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Creativity can trump downtown dirt Yellowknifer - Wednesday, June 1, 2011
The coffin nails driving into downtown are Internet shopping and cheaper airfares in his mind. A third nail -- the arrival of box stores like The Brick and Staples -- was pointed out by Richard Truscott, the visiting director of provincial affairs for the Canadian Federation of Business in Alberta. It takes more than three nails to close a coffin lid shut, however. Yellowknifers can take it upon themselves to bring well-established franchises North to provide services and products not currently available, and a box store doesn't have to be looked at as preying on the local economy. It can contribute much to Yellowknife through good corporate citizenship and an influx of cash, with a Northerner at the helm. Sure, box stores bring with them competitive prices that threaten small businesses selling similar items, but Truscott was correct in saying small businesses can stay alive by building strong customer service relationships, and focusing on niche markets rather than the broad retail strategies adopted by chain stores. Weavor and Devore, a Yellowknife institution and family-run store since 1936, exemplifies the small business advantage that emphasizes customer service and local expertise in their market. Sutherland's Drugs is another survivor built on its strengths as a quality service provider. These stores demonstrate how successful a business can be anywhere in the city if it can execute a customer service advantage and develop specialized markets. These same strategies can be employed against Internet shopping and the allure of trips south to places like the West Edmonton Mall. It'll just take a bit of creativity and entrepreneurship.
Help speeds its way to a great need Yellowknifer - Wednesday, June 1, 2011 When there's a will, there's a way. After a presentation last week from the NWT SPCA requesting land for a new shelter, city administration assessed the situation, crunched numbers and came back hours later offering the helping hand the SPCA was waiting for. It's an affordable payment plan unanimously supported by council: one lot in the Engle Business District worth $200,500 plus GST, for which the SPCA will be responsible to pay a 15 per cent deposit and the remainder of the cost to be paid over a 15-year term. City council and administration have shown they are of the same mind as hundreds of community members and businesses who donated thousands of dollars to the cause over the past few months, pushing through a speedy resolution that provides land for the SPCA - the crucial building block to get the project moving. Council's action was warranted and the quick response from administration made it happen. It's a giant leap for the organization, which has had the vision for the much-needed facility since late last year when it entered a national competition from Aviva Canada and acquired $300,000 to get the project off the ground. The numbers don't lie. In the past six months the NWT SPCA rescued upwards of 90 dogs. Whether the animals find a home in the NWT or are given shelter, food and care before finding a home elsewhere, the tireless efforts of the SPCA board and volunteers will soon continue helping animals in a new, spacious and affordable building.
The boots and slipper left behind Darrell Greer Kivalliq News - Wednesday, June 1, 2011 Someone will have big shoes to fill this fall. Before stepping down on May 30 after a 10-year run, Sheila Fraser had become one of the most popular auditor generals in history. Fraser is best known for blowing the lid off of the Liberal sponsorship scandal in Quebec about seven years ago, when her office discovered up to $100 million of the $250 million available in the federal sponsorship program was given to Crown corporations and advertising firms for doing, well, pretty much nothing. The straighttalking, hardhitting financial watchdog took on all comers when it came to wrongdoing, and was directly responsible for exposing the misdeeds of former privacy commissioner George Radwanski and integrity commissioner Christiane Ouimet. Known for her balanced approach and fairness as much as her nononsense style, Fraser chastized the Liberal's longgun registry in a 2002 report, which, for all intents and purposes, placed a noose around the registry it was never able to shake. In fact, during the past decade, a long list of people have thanked their lucky stars the office of the auditor general has no power to punish fiscally irresponsible government bodies. Fraser was a familiar name to the Government of Nunavut (GN), with a solid reputation for giving credit when due, but pulling no punches on shortcomings. While many in the GN feared her visits to Iqaluit and the reports she tabled, they often produced results. She slammed the Nunavut Business Credit Corp. in 2007 for its dismal performance and refused to budge until this past April, when she gave the corporation a clean audit and credit for doing a "remarkable" job. I admired Fraser for her thoroughness and courage. Regular readers of Kivalliq News know how much this humble scribe deplores the coneofsilence approach used by Nunavut power-brokers. Too many of our leaders talk about transparency and accountability in public while hammering out deals, policies and impact agreements in secrecy, with the best interests of their own particular organization well ahead of those of average Nunavummiut and/or Inuit beneficiaries. Getting the simplest of answers from the GN often takes countless hours of dogging ministers who, shall we say, frown upon anyone else answering questions, even if it happens to be in their particular field of expertise. Fraser has stated quite emphatically the auditor general's office must maintain its independence to effectively fulfil its mandate. And she has hollered long and loud when documents were denied her office. In short, matters of national security aside (and that didn't even wash when it came to documents on obtaining military helicopters), she often advocated the public's right to know as staunchly as any member of the fourth estate. It was that connection to the everyday citizen, coupled with her honesty and tenacity, that endeared her to the Canadian public. While finance ministers leave a trail of new shoes in the wake of their budgets, Fraser left a pair of combat boots and a glass slipper in hers. Hopefully, her successor will know how, and when, to wear the boots, and never let the clock strike 12 on her slipper of independence.
