Planting the seed for Yk UYellowknifer - Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Murmurings of a university in Yellowknife have been amplified as of late. During the election campaign, now-city councillor Julian Morse put it on the table. Now, Mayor Mark Heyck is carving into it by indicating to Yellowknifer it's a debate he'd like see happen.
It's a visionary issue, the idea of a university, but indeed it is a discussion worth having - so long as it's approached realistically.
At quick glance, Yellowknife seems well-situated for such an institution. It's a transient city with an average age of 32, compared to 40 for the rest of Canada; there's a whole demographic of young Canadians hungry for knowledge and adventure a university in Yellowknife could pluck from.
Being able to retain Northern youth who want to go off to university, and attract those who want to go somewhere cool for school would help bolster the economy and population.
Of course, the territorial government would have to climb on board in a big way - as a major funder - before the conversation around the council table could prove meaningful.
The return on investment seems to be there - A 2014 report from not-for-profit research organization Conference Board of Canada found every dollar spent on post-secondary education creates $1.36 for the Canadian economy. Universities "generate significant economic benefits to the communities and provinces where they are situated," stated Michael Bloom, an executive with the board, in the news release about the report.
Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning, which provides credit at the University of Alberta for land-based learning in the North, is a step in that direction. Heyck can be credited for saying a possible expansion of this program should be part of the post-secondary discussion.
There are universities in every province but not a single one in the territories.
The obvious roadblock to a university is the city's small population base of just over 19,000. But should it become, say, the University of the NWT, Nunavut and Yukon, the idea gets longer legs. There is a lot of interest in the North down south, especially as it relates to climate change, and the NWT and Nunavut cover most of the Arctic coastline.
The three territories could combine and share resources and Yellowknife could provide the city services that would need to surround such an institution to attract professionals.
There are universities in cities and towns of all sizes across the country. Athabasca University, which specializes in distance learning but has a physical presence, is based in Athabasca, Alta., population 2,990.
Lakehead University is in Thunder Bay, Ont., population 108,359. Thunder Bay is similar to Yellowknife in that it is in the rural wilderness and has developed well-regarded biology program as a product of its location. University of Northern British Columbia is in Prince George, B.C., also - one could argue - at the end of the road. It has a population of 71,273.
Vancouver Island University, based in Nanaimo, population 83,810, has regional campuses in the much-smaller adjacent municipalities of Duncan, Powell River and Parksville.
There are many models Yellowknife could look at when considering a local university. Although it's now but a vision, everything starts with a discussion; and the discussion will be most valuable if it begins in a broad, realistic place.
Logic gone up in smokeEditorial Comment by Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, January 13, 2016
I've been a smoker since my early teenage years. I am neither proud nor embarrassed by it. It is a lifestyle choice and I choose to smoke.
I have no idea what the future has in store for me healthwise, but I do know I haven't missed a full day's work in two decades and I still officiate 100 games of hockey a year at age 57.
There is, however, no denying the price of cigarettes has become ridiculous, thanks to taxes levied by various levels of government under the guise of smokers being the number-one drain on the Canadian health-care system.
That's poppycock, but it justifies the annual raking-in of billions of dollars in taxes that governments have become more addicted to than smokers to nicotine.
A couple of years ago, I cut my cigarette smoking from more than a pack to just eight per day.
It was the least I'd smoked since my early days in the Canadian Armed Forces in the mid-1970s.
I accomplished this using e-cigarettes I ordered online from the United States.
The next two times I ordered them, they were seized in the mail before reaching me.
I am now back smoking more than a pack a day of tobacco cigarettes.
In Canada, which has become the biggest nanny state in the world, e-cigarettes containing nicotine are illegal, despite the fact it's mostly the other chemical byproducts from smoking that do most of the damage to one's health.
So, I was stunned this past week to read Troy Media columnist Karen Selick rally in favour of e-cigarettes.
Stunned because most people act downright silly toward the product without a shred of scientific proof to support their stance against it.
In fact, scientific studies prove there is virtually no risk to non-smokers caused by the exhaled vapour.
