City getting taken for rideYellowknifer - Wednesday, September 6, 2017
The city's safe-ride program has a big fan - the RCMP.
At the Aug. 28 municipal services committee meeting, RCMP staff Sgt. Alexandre Laporte said his organization is seeing a significant decline in calls for service downtown, meaning, he said, police are now able to put their resources in "the right areas."
That is, fighting crime.
While a legitimate congratulations to the Yellowknife Women's Society is in order for delivering a program that has done a staggering amount of good for the city in a short period of time, Yellowknifer can't help but notice a bureaucratic disconnect.
The city is paying for safe ride because it was unable to secure funding from the federal government's Homelessness Partnering Strategy. Apparently the program, which transports vulnerable people off the street to the sobering centre, shelter or hospital, doesn't fall within the federal government's funding criteria.
Meanwhile, one of the main beneficiaries of the safe-ride program has turned out to be - other than the people it picks up - a federal agency, the RCMP.
This is not fair. The city doesn't have an official mandate to fund housing and homelessness issues, yet has gone above and beyond by contributing $178,000 to the program - including an injection of $78,000 on Aug. 28 -- to get it to the end of the year from when it began in June.
Coun. Niels Konge had a salient point during council on Aug. 28 when he expressed hesitation to continue funding the program. As long as the city is doing it, why would the federal, or even territorial, governments step in?
Now, it's a reality that federal government departments can get a bit silo'ed, so Yellowknifer hopes the people who administer funding through the Homelessness Partnering Strategy realize how much of a benefit it has proven to be to the Mounties. The city shouldn't be expected to spend an estimated $360,000 per year on this, and quite possibly could end up deciding it can't.
The next step is to figure out how much money is being saved in not having to use police or ambulances to pick up intoxicated people and take them to safety.
If there are significant savings, the safe-ride program must be completely supported and utilized in other jurisdictions. Money talks. Or should.
If the safe-ride program doesn't fit the federal government's Homelessness Partnering Strategy funding criteria, the problem doesn't lie with the program. The problem lies with its funding criteria, and this needs to be rectified immediately.
Indigenous voters key in fight for NWTYellowknifer - Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Good on Conservative leader Andrew Scheer for admitting an ignorance of Northern issues and coming to Yellowknife in an effort to change that.
As he learns more about the history of his party and the North, he is surely going to find he has quite an uphill battle if he wants to gain the trust of its Indigenous voting majority. That is because Scheer's predecessor, former prime minister Stephen Harper, didn't leave the greatest track record.
Yes, he is responsible for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which opened a chapter of repentance over the government's dismal treatment of Indigenous people in residential schools. But Harper also famously refused to open an inquiry into why such a vastly disproportionate number of missing and murdered women in the country are Indigenous. His government also wasted millions of tax dollars fighting Indigenous people in court over treaty rights.
On the other hand, the Harper government did make northern development a priority, establishing the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency while focusing on Arctic sovereignty and signing off on a devolution deal with the NWT - a project the previous Liberal government was unable to deliver.
Today's Liberal government may be vulnerable in the NWT on its demand for a carbon tax if it fails to mitigate rising - and unavoidable - costs on home heating fuel, diesel power generation and travel.
The Conservatives will always have votes in Yellowknife and other regional centres such as Hay River and Inuvik. They came close in 2008 but their failure to pick up votes in Indigenous communities continues to deny them a seat in the NWT.
Scheer would be wise to address that problem because the Conservatives will continue to lose in the NWT if they don't.
It's gotta be the shoesEditorial Comment by Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, September 6, 2017
There are three things I will not miss should I ever decide to leave Rankin Inlet and Kivalliq News.
Those are: the cost of living in Rankin, the ridiculous amounts of money we're forced to spend on things such as cell and Internet service, which don't deliver a service anywhere near the cost, and the lack of professionalism when trying to deal with the Government of Nunavut (GN) in any meaningful way.
The truth of the matter is, I'm lucky to have had as many years writing in newspapers when journalists had trust and respect.
Don't get me wrong, today's media has brought the distrust upon itself. What passes for news online today gives me some very bad feelings.
Journalists used to be the minders, but, today, I can't help but wonder who's minding the minders.
