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Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Change for the better

Yellowknife is not a war zone where crack addicts are more numerous than barrenground caribou.

But, for all its shortcomings, a recent Toronto Star column about the need to diversify and prepare for the bust that follows the resource boom makes some important points.

First of all it opened many eyes that the perpetual stereotype that Yellowknife is a frontier boomtown where almost anything goes is alive and well in the south.

No, 50th Avenue isn't "Gaza Strip" and whoever came up with the idea that one in 20 Yellowknifers is addicted to crack must have been on the drug at the time.

The diamond boom did bring new wealth to Yellowknife, some of which continues to be spent on cocaine. Truth is, though, that Northerners' drug of choice continues to be booze. There is a core group of crack users and the 2006 NWT Addiction Survey suggests 20 per cent of NWT residents smoked marijuana daily during the three months before the survey was done.

Drinkers are far more numerous and alcohol continues to fuel far more problems in homes and on city streets than drugs.

Governments have struggled to keep pace with the industrial growth and resulting problems.

However, things are starting to change in Yellowknife, especially in downtown.

Sod is being turned this week on a new shelter for homeless men at the old fire hall on Franklin Avenue. That will help get people off the streets and, we hope, access to programs that will enable them to turn their lives around.

Last fall's Project Gunship drug crackdown has had a remarkable effect on downtown. The notorious Right Spot pub closed down and the street people who used to haunt the area have moved along. To where, we don't know.

A couple of years ago at the Gold Range, owner Richard Yurkiw sent drug pushers scurrying.

Businesses have spruced up their storefronts, including the Centre Square Mall.

Enforcement has been stepped up. The city committed municipal enforcement officers to accompany RCMP officers on foot patrols of downtown, a visible presence that seems to be making a difference.

We still have a garbage problem, but even that has improved over the past few years.

The city must continue to have summer staff pick up litter and encourage businesses to do the same in front of their operations.

Little by little, Yellowknife's frontier-town image is changing for the better. Southern media will always come looking for quotes from the wild streets of Yk. The more we do to bring change, from territorial and city politicians to everyday folks, the less southern Canada will read dispatches from "Gaza Strip" or wild tales of drug abuse.


Doc's departure a head scratcher

Editorial Comment
Andrew Raven
Kivalliq News


The Government of Nunavut and its medical contractor did more than look a gift horse in the mouth last month in refusing to renew the contract of the Kivalliq's longest serving doctor.

They kicked that horse - popular family physician James Wiens - square between the legs and in the process jeopardized the health of all Kivalliq residents.

Wiens, based in Rankin Inlet, was told three weeks ago he would not receive a new contract when his short-term deal expired June 16, cutting the complement of full-time doctors in the region down to two.

In an area starved for medical professionals, the decision is mind-boggling.

Wiens spent four-plus years in the Kivalliq, twice the tenure of the next closest active doctor. The 45-year-old Manitoban is also well liked in Rankin, where he joined community members on the land and in the dance hall.

But here's the real kicker: Wiens was ready to stay in the North indefinitely.

"I have never seen that before," said Rankin Inlet North MLA Tagak Curley.

Wiens, who plans to spend the summer in a remote northern British Columbia cabin, was never given a reason for his dismissal.

Adding fuel to the smouldering fire, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq refused to discuss the situation publicly and the Northern Medical Unit - the University of Manitoba wing under contract to provide doctors to the Kivalliq - did not return a phone message seeking comment.

The people of the Kivalliq, who see more new doctors than Toronto-area country clubs, deserve to know why Wiens was handed his walking papers.

More than that, they are entitled to the best medical care possible. While doctors in the region are by all accounts excellent, study after study has shown that a turnstile approach to staffing medical positions hurts patients. According to the Canadian Medical Association, continuity of care results in less emergency room visits, fewer medical errors and lower health care costs.

For fans of irony, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba - the contractor that declined to renew Wiens' contract - highlighted the importance of doctor-patient familiarity on its website.

"Continuity of care is an integral part of family medicine," the website reads. "Continuity favourably influences health care outcomes and patient and medical staff satisfaction."

Uh-huh... Meanwhile, Kivalliq residents are left scratching their heads and pining for the medical godsend that once was.

"We finally have a doctor who has embraced the community and the spirit within it," Rankin mayor Lorne Kusugak said last week.

Well, he's partially right.

Thanks to what looks like a short-sighted decision, we HAD that doctor.


Drinking is a problem

Editorial Comment
Dez Loreen
Inuvik Drum


Underage drinking is an issue here in town.

Now, don't all of you jump on my back at once: I'm not a hypocrite.

