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Rules of the road Yellowknifer - Wednesday, January 19, 2011
But our distaste does not extend to the city's right to regulate cab companies and their drivers in order to ensure safe operation and compliance with the law. City inspectors ensure cabbies have a driver's licence, know their way around town, provide receipts to their passengers and display their permits in a place where customers can see them. The city also ensures cabbies have not been convicted of serious criminal offences, such as aggravated assault, murder or drug trafficking, which makes perfect sense. Hence, it's almost certain Ahmed Makaran, 57, faces an insurmountable challenge. The Yellowknife cabbie lost his taxi licence last month upon his conviction for assaulting a fellow taxi driver with a tire iron at the Shell gas station last February. Even more alarming, he had customers in his car at the time of the assault. He then drove them to their destination covered in the victim's blood. He is currently appealing his loss of his taxi licence to city council, to whom his lawyer insisted earlier this week that his client didn't actually break the rules because he was convicted of assault with a weapon, not aggravated assault as written in the city's taxi bylaw. Good luck with that. His lawyer - and city council - must surely know that the bylaw also states that no taxi licence shall be issued to a driver who has committed "any" Criminal Code offence while on duty. Makaran would have been better off showing genuine contrition to council in his own words rather than hire a lawyer to make lame arguments for him. Acknowledging that he acted in a reprehensible way and expressing regret for his actions would have helped his image, if not have aided in restoring his cab driving privileges.
All hail the general Yellowknifer - Wednesday, January 19, 2011 Sporting four leaves on his epaulette, General Walt Natynczyk marched into Yellowknife last week to show his troops the personable side of his battled-hardened character. Natynczyk, Canada's chief of defence staff, has served our country nobly, having completed tours in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iraq, and now oversees operations in Afghanistan. He was in command in the efforts to help flood-ravaged Winnipeg in 1997. Less than a year later, he and other Canadian soliders were aiding Ottawa during the infamous ice storm. He's been tested in dire situations and has proven his mettle. With that in mind, his presence before staff of Joint Task Force North further lifted morale in a place where momentum among our men and women in uniform is growing. The Yellowknife reserve unit has already surpassed its rate of recruitment by filling 27 positions, putting it ahead of pace to reach 60 reservists by 2014. These are part-time soldiers who train on weekends and holidays. Possessing a knack for strategy, we hope Natynczyk fully recognizes Yellowknife is in a key position to help defend the top-third of Canada. Arctic sovereignty is a pressing concern for our federal government. Placing an even greater number of full-time soldiers and a Northern training centre here in our city would be of great value. Not only would it assist in Northern search and rescue missions, but we'd be in a better position to respond to disasters such as oil spills as industry and navigation of Arctic waters increase across the North.
New bag policy will hurt those who can least afford it Darrell Greer Kivalliq News - Wednesday, January 19, 2011 While the Northern store had good intentions in introducing its 25-cent charge on plastic bags this week, one has to wonder when these types of initiatives will stop being forced down people's throats. It's bad enough we're constantly being told what we can and can't do by every level of government - most often without having a say in the matter - but do we really need the corporate sector telling us how to live? There's no doubt a handful of save-the-world types will be all giddy over the initiative, and those with high incomes really won't care one way or another, but for those who have to count their change before heading to the store, those quarters are really going to add up over a year. Those who know how landfill sites work in most Nunavut communities realize plastic bags are the least of our worries when it comes to what rests in those large plots of dead land. You can say we have to start somewhere, but the only benefit this project will produce is maybe - and it's a big maybe - we'll see a few less plastic bags on the ground in communities and out on the land. When it comes to the environment, thanks to our dependence on diesel-powered generators to keep our lights and heat on, Nunavut has one of the biggest carbon footprints in the world, per capita. If companies want to get all save-the-world on us, maybe they could look at a fund to support research and/or construction of alternative energy sources for Nunavut and really make a difference when it comes to what we're putting into the environment. That may actually gain some weight during the next few years if the Nunavut Power Corp. is successful in hiking its rates in the territory. A 21-per-cent hike to start just might encourage that line of thought rather quickly. The Northern's trying to heal a gunshot wound with a Band-Aid and this initiative will take money from the pockets of those who can least afford it. True, a couple of free bags were given to households to start the initiative this week, but it won't be long before they're lost, used for something else or just plain worn out, and people will be shelling out 99 cents to purchase new bags. And, unless you're totally disconnected from reality, most people know many of those six or seven plastic bags needed to tote our $700 grocery orders home find their way into kitchen and bathroom garbage receptacles in numerous households. Yes, true again, those biodegradable kitchen catchers are readily available at your local Northern store for a premium price. But if you're one of the people living below the poverty line, biodegradable bags come in a distant second to such luxury items as powdered milk, juice crystals and frozen mystery meat to put food on the table for your kids. Then there's the question of hygiene and germ transference when it comes to the bags, and we know of a few organisms that would giggle at the thought of not being able to survive in a Northern store recyclable bag. Hey, we're all for most initiatives that help our environment, but this one has a lot of holes in it for Nunavut. It's easy to shrug off quarters when you have big bucks in your pocket, but not quite so when you're struggling to make ends meet.
