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A valuable education program is closing its doors after 12 years.

Since 1990, the Western Arctic Leadership Program in Fort Smith has been providing high school students from many of the NWT's remote communities a chance to obtain a high school diploma and access classes not available in their local schools.

Since the program's inception, between 17 and 19 students from outside Fort Smith enrol each year and take classes at PWK High School. Not only does that demonstrate a commitment to education by the students choosing to leave home, but it also boosts PWK's financial ability to offer additional resources.

Over the past 12 years, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment's funding for the program has remained constant at approximately $275,000 annually. Jay Macdonald, a house parent with the leadership program, says because the funding has not kept up with inflation it was becoming more difficult to meet its financial needs.

Unfortunately ECE is trying to put a positive spin on the program's closure. In a written statement, the department indicated that grade extensions in most communities now allow students to graduate in their community, implying the educational climate in the NWT as evolved beyond its need for programs such as the Western Arctic Leadership Program.

Unfortunately that is hardly the case.

Although the option to attend school through to graduation is available in most NWT communities, the quality of that education has been frequently called into question.

Students in the NWT's smaller communities have consistently scored below their peers in the capital and regional hubs on annual achievement tests. Students and parents also often complain that considerable academic upgrading is required for NWT graduates wishing to pursue post-secondary education in the south.

Providing students with more options to achieve an education is worth the money. Had the GNWT chosen to at the least keep up with inflation in providing funding to the Western Arctic Leadership Program, we'd still have this valuable program to help produce future territorial leaders and role models, resources with immeasurable value.

Spending money to send our minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment to Houston, Texas, to push the NWT as the next destination for offshore oil development is ultimately a waste of the finances our government continuously states it lacks.

That's not to say the territory wouldn't benefit from offshore oil -- if done with the most stringent checks and balances -- but Minister David Ramsay has no power over whether companies choose to develop in the North.

The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline is a lesson for Ramsay. His predecessors, Bob McLeod and Brendan Bell, travelled frequently to push the value of the pipeline, but companies don't pay the bills with chatter from politicians. In the end, the economics, based on the price of natural gas, will decide if that project moves forward.

Ramsay can talk until he is blue in the face and never convince a corporate giant to invest in a money-losing project.

The best we can do is improve our regulatory system and infrastructure so when the climate is favourable, companies will be enticed to work in the NWT; bringing all the associated benefits to the people who live here.

We're not saying Ramsay should not promote business in the NWT but he can do so from closer to home and choose to spend money on travel to push sectors government has more control over. Ramsay's trip to Saint John, N.B., to attend a meeting of Canadian Council of Tourism Ministers earlier this month is an example of business travel that could add value to our tourism industry.

The anger at Nutrition North is continuing to rise in some circles, and the system needs to quickly fine-tune how these subsidies work.

The protest in Coral Harbour earlier this month illustrates that people in some communities are still seeing little benefit from the program. However, there have been some benefits that can't be ignored.

North West Company vice-president Michael McMullen said items such as milk, potatoes and tomatoes have dropped in price and those products are actually selling better than they used to as a result. This is good news.

Last fall, customers in Clyde River noticed milk go down to around $4 from $10. However, milk prices have not plummeted in all communities and, as protesters noted, on some healthy foods the price drop has been less than a dollar - that's too little to a consumer. Price drops need to be in multiple dollars on healthy foods in Nunavut.

Besides pumping more money into subsidizing healthy food and country food into the program, there are a few other things that can make the system work better.

McMullen said auditors are welcome in any of his company's stores, and Ottawa should be dispatching those auditors at least annually while this program is getting on its feet. The Co-ops ought to be audited just the same. If the subsidies are not being fully passed on to the consumer it's not necessarily deliberate. Just the same, an auditor can close the gaps. These audits must be made public, or else there is no point in doing them. Once public money is involved, the public must be able to see how it's being used.

The Co-ops and North West Co. stores should be able to reduce prices as they become better versed in Nutrition North, and as the program is improved.

Education is important as well. The GN's initiative to have its nutritionist work on several recipes using affordable, healthy food is an excellent idea and it should be built upon.

