September
26 , 2003
Ng will be hard to replace
When Kelvin Ng bids farewell to territorial politics early next year, he can
do so with his head held high.
Since 1993, when he was first elected to the legislative assembly of the Northwest
Territories as the member for the old Kitikmeot West constituency, Ng held some
of the toughest portfolios in government. He is Nunavut's first, and only, finance
minister. During his time in that job he lowered Nunavut's personal and corporate
tax rates to the lowest levels in the country, and through the deft management
of annual operating surpluses produced balanced budgets and no long-term debt.
On April 1, 1999, he took control of Nunavut's Human Resources department when
the new territory's public service was still on life support. Despite the disorganized
mess that Nunavut inherited from the Office of the Interim Commissioner, Ng
was able to recruit and retain enough staff to bring most departments to nearly
full capacity. He did this in a jurisdiction that is one of the least attractive
places to work in Canada, and suffers from a badly educated and unhealthy work
force. He also negotiated a difficult collective agreement with the Nunavut
Employees Union, avoiding a public service strike that at times seemed inevitable.
Before the creation of Nunavut, he survived a rough stint as minister of health
and social services in the Government of the Northwest Territories, surviving
numerous problems created by shrinking health contributions from Ottawa and
various crises within regional health boards.
Even before he entered territorial politics, Ng had built up a strong résumé
as a municipal leader, serving as municipal councillor and mayor in Cambridge
Bay, president of the Northwest Territories Association of Municipalities, chair
of the Cambridge Bay housing association, and deputy speaker of the Kitikmeot
Regional Council.
No one will ever accuse Ng of being a flashy politician. If he were a hockey
player, he would be Bob Gainey, not Guy Lafleur. He rarely calls attention to
himself, rarely grandstands, but usually does it what it takes to get the job
done.
Unlike so many other Nunavut politicians, Ng never brought embarrassment to
himself or to his office. In public, and in the legislative assembly, he consistently
maintained a dignified and professional demeanour. Outside of the territory,
he was a worthy ambassador for Nunavut.
As finance minister, Ng never took the easy way out. He never resorted to telling
people what they wanted to hear and his messages were always tempered by a realistic
assessment of Nunavut's financial limits.
While giving his last budget speech, on March 11, Ng wore a pair of borrowed
kamiks to symbolize the government's commitment to frugality — and to send
a serious message to the next government.
He warned that the Government of Nunavut is beginning to spend more money than
it receives, and that it must find new sources of revenue to maintain current
levels of spending. He also warned that the GN's program review exercise might,
in the future, lead to program cuts and reductions. In a jurisdiction like Nunavut,
where nearly everyone is dependent, directly or indirectly, on some form of
government spending, it takes guts to say these kinds of things, and it takes
political skill to survive saying them.
Ng endured much criticism for all the time he spent in Yellowknife, and many
critics, especially the Nunavut Employees Union, accused him of not being a
real Nunavut resident, sheltered from having to cope with Nunavut's high cost
of living. To be fair, though, Ng maintained a dwelling unit in Iqaluit.
But for a Cambridge Bay MLA, a residence in Yellowknife makes more sense than
a residence in Iqaluit. That is dictated by Nunavut's geography, and by Nunavut's
inadequate air transportation system. It takes at least two days to fly from
Nunavut's capital to Cambridge Bay — but from Yellowknife, it's only a
two-hour flight.
Given his valuable years of service to Nunavut, Ng's choice of residence is
a minor issue. Kelvin Ng helped make Nunavut a better place to live. No one
is indispensable, and everyone can be replaced. But after the next election,
it will take a special person to fill the gap Ng's departure will create. JB
September 19,
2003
An old message falls on deaf ears
When Aqqaluk Lynge, the Greenlandic vice-president of the Inuit Circumpolar
Conference, said last week that Arctic governments should spend less on doctors
and more on public health, he said nothing that his audience of health workers
and researchers would find new or controversial.
Lynge acknowledged this himself. "The principles of community health and
preventive medicine are not new. They go back a long way in most Arctic countries
and, indeed, the world over," he said in a brilliant speech made before
the International Congress on Circumpolar Health in Nuuk last week.
In a nutshell, Lynge said that spending more money on more doctors, more hospital
beds and more diagnostic equipment will not cure the appalling health issues
that afflict northern residents.
Instead, he said, governments should invest much more in public health and
public education campaigns aimed at changing the disastrous lifestyle choices
that make so many northern people sick.
"Communicators, educators, and media people may be more instrumental in
dealing with our health challenges in Greenland than doctors, expensive diagnostic
equipment, and hospital beds," Lynge said.
So far so good. Though we have some reservations, we agree with almost everything
Lynge said.
The root causes of Nunavut's health problems can be divided into two categories.
The first is reckless personal behaviour — smoking, alcohol and drug abuse,
bad diet, unsafe sex, and family violence. The second is social and economic
deprivation — overcrowded housing, poor education, joblessness, poverty
and the lingering effects of racism and colonialism.
