Tearful testimony at coroner's inquest

Emotions run high during first day of inquiry as jury hears witnesses

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Volume 56 Issue 9 THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2020 75 CENTS

Olympian brings power of believing

Inuvik passes public behaviour bylaw

Community leaders grill cabinet during visit

"There’s going to be a cost associated with it."– Lydia Bardak, 15-year outreach worker, on the implementation of the new public behaviour bylaw, page 2.

NewsSports Politics

Photos: Fallen herohonoured

photo courtesy of Amanda Anderson

2 INUVIK DRUM, Thursday, March 5, 2020 news

Inuvik bylaw officers and RCMP will now be able to issue fines for spitting, loitering and public urina-tion after a public behaviour bylaw passed unanimously at a Feb. 26 town council meeting.

Councillors voted 6-0, with Couns. Ray Solotki and Kurt Wain-man absent, to give third and final reading to the bylaw.

"I see no problem passing such a bylaw as this," said deputy mayor Steven Baryluk. "In my mind, it's setting minimal acceptable standards of public behaviour. It is not out to target any one group, it applies to everybody.

"I don't think anyone in this town or any other town would agree that defecating in the streets is acceptable and right now we don't really have a way to deal with that. This bylaw will get to that. Whether you are a home-less person, or person working in the IDC building or the deputy mayor, if you do some of these behaviours, I think everybody will decide that socially it's not acceptable."

He added he had faith in the town's enforcement officers to apply discretion to not be "militant."

"I don't have the same concerns that other people have expressed in the public and I think this is some-thing that we need as a tool for our officers to deal with situations as they deem appropriate."

Coun. Alana Mero, phoning in from home, asked if the town had looked at other jurisdictions in craft-ing the bylaw.

Municipal enforcement peace officer Matt Hogan told council the bylaw was based on the City of Cal-gary.

"There's nothing established in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut or the Yukon territory as far as my research," he said. "This bylaw also gives RCMP another tool in their toolbox as well. This is not just for our peace officers with the town, this is something (the police) can use to deal with some of these behaviours without going to the Criminal Code of Canada approach."

He added that once a ticketed individual is in the court system, they could have the potential to com-plete an alternate measures program, though he conceded he had only dealt with such a situation three times.

Senior administrative officer Grant Hood said he lived in Calgary

during the time they enacted a simi-lar bylaw.

He said the bylaw did not have a dramatic impact on life in the city.

"For whatever reason, everyone zeroed in on locals spitting," he said. "Basically, it became a non-issue. It was there for certain reasons, but there was the worry about if you're in the ball diamond and stuff like that.

"We're not out there to say you can't do it, it's just from a health awareness, where ever it could be it that's out in public, to inhibit behav-iour."

Lydia Bardak, a 15-year outreach worker and two-time Yellowknife city councillor, had previously told the Inuvik Drum the RCMP had attempted what the town is intending and ultimately abandoned the plan after it failed.

"There’s going to be a cost associ-ated with it," she said. "Bylaw offi-cers will have to be in court for bylaw court so they won’t be out there doing bylaw stuff."

She added piling fines onto people who don't have income would simply make their situations worse, particu-larly the homeless population, who would likely end up in jail because couldn't afford to pay a fine.

"They'll never be able to get a driver’s licence or renew it, because motor vehicles knows if you owe the state any money," she said. "And look how many jobs require a driver’s licence. The unintended effects are

really huge, and so is having to house someone in jail overnight. Here it’s something like $300 a day to keep an inmate, so you’re going to spend $300 to collect $200? That doesn’t make sense."

Spitting in public can now net a $50 fine, urinating can cost $150

Inuvik town council passes 'public behaviour' bylaw

by Eric Bowling Northern News Services

OFFENCE FINE Fighting $250

Urination/Defecation $150

Spitting $50

Loitering $75

Depositing litter on Town property $500

Failing to remove litter $500

Obstructing a Peace Officer $500

factFILE NEW FINE SCHEDULE

Source: The Town of Inuvik

INUVIK DRUM, Thursday, March 5, 2020 3news

Cynthia Firth and Richard Binder Jr. had only been together for three-and-a-half months, but they were practically engaged and planned to get married.

