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Premier Bob McLeod's proposal to extend the Ingraham Trail toward the diamond riches on the territory's frontier is the long-overdue lifeline needed to ensure the NWT's main economic engine stays running.

In the late 1950s, former prime minister John Diefenbaker had a vision for a permanent "Road to Resources" heading east to Fort Reliance, and then linking to the south to circumnavigate Great Slave Lake.

He understood then the importance of mining and exploration as the means to develop the North. His dream died when he was voted out of office in 1963 and the Ingraham Trail stopped short at 70 kilometres.

The North is famous for its ice roads but there is one problem, they melt. Climate change will mean only more milder winters to come and shorter winter road seasons.

If the territorial government wants to attract more mineral exploration and extend the lifespan of the NWT's diamond mines - which single-handedly sustained the territory's private economy following the collapse of the gold mining industry in the 1990s - it should waste no time getting started.

Time and money have already been wasted building the $202-million Deh Cho Bridge - certainly a convenience but hardly an economic saviour.

A 150-kilometre all-weather road extension beyond Tibbitt Lake is estimated to cost $300 million, according to Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger - an expensive price tag for sure but not when one considers the disaster that came in 2006 when the winter road melted early forcing the mines to fly in their supplies to the tune of $100 million. A repeat of that would likely spell an early demise for the mines.

Interest from the mining community is already growing. Dominion Diamonds CEO Robert Gannicott said the diamond mines spend around $22 million every year to maintain the winter road and Miltenberger said the mines may be willing to help pay to construct the extension if it substantially cuts the amount of money spent on winter roads.

There is no denying that mining is still driving the territory's economy. A permanent highway would provide some assurances that the driver will stay behind the wheel.

It's an ideal time for the public and Catholic school boards to be getting along.

After years of Yellowknife Education District No. 1 and Yellowknife Catholic Schools (YCS) barely being on speaking terms, the two school districts have found common ground in a fight against junior kindergarten, agreeing the controversial funding model of the program was detrimental to both boards.

This blossomed into mutual respect and perhaps a realization that there is power in unity.

Such a revelation is key because the Catholics' St. Joseph School is nearly busting its seams at about 90 per cent capacity, which has kick-started the territorial government into looking at options - meaning eyes now turn to under-utilized Yk1 schools.

Rita Mueller, an assistant deputy minister with the education department, told Yellowknifer last week that the two districts sharing schools is a viable option.

William McDonald School, Yk1's most under-utilized facility, sits at about 38 per cent capacity, making it a likely candidate.

And there is precedent for sharing these exact schools. Following a 2006 fire at St. Joe's, students shared space at William McDonald while waiting for the post-fire renos to take place.

Yk1 chair John Stephenson said last week the board is "quite open to sharing our space."

YCS' Simon Taylor said parents were generally supportive of the temporary move, although somewhat objected to the longer drive across town.

Whether or not sharing schools is the best option, forging an open, communicative relationship is the foundation of success.

The environment of suspicion and silence that has permeated the boards' relationship in the past is totally non-constructive. This renewed atmosphere means any solution reached will be rooted in trust.

Major sport events beneficial, but not easy to host
Editorial Comment by Darell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, February 11, 2015

It was a breath of fresh air this past week to listen to local merchants speak to the economic benefits bestowed upon a community ambitious enough to host a major sporting event or special gathering during the year.

Now, there's no denying the smaller communities are at a huge disadvantage with larger hamlets when it comes to attracting these events.

Small communities lack the infrastructure of the larger towns, and must rely on the goodwill of local folks to billet most of those who come to take part in the event.

And, unless an outside agency or government department is picking up the tab, flights to communities such as Repulse Bay and Coral Harbour are often more expensive than those to central locations such as Rankin Inlet.

It is, by no stretch of the imagination, easy, but it can be done.

But it takes long hours of hard work and dedication to pull it off.

Baker Lake will soon be getting its chance to hold a major event, when it plays host to the Nunavut midget territorial hockey championship this coming month.

The Government of Nunavut places an emphasis — sometimes too much so if the truth be told — on smaller communities getting to host major sporting events.

Sometimes certain sports will work in a community, while others won't.

Arviat hosted a territorial hockey championship a few seasons back and the event has yet to return.

