A past that shouldn't haunt youNorthwest Territories/News North - Monday, November 14, 2016
When an MLA demanded the justice minister order the RCMP to stop the "outrageous" practice of issuing enhanced criminal record checks, was she arguing in favour of placing vulnerable people at risk?
When Justice Minister Louis Sebert slammed the door in the Yellowknife Centre rep Julie Green's face, was he perpetuating the argument that the best predictor of future behavior is past-behavior - even if no charges were laid or convictions entered?
There are two clear schools of thought about enhanced criminal record checks - also called vulnerable sector checks - created by the federal government in 2000 to protect children and others coming into contact with people who might do them harm.
One is that, as MLA Green stated in the legislative assembly on Oct. 25, is that it is indeed "outrageous" to think that a person can be denied a job with vulnerable people or forbidden from volunteering with a non-profit group because of a "record of non-conviction" issued by police.
"What we are talking about here is providing records that say that there has been an interaction with the law but not a conviction," Green said in questioning Sebert. "I don't object to having criminal record checks for vulnerable sector individuals or for any others who require them."
The practice of providing profiles of police contact - also referred to as "negative" or "adverse" police contacts - comes when individuals are asked to supply an enhanced criminal record check.
Now the information is released to the individual, not the person hiring or volunteer chairperson but it is a mandatory requirement of some positions.
"You can't get or keep the job without the criminal record check and the criminal check is released along with the record of non-conviction, it's all on one page," Green stated. "The injustice of this situation is clear for any fair-minded person. The words 'innocent until proven guilty' come to mind but do they mean anything?"
This longstanding federal policy is one that simply can't be superseded through a rejigging of our policing contract with the RCMP, as Green asked of Sebert.
However, the reason for her questioning the justice minister in the first place is sound.
Just think about it a bit. Should a few interactions with the law - let's say a licence suspension after a roadside checkstop or a couple of police calls over the course of a messy divorce - disqualify you to be a Big Brother? Or to coach your child's soccer team?
The problem is, apart from it indeed being an outrageous intrusion into one's personal privacy, that many people in a position to hire who receive an enhanced criminal record check will be afraid to green-light a candidate unless the record is spotless.
In a 2015 study entitled, "False promises, hidden costs," the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) noted an increasing number of Canadian organizations are incorporating police record checks into their hiring and management practices.
The CCLA stated there is no evidence that broad use of criminal records materially reduces the risk of crime or violent offenses in the workplace.
"To the contrary, systemic barriers to employment undermine the significant efforts and resources put into reintegration and ultimately prejudices community safety," the report stated.
There are movements across the country to re-examine the use of non-conviction records.
For Minister Sebert to glibly brush off Green's inquiry showed either he is truly a hard-line law-and-order politician, or that he's simply afraid of doing any heavy lifting on the file.
We suggest MLA Green re-frame her question for the next session - perhaps better emphasizing the efforts that are being made nationally to change the applicable section of the Criminal Records Act.
She should call on the minister to not wait to see what happens elsewhere but to even step up and take a lead on the issue that is perhaps more important to constituents in the NWT than he realizes.
Don't hold your breath for pot storeNunavut/News North - Monday, November 14, 2016
As Canada prepares to legalize marijuana, the discussion nationally and territorially turns to how the drug will get to consumers.
The Ontario government plans to allow people to walk into a liquor store or similar operation to purchase the drug over the counter.
Nunavut has yet to build such infrastructure for alcohol - despite overwhelming voter support for a beer and wine store in Iqaluit - so if you're waiting for a marijuana fix, don't hold your breath.
Depending on the community, Nunavummiut have varying access to alcohol. Residents decide - by ballot - whether their communities should be wet or dry.
Even in wet communities, a consumer has to order ahead of time to get their alcohol, save for visiting a bar or restaurant where alcohol is served.
The obvious benefits of allowing beer and wine stores is that they circumvent the bootleggers and place controls on the amount of booze being sold.
It only makes sense that the same approach should be taken with marijuana.
Unfortunately, the optics of selling marijuana will make it a much harder sell. To date, bootlegging has been preferred to a beer store, and likewise you can expect that legislators would rather continue the current situation, where users buy their drugs outside the local grocery store, than appear to support consumption.
Keith Peterson, the minister responsible for the Nunavut Liquor Commission, announced just last week that an Iqaluit beer and wine store will be coming at last next year but considering the foot-dragging that has been going on since the 2015 plebiscite that saw nearly 80 per cent support, it's clear the government is only obliging its results grudgingly.