"We did everything as a couple and we loved each other a lot," she said, holding back tears. "We were trying to call him, looking around the river.

"It’s like a nightmare. He shouldn’t be gone."

Firth was the third of seven witnesses called to testify on the first day of a coroner’s inquest into the death of Richard Binder Jr., held March 3 at the Mackenzie Hotel in Inuvik.

Binder’s body was found approximately one kilometre west of the community near Big Lake Nov. 3, 2018. He died of hypothermia at age 35. On Oct. 25, 2018, Binder had escaped police when they attempted to put him under arrest.

Firth told the inquest she accompanied Binder to the hospital a day before he dis-appeared to help him get medication for anx-iety attacks. He was feeling anxious because he was facing a charge before the court.

Then, on Oct. 25 they had an argument and she went to visit her sister, while Binder stayed at home.

Olive Binder, mother, testified that neither she nor his father (Richard Binder Sr.) knew what time their son went out that night, but it was well before his 9 p.m. curfew. She said Richard Jr. lived with them in their home on the ground floor and while he had struggled with alcohol, he was working hard to get his life together.

Firth said she had several beers with her sister and then visited another friend to drink vodka before going to the liquor store, where she ran into Binder. The two took a cab to her mother’s home where her brother would not let them in. She testified she did not remem-ber what happened next or why the police were called.

Const. Brennan Woodcock said he got a call to go to a house on Navy Road at 8:20 p.m. that night. When he arrived, he saw Binder and Firth in the driveway. Firth’s face was covered in blood. His partner, Cpl. Todd Glenser, testified he saw Binder take a swig of vodka. Woodcock added he noticed the tops of vodka bottles in a liquor store bag he was holding.

The two officers stepped out of their truck and separated the couple. Woodcock informed Binder he was under arrest for a breach of a recognizance, but Binder took off down the road. Woodcock said he chased Binder for a moment, but broke off the chase to attend to Firth’s injuries.

Binder was last seen wearing a hooded sweatshirt and jeans.

Police took Firth to the hospital where she received stitches for her lip and chin. Wood-cock then returned to the residence and took a statement from the homeowner that Binder had put Firth in a headlock during the inci-dent. Police took Firth to her sister’s to rest and ran a patrol for Binder.

Olive Binder noted her son had eluded arrest from police before, but he would always call home to check in with his family and they would usually convince him to either come home or turn himself in.

But this time he didn’t call.

Tips from public suggested Binder was in Inuvik

It didn’t take long for his parents to realize something was very wrong.

"I knew the second day, when he didn’t call, that he wasn’t going to be alive," said his mother Olive Binder.

All seven witnesses testified that Binder had a history of escaping police and eventu-ally resurfacing. Regardless, Inspector Kent Pike, then staff sergeant for the region, said he made sure his officers prioritized finding him on each shift.

Once news that police were looking for Binder began to spread, another problem emerged.

Police received at least 10 tips placing him

at numerous locations and places around town, which police were required to investigate.

"We don’t know if tips are true or false," said Pike. "But we still have to follow up on them."

Pike added if he had reason to suspect Binder had left Inuvik town limits, he could have called in air searches. But because of the volume of tips putting him somewhere in town, police kept their focus in Inuvik. He did note he had officers check with the airlines to see if Binder had gotten on a plane.

Meanwhile, Binder’s family conducted their own search. Admitting she was getting frustrated with the lack of progress from police, Olive Binder filed a missing persons report on Binder Oct. 28.

"I finally did my own search, the whole family searched," she said. "Every day, at least twice we searched, calling out his name ... even though I kind of felt stupid calling out his name.

"He would always call if he needed help. I thought maybe he was suicidal. I was afraid he would take ... pills and fall asleep and freeze to death."