Cost, weather, ice conditions and a super-strong Iqaluit team that year may have conspired to keep the event from returning to Arviat, which is just about as crazy a hockey community as Rankin Inlet.

Here's hoping things go much better for the good folks in Baker Lake.

I've had the chance to attend a few major hockey events in Baker Lake in the past and, to be brutally honest, things didn't always go so well.

The fan support was mediocre, and the lines were certainly blurred when it came to who young fans can cheer for during a tournament in their community.

The Baker Lake Youth Athletics Association is a wonderful outfit in my books, one that continues to do a tremendous amount of good for the youth of the community.

However the infamous negative-cheering incident may have been guilty of taking things a little too far.

Yes, athletes of the same association should support each other during competition, especially in their own hometown.

That being said, the entire Kivalliq region is a close-knit community and no youngster should ever be made to feel guilty over cheering for a family member or close friend from another hamlet.

I hope to attend this year's territorial, as well, from March 20 to 22, and I'll be hoping for Baker Lake to do well in hosting the event.

Travel costs aside, Rankin really does host enough sporting events, Arviat has its Jon Lindell Memorial firmly entrenched as a premiere event, and Repulse Bay (Naujaat) is slowly getting its Arctic Circle Cup to the same point.

It would be nice to see Baker join the fold and become the annual host of a territorial tourney.

Here's hoping they can successfully pull it off and reap the benefits that come with such a prestigious event.

When Paul Leroux was handed a three-year prison sentence for molesting young boys at a Saskatchewan residential school in the 1960s just over a year ago, a Saskatoon radio station spoke to a victim who predicted he'd be out in seven months.

"He'll be out by next summer while we have to live with what he's done to us," he said.

He was off by three months. Leroux has been enjoying full parole since Dec. 30, 2014, after 10 months in prison.

His exploits go back to at least 1959, but he wouldn't appear in front of a judge until 1979 when he was convicted of sexual assault in Inuvik. He served four months for that charge and was granted pardon.

In 1997, RCMP scooped him up in Vancouver to stand trial for sex crimes on more than a dozen young boys while he was a supervisor at the town's infamous Catholic student residence, Grollier Hall. At the time, he had recently retired as regional director for the B.C. Human Rights Commission. Along with his arrest, RCMP made one of the "largest seizures of (child pornography) ever made," according to then-Vancouver Const. Anne Drennan at the time.

NWT Supreme Court Justice John Vertes ultimately handed down a 10-year sentence for these crimes and the former justice of the peace, Big Brother, human rights commission director, soccer coach and residential school supervisor would end up serving three years of it before leaving prison on parole.

A decade later he faced more sexual abuse charges against young boys, this time at the Beauval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, between 1959 and 1967.

The logic Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench Justice Murray Acton used to mete out a sentence for these crimes is bizarre.

Leroux, given an opportunity to speak to his own defense, told Acton he had already served a 10-year sentence for similar crimes. It's common knowledge he served three years of that sentence and spent the rest of it on parole.

He also claimed he hadn't re-offended since 1974.

Aside from his 1979 sex assault conviction, there are also those pesky child pornography charges from British Columbia in 1997.

Seemingly operating in an alternate reality, Acton accepted as fact Leroux's assertion he had served a 10-year sentence and hadn't re-offended in 40 years.

Acton must have drank the Kool-Aid Leroux was serving at his sentencing pity party when he concluded the 17-year sentence the Crown wanted would be "crushing" and replaced it with a three-year sentence.

Never mind the likelihood he would have served only a third of it before heading back out into the world on parole.

At this point, Acton may as well have also accepted Leroux's assertion of innocence as well and just let him go.

Deeper in Leroux's sentencing document, Acton, in reference to the victims' impact statements, pointed out they were "written in an eloquent manner, which reminds the court of the high level of scholastic ability of most of the victims."

These victim impact statements must have been eloquent indeed for their scholastic merit to overshadow the weight of their content.

In total, the courts have identified 20 boys as Paul Leroux's victims.

It's disturbingly clear how, in the eyes of Judge Acton, the parole board and the justice system in general, the well-being of these boys-now men -weighs against the well-being of a three-time convicted sex offender who took advantage of multiple positions of trust over two decades.

