Embrace transparencyYellowknifer - Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Louis Sebert, the minister responsible for transparency, is very confident in the transparency of his government.
"I think the government is already pretty open," he told a GNWT employee - who complained to him of a general lack of information, rumours flying and MLAs having to read the newspaper to find out what is going on in government - during a public meeting about the creation of a new open-government policy.
"I'd say politicians in this jurisdiction are more open than anywhere else," Sebert went on to tell a member of the public who complained of having trouble securing meetings between politicians and clients of the Safe Harbour Day Shelter, where he works.
It seems the only thing Sebert, who is in the process of developing a new open-government policy, was willing to assert at this meeting is that things are already A-OK.
Looking past Sebert's suggestion that while creating a new transparency policy, nothing apparently needs to change, Yellowknifer is left wondering what evidence lies behind his assertions that the government is already transparent?
The people who shared their concerns with Sebert only echo what many MLAs have complained about before in the legislative assembly - cabinet shrouds its work in secrecy, leading to a proliferation of rumours and eventually the indignity of having to read about developments in the newspaper rather than simply being kept in the loop.
Yellowknifer can certainly sympathize with cabinet's instinct to protect information.
The stakes are high. If an elected official says the wrong thing or releases half-baked plans, the public can really push back at the possible cost of that cabinet minister's job.
That said, it's important to remember that when the public or media want information, they aren't necessarily searching for a smoking gun.
Most of the time people just want to know what's going on. The way it is now, newsworthy information inevitably gets leaked, meaning it probably isn't complete or in proper context, leading to misinformation and confusion.
The best way to mitigate this problem would be for Sebert to listen when regular MLAs, GNWT employees and members of the public are singing the same chorus - the government is not transparent enough.
Stop being so afraid of controversy and just open up a little bit.
Next winter is comingYellowknifer - Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Last winter, the Stanton Territorial Hospital lobby became a place of refuge for the city's vulnerable population.
There was no action plan, no strategic framework, no report with a list of recommendations.
Based on the simple direction of Colin Goodfellow, the hospital's then chief operating officer, the lobby simply opened.
This was a good decision made out of desperation, and it got vulnerable people through last winter during times when other alternatives were limited. Last week, the NWT Health and Social Services Authority announced it was suspending the lobby policy as of May 21.
It's probably safe to assume this is an indefinite suspension, considering the force behind its implementation is an executive who, for reasons that remain unclear, is no longer with the health authority.
Winter is going to come again and health officials should acknowledge this problem is not going to magically go away.
Hopefully, there will be other choices in place for people who need shelter, such as a sobering centre but either way the territory's leaders need to acknowledge homelessness in Yellowknife is a big problem and simple, innovative solutions like leaving the lobby open to people who need to keep warm at night could be the difference between life and death.
The magic of PepperEditorial Comment by Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, May 24, 2017
It was 50 years ago, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. Well, at least, it will be come June 1.
With the Kivalliq summer music festivals just around the corner, what better time to revisit the album that changed the face of popular music forever.
Released on June 1, 1967, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the eighth studio release by The Beatles and, arguably, represented their finest hour as studio musicians, transcending popular music and being accepted as art.
The album spent an astonishing 27 weeks atop the British charts and 15 weeks at No. 1 in the United States.
As regular readers of Kivalliq News realize, I am both a rock music and Beatles fanatic.
And while there are numerous groups deserving of fame and admiration, The Beatles have crossed so many generations with their music, which continues to sell astonishingly well in 2017 that to argue against the group being the best of all time by a country mile borders on foolhardiness, if not absolute madness.
One of the great things about The Beatles, is that no matter how much you love their music, and no matter how many books you read on the group, it is, without fail, comments from regular music lovers that continue to startle all these years later and eclipse everything ever written by critics, or placed on the liner notes of a Beatles album.
So it was for me two weeks ago, for possibly the hundredth or more time in my life, while chatting with a teacher friend of mine from the Kivalliq when he sent me a message concerning The Beatles that read, "Their body of work probably covers every emotion and experience of the human condition."