On Nov. 3, police received a report from two men who had been snowmobiling near Big Lake and had seen a body. Police crossed the just-frozen river and discovered Binder’s remains.

CorrectionThe story Detailed plans unveiled for Mike Zubko

Airport in the Feb. 27 edition of the Inuvik Drum con-tains a few errors. Larger aircraft, but not aircraft of any size, will be able to land at the airport. The total cost of the project is $22 million and not $26 million and and the main runway is being widened for safety, but not to accommodate larger aircraft. The Inuvik Drum apolo-gizes for the error.

Six person jury hears from seven witnesses in first day of inquiry

Coroner’s Inquest into Richard Binder Jr. begins

NEWSBriefs

Man sentenced for missing probation meetings

A man who skipped out on his probation meetings was fined and put in jail for a day.

In Inuvik Territorial Court Feb. 18, Joa-chim Taylor, 32, pleaded guilty to one count of breach of probation. Chief Judge Robert Gorin sentenced him to one day in jail and fined him $100.

"If you don’t make the appointment with a probation officer it means the rest of the probation order is of no effect," said Gorin in his judgment. "You can expect if there are any further convictions, you could get a significant period of jail."

Crown prosecutor Annie Piche told court Taylor had been released on an intermit-tent sentence and probation Oct. 8, 2019 but did not report for three mandatory check in appointments and missed four counselling sessions by Dec. 13.

He also showed up to the police detach-ment drunk when serving his sentence on weekends.

Town Council passes passenger transportation bylaw

All cabs in service in Inuvik can now stay on the road for up to 15 years, providing they pass semi-annual vehicle inspections.

Councillors voted 6-0, with Couns. Ray Solotki and Kurt Wainman absent at their Feb. 26 meeting. Solotki later confirmed she was absent due to a closing of the Dempster Highway.

A few resident cab drivers had expressed frustration to council about having just pur-chased a new vehicle, though Coun. Paul MacDonald noted they now had 15 years of life on their new vehicle instead of 10.

Council had previously looked at expand-ing the age limit in the fall when United Taxi requested an amendment to the bylaw because a mobility-friendly bus recently purchased by the company was over 10 years old.

Council passes scavenging bylawAnyone hunting for buried treasure at the

garbage dump will now have to get a permit from the town and follow a series of rules to be able to scavenge items from the landfill.

Council passed the new scavenging bylaw 6-0. The bylaw enables council to revoke permits if it deems a scavenger is not follow-ing the rules properly and issue fines of up to $2,000 per person or $10,000 per corporation for serious violations.

The bylaw also establishes a fine sched-ule for specific penalties, such as $100 for scavenging without a permit, $200 for being in the facility off hours or scavenging when not permitted, $100 for opening sealed bags of garbage and $500 for obstructing a peace officer.

Oil industry’s polar bear detection failed consistently

A review of the oil industry’s means of locating polar bear dens in Alaska had a failure rate of over 50 per cent in 12 years, according to a study published by the journal PLOS ONE.

The study compared the industry’s ther-mal-detection method with on-ground records by polar bear biologists who were studying mother bears and their cubs.

The findings have serious implications for drilling in the Arctic refuge. The find-ings come after three major banks have now pledged to not fund any further exploration in the Beaufort Sea.

by Eric Bowling Northern News Services

Richard Binder Jr.’s body was found near Big Lake just outside of Inuvik Nov. 3, 2018. A coroner’s inquest into his death began March 3 at the Mackenzie Hotel. photo courtesy of the RCMP

4 INUVIK DRUM, Thursday, March 5, 2020 opinions

A realization came over me as I was writing my story on cabinet answering questions at the NWT Association of Communities AGM, when I began to type out the titles of each of our cabinet ministers and almost filled an entire page.

The NWT, probably unlike most jurisdictions in the world, is des-perately short of elected officials.

Not from a representation stand-point, of course. Split up among the total population, each MLA in

Yellowknife is representative of just under 2,400 people. In comparison, each MLA in my birth-province of Alberta is representative of over 50,000.

