Election organizers should organize Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, September 18, 2015
With municipal and federal elections falling on the same day comes an opportunity, and we would say a democratic duty, for election officials to make life as easy as possible for voters while potentially raising voter turnout at the same time. But it won't happen unless federal elections officials act.
With a month to go until the Oct. 19 voting day, Elections Canada has yet to identify where in the city citizens will be heading to vote. City officials reserved spaces for the municipal election months ago.
It would undoubtedly be a travesty if the votes were held in separate facilities. It should be clear to everyone that the convenience offered by a one-stop poll could only draw more people to vote.
It is certainly clear to Mayor Mark Heyck.
"We have enough challenges with voter turnout in this country and it would be beneficial to those democratic ideals if people could have the easiest route to casting their ballot in all the different elections," he said.
It's not as though people are clamouring to the polls. Last round, a minority of eligible voters elected the mayor and council, meaning elected officials are operating without the support of most potential voters.
At the last federal election turnout in the NWT was 55 per cent. That's below the national average of 61 per cent and six per cent more than the turnout for the last municipal election. Would having the federal and municipal elections on the same day increase voter turnout? It might if people could vote in them at the same place.
But a failure to co-ordinate has the potential to do the opposite and drive voter turnout down even further.
The onus is on Elections Canada to reach out to municipal elections officials to find a way to co-ordinate with the city. Democracy is counting on it.
Protect sculpture with paint, cameras Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, September 18, 2015
It was very heartening to learn of citizen response to the needless and stupid vandalism of the late Francois Thibault's "United in Celebration" sculpture anchoring the Somba K'e Civic Plaza.
Kudos to those who spent their Sunday morning hours erasing the ugly scrawl of some talentless hack who thought it was a good idea to deface a popular piece of public art.
With $45,000 set aside in the city budget to paint the sculpture -- which has stood without its final coat of paint since it was installed in 2009 -- there seems to be a budget available to address how we discourage this kind of empty-headed behaviour in the future.
Is there room in that budget to install surveillance equipment? Knowing you'll be caught on video as you prove to the world your absolute lack of talent might be enough to discourage more fools in the future. There are certainly plenty of security cameras on the other side of the plaza inside city hall.
Unfortunately, it is easy enough to cloak one's identity with a hood and scarf, so perhaps there is also room in the budget to paint the sculpture with graffiti-resistant paint that allows easy washing with soap, water and brush.
Vandalism is something we need to anticipate. When it comes to the cherished pieces of the city's cultural and artistic life, let's put the money into it we need to mitigate a vandal's effect, even if we ultimately can't prevent the miscreant behaviour in the first place.
New act can't fix broken systemDeh Cho Drum - Thursday, September 17, 2015
The standing committee on social programs has concluded consultations and is well on its way to revising the new Mental Health Act, or Bill 55.
The Act will be brought forward in the coming months and will likely be passed in 2016.
Committee consultations took a panel of six members from Yellowknife to Inuvik, Norman Wells, Tulita, Fort Smith, Fort Resolution, Kakisa and Fort Providence - all good-sized communities with more than 500 people, except for Kakisa, whose population sits at around 40 or 50.
Many smaller communities in the North have struggles where health services are concerned, including mental health. Of all the communities the committee visited, Kakisa stood out as the smallest by far.
While in Kakisa, the committee learned that the community's once-per-month visit from a Fort Providence nurse stopped months ago due to staff shortages.
Meanwhile, a room in the community hall rented by Dehcho Health and Social Services sits empty.
It is commendable of the committee to focus on closing the gaps in the new Mental Health Act. However, the challenges faced by the territory's smallest communities are not exemplified in mid-sized communities such as Fort Providence, Inuvik and so on who have access to services.
This is not to denigrate the very real issues in mid-sized communities that must be addressed. Mental health is a matter for concern across the North and it is as important to help large communities as it is small.
There are no regional offices in Kakisa. There is little in the way of business and next to no services. Since nurse visits have stopped, community members have been forced to travel to Fort Providence or to the hospital in Hay River to get the help they need.
That can be hard enough with physical ailments. When the problem is mental, it often seems easier to suffer in silence than to seek help an hour or more away.
In fact, one well-established principle of mental health care is the necessity of having resources available when and where needed. Preventative measures and immediate help are necessary if the government hopes to combat mental health problems.