Just doesn't get any better that that!
The most avoided question among avid Beatles fans is to name their favourite Beatles album.
But Sgt. Pepper was a ground-breaker on so many different levels that there is sparsely a recording artist today that doesn't owe something to the album.
It has sold more than 32-million copies worldwide, and that number is going to get a significant bump later this month with the release of the remastered Pepper, as well as deluxe and super-deluxe versions of the album that contain a number of outtakes and song variations that have either never been heard before, or haven't been heard at this high a quality.
The Beatles used so many musical styles, and incorporated so many recording techniques onto the making of Pepper, that it is really quite mind boggling.
The album's play list is incredible, stretching from the -at the time -recording genius of Sgt. Pepper itself, to the every-man's voice of Ringo Starr bellowing out the hit, With A Little Help From My Friends, to Paul McCartney's overly dramatic, but unflinching, She's Leaving Home, to one of the best Harrisongs (George Harrison) of his career, Within You, Without You, to the John Lennon/Paul McCartney magnum opus, A Day In The Life, and, also, to Lennon's Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds.
With that being said, another interesting side note to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is that although it already boasts an incredible lineup of songs, the first two songs the Beatles meant to put on the album never made it.
That's because The Beatles label, Parlophone, and their engineer, George Martin, were pressured into releasing a new Beatles single by the parent company, EMI.
Since the first two songs intended for Sgt. Pepper were almost completed, Martin convinced The Beatles to release Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane as a double A-side single.
In those days, songs released as singles were rarely, if ever, included on an album.
Martin is renowned for his work on Lennon's Strawberry Fields Forever, producing the magic splice that linked two takes of the song together. That is, two takes of the song recorded in different tempos and pitches.
But, then again, magic is what Sgt. Pepper is all about!
Preparing for forest fire season aheadNorthwest Territories/News North - Monday, May 22, 2017
Everyone was able to escape unharmed, as a forest fire leaped towards them in the near distance.
Not only lives were at risk but also a cherished family fishing lodge on Harding Lake, about 50 kilometres east of Yellowknife.
The lodge owner was not warned to flee before that fire destroyed Namushka Lodge in July 2016.
To this day, Bryan Chorostkowski remains skeptical the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has learned from the experience.
The lodge had 21 guests at its fly-in location when a wildfire swept through on July 15. The fire began a day earlier near Pickerel Lake, roughly 12 kilometres to the northwest.
By 7:15 p.m., the wildfire had jumped a fire break in the woods near the lodge and people fled the flames by boat.
An independent review concluded Environment and Natural Resources had "inadequate" communications with people whose property was at risk and recommended "significant communications improvements."
The department, its forest fire crews, and assisting crews from out of territory deserve credit, after the 2014 forest fire season in particular -- one of the worst on record, consuming 34,000 square kilometres of forest -- with not a single loss of life. Their spectacular defence of Kakisa that year was nothing short of heroic.
But there are still lessons to be learned.
Much like in 2014 when a forest fire destroyed a family homestead on the Hoarfrost River, the Namushka fire was flagged by someone -- in this case, Chorostkowski's brother -- concerned about the approaching fire but nothing was done to save the lodge.
Ahead of the upcoming fire season, the territorial government is trying to gather more contact information for people who have properties in the bush. But there are hundreds and hundreds of cabins, lodges and camps in the territory
Ahead of what could be a "very difficult" forest fire season, the territorial government now has some new fire-fighting equipment. Eight new Air Tractor 802A FireBoss amphibious water bomber aircraft have arrived in the territory over the past several weeks.
The aircraft, at about $3.5 million each, replace four GNWT-owned CL-215 planes that will be sold off. Four of the planes will be based in Yellowknife while the other four will be in Fort Smith.
The water bombers arrived as a long-term forecast developed with Environment and Climate Change Canada and Canadian Forest Service predicts a warm and dry summer in the southern part of the territory.
