The government we deserve?

I was reviewing with great interest the Nov. 7 editorial about the effectiveness of the legislative assembly. In the next few months, we will see elections for the territorial government, the federal government and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. Municipalities have already had their elections.

I don’t know if the people of Nunavut realize how ridiculously large is the number of people we ask to administer and govern this region. If someone were hardy enough to list all the levels of governments, boards, agencies, associations, non-profit groups and so on, that are supposed to act for the public good, they would find that the numbers are incredible.

The overlap between all these organizations is unbelievable. The lack of accountability and transparency is even worse.

On the issue of effectiveness, I will let you make your own judgment, I know for myself that I am far from satisfied with what my tax dollars are doing for me. This massive bureaucracy delivers mountains of policies, reports, briefs, long-term plans, consultations, whatever you want to call it. More often than not, these people only talk, consult and argue with each other.

But very little real action is delivered on the ground where it counts.

When are the people of Nunavut going to ask the hard questions from their elected officials and keep asking them until real answers are given? If we don’t do that and ask for real accountability we will always have to settle for what we are getting now: empty phrases, trinkets and community feasts.

When you are more interested in the free baseball cap you are offered by an organization than by actual results, you get what you deserve.

Let’s ask these hard questions and expect hard answers. Let’s put in place people that have a good understanding of the role they are supposed to play. Let’s see which organizations are effective and which ones are only window-dressing. This way we will save ourselves a lot of false hopes, money and heartaches.

(Name withheld by request)
Iqaluit