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Friday, April 01, 2005
Put the hammer down

All together now: the city should not be in the development business.

We've said it before, and past experience has proved it to be true. Just look at Niven Lake where $2 million of taxpayer money has never been recovered.

Even so, some on council continue to long for the days when the city was planner, regulator and builder.

This latest misguided pining comes from Coun. Kevin O'Reilly, upset by lot prices in the latest phase at Niven Lake rising 25 per cent.

He fails to recognize Yellowknife's housing market is hot. All he need do is read this newspaper.

On March 10, Yellowknifer reported housing prices jumped 12 per cent between 2003 and 2004, while starts dropped 39 per cent.

This is clearly a case of supply not matching demand and prices going up as a result. The city should focus its efforts on zoning and opening up new land where private developers can build new homes.

So put down your hammer Coun. O'Reilly. If you really want to build homes, start up your own development company.


Investment pays huge dividends

Northwest Territories lodges and outfitters are bracing for a business chill brought on by the strong Canadian dollar.

A year ago the mighty U.S. greenback would buy $1.53 worth of goods and services in Canada. Today it's closer to $1.17.

American hunters have already called to cancel their hunting and fishing plans. Some blame the buck. Others are put off by Canada's refusal to support the missile defence shield or the adventure in Iraq.

As much as these events might alarm NWT tourism operators, we encourage them to look closer to home for the real problem - the weakness in the territorial government's efforts to promote tourism and its economic development strategy.

As Ragnar Wesstrom of Enodah Wilderness Travel points out, that strategy is "all diamonds and oil and gas. Tourism is not on the table."

The proof is in the spending. The territorial government devotes $1.3 million a year to promoting the NWT as a tourism destination. The industry spends another $300,000 to bring travel writers who sing the praises of this wild and wonderful place.

According to government estimates, it was money well spent. Tourists left $43.8 million in the NWT in 2002-03.

Yukon spends more than $9 million a year on promoting itself as a travel destination. In 2000, Yukon businesses pocketed an estimated $164 million in tourism revenue.

The NWT clearly gets a bigger bang for its buck. Imagine what more money might accomplish.


Training program a positive step

Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News


Our hat goes off to the Nunavut government this week for finally realizing it's far better to have the horse before the cart when one is trying to make some serious headway.

The government has obtained $3.2 million federal funding during the next three years for the Nunavut Fisheries Training Consortium under the Aboriginal Skills and Employment Partnership.

The project is expected to provide training for 180 individuals and sustainable jobs for upwards of 80 Inuit in Nunavut.

That number could grow by an additional 145 jobs during the duration of the program.

The GN and vested partners in the fishing industry will contribute an additional $2.4 million to the training fund.

Training in various aspects of the offshore fisheries industry will be provided through a joint initiative of the Marine Institute in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nunavut Arctic College.

We cannot emphasize enough how much of a significant step forward this is in the development of Nunavut's offshore fishing industry.

With properly trained Inuit entering the industry, Nunavut stands to greatly improve on the approximately $9 million it receives annually in economic value from the 33 per cent of fisheries resources it controls in adjacent waters.

The annual potential of the resource is estimated to be in the neighbourhood of $80 million.

While this is all good news for a territory with a 25 per cent unemployment rate among Inuit, its most significant point is the message it sends to Ottawa that Nunavut is serious about developing its offshore fisheries industry.

While it's one thing to demand a fair share of a quota based on adjacency and then bring in a bunch of boats and fishers from another province to harvest it - training a workforce to eventually control 100 per cent of the industry is the first step in laying a solid base for the growth of the fishing industry in Nunavut.

Premier Paul Okalik and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Paul Kaludjak can stamp their feet all they want over Nunavut getting "its fair share" of various quotas in adjacent waters.

The problem they're up against is that shrimp and turbot, for example, have been fished for decades in Nunavut's adjacent waters by southern Canadians while Northerners had absolutely no interest in the industry.

Anyone with even the slightest understanding of the history of Canada's fishing industry realizes to wrest those quotas away now is a monumental task.

Goal can be achieved

But, over time, it is a goal that can be accomplished to Nunavut's satisfaction.

And, it is encouraging to see our territory moving in the proper direction by entering into this training agreement.

The more skilled workers and infrastructure (fishing vessels, processing plants, packers, shippers, etc.) we put in place, the stronger our case becomes in obtaining what we believe to be rightfully ours.

Hopefully, this step forward means the GN has finally learned: catch a person a fish and you feed them for a day, teach them how to fish and you feed them for lifetime!


