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We all agree smoking harms everyone -- man, woman, child.
So we don't have a good argument for those who might disagree with the owners of The Diner who want city council to ban smoking in bars and pubs in addition to restaurants.
City council recently rejected a request by Tobacco Action Yellowknife to push the date of a 100 per cent ban on smoking to Jan 1. 2003, instead of Jan. 1, 2005.
The owners of The Diner are worried they may have to shut down because most of their clientele smokes.
Their fears, and those of other restaurant owners in the city, are valid.
As of Jan. 1, city restaurants have to be 75 per cent non-smoking. That means smoking customers at The Diner, for example, can just eat and puff in another city pub or bar.
City council has to impose the smoking ban across the board.
Food and alcohol are served in pubs and bars as well as restaurants. So it should not just be the restaurants upholding the healthful intent of the 75 per cent smoke-free bylaw in January.
This is a matter of public health not money. And that should be clear to councillors who are aware of our shocking statistics on smoking in the NWT:
- 42 per cent of NWT adults over the age of 17 smoke.
- 60 per cent of NWT youth between the ages of 12-14 have tried smoking compared to the national average of 22 per cent.
- Annual health-care costs attributed to tobacco use in the NWT are estimated at $31 million annually. The only things the current smoking ban will accomplish in January is forcing smokers to find another place to hang out while restaurant owners watch neighbouring pubs and bars ring up the sales.
Help is on the way. It's not as soon as we'd like, but at least council has seen fit to hire four new firefighters. They start April 1.
The nearly $1.9 million cost of the city's fire department, which combines fire and paramedic services, is for the most part cheaper than other cities of a similar size. Factor in the fact we have much more emergency activity (2,294 annually) than Grande Prairie. Consider that Whitehorse (Pop. 22,000) spends $3.8 million on its fire department alone.
Even with the $250,000 a year the extra hands will cost, council has to remember the city will still have a bargain on its hands.
Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News
The hamlet of Rankin Inlet is to be commended for the way it's going about collecting on some old debts.
Not only has the hamlet managed to recoup $100,000 so far, it has done so in a way sympathetic to the financial status of those owing.
As fair as the hamlet has tried to be in reaching agreements with those in arrears, there are still a number of residents forcing the issue.
We agree with Coun. Justin Merritt when he says anyone who hasn't responded to three notices is simply ignoring a situation and hoping it goes away.
However, how do people reach that point?
In this particular situation, it could be a case of old habits are hard to break -- and this old habit is one of not having to pay.
When hamlets first began taking over land leases from the GNWT about five years ago, they did so in groups or sections.
The first section the hamlet of Rankin Inlet took over contained about 100 lots.
It quickly became obvious the GNWT hadn't been making much of an attempt to collect on monies owed.
In a nutshell, the government of the day had become lazy and downright careless in dealing with the accounts.
That indifference has rubbed off on a number of residents.
To their way of thinking, they never paid the territorial government, why should they pay the hamlet?
So, just how indifferent had the GNWT become?
When the hamlet asked the GNWT for a receivables list on the people who owed money on the first 100 lots, the government handed over a box full of what looked to be recipe cards.
People working for the hamlet at the time say it resembled what someone might use to run a hockey pool.
Your tax dollars at work!
Apparently, the way this high-tech system worked -- when a person came in to pay for a year, whomever was handling the accounts would take a marker and scratch that year off the recipe card.
In short, the hamlet was left with no way to verify the money owed on the lots without invoices or statements of accounts.
Seeing what it was given to work with at the beginning, the hamlet's progress in collecting past due accounts becomes all the more impressive.
The hamlet is giving everyone a fair chance to pay in a manner they can afford, and that's the right approach to take in this situation.
As for how it ever reached such a ridiculous point and the length of time involved -- let us borrow a line in saying, "Now you know the rest of the story."
Editorial Comment
Terry Halifax
Inuvik Drum
Business is booming for Ed Secondiak at E.C.S Safety Services.