If knowing e-cigarettes cause far less harm to smokers, pose absolutely no risk to non-smokers, and help people greatly reduce or quit tobacco entirely doesn't have you pondering the motives behind keeping them illegal, you've lost the ability to reason.
One of the main points Selick brings up on the subject strikes close to the bone with me.
For years I've wished I was financially able to have my day in court, because I also believe keeping e-cigarettes illegal is unconstitutional.
Being prevented from using a product that does far less harm to me than cigarettes is an infringement upon my Charter right to security of the person.
The Supreme Court decision that individuals have a right to harm reduction is what led to safe-injection sites for drug users.
I would like to think as a law-abiding citizen (cigarettes are a legal product) I have as much right to harm reduction as those dependent on illegal drugs such as heroin.
But in a politically-correct-gone-mad age when people advocate for kids to build a snow person, not many give a second thought to the legal rights of a tobacco user.
However, with e-cigarettes shown to greatly reduce tobacco use, it makes one wonder why a government would block a product that greatly reduces what it claims to be the number-one drain on health care in Canada, doesn't it?
Still think those tax dollars go towards the health-care cost caused by smokers?
Lessons to learn from Stuart Hodgson's legacyNorthwest Territories/News North - Monday, January 11, 2016
In an Inuvik Drum article 15 years ago, Stuart Hodgson talked about the importance of bringing government to the people because, he said, you can't bring people to the government.
Indeed, it would have been challenging to bring the voices of the 26,000 people who made up Northwest Territories during the 1960s thousands of kilometres southeast to the territory's former government headquarters in Ottawa. So he brought the Northwest Territories government up to the NWT.
In 1967 he stepped off a government plane and memorably said, "At last, we are home."
This ended up being the former commissioner's legacy. He died Dec. 19 in his home at the age of 91.
Sixteen years ago, Hodsgon sat down for a post-retirement Q and A with the late Terry Halifax, who edited the Inuvik Drum at the time. The wisdom of his attitude toward leadership and governance still rings true today.
He was a practical person. He said his team didn't wait for proper offices to be built because if they did, he felt they never would have been able to begin their work.
He travelled extensively throughout the Northwest Territories, visiting every single community in order to meet with people and explain the government he and then-senator Arthur Laing were bringing in.
He also accompanied Thomas Berger during his famous inquiry to investigate whether the people of the Mackenzie Valley would benefit from the oil and gas pipeline that was proposed at the time. During these meetings, he stayed away from dreaded bureaucratese speak when talking to people. He worked with what he had and had a sense of humour about it.
"A lot of confusion was around whether it was an oil pipeline or a gas pipeline," he mused to the Drum.
"At that time in the North, having a can of gas meant something to pour into your Ski-Doo or a kicker. One day somebody asked me at a meeting of 400 people, what gas was. And I had a heck of a time of what to say, so finally it dawned on me and I said, 'Do you know what a fart is? Well that's gas.' And they said, 'Well that won't burn."'
Stuart Hodgson had a spirit that set him up to be a successful Northern leader: he didn't wait for things to come to him, he did what he needed to do with what he had. He understood that good governance includes stepping down from the governmental pedestal and talking to the people in their own terms.
We lost Hodgson last month but there are still valuable lessons on leadership and governance to be taken from the legacy he left in the NWT.
Take the steps to find reconciliationNunavut/News North - Monday, January 11, 2016
An observation this past week suggests the largest proportion of the population of Canada who attended residential schools, per capita, were Inuit from Nunavut.
The impact of children being taken from their home communities to live far, far away for years was immense. Many didn't return. An estimated 6,000 indigenous children died in residential schools from the time the schools opened in the 19th century until the last one closed in 1996. It has been called an attempt by Canada to commit "cultural genocide" against indigenous peoples, including Inuit.
The impact is still felt today, not just for survivors of residential school but for their families, including parents and children of survivors.
Finally, there is action being taken. The Liberal government has pledged to act on the 94 recommendations made in the landmark report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released in June. Of utmost importance is implementation of the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples.
We see the release of the report and acceptance of its findings and recommendations as the "truth" portion of the commission's work.
