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ANNETTE BOURGEOIS
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT - RCMP shut down what they're calling an extensive Baffin region drug distribution ring Tuesday, arresting 27 people in Nunavut, Quebec and British Columbia and placing Supreme Court restraining orders on $2.5 million worth of property.
In a meticulously-planned raid that began Mar. 24 at 6 a.m., RCMP stormed businesses and residences, rousting accused persons from their slumbers in Iqaluit, Pangnirtung, two Quebec locations and one in British Columbia.
"It's a major disruption of a significant drug distribution network that's been operating in the Baffin for several years now," Sergeant Tom Steggles of Yellowknife's community policing section said from Iqaluit Tuesday afternoon.
An RCMP drug unit in Iqaluit has spent the past two years investigating the drug trade between Iqaluit and Montreal.
Because of its location and size, Iqaluit has become the distribution centre for drugs heading to smaller communities.
By early Tuesday, Iqaluit RCMP had arrested 21 people. At the same time, they applied to the NWT Supreme Court to have restraining orders placed on three Iqaluit residences, the fast-food restaurant "The Snack" and an adjacent candy store.
All five properties - with a value estimated to total $2.5 million, are owned by Claude Caza of Iqaluit.
Under federal "proceeds of crime legislation," assets believed to have been obtained as a result of criminal activity may be frozen and eventually handed over to the Crown.
"At the same time we were visting those locations and making arrests and searching those locations, RCMP units in Montreal, Sherbrooke (Que.), Pangnirtung and Rock Creek, B.C., were all doing the same thing," Steggles explained.
RCMP arrested one person in Pangnirtung, two people in Rock Creek, B.C., three people in Montreal and one in Sherbrooke, Quebec. That Sherbrooke resident is a member of the Hell's Angels motorcycle club.
Steggles wouldn't comment on the connection to the Hell's Angels or whether more arrests within that group are expected.
By late Tuesday afternoon, RCMP had arrested an additional four Iqaluit residents in connection with the operation, bringing the total number of arrests to 27. By late Wednesday afternoon, police were still looking for another two people in Iqaluit and one in Montreal.
Steggles explained that the operation began as a drug investigation in Iqaluit two years ago, but grew into a proceeds of crime investigation that extended into southern Canada.
"It was started as a result of on-going concerns from the public regarding drug abuse and drug trafficking in the area here," Steggles said. "Over time we uncovered different parts of this drug distribution network."
In 1994, Iqaluit residents took to the streets with placards protesting, among other things, the increasing drug trade in the community. During part of that demonstration, residents gathered outside of the Snack restaurant, and outside of Claude Caza's residence further down the street.
In this week's raids, RCMP also seized a small amount of marijuana and hashish and about 20 grams of cocaine, but Steggles pointed out that the purpose of the raid was property seizures.
"The priority wasn't a big drug bust today," he said Tuesday. "Obviously over the past two years, there's been a lot of evidence and information-gathering and that allowed us to put the steps into place that enabled us to formally seize those properties today."
The Supreme Court has placed a restraining order on the five properties to give the court time to determine whether there's enough RCMP evidence to have them forfeited to the Crown.
As of our press-time this week, the following people had been arrested and charged:
Anne Crawford is pressing forward with her investigation of Jane Groenewegen's conflict of interest complaint against Premier Don Morin.
JIM BELL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT - The NWT's conflict of interest commissioner, Anne Crawford, says she won't step aside from a conflict of interest complaint made Feb. 16 against Premier Don Morin by Hay River MLA Jane Groenewegen.
In a March 10 letter, Morin's lawyers had asked Crawford to step aside, saying Morin "has a reasonable apprehension that you will perform your duties in a biased manner."
But Crawford rejected all three of the reasons offered by Morin's lawyers in support of that claim.
Morin's lawyers' reasons were:
In responding to Morin's first point, Crawford said she can't remember the conversation with Morin's sister, and that Morin has supplied no evidence to prove that it took place.
Morin wrote to Crawford
Morin had also written to Crawford about the conversation on Feb. 18, only two days after Groenewegen had filed her complaint against him.