Ed's booked solid doing drug testing and education all over Alberta and the North, but this is one business we'd all like to see go out of business.
During his presentation, Ed played a video about the adverse health effects of smoking marijuana and it took me back to Grade 8.
When I was in junior high, we got all the usual low-grade health films about the evils of booze and drugs and they were a joke to us then and would be hilarious to watch today.
They showed us films portraying pot smokers as raving lunatics and drinkers as slathering boobs.
My friends and I tried pot and booze somewhere around that time and we collectively thought, "Our teachers lied to us!"
We felt that if they lied about pot and booze, they probably lied about that other stuff too, so off we went into our senior high years experimenting.
I was a lucky one. I never had much of a penchant for waking up broke and stupid, but as I grew older, I lost many friends who died drunk behind the wheel or overdosed on cocaine.
A guy I grew up with lost his house, his BMW and his carpentry business because of his addiction.
Those movies we watched in health weren't of much benefit to my friends and I and maybe even served us more harm than good.
Drug education has to be real to young people if it's going to have any effect.
Our schools are always eager to bring in shining examples of good citizenry, but if the students saw a few bad examples it might go a long way to preventing a problem before it becomes one.
If my health class had some guy come in and tell us how he lost his house, business and BMW to cocaine, who knows, I might have a few more friends today.
Renaissance revival
It's been a long time coming, but it's great to see the GNWT has finally made a commitment to an artisan training program for the territory.
While still in its infancy, the Aurora College program shows some real promise to future artists.
The beauty of the artisan program is that it offers students the full spectrum of arts that will give them a better understanding and appreciation of their own and other's work.
Whether carving, beading or sewing, these art forms carry a big part of the heritage of this area and recognizing that, the government will see their dollars come back through taxes paid and will help preserve a culture that needs all the help it can get.
Let's hope the next budget makes room for art.
Editorial Comment
Derek Neary
Deh Cho Drum
Gauging village council There are a couple of noteworthy items from last Thursday's village council public meeting in Fort Simpson.
First of all, there weren't many people in attendance. The mayor, seven councillors and the senior administrative officer were almost as many in number as the crowd for a while. The audience peaked at 17, which isn't overwhelming. The previous mayor and council packed in double or triple that number on at least one occasion.
So then, should the poor turnout at last week's public meeting be interpreted as tacit approval of council's performance? Perhaps, but not necessarily.
Even though it had been a long time -- at least a year or two -- since the last public meeting, the current "hot button topics" of privatizing garbage and amending the smoking bylaw weren't enough to attract many residents -- and that's even on a week when TV bingo was cancelled. So it does seem to indicate that council isn't doing too poorly.
The other point of interest was that council is split on the two aforementioned issues and it turned out that the public is divided in opinion as well, at least those who showed up were. That would seem to indicate that council reflects its constituents, and that much is reassuring.
One issue that was not on the agenda, but was raised by resident Ken Lambert, was the disparity in services offered to those who live in Fort Simpson proper as opposed to those who live in the Wild Rose Acres subdivision. Lambert noted that Wild Rose residents have no fire hydrants, no sidewalks, no sewage or water lines. Therefore he suggested that Wild Rose residents should be paying lower property taxes.
Mayor Tom Wilson replied that if taxes go down in one area, they will have to go up in another. Coun. Sean Whelly added that it's expensive to truck water to Wild Rose residents, but the village subsidizes that.
While there hasn't been a hue and cry over the Wild Rose versus in-town issue lately, it is a sore point that never seems to go away.
With talk of another subdivision being built in Fort Simpson in the coming years, the tax for services topic is one that should be examined.
Going to be slick
Unseasonably warm weather has made a brief return to the Deh Cho and it's bound to be ultra slippery on the streets and sidewalks this week. The warm temperatures will likely melt some of the snow and then give way to cold temperatures, which will make things treacherous. Be cautious behind the wheel and on foot.