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It was a disappointing start last week to the government's preparations to make Long Lake Beach safer following the tragic drowning death of seven-year-old Lodune Shelley on June 27.

Granted, the territorial government has contracted the Alberta-NWT chapter of the Canadian Lifesaving Society to come to Yellowknife and assess the beach July 15, which in the great scheme of things is not an intolerable delay when one considers the government's lackadaisical response to previous close calls at the beach. It's too bad it took a child's death to finally acknowledge that the status quo is no longer acceptable.

Nonetheless, the great divide between government and ordinary people was exposed last week when residents and businesses bandied together almost immediately and formed a beach patrol group and began designing lifeguard chairs in the perhaps vain hope that some level authority will finally take responsibility and fill them with real lifeguards.

Lifeguards for Lodune, a group of 20 concerned citizens who have taken it upon themselves to monitor Long Lake Beach until lifeguards are hired, were cautioned by Mayor Mark Heyck and the GNWT to be careful they don't get themselves into hot water should another swimmer get into trouble on their watch - even though the NWT's Emergency Medical Aid Act protects Good Samaritans from lawsuits. Meanwhile Yellowknife contractor Trevor Kasteel, and businesses he has partnered with, were dissuaded from rushing ahead with building the lifeguard chairs.

In ordinary circumstances, at public, government-run beaches, it would seem prudent to leave matters such as monitoring swimmers and installing lifeguard chairs up to the proper authorities, but what do people do when the government has abdicated these responsibilities?

That's what the city and GNWT did when they tore up an agreement to staff Long Lake Beach with lifeguards nine years ago. They couldn't agree on how to split up the $21,000 bill to pay for them so the impasse continued despite several close calls, including a near drowning of another young child last year.

If a squabble over money was the issue 10 years ago, liability appears to be the primary one today.

Richard Zieba, the director of tourism and parks for the Department of Industry, Tourism, and Investment, says the government might have to limit the number of beach-goers if lifeguards do return. That's because today's life-guarding requires a certain number of lifeguards in ratio to the number of beach-goers, depending on the beach.

It's a sad indication of how risk-adverse governments have become when they're more worried about lawyers than people drowning on their beaches. Take a look at the 1967 photo of McNiven Beach and the lifeguard chair on page A13 of today's Yellowknifer. What were governments more concerned about back then? Their liability, or providing taxpayers with safe, comfortable recreational areas to frolic in?

Driving people away from Long Lake Beach to other unmonitored beaches on busy summer weekends shouldn't be a precondition to bringing back lifeguards.

Long Lake is where people, especially parents with young children, should be encouraged to gather and swim. It should be fully staffed with lifeguards, even if it does cost more money, and its drop-off areas should be located and marked - which would be a simple short-term solution.

Anything short of that will only prove to people that the GNWT and city, while quite capable of regulating just about everything, are increasingly unable or unwilling to do what's necessary to keep people safe.

There's an old adage: if you don't use it, you lose it. The phrase rings especially true when it comes to language.

There are many Canadians who become fluent in French after taking immersion all through elementary school and high school and yet years later struggle to use the language. Why? They rarely, if ever, use it.

If a language is to remain vibrant and widely spoken, it needs to be a part of everyday life. It's not enough to just learn it in school.

That's why the newly-formed partnership between Isuma TV and community members in Arviat is so exciting.

Isuma TV is an organization which provides Inuit and indigenous people a multimedia platform to express themselves in their own languages. There are plans to set up equipment at Arviat's high school so a TV channel can be run starting this fall. Residents will be able to broadcast community events, music videos, programs about social issues and whatever else they can dream up.

However, for the channel to be a success, it has to have the support of the people in Arviat. When it gets going, residents should lend a hand by watching, creating content, agreeing to an interview or offering to share a story in Inuktitut.

It's important to get involved because if the project gets off the ground, it has the potential to positively impact the community in many ways.

First, it will encourage greater use of Inuktitut by getting youth and other community members excited about creating videos in their mother tongue and by promoting the language in the home. Instead of sitting down to watch an English show, residents can view culturally-relevant programming featuring faces they recognize. In a time when Inuktitut is being spoken less and less in the home, this is key.

Second, those who participate in the creation of content are likely to gain valuable skills and knowledge from the process. Technology is becoming more and more a part of the business world and everyday life. Someone with the ability to use editing software, audio equipment and a video camera would be a great asset in various workplaces.

