Wednesday, February 8, 2006
Makes you wonder how a seven per cent increase in territorial spending is going to improve services to the people of the Northwest Territories.
Finance Minister Floyd Roland's third budget was an unspectacular document.
It was full of hopes and dreams that Ottawa will finally come through on resource revenue sharing and a new fiscal funding formula.
The real tale of this budget is how the government workforce continues to grow. A while back we called it a hiring machine, and it has kicked into high gear this year.
According to the budget, the territorial government workforce will grow by 147 positions in 2006-2007 to 4,836.
The majority of the growth is in Yellowknife headquarters and North Slave regional jobs at 98.
When you look at the government workforce as a whole, 2,507 of the total jobs are in Yellowknife and the North Slave. Judging by the document, the North Slave doesn't seem to include Tlicho communities, so you have to figure most of those jobs are in Yellowknife, too.
It's important to remember that before division, the territorial government workforce that served the NWT and Nunavut totalled 4,100.
This latest hiring spree has pushed the government workforce to unprecedented levels. It's time to ask when it will end.
It's difficult to pinpoint any particular department that's growing faster than any other.
New jobs are being added almost across the board, a dozen in Municipal Affairs, five in finance, 10 in new executive offices in the regions, and a smattering of new positions elsewhere.
It's no wonder the government has put a major emphasis on building a stand-alone human resources department by amalgamating staff from various government departments and agencies.
This year, 13 new positions could push this division 188 workers.
It seems the government is just building more bureaucracy in Yellowknife.
Will this help Johnny learn to read, tackle the NWT's growing rate of sexually transmitted infections or fill potholes on our highways? Hay River is crying for doctors. We always need nurses.
This city welcomes more jobs, new people moving up from the south and the growth that comes with both, but the government seems to be growing out of control.
It's time regular MLAs demand the government address the hiring question and determine if it's putting people in the right places.
Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News
If I had a dollar for every time during the past five years someone told me there are too many rules being enforced in Northern hockey, I would be a lot closer to retirement than I am now.
The popular opinion of those expressing such views is that the rules are taking all the fun out of hockey and, this is the North, nobody really gets hurt playing here.
I wonder if Bryan Fotheringham felt he was really hurt earlier this month while waiting to be medevaced to Winnipeg for surgery on the busted ankle he sustained in a Rankin rec league game?
As with the majority of hockey mishaps, the injury resulted from an accident when a teammate fell on him in the crease area.
The point to be made in justifying the rules is twofold.
First, people do get hurt playing hockey.
Rules are in place to protect players as much as possible from sustaining a serious injury.
That's why it's mandatory for minor hockey players to wear approved helmets, neck guards and full-facial protection.
Nobody's trying to be mean and keep kids, especially kids from less-fortunate families, from playing the game because they can't afford the necessary equipment.
Hockey organizers are simply doing what they can to help prevent injury.
It's the nature of the beast for the enforcement of these rules to almost always fall on the shoulders of the on-ice officials.
The second reason we have so many rules is that we live in a world run by lawyers.
Hockey is no different than most everything these days in that a potential lawsuit always lurks close by.
Most sports fans have little knowledge of the insurance and legal issues dealt with on the administrational side of the games.
Even executive board members, who may never take an active part in the playing of the game, are insured against lawsuits surrounding official policies.
Most hockey fans have heard of the southern lawsuits launched by parents of young players who felt their child was treated unfairly when they didn't make the big team of their area.
Of even greater concern is guarding players and officials from loss of insurance when injury does occur.
All it takes is for one unregistered player to be on the ice and everyone's coverage is null and void.
The same applies to the wearing of uncertified or altered equipment.
A player sustaining a head injury, for example, who was not wearing a properly certified helmet, would receive nothing more than a rejection letter from the insurance company involved.
There will always be issues surrounding sports that people will disagree with.
But, when it comes to the rules surrounding the safety and well-being of players and officials, the rules are in place to protect, not deny.
The denying part happens when the rules are not enforced and an individual is left to suffer alone.
Editorial Comment
Jason Unrau
Inuvik Drum
From the hours and hours of oral statements and questioning heard in Inuvik at the National Energy Board hearings this past week, one word in particular jumped out: footprint.
The term "footprint" refers to traces of human activity on the landscape, including everything from industrial development to that Christmas tree you chopped down for the holidays.
And to think that if humans could survive alone on one coniferous tree per year, what a wonderful world it would be. So clean and fresh.
Unfortunately, this is not the case and among many other things humans need to survive, fossil fuels remains top of the heap.
