Business improvement districts not needed Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, January 29, 2016
The city has identified three locations in Yellowknife as possible business improvement districts. On the face of it, improvements are a good idea. But it doesn't follow that every path to improvement is a wise one.
The districts would mean taxing both businesses and residents in predetermined locations and using those funds for items such as beautification or added security. Such districts are popular in bigger cities such as Toronto and Vancouver where thousands of businesses invest into them.
There are far fewer businesses in Old Town and along Old Airport Road, two possible improvement districts. Their contributions to area improvements wouldn't amount to much no matter how much more they were taxed. As it stands, they likely don't need the help, at least not the kind of help that comes with a higher tax bill.
Old Town businesses could be looking at an additional $7,000 in taxes per year based on a $200,000 property value assessment.
When one considers that most if not all tourists make their way to Old Town anyway, it would be a tough sell to convince business owners there that they would benefit from more taxation on the premise it could increase traffic to Old Town. Old Airport Road is home to several anchor stores, the best kind of draw a commercial area can have. Businesses there do not need help from the city to increase traffic. Drive by Canadian Tire or Walmart on the weekend and notice how packed the parking lots are if confirmation of traffic flow is needed. It's downtown businesses that need the most help but few there are clamoring to get on board with this initiative. Downtown businesses in Yellowknife face serious challenges to their economic viability. Increased taxation is unlikely to be a welcome prospect.
Not surprisingly, a Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce poll of businesses garnered a "largely negative response" to the idea of funding district improvements through increased taxation.
Why does the city continue to flog this dead horse?
Instead, the city should focus on moving forward with properties it has already forked over taxpayer dollars to acquire, rather than look for a way to wring a few more dollars out of Yellowknife businesses on the vague promise of beautification projects.
Downtown needs an anchor to draw shoppers in. The proposed cultural centre for the 50/50 lot should be the city's primary focus.
The city is to be commended for looking for ways to improve the lot of businesses across the city, and especially in the downtown core. But throwing money at a plan that would mean increased taxes is not the way to go.
If the city is itching to spend $10,000 right away - the cost of sending up to five Yellowknife business people to a talk on business improvement districts in April -- it should instead put the money toward developing concrete plans for the downtown properties it already owns.
Sending a select group of business owners to Vancouver to talk about ways to increase taxes in the city is not money wisely spent, no matter how well-intentioned that talk may be.
Rocky times don't diminish Folk Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, January 29, 2016
That executive director David Whitelock has been shown the door and is now threatening a lawsuit against his former employer shouldn't overshadow the fact that Folk on the Rocks organizers still have a show to put on.
The yearly festival is a major part of the community culture and it needs to be supported and celebrated.
Since the inaugural event in 1980, it has been bringing southern performers and northern music lovers and musicians together in one what amounts to being one of Canada's most unique cultural gatherings.
Northern artists such as Digawolf, Leela Gilday and Erebus and Terror have shared stages alongside internationally acclaimed acts such as Bruce Cockburn and Buffy St. Marie.
Last time there was a major staff change, some grant deadlines got lost in the shuffle.
The best way to make sure that doesn't happen again is for enthusiastic and dedicated Yellowknifers to step up to the plate as board members and volunteers.
If this year's Folk fest is going to keep up the 36-year tradition, a little help won't hurt.
Just the ticketDeh Cho Drum - Thursday, January 28, 2016
For the Hamlet of Fort Providence, Chase the Ace is just the ticket the community needs.
Fort Providence, like countless other small communities in the North, suffers from endemic social issues. Among those are homelessness, poverty and youth crime.
Homelessness in the Deh Cho has a different face than in larger urban centres, because people who are homeless often live with relatives or friends. But even though it is not as visible, the need is still there -- and those who live in these smaller communities know it.
Recently, a group of business-minded individuals in Fort Providence decided their community could no longer wait around for territorial or federal funding to address these issues. Thus was born CAPS -- the Community Advancement Partnership Society.
After brainstorming how to best address the issue of homelessness, they landed on the idea of hosting a game each week to raise money.
The game, Chase the Ace, is well-known in some circles across Canada but is relatively new to the North. The returns can be high, though, and successful games in provinces such as Nova Scotia have raised millions.
They call it a "pilot project" with the end goal of raising enough money to build small housing units as well as a youth centre.
