Monday, October 31, 2005
Yellowknife MLA Sandy Lee was loudest. Every day she hammered the minister responsible for day care funding - fellow Yellowknife MLA Charles Dent.
While Dent is the obvious target, he's just one member of a cabinet who all think alike. He and cabinet calmly accept the reality of underfunding and blame the feds.
But Lee is not preaching to the converted. These are the fellows in back of the church cleaning their fingernails during the sermon, throwing $12 in the collection plate before leaving with a clear conscience. Sadly, they are a reflection of Northern if not Canadian society. Day care is a low priority across the country.
Even a brief look at the cost versus revenue picture of a daycare makes clear it's a losing business.
The truth is parents are paying too little - between $400 and $650 per child per month - and government subsidies of $12 a day maximum per child fall too short. Government also takes back the $12 if a child doesn't show up.
That's why every day care operator in the North exists on a shoestring. The YWCA got out of it altogether. Day care workers are paid just enough to keep them until a real paying job comes along. The result is long waiting lists and few choices for parents.
The only ones in the North making a decent living off day care are those doing it out of their home, the ones who can cut costs. In Yellowknife, those people charge almost $800 per child and some are unlicensed.
Ministers like Dent, despite Lee's criticism of his abilities, take direction well. Problem is, neither he nor his cabinet colleagues are getting it. That's where the Status of Women Council, the Native Women's Association, the YWCA, day care operators and all working parents come in.
Politicians have to be made to realize parents want good choices and well-funded day cares, just as they expect with our school system. Parents in two income homes must accept the fact they have to pay more, single parents may need a higher level of assistance.
Right now government spends $1 million a year on day care subsidies. Cancel a few trips to Ottawa to dine over devolution or resist jetting to New York to hob nob with US oil barons and they could double the $12 a day for many day care children.
It won't happen until the people get the message across.
Whatever comes out of the investigation into accusations the RCMP killed countless sled dogs from the 1950s to the 1970s, it will never be believed.
The RCMP released an interim report this month, with a final report expected in May.
Those reports will be seen as biased because it's the RCMP investigating themselves. Not surprisingly, they are very sympathetic to themselves.
Example: The interim report states retired RCMP members came forward in "heartening numbers" to share their experiences, and they did this "with some pride."
The investigating team interviewed more than 40 retired RCMP members but only "several" Inuit special constables. Hardly "heartening numbers."
Nowhere in the report is there information from Inuit elders who were not connected to the RCMP and didn't enjoy all the privileges that came with that.
The final report will contain "copies of statements of Inuit elders" obtained from Inuit organizations.
That is a good thing, mainly because the report paints an untrue portrait of life through the eyes of Inuit.
RCMP officers, or anyone for that matter, posted for a year or two in a remote hamlet, were rarely a part of the Inuit community.
Most RCMP members didn't know what Inuit were going through. And let's not pretend they did. Being well supplied and from an entirely different culture, they were largely oblivious to the hardships Inuit faced on a daily basis.
One RCMP member recalls curling and square dancing with Inuit which is a rosy portrait. A posting in the North is made to sound romantic and adventurous.
It's a very subjective side of life in the North, one from a non-Inuit perspective. It's a fact (and sadly still is!) that the life of non-Inuit was not the same as the life of the average Inuk.
While we don't doubt their honesty and sincerity, the RCMP simply can't be in charge of drawing any conclusions from this investigation.
A third-party must look at the information gathered from both Inuit and non-Inuit and make a judgement on what really happened with the sled dogs.
Anything less will be fatally flawed.
Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News
The spectre of too many bingos for a community to support without children going hungry or bills not being paid is raising its ugly head once again.
This time around the concerns are coming from Baker Lake.
We all know the paradox bingo has become in the Kivalliq.
On one hand, the vast majority of our hamlet recreational departments depend on bingo revenues to run effective programming.
Left solely to the budgets councils are able to designate to them, our region's recreation co-ordinators and committee members would soon be slashing programs at every turn.
But that's just the tip of the problem.
Numerous charitable and non-profit organizations depend on bingo revenues to keep offering their services.
We have athletic teams in every hamlet that need bingo-and-Nevada revenues if they ever hope to travel to tournaments or attend territorial events.
Even the vast majority of our schools must turn to bingo revenues in order to grow and support their extracurricular activities.
These are all worthwhile causes that need funding, and are deserving of approval when they seek their lottery licence.
However, try explaining that to a child who hasn't eaten in two days, or a person who became the victim of a spouse's rage after losing the entire monthly family income pulling the tabs from Nevada tickets.
The Christian Pastors of Baker Lake have taken their concerns to Community and Government Services (C&GS) Minister Levinia Brown in hopes of gaining her support.
It may be time for Baker's hamlet council to impose a limit on the number of games that can be held in the community each week.
Even knocking it down to two or three would, at least, begin the process of tackling the gambling problem many in the community believe has grown out of control.
We're quite certain C&GS, along with the Consumers Affairs Division, would honour any such written request from hamlet council.
