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I felt like a leper walking the streets of Yellowknife.
While working as a reporter for a local paper in the NWT’s capital city, I endeavored to complete a Street Talk column, where residents – their names appearing beside their photo – would be asked to rate the territorial government’s performance over the last 12 months.
Covering an often controversial and contentious legislative assembly, I had my own opinions, but figured I could have been a little insulated by spending too much time in the newsroom. With an important session set to start up the day the column would have gone to press, I wanted to get a sense of how people on the street really felt about the way the government was running.
I did not run out in naively. I realized it would be a difficult task because since I started at the paper – both in Yellowknife and Iqaluit – I had run into many an instance where a resident would refuse a comment based on their employment with the government.
It was frustrating, but I understood.
People open right up and then when asked for their name, they say: “You’re not going to use my name, are you?” or “I don’t know if I can say that. I work for the government, you know?”
I needed just six people to respond.
I spent a solid 30 minutes walking around with no success. I got polite ‘no thank yous,’ explanations and then retractions, and quick refusals. There were people I asked who said they depended on the government for program funding and could not reply. I got comments from people presently or recently employed with the government – or people who hoped to work for them – who would gladly divulge their opinions after stating they wouldn’t give their names. Their criticisms were insightful, relevant and offered me something new. They’d be healthy for public discourse if they were published. There were ideas to save money, improve programming, save jobs, but no one would get to hear them.
On the flipside, I met people who were very much anti-government – and some whose job it was to be. Their views were very predictable.
I must have asked 25 people in those 30 minutes – old and young, employed, jobless, homeless – and not one person was willing to go on the record.
I’d cross a street and people on the sidewalk would beeline for the other side. They’d pick up their pace. They could smell the question.
It was getting dark and after an hour, I had four respondents – one was very critical, two seemed to have moderate approval and another who was not up on the issues.
The next morning, I showed up for work early and after about 45 more minutes, I found two more people.
I got back into the office, wrote out the column, uploaded the pictures onto the server and was proud to have at least gotten some sort of judgment from the people.
Then I was told four of my pictures were out of focus and were unusable. I gave up and asked Yellowknifers what style of moustache I should grow for an upcoming fundraiser. I found six people in 20 minutes.
I realized those were some tough economic times and everyone was a little worried they might show up to work on a Monday and find a pink slip on their keyboard, I knew Yellowknife was a small place and workers were afraid they could be reprimanded for criticisms. I knew all about the government’s code of conduct, where employees are prohibited from speaking out against their employer.
Where does that leave democracy and the free-flowing of ideas and opinions though? In a system that’s truly open and working and accountable, residents would feel comfortable giving their honest opinions about government, feeling free of reprimand.
With a government accused frequently of incompetence, it does one thing very well: stifle debate. There isn’t public discussion about policy because people are uncomfortable having it publicly. They're afraid some vengeful bureaucrat is poring through Yellowknifer street talk columns, looking to find anyone foolish enough to question the government’s action, to then sacrifice as an example to the rest of the flock.
As a result, no one says anything until something gets taken away from them. And then, as is often the case, it’s too late.