Thankfully, Leroux's latest sentence wasn't used a "precedent" in deciding the sentence handed down Feb. 4 to former priest Eric Dejaeger, who received a 19-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting dozens of boys and girls in Iglulik in the late 1970s and early '80s.

The prosecutor had asked for a 25-year sentence, which Dejaeger's lawyer complained would be "crushing."

A 17-year sentence may have been crushing to Leroux, but the 10-month sentence he actually served is crushing to the credibility of the court system.

Indications last week that a ship-building company in the Maritimes is anxious to start cutting steel for the new Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships is good news for Nunavut.

The sooner the Canadian Navy can take possession of the vessels needed to patrol Arctic waters the better, for Canada in general and Nunavut in particular.

It is disconcerting that the cost is increasing, now estimated at $3.5 billion, up from the first estimate of less than $3.1 billion, and that the final contract means delivery of six ships, instead of eight ships. In fact, Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding Inc. will get $2.3 billion to deliver five ships, with incentives if it can deliver a sixth ship by 2022.

It takes time to build a ship from scratch. That's why the timeline has also been extended from the Harper government's announcement in 2011 to have the first new Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship launched in 2015. The first ship is now supposed to sail in 2018 and Irving has said it wants the job done by 2020 so it can move on to other work.

Although the patrol ships are years away from delivery, and will be deployed in all three oceans surrounding Canada, they are to play an active role in the Arctic Ocean during open water season and the shoulder seasons when ice starts to build, with capacity to plow through first-year ice up to one-metre thick.

In the overall scheme of things, seasonal patrols in the Arctic may seem like a small demonstration of Canada's might and defence of its sovereignty. And it is, considering an exploit by a private company, Montreal's Fednav. The world's largest icebreaker, the MV Nunavik made history last October as the first bulk carrier to make it through the Northwest Passage without an escort while carrying a load of nickel to China from Hudson Strait off the coast of Baffin Island.

The Canadian Coast Guard's icebreaker, the 50-year-old CCGS Louis S. St.-Laurent, plays an active role in the Arctic. However, to really beef up Canada's presence -- especially as international shipping firms, including those in Russia -- eye the Northwest Passage, the Canadian Navy should turn its attention north and focus on defending the Northern frontier of North America.

Enough of Canadian involvement with NATO exercises in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, where Canada's aging frigates are outmatched by the Americans and other NATO partners.

Now is the time for the military to begin shifting its resources to the Northwest Passage. It will take millions of dollars and a great deal of foresight in the near future to achieve results that will come to fruition in a decade or more, when they will likely be required.

There is already talk and recognition of the need to protect Canada's sovereignty in Arctic waters. Just as shipbuilders are anxious to start building patrol ships, the navy should be chomping at the bit to demonstrate readiness when the threats present themselves, as is bound to happen.

When the territorial government rejected a city council bylaw that would have exempted some of the most heavily hit property taxpayers in Kam Lake from a portion of their unexpected tax burden, it became clear council had been grandstanding all along.

Council's attempt to have its taxes forgiven, after failing to realize and prevent the massive tax increase coming to Kam Lake, never had any chance of getting approved. And any attempt to do so was more an attempt to deflect from their failure than fix it.

The tax-forgiveness bylaw was, as the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs said, discriminatory. It would have created two classes of ratepayers: those who must pay their taxes in full, and those who gain a modest exemption.

The Kam Lake affair was mishandled from the beginning. Before the new property tax bills arrived, city administration made assurances to property owners they would not be unduly affected by property assessments which showed a steep rise in the value of their Kam Lake properties.

City administration could not have been more wrong or more misleading.

Property tax bill increases averaged 34 per cent - with some property owners facing 200 per cent tax bill hikes. Approximately 120 property owners in Kam Lake are now on the hook for about $140,000.

Granted, the proposed savings would not have been huge. Coun. Niels Konge, who, as a Kam Lake property owner, recused himself from voting on the proposed bylaw, would have shaved $1,454 from his $15,000 tax bill. The largest beneficiaries of the bill would have saved up to $3,000.

Coun. Adrian Bell proved prescient on the matter. Back in November, Bell questioned whether the proposed bylaw was even ethical.

He was right, it is not.

