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Unsafe working conditions at the NWT's only territorial hospital are unacceptable and require immediate action. All MLAs should drive that point home when the legislative assembly comes back into session today.

Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley has already pledged to raise the issue when the assembly resumes. Others should follow suit.

While it happens to be the case that Stanton Territorial Hospital is in Yellowknife, this hospital serves constituents across the Northwest Territories. While they may not be as vulnerable as front line staff, there's no reason to think they're immune to the reportedly frequent occurrences of violence. Not to mention the "thousands of dollars" worth of damage reportedly done to the facility when one patient -- dissatisfied with his treatment -- flew into a rage, forcing medical staff behind locked doors last November. Those are territorial resources destroyed which may have been put to better use elsewhere.

Yellowknife MLAs should make that clear to their colleagues: This is a territorial issue that requires territorial support.

As for Health Minister Glen Abernethy, he should see this as an opportunity to display more decisive leadership than he has demonstrated so far.

These are serious problems that require immediate solutions. It has already been acknowledged security is a problem. Safety measures should already have been undertaken to address it.

It's a familiar refrain in the legislative assembly, the Department of Health and Social Services uses study after study to delay policy decisions for another day, then leave them to collect dust.

Bureaucrats may get blamed for that but it's Abernethy who'll have to pay the political price for the government's inaction.

If somebody comes back to an expired parking meter to find a ticket, the last thing they should be worried about is jail.

Lawyer Jay Bran received a parking ticket last April and is now taking on the city bylaw after he discovered that he could go to jail if he chose to fight the ticket and lost or simply forgot to pay it. The parking meter penalties include six months in jail or a $2,000 fine or both.

Bran said sending someone to jail over an expired meter is an infringement on an individual's charter rights and is preparing a case to challenge the city in territorial court Feb. 18. While he admitted imposing jail is unlikely, he is still upset the bylaw gives the courts the power to do it.

Acknowledging the city needs a way to enforce the fines, Bran thinks the threat of jail is too much of a hammer. He doesn't have an alternative but would prefer the city focus on the fine, adding that some Canadian jurisdictions refuse to renew a person's licence if they have unpaid tickets. In fact, sending someone to jail would cost taxpayers far more than the ticket itself.

A judge will decide whether Bran has a case or not but we agree jail is an absurd punishment over an expired parking meter. Not everyone has the legal expertise Bran has and we welcome his efforts to have this draconian punishment - so severe it is never used - taken off the books.

A more practical legal remedy could serve both the needs of the city and the law without infringing on rights.

Getting personal with racism
Editorial Comment by Darell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, February 4, 2015

I felt a burning sting while officiating at the Jon Lindell Memorial (JLM) Calm Air Cup in Arviat this past month that I hadn't felt in more than a decade, and one I had hoped I would never feel again.

I've travelled to Arviat to referee hockey for the past 14 years.

During that time I've made a few good friends, refereed some incredible hockey games, and never had any trouble other than the odd heat-of-the-moment rant from a player upset over a call that didn't go his way.

Twice I had to referee every game in an Arviat tournament with one other ref due to a lack of officials willing to travel at the time.

And once I had to ref the final three games of a tournament practically by myself when my ref partner, David Tulugak, had his skate blade broken.

He had it tacked back on and bravely soldiered through the final two games, but he wasn't exactly what you'd call mobile on the ice.

All that, and never an episode that made me feel less than a person.

That is until this past month.

While leaving the ice after a game and making our way to the official's room, two female fans along the same side of the rink started screaming accusations in our direction.

But they weren't the usual cat calls of one-sided referees or three blind mice.

These women were screaming that calls were deliberately being made -- or not being made -- to punish the teams with the most Inuit players on them.

One screamed directly at me that I was racist against Inuit because an offside wasn't called.

A friend who recently retired, and whose intellect I admire very much, remarked recently that white people want everyone to like them and are too sensitive about racism.

Well, I'm sorry good sir, but I beg to differ.

Only an idiot would spend decades as a referee and expect everyone to like him.

But, maybe there is some truth to racism being personal to white folks, but systemic to people of colour.

I admit it's personal to me because I don't have time for racism or the people who practice it -- of any colour.

It's personal to me to have my most special of all spaces -- the hockey arena -- invaded with that poison.

And it's personal having to deal with the anger that swelled up inside me after absorbing the accusation.

