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Yellowknife MLAs, particularly those who serve in cabinet, will have a lot to answer for if Michael Miltenberger takes away voters' input in the selection of school board trustees.

The deputy premier, who heads a "re-focusing committee" tasked with merging public boards relating to education, health and housing into one board for each region of the territory, says members selected to these new mega boards may be by ministerial appointment.

This could mean democratically elected school boards - Yk Education District No. 1, Yellowknife Catholic Schools and the French school board - will cease to exist. Their functions will be combined into mega boards that will serve at the pleasure of three cabinet ministers.

For years, Yellowknifers have complained about the lack of democratic representation in the legislative assembly. The city has almost half the population of the territory but only seven out of 19 MLAs. Moves to increase their number are routinely blocked by MLAs from outside the city.

Now Miltenberger, a non-Yellowknife MLA, is looking at a merger process that would erode the voice of Yellowknife voters even further.

His words and actions signal that our democratic tradition of electing school boards - one that goes back 70 years in the case of Yk No. 1 - is irrelevant because all these boards are making the process of delivering government programs too complicated.

Never mind that he hasn't offered a plausible explanation why our elected school boards don't work or has yet to consult with the public or the school boards themselves.

In an interview with Yellowknifer yesterday, Miltenberger justified his plan by saying that public boards, including Yellowknife's school boards, are "creatures of government" funded by the territorial government. This statement implies that the government has the right to call all the shots.

Miltenberger seems to be forgetting, however, that Yellowknife taxpayers pay around $8 million a year to fund schools in the city. How does that old saying go again, "No taxation without representation?" That phrase launched the American Revolution and while it's unlikely Yellowknifers will be lobbing cannon balls at the legislative assembly anytime soon, they have every reason to be mad.

Their say in Yellowknife schools could be placed in the hands of an unelected board that must also juggle competing interests in health and housing. That would be unacceptable. And the cabinet minister the board will answer to on matters of education will be a non-Yellowknife MLA, Jackson Lafferty.

The erosion of democracy isn't just in Miltenberger's hands either. Sandy Lee and Bob McLeod, the two MLAs representing Yellowknife in cabinet, have just as much a say but haven't spoken publicly on the matter yet. They're both trying to fly under the radar while their cabinet colleagues consider gutting our democratic institutions.

Lee and McLeod's silence indicates their comfy cabinet seats are more important to them than defending the interest of the voters who elected them.

As anyone who watches television will already know, the season of Christmas-themed commercials has begun.

For the next month and a half, and even longer if you count Boxing Day sales, we'll all be bombarded with advertisements telling us how we'll all be much happier or be able to truly show our love for someone else if we buy them a certain gift.

The real target for many advertisements is the younger generations.

That's why it's so nice to hear about youth who are doing more than just sharpening up their pencils to write out their wish lists for Santa Claus during this consumer driven season.

At Thomas Simpson school in Fort Simpson the student body, all 143 strong, is starting their annual Christmas campaign.

Instead of thinking about what they can hope to receive on Christmas morning, the students are contemplating what they can give others.

For the third year in a row the student council has decided to support a program run by Samaritan's Purse, an international relief agency.

Students will raise money and using Samaritan's Purse's gift catalogue they will purchase items that will be given to people in developing regions around the world.

There are no iPods or laptops on this list. Instead $350 will buy an ox while $70 is enough for a goat. A mere $6 will purchase warm blankets while those with deeper pockets can buy an emergency shelter for $100.

Last year TSS raised $2,500 and used it to purchase 107 items.

When asked about the reasons they support the program members of the student council had a difficult time expressing their thoughts verbally.

The gist of it was they know they have a lot while many people have little and it's so easy to help them.

In different forms many schools around the Deh Cho promote this idea during the lead up to Christmas.

Collecting non-perishable food items for donation is one popular option for schools.

By seeing a stack of cans and boxes grow even young students quickly learn they are never too small to make a difference.

It's important for communities to support student initiatives of this kind whether it be fundraising for Samaritan's Purse or collecting cans of food.

In a world where the distribution of wealth is so uneven but material goods are promoted as a way to happiness everyone needs to be reminded that a far better feeling comes from unselfishly giving than from receiving.

They say that admitting you have an addiction is the first step to overcoming it. In 2006, president George W. Bush admitted in his state of the union address that the United States is addicted to oil.