A parting shot NWT News/North - Monday, May 30, 2011
He largely has himself to blame, and he admits it, at least in part. The premier has announced he won't be seeking re-election when NWT voters go to the polls on Oct. 3. That decision - which could always be reversed before the nomination period closes -- has opened the debate on how Roland, 49, will be remembered as government leader, and as a politician. He first came to the legislative assembly to represent his riding of Inuvik Boot Lake in 1995. He was the hard-working automotive mechanic that most people felt they could relate to, someone who had been a town councillor, chair of the Inuvik Hunters and Trappers Committee, a hockey player and a minor hockey coach. He was re-elected in 1999. In 2003, he was acclaimed, and he went on to become deputy premier, minister of Finance, Health and Public Works under Premier Joe Handley. It was in the final few days of Handley's reign that Roland was among those to sign off on the Deh Cho Bridge project, which would come back to haunt him after he was again returned to the legislative assembly by acclamation in 2007 and was chosen by his peers as premier. Details of the troubled and costly bridge agreement began to emerge that were not previously clear. Regular MLAs also complained that they were excluded from discussing a financial bailout for Discovery Air and they weren't told about the supplementary health benefits program. Roland survived a subsequent non-confidence vote by a narrow 10-8 margin. Then came the affair with a legislative assembly clerk - one who was involved with key meetings among regular MLAs. That resulted in a public inquiry that found Roland had violated the NWT Conflict of Interest Act, but he wasn't impeached because the adjudicator ruled that the premier erred "in good faith." A tearful apology from Roland, whose shattered family life had become public knowledge, followed. Bleak days indeed. He could have quit. He didn't. Instead, he became focused on getting a devolution deal rolling - an agreement that would give the NWT province-like powers, with greater control over resources and a share of royalties from oil, gas and mining. In January of this year, Roland succeeded in signing a devolution agreement-in-principle with Ottawa. The deal angered many First Nations who said they were not included in negotiating its contents, although it should be noted that the Inuvialuit and NWT Metis Nation applauded the agreement. "It's not the best deal, but this has been in the works for - if you look at the days of the Northern Accord - almost 30 years," Roland said at the time. Roland is right. Several premiers before him strove to accomplish what he has, but they failed. He will leave office with a feather in his cap. What remains to be determined, in 10 or 20 years, is whether Roland will be a hero or a goat. Will the NWT be in a better position or worse because of his devolution bargaining? What we do know is he moved devolution beyond just a bunch of talk. Nobody else can say that.
Back in cabinet Nunavut News/North - Monday, May 30, 2011 Leona Aglukkaq's appointment to a senior cabinet portfolio in October 2008 came as a surprise. Her re-appointment this month did not. On May 18, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced he was keeping Nunavut's MP as minister of health and adding a new title to her portfolio - minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor). She was also Canada's representative at the recent Arctic Council meeting in Nuuk, Greenland - a task usually taken on by the minister of foreign affairs. This is an indication the prime minister approves of her performance. In 2008, the rookie MP became the first Inuk to hold a senior cabinet position. But far from merely being a puppet repeating Conservative party lines, she has managed to push some of Nunavut's concerns on many issues to the front burner while deftly steering the Health ministry through the H1N1 crisis. The federal government has defended seal hunters from international criticism, created CanNor and put its headquarters in Iqaluit, committed money to fighting tuberculosis and promoted mental health, and finally endorsed the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. However, Ottawa remains stubbornly deaf to Inuit concerns on issues such as seismic testing, resource mapping and development and their effects on wildlife and the environment, and despite a few temporary Band-Aids applied during its rollout, the unpopular Nutrition North Canada program remains unchanged. We hope Aglukkaq will continue to be an effective advocate for Nunavut even if it means taking her own cabinet to task on those issues where Nunavummiut and Ottawa disagree.
