Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Last fall, while city council was contemplating raises for themselves and their mayor, the Yellowknife fire department was quietly smoldering.
Two firefighters had died months before and the conditions that led to their death persisted and nobody seemed to care.
Nobody in charge - not mayor, not council - was asking questions about why these men died.
Except the father of one of the firefighters killed. As we read in today's Yellowknifer, he was asking questions but he wasn't getting any answers, not from the city.
Recent safety orders from the WCB, 12 of them, confirm the fire department has been neglected and is poorly run despite the mayor's unshakable confidence.
WCB also conducted a long, drawn out, hopefully exhaustive, investigation on how the firefighters were supervised on the day a small shed caught fire and two firefighters were killed. Now charges have been laid against fire chief Mick Beauchamp and deputy fire chief Darcy Hernblad.
Mayor Gord Van Tighem, following the pattern of city hall since Cyril Fyfe and Kevin Olson died a year ago, is not accepting responsibility for the fire department, nor has he shown any urgency in finding out why two city employees died.
The rest of council seems to agree a united front with a strategy of inaction is the best course to follow.
We say the names of the mayor and city councillors should have been on those charges. Not because of their lack of involvement in the fire department before the fatal shed fire, but because they have done nothing to ensure the safety of firefighters since March 17, 2005.
It's good management to let city administration do their job under direction of city council without interference from council.
It's wrong not to step in when something goes wrong. Two men suffocating to death in a collapsed shed fits the definition of something gone wrong.
So distant does our full-time mayor hold himself from the deaths of two city workers that he has not read a report on the fire done by a consultant hired by the city. Did any one else on council know about this report? Did they ask to see it?
Hernblad has been appointed to replace Beauchamp who has gone on sick leave.
Hernblad, who may well be a dedicated firefighter, has been ordered by the WCB to take more training and become recertified in firefighting theory. He is also one of two individuals charged in the handling of the shed fire. He is an inappropriate choice until the WCB charges have been dealt with.
Yellowknifers should be calling and or stopping mayor and councillors on the street asking when they are going to start dealing with the problems that killed two of our neighbours. It could be our children next.
Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News
If you roll the dice often enough, sooner or later you will roll snake eyes.
There are no set rules, other than a belief in what is commonly referred to as the law of averages.
Nobody can tell you if you'll need to roll the dice once, or five thousand times before snake eyes hit the table.
But hit the table they will. It's inevitable.
The same can be said for the vast majority of sports, in that sooner or later somebody will suffer an injury.
It's simply the nature of the game.
And, the more extreme the sport, the greater the risk of serious injury.
So, it stands to reason when you put a group of adults on a slippery ice surface, outfit them with sharp steel blades to travel at often astonishing speeds, let them carry a hefty aluminum or wooden club to propel a six ounce piece of vulcanized rubber at speeds over 120 km-h, sooner or later, somebody will get hurt.
The question of this particular game is how high are you willing to set the stakes?
The unsanctioned or "outlaw" hockey tournament is making a comeback in the Kivalliq for a number of reasons.
In some communities it's the unwillingness to register players.
In others it's the total lack of certified officials and, for some, it's simply a matter of taking the easy road so we can all be home by 5 p.m.
There has all ready been one such tournament this year and two more are planned for this month.
In the first one, a player was taken to the health centre after having his bell rung and exhibiting concussion-like symptoms.
Close call, but no damage done.
So, why should the average person in a Kivalliq community with absolutely no interest in hockey care?
These are all big boys and girls.
If they want to play in a tournament knowing they have no insurance, why should the rest of us be concerned?
The answer to that can be summed up in one word - lawyers!
Those in the know in Rankin Inlet have been dealing with an older player this season who suffered an injury playing in a weekly pick-up game.
The player has tried to get compensation from the hamlet on a number of occasions, claiming bad ice was the reason for his fall.
So what if that was a player with a high-paying job and facing a loss of substantial income due to a serious injury?
We have a word for that, too - lawsuit.
