Bureaucratic bungling is the only way to describe Industry Canada's handling of the Michael Hurst affair.

Hurst is the senior Industry Canada official who forwarded a racist, sexist e-mail to some hockey buddies using his government e-mail account. Territorial women's groups were outraged and demanded he be fired. Yellowknifer called for a public apology, something Hurst has now done on our pages.

But rather than a quick resolution to a Yellowknife firestorm, this e-mail outrage has boiled over onto the national stage and has resulted in the Centre for Northern Families sending a letter to the Prime Minister.

For the past few weeks, Hurst has been dragged through the mud as questions continued to be asked over what was happening. While mid-level bureaucrats in Edmonton huddled over what to do, folks here got angrier and angrier, hurting the reputation of the federal Industry Department.

The only reason to fire Hurst would be if he didn't apologize and acknowledge his mistake.

Now that he has publicly apologized, it should be over and done with.

The family centre may still be hungry for blood, but they should recall they opened their doors to a volunteer who was recently convicted of sexual assault against children. The Hurst case is nowhere as serious, so it should be easier to forgive.

Last week, city council laughed off fears that their upcoming trip to Calgary will produce a reproachful editorial in Yellowknifer, but it's nothing to joke about.

By voting to send all eight councillors to this year's Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference, council is telling residents that their travel perks come first while keeping a handle on tax hikes comes second.

It's particularly galling that council chose to up the number of councillors for the trip to eight from six, two months after approving a 3.7 per cent tax increase this year - the third increase in three years, with more to come for 2008 and 2009. The estimated price tag for Calgary is now $26,672.

Council wisely said no to escalating costs for the proposed sports fieldhouse, stared down the NWT Floatplane Association and its dream to have a $50,000 dock built at Kam Lake. But what do they do when pontificating on their travel budget? They promptly drive it into the red.

Even with Coun. Kevin Kennedy's promise to take the bus to Calgary and stay at hostels, council is still going to blow its $50,000 annual travel budget unless councilors make some quick cuts now.

They approved $47,790.60 for all their travel this year, and that was back when only six were approved for the Calgary trip. Now two more are going.

At least one is going to cost ratepayers another $3,344.25 unless Kennedy can convince more to join him on the bus.

Council is setting a poor example. The question is, what's going to stop them from doing it again next year?

Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

The written word can travel fast in today's world.

With so many people plugged into the global community via e-mail and the Internet, distance has become an illusion when it comes to what you say or write at any given time.

In fact, one has to exercise a certain amount of caution and constraint when sitting behind a keyboard to share their thoughts and observations -- even if those thoughts and observations are only meant for a school district newsletter in British Columbia.

This is a lesson Kelly Atkinson, a temporary resident of Baker Lake, now knows all too well.

Atkinson is on a one-year leave of absence from the Quesnel School District in B.C. to be a teacher-librarian at Rachel Arngnammaktiq elementary school in Baker.

She agreed to author a six-part series for the school district newsletter in B.C., and some of her observations haven't made her any friends in Baker and parts beyond.

Anyone desiring to read Atkinson's work on the Internet, will find the series under Update 28 of the school district's site, starting on Jan. 10 (as of this writing).

One thing you will notice as you read through Atkinson's remarks - other than it being fraught with pseudo-intellectualism - is that she does have some nice things to say about Baker Lake, Nunavut and Inuit in general.

However, when Atkinson decides to portray what she perceives as the reality of life in Nunavut, some of her comments stop you cold - and she has some rather unique perspectives to share.

According to her, you see overt drunkenness in many communities, especially our smaller ones. Gambling is out of control in Baker, evidenced by ill clad, dirty, hungry children who spend most of the night wandering aimlessly from house to house.

Hopefully, not too many of these ragamuffins get between Atkinson and her wonderful view of the moon or the Northern lights on the lake through her window.

Many of us also thought the green light for the Meadowbank gold project to proceed was good news, but, apparently not.

According to Atkinson, the vast majority of the jobs will be taken by "Newfies" and Quebecois.

And, the few Inuit who are hired to work on the road will blow their money on booze and drugs, she claims.

Atkinson also points out that every adult in Nunavut gets $20,000 a year in a Northern living allowance, Inuit grieve for sex offenders when they're sent to jail and give no thought to the victim, a number of Inuit teachers are woefully undereducated with only a Grade 3 or 4 education, and many babies are born about nine months after every sports tournament.

Despite the parts of her series that are flattering to Baker, it's no wonder people have had their feelings hurt by some of Atkinson's remarks.

They are, to use her word in describing Baker, raw.

Inuit can take heart in the fact Atkinson predicts good things for them in the future, that is as soon as they figure out life in this century.

But, judging by how careless she was with some of her remarks, Atkinson has a bit to learn about life in this century herself.

Editorial Comment
Dez Loreen
Inuvik Drum
Friday, March 09, 2007

My gears are grinding once again and this time, the territorial government finds itself right in my hot seat.

