Public safety is co-operation Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, March 13, 2015
Police are notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to ongoing criminal investigations.
The reasons are often valid. Too much public information may alert potential suspects and compromise evidence for future use in court.
What must be made public is information that might keep people safe. That didn't happen in the case of Bobby Zoe, a repeat sex offender charged last month for two break and enter and sexual assaults; one on Feb. 1 and another on Feb. 15.
He was convicted for a home invasion in October 2013 after being let out of jail early following his conviction for a vicious sexual assault on a stranger walking alone downtown in January 2011.
The police didn't issue a news release until after the Feb. 15 incident even though the Feb. 1 attack involved a similar break-in and sexual assault where the occupant was at home.
As it turns out, police didn't even know Zoe was back on the streets. This doesn't absolve RCMP of its failure to alert the public following the Feb. 1 incident but does point to a lack of communication between corrections officials and police.
Both organizations have since pledged better co-operation in the future. A draft policy is now in place that would ensure whenever a high-risk inmate is about to be let out of jail, the information will be shared with the police within 15 days of the person's release. A summary of police reports from each day will also be forwarded to managing officers with the RCMP to help ensure any information that would help keep people safe is identified and released early enough to be useful to them.
This is welcome news although it's extremely unfortunate it took two reported sexual assaults and the ensuing public outcry for the police and Department of Justice to act. The public's right to know ought to trump the right to privacy for dangerous offenders with a history of sexual predation.
These latest incidents highlight why co-operation between police and corrections officials is not just a matter of mere professional courtesy. They have a duty to the public to co-operate.
Sport For Life Centre an absolute necessity Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, March 13, 2015
The words spoken by Mario DesForges, head coach of the NWT Judo Association, following Brent Betsina's silver medal at the Canada Winter Games were rather pointed: "Give me the resources and I can do more."
He couldn't have been more right.
The resources for our athletes need to be there when the time comes to head to big competitions, such as the Canada Games. One of those resources is the proposed NWT Sport For Life Centre, which Sport North president Maureen Miller spoke about during the Games in Prince George, B.C.
Such a centre is paramount if we want our athletes to succeed at the highest level. The Canada Games is the biggest competition out there for us; the next step up from that is either the Olympics or the professional ranks.
We can talk about setting personal bests, building skills, trying our best and making new friends all we want but those ideals have been drilled into athletes' heads for far too long. There comes a time where winning has to be a priority and that's where the Sport For Life Centre comes in.
Centralizing it in a large community would be ideal and Yellowknife would be the natural place to have it. Yellowknife has most of what an athlete needs in order to succeed. Sure, it isn't Inuvik or Norman Wells or Fort Simpson but it isn't a southern locale, where most of our elite athletes end up going if they want to be successful. Northern athletes would train and live in the NWT.
With the Canada Winter Games potentially coming to Yellowknife in 2023, the time to start thinking about this was yesterday because there would be nothing more embarrassing than hosting the Games and not having at least one NWT athlete on the podium.
Dehcho Process needs mediatorDeh Cho Drum - Thursday, March 12, 2015
It's unfortunate that stalled talks among Dehcho First Nations and the GNWT have resulted in sparring in the media and potentially in a courtroom.
After about 15 years of negotiations Grand Chief Herb Norwegian is standing firm with a position on the amount of land DFN should get through the Dehcho Process.
He rightfully wants the best possible deal for the people he represents.
However, it's an amount of land the government doesn't want to meet.
Premier Bob McLeod has said the GNWT has put its best possible offer on the table.
Though a GNWT spokesman has said the government wants to continue negotiations, a letter from the premier says they should agree talks have failed if DFN won't take the latest offer.
McLeod, replying to a question in the legislative assembly, said there's still hope for negotiations.
While that may be the case in Yellowknife, that hope seems to be fading with the grand chief as his statements increasingly point to a breakdown in relations.
Norwegian had gone to Yellowknife last month with other DFN leaders to try to move past the dispute and keep talks going.
The short meeting with the premier didn't get the sides back to the table.
Norwegian argues that outside help is needed to bring the two sides to an agreement.
We agree.
The framework agreement the two sides signed in 2001 that laid out the path toward self-governance allows for a mediator should the sides reach an impasse.