"He has chosen once again to submit an allegation which provides no name, no date, no place, no context and no actual quote," Crawford said.
As for her legal work on behalf of Nunavut Tunngavik, Crawford said that when they appointed her, members of the legislative assembly knew that she has to do legal work to make a living.
"The position of Commissioner is a four-year term position, without retainer and paid on a modest hourly basis," Crawford said. "There is no pension. I am not likely to quit my day job."
She said MLAs also knew that, in her career, she's done work for the Dene Nation, the Metis Nation, the Native Women's Association and the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada.
"They viewed my many connections to an active community territory-wide as an asset," Crawford said.
She also said that she's not required to share one client's information with another. "Each client is entitled to absolute confidentiality," Crawford said.
Crawford rejected Morin's third reason by saying that, "It would appear that, in Mr. Morin's opinion, any activity other than dismissing the complaint out of hand will constitute bias."
Crawford said Groenewegen's complaint lacks detail - which is why she sent Groenewegen a letter on Feb. 17 asking eleven questions to help "define the scope of the complaint."
Groenewegen gets lawyer
Groenewegen said she needed legal help to decide what answers she could and couldn't submit to Crawford, and that the legislative assembly's management committee had refused to help her pay for a lawyer.
Groenewegen then made a request to Crawford for legal help - a request that Crawford granted in a decision released March 18.
During the last legislative assembly session, Groenewegen told MLAs that Morin - in the presence of the NWT's deputy minister of justice - has threatened to sue her for defamation. She also suggested that she has received threats from other sources.
Crawford says she expects that Groenewegen - now that she has a lawyer - will soon be able to provide the specific details requested of her.
Once she has answers to those questions, and other questions that she has put to Morin, Crawford says she will then be able to make a judgement under section 81 (2) of the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act.
In plain language, that means she'll decide whether or not Groenewegen's complaint is "vexatious, frivolous, in bad faith or insufficient."
If she decides that the Groenewegen's complaint is serious, then Crawford can decide whether or not to hold a public hearing.
Lawyers meet in Edmonton this week
In a press release issued this week, Crawford said she was to have met with lawyers representing Morin, Groenewegen and the Conflict of Interest Commission in Edmonton on March 24.
The press release said the purpose of the meeting is "to obtain commitments as to dates and process to conclude the 81 (2) evaluation."
Groenewegen filed her conflict of interest complaint Feb. 16, alleging that Morin has violated the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act.
In the weeks before that, Groenewegen and several other MLAs had been peppering cabinet ministers about a lease extension signed between the GNWT and a numbered company controlled by two of Morin's associates.
The numbered company is controlled by businessman Mike Mrdjenovich, from whom Morin rents a house, and former deputy minister of the executive Roland Bailey, who runs the Aurora immigrant investor fund under a contract.
The Bailey-Mrdjenovich company bought the Lahm Ridge office tower in Yellowknife for $1.6 million less than its estimated market value, signed a long-term lease with the GNWT that the previous owner had apparently been unable to negotiate, and financed the deal with a mortgage from the Pacific and Western Trust Corporation.
Pacific and Western holds 25 per cent of the Aurora fund's assets in liquid securities.
In her Feb. 16 announcement, Groenewegen makes no mention of the Lahm Ridge lease.
But she did say that "public confidence in the integrity of this government has been eroded and I believe that the premier's office must address the issue."
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsJIM BELL Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT - About 60 people from around Nunavut began the process of building a language policy for Nunavut at a gathering this week in Iqaluit.
Organized by the Nunavut Implementation Commission, the conference had entered its second day as Nunatsiaq News went to press this week.
In his opening remarks, NIC chief commissioner John Amagoalik told delegates that no quick decisions will be made at this week's conference.
"There will be recommendations, lots of them, but as everyone knows it takes quite a while to implement recommendations from a meeting," Amagoalik, the co-chair of the gathering, told delegates through an interpreter.
Amagoalik said the NIC wants to hold the gathering so that "we can re-focus on the language issue when the Nunavut government comes into being."
