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Cece Hodgson-McCauley
Guest comment
Monday, January 7, 2008
Hi from Vancouver, God's country! Green grass and flowers blooming. It snowed a few times but melted right away.
Brother John and I are really enjoying ourselves - had Xmas with my son and family in Vancouver, we are now visiting our niece and family in Maple Ridge, B.C., and then back to Vancouver for New Year's. Then off to Kelowna to visit my sister Muriel and her husband Bob Foers and more relatives in Vernon. Then back home to all the snow and cold weather in Norman Wells.
Life in this civilized, modern world is mind boggling after life in isolation of the Sahtu Region! Everything is so neat and proper and plentiful! I would say the region of Yellowknife and Hay River enjoy a life of plenty such as all the provinces are enjoying.
The Northern part of the territory is like a sitting time bomb, ready to explode with angry, desperate people, who want to move forward and cannot until they open up the whole Mackenzie Valley to the Arctic Ocean with all-weather roads! Simple as that!
The sad situation is that we, the people, do not elect strong leaders with the will to tackle a real man's job.
Just take a good, hard look at some of your leaders, their background and what they have accomplished in life. To be a good mouthpiece and to say the right things to please is not good enough.
The GNWT's job (as a subcontractor to the federal government) has been lacking in strength and vision. They have been playing right into the federal government's game. The feds give us millions a year, to do as we please - to play house. We are out of sight and out of mind. They don't care.
To them, the NWT was a wilderness - but people in the NWT knew differently. We knew we were in a rich man's paradise. Today they are saying the NWT is going to carry Canada's future with our resources, etc.
The GNWT has wasted 50 years. Fifty years. Their job was to create a government to lift us out of isolation, educate and take us out of the nomadic lifestyle. Civilize us, etc. But it was the opposite!
The GNWT created and concentrated on a bureaucracy like nowhere else on earth and a system of dependency on government. It is staring us in the face today! Jobs to be had all over the place but no qualified people! Companies complaining that some workers can't even read directions and one MLA asked how come this person has a Grade 12 certificate when he can't even read.
Yes sir, the GNWT's system is: keep them dependent on the government, don't develop or open up the territory to development and commerce.
Things have to change today, not tomorrow, if we in the Mackenzie Valley don't want to have a rude awakening. The world is changing. We don't want to wake up to a big surprise. We in the Mackenzie Valley must mobilize and as one voice give an ultimatum to the GNWT.
They must act as a government on our behalf or we as a people of the valley will take matters into our own hands and we will deal with the federal government on our own. And we can do that because the GNWT is not a legitimate government. They are a council - you may say subcontractors to the feds.
Something must be done in 2008.
- Cece Hodgson-McCauley is the founding chief of the Inuvik Dene band and will remain honourary chief for life. She can be reached at fax (867) 587-3003 or by phone (867) 587-3037.