Monday, November 15, 2004
But a recently tabled report in the legislative assembly on $1.1 million given to NWT individuals and organizations did raise some eyebrows.
The grants are for entrepreneurs wanting to start a small business and existing businesses looking to expand. Money from the fund can also help with business training and unexpected financial difficulties. If a community has ideas, conferences or events, the fund may help.
Wherever the money ends up, the GNWT's Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development (RWED) -- which oversees the fund -- must ensure the money is used to actually benefit the North.
For example, we can't help but wonder why $7,688 was awarded to Canadian North to prepare a proposal for a working capital loan from another government fund. Canadian North is a multi-million dollar corporation.
Also, the City of Yellowknife, a tax-based community, was awarded $20,000 to hire a special events co-ordinator.
That's $27,600 that could have gone to fund aspiring entrepreneurs, small businesses and non-tax-based communities. They need the money. Large corporations don't.
RWED must also ensure the BDF is not being abused. That includes requiring that financial statements be filed in a timely fashion. There should be a residency requirement in place. Did some of the recipients of the 2003/2004 fund move to the North, apply for a grant, spend it and leave? We don't know.
We agree this fund has a valid purpose, but RWED must ensure it is money well spent. That means clients should be held accountable for how the funds were used.
The good news is conflict of interest commissioner Ted Hughes dismissed the complaint against former Inuvik Twin Lakes MLA Roger Allen regarding his housing claim.
The bad news is that he accomplished nothing.
Hughes reasoned that since Allen has resigned and has to pay back $10,000, the estimated $100,000 cost of an inquiry isn't warranted.
Unfortunately, it leaves unanswered two key questions.
The first is: In swearing a false residency declaration did Allen affect his eligibility to sit as an MLA? The second question is: Do MLAs have to live in the ridings they represent?
The questions are important ones for sitting and future territorial politicians.
MLAs should come up with the answers soon because they might save taxpayers a $100,000 bill if another MLA tries to copy Allen.
Nunavut is a welfare state. Its economy is run by government jobs; most of its people live in subsidized housing.
The only way this will change is by encouraging Nunavut businesses to grow and bringing in new business and new investment, which will create jobs and wealth for average Nunavummiut.
How can such needed change happen if Qulliq Energy Corp. rate plans go ahead?
This troubled Energy Corp. needs to raise $19 million more to meet its costs. To do it, Qulliq proposes a flat-rate system for the territory's business and residential users.
Nunavut's few private businesses number 1,033, 10 per cent of Qulliq's total power customers.
Electricity costs for businesses stand to increase by 92.4 per cent in Iqaluit, 41.3 per cent in Cambridge Bay and 23.5 per cent in Arviat. These and businesses in other communities already operate in the highest-cost economy in Canada. Raising power bills could be a devastating blow and freeze economic growth.
Crucial business that can take the blow -- food stores, hotels, restaurants -- will simply pass the increase along to consumers. Government will take the money out of one pocket and put it in another, digging a little deeper into debt.
It's also a tiny minority of residential power users who will carry the heavy load of the rate change -- many of these being people who run those private businesses. There are just 424 non-government residences in Nunavut. The rest are government housing (751) or receive territorial or housing corporation subsidy (6,684).
In 2002-2003, the government paid $14.7 million to Qulliq in residential power subsidies. During the past two years, government paid an additional $14 million to cover the increased cost of diesel, rather than make consumers pay.
It's time to stop playing this power game. If people were to pay the true cost of power, few could afford to live in Nunavut. Qulliq is not a business. Government sets the power rates by how much it's willing to pay.
Sure, private businesses should pay for the power they use, but it has to be at an affordable level, and everyone should pay their fair share.
Premier Okalik and his cabinet friends should end this utility rate charade and say what it's going to contribute.
Otherwise, the government that says it's committed to economic development will end up crippling territorial businesses and scaring new business investment away.
Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News
The new Rankin Inlet hamlet council may find itself fighting a battle it can't hope to win if its members don't heed the words of Mayor Lorne Kusugak after the upcoming municipal elections.
An obviously exasperated Kusugak told members during the Nov. 1 regular council meeting that council has to start focusing more on policy and direction, and far less on the day-to-day operations of the hamlet.
It was the third time this past year the mayor made the remark, which followed yet another council meeting spent almost entirely dealing with operational matters.
Kusugak's remarks were right on the money -- no pun intended -- and should serve as a warning to incoming council members.
An effective hamlet council, while certainly up to speed on the operational aspects of the municipality it serves, should be far more concerned with its collective vision for the future in terms of economic growth and improvement in the areas of services and infrastructure.
Knowing where you want to go and how you're going to get there is not as easy as it sounds.
That is especially true for a hamlet council at the helm of a non-tax-based community that is already feeling the pinch of government cutbacks.
Mapping a fruitful path for a municipality to follow takes a lot of painstaking research, hours of not-so-light reading, proposal writing, the asking of literally thousands of questions on a variety of subjects and countless hours of discussion, just to name few.
In short, it's a lot of hard work by a relatively small group of people who truly believe in the potential of their community.
Once that group of people find themselves continually discussing stray dogs, broken garage doors that don't seem to get fixed, signs that refuse to stay upright and broken Zambonis, the chances of success in developing policies for a brighter future begin to slip away.
Need for support
Rankin's new council will have to demand far better support from the hamlet's supervisors and employees in the upcoming year.
One doesn't hire a mechanic for $80 an hour and then have to hang around to show them which tool to use, and neither should council.
