What a reliefYellowknifer - Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Sometimes, all a person needs is a safe ride.
Up until a few weeks ago, the response to public intoxication was blaring sirens and possibly a trip to RCMP cells or the emergency room.
Now, a discreet white van pulls up and out comes Lydia Bardak, safe-ride program co-ordinator, or one of her colleagues, to help these individuals determine whether they need a ride home, to a shelter or to the hospital.
In the first two weeks of operation, the city's new safe-ride program has picked up a staggering 300 people.
Unneeded ambulance rides and trips to RCMP cells are a waste of money and resources.
According to RCMP spokesperson Marie York-Condon, the police have already noticed the station's jail is less used since the safe rides started. Considering this positive development, there is definitely a good business case for the program.
Unfortunately, the city is going to have to come up with funding to extend it past Dec. 31, as the federal government declined to fund it into next year.
The safe-ride program hit the ground around the same time another innovative program opened its doors. The sobering centre is a bare-bones place for people who have been turned away from shelters to get some shut-eye. Visitors get a quick medical examination, semi-private sleeping space, a Spartan breakfast and a ride to the day shelter if needed in the morning.
These two programs are components of the comprehensive strategy to end homelessness in Yellowknife and are already making a difference.
Yellowknifer has long held that leaving the police, courts and emergency services to deal with the city's homelessness problem is an ineffective use of taxpayers' money, so it's really great to see change happen with just a small part of the overall plan. It's just a taste of what's possible.
Clever contest shines light on city innovatorsYellowknifer - Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Earlier this month, longtime Yellowknifer and business owner Seiji Suzuki claimed victory in the Win Your Space Yk contest.
Suzuki's vision for an additive-free -- but pun-friendly -- Japanese bakery, Ja-Pain, won over a six-member jury and earned a year of free rent downtown.
Yellowknifer congratulates Suzuki and all the other entrants. From wedding planners, to interior designers, tour operators and crystal sellers, this neat little competition showcased a hidden trove of inspiring entrepreneurs and innovative ideas. Hopefully, a few more of these businesses get incubated and one day set up alongside Suzuki. The more niche businesses, the more vibrant the city.
The City of Yellowknife, along with the territorial government and other corporate sponsors split the competition's $76,000 bill -- money well spent. The contest was a smart, fun way to raise awareness of efforts to revitalize the downtown core, which has a vacancy rate five-and-a-half per cent higher than the rest of Yellowknife -- 7.8 per cent compared to 2.3 per cent.
These types of projects have been successful elsewhere, decreasing vacancy rates and property crime, and adding money to the local economy.
Yellowknifers are generally resourceful, often by necessity due higher costs and isolation from the south. To see so many local entrepreneurs put out fresh ideas and drive residents to imagine what else could be in the city's downtown was inspiring for all who followed the contest.
Hopefully this isn't the last Yellowknifers have seen of this event.
A time for healingEditorial Comment by April Hudson
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, August 16, 2017
This week, visitors from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls are in Rankin to meet Kivalliq families for the first time.
The upcoming hearing itself, set for mid-December, is still quite a way off, but many people - myself included - are relieved it has even made it this far.
It's no secret the inquiry has been embattled of late, with commissioners resigning and staff quitting.
In fact, some families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls have called for the inquiry to be shutdown and reset.
A couple of weeks ago, I talked to Laura MacKenzie about her efforts to encourage people to speak up during the inquiry's time here.
Laura talked of her desire to give a voice to her aunt Betsy. After I spoke with Laura, I wondered what kind of impact a 'hard reset' would have on people like Laura. How many stories would go untold? How many female voices, gone to soon, would miss a chance to speak?
For all its flaws -and there are many - I believe the national inquiry still has the capacity to heal wounds. Commissioners aren't waving a magic wand and saying they'll make everything better; they are simply trying to create a space for families to speak and for voices to be heard.
That alone is a compelling goal and something worth fighting for.
But it is a difficult task. It will undoubtedly re-open old wounds for some people that listen to, or speak of, what happened to their sister, mother, daughter, aunt or friend. But the power of words to help and to heal, and the easing of burdens that sometimes follows the telling of a trauma, are reasons to keep the inquiry alive.
It's certainly not a fix-all. But it might be an important step along the path to wellness for some families, who have been left scarred by deaths and disappearances. It might also help those that felt ignored.
This week, those people will have the chance to put their names down as speakers for the December hearing.
A friend of mine - an Indigenous journalist and survivor -wrote of the hopes she still held for the inquiry, last month. She asked families not to give up on it.
You could hear in her voice a deep hope that burns in the hearts of many families of the missing and murdered - a hope for justice and for reconciliation.
We should all be proud of these people giving a voice to the dead. It's an act of strength and an act of bravery.
Carbon tax a heavy levyNorthwest Territories/News North - Monday, August 14, 2017
The arrival of Pan-Canadian carbon pricing to the North is nothing to look forward to - especially now that it's been revealed that it could cost $923 per household by 2022.