Withered on the vine

Editorial Comment
Jason Unrau
Inuvik Drum


Little more than a year ago, Inuvik's Interagency Committee released its report on homelessness.

Spurred on by this piece of research, things looked promising for a new homeless shelter - with an accompanying alcohol and drug treatment component - to be set up in Inuvik.

Meanwhile, financing for Turning Point, the town's current shelter facility, was apparently coming apart at the seams.

Looking back at Turning Point's history, the writing was on the wall. In the late '90s the fight was on to save its predecessor Delta House. At that point, with a $650,000 budget and 13 staff members, Delta House was the best-funded treatment centre in the North. However, the government's viewpoint of Delta House was more along the lines of an "overfunded and underused" facility. Budget cuts were the order of the day in 1997 and were ultimately to blame for the demise of Delta House.

Fast forward a few years and what's left of Delta House - now known as Turning Point - is stripped of its ability to treat addicts and then, in March of 2003, also loses its on-site alcohol and drug counsellor.

As budget cuts took their toll, the place slowly and surely became little more than a shell of its former self.

But its supporters soldiered on, soliciting piecemeal funding from a variety of "stakeholders" to supplement Education, Culture and Employment's contributions. While it could no longer provide counselling to its residents, it could indeed provide shelter and when winter's temperatures plummeted, there was at least that small mercy to be thankful for.

As of April 1 (of all days) Turning Point will be no more, as the territorial government has finally pounded the last nail into its coffin.

The numbers of those referred for addictions treatment don't justify regional treatment centres in the North, according to the health minister.

And speaking of balanced budgets, Turning Point's board, the Inuvik Alcohol Committee, was not keeping itself in the black either.

Granted, it was trying to make its finances stretch, all the while maintaining - perhaps quite rightly - that Turning Point was being short changed.

That said, measures should have been taken to control expenses. This may have meant losing a staff member and a couple of beds but, in hindsight, it could have made the difference and kept Turning Point open.

At this stage, pointing fingers and laying blame will do absolutely nothing for the three people out of work or the eight people looking for a place to sleep tonight.

A resident of Turning Point summed it up best by saying it was "grim" to be evicted from an emergency shelter. What could be more grim is if this closure passes unnoticed, especially by those with the power to do something about it.

The order of the day should be coming up with a sustainable, locally-based solution that can shelter the homeless and deal with alcohol and drug dependent clients - something Turning Point's operators were unable to do in the shelter's final days.

With two Inuvik MLAs serving our interests in Yellowknife, surely some noise could be made on this issue at the legislative assembly.


The search for oil

Editorial Comment
Andrew Raven
Deh cho Drum


When the American Government opened up drilling rights in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge two weeks ago, the sanctuary officially entered the pantheon of places with bitterly ironic names.

Like the Democratic Republic of the Congo - which is neither democratic nor a republic - the ANWR has become a refuge in title only.

After years of lobbying, the oily fingerprints of short-sighted capitalism will finally make its mark on one of the most pristine environments on the planet. The decision is the most egregious rape of the environment since... one day earlier when American government relaxed laws on the amount of allowable mercury in the air and water. Or when the same administration signed legislation that essentially allowed logging in national forests. Or when it opted out of the Kyoto Accord.

Those decisions were a product of the American corporatocracy - a thinly veiled version of democracy where special interest outweighs public interest.

Normally, there would little reason for Northern residents to be concerned about what happens in the United States. But when it comes to the environment, what happens south of the border does not stay south of the border.

Greenhouse gasses, a byproduct of the consumption of fossil fuels, are slowly but surely increasing the global mean temperature and the North is at the forefront of this warming process.

Temperatures in the NWT are predicted to increase by nearly five degrees before the end of the century - a monumental shift that could result in everything from the widespread extinctions to the melting of the polar ice caps.

The decision to open up ANWR is another slap in the face to Northern residents who will feel the brunt of global warming.

And like the architects of the Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, proponents of drilling in the ANWR are simply delaying the inevitable. Some scientists estimate the world reserve of fossil fuels will be depleted within the next century anyway - an event that will force a massive shift in the way we live our lives.

Oil and gas are not long-term solutions to the world's energy needs. Instead of opening up wildlife refuges, governments should concentrate on offering meaningful incentives to companies for developing alternate sources of energy.

Unfortunately, that seems to make entirely too much sense. Instead, the American and Canadian governments are content to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the looming fossil fuel crisis. They'd rather scour the barren reaches of the earth for the last drop of oil.