River. So, does the story end there? Not a chance.

The Aboriginal Summit wants no part of increased bureaucracy and lodges an appeal (which failed). So what does the territorial government do? Well naturally, they get on their horses and set off to consult with the public once again.

In last Wednesday's Yellowknifer, Standing Committee member Roy Erasmus was quoted as saying that the committee "doesn't want to hear that there should be no more seats -- if someone says that they should explain how we can stay with 14 seats and still abide by the judge's ruling."

They heard that very message anyhow. The problem is that they haven't been getting many constructive suggestions. This was an opportunity for constituents to voice their opinions and make a difference. Unless everyone instead sent a letter to the clerk's office in Yellowknife with some suggestions, the opportunity was lost.

It's a tough pill to swallow, but poor attendance at the Tuesday's public hearings would likely mean we're all going to have to do just that -- swallow hard and shell out more money for some extra bureaucrats.