Delegates were to have talked about writing systems, official language law, language and education, challenges faced by youth and elders, and how to make Inuktitut the working language of Nunavut.
In deference to the people of the western Kitikmeot, who call their language "Inuinaqtun," the NIC and others now use the term "Inuit language" rather than "Inuktitut" to name the tongue that's spoken by the majority of Nunavut residents. s
After the conference opened on Tuesday morning, Nunavut Tunngavik President Jose Kusugak gave a long talk on the work of the Inuit Language Commission, a group set up by the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada in 1971 to protect and promote the Inuit language.
One of the language commssion's enduring accomplishments was the creation of the "dual orthography" system for writing Inuktitut. It's now used by school boards and in the production of modern written materials in Inuktitut.
That system was designed so that all the sounds in the Inuit language could be produced either in syllabics or in a corresponding system of Roman orthography. It's the syllabic side of that system that's still used almost universally throughout Nunavik and most of Nunavut to write the Inuit language.
But creating that writing system wasn't an easy job. Kusugak, who chaired the Inuit Language Commission, described the difficult issues that the commission had to deal with at the time.
"It was clear that was not going to be easy to reform the writing system," Kusugak said.
He said many elders at the time were closely attached to an older syllabic system introduced by Anglican missionaries. Others were loyal to an orthographic system used by Roman Catholic priests.
"I had to talk to the Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops to get them to talk to their flocks about it," Kusugak told delegates.
In 1976, the dual or "new" orthography was adopted at a meeting in Iqaluit.
It was quickly adopted by school boards, and soon became the preferred method for writing Inuktitut. A typing element for IBM Selectric typerwriters was developed for the new syllabic system, and in the mid-1980s, fonts for use on Macintosh computers.
Kusugak said, though, that the work of developing Inuktitut isn't finished.
"The process of language development never ends," Kusugak said.
He said the gradual shift in dialects from west to east is evidence of the relationship that Inuit have had with the land for the past 4,000 years, but that Inuit may now need a common dialect for the purposes of inter-regional communication.
"We need to look at a common dialect and a common writing system to communicate effectively," Kusugak said.
He pointed out at the English language has many dialects, but only one writing system.
Some delegates at the conference have been making submissions about possible reforms to the writing systems now used for the Inuit language.
We'll have more coverage of the Nunavut language conference next week.
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsSYDNEY SACKETT
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT - Nunavut beneficiaries have elected Bernadette Makpah to a three-year term as secretary-treasurer for Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.
Less than a third of eligible voters bothered to cast ballots, but Makpah said winning still felt sweet.
"I'm very pleased," she said. "I'm trying not to fall speechless."
Although incumbent Natsiq Alainga-Kango managed to attract most of the Baffin vote, Makpah's supporters in the Keewatin and Kitikmeot assured her victory by a margin of 417 votes.
Candidate Meeka Kilabuk trailed in third place, garnering less than seven hundred of the 3,881 votes cast.
This was Makpah's third run for Secretary-Treasurer. She was the first to hold the position when Nunavut Tunngavik was newly formed, and says she still takes credit for some of the policies in place today.
"There are policies and guidelines that I was instrumental in developing during the first two years I was in there," Makpah said.
Is the position worth seeking three different times?
"I trained for it," she says. "It's a career interest and aspiration I will probably have throughout my life."
Interest in the vote ranged from generally poor to awful. Voter turnout was below 50 per cent in all by one community - Broughton Island - and dipped to just 13 per cent in Cambridge Bay
Makpah said the first thing on her agenda is to meet with NTI's executive and staff for a review of the birthright corporation's current financial picture.
"One of the priorities is to look at what we're going to do with the $5.7 million windfall from Nunavut Trust," Makpah said.
She said she also wants to give her attention to the upcoming 1999 celebrations, and to ensure each community in Nunavut gets to participate.
"We deserve the same and more of what Newfoundland got for their Cabot anniversary," she said.
"It's the economic opportunity of a lifetime."
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsANNETTE BOURGEOIS Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT - Kimmirut residents will have to decide if they want to invoke a clause in the Nunavut land claim agreement that would remove lands from the proposed Katannilik territorial park.
