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Eyebrows were raised in the legislative assembly last week when Range Lake MLA Daryl Dolynny brought up his concerns about the amount of money the territorial government is spending on health care, particularly in the area of medical travel.

Dolynny suggested that the GNWT is spending $100 million annually on medical travel. He asserted that leaves only 17.9 per cent of the overall territorial budget on "true health," much less than in other jurisdictions, which spend an average of 42 per cent of their total budgets on health-care delivery.

Considering that Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger's 2013 budget calls for $360 million in health spending, spending $100 million on medical travel would represent almost one-third of the health department's budget for 2013.

However, a quick look at the Stanton Territorial Health Authority's annual report for 2011-2012 reveals that there were 1,036 medevac trips in 2011-2012, which cost almost $9.8 million. In the same fiscal year, nearly $9.2 million was spent on non-emergency medical travel for 11,931 trips. That totals just under $19 million, a far cry from what Dolynny suggested while calling for more money to be allocated for health care in the budget. In fact, the cost of medical travel, including medevacs and scheduled trips for medical purposes, decreased in 2011-2012 from the previous year.

To be fair, Dolynny told Yellowknifer that his research on the topic involved looking at supplementary health program reports, contracts with airlines who provide medevac services and reports on other related contracts and services. He said there is not a consolidated costs figure and stopped counting when the number reached more than $80 million.

Now, there is no question that providing good quality health care across the vast expanse of the Northwest Territories is challenging. When an emergency situation happens, either because of a tragic accident or because a person experiences a life-threatening medical condition, a system must be in place for the victims to receive timely and professional health care, whether they live in Aklavik, Behchoko, Deline or Yellowknife.

How that is provided in a cost-effective manner has been put under the microscope before. A comprehensive territorial medical travel program evaluation was completed in 2009. It looked at expenditures from 2005-2006 to the 2007-2008 fiscal year, which ranged from $18.2 million to $23.5 million, including medevacs, scheduled medical trips, ground travel, administration, boarding homes and subsidies for patients and escorts. Cost recovery from various federal agencies and departments during that period ranged from $10 million to $13 million, resulting in a total cost to the GNWT of between $8.2 million and $13.5 million.

Combined costs have gone up substantially since the evaluation. However, because of advances in technology and with a $200-million budget for future renovations at Stanton Territorial Hospital, which are bound to expand services and lessen the medical profession's reliance on health-care services in the south, it is realistic to believe costs will go down.

During his budget address, Miltenberger touched on how advances in technology will result in future savings, pointing to more use of electronic medical records for better chronic disease management and more effective consultation with specialists. More than a half-million dollars is being spent in the current year. The government is also setting aside money to keep dialysis services open and has earmarked $472,000 to improve medevac triage and co-ordination.

Efforts are being made to reduce the amount of scheduled medical travel and its inherent expense by offering more medical services within the territory.

Dolynny's main point is that the territorial government is spending less than other jurisdictions on "true health" delivery as a percentage of overall budgets. However, the numbers seem to be somewhat skewed because of the way they are reported and may have been presented in a calculated fashion by Dolynny to make his point about his desire to see overall spending increase.

We prefer to see a proactive approach to reduce medical travel costs by lessening the need for patients to be flown south for scheduled medical appointments by providing more services at Stanton.

Enbridge Pipelines Inc. has a cleanup job on its hands on two fronts.

The first is a very literal cleanup. Earlier this month contaminated soil was found at two locations along the company's pipeline, which runs from Norman Wells to Zama, Alta., crossing the Deh Cho along the way.

Approximately 30 cubic metres of contaminated soil was found around 60 km west of Fort Simpson and an additional 60 to 70 cubic metres of contaminated soil was found approximately 120 km west of the village.

With an environmental assessment underway, the company has been very careful to avoid speculating on what the contaminate is and how it got there until it has definite answers.

It is understandable why Deh Cho residents who have heard about the soil, however, may already have reached the conclusion that the contaminate, likely oil, came from the pipeline.

This theory can only be strengthened by the knowledge that the soil was found beside two features, as they are called, on the pipeline that the company was digging down to examine. Features can refer to such things as dents, cracks or corrosion.