Areas that "look like they may be trouble" are the Deh Cho and parts of the South and North Slave regions, he said.
In fact, the fire danger in Fort Simpson was listed as high for several days last week and into the weekend of May 20. Though only one small wildfire has been reported so far in the territory. That was near Inuvik.
So what can the GNWT and you do to stay safe this spring and summer?
Basic precautions such as FireSmarting your property and knowing your community's emergency plan are good starting points.
And according to the report into the Namushka Lodge blaze, the GNWT must improve communications and use computer software that can predict fire growth in real-time. The GNWT also needs to be able to source a fire behavior analyst when needed and generally update training for staff - this just to satisfy previous recommendations for improvement.
Frank Lepine, the department's director of forest management, acknowledged problems during the Namushka fire.
"It's possible we could have done a better job and we're always trying to do a better job."
If the government believes it has the ability to do a better job in these life or death situations, then it is a goal that must be pursued.
The government has a duty to do whatever it can to protect the people. It's just common sense that in a territory so vast with people spread out so sparsely that every lodge or cabin can't be protected from wildfires. But surely the human beings can be.
Call for action needs loud bell to be rungNunavut/News North - Monday, May 22, 2017
Mary Simon, former president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, has travelled all over the North listening to Northerners as Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada Minister Carolyn Bennett's special representative on Arctic leadership.
After 65 meetings with 200 Northerners, Simon told the federal government the obvious: they want the things other Canadians take for granted.
That includes a quality education, access to universities, reliable energy, economic development opportunities and basic infrastructure.
Surely Simon did not need to have a single meeting to come up with her list of 40 recommendations. Northerners have been broadcasting these concerns for ages.
We're generalizing, to an extent. But looking at the recommendations in detail, they are mostly a relay of concerns raised in these pages and elsewhere. Despite being raised over and over, response from the federal government is typically slow and insufficient but always enough to allow for a photo opportunity.
Simon is concerned her report will sit on a shelf somewhere in Ottawa and it's a fair concern.
Simon herself is a good photo op for Bennett and the government. Send a prominent Inuk leader north to hear from the people and show them the feds are listening.
And certainly she has collected 40 action items that would improve life in the North. Improve infrastructure, raise housing above Third World standards, make efforts to preserve and strengthen language, give broadband projects access to the Building Canada infrastructure fund, account for Northern costs and head counts in funding calculations, and consider local knowledge in research and programs.
Some of the recommendations are easy to direct bureaucrats to implement. Others are moonshots that will take far longer than one government's mandate. Cheap fixes versus courageous investments.
The majority of southern voters will want to know that their money is being invested wisely, and southern jurisdictions have their own big dollar concerns. Unfortunately, there are only a small number who speak for the few of us living in Canada's North, and too many in Ottawa who speak for many more.
But perhaps Mary Simon's brand is big enough in Ottawa, and perhaps her role gives her access to the right people to move the North forward.
If her report is a roadmap to nation-building, she needs to get it in the right hands. Bennett is a start but every MP and bureaucrat who could have a hand in this needs a copy. People from St. John's to Vancouver need to see the benefits of investing in the North. They need to understand the issues and see why it matters to them.
People can talk about our problems all they want up here but the real audience for this is in the south. That's why you can skip the old advice to write your MP, and go one better. Write someone else's MP.
Secret weed meetings butt out public input Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, May 19, 2017
If a government meeting happens in a boardroom and no records are taken, did the meeting actually happen?
Right now, a territorial government working group is holding meetings to draft recommendations on how the legislative assembly will develop corresponding legal marijuana legislation for the territory.
The only thing the public knows is the group exists and has met five times as of May 10. What the public doesn't know is who is going to these meetings, what they are discussing or a timeline for acting on the group's recommendations.
Why don't we know these things? Because this working group keeps no records of their meetings or discussions.
