2004-11-14

VOL. 2 ISSUE 46

COST/ BENEFIT SUMMARY SEGMENT Oil & Gas

As of Mar/10 As of Mar/10

$6.1B

$1.12B

Transportation

($7.7B)

$0

Fisheries

$15.2B

$3.3B

Fiscal Transfers

$3.4B

($3.4B)

Natural Resources

$36.5B

$7.9B

Running Total $53.5B

$8.9B

Please see detailed breakdown, page 2 Next week: Terms of Union

ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14-20, 2004

WWW.THEINDEPENDENT.CA

Confederation’s ‘greatest failure’

$1.00 (INCLUDING HST)

Power trip

Critics say ‘fair’ Canadian energy policy has hurt Newfoundland and Labrador more than other provinces cent of offshore oil royalties.

“It still stings every day,” Dean MacDonald, current chair of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, tells The Independent.

While profits from the upper Churchill may land in Quebec, much of the blame for the deal — as well as on-going difficulties moving forward with the lower Churchill — is placed

By Stephanie Porter on the federal government. During negotiations, NewfoundThe Independent land asked for a power corridor through Quebec in order to transmit its power. Quebec refused, and Ottawa refused to hile the rest of Canada has benefited by an estimat- intervene. ed $36.5 billion from this province’s natural “The situation arose from one of the major weaknesses of the resources, Newfoundland and Labrador has gained Canadian federal system and the greatest failure of the Confedby about $7.9 billion. eration between Newfoundland and Canada … to initiate a fair Since 1949, Canada has invested about $129 energy policy,” said former MP John Crosbie in a million in developing the agriculture, forestry, 2003 speech.

FINDING THE hydroelectric and mineral resources of this “… in other words, while the water continues to run into the ocean, this province continues to lose province. Newfoundland and Labrador, by comCost benefit analysis very substantial economic benefits because we are parison, has invested about $2.8 billion. of Confederation not producing hydroelectric energy from these The numbers were calculated by The IndepenFifth in a six-part series sources as we would be in a sane and just economdent as part of its six-part series investigating the ic environment.” costs and benefits of Confederation.

In 1984, then-premier Brian Peckford, in a telex to thenOne of the largest numbers will come as no surprise to any prime minister Pierre Trudeau, pegged the loss at $2 million a Newfoundlander or Labradorian. day.

While Hydro-Quebec has gathered an estimated $23.8 billion in revenues from the sale of electricity since the upper Virtually every provincial government since Smallwood Churchill came on stream in 1972, Newfoundland and has tried to re-open or re-negotiate the upper Churchill agreeLabrador has taken in less than three per cent of that — about ment. It’s been dragged, repeatedly, through both the courts $680 million. of law and public opinion, costing this province additional The notorious upper Churchill contract, signed in 1969, millions. remains the great giveaway in this province’s 55-year history, “We got burned, acknowledge it, we’ve tried everything in casting a tough shadow over every provincial resource nego- the world … the fact of the matter is, there’s nobody in the countiation since. try that’s going to change the contract … no politician in QueHad the deal included an escalator clause acceptable by bec is going to give you back the money,” says Opposition today’s standards, this province could be taking in more than $500 million annually — more than the much-touted 100 per Continued on page 2

Hydro-Quebec has made $23.8 billion from upper Churchill power; $680 million for this province

W

BALANCE

LIFE & TIMES

Noreen Golfman calls for public tenders on public art Page 23

SPORTS

‘Jobs and only jobs’

The Great One may be to blame for boring play

Page 25

Province has never really concentrated on royalties when it comes to development of natural resources

Paul Daly/The Independent

Transmission lines carry power from Labrador’s upper Churchill project to Hydro-Quebec and North American markets beyond.

Hundreds of millions lost in equalization oversight

By Jeff Ducharme The Independent

INTERNATIONAL

Darryl Stratton from St. John’s navigates Mexico Page 20

Quote Week OF THE

“We were in a period of time when a pound of bologna was 17 cents for 50 years and didn’t change. Nobody expected acceleration of this thing the way it happened.”

— Ambrose Peddle, who sat in opposition to Joey Smallwood, on upper Churchill contract

M

ining companies will pay approximately $120 million in taxation and royalties this year to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, which may seem high until compared to other revenue sources, such as the liquor corporation, which is expected to net the province approximately $105 million.

According to figures provided by the province, more than $630 million in iron ore will be shipped out of Labrador this year, equal to more than 15 million tonnes, most of which is in pellet form.

That ore is shipped to steel mills around the globe to make products from pots and pans to cars and ships, creating untold secondary-processing jobs — few, if any, are in this province. It isn’t known how much the ore equates in economic value to other provinces.

Since 1949, The Independent estimates more than $25 billion in iron ore has been shipped out of the province.

Natural Resources Minister Ed Byrne says most of the royalty regimes in the province were set up before Newfoundland and Labrador entered Confederation and are something the Tory government has to live with.

“History has told us and it’s been recorded as telling us, any frank and

Federal government intervened in upper Churchill contract; door open for renegotiation: former minister

By Ryan Cleary The Independent

N

An aerial view of the IOC plant in Labrador West.

sober debates that occurred at the time, I mean people were concentrating on a very narrow view — jobs and only jobs,” Byrne says. “Nobody at the time was talking about revenue and how we retain the greater portion of revenue from our resources.”

Government can’t simply change the legislation, says Byrne.

“It’s not without its frustrating points where you’re living with agreements that legally we are bound to, both from the energy side and the mining side,” the minister says.

“Some of those legal agreements have a very big liability, financial liability issues associated with them.”

The act that governs Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC) was last amended in 1944 and the act governing Wabush Mines dates back to 1957.

Iron ore comprises 90 per cent of the total mining industry in the province and 60 per cent of total production nationally.

Ore from the IOC mine is shipped by train to Sept-Iles, Que., where it’s stockpiled and then loaded on to massive ore ships for export to mills in Ontario and around the world.

Neither mine ships out ore in raw form. IOC ships most of its ore in pellet Continued on page 15

ot only has Newfoundland and Labrador lost billions of dollars on the infamous upper Churchill contract, the province was penalized for years as if it was receiving a fair return for the 5,200 megawatts of power.

Between 1972, the year Churchill began producing hydro power, and 1982, the federal government — for purposes of equalization — treated Churchill Falls as if the province was receiving normal market value of the sale of electricity.

In fact, Newfoundland and Labrador receives next to nothing for the power, with Hydro-Quebec receiving the lion’s share.

As a result, the province lost hundreds of millions of dollars in equaliza-

tion, while Quebec gained.

The federal government acknowledged the inequity and, in 1982, made an adjustment. The move was outlined in a May, 2000 letter written by thenfederal Intergovernmental Affairs minister Stéphane Dion.

“Equalization payments are based on the relative ability of each province to raise taxes; and the Churchill Falls adjustment shifts some capacity to tax hydro sites from Newfoundland to Quebec,” Dion wrote. “The net effect is to reduce Quebec’s annual equalization payments while raising Newfoundland’s.”

The particular tax Dion was referring to is the water power rentals tax, which is based on a province’s ability to raise taxes from a hydro site.

The exact amount of money lost by Newfoundland and Labrador over the 10-year period isn’t known.

The province has never received a retroactive benefit.

Dion’s letter was written to Sue Dyer, a St. John’s-based researcher and energy advocate. Dyer had posed a question to Dion on VOCM’s OpenLine radio program about whether the province was being “further punished” for the lopsided contract with Quebec.

“For years it had been rumoured that Hydro-Quebec wasn’t losing on equalization for the money they were making from the upper Churchill,” Dyer tells The Independent. “It (the call-in program) was an opportunity for me to directly ask the appropriate federal minister what the true situation was.”

Following Dion’s letter, Dyer posed more questions, which were answered by then-Finance minister Paul Martin.

Continued on page 10

Page 2

NEWS

The Independent, November 14, 2004

‘We cannot give up’ From page 1 leader Roger Grimes — whose own lengthy attempt at a lower Churchill deal fell apart in 2002.

He urges the public, and politicians, to move out of the past.

Because the future, he says, holds great potential.

The upper Churchill contract expires in 2041, at which point Newfoundland and Labrador may finally begin to see real revenues from one of the greatest hydroelectric power sources in the world.

The lower Churchill holds two sites for hydro facilities: Gull Island and Muskrat Falls. Undeterred by three decades of failed attempts, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is on the verge of calling for expressions of interest in developing the projects.

If a workable, profitable agreement is reached this time around, the facilities could be generating power and revenue within 15 years.

And with the added income when the much-anticipated Voisey’s Bay mine starts producing — estimated to be worth over $11 billion to the provincial economy over the next 30 years — this province could, within a generation, see a couple of billion dollars annually in additional revenues, profits and spin offs from its natural resources, “I am firmly convinced that the economic well-being of the province of Newfoundland, indeed its very survival as a coherent political unit, depends on the proper management and control of our natural resources,” Peckford stated in a 1980 speech.

Newfoundland and Labrador, with its relatively small population and vast lands and waters, brought an incalculable wealth of resources into Confederation.

The immense iron ore resource of Labrador, for example, “is one of the reasons why, prior to Confederation, the Canadian government was so anxious to have Newfoundland and Labrador join Confederation … that was the primary driver,” says Natural Resources Minister Ed Byrne. Since 1949, over $25 billion worth of iron ore has been mined in this province.

Newfoundland and Labrador isn’t the only beneficiary of its mines. Much of the raw or refined material is exported elsewhere in Canada for further processing.

Quebec alone has seen more than $8 billion in revenues from Labrador ore in the past two decades, according to Statistics Canada data.

This province’s forestry industry has been chugging along for a century, currently employing about 12,000 people directly and indirectly, and exporting paper and other wood products around the world. If the resource is well man-

aged, the industry could remain a stable part of this province’s economy indefinitely.

Agriculture is a smaller sector, held back by its inability to export beef or vegetables. Even so, Byrne sees it as a growth industry, forecasting 60 per cent improvements in the next five years.

But it is the waters of the Churchill that hold the attention of Newfoundlanders — and fuel provincial resentment. “It’s such a touchstone with the people of Newfoundland, with the whole arrangement with Quebec on the upper,” says Hydro’s MacDonald.

Grimes agrees, but adds, “if we’re going to have a grievance, you can have one with the Government of Canada because they wouldn’t force the notion of a corridor, for national unity reasons.”

Back in 1965 Newfoundland looked for a way to export the power it would produce from the upper Churchill to markets outside the province. The most obvious — and cost effective — route at the time was to use the transmission infrastructure that already existed in Quebec. The Atlantic route — transmitting power across the Strait of Belle Isle, down the Northern Peninsula to the southwest coast and, from there, across the Cabot Strait to U.S. markets — is generally seen as a more expensive alternative.

Quebec wouldn’t allow transmission over its territory. Unless Quebec owned it, electricity would go no further than the provincial border.

Jean Lesage, premier of Quebec

at the time, was quoted in the May 5, 1965 Globe and Mail as saying, “…under no condition will we permit anyone else to build a transmission line through Quebec or to transport, or let be transported by others through Quebec, the electricity coming from Churchill Falls … we will never even allow anyone to rent our means of transmission.”

He warned then-prime minister Lester B. Pearson against using federal powers to force a solution that would not give Quebec ownership of the electricity. “I told him that with things the way they are in Quebec, this would be unthinkable,” Lesage said.

Ottawa refused to place any pressure on Quebec to acquiesce to Newfoundland’s needs, and the vast majority of the upper Churchill’s power was, and is, sold to Quebec.