I kept walking because it came from a female. Had it been a man, things may have turned out differently.

It's personal being placed on the edge of violence, when you're not a violent man.

I could say racism has no place in our hockey arenas, but that would be redundant with racism having no place in our world at all, yet it thrives among those who can't pull themselves above it.

And it's personal when I'm made to feel, however briefly, that I may not want to return to Arviat again.

It's personal because racism cuts deep on both sides of the knife.

I will, of course, return to Arviat if invited to the tournament again next season.

To give in to racism, at any level, is to turn your back on your own humanity.

And that's just about as personal as it gets!

Not many people turned out for Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger's latest round of budget dialogue meetings.

Over two months, the minister and a representative from his department hosted meetings in seven regional centres, seeking input on how the roughly-$1.6 billion budget should be spent.

According to the government's Budget Dialogue 2014 Results, 97 people turned out for the public meetings and 11 other individuals and organizations made written submissions. The tour itself cost the government an estimated $40,000 - working out to a little more than $400 per person engaged in the process.

While the best attended meeting was unsurprisingly the one held in Yellowknife, only 30 people attended that session. Twenty Inuvik residents turned out to speak with the minister, followed by 17 in Fort Smith, 11 in Norman Wells, eight in Hay River, six in Behchoko and five in Fort Simpson. Once the reporter for Northern News Services and Nahendeh MLA Kevin Menicoche are taken out of the mix, that leaves just three residents at the Fort Simpson meeting - certainly not an ideal justification for making the trip.

If people want to be engaged in the GNWT's budget process - even if they just want to complain - they need to start coming out to these meetings.

Once the minister steps into a community hall, residents had his undivided attention. There is no good excuse not to take advantage of that.

In a jurisdiction as diverse as the Northwest Territories, without a road system to connect all the regions, these consultation tours are extremely important - but residents have to meet the government halfway.

Nonetheless, spending $40,000 to get input from 100 residents is a small price to pay.

Especially when the GNWT's recent junket spending - totalling more than $1 million in the past two weeks alone for promotional trips to Japan, China and now Ottawa - is taken into account.

While face time has a different importance in Asian cultures than it is here in the west - as Industry, Tourism and Investment Minister David Ramsay pointed out in defending the government's $300,000 trip - it is even more important the territorial government puts in some face time in the communities.

This year's budget is shaping up to be an important one. If Ottawa does indeed approve an additional $1 billion for the territory's debt ceiling -- which Miltenberger now hopes will happen before the federal budget is announced in April -- there will be an unprecedented amount of money to spend.

Perhaps some of the issues that continue to nag the territory - living conditions, food availability, medical travel, transportation, elders care, affordable energy, quality education, etc., etc., etc. - can finally see some extra funding.

In this territory, the needs are great and the resources few.

There will not be many more opportunities like this to throw some real money at some of these problems.

However, without an engaged public, politicians and bureaucrats are left alone to make these decisions - and to take the fall if things don't improve.

That's the sort of Catch-22 situation that no one wants to be in.

There are a few more pieces of the Nunavut fishery puzzle required to make the most of some recent good news announcements.

The territorial and federal governments have teamed up with $7.1 million for new research. Over the next two years, $3.63 million is to be spent on inshore fisheries science, essentially studying stocks of char, turbot and clams in designated areas. Another $2.98 million is going into researching offshore fisheries stocks - crab, shrimp and halibut. A further $600,000 or so is going to demonstrate the viability of an inland halibut fishery in Grise Fiord and Qikiqtarjuaq.

Last fall, while doing an exploratory fishery off the coast of Qikiqtarjuaq, the Arctic Fishery Alliance boat Kiviuq I found an abundance of shrimp. This followed on the heels of the discovery of large numbers of shrimp at Grise Fiord. The shrimp not only represent an abundant food source for coastal hamlets, they also sell for a good price to processing plants in Greenland, Newfoundland and Labrador.

There is also the likelihood the Kiviuq I would have found shrimp ripe for harvesting at Arctic Bay and Resolute Bay. Unfortunately, the exploratory fishery was cut short. The Kiviuq I, low on fuel, had to sail off to Greenland after being refused access to Government of Nunavut diesel from tanks at Arctic Bay and a tanker offshore.

