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Northern health-care workers and students should ask themselves what they are willing to give back to the North.
| Correction
Kelly Kaylo is director of marketing and sales for Canadian North. Incorrect information appeared in the Sept. 14 edition. Yellowknifer apologizes for any embarrassment or inconvenience caused by the error. |
Canada, unlike the United States, cannot lure health-care workers with $15,000 signing bonuses or car leases. But we are just as desperate to keep workers as our American neighbours.
We want all health-care workers to stay in the North, especially those trained in the North. But we cannot give something for nothing.
Negotiation is the key to keeping workers, government and especially patients happy.
Everybody wins with the announcement that the Canadian Forces has offered to pony up $1 million for a full-featured gymnasium to be built alongside Yellowknife's new arena.
The military gets to train by day and the rest of the city gets to play by night, roughly speaking.
Of course, this shared arrangement will take some creative scheduling. After all, soldiers will have priority access to a complex owned by the city.
If the arrangement is finalized, the city will get a first-class sports facility. Canadian Forces Northern Area will get a gym to accommodate the needs of its existing personnel and the additional staff expected to come North to help ensure it fulfils its mandate of properly guarding the North.
In that light, the occasional administrative headache is a small price to pay.
Times of need bring out the best...and the worst...in people.
There are heroes like the New York firefighters and other emergency workers who on the morning of Sept. 11 rushed into the burning World Trade Centre towers while thousands of others streamed out to safety.
In Yellowknife, our firefighters are heroes, too.
They are not unlike their brethren in New York City, willing to risk life and limb each and every time the alarm sounds.
It is a unique tie that bonds all firefighters, indeed all emergency workers and police. They stand up for their own; a commitment that led to Saturday's car wash to raise money for families of their fallen New York comrades.
And they helped us bring out the best in ourselves. Yellowknifers' unprecedented outpouring of generosity -- $29,000 raised in just a few hours and the money continues to pour in -- says a lot about our horror and outrage at the acts of terrorism that has brought the world to the brink of war. But it speaks volumes, too, about how much we value our own firefighters.
We understand that firefighters' lives -- and the wellbeing of their families -- are on the line whenever our professional and volunteer crews take hoses into a burning building. When tragedy strikes, they are there for us...ready to do what it takes.
The terrorist tragedy has helped us all understand that more clearly. Unfortunately, it has also brought out the worst. Ripping the sign from the city's mosque may seem like petty vandalism, but it shows the depth of anger and danger of racial intolerance.
Instead of lashing out, let's pull together, follow the firefighters' example and rush in to help. Hatred only begets hatred.
Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News
We all have a tendency to get totally absorbed in our own little universe from time to time. It's a perfectly natural occurrence.
It doesn't matter if it revolves around a person's work environment, family concerns or getting out on the land and ensuring enough country food is harvested for the pounding Kivalliq winter.
We all go through periods of time when our own needs, and those of our families, are paramount to our existence.
Invariably, something usually happens to snap us out of our tunnel vision and broaden our perspective. Sometimes, it's a horrific event like this past week's terrorist attacks on the United States, an event so catastrophic in its nature, it brings the precarious uncertainty of life itself into view.
However, it can also be something much less traumatizing and closer to home that opens your eyes to the struggle for a better quality of life -- one that's going on around you.
So it was for me this past week visiting James Howard at the school breakfast program at Maani Ulujuk middle school. A total of 67 kids showed up that morning to have breakfast with Howard and his helpers.
Watching the faces of so many of those young students as they ate their breakfasts sent a torrent of emotions through me.
Yes, the looks of gratitude as their bowls were filled and their plates topped up warmed my heart. And, yes, a smile crossed my face as I watched a young boy struggle to fit a very large apple into his very small pocket.
But feelings of hurt, compassion and anger also welled up inside me as I saw the genuine looks of hunger on the faces of so many of these kids as they stood in line waiting to be served.
Yet as I left the school that morning, the strongest emotion inside me was one of hope.
Hope that as long as we have James Howard and people like him in our community the quality of life will improve for all our children as time goes by.
It's not going to happen overnight and it's not going to happen without the caring and effort of the entire community. Try as they may, Howard and the group of other caring leaders who call our community home can't do it alone.