With several thousand kilometres separating the parties, it's time a mediator be brought to the table to help resolve the logjam in Dehcho land claim negotiations.
Settling the Dehcho and bringing self-government to the region is in the best interests of both sides, as the government has acknowledged.
The two sides shouldn't have to bring this into a courtroom to come to a resolution.
Hopefully the legal threats are just a tactic to get both sides back to the table with or without a mediator.
There has been a lot of work put in by people on both sides so far. Adding a legal challenge to the mix will just draw out the process even more.
That's why we support the grand chief's request for mediation.
Many helping hands in aftermath of floodInuvik Drum - Thursday, March 12, 2015
If not for some excellent community support and awareness, the flooding situation at the Children First Centre could have been so much worse on March 1.
During the windstorm that ripped through town that morning with temperatures hovering near -30 C before the windchill was factored in, the centre was doused with water up to two inches deep in some sections of the building, according to Patricia Davison, the executive director of the centre.
The damage was caused by a single malfunctioning sprinkler head that was somehow triggered during the storm, although it's not yet clear if the two events were related.
Insurance adjusters were on hand beginning March 4 to determine the cause and to put a dollar value on the damage, which is extensive to the kitchen and west wing.
Insurance in invaluable after a problem like this, but as most people know, it also takes time to kick the process into gear. In the meantime, the centre is leaning on community connections to keep going.
The first hint of the flooding was spotted by a passerby who spotted water gushing from the building and ice forming underneath, and alerted town staff at the rec centre.
A call was promptly placed to the town public works department.
When Davison arrived on the scene a short time later, she hadn't yet been notified of the situation. Nevertheless, the water to the building had been shut off by then, and initial damage assessments were being done.
Davison said she was very thankful for that assistance and the community awareness that led to minimizing the damage to the building, which is quite extensive.
That's particularly crucial, since the Children First Centre is a crucial part of child care in Inuvik.
When it opened approximately 18 months ago, all of the other formal childcare facilities closed down to consolidate childcare in one spot.
While there are other daycare operations in town, there is no single space capable of accommodating the children and families the Children First Centre serves.
It didn't take long for the community to start to come together, with the Inuvik Youth Centre offering its space to host some of the Children First Centre's programming, and community members pitching in with donations and offers to help.
That's the spirit so often shown by Inuvik residents, and is likely never more welcome than right now.
Jailhouse shockYellowknifer - Wednesday, March 11, 2015
There is a great injustice taking place in NWT correctional facilities but the perpetrators are not convicted criminals.
The guilty party in this case is an apathetic corrections system tethered to GNWT policies that appear to care little about actually rehabilitating the parade of people who wind up in jail – many of them repeat offenders.
The GNWT's Department of Justice received a drubbing at the hands of the Auditor General of Canada last week when it released a scathing report highlighting the failures of NWT correctional institutions on a wide range of issues.
At the top of the list was the lack of mental health and addictions counselling available to inmates in both the North Slave and Fort Smith correctional facilities.
According to the report, which studied the treatment of 48 inmates over a two-year period, the territory's jails do not have any dedicated resources for rehabilitation programs. The report points out that North Slave Correctional Centre has just one psychologist to tend to the needs of approximately 140 inmates. Even more troubling is the revelation that wait times to see the psychologist were as long 120 days.
In the department's defence, Sylvia Haener, the deputy minister of justice, rightly pointed out that "not everyone is willing to take the programming that is already offered."
While inmates cannot be forced to seek treatment, the fact is 87 per cent of inmates serving sentences longer than 120 days accessed general rehabilitation programs. Meanwhile, only 36 per cent of inmates with sentences less than 120 days sought help.
It seems a little too convenient for the department to suggest the reason inmates are not seeking help is because they lack willpower, instead of acknowledging that unreasonable wait times might have a role to play. Indeed, the report notes the department did not have a a strategy to guide inmates serving sentences of less that 120 days, despite the fact that they make up more than 50 per cent of the inmate population.
If inmates are unable to get the help they need while in jail – however short their stay might be – what hope can there be that they will be able to get it once they are back on the streets?
The report also revealed that the North Slave facility in particular failed to adhere to its own standards when it comes to the practice of segregating inmates. Out of of 38 reported incidences of segregation there were at least eight cases where no justification was provided for the decision. In 20 of those cases, authorization from the warden, which is required as per the department's standards, was not granted.