But what about the "reconciliation?" What does that look like?
One path toward reconciliation is the addition to the school curriculum of history lessons about the legacy of residential schools. That is vital to increase the understanding by young Canadians of this dark part of their country's history. Hopefully, students all across this land will share that knowledge with their families, including their parents and grandparents, who never learned about how indigenous people were treated historically.
Another path toward reconciliation exists at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which opened in November at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. One of the most important responsibilities given to the commission was to forever preserve the truths of Canada's Indian Residential Schools, as they were called.
In order to move forward, people need to understand exactly what it is that former students of the residential schools and all Canadians need to leave behind.
The national centre, designed to be accessible to all people for all time, contains millions of documents from government and churches and nearly 7,000 video statements of survivors and intergenerational survivors.
Opening the archives presents an opportunity for adults of today's generation from all ethnic backgrounds to learn about the residential school experience, the bad and the good. Undertaking an examination and talking to others about it is one more step toward reconciliation.
Survivors told the commission they need to leave behind the shame and hurt caused by the assault on their languages, cultures, spirituality, traditions, families and communities.
Remembering what happened will allow the many who have been impacted to move forward, one step at a time.
Bell should help foot bill for 9-1-1 Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, January 8, 2016
Northwestel owner Bell Canada is shortly to go before the NWT Supreme Court where a judge will determine how much the company must pay in compensation for customer fees collected in the North for a non-existent 9-1-1 service.
It's been a drawn out affair for Bell and James and Sam Anderson who brought a class action lawsuit against the company back in 2007 for its pricing scheme.
Over several years the company charged more than 20,000 customers $0.75 per month for basic 9-1-1 emergency service which never has, and still is not, available in the North (except for a pool of Ice Wireless subscribers).
There isn't a tonne of money involved, at least as far as individual subscribers are concerned. It only works out to about nine bucks per year but the principle was and remains worth the fight.
Bell never should have been charging for a service it did not provide. That the company fought this simple premise tooth-and-nail through the courts is a black mark on the company's reputation.
It is time for Bell to face the music and admit the error of its corporate ways.
The Andersons' lawyer said his clients are willing to consider a settlement of the case that would see Bell set aside a chunk of money to help establish 9-1-1 service in the North.
This is a brilliant idea and would go a long way toward ridding the room of the stink left by Bell's reluctance to date to abide by the court decision and common sense.
If Bell were to sponsor in some way the development of 9-1-1 service in the North, the company would accomplish two things.
First, most Bell customers would probably be satisfied to hear their fees would in the end serve the development of the kind of emergency service taken for granted in most other parts of the country.
Second, Bell Canada would show itself to be a good corporate citizen in the NWT, even if a reluctant one.
Teaching the teachers about residential schools Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, January 8, 2016
Efforts to bring Northern teachers up to speed on the history of the residential schools are long overdue.
The Department of Education, Culture and Employment is making its Northern studies class mandatory for all NWT teachers. It promises to put teachers in the role of students so they may learn a critical element of the country's history.
Canada's schools have long contributed to the national ignorance.
A Canadian high school grad could have learned about the age of discovery, confederation and maybe a little pre-colonial contact for good measure without ever seeing or hearing the words "residential" and "schools" next to one another.
Students might learn about the Holocaust without knowing a cultural genocide had occurred at home.
It is a gaping hole in Canada's school curriculum, an aspect of our history almost completely ignored by educators. Overlooking it perpetuates the cultural consequences.
NWT students are introduced to the topic of residential schools in Grade 4 and pick it up again in Northern Studies 10. A teacher uninformed of the documented atrocities committed in residential schools can easily ignore or unintentionally minimize the subject and fail to recognize the reverberations in other aspects of their student's home and school lives.
Hopefully, this will start a trend that will spread throughout Canadian provincial education systems.
Look to certaintyDeh Cho Drum - Thursday, January 7, 2016
The new year has arrived and has brought with it the hope of certainty - something residents of the Deh Cho region have sought for many years.
The past 12 months saw upheaval in many communities as the territory went through band, municipal, federal and territorial elections. New faces joined old, and in some cases, replaced them altogether.