The company is avoiding words such as spill or leak, but those are the words that at least some residents of Fort Simpson have been using to describe what is happening. This means that Enbridge's second cleanup job will be in the area of public relations, and it's not going to be easy.

The oil leak that occurred in May 2011 on the same pipeline is still fresh in many people's minds. That spill was originally estimated at four barrels. It later became apparent that between 700 and 1,500 barrels of sweet crude oil had leaked into the ground, affecting 8,980 tonnes of soil.

That spill already raised questions in some people's minds about how environmentally safe the pipeline is and how well Enbridge can monitor what is happening to it. The spill was first discovered not by the company, but by hunters who were in the area and could smell an odour.

Some measure of assurance can be taken from the fact that Enbridge found the contaminated soil in areas where flaws were expected to be found in the pipeline. Also, of the approximately 20 digs the company has done so far this season along the pipeline, only two turned up contamination.

Even if testing shows the soil wasn't contaminated as a result of the pipeline, Enbridge is still going to have an uphill battle in front of it to assure Deh Cho residents the pipeline is a safe piece of infrastructure.

Sometimes it's good to be living in a small town.

Last week, I decided on the spur of the moment around 10 p.m. to go have a look for the Northern lights on a cold, clear night. I drove a short ways out of town with the temperature hovering at around -32 or -33 C. A marvellous crescent moon was well up in the sky by then, as the town lights started to fade into the background.

I stopped and parked along the side of the ice road. As soon as I hopped out, the lights were draped across the sky like a shimmering curtain of green-grey across the horizon. Already, they were the best that this "southerner" had ever seen.

In southern Ontario, where I hail from, the display of the aurora that's common here happens maybe once or twice a year, and with my usual bad luck, I always miss it.

The best I've seen has been a milky grey translucent curtain, and that's been in northern Ontario at Moosonee and Moose Factory on the shores of James Bay. The chance to see them was one of the reasons why I took this job at the Drum.

So I set up my camera, using the hood and roof as an impromptu tripod and started snapping while openly ogling the lights. I had the entire road to myself, or so I thought.

About 10 minutes later, I saw headlights coming from the north. Two men in a truck towing a trailer, obviously from some kind of construction site, drove slowly past me, braked and them came back around.

"Hello, how are you?" one cheerily called out. "Oh yeah, you're taking photos." He cheerily smacked his companion and said "I told you that's what he was doing.

"They're pretty tonight, aren't they," he said. "We could see them all the way down."

We chatted for a few more minutes, with the men telling me about the lights, and how they had just wanted to make sure I wasn't stranded with a broken-down vehicle. Then they headed off, and I decided to go a bit further to take some photos from a different angle.

Not 10 minutes later, the scenario repeated itself. Once again, headlights blazed from the north as I tripped the shutter. This time, it was an RCMP officer on patrol. As had the men before her, she stopped to ask whether I was all right and immediately realized I was taking pictures.

We chatted for a while, and she was delighted when I provided some advice on how to take photos of the lights. I'm no expert with a camera, but everyone thinks a reporter should know these things.

In other circumstances, and before I mellowed a little with age, I might have become annoyed with these interruptions. Here, though, where the pace is slower and the weather is colder, I appreciated that two drivers stopped to check on me.

That kind of courtesy is one of the things I like about a small town, and Inuvik has a lot of it.

What is often forgotten in the debate about Yellowknife's downtown day shelter is why it opened its doors in the first place.

Shelter staff are not there to rehabilitate anybody. They are not jailers or addictions counsellors.

There is no medicine, detox services or any other programming at the shelter. Only coffee, some couches and chairs, and a warm place to hang out and use the washroom.

That's not to say Yellowknife does not need addictions services, far from it. It's an absolute disgrace considering the number of addicts who come to this city from all corners of the territory that there is no clinical detox centre here.

But that's a different fight. Right now, as far as Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins is concerned, the fight is about who should be running the day shelter. After two days of hammering Health Minister Tom Beaulieu about a need for "new leadership" at the shelter, Hawkins insists it's nothing personal. Lydia Bardak, who told Yellowknifer last week she "is the John Howard Society," the organization currently holding the contract to run the shelter. Bardak is the day shelter's public face, and she can't help but feel attacked.