Meanwhile, the Coral Harbour protesters have demonstrated that some people are unhappy with Nutrition North as it exists now, and that food is still too expensive. These demonstrators deserve kudos and thanks for doing something about it and having their voices heard. Hopefully Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq got the message and concentrates on streamlining this program. Despite her comments in the House of Commons last week - in the face of an embarrassing United Nations investigation into food insecurity in Canada - about environmentalists who protest hunting being the source of the problem instead of families being unable to afford food, food insecurity is a huge issue in Northern Canada and change is not happening fast enough.

She was obviously just following party-line rhetoric, which is much easier to do than recognize the problem and say something needs to change. Yes, hunting and fishing play a big roles in Inuit lives, but obviously people are also relying on milk, eggs and bacon - grocery stores wouldn't be in business otherwise.

The system can be better, and change can occur faster. Let's take steps to make it happen.

Complaints about Yellowknife's perennial Goliath status when it comes to sports funding and sports venues are nothing new.

Yellowknife has long dominated the territory's sports scene, and that didn't change when MLAs responded to the complaints by creating a new level of bureaucracy with the NWT Sports and Recreation Council in 2004.

The reality is, as long as communities, particularly mid-sized communities like Hay River and Fort Smith - the ones that seem to complain the most - lag behind in critical mass and facilities, they will always play second fiddle to Yellowknife.

When Yellowknife was awarded the 2008 Arctic Winter Games for the fifth time since the Games began in 1970, the news was greeted predictably enough with more sour grapes from our neighbours to the south.

Fort Smith had teamed up with Hay River for a joint bid to host the games but still lost.

"It seems like Yellowknife wants everything," complained Peter Martselos, former mayor of Fort Smith. "Yellowknife is busy enough the way it is."

Games president Gerry Thick summed up the problem with the competing bid as this: "I think the air travel, the space available for the athletes and where officials were staying was questionable."

It seems what Martselos really ought to have acknowledged is not so much that Yellowknife "wants everything," it's that it "has everything" - bigger and better facilities, more hotels and lodgings, and nearly half the population of the territory.

Fort Smith hockey coach Roger Vail was right to point out last week that many of the problems related to funding and organization are "made in Yellowknife." The seemingly bloated and inefficient bureaucracy for the Sports and Recreation Council and for Sport North, the NWT's largest sports organization, largely resides and operates here. That's bound to breed resentment in the smaller communities.

Yellowknife-based sports groups therefore have a responsibility to listen to these concerns and take them seriously.

It's really easy to look at all our great facilities and wealth of volunteers to aid our young athletes and sports teams, and not see much beyond them. In that sense we really are like a mini-Toronto - forever scorned - deservedly or not - for our "centre of the universe" view of the city as it relates to the rest of the territory.

If funding and organization is lacking, if community athletes are prevented from joining Yellowknife athletes to participate in out-of-territory sporting events or coming here to enjoy our facilities, Yellowknife sports groups should be at the head of the table demanding answers.

It's to our city's benefit, as the territory's largest municipality and the capital, to ensure sporting activities are available and open to residents from all NWT communities.

It's not difficult to discern that the reductions to staff at the Nahanni National Park Reserve are a bad thing.

Fort Simpson and particularly Nahanni Butte are not large communities. The losses of any jobs in these locations quickly have ripple effects.

It's undoubtedly true the federal government needs to save money and cuts have to be made somewhere. It's almost an insult, however, that some of the cuts are coming out of the Nahanni National Park Reserve.

As many Fort Simpson residents will remember, Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited the village on Aug. 8, 2007. The purpose of his visit was to announce the expansion of the park then from 4,766 square km to approximately 28,000 square km.

Harper told the assembled crowd gathered outside of McPherson House on the banks of the Mackenzie River, "This is arguably the most important act of environmental protection in this country in a generation." By reducing staff positions at the park almost five years later, Harper's government is essentially turning its back on the achievement it was once so proud to promote.

Sure, the expanded park boundary will still stand, but the staff that was helping to manage, "The wonders of the Nahanni," as Harper called it, is being eroded.

Some past staffing gains at the park are also being lost.

Some jobs that used to be full year are being reduced to half-year positions. Other jobs, including the staff that interact with tourists in the park, are going from half-year jobs to three-month terms, according to some sources. Three months isn't much time to make a living.