Furthermore, participants would learn communication skills through conducting interviews, writing scripts and creating songs. Knowledge such as this is so essential and it can't be bought.

Thirdly, by integrating more culturally-relevant knowledge into day-to-day life, the community will help to instil a sense of identity and pride in youth that will give them confidence. As they say, you have to know where you came from in order to know where to go.

Finally, those who leave Arviat will still have access to the channel through the Internet. This means they too can share in the learning and keep up to date with what's happening in the community.

In short, Arviat has been given a special opportunity and the community needs to take advantage of it. Don't let it go to waste.

• Miranda Scotland is interim editor of Kivalliq News while editor Darrell Greer is on vacation

The chorus of voices demanding a performance audit of the Nutrition North Program is getting louder.

The Auditor General of Canada has received calls for such a task to be done from all three Northern territorial governments, and last month, Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington added his voice to the mix.

"This program is not serving the needs of our people," Sahtu MLA Norman Yakeleya said in the NWT legislative assembly before a motion calling for an audit was passed unanimously.

Yet, the loudest and strongest voices come from the mouths of the people, who must stomach $10 for milk in Lutsel K'e or $8 for a head of romaine lettuce in Paulatuk.

The federal government has been touting the program's success since it replaced the Food Mail program in 2011, and retailers say the subsidies are being passed to the consumers and prices of nutritious food are indeed cheaper.

But residents of the North disagree, saying the program is not working and they aren't seeing any improvements when it comes to healthy choices for a reasonable price. Northerners want, and deserve, transparency when it comes to what they pay for food.

Perhaps the most fundamental change introduced by Nutrition North is that subsidies are now provided to retailers and suppliers, rather than Canada Post as it was under Food Mail. While the Tories might have tried their best for the Northerners of Canada, there must now be an objective, universally-trusted third party to assess progress and suggest improvements.

While retailers are audited by Nutrition North, the program itself must be put under the microscope. The federal government cannot be expected to be unbiased when it comes to the success or failure of its new program. Ottawa bureaucrats aren't pushing their carts down the grocery store aisles, deciding whether they will buy milk or bread this week because they can't afford to buy both.

There is only one process that will alleviate doubt, stop the questions and create positive suggestions: follow the money.

Last month, Fort Resolution's Sharon Lafferty set up camp on the lawn outside the Roman Catholic Church and went on a hunger protest to bring attention to the community's issues.

She was asking for a meeting of the community's three governing bodies: the Hamlet of Fort Resolution, the Fort Resolution Metis Council and Deninu Ku'e First Nation.

While in the end, Lafferty didn't get her meeting, she did bring her issues to the forefront.

Changes start with an idea, but they don't happen overnight, as she probably hears from the chief and MLAs.

Committed people like Lafferty are needed in the North, especially women. If Lafferty sees the potential for positive change in her community, she should try her hand at leading it.

Lafferty was calling for more training programs for women, an improved home-care program for elders, more recreation and more programs for youth, as well as for governments to take action and make a concrete plan to help the community heal from drug and alcohol abuse that plagues it. Sounds like a platform she could run on.

This is her chance to work toward a place in politics so she will have the power to make more of the changes she wants to see.

Educators and leaders in Nunavut who are keen observers of the human condition have discovered that some incentives work to encourage young people to do the right thing.

Case in point is an initiative in Cape Dorset, where the vice-principal of Peter Pitseolak High School has spearheaded a project to offer more extra-curricular sports in an effort to boost attendance.

Simply put, the teachers are inviting students to play on soccer teams at the school. The catch is that students who want to play soccer have to adhere to strict rules related to attendance and academic performance, they have to participate in fundraising activities for sports teams to travel, volunteer in the community and they have to attend all soccer practices.

It all started when teachers observed that attendance at the school was at about 95 per cent during soccer season and dropped to around 75 per cent when a soccer tournament ended.

There have been positive results from the project. Young people who want to play soccer make sure that they go to school. We cannot overstate the positive benefits of the other requirements, which make for well-rounded, contributing members of society who understand the benefits of contributing to their communities.

In a similar vein, an initiative by Nunavut Community and Government Services Minister Lorne Kusugak has the potential to encourage young people to get involved and work toward excelling in sports. He went to bat for young athletes who were robbed of the opportunity to aim for participation in Arctic Winter Games (AWG) events. He is supporting an initiative to create an alternate event that will feature the six disciplines which will not be hosted by Greenland because of that country's lack of facilities or ability to host.