And, as Brown indicated to Mayor David Aksawnee, council should also take the time to put together a thoughtful set of guidelines to help government departments prioritize the lengthy list of lottery applicants.
Such moves are not going to erase the problem of gambling in Baker overnight, but they will show that council cares about the overall health of the community.
Yes, it will be sad to see some worthy organizations shut out of the bingo lottery by a reduction in the number of weekly games allowed.
However, such sacrifice will eventually lead to smiling little faces fuelled by full tummies and happy families.
It will be a slow process, but the damage done by gambling addiction can be halted and, eventually, healed.
For community leaders in Baker Lake, now is a good time to start.
Editorial Comment
Jason Unrau
Inuvik Drum
Pipeline proponents say it will take two seasons to construct the proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline.
Touted as one of this country's biggest projects, building 1,300 km of pipeline through remote areas of the country will be a feat in terms of both engineering expertise and the mobilization of manpower and materials.
Obviously lots of thought and care has to go into a project like this, but with big oil backing things up, nobody seems in awe of such a short window for construction.
I wonder, if big oil were in charge of GNWT infrastructure, would this community have to wait - and wait - for replacement schools to be built?
After meetings in Inuvik last week between education officials and public works, it seems the odds are in favour of a joint high school and elementary school facility.
It is said the planning for this project will take two years, with shovels expected to hit the ground in summer 2008.
Well, it's nearly the end of 2005 and fingers are crossed that the aging Samuel Hearne secondary school will be habitable in time for classes to resume after the Christmas break.
In the amount of time it apparently takes to check the pilings, close the school and repair the pilings - barring further disaster - theoretically a Mackenzie pipeline starting construction at the same time would have been lumbering past Fort Good Hope by the time the school reopens in January.
With ongoing discussions - both official and coffee talk - about how and why big oil should pony up some cash to address social impacts in the GNWT, maybe this community should invite Imperial to build Inuvik a new high school, just as a sign of good faith, you know?
Then the good people of the GNWT could sit back and observe textbook corporate efficiency for spending money and, more importantly, getting results. The key difference here is between a corporation's bottom line and a government's accountability.
Imperial doesn't like to waste money when its board members are accountable to the shareholders. Who is the GNWT accountable to?
If the perceived dilly-dallying is any indication - not to mention complete failure of the government to take any responsibility for SHSS woes - the answer is pretty much nobody.
Sure, there's always somebody around to complain about this and that when government simply points to a planning bureaucracy or spending bureaucracy as rationale for why its wheels seem to grind along at a pace slower than molasses in January.
Regardless, that is hardly any consolation for parents and students affected by what is indeed a crisis.
People wonder why there's so much cynicism about government and the politicians caught in the midst of its machinery.
Too bad the powers that be didn't simply throw convention out the window, pull up its bootstraps and order a new school be built, pronto.
My cynical side says that would be asking too much.
Editorial Comment
Derek Neary
Deh Cho Drum
It turns out the federal body that ruled Fort Simpson's ferry is not an essential service actually deemed the power plant at Ekati to be just that.
So Fort Simpson and Wrigley got kicked to the curb, while the money-making machine in the middle of the barrenlands got a thumbs up.
While our six ferry crew members - who live in the community for at least six months of the year - were allowed to walk off the job, Finning employees - who come and go from the mine site on a bi-weekly schedule - were forced to stay put to ensure the Ekati plant continues to run. No matter what might have happened to the folks in Fort Simpson and Wrigley, the diamonds must keep coming out of the ground!
In light of the mess at the Liard River ferry, it seems that getting fuel into these Deh Cho communities is rather essential indeed. With the ferry back in operation on Tuesday, it looks as if we've dodged a bullet. But if we hadn't, do you think those insightful individuals from the Canada Industrial Relations Board would have come up here to join us around a giant bonfire to stay warm?
Perhaps they would have thoughtfully mailed us toques or an extra blanket? This federal legislation, which leaves such decisions in the hands of a southern board, must be amended to include more input from the NWT. Granted these decisions must be impartial, but those North of 60 must be given a stronger voice.
Unions aren't always winners. They fight a hard battle, but sometimes the gains they seek are not realized. Yet the potency of the union was manifested in one sense last Thursday.
Dave Thompson, a negotiator for the Public Service Alliance of Canada, stood at the ferry landing reading aloud a contrite letter from one of the replacement workers. The engineer aboard the vessel made his apology in writing and pleaded to be removed from the union's blacklist. He stated that he had become acutely aware how difficult it would be for him to find a job elsewhere.
The striking workers and their supporters expressed little sympathy as they listened to the words Thompson read from the page.
Because that replacement engineer pulled the plug, the house of cards came tumbling down for Rowe's Construction. Although the loss of one of the temporary ferry captains days earlier only caused a hiccup, Rowe's couldn't maintain the service beyond last Thursday without the only fill-in engineer. As the replacement workers drove off the ferry for the last time, the jeers on the picket line turned to cheers.
"Yeehaw, go home," one person yelled.
This time the union won the battle and the war.