Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

Eyes have been bulging in several Yellowknife households as residents have watched their power bills double, triple and even quadruple over the past few months.

Having to pay more and more without any explanation as to why charges have escalated so much has been frustrating.

There is no established common thread, but some of them have recently had new power meters installed. They are suspicious that those new meters may be the source of the problem.

Northland Utilities, which supplies power in our city, has sent technicians to these homes. But home owners who have spoken to Yellowknifer are not satisfied with the utility company's response. Either the technicians are unable to determine the root of the problem, or they chalk it up to a certain appliance, a furnace or a hot-water tank suddenly drawing extra power. In some cases, subsequent inspections of the mechanical devices have shown they're not faulty, the homeowners say.

Michelle Beckwith, a homeowner tormented with a $926.86 bill for January, said she contacted not only Northland Utilities but also Arctic Energy Alliance and her MLA. Still without answers, she had no idea who turn to for help. Enter the Public Utilities Board. Chairperson Joe Acorn announced last week that the board, a five-member group that oversees public utilities in the NWT, is launching an investigation into the pricey power mystery.

This is to be applauded.

Some people have never heard of the Public Utilities Board. Many others, correct or not, view it as a body that simply rubber-stamps the power company's requests for higher rates and myriad "rate riders," additional charges that clutter bills and add up to a steep sum.

The board should be acting as a watchdog. Word that it will seek to resolve this puzzling situation is welcome.

Attaching a hotel to a mall with stores, restaurants, office space and condominiums was an attractive proposition back in 1990 when construction began.

Yet, when the NWT Council for Persons with Disabilities pointed out the mall plans had no indoor wheelchair ramp to join the upper and lower levels, the mall's owners - who split the building between the two levels - blew them off and built only a staircase. Neither could agree on how much each would pay for an indoor ramp.

It's likely, after looking at the building code and not seeing a requirement for a ramp at the time, the owners thought building it would be a waste of money.

What they failed to realize, however, was that access wasn't just restricted from wheelchair users but also parents with strollers and seniors with limited mobility. That's a lot of people inconvenienced, and a group of people who would likely prefer shopping at an indoor mall.

So potential customers remain on the outside while store owners complain they're overrun with homeless people, drunks and teenaged troublemakers. Common sense dictates that it's only good business to remedy this problem, even though it has remained unchanged for almost 20 years.

Frustration is one thing there was a lot of at the recent Dehcho First Nations' winter leadership meeting.

Most of this frustration was aimed at the lack of progress and the complete standstill of the Dehcho Process negotiations. First Nation chiefs were frustrated, Metis presidents were frustrated, delegates were frustrated and so were the negotiators.

A chronological list of the delays the Dehcho First Nations' negotiating team faced during the past year clarified the cause of frustration. The lack of progress would try the patience of even a saint.

Nothing has been done at the main negotiating table since before the Dehcho First Nations' (DFN) annual assembly that was held last June. The assembly passed a resolution outlining how they thought the negotiations should proceed but the other sides didn't discuss it until November thanks to a long summer break and a fall federal election, which delayed the negotiation sessions.

Then, come November, the federal negotiators announced they didn't have a mandate to negotiate in a sequential order, which is what the assembly resolution asked for, and stated they needed to find out if this was possible.

Meetings in both December and January were cancelled because of the lack of a mandate. In February, a planned three-day meeting was slimmed down to one day and the same message was repeated again. By the time last week's winter leadership came into play, it had been close to a year since there were any main table negotiations. Four more months and we'll be back to the annual assembly again.

At the winter leadership meeting a number of delegates voiced the opinion that Canada isn't taking the negotiations with DFN seriously.

"Canada is not responding, I guess, to our people, the Deh Cho," said Chief Berna Landry of the Deh Gah Got'ie Koe First Nation of Fort Providence.

President Marie Lafferty of the Fort Simpson Metis Nation went one step farther.

"They're just playing games with us," said Lafferty.

This is not the first time that Deh Cho leaders have raised sentiments like this, but in the past it has always been easy to dismiss them as a sympathy plea by DFN.

Not this time, however.If the federal government wants anyone to believe that they're sincere about the Dehcho Process and the negotiations it's going to have to make some serious progress very quickly.

Taking over four months to let DFN know their resolution made it impossible to negotiate is excessive. Spending another four months repeating the message shows an unwillingness to work towards a solution.

With all of these delays even the most optimistic among us would be hard pressed not to wonder if Canada is purposefully creating ways to derail and delay the negotiations.

Canada needs to step up to the negotiating table and commit to seeing this process through to a successful agreement.

On Friday I had the good fortune of sharing a very satisfying conversation with a local humanitarian, Ellen Smith.

A proud Gwich'in woman from Fort McPherson, Smith has dedicated most of her life to helping others and last week she retired as Beaufort Delta's alcohol and drug addictions specialist.