After years of floundering for solutions, Fort Providence may have finally found one -- if all goes as planned and the society can reach its goal of $600,000. It is a credit to Fort Providence and to the entire North that a handful of well-meaning community members can take it upon themselves to fill a need.
That kind of initiative is crucial in order for solutions to be implemented.
The members of CAPS give up their Saturday afternoons to sell tickets for Chase the Ace, with a draw at the end of the afternoon. Just six weeks in, the game is already picking up steam -- and generating interest -- in the community.
Chase the Ace may not be as big in the Northwest Territories as it is elsewhere in Canada but as the saying goes, where there's a will, there's a way. The society has the will and is determined to find a way.
However the situation plays out, it will be educational and inspiring to track the progress of this project.
Other communities should fix their eye on the situation as well, because if it works in Fort Providence it will very likely work elsewhere in the territory.
Witnessing such a positive push for change is wonderful. Residents often state the need for Northern solutions and at last that need is being filled.
Programs don't replace familyInuvik Drum - Thursday, January 28, 2016
This week, we spoke to people involved in ongoing intergenerational programs seeking to bring together elders living in long-term care and young people in school.
These are important efforts and are clearly paying off in many ways. But they should not be left to stand on their own.
Elder neglect and even abuse is a problem all over the world and such efforts, like the partnership between East Three Secondary School and long-term care, go a long way to combating that. But they do not replace family, as the people running the program will be the first to tell you.
Susan Keats said her stated goal is to make sure elders in her care remain a central part of the community, but she can't do it alone.
Many families, especially here in the North, do an excellent job of this without even thinking about it -- it's just part of the culture or a financial necessity. For other families, for whatever reason, keeping in touch with the older generation can be difficult. Families are spread across vast distances, making it difficult to pop by for a visit. People work, are raising small children, and otherwise have busy lives. Still, keeping elders in the loop pays off in so many ways.
The difference between children who grow up while regularly seeing their grandparents and even great-grandparents, and those who aren't so lucky, is made clear in programs that bring elders and youth together.
There are some children who feel comfortable approaching elders right off the bat, but there are always a few who hang back, unsure what to say and do. These last are the ones who benefit the most from such programming and generally warm up as the sessions go on.
There is a lot of focus on keeping indigenous cultures alive and passing it on to the youngest members of the community, but this is an insurmountable task if those young people aren't comfortable around their elders. For those lucky enough to have grandparents and older extended families, the process can and should begin early as a matter of course. Once again, this is hardly news to the families who rely on their elders for guidance, support, and to help raise children.
For everyone else, intergenerational programming can open the door to better understanding, increased interaction and lots of learning on both sides.
Homeless status quo a costly burden Yellowknifer - Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Every police and ambulance call, every hospital and emergency shelter bed, every string of court appearances means the public purse gets that much lighter.
But despite the heavy cost burden, these are Band-Aids that cover the perpetuating wound of homelessness. Those Band-Aids come off, then they're put back on, and then they come off.
A new policy shift by the RCMP means that when police come across intoxicated people on winter city streets, they take them to a shelter rather than to RCMP cells. And as Yellowknifer reported last week, this has one shelter boss warning of a looming crisis.
Denise McKee, executive director of the NWT Disabilities Council, which operates the Safe Harbour Day Centre, spoke of the lose-lose conundrum in which the shelter accepts a highly intoxicated person and with them increased violence and aggression; or turns them away to face - 40 temperatures and nowhere to go.
There is a pronounced gap in the system - and this is where the territorial government comes in. No longer is it acceptable to rely on Band-Aid solutions when longer-term solutions such as supportive housing are proven to be cheaper. Supportive housing is a type of service that provides a roof over people's heads plus programs such as addictions counselling and job training.
While the local numbers are not available in an easy-to-read package, it's fairly well documented that supportive housing is significantly cheaper Canada-wide.
A 2005 report prepared for the National Secretariat on Homelessness found the cost of housing somebody in detention centres or psychiatric hospitals costs between $66,000 and $120,000 per year but affordable housing with supports costs between $5,000 and $18,000 per person.
According to the Edmonton Homeless Commission, each chronically homeless person costs the system $100,000 a year, yet housing that same person with supports is but a fraction of that - $35,000.
