Jason Unrau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (June 10/05) - Chief of the Gwicha Gwich'in Council Peter Ross is getting fed up.

"We've got nothing (in Tsiighetchic)," he said Monday, at a session of the GNWT-sponsored workshop on social impacts of the proposed pipeline.

"No nurses, no doctors, no police. Now's the time to correct this. Even without the pipeline, the social impacts are already here."

Ross' sentiment was a common refrain in the room of delegates, which broke into four focus groups to discuss the matter in detail before presenting their results.

Lack of doctors and nurses available to visit or be stationed in outlying communities, a lack of mental health and addictions counsellors, increasing family violence, more proactive and preventive programming and a need to train more health staff were common concerns among those in attendance.

Between discussions, many said they were tired of "talking about the same thing" and want to see some action.

During a presentation, Andy Langford, director of planning, accountability and reporting for Health and Social Services, talked about increases in alcohol and drug abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, gambling addictions, crime and family violence that are to be expected if and when the pipeline is built.

"(The pipeline) won't create new social issues but it will intensify or exacerbate existing ones," he said.

The accompanying slides showed statistics that Northerners are quite accustomed to hearing about.

According to the department of Health and Social Services, the NWT has twice as many heavy drinkers, nine times the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases and more than four times the emergency shelter admissions compared to the rest of the country.

During the focus group portion of Monday's workshop, Inuvik Native Band Chief Richard Nerysoo expressed his desire for the federal and territorial governments to respect agreements they have signed with Inuvialuit and Gwich'in aboriginal leadership.

"What bothers me about some of these exercises is that they tend to ignore these agreements," he said. "More money should be going to communities and institutions in those communities.

"We've become so focused on what this pipeline is about that we're forgetting about what the communities need right now.

"If you don't have the capacity to build the services and programs (the communities are asking for) then all you have are empty organizations."