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The NWT Electoral Boundaries Commission is looking at ways to ensure people of the NWT are being represented fairly in the legislative assembly. Presently there are 19 seats for MLAs - seven of them in Yellowknife.

A recent report penned by the commission presents three options for changing districts throughout the NWT. Options for 18, 19 and 21 ridings have a common theme, increasing the number of districts in Yellowknife or reducing the number of ridings outside the capital. From a numbers standpoint, the recommendations make sense - calling for the amalgamation of low-population ridings and more balanced representation for Yellowknife, where nearly half the territorial population resides.

This is one case, however, where logical analysis will not yield the fairest results. Communities in the NWT are set apart by long distances and that separation can be measured in more than just distance, but by cultural, linguistic and ideological differences as well.

In the 18- and 19-district options, the riding of Tu Nedhe, which has the smallest population compared to every other district, would be amalgamated with communities in the Monfwi and Deh Cho ridings - creating an eight-community riding. The 21-seat option would combine Tu Nedhe with Ndilo and Dettah.

Former Tu Nedhe MLA Steven Nitah, who lives in Lutsel K'e, said an eight-community riding would be difficult to represent considering the extensive travel involved in addition to the cultural differences. Tom Beaulieu, the sitting Tu Nedhe MLA, is also correct when he says the change would diminish the Chipewyan language and culture in the legislative assembly.

Because there are fewer than 800 people in Lutsel K'e and Fort Resolution, the Tlicho communities - comprising Whati, Wekweeti and Gameti - in the proposed new riding would represent the majority of voters with nearly 1,000 residents. The MLA elected from this riding would likely be from the Tlicho region. That is not to say that a Tlicho representative would not fairly represent the needs of the other five communities in the riding, which would also include Enterprise, Kakisa and Fort Providence, but Tu Nedhe constituents are better served by a person from their region.

In the same vein, it would not be fair to Dettah and Ndilo, both with close access to the capital, to be represented by an MLA from communities that likely have greater needs when considering infrastructure and isolation.

Although smaller communities are always wary of Yellowknife holding too much power in the legislative assembly, adding one district in Yellowknife to balance out the number of constituents in high-population ridings such as Weledeh, which has more than 3,000 people, would be a good compromise.

With an extra riding, Yellowknife would still have less than half of the seats in the legislative assembly, which would be representative of the territorial population. It would also alleviate concerns of the balance of power favouring the city, which has one-tenth the needs of the smaller communities, to quote Nitah.

Besides, the heavy decisions have and will always be in the hands of cabinet, who outnumber regular MLAs in the assembly, and cabinet has always maintained a balance of members from around the territory.

A vague and underwhelming draft oil spill preparedness and response agreement between members of the Arctic Council was leaked earlier this month.

The draft agreement states the nations must maintain national systems to respond to spills. It also requires minimum levels of clean up equipment to be on hand. There are other requirements in terms of identifying spills and international co-operation, communication and dispute settlement.

Most lacking are actual detailed guidelines on how to manage a response in the Arctic operating environment.

There are an estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil in the circumpolar Arctic, making up about 13 per cent of the world's total undiscovered reserves, according to a 2008 United States Geological Survey report. There is potential both for huge economic gains and huge environmental catastrophe.

If a pipe bursts in the Arctic, how is a spill contained and who foots the cleanup bill?

Canada's own regulations in this respect are weak. Companies drilling for petroleum in the Arctic are liable for up to $40 million of the costs. Compare this to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico that leaked an estimated 4.9 million barrels, and which its owner, BP, said cost close to $18 billion to clean up. The 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off the southern coast of Alaska which leaked between 257,000 and 750,000 barrels (the amount is still debated) cost Exxon $2 billion to clean up.

Needless to say, the current cap on cleanup costs is grossly inadequate, especially given that Canadians will have to foot the bill if no one else will.

With such reserves in the Arctic, there will surely be pressure to access them. Given the two spills just mentioned, the issue is a highly political one, but the Harper government has repeatedly shown its willingness to relax environmental regulations in favour of bolstering the country's economy. In the 2011 federal election, Canadians agreed with this set of priorities enough to give the party a majority government. It is likely the government is just as antsy to get oil flowing in the Arctic as the companies hoping to drop their drills into the sea.