Canadians, like our neighbours to the south, are equally if not more addicted to oil. Single-use shopping bags are just one example of this addiction because, in case you didn't know, all plastic is made from oil. The bags are also an addiction in themselves. Let's admit it. We are addicted to plastic bags. As long as they are available, we will use them.

Councillor Terry Halifax is absolutely right when he says this is something that is easy for town council to do and a pain for everyone else. He is right when he says there are bigger waste management issues to address. If plastic bags are a problem, then littering is a crisis. But we have to start somewhere. This tiny step may only be symbolic at best, but it may lead to a huge change in the way Inuvik consumers think.

Plastic bags are frivolous. It is stupid to use any amount of a non-renewable resource on the production of an item that will ultimately be thrown away, especially when we have a superior alternative readily at hand.

Some Inuvik residents have said the bags are handy when out on the land. They use them for meat and fish. This is a time when we should turn to our elders for traditional knowledge. Let's ask them: what did you use to store your fish before we had plastic bags?

Let's not stop there. Creating a green world is going to be a mixture of embracing clean technology and giving up dirty 20th century habits in favour of the old ways. It would be foolish to think we could simply return to the land, but it would be equally foolish to think that the old ways were useless. They served us well for millennia while plastic bags are only 40 years old.

A bag ban would have an immediate visible effect on the town. Perhaps more important than the esthetic effect, banning bags would send a message to the world and to our residents. It would force people to come to terms with the fact that the age of disposable products needs to end.

Bringing in biodegradable bags or a bag tax will only prolong our addiction. Like an alcoholic quitting hard liquor and drinking only beer, we would be fooling nobody but ourselves.

Let's quit cold turkey. Ban the bag and be done with it.

The hockey season has been going for about a month now in Rankin Inlet, and already Iqaluit has been rumoured to be sending a team to Rankin-hosted tournaments.

There is talk Iqaluit will send a team to the midget territorial, Polar Bear Plate, Avataq Cup senior men's, Challenge Cup junior 'C', Powerful Peewee and new Atoms Championship events.

Regular readers of Kivalliq News will remember the string of events that took the Iqaluit vs Rankin rivalry to new heights this past year.

It began with Iqaluit promising victory at the Avataq Cup and then not even showing up when one or two of its, supposedly, top players couldn't make the trip.

Things escalated when an Iqaluit player then sent an insulting email to Rankin, bashing the local hockey scene with colourful language and promising "the best team Iqaluit ever put together" would kick Rankin's hockey butt at Toonik Tyme.

Rankin, you recall, promptly went to Toonik Tyme and became the first Kivalliq team to win the event.

There was another element of irony added when the Toonik Tyme championship trophy was mistakenly put in among the player's equipment and ended up back in Rankin (what are the odds?).

But, other than the giggles over the ever-increasing amount of egg on Iqaluit's hockey face, why should anyone care if the capital sends its teams to Rankin events?

First, Iqaluit is missing the qamutiik when it comes to fuelling what could be one of the all-time great Nunavut hockey rivalries.

Rankin hockey fans can only imagine the fun they would have had welcoming Iqaluit to the '08 Avataq after its promise of victory.

And, if that wasn't enough to send a shiver down your spine at the arena, we're sure the fond farewell if and when Iqaluit was eliminated would have done the trick.

The second reason is far more rudimentary.

For years Rankin, a community less than half the size of the capital, has raised the money at every age level to send teams to Iqaluit events.

Iqaluit's decades-old whining about the cost of coming to Rankin has grown tired with local hockey fans.

We sincerely hope Iqaluit starts to show the same level of commitment to growing Nunavut hockey as Rankin and, in fact, the entire Kivalliq region has.

If not, it may be time for Rankin teams to realize it's local fans and players who keep bank accounts strong by supporting them so much.

It hardly seems fair for hundreds of Rankin fans who support hockey four times a week, every week, during the season to go without, while the handful of Iqaluit fans who only make their way to the arena during a big event get to see the teams collide.

We'll give the senior men's team a pass to defend its Toonik Tyme title, but it's time to draw a line across the ice.

Either the capital sends teams to Rankin events, or the hottest drawing teams in Nunavut don't go to Iqaluit.

It's a tough stance to take, but, until Iqaluit starts to put its pucks where its lips are, it's the right choice.

The money spent to go to Iqaluit could be used to help teams from Pangnirtung, Northern Quebec or Manitoba come and create new rivalries.