I'm writing about the government's apparent lack of interest when it comes to negotiating with the owner of the Perry Building, Catia Stamatelakis.

I think the best way to solve the dispute between the building owner and the territorial government is for both parties to sit down and hammer out an agreement of some sort.

In the 30 years the Perry Building has been standing in Inuvik, the GNWT has been the only tenant. Apparently, the building was made especially for the government to use for office space.

Now, after a controversial renovation and an accused lapse in rent payments, the GNWT appears unwilling to negotiate with the Perry Building owner. I can't say for sure because the government isn't talking.

I'm getting confused because this is not the way I expected the government to act.

No matter who did what and why things are in the state they are in, the government should at least be open to discussion with the owner.

The owner of the building has legitimate questions about the building and why it was renovated. She is now the owner of a damaged property that may need hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs.

That means that even if she wanted to evict the GNWT from the building, she would have to pay for renovations before putting the property back on the market.

This whole matter has been boiling for more than a year, since the building was evacuated after being declared unsafe.

Since then, an inspector hired by the owner has declared the building safe to use.

What the two parties need to do is get together and work out a settlement regarding what happened to the building that led to it being condemned.

There should be no hesitation from the tenant to explain the events that led to the walls being taken down.

If the reasoning was legitimate, why wasn't the owner informed at the time of the renovation?

The fact is that nobody is standing up for this woman. Her husband started a local business over 30 years ago to serve the GNWT.

The family invested a lot of money and resources into the project they named the Perry Building, after the owner, Perry Stamatelakis.

They lived in Inuvik for 20 years and started a family here. Because of the man's health, they moved to Edmonton, near the medical services he needed to survive.

There should be someone by her side who will look for a fair result to this matter.

This should all start with a new inspection of the entire building from top to bottom, done by an independent engineer agreed to by both parties.

This dispute is the result of two engineers who said different things about the structural integrity of the building.

This matter does not need to go to the courts, but it looks like it might end there if an agreement isn't reached soon.

Editorial Comment
Roxanna Thompson
Deh Cho Drum
Friday, March 09, 2007

For the dead of winter, a lot of people have been seeing green lately.

This green isn't the green of the local coniferous trees, the green of a wad of bills or even a green shade of envy - it's the green of environmentalism.

If environmentalism is a bandwagon it must be getting pretty crowded. Lately there has been a lot of movement and talk from all levels of government about how they are either already green or are putting plans in place to become green.

On the national level Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been making a lot of headlines with his apparent turn to the green side which involves a number of promises including more money for provinces to help fight pollution and greenhouse gases.

Shades of green are also becoming prominent in the government of the NWT.

During his recent tour of some of the Deh Cho communities to host constituency meetings, MLA Kevin Menicoche was questioned about the government's plans for the environment.

The NWT is slowly switching to a green agenda, said Menicoche.

Plans in the new budget include programs to help people upgrade to better doors and windows, incentives to switch to hybrid vehicles and more money for testers to conduct energy efficiency tests. Serious searches for alternative energy sources are also part of the game plan.

The colour green has also been making its presence known at the local level.

In Fort Simpson a committee of village councillors and community members is working to create an energy plan that is sure to include ways to decrease energy usage and make better use of the energy that is already available.

Environmental issues have also been part of the long running concerns of members of the Dehcho First Nations.

Recent discussions have focused on the oil sands in Alberta and possible effects on water levels in the Mackenzie River basin. The spectre of cyanide at the Prairie Creek mine site was also on the agenda at the winter leadership meeting.

Why all this greenness?

It may be because people are awakening to the fact that more efforts need to be made to make our lifestyles environmentally friendly and all levels of government are responding to the wishes of their constituents.

The reason could be centered on the fact that leaders realize there is a problem and it will cost less to start finding solutions now than it will to fight the damage later on.

Or it could be that leaders are using fear of environmental disaster to scare people into following their line of thinking.

Whatever the reason, the bonus is that something is being done.

It's not hard to see that things in the natural world people have taken for granted have started to change.

Temperatures aren't following seasonal patterns, ice isn't as thick as it once was, animals are moving in different ways... the list goes on and on.

While it's going to take a lot more than replacing doors and windows for more efficient models or recycling plastic juice containers to fix the mess we're in, this is a beginning and great things often have small beginnings.

It would take a complete shift in our lifestyles to put a halt to environmental degradation but until that time, keep filling your recycling box.

An article in Wednesday's Yellowknifer contained wrong information ("Tensions rise between French associations," March 7). The article incorrectly attributed a statement about the flow of territorial government money to Fernand Denault. The comment was made by Martin Dubeau. Also, In the article "Fortune's fate hangs on road," Tli Cho area governments were not mentioned as project partners.

Yellowknifer apologizes for any embarrassment or confusion caused by the errors.