Lost and found NWT News/North - Monday, January 17, 2011
There were 88 calls for searches in 2010 compared to 60 in 2009, according to Jack Kruger, RCMP G Division's search and rescue co-ordinator.
In those two years a mere eight searches were resolved with the help of a personal location device and eight people died -- seven of them in 2010.
Between 2007 and November 2010, Kruger said 211 of the 221 searches conducted could have been completed more quickly if travellers would have been carrying a personal locator.
Costs associated with searches vary depending on geography and distance, but as Kruger told News/North, a GPS locator reduces the costs considerably. As an example, he said a search on Great Slave Lake without a locator can last for days and cost more than $25,000 due to time and personnel. With a personal locator -- which costs close to $170 for the device and the annual subscription fee -- a rescue can take approximately an hour at a cost of less than $1,000.
If saving lives isn't motivation enough, the financial math is clear and should provide sufficient incentive for the GNWT to expand programs that provide locator devices to travellers.
Last year the Nunavut government made 20 of the devices available to each of its communities free of charge. It's a move that should be copied in the NWT, and it seems steps may have been taken in that direction.
A pilot project in Hay River last year provided GPS devices to travellers, according to Earl Blacklock, spokesperson with the Department of Transportation.
The department is now in the process of analyzing the effectiveness of that project to determine how many people used the technology. Blacklock said depending on the results the GNWT might consider expanding a similar program into other parts of the territory. Lutsel K'e and the Beaufort Delta hunters and trappers associations also provide GPS locators.
But making the units available is only half the battle. The other half of the equation is getting people to use them. Kruger said many people who find themselves in trouble on the land suffer from what he calls the "invincible factor;" they are those who take off without proper gear, without enough fuel and, in many of the cases -- 46 between 2007 and 2010 -- have been drinking. Those attitudes and behaviours obviously have to change.
Both the government and the public have to share the responsibility of keeping people safe and saving taxpayers' dollars on unnecessary lengthy searches. So far in 2011 there have been two searches and we're not even a month in. Let's make this the year we think a little smarter before heading out into the wilds.
A three-hour power outage in Norman Wells caused by a malfunction with Imperial Oil's equipment on Dec. 21 drove home the reality that in three years the town will no longer be able to rely on its own natural gas supply for power and heat.
Then what?
The community will be discussing power options and has some tough decisions to make. Converting to a diesel electrical system will come at great expense and there is a question as to how long the community would even need such a system.
By 2018 Norman Wells might have access to natural gas from the proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, assuming the project moves forward. But can the community bank on an unknown? It's difficult to believe that a contingency plan is not in place when all parties have known that the natural gas supply is dwindling.
For years Norman Wells has been contributing millions in royalties to the federal and government, yet is being left in a lurch.
At the very least a plan to replace the community's power system should have been put in place and paid for by Ottawa, where our federal politicians have reaped the benefits of Norman Wells oil.
