Editorial page

Wednesday, March 22, 2000

DIAND clean up

"The agreements and regulatory approvals must be in place before the project proceeds." Diavik Environmental Assessment Report

"It doesn't mean to say you have to have all those instruments in place at the same time." DIAND Regional Director General, explaining why work can begin at the Diavik diamond mine site.

The mental gymnastics illustrated above say a lot about the frustration experienced by Diavik managers, environmentalists and the general public, throughout Diavik's environmental assessment process.

There appear to be so many shades of grey that the black and white of the printed regulations is obliterated along with any certainty of what is being said.

Based on the apparent elasticity of DIAND's policies, it is not difficult to imagine why Diavik thought it could do certain work under the rules.

As for environmentalists, who spend countless hours researching the scientific basis of environmental regulations, how disheartening it must be to discover the rules share some qualities with mercury in that they look good but are very difficult to put your finger on.

We can only guess DIAND officials are forced into such linguistic duplicity by the shifting priorities of their political masters.

Unfortunately, DIAND itself takes the biggest hit to its credibility, the equivalent of toxic contamination.

Hopefully, the department's reputation won't take as much to clean up as a Giant mine.


Capturing the spirit of Yellowknife

Birthdays are always defining moments in people's lives.

As Yellowknifer turns 28 years old this week, that gives us an opportunity to talk about what we do.

Yellowknifer is part public institution, part entertainment, part business.

The public part obligates Yellowknifer staff to tell Yellowknifers what is going on in their governments, schools, businesses, homes and streets.

The entertainment part demands we tell stories in a lively, readable fashion and let people know what's going on that they might find interesting.

The business part is advertising, getting messages and information, from clothing sales to government tenders, to as many people as possible. Again, that's why we must be colourful and entertaining. Otherwise people won't bother picking the newspaper up at all.

Then there are editorials, letters to the editors and opinion columns. This is where the real fun begins. Editorials criticize, offer solutions, applaud good works. Readers sometimes agree and just as often disagree.

Sometimes editorials get it wrong and letters to the editor get it right. Columnists offer up their own opinions and guest columnists shed light on their area of expertise or argue for a cause.

People get mad at Yellowknifer, but just as often cut out stories and pictures and put them on their refrigerator until the paper turns yellow and falls apart.

When we make mistakes, they lie like ugly warts on pages spread out on thousands of kitchen tables and they upset both us and the readers and we try our best not to make them.

But capturing the spirit of Yellowknife is what it's all about, warts and all. If people aren't talking about what they read in Yellowknifer every week, we aren't doing our jobs.

Fortunately people are reading Yellowknifer, and talking, and that is how we got to be 28 years old.

We look forward to 28 more.


Lack of co-operation
Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News


Once again we find ourselves lamenting the lack of co-operation some Kivalliq organizations employ in supplying information to the media.

Maybe it's a case of not understanding their responsibilities to the media and the public it serves.

Maybe it's a way of saying we're going to conduct business as we see fit and nothing in the way of public perception is going change that.

The problem is that as a fledgling, new territory, we have to understand our obligations in providing the public with information it has a right to know.

In this particular case, we have a day care in Baker Lake hanging on by a thread while it waits for a clearer response from Kivalliq Partners in Development concerning future funding.

Comments from front-line staff workers that they are being told not to talk to the media are unsettling in their own right, especially when these comments are coming from the most knowledgable people involved with the project.

Also unsettling is the position of Kivalliq Partners in Development that they could handle any questions directly with the parties involved and saw no reason to answer funding questions in public.

And even more unsettling is the admission in the press release that an organization responsible for administering new funding still has no idea of what role its funding plays in respect to government subsidies.

This, despite the fact that Kivalliq Partners in Development was first notified of the program it would be administering more than six months ago.

As a development firm in charge of administrating huge amounts of money annually, surely it has the wherewithal to find out for itself what subsidies are being applied to what programs by the Nunavut Government without asking for the public's help.

It is our understanding that a co-ordinator with experience in the Pauktuutit organization has been hired to oversee the child-care funding program.

This is as good news.

Hopefully, this will bring some order to what has become a chaotic situation. Maybe now when the media has questions someone will be able to answer.

After all, it is the way the system is supposed to work in this great nation.

No exceptions!