The federal government, to this day, has not acted on the power corridor issue — though it committed to do so, by law, the day the Lower Churchill Development Act was signed in 1979.

MacDonald, all too aware of the Quebec and Ottawa troubles of the past, maintains it may be pos-

sible to find a lower Churchill deal without involving the neighbouring province at all.

“Absolutely,” he says. “One of the things we’ve done in the past is locked into discussions with only one partner (Hydro-Quebec) … I think we’d do ourselves a great disservice if we think there’s only one way to skin this cat.

“We’re interested in doing the best job we can in terms of returning benefits to the province, whether its with Quebec, or Ontario, or someone south of the border, or whoever.”

Although he says he’s had “interesting chats” with various parties, there are no current negotiations.

In late September, media reports revealed that a Chinese company with suspected terrorist links was involved with a proposal to develop the lower Churchill. Although Williams told The Independent at the time the Justice Department would launch an investigation.

There is no evidence that has happened.

MacDonald will only say that any company will have to “pass the test … we wouldn’t deal with anyone who wasn’t dealing with

proper codes of ethics.”

Byrne hesitates when asked about possible future partners on the project. “There is significant interest out there, outside the province, for options other than the Quebec route,” he admits.

“We’ll assess those when and if they come in.”

When contacted, a spokesperson from Hydro-Quebec would not speak about the upper or lower Churchill. “It is quite inappropriate for Hydro-Quebec to comment at this time,” she tells The Independent.

Always a resource-based economy, it is possible that within the next 20 to 30 years — if the right deals are struck — Newfoundland and Labrador may see substantial new benefits from its natural riches. But, as Crosbie stated, those involved must be diligent, to get out of “this economic purgatory.

“We cannot give up our determination to develop Gull Island and/or Muskrat Falls to produce the energy that we must have for economic development in Labrador and on the island of Newfoundland and revenue for our government,” he says.

“We cannot cease in our efforts to have the Government of Canada participate meaningfully in such developments to atone for their permitting us to suffer the economic losses we have suffered through their failure to develop a reasonable, courageous and equitable national energy policy.”

THIS WEEK In Camera . . . . . . . . . . . .

Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Business & Commerce . . .

International News . . . .

Life & Times . . . . . . . . . .

Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Crossword . . . . . . . . . . .

11 14 15 19 21 25 24

FOUR-DAY WEATHER Information provided by Environment Canada

Newfoundland Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday

3º 2º 2º 4º

Labrador Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday

-2º -2º -1º 0º

The Independent, November 14, 2004

NEWS

Ambrose Peddle

Page 3

Paul Daly/The Independent

Newfoundland and ‘what army’ Ambrose Peddle, opposition MHA during the infamous upper Churchill Falls deal, says no one disagreed with the agreement — it just wasn’t ‘fashionable’

By Stephanie Porter The Independent

A

lthough Ambrose Peddle was sitting in opposition the day Joey Smallwood brought the upper Churchill development deal to the House of Assembly, he makes no apologies for allowing it through with little debate.

That agreement, signed in the 1960s, is now widely regarded as grossly unfair to Newfoundland and Labrador: HydroQuebec rakes in huge profits from Labrador-generated electricity, this province sees very little in return.

Peddle remembers well the day, some 40 years ago, when then-premier Smallwood made the Churchill announcement.

“There were five or six members of the opposition at the time,” he tells The Independent. “On this day Smallwood came down after lunch and invited us up to his office. He said, ‘I have a deal for the development of the upper Churchill and I’d like to have it go through with as little opposition as possible. Would you agree to that?’

“We were all excited as anything about it and, I tell you, not one of us disagreed.”

That deal has since been much maligned for its lack of any sort of escalator clause. Hydro-Quebec buys power from Newfoundland and Labrador at the same rate set in 1969.

As the price of electricity rises, so does Quebec’s revenues — which stand at between $800 million and $1 billion a year.

The deal doesn’t expire until 2041.

“They talk now about an escalator clause, we didn’t know what that was, how could we? The only thing I knew about an escalator was there was one in the Toronto airport,” Peddle says with a smile, settling into an armchair in his St. John’s home.

“Look, we were in a period of time when a pound of bologna was 17 cents for about 50 years and didn’t change.

Nobody expected acceleration of this thing the way it happened. Nobody. But the Quebec people were smart enough to realize they had a bonanza — boy, did they ever.”

Although concerns may have been raised at the time, Peddle says he and his colleagues didn’t pay much attention to them, it “wasn’t fashionable, when everyone was so delighted to have a deal.”

QUEBEC TOOK ADVANTAGE To this day, Peddle says the Quebec negotiators “absolutely” took advantage of the situation — of the eagerness of the government to sign, get the project underway, and create jobs — and doesn’t blame them a bit for doing so. He says he won’t accept any of the blame for the agreement either.

He points his finger instead at Smallwood and his lawyers who, he says, should have been “astute” enough to draw up an appropriate contract.

Peddle, a former mayor of Grand Falls-Windsor, represented the area as an MHA during the 1960s. He went to Ottawa in 1968 for a term as an MP for

Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador. Later, he was appointed as parliamentary commissioner (ombudsman) for the provincial government.

Since that position was cut in 1990 by Clyde Wells, Peddle says he’s been enjoying his retirement, keeping close watch on the news, flipping back through the records of parliament he keeps in his office to “refresh” his mind.

‘THE WISECRACKER’ In both federal and provincial politics, Peddle was always a member of the opposition. It suited him well, he says with a smile — “I can’t say I achieved any big things, I just was always the wisecracker.” He was ready with a quick jab for anyone — including the premier of the time.

“Smallwood was a very self-centred man,” Peddle says by way of describing the atmosphere in the House of Assembly in the 1960s. “I didn’t like him, but I respected his political acumen. He was a very shrewd politician. It’s fair to say I enjoyed him, poked a little fun at him.”

Peddle recounts one exchange lobbed during the Churchill debates.

“I was sitting across from (Smallwood),” he says. “And I shouted across to him, ‘Why doesn’t the premier get his pal Lester B. Pearson and ask him to declare the transmission from Churchill Falls through Quebec to be in the national interest?’

“And Smallwood’s remark, I can remember, it’s embedded in my soul: ‘And what army is going to maintain the transmission lines crossing Quebec?’”

(Peddle was referring to section 92 of the 1867 British North America Act, which outlines the powers of the provinces. Under this section, for example, oil and gas from one province can be transported across another via a pipeline — so that no one province could stop the transmission of oil and gas by another — because it is considered “in the national interest.” The same tenet did not hold true, as was discovered, when it came to transmitting power.)

Peddle says he sees the same shortcomings within the political system these days as he did when he was in the thick of it all: politicians elected for short terms, making quick decisions for maximum votes.

“And if you’re doing things just to get elected you can be sure you’re not doing them for the good of the people, long term.

“How do you change it? I doubt you can. All you can do is bitch about it like the weather … or you can have a good time trying to change it.”

Peddle says he’s been following the decades’ worth of discussions surrounding the development of the lower Churchill. And as much as he thinks highly of the current premier, he doubts Williams is going to stick around long enough to see this one through.

“I’ve been following the lower Churchill, I’m not sure I grasp what it’s all about. I still don’t, after all this time.

“I do know there’s too much bad feeling between the federal and provincial governments, between provinces, and that shouldn’t be necessary.”

Page 4

NEWS

The Independent, November 14, 2004

An independent voice for Newfoundland & Labrador

P.O. Box 5891, Stn.C St. John’s, Newfoundland A1C 5X4 Tel: 709-726-4639 Fax: 709-726-8499 www.theindependent.ca The Independent is published

by The Sunday Independent, Inc. in St. John’s. It is an independent newspaper covering the news, issues and current affairs that affect the people of Newfoundland & Labrador.

PUBLISHER Brian Dobbin NEWSROOM Managing Editor Ryan Cleary Senior Editor Stephanie Porter Picture Editor Paul Daly

Separation papers

Senior Writer Jeff Ducharme Reporter Alisha Morrissey Reporter Clare-Marie Gosse Production Manager John Andrews OPERATIONS General Manager John Moores john.moores@theindependent.ca Consultant Wilson Hiscock Manager Sales & Marketing Andrew Best Account Executives Nancy Burt nancy.burt@theindependent.ca Jackie Sparkes-Arnold jackie.arnold@theindependent.ca Circulation Representative Brian Elliott Office Manager Rose Genge Graphic Designer Steffanie Keating Reception/Circulation Assistant Stephanie Martin E-MAIL Advertising: sales@theindependent.ca Production: production@theindependent.ca Circulation: circulation@theindependent.ca Newsroom: editorial@theindependent.ca All material in The Independent is copyrighted and the property of The Independent or the writers and photographers who produced the material. Any use or reproduction of this material without permission is prohibited under the Canadian Copyright Act. © 2004 The Independent

LETTERS POLICY The Independent welcomes letters to the editor.

Letters must be 300 words in length or less and include full name, mailing address and daytime contact numbers.

Letters may be edited for length, content and legal considerations. Send your letters in care of The Independent, P.O. Box 5891, Station C, St. John’s, NL, A1C 5X4 or e-mail us at editorial@theindependent.ca

B

y now, the direction should be clear: Newfoundland and Labrador must separate from the Government of Canada.

Canadians will also have to be left behind, which is too bad, because a wonderful relationship with a wonderful people will be dumped with the bathwater. Our friends and relations across the Gulf are forever welcome to come and visit, or move in. The door will always be open to them, kettle boiling and toaster on. The opposite, surely, will most certainly be true.

But Ottawa is a bitch to live with, the simple truth of it. How long should a marriage last when it’s a bad one?

For us, it’s not working; for Canada — Quebec and Ontario specifically — there aren’t too many complaints about what they get out of it, a full plate of resources to satisfy its appetite.

There’s revenue too, drawn from poor Newfoundland and Labrador, money for the rest of Canada to buy groceries and pay bills.

So we should leave, walk out the door and go on our way as a free and independent country, because life alone has to be better than this— flat broke and alone, without

the kids who have moved away, with few prospects for improvement.

Separation is a hard word to say for a Newfoundlander who dearly loves the country of Canada. The flag is worn with pride, when we’re off in another country, then we’re proud Canadians.

Here at home it’s a different story, most of us are Newfoundlanders and Labradorians first, before anything else.

Ottawa is guilty of abuse, physical and mental, against its youngest province. The abuse isn’t well known, most Canadians are said to be ignorant of it, a secret buried deep.

Neither side is in a rush to talk about it, like any other form of abuse, definitely not outside the family.

It’s often years before a crime is reported; even then it’s an ordeal.

Canada is the world’s best friend; it’s just not nice to its own. Canada, the federal government, is so concentrated on the rest of the world that it loses sight of itself, the end past Halifax, and Labrador, of course, further north behind Quebec’s back.

Ottawa’s abuse — in the form of neglect and poor treatment — is on several fronts.

The cod and flounder fisheries, the federal government’s sole

RYAN CLEARY

responsibility, have been annihilated. Completely and utterly destroyed; the rape continues, because the federal government doesn’t have the will to get off its arse and save our soul.

It’s true that Newfoundland signed the upper Churchill contract on its own volition. Quebec makes $1 billion a year; we make nothing.

Legal arguments aside, sibling provinces shouldn’t treat each other that way. Part of the reason Newfoundland went along with the idea was for the greater Canadian good, for the sake of national unity.

Because the federal government wouldn’t stand behind us and make Quebec give us a power corridor, as the law suggests.

The lower Churchill will, no doubt, be developed someday soon, but Ottawa hasn’t said a word about convincing Quebec to allow another transmission line through that province. The federal government could also help finance the project; there’s no talk of that either.