The territorial government proposal, which comes in response to the federal Liberal government's much-ballyhooed demand for provinces and territories to come up with their own plans to reduce fossil-fuel usage might be workable in large urban centres in southern Canada. But risks being yet another yoke of oppression from the federal government in a place that relies heavily on fuel for all forms of transportation and for generators to keep the lights on and provide heat to ward off freezing to death.
The prospect of switching to smaller vehicles - electric? Sure, go try that out - and renewable forms of energy is problematic for a place that gets so cold and so dark that even wind turbines freeze up in winter.
People with low incomes and those in smaller communities will likely be hurt the most ("Carbon tax could cost $923 per household," News/North Aug. 7).
Lisa Nitsiza, chief administrative officer of Whati, which has fewer than 500 residents and can only be reached by air during summer, said the carbon tax would likely hit the community hardest if flight prices increase.
"The chief has been saying that the average household cannot afford a trip into Yellowknife for two," she said, adding that for a family of four, the price is close to $1,600, round trip.
The latest talk on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's carbon pricing plan, promised in the 2015 general election, is in response to a GNWT survey and discussion paper about the implementation of carbon pricing in the NWT.
It states households will be hit directly with fuel price hikes at the pump, and indirectly with taxes included in the prices of goods and services.
The tax is expected to generate $12.6 million in its first year, and $63 million per year in 2022, according to the paper.
Now that's not chump change. But NWT residents are going to feel like chumps if this new tax simply lines government coffers deeper and is not used to improve the territory's energy infrastructure, such as building hydro potential and more solar panel arrays.
And what a nasty bit of spreadsheet wizardry that will prove to be for what will obviously be an expanded territorial finance department.
Housing and transportation costs are already straining credulity in the NWT and the last thing the territory's economy needs is a tax that will scare off business.
The GNWT must ensure the tax makes the cost of energy in the North more affordable.
While we're on this topic, whatever happened to the confident statements from Premier Bob McLeod that the North's unique needs will be addressed by the feds as the tax scheme was in development last year? Don't hear much of that talk any longer.
However, it's logical that measures to introduce workable new green energy alternatives should continue to be developed and introduced.
As we wrote here in a previous editorial on this matter ("Trip down greener
road a long one," Dec. 19, 2016), the NWT would need millions, if not billions, of dollars from the feds to invest in the infrastructure needed for increased hydro production, wind turbines, and solar panels. The territory will need millions more to better insulate buildings and homes. And even then, it is difficult to imagine how the NWT will be able to do anything more than modestly reduce our diesel consumption - and only after many years of planning and construction.
In July of last year, McLeod united with Nunavut Premier Peter Taptuna and former Yukon Premier Darrell Pasloski in publicly opposing a carbon tax because cost of living in the North is already so high.
Did those words really fall on deaf ears in Ottawa?
Nunavut's language challenges are manyNunavut/News North - Monday, August 14, 2017
Last month, under the radar, Nunavut's Department of Culture and Heritage let a significant date pass with zero fanfare. More than two weeks later, we learned that all businesses and non-governmental organizations must join the government in offering its services in the Inuit language.
It's a big deal. Why wasn't a bigger deal made? Perhaps because it's summer in Nunavut.
Nunavummiut know that English has a lot of power here, perhaps more than Inuktut, despite the fact the territory is 84 per cent Inuit, according to the Nunavut Bureau of Statistics. Outside of Iqaluit, the figure is 92 per cent.
Very many Inuit speak English but the same can't be said for qallunaat speaking Inuit languages.
The erosion of Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun can only stop if they are used, promoted and more widespread. The government is right to step in to push back against one of the world's most dominant languages.
It makes sense to conscript businesses into the fight. But halting Inuktut's erosion will take a lot of effort, money and goodwill.
Businesses run by qallunaat tend to use English names, and their marketing is rarely translated into Inuktut. The government is ready to help with a $1 million fund - up to $5,000 per business - to translate materials and produce signage, etc., to match the prominence of the English ones.
But producing reading material is only one solution that doesn't line up with the reality that literacy is low here, particularly outside of Iqaluit.
The poor state of Inuktut in government and in education in Nunavut is a huge barrier that needs to be addressed if this effort is to work. Inuit employment in government has been stuck at 50 per cent for ages, and the problem is more pronounced in Nunavut schools, where the next generation is expected to develop Inuit language skills while spending their days being taught by English-speaking non-Inuit teachers using a different writing system.
To save the language, all schools should be requiring all students to learn all subjects in Inuktitut first, and English should be taught as a second language much the same as French is offered at English-speaking schools down south.
Until such ideas are possible to execute, asking businesses to have Inuktut speakers available to answer questions about products and services will run into a capacity issue. It's difficult for small businesses to recruit Inuktut speakers when the need for their labour in government is in high demand, and the pay is higher. Finding translators is also difficult, especially those who speak Inuinnaqtun, even for small projects.
