Monday, December 04, 2000
The first question one has to ask about the territorial government's desire to take over control of the Lupin ice road is, why?
An obvious answer is the money. Echo Bay, the company that controls the 650-kilometre road from the end of the Ingraham Trail to its Lupin mine charges a 10-cent-a-kilometer toll to companies using the road.
If tolls were charged on all of the record 124,676 tonnes of material hauled to Lupin, BHP's Ekati mine and the Diavik mine site at Lac de Gras, about $8.1 million would be raised.
If it gives up control, Echo Bay is unwilling to pay more than the $4 million it costs to build the ice highway that only lasts for about 75 days each year, making the proposition seem like a profitable arrangement for the GNWT.
But how much would the GNWT have to share with North Slave Metis and Yellowknives Dene? After all, both have interests in the land through which the road runs. As well, would taking over the road mean the government needed to hire extra staff and create extra, expensive bureaucracy?
And it always seems to cost more for a government to do something than private enterprise.
It's understandable that the government wants greater control over land in the NWT. Now the right to build the road is granted by DIAND. However, it's likely control will be soon be ceded to First Nations.
GNWT control over the short term could allow other people to use the road for hunting or fishing, but is that worth the cost and why worry about a highway that only serves economic interests?
The government would be better off keeping its eyes on its plans to build a year-round road that would service North Slave communities and still connect to the mines.
They could still charge a toll for hauling goods in and out of the mines, but such a road would serve the people who live in the NWT, too.
Our new (and old) Prime Minister's pipeline gaffe just before the election, shows the problems with party politics.
Jean Chretien, wooing Yukon voters, endorsed the Yukon route for piping American natural gas.
Because of party discipline, a campaigning Ethel Blondin-Andrew can neither contradict nor chastise her party boss. All she can do is conjure up a broad interpretation of his remarks that can't dispel the certainty Chretien believes the Yukon route is a go.
Presumably, MLAs such as Premier Stephen Kakfwi, Great Slave MLA Bill Braden, and Range Lake MLA Sandy Lee, all who campaigned publicly for the Liberals, have to keep step. Condemning the Prime Minister's remarks would diminish their value as a Liberal party loyalists which they may not want for personal reasons.
We would prefer our territorial MLAs and especially our Premier, elected to represent us in our consensus style government, confine their national party loyalties to the voting booth.
Otherwise, constituents might wonder if certain MLAs back the federal government approach to land claims and self-government because of party discipline or because they think the present process is the best way to go.
What about resource revenue sharing? If the Liberal government continues to act in its own interests rather than putting the financial health of the territorial government first, what role does party politics play? Will we ever know?
Such scenarios put the worst face on the role national party politics may play at the territorial level and there are likely advantages.
But there has been no discussion of the pros and cons, no debate on the affect on our consensus government. Territorial politicians are simply declaring their rights of association as if they were private citizens when they are more than that.
Consensus government, with its roots in Dene culture, deserves better than to be bulldozed out of existence by those who have been entrusted with its defence.
The outcome of last Monday's election says a lot.
First, it means Nunavummiut are happy with the job done during the last three-and-a-half years by Nancy Karetak-Lindell.
It also means they place their hope and trust in the federal Liberal government that the health care system, such as it is, will be somewhat safe for the next four or five years. That the transfer payments Nunavut depends on will continue to flow North. And that Canada's aboriginal peoples have a good chance of settling their land claims.
And when you think about it, Jean Chretien -- no model of political smarts or decorum -- got off lucky. For the most part, he didn't spend the month before the election making campaign promises he'd have to spend the next five years sweeping under the rug.
Chretien was too busy pointing his finger at Alliance leader Stockwell Day's right-wing policies to tell us about all the things the Liberal Party was going to do for us.
And like the rest of Canada, we watched Chretien bumble and lurch his way across the country, threatening to cut health care funding to Alberta and Quebec if they went to a two-tier system. We, too, wondered why all of a sudden Chretien had the power to do something about a dangerous situation.
We also watched and listened as the little guy from Shawinigan joked about Albertans and we understand why the province voted almost unanimously for the Canadian Alliance.
And now that the election is over, we must not forget what the important issues are, like health care and housing, and make sure they are remembered by Ottawa.
Perhaps that will be easier now that Karetak-Lindell is joined in Ottawa by Liberal MPs from the NWT (four-time winner Ethel Blondin-Andrew) and the Yukon. The North has a larger presence in the House of Commons and caucus and they need to work together to ensure Nunavut's needs and those of the entire North are heard loud and clear.
The concerns voiced by Mary's Taxi are certainly legitimate -- no one calls for cab rides because the hamlet and housing corporation are transporting people for free.
The thing is, Sanikiluaq -- the home of Mary's Taxi -- hasn't had cab service for a decade.
And although people know Mary's exists, they're not used to paying for a service they've lived without for so long.
As for the hamlet, they are so used to getting calls for rides that it's a hard habit to break.
But as they said, they are happy to see Mary's come into the community and provide the service.
It's difficult to be patient when you're a new cab business with a $15,000 loan and nary a call to be had, but if Mary's can hang in there, people will likely get the habit of calling them for a ride.
It's time to get serious about written Innuinaqtun.
Thirty-five per cent of the approximately 3,000 people in Kugluktuk, Kingaok (Bathurst Inlet), Cambridge Bay and Umingmaktuuq (Bay Chimo), speak Innuinaqtun which is written with English letters.
That's a minority among the 25,000 people in the rest of Kitikmeot, in Kivalliq and in Baffin, all who write their languages in syllabics.
Innuinaqtun interpreter/translators are rare and young people learning the language are even more rare.
Unless funding and recruiting are given a high priority, Innuinaqtun will soon go from being an endangered language to an extinct one.