Ore from this province — the Big Land mostly, although Bell Island had its day — fuels the industries of central Canada, but there’s no hint of that in the havenot description.

Have-not is a lie when it comes to Newfoundland and Labrador.

What we have is being taken away.

Now the Paul Martin govern-

ment is negotiating with the province over provincial revenues from the offshore. There may be a compromise in Martin’s election promise to allow the province to keep 100 per cent of provincial offshore oil revenues. Let’s hope it’s the prime minister who backs down. Danny Williams’ future will be based on his next move.

There is no room for compromise.

Newfoundland and Labrador is at a pivotal point in its history: we either finally get ahead (Hibernia is almost half dry) or we lie down and die.

There’s a rising taking place in this province today. Not based on greed or ambition, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians don’t want our cake and welfare cheque too; it’s not about being richer than Ontarians or Albertans. It’s about having enough food for the table and a decent roof to raise the kids under. It’s about having a future in the land of our ancestors, the here and now and forever more.

Newfoundland and Labradorians have been bred to believe we’re a have-not people and separation is not an option. Damn lies, both.

Next week: ways to save the union.

Ryan Cleary is managing editor of The Independent. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

Letters to the Editor

‘What kind of justice is this’ Dear editor, When I lived in Quebec during the 1970s, there was an incident in which some woman sold an old painting that had been in her family’s possession to an art gallery in St. Eustache for some trivial amount, like $20, I believe. It was discovered subsequently that the painting was a valuable original worth many thousands of dollars.

The sale was made in good faith and the transaction perfectly legal.

However, the case eventually went to court and was decided in favour of the plaintiff. Certainly, had this woman known the value of the painting she would not have sold it for such a ridiculous price.

She was a victim — not of stupidity or of dishonesty — but of unforseen circumstances. Remember, this was a ruling arrived at under Quebec civil law.

The question raised by this incident is this: what does it have to say about the legitimacy of the Churchill Falls contract that was

negotiated under the same Quebec civil law — notwithstanding the claim of its being, according to Quebec’s constitutional rights, outside the interference of Canadian civil law. Clearly, unless they were totally out of their minds, had the Churchill Falls Labrador Corporation foreseen the Yom Kippur war of 1973 when all hell broke loose, and the Arabs (OPEC) in retaliation for American involvement, nationalized the Saudi oil wells and imposed an embargo that would see the price of oil and everything associated with it go through the roof, they would not have signed such a contract.

For this reason I contend that if the case of Newfoundland and Labrador were brought before some unbiased tribunal such as the United Nations or the Hague, it would be decided in our favour. It is foolish to expect that there will ever be a resolving of this injustice in the Canadian Supreme Court, an institution in which — despite

having men and women who are eminently qualified — this province has never had any representation. This is an institution which, on more than one occasion, did not recognize Newfoundland and Labrador as having the rights of a real province, nor, considering the manner in which we were conned into the federation, should we expect differently. We were presented at their doorstep as destitute paupers incapable of managing our own affairs, so it should not surprise anyone that we are being treated as such.

MADDENING CIRCUMSTANCES It isn’t just the unfairness of the Churchill Falls contract and other circumstances relating to it that is so maddening, it is the enormous amount of money that is involved.

In terms of energy potential and real market value, our offshore oil resources pale in comparison to 5,428 mega watts output of the

Upper Churchill. It is easier to visualize a $55 barrel of oil than a $70 MWH of electricity. Given that the price of electricity will escalate with the price of oil, by the time this contract expires in 2041, Quebec will have ripped off from Newfoundland and Labrador many times the value of the output of Hibernia and Terra Nova combined. Presently, they are getting this power at 1/4 cent / KWH and selling it in the American market at a profit of 2,400 per cent to 3,200 per cent. To compound this outrage, for the final 25 years of the contract, they will be paying even less than they are paying now, 1/5 cent/KWH. What kind of justice is this, and what kind of country would uphold it in its laws?

I ask our premier and the members of his government, can the people of this nation, a.k.a, province, afford to wait another 37 years for an ending to this iniquity?

Lloyd Reese, St. John’s

The Independent, November 14, 2004

NEWS

Page 5

The 11th hour ...

The 2004 Remembrance Day ceremony at the War Memorial in St. John’s.

Photos by Paul Daly/The Independent

Check your back pocket for the real energy crisis

O

ne of the things that amuses me about the debate over oil policy, hydro development or alternative energy ideas is that they always involve people who sound like they never worry about having to pay oil, gas, or power bills.

I’m guessing this is not true for the greater part of our readership.

While pundits are waffling authoritatively on the radio and TV about royalty schemes and billions of dollars, the rest of us face

more mundane problems. If there is a real energy story in our province, the story begins at our wallets.

Most of us go through a monthly momentary anxious pause before we open the power bill.

For most of us, the Petroleum Whatever Board seems to exist only to give us a day or two warning that we are about to be reamed again by the oil companies. Great job, eh? Sit around in a nice office and every once in a while send out

a fax saying “Lube up, everyone!”

For many years I have been asking the same question in my columns and I have never received a reply. Why — if private enterprise is so good for us all — don’t the energy companies compete?

And they don’t. Whether it’s an oil company or a local Crown corporation like Newfoundland Power, they mouth public platitudes about business while carefully arranging their affairs so they are all well looked after — and

through their service to their customers. Oh please. Who gives better service — Ultramar or Irving?

At a buck a litre, does it matter?

Am I alone out here? Are you IVAN reading this and thinking I am a nut? Should I be talking about MORGAN transfer payments and royalty you foot the bill. What happens if schemes and other more esoteric they face real trouble? Easy. They subjects? Should I waffle on about run to government for help. government policy on royalty Newfoundland Power is a rates? Maybe a few pie charts? poster child for this. Am I a bad Will that make a pinch of differperson if I suggest that maybe this ence to what you are forced to pay outfit might be a bit hidebound to stay warm this winter? and top heavy? Dennis Browne Here’s the harsh reality. If the was our consumer advocate. He price of oil goes up — too bad for was replaced. Why? you.

Which is easier: lobbying to get Is it bad news for the oil compaBrowne dumped, or looking nies? Nope. Is it bad news for anyinward and one at Newfoundaddressing the fact land Hydro or that the consumer Newfoundland Most of us go is forced to support Power? Nope. We through a monthly have the spectacle an organization whose executive momentary anxious of the province business acumen and the federal pause before we can be rendered government fightdown to the mantra open the power bill. ing over oil revstick it to the For most of us, the enues. Why doesratepayer? anyone even Petroleum Whatever n’t Whose the consuggest that the oil sumer advocate Board seems to exist companies get now? I don’t know. only to give us a day less? Not a chance.

We all knew who or two warning that Can’t even think Browne was. We that. But it is we are about to be absolutely all knew whose no side he was on. reamed again by the problem for you to Whose side is the pay more. oil companies. new person on?

And you are the The oil compaone who is going nies are the same. to have to decide We get a lot of talk about private what to do without. What will it enterprise yet they all charge the be? Hot water? Reading light? same per litre. Why? Because if Food? Gas? Warmth? These are one of them charged a cent a litre the tough decisions most of us less we would all be lined up for have to make. hours to give them our money.

The executives of the energy Competition is bad for business. companies never have to make We are told that private enterprise that kind of tough decision. They is good and public subsidies are only ever have to make one decibad. The American oil companies sion: how badly will they stick it are fiercely capitalistic. What is to you. the invasion of Iraq if it isn’t the Ivan Morgan can be reached at mother of all subsidies?

We are forced to endure the fic- ivan.morgan@gmail.com tion that oil companies compete

Rant & Reason

Page 6

NEWS

Good soul under the bastard armour

D

eciding whether to write this column was a struggle.

A friend from years gone by died recently. Yes, died. He didn’t pass away or slip away. He died a violent death.

We’ll call him Moe. The last time Moe and I met was in a Corner Brook bar. It was one of those very uncomfortable moments that bring either a huge sigh of relief or immediate medical attention — our previous meeting had ended in a fight. As our gaze connected through the tobacco smoke that hung in the air, there was a moment of pause, following which I began searching, frantically, for the nearest exit. Moe was a large man, far larger than me — though I never saw him get physically violent.

TWO GUNFIGHTERS Like two gunfighters staring each other down on a dusty old western street, shutters creaking in the dry prairie wind and tumbleweed rolling by our feet, we moved closer to each other. The tension built with each tentative step and the crowd, fearing what was about to happen, parted and moved in behind us.

“There’s going to be a gunfight,” someone yelled, or so I thought.

I waited for the chants of “fight, fight” to fill the stale barroom air.

My whole body tensed and I fortified my courage by knocking back what was left of my beer.

The thought of cracking the bottle on the bar and threatening him with the jagged bottom flashed through my mind. “Too cliché,” I thought. With my fists clenched and teeth gnashing, I inched closer until we were so near we could smell the hours of beer on each other’s breath.

Then Moe made his move and lunged. I cringed and tensed, waiting for the first blow. If the first one connected, there wouldn’t be any need for a second.

Moe’s arm came back and swung in a big sweeping motion.

This was it — pain, pain and more pain. But there was no crack of bone, no blood splattering against a wall. Moe swung his fist, missing my head, with a

Opinions Are Like...

JEFF DUCHARME breeze that almost knocked me off my feet. There was no chance to recoil and get the second blow in because he reached around behind and enveloped me in a bear hug.

I waited for the crushing to begin, for the air to be pressured out of my lungs like a blacksmith working a pair of bellows and my spine to snap like a dead twig.

My peace was made, my conscience clear. The only question left: does hell really exist?

Then the realization came — Moe was hugging me, not killing me.

Dread became relief. We hugged. We laughed. We drank heavily.

That was the last time I ever saw Moe. Fortune smiled on me that day and left me with a pleasant memory of my friend. Others who knew him are struggling.

Moe — because of the things he faced that none of us could ever understand — was hard on some people. Brutal, at times. He put them through the same hell he faced and made them battle the same demons he battled.

SWORD OF BELLIGERENCE As fast as Moe could become your best buddy, he could become your worst enemy. He sought protection under a bastard armour and swung a sword of belligerence.

His eulogy was probably flowery, and the word bastard never approached — let alone mentioned, which is how it should have been.

Under that bastard armour was a good soul, a good person. And that’s the person we should always choose to remember. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the only person he ever was.

Jeff Ducharme is The Independent’s senior writer. jeff.ducharme@theindependent.ca

Letters to the Editor

A fat rat and loopholes Dear editor, I see a lack of foresight in the original decision to make a comparison between the fiscal capacity of Newfoundland and Labrador and that of Ontario as part of such an important agreement, the Atlantic Accord. It would be far better to compare to something outside of the constantly changing equalization formula. Tying one agreement to a status determined by another agreement only creates a potential opportunity for deception.

Also, who is to assume that Ontario will always be a have province? If there’s any lesson we should have learned in Canada — especially here in Newfoundland and Labrador — it’s that industries don’t last forever. I see no reason why we should anticipate that the industries in Ontario are

going to be exempt from this historical precedent. Oversights in anticipating the future worth of industry have cost us dearly, and will cost us much for another while yet.

Churchill Falls was given away, our oil was, and still is, given away, and our nickel is about to be given away. With regards to our past agreements over our resources, it is very evident that time is not on our side.

So I say to Danny Williams, if we cannot have 100 per cent because of some new conditions, why not try adding some new ones of our own? Remember this: just because a rat looks fat doesn’t mean he can’t squeeze through the tiniest of loop holes.