But I'm refer-ring more to their individual portfolios – I

really can't see how we're not set-ting our territorial government up for failure with the current arrangement.

Being appointed to a portfolio is akin to being thrust into the pilot's chair of a plane, mid-flight, and having to learn how to fly the plane while not crashing it at the same time. Usually by the time you've learned how the depart-ment works and why it works the way it does, there's not enough time left to fix anything before the next election.

Take Inuvik-Boot Lake MLA Diane Thom for example. She's been entrusted with fixing the problems of a highly spread out and likely underfunded health care system. She's equally responsible for fixing problems in Social Ser-vices as well as anything involving persons with disabilities. Oh, and she's also the deputy premier.

Nahendeh MLA Shane Thomp-

son is not only overseeing a public power utility that has the highest electricity rates in the country, he is also responsible for stopping the free-fall in caribou numbers – something which may be com-pletely out of human control – and any other major wildlife concerns.

He's also got to be on top of land claims and anything related to the territory's youth and seniors – those are two entirely separate ministries.

However, the person I really feel for is Sahtu MLA Paulie Chinna.

Not only is she responsible for keeping all the municipalities functioning, she's also the one who is expected to improve lives for homeless people and to fix the numerous problems with the NWT Housing Corporation.

I can't remember when I had six jobs at the same time and man-aged to do any of them effectively.

Can you?All these portfolio problems are

expected to be in the process of being solved by the next election in 2022, but each and every one of them is a monumental chal-lenge that would take a seasoned public servant at least that long to deal with.

To go back to my airplane meta-phor, members of our cabinet are not just expected to learn how to fly one plane mid-flight; they lit-erally have to fly the entire fleet, of completely different makes and models, all at once.

Politics is not an easy vocation: there's a huge learning curve, very long hours and everyone usually ends up hating you regardless of whether you did a good job or not.

But the way the system is set up, if this cabinet can pull off a tenth of what they're proposing to do, they've earned their pay.

Northern News Services

Not enough captainsPublished Thursdays

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Youth of the week

MATAYA GILLIS

Our youth of the week is Mataya Gillis, seen here fact checking at the Northwest Territories Associa-tion of Communities AGM as the Town of Inuvik’s youth representative. School was out out for teacher’s convention but Gillis was spending her free time learning the ways of governance. You may be looking at your future mayor here, folks.

ERIC BOWLING

INUVIK DRUM, Thursday, March 5, 2020 5

A road at Mike Zubko air-port in Inuvik that the Can-adian Forces asked the town to name on its behalf will be called Anderson Road in mem-ory of Cpl. Jordan Anderson, who died serving Canada in Afghanistan in 2007 and went to school in the community.

His wife, Amanda, sent the Inuvik Drum the following statement.

"Thank you to the Town of Inuvik for choosing to name Airport Road in honour of my late husband Cpl. Jordan J Anderson (3PPCLI). There were many incredible and noteworthy candidates to name the road after and all are to be commended."

Now that the vote is con-cluded, a motion will be pre-sented to Town Council for approval at it’s next meeting.

Jordan Anderson as a boy. He lived in many north-ern communities including Inuvik, Pelly Bay and Tuktoyaktuk.

photos courtesy of Amanda Anderson

Anderson with members of his family during a Christmas holiday. With him are Sam Anderson (Brother), James Anderson (Father), Ben Anderson (Brother), Margaret Anderson (Grandma), Sheila Anderson (Mother), Matt Anderson (Brother.) Jor-dan was born in Iqaluit and raised in the North by his parents James and Sheila Anderson, along with his three brothers, Ben, Matt and Sam.

Anderson in his high school football uniform.

Cpl. Jordan Anderson went to school in Inuvik. He died in Afghanistan in 2007 while serving in the Canadian Forces.

Eric Bowling/NNSL photo

The road to be named after Jordan under a foot or two of snow.