Article 8.3.11 of the Nunavut Land Claim states that if Katannilik Territorial Park wasn't legally established before the ratification of the claim in 1993, a "designated Inuit organization" has the right to exchange Inuit-owned lands inside the park with an equal amount of Inuit-owned lands outside the park.
In this case, the "designated Inuit organization" is the Qikiqtani Inuit Association.
"Before anyone makes a decision on whether or not Inuit want to obtain any of the lands that were originally selected, there will be a public meeting on it in Kimmirut," says Terry Audla, the QIA's lands manager.
The QIA is following up on a number of unimplemented articles in the Nunavut Land Claim, including Article 8.3.11. Audla met with Kimmirut's community land and resources committee earlier this month to talk about it.
"The most I can say was they were intrigued," he said. "Everyone went on the assumption that the park was established."
That committee voted to defer any decisions until after an April 9 meeting with QIA and the NWT's department of resources, wildlife and economic development.
The Inuit-owned land under discussion runs north of Kimmirut's hamlet boundary as far as the first cabin on the trail to Iqaluit.
One parcel of that land, to which Inuit own surface and sub-surface rights, is completely within the proposed boundaries of the park.
"It's a considerable amount," Audla. "But the early indicators are that Inuit don't want the whole lands identified."
The proposed Katannilik territorial park stretches the width of the Meta Incognita Peninsula from Iqaluit in the north to the hamlet of Kimmirut at it's southernmost tip.
Although they started promoting it to tourists several years ago, the NWT government has never officially made it a park.
Audla said the land was chosen years ago during negotiations for land designations because of its traditional use by Inuit in the area.
If the community decides to carry out Article 8.3.11, QIA would gain title as land manager and a community committee would then decide what would happen to the land.
Audla said no land has been identified for exchange.
Before the ratification of the land claim agreement, Kimmirut's community lands identification negotiation team agreed to allow selected Inuit-owned land to remain within the boundaries of the proposed territorial park.
"The Inuit felt that their needs, the desires for protection and promotion of tourism, were best served by the territorial program and consequently agreed not to select those lands," David Monteith, assistant director of parks and tourism with RWED.
The exceptions were one small parcel of land near Iqaluit, and a site containing deposits of the semi-precious gemstone lapis lazuli, which may have possible development potential.
Government red tape has tied up the process. A final proposal went to the GNWT cabinet for approval, but was pulled in the hopes that more funding could be secured from the federal government for the park's capital and operating expenses.
Kimmirut residents are eager to see the park legally established, developed and promoted to attract visitors to their unemployment-ridden community.
Negotiations for an Inuit impact benefits agreement must be completed before the park can be legally established.
"The books are open on the IIBA process and I haven't seen anything as yet to cause some problems," Monteith said.
One reason the community might choose to invoke Article 8.3.11 is the potential for mineral development in South Baffin.
In recent years, the Geological Society of Canada has conducted mineral exploration research throughout the Meta Incognita Peninsula, especially the land corridor between Iqaluit and Kimmirut.
Indications are that mineral resources are high in the area and could contain lead-zinc deposits similar to those exploited by the Raglan mine in Nunavik.
Mineral development in the area, however, could still be possible after the Katannilik territorial park is formally established.
"The difference between national parks and territorial parks is there is a degree of flexibility," Monteith said of the territorial legislation.
"If there's some significant benefit to the community to be derived from mining, for whatever reason, there may be a source of some precious metal in the park and the community feels their objectives aren't being met... then the Territorial Park Act certainly allows for boundary changes to take place."
QIA's Audla said he won't pressure Kimmirut residents into making a decision.
"I'm not going to rush the issue," he said. "If there are questions I will certainly have them answered."
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsThe NWT's chief medical officer says more should be done to prevent outbreaks of tuberculosis.
DWANE WILKIN
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT - An outbreak of tuberculosis infections in Cape Dorset points to serious shortcomings in the way the potentially fatal respiratory disease is diagnosed and treated, the NWT's chief medical officer warned this week.