Council showed a lot of promise during the past year.
Rankin stands to benefit from a number of initiatives it has set in motion -- but only if the councillors are free to focus on the tasks at hand and not have to worry about solving every little problem that comes along.
If not, the election notices should go out with a job description attached -- a number of trouble shooters and general fix-it-up types required by the hamlet.
Some babysitting required.
Editorial Comment
Jason Unrau
Inuvik Drum
Last week's meeting at Ingamo Hall to discuss ways of stamping out the crack filtering into the community provided a real eye-opener to those unaware that the highly addictive drug is in our midst.
Unfortunately for some at the meeting, crack has already hit far too close to home and is destroying lives in Inuvik right now.
For many, this problem speaks to the need to re-establish an addictions treatment centre -- a return to the Delta House days before the alcohol and drug treatment centre closed down in 1999.
Though the health minister has said there are no such plans to bring a treatment facility back to Inuvik, pressing the GNWT to re-evaluate the matter is sure to be an issue for voters in the upcoming Twin Lakes by-election.
If it wasn't before last Wednesday's meeting at Ingamo Hall, you can bet it is now.
There is no doubt of the detrimental effects of crack on users, their families and the community at large. For more than a decade, this cheap base form of cocaine has ravaged and continues to ravage communities across the land.
Relatively new to Yellowknife, crack addicts have already become part of the urban landscape, wandering the streets looking for their next fix. Inuvik could head in a similar direction if measures are not taken. Reassuring as it was that so many people turned out at Ingamo Hall to talk about this problem, similar gatherings in the past to discuss fetal alcohol syndrome have attracted barely a handful of concerned residents.
Alcohol more widespread
According to RCMP statistics, alcohol abuse is a far more widespread problem and occupies the lion's share of police resources.
While not trying to downplay the seriousness of crack, addiction to this drug must be viewed in the context of the larger issue of alcohol addiction and addictions in general.
For a person hooked on booze, the ride from normality to rock-bottom can be a lifelong affair. Slowly, yet surely, the alcoholic becomes the shell of the person he or she once was. For the a person addicted to crack, this degrading process can happen in a matter of months. The dramatic change witnessed in many loved ones using crack in town perhaps explains the reason for such robust attendance at the Ingamo Hall crack think-tank.
Word is that another meeting to talk about the crack problem is being planned. What may provide for a more proactive approach at this upcoming gathering would be discussing ways of dealing with all addictions in their unique, yet ugly forms.
All Twin Lakes MLA candidates should make getting an addictions treatment centre the forefront of their platforms for election, but without the people's support, their promises will be nothing more than hot air.
Hopefully, the community can channel its energy into lobbying the territorial government for an alcohol and drug treatment centre and not relent until this is realized.
Pipeline construction has not even begun and the swelling economy anticipating this coming gas boom has brought hard drugs in its wake.
What will the future hold in store for Inuvik?
Things look bleak unless changes are made and soon.
Editorial Comment
Derek Neary
Deh Cho Drum
Remembrance Day. Should it be a national holiday?
That debate has ignited among federal politicians. Currently, Nov. 11 is observed as a holiday in some provinces and territories, but not in others.
It is possible to make Remembrance Day a statutory day off work. What cannot be legislated is having individuals give pause to honour Canada's veterans and war dead.
Each year we move farther and farther from the Second World War, a battle of such global magnitude that it has not been matched, and hopefully never will be.
Including the Jewish people executed in the Holocaust, the war years of 1939 through 1945 brought an end to an estimated 61 million lives, an absolutely staggering figure. That's almost twice Canada's current population.
Those who lived after seeing action in the Second World War, and who can recount the horrors and futility of war, are literally a dying breed. Back then, the members of the Allied forces shared a common goal: to stop the Axis powers, expansionist fascists led by ruthless dictators.
Fast forward to 2001. The U.S. is attacked by terrorists, who force jets to crash into the World Trade Centre towers, killing thousands. President Bush vows revenge against the responsible terrorist group, Al Qaeda. Bush also decided to move against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. His case for war -- weapons of mass destruction allegedly being amassed in Iraq -- has not been proven true.
No matter. American and a smattering of British and Australian troops remain on the ground in Iraq. There was a riveting documentary on television the other night by a British journalist. He shone a light on the under-reporting of American casualties in Iraq. He also talked to a number of Iraqis on the street. They seemed to agree that the Americans were tolerated when they deposed Saddam, but now they've overstayed their lukewarm welcome.
The Yanks are increasingly seen as occupiers, some Iraqi citizens said. They complained bitterly that, when attacked, the American soldiers open fire indiscriminately on bystanders and arbitrarily raid homes. This fuels hatred of the "occupiers."
In the Americans' defence, a few GIs explained that they never know when or where attacks are coming. Bullets, grenades or rockets could be aimed at them from within a crowd of locals or from any building, but they often can't pick out the offenders from the innocents. They face a nebulous enemy. Yet the soldiers are supposedly there to spread the concept of freedom and win the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people.
There were some enlisted men and women who admitted that they have become disillusioned. Unlike their Second World War predecessors -- more like their Vietnam compatriots -- they don't believe in the cause. They are simply following orders.
The U.S. government says it remains committed to helping the Iraqi government hold elections in January. Somehow we have to hope the Iraqi people will accept this new regime, however it might be structured. There are bound to be many more crosses filling cemeteries in the weeks and months ahead.
Today, we should remember the brave U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians along with the heroic Canadian troops of past and present.