Mark Harrison, St. John’s

The Independent, November 14, 2004

The Independent, November 14, 2004

NEWS

Page 7

Hydro-Quebec spends profit ‘creatively’ to lesson impact on equalization to the province Ryan Cleary The Independent

ment documents, Hydro-Quebec often doesn’t remit a profit to that province.

In fact, for 10 of the 14 years between ydro-Quebec has found a cre- 1982 and 1996, the corporation remitted ative way to spend the billions zero profit. of dollars earned from projects Documents show the money was such as the upper Churchill so that it spent on a range of programs from enerreduces the impact on equalization pay- gy-efficient housing and tourism proments to that province from jects to arts and culture and postFINDING THE the federal government. secondary education.

Sue Dyer, senior policy The practice relieved various Cost benefit analysis analyst with the former LibQuebec government departments of Confederation eral administration of Roger of certain expenditures, while at Grimes, says Newfoundland and the same time reducing Hydro’s profit.

Labrador Hydro could do the same, savAs a result of Hydro Quebec lowering ing the province untold millions of dol- its profits, that province netted hunlars a year. Her research is supported by dreds of million more in equalization.

Kevin Aylward, a former minister with “As shareholders of Newfoundland the Grimes government. and Labrador Hydro, we could increase Dyer spent a year researching the file, the value of revenues by being aware of recommending that Hydro’s mandate options under equalization regarding be changed to take advantage of provi- those revenues, similar to the activities sions under equalization. of good tax planning,” says Dyer, cur“Changing Hydro’s operations with a rently a research analyst with The Indeview to maximizing its effects on equal- pendent. ization would result in a minimum For his part, Aylward says Hydro increase of 10 per cent in the value of Quebec and officials of that province’s Hydro’s revenues to the province,” Finance Department have figured out a Dyer tells The Independent. way under the equalization formula to Hydro-Quebec, a Crown corporation, “shelter revenues” from hydropower in is a world-renowned energy company. It a Crown corporation. makes between $800 million and $1 “Do you have a choice in what you billion a year alone on the upper remit to your provincial government?

Churchill contract.

Yes you do. Therefore it presents an According to federal Finance Depart- opportunity to have a Crown corpora-

H

BALANCE

tion created or a present Crown corporation expanded in its mandate.”

Aylward says Newfoundland and Labrador could do what the Government of Quebec does to shelter revenues from offshore oil and gas and mineral resources.

“It then presents the opportunity for those revenues not to be clawed back from equalization and therefore allow some of these revenues to contribute to health, education, housing, culture and tourism,” he says.

“In other words, it’s a mechanism to shelter revenue and use it for the best interest of the people.”

Aylward says he passed on his information to senior Finance officials, who admitted it was possible for Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro to do the same as their Quebec counterparts. “They (Newfoundland Finance officials) undertook a review,” he says. “I don’t know whether it was ever completed.”

Aylward also wrote then-premier Roger Grimes detailing his understanding of Quebec Hydro’s activities. He left government in 2003 before the provincial general election.

“That kind of creative thinking can impact the financial future of the province gigantically and put us in surplus positions for the next 15 to 20 years.”

Quebec Hydro building

Don’t ‘rock the boat’ in Quebec

By Jeff Ducharme The Independent

W

hat brought Labrador West MHA Randy Collins into politics in 1999 was the same issue that had him removed from the House of

Assembly a year earlier.

During a raucous session of the House in November 1998, Collins and a group of municipal leaders and union officials from Labrador West took their seats in the visitor’s gallery and listened to thenpremier Brian Tobin and his Liber-

“

al government defend the so-called Hatch report.

The controversial report concluded that expanding the Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC) pellet plant in Labrador West simply wasn’t feasible and the company was right to choose its Sept-Iles,

”

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Que., operation for its expansion plans — a move that would cost Labrador 400 construction jobs and 50 permanent ones.

After Labrador West Liberal MHA Perry Canning spoke in support of the Liberal government’s decision not to push any further for Labrador’s case, Tobin left his seat and walked over to Canning in the legislature and shook his hand.

Shortly afterwards, Collins and an enraged delegation were ejected from the gallery.

“My mind was made up that day,” Collins tells The Independent about his decision to run in the 1999 provincial general election.

The man Collins defeated, Canning, was a good friend.

“I hated doing what I did, but I don’t regret it.”

Ironically, the expansion to the pellet plant in Sept-Iles that led Collins to be thrown out of the House and dethrone his friend never went ahead.

“B’y, we’re still shaking our head wondering,” Collins says of IOC’s decision to put the Quebec expansion on hold.

“I don’t think it’s a dead issue,” Collins says. “I think it will come to the surface again.”

Collins says IOC is “hell-bent” on expanding the plant in SeptIles. He doesn’t see IOC walking away from its more than $200 million investment.

“Unless there’s a change of attitude on the part of the company, I

don’t see it.” The Independent attempted to contact officials at IOC but messages weren’t returned.

A report done by the Town of Labrador City found the return on the Labrador pellet plant could be as high as 14 per cent — as opposed to the less than five per cent reported in the Hatch report, which estimated it would cost IOC $230 million more to expand the plant in Labrador as opposed to Quebec. To level the playing field and attract IOC to Labrador, the Liberal government said it would have cost taxpayers $15 to $20 million a year in subsidies.

Less than a year later during the 1999 provincial election, the issue heated up again when Tobin released a letter from the president of the United Steelworkers of America union, George Kean, that praised Canning for his support in trying to bring the pellet plant expansion to Labrador.

Kean was livid and demanded a public apology.

Collins says what really made the company choose the Quebec plant was better incentives offered to IOC by the Quebec government.

He adds, however, the expansion going to Quebec may have been a pawn in Tobin’s effort to ink a deal on the lower Churchill with Quebec.

“They had other things on their mind and they didn’t want to rock the boat in Quebec …” says Collins.

Page 8

NEWS

The Independent, November 14, 2004

Absence of energy plan won’t stop development of lower Churchill: Byrne

By Sue Dyer and Ryan Cleary The Independent

T

he Danny Williams administration is expected to call for expressions of interest in the coming FINDING THE weeks for development of the benefit analysis lower Church- Cost of Confederation ill, despite the fact the province has yet to complete an energy plan.

“The fact of the matter is one is not exclusive, necessarily, without the other and we can’t stand still on one front because another front hasn’t been moving,” Natural Resources Minister Ed Byrne tells The Independent.

He says the province has begun work on an energy plan — which will include all energy sources, including hydro, natural gas, offshore oil, thermal, wind power — and expects public hearings to start early next year.

“The energy plan is a work in progress, simple as that,” Byrne says. “We could sit down on our laurels and not proceed with the development of an energy plan.

The lower Churchill, in terms of the potential of it — whether that be Gull Island, Muskrat Falls or both — when, and if, that proceeds obviously it will play a part in the energy plan.”

In September 2002, when Williams was leader of the Opposition, he was critical of the Liberal government of Roger Grimes for planning to proceed with development of the lower Churchill without such a plan in place.

In an address to the Corner Brook Chamber of Commerce, Williams said the pending deal on the Churchill reflected the lack of a provincial energy plan by the Grimes administration.

Williams was also concerned that a deal would not seek

BALANCE

Ed Byrne

recourse for the lopsided upper Churchill contract, which sees Quebec make an estimated $1 billion a year, compared to Newfoundland and Labrador, which collects next to nothing.

“What this boils down to is a lack of vision and a lack of a provincial energy plan by the Grimes administration,” Williams said in a news release at the time.

“It is evident that they are intent on managing the energy needs of this province in an ad-hoc and haphazard manner.”

EXPRESSION OF INTEREST Williams announced the expression of interest process for development of the lower Churchill this past September. When the proposal call is eventually made, the

Paul Daly/The Independent

provincial government has said it will outline its objectives for resource development.

Further, the province will require the proponent to outline a market strategy.

Question is, how can that be done in the absence of an energy plan?

Byrne argues that if the province signs a lower Churchill deal today it would be 10 years before electricity is actually produced. “It would be our intention to have any energy plan completed before the next election.”

The Lower Churchill Development Corporation is a federal/ provincial entity created in 1978 for the express purpose of developing the lower Churchill.

Asked whether the corporation will, in the end, develop the pro-

Harper’s bazaar

Paul Daly/The Independent

Conservative leader Stephen Harper (right) flew into St. John’s this week to promote his party’s stand on revisions to the Atlantic Accord. Harper says he’s willing to go to the polls over the issue. He met with the party faithful — including MPs Loyola Hearn (centre) and Peter MacKay — Nov. 12 in St. John’s at a cocktail reception at the Holiday Inn.

ject, Byrne says “it’s obviously a vehicle by which we can look at potential development.”

Under the Lower Churchill Development Act, both levels of government agreed they would, following a period of study and an additional agreement, develop the project. The plan was to include the construction and operation of the hydro plant, a transmission line to the island, and a connection with the upper Churchill.

As opposition leader, Williams criticized Grimes for failing to live up to the provincial government’s partnership as outlined under the act.

Under questioning in the House of Assembly in the fall of 2002, Grimes said the federal government, through the Lower Churchill Development Corpora-

tion, said no.

Grimes said the federal government’s answer was: “‘We do not want to participate in developing a hydro project in Newfoundland and Labrador.’”

In response, Williams said that hasn’t stopped Ottawa from giving “$4-billion loan guarantees to companies like Bombardier and Nortel.”

Byrne admits the lower Churchill project is of national interest, particularly given today’s climate of power shortages and black outs.

“If we were going to use the Lower Churchill Development Corporation one would assume the federal government would be involved in that,” he says.

The provincial government has been pushing the Paul Martin government to live up to its commitments under the Atlantic Accord to make this province the principle beneficiary of provincial offshore resource revenues.

It remains to be seen whether the province will apply the same pressure regarding lower Churchill development using the Lower Churchill Development Act. TRANSMISSION LINE Another outstanding question under the act is whether the province will force the federal government to finance a transmission line to the island.

Again, Byrne isn’t ruling anything out.

In 1999, however, he was adamant the federal government should fund a transmission line.

“Every time the provincial government puts other options ahead of a transmission line we compromise our chances of getting the infeed,” he said at the time.

“Without an infeed we have lost the leverage we need to attract industrial development to the province.”

The Independent, November 14, 2004

NEWS

Page 9

‘Good ones are always by accident’ Possible world-class iron deposit near Happy Valley-Goose Bay; could generate up to 200 jobs Happy Valley-Goose Bay

By Bert Pomeroy For The Independent

T

his Labrador town could be sitting on top of one of the richest iron deposits on the planet, according to a spokesperson for a FINDING THE company doing mineral exploration work along Cost benefit analysis the Churchill River. of Confederation “We know it’s the biggest find in the world for iron (in mineral sands),” says Fenton Scott of Markland Resources Inc., a subsidiary of Torontobased Fontenau Resources Ltd. “There are hundreds of deposits of mineral sands being mined throughout the world — this one, however, is measured in the billions of tonnes.”

BALANCE

“BLACK SANDS” The company has been carrying out an exploration program of “black sands” in the area for the past two years, and plans to continue working throughout the winter to “prove the tonnage” of the deposit, Scott tells The Independent.

“When the ice freezes we will set up the drills on the river,” he says. “Our schedule is to get the evaluation work done by the end of next summer, and by that time we expect to have shipped out 600 tonnes.

Then we go for financing.”

Aside from iron, the deposit also contains marketable levels of titanium, as well as gold, garnet and other minerals.

“The titanium is worth as much as the iron,” Scott says. “Of the deposits, about 50 per cent is iron and 10 per cent is titanium, which is selling for about $100 a tonne right now.”