Dr Ian Gilchrist said that TB outbreaks in Cape Dorset and other NWT communties are the direct result of poor case management and a lack of vigilance on the part of patients following treatment for infection.
"We need to get much better at making sure everybody is picked up, that everybody gets a full course of treatment and is cured," Dr Gilchrist said.
"It's always quite a big chore, because there could be a lot of people infected, and to find them all and to treat them all is not so easy."
A total of 13 new cases of tuberculosis have been diagnosed in this south Baffin community of 1,200 residents since December.
The Cape Dorset outbreak is believed to be among the most serious since the disease hit the western NWT communities of Rae-Edzo in 1994 and Lutselk'e in 1995.
Another 20 people at risk of infection have been placed on medication to prevent them from developing full-blown symptoms of the disease, which include prolonged coughing, weight loss, fever, fatigue and cold sweats.
Because TB preys on people whose general well-being is already weakened by poor diet, smoking and alcohol abuse, such outbreaks tend to be a particular threat in aboriginal communities.
Crowded housing also encourages the spread of the disease.
Dr Gilchrist suspects the decline of tuberculosis as a major killer has also made northeners complacent.
That could explain, in part, why health programs to treat people infected with TB bacteria are faltering: some patients don't take all their medication, and health workers don't or can't always follow up on those under their care.
Improvements in living conditions since the 1950s and a program of screening and drug treatment virtually eradicated the disease in most of southern Canada, but Canadians aren't immune from new drug-resistant strains of TB emerging elsewhere in the world.
Inadequate treatment could promote the emergence of drug-resistant strains right here in the North.
"One of the reasons for us being concerned about it in the NWT and trying to really get these cases early and make sure they are treated and cured is so that we don't, down the road, have somebody who gets the infection, doesn't get treated properly and develops a resistant disease - in which case we'll all be in a bad situation."
Most people infected with the tuberculosis bacillus, or germ, don't become ill. The germ can lie dormant in a person's lungs for years, even decades.
When the body's own defences are down, the germ begins to create a little sore, and the bacteria are spread to other people through breathing or coughing.
Without treatment, tuberculosis can eventually kill its host by gradually eating away the lungs or, in rare cases, by spreading to other organs.
Dr. Gilchrist said there is a need for more emphasis on the prevention of such diseases, and for less dependence on drug treatment.
"Health people tend to say, well, the way to treat disease is to give them drugs. Well, it isn't. The way to deal with these situations is to try to prevent them in the first place.
"One way we'll get there is, instead of placing so much emphasis on waiting until people get sick, then treating them in hospitals, is to try to keep them from getting sick in the first place."
The NWT Department of Health and Social Services recorded a total of 31 TB cases in 1997, 11 of them in Nunavut.
Back to TopCanada's national Inuit women's association has set up a committee to find ways of creating an Inuit clothing industry.
JANE GEORGE
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT - There's a market for Inuit clothing and handicrafts, and it's one that Pauktuutit would like to tap in to.
One shopper at the Inuit women's association's recent crafts fair felt she'd made a terrific bargain when she bought a doll for nearly $400.
The foot-high handmade doll, made by Elisapee Inukpuk of Inukjuak, had an expressive soapstone head. It was dressed in a miniature amautik made from skin, decorated with beadwork, then mounted on a handwoven stand of grass.
Other keen shoppers grabbed up caribou and sealskin kamiks, embroidered duffles, mittens and parkas.
An elaborate squirrel-fur coat from Kugluktuk was an eye-catcher at $1750.
Southern-based companies have already exploited the economic potential of such designs.
The fashion shows organized by Pauktuutit and other Inuit groups to boost awareness of traditional clothing have been enormously well-received, but Inuit women are still searching for ways to turn their skills and knowledge into jobs and money.
Now, thanks to some financial help from Ottawa, Pauktuutit plans to tackle the Inuit clothing market.
A committee with members across Canada will begin looking at ways of protecting traditional designs.
"We'd like to patent our clothing," says Eva Adams, who will be coordinating the project with Pauktuutit. "So many companies in the South have stolen our designs."