Northern News Services

Inuvik votes to honour veteranphoto story

CEREMONY Featureby Eric Bowling

6 INUVIK DRUM, Thursday, March 5, 2020 alternatives

"What are you most excited about for Spring Break?"

Cassandra Collison:"Arctic Winter Games."

Derek Lennie Ipana:"Hockey."

William Gruben:"Hockey!"

Morgan McLeod:"Muskrat Jamboree."

Chloe Frost:"Going to the park."

Colsen Gordon-Lennie:"All-Native Weekend in White-horse."

STREET talkwith Eric Bowling

inuvikdrum@nnsl.com

Thursday, March 5 to 832nd Annual IRC Native Hockey Tourna-ment.Roy "Sugaloo" Ipana Memorial ArenaContact Donald Hendrick at (867) 678 4643 to register a team.

Friday, March 6 to 8Our Climate Our Arctic 2020 Youth SummitInuvikYouth lead conference to address regional concerns, climate initiatives and sustain-able development goals.

Friday, March 13 to Sunday, March 152020 Open BonspielSam Arey Curling ClubAklavikClosing for entries is March 13. Entry fee is $100 per team, with prizes for the A and B events. If interested, contact Faye at the hamlet office at 978-2351 or 978-2361.

Community Calendar

To have an event listed in this free feature, call (867) 777-4545, or email inuvikdrum@nnsl.com. Submissions should be received two weeks prior to the event. Non-profit or community events only please. There is no guarantee submissions will be published.

Eric Bowling is editor of the Inuvik Drum. Send your ideas

to inuvikdrum@nnsl.com

NEIGHBOURLYNews

Elders teach students igloo making

Ulukhaktok and PaulatukStudents in both Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok got a shot at

traditional home building this week as a group of Elders took the time to teach the students how to build igloos.

Both Angik School and Helen Klavik School were able to participate in the workshop that took place over the last few weeks.

Bone knives were used to cut the snow, as per the trad-itional method.

Elder and former chief Johnny Kyikavichik remembered

in Fort McPhersonFort McPherson

Many in the Beaufort Delta were in Fort McPherson to pay their respects for Johnny Kyikavichik, also known as Johnny Kaye, a former chief of the Tetlit Gwich’in Council who died Feb. 24 at the age of 67.

He served as chief from 2004 to 2007 and was fondly remembered for his calm demeanour and connections to the land.

He was the son of widely respected Elders Peter and Mary Kaye. He’s survived by his wife Annie and five chil-dren, as well as two adopted grandchildren.

A statement from the Gwich'in Tribal Council reads "It was an honour to have known and worked with a great man like Johnny. Everyone who knew him will miss him dearly. We will miss his wisdom and knowledge that he humbly shared with us."

Self-care workshop for young mothers

AklavikA six day workshop on self-care for new mothers is set

for this month, starting March 12 to 13 and continuing each weekend afterwards, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Aklavik Com-munity Learning Centre.

The workshop will include stress relieving techniques including tapping, heart math and mom and baby yoga, as well as ideas for nutritious and fun snacks. There will also be a section on making teas, salves and lip balms using traditional plants to help with parenting.

Seats are limited and pre-registration is required, so anyone interested is invited to call 978–2224 or stop by the learning centre for more information.

Free bus rides in TukTuktoyaktuk

The Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk is providing free busing for residents of Reindeer Point from Monday to Friday. Buses pick residents up at 11 a.m. with drop offs scheduled for 11:15 at Stanton’s and 11:30 at the Northern Store.

Pickups will be at 4:25 p.m. at the Northern store and 4:35 at Stanton’s, with a 4:45 p.m. drop off at Reindeer Point. Residents can also hop on this bus and be dropped off at Stanton’s at 5 p.m.

Residents are asked to be ready and waiting when the bus arrives to prevent delays. During the NWTAC AGM on Feb. 29, hamlet Mayor Merven Gruben told the NWT cabi-net that the hamlet felt the busing was an essential service that had been downloaded onto the community.

photo courtesy of Jill Herbert

An igloo built near Ulukhaktok. Students in Ulukhaktok and Paulatuk recently had an oppor-tunity to learn how to build similar strucutres with Elders.

