 |
Most of the pain has been felt by the beef industry which was quickly shut off from international markets, but Northerners have not been isolated from the damage.
Shipments of caribou meat from the Kivalliq were stopped at the U.S. border.
Now guides and outfitters fear the ban on meat and animal parts will discourage American hunters from pursuing the fall hunt in the Northwest Territories.
GNWT Resources Minister Jim Antoine wants the compensation package to be as flexible as possible.
"Northern producers of caribou and muskox meat as well as outfitters are feeling the effect of the ban on meat products destined for the United States," Antoine said.
The Nunavut government has reminded the federal government that its meat producers must be included from the recently announced benefit package but is not sure what they will get.
Emergency compensation may answer the immediate problem of lost income, but it doesn't address the potential for long-term damage to Northern businesses from the mad cow scare.
There is no evidence that caribou and muskox are infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or chronic wasting disease that has turned up in wild and domestic deer and elk in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The Northwest Territories and Nunavut invest heavily in promoting travel in pristine wilderness; they must now impress upon the minds of American consumers and legislators that meat from caribou and muskox is no less pure than the land that nurtures it.
If the U.S. government resists that message, it should also be pointed out that disease-free status of the Porcupine caribou herd does not change when it migrates from Canada to Alaska.
Editorial Comment
Chris Puglia
Kivalliq News
By no means would I call myself a hardcore Northerner, considering I haven't been up North for a year yet.
I have also been living in two of the capitals (Yellowknife and Iqaluit), which really doesn't give you a true flavour of what living in a small Northern community is like.
Well, that is all going to change now. For the next three months I will be living and working here in Rankin Inlet.
It's an experience I am looking forward to.
So far, I like Rankin. It reminds me a little of my hometown, except it is a little bit bigger.
I grew up in a small farming community with a population of just under 2,000.
But in Southern Alberta, where I am from, it never really mattered how big a town was because you were always in driving distance from a larger urban centre.
Now living in the North, that has been the hardest to adjust to -- the fact that there is nowhere to drive.
Of course, with my driving record, I am sure that is a relief to some people.
But overall, I have loved living in the North. I expect I will also love living in Rankin.
Being in town for two weeks now I have been impressed by the people of this community.
Everyone is extremely nice. I don't think a day goes by that I am not greeted by somebody when I am walking around town.
I am looking forward to working on the Kivalliq News for the next three months.
It is very similar to a community paper I used to work for except some of the communities I report on here I will likely never see. That presents a unique challenge that I think will be exciting to overcome.
I look forward to meeting the people of Rankin and any other community in the Kivalliq that I may be fortunate enough to come into contact with.
I hope we can all work together to bring the news of each community out clearly in the newspaper.
Feel free to call the office or drop in and say hi. I also am going to try and get around as much as possible to introduce myself.
Remember this is your newspaper, and together, I hope we can make it the best it can be.
Note: Darrell Greer is away on vacation until the end of the summer. He will return when the birds fly south.
Editorial Comment
Terry Halifax
Inuvik Drum
I was disappointed to see Barb Armstrong get shot down again by town council in another effort to clean up the community, but I was equally disappointed in the way the situation was handled by council.
Without reason, the town circumvented its own guidelines to allow a last-minute delegation by the interagency committee and the whole thing stunk worse than our swelling landfill.
Regardless of the merit or validity of either proposal, council pushed Barb's idea aside to promote their own idea of a healthy community.
Three members of council sit on the interagency board, and, according to their meeting minutes, it was Mayor Clarkson who brought the idea forward to apply for the healthy community money.
Perhaps it wasn't a direct conflict because no one from council would profit from the decision, just as the mayor said, but they should have either left it alone or granted support to both organizations.
I've never liked these support letters and I really wonder how much weight they carry with funders.
Who cares if you can get your cousin or your best friend to write you a letter?
People can use influence, power or money to get any number of letters written, but that shouldn't make or break a good idea.
Any project should be allowed to stand on its own merit without being sullied or besmirched by someone who wants to drag it down because they think they have a better plan.
No one person or group should be allowed the power to unilaterally veto a good project because of their influence or bias.
I've read both these proposals and they both have merit to help make this a better place to live, but council didn't see that.
There were a number of ways this could have been handled better.
The councillors who sit on the interagency could have declared conflict; council could have supported both proposals or they could have supported neither.
Pipe dream a reality
As I write this, there has not been an official announcement that the pipeline will go ahead, but based on sources, and documents I have on my desk, I know it'll be a done deal by the time you read this.
This will be a great thing for the territory and it has been a wild ride for those of us following this project.
After I wrote my first story on this pipe in Fort Simpson, I told a co-worker that this was the first of a long string of pipe stories and, by chance, it's really worked out that way for me.
A year after Simpson, I was in Hay River for that dramatic meeting with the producers and the APG.
With the Deh Cho standing in a circle outside on the left side of the complex, the Sahtu were in the same formation on the right, while K.C. Williams and the rest of the producers stood in between watching and waiting.
Now two years later, it's kind of fitting that here we are in Inuvik, where this whole idea started 30 years ago. The dream has become a reality.
Editorial Comment
Derek Neary
Deh Cho Drum
Elder Leo Norwegian stopped by the Deh Cho Drum office on Monday. It seems that he's been approached by several women who are quite upset over last week's article, in which he stated that women won't be considered for grand chief.
On Monday, Norwegian said while women weren't traditionally chosen as political leaders by the Dene, he didn't mean to say that they won't necessarily be considered for grand chief in Kakisa next week.
He said he didn't mean to hurt anybody's feelings and if he did so, he apologizes.
He added that when it comes to the elders council, he's "not the boss." The screening is to be done as a collective.
For that reason, it would not be out of line for Deh Cho delegates to sit down with the elders council prior to the screening process. As the Kakisa assembly agenda is currently set, the elders are scheduled to meet a day in advance of the election on June 25.
Nobody wants to be perceived as badgering or pressuring an elder or a group of elders. However, to ensure that equality between the sexes prevails, it would be prudent to open the lines of communication between the delegates and elders. If several women are nominated and none is accepted as a candidate by the elders committee, then accusations could start to fly after the fact.
Everyone should make it known where they stand. The selection of the grand chief is an extremely important decision. It must be done right.
Second chance
Whether Nats'enelu Ltd. survives or not is still up in the air.
With a pile of debt and the loss of its general manager and chief designer, D'Arcy Moses, the business has nose dived. It's only through the determination of Martina Norwegian and Barb Tsetso that the red building sporting antlers hasn't been boarded up completely.
Norwegian pointed out that there's so much talk about preserving Dene culture and tradition but so little action. Nats'enelu offers a building, equipment and materials. The elders possess the sewing and beading expertise. If anyone wants to take up the gauntlet and help revive Nats'enelu as a business on a smaller scale, or even help out as a volunteer, this is the time to do it.