Friday, November 11, 2005
Better pay and benefits attract nurses, physicians, lab technicians, physiotherapists or audiologists to Yellowknife, Inuvik or Fort Smith.
Conversely, if the territorial government doesn't offer enough, medical professionals will take jobs where rents aren't so high, travel demands less onerous and the climate less severe. That explains why the quest for medical professionals seems never-ending.
At present, the government's website lists 28 jobs in 24 health and social service categories - not including doctors and nurses.
The Yellowknife branch of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association is right to be concerned about the loss of a full-time audiologist. The territorial government's advertised offer to audiologists isn't getting any bites.
Health minister Michael Miltenberger says he's reviewing the package. He also has a plan to split the work load by locating hearing specialists throughout the Territories.
How does the minister expect to find five audiologists willing to live in Yellowknife, the Sahtu, Deh Cho and South Slave - and the money to pay them?
Better to beef up the salary and benefits to a level that attracts one audiologist to Yellowknife, then do the math on staffing the rest of the NWT.
The present plan is set up to fail. That's one of the health department's ways of saving money. No audiologists, no expenses. Northerners with hearing problems take the hit.
Once again the territorial government is dragging its feet, trading inconvenience for Yellowknife residents with lip service to the smaller communities.
The government is finally getting wise to the idea of making drivers with outstanding vehicle infractions pay off their fines before allowing them to renew their licences.
They will now tie the Justice department's database containing information on fines to motor vehicle licensing agents. But don't expect to be able to pay off your fines when you go in to renew your licence.
Unlike elsewhere where fines can be paid off at the licensing agent, drivers will have to go back to the courthouse or City Hall to pay them off first before they can return to the licensing branch.
It seems unnecessarily cumbersome. The territorial government says it will be another five or six years before they'll have it sorted out because they want to make sure every little community in the territory is onboard.
This all-or-nothing view exposes the great inefficiency in our government. It makes sense to launch programs in larger centres first, like those for fine payment for driver's licences, a 9-1-1 emergency phone system, and bottle recycling, because the population and government resources are here.
Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News
Not all that long ago, Prime Minister Paul Martin promised his Liberal party would be ready, willing and able to call an election as soon as Justice John Gomery tabled his report on the sponsorship scandal.
While Gomery tabled the report this past Tuesday, Martin's not running anybody over on his way to the podium.
We gave Martin his due on the way he handled the first attempt to oust his minority government.
The prime minister proved himself to be a worthy tactician by convincing NDP leader Jack Layton to support his minority government.
The political landscape hasn't changed much during the time it took Gomery to finish his inquiry.
Layton is still using his promise of support to gain favours, this time targeting federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh to block health-care privatization in Canada.
Conservative leader Stephen Harper is still howling for Martin's political head, as Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe yawns in the back, waiting for social-thinking-Layton and the Prairie bad boy to get on the same page.
Martin is still holding two substantial cards.
First, he knows none of the parties really want to be seen by Canadian voters as the one primarily responsible for calling a federal election at Christmas.
Second, the Gomery report wasn't all that damning of Martin in his role as finance minister at the time of the scandal and the longer he holds off an election, the further it slips from the voters' minds.
If Harper has any chance of striking while the scandal iron is hot, he must get the NDP on his side, once and for all, during the next week.
The next opportunity the Tories have at toppling the Liberal government is Nov. 15 - Conservative Opposition Day.
A successful non-confidence bid at that time and we all stop at our local polling stations on the way home from the Northern store or Co-op with our Christmas goodies.
Arguably, the leader with the most to gain in this situation is Duceppe.
Like most of his Bloc predecessors, Duceppe has visions of being king of his own little country some day.
However, unlike other former Bloc leaders, he realizes that time is not now.
What Duceppe would like to see is an election called early in the new year so he can take advantage of voter outrage in Quebec to further solidify his grasp on La Belle Province and take another shot at becoming the head of the official Opposition party.
And, of course, he will all the while be trying to put the pieces in place to call another referendum before the next federal election.
Oddsmakers wouldn't be giving you much of a spread on this one, but we'll still take history over Liberal optimism.
Minority governments have a sad record in Canada and this one hasn't shaped up any differently.
Martin's only hope in escaping an election over the next four months is to continue buying Layton's support and hoping the NDP leader doesn't read enough support on the horizon to start believing his party could pick up substantial gains in an early election.
If Martin keeps Layton on his side, Harper can sling prairie mud until the cows come home, but those votin' doggies still won't get out of the barn.
Editorial Comment
Jason Unrau
Inuvik Drum
I had to chuckle last week at a news headline that declared Samuel Hearne secondary school's replacement had been put on "the fast track" by the GNWT.