A plan is in the works for athletes in midget hockey, gymnastics, figure skating, speed skating, dog mushing and curling to showcase their abilities in either Nunavut, the NWT or Alaska because they will not be going to Greenland.

Kusugak's take on the situation isn't about athletes winning medals at the 2016 AWG. Of more importance is that athletes have a desire to participate in sports by creating a goal - an incentive for them to improve their skills and prepare to be on a bigger stage. Although the AWG International Committee made the decision not to include those six sports in 2016, the athletes will still have an alternate event to set their sights toward.

It makes sense for the Government of Nunavut and educators in the North to give high priority to anything that increases participation and encourages attendance in sports and schools. One has only to look at the number of Nunavummiut who graduate from high school to understand the importance of creating incentives to get young people involved. The latest numbers from Statistics Canada, for the 2006-2007 school year, peg the graduation rate at 29.7 per cent in Nunavut, compared to 71.3 per cent for all of Canada.

The development of future leaders and successful people is realized by challenging young people to achieve their potential through the creation of opportunities and encouraging them to create goals.

We applaud the educators and government leaders who recognize the need to create incentives to get young people active and involved.

While some children are free to enjoy their summer vacation frolicking with friends and generally doing the things young people do, others might be worrying more about where their next meal is coming from.

An article in the June 26 edition of Yellowknifer ("Children in need off the radar during the summer") highlighted an issue affecting many children in the city this summer: now that school is out, programs offering free, nutritious lunches have come to an end.

The current program in place, with the largest at Mildred Hall School, provides hundreds of free breakfasts, hot lunches and snacks to students, but only when school is in session. Now that school is out for summer break, many of these children are left on their own.

A 2011 study by Iowa State University found schools that gave healthy lunches provided many health benefits to their students, including a 17-per-cent drop in obesity and 29 per cent experienced an improvement in their health.

Pamela Weeks-Beaton, who runs the program at Mildred Hall, said she was worried that with the summer break, these children, many of whom come from low-income families, will have nowhere to go. This problem isn't exclusive to Yellowknife, it affects many areas across the country.

According to Food Banks Canada, 900,000 people use food banks every year, with nearly 40 per cent of those being children and youth. But the Yellowknife food bank won't allow children due to liability reasons. What option does this leave them?

There are alternatives in other Canadian cities, such as Toronto, Calgary and Halifax with the launch of the Feeding Our Future program in 2000, which utilizes kitchens that see little summer traffic, such as school cafeterias, to distribute free meals during the summer.

So, where is the GNWT in all of this? The current program at Mildred Hall costs an average of $250 per week, or $2,000 for the eight-week summer break. As Julie Green from the Anti-Poverty Strategy Steering Committee points out, the GNWT hasn't made a move to extend funding through the summer, but has no qualms spending $100,000 on a one-night party to pat themselves on the back because the legislative assembly building's mortgage was paid in full.

The GNWT, along with local businesses, should step up to the plate and continue funding nutritious meal programs during the summer because the need for a healthy meal doesn't stop once school's out for summer.

Habitat for Humanity NWT has run into significant roadblocks in its quest to build its first project in the NWT.

Last year, the organization purchased two undeveloped lots on a section of Moyle Drive in the Niven Lake subdivision for $234,000. During a presentation to city council last week, the chair of Habitat NWT's finance committee, Robert Charpentier, alleged the organization was told at that time by then-SAO Bob Long these were the only two lots available in the city.

Now, with construction underway on one of the lots, Habitat volunteers have realized there are significant deficiencies with the properties. Both are marked by steep grades and the underlying bedrock is "rotten." The result: constructing the first foundation went $75,000 over budget, and the contractor on site called it "the worst lot he's seen in the city of Yellowknife," said Charpentier.

Habitat NWT is asking the city to forgive the remaining $120,000 owing on the properties.

Despite the situation, city councillor Cory Vanthuyne raised an excellent point when he said it would be difficult for the city to forgive the money owing on the lots.

Two years ago, the SPCA petitioned the city to donate land for a new shelter, which the city denied.

Habitat NWT made mistakes while purchasing the land - most notably choosing to not order a geotechnical survey - but let's remember this is a volunteer-run organization that is trying to build affordable housing for Yellowknifers.