The concept of "public health" is also two-fold. It includes the
public circulation of information aimed at persuading people to do things that
are good for their health. It also includes interventionist programs aimed at
giving people things to help them cope with the worst effects of poverty and
ignorance - such as school breakfast and lunch programs, home care, vaccination
campaigns, and the distribution of free condoms.
Northern health workers — most of whom are employees of northern governments
— have been urging governments to put more emphasis on public health for
a long time.
It's northern leaders who haven't been getting the message.
For example, in 1996, Dr. David Kinloch, then the chief medical officer for
the Northwest Territories, produced a report that reviewed health conditions
in the NWT, including the three Nunavut regions.
Kinloch concluded that northern health conditions are so bad, the entire apparatus
of territorial government should be transformed into a health and social development
project. No one paid much attention to him.
Also in 1996, Dr. Richard Bargen, then the medical officer for the Baffin and
Keewatin health boards, issued a ban on smoking in all public spaces within
his jurisdiction. Regional leaders responded by rescinding his order, and getting
him fired from his job.
To be fair, people in Nunavut are finally making a connection between Nunavut's
high rates of cigarette smoking and Nunavut's high rates of lung cancer. The
legislative assembly is likely to pass Health Minister Ed Picco's tobacco control
act, and MLAs have allowed him to spend money on a modest anti-tobacco campaign.
But those belated efforts, useful though they may be, aren't even close to
what we need. The devolution of health care from Ottawa to the territories,
completed in 1988, must be deemed a failure.
One reason is the calculated cynicism of Canada's federal government, which
has used health-care devolution to evade its constitutional obligation to pay
for aboriginal health care North of 60.
But another reason is the naive attitudes of northern regional and community
leaders, who were, and are, unprepared to handle the policy and program responsibilities
associated with running a health-care system — especially the kind of public
health campaigns that Lynge advocated in his speech. That's the real reason
that Nunavut's three regional health boards, created after the devolution of
health care, were such a pathetic failure.
There's no doubt that Nunavut's bare-bones, Third World health-care system
could use a few more doctors and nurses.
But what we need a lot more of are activist, interventionist programs. They
include feeding programs for the young, more aggressive campaigns against substance
abuse, family planning campaigns, and so on.
In short, it means government must stick its nose more deeply into people's
lives — something that Nunavut residents — and many Nunavut leaders
- have always resisted.
The common-sense truth that lies within the heart of Aqqaluk Lynge's message
will not fade, however. And its encouraging to see that message coming from
a political leader for a change. JB
September12,
2003
Territorial cooperation will take commitment
As many northern newspaper readers and radio listeners already know, the premiers
of Canada's three territories signed an agreement last week called the "Northern
Cooperation Accord." In it, they promise to work together for the next
three years in a wide variety of policy areas.
What many of us may not know, however, is that this is their second try.
In 1999, the premiers of Canada's three territories signed a similar agreement,
in Iqaluit. They even gave it the same name — "Northern Cooperation
Accord."
It came to nothing. Not only did it come to nothing — nobody even noticed,
which is not surprising. For most ordinary people, these kinds of intergovernmental
agreements don't mean much. For people struggling to eat, pay their bills and
keep their children out of trouble, phrases like "devolution," "social
policy" and "formula financing" represent meaningless abstractions,
worlds away from the grinding realities of everyday life.
But if the northern premiers mean what they say, and use their co-operation
pact to do the things they promised to do last week, the lives of ordinary northern
residents, especially Nunavut residents, might end up getting a little better.
At least, the quality of life might stop getting worse, which in Nunavut, would
be an improvement all by itself.
For example, when the three northern premiers picked a public fight with Prime
Minister Jean Chrétien over health-care funding last February, their
tactics were reasonably effective.
We all know that they were able to extract greater annual health-care contributions
from Ottawa.
But they also accomplished a more important goal. They persuaded Chrétien
to admit, in the House of Commons, that pure per capita funding methods - so
many dollars per person — don't work for the thinly populated, high-cost
northern territories. It took years to get anyone in the federal government
to admit this. There must have been times when hammering this simple fact into
the minds of federal officials must have felt like hammering a nail into a piece
of granite.
But now, thanks in part to the work that northern premiers have done together,
combined with aggressive lobbying by groups such as the Nunavut Association
of Municipalities, we are finally seeing some new federal funding programs that
depart from the strict per capita rule.
One example of this is a new municipal rural infrastructure fund announced
last month. Of the $1 billion that Ottawa will hand out to rural municipalities,
Nunavut will only get a tiny amount. But this time, a strict per capita formula
will not be used to divide up the money. In this program, Nunavut will get a
$15-million base, to which will be added more money calculated on a per capita
basis.
This means that over the next year or two there may be a little more money
available to Nunavut municipalities to pay for things like water treatment,
waste-water recycling and solid waste treatment. Cultural, tourism and recreational
infrastructure, and local roads are also eligible for funding under this program.
The benefits of all this will be spread out over so many communities, and over
such a long period of time, it's unlikely that ordinary people will perceive
any connection between what they see, and lobbying work done by northern premiers
on behalf of territorial residents.