As they stand now, copyright laws consider traditional clothing designs as "folklore" that cannot be legally protected or owned.
Pauktuutit also wants to develop a way of to teach the know-how needed to make Inuit clothes.
That's because many younger Inuit have to relearn these skills.
"My mother used to make all our clothes because there was nothing in the stores," said Silpa Edmunds from Postville, Labrador. "But she refused to teach me how."
Later in life, Edmunds did learn how to sew, but she said that her many grandchildren have no traditional sewing skills at all.
Edmunds thinks that a tannery for skins might be a success in Labrador because that there are so many caribou and seals along the coast. Working with Labrador Inuit will be a priority, said Adams.
Another idea could involved bringing apprentices to work with experienced sewers in Nunavut or Nunavik.
"We've got to focus on economic development and bring their skills up to the same level as other regions.," she said.
Inuit women at Pauktuutit's recent meeting were enthusiastic about promoting traditional clothing and crafts. But they didn't always agree on how.
Madeline Redfern of Ottawa said she wouldn't want to see mass-produced "Inuit junk" sold.
"Our culture is unique," she said. "I think it's better to make things that are unique."
But Veronica Dewar from Rankin Inlet said that more volume wouldn't have to mean less quality.
Dewar was wearing a jacket designed by her sister Mary Eecherk. Made of a silky material of deep purple, with machine-sewn appliqués, this jazzy jacket still has distictinctly Inuit flare.
For Dewar, the debate was simple. A better market for traditionally-inspired Inuit products will mean more jobs.
"We need to give opportunities to young Inuit," she said.
Back to TopNunavut's best and brightest teachers are leaving in droves, as school boards ponder the difficult task of replacing them.
DWANE WILKIN
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT - High travel costs, substandard housing and the erosion of pay and benefits in their latest contract are taking a toll on northern teachers.
Although Nunavut's regional school boards won't know for several weeks exactly how many teachers plan to resign at the end of the current academic year, some educators are already braced for a long and difficult recruiting season.
Among the many teachers rumored to be calling it quits this year are several experienced long-time northerners as well as trained aboriginal teachers, lured from the profession by better-paying jobs with Inuit birthright corporations and land claim organizations.
"There's no doubt it, the compensation packages have been significantly reduced, enough to make you start to question whether you can remain up here," Pat Thomas, president of the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association (NWTTA) said in an interview with <I>Nunatsiaq News this week.
The labor contract that the NWTTA signed with the GNWT last October included a wage rollback, the loss of vacation travel assistance (VTAs) and a cap on moving expenses paid for by the employer.
Thomas said the union calculated that the three-year contract cost members a combined total of $18 million worth of lost benefits.
That has translated into less take-home pay at a time when many teachers - especially those working in smaller, remote communites - also face a sharp increase in living expenses triggered by the privatization of former GNWT staff housing.
"There's no doubt about it, we took significant hits in our compensation package," said Thomas, who fears the ability of schools to attract and retain teachers may yet have to suffer the full consequences of last year's contract.
A survey of teachers who quit jobs in northern schools last year showed that the loss of benefits such as VTAs and the dearth of affordable housing ranked high on the teachers' list of reasons for leaving.
"If you ask me what the number one issue is, I would say in a small community, without a doubt, it's housing," Thomas said, "because they're paying horrendous rents for substandard housing."
In Pond Inlet, for instance, where the local co-op is in the process of buying former GNWT staff houses, teachers who don't own their own homes anticipate rent increases this spring on the order of 60 to 80 per cent.
Of the 30 elementary and high school teachers currently on staff in Pond Inlet, nine are said to be leaving. At least two have indicated they are leaving for positions in northern Ontario.
"I've been involved in recruitment for a long time and I remember the days when people from Northern Ontario and Quebec were falling over themselves, trying to get into the Territories," Ulaajuk school principal Mel Pardy said.
"Now we're seeing the reverse."
Figures for the Baffin region show that annual teacher resignations have risen steadily since 1994-95, as have the number of teachers taking leaves of absence.
Lorne Levy, assistant director at the Baffin Divisional Board of Education, acknowledged that changes to the teachers' collective agreement have placed great stress on the board's employees.