Attempting to see through the fog that descended on town Friday and lingered until late Saturday afternoon - caused by greenhouse gasses spewed into the air from oil heaters, idling automobiles and the town's power plant - made 30 minutes of NEB hearing exchanges between Environment Canada and Imperial about a three-hectare airstrip seem ridiculous.
As people continue to consume, garbage dumps expand and fossil fuels are necessary to keep things going.
It's a very simplistic way to examine what could be called a global footprint, however the point is that because of modern living - ie the need for electricity, quick transportation and other such futuristic trappings - our lives cannot help but leave a significant mark on the planet.
Next time you savour the taste of a fresh juicy tomato in the dead of winter, think about all of the fuel that was necessary to bring that orchard-grown or hot-house delight to your dinner table in Inuvik. The person who picked it perhaps rode in a tractor to the tomato vines at one end of the farm, maybe even drove him or herself to and from work.
Once the tomato was picked, it was loaded on to another truck to go to a wholesaler, who maybe sold a bunch to Inuvik's beloved Fruitman who trucked it several-thousand kilometres north, or maybe it arrived in a Northmart-bound truck.
And if the tomatoes ended up at Northmart, take into consideration the power needed to keep the lights and heat going so customers can see what they are buying without freezing. If the tomatoes came in plastic packaging, score another for big oil and their versatile petroleum products.
Sure it's easy to criticize oil companies for damaging and polluting the environment, but few if any have stopped buying their product because of it.
It's a fact that a gas pipeline through the valley will leave a significant footprint. However, the benefit of relying on cleaner burning natural gas for the region's power needs instead of diesel could be a positive outcome - for the environment and people's pocketbooks.
Having concerns about how increased development will impact the environment and making these concerns known is part of being a responsible citizen.
Taking a look at one's own footprint and ways to minimize it by idling the car less or turning out the lights when nobody's in the room is that responsible citizen actually making an impact.
Editorial Comment
Roxanna Thompson
Deh Cho Drum
There were some very difficult lessons to be learnt this week in Fort Simpson.
The first was the discovery of how fast a community can be torn apart. Starting on Tuesday, Jan. 24, the fabric of the community could be seen growing more frayed and threadbare daily.
It was an emotionally draining week for many people. Tables at the village council were well stocked with Kleenex boxes that received a lot of use. Reports suggest that negotiation meetings between the volunteer fire fighters and representatives from village council were equally emotional. Opinions that had been bottled up needed to find release.
A second lesson came in the form of realizing how far people will go to stick to a course of action they believe is right.
Surely all the main players involved in the situation made decisions based on exactly what they thought was proper. Others may have disagreed with them, but they remained true to their chosen path.
Admirable qualities were revealed by many people as they choose to work long hours and lose sleep while trying to find a solution to the disagreement.
This week also provided a wake-up call for many people about the importance of volunteers. Regardless of what service they provide, volunteers are an integral, but often under appreciated, part of the community.
Some volunteers toil behind the scenes while others remain invisible despite the fact that their actions are there for anyone to see.
If anything comes out of this dispute, it will be that volunteers cannot be taken for granted and should be thanked far more often.
It always seems that it's not until something is missing that people realize how important it was. The people of Fort Simpson were fortunate to have a strong volunteer firefighter department up to this point. Many communities in the North are not as lucky.
At this time, pointing fingers is useless. It might feel good to place blame, but it's not a constructive tactic for the situation the village has found itself in.
It's time to start picking up the pieces. At the end of the day what Fort Simpson is left with is a municipal administrator appointed by MACA and ongoing talks to reach some solution that will ensure a working volunteer fire department.
Viewing this as a clean slate is the only way that Fort Simpson can carry forward instead of becoming mired in events that have transpired.
It's a chance to learn from history. Whatever lessons can be gleaned should be carried forward and used to help resolve future problems.
The village is facing some tough times ahead. MACA has declared that the village's first priority is to hold elections.
Strong resolve will be needed to make decisions about the shape the future should take and how to rebuild.
Warren Palfrey's name was misspelled in Jessica Gray's story on the 2006 Iditarod dog race in the Jan. 25 edition of Kivalliq News (Iditarod Bound).
Jillian Dickens wrote a story on Greenland's ban on sealskins in the Feb. 1 edition of Kivalliq News (Nunavut, Greenland reach seal deal). The story was accompanied by a photo which incorrectly stated a man was waiting for a seal in Baker Lake. The line should have read, waiting for a fish in Baker Lake.
As well, Rebecca Sammurtok was inadvertently cut out of a photo of a Project Naming session in Chesterfield Inlet in the Feb. 1 edition of Kivalliq News (Names to faces).
The Kivalliq News apologizes for any confusion or embarrassment the errors may have caused.