INUVIK DRUM, Thursday, March 5, 2020 7

Sarah Wells thought the Olympics was going to be her biggest challenge, but in retrospect the games were just laying the groundwork for something bigger.

"Every student is going through their own challenges where we all face obstacles and feel like our hands are tied," she said following a presentation at East Three School. "It's important we help them realize those cir-cumstances don't have to define their outcome and they have the power to get back up and find another way.

"Not everything's going to be in their control, but recog-nizing what is and how you can better that environment allows you to get a bit closer to success."

Wells was in Inuvik Feb. 24 to 25 to present to the school as part of her Believe! Initiative, where she helps students identify their pas-sions and brainstorm ways to reach them.

She said she was moti-vated in part by her epiphany from not making the Cana-dian Olympic team the sec-ond time.

"I share my Olympic jour-ney on the importance of fall-ing down and choosing to get back up and not letting the current circumstances define that outcome," she said. "We talk to students about the importance of being resilient and the power of believing in yourself. We have a full day of workshops around mind-set, overcoming self-doubt and finding your own leader-ship style.

"My most recent experi-ence at my second Olympics, I still believed in myself and I didn't achieve my goal – that doesn't make it any less valuable, because I realized I believed in myself more strongly because I was still willing to get up and stand on the start line regardless of whether I knew the outcome or not.

"The line I give them is that hard work won't always

lead to success, but being resilient will always lead to another opportunity for suc-cess."

Part of how she encour-ages the students to keep motivated is having a mantra or word to keep them on track. For example, Wells has the word 'believe' she uses to ground herself. She also advises people feeling down to do something physical to get endorphins flowing.

Another aspect of her tour is trying to reduce the gap between everyday folk and Olympians, showing students that they too can reach the podium if they're determined enough.

"I think it's important that we remove the pedes-tal, Olympians fail too," she said. "My most recent experi-ence of the Olympic games was failure and I hope to

debunk the idea that we're these superhuman creatures.

"We're all facing challeng-es where we have to believe in ourselves, where there's obstacles out of our control and we don't have to let that define our outcome."

Part of the RBC Future

Launch program, Wells noted Inuvik was the only NWT stop on her Canada-wide tour, with other stops includ-ing 14 other stops across the country.

Though she added she had an ulterior motive to coming this far north.

"This is our final stop," she said.

"My sister Athena lives up here, so it's kind of fun that I get to do this and get to see her too."

Wells will be back to check up on the students pas-sion projects in May.

Sarah Wells was in Inuvik Feb. 24 to 25 to share her experiences with students to help inspire their passions

Olympic hurdler shares her story

sports & recreation

SPORTS CARDHOCKEY

SAMANTHA LENNIE

Our athlete of the week is Samantha Lennie, seen here practising her skating after school at the Midnight Sun Complex. Lennie is looking forward to a break from school so she can keep up her practise, and for good reason she’s off to a hockey tournament in Edmonton later this month.

Eric Bowling/NNSL photo

Canadian Olympian Sarah Wells was at East Three School Feb. 24 to 25 to help coach the students in self-confidence. She told them her story of being cut from team Canada and how she rebounded her life.

by Eric Bowling Northern News Services

8 INUVIK DRUM, Thursday, March 5, 2020 news

Mayors and chiefs around the table at the Northwest Territor-ies Association of Communities (NWTAC) took full advantage of an open question and answer session with the 19th Legislative Assem-bly cabinet during the association's annual general meeting Feb. 27 to 29 at the Midnight Sun Complex in Inuvik.

For almost two hours, Premier Caroline Cochrane, deputy premier and Minister of Health and Social Services Diane Thom, Minister of Environment and Natural Resour-ces Shane Thompson, Minister responsible for Northwest Territories Housing Corporation Paulie Chinna and Minister of Finance Caroline Wawzonek fielded questions ranging from infrastructure plans to educa-tion and housing.