We're sure that Paul Okalik, Stephen Kakfwi and Dennis Fentie don't need any
help from us in drawing up a to-do list.
They already know that there are numerous financial and constitutional issues
that the federal government isn't even close to acknowledging - all of which
directly affect the lives of northern residents.
They include the Non-Insured Health Benefits Program, the vehicle through which
the federal government is supposed to fulfill its constitutional obligation
to pay for aboriginal health care. The NIHB is failing miserably, mainly because
it doesn't cover the realistic cost of medical travel in northern Canada, especially
Nunavut. The NIHB's weaknesses have done real damage to Nunavut's health-care
system — and to Nunavut residents.
Another is money to pay for capital projects — roads, wharves, airstrips,
municipal buildings and services - also known by the fancy word, "infrastructure."
Ottawa's infrastructure contributions are enough to pay for small projects only
- not the large-scale roads and ports that Nunavut needs to develop its economy.
Yet another is a post-secondary education and training. Nunavut is looking
at several new mines that could be up and running within the next two or three
years. But even at this late date, it's not clear how Nunavut residents will
get the trades training they will need to take advantage of the job opportunities
those mines will create.
Ottawa's cruelest failure is its abandonment of social housing construction,
a policy that has inflicted years of needless suffering upon the most vulnerable
of Nunavut's people. The three northern premiers shouldn't need to be told that
this, too, ought to be made a target of their collective efforts.
It's not clear why the first northern cooperation accord accomplished little.
But the three premiers can't afford to let that happen the second time around.
JB
September 5,
2003
Road death needs investigation
Another Iqaluit resident
has been killed in an accident involving a City of Iqaluit vehicle, the third
in less than three years.
This time, it happened
in broad daylight, in good weather, by the side of a quiet road that does not
usually attract a large volume of traffic. The victim, a 39-year-old woman,
was crushed to death under the wheels of a huge front-end loader, somewhere
within a narrow shoulder between the road and the creek that runs past the public
health building.
Mercifully, an 11-month
baby who was with her survived, suffering only a broken leg, while the victim's
daughter, who was also present, suffered no physical injuries.
It's not clear why the
front-end loader was even in the area, since there are no obvious public works
projects going on there. And it's not clear what the driver was doing, exactly,
when he put his vehicle into reverse moments before running over the woman.
Of greater importance is
this question: Why have three Iqaluit residents died this way in less than three
years?
The only way to answer
it is by means of a thorough investigation of the city's public works department,
an investigation that ought to run deep and wide.
Such an investigation must
examine the hiring, training and supervision of city drivers, their credentials
and qualifications, their work and performance records, the mechanical fitness
of city vehicles, safety protocols used within the department, and any guidelines
that may or may not govern the use of heavy equipment in public areas.
Iqaluit city councillors
and city administrators must put public safety above all other considerations,
including "morale" issues within the public works department. In getting
at the truth, they must be prepared to be ruthless, if necessary.
This week's tragic death
may end up in a criminal case, or it may end up generating a coroner's inquest.
Either process will also be useful in uncovering the truth.
Iqaluit residents must
be assured that they aren't taking their lives in their hands every time they
try to walk from one place to another. Unfortunately, that assurance does not
exist right now. JB
September 5,
2003
The neglected region?
What a coincidence.
Just three weeks after
the people of Kugluktuk lost at least 14 jobs due to the shutdown of the Lupin
Mine, Nunavut's premier and justice minister, Paul Okalik, magically appears
in the community to announce a project that will create - guess what? - 12 new
jobs.
The project involves the
renovation of an old building for use as a "correctional healing facility,"
a kind of low-level jail that's supposed to house offenders convicted of less
serious offences.
So far, so good. The department
of justice is woefully short of correctional centre spaces. It will have no
problems filling the 20 new spaces to be created at the Kugluktuk facility,
which is to open next summer. There's no doubt that Kugluktuk, with its unemployment
rate of 28.5 per cent, could use the 12 jobs. And there's no doubt that community
groups and the hamlet will be able to offer good programs at the centre, in
partnership with the department of justice.
But the measure does little
to address the two separate problems it's aimed at addressing: the lack of correctional
centre space in Nunavut, and the alienation of the Kitikmeot region from the
Iqaluit-based Nunavut government.
Nunavut desperately needs
a remand centre for women, a remand centre for men and a large, secure correctional
facility able to house and offer programs to people convicted of violent offences,
including sex offences - a category of crime in which Nunavut leads the nation
by an astronomical margin.
Justice officials know,
or ought to know this. In 1999, a committee of territorial corrections workers
and experts recommended the construction of a $50-million federal-territorial
facility. Little has happened since then. It's not clear if anyone is even pushing
the file anymore.
As for the alienation of
the Kitikmeot region, it's clear the Nunavut government must do more to acknowledge
that it's the Kitikmeot that will likely become Nunavut's economic heartland
in the future. It needs to do more to ensure that Kitikmeot residents receive
training and other forms of support to ensure that they benefit from the numerous
mining projects that lie just over the horizon. JB
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