Stalking the elusive tourist Nunavut News/North - Monday, May 30, 2011 Joavee Alivaktuk, co-instructor of Nunavut Arctic College's revamped guiding and outfitting course, last week called guiding a "dying occupation." In the past, guides were highly experienced hunters providing advice to adventurers, explorers and people whose jobs took them on the land. As this generation of guides gets older, there aren't many younger folk with the experience to take their place. However, the new breed of tourist requires a different skill set from their guides. On-the-land experience is still crucial but also necessary are customer service, communication and cross-cultural skills to anticipate guests' expectations. Most of today's tourists are not hardened adventurers or endurance athletes. They want to experience the thrill of wilderness and adventure while staying warm and well-fed, and can be as helpless as infants when it comes to outdoors skills. And they ask questions - a lot of questions - that may try the patience of a saint. However they can pay, and pay well, for such a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and customer satisfaction is critical for the success of Nunavut's fledgling tourism industry, because they will tell everyone they know, and complete strangers via the Internet, about their trip. Future guides need the best preparation they can get to take advantage of this undeveloped resource.
City water goals clear as mud Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, May 27, 2011
That's what a senior official at city hall told Yellowknifer in April of last year about the city's water supply from the Yellowknife River. The statement was made during a line of questioning about the city's proposal to move its water intake to Yellowknife Bay, and build a water treatment plant, expected to cost up to $20 million, near Pumphouse No. 1 on 48 Street. The city currently screens its water for fish and debris at the Yellowknife River intake and chlorinates it at Pumphouse No. 1. The city official explained that because the federal government will likely begin forcing communities to upgrade water treatment facilities within five years, the city was going ahead with building this extremely expensive water treatment plant so as to be "proactive and have it done on our schedule rather than someone else's schedule." The city would likely need to borrow $10 million to finance the project, the official said, which under GNWT rules, should require voter approval much as borrowing for the geothermal project did. As many readers will recall, residents rejected the city's proposal to borrow up to $49 million toward that project last March. Leaving aside residents' fears about arsenic trioxide in Yellowknife Bay for a moment, the city hasn't explained what the consequences are should it decide not to build the treatment plant. Yellowknifer has been trying to get a straight answer from the city on that issue for more than a year with less than satisfactory results. Mayor Gord Van Tighem told Yellowknifer two weeks ago that the plant was needed because of "regulations" adopted by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment - an inter-governmental group of provincial and territorial ministers of the environment - a few years after the E. coli outbreak in Walkerton, Ont., in 2000. This group is responsible for Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality, the standard used by communities nationwide. The key here, of course, is the word "guidelines." According to the dictionary, a guideline is "a principle or instruction set forth as a guide," as in something one SHOULD do. Not surprisingly, the water guidelines contain words like "should" and "recommend;" they don't appear to state anywhere that these are rules and regulations that MUST be followed. Nor can we find anything in the guidelines stating it's a "requirement" for the water to undergo a filtration process, as the city's water treatment plant fact sheet insists. Indeed, in 2008, the director of community operations for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, while commenting on the construction of five filtration plants in NWT communities that were experiencing issues with water turbidity, had this to say: "These are guidelines, not laws but we encourage (communities) to follow that ... Some of our communities are very lucky because they have a good quality of water." Yellowknife must be one of the lucky ones considering what our city official had to say about our "perfectly safe, perfectly clean water." If moving the city's water intake to Yellowknife Bay was about saving money it could very well be a worthy venture. The city says replacing the eight-km long underwater pipeline from the Yellowknife River to Pumphouse No. 1 will cost about $10 million, while an arsenic treatment system at the water treatment plant would cost $3 million. Arsenic from Giant Mine is somewhat of a concern but recent tests have shown levels are below the accepted guidelines and there hasn't been any mining activity at Giant for years. But what city councillors need to ask is whether the water treatment plant is necessary at all. Does it need to be built, or is it simply an attractive project for city bureaucrats? If the latter is the case, then common sense would dictate taxpayers would be better served if plans for a $20 million water treatment plant were scrapped and the line to the Yellowknife River was replaced when it reaches the end of its expected lifespan in 2020. Council owes residents answers to these questions.
