No shoes, no bra, no dignityYellowknifer - Wednesday, April 5, 2017
How degrading it must be to have to face a judge without shoes on or a bra.
For some reason, this is the just the way it's done in Yellowknife. According to lawyers, advocates and people within the court system, RCMP have made a habit of taking away shoes and bras from prisoners before their court appearances.
In fact, according to Robert Abel, who has been in and out of the court system since the 1980s, there hasn't been a time he has ever been allowed to keep his shoes on in a Yellowknife courtroom.
Could it be a security issue? Maybe, but considering how prisoners have access to these same items in North Slave Correctional Centre cells, that doesn't really make any sense.
Either way, Kim Schofield, solicitor general of the Department of Justice, said it's not normal practice or policy, despite the fact it seemingly has become informal practice.
Now, the RCMP in the Northwest Territories is contracted by the Department of Justice to deliver policing services. This means the territorial government pays for RCMP to be here, and to deliver a certain level of service.
If the RCMP is making its own policy for prisoner transport unbeknownst to the department, it is the department's responsibility to make sure that changes. In some cases, with some particular prisoners, there might be legitimate security issue that forces the RCMP to take away these items during transport to the courthouse. But the people for whom it is not a security issue - but happening anyway -- it definitely is a human-rights issue.
As Abel himself says, appearing before a judge without basic clothing items makes those who are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty look like convicts.
"You're already guilty," he told Yellowknifer about how it feels to be in that situation.
If the RCMP isn't going to take a step back and consider the necessity before stripping prisoners of their shoes and bras, it's imperative on the Department of Justice to make sure it happens. Schofield tells Yellowknifer this is something the department plans to do. According to Abel, this practice has been happening since the '80s, making the department embarrassingly late to the party.
But better late than never.
Transparency integral to safety infoYellowknifer - Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Ratings are not just for television shows but when it comes to road safety the idea is the same.
Problem is, unlike in Alberta or Ontario, safety ratings on transport trucks are not publicly available in the Northwest Territories, even though the Department of Transportation has been apparently monitoring that information since 1990.
A road safety plan published on the department's website states the safety ratings are public but when pressed by Yellowknifer, the department admitted that claim was likely made in error.
Until this winter, complaints on transport carrier safety have been few and far between but a recent spate of highway accidents and fires involving transport trucks heading to the diamond mines has shaken public confidence.
The snafu with the undisclosed safety ratings has clearly embarrassed the department. Officials now say they are taking steps with a "goal" to making the ratings public. It reported that all 375 carrier companies currently operating in the territory have "satisfactory" rating, the highest rating achievable.
That's good to know but it's troubling that the department is already hedging, saying it presently doesn't have the authority to make the ratings public.
Female debacle and Canadian hopes in the world of hockeyEditorial Comment by Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, April 5, 2017
The hockey world avoided an extremely embarrassing moment when U.S.A. Hockey struck an 11th-hour deal with its Team U.S.A. female players to avoid a boycott of the world championships lastweek.
We can leave all the equality arguments outside the world of hockey alone for the time being because, when it comes to equality, there is no comparison between the Americans' female and male national squads.
The female teams have won substantially more medals than their male counterparts.
One can only imagine what could have transpired at the IIHF world championships had the defending gold medalists indeed boycotted the event, or been replaced by a bunch of beer league replacement players (scabs by any other name) as threatened by U.S.A. Hockey. The reason for the dispute was the female players asking U.S.A. Hockey for a justifiable raise to the meager pittance of $1,000 a month that was only paid to them for the six months preceding the Olympics.
American NHL teams, albeit featuring numerous Canadian and international players, have taken over the Stanley Cup since the Montreal Canadiens beat the L.A. Kings in the 1992-93 Cup final - the last time a team North of the border took Lord Stanley home in recent times.
It has been a completely different story on the international stage, where Team Canada has been able to (and continues to) rack up gold medals in everything from the Spengler Cup to the world hockey championships, the reinvented Canada Cup and the Winter Olympics.
The spat between the female players and U.S.A. Hockey was as much about respect for the players as it was the monetary increase.
A more than valid consideration, considering how the girls have vastly outplayed the boys of their nation during recent decades.
So what went wrong for the men's team in the U.S.A. program?
Well, for starters, the pride associated with wearing the Team U.S.A. colours has still not completely recovered from the abysmal behaviour displayed by the American players at the Sochi Olympics.
Secondly, the American brain trust overestimated the strength of their overall program due to the success it briefly enjoyed when the hockey planets aligned and the right group of players were all wearing red, white and blue for a few years.