And, to make matters worse, the majority of today's journalists remind me of the humour that once surrounded party supporters. You can put a Tory and a Liberal in a room together and let them argue away the hours, but when you open the door at the end of the day, you're still going to have a Tory and a Liberal come out.
Too many of today's journalists have their minds already made up on a host of topics. The best argument in the world could be presented to them on a given topic and they'd spend all their time arguing against the argument, rather than processing the information.
On the other side of the fence, press secretaries, spin doctors and gag orders, keep the modern media in its place most of the time.
And, for honest scribes, it's frustrating as hell.
Operation Nanook recently took place in Rankin Inlet and I spent an afternoon "attempting" to interview the good folks on the ground.
Some stuttered, some turned pale, some were very impressive with their ability to repeat the party line right down to pausing where the commas were when they read it. Some simply walked away, but none would consent to an interview.
When Coral Harbour recently hosted the territorial trials in Arctic sports for the upcoming Arctic Winter Games (AWG), bad weather prevented the entire group from Chesterfield Inlet, including star athlete Andrew Bell, from competing at the event.
I try not get caught up in the win-at-all-costs hype, and I also firmly believe there are far more benefits to attending the AWG than counting the number of ulus you win.
And given my history as a hockey official, you better believe I subscribe to the theory of rules being put in place for a reason, which is not so that they can be broken.
That said, what are the rules when the Kivalliq equal of the Great One in Arctic sports cannot attend the AWG because of bad weather? Is there any sort of appeal process?
These are policy questions that should get answered in the blink of an eye, but, my hopes for an interview got ignored for three days by all but one man. Try as he may, he did not have the authority to grant a policy interview.
I miss the days of co-operation, when there were rules to the game.
Oh well, there are other pressing issues in the world to be sure. I wonder what type of shoes Ivanka Trump is wearing today?
Fortress Fed vs. Senator NickNorthwest Territories/News North - Monday, Monday, September 4, 2017
When Sen. Nick Sibbeston approached the Service Canada building in Yellowknife late last month, he expected to receive some service - even if he didn't have an appointment.
After all, he is the sitting senator for the entire territory - and served as premier in the mid-1980s - and even had his government ID card to prove his day job is in the Red Chamber in Ottawa.
But either the security staff at the door weren't impressed with the senator's pedigree, or were simply following building access rules to the letter.
Here's some background from a story that really had people talking after it was published in News/North Aug. 28.
Sibbeston said he was left "shocked, dismayed and saddened" after being blocked from entering the Parks Canada office at the Yellowknife Service Canada Centre Aug. 22.
A guard told him it did not matter if he was a senator, he simply could not meet with Parks Canada manager Lee Montgomery without making an appointment first. A request to phone up to Montgomery was refused.
When the frustrated senator made his way to the second floor on his own, he was followed by a security guard, who Sibbeston said threatened to call the RCMP on him. The senator then left the building.
The next day, Aug. 23, the senator came to the News/North office in Yellowknife to explain what had happened to him.
"These rules are ridiculous," Sibbeston told the newspaper.
"If I as a senator have a hard time getting into a federal building, how much more difficult must it be for an ordinary person?"
A reporter accompanied Sibbeston back to the Service Canada building and the senator eventually met with an apologetic security guard who had not been involved in the earlier incident.
The outspoken senator has made headlines in recent years on a variety of matters, including claiming $50,000 in improper expenses, quitting the Senate Liberal caucus to sit as an independent, admitting in a tell-all memoir he battled alcoholism for years, and accusing the RCMP of failing to follow up on a lead he gave them in a homicide investigation.
Oh, and in 2005, he also called gay and lesbian lifestyles "unnatural" and voted against a same-sex marriage bill in the Senate.
It was never made clear exactly what pressing business Sibbeston had with the Parks Canada official. We trust it was an important matter of benefit to his constituents.
We can sympathize with the senator for wanting to conduct government business in an expedient fashion without fussing over making an appointment, or dealing with building security and all of their strict procedures that were put in place by that very same federal government.
But we also don't think the average member of the public would expect to show up unannounced and be granted access to a bureaucrat.