"It is apparent to me that the details of contract, the remuneration, housing costs - just the availablility of housing - have all had an impact on more teachers leaving," Levy said. "I'm convinced of that."
At schools in the Baffin, the number of resignations alone went from 21 in 1994-95 to 34, heading into the 1997-98 academic year.
While staff resignations rise, the school board also notes an increase in the number of teachers seeking temporary leaves of absence, a situation which has made the already challenging task of recruitment more difficult.
In 1994, just four of the Baffin board's 204 teachers took leaves of absence; last year the board approved 20.
There is some speculation as to which teachers are planning to leave this year, with some educators forecasting the departure of many experienced colleagues, including Inuit graduates of Nunavut Arctic College's successful teacher training program.
Pardy said teachers - especially junior teachers on the low-end of the pay scale - find it difficult to make ends meet in Pond Inlet with rising airfare and housing costs.
Just last week, Pardy compared the earnings and expenses of a second-year aboriginal teacher with benefits she would recieve in Pond Inlet as a welfare recipient.
"Right now she is better off teaching than on social assistance, to the tune of fifty bucks a month," Pardy said.
"This is another person who's really looking at whether she can afford to stay in Pond Inlet."
Airfare is also frequently cited as a major factor in teachers' decision to leave, Pardy said. A full-fare return ticket to Montreal from Pond Inlet costs $3,500; even the excursion-fare rate comes in at about $2,500.
"One mentioned to me the other day, 'It looks like once the VTA is removed, we're finished.'
"She said she couldn't even get to visit relatives in Igloolik anymore. It's over $2,000 to get to Igloolik for one person, from Pond Inlet."
Over at Iqaluit's Inuksuk High School, four of 15 teachers have resigned already, and the deadline for submitting resignations to the school board is not until mid-April.
"For the high school, that's consistent with what it's been over the past number of years. People are citing economic reasons more than ever before, though," Takijualuk School principal Steve Prest said.
Continued uncertainty about housing costs will further complicate the recruitment process in the spring, educators predict.
Pardy, for one, does not relish the task of attracting candidates to fill positions at his school without knowing what the real cost of living in Pond Inlet will be next September.
"We joke about it, but probably the first thing we're going to do is to see, number one, whether they can afford to come here when they know what the economic factors are.
"And if they want to go ahead with that, then we go ahead with the interview. Otherwise it's just a waste of everybody's time."
Back to TopA day in the life of Pauloosie
JOHN AMAGOALIK
Pauloosie awoke as usual at 7:00 am. He crawled out of bed and got dressed. The temperature in their small house was well below freezing. He put some scrap pieces of paper in the wood stove and piled some wood on top of it. He lit the paper and waited for the wood to start burning. In a few minutes, the house started to warm up.
He woke his little sister and told her to get dressed. He got the tea kettle and went to the water bucket. Ice had formed in the bucket overnight and he had to use a knife to break it up. He filled the kettle and put it on the stove.
After some tea and bannock, Pauloosie and his sister put on their winter clothing and went out. It was still very dark and the temperature was around minus 35. They would walk two miles to school and walk back again that afternoon The year is 1959. Pauloosie is fifteen years old and his little sister Novoya, is eight.
Pauloosie saw two figures going up the hill and they ran to catch up with them. It was their neighbours, Joanasie and Pudluq. Together, they went over the hill and South Camp came into view. It took them about half an hour to get to school. They were lucky it wasn't too windy this morning.
After school, Pauloosie and Novoya walked back to the village with their cousin Naulaq. They walked against the wind and Pauloosie had to hold Novoya's hand to help her. The short period of twilight had already passed and it was very dark. He was also carrying his homework under one arm.
When they arrived home, their mother gave them some hot tea and biscuits. After his tea, Pauloosie went outside to chop some wood for the stove. He gathered the wood in his arms and took them inside.
His next chore was to get some ice for drinking water. He went outside with a large wooden box. He lashed the box onto his small qamutik and put the axe in the box. He started out towards the sea ice pulling his qamutik. The iceberg was about half a mile offshore and he followed a well worn path. He had a flashlight whose batteries were getting pretty weak.