Oh, something else happened as I left the school that morning -- my eyes were wide open!
Editorial Comment
Malcolm Gorrill
Inuvik Drum
It's hard to comprehend the devastation resulting from the terrorist attacks earlier this week on the World Trade Centre in New York, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
It's feared thousands died when the twin buildings making up the World Trade Center were hit by planes and then collapsed.
The loss of life is huge, and the emotional scars inflicted upon family and friends of the victims will be large as well.
Though people here may be far removed geographically from the events unfolding in New York and Washington, such a loss of life touches everyone everywhere.
Every so often an event occurs that tests and defines a people, or a generation. The assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 was one such event. The Challenger explosion in 1986 was another.
No doubt the events of this past Tuesday will not ever be forgotten, and the wounds slow to heal. What remains to be seen is how people will be affected.
For some people, this may create or add to a fear of flying, or in being in tall buildings. Almost everyone, at least in the short term, is bound to feel a little less secure, a little less safe, when they go about their daily business, whether they live in New York, Toronto or Inuvik.
That presumably is one of the objectives of the terrorists who planned this week's events, and other terrorist acts.
But devastating though these events are, people are responding and will continue to respond with acts of compassion for the victims. This is occurring in the U.S. and in Canada in the form of caring for wounded, or indirectly by people donating blood to help with the large demand caused by these events.
Though not able to help directly, thoughts and prayers from Delta residents are with those affected by these acts of terrorism.
These actions, plus a better appreciation of the freedoms people in democratic societies enjoy, will help ensure that the terrorists do not win.
FAS Walk a success
Inuvik hosted its first International FAS Day Walk and Barbecue on Sunday, and it was a big success by all accounts.
At least 300 people took part and perused the information available at the various displays.
The event will serve to raise awareness within the community of fetal alcohol syndrome and its harmful effects.
Editorial Comment
Derek Neary
Deh Cho Drum, Fort Simpson
The federal government has dealt the Deh Cho First Nations an unexpected blow by declining to negotiate a Mackenzie Valley pipeline. It was an ace up the Deh Cho's sleeve, of sorts, to cast aside the big industry players in favour of dealing directly with the federal government. The only problem is that they hadn't received a commitment from the federal government first.
Federal negotiator Robin Aitken said the two sides have a number of gaps to bridge when it comes to resource revenue sharing in general. Negotiating the terms of a pipeline specifically is not in the plans, he said.
DCFN chief negotiator Chris Reid contended that the federal government's stance will make for more intense negotiating, but he's not giving up hope the parties can reach an accord.
Whether or not that happens will be a pivotal point in negotiations and significant revenues for a future Deh Cho government will be at stake.
Give board credit
The threat of potentially losing the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Board has been magnified by the positive strides the board has made recently. There are now three nursing positions in each Fort Liard and Fort Providence. Fort Liard is finally getting a second social services worker as well.
These are needs that the board, comprising members from each Deh Cho community, has identified as priorities and has acted upon. When the Department of Health and Social Services didn't come through with all the requested funding, the board found the means within its budget to finance one more position. That's the local will and flexibility we don't want to see slip away through centralization.
The con game
In an era when there are countless warnings about fraud, it seems unlikely that so many people could get caught in a scam. There is a very smooth operator out there who sent nine people to Fort Simpson for non-existent work at no cost to himself. He paid nary a bill. It's people like him who make it difficult to trust others, particularly strangers. But the world would be a callous place if we couldn't put our trust in others.
Many people with good hearts, if not poor judgement, find it hard to turn down pleas from those who claim to be in need. It's often those with good intentions who are preyed upon, and it really is a shame.
Terrorist attack
Many of us woke up Tuesday morning to hear the grave news that the United States was in chaos as terrorist attacks struck New York and Washington, D.C. Airports were shut down across the country. Smoke billowed from the World Trade Centre towers after hijacked jets collided with them. The towers later collapsed. Thousands of lives were lost. An explosion occurred at the Pentagon. Government buildings -- icons such as the White House and the Capitol building -- were briskly evacuated. It was like a scene from an action movie, yet it was all too real.
Terrorists, through their reprehensible actions, have sent a message that everyone is vulnerable.