Monday, May 28, 2001
The Jane Groenewegen conflict of interest saga gets more complicated with each new episode. We're a few chapters in, so let's recap the plot developments.
After a long silence that followed the formal complaint by Hay River businessman Jack Rowe, the deputy premier's lawyer came out swinging in the direction of conflict commissioner Carol Roberts.
Through her lawyer Barry Chivers, Groenewegen accused the commissioner of bias and asked the board of management, of which the minister was then a member, to remove Roberts from the case.
Details of the bias charge - a first in Canada, according to one legal expert - are contained in a 40-page document which Chivers and Speaker Tony Whitford, who chairs the board, have so far refused to share with the public.
After reviewing the document, the board decided it would request that the conflicts commissioner hold her investigation in abeyance until it had opportunity to consider some of the complex legal and factual material. But the order to down tools came too late.
The commissioner's investigation was complete. Then Roberts went out and hired her own lawyer to respond to the allegation of bias.
What a pickle for the board of management. Not only must it rule on the bias issue, but it will have a report from the conflict commissioner that it probably doesn't want, along with the inevitable question of whether to make it public.
Last week, Groenewegen resigned from the secretive little board that governs when the legislature isn't sitting. Her reason: the board has talked of little besides the conflict case; the deputy premier had to absent herself from those discussions and so took the logical step.
The only good news for taxpayers in this saga is that they are on the hook for a maximum of $250 a day for each lawyer hired to pursue this case.
The bad news is that there is no limit to the size of the final bill. Maybe it will top the $1.4 million racked up in the Don Morin investigation. What a precedent that would be.
Several months ago the Fraser Institute gave the Northwest Territories an unfavourable rating as place for mining investment.
The reason, according to the west coast conservative think tank, is the uncertain regulatory climate created by overlapping jurisdictions and unsettled land claims.
Of course the institute's rating was given short shrift by territorial leaders. That was before the competition for a pipeline route for Alaska natural gas burst from the gate.
So what will the energy industry make of Michael Nadli's recent musings about support for a pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley, the route Premier Stephen Kakfwi has promoted far and wide - not only as the best, but one that is conflict-free.
The grand chief of Deh Cho First Nations said he was very disturbed that Kakfwi and the Aboriginal Pipeline Working Group have created the impression that the Deh Cho is in favour of a pipeline.
Chris Reid, chief negotiator for the Deh Cho First Nations, said unconditional support for the pipeline would compromise their position in negotiations with Ottawa.
Kakfwi charged the Deh Cho leadership with not correcting the misperception that a pipeline will be pushed through without regard to local concerns; he dismissed Reid as "this guy from Ontario."
But wasn't it the premier who was caught, just a short while ago, sneaking across the Yukon border to advise the Kaska Dene to use any pipeline right-of-way proposed for their turf in their own land claim negotiations?
This public disagreement only reinforces the negative image projected by such as the Fraser Institute. It's time for the premier and the Deh Cho leadership to work out a common strategy that eliminates contradiction and inspires confidence, two elements required if industry is to invest in the NWT.
Consider for a moment, two communities: Cambridge Bay and Iqaluit.
Both are regional centres, both are populated by Inuit and Qallunaat, and both are home to annual festivals organized to celebrate the arrival of spring.
The similarities end there.
Toonik Tyme, a once-popular event anticipated by the townsfolk of Iqaluit, was almost cancelled this past year. The reason? The organizing committee felt overworked and undersupported. Specifically, former president Shani Watts couldn't get the volunteer help she needed to make the event happen.
Imagine that.
In a community of nearly 6,000 people, the organizing committee couldn't drum up enough warm bodies to run a week-long list of traditional and contemporary games and activities.
Municipal employees stepped in at the 11th hour and managed to salvage what turned out to be a rather enjoyable spring festival. Our thanks and appreciation goes out to those paid people.
It's a different story in Cambridge Bay, a Kitikmeot hamlet with roughly 25 per cent of the population of Iqaluit. Organizers there said about 100 people threw their efforts into setting up and running the 25th Annual Omingmak Frolics.
Furthermore -- despite freezing rain, high wind and sometimes zero visibility -- people came out in droves to watch and participate in everything from Twister on the sea ice to snowmobile drag races to jigging at the community hall.
Iqaluit should look long and hard westwards because in just 10 months, the capital city will play host to the Arctic Winter Games. A sporting and cultural event, the Games do not just happen by themselves. They rely upon the efforts and energy of hundreds of volunteers.
Unless the vast majority of residents of Iqaluit turn off their television sets and shrug off their complacency -- today, not tomorrow -- the 2002 Arctic Winter Games will not be a success. The threat of that failure should be incentive enough.
Spring is a magical time the Arctic.
Long days and warmer weather melt the ice and bring the land back to life.
It's a great time to get out of Iqaluit and into Nunavut's communities. That's exactly what the government's deputy ministers are getting to do for a month.
It's Premier Paul Okalik's idea to give the territory's top-ranking bureaucrats a better understanding about life outside Iqaluit.
They get to deal with the troubles of getting water and telephone hooked up and more. It will be a good experience, but it could be better.
They are going to communities that have benefited from government decentralization, and the economic boost that brings and they are going at one of the best times of year.