But in retirement she has no plans of resting easy, reminded by an elder close to her that her task of helping people through emotional and spiritual healing is a life-long process. In her own words, she plans to continue on that journey until she's gone.

We can't think of a better person for the job. A survivor of the residential school system, Smith will be reaching out in particular to those victims. We wish her luck and success.

In the same vein, Jeff Amos, Beaufort Delta's resolution health support worker, is involved with a group of local residential school survivors who have united through grief and are on the healing path. And so far the group has made great progress. Next week's Inuvik Drum will feature a story that takes a closer look at the group's spiritual gains.

In this week's feature story on Smith, she admits that much more work is needed to be done in the way of addiction counselling and for those affected by the residential school system. But she also makes the important point that more and more people are willing to at least walk the path to recovery.

I'm not naive enough to think that every counselling program is perfect and that the stigma attached to those illnesses has disappeared. But on the surface, communities here appear to show at least a willingness to tackle the problems and by extension the stigmas start to dwindle.

Indeed there is a lot of work to be done, and more funding needed. The list goes on. Historically government has never put a high priority on funding addictions and mental health programs.

But the healing starts with a strong community response and acceptance that these problems need to be addressed and solutions must be found.

Many of us are vulnerable to addiction and mental illness. In fact, one in five Canadians will experience a mental illness in their lifetime. But rarely do people talk about it. And in silence the problem just gets worse.

An expert in the field of mental health once told me that the most basic and most important thing people can do to erase stigmas surrounding mental illness is to attempt to see yourself in the afflicted person. That made sense to me. In doing so it's clear that fundamentally we're an awful lot alike.

It appears that's the approach Smith has taken over the years, and in doing so she's benefited an awful lot of people.

Plans for the fieldhouse have grown out of control while the economy is faltering.

City council must start asking some hard questions. Is a $1-million increase to an already substantial $16-million budget justifiable?

Are operations and maintenance costs for the facility, pegged at a hefty $600,000 per year, too much to bear?

Final plans for the facility, tabled last week, feature two full-sized, indoor soccer fields and a running track. But that's not all. Now a children's play area and added floorspace above it have been added to the mix, driving up the price by a cool million. Although there are plans to generate $400,000 annually in revenue by renting these spaces to the public, that's not guaranteed income.

At the same time, the city's expectation that it could acquire additional, undefined amounts in grants for energy efficiency and an environmentally sound structure are overly optimistic at a time like this. Such grant programs could evaporate very quickly as the economy continues to plummet.

Going over-budget is one thing. Building such a facility in a time when the cost of living has hit new highs, when city taxes are being increased year after year, and the city's population is stagnant or in decline - makes little sense.

The newest plans for the fieldhouse assume there will be plenty of demand for the new facility, based on the assumption the city will grow or at least stay as is in terms of population and economic vitality. The trouble is there is currently little economic vitality to be seen in Yellowknife. The territory's only significant economic motor at the moment - the diamond mines - are feeling the pressures of the world economic crisis. De Beers' layoff of 128 workers at its Snap Lake mine - 13 of them Yellowknifers - is just one sign of pain inflicted by the crisis. It's still too early to tell how many more hits the territorial economy will take. Municipal, territorial and federal government workers themselves, now insulated from the crisis, will ultimately feel these strains as well, since they rely on taxpayer earnings to pay their salaries.

Yellowknife's population has coasted since the start of this decade, when diamond mines breathed new life into the city. Even though the economy has taken its biggest hit in decades, the city's plan for the fieldhouse assumes the NWT capital will grow.

Added recreational facilities are an attraction, but without jobs, and with a prohibitively high cost of living, Yellowknife will have an extremely difficult time convincing people to make their homes here.

There's going to be more than a few people in Nunavut screaming about the call for a new arena to be built in Rankin Inlet.

After all, Rankin and Iqaluit are the only two communities in Nunavut with artificial ice and it's time for infrastructure to be placed in other communities before Rankin gets anything else.

But, while we'd love to see a new arena with artificial ice built in every Nunavut community, that's simply not going to happen in our lifetime.

And is it really fair to chastise a growing community that has proven itself to be one of the most successful municipalities in the entire territory, simply because it has artificial ice?

That's artificial ice, we might add, the municipality put its fair share towards obtaining.

Anyone who was in Rankin for the Avataq Cup this past month would be less than honest if they didn't admit hockey is at a whole different level in the community.

People were jammed into the arena like sardines for almost every game, and hundreds more would have attended if space permitted.

And it's not just about the Avataq.

Rankin now hosts a number of annual tournaments that attract many people from outside the community, including the midget territorial championship, Polar Bear Plate and Challenge Cup junior events and Powerful Peewees.

Even the Nunavut Atoms Championship sold out its final games in this hockey-crazed community.

And, above all else, there's safety to consider.

As it stands now, it's only a matter of time before an ugly situation manifests itself when the local fire chief or a representative of the fire marshal's office is forced to shut down a big event due to the maximum number of people allowed in the building being grossly exceeded.