In Yellowknife, a 2011 Homeless Hub report states that when a homeless person with severe mental disabilities is moved into subsidized housing with social service support they spend "considerably less time" in shelters, hospitals, prisons and detention centres.
The ping-ponging of homeless people between already-stuffed-full emergency shelters and RCMP cells should be a loud warning bell that forces the territorial government to spring into action and at least start studying what long-term measures could alleviate the homeless problem.
A hospital bed at Stanton Territorial Hospital costs $756 a day. It costs $102,200 annually to house an inmate in jail in the territory, an analysis by another media source found late last year. The territory spends more than $40 million annually for the RCMP's services - much of which is dedicated to dealing with the city's homeless population. Court services and legal aid services cost the territory $20 million last year.
Something has to change; the status quo costs too much.
In 2008, according to the Homeless Hub report, 936 unique individuals accessed shelters in the city. The City of Yellowknife's homeless count, purported to be a conservative estimate, found 150 homeless people at a time. One only needs to walk the downtown streets or step over sleeping bodies in banks to recognize a problem in need of a tangible, long-term solution that has nothing to do with a Band-Aid.
Scanning headlines is a bad ideaEditorial Comment by Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Thanks to the world of the Internet, all things social media-related and downright lazy reporting -- at least what passes for reporting in some instances today -- there are items worthy of a few good chuckles these days.
Yet, such as it was this past week when a story resurfaced about no-ball soccer. There are warnings buried beneath the guffaws.
And, believe it or not, there can be some barometers on public opinion buried beneath the subterfuge known as the comments section.
A high percentage of these episodes come about as the result of people simply scanning headlines -- and maybe taking the time to absorb the lead and followup paragraph on a good day -- and rarely taking the time to check the source of a maddening yarn someone posted on Facebook or some other social-media site.
A rebooted story this past week that enraged so many was originally published on the website of the good folks behind the satirical radio program, This is That, back in 2013 (there's that scanning headlines thing again).
Yet the anger expressed before people clued into the origin of the resurrected story was nothing compared to what hit cyberspace in 2013.
The satirical yarn told of a soccer league in a fictitious Ontario town that had children playing soccer without a ball to eliminate the negative effects of competition.
The story grew legs so monstrous that publications such as the Washington Times and USA Today reported on it.
The outrage expressed across Canada and the United States in connection to the story was staggering.
The make-believe tale opened a wound among sports fans across North America that no Band-Aid could cover.
Although the comments were unknowingly aimed at a fictitious story, the feelings expressed were deeply rooted in reality.
Thousands of comments from those who believed the story to be authentic showed the width of the chasm between a large percentage of the common folk, and those in positions of power who idle away the time coming up with ways to make sports perfectly safe and then impose their will on the masses.
Being a family newspaper, I cannot write the term used by some to describe rules put in place to make sports a kinder, gentler environment, where competition is a bad word and everyone wins by showing up.
Suffice to say it is not a term of endearment.
Outside of the world of satire however, far too many are duped by supposed news articles published by dubious sources that are, in reality, pushing an agenda.
It's one of the modern era's ways of shaping public opinion.
Think of it as a metaphorical pair of giant clippers looking to shear as many sheep as possible.
And, as noted above, they can clip some big sheep.
It truly is a sad commentary when contemporary journalists are as lazy at checking their facts as the everyday folks scanning the headlines.
And, lest you think the no-ball-soccer yarn succeeded because it duped sports fans, the year previous Public Radio International reported on a story done by the same group that claimed dogs in Montreal would have to know commands in both English and French by law.
Sacre bleu!
Cantung made a mess, government will clean it upNorthwest Territories/News North - Monday, January 25, 2016
On the surface, the concept seems simple.
Anybody who builds and operates a mine should foot the bill for the site's cleanup afterwards. A problem arises in the sticker shock. The cost of remediating mine sites, especially those located in remote areas of the Northwest Territories, can quickly spiral to the tens of millions of dollars.
Yellowknife is home to the Big Kahuna of remediation projects - Giant Mine - which has garnered international attention for its billion-dollar price tag to prevent 237,000 tons of toxic arsenic trioxide from leaking into Great Slave Lake.
The taxpayer is coughing up this billion dollars for a couple reasons. Giant Mine operated before mining companies were required to put up deposits for remediation and the company that last operated the mine went bankrupt and disappeared.