This is a fairly common pitfall the female team has managed to avoid Also, while the competitive factor in female hockey has stalled, leaving Team Canada and Team U.S.A. to battle for supremacy in every female tournament you can name that includes the two hockey superpowers, the same has not been true on the men's side.
The biggest problem with the Canadian hockey world is that it only takes two or three premier international events without a gold medal, and the country starts screaming in anguish and asking what's gone wrong with our game?
It's a scenario that's played out over-and-over again and, unfortunately, has led to knee-jerk reactions on more than one occasion that actually set our game back a number of years.
Hopefully, the foul odor left behind by U.S.A. Hockey's childish response to a legitimate request by its female players will fade away and not have the female program take the same hit to its pride factor that the Sochi Olympics had on the men's side.
No hope for studentsNorthwest Territories/News North - Monday, April 3, 2017
It's said that Graham Nash wrote 'Teach Your Children' - a song about the often difficult relationship he had with his father, who spent time in prison.
It's amazing how some songs stand the test of time and can help us understand issues of the day.
As a society in the NWT, people must work extra hard in ensuring they provide the best and most effective education possible for today's children, for if they have indigenous backgrounds, they are very likely dealing with parents struggling with their own demons.
Now certainly it's not every family who struggles with the lingering trauma of Canada's residential school system but others have real-time issues of poverty and marital breakdown.
So as we have seen in the mountain of numbers issued of late, the children aren't doing well.
They tested poorly across the NWT, in small and large centres and generated news story headlines in News/North such as these: "Dismal student scores show need for fix," Feb. 20; "Achievement test scores dismal," March 20; and "Assessments missed, flubbed," March 27.
How can an education department, brimming to the rim with staff, accept the findings of recent studies? How can Education Minister Alfred Moses keep his portfolio in the face of such failure? (And don't get us started, Minister Moses, on the junior kindergarten mess or concession made to the teachers in the latest contract.)
As we've reported in News/North in recent weeks, students in communities across the territory are falling desperately behind in math and English, according to the latest Alberta Achievement Test (AAT) scores.
For example, just 10.6 per cent of Grade 6 students in the communities met an acceptable math standard during the 2015-16 academic year, according to AAT results calculated as a percentage of total enrolment. In Grade 9, only 11.2 per cent of those students met the benchmark for math.
Then there is the absenteeism rate. Now there's an area where the territory excels. Unfortunately.
And again, it's the smaller communities that suffer the most.
On average, school attendance was lower in small communities last year than in regional centres and Yellowknife. For example, just 22 per cent of Grade 6 students in the Deh Cho took the language arts portion of the mandatory Alberta Achievement Tests in 2016, according to Dehcho Divisional Education Council superintendent Terry Jaffray.
There are two main reasons for low attendance levels. Jaffray said some students are absent while others may be excused from taking the test if they are two or more years behind in school.
This is just shameful.
So what is the NWT doing about the problem it has let fester for so, so long?
Well, the low achievement rates have encouraged the education department to undergo an "education renewal."
It involves the introduction of junior kindergarten across the territory this year, a 10-year framework to improve early childhood development and pilot programs to better engage students.
We suggest the first thing the GNWT needs to do is to start recruiting more teachers.
A lot more teachers. And pay them well enough to retain them in the smaller communities, which are struggling more than the regional centres.
There needs to be more staff around to make sure kids get to school, are engaged when they are there and actually absorb enough key concepts and language skills so they are able to enter the workforce or go on to post-secondary education.
Failure to do so will result in higher health-care costs, more addictions, higher justice costs, and generally just a generation of adults who are lost.
And for indigenous families, when they see their kids haven't been able to follow their dreams, it will only make for more pain and heartache.
Let Nunavummiut stay home in old ageNunavut/News North - Monday, April 3, 2017
March saw the opening of Cambridge Bay's long-term care facility, a home for eight people who would otherwise be in care outside of the community.
It's about time but as astronaut Neil Armstrong said, "That's one small step...".
Far too many Nunavummiut are in care or custody outside of their home communities, regions, and even the territory. We're including about 60 foster children and 45 inmates who can't be accommodated in Nunavut.
Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20, yet here we are repeating the past with orphaned, disabled, convicted, and elderly Nunavummiut sent away, usually to Iqaluit, Yellowknife, or down south.
Like those sent to residential schools and sanitariums for tuberculosis treatment, people spending months, years and lifetimes away from home have little hope of maintaining their culture or language. How can they heal and reintegrate?