One benefit of taking control of the sale of marijuana should not be ignored. In the US, Colorado was a leader in legalizing marijuana, and sales there were predicted to bring in $70 million in tax revenue after the first year. In fact, the figure was actually higher. CNN reports revenue of $106 million in the first year and $163 million in the second.
Colorado has about 145 times as many people as Nunavut, so let's start with an estimate of $1 million annually for Nunavut's coffers should the territory start selling the drug.
Substance abuse prevention programs and those enacted to reduce drunken and stoned driving are usually the beneficiaries of this funding, and Nunavummiut can all agree, especially during Addictions Awareness Week, that Nunavut could use another $1 million per year for these programs.
Alas, given the government's slow reaction to the beer and wine store plebiscite vote, should voters say they want it to sell marijuana, don't be surprised if the Nunavut government takes its time.
That said, alcohol is the drug of choice and the bigger problem.
Let's see some action on this file, and do whatever is needed to increase the funding available for home-grown treatment programs.
Even if that means opening 'beer, wine and marijuana' stores in the communities that want them.
Helping victims travel a good move for justice Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, November 11, 2016
The criminal justice system exists to ensure people accused of crimes get their day in court, and are punished with an appropriate sentence should they be found guilty.
This is often small consolation for victims of crime who must endure lengthy court proceedings while waiting for justice to be served. The situation is particularly egregious for people who have lost a family member to homicide and must pay their own way if they don't live in the same community where court is being held.
Fortunately, a new travel assistance program is being established to help families of homicide victims who want to attend court proceedings. Until now, witnesses called to court did get some financial help to attend but not family members who had no direct involvement in the court process.
The program is a new initiative by the Native Women's Association of the NWT who have long had a role in helping victims of crime and violence but no money to help cover costs for family members to attend court.
The group put forth a proposal to the NWT Victims Assistance Fund - a territorial government-administered program funded by surcharges paid by offenders sentenced in court - which led to the creation of the travel assistance program.
The program covers transportation costs for family members to travel to Yellowknife or wherever in the NWT a homicide case is being heard in court, up to five days of meals and hotel lodgings, and as many as six counselling sessions. It also includes a handbook, titled Homicide and Loss of a Loved One, to help family members navigate the court process. The counselling is there to help people deal with mental trauma and issues that may come up during the court process.
The handbook, compiled with the help of the Status of Women Council of the NWT, the RCMP, coroner's office and the NWT community justice department, helps guide people through the legal process while offering suggestions on how to help grieving family members cope.
This new partnership between government, police and victims services gives families a much-needed support system. Grieving the loss of a loved one is traumatic enough, made worse when a life has been ended through violence.
At least now, families can focus on mourning and healing and not worry about how they are going to afford making the trip to see justice being carried out.
Thirty recommendations miss the mark Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, November 11, 2016
A $110,000 consultant's report on the state of fire protection within the city came back with the primary recommendation that the city hire more firefighters.
Hiring more firefighters is well and good but the report missed the most glaring challenge our firefighters face when they are called out to battle a structure fire in many parts of the city.
Time and time again Yellowknife's finest arrive on the scene ready to battle fire and ensure public safety only to struggle with an unreliable water delivery system.
At least twice this year firefighters responded to fires -- one in Kam Lake and one in Old Town -- where water supply was interrupted as firefighters battled structure fires.
The fire department relies on tanker trucks and portable reservoirs where no fire hydrants are available, as in Kam Lake or Old Town.
While parts of the city are not well-suited to underground pipelines and surface hydrants, it seems ridiculous that Kam Lake, the city's industrial area, remains without piped water. It should be noted too that Latham Island is particularly vulnerable to fire where narrow streets make it difficult for fire trucks to pass.
This becomes all the more problematic when extra water tankers are required and the time it takes to fill the portable reservoirs.
This is a disaster waiting to happen.
Hiring more firefighters without first addressing the matter of water delivery has the appearance of hiring more cooks to stir the same number of pots.
The city may need more firefighters but it first needs to ensure firefighters have a consistent supply of water at every fire they battle.
If a fire were to break out in Old Town or Kam Lake this evening, no one could say with reasonable certainty that firefighters would have the consistent supply of water they would need to most effectively battle the fire.
Adding more firefighters to the mix won't fix that.
An important way to look at conservationDeh Cho Drum - Thursday, November 10, 2016
For many people in the Deh Cho, conservation is a way of life.
It is no secret that indigenous people have often led the way when it comes to preservation of land, water and life. As hunters, trappers and fishers, people in the Deh Cho are often stewards of the region.