Meanwhile, as detailed in a two-part series that concluded last week in Nunavut News/North, there is an abundance of Inuit beneficiaries being trained for meaningful, full-time employment in the fishing and shipping industries.

The Nunavut Fisheries and Marine Training Consortium involves 14 partners, including federal and territorial government departments, Inuit-owned development corporations, representatives of Inuit beneficiaries and regional fisheries groups formed by hunters and trappers organizations in the hamlets.

Think of the new research funding, existing fishing enterprises, the recent discovery of new stock and active training efforts as a roadmap to prosperity. The problem is this roadmap shows no gas stations, no truck stops and no place to load or unload cargo.

Too often the Arctic Fishery Alliance is selling its catch and buying fuel at the closest geographical location - Greenland -- in Danish krone. There is only one small craft harbour in Nunavut, at Pangnirtung, but it is off the beaten path and has limited capabilities.

A deep water port and processing facility is desperately needed in Qikiqtarjuaq, the most logical location for the fisheries industry.

There has been talk about it for years, just as it has been on the radar of government departments. It has strong support by industry players and the hamlet.

So many other pieces of the puzzle are falling in place. A port could help complete the picture.

The inability of hospital security guards to physically restrain violent patients means only one thing: this dangerous responsibility will fall onto the shoulders of health-care workers.

This is neither hypothetical, nor a worst-case-scenario situation - it's a fact most recently highlighted just one week ago when it took up to 10 hospital staff - mostly nurses - to restrain a violent, kicking, scratching patient. At least three hospital staff members were injured in just the latest incident of violence at Stanton Territorial Hospital.

A document obtained by Yellowknifer late last year tells a grim tale of incident-upon-incident of spitting, biting, pulling hair and more against hospital staff by patients.

The very morning of the latest violent rampage last Friday, Health Minister Glen Abernethy's comments were published in Yellowknifer stating that steps have been taken to avoid a repeat of an incident that occurred Nov. 20, where a patient in the emergency room went ballistic, chasing around staff and destroying expensive medical equipment.

These so-called steps are clearly not working, and change must be swift before nurses end up in body bags for simply showing up to work.

Both hospital staff and security guards are trained to flee a situation should they not be able to control it with words, but Friday's incident illustrates that's not always possible. Somebody should be able to immediately stop a violent patient who - while staff and security are hiding away - could hurt themselves, other patients or seriously damage equipment.

Reaction from hospital administration has been vague. "We're meeting with staff," was the initial answer and they've been mum to Yellowknifer ever since.

There's a bit of a confusing haze surrounding what exactly prevents security guards from touching a violent patient.

Stanton's medical director Dr. Anna Reid initially told Yellowknifer territorial legislation prevented security guards from physically intervening before correcting herself later to say it was the "lack" of legislation that is the problem. In his Jan. 20 e-mail to Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley, Abernethy blames the media for the confusion before muddying the water further by insisting there is neither "legislation prohibiting" guards from intervening nor is there legislation "allowing" them to intervene. He later told Yellowknifer that the barrier to intervention is a "philosophical" policy at the hospital.

Frankly, this all just bureaucratic squid ink.

Clearly, staff will intervene and risk injury if there is an immediate crisis as last Friday's incident illustrates. The reality of the situation is that without security on hand who are capable of acting immediately, the responsibility will fall onto the doctors and nurses attending to the patient.

Following a stabbing incident at the hospital where a patient plunged a knife into his heart, the minister, as a regular MLA, supported special constables in the hospital when it was recommended in 2011.

Instead of going around in a great big circle to nowhere that seems to begin and end with a "working group," immediate action is required -- before somebody gets killed.

Last year's drought is a gift that keeps on giving.

It lowered water levels, raised NWT Power Corporation's reliance on diesel for energy and resulted in a territorial government announcement that it was diverting $20 million to cover the 40,000 litres of fuel per day the Jackfish Power Plant now requires to keep Yellowknife's lights on. This commitment comes with a $45,000 daily price tag.

It's an exponential jump from power corp.'s average diesel consumption in the North Slave of roughly 958 litres - or $1,164 -- per day.

Now, there may not be a city with less in common with Yellowknife than Dehli, the sweltering, bustling, ancient capital of India with a population of 16.7 million people, but it seems we have now matched it on a rather dubious milestone - commuters in Dehli guzzle the same amount of fuel per day as Jackfish.