But tiny communities of less than 100 people often get forgotten in the government's push to address needs in larger places.
Kakisa and other small, isolated communities, such as Trout Lake and Nahanni Butte, must not slip between the cracks.
Any solutions the government imposes must serve the small communities.
Plan on casting an election ballotInuvik Drum - Thursday, September 17, 2015
With election season truly underway, it's time for residents to look at what they can do to make where they live a better place.
Really, when you get right down to it, voting is the least a person can do.
In a perfect world, more people would run for office, and even more would then continue to be involved as time goes on. Anything from actually attending town council meetings to writing the MLAs and federal representatives regularly can make a difference, or at the least keep people informed about events and issues involving elected officials. Those, however, take more commitment than the average citizen is willing to make.
Voting -- taking a few moments to cast a ballot -- is also something more citizens are apparently unwilling to do.
This is a saddening trend. The last municipal election as well as a few aboriginal government elections have drawn only about one-third of all possible voters. This seriously undermines the mandate of each of those bodies and makes it difficult for them to truly represent what is in the best interests of their constituents and members.
Perhaps if everyone is happy with how they are represented at all levels, that might be some excuse, but clearly they're not. People love to complain about current governments, no matter who is the leader, but are curiously unwilling to make their voices heard when it comes time to pick a new one.
Maybe some people are just too busy to get to a polling station and while I would argue that priorities are things that can be shifted for a single day, that may be a legitimate excuse.
Others, however, may find that they don't want to vote for anyone on the ballot. The best remedy for that is to have more people run. Another remedy is for the dissatisfied voter to seek public office. Another more feasible option is to turn in a blank ballot. While protest votes are not currently counted at a federal level, they do appear in the results of elections closer to home and are a clear indicator that change is needed.
The coming months will see a lot of action on the election front, so much that people may tire of it all. That said, there really is no excuse for not taking the most basic democratic action and casting a ballot.
Sky's the limit for Chinese tourismYellowknifer - Wednesday, September 16, 2015
The exponential growth in tourism from China to the NWT in the past five years offers tremendous potential for the capital and the territory but capitalizing on the opportunity requires swift action.
Government bureaucracies may need to play catch up, and fast.
Tourism is a highly competitive global industry and the success of Japanese aurora tourism in the NWT throughout the past two decades -- which includes a strong rebound following the slump in international travel following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. -- is proof the territory's private sector can deliver an attractive and profitable product to a huge, sophisticated foreign market.
NWT Tourism launched its first, $140,000 marketing campaign in 2013 and has kept building the territory's profile in Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland ever since.
GNWT trade tours have similarly striven to educate Chinese businesses about the Canadian North.
Comments shared by Luo Zhaohui, Chinese ambassador to Canada, during his visit to Yellowknife last week suggest more promotion is needed in his country.
The aurora sightings in the NWT, which the ambassador described as "a God-blessed territory," are more valuable than diamonds, he said, when it comes to attracting tourism from China.
However, if Chinese do not know about what the NWT has to offer, they will not consider the North as a potential vacation destination, he added. More Chinese-language online promotions could go a long way to communicating the "God-blessed" sights the NWT has on offer.
The growth of the territory's share of the massive Chinese market is impressive and Yellowknife Tours has been a leading operator throughout the steep growth, reaching out to the Chinese market shortly after the Chinese government granted Canada approved tourist destination status for Chinese nationals in December 2009.
In 2010, Yellowknife Tours welcomed fewer than 100 guests from China, far below the thousands of visitors who had been travelling from Japan annually.
However throughout the latest aurora season, which extends from January to May, the Northern Frontier Visitors Centre recorded 2,117 visitors from China, compared to 3,266 visitors from Japan.
This past February, approximately 1,200 of the 4,500 tourists who passed through the Northern Frontier Visitors Centre came from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, compared to 1,400 from Japan during the same period.
These figures do not include the growing number of Chinese students enrolled at southern Canadian universities, particularly on the West Coast, who journey North during breaks in their studies, sometimes bringing relatives along.
Meanwhile, the visitors centre, which serves as the welcoming hub for tourists and is often their first point of contact with the city and the territory, is struggling to keep upright.
The two-storey building is propped up with a jack system on the marshy shore of Frame Lake, an architectural affliction that is eating up the organizing society's budget.
While the City of Yellowknife has pitched in funds for the centre as part of a three-year contribution agreement, a recent appeal by the society for more money to fix up the structure was denied by council.