Especially in this dangerous day and age when security levels at any government building have been increased. The days of the "pop-in" to see public officials are long over.
However, the incident surely did make for another interesting chapter in Sibbeston's career.
Not guilty does not mean innocentNunavut/News North - Monday, September 4, 2017
After more than a year of study, the federal Competition Bureau says First Air and Canadian North did not break the law in its efforts to stop startup airline GoSarvaq from entering the Ottawa-Iqaluit market.
The process has taken some time but not long enough to erase the memories of those paying sky-high prices to go south.
Iqaluit to Ottawa is a three-hour flight by jet, with a retail cost of $2,500 round-trip. Compare that to Ottawa to Yellowknife, a five-hour flight that costs around $800 on Air North. You could even go from Ottawa to Hong Kong, a 16-hour trip, for $1,000 on Air Canada.
It will take some time for Nunavummiut to forget how First Air and Canadian North - working on a codeshare agreement at the time - dropped the price of one-way tickets to as low as $266. That drop came after GoSarvaq said it would fly twice a week for $499 each way. Hard to get off the ground and compete when your competitors drop the cost of a ticket by almost half the price.
But more than the price war itself, the bigger lesson comes from the argument the Competition Bureau used to absolve the airlines' knockout punch pricing. The airlines said they were still making a profit at $266 each way.
We've noted this before but take another moment to breathe that in.
Under the codeshare, First Air and Canadian North had a monopolistic partnership backed by guarantees of government duty travel and medical travel contracts, which fill planes with travellers who need the ability to change their flights on short notice, not those seeking sale prices. The government rate of $1,500 or so is no problem when someone else is footing the bill.
Still, there is a market for those who want to pay a discount price, or perhaps we should call it a fair price. That market wasn't fed for many months ahead of GoSarvaq's launch attempt.
Unfortunately, these same customers were the ones who ended GoSarvaq's startup hopes as much as the larger airlines. It was these customers who jumped back to the legacy airlines when Canadian North and First Air dropped their prices even lower than GoSarvaq could offer. To paraphrase the old saying, with customers like that, who needs enemies?
In the wake of this episode, and after First Air cancelled its codeshare agreement with Canadian North, we've seen some sales bringing prices to a more reasonable level.
But Nunavummiut deserve better. They deserve transparency and actual competition.
That's why we're hopeful GoSarvaq can revive itself, this time aware of the benchmark set by the big players. Pick a different route, perhaps closer to Toronto or the East Coast.
Thinking more creatively, an airline would be wise to consider the success of Iceland's airlines, which have taken a once challenging nation to visit into a free stopover along the way from North America to Europe. Considering the investment made into a $300 million airport in Iqaluit, it's a good time to consider ways to bring more traffic into our territory, and an airline that makes a stop along the way from southern Canada to Europe would be a good way to do so.
But consumers need to take a hard look in the mirror, and consider who has our best interests in mind. If they don't support these businesses, they won't get what they pay for, they will pay for what they get.
Smoking ban needs careful consideration Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, September 1, 2017
Last week, city council directed administration to look into options to potentially outlaw smoking on all city properties, including parks.
The city needs to take a deep breath.
If it isn't careful, the smoking bylaw could end up in the same pile as the poop-and-scoop rules it passed in 2014. Three years after the law came into effect, the city had yet to give out a single ticket and dog poop still litters the city.
Smoking is bad for your health and the health of others. Smokers must accept a dwindling access to the public sphere where they light up - a campaign that began in Yellowknife more than a decade ago when smoking was banned in restaurants and bars. Council needs to find a balance between knowing how and when to enforce rules and when to back off. In some cases, like with the bylaw around bicycle helmets, the city struck the right tone. With poop bag bylaws, not so much.
Nobody wants the smoke police. Especially if enforcement marginalizes already marginalized people.
According to Statistics Canada, while smoking rates haven generally fallen, as of 2014, 33.3 percent of adults in the NWT smoked, the second highest rate in the country, beaten only by Nunavut. Indigenous people are even more likely to light up: a 2010 First Nations regional health survey showed 57 per cent of Indigenous adults smoke daily or occasionally and smoking is more prevalent among people who are unemployed or with lower incomes. Banning smoking on municipal property could consequently mean sticking people -- especially the most vulnerable people -- with onerous penalties.