Looking up "unsustainable" in the dictionary, Merriam Webster ought to inscribe a photo of Jackfish below it.

The idea behind the GNWT's decision was to get NTPC through last year's drought, but Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger admitted to Yellowknifer last week the GNWT might have to consider doubling down on its $20-million commitment because it's likely the drought will continue. Our finance minister has another idea - namely a higher credit limit.

He added "we're going to be going ahead with a maintenance approach (to energy) as opposed to an approach with some vision to it" if the federal government doesn't raise the NWT's debt ceiling.

So, according to the minister, either the GNWT uses credit to invest in energy infrastructure or it prays for rain while subsidizing the NTPC.

Miltenberger has created a false dilemma. To be visionary is to think outside the box and we pay our leaders generously to do this. With or without a higher debt ceiling, the GNWT needs to figure out a way to build a sustainable energy infrastructure.

A project that is expected to save homeowners and the GNWT money by switching from electric water heaters to fuel-fired water heaters in homes saw the last tanks installed in this region recently.

The pilot project run by the Arctic Energy Alliance and funded by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is a good way to help reduce the cost of living and overall fuel consumption in the North.

Two years ago, homeowners in the Deh Cho and Sahtu regions were recruited to complete an energy audit of their homes followed by the installation of the water tanks.

There was a minimal cost for the homeowner, considering the potential to save between $225 and $400 per year on their power bill.

While the savings for the homeowner are less than originally envisioned by the alliance when crafting the program, it's still a worthy project.

According to the alliance, an electric water heater can be responsible for up to half of a home's power usage.

Across the territory, there will be 47 electric water heaters swapped out for oil or propane fired water heaters by March 2015.

The swaps were completed in the Deh Cho last year.

The new heater is expected to reduce electrical bills by $225 to $400.

While that will mean users will see their fuel bill increase, it's expected to not be more than they save on their power bill.

As well, it's more efficient to heat the water using fuel than by power generated at a station by the power corporation and then transmitted to a home.

As power represents a major contributor to the cost of living in the North, both through residential utility bills and to the cost of doing business later shouldered by those who purchase local goods, this appears to be a good pilot project.

Reducing power bills will make living in the North easier. It will help keep money in the pockets of consumers.

The money saved can be put to use in grocery stores or other shops, helping boost the local economy.

Or people could invest in further energy efficiency projects around their home, further cutting their bills.

At this point, it isn't clear if the government will extend the program. That depends on whether more funding is included in the next territorial budget.

Given the potential long-term savings this project could have for the users and the government through reduced spending on fuel for power plants, we believe this should become more than a pilot project.

A community's ability to progress in a positive direction hinges greatly on the connectivity of its population. If residents go through their days living separate lives, only knowing the world inside the walls of their homes and offices, the thin fabric that holds a town together will begin to quickly unravel.

The women's group recently started by Inuvik's Justice Committee is a thread in that fabric that will help strengthen a segment of the community with limited opportunities.

Outside of working hours, there are few options for women to come together and be in a space with other women. The group isn't shaped around a specific program philosophy other than a safe space for women to be together.

Organizers are leaving it up to group members to decide what they would like to do with their two hours together each week. As one organizer told me, it's important the women be taking part in activities and learning useful skills that they want to learn, not what someone else tells them they should.

It's crucial to the success of a town like Inuvik that all its members find a place where they can learn, cultivate friendships, nurture self-growth and rediscover self-confidence. We have these opportunities for youth and for men. The chance for women in Inuvik to construct a solid foundation of growth and happiness - in a space for women, by women - will not only have an impact on individuals, but their home and work lives as well.

Let's be honest. It's easier for men to connect with other men in their communities. The opportunity for male residents to construct a social world is a far less daunting task than it is for women living here. It's always been that way, not just here, but all over Canada and the world.

But it doesn't have to be.

The desire of Ali McConnell and Kat Scarf to fill the gap in after-hours programming for women should be applauded. Inspired by successful women's groups in other communities in the territory, McConnell and Scarf saw the need for such programming.

Providing a place for women of all ages to convene on and connect, helps bridge the gap between generations.

It allows for younger women to learn from their elders, and vice versa. It allows for women to weave new friendships and build on their knowledge of the world around them. This is crucial to individual and community success.

The positive impacts this group will have on bettering Inuvik as a town, its people and its families, makes this venture an important one to support.

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