But iron is the most lucrative mineral

Paul Daly/The Independent

Churchill River flows in the background.

found so far, he says.

“The two mines in Labrador West produce about 20 million tonnes — we figure this one should produce about 10 million tonnes a year,” he says. “The iron ore in Labrador City and Wabush is currently selling for about $25 a tonne. We think the iron we’ve found is about 68 per cent richer, and should fetch about $30 per tonne.”

Core samples are being examined at laboratories in Nova Scotia, Florida and Australia, Scott says.

“We’re very excited about it.”

The find is the buzz of the community, which has seen its share of economic ups and downs in recent years.

“We need some kind of boost for our economy,” says Happy Valley-Goose Bay Mayor Leo Abbass. “The community needs a shot of good news, particularly in light of the uncertainty surrounding 5 Wing (Goose Bay). We’ve heard some talk and some rumours about this deposit, and we’re hoping they’re true.”

Company officials are planning to travel to the town this week and hold a public meeting to explain what work it has carried out thus far, and what its plans are for the future, Scott says.

“We want to let people know what’s going on, and explain the processes involved in mining this.”

Scott’s son, Graeme, discovered the deposit in the fall of 2002 while on a helicopter flight to another claim near Cartwright.

“He had worked at mineral sands in South America in the past and had noticed this area while flying to the Porcupine Strands to do work,” says Scott. “When he got back he went down on the river and staked the claims.

“The good ones are always by accident.”

If the deposit proves to be as rich as Markland Resources believes it to be, and financing can be arranged, Scott says construction of a mining operation could begin within a couple of years. Once in full production, the facility could employ as many as 200 people, he says.

The process of extracting the heavy minerals from the sand would involve dredging the river, says Scott, adding that the project will prove to be environmentally sound.

“I think it will lower the clay content and clean up the river a bit,” he says. “It should improve the environment. All we’ll be doing is taking the heavy metals out of the sand, and there’ll be filters on the dredges.”

IMPROVED WATER QUALITY The project could also improve the water quality in Lake Melville, he adds, noting that more information will be released during the planned public meeting this week.

Abbass says the town council is anxious to meet with Markland officials, to learn more about the project.

“We haven’t heard anything official about this yet,” he says, noting that the council has not been notified of any plans for a public meeting. “We’re looking forward to speaking with the company.”

Page 10

NEWS

The Independent, November 14, 2004

More to Confederation than dollars and cents

W

hen I first moved to the west coast 11 years ago, I was a little surprised at the attitude some Corner Brookers had toward me, simply because I was from the east coast.

They wouldn’t say anything too mean, but some would make cracks insinuating I wasn’t aware of anything past the overpass. That was inaccurate, since I grew up in Placentia. But in some people’s minds, east coast was synonymous with townie.

Not that I’m in a position to preach. When I was growing up, more than a few of us baymen were prejudiced against townies.

When I went to university, I discovered that some townies were equally as prejudiced against me.

Baymen feel hard done by townies. Townies feel hard done by their neighbours. Labradorians feel hard done by everyone on the island. And it seems our entire province is feeling hard done by Canada these days.

I’m sure there are legitimate grievances from every corner. But there’s also an undercurrent of plain old tribalism in there as well.

And tribalism can distort our thinking; it can make us see only what we want to see.

This paper has been running a thought-provoking cost-benefit analysis of Confederation. I think it has convincingly made the point

West Words FRANK CARROLL that Newfoundland has contributed much more to Canada than many think. But I don’t believe it proves that Newfoundland and Labrador would have been better off had it not joined Canada, as some would argue.

Last week The Independent pointed out that Newfoundland and Labrador has paid $3.4 billion more in taxes than it has received in transfer payments and personal benefits since Confederation. I’m sure those figures would raise more than a few eyebrows on the mainland.

The challenge lies in how we interpret such data. On the surface, it seems as if Canada has received much more than Newfoundland from this whole deal.

But remember that Newfoundland is part of Canada; they are not two separate entities. Our taxes help pay for federal services that all Canadians, including Newfoundlanders, receive. There is more to the equation than taxes, transfers and personal benefits.

The point has been made that we’re not the bunch of welfare

bums some mainlanders think we are. But we have to be careful not to lose sight of everything we have gained by becoming Canadians.

Much has been made of the fact that Newfoundland came into Confederation with a surplus.

Well, it’s much easier to have a surplus when you have it imposed upon you by a Commission of Government that provides few services other than the dole.

I remember quite vividly asking a late friend of mine how he voted in the 1948 referendum.

Brendan stared at me with his steel blue eyes and said, “I voted yes, of course. We had no choice.”

He explained that people were going hungry and that there were families that had to dress their children in brim bag clothing.

Although Newfoundland had a surplus when it entered Confederation, it was destitute in many respects. Yet, some Newfoundlanders seem to have forgotten what this place was like before Confederation. And it’s easy to lose perspective if you believe you have been wronged — as many Newfoundlanders feel about the current Atlantic Accord dispute.

I know it’s been said many times before, but I believe Joey Smallwood did drag Newfoundland kicking and screaming into the 20th century. Our standard of living has improved substantially

The Shipping News

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9 Vessels arrived: Maersk Chignecto, Canada, from Hibernia; Emma, Norway, from sea.

Vessels departed: Irving Eskimo, Paul Daly/The Independent Canada, to Saint John, NB; ASL St. Petersburg’s Planeta in St. John’s Harbour Sanderling, Canada, to Corner man, Canada, to Terra Nova; to, Canada, from Hibernia.

Brook.

Emma, Norway, to Grand Banks. Vessels departed: Ann Harvey, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10 Canada, to Port aux Basques.

Vessels arrived: Maersk Chancel- THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19 lor, Canada, from Terra Nova.

Vessels arrived: Cicero, Canada, Vessels departed: Maersk Norse- from Montreal; Maersk Chignec- No report

Fixed link study will be done right the first time: Memorial

A

didn’t they? After all, they were responsible for the management of fishery and they didn’t stand up to the foreigners who were devastating our cod stocks.

Well, I seem to recall that we had a hand in the devastation of the fishery too. We had draggers out there scraping up the bottom of the ocean floor. And our provincial government was handing out processing licences left, right and centre. The pressure on the cod stocks

From page 1

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8 Vessels arrived: ASL Sanderling, Canada, from Halifax; Burin Sea, Canada, from Terra Nova; George R. Pearkes, Canada, from sea.

Vessels departed: None

study looking into a fixed link from Labrador to the island portion of the province is four months late, but Memorial University officials directing the project refuse to put a “gun to the consultants’ head.”

Officials from both the province and Memorial’s public policy department — the project manager — say they want to make sure the study is done right the first time.

The report’s original deadline was Aug. 16, but was then delayed to mid-October. University officials now expect the study to be completed by Nov. 22.

“We want a quality product so

I know it’s been said many times before, but I believe Joey Smallwood did drag Newfoundland kicking and screaming into the 20th century.

we don’t have a gun to the consultants’ head,” says David Vardy, spokesman for Memorial’s public policy department.

He says final touches are being put on the study before it’s handed over to the province. The preliminary study was submitted to Memorial in late July.

“We had hoped it would be finished in October, but it’s taken a little bit longer,” Vardy tells The Independent. “It’s a very complex study — a lot of complex engineering and economics.”

He says the cost of the pre-feasibility study — $351,000 — won’t increase as a result of the delay because it was set at a fixed amount. Eighty per cent of the tab is being picked up by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

came from within this province — as well as from without.

Of course, the other bête noire of the Newfoundland nationalist movement is the Churchill Falls deal with Quebec. They argue that the inordinate amount of the Churchill Falls profits accruing to Quebec should also be factored into what Newfoundland contributes to Canada.

The argument is specious. One has nothing to do with the other.

Our government made a bad deal with another province when it didn’t take inflation and rising oil prices into account. It’s as simple as that. We might have negotiated the same kind of deal had we not been part of Canada.

I hope Premier Danny Williams is able to negotiate a just deal on the Atlantic Accord for Newfoundland and Labrador. It would certainly help us become a more equal partner in Canada. But I also hope Newfoundlanders and Labradorians do not retreat into tribalism if they don’t get everything they want.

It’s OK to love the Ode to Newfoundland; it would be a shame to replace it with Blame Canada.

Frank Carroll is a journalism instructor at the Stephenville-campus of the College of the North Atlantic. frank_carroll_nf.yahoo.ca

‘Intervention that continues to this day’

Keeping an eye on the comings and goings of the ships in St. John’s harbour. Information provided by the coast guard traffic centre.

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

since Confederation. We’re more literate, we live longer and we enjoy a higher average income.

And that’s not just a coincidence.

How long would it have taken Newfoundland on its own to give its population a Medicare system?

How long would it have taken to give all our young people the opportunity to go to university or college? And how do you put a price on those things?

But they destroyed our fishery,

The other $70,000 is being paid by the provincial government.

The consortium of companies hired to prepare the study is headed by Hatch Mott MacDonald, a well-known company with expertise in long-span bridges and tunnels including the Channel Tunnel between England and France.

Other companies include IBI Group and St. John’s-based companies SGE Acres and C-CORE. The province had originally proposed a tunnel across the Straits, but the researchers are also looking into other options — including a causeway or bridge.

The proposed link may also be used to carry electricity transmission lines from the lower Churchill River to the island portion of the province.

“I wanted to determine if there was a case for retroactivity of the money we’d lost,” says Dyer.

In his letter, Martin expanded on Dion’s explanation for the equalization adjustment.

Martin, the current prime minister, confirmed that the federal government was shifting some ability to tax to Quebec from Newfoundland and Labrador “to take into account the arrangements relating to the sale of power between these two provinces and therefore reflect the effective or true fiscal capacity of both provinces.”

“In my opinion, Martin’s own words are the best case we have for retroactivity on the money we lost,” says Dyer. “Martin confirmed for me that prior to the adjustment in 1982 the federal government had not treated our fiscal capacity properly.”

Dyer passed on her information, including the letters from Martin and Dion, to the former Liberal government of Brian Tobin, as well as the Opposition of the day.

Kevin Aylward, a former provincial cabinet minister, also looked into the issue of equalization and Quebec Hydro profits.

Between 2000 and 2002, he discovered that there had been a special adjustment made for the inequities in the upper Churchill

contract in the equalization formula. That adjustment, which was opposed by Quebec, provided minimal revenue to Newfoundland and Labrador so the province wouldn’t lose on both hydro profit and equalization.

The special adjustment, which was made in 1983, was done between federal and provincial Finance officials. It was also carried out in a time when hydro power was worth much less than today.

“In essence, the federal government intervened in the upper Churchill contract by providing compensation to Newfoundland and Labrador, an intervention that continues to this day — despite 20 years of public declarations from the federal government that they would not intervene in the contractual dispute between the provinces,” Aylward tells The Independent. “They did it through the back door.”

Aylward says the province should renegotiate the special adjustment that exists in the equalization formula. The adjustment currently brings the province $50 to $60 million a year.

“Given the billion dollars-plus that Quebec Hydro makes off the upper Churchill, that renegotiated amount should be at least 50-per cent plus of the profit,” Aylward says. “That’s $500 million a year.”

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November 14, 2004

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Page 11

Power struggle A 1980 television show delved into the battle to develop the lower Churchill — a story only too relevant today

T

he infamous upper Churchill contract may be set in stone for another 37 years, but there FINDING THE are two other potential hydro Cost benefit analysis of Confederation developments on the river that could help turn this province’s fortunes around.

Efforts to get Gull Island and Muskrat Falls off the ground have been talked about for decades. In fact, the province is expected to release an expression of interest in the next few weeks calling for proposals on how exactly hydro development should proceed.