A grim warning Editorial Comment Roxanna Thompson Deh Cho Drum - Thursday, May 26, 2011
The evening news and online news sites were soon showing the images of devastation. Whole neighbourhoods had been reduced to little more than piles of ash with blackened concrete foundations marking where homes used to be. As people looked at the scenes of everyday life that had been turned into a post-apocalyptic nightmare, some may have been thinking there, but for the grace of God, go us. It's very true. A look around the Deh Cho reveals an uncomfortable truth. The forests that surround our communities that are part and parcel with a Northern lifestyle are also the very things that would lead an out-of-control forest fire right to our very doors. For the most part it is something that people don't think about very often. Sure, forest fires are a yearly summer occurrence in the region but few every get close to communities. You might see a plume of smoke on the horizon and smell the smoke in the air when then wind is in the right direction but that's about the extent of it. Slave Lake has shown that forest fires do have the potential to threaten and damage communities. A few lessons should be gleaned from Slave Lake's misfortune. Firstly, community governments need to have an up to date emergency preparedness plan that meshes with the broader territorial government plans and residents need to know the basics of what it entails. This information would assuredly be distributed if a community was in potential danger but a lot of panic and confusion could be avoided if residents already had an idea of what to expect. Currently, for example, few if any residents of any Deh Cho community probably known what measures would be taken in the case of an approaching fire and what they should do at each stage. This information is especially important considering that all Deh Cho communities only have one-road access, if that, to their community. People would have to leave before it was cut off or use a means by air or water to get out. The fire has also shown that both communities and individual homeowners have a responsibility to do what they can to reduce the risks of wildfires to their communities. Every Deh Cho community now has a Community Wildfire Protection Plan. It is up to local governments to ensure that the documents are actively used to help protect the communities instead of leaving them on a shelf to collect dust and become fuel in the event of a fire. Homeowners aren't off the hook either. There are a variety of measures that can be taken to make properties more fire safe. None of them will stop a forest fire but they could help slow one down. The lessons from Slave Lake need to be used to ensure if the worst happens in the Deh Cho all precautions will have been taken and residents will be prepared. Forget normality Editorial Comment Samantha Stokell Inuvik Drum - Thursday, May 26, 2011
One can only guess not too many, but that is exactly what is happening to one dead man in an urn and three of his (living) friends. They're driving from Chicago to Inuvik to tee off at midnight on June 21 – the longest day of the year. It's quite incredible and a testament to the man in the urn's character that these men, senior citizens all, are willing to travel on the road for 17 days together. It's one thing to be friends, another to live together and a completely different experience to travel together in cramped spaces for almost three weeks. Think of the adventures and memories they are making along the way – how many of you reading this story have driven across the continent? It's enough to make anyone bitten by the travel bug jealous. Northerners are known to be open to driving long distances, but usually it's about the destination and big box stores, not so much the journey. But really, these men have it right. The journey is what it's all about, in both road trips and life. And the men, knowingly or not, are creating a whole metaphor for life: the long road with the (24-hour) light being their goal at the end. So why not enjoy the ride? Forget social norms and hit the road! Take a risk! Don't follow the crowd! Success comes to those who step off the beaten path and into the unknown. Please pardon the cliches. Before people start proclaiming all sorts of crazy plans, it's time for a reality check. The one thing that can make or break all of these plans – whether it's hitting the road, becoming premier, swimming the best you can or simply surviving horrible events – is support. Support of family, friends, mentors, teachers. Before the crazy plans take flight, take a moment to check in with those who know and love you. Are you far enough away from normal that your plan is unique, but close enough that your loved ones aren't freaking out? Then you might have a plan that will make your life special and maybe, after you pass on, your friends will remember you not with sadness, but with joy, that they got to spend time with you at all and maybe gained inspiration from the life you led. Don't regret that you have to leave. Regret what you haven't done. And by the way, the definition of normal is conforming to the average. Who wants to be average? Forget normal and do what you need to in this world to achieve the happiness you have every right to experience.
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