With more and more ships plying the Northwest Passage every year, and oil exploration drilling already being done on the Greenland side of the Davis Strait, action needs to be taken to both reduce the risk of accidents and improve our ability to respond to them before one of the worst case scenarios becomes reality.
Oil spill kits or "Arctic community packs" have been delivered to 15 communities in Nunavut, sea cans full of the same basic equipment used to contain and clean-up oil spills, tailored to communities' specific needs. The kits are meant to be used as a method of first response in the first 24 to 48 hours after a spill.
But all the first-response equipment in the world is useless if no one on site in an emergency knows how to use it.
Despite most agreeing the people to be trained should be firefighters, public works employees and Canadian Rangers, there is still as yet no concrete plan of how training will be delivered in the communities, and the Canadian Coast Guard says it's still facing a lack of volunteers stepping up for the as-yet unscheduled training.
Expecting volunteers to take on the job is part of the problem. The federal government should pay people to take relevant training and compensate them if they lend a hand in a real emergency.
Of course, the first step in battling oil spills is preventing them. Our waterways need charts updated and better ice navigation information. Also, there should be regulations on what kind of ships can operate in the Arctic and what kind of training their crews should have.
But how hard can it be to plan to put a few trainers on a plane (or a boat - after all, it is the coast guard) to the communities next summer?
If the problem with the training is a question of budgeting dollars and cents, perhaps someone should remind the federal government that the money spent on the kits will be largely wasted without it.
Nunavut's communities are coastal - with the notable exception of Baker Lake - and the bulk of the Inuit livelihood has been provided by the sea for thousands of years.
The lengthening of the open water season has increased interest in Nunavut's marine resources; job training and infrastructure are necessities if Nunavummiut are to take part in the burgeoning fisheries industry. Kimmirut's Johnny Itulu and his colleagues in the fishing master fourth class and bridge watch programs underway this winter are well-positioned to benefit from the industry's development.
The territory's future may lie in its fishery. The Nunavut Fisheries Training Consortium will have a valuable role to play in helping us take advantage of the opportunities to come.
"I get tired of listing all of the buildings and all of the problems there are and saying to people that things need to be changed."
"We need more than the funding we already get."
These were just a few of the words Yellowknifer used to hear from the NWT Council of Persons with Disabilities on a regular basis.
Alas, the council hasn't had much of a profile of late, which is a shame because despite the group's silence there remains many outstanding issues facing people with disabilities in this territory.
A story in last Friday's Yellowknifer reports there are only 21 employees out of a workforce of 4,615 for the territorial government who self-identify as persons with disabilities, even though statistics show 10 per cent of NWT residents have some form of disability.
This discrepancy would suggest that despite warm and fuzzy platitudes about inclusiveness and preferential hiring, employees with disabilities still aren't comfortable broaching it with their GNWT bosses.
That would appear to be a critical issue concerning the NWT Council for Persons with Disabilities, but Michelle Gillis, the group's executive director, refuses to comment on it.
Another story in the same edition reports on the shameful lack of progress in getting a wheelchair ramp built in the upper level of Centre Square Mall. For two years now wheelchair users - as well as mothers with strollers and seniors with walkers - have had to endure the indignity of pressing a buzzer and waiting for Yellowknife Inn staff to let them through a glass partition door because that's the only entrance into the mall accessible by wheelchair ramp. The NWT fire marshal issued an order to build an entrance ramp at the Franklin Avenue in February of last year, but for one reason or another it hasn't been built yet.
Gillis didn't return phone calls for that story.
In fact, the last time Yellowknifer heard from Gillis or anyone else at the council was for her to say that its 31st annual Celebrity Auction fundraiser - usually scheduled for mid-November - was being delayed until this spring.
As well, it appears to have been some time since the council's website was last updated; it's still advertising the Celebrity Auction for 2009.
Gillis's aversion toward the media is nothing new, in fact it's much the same as what reporters experienced during her time as mayor of Cambridge Bay. Whatever her misgivings are toward the media, we would remind her that ignoring or avoiding it is not an effective means of getting the council's message across to the public.
People like the GNWT worker, who, on an anonymous basis, alerted Yellowknifer to the territorial government's disporportionate employment statistics, surely expect the disabilities council to lobby on their behalf, or at least ask some tough questions.