Today, the government has contingencies to avoid situations like this by requiring security deposits to be posted up front as a contingency to obtain a land or water licence.
Well that solves that, right? Unfortunately, it's still not that simple, and North American Tungsten Limited's recently-abandoned Cantung mine is a great example of why.
Originally, the Mackenzie Land and Water Board required North American Tungsten Corporation Limited (NATCL) to post $11 million to secure the mine's cleanup. NATCL posted $6.3 million in cash and made the rest up with promissory notes, which were largely backed by the mineral rights to Mactung, another property on the NWT-Yukon border.
Last June, NATCL asked for an amendment to its water licence. The board agreed to this under the condition the company accept a security deposit of $31 million. This additional security was never posted and months later, NATCL declared bankruptcy and abandoned Cantung. The mine then became the federal government's responsibility.
The territorial government handed over the $6.3 million security and agreed to approve $4.5 million dollars to acquire Mactung and hold onto it in the hopes somebody will eventually come along and pay what the government thinks its worth. Until that happens, the federal government has a grand total of $6.3 million to clear buildings and equipment out of the Cantung mine, ensure contaminants are contained and cap the site's tailings ponds.
The amount of money it will take to do this is unknown but realistically will be more than $6.3 million. The government will have to pay the rest. Of course, it's easy to sit back and say the government needs to ask for bigger securities and can't accept promissory notes in lieu. But it's also easy for exploration and mining companies to look at hundreds of other jurisdictions with less rigid rules for their future projects. That is a scary thought for the territory's resource-based economy.
In a post-devolution Northwest Territories, the territorial government will be liable for the multi-million dollar clean-ups of all new projects it licences.
While scaring off potential developers with security deposit requirements that actually hold teeth is not ideal, the government is going to have to decide how this proposition stacks up against the possibility of footing massive clean-up projects in the future, because in the tumultuous world of resource extraction only one thing is certain: this problem is not going to go away.
Creative solutions possible to fix food insecurity issueNunavut/News North - Monday, January 25, 2016
The federal Liberal government is taking its first steps toward honouring its promise to reform Nutrition North, a program that is supposed to subsidize the cost of nutritious food for Canadians living in remote Northern communities, including but not restricted to Nunavut.
Ottawa has promised to inject $10 million more into the program each year for the next four years but will also look at expanding it to communities not already receiving help from Nutrition North. That omission seems to have happened because the previous program, Food Mail, cut the cost of food shipped to consumers but required buyers to make purchases from southern suppliers by credit card. Of course, the program was not widely used because of the low number of people having credit cards. When Nutrition North came in, those communities who did not have people using Food Mail dropped off the list. Unfair, to be sure. However, that is only one consideration in a lengthy list of variables related to devising a method to lower the cost of healthy food for Northerners, particularly those in Nunavut.
Codeshare agreements between the major airlines has thrown air cargo services in disarray, a situation that is being addressed by the individual companies but is symptomatic of another issue -- the important role private enterprise plays in the provision of healthy food to Nunavut.
Just as the airlines modify flight schedules and types of aircraft on routes to maximize their ability to make a profit, so too does the North West Company and other grocers change their methods of operating, including making decisions on shippers and modifying product pricing to take best advantage of the Nutrition North subsidy.
Because private companies need to guard against revealing trade secrets to protect their place in the marketplace and allow them to turn a profit, how the subsidy is specifically applied is not made public, a practice that was criticized by the auditor general in his last report on Nutrition North.
Currently, the only change at the grocery store counter is an addition to a consumer's till receipt, which shows how much specific products were reduced in price because of the federal subsidy.
It is interesting that many grocers in Canada who offer reward cards to consumers are able to track an individual's buying habits and offer points for purchasing specific products. Perhaps that is worthy of consideration for reforming Nutrition North. Developing a card issued to residents in eligible communities to lower the price of healthy food when swiped at the grocery store checkout counter is not outside the realm of possibility. After all, Nutrition North is supposed to benefit the consumer.
Creative solutions are needed to address food insecurity in Nunavut so that Ottawa sees its subsidy money used best and people in remote, isolated communities without easy access to healthy food are able to access nutritious products affordably.
It is a small price for Canada to pay to the custodians of the land on behalf of the rest of the country.
