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Arts versus sports funding has always been a controversial issue in the NWT.

For years artists have complained they do not receive adequate support from the territory. Artists, like Tuktoyaktuk's renowned sculptor Bill Nasogaluak was forced to move to Toronto in order to access the financial support necessary to work as a full-time artist.

Having such talented people leaving the NWT is a huge loss to the Territories' cultural strength.

Last week, Sonny MacDonald, chair of the NWT Arts Council, suggested money from NWT lottery funding be shared between sports and arts. Presently, Sport North has exclusive rights to the approximately $1.5 million in annual lottery money.

However, in other jurisdictions, such as the Yukon, lottery funding is shared between arts and recreation. Last year, the Yukon doled out $2.5 million in lottery money to the arts. Meanwhile the GNWT spent a mere $355,000 on arts in the territory.

Despite the disparity, why should we divert already thinly stretched lottery funding away from sport programs in the NWT? Sport North struggles with finding necessary funding to support its existing programs and consistently states its funding is inadequate.

Yet the arts need to be better funded. We have many youth who have an inclination for music, painting, sculpting, writing, etc. and they should be supported.

MacDonald's idea that one per cent of the cost of new government buildings be spent on Northern art is a good one. Each government department should also receive a modest annual budget devoted to buying art from Northern artists.

To ensure the funding isn't limited to solely visual arts, the GNWT could budget each year to commission work on a rotating basis to cover literary, musical and dance mediums. For example NWT writers could be paid to compile a collection of their work to be placed in school libraries.

There are creative solutions to generating more support for territorial artists, but what we need first is a vision. Our leaders must recognize the importance of arts and culture and its benefits to society.

Neil McCrank's suggestion that regional boards be eliminated from the NWT regulatory process makes sense.

The current system is a quagmire of bureaucracy that stifles economic activity.

However, when revamping the system we must remember the primary purpose of having regional boards was to provide a community and aboriginal voice when making decisions that affect traditional lands in the NWT.

If and when one board is established, it is imperative that community and aboriginal voices are maintained. Any regulatory system must be Northern-made and tailored for our unique needs.

While streamlining our unwieldy system is necessary, we should not allow the federal government to impose southern regulatory regimes.

Last summer an innovative project began in Sanikiluaq.

The community needed a women's shelter. This is not unusual in the territory where housing is at a premium, violence against women is an epidemic, and the rate of assault is six times higher than it is nationally.

So the Najuksivik Society came up with a plan: build a house to shelter women from the ground up, with help from the female students at Nuiyak school. The community would gain a women's shelter and female students would gain valuable trade skills. The society received the funding and construction began.

Sanikiluaq needs a women's shelter. The funding was in place. The location was chosen. Workers were recruited.

But what seemed like a win-win situation for the community was shot down by hamlet council over the location chosen. The Najuksivik Society agrees the location wasn't ideal, but it was selected because an existing foundation would make construction faster and cheaper. It was definitely better than nothing, which is what the community has now.

Hamlet council issued a stop-work order. Later, the construction crew was allowed to continue building a house on the condition that it not be used as a shelter.

So the society and the female students built a house instead. They should be commended for seeing a need and taking practical steps to address it. We hope the new home gets put to good use, and the trainees use their new skills to maintain and build more housing in Sanikiluaq.

However, the community still needs a women's shelter.

Hamlet council, whatever its reasons, let an opportunity slip through its fingers.

Yet another Nunavut integrity commissioner has resigned, this time after only three months on the job.

Now Norman Pickell of Ontario is Nunavut's third integrity commissioner in six months.

The previous commissioner was David Phillip Jones, Yukon's conflict of interest commissioner. He was appointed on an interim basis after Robert Stanbury resigned for health reasons.

To his credit, Pickell has pledged to have the investigation into whether or not MLA David Simailak breached his blind trust wrapped up before the territorial election this fall. We urge him to do his utmost to ensure this happens and for the standing committee on accountability to continue to persue it.

The deadline of the impending election emphasizes how important it is that Nunavut find a permanent integrity commissioner, preferably a Nunavummiuq, to deal with such issues in a timely manner.

The Pehdzeh Ki First Nation and the Nahendeh district office of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation are examining ways to meet the housing needs in the community.

According to Chief Darcy E. Moses, access to more funding so people can complete much needed home repairs and the availability of suitable units to house professionals such as teachers, nurses and RCMP officers, are the top concerns.

The change in outlook for housing in Wrigley came quickly. On July 3. I was invited to the community by the chief who wanted to speak about the apparent lack of progress from the Housing Corporation to meet the community's needs.

During the visit a number of people willingly allowed me into their homes so they could point out deficiencies and talk about their experiences with the Housing Corporation. Having written about housing issues before in other Deh Cho communities I thought I knew what to expect, but I was wrong.

I was shocked by some of the conditions I'd seen.

Most people who invited me in clearly cared for their homes and took pride in keeping them clean and tidy. These people for whatever reason, financial or otherwise, have been unable to complete necessary repairs on their houses.

Now these repairs aren't superficial things like trim around the floorboards or fresh coats of paint. We're talking about repairs to allow for a level of service that most Canadians take for granted such as running water and functioning indoor plumbing.

One family was living in a house that hasn't had running water for approximately three years since their pipes froze. The hot water tank in the house is also broken so all the water is heated on the stove.

Pointing out deficiencies like these, Moses stated that the people of Wrigley deserve modern housing.