He got to the iceberg and started chopping ice and putting it into his box. He filled the box in about ten minutes and started back towards home.
The qamutik with its load of ice was pretty heavy and it took him almost an hour to get back to shore. Naulaq came running down to meet him and they pulled the qamutik the rest of the way.
After a supper of seal meat, tea, and bannock, Pauloosie went next door to visit his cousin. He took his homework with him and they studied and did their assignments together.
After he got home, the family said their evening prayers and Pauloosie went to bed. He went to sleep quickly. For him, it had been a pretty ordinary day. Tomorrow would be another one.
Back to TopOn Feb. 16, the day that Hay River MLA Jane Groenewegen filed a conflict of interest complaint against him, Premier Don Morin issued a press release that said the following:
"Premier Morin added he looks forward to a fair and prompt resolution of this matter, and said he will cooperate fully in the process to ensure that the matter is resolved quickly, and in the best interest." (The italics are ours.)
Two days later Morin wrote a private letter to Anne Crawford, the NWT's conflict of interest of commissioner, alleging that Crawford may be biased against him. In that letter, Morin cited a conversation he claims took place between Crawford and his sister in 1995.
About a month later, Morin's lawyers wrote to Crawford, listing that supposed conversation as one of three reasons in support of a request that Crawford step aside from Groenewegen's complaint.
Crawford dismissed that argument, along with two others, saying Morin has supplied no evidence to prove that the conversation even took place. And she informed everybody that she now plans to move forward "with the substance of the Groenewegen complaint."
Morin has an absolute right to use whatever tools the law provides him with to defend his interests.
But as the elected leader of the government of the Northwest Territories, he would do well to remember that in the public's mind, this matter is all about the territorial government's credibility and honesty - including his own.
The public who Morin is sworn to serve is better informed, better educated and more sophisticated than ever before. They judge elected leaders not only by what they say, but what they do.
If Morin says that he wants the matter to be resolved quickly, then he should instruct his lawyers to act that way. The public wants to know whether or not the premier of the Northwest Territories is, or was, in a conflict of interest. The public wants the conflict of interest commissioner - who hasn't even had a chance to look at the full substance of Groenewegen's complaint - to get on with her job.
She can do that job more quickly if her time isn't tied up with preliminary issues created by parties to the complaint.
It would be in the best interests of the public for Crawford to have her work done by May, when the legislative assembly is scheduled to sit again. MLAs would then be able to look at her report on the matter, and any recommendations she might deem necessary. JB
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Demand and supply
As this week's Nunatsiaq News went to press this week, a small army of RCMP members were still sifting through a mountain of evidence produced by what may the largest drug trafficking investigation ever conducted in the Northwest Territories.
At least twenty-three Iqaluit residents have been, or are about to be arrested and charged with a range of drug trafficking offences. At least six out-of-town residents, including a member of the Hell's Angels motorcycle club, have also been arrested and charged.
For the first time, investigators are not only laying criminal charges. They're using recently passed federal legislation to sieze property alleged to have been acquired by means of profits earned through drug trafficking. Those properties include Iqaluit's Snack restaurant, an adjacent candy store, and three houses in Iqaluit.
The dramatic early morning raids on March 24 that produced all those arrests will inevitably be followed by a series of lengthy and complex court hearings. Some of the accused may end up aquitted, while others may not.
But regardless of who is found guilty or not guilty, one thing is clear. Drug trafficking in the Baffin region is not a small-time business pursued by adventurous amateurs. It's a big-time business that's making some people rich.
We hear many complaints these days about how government cut-backs and increased rents and high prices are causing cash shortages and driving numerous people into poverty. And yet there appears to be no shortage of cash to spend on drugs.
Large numbers of people would rather give their money to criminals selling drugs than spend it on rent, clothing and food for their children.
RCMP members who worked on this case deserve to be applauded for their hard work. But it's the thousands of drug users in the region who have made that work necessary. JB
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Last updated
January 27, 1998
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