Or worse, how many will share the fate of the young man who died while in foster care after the Iqaluit children's group home narrowed the age range to his exclusion?
It was illuminating to read Cambridge Bay Mayor Jeannie Ehaloak note how her aunt would rather risk going without care to be at home rather than be in Iqaluit, where her dialect is not spoken.
So we praise the opening of the new beds in Cambridge Bay.
It's great to see 17 new jobs created in the hamlet as a result.
Nunavut's Makigiarvik minimum security facility, which will be featured on national TV this week, is another good example.
These men are benefitting from on-the-land programming and the opportunity to develop traditional skills, such as carving.
They also get to be entrepreneurs weekly by selling their carvings at the facility.
But there's so much work to do to finish the job.
Renovating the Baffin Correctional Centre (BCC) will be a giant leap, as Nunavummiut held outside of the territory need to be closer to home. Everyone can acknowledge an upgrade at that facility is long overdue.
Hopefully the court system will speed up, too, so that those awaiting trial at BCC can get justice in a timely fashion.
Hopefully, too, money can be found to bring foster children and those with disabilities back home to Nunavut, and to bring more long-term care beds so elders can either be in their own communities or at least within a reasonable distance.
It will take a major investment to make this dream possible.
But it's important to remember that a society is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable.
The North still a good investment Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, March 31, 2017
As the old saw goes, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
If numbers were paint on an artist's palette, the latest missive from Natural Resources Canada ("Federal stats paint bleak mining picture," Yellowknifer, March 22) would form a glum portrait of the NWT's mineral and mining prospects.
The expectation is that exploration spending and the value of mining production are both on a downward spiral. Hindrances to mining and mineral exploration are ever-present, readers are reminded, in terms of inadequate road and power infrastructure.
Yet the real indicator of financial value is cash on the table, not statistical permutations and pundit observations.
In the pages of the same edition is a story about a U.S. conglomerate offering $1.1 billion U.S. to buy out Dominion Diamond Corporation, an offer that was 36 per cent higher than the company's stock value at the time. As impressive as this offer seems to be, what is more impressive is that Dominion Diamond declined the offer.
Between its Ekati diamond mine and its 40 per cent interest in the Diavik diamond mine, Dominion is projecting sales of close to $1 billion U.S. for 2018, which would be up 62 per cent over sales in 2017.
If this isn't a case for a certain robustness in the Northern mining sector, then nothing is.
Sure, exploration spending is down and many advanced projects are essentially on hold. But this is in light of the fact that international commodity prices don't justify expensive resource development in many sectors. This is not the fault of the territorial government's environmental legislation or the lack of road in the NWT.
There are several proven resources in the territory that are essentially shovel-ready should the day come when commodity prices rebound, as well as active exploration projects right on the city's doorstep, such as the TerraX Yellowknife City gold project or 92 Resources' lithium project near Hidden Lake.
The antidote to gloomy surveys of mining's prospects in the North are success stories in the NWT's mining industry that prove a profitable and desirable mine can be developed and sustained in the NWT.
When markets improve, so will exploration spending in the North.
Until then, the GNWT would do well to point to the relative success of Dominion Diamonds as an antidote to the fear-mongering notion that the territory is too stringent in its environmental protection processes, or not quick and eager enough to sign off on multi-million dollar road projects under the misinformed banner of supporting a flagging industry.
Riders must take personal responsibility Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, March 31, 2017
In the case of snowmobilers wanting more winter road rules and those who want to be free to build private winter roads, both sides have a point.
The recent case of a snowmobiler who was seriously injured and his machine destroyed after hitting a high berm on a private winter road on Yellowknife Bay has brought the issue of personal responsibility to light.
Bruce Hewlko, president of the Great Slave Snowmobile Association, says snowmobilers want rules on private winter road building to ensure they are clearly marked with flagging tape or spruce boughs.
Those who build winter roads want the snowmobilers to be more cautious on their machines. Mark Rocher built one such road and said snowmobilers should use common sense and mind their speed when out on open snow and ice. There is already a speed limit of 30 km/h within city limits. Out on Yellowknife Bay there are homes and businesses and people have carved out winter roads for easier access. Some are within city limits so the speed limits should be followed.
The common issue is safety. Yes, snowmobilers should be mindful of their surroundings and watch their speed. However, in poor light conditions it can be hard to see unmarked winter road berms until one is right on top of them. Even at slow speeds these berms can cause injury and damage.