A few short weeks later Moses was feeling much more confident about the housing situation. Discussions with the Housing Corporation were progressing with the two parties examining ways to use community-based initiatives to assist in the delivery of the necessary programs including home repairs.

While the band and the Housing Corporation deserve some credit for apparently improving their working relationship, the focus has been kept on the people who are waiting on the outcome of these discussions.

If community-based initiatives will allow more residents access to the support they need then both parties should devote as much energy as possible to reaching an arrangement.

There are people in Wrigley who need housing solutions and both the band and the Housing Corporation need to work together to fulfil those needs.

After meeting many people I didn't know I knew or haven't seen in nearly a decade, I've become more enlightened about the community and what our town used to be.

This past week was sure a fast-paced one, with community gatherings, meetings and dances to attend.

I had the pleasure of stopping by my aunt's place for a quick second in the middle of her reunion barbecue.

She had amassed a group of former Inuvik students to talk about days past.

Some of the people have been in town for some time and never left, while others left to find their way in life.

After sitting with a few individuals who recalled the shenanigans and tomfoolery they were involved in as schoolkids in the '60s and '70s, I scratch my head trying to figure out where it all went wrong.

The most memorable story I heard that night was one that sounded like it came straight out of an episode of The Simpsons.

Seems a few teens had the gall to take the brass ball from the top of the Diefenbaker memorial in Jim Koe Park.

The ball that was held by the three powers of the region was gone, if only for a few days.

The group responsible for the prank hid the ball and wrote a letter to the paper, with instructions about where to find the ball. Apparently, the ball was recovered within hours of the paper hitting the streets, so the prank ended happily.

I mean, those teens could have tossed that ball into the river, or something more permanent, but they didn't.

Instead, we now have a story to look back and laugh at.

The next day, I was leafing through Dick Hill's history of Inuvik and came across the information about the Diefenbaker memorial.

It read that in the mid-'70s, the statue was defaced and vandalized, and was fixed soon after.

Once I made the connection between the book and what I heard from someone who was there, I got excited.

The first person I talked to was an unnamed MLA for Inuvik Twin Lakes.

After hearing me go off on a tangent about the missing ball and how it was found, this MLA'ish person looked up at me, smiled a grin from ear to ear and simply said it was a good time.

It was then that I put it all together.

This community has been a tightly-knit unit for more years than I've been in existence.

It was an inside job that everyone knew about, and here I was, naive as the day I was born.

Now, those teens have grown into the leaders of our community and upstanding citizens that make our town whole.

What I am curious about is how they let our community fall into the hands of drug-dealing thugs.

These days we can't laugh at the teens doing their thing.

Rather than break into the school and leave behind some large misplaced statue, we have a lot of serious damage.

Somewhere down the line, we stopped being silly and started being malicious. Crack is a problem in our community that I bet even Thomas Berger didn't see coming.

I'm not out to blame the older generations for being so laid back with their kids, but somewhere it all fell off and I don't know if we can pick up the pieces.

It wasn't all that long ago when I found myself being chastised by a fairly prominent Nunavut politician over an editorial I'd recently penned.

I had no idea what their vocal undressing of me had to do with the local hockey game we were watching at the time, but that's the way it plays out in Rankin Inlet sometimes.

Besides, have you ever met a politician who didn't enjoy having a crowd near when they voice their opinion?

The target of their lecture was my ill-conceived notion, apparently, that more than a few Inuit may find the opportunities in the south more to their liking after completing their post-secondary education.

I was informed I was no different than most southerners who came to Nunavut and I just didn't get it.

"It," in this case, was that pretty much all Inuit would gladly work longer hours in high-stress positions at equal or lower pay with five times the cost of living simply because it was Nunavut.

In short, they would readily turn their backs on better opportunities for them and their families so they could help Nunavut evolve.

I thought at the time if this was indicative of how the Nunavut government truly feels, it has a lot to learn about the aggressive recruitment practices of many Canadian provinces.

Here in the Kivalliq, we've seen a number of Inuit nurses head for greener pastures in the south and some of our university graduates simply don't make their home here.

And, despite all their efforts to attract more recruits, the RCMP still have nowhere near the Inuit presence the force would, ideally, like to boast.

In fact, George Henry in Arviat is the only Inuit RCMP member still in Nunavut who is not stationed in Iqaluit.

Thankfully, the majority of our youth who complete post-secondary education still come back to their home communities.

But as the higher positions fill up, many will seek employment in the south rather than accept a lower placement in Nunavut.

And why wouldn't they, especially young professionals with families?

Those in Nunavut who have shown the ability and determination to obtain college or university degrees are striving for a better life for themselves and their families.

To take for granted they would settle for anything less after all their hard work is one sure way of keeping our Inuit numbers at mid- and upper-management positions at 50 per cent or lower.

Our government, Inuit organizations and the private sector have to be aggressive in recruiting our own grads and offering them top-of-the-line remuneration and benefit packages.

You can rest assured recruiters in many of the provinces will be offering that, especially in areas of health, law enforcement, education and skilled tradespeople.

And they'll be throwing those packages at our best young professionals.

If we're not totally dedicated to attracting our best back home, somebody else will be because they do get "it."

They'd love nothing better at their next corporate gathering than to introduce their new eager and upwardly-mobile young professional - from Nunavut!

In the July 14 issue of News/North an error was made in our coverage of the Dene National Assembly. Francois Paulette is the former chief of the Smith's Landing First Nation. In last week's issue the name of artist Sonny MacDonald was misspelled. News/North apologizes for any confusion or embarrassment these errors may have caused.