Monty Bourke, the NWT director of corrections, tried to brush off the findings of the report by explaining that segregation procedures at the territory's jails had already been improved, and the time period highlighted in the report is "now history."
Contrast Bourke's response to Justice Minister David Ramsay who met the findings of the report with an almost baffled sense of concern. Ramsay said he has told staff in his department that "we need to do something about this" on numerous occasions. In light of this most recent report, this can only mean either Ramsay has been giving his bureaucrats poor directions or his concerns have been falling on deaf ears.
One thing for certain is that the department complied with only one recommendation from a 2008 audit outlining a list of concerns that are now repeated in the current report. The enacted recommendation called for the development of inmate profiles.
Like a criminal who has been caught red-handed, the Department of Justice would do well to offer up a mea culpa and accept the charges brought against it by the auditor general so it can get on with helping inmates get the services they need and hopefully not re-offend once out of jail.
A reasonable judge would expect nothing less and there's no reason why government should not be held to the same high standards the criminals are.
Money taking toll on pro gameEditorial Comment by Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, March 11, 2015
With the Stanley Cup playoffs looming just around the corner, one can't help but notice the sudden silence of all the pundits who were advocating the latest round of changes to the pro game in the interests of increased scoring and player safety.
Player injuries of all sorts, especially concussion-like syndromes, are off the chart and, as for the offence, well, the NHL is currently on pace to equal the scoring of the 1954-55 season.
It should be interesting to see what comes next in the way of changes, driven mostly by pressure from the media, medical profession, and a collective group of bean counters, the vast majority of whom have little experience on the ice in high-level competition.
So why have the rule changes of the past decade done nothing to change the aspects of the game they were intended to?
The answer is one simple word: money!
Today's players are bigger, stronger and faster than they've ever been.
The changes made to "open up the game" have done nothing but increase the number of unguarded hits delivered at a higher rate of speed.
The result has been, of course, more injuries.
Of all the rules removed to open up the game, the most stupid remains the removal of a player's ability to shield his teammate from a blind-side hit by running a pick on an oncoming forechecker.
Almost as damaging has been the removal of a defenceman's ability to slow up forecheckers by briefly taking away their skating lane at the blue line to give their partner more time to ready for the pressure.
They're not about to reverse the rules, and they're not about to put in a bigger ice surface at the cost of revenue-generating seats, so the injuries are here to stay.
Most true hockey fanatics who understand the game will tell you the rules brought in to increase scoring have mostly been a joke.
Scoring is down for one simple reason – the amount of money players earn today and the introduction of the salary cap.
The better teams in the league now have two or three stud players, two or three high-end second-tier players, a solid No. 1 goalie, and a group of various parts to keep them under the salary cap.
No easy task with a minimum league salary of $550,000, and an average salary of more than $2.5 million for a 20-man roster.
Oh, and those studs I mentioned. They come in at $7.53 million to $9.53 million for a forward, $5.8 million to $8.5 million for a top No. 1 goalie and $6.5 million to $9 million for a stud D-man.
Starting to get the picture?
A team like Pittsburgh, with superstar centres such as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, continually look for diamond-in-the-rough or entry-level wingers who can play alongside the two.
But, such is the nature of the game that all the playmaking skill in the world can't turn a hockey frog into a prince of scoring.
Money has created its own version of a "dead puck era," and it isn't going to change any time soon.
The days of 200-point and 70-goal scorers are gone forever.
That is, until the day hockey nets more closely resemble those of soccer.
Stay tuned.
Buy a copy of the ConstitutionNorthwest Territories/News North - Monday, March 9, 2015
At some point during the drafting of the Devolution Act, Ottawa lawmakers added a dishonest clause.
The amendment to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act would dissolve the Tlicho, Sahtu and Gwich’in regional land and water boards in favour of one pan-territorial super board.
In the case of Tlicho’s Wek'eezhii Land and Water Board, the super board would replace a 50/50 split between Tlicho and GNWT appointees (and a federally appointed chairperson) with one Tlicho member on an 11-member territorial board. Worse, there would be no guarantee of Tlicho representation on proposed development in the Tlicho Agreement area.
When it became clear this made-in-Ottawa super board idea was tied to devolution, it became a lightning rod for criticism.