People need to be aware when their hamlet agrees to host a non-sanctioned sporting event, they're putting community money at risk.
One serious accident and your municipality could be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
That's the cold hard truth of the matter.
The money would have to come from somewhere, and it wouldn't come from liability insurance if the hamlet knowingly hosted an unsanctioned event.
The money would come from funds meant to operate, maintain and improve your community.
As any gambler can tell you, snake eyes often land hard when they hit!
Editorial Comment
Jason Unrau
Inuvik Drum
It was great to see so many young women participating in the Gwich'in Cup this past weekend. I had no idea how many female hockey players there were breaking trail in the region's minor hockey ranks.
Altogether, more than a dozen played in the four championship games Sunday.
Whatever your stance is on Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan, here's hoping that RCMP Northern Detachment Commander Staff Sgt. Al McCambridge's mission to help foster that country's police force is a success and that he returns safely in a year's time.
Despite what polls reveal about the national opinion with respect to our armed forces and reconstruction teams being deployed there, surely anything is better than the state that nation was in prior to Sept. 11, 2001.
A few years ago I remember watching a documentary about the Taliban Government ruling that country. The interviewer was questioning a high level minister about the use of Kabul's UN-sponsored soccer stadium as an execution ground. The minister replied that if the UN would build them a proper execution ground, then the stadium could be returned to its original function as a sports facility.
After the acrimony that transpired in Fort Smith over the spending of community capacity building dollars, it's nice to see the local groups here appear to be getting along swimmingly in reaching consensus on how to spend Inuvik's $1.8 million share.
I propose that some of these funds be put towards building a snowboard halfpipe somewhere in town. Everyone knows how many kids enjoy the local skatepark in the summer, so surely a snowboarding facility would attract the same kind of use.
There's nothing quite like using your ailing father's public housing unit as a party shack in his absence only to get him kicked out. And that's exactly what happened to a 67-year-old Inuvik man who is now faced with having no place to live.
We've all heard about elder abuse in its various forms, but to come face-to-face with it was a difficult thing and I'm hoping that somebody, somewhere can do something to help this elder out of the predicament he finds himself in.
Editorial Comment
Roxanna Thompson
Deh Cho Drum
Keeping Slavey alive as a language is an uphill battle.
This consensus came from language instructors who work in the communities. The instructors were gathered together in Fort Simpson for a course on teaching an aboriginal language as a second language.
Even the title of the course hints towards the fact that Slavey is not the first language for many children entering school.
Comments passed around the classroom between instructors included the fact that although many children come from parents of Dene descent, few hear Slavey spoken at home unless they are with their grandparents. The number of people speaking the language has decreased.
There is little comfort to be found in the fact that Slavey is not alone in this position.
Around the world, many languages spoken by a variety of groups, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, are hanging on by their fingertips. Often the enemy is the encroaching behemoth of the English language, which dominates both general conversation and the media.
The challenge is to take the language and advance it beyond the concept of using it as a school subject or a tool to use when speaking with elders.
It's a difficult task.
There is a large difference between wanting to learn something and having to learn something. Anyone who has ever sat through classes or workshops they weren't interested in can relate to the difficulty of remembering the information that was being presented.
Finding a way to make youths want to do anything is difficult. The magnitude of the challenge increases dramatically when a whole language is involved.
Despite the lack of easy answers, the goal should not be dismissed.
As language instructor Valerie Wood pointed out, a language and its culture are intertwined and can't be separated. Culture is embedded in every word of Slavey.
To keep the language alive also means to keep the culture alive.
A round of applause should be sent out to all the young athletes and coaches in small communities who battle against disadvantages to excel in their chosen sports.
In almost every sport, athletes from smaller communities are at a disadvantage when matched against teams and individuals from larger centres. Challenges range from having a shorter season because of ice time, lack of competitors, small team numbers or even a lack of facilities.
Time and time again, athletes overcome these handicaps with little complaint.
They prove that winning is not always about fancy equipment and facilities, but instead about heart, determination, good coaching and a bit of skill.