I'm writing about the editorial published in your Jan. 25 issue of News/North, "Shocking business plan; Taltson expansion too risky."

There are a couple of specific points I'll address, but first and foremost I want to address the project planning and generally poor economic assumptions throughout the editorial.

Major capital projects require absolute balance between regulatory, design and financial affairs during the planning phase. Deze has been doing just that; prudently making sure each aspect supports the overall progress of the project. Everything is synchronized. Unless you're part of the planning process it's difficult to fully appreciate.

With regard to the project's economics, we're negotiating a long-term contract that ensures cost recovery and a return on investment. If the diamond mines are unable to meet the contract offer then the project won't proceed. No one has an upper hand. Both parties are meeting in good faith. If the project is viable it will proceed; simple as that.

In 2002, when the first mine began operations, the bulk price of diesel was roughly $0.56 per litre. Today it's $0.93 per litre. That's a 69 per cent increase. The mines use about 100 million litres of fuel per year to generate electricity. The math is pretty straightforward. Diesel cost-increases make Taltson an attractive alternative.

Another consideration is weather. A few years ago the mines had to fly diesel fuel to sites because the ice road season was so short. This winter could present similar difficulties. Flying fuel to the mine sites significantly increases operating costs. Taltson ensures a predictable power supply at predictable costs. And that also makes Taltson an attractive alternative.

Of course, the price of power has to be acceptable to both the buyer and the seller. That's a fundamental principle of commercial transactions and the goal that the parties are working toward. Your editorial makes it sound as if only you understand those principles.

You correctly state that we've proceeded despite opposition from Lutsel K'e First Nation over the transmission route. While Lutsel K'e has opted out, more than 10,000 First Nation and Metis people have granted support for the project through their leaders.

We continue to work through the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board to, hopefully, satisfy the interests of Lutsel K'e.

Throughout the editorial you refer to the Northwest Territories Power Corporation. Once again, I would like to remind you that NTPC has little to do with the Taltson Hydro Expansion Project. NTPC's new corporate structure was adopted to enable these types of projects to proceed on a commercial basis and ensure that regulated customer rates are unaffected by commercial investments.

It's worth noting for your readers that every major hydro project ever undertaken in Canada has been built because governments had the foresight to step in and foster development. This includes the Snare Rapids hydro facility serving Yellowknife and the Taltson facility serving Fort Smith and Hay River. The Government of the Northwest Territories deserves credit for seizing the Taltson opportunity and supporting it to the point we're at today. The government's involvement is pivotal, but its foresight never seems to reach your editorials.

The Taltson Hydro Expansion Project has manageable risks like any major project and it also has many inherent benefits. Aboriginal peoples are the majority owners, so they'll share in the majority of economic returns. There are no new dams or flooding. The project will provide significant economic stimuli, including more than 800 direct and indirect jobs. And Taltson will eliminate burning 100 million litres of diesel fuel annually for electricity at the mines. That's a significant reduction in Greenhouse GAS emissions and a significant benefit for our northern environment.

We're looking forward to moving the project to the next stage.

Dan Grabke
managing director
Deze Energy Corporation Ltd
Monday, February 1, 2010

It is with great gratitude that my wife and I wish to thank the staff at Yellowknifer for their unwavering support during the last two-and-a-half months during my battle for our rights with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment (commonly known as Social sic Services.)

Especially noteworthy are Mike W. Bryant, Nikolett Popovics, and Elizabeth McMillan who kept up our spirits by showing genuine interest in our plight and kept public interest in a scary entrenchment in this bureaucratic predicament. Dare I mention "Bush," too, who immortalized us in his cartoon?

It was an uphill battle for us, a lean Christmas, but a battle to the bitter end, as you all know. You don't realize how important this fight was, not only for my wife and me, but potentially for countless others that hit entrenched policy minders that no longer have the option of deciding right from wrong but are shackled by rigid rules of their own making or of their predecessors.

Separate bureaucracies compete and fight amongst themselves because their policies differ ever so slightly and they all have to compete for their share of the fund allocation pie. However, in the process, the losers in this case were us.