Tlicho, Sahtu and Gwich’in leaders all vigorously defended their boards, saying there’s no need to fix something that isn’t broken. NWT MP Dennis Bevington stood up in Parliament more than once to urge AANDC Minister Bernard Valcourt to listen to their concerns.
The Tlicho government warned the federal government it had a constitutional duty to consult with the First Nation, threatening a lawsuit.
Since then, the Tlicho and Sahtu have made good on their threats to challenge the feds in court. One month before the super board would have become a foregone conclusion, NWT Supreme Court Justice Karan Shaner did something she acknowledges should only be done in the "rarest of circumstances"–she granted an order to stop the federal government's legislation until the Tlicho case is tested in court.
In her written judgment, Shaner acknowledged the courts usually don't have jurisdiction to interfere with the responsibilities of Parliament. But because the Tlicho suit brought forward a "serious constitutional question" about whether the federal government can unilaterally change the terms of the Tlicho Agreement, she granted the injunction to the Tlicho.
This is the third time in a year the federal government has lost in court against indigenous people on constitutional grounds.
In April 2014, the Federal Court of Appeal upheld a court challenge which guaranteed Metis and non-status Indians constitutional rights and access to First Nations programs and services provided by the federal government.
A few months later the Supreme Court of Canada sided with the Tsilhqot’in First Nation of British Columbia that Canada has a duty to consult with First Nations before developing on their traditional lands –even if they haven't signed a treaty.
AANDC continues to insist it will "vigorously defend" its super board despite the objections of the people it will affect the most.
According to its own reporting, AANDC spent $106 million on litigation in 2013–the most of any federal department.
Given the its recent track record on defending itself against indigenous constitutional challenges, maybe Minister Valcourt should consider reallocating some of that money to much-needed programs and services, and maybe even set aside a couple bucks to buy a copy of the Constitution.
Most important is why Cape Dorset infant diedNunavut/News North - Monday, March 9, 2015
This is no time to be timid.
There is a woeful lack of specific instructions to a lawyer appointed to reveal why three-month-old Makibi Akesuk Timilak died in Cape Dorset on April 5, 2012.
The terms and conditions of the review call for Yellowknife-based lawyer Katherine Peterson “to determine what steps were taken in the wake of Makibi’s death and whether the steps taken were appropriate in the circumstances,” Health Minister Paul Okalik informed the Nunavut legislature Feb. 24.
“The review will also focus more generally on what procedures are currently in place within Government of Nunavut departments for receiving and responding to complaints regarding nursing care in Nunavut, and whether they were followed in this case.”
That’s not good enough for three MLAs -- Cape Dorset’s David Joanasie, Quttiktuq’s Isaac Shooyook and Baker Lake’s Simeon Mikkungwak -- who are calling for Okalik to do more.
We agree. What is required is an accounting of the circumstances that led to Makibi’s death, including the actions of nursing staff at the Cape Dorset Health Centre at the time and, most importantly, the attitudes held by the nursing staff.
Nunavut News/North has received anecdotal reports that nurses in Cape Dorset at the time complained that “these mothers want us to babysit their kids.” Inuit mothers calling with complaints about sick children were told to give the child a bath, some Tylenol, and call back if the situation does not improve. Suggestions that the workplace culture was seen to be so blatantly unprofessional and unwelcoming are disturbing.
MLAs have brought up numerous complaints by Inuit patients about the response of health-care workers to requests for diagnosis and treatment.
Okalik has answered repeated calls to expand the scope of the review by suggesting, on one hand, that “we don’t have much wiggle room” and, on the other hand, by suggesting lawyer Peterson is free to “look at any particular aspect surrounding the failure of our health system that led to this death,” if she wishes.
At the end of the day, who can people trust? Can they trust the words of the minister in the legislative assembly or will greater authority be given to the terms of reference prepared by the Department of Health, the same department which is the subject of the review?
Okalik has the power to change the terms of reference so they direct Peterson to uncover the circumstances which led to Makibi’s death, including the workplace culture and attitude at the Cape Dorset Health Centre at the time. He cannot worry about ruffling feathers in the Department of Health.
Strong leadership is required now if the government wishes to restore the credibility of its health centres among the people they are obligated to serve.