The reductions are going to have negative effects.

The ability of the park to provide a full-visitor experience will be reduced. Because many of the tourism-related businesses in the region, such as airlines, tour companies and hotels, are partially dependent on the park any drop in tourism numbers will affect them.

In Fort Simpson and Nahanni Butte, some park employees will lose part of their incomes. This will mean fewer people in the communities for parts of the year and less money being spent. It's a lose, lose situation.

The federal government is making a mistake with these cuts. It may be saving a bit of money but it will also be harming a national treasure and the communities that surround it.

When two Inuvik women travelled to Yellowknife last week to participate in the Elders Parliament at the legislative assembly, they brought with them concerns about the major issues affecting elders in the area.

Based on what was brought to the legislature, many elders in the North are facing serious problems.

Some of the issues raised during the Elders Parliament are a byproduct of the increasing gap between older and younger generations living in the Delta. Imagine the strain of fighting a language barrier in your own hometown, or the fear that your traditions and your knowledge will die with you.

Respecting one's elders is important in any culture, but arguably more so in the North. Because of circumstances outside of their control, much of the traditional knowledge that allowed people to survive in this harsh climate for thousands of years has been lost. Still more lives on only in the memories of those who are old enough to remember it. Every time one of these people dies without passing on their knowledge is a tragedy.

There is hope on this front, with new programs such as the aboriginal language and culture instructor program at Aurora College, which recently graduated 11 students with full diplomas in the discipline, along with five students who were already school teachers but now hold certificates in teaching aboriginal culture. With this batch of new instructors released back into their communities, there is the promise of many more opportunities for young people to learn about traditional knowledge.

Some of the issues raised were arguably more disturbing than others. For example, if the GNWT follows through with their plan to implement the new rent scale, some elders say they will face the terrible choice between shelter and food. These are basic human needs. Most, if not all, of these elders have fed and housed young people in their time. Does that not give them the right to be taken care of the same way?

Yesterday, the Inuvik Justice Committee hosted a professional development class simply titled Elder Abuse. One of the goals of this workshop was to create a dialogue around a serious problem many people fail to recognize, or don't know how to acknowledge.

Being the victim of abuse at any age is terrible, but the idea of an elder being taken advantage of in this way – be it emotionally, physically or financially – is particularly appalling.

Elders are individuals like everyone else. They have strengths and weaknesses, faults and attributes. The one thing they all have in common is the time they have spent living here – and many of them have spent a good deal of that time raising children and taking care of others.

They should not have to worry about issues like housing, food security and safety in their old age. It should be their turn to be taken care of.

Transparency builds public confidence. With that truth in mind, Yellowknife residents deserve an opportunity to scrutinize an out-of-court-settlement that recently concluded a long-standing investment dispute between the government-owned NWT Business Development and Investment Corporation (BDIC), and Daryl Dolynny and his business partners.

Dolynny was named in a Dec. 16, 2008 statement of claim by BDIC, in which it sought a $100,000 loan guarantee after the Aurora World partners defaulted on $1.1 million in debt in 2007. Until now, much of the dispute has unfolded like a soap opera in the public eye.

Dolynny and his partners - Alex Arychuk, Grant Beck and the NWT Metis Development Corporation - countered in their 2008 statement of defence that they were assured by BDIC representatives that the loan guarantee "was a mere formality and enforcement of the guarantee would not be aggressively pursued."

A day after Dolynny was elected MLA of the Range Lake riding in last year's territorial election, the MLA-elect exchanged e-mails with Pawan Chugh, CEO of the BDIC, in which Dolynny proposed helping the government rid itself of a "very expensive problem" by handing over information about BDIC employee Bill Turner, whom the politician accused of leaking confidential information to the media, prior to the election, about the government loan to Aurora World.

Turner had filed a challenge against the government's hiring policy last spring.

"As I see it, Mr. Turner has an affirmative action grievance against BDIC and the GNWT that if successful ... could have disastrous financial and HR implications," Dolynny stated in one of the e-mails.

Although Dolynny's unsavoury e-mail deal was immediately rejected in writing by Chugh, BDIC minister Bob McLeod referred to Dolynny's attempted manipulation as a "not unusual" proposal, indicating McLeod did not take the matter as seriously as the press and much of the public did.