People with little to no political clout ousted others with years of experience as residents stood up to usher in a wave of new faces.
For Canada, that meant a Liberal majority - and, for the Northwest Territories, a Member of Parliament who is affiliated with the reigning party. As luck would have it, MP Michael McLeod hails from Fort Providence.
The then-candidate said he saw the importance of wrapping up land claims in the NWT, including Dehcho Process negotiations.
The Liberal win has the potential to change the negotiations completely. Additionally, with a new MLA in Nahendeh and political heavy hitter Michael Nadli back in the Deh Cho, there will be no shortage of local support for the Dehcho First Nations as it works to close up its decades-long land claim process.
Although the territory's premier remains unchanged, Bob McLeod has already begun singing a very different tune than that of the premier who took a hard-line approach to the Dehcho Process last spring.
His promise of a new deal and support for the Dehcho First Nations echoes the tone the Liberal government has set federally for its dealings with aboriginal people.
It seems to be just a matter of time, then, before certainty reaches the Deh Cho.
Instead of fighting tooth and nail for what they are owed, bands who are settling land claims can now look forward to a less adversarial process. The spirit of negotiation can return.
Municipally, the Deh Cho is in good hands as well, as mayors and councillors make plans to tackle the most important issues in their respective areas.
These leaders promise to bring an end to the tumultuous year communities in the Deh Cho have experienced. Tragedy struck Fort Liard and Fort Simpson, crime pervaded Fort Providence and overarching social issues remained relatively untended.
In Fort Simpson, the village is already well on its way to overcoming the woes of the last council, putting money aside for future needs and passing a reasonable budget. If the council's rhetoric on transparency is ever fully realized, Fort Simpson council will set an example for future councils to follow.
Fort Providence and Fort Liard also saw new mayors installed. Fort Providence's mayor-in-waiting has already released a list of issues he plans to address while Fort Liard's mayor plans to get the hamlet's house in order.
The Deh Cho region has experienced a year of change. The effects of those changes will hopefully be seen throughout 2016 and lead to positive solutions going forward.
New faces, new year, new hopeInuvik Drum - Thursday, January 7, 2016
Thankfully, 2015 is over.
While there were undoubtedly high points and victories, it was also a year of rising prices, budget cuts and continued economic uncertainty. Actually, calling the economy uncertain is disingenuous. It's bad and looking like it's going to get worse before it gets better.
While gas prices remain exorbitantly high in Inuvik itself, the outlook for the entire territory is murky, particularly in light of the most recent developments. De Beers pulling out of Snap Lake and the federal government announcing it will be cutting transfer payments by more than $30 million just a few weeks later felt like something of a one-two punch to the gut for many Northerners, particularly those working in resource extraction, government and those funded by government money - which is to say nearly everyone.
But still, 2015 was also a year of rampant change. While the municipal crew is a mix of new and familiar faces, the territorial legislature is awash with first-time MLAs, some of whom will also be first-time ministers, to say nothing of the dramatic red wave that swept across the country in the federal election, bringing Justin Trudeau and his equal-opportunity cabinet to power.
Wherever you stand on his policies, everyone can agree Trudeau is a very different leader than Stephen Harper.
While some candidates urged voters to re-elect them and stay the course, the current course isn't working as well as many people would like. Hopefully the fresh faces at all levels will be able to sway their more experienced counterparts toward new action and breathe new life into what voter-turnouts suggest is a lacklustre democracy.
There is, however, something to be said for those familiar faces keeping steady hands on the tiller. The North is nothing if not a boom-and-bust kind of place and for those who have seen prosperity come and go over the decades, this latest slump is hardly anything new.
Our new deputy premier and finance minister Robert C. McLeod said as much in his interview with Inuvik Drum prior to re-election. He said he has seen the military and oil money flow in and out of town and that he is confident Inuvik can weather the storm until the next big thing comes along.
While optimism should not be the province of journalists or - in their hearts - politicians, one can't help but agree with McLeod.
The only thing as certain as tanking revenues in a boom-and-bust economy is a subsequent surge toward fortune once again.