Marijuana is set to be legal in Canada by July 2018. That might seem really far away right now but drafting, passing and implementing legislation moves at a glacial pace. For example, the legislative assembly passed a new version of the Mental Health Act in the fall of 2015 but as of this day, there is still no timeline for implementation.
Think about that. Eighteen months after passage of a new Mental Health Act, it has yet to be implemented. Right now, the NWT is 13 months from the expected federal implementation of legalized marijuana and nobody has the faintest idea of what the territory's legislation will look like.
Yellowknifer doesn't necessarily believe the working group needs to go so far as to keep meeting minutes but is it so unreasonable to expect members to document what topics they are covering at the very least? Things such as minimum age, intoxicated driving laws, intoxicated snowmobile driving laws, education and health issues?
The Department of Justice has said there will be a public consultation component to the drafting of this legislation.
Meanwhile, the working group might be discussing topics that the public may not even realize are issues. This sort of information is unquestionably valuable to know, so the public is informed and ready to give feedback when the time comes.
The more government shares about what it is doing, the better off we all are.
A small initiative with a big impact Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, May 19, 2017
It started with a Facebook group with one member and expanded to 600 active volunteers over the course of three years.
Renee Sanderson's Pay it Forward NWT is now a small army of individuals who want to make the world a better place.
They do things like put together Christmas gift bags for homeless individuals, deliver baby baskets to new moms at Stanton Territorial Hospital, host toy and coat drives and deliver care packages to families going through tragedy.
For example, the group recently fundraised for the recovery effort of four missing hunters in Fort Chipewyan, money that helped make possible a planeload of groceries for families affected by the tragedy, as well as the rescue team.
Sanderson's group shows how much can be achieved when people work together to make their communities a better place.
The next step for Sanderson is to reach out to other community organizations, such as Salvation Army Yellowknife, to see how Pay it Forward NWT's work can benefit them. Bravo to Sanderson and Pay it Forward NWT for everything they do.
Heated debate sometimes necessaryInuvik Drum - Thursday, May 18, 2017
A few sparks flew at town council after the final vote on the licensed premises bylaw last week.
Coun. Vince Sharpe, the most consistently outspoken member of council, declared the vote "disgusting" once it was made.
Councillor Darrell Christie took issue with that and Mayor Jim McDonald had to restore order.
It was one of the rare times Christie has spoken at council, so it was nice to see some emotion.
Agree with him or not, you have to respect the passion.
Councillor Kurt Wainman took issue with Sharpe's comments and let him know as much once the council meeting ended.
This issue hit many emotional notes, even including a member of the public crying during council while relaying what alcohol had done to her family.
On the one hand, there is the clear, rational case to be made that prohibition does not cure addiction problems.
If people want to drink, they will find a way to drink, or they will find something else to put in their body. Alcohol prohibition can lead to even more dangerous substance abuse.
On the other hand, there is the fuzzier but no less worth considering argument that Inuvik is a unique environment and conventional wisdom may not apply here.
Perhaps simply sending the message that the town does not support regular drinking habits is meaningful to enough people to have an impact. Gwich'in Tribal Council President Bobbie Jo Greenland-Morgan made this point.
To that end, though, one wonders where it should stop. Why not ban alcohol completely?
Either way, the licensed premises bylaw and KBL Environmental's proposed soil treatment facility have brought out the most debate in council in recent months.
This is when council looks healthiest. Nothing's better than a good war of words.
Voters want their political representatives to go to bat for them and to have no fear in the public arena.
There are too many wallflower politicians skating by with politically correct terminology, scared to open themselves up to disagreement.
Town council almost seems to regard these debates as a tragedy, as if the rift in opinion and forceful words means something is wrong in Inuvik.
But these debates are democracy in action, and if anything, having them more often and on many more issues would be even better.
It's also a great way to get people interested in politics.
It goes without saying that political theatre needs to stay on the stage.
Adults should all be able to express themselves freely in council chambers and shake hands afterwards.
People who aren't afraid to kick the hornet's nest make life worth living, and council worth attending.