In 1980, the local CBC Television show On Camera investigated the lower Churchill and where things stood. At the time, the state of New York was desperate for power and then-premier Brian Peckford was in a war with the federal government and Quebec over a power corridor through that province.

The following story is based on the On Camera program, a twopart series.

••• Muskrat Falls, situated on the Churchill River, is capable of generating 618 megawatts of hydropower each year. That’s small compared to the upper Churchill project, which produces 5,428 megawatts. In the early 1980s, the cost of developing Muskrat Falls was pegged at $3.2 billion.

The cost of developing the bigger hydro project at Gull Island, about 225 kilometres downstream from the upper Churchill project, was estimated at $4.3 billion (again, those estimates were made in the early 1980s). Gull Island is capable of producing 1,700 megawatts of power — almost triple the output of Muskrat Falls.

Construction began on development of Gull Island in 1973, but two years and $70 million later the development was cancelled because of problems with marketing and financing.

••• A decision to go ahead with Gull Island would probably be based on the sale of the majority of Gull’s power to an external market in Canada or the United States. Power from Muskrat Falls would be used for the province’s own energy needs.

There were, and are, two ways to get the power from the lower Churchill to export markets.

Gull Island electricity would be sent through a transmission line to the existing station in Churchill Falls. From there, another parallel circuit would be added to the existing three, to transport the power to Quebec. In

BALANCE

all probability, a second circuit will be needed to carry the required power to the New York market.

The second option is the socalled Atlantic route, which would funnel Gull Island power through the main generating station in Churchill Falls, and back past Gull Island to the southeast tip of Labrador. From there, the power would cross the Straight of Belle Isle by means of an underwater sea cable, and land on the Northern Peninsula. The trans-

mission lines would then travel down to the southwest coast. The power would cross the Cabot Strait, then surface again in Cape Breton to begin its track across Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The hydropower from Gull Island would then reach its final destination in New York.

••• Former premier Brian Peckford wasn’t interested in the Atlantic route because, he argued, it would cost more, cutting into the

province’s end profit.

He felt the province had the constitutional right to transmit electricity through Quebec. Further, he argued that Ottawa wasn’t living up to its responsibility by not forcing Quebec to allow a power corridor through its territory.

“We’re not going to get the same value out of a resource that we could of got,” Peckford told On Camera. “They (the federal government) have not lived up to their responsibility and we’ve got

Photos by Paul Daly / Story by Ryan Cleary

to force them to do it (put a power corridor through Quebec).”

Peckford told then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau that he must exercise what he saw as Ottawa’s constitutional right to intercede and allow the power corridor through Quebec.

At the time, Trudeau said electricity has to be treated the same as the passing of oil and gas through a province.

“I’m telling you now, ‘you’re afraid of two might-bes … that Quebec wouldn’t make a reasonable deal with you, and second that then you would have no right under the constitution to apply for passage,” said Trudeau. “And I’m telling you that as far as we’re concerned … if Quebec refuses passage of that particular good or service, we would have to take our responsibility. But they haven’t been asked and how can you assume they will refuse?”

••• Then-federal Energy minister Mark Lalonde wasn’t so definitive when answering questions on whether Newfoundland and Labrador has the right to put a power corridor through Quebec.

He preferred that the two provinces negotiate.

“Well, we have indicated in the past, I have indicated in the past, that if there was fair evidence that the negotiations were impossible between the two provinces by themselves, the federal government was ready to try and help,” Lalonde told On Camera.

He said Quebec has the right to say no to a power corridor.

“It has the right, the question is does the federal government have the right to intervene? I suppose to those questions, my answer is yes to both. Provincial government can always say ‘No I won’t co-operate, you won’t use my grid,’ and then the federal government has the power, I suspect under the Constitution, as it has the power to build pipelines.”

••• A power corridor through Quebec made some financiers on Wall Street nervous because of the separatist movement.

Then-provincial Energy minister Leo Barry (currently a judge with the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador) said Ottawa was exercising political favouritism by not forcing Quebec to allow a power corridor.

“Well I think we don’t have to stretch the bounds of the imagination to realize that when Quebec supplies the government in power close to one half of their seats, if not more, then they are Continued on page 12

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‘We’ve got to force them’ From page 11 going to be very reluctant to do what, as the government, the responsible government, they have the clear duty to do,” Barry told On Camera.

••• Quebec Liberal leader Claude Ryan said at the time he didn’t feel the Government of Canada could do any more than suggest that Quebec allow a power corridor through the province.

“So unless it were to be declared a matter of national interest, and even there, the jurisdiction of the federal government would be highly dubious, you know,” Ryan told On Camera.

“It has to be decided between Quebec and Newfoundland. It may serve as an interpreter of the needs of one province … provided it is not done in an authoritarian fashion.”

••• In the early 1980s, the Power Authority of the state of New York was desperate for a clean energy source to get away from its reliance on foreign oil. It was estimated that the sale of Gull Island power to New York could give Newfoundland and Labrador up to $400 million a year. Then-chairman John Dyson said the power authority would look for a guaranteed 30-year supply of electricity.

He didn’t care if the power was brought to market via the Atlantic route or through Quebec.

Nova Scotia would have gained from the Atlantic route, which would have transmitted energy from that province — specifically the Fundy tidal project — to the northeastern states.

(The full tidal project, which would have been the largest of its kind in the world, never went ahead.)

“Newfoundland can transmit power across our province tomorrow if they want to,” then-Nova Scotia premier John Buchanan told On Camera.

Dyson and the Power Authority of the state of New York did not have a preferred route.

“There are certain advantages to going that (the Quebec) way, there are certain advantages to going with the so-called Atlantic route,” he said. “I am at this point undecided to which one I would prefer. I think it relates to lots of questions which have yet to be reconciled, which include political and economic as well as engineering calculations … the reliability of one electrical system over another.”

The power authority was also prepared to finance the project, at least partly.

“We would have to play a major role in that I think, in financing at least the United States part of it through any of several different states, but any way you go it’s at least three other states before it comes to New York plus two other provinces of Canada. That will require a lot of negotiations and a lot of financial slights of hand I think, probably before we get finished. That will take time, but if that can be worked out so that it’s still economical we would be prepared to do that.”

••• Atlantic Energy was a resource development company that acted as an energy broker. It was in the business of finding a credit-worthy market that needed power, then assigning the power source. In this case, Atlantic Energy knew that the Power Authority of the State of New York needed hydropower; it also knew the great potential in the lower Churchill.

Chairman of the board of directors of Atlantic Energy, Franklyn D. Roosevelt Jr., told On Camera the province of Newfoundland and Labrador should go with the Atlantic route as a means to get power to New York. Roosevelt argued the cost of a power corridor through Quebec would almost equal the Atlantic route, a difference of only $19 million.

“From a dollar and cents point of view, I think it (the Atlantic route) makes a lot of sense. It makes the province of Newfoundland totally independent. It gives them an alternative to the monopoly that Quebec now has on the distribution of the Labrador-introduced power.”

Vic Young, then-chairman of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, argued the cost of the Atlantic route would be much higher.

••• In the end, Peckford’s war with Quebec eventually killed the lower Churchill development. He tried to regain control of the upper Churchill by attempting to take back the water rights, but eventually lost his case in the Supreme Court of Canada.

With time running out, the Power Authority of the State of New York proceeded with other power options.

The Independent, November 14, 2004

The Independent, November 14, 2004

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iPhoto.ca

iPhoto.ca

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The Independent, November 14, 2004

Gallery Sylvia Bendzsa Visual Artist

S

ylvia Bendzsa’s watercolour reproductions of the ruggedly beautiful Newfoundland landscape will be joining up to 100 other exhibits at the upcoming annual St. John’s Craft Fair.

“The Newfoundland landscape really inspires me because it’s a northern environment,” Bendzsa says of her work. “It’s a great wilderness area, you just step outside the city and you’re into the barrens or into a rocky landscape or an ocean landscape and it’s just so inspiring. It’s terrific.”

Originally from London, Ont., Bendzsa has lived in St. John’s for almost 30 years, working as a printmaker, teacher and commercial artist. These days her focus is specifically on fine art. She works primarily in watercolour, occasionally producing prints and detailed etchings.

“When I came to Newfoundland in the mid-’70s, I started right away at St. Michael’s Printshop … St. Michael’s was the big drawing card for me because I was an artist and … a printmaker at the time, so I’ve been doing prints off and on.”

One subtle theme in Bendzsa’s work is the out-migration of people from many of the island’s smaller communities, floating up in her natural coastal images, quite literally, in the form of disembodied houses. They look lost and confused, hanging in the air.

“It’s kind of plaintive, it’s just sort of melancholy,” she says.

Some of Bendzsa’s favourite places to paint are Brigus and Trinity. She says she’s often drawn to the northern coastlines outside St. John’s and points to a picture of Bell Island that she can’t seem to bring herself to sell just yet.

“I’m just sort of saving it back … I really enjoy capturing the loneliness of the land; the barrenness of it, and then putting a tiny little house in the picture — like this picture over here of Bell Island — has tiny little houses off in the distance. Just the remoteness … the height of the cliffs and the size and proportion.”

As executive director for visual artists in the province, Bendzsa works alongside local talent on a daily basis from her office in Devon House, the home of the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador. The council sponsors the upcoming craft fair, which attracts thousands of people every year, and is the oldest continuous, craft marketing event in the province. This year, it runs Nov. 18-21 at the St. John’s Convention Centre.

Bendzsa also has work showing at Red Ochre Gallery on Duckworth Street.

Christmas At The Gallery opens Nov. 19. and runs until Christmas Eve. – Clare-Marie Gosse

The Gallery is a regular feature in The Independent. For further information, or to submit proposals, please call (709) 726-4639, or e-mail editorial@theindependent.ca

November 14, 2004

BUSINESS & COMMERCE

The Iron Ore Company of Canada’s mine in Labrador West is the largest of its kind in the country, producing 60 per cent of Canada’s iron ore.

‘There’d be no community if it wasn’t for mining’ From page 1 form and the Wabush ore is shipped as concentrate and then made into pellets at the Pointe Noire, Que., facility.

The Newfoundland and Labrador economy loses an estimated 20 per cent because ore from the Wabush Mine is made into pellets in Quebec and IOC ore is stored and shipped from the Sept-Iles port.

The province comes out ahead when it comes to employment, with 1,250 employees at the IOC operation and 375 at Wabush Mines. The SeptIles facility employs approximately 180 workers between the shipment facility and the train line that transports ore to Quebec from Labrador.

The annual wages paid to employees in this province’s mining industry total almost $200 million. The IOC mine, officials of which weren’t available for comment, is owned by majority shareholder Rio-Tinto, but also includes Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation (26 per cent). Much of the ore is shipped to Japan where the steelmaker turns the ore into consumer products.

James Whyte, editor of the Northern Miner — Canada’s foremost mining publication — says incentives offered by provincial governments are more important in the exploration stage as opposed to the production stage.

“If you find something in the ground, it’s not moving across the border where you can do the same project elsewhere and get somebody

else’s lower royalty,” says Whyte. Obviously because of the labour “So I don’t see governments playing strike we won’t achieve that, but each other off very much.” we’ll continue to run full-out.”

IOC is expected to ship 11.2 milIn July, members of both steellion tonnes of ore out of Labrador this workers’ unions — 1,150 in total — year. Wabush will ship 4.1 walked off the job within million tonnes this year. In weeks of each other. By the FINDING THE 1996, IOC reached the one end of September, IOC billion tonne milestone. workers voted to accept a Cost benefit analysis of Confederation In an effort to reduce deal and return to work. The overtime costs and fill gaps Wabush employees returned left by retired workers, IOC is plan- to the job two weeks later. ning to hire 100 people before the end The impact at both mines will see of the year — the biggest hiring spree production for the year fall by as since 1990. much as 25 per cent.