It comes as no surprise to anyone one living here that the social benefits of that stewardship far outstrip the costs involved.
Now, a new report commissioned by Tides Canada and the Indigenous Leadership Initiative seeks to quantify exactly what those benefits might be. The report was compiled by Social Ventures Australia.
The figure researchers came up with is $2.50 in social return for every $1 invested - and that is just the beginning. To put it in the terms used in the report, an investment of $4.5 million has seen a return of $11.1 million in just seven years within the Deh Cho region and Lutsel K'e Dene First Nation.
That figure alone should be motivation enough for anyone wondering whether the money has been worth it. Few other investments can grow that quickly or have such a noticeable impact.
And as more money is invested, as programs grow and more people become guardians of the land and water, that number is sure to increase.
But to paraphrase Dehcho First Nations Grand Chief Herb Norwegian, there's a hidden return on investment that can't be quantified.
That's where the "moral" impact of stewardship comes in.
Morality, in this context, can be as simple as cleaning up after oneself, hunting responsibly and taking your garbage with you when you move campsites.
It applies to anyone and everyone who spends time out on the land, whether for recreational purposes or for work.
The benefits of this particular impact may be the trickiest of all, if impossible, to quantify simply because the long-term effects of this kind of stewardship reach 20, 50, even 100 years or more in the future.
We may not even see all of those effects in our lifetime.
But if such programs were not in place, the effects would be noticeable quickly.
The numbers themselves don't matter all that much.
Most people don't need to be told that investing in stewardship will have positive results - that's fairly obvious.
What does matter is the examples of social and economic outcomes listed in the report: less crime, increased capacity for self-determination and cultural retention of the many benefits listed.
In effect, what the report supports is the idea that a healthy land helps us to become healthy people.
And when we take care of the land, we ultimately take care of ourselves.
And that goes beyond quantifying. You can't put a price on mental and physical health.
Thank you for my freedomInuvik Drum - Thursday, November 10, 2016
Remembrance Day was always a big show and assembly at school, but growing up, I don't think I nor my peer group had a true sense of what the day really meant.
We heard the stories, listened to the poems and watched the somber displays, but that's a hard message to get through to youth who, like me, grew up in Canada's supreme peace.
I knew about 9/11 and Afghanistan when I was a teenager. I had service medals from my late grandfather in my bedroom. My grandmother told stories of living on rations in England during the 1940s. But the prospect of war in my own life still wasn't real.
Plus, there is something of a Western guilt, where we feel ashamed for any violence our past generations were involved in. At least that's the case among the generation I grew up with. I don't think I am stretching the truth to say a large number of us had an overall negative view of anything associated with war.
I gained my respect for wartime sacrifice after taking an interest in political history, economics and totalitarian regimes.
Freedom is the most important thing in my life. There is nothing I cherish more than being free to be who I am, to do what I want and to pursue what interests me.
Not everyone grows up in freedom. Even today, totalitarian regimes in North Korea and Venezuela dominate citizens' lives, controlling how they can spend their time and money. Every step toward that is a step I don't want to take.
If not for Canadians who were brave enough to risk their lives for our freedom, we could very well be living under national socialism, communism, some version of Stalinism.
It is important to remember and commemorate lives lost in defense of our freedom, but it is just as important we remember why men and women fought and died and what they continue to be willing to die for.
Freedom is the path to happiness and human achievement. That crosses the spectrum, from the freedom to walk to the store, the freedom to set up a business, the freedom to spend your own money as you choose, the freedom to love whom you desire.
In short, it is the freedom to live as you wish.
I'll take freedom over the prison state of totalitarianism every day, and thank God other Canadians thought so too.
Day shelter resolve a welcome changeYellowknifer - Wednesday, November 9, 2016
It's a positive sign to see improvements to city services so soon after the presentation of the new Yellowknife Homelessness Road Map.
Last week, Health Minister Glen Abernethy announced the Safe Harbour Day Shelter would soon be expanding its hours in order to close gaps throughout the day when people have no access to shelters.
There are no shelter services available in town between the hours of 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., noon until 1 p.m. and from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m., according to the report. The shelter's proposed new hours would run from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m., closing these gaps.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Services told Yellowknifer last week the department was kicking in an extra $285,000 per year to cover staffing costs for these extra hours. Before they can even think of eradicating homelessness, leaders need to make Yellowknife a safer place for its homeless population. Providing safe shelter options 24 hours per day is critical to achieving this. Good on the territorial government and NWT Disabilities Council for taking initiative on this issue.