Despite the Conservative hardline economic ideology, having much stronger environmental regulations governing Arctic offshore oil drilling is imperative for the country, the industry, the environment and the companies involved.

Should offshore drilling commences in the Canadian Arctic, and a spill happens, there is the question of how to battle it. Common practices in the south, such as using booms to contain spills, are problematic. What if the oil is gathering beneath sea ice? As well, what if sea ice is impeding ships that are on their way to respond to the spill? There are serious logistical issues specific to the Arctic climate that require a high level of response. The details must be hammered out and framed in legislation.

International agreements are difficult to reach. The Arctic Council is made up of Canada, the U.S., Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway. This year Canada is taking over as chair.

The Canadian government needs to use its chairmanship to push for greater certainty that Arctic waters will be protected and those polluting them will be held accountable.

That can only be done if Canada's own policies measure up to the threat of an Arctic ocean spill.

If law enforcement officials are going to go through the trouble of installing expensive video cameras and microphones in police vehicles and jail cells, they should make sure the recording devices are being used and that they work properly.

The same logic applies to investigating complaints from the public. If a member of the public complains that a bylaw officer assaulted her while taking her grandchildren to the Santa Claus Parade - in front of dozens of bystanders - the police should interview any witness who steps forward.

The consequence of not doing any of these things is an increasingly cynical public who assume this is business as usual when police investigate themselves or the people with whom they have a close working relationship.

The list of missing recordings is starting to get a bit long. In 2010 a video recording from a Fort Simpson jail cell that purportedly shows an RCMP officer assaulting a prisoner went missing before the officer went on trial. The same year, a police officer in Yellowknife was acquitted of assaulting a prisoner after relevant video footage had been deleted.

Last week, we learned neither dashboard cameras on bylaw vehicles nor microphones on uniforms captured the altercation between the bylaw officer and the grandmother on Nov. 17. The RCMP, meanwhile, inexplicably failed to interview a witness who said he witnessed the bylaw officer trying to drag the still seat-belted woman from her truck.

It doesn't matter how seemingly frivolous the complaint is, or how plausible the excuse might be when video or audio equipment goes missing or doesn't work, police credibility suffers when evidence disappears.

"They're just covering each others back," the daughter of the complainant in the Santa Claus parade incident said of the investigation.

Strong words, but what would municipal enforcement and the RCMP expect when they don't follow procedure.

Other excuses will have to found by those who have blamed the high cost of renting retail space for the demise of downtown.

Often in the past, business owners and observers have suggested that economic considerations were among primary reasons for empty storefronts, hundreds of square feet of vacant commercial space and shuttered doors.

Not so, say a commercial property leasing executive and a Yellowknife realtor. Compared to other class "A" buildings in Edmonton, Toronto and Saskatoon, Yellowknife prices are on par, if not less expensive.

City councillor and realtor Adrian Bell has personal experience with renting retail space and said the price per square foot is now about $20 less than it was 10 years ago. As well, the director of leasing for the western region at a major national management company said the market is steady in Yellowknife at a reasonable price, unlike other markets where the cost goes up and down based on trends. Sidney Waskiewich of Dundee Realty Management also said operating costs in Yellowknife and Edmonton are similar.

What this means is that the focus can now turn to the greater issues affecting the occupancy of downtown retail space, such as atmosphere and attractiveness.

Bell rightly points out that consumers want to have a sense of security when they are shopping. People are driven away from the downtown core when they are confronted by panhandlers, when unsavoury individuals are loitering outside of stores and when there is public drunkenness.

Now that the high-cost myth has been dispelled, the debate can focus on the real reasons for what is plaguing commercial space in the city's core.

Imagine waking up one morning to find that a fence had been built through the middle of your backyard.

Your house is on one side, but on the other is your garden and the playhouse you built for your children. You can still access the now-divided side of your yard, but people on the other side of the fence keep looking at you as if you don't belong there.

Now imagine that people on the other side of the fence find a valuable resource on what used to be your yard; buried artifacts, perhaps. They are now profiting from the wealth those artifacts are generating while you are getting nothing, not even a say into how your former backyard is being dug up.

If this happened to a homeowner today they would be irate. It's easy to imagine them marching angrily into the office of whomever put up the fence and quickly launching a lawsuit.