“No matter which way you look at “We just came off a very emotionit, it’s positive anytime you see new al strike where emotions have been people hired,” says very high,” says George Kean, presKean. “So any ident of the United “We just came off a very time you come off Steelworkers of a strike, it takes a emotional strike where America local repperiod of time to resenting the emotions have been very get back to some majority of worktype of normality high. So any time you ers at IOC. we’re hoping come off a strike, it takes and Wabush Mines is that labour relaa period of time to get jointly owned by tions will improve steel giants Stelco back to some type of nor- over the coming (45 per cent) and mality and we’re hoping months.”

Dofasco (28 per Wabush Mayor cent). The remain- that labour relations will Jim Farrell says der is owned by improve over the coming he’s just happy to Cleveland-Cliffs see his town return months.”

Inc., which manto normal after a — George Kean ages the mine. summer that was “It’s a cyclical riddled with ecoindustry, but right nomic uncertainty. now things are in an up-cycle and “There’d be no community if it demand is strong,” says Dana Byrne, wasn’t for mining,” he says. “Things spokesman for Cleveland-Cliffs. will progress normally now people “The capacity there is rated at six mil- are back to work and hopefully we’ll lion tonnes and that’s our target. have a good year production-wise.”

BALANCE

While Farrell doesn’t believe it will ever happen to Wabush, he knows that mining towns live and die with the resource they’re built on. The life of the iron ore reserves at both mines is estimated to be as much as 50 years.

Gagnonville was a nearby company mining town in Quebec. After 40 years of mining, the residents left with the last shipment of ore. Now all that exists there is a small section of paved road lined by a few lampposts.

“I guess (it’s been) 20 years ago now since they bulldozed that place,” says Farrell.

The provincial government recently called for proposals to reactivate Bell Island’s Wabana mine. The mine opened on the island in 1895 and closed in 1966 after 80 million tonnes of ore had been extracted.

Whyte says people shouldn’t pin their hopes on “extractive technologies” being able to revive former mining towns. He says the operations are “capital intensive” and offer little employment.

“The flipside of that is not everybody’s a good explorationist and there’s always a reason to go back and look.”

Newfoundland and Labrador, says Whyte, is an attractive place for mining companies since royalty regimes and environmental regulations aren’t suffocating.

“I’d rate Newfoundland as a pretty mining-friendly province until there’s something real big like Voisey’s Bay and then governments get stars in their eyes.”

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BUSINESS

The Independent, November 14, 2004

Money does grow on trees Although in province’s case royalties from forest industry aren’t massive having a pulp and paper industry here because nobody would be building roads if it weren’t for us etween 1961 and 2003, the building roads to harvest the trees.”

The Natural Resources Departforest industry added almost $70 million to the ment reports the forest industry in this province adds $1.6 bilprovincial economy from FINDING THE lion directly to the provinroyalties and other taxes, cial economy. reports reveal. benefit analysis The Corner Brook Pulp That’s not including Cost of Confederation and Paper mill employs wages or the economic spin offs generated by sawmills and more than 1,300 workers in 50 pulp and paper companies. To communities. Kruger’s yearly paydetermine the figure, The Indepen- roll in the province is $65 million.

Roger Pike, spokesman for dent added up total revenue to the province from various provincial Abitibi-Price Consolidated, owner of the Grand Falls-Windsor and government reports.

Stephenville pulp and paper mills, IMPORTANT INDUSTRY says the Grand Falls-Windsor mill Natural Resource Minister Ed employed more than 2,500 workers Byrne says forestry remains an at its peak.

The number now sits at 1,300 for important industry to the province, especially with the amount of both operations.

“Now, of course, with the comvalue-added or secondary processputer technology that’s in the ing carried out here.

He says more than 12,000 people industry you’re able to make paper are directly or indirectly employed faster with more machines and obviously with less people,” says in the industry.

“They (pulp and paper mills) Pike, adding the mill provides more have been operating for 100 years than just jobs to the community.

“In Stephenville, we purchase in the province and I don’t know of any other industrial development in over $50 million worth of goods our history that’s provided that sort and services each year. In Grand of stability,” Byrne tells The Inde- Falls we purchased over $75 million in goods and services. That’s pendent.

He says mills in the province toilet paper, that’s oil, that’s light pay an annual forest management bulbs, services,” says Pike. “When tax, pegged at $2.3 million. The we spend money, we don’t spend mills also contribute to cost-shared hundreds of dollars, we spend hunprograms with the province, funds dreds of thousands of millions of that are set aside in case of forest dollars. So it’s a very capital-intenfires, insect infestations and to pay sive industry.” for silviculture or reforestation.

BETTER PAY Byrne says plenty of incentives VanDusen says the employment were handed down by previous governments to keep the pulp and value to the province is enhanced paper mills operating in the because the mills pay “better than average pay by a long shot” and province.

“These companies also have provide year-round employment.

“It’s 12 months a year employrights that were given to them when we were a nation that date ment, generally, even in our woodback to the early 1900s — water lands, at least 10 months a year,” he rights in particular on the Exploits, says.

Most of the paper made in the and Humber River … but it’s those sorts of projects that have allowed province is shipped around the the companies to operate in such a globe.

“We sell very little paper in fashion or manner to keep their enterprise alive, that can keep peo- Canada, or indeed North America ple in the province employed,” out of Grand Falls and Byrne says. “There were lands pro- Stephenville. They are internationvided to them prior to Confedera- al-export mills selling our products tion in terms of outright ownership to the world,” says Pike, adding the of lands. We’ve secured, over time, main market for Abitibi-Price’s more benefits from that and are paper is Europe.

VanDusen says most of the paper continuing to do so.”

George VanDusen, spokesman made at the Corner Brook mill is for Kruger’s pulp and paper mill in shipped to the eastern seaboard of Corner Brook, refused to release the United States.

Neither VanDusen nor Pike commercially sensitive information, including how much the com- would comment on what the mills pany pays directly to the province. pay for wood or what they charge “It’s more complicated than just their products. In fact, the mills saying a royalty and I guess if you don’t pay any stumpage fees.

The mill in Grand Falls-Windsor want to look at other things, we build a couple of hundred kilome- produces approximately 220,000 tres of road a year that’s open to the tonnes of paper per year, Stephenville produces in the vicinpublic,” says VanDusen.

“I guess it’s just a side benefit of ity of 170,000 to 175,000.

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

B

BALANCE

‘A captive market’ Province can’t raise beef or export vegetables

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

T

he day Newfoundland joined Canada the price of imported agricultural goods in the newly-formed province — including basic vegetables — bottomed out, causing just over half of the province’s farmers to go out of business within 10 years.

Natural Resources Minister Ed Byrne says the province has recovered from the fallout, but Newfoundland and Labrador is still only producing 20 per cent of what’s consumed here.

Agriculture Canada was unable to provide numbers outlining how much federal money has been spent on agriculture in this province in the last fiscal year — let alone over the 55 years since Confederation.

Merv Wiseman, president of the province’s federation of agriculture, says federal money given to the province to preserve and grow the agricultural sector has

helped, but regulations put in place by the federal government are also detrimental.

Regulations say beef found on grocery store shelves must be processed in federally inspected slaughterhouses — the province doesn’t have one — and exporting unprocessed vegetables is out of the question because of a type of disease found in the soil.

‘NO CONSIDERATION’ “Certainly there is no consideration given for our unique situation in Newfoundland. We’re a captive market. We can’t export outside the province because of soil issues (and) because of that unique situation we should have special rules and laws,” he tells The Independent. “We’ve been given very poor accommodation within the federal system for products that we can produce in the agriculture industry.”

Federal money for agriculture projects is often given to provinces based on the number of farmers per capita. New-

foundland and Labrador has one of the lowest farming populations in Canada.

“It’s our contention that it should be based on needs,” Wiseman says.

The provincial government and federation of agriculture are currently working on a study to change the way agriculture is looked at inside and outside the province. The study will focus on a way to displace outside goods and replace them with local ones on grocery store shelves.

According to provincial government statistics, the province employs 6,200 people in the agriculture industry, with sales pegged at $500 million a year.

In an Oct. 3 interview with The Independent, Byrne said increases of up to 60 per cent over the next five years are possible.

The industry has grown more than 31 per cent over the last 10 years, Byrne said at the time. The industry is currently worth $83.1 million.

The Independent, November 14, 2004

BUSINESS

Page 17

Ottawa the ‘big winner’ Clawback will eat into province’s revenue from Voisey’s Bay: Byrne

By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

pany Inco acquired the Voisey’s Bay deposit from Diamond Field Resources for $4.3 billion. The inixisting equalization claw- tial discovery, which will celebrate backs are expected to see its 10-year anniversary this month, the province lose as much was made by prospectors Albert as “90 per cent” of royalty rev- Chislett and Chris Virbiski, both enues from future Voisey’s Bay Newfoundlanders. The samples of Nickel production, acore they uncovered FINDING THE cording to Natural Reshowed high concentrasources Minister Ed tions of nickel, copper and Cost benefit analysis Byrne. cobalt, and led the two of Confederation “It actually ends up that men to stake claim over an the federal government will be the area of 5,000 square kilometres big winner,” Byrne tells The IndeIt took six years of negotiations pendent, “… so it’s a significant before the province signed an issue from a tax perspective.” agreement clearing the way for He says, however, jobs and spin Inco to develop the mine. As part offs generated by an operation as of the deal, Inco will ship ore to big as Voisey’s Bay will still add smelters in Thompson, Manitoba significantly to provincial coffers. and Subury, Ont. until an experiBob Carter, manager of public mental processing plant can be affairs for Voisey’s Bay Nickel, built at the former U.S. naval base says construction is 70 per cent in Argentia. complete and as much as eight REPLACEMENT ORE months ahead of schedule. The As the Voisey’s Bay reserves mine is slated to begin production begin to decline, Inco has commitin November, 2005.

The mining project is consid- ted to shipping ore into Argentia to ered to be one of the world’s replace the ore shipped out.

No ore concentrate can be largest and richest nickel deposits.

Once up and running, the mine shipped out until the experimental and concentrator operation is hydrometallurgical pilot plant is expected to process 6,000 tonnes ready to process ore in Argentia, of ore a day, contributing an esti- and there is a fixed deadline for mated $11 billion to the provincial Inco to commit to a full-scale proeconomy over the next 30 years, cessing facility, or if the hydrometallurgical process fails, to a facilicreating as many as 400 jobs.

When the operation moves ty that would do the final processunderground, some time after ing of already smelted nickel.

The Argentia plant will begin 2015, the employment figures are life as a demonstration facility — expected to double.

In 1996, the Toronto-based com- generating roughly 200 jobs —

E

BALANCE

Paul Daly/The Independent

Ian Walsh and Gary Keating on Voisey’s Bay Nickel Company, site in Argentia.

and hopefully develop into a fullscale operation by 2010, doubling employment numbers.

James Whyte, editor of the industry publication The Northern Miner, says that Voisey’s is going into production at the right time — nickel prices are at a 10-year high.

“It was stalled for so long, but nickel is a very sexy commodity at the moment,” says Whyte.

Because of the fast pace of development at Voisey’s Bay, the Argentia site is stepping up construction efforts, and Carter says the two projects are in “lock step.”

