It was a wise decision by fishery officials to hold a public forum on declining fish stocks on the Ingraham Trail, and make sure people knew about it.

Monday's meeting may have only drawn about 20 anglers, but the Department of Fisheries and Ocean's attempt to communicate with the public on this important issue is a step in the right direction.

Judging by comments in today's story, most anglers acknowledge that lakes along the trail are under serious pressure.

There is only one problem, as noted by resident Kevin Glenn: the department's ability to enforce angling rules seems woefully inadequate. DFO plans to increase its complement of fishery officers in Yellowknife this year from one to three, which is good news.

With the extra help, DFO must do more than patrol the usual spots, like Prosperous Lake or the Yellowknife River. Anglers looking for a better catch are hiking, portaging, or snowmobiling farther out, off the trail.

Go to Bighill Lake and you will see a tangle of discarded fishing line on the shore. A truly efficient management plan for the fishery must include random monitoring of outlying lakes.

Otherwise the decline will only spread.

Wanted: one shovel. The last one broke under the strain.

Wanted: one shoveller. The last one broke under the strain, too.

Yellowknifers are probably feeling a bit like easterners these days as snow continues to blanket previously shovelled walkways and patios, for the umpteenth time this winter.

Many have simply resigned themselves to climbing mounds of snow as high as Mount Everest.

Kids are happy though. Sliding galore.

Mosquitoes - remember those large, pesky blood sucking, tear-your-arm-off-bugs - they'll be happy, too.

All that lovely still water. Heaven for them.

But after all this shovelling, bring 'em on. Our muscles are strong and ready for slapping.

Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News

The Kivalliq News has been a staunch supporter of the Nunavut Youth Abroad program (NYAP) since its inception in 1997.

The program helps Nunavut youth develop job skills while gaining all-important work experience.

The NYAP also exposes the students to other cultures, helps them build self-confidence and self-esteem, and increases their leadership abilities.

Since its humble beginnings, more than 100 Nunavut students have taken part in the combined Canadian and international phases of the NYAP.

Now the NYAP is looking to expand its horizons and become Northern Youth International.

The plan calls for the program to expand into the NWT this year and then look at moving into Nunavik and Labrador.

This is all being done under the banner of the program being such a success, it's time for the NYAP to share the wealth and offer the same opportunities to other Northern youth.

Sounds good in principle, but we're worried the operative word here just might be wealth - or a lack thereof.

Funding struggles

While the NYAP has always been quick to throw accolades towards its various funding sources since 1997, the program has struggled to meet its financial goals during the past few years.

The NWT may appear to the NYAP to be a much-greener pasture for raising those funds, with the name dropping of Nunavik and Labrador being more of a diversionary tactic than a concrete plan for future expansion.

Add that to the fact funding dollars are going to be even harder to come by in Nunavut for the foreseeable future, and, suddenly success alone isn't so convincing as the motivating factor in the expansion.

Expansion impact

All that being said, what's most worrisome about the plan for expansion is what may happen to Nunavut's involvement once the NWT program is up and running.

With our government's purse strings as tight as they are, Northern Youth International doesn't sound half as compelling a program to support as Nunavut Youth Abroad.

And we're also more than a little worried about the NYAP's ability to entice the necessary human resources to support such a move.

Nunavut needs NYAP

With a high school graduation rate hovering around the 21 per cent mark, the last thing Nunavut needs is to find itself in danger of losing one of its top student/youth development models.

Hopefully, NYAP executive director Chris Dasilva and his board of directors are moving in this direction cautiously and are being fuelled by optimism, not desperation.

If not, the change in acronyms concerning Nunavut's involvement with the program might go from NYAP to simply RIP!

Editorial Comment
Jason Unrau
Inuvik Drum

If the Turning Point emergency shelter can be pulled out of its most recent predicament, the creation of a more inclusive facility should be the order of the day.

Currently, the shelter offers a bed and two meals a day only to those who are not under the influence of either drugs or alcohol.

Unfortunately, there are many in the community who are homeless at least partly because of their addictions. As the shelter is currently not filled to capacity, there should be some flexibility in its policy regarding people under the influence who could freeze to death if they don't find shelter.

Those involved with Turning Point - staff, volunteers and concerned citizens - are focused on putting together a successful proposal to secure more funding from Education, Culture and Employment so one can forgive them if Turning Point policy is not at the forefront of their collective agenda. However, as many in the community have expressed that there is a need for a more-encompassing type of facility in Inuvik, it is too bad that initiative is at a standstill while ECE puts shelter financing up for grabs. It's almost as if the powerbrokers in Yellowknife are not hearing the community's call for some action in dealing with homelessness and more importantly its root cause: addictions.

In a conversation with the health minister last week, Michael Miltenberger said no plans for community treatment and/or rehab facilities would be made unless numbers could justify it. He cited the 236 addiction treatment referrals given to territorial residents in 2004 as part of the rationale for not changing the ministry's position.

Which begs the obvious question: if only 236 referrals were given in 2004, how many more are there out there who could use treatment, but for one reason or another, didn't ask for or get referred?

While there's no way to get an accurate number, to say 10 times 236 would be a relatively conservative estimate. Leaving one's community to seek help can sometimes create more stress that does nothing to facilitate success in breaking an addiction. It would be ridiculous to have treatment centres in each and every community. However, for somebody in Sachs Harbour, travelling to Inuvik instead of Alberta for help is a pretty good alternative. Not to mention the fact that NWT dollars would stay in the NWT instead of going into the coffers of another province.

Proponents' calls for a treatment centre in Inuvik are obviously falling on deaf ears in the capital.

Its legislators are obviously distracted by much more pertinent topics of the day, such as devolution, the pipeline and holding the territory to a budget.

Meanwhile, the homeless who can't access the shelter wander the streets, existing on a loonie here or a coffee there until next time.

Maybe the homeless have become such a fixture in the human scenery of Inuvik that many have just come to accept their existence as an unfortunate reality.

That would be unfortunate indeed.

Editorial Comment
Andrew Raven
Deh cho Drum

Last week, the territorial government announced it would push ahead with plans to build a $41 million courthouse on a plot of swampland beside the Legislative Assembly in Yellowknife.

The decision was criticized - and rightly so - by several MLAs who said the government should focus instead on providing basic services to the territory's smaller communities.

In the Deh Cho alone, there are five settlements without resident police forces.

The territory as a whole faces a chronic shortage of doctors and other professionals. Substance abuse continues to be a major problem and new drugs like crack-cocaine and methamphetamines are finding their way into the communities.

So how does the government decide to deal with these problems? Build a $41 million bauble in Yellowknife, that's how.

This courthouse scheme is a textbook example of government waste on a monumental scale.

It is also a remarkable about face by the Justice Department, which cried poverty earlier this year when it decided to slash jobs in Hay River and Inuvik. The department has since reversed some of those decisions.

In defending the plan, Justice Minister Charles Dent said the existing courthouse - which occupies three floors of downtown government building - is unsafe.

Somehow I doubt that would be a very persuasive argument for the people of Wrigley who can wait up to two hours for police to respond to a call.

The courthouse folly is reminiscent of ancient Rome, where emperors spent vast sums of public money building monumental arches and pillars to commemorate military victories.

While these triumphs - as they were known - were often brilliant architectural feats, they did nothing to alleviate the social problems facing the Roman Empire.

Bread lines in the capital grew, the highway system disintegrated and frontier defences were scaled back.

The Romans, like so many advanced civilizations, forgot the golden rule of governance: take care of the people before you embark on legacy building.

The government and Minister Dent would do well to learn this history lesson.