The story went on to say construction could start in two or three years. Wow! If that's the fast track, I'd hate to be on the slow track.
But everyone knows that ho-hum-medium-pace-government-doing-what-government-does best-track.
The one marked by paperwork and consultations and reviews and community input, followed by more consultations and wonderful reports. It's the one that most recently brought us this ill-conceived recycling program, which started with an idea and those oh-so-loveable consultations back in 2000/2001.
Nearly five years later, the majority of NWT communities are still without recycling depots, only beverage containers are included in the program (not paper, tin cans, cardboard and other stuff still bound for a landfill near you).
Only when the environment minister was pressured did the government reverse its "save up your cans for when you come to a depot-community" stance. Now the Environment and Natural Resources ministry will pick up the tab for deposit refunds in all the communities that don't have bottle depots.
At current count, this is 27 of the territories' 33 communities. Sounds like it would've been easier for the GNWT to run the depots themselves instead of going the Request For Proposal route to provide a service that is essentially a no-money maker.
However, this recent ENR-picks-up-the-tab about face is definitely great news for pop drinkers in Holman who, I suppose, would have had to wait until the dead of winter and pack their aluminum cans to Inuvik by dog-sled.
This recycling debacle a prime example of government tripping over its fine cape of bureaucratic process. The real embarrassment, however, is that the territory is just jumping on the recycling bandwagon now, nearly 10 years after every other place in North America got on board.
Sure, David Suzuki can stroll into this region, relive the Berger Inquiry and get a pat on the back from everyone but what about the tin cans?
Oh, they're down at the landfill being buried.
Talk about the environmental impact of our burgeoning Northern landfills. Not as sexy as a pipeline, I guess.
Maybe the best route for the GNWT is to scrap the recycling program altogether, let the tin cans and cardboard build up in the landfills another thirty-odd years or so, by which time the natural gas in the Mackenzie pipeline will be nearly exhausted. Then we can sell the Territories to the Japanese, who seem to like visiting here so darn much, as was indicated by the troupe of GNWT officials and dignitaries recently sent overseas on the taxpayer's dime to promote us at Expo 2005. Sound crazy?
Well, I once met a Dutch couple while travelling abroad who thought that this was the best way to go for the Netherlands, their home-country.
"When the polar ice caps melt, we're going to be underwater anyways," they said.
Barring that scenario, cross your fingers that in 30 years time the NWT isn't sinking in a sea of its own unrecycled garbage.
Editorial Comment
Derek Neary
Deh Cho Drum
The ultimate in 'reality TV' should be watching a daily newscast.
The news ought to be packaged and delivered in a manner consistent with what Dragnet's Sgt. Joe Friday always demanded:"Just the facts, Mam."
This opinion piece isn't going to make judgments about whether media are biased or not (that's another argument for another day). No, this is a commentary on the nature of the national and international news we see, hear and read each day: patently negative.
Over the past few months, we have been constantly informed of natural disasters, especially hurricanes and earthquakes, and the devastation they have left behind.
We have learned of even more casualties and death in Iraq. Now there are violent clashes in Paris.
Here's some other things I have gleaned from the news lately:
The avian flu is bound to kill a whole slew of us.
Political scandals just don't go away.
Terrorists could be lurking anywhere.
It seems you're just as likely to encounter gun play in Toronto as a Blue Jays game.
We're polluting the Earth all to heck, using up most of the resources and wreaking havoc on wildlife.
We're a society that's getting fatter and less fit. The Internet is a marvellous tool, but it's rife with fraud.
Oh yeah, and the rising price of gasoline is bound to set off crises. When a barrel of oil hits $60 or more, there are stories about how some people will struggle to afford home-heating fuel this winter.
There is speculation that the skyrocketing cost of oil will trigger inflation, which will lead to hikes in interest rates, which will cause the ruination of the economy (granted not many take it that far, but there has been the occasional allusion to dire economic consequences).
Such reports definitely tend to taper off when gas prices drop again.
It's funny, I was talking to a relative on the phone recently and we remarked on how much cheaper long-distance rates are these days. When was the last time you saw a news item on how people are saving money through their long-distance plans?
Sure, there are occasional reports heralding medical breakthroughs, but there are as many or more stories on medications that have been found to be dangerous or surgeries gone wrong.
Despite it all, we can't bury our heads in the sand. We must remain informed. But we canOt let all the negativity get us down.
In many respects, the world has never known a greater age. We have the convenience of many amazing technologies and there are countless people and organizations out there who should be celebrated.
There is plenty to be grateful for, just don't count on the newscast to remind you of it.