This analogy is one way for people to get a sense of how the members of Acho Dene Koe First Nation in Fort Liard are feeling. The First Nation has traditional land in the southwest NWT, southeast Yukon and northern B.C. People were using the land long before the provinces and territories were created and borders were placed.

The First Nation, however, now has three jurisdictions to deal with as it tries to get recognition of its aboriginal rights and title to the land.

The way in which aboriginal people across Canada had the land they were using taken away from them through the colonization process is well known. Most Canadians, however, think of this as something that happened early in the country's history.

For Acho Dene Koe, this story is practically a recent event. Treaty 11, which the First Nation is a part of, wasn't signed until 1922. There was no sign of the NWT-B.C. border until it was cut through the trees in 1956.

Acho Dene Koe members have every right to be upset about the way they have been treated and their land has been divided. They also have every right to have the provincial and territorial governments in question join them at negotiating tables in a timely manner and work to address the issues surrounding the traditional land.

There is no chance the borders would be erased but the actions that are taken from now on by the provincial and territorial governments can show sincere remorse for the legacy that was created by colonization.

According to the current detachment RCMP commander, Inuvik has a bit of a drug problem. Go figure.

Staff Sgt. Jerry McKenna said he's been unpleasantly surprised to see the scope of the local drug trade since he's arrived here, and especially in the last six months.

The drugs of choice, he said, are crack and regular cocaine, which, at least as far as I know, are among the more costly "recreational" drugs you can buy.

There's nothing terribly surprising in the idea that Inuvik has a drug market. There's no reason to think that it should be different than any other municipality.

The extent of the trade here and the drugs of choice might be a bit more perplexing. It's not unreasonable to ask exactly how the drugs are getting here in the kind of volume that McKenna seems to be describing. Inuvik, after all, fits most people's definition of being in the middle of nowhere.

Residents here know that's not so true anymore. Jets fly into town regularly, after all, and there's a steady flow of traffic during the winter on the Dempster Highway and the ice roads. Still, it's not the most convenient place to ship drugs.

If they're being manufactured locally, that's also troubling, because like any other small town, everybody seems to know everybody's business – or at least thinks they do.

During a visit I made to the town of Moosonee, Ont. several years ago – a town not unlike Inuvik – a tour guide who had lived there for many years put it best:

"If you haven't heard a rumour about your neighbour by 6 p.m., you start one yourself," he said.

So, if the drugs are being manufactured locally, people here know it's happening.

Even more bewildering to me is that this drug trade is thriving in a town that's supposedly flat-lined economically. I know everybody has their own particular – and sometimes peculiar – priorities for where they spend their money.

Seriously, though, people here are spending that kind of money on crack and cocaine while simultaneously complaining about how bad things are in town? Where, pray tell, are those funds coming from? From McKenna's description, this is no small-time trade here. Instead, people are finding it provides quite a comfortable income, if they're not outright getting rich on it.

I just don't understand it, and I don't think Inuvik residents want to become known as a drug hub either.

For those who have experienced hour-long commutes on the hated expressways of larger cities down south there is certainly a reason to look upon Yellowknife's "rush hour" with fondness.

It takes no more than 15 minutes to reach any destination within city limits. And for people who'd rather keep the car at home, or do without one all together and bike to work instead, there is no reason why that can't be done - even in the bitter depths of winter.

Yellowknife is perfectly situated for the cycling enthusiast: small enough to commute to work or a friend's home with ease but also a pleasant place to pedal, with gentle hills and scenic trails. This is something else the city may want to highlight next time it makes a promotional video touting the positive aspects of Yellowknife living.

Of course, not all is perfect. This city was not built with cyclists in mind, and some roads in the city - most of Franklin Avenue and Kam Lake Road, for example - can be extremely daunting places to ride. Some would say the best way to keep cyclists safe would be to adopt a mandatory helmet bylaw, but that would be a mistake.

Bicycle helmets do provide some measure of protection but a helmet bylaw would likely prove an unnecessary impediment to Yellowknife's growth as a cycling city. It's wise to wear one when driving on the main roads, but should people be expected to carry them when going to the store or paying bills at city hall?