"We're much more powerful when we come together as one voice, especially when we go to the fed-eral government because they don't understand us," said Cochrane in her opening remarks. "The goal of this government is get the support we need and more. We are not being territorial and defensive; if we work together we will do better."

Inviting the ministers back to Inuvik for the Arctic Development Expo, Mayor Natasha Kulikowski asked for an update on a planned wind farm that was to begin this year and asked where the territory was on getting the power grid off diesel generation.

"On March 9, we're coming forth with our strategic plan for 20 years," said Thompson. "I have to be very honest with people, when we talk about reducing the power rates by using green energy, that's not reality

folks. We're going to see an increase because we still need to have our redundancy plan, which is our diesel program. But we are looking at LNG, wind power and solar. Right now Fort Simpson is the next one in line to get their LNG.

"If people have ideas that might work – please share, we don't know everything."

Thom added the health depart-ment needs to establish a good recruitment team to bring in more health and social workers to the North. She added the department was looking to host a new Better, Together conference by 2022 and noted one of the 22 priorities of cabinet was to establish addictions counselling services within the ter-ritory so people didn't have to go south to get the help they need.

She went on to suggest it may be more pragmatic to fly medical specialists into towns to care for patients instead of flying the patients out.

Poverty and high rental costs were also discussed. Mayor Laverna Klengenberg of Ulukhaktok drew applause after calling for a change to how public housing assesses rent and pointing out using income tax is unfair when many people in the North are only able to work season-ally.

"We need to take into considera-tion the high cost of living a lot com-munities have," she said. "When we set policies for small communities, we can't be making those decisions in the Yellowknife office. People need to visit communities, meet with tenants, see what kind of homes they live in and go from there.

"I'm not talking about a two or three hour visit. They need to come back and come back and come back.

This is why the system in the depart-ment is broken."

Noting she had lived in social housing herself, Chinna said she was working to visit each community in the territory and learn about their particular challenges, adding work-ing through costs can be daunting.

"I have the experience of what it's like and where the communication breakdown is," she said. "Looking at the northern part of the terri-tory, programs seeing differences in what we're building. Something in Yellowknife that would cost $500,000 might cost $1.5 million in Ulukhaktok."

Several of the questions related to challenges municipalities were coping with from climate change, including a request for a hard closure date for the Norman Wells ice road by Mayor Frank Pope, Fort Simp-

son Mayor Sean Whelly suggested getting the ball rolling on a bridge study.

Tuktoyaktuk Mayor Merven Gru-ben noted the hamlet felt a need for bus service between the Reindeer Point housing development and the main part of town.

Concerns were raised about the state of the caribou herds by several members, which Thompson said the government was responding to with the selected wolf cull.

"This is a five year plan. If we only do it for one year, we know the population will reproduce," he said. "We're using science and traditional knowledge to address this concern.

"I do not want to be the minister responsible for having no caribou after these four years. So hard deci-sions are being made."

With only $25 million to split

between 22 priorities and projects, finance minister Wawzonek said she was trying to find ways to stretch out the dollar as far as she could. One area she was finding success with was finding crossover between departments with similar needs, so the government wasn't paying for the same services twice.

Noting the territory was moving to four-year business plans, Waw-zonek noted the budget kept taxes at the same level while holding the line on services.

Industry, Tourism and Invest-ment minister Katrina Nokleby was not at the meeting because she was at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto.

Education Minister RJ Simpson was unable to make the meeting due to a personal issue.

Mayors and chiefs get time with territorial leaders

Community leaders grill cabinet

Eric Bowling/NNSL photo

Deputy premier Diane Thom, Premier Caroline Cochrane and Finance Minister Caroline Waw-zonek address members of the Northwest Territories Association of Communities on Feb. 29 at the Midnight Sun Complex.

by Eric Bowling Northern News Services