Answers needed in bail case Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, August 18, 2017
News that a Ndilo man has been charged with two additional sexual assaults after being granted bail on a previous sexual assault charge has raised questions about whether public safety is a priority when people facing this charge are released before trial.
In March, when RCMP arrested Peter Tsetta's arrest on charges of sexual assault and forcible confinement. He has previous convictions, spanning from petty to violent offences.
Despite opposition from the Crown prosecutor, Tsetta was released by Justice of the Peace Ruth McLean. It was while out on bail that he is alleged to have sexually assaulted two more women.
None of the charges have been proven in court but the situation certainly merits reflection.
Lyda Fuller, executive director of the YWCA, said she was "appalled" by his release and questions how the Department of Justice defines threats to public safety when a Justice of the Peace is assessing release conditions for a person charged with a sexual offence.
Adding to the uncertainty in this case is the RCMP's refusal to say whether a risk assessment on Tsetta was provided for his bail hearing.
Justices of the peace often preside over bail hearings in the Northwest Territories, as they do in many other jurisdictions, except in cases where the charge is murder. While they do receive training, justices of the peace do not typically have a legal background. A department spokesperson said there is "no set rule or guideline" for whether a justice of the peace or judge presides over a bail hearing as opposed to an actual judge.
Whatever the reasons Tsetta was granted bail - given the troubling charges that occurred afterwards - people are right to question whether sexual assault cases are treated seriously enough in the Northwest Territories.
Is it appropriate that bail hearings for such a serious charge be handled by the same court that dishes out fines for traffic tickets?
According to Statistics Canada, as of 2013, the rate of violence against women in the NWT is nine times the national rate. Statistics Canada found that there were 138 cases of sexual assault reported to the RCMP in 2016 -- but these numbers are far from accurate, as research shows that sexual assault is one of the most under-reported crimes.
Status of Women Canada reports as many as one in three women will be sexually assaulted in Canada.
For Indigenous citizens, it gets worse. Status of Women found that sexual assaults account for one third of all violent crimes committed against Indigenous women, who are already more likely than non-Indigenous women to experience violence.
It's not good enough that Justice Minister Louis Sebert had no comment about Tsetta's case. The justice departments needs to do more than comment -- it needs to prove the system in place works to protect women.
An important step would be to educate the public on how bail works and to publicly examine whether there are any problems with it.
Someone you know, someone you care about, someone maybe sitting right next to you while you read this has been raped and has more than likely not reported it.
One of the main barriers to reporting is the fear that one will not be believed, or that there will be no justice served.
Confidence has been shaken. The justice department needs to take steps to restore it.
Flawed speakers present as honest role modelsInuvik Drum - Thursday, August 17, 2017
Clear in the opening keynotes at the Gwich'in Tribal Council's YOUth Matter conference this week in Inuvik was the acknowledgement of flawed pasts.
GTC vice-president Jordan Peterson, Inuvialuit Communications Society manager Dez Loreen and Those Kugs podcaster Terrance Allen all began their presentations talking about their struggles with alcohol and finding an identity they could be proud of.
Allen and Loreen discussed the importance of being grateful for the good things happening in life and not focusing on the bad.
It is natural to get into your own head without realizing everyone else is in theirs.
Everyone has experience being hyper-concerned with blemishes or embarrassments that friends, family and significant others don't even seem able to see.
What absolutely distresses one person in the mirror all morning doesn't even register to the people they meet throughout the day, who themselves are likely far more concerned about whatever they have going on in their lives.
Youth are in a particularly fragile time. Many don't yet have a sense of identity and they compare themselves closely with their peers, not wanting to be different from the crowd.
Few seem to get through their late teens and early 20s without fairly severe anxiety issues, challenges with depression, or struggling with personal pride and direction.
Perhaps not entirely, but to some degree the perfect lives people portray themselves living on social media can enhance this anxiety among young people, who see only the smiling pictures of their peers and not the moments of self-doubt between them.
The speakers and GTC president Bobbie Jo Greenland-Morgan mentioned the importance of being grateful to be alive.
That can be hard to get through to young people, but every second of life is truly a gift, and it can be snatched from us at any moment.
At the base of it, you're either dead or alive. If you're dead, there's nothing to think about anyway. If you're alive, might as well keep riding your one shot on the roller-coaster of life.
There's always room to recover and grow and work toward a better tomorrow so long as your heart is still beating.
It was refreshing to hear how blunt the speakers were at the youth conference this week. In any event like this, there can be the inclination to give more of a stock standard speech, rattling off the qualities of successful people and how to be leaders and whatnot.
But the speakers presented themselves as flawed people, and even as people who may have reached a good place now but are still in need of working on themselves as much as ever.
That can only be healthy for youth to hear as they struggle reconciling their image of themselves with their lofty expectations and dreams.
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.