It's clear after three years at its 52 Street location, there are still plenty of unhappy people when it comes to the day shelter. As of yesterday, Yellowknifer's online poll had received more than 1,200 votes - 81 per cent of them opposed to Bardak's leadership at the shelter. Hawkins accuses shelter management of being too lax in enforcing rules, that public drinking, fights and sex acts are frequent outside the shelter.

He suggests the Tree of Peace or the Salvation Army, which has expressed an interest in running the facility, would do a better job. But would it? In the same spirit of what the day shelter is now?

It's hard to imagine any organization having much luck instilling order inside and outside the facility when most of the clientele are intoxicated or mentally ill. And if they did rule with an iron fist, would any of these people still come? Or would they merely go back to loitering in bank lobbies and defecating in alleys like they did before the shelter opened?

No doubt Bardak tolerates more misbehaviour from her clientele than most people. But extreme patience would seem an invaluable asset in this job. This is something she deals with every day, and has been doing for many years. It's certainly worth exploring options, and Hawkins is right to point out problems when they do arise, but it's hard to think of someone more dedicated to caring for the needs of the city's downtrodden than Bardak.

Meanwhile, Hawkins is playing a risky game when he tells the health minister the day shelter should be closed until a new organization can be found to administer it. Given the government's reluctance to provide permanent funding to date, it's possible the territorial government could just call the day shelter a failure and close it down for good. After all, that's what the GNWT did following a beating incident at the Somba K'e Healing Lodge - a treatment centre outside of Dettah - in 2000.

MLAs should pay heed to how important the day shelter is to downtown businesses next time the issue comes up for debate in the legislative assembly.

The Nunavut Midget Territorial Hockey Championship was an interesting clash in what's right, and what's wrong, with the territory's most popular sport this past weekend.

From a competition standpoint, Team Iqaluit was head-and-shoulders above the other teams at this year's event.

The Iqaluit squad was undefeated on its way to the championship banner, winning all but one of the games by the mercy rule.

Minor hockey often changes from year to year, however, and any community can be a strong contender in a given year in any age group, although the larger communities do, of course, have an advantage due to their larger numbers.

Iqaluit aside, there were a number of highly-competitive games played this past weekend, including a pair of great games in the round robin of Coral Harbour vs. Arviat and Rankin Inlet vs. Arviat, as well as Rankin vs. Arviat game for the bronze medal.

The number of kids who played this past weekend, how hard they competed, and the fun they all had were check marks on the what's right with the game in Nunavut.

On the opposite side of the ledger, there were a number of significant injuries during the tournament.

At least one was the result of bad sportsmanship in what would be classed as a dirty hit at any level of hockey.

The others, however, were the type that have the potential to make the game, itself, look bad, when that's not actually the case.

Bodychecking in hockey must be taught. Players have to learn how to properly give a hit and, even more importantly, how to take one.

It's very difficult, if not impossible, to not have injuries because of the way our current territorial is set up.

Too many players come from communities where they do nothing for the majority of the year but scrimmage against each other, usually with little contact and no coaching.

Then they're dropped into the middle of a tournament which the top teams take very seriously.

The teams from Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet, especially, are well-coached hockey playing machines when it comes to bodychecking.

For the most part the two teams play within the rules, but they're far more skilled in delivering and taking bodychecks than their competition.

The players on the other teams then try to hit more when playing each other, but, without the same skill sets, injuries are bound to occur.

There is nothing Hockey Nunavut can do to address the problem by changing the format of the territorial. It has to be addressed at the community level with more people getting involved to coach the kids correctly.

Proper coaching will not only improve their overall skill set, it will also lower the risk of injury in a sport that comes with enough inherent risk simply because of its physical nature.

Once again, more people have to get seriously involved to help a sport take the next step in our territory.

It's something Hockey Nunavut can help with, but not do on its own.

Better coaching equals better hockey, better and more equal competition, and safer playing conditions, and that's a win-win situation for everyone involved.

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.

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