If the city gets really draconian with a smoking ban, the likely effect will be to drive smokers out of parks and near city facilities and into other areas, such as into the bush, where there is an increased chance of starting fires.
A good place to crack down on smoking would be cigarette butt litter. The city has made a good start, installing 45 special butt receptacles last year. There should be more public ash cans and more tickets going to people who leave behind butts in city parks and streets.
Butting out is good. But the city needs to make sure it doesn't start a bigger fire.
Quashing hate a community responsibility Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, September 1, 2017
There's nothing new about racist graffiti. Sadly, the 'white power'
slogan spotted in an Old Airport Road pedestrian underpass last week is just a bigger and bolder example of the stupidity rendered on the walls of public washrooms the world over.
Usually acts like these are legitimately written off as the yelps of bored teens hungry for attention - youth lashing out at the world with the pointiest stick they can find.
While Yellowknifer agrees it's not likely the dawn of a nascent neo-Nazi era in the North, it's great to see
institutions such as the city and RCMP take matters like these seriously.
Their swift response last week sends a strong message that there's no room for hate in this community.
As city hall is the obvious first point of contact when people see racist or homophobic symbols, slurs or graffiti on municipal property, it's also good to know it will now contact the
Mounties immediately when notified.
From the grassroots perspective, it's good to hear a local chapter of Stand Up To Racism is putting down foundations in Yellowknife. The group was scheduled to hold a candlelight vigil for victims of hate crimes last night.
Society in general needs to be vigilant against hate. We all need to take responsibility for eliminating it in our communities.
It's a good idea to explore resources along new highwayInuvik Drum - Thursday, August 31, 2017
When the United States and Canada announced a joint, five-year moratorium on off-shore oil and gas drilling in Arctic waters last December, the countries' leaders hailed it as a move toward a "strong," "viable" Arctic economy and ecosystem.
Their aim was to meet global climate goals while protecting Arctic life from environmental hazards such as oil spills.
Yet, in one of those Arctic communities – Inuvik – the economy was showing signs of stagnation, with some homes and a former hotel boarded up, and empty shop windows lining parts of the main strip.
While the town may not sit on the edge of the Arctic Ocean where this off-shore drilling is banned, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) decried what they called a lack of consultation over a policy that would affect them and which they have a right to be consulted about under their land claim agreement.
At the time, IRC president Duane Smith stated the corporation had been dealing with both on-shore and off-shore drilling in the region for five decades, but the federal government had not asked his opinion on the decision.
Luckily, the IRC hasn't given up hope of tapping into on-shore resources and, with that, boosting the local economy.
Last week, the Inuvik Drum reported the IRC is gathering proposals for a study that would look at the feasibility of harvesting and distributing gas along the nearly-complete Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk highway.
This research is a good thing. Not only is the new highway expected to draw more tourists (and their wallets) to the region, the study may also show it brings the prospect of homegrown jobs, cheaper energy and a chance to breathe more life into the local economy.
A 2015 report from the Town of Inuvik showed high utility costs and unemployment were some of the biggest challenges facing the community. According to the report, 17 businesses had disappeared from Inuvik within a five-year period from 2008 to 2013.
The effect on local organizations is evident, too. Earlier this year, the Inuvik Food Bank began charging clients a small fee for food, citing increasing costs.
At the time, Heather Wheating, chair of the Inuvik Food Bank, stated the organization was handing out an average of 100 flats of food per distribution, compared to just 30 flats five years ago.
According to Kate Darling, general counsel for the IRC, the corporation's study would look at the possibility of supplying gas from the region to residents of the region, which could limit Inuvik's reliance on southern fuel producers and create new jobs.
The study would first explore gas supplies in Aklavik, Fort McPherson, Inuvik, Tsiigehtchic and Tuktoyaktuk, and then some coastal communities, she said.
It would also be important to examine how the environment can be managed at the same time.
Although the possibility of harvesting gas along the highway isn't yet a sure thing, it's good to see the IRC exploring an opportunity that could make Inuvik more self-reliant when it comes to fuel and that could give the economy a push forward.