There are two things left for council to do. First, ensure it doesn't repeat the same ham-fisted approach to managing tax-time expectations of city property owners in the future. Second, council needs to apologize to affected property owners.

Members of city council have done everything but apologize for their mishandling of this property tax roll-out. Coun. Brob Brooks was the only councillor to go on the record and say he regretted the way council handled the affair when he said, "Kam Lake is a fabulous example of how we did it wrong ... I put myself to blame."

Let's hear council say the same.

If council does apologize for the way it handled the Kam Lake tax rollout, property owners should be ready to accept that apology. At the heart of it, Kam Lake property owners saw a big tax hike because their properties had effectively been under-taxed for a number of years.

Now they are shouldered with the full share of their property tax obligation, which other industrial property owners in the city have been carrying all along.

While mid-winter may seem too early to be talking about raging forest fires, it's a topic the Department of Environment and Natural Resources wants people to keep in mind.

Loyal Letcher, an ENR employee, has expressed concern that the 2015 fire season could be another bad one for the territory.

In fact, he said it could be worse as the territory enters a third year of drought.

Last year saw large fires dominating headlines throughout the summer, filling skies around the territory with smoke.

The fires started earlier, spread quickly and were quite intense.

Fire came very close to Kakisa, forcing evacuations. Flames also approached Jean Marie River.

Highways were closed to traffic as the fires burned nearby.

It was considered one of the worst fire seasons in decades. The Deh Cho region, as defined by the territory, had 52 fires as of late October that had burned 1,361.88 square kilometres.

It was a costly summer for the government, which spent more than $50 million battling the flames.

At meetings reviewing the fire season being held in communities, those with cabins in the forest are being asked to register the locations.

That way should a fire break out nearby, firefighters will know there is valuable property at risk.

But they were also told to take steps to safeguard their investments.

By firesmarting properties - removing trees and brush from around buildings - it can help protect them should flames approach.

Residents of communities should also firesmart their properties to help protect them should fires approach.

Letcher said he's concerned about the possibility of fires through the Liard River valley, which he said hasn't had a major fire for several decades.

Given that worry and the warning about another potentially serious fire season, people should heed his advice and register their cabins, firesmart their properties and have emergency plans in place should they need to evacuate.

While there's still plenty of snow on the ground and the temperature is well below zero, it's not too early to be prepared.

The Muskrat Jamboree is one of the most important events to take place in the town. But the organizing committee revealed to town council on Jan. 26 the sad news that it had failed to submit a lottery licence application for its annual mega bingo. After much discussion, the town couldn't make a day available for the jamboree due to already-approved licences. There would be no bingo for the 2015 festival.

While it's disappointing residents and jamboree-goers won't be able to dab their cards this year and win big money, the more concerning part is the loss of approximately $30,000 in revenue for the jamboree to operate. When you're budget to put on the event is close to $120,000, that kind of revenue hole is tough to fill.

In steps town council. The committee had requested the town donate facility use for the jamboree's king and queen contestants. Every year, contestants raise funds through chili sales, raffle draws, among other things, and the committee wanted to use a town facility for them to run their events. Council unanimously voted to allow contestants the use of the recreation complex for one night each.

For Coun. Derek Lindsay, the jamboree is the most important event the town has every year. With the loss of the bingo and revenue generated from the event, he felt it was important for the town to step in and help.

Couns. Terry Halifax, Joe Lavoie, Clarence Wood and deputy mayor Jim McDonald all agreed -- the town needed to help the king and queen contestants be able to raise more money to help the jamboree cover its expense bill. If they didn't, it could spell financial disaster for the 57-year event. No one wants that to happen. The jamboree brings the town and surrounding communities together. It builds friendship, creates friendly competition and strengthens the community.

So, they took it one step further. Mayor Floyd Roland suggested the town offer a Saturday night at the community hall for the jamboree to host a community event for all the contestants to be a part of. By doing this, he hoped it would help them raise some more money. Council didn't hesitate to vote yes, resoundingly.

This is what makes this town so special, council and community organizations working together for a common goal -- to make Inuvik an inviting and fun place to live.

The jamboree plays such an important role every year, and council did the right thing by stepping up to bat and doing more to help fill the void left by the loss of bingo. Lindsay said the move to help would shine on them all.

Kudos, council, for your efforts. It's shining down on you.

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