More than half of the car-seats checked last week by the Yellowknife fire department were found to be unsafe or incorrectly installed.
Of the 35 seats checked during a joint fire department/department of transportation inspection clinic, 18 failed the test.
According to Transport Canada, less than 35 per cent of the children in the NWT are put in car-seats and more than half of those who are strapped in wind up in seats that are improperly installed.
Thirty children are injured or killed every year in the NWT in automotive accidents -- most of which could be avoidable.
Avoidable if parents took the time and trouble get a car-seat and learn how to use it. Children's lives depend on it.
Everybody should know about the Fair Practices Office. Located in the Panda Mall, it is where Elaine Keenan Bengts, the fair practices officer can be found.
This is where to go if you feel you have been the victim of discrimination in the workplace. Resolving most of her cases through mediation and arbitration, Keenan Bengts' decisions are enforced as court orders. Anybody who feels discriminated against is welcome. Discrimination is one of our society's sad realities. In a sense, it is a shame we even need a Fair Practices Office. However, we do.
Giving people a place to take their problems, a place where they can get a speedy resolution, is an excellent idea. Our hope is, however, that one day that office will have outlived its usefulness.
The city has been accused of harassing citizens lately although municipal officials insist they are simply doing their jobs.
Institutional harassment is as difficult to fight against as it is to document. Laws strictly and unfairly applied to selected individuals can make their lives miserable. But residents unhappy with what their neighbours are doing have a right to complain and the city is obligated to apply the law.
The city is not the final authority. Anyone who feels they are either being harassed by the city or ignored, should take their case to city councillors.
Councillors should be a much better judge of public sentiment and should be able to suggest reasonable remedies.
After all, it's the public that hired them and the public can fire them. Councillors know that and in most cases are willing to listen.
The new group taking action on the problems NWT students face is competing with voices crying out for funding and better treatment from the bureaucracy.
The NWT Student Coalition met with the minister and officials in the Student Financial Assistance Department.
Such meetings are always the easiest, resulting in reassuring words. Changing day to day attitudes is far harder.
Getting the minister's attention puts the spotlight on unnecessary delays and red tape.
But the larger issues of increasing loans and grants and having a voice in the administrative decisions, will only come through researched lobbying year in, year out.
Politicians must be constantly reminded how important education is. NWT students are the best ones to do that.
Editorial Comment
Dane Gibson
Kivalliq News
I had an interesting discussion with a friend the other day when the topic of writing editorials came up.
Why is it, she asked, that just because I write for a newspaper I'm granted the right, and space, to blather on about anything I want?
Of course, the little hairs behind my ears stood up as I prepared to defend my right to blather. I'm a journalist. Journalists talk to those 'in-the-know,' we provide insightful community commentary, we're in the eye of the storm. How dare she attack the last institution propping up the peoples' right to free speech!
She responded to my rant by telling me I was full of crap.
This so-called friend thinks sitting in front of a computer 15 minutes before a deadline to write an attack -- without proper research -- on a mining operation, wayward politician, or whatever else catches my fancy, is at best irresponsible, and at worst unfair to those who get attacked.
Thousands of people read the paper each week. After I thought about it awhile, it forced me to ask myself: Who am I? I went to journalism school where they taught me how to assemble words in the right order, but that doesn't make me anything but a professional word assembler.
It's true that we're out there talking to scientists, politicians, doctors, and lawyers, but does that make us experts in their chosen field? I think not. Truth be told, I know a little bit about everything, but not a lot about anything. That's the nature of the newspaper business, small stories, get the facts, in and out.
I had to concede, my friend had some good points. She reminded me that writing for a newspaper has a high degree of responsibility attached to it and that nobody who writes editorials has a voice more important than anyone else's in the public.
My response was that this just happens to be our job. The idea of a column is to take ourselves out of the third person and introduce our ideas, however flawed or brilliant, in our own voices.
If my friend had her way, every paper would be brimming with messages of hope and love. Each paper would remind the public that our future depends on positive thought and active involvement in the community.
It's an area the newspaper business often fails in, hence her frustration. I tend to agree with her on this point, but I'm just one guy.
In the last three weeks, Kivalliq News has received only two letters to the editor. One was a note from a person who wanted to say she was proud of her community, the other was a heartfelt reminder of the pain residential schools have caused in these communities. Hopefully both stimulated meaningful discussion among those who read them.
Every single person who is reading this editorial right now can get a space in the paper. Our policy is to print all letters as long as your name is attached and the content isn't grossly inappropriate.
Public opinion is a powerful thing. This is your community paper, so write us a letter. Don't worry if you're not a professional word assembler -- we can help. Your ideas are just as valid, often more valid, than those expressed by us, the paper people.