Where is the board of directors?
Perhaps there is much good work the council does behind the scenes. Whatever the case, most people haven't a clue what it's doing right now.
In 2009, only 44 per cent of aboriginal students in the territory graduated from high school. This compared to 70 per cent of non-aboriginal students, according to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Absenteeism is one reason for the gap.
It's estimated that the average aboriginal student in the NWT misses more than 41 days of school each year. By the end of Grade 9 this adds up to two years of missed classes. Non-aboriginal students miss half as much school.
There are also educational achievement gaps. Alberta Achievement Tests show that 55 per cent of aboriginal students in Grade 3 are achieving an acceptable standard in English language arts compared to 85 per cent of non-aboriginal students. The difference widens to 33 per cent versus 81 in Grade 9.
It's results like these that have led the department to create the Aboriginal Student Achievement Education Plan. The purpose of the plan is to eliminate the achievement gap between students in the NWT.
The preliminary plan has four priorities, including early childhood and childcare, student and family support, literacy and aboriginal language curriculum and resource development. These topics were discussed in detail during a regional forum in Fort Simpson last week.
Most of the forum's participants had suggestions about what was lacking as well as strategies to improve these areas. After two days of discussion the conclusion, which was touched upon by Jackson Lafferty, the minister of education, is there's a lot of work to do.
Lafferty said the plan is for the long term and will require numerous government departments, educators, leaders, elders, parents and even students' support in order to succeed. This is certainly no easy task.
Will this ambitious plan lead to visible results in the timeframe the average resident would like to see? No, not likely.
As Lafferty stated, this is a long-term plan. And it's precisely its time span that will make the plan hard to sustain. It's easy to become disenchanted with something that isn't producing immediate results.
It will be a testament to the importance that the people of the territory place on youths and education if the strategies that are chosen are carried out and continue to be adhered to.
Everyone wants the youths of the NWT to grow up strong and well-educated.
The Aboriginal Student Achievement Education Plan may be a tool to further this goal, but it will require dedication, patience and partnerships in order to see results.
Not just because the sun came back, thank God, or the fireworks or the free community breakfast or the massive bonfire. What made Inuvik's Sunrise Festival unique was the dog team race, a spectacle few places in the world are blessed with.
Forty dogs and five mushers struggling to get animals mad with excitement into harnesses creates a wild and impressive scene on an ice-road. Then they're off, 45 beating hearts and quirky personalities flying across the snow at nearly 20 kilometres an hour as the sun rises on one of the world's great rivers. About 30 people showed up to take it in.
Now, something's wrong here.
Consider that thousands will turn out to NASCAR events to watch a bunch of cars drive in a circle for a few hours, stuffing their gobs with hotdogs and crossing their fingers that someone screws up and the cars smash into a mad circus of decals, twisted metal and mangled flesh.
Consider that much of North America will tune into ESPN to watch two guys pummel the living daylights out of one another, glorying in a few minutes of blood before returning to lives as cropped and pruned as any suburban lawn. The world series of poker draws millions of viewers to watch some guys play cards, for crying out loud.
More people show up at Shivers to watch a hockey game than turned out to watch Inuvik's dog team race, the only one the community will see before the Muskrat Jamboree. The mushers, Delta residents who feed, clean up after and see to the health and socialization of up to 30 dogs apiece, would be glad to race more often if they could find sponsors. This race needed only a $1,000 sponsorship from First Air. The mushers organized a band of volunteers to make the eight-mile trail - a laborious process, advertised for the event and turned out with all their animals and gear to compete for a relatively small jackpot compared to the costs of maintaining their teams.
It's understandable that considering the huge amount of effort and money to maintain these teams that the numbers of mushers has declined over recent decades. Those that remain say more races would promote the sport and act as an incentive to keep it alive.
It wouldn't take much for Inuvik businesses and the town to host a few more events which would promote the area to the world while keeping alive an ancient tradition that has reached the brink of extinction.
The first step is for everyone to show up and cheer on the mushers in the next race.
You won't regret it.
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