Technology isn't much of a help, at this point. Google Translate offers more than 100 languages, almost none spoken by Indigenous people in North America. It does offer Latin, though, which has zero native speakers. There's something wrong with that.
Surveying the landscape, it's no surprise the languages commissioner is saying fines won't come right away for businesses that don't comply.
It's smart business to speak the language of the client. Unfortunately for us all, the territory's biggest employer - the government - has a much bigger language problem, and it's going to take far more money and far more time to solve.
Arsenic awareness Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, August 11, 2017
Last week's flip-flop on signage warning about arsenic contamination in area lakes highlights a communications fiasco that began with the release of 30-year-old data on Kam Lake last spring.
Last week, Dr. Andre Corriveau, the NWT's chief public health officer, was forced to endure a very public course correction by his minister Glen Abernethy after the good doctor said erecting signs would be "expensive" and likely to be "defaced or vandalized" or "just fall over in time."
According to the minister, signs have been in the works since the spring. The territorial government will pay for them and the city will post them in four key areas: Kam Lake, Grace Lake, Frame Lake and Jackfish Lake - all bodies of water people may be tempted to swim or fish in if they didn't know any better.
Presumably they will be as sturdily built and as reasonably priced as the handful of signs already dotting the McMahon Frame Lake Trail or Baker Creek informing passerby of the area's fauna and geology.
City councillor Niels Konge told Yellowknifer he doesn't think the lakes need signs "because at some point people need to take the initiative to educate themselves and take care of their own well-being."
This is a marvelously libertarian point of view but doesn't help a person new to town or the tourist from Korea who would never consider reading health advisories on the Department of Heath and Social Services' website before taking a stroll down by the lake.
A few strategically placed signs with clear warning labels is the most responsible way to inform members of the public who may not be aware there is a problem.
The signage flip-flop was an unfortunate misstep in a week where residents were finally given solid information on a number of lakes within city limits, particularly Kam Lake - the subject of a health advisory in April, based on information from 1989, that stated arsenic levels in the lake were more than 50 times higher than the level considered safe for drinking water.
New testing shows the figure has since been halved to 24 times higher than the Canadian guidelines for safe drinking water. It's still an alarming number but the discrepancy suggests the health department would have been better off giving itself a few more months while doing its homework before firing off a health advisory based on out-of-date information.
The department has been playing catch up ever since and in the process has confused and greatly alarmed the public without being able to answer questions - questions concerning bodies of water many people have been living next to and enjoying all their lives.
There is much more to learn about arsenic in city lakes. Hopefully, the health department will learn how to better communicate the new information that it learns.
Food bank support impressive in this environmentInuvik Drum - Thursday, August 10, 2017
The Muslim Welfare Centre spent an extraordinary $120,000 last year funding the Arctic Food Bank.
That act of private charity must be one of, if not the, largest in the region.
Most community group funding here comes through government grants and programs. Grant and proposal writing has become an entire industry itself, with thousands of non-profits and charities vying for pieces of the public purse.
However, there's something more meaningful about individuals opting to fund a certain program with their own money than bureaucrats in government offices choosing which programs to fund with their tax collections.
The people who voluntarily donated to the Muslim Welfare Centre, knowing the money goes to programs like this, have parted with their money because it's a cause they believe in.
It is slightly more hollow to receive a bounty that was forced out of other people's hands.
This is not just semantics, because the incentives behind money circulation matter.
People are naturally generous, but to a logical point.
If the government assumes responsibility for a country's generosity and taxes to the extent needed to attain that power, the incentive for individuals to give plummets.
First of all, they have less money to give. Second, they wonder why they should fund something that the government has said is its job.
Third, the causes the government supports are not necessarily the same causes the people who are paying for them would support.
Peter will naturally use different judgement spending Paul's money than he would his own.
The Muslim Welfare Centre props up organizations like the Arctic Food Bank no doubt because the people who donated believe it is not just a good cause, but something that resonates with them personally and will extend their brand.
It is a mutual benefit: they feel good about themselves, and they get their name out there in a positive light. There's no such thing as selfless acts: people give because it makes them feel good.
But the person who's taxed for someone else to provide charity with that money has no choice in how the money is spent and all the brand payback goes to the government.
This can lead to a crowding out effect, which makes people less likely to be generous if they think the government is already assuming that role.
We can at once support the government's ability to provide funding to underrepresented causes and be wary of the fine line it can cross with regard to incentives.
People's charity does not exist in a vacuum, but is responsive to the ebbs and flows of their environment.
The Muslim Welfare Centre's support is a fantastic example of private charity still alive and well. So are the town's 100 People Who Care Inuvik group and donations businesses have made to the Children First Centre and youth athletics.
Groups like these deserve extra praise in an environment that doesn't always push people to give.