Now that a confidential deal involving the repayment of public funds - just how much remains unknown - has been struck behind closed doors, both the BDIC and Dolynny should feel motivated, if not obligated, to reveal the out-of-court settlement to the public. Then, everyone would be free to move on with confidence.

When in doubt, speak up.

That's what city councillor Paul Falvo, and all of his counterparts, should have done much earlier in the city's three-year process of developing its $22-million water treatment plant. Instead, the councillor is only now requesting a legal review of the GNWT's requirement to build the plant.

Falvo, who is a mayoral candidate in this year's municipal election, said the project is too expensive for the city to shoulder itself. Last month, council approved the city borrowing $20 million - some of it earmarked for the water treatment plant - and Falvo voted in its favour.

This is not a "better late than never" situation. It was in 2009 that the GNWT adopted the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality as regulations, which force municipalities to filter their drinking water supply.

However, the management of drinking water is a shared responsibility among all levels of government. Although the GNWT funds more than 20 per cent of the city's budget, some financial assistance from the government should go hand-in-hand with its insistence that a new water treatment plant must be constructed.

Since its inception, the project has never been proven as a fundamental necessity, just a politically required one. City administration even touted Yellowknife drinking water as the best around. The GNWT is forcing the city to install the infrastructure to meet federal guidelines, but council's job is to question the projects, scrutinize the rules and fight for assistance if such a major project is being imposed with little justification. Our drinking water is of stellar quality and has been for decades.

Now the city is bound to the project and any fleeting glances in the rear-view mirror are, at this point, too little, too late.

Only time will tell if Coral Harbour's call for a May 25 boycott of shopping at the Northern store if prices don't come down will spread to other Kivalliq communities.

It's a brave move by the community and protest organizer Simeon Dion, but it remains to be seen if other communities have the same conviction to support the cause.

Regardless of how the call pans out, a number of issues were made clear, again, by the protest in Coral.

No matter what the North West Co., feds, or Arctic Cooperatives have to say, the majority of Kivalliqmiut still believe food-and-necessity prices are far too high in our communities and the Nutrition North program is not a fair tradeoff for consumers.

Many people still don't truly understand how the program works and, rightly or wrongly, don't trust big corporations to treat consumers fairly. The need to make profits has been transcended by pure greed in their eyes.

The stores and the feds have plenty of numbers to support the program, but they're not truly reflective of the situation.

I spoke to an Inuk man this past week who works in Rankin Inlet, rotating three weeks in and three weeks out. His company has an account at the Northern store and he recently spent $80 on less than one bag of items. He was so upset by how little he got for the money, he doesn't want to ever spend money there again.

Dion being upset with how high the Northern store sets prices on the food local shoppers "are accustomed to," speaks volumes toward one area of misunderstanding with the Nutrition North program.

The program is paternal by its very nature in that the feds have taken the stance they will tell us what we should be eating, and, if we don't eat what they've decided we should, we'll pay a lot more for other choices.

Most disturbing about that stance is the fact all the cheaper giant tomatoes, green lettuce, potatoes and apples in the world won't help a single mom or lowincome family augment their country food to feed their family.

When they're trying to stretch $300 over two weeks, you'll still find them reaching for bags of mystery meat chicken strips and Kraft Dinner to feed their family.

The companies will defy anyone to produce receipts to show where their products have doubled in cost to substantiate claims of doubled groceryandnecessity bills.

They keep the focus on their products, rather than comparing the cost to buying from a southern retailer.

A short while back, a person in Baker Lake sent me an invoice from a retailer using the Nutrition North program in Winnipeg, which also included the price of the same items in their local stores.

Local prices were quite higher on Nutrition North subsidized items, even though the retailers receive the same freight subsidy.

If everything is as it should be, one must surmise the difference in price can only be attributed to profit margins set by the different companies.

Nutrition North has good intentions, but it needs more than tweaking to be anywhere near as effective as the feds want to believe it is.

And, while the North West Co. is correct that the cost of food is high in the North, does it really have to be as high as it is?

The feds have set the bar on what people should be eating, maybe it's time they set the bar on how much profit is enough for Northern retailers.

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