We said it before – and will probably have to say it again sometime in the future – but we will never understand why more people don't show up to important public meetings.
A case in point was the Aug. 13 hearing of a Legislative Assembly committee on the proposed Emergency Management Act.
The scene was properly set – three MLAs from the Standing Committee on Government Operations and two staff members were at the Community Hall to explain the coming legislation.
Unfortunately, they far outnumbered the residents who showed up for the meeting. There was the mayor and the town's director of protective services, and that's it. (There was also a Hub reporter, who really doesn't count.)
But if you think about it, the mayor and director of protective services were there in their roles with the town. So it could reasonably be said that no one from the general public showed up for the meeting.
Now, we realize it is August and people are thinking about summer stuff, not public meetings, but you would think a chance to have input into emergency management would have gotten some people out.
Like every community in the NWT, Hay River has the potential for emergency situations, especially wildfires. Plus, although the breakup of the Hay River has been benign for about 10 years, there is no guarantee it will stay that way.
That's why you have to plan for emergencies and always be ready. They can happen when you least expect it.
And everybody should realize that emergency management is important for a community, and for them personally. Everybody in a community could be negatively impacted in case of an emergency.
We went to the Aug. 13 public hearing thinking it would attract a decent crowd. In Hay River, we consider a decent crowd to be about 10 or so.
However, aside from the mayor and the director of protective services (and we do commend them for showing up) no one was interested enough to spend a half hour to talk about the management of emergencies.
Perhaps people are being optimistic and don't believe they are in any real danger from an emergency any time in the near future. But if they can tell the future, perhaps they should get deep into the stock market and make themselves a fortune.
It's more realistic to think that people are just not interested in how emergencies should be managed by government.
We have seen people in Hay River extremely interested when an emergency is happening – flooding over 10 years ago and the more recent fire on the other side of the Hay River from Paradise Valley.
However, that is not the time for discussion and certainly not the time for any confusion on roles and responsibilities. It is the time to react with a thoughtful plan that has considered all contingencies, and that includes how the situation should be managed.
No planning should be left for when a fire or a flood or something completely unseen actually happens, because then it is, you know, an emergency.