Without placing myself in too deep of a hole, I want to say that yes, my hands did touch alcohol at a younger age.

I'm not here to beat myself up. I'm here to make sure the future of our community is in good hands, and you can't become a leader if you're in jail.

Underage drinking is something that we have all encountered in our lives.

Alcohol has been a staple in this town and there is no denying it.

Again, I'm not claiming to be the innocent saint, and I'm sure a lot of you were just about to roll your eyes at the page.

The one thing I hope we can all agree on, is that when a group of underagers start drinking, nothing is there to stop it, until the bottle is gone.

By that point, maybe a fight has started, maybe you start crying in front of all your friends and now you're embarrassed. Maybe you even locked yourself in a closet because someone convinced you that your dad is at the door to pick you up.

There is a worst-case scenario here: young adult men who ply teenaged girls with booze in order to have sex.

Remember, there is always the option to say no, even if you end up going home by yourself and playing video games until you fall asleep with your hand in a bag of chips.ips.


Surf responsibly

Editorial Comment
Dez Loreen
Inuvik Drum


Do you have a website?

If you answered yes, I'm just going to assume that it's hosted by a mother service, like bebo or Hi5, or Fotki.

There are plenty of other places to post your page, too, and they all make page building quite easy and really effective.

Type here, type here and place picture here. It's all really simple and has allowed average people make personal statements on the web.

To make it easy for all of us, I'm only going to focus on Bebo.

Some people choose to put pictures of their family on their pages, while others litter the Internet page with quizzes and other useless information meant to kill time at the office.

Don't get me wrong friends, I do care how many times you've been to Edmonton and I do care about the names of your first two dogs, kinda.

I don't mean to pick on anyone, but there seems to be people out there who want to post movies and pictures of inappropriate materials.

I can understand loading your hard drive at home with movies and pictures of your friends doing dumb things, but once you post them online, you cross a line.

What if the person you recorded didn't want to be captured on your little camera? Or have their actions available for the whole world to see?

Without proper consent, that person may have a case against you for publishing their image on the net.

It probably won't go that far, but think about it like this: If I walked through a party on the Boot Lake trails on a Friday night and started snapping photos of people that they didn't like, maybe I wouldn't be invited to another party again.

While I'm sure that there are people who want their picture taken, I'm sure nobody would want a clip of them beating someone else up passed around the net.


Make a decision

Editorial Comment
Roxanna Thompson
Deh Cho Drum


Of all the buildings in the region, Deh Cho Hall probably gets the most attention in the media.

Many instances are simple references to the hall as the place where events such as graduations or meetings take place, but even more are about the future of this structure.

Sitting back from the main street in Fort Simpson, this long, low lying building means many things to many people.

For some, it is a reminder of residential school hardships. For others it is a happy place where children go to play in the Open Doors Society or to pick out books in the John Tsetso Memorial Library. For some it is even a place of work. But for everyone it is also a big question mark.

The uncertainly over the future of the hall was brought into harsh light last week in the Legislative Assembly when MLAs had a lengthy discussion about current plans.

With $3.5 million requested to extend the life of the building for only up to four years the MLAs had a right to talk.

Comments questioning the chain of events that put the hall in position where the options were a possible closure by the end of the summer or the expenditure of a large amount of money for something that could be soon torn down had a point.

But Minister of Public Works and Services Floyd Roland was, of course, correct when he said Deh Cho Hall is not a new situation. Talks about the future of the hall have a long history and that is precisely the problem.

It seems that no concrete decisions have been made even though it has been known since 2002 that the building won't last forever and to last even a little while longer it needs a fair amount of work.

Roland said Public Works has been in discussions with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, which has the responsibility for making a decision.

It is understandable that a decision has been hard to reach.

There are no easy choices.

On one hand you could continue to put money into the existing building to keep it open. This path will allow the non-profit organizations who rely on the building to keep their space, but it is also not particularly cost effective.

The other option is to build or lease new space which will provide room for the government employees, but leave everyone else searching for homes. How many millions will that cost the territorial government?

Those who have to make the decision are not in an enviable position, but the problem could cost millions more taxpayer dollars if a decision isn't made. Instead, it will only leave us in the current position where money will be poured into a structure that might be demolished anyways.

What's important is that ECE quit dithering and make a decision.

Groups will be able to move forward instead of living with the insecurity of not knowing what will happen next.


Correction

An error appeared in last Friday's Yellowknifer (In the June 16 article, "Woman promises therapy for pets," June 16). Dawn Collin's new business, Fun Fur Pets, is not a non-profit organization but a private enterprise. We apologize for any embarrassment or confusion caused by the error.