Inuvik man deserves Hepatitis C cureNorthwest Territories/News North - Monday, September 21, 2015
So close, yet so far away.
Three decades after he was infected with Hepatitis C from a tainted blood transfusion at the Inuvik hospital, Rudy Cardinal was elated this spring to learn there is a cure for the chronic infection - and that he could get a prescription for it.
Six months later, he's considering his legal options after the Department of Health and Social Services said he is not sick enough for the government to foot the $150,000 bill.
The cure is called Harvoni. Four provinces - British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba and New Brunswick - and one territory - the Yukon - cover prescriptions for it. It has a success rate of about 85 per cent. Cardinal believes it would once and for all get him off the daily regimen of pills he has to take in order to manage a list of chronic ailments, including hyperthyroidism and gallstones.
Tests show the virus left a relatively small amount of scarring on his liver, so doctors are telling him he can live with the disease. But considering the circumstances under which he was infected and the circumstances under which he was diagnosed, is it really the government's place to tell him he can live with Hepatitis C?
In 1983, Cardinal, who was suffering from bleeding ulcers, received four litres of blood from the hospital in Inuvik. From that day, he says he has suffered fatigue and has felt ill in every waking moment. He had to quit playing sports. He didn't know what was causing the problems until 2005, when a battery of tests revealed he was infected with Hepatitis C.
Seven years prior, the federal government had accepted responsibility for inadvertently infecting approximately 20,000 patients with Hepatitis C and HIV through tainted blood transfusions in the 1980s. Along with accepting responsibility and offering an apology, the government payed out a mass settlement. Eight years after the initial settlement, the government paid roughly $1 billion more to patients who were overlooked in the first payout. Cardinal was one of the recipients of the second settlement.
Of course, a settlement isn't going undo the damage of 32 years of living with Hepatitis C.
Providing access to a cure won't either. But it will come closer. While those on the bureaucratic side of things no doubt will be able to point to rules, regulations and legislation that allows the Department of Health and Social Services to refuse to cover a $150,000 Harvoni prescription, Cardinal himself has an argument that gets right down to the very core of the morally right thing to do:
"Come on guys," he told the health department through News/North two weeks ago.
"You got me sick 32 years ago. You have to make it right."
Come on, guys. Make it right.
Difficult to find solution to suicideNunavut/News North - Monday, September 21, 2015
Evidence regarding the high rate of suicide in Nunavut was finally front and centre last week when the long-awaited discretionary inquest into suicide ordered by the Office of the Coroner got underway.
The schedule, starting with selection of a six-person jury on Sept. 14, calls for testimony from family members, RCMP, expert witnesses, the Nunavut Liquor Licensing Board, Nunavut Housing Corporation, the Nunavut departments of Corrections, Justice, Culture and Heritage, Education, Family Services, Isaksimagit Inuusirmi Katujjiqatigiit (Embrace Life Council), Nunavut Kamatsiaqtut Help Line, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI), and the Kitikmeot, Kivalliq and Qikiqtani Inuit associations.
The number of people expected to speak is enormous, over at least 10 days, before jury findings and recommendations are released, which is scheduled for Sept. 25.
Three family members travelled to the capital city to speak about the grim details, their memories surrounding the incident and the emotional impact death has forced upon their close community.
The family members who agreed to give testimony at the inquest stand in a cold, intimidating courtroom in front of rows of lawyers, the presiding coroner and the jury. They are asked most questions by people they have never met. They must wonder what those assembled, sitting in an antiseptic environment, know about their culture.
The people in the communities directly impacted by the deaths, and the Inuit elders who support them, do not have a relationship with the people from the government departments who are charged with implementing a suicide prevention strategy.
The people who are not able to attend the proceedings are the deceased.
Instead, there is talk about the isolated communities where many of those who have taken their own lives come from. They usually lived in overcrowded, substandard housing, where food is expensive, money is scarce and everyone knows everyone. There is a warmth of familiarity among extended families, friends, neighbours and trusted community members. It is to those people they would go for help, if they wish.
Then there are the outsiders -- the nurses, school teachers, hamlet administrators and the RCMP, people who are not familiar. Those are the last people they would go to for help, whether a suicide prevention strategy is in place or not.
It is these circumstances that must hit home with members of the jury, so that they can relate to the reality of life experienced by young people in the hamlets who find themselves in distress.
The jury has an enormous task, to craft meaningful recommendations in order to address the disturbing trend which precipitated the inquest. Hundreds of young people have died since the territory was created in 1999, 45 people in 2013 alone.
The challenge is finding out how to reach the people most at risk where they live, with people they trust, those who understand their culture.
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!
