The harshest critics of Health Minister Michael Miltenberger might call his latest plan too little too late. We'll just say it might be enough just in time.

At least the injection of $8.3 million more a year into the NWT health care system promises better results than a mountain of studies.

The 42 new positions to be funded include four new doctors and 10 more nurses at Stanton Territorial Hospital in the operating room, intensive care unit and obstetrics ward.

Also included are eight entry-level nursing positions for Northern graduates -- six at Stanton and two with Yellowknife Health and Social Services.

The plan is an expensive admission by Miltenberger that he was wrong and that people like Dr. Ken Seethram, president of the NWT Medical Association, and Sylvia Stard, president of the NWT Nursing Association, were right - we need more bodies on the front lines of health care.

It's also an admission that the NWT's health care budget has been underfunded.

The $8.3 million is not coming from existing funds, it's new 'money' being tacked onto the bottom line of a staggering territorial deficit that has ballooned from a projected $12.1 million last February to $104 million by November.

After watching Stanton go through a morale-killing slash-and-burn exercise to wrestle with its $1.8 million accumulated debt -- while we bumped up our health care services contract with Alberta up by $1.5 million -- Miltenberger appears to have thrown in the towel and is now prepared to try and spend his way out of the health care crisis in the NWT.

The money isn't the whole cure. The minister has created 42 new vacancies when his department can't fill the dozens of vacancies we have now.

While Seethram and Stard applaud Miltenberger's new plan, they also know creating the positions is one thing: successfully recruiting doctors and nurses to work in the Northwest Territories is quite another when you're competing for such skills in a global health care marketplace.

But the politicians have done their part. Now it's up to the health department bureaucrats and their Stanton appointees to deliver.

Fired Stanton CEO Dennis Cleaver might have welcomed such resources. There's no question Miltenberger came through with too little too late for Cleaver and those patients who shouldered the extra costs and discomfort of being shipped off to Edmonton due to ward closures.

Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News

The interaction between professional athletes and youth is often nothing short of incredible.

And, as proven in Baker Lake this past month, you don't have to be one of the biggest stars in sports to still make a major impression.

Mark Laforest had a solid professional hockey career.

A journeyman goalie for most of his 14 years stopping pucks professionally, Laforest managed to do what millions of hockey fanatics in this country can only dream about -- play in the NHL.

Add to that the one year he wore the blue and white (Toronto Maple Leafs for you intellectual types), and Laforest has a strong enough resume to captivate just about any young audience with his tales form "The Show."

That's what makes the hidden gem of Laforest's personality all the brighter.

For Laforest, his biggest sense of satisfaction came from two seasons in the American Hockey league where his consistent goaltending earned him the Baz Bastien memorial trophy.

From what we understand, Laforest's message was not lost of the students.

If something's worth doing, it's worth doing right -- at any level.

That is, as long as you stick with it.

Not everybody can be a millionaire. Nor do the majority of us hang our parkas up on the 100th floor of some ivory tower every morning.

But a great many of us go to our place of employment every day and do the best job we possibly can.

It's called taking pride in what you do and what you accomplish at your level.

For many people in this world, working construction in Baker Lake would be a free-fall from skating out onto the ice in Maple Leaf Gardens.

But, that's what makes people like Mark (Trees) Laforest so special -- their ability to always try and do their best.

A Mark Laforest can often be the right kind of person delivering the right message at the right time.

Sticking to their goals, finishing what they start and always giving 110 per cent are the types of attributes we need to see in the next generation coming out of our educational system.

They're the types of attributes from which progress springs.

And, as Laforest himself so vividly illustrates, they're also the types of attributes that often bring success the old fashioned way -- through hard work, pride and determination.

After all, a well built school in the Kivalliq is every bit as beautiful to see as a great save in the Gardens.

And if you don't believe that, you're barking up the wrong tree.

Editorial Comment
Terry Halifax
Inuvik Drum

While one warm year -- or even 21 years -- do not make for scientific fact in the geological scheme of things, it certainly does make us take notice that this theory may be our new reality.

What scientists have warned about for the past 20 years is finding more and more evidence that the greenhouse effect is upon us and we must act to correct, or at best delay it.

That is not to say I agree with what the prime minister is about to do with Kyoto.

Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol should have begun years ago, but it sat on a shelf for seven years, until Jean Chretien decided he needed something to be remembered by.

Chretien has frittered away his time in office riding the wave of economic prosperity generated by the United States and hasn't done much memorable, other than bring in firearms registration and his broken promise to dismantle the GST.

He'll never be remembered as the beloved statesman and leader that his mentor, Pierre Trudeau was, so Chretien was scrambling to find something for historians to scribble.

He dusted-off Kyoto and will ram it down our throats in the name of his vanity, not because he's genuinely concerned about global warming, otherwise he'd have ratified and implemented the Accord years ago.

If he were concerned for the provinces and territories, the energy producers or their shareholders, Chretien would hold off implementation until at least they had a plan in place. But he's not. Chretien's arrogance surpasses all that.

He doesn't need votes or campaign contributions, so why should he care about the Liberal party once again alienating the west and the energy companies?

Certainly the theory of global warming is rapidly becoming a reality, but we can't solve a 300-year-old problem with a 30-day plan -- especially when the reasons for doing so are so blatantly self-serving.

So long, Sol

If you're leafing through these pages in search of the Sun Watch, you'll notice something different. The sun went down yesterday for the last time this year.

This is the time of year when Northerners huddle together in coffee klatches and card games, in an effort to prop each other up through the dim season, but also to catch up on the days that slipped away.

The darkness can bring on depression, but it can also give us an excuse to get out and visit our friends and family that we just couldn't find time for during the busy days of summer.

As any artist will tell you, you need the dark to show the light, so go out and shine your light, to help cheer your friends and family through the next month of dark days

Editorial Comment
Derek Neary
Deh Cho Drum

The Deh Cho First Nations has served notice that it hasn't forgotten about a promised Deh Cho land and water panel, even if the federal government has.

The Interim Measures Agreement, signed in May, 2001, clearly sets out that such a panel would be established.

The federal government hasn't had a chance to respond, so it's best not to speculate why the panel hasn't become a reality.

The Deh Cho's tactic of rejecting all land-use and water permit applications should be enough to raise some eyebrows in boardrooms and federal offices, though. It's a step the Deh Cho can afford to take at this juncture. Although a regional economic corporation is being created, it's still in the structural stage. It's not yet actively seeking contracts.

The Kaa Dule United Corporation, on the other hand, has already made such a plunge. Established hastily by political bodies in four communities in October, the Kaa Dule United Corporation's mandate is to get a share of preliminary Mackenzie Valley pipeline work. There are also other First Nations who have waded into their own oil- and gas-related joint ventures. So the DCFN's attempt to sabotage land-use and water permit applications could have ramifications for its own membership.

The unknown factors are: a) how long will the DCFN have to employ such a strategy; and b) will the move effectively grind all applications to a halt?

There are other questions that also remain to be answered. Granted some wrinkles can be expected in the early going, as with any new body, but will a Deh Cho land and water panel be able to meet the demand created by so many applications?

What happens when the land and water panel makes a decision that's contrary to what a community wants? For example, if a project is proposed near Fort Providence -- and the community's leaders are in favour -- would the panel dare put restrictions on the project that would make it unfeasible? If so, what sort of fallout could we expect?

This is not to say that a Deh Cho land and water panel would be a step backwards from the Mackenzie Land and Water Board. It simply means entering into the unknown.

If capacity building is going to occur in earnest, which is a primary purpose of self-government, then a land and water panel is a step that needs to be taken.

Tropical winter

The warm Pacific air mass that pushed into the Deh Cho last week coupled with a chinook made for a couple unbelievably balmy days. When the snow began to melt, municipal employees in Fort Simpson made the most of the opportunity by shaving the roads and dispersing sand for traction. By all reports, roads were tended to in equally expeditious fashion in Fort Liard and Fort Providence, preventing accidents.

We should doff our caps to the road crews for their swift response and good work

Ralf Lehniger is the skip for Territorial Beverages curling team not Petersen and Auger as reported in "Engima on ice" (Yellowknifer, Dec. 6).

And the headline "Women sue Dene Nation over dismissal" (Yellowknifer, Dec. 6) should have read, "Woman sues Dene Nation over dismissal."

Yellowknifer apologizes for any confusion these errors may have caused.