The Netherlands is the most bike-friendly country in the world, with nearly 30 per cent of the population using only their bicycles to get around. Yet that nation has no helmet law. Their solution is to have safer paths and roads, something Ecology North's transportation issues committee has been encouraging the city to do for some time with limited results.

City council should view every road rehabilitation project as an opportunity to develop bicycle lanes and paths to keep cyclists away from motorists - the main threat to their safety.

The city's recent push for road, water and sewer replacements presents a golden opportunity to begin revamping Yellowknife as a true cycling city.

It is time Yellowknife, home to almost half the territory's population, gains more representation in the legislative assembly.

Currently, the capital city has seven of 19 seats in the arena of territorial politics.

On Feb. 4, the Northwest Territories Electoral Boundaries Commission proposed a number of electoral boundary changes in an effort to improve democracy in the NWT. The commission proposed options with 18, 19 and 21 seats.

The 18-seat map would not add any new seats to Yellowknife, but would rejig some of the district boundaries. If 19 seats are maintained, the commission advises eliminating the sparsely-populated Tu Nedhe riding and adding a Yellowknife district, which would amalgamate portions of the Range Lake, Yellowknife Centre, Weledeh and Frame Lake ridings.

If 21 seats are adopted, the commission suggests adding two Yellowknife seats by combining the Niven Lake subdivision and residences around Frame Lake for one district, and the residential neighbourhood on the southwest side of Old Airport Road, Northland Trailer Park, and Woolgar Avenue for the second district. In addition, Ndilo and Dettah would be removed from the Weledeh riding and combined with the existing Tu Nedhe riding.

The comparatively dense population in Yellowknife, having neighbourhoods with different needs and interests, would be well-served by an extra seat, or two, in the legislative assembly.

Residents of Yellowknife, Ndilo and Dettah should contemplate the commission's proposals and share their input before the spring deadline if they conclude as we do that it's time for democratic change.

There are times you can't help but wonder who sets the priorities within our territorial government.

You'd think getting a program into our communities which offers front-line help in the battle against suicide would be high on the list.

Yet, as of this past month, only about 40 per cent of school principals and staff members in four communities across Nunavut had taken the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST).

That's a staggeringly low number considering the high rate of suicide we grapple with in Nunavut every year.

Many educators and a number of local district education authorities would like to see every school staff member take the training, as well as having ASIST made available to the general public in every Nunavut community.

The Government of Nunavut (GN), apparently, is looking into providing more training, and ASIST has been available in Inuktitut and English for the past three years, but at a frustratingly slow pace.

ASIST is suicide firstaid training, which teaches participants to recognize risk and learn how to intervene effectively to reduce the immediate risk of suicide.

Delivered by certified trainers, those who take the program learn to recognize people at risk are affected by personal and societal attitudes about suicide, identify factors that indicate and estimate the risk of suicide, estimate the degree of risk, and discuss suicide with a person at risk in a direct manner.

They can demonstrate skills required to intervene with a person at risk, and list resources available and commit to helping co-ordinate social support resources to them.

Many ASIST evaluations have been conducted in numerous countries and the vast majority are overwhelmingly positive.

The twoday program is emotionally draining, but its pros far outweigh its cons.

A homegrown program, ASIST was developed at the University of Calgary, Alta., in the early 1980s and, in 1991, LivingWorks Education was established to market the course outside Alberta.

In many of the test studies in the 1990s, such as the one conducted with medical students by the department of psychiatric research and development at the University Hospital of North Norway, the participants reported more confidence and better skills in suicide intervention.

The assessment has remained consistent over time.

During a 2007 review in Scotland, the vast majority of participants reported positive reactions to the training and found it useful and relevant.

Those who found it to be most useful included local government and voluntary sector staff, and individuals who perceived themselves to have low levels of suicide intervention confidence, knowledge and skills prior to attending ASIST.

Participants reported their levels of knowledge, confidence and skills of intervening with someone at risk of suicide increased considerably immediately after ASIST, and the increases were largely maintained over time.

With such endorsements from around the globe, surely the time has come for the GN to step up its efforts to provide additional ASIST training in our communities.

It is another effective tool to help us defeat one of the most devastating ailments in the North and yet another way action can replace talk to help those who are struggling to embrace life.

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