There are steps the city can take to help. Councillor and contractor Niels Konge proposed the city re-appraise the land now that it's known the lots are of poor quality. This could significantly reduce the purchase price and could be a compromise that's fair for everyone.

Casual observers of the Dehcho First Nations' annual assembly could be forgiven for thinking they were stuck in some sort of a time warp.

At a quick glance, it seems as if next to nothing has changed at the assembles in the past five or six years, except perhaps the locations where they are held. The same topics appear again an again on the agenda. They include the Dehcho Process, the Dehcho Land Use Plan, Edehzhie, the Dehcho First Nations' Master Trust and often the Nahanni National Park Reserve.

Even a quick listen to some of the conversations around the table doesn't dispel the sense that time has stopped passing at the assembly.

Every year, delegates talk about the importance of protecting the land, water and wildlife and rail against the fact that Canada and the territorial government seem to purposefully be standing in their way of doing that and the completion of the Dehcho Process.

Given all of the similarities between the annual assembles, it's no wonder that the bulk of the Deh Cho's population seems to have a very hazy idea of what Dehcho First Nations (DFN) is working toward.

It's only with close observation and visits to multiple assemblies that it becomes apparent progress is being made. The Dehcho Process, the Dehcho Land Use Plan and Edehzhie are all moving toward completion – although in most cases, very slowly.

DFN has little new to show from year to year because the processes it is involved in are by nature very detailed and, therefore, take a lot of time to work through.

While DFN may not have many major developments to announce, what it does currently have is the solidarity between the member groups. Except for Acho Dene Koe First Nation, which broke away years ago, all of the member First Nations and Metis councils had representatives or leaders at the assembly. In many ways, that is more important than flashy developments.

As long as Dehcho First Nations is able to stay united and keep all of its members, it will have the size and clout to be able to continually push the federal and territorial governments for progress on different fronts. There is, after all, strength in numbers.

One year soon, maybe not next year or the year after that, DFN will be able to make a big announcement and celebrate at the assembly. It may the protection of Edehzhie as a national wildlife area or the completion and acceptance of the Dehcho Land Use Plan.

At that point, all of the years of slow progress and familiar updates will be worth it, as well the fact that the members of DFN stayed together and saw their course through to the end.

It might be time for Inuvik council to employ a little more openness and honesty about a simmering public problem.

Last week, the lid started to come off regarding what we here like to refer to as "social problems." That's the problem with large numbers of people hanging around the downtown core, drinking in public, and generally being regarded as a nuisance.

The topic came up at two meetings, and many of the councillors were filled with indignation and vented about the issue of "public drunkenness and loitering." Yet not one noted during the meeting that many of these people are the town's growing number of homeless people. That was acknowledged after the meeting in informal discussions.

Instead, the meetings were filled with ominous talk of crackdowns and increased enforcement. Councillor Kurt Wainman went so far as to refer to the people as "ravens." Somehow I don't think he was referring to the astonishing intelligence and adaptability of the bird. It's always easier to depersonalize and demonize problem segments of the population when you're looking for a way to, let's be honest here, get rid of them.

In the tumult of discussion June 24, one councillor made the comment that a camp should be established at Hidden Lake and the downtown troublemakers could be moved there. It was unclear afterwards exactly who made that suggestion in the jumble of conversation and no one was in any hurry to own up to it afterwards.

When those kinds of ideas are being bandied about at a public forum, it's usually a good sign things are getting out of hand.

I understand perfectly why many people take offence to the antics happening downtown. I'm not too fond of the growing numbers of people hanging around the core either. However, for the most part, these people are relatively inoffensive from what I've seen. I've lived in places where I was distinctly nervous about walking the downtown areas and where the local police had some very colourful and choice names for the street people which can't be repeated here.

I believe most of our street people lurking downtown are the same ones using our homeless shelter at night. Since they can't stay at the shelter during the day, they must find other places to go and things to do to occupy those empty hours.

That makes the dilemma, at least partly, a social services problem.

I suspect some of the public outrage is also motivated by guilt. As Mary Ann Ross, a noted social issues advocate, told me, many of these people are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, cousins, etc., and they remind us too bluntly of what any of us could become.

So my question to people here is simple. Where do we expect these people to go during the day, other than somewhere out of sight and hopefully out of mind? And what are we prepared to do about it?

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