For a real learning experience, the deputy ministers should head out to one of the communities not benefiting from the impact of decentralization. They should go there in the dead of winter.
That way they would really get a taste of life for ordinary Nunavummiut: when planes don't fly and e-mail doesn't work, when the community's fuel supply runs low or when a young person commits suicide because they can't see how bright their future can be.
Then they would really understand.
It's just unfortunate that bureaucrats have to do this kind to be able to better work for the people they serve.
Editorial Comment
Derek Neary
Deh Cho Drum, Fort Simpson
At last week's Deh Cho First Nations leadership meetings the strain of trying to keep everything together was evident.
As DCFN chief negotiator Chris Reid put it, there's "no one size fits all model" for the 10 communities in the region.
The economic development plan adopted by the elders earlier in the week seemed to catch most of the chiefs off guard. It proposed a single industrial project in the Deh Cho, with all communities sharing in the employment and wealth. The recommendation was tabled until next month's Deh Cho Assembly in Kakisa. It was apparent that most of the communities have been preoccupied with establishing their own relations and tentative deals with various development companies. Not only that, but a few chiefs implied they are prepared to get on with economic development after the Interim Measures Agreement is signed, which was scheduled to take place Wednesday.
Yet Reid and DCFN Grand Chief Michael Nadli are emphasizing the importance of negotiating an interim resources development agreement with the federal government first. That would ensure impact benefits agreements and royalties, but that agreement could take another year or more.
The Acho Dene Koe, however, are laying the groundwork to continue with development on their own terms. One of the provisions in the resolution Chief Judy Kotchea demanded was to allow for land selections to carry on with economic development in Fort Liard.
What came as a greater concern to the other leaders was the Acho Dene's request for boundaries to be drawn between Fort Liard's traditional area and that of Nahanni Butte and Trout Lake. Boundaries are unwelcome within the Deh Cho. Kotchea had to explain several times that the B.C. Treaty Commission is making defined maps a pre-requisite to negotiating the Acho Dene's traditional land area on the B.C. side of the border -- a process that may become more complicated with a new Liberal provincial government under Gordon Campbell in place. Still, the whole issue raised suspicion.
Hay River Reserve Chief Pat Martell dropped a bomb by announcing that his people would require an independent legal opinion before signing the Interim Measures Agreement and Draft Framework Agreement.
At one point, Deh Cho Grand Chief Michael Nadli openly asked whether the Deh Cho Process was becoming too unwieldy. Will each community wind up with its own lawyer sitting by its chief's side at every meeting? Will 10 separate self-government processes be needed?
Reid noted that despite an attempt to negotiate on behalf of the best interest of all 10 Deh Cho communities, any individual community has the authority to implement portions of the interim self-government agreements as they see fit. Each community can also walk away from the negotiations process whenever they choose, he added.
Even though that reality threatens to dismantle the unity of the DCFN at any time, Nadli tried to put a good face on the contentious week of meetings. He suggested that the Deh Cho's First Nations were still intact as a cohesive unit and several "strong-willed" decisions were made.
In a self-government process that is expected to last seven years, things could unravel very easily. We shall see how strong the region's collective will really is.
Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News
So, the working relationship between the Department of Community Government and Transportation (CG&T) and Sport Nunavut's head office in Baker Lake is getting a little strained.
CG&T is adamant Sport Nunavut be more reasonable with overtime approval and stop wasting money that is supposed to support developing amateur sport in our territory.
Imagine, the nerve of CG&T to make such an outrageous request of an agency that claims to do so much at the grassroots level.
The truth of the matter is, Sport Nunavut is spending more on itself than developing amateur sports in Nunavut. More than 34 per cent of Sport Nunavut's $1,770,900 average annual budget is spent on salaries and travel costs alone.
Another $15,000 is spent on staff training, which doesn't include overtime hours claimed by staff members to attend training programs.
Subtract monies devoted to materials and supplies ($70,000), purchasing services (64,000), fees and payments to membership groups ($36,000), tangible assets (40,000) and computer parts and supplies ($2,000), and there's one very small piece of the pie left over for local sports development.
Even money for coaching clinics in our territory comes out of a $561,500 fund, which includes such heavy financial hitters as the winter regional games, the Canada Games and membership to the Olympic Academy.
The most precious gift our sports development officers have to give is their time and, it seems, that comes with a hefty price tag.
While we applaud the tougher stance CG&T has taken on overtime claims, we're still miffed at the fact any of these claims -- "an abuse of our overtime policy as it was intended," according to Deputy Minister Mike Ferris -- were paid at all.
Away from the sanctity provided by a union position in a government department, such abuse could lead to job dismissable, let alone a strain on the working environment.
It's time for Sport Nunavut to clean up its act. This shameless feathering of one's own nest is a slap in the face to our many volunteers who give so much of their time to develop amateur sports in our territory.
One can only imagine what was going through the minds of volunteers forced to sit and listen to sport development officers bragging about the extra money they were claiming to attend community meetings.
As it stands right now, the Nunavut government could do more for amateur sports by dividing the $633,400 being spent on salaries and travel among our territorial sporting organizations and regional recreational associations.
At least then the money would be in the hands of Nunavut's true sport development officers.