I also wish now to thank Angela Keppel from Yellowknife Housing who went out of her way to get us in our disabled apartment once she realized what had happened. She worked overtime, probably without compensation, and was an invaluable moral support.

Our gratitude, however, certainly does not extend to our MLA Jackson Lafferty, who coincidentally is the minister responsible for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Despite half a dozen calls to his office, Mr. Lafferty never personally returned one. Being out of town, conflict of interest, overworked - maybe we should elect a separate MLA whenever a representative is sworn in as minister so the average Joe can still have recourse to his MLA when dealing with the government. My wife and I wondered throughout all of this if the minister ran his department and could intervene or if his non-elected bureaucrats did.

If a policy does not cover the situation, as in this case it did not, does he not have any powers at all to correct a situation? If not, we don't need a minister. If he did, why didn't he intervene?

This sorry situation is now satisfactorily resolved. We got our miserly $800 but at what cost? We surely didn't want to move into town but were forced to by another no-brainer policy. The GNWT gives this same department moneys for a fuel allocation for seniors. The same Department of Education, Culture and Employment administers this program as well. However, against the intent of the program, I'm sure they require seniors to have a signed lease before they access these funds.

My wife and I have had our place on the highway for 16 years. This is band land. We don't require a lease, never paid one, and yet get frozen out of our moneys by a nameless bureaucrat that adds a proviso that was never intended in the original intent, I'm sure. I guess that's my next fight with the government but as they say "that's another story folks."

Timothee Caisse
Yellowknife
Friday, January 29, 2010

These are controversial times in Denendeh. Wildlife officials from the GNWT have seized 17 caribou from aboriginal hunters in separate instances. One of those hunters was a former chief and respected member of the band, Mr. Jonas Sangris.

There are many interesting issues in this case. Everyone is concerned about the apparent caribou decline, but no one seems to know what to do about it. One thing is for sure, when you take away the right of a people to eat their traditional food, in a way, that's the same thing as robbing them of their identity. You are what you eat.

As a former aboriginal rights advocate who once upon a time used to work in the band offices of both Dettah and Ndilo, I am interested in the way the new hunting ban impacts on treaty rights. On a different note, as a lawyer now practising criminal law in Calgary, I was particularly drawn to one small piece of information that seems to have been overlooked: when the first seizure was made six of eight caribou were seized. This particular detail seems to me to be very important.

As someone who is in court nearly every day, and practises criminal law, I know people can't take other people's things without a legal right. Otherwise that's stealing. So if wildlife officers took the caribou from Yellowknives Dene band members, and they weren't stealing, they must have had a legal basis for this seizure. A good question is: what, if any, was the legal basis for the seizure of six of the eight caribou?

News reports indicate that the meat was seized as "evidence." Pardon me, evidence of what? So far there are no charges laid in this case. News reports indicate that the matter is still being investigated, so there may be future charges (though maybe not), but certainly one caribou as evidence would have served the same purpose as six. Any way I stretch it, I just can't understand the wildlife officer's actions that day. They just don't make sense. Why seize six caribou, why not all of them, why not none of them (since they only issued a warning), why not only seize one caribou of the eight if they needed evidence? Did the wildlife officers pick a number out of a toque?

The number of caribou seized seems arbitrary, and unless the GNWT can justify why six of eight caribou were seized, it is possible that it was an unreasonable seizure without a warrant. If so, then in my respectful view this case may be about more than just yet another violation of treaty rights. Section eight of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms specifically states that "Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure."

Charter rights have been entrenched in the Canadian Constitution since 1982. They are the supreme law of Canada. I'm only an individual who used to work in a band office and now practises criminal defence in Calgary. From where I'm sitting though, there is a strong argument that three distinct categories of laws were broken in this case: Dene traditional law, treaty law, and also Canada's own most fundamental and basic Constitution. The GNWT should apologize and release the caribou meat without further delay. This would be the right thing to do, and a better way to start the new decade.

Telmo Dos Santos

• Telmo Dos Santos is an aboriginal rights advocate and former resident of Yellowknife. He now lives in Calgary and practises criminal defence

While reading the Wednesday, Jan. 20 issue of Yellowknifer I noticed that the new tax on plastic bags would only upset dog walkers who would now have to buy their doggie bags ("Paying for bags - GNWT program will succeed").