And, heaven forbid, a fire breaks out or some other emergency happens while the arena is housing a crowd the size of which we saw during the Avataq.

Then there's the practical side to the equation.

The Rankin complex, which houses the arena, curling club, community hall and swimming pool, is old.

While the Nunavut government talks about expansion and/or yet more renovations, when do we reach the point where we're throwing good money after bad?

Not only would a new arena provide a safer environment for those who gather for community events, but it would also be a benefit to most of the Kivalliq region along with the local economy.

A new facility would attract even more people to premier events and afford local organizers the opportunity to grow them even bigger.

Let's be honest. If all we can get is money for renovations and more repairs, we'll gladly take it because something is still far better than nothing.

And we will give some credence to the argument it's time for Rankin to become tax based and take on some of its own infrastructure projects, as we've always supported that move in the past.

But, for now, it makes a lot more sense for the Nunavut government to support growth with a new building in Rankin while, at the same time, helping to prevent a potential disaster.

The Dene Nation is understandably tired of the territorial government dragging its feet on completing the Mackenzie highway.

During last month's Dene Leadership Meeting, chiefs passed a resolution to seek federal stimulus money to help finish the all-season road, which currently stops in Wrigley.

It's a lofty idea that could bring long-lasting benefit to the most Northern communities of the NWT.

The road could significantly reduce the cost of living for Northerners. It could spur economic development along the highway corridor and, of course, create numerous jobs for the duration of construction.

Curiously, the Dene leadership failed last month to recognize a significant barrier to building the Mackenzie highway: their support for a Mackenzie Valley pipeline. That support already exists among the Gwich'in and Sahtu, members of the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, as are the Inuvialuit in the Beaufort Delta.

The Dene Nation, on the other hand, continues to be one of the two remaining holdouts in giving approval to the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline. The other is the Dehcho First Nations. Right or wrong, the Conservative Government has linked construction of the highway to development of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline. Essentially, if Stephen Harper is to be believed, no pipeline will mean no highway.

Some of the opposition to the pipeline expressed over the past few years pertains to possible environmental damage, but would a pipeline truly be any more destructive than a highway, which the Dene Nation is now proposing to build?

Richard Nerysoo, president of the Gwich'in Tribal Council, expressed great frustration at the February leadership meeting for good reason. The Dene Nation doesn't have a successful track record when it comes to economic development. "We don't think like businesspeople," he said.

Nerysoo urged quick action on highway construction as, he said, there's an absence of leadership on infrastructure development in the NWT.

Last week Premier Floyd Roland said there has been no movement on a $1 billion, 10-year partnership he proposed while in Ottawa last September.

The lack of progress, he said, is because of periods of political instability in Ottawa as well as the recession.

Perhaps Roland missed that giant headline nationwide stating the federal government is doling out billions in infrastructure money. Now is the time to be making a case for Mackenzie highway funding instead of waiting until "things settle down," as our premier said he plans to do.

Based on this poor example and based on what Nerysoo had to say, the Dene Nation knows what it has to do if it is going to spur any action on completing the Mackenzie highway — Support the pipeline.

Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq supports the Harper government's proposed legislation that would prevent female federal public service employees from filing pay equity complaints with the human rights commission.

Instead, pay equity would be something negotiated through collective bargaining between unions and employers. And if a female employee filed a pay equity complaint, the union is forbidden to support her, under threat of a $50,000 fine.

The rationale with which the government is attempting to market this rollback of rights is that taking pay equity claims through the courts takes too long.

In her defence of the new legislation, Aglukkaq referenced two major pay equity cases which took decades to resolve. One, brought by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) against Canada Post, began in 1982. It is still ongoing, as PSAC has appealed Canada Post's successful appeal of the 2005 Human Rights Tribunal decision that awarded $150 million to employees in its largely female clerical division.

The other, brought by PSAC against the Government of the Northwest Territories in 1989, was resolved in 2002.

There are two pertinent facts about these cases: one, that both were brought forward by a union on behalf of public service employees, and two, that the prime contributor to the snail-like pace of these cases tends to be the unco-operative public service, with its numerous appeals.

This has not gone unnoticed by the courts. In the Federal Court of Appeal's 2001 ruling to continue the tribunal on the PSAC/GNWT case, it stated the GNWT could not complain about the length of time the case had taken because it had been the GNWT which had instigated four judicial reviews, one after another.

Seeing as how the public service has been one of the biggest targets of pay equity claims to date, it's obvious that by forbidding employees from filing pay equity complaints through the human rights commission, the federal government stands to save itself millions in legal fees and retroactive settlement payments.

The benefit of a judicial process for pay equity complaints lies in precedence. When the Canada Post case is settled once and for all, the ruling may trigger a change in legislation, and will at the very least set the course for future cases.

The fact that Nunavut's MP, a female public service employee, supports legislation that would strip her of one her rights as a Canadian citizen makes no sense, except from a purely political standpoint.