Clearly the solution is not to let this site crumble into the lake year after year.
The current state is simply embarrassing. The city and GNWT should waste no time coming up with an agreement on funding repairs for this facility that benefits the city and territory as a whole.
Meanwhile, Behchoko, Ndilo and Dettah ought to be given a greater opportunity to welcome Yellowknife's Chinese guests, offering a taste of Dene experience, art and world view. This means support to develop infrastructure and human resources to showcase indigenous culture, which is equally exciting as the aurora and much more reliable. A centrally-located aboriginal centre in Yellowknife, perhaps at the 50/50 lot currently being considered for re-development downtown, could feature displays and demonstrations by communities and individuals from throughout the territory.
As the private sector begins to expand hotel room capacity in the capital, the GNWT ought to polish the product tourists are coming to see. The private sector has responded to the increase in Chinese visitorship. Operators have fashioned partnerships with Yellowknife Tours and several new businesses have been established with an eye on the Chinese market.
Most aurora operators now feature promotions translated into Chinese languages, to varying degrees. It should be the GNWT's job to help welcome Chinese visitors with a world-class product.
Money, drugs and crime ramping-up in NHLEditorial Comment by Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, September 16, 2015
With NHL training camps just underway, hockey talk is heating up around the Kivalliq.
And, while a healthy portion still focuses on which team did the most to improve during the off-season, and which rookie will have the biggest impact this season, there is now a much darker discussion also taking place.
The truth of the matter is -- and my apologies to you big time basketball and football fans -- for many years when stories broke on pro athletes going afoul of the law, it almost always involved an NBA or NFL player.
There were a few infamous scandals in pro baseball, such as the game's all-time greatest hitter, Pete Rose, being stripped of his place in history due to betting on pro baseball games, some of which even involved the team he was managing at the time.
But the down-and-dirty crimes, especially when it came to the world of hardcore drugs, mainly came from the court and gridiron.
And while those two sports still have their share of bad actors, players in the NHL are starting to grab their share of the headlines as well.
Cup champion Patrick Kane of the Chicago Black Hawks will have his case sent to the grand jury this coming week to decide if there's enough evidence for it proceed to trail.
Kane is being investigated for allegedly raping a woman who came to his home after a night of heavy drinking at a night club.
The L.A. Kings terminated the contract of former star forward and another Stanley Cup champion, Mike Richards, who was charged after a controlled substance (the painkiller oxycodone) was found in his possession while crossing the Canada-U.S.A. border.
Not to be outdone, Kings forward Jarret Stoll was charged with felony drug possession after being found with both cocaine and ecstasy while partying at the MGM Grand Hotel's Wet Republic pool complex in Las Vegas.
Also in the headlines during the summer was the polarizing young forward, Ryan O'Reilly, formerly of the Colorado Avalanche.
O'Reilly was traded to Buffalo in June, and was charged with impaired driving just six days after the Sabres signed him to a contract extension worth $52.5 million U.S.
Welcome to Buffalo!
The bottom line is hockey royalty is now also making insane amounts of money, and they're products of a pampered environment.
And far too many of them are being paid crazy dollars at far too young of an age.
It's a recipe for character breakdown and it's only going to get worse.
The biggest problem is, of course, how many young people regard these guys as role models at best and worship them as heroes at worst.
More has to be done by the NHL and its member clubs to try to help these guys keep their heads on straight when they enter the league.
And, as sad as it is to say, parents with hockey-loving children should start to open more dialogue with them on what they expect, and, more importantly, what they have a right to expect, from their heroes.
In the meantime, congrats to the NHL players who can't seem to accept the law applies to them too.
You've made the big time, boys!
We're all in this togetherNorthwest Territories/News North - Monday, September 14, 2015
What happens in Yellowknife does not stay in Yellowknife, at least when it comes to electricity generation in the Northwest Territories.
This is an important concept to understand about the $30 million the territorial government recently coughed up to avoid a power rate hike due to low water levels at the Snare hydro facility near the capital city.
Residents who live in the Deh Cho, South Slave, Sahtu or Beaufort Delta can be forgiven for wondering why their tax dollars are offsetting the cost of diesel in the Snare hydro system. The answer is, it doesn't matter that the Snare hydro system only serves Yellowknife, Behchoko, Dettah and Ndilo. This $30 million is meant to avoid rate hikes for everybody.