This rather silly remark prompted this expression of my own opinion. Yes, we have a problem with litter and plastic bags are often a visible part of litter. Actually the problem is people littering, not the bags!

However, one reason that North America went with store-provided bags was the issue of food safety.

I am pretty sure that it would not be a good idea to reuse any bag that food, especially meats or fish has leaked into and ordinary washing with cold water wouldn't sterilize the bags.

Therefore, any time I buy a roast, ham, or even milk cartons that leak or were next to one that did , the new law adds at least a quarter to my bill.

There has been a push for some time to go with re-useable bags and I have noticed, especially the past summer, that when I see litter on the street, it is a lot harder to find a plastic bag so that I can pick it up to carry to the nearest trash container. We really have tried, and anyone shopping will have noticed many people with their own re-useable bags, before this new tax.

And about the dog, I noticed too many grocery bags that have a hole in the bottom to want to trust them. I have always bought convenient rolls that fit in my doggy walk equipment, and now that I can get scented and bio-degradable ones, it is even better, although, admittedly, I haven't stood around to see just how long it does take them to bio-degrade.

Pat Weber
Yellowknife
Friday, January 22, 2010

This is in response to your commentary on the Tuk/Inuvik Highway.

The issue of connecting the Dempster Highway to Inuvik/Tuk has always been when is the time right. I say now is the right time.

In spring 2000, a kilometre and a half of base material was built on the right of way, which I then called road to nowhere because it was just there.

Now there is fear from a few people that by opening up Tuk by a highway system it would increase the social issues that exist. It may for a couple years, but, heck, the problems are already there, it's the responsibility of leaders of the day to work with the people to counter the possible effects and now is a good time to start, not after the fact.

On the positive side it would create much needed jobs during and after construction. I have always said to ease the fear, we have the Inuvialuit Land Administration that will manage the land in co-operation with the government because some of the highway will be on government land.

As an example, Inuvialuit can install two check stations from June through September and hire Inuvialuit elders to monitor the traffic during the high tourist season. That means at the least four people will be working seasonally. To do that, two self contained trailers would be installed at the check stations.

As a Northern tourist going south I have had a good fortune of doing quite a bit of travelling over the past 45 years in many parts of the country where there is high traffic. At every place I have visited, there is in place a system tourists must abide by. So, in essence, there should not be any fear if our land is managed properly, and Inuvialuit have the people already in place to do just that.

There is enough time to build the highway before the big pipe, but we need to convince the funding sources to get cracking now.

Like the saying goes you cannot stop progress, only slow it down. We have been slow for too long. Quyanaini'

Ernest Pokiak
Yellowknife
Friday, January 29, 2010

In December, poverty activists from a variety of organizations called for a comprehensive NWT poverty reduction strategy. Here's one reason why it's needed - unpaid and inadequate child support for single parents.

Let's look at a single mother of three children living in public housing in Yellowknife on an annual income of approximately $30,000. She has received only sporadic child support payments from her ex-husband, whom she left 10 years ago.

She was encouraged to fight the injustice, but could not afford the costs of a lawyer so she applied for Legal Aid. In spite of her low income, Legal Aid rejected her application. Outraged, friends helped her write an appeal letter. Legal Aid granted her a mere five hours of legal assistance.

This same single mother also approached the GNWT's Maintenance Enforcement Program, which is mandated to "monitor, enforce, and collect support payments." The only support that she has received thus far is they have made phone calls to the jurisdiction where the father of her children lives "to get updates."

How does the GNWT expect people to break out of the cycle of poverty if the GNWT is not willing to support the rights of custodial parents and their children?

Alternatives North calls upon the GNWT to make poverty reduction a top priority. The GNWT needs to identify the systemic barriers throughout government, including in its Legal Aid and Maintenance Enforcement legislation, policies and procedures.

Alternatives North challenges the government to take immediate action to eradicate poverty. The children of today cannot be the bright and promising leaders of tomorrow if their present needs are not being adequately met.

Aggie Brockman
Yellowknife
Friday, January 29, 2010