Both sides need to take some responsibility for this issue and make snowmobiling safety a priority. The consequence otherwise will be bad for both.
It's been a good runDeh Cho Drum - Thursday, March 30, 2016
This week, I put my last issue of the Deh Cho Drum together.
As you will read in this issue, the Drum will stop publication effective immediately. While this is a sad moment for some in the Deh Cho region, we are lucky to have other papers to fill in the gaps, such as News/North.
For myself, leaving is bittersweet. It has been a true privilege to come to the Deh Cho region and build on the excellent work past editors have done. The Drum has a history - decades worth - of great journalism, and I will always be proud to have contributed to that in some small way.
Thank you to everyone who welcomed me into Fort Simpson and shared your stories with me. Without your willingness to speak up, a lot of topics would have gone unreported.
You are what made this paper possible in the first place.
You live in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
The physical beauty of the Deh Cho region is matched by the resilience of its people.
The commitment of First Nations in this area to upholding tradition and celebrating their culture has been one of the greatest memories I have of my time here.
The emphasis communities put on their youth also deserves commendation. Engaging that demographic is not always easy and it takes a special kind of person to be able to do that.
Luckily, the Deh Cho has plenty of those people.
This has been an incredible learning experience. I have often been amazed by the passion and dedication of people I talk to, whether it be volunteers, leaders or youth.
The efforts these people undertake to engage and uplift their communities are inspiring, and deserve recognition.
You have a lot to be proud of here.
As far as the loss of this paper goes, we are always worse off when news goes under.
But the fourth estate, as news is sometimes called, is only sustainable if it is supported and read, and when its audience is actively engaged.
Although News/North will step in to fill the gap, there will still be many stories left unwritten within the Deh Cho region.
It is up to all of you to see that the people who deserve recognition are recognized, and the people who need to be held to account are indeed held accountable.
In the meantime, don't forget to celebrate each other's successes and sing each other's praises.
In the absence of a dedicated newspaper, it is more important than ever that people talk to each other, make personal connections and learn each other's stories.
As we strive for healthy communities and personal healing, that connection is one of the most important things we can do.
Role of Inuvik Native Band importantInuvik Drum - Thursday, March 30, 2016
These days, the role of the Inuvik Native Band is a little fuzzy.
Since progress on land claim deals, the Gwich'in Tribal Council and Inuvialuit Regional Corporation have emerged as the premier advocates and headquarters of aboriginal issues in the region.
But though it might not have a fancy website, the Inuvik Native Band still exists on paper and gets funding, and a symbolic role is a lot better than nothing.
It doesn't take a massive budget to show up at events, volunteer time and try to assist community members in whatever way possible.
There's a certain level of authority that comes with getting the support of a named and relevant organization.
The Inuvik Native Band can leverage its title in letters to government, declarations and other means of supporting and acknowledging people in the community.
Perhaps the band could sponsor a student's conference trip, scholarship or involvement in sports.
Beyond any money given, young people would be proud to receive the Inuvik Native Band stamp of authority over, for example, just the name of a person.
That's the kind of thing that goes on their resume.
The band might not have a lot of power to swing around but it has a meaningful name, and that counts for something.
Wellness day an admirable effort
Wellness is a rather vague and difficult to define term, but East Three Secondary School sure did well on its day promoting that concept.
Students engaged in all sorts of classes and workshops, from snowshoeing to beading and a type of hip-hop yoga.
Marika Cockney and James Jones stole some of the show with their visually impressive hoop dance routine, but the message behind it was even more important.
Cockney, who has family ties to Inuvik, talked to students about leaving a lifestyle of drinking and partying to pursue her dreams in dancing. Now she's one of the most well-known aboriginal hoop dancers in the world.
The pair encouraged students to identify their own dreams. It didn't have to be becoming prime minister of Canada, they said, emphasizing that any-sized dream is a good one.
However, it's a hard concept for teenagers to understand.
For most, exploring the social realm is the next frontier of personal education once their interest in schooling diminishes.
This is not necessarily a bad thing but can morph into a far larger and more impactful distraction than would be beneficial.
Exploring is one thing, moving into and setting up shop in that partying lifestyle is another. It can also lead to long-term mental health issues with people relying on validation from other people or substances and not from within themselves.
Through connecting with themselves in simple, traditional tasks and ruminating on their own goals and ambitions, students had an important opportunity to slow down and build their mental house, whether they consciously identified themselves as doing that or not.
It might have just seemed like an easy and fun school day, but the long-term impact could pay dividends.