To understand why, we have to go back to 2010, when territorial government leaders came up with an idea to combat the factors that drive fluctuating energy rates across the NWT. To do this, they introduced two new types of territorial-wide power rate riders: one for fluctuating fuel costs and one for low water levels.
Basically what these riders do is protect individual communities from dramatic fluctuations in their power bills. Before the territorial-wide rate riders came into effect, small, diesel-reliant communities were especially vulnerable to volatile global fuel prices. Now that the fuel rate rider is in effect, rising diesel prices are spread across residential power bills across all communities rather than just those who derive their power from diesel. It's a move that softens the blow for specific communities by spreading the impact across all 33 of them.
Same goes for those communities which derive their energy from hydro. The idea is, if the territory was to suffer a drought, a rate rider to offset the cost of more expensive diesel is spread across all communities.
Today we seem to have reached a point where even the cushion provided by the riders isn't enough to shield consumers from electricity bill sticker shock. The proposed low water level rider would have raised rates across the territory by an estimated $30 to $105 per month – for every NWT resident, whether they live in Ndilo, Tuktoyaktuk or Fort Smith, thanks to the policy of territorial rate-riders.
But Premier Bob McLeod and Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger's announcement makes another point clear – if rate riders aren't doing the trick anymore, we're gonna need a better plan.
Over the past few decades, territorial government leaders have considered a variety of ideas, including linking the North and South Slave hydro systems, linking the South Slave hydro grid to Alberta, constructing renewable energy projects in smaller communities, geothermal power and even nuclear power.
Eventually, the piecemeal $30 million here, $20 million there the GNWT has started throwing at Northwest Territories Power Corporation to avoid rate hikes will grow to the amount it would cost for the government to invest in one of these long-term energy projects.
So it's about time our leaders accepted that a long-term solution to our power crisis is going to be expensive, bite the bullet and invest in something better.
Pricey capital projects in list of election promisesNunavut/News North - Monday, September 14, 2015
At the end of the day, once you get past all the rhetoric, one of the primary considerations by voters in choosing where to mark the X on their ballot must be what the candidate and the candidate's party will do for the individual on a personal level, if elected.
Among the factors that come to play in that process of deliberation are the promises made by the candidate, the candidate's track record, the history of the party relative to the Nunavut riding and an estimation of what the candidate's party will do if it becomes government.
Certainly a well-reasoned voter will consider a political party's national platform, its leader's statements on issues of national and international significance and the various missteps and errors in judgment that come with a federal election campaign. In many cases, postings on social media tend to be precipitated by the vocal minority whose focus is on a single issue, are driven by bitterness or are inspired by the outrageous from the fringes, such as the widespread sharing of the video of a Conservative party supporter who suggested Senator Mike Duffy simply cheated on his taxes, then called a television journalist an assortment of bad names and suggested that reporters and a majority of Canadians in general cheat on their taxes, too.
But, by and large, it is campaign promises, evaluation of a candidate's integrity and past performance which is the best barometer for deciding where to place your vote. (And whatever you do, please vote!)
Under that scenario, incumbent candidate Leona Aglukkaq and the Conservatives hold a distinct advantage, because voters have access to the most information and can look at the past years easily to decide if she and her party deserve to be re-elected.
In a sense, Aglukkaq and the Harper government set a benchmark for other candidates and parties to reach and exceed.
After decades of neglect by previous governments, the money spent and the amount of attention given to Nunavut by the federal government cannot be ignored.
There is a new craft harbour in Pangnirtung, the Canadian High Arctic Research Station in Cambridge Bay is under construction and millions of funding dedicated to training programs to put Nunavummiut to work has been allocated. Up to $63.7 million for a small craft harbour, marine port and sealift facility in Iqaluit and a $40-million marine facility in Pond Inlet are promised, both contingent on shared funding from the Government of Nunavut.
What can the Liberal, NDP and Green Party candidates offer?
It is fine for Hunter Tootoo, Jack Anawak and Spencer Rocchi to be critical of the Harper government and Aglukkaq in particular. There have been promises about future infrastructure spending and honouring commitments made by the current government.
We suggest voters need to know more about what capital projects they would deliver to the territory if elected. At the very least, the list should include a new marine facility in Iqaluit and a small craft harbour for Pond Inlet.