Just two years ago, the city went with no day shelter at all because the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority allowed its contract to expire in May without securing a new one until October. The government has come quite a long way from this lackadaisical approach.
Evidence territorial leaders are taking more initiative to improve services for the homeless can be seen in another part of the day shelter contract. The government and NWT Disabilities Council have agreed to include a clause that would allow for the shelter to be moved if a more suitable space comes up at any time during the contract. This means there is no need to wait for the current contract to expire in order to search for an ideal location that is still downtown but not across the street from a condominium building and adjacent to the liquor store.
It's almost as if there is a sea change in how our leaders are tackling homelessness. These new announcements show they are taking the problem seriously. This is encouraging because that is the only way to tackle a serious problem.
Slow down for sled dogsYellowknifer - Wednesday, November 9, 2016
It's no secret that Yellowknife has a robust dog-sledding community.
It's also no secret that this community contributes to the city's sport, cultural and tourism appeal. So it's an absolute travesty that dogsledders have no safe space to train their dogs before the lakes freeze. This lack of space culminated in terrible consequence on Oct. 29, when musher Alexis Campbell's dogs were hit by a gravel truck on Deh Cho Boulevard, killing one dog and injuring another.
According to Qimmiq Kennels owner Jo Kelly, mushers have to cross Deh Cho Boulevard at least twice during training. This stretch of road is used mostly by heavy industry. It's also a popular spot for youth who want to drive fast. Traffic in Kam Lake has increased noticeably in the past decade as well. If snow is blowing, visibility can be low. Even when taking every precaution, it makes sense that mushers still don't feel safe.
This means the onus is on the City of Yellowknife to make sure the area is safe for mushers. At the very least, install signage. So the signs tend to get stolen? Replace them. The city could mandate bylaw patrols in the area during these times of year, or tailor existing laws to improve safety. For instance, the city could designate dog-sledding crossing areas with lower speed limits and increased fines for people caught breaking the law.
Really, anything is better than what the city is currently doing to ensure dogsledders are safe - which is nothing.
A moment to remember those who suffered the horrors of warEditorial Comment by Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, November 9, 2016
My dad's brother, Bill Greer, had mentioned over a few pops on his last furlough that he believed he just might come home alive at the end of the Second World War.
He was immediately chastised by a few friends and family members for tempting the fates by saying it out loud.
The last words a family member ever heard Bill say were along the lines of don't worry about him because if he was going to get it, it would have happened by now.
The war was winding down and Uncle Bill, who was a spotter and navigator on a hunter killer anti-submarine aircraft, had not seen anything but empty skies and ocean waters during his previous three or four missions.
It was a beautiful day for flying when his aircraft launched skyward.
His crew was off to check areas where the remnants of the once proud German wolf packs were still doing damage to convoys bringing supplies across the
Atlantic.
They had seen nothing and were about to head back to base, when his pilot decided to drop down for a closer look over an area where German subs had been spotted.
The sun was high in a cloudless sky when they began to descend, with light spots dancing over the waters before bursting brilliantly skyward.
Bill shaded his eyes and watched their water dance before having to turn away from their brilliance. A slight bump jolted their aircraft.
Bill's final thoughts may have been on that strange turbulence, when his world exploded in one last blistering flash of light.
The magical dance of the sun's rays meeting the ocean water had blinded the crew to the submarine, initially caught off guard and unawares, sitting on top of the waves.
The thundering crack of its deck gun would herald the end of Bill's life, and those of his crew, moments later.
Everyone in my family knew at the time my grandfather favoured Bill the most of all his children, and he took news of his death hard.
It led him to commit an unpardonable sin for a father a few months later.
The day my father arrived home from the war, there was no one to meet him at the train station.
He walked miles to the family home and entered to see his father sitting at the kitchen table.
My grandfather looked up, stared at his son for a moment and said, "It should have been you."
Those words burned inside my dad's heart for the rest of his days.
As horrible as those words were, such is the power of war to bring out the ugliest aspects of the human race both off and on the battlefield.
Lives are lost and destroyed in the name of freedom, bodies maimed, families torn, minds twisted, nerves forever frayed and scars left to burn on the inside.
The cost of freedom - and the lives we lead that so many find ways to be offended by today - was high.
We can never repay the lives lost or destroyed, but we can remember.
We can take the time this coming Sunday, and every Nov. 11 for the rest of our lives, to pay our respects to those who bled on the battlefield, lived the rest of their lives with broken hearts, or were haunted to their dying day by images too horrendous to even talk about.
If we don't remember, we are doomed to repeat ... lest we forget!