PLEASED WITH SCHEDULE Ken Brown, general manager for the Argentia Management Authority, a non-profit agency that oversees potential business opportunities for the area, says they’re pleased construction is ahead of schedule.

“It means that employment will start in this community ahead of what we had expected.”

He says Inco has confirmed the test-pilot plant in Mississauga, Ont. is also running well.

The mini-plant was set up to evaluate the new technology, as

well as to train staff for the Argentia operation. Currently about 25 per cent of the employees there are from Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Innu and Inuit of Labrador are set to secure steady jobs and a bright future from the Voisey’s Bay site, which is located on First Nations’ land, 300 kilometres north of Happy Valley-Goose Bay. In June 2002, Inco signed an “impacts and benefits agreement” with the two communities, promising employment, training and business opportunities. Of the 1,000 construction workers currently on site, 27 per cent are aboriginal, 17 per cent are other Labradorians, and 46 per cent are Newfoundlanders.

Once Voisey’s Bay is in production, it’s expected to add about $500 million to mining output each year, which is equivalent to approximately five per cent of total provincial exports.

Page 18

BUSINESS

The Independent, November 14, 2004

Voisey’s a ‘failure’ and lower Churchill ‘will never progress’ without Metis

By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

S

pokesmen for First Nations’ communities in Labrador say they welcome natural resource developments like the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine and the lower Churchill, but there’s still a lack of adeFINDING THE quate collaboration between Cost benefit analysis of Confederation their communities, various levels of government and company officials.

Todd Russell, president of the Métis Nation, a group of approximately 5,000 people, living in communities on the central and southern Labrador coast, says Métis don’t receive enough recognition as an aboriginal people.

“Voisey’s Bay has been a failure in my view,” Russell tells The Independent, “primarily because we were excluded from any meaningful involvement in environmental assessment, and … excluded from any meaningful employment or business opportunities.”

In June 2002, an impacts and benefits agreement was established between Inco — the company behind Voisey’s Bay — the Innu Nation, and Labrador Inuit Association. The agreement ensures priority in terms of employment, business and training. The Labrador Métis, however, were excluded from negotiations.

Russell says a combination of legal, political and historical issues have prevented his people from gaining recognition equal to that of the Innu.

Russell says the lower Churchill development will never progress “without the full respect, involvement and partnership with the Labrador Métis people.

“It won’t be easy and it’s not lost on us what a considerable amount of energy and time it will take, but … we have been preparing for this type of battle for a long time, and we’re in a strengthened position now from where we were even four, five years ago.”

Despite his strong stand, Russell says the community is simply asking for consideration and co-operation. He says situations are grad-

BALANCE

Paul Daly/The Independent

Innu elder Sabastien Penunsi lives in Sheshatshiu. He told The Independent in October Innu should return to their roots, the land.

ually improving and he feels the Métis will “be at the tables” of negotiations in the near future.

“If I was coming into your house, and setting up shop I would want to respect that this is yours; that means respect for us as aboriginal people and our aboriginal rights.

“Then there’s the issues of sustainability. I don’t want to come in and take everything out of your kitchen cupboard in a day and leave you starving next year … what we have depended on for generations needs to keep sustaining us and our communities, culturally and in other ways.”

Russell says the same applies to employment.

“If they’re in your house and they want to renovate, why not hire you? If you have the time, the skills and the effort to do it.”

Tony Andersen, vice-president of the Labrador Inuit Association, says his people are aware of the potential negative impacts on their land by industrial developments like Voisey’s Bay, which is located just southwest of Nain, but they’re willing to move with technology.

“We want to let the rest of Canada know that we’re Canadians and

we’ll participate. If it’s on our land then it has to be on our terms and our terms are that environmental safety is a priority for us, next to of course, safety of the workers.”

Andersen sees circumstances improving in the future, particularly after a final land-claims agreement has been reached.

The Labrador Inuit Comprehensive Land Claims Agreement was proposed in August, 2003, and is still pending approval from the federal and provincial governments. The agreement sets out arrangements for land ownership, resource sharing and self-government for the Labrador Inuits.

The Independent is growing!

We’re looking for a friendly, energetic photographer to work with The Independent’s editorial and advertising departments. Successful applicants should have some some combination of training and experience. A cover letter and C.V. can be forwarded to: The Independent Attention Photo Editor P.O. Box 5891, Stn C St. John’s, NL, A1C 5X4

“We hope that it will be all done — and I’ll give Canada and Newfoundland some time here — I’ll say within one year,” says Andersen.

Past negotiations with government involving benefits from Voisey’s Bay, have proved successful, but Andersen says although the community is happy with the first impact and benefits agreement, they’ve encountered some employment problems during the mining construction phase.

“During the construction phase, it’s not Voisey’s Bay Nickel who’s on site, it’s a project manager that they’ve hired, and a whole bunch of different contractors, so they’ve been reluctant to follow the letter of the Impact Benefits Agreement and we’ve had to hire people to ensure that they do that.”

Andersen says the Inuit community is looking forward to the opening of the mine next year, and dealing with Voisey’s Bay Nickel directly.

“There are other benefits as well, we are receiving some cash from Inco, and the (agreement) also addresses environmental safety and shipping safety and things like that, so we have participated.”

The Independent was unable to contact Innu leader Penote Ben Michel for his comments.

November 14, 2004

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Leon Farrell/Photocall

U.S. President George W. Bush

‘I don’t understand America’ It’s worth re-thinking what makes U.S. tick; Democrats must stand for more than sum of ‘resentments’ New York ow that the shock and awe have faded, it’s time to give George W. Bush his due. He won a decisive victory last week, and the hand wringing ought to give way to a more sophisticated understanding of the American political landscape.

Has the U.S. turned hard right?

Not exactly. Some 55 million Americans voted for John Kerry and a decisive majority (55 per cent) told pollsters on the eve of the election that they believed the U.S. was headed in the wrong direction under the Bush administration.

A post-election survey turned up some interesting figures. The Democrats trounced Republicans (by 60 per cent to 39 per cent) in U.S. cities larger than 500,000 population, and came dead even in urban areas with populations larger than 50,000.

Another figure: Kerry won 54 per cent of the vote among Americans aged 18 to 29.

In a widely circulated e-mail, filmmaker Michael Moore reminded people that Kerry’s total vote was larger than the number of Americans who voted for Ronald Reagan and Al Gore. “If the media are looking for a trend, it should be this,” he wrote. “So many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal.”

N

That doesn’t make it any easier. In Americans, according to most polls, the tiny island of Manhattan, it’s are generally tolerant and open to hard to find people who don’t feel the world (even to the UN), but they they have woken up in a foreign also feel challenged by what they country. At dinner parties in the consider assaults on their moral con(media-heavy) Upper victions.

West Side, faces are funeBush gave those insecureal: “if Democrats couldrities a smiling face. True, n’t win this election, I he employed scare-mondon’t understand Amerigering and outright misca,” one distraught profesrepresentations (so did the sional told me.

Democrats), but he was So who’s to blame? able to connect with Even asking the question Americans at a level that makes clear why it’s worth made sense to them. Kerry STEPHEN re-thinking what makes couldn’t and didn’t.

HANDELMAN this country tick.

Democrats are (for the It’s true that a surge of second time since 2000) in voting from so-called Christian a state of angst. “We need to be a evangelical voters turned the tide in party that stands for more than the Ohio last week. And millions of sum of our resentments,” said IndiAmericans in exit-poll surveys said ana Sen. Evan Bayh (now on the list they identified with Bush’s appeal to of possible presidential candidates in “values” — religious, patriotic, and 2008). otherwise.

The same thing could be said of But what seems indisputable is Republicans. And that’s the crucial that more Americans, in an uncom- point. fortable time, felt deeply insecure Both parties have to pedal back and vulnerable. That’s very far from from a campaign of resentments the picture of primitive, gun-toting, squared. Bush won his mandate on evolution-scorning backwoodsmen the strength of an aggressive stratethat excites condescension abroad. gy that offered Americans, mired in The U.S. is divided, no doubt a war, leadership they knew. But his about it, but the divisions are not most fervent followers — Amerieasily caricatured. Americans may cans resentful over the “liberalism” be worried about the war in Iraq, but of U.S. society — expect him to fulsizeable numbers remain convinced fill his promise as a “radical” conthat battling “terrorism” there keeps servative. the terrorists away from their shores.

Bush believes he has a mandate

to explore radical alternatives to American state “welfarism” and traditional foreign policy. And the congressional election results, which put Republicans in control of the House and Senate as well as the presidency for the first time in decades, give him the tools to try.

But the America that voted for Bush is not necessarily the America that will sustain and support his program. And the problems that now face his administration, from a quagmire in Iraq to a spiraling deficit, may well sink it.

It’s up to Bush whether to use the self-confidence gained by his reelection to pursue larger goals that a majority of Americans and the rest of the world can feel comfortable with.

It may not happen. But another email circulated last week has quietly restored the morale of Kerry voters: “A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles.”

The quote comes from Thomas Jefferson.

Stephen Handelman is a columnist for TIME Canada based in New York. He can be reached at shandel@ix.netcom.com. His next column for The Independent will appear Sunday, Nov. 28.

Page 19

Page 20

INTERNATIONAL

The Independent, November 14, 2004

Of bullfighting and mummering…

Darryl Stratton of St. John’s embraces the method and madness in Mexico City Voice from away Darryl Stratton In Mexico City

By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

L

iving life in “fast forward” is how Darryl Stratton describes travelling.

It’s an appropriate term, coming from a St. John’s native who has spent the last year living and working in the second largest city in the world.

“Mexico City is a crazy city but I’m always fascinated by it,” Stratton tells The Independent. “Despite all the complexities of a city so large, with a population almost the size of Canada, it still works.

There’s certainly a method to the madness here.”

Although he calls driving and navigating traffic his “new adventure sport,” Stratton says fitting into his home away from home wasn’t so hard.

“I believe that we adapt to the environment we’re given. I believe that Newfoundlanders have an advantage. I’m not really sure why, it must have something to do with the way we’re brought up, with respect for each other, respect A bullfight in Mexico City. for foreigners, and respect for the absolutely true. The Mexicans are ocean. People see that in us.”

Stratton first visited Mexico four very similar to Newfoundlanders in years ago as part of a business this.”

He says the food is great, as well exchange program from Memorial University. After graduating, he as the weather.

“But don’t be fooled. This morndecided to return, and spent four months backpacking across the ing it was four degrees Celsius.”

Stratton lists the diversity of country.

After another three years in Mexico’s environment: amazing Canada earning qualifications as a beaches, old Aztec ruins, jungles chartered accountant, he once and deserts. And living only threeagain retraced his steps to begin a and-a-half hours from the beautiful coastline of Acapulco helps shake work exchange.

Just recently he accepted a posi- off the city blues.

“In general life in Mexico is tion as an accounting manager for the Canada-based transportation more relaxed,” he says. “Less rules, which is good and bad.” manufacturer, Bombardier.

“My daily life in Mexico’s real- Stratton says Acapulco fills the ly not that different than it was in need when he’s missing the oceans St. John’s. My most memorable of home, which goes to show a experiences are similar to those Newfoundlander can connect with the motherland pretty that I’d have anymuch anywhere. where, such as a “I believe that Even bullfighting good time with friends … Mexico Newfoundlanders has its counterpart.

“I believe you need City is a great city — have an advantage to try everything once lots of life, action and … it must have — well almost everythings to do.” something to do thing — but once was Stratton says many people have miscon- with the way we’re enough for me. Bullceived, negative brought up, with fighting is a part of the history but I opinions of Mexico, respect for each wouldn’t want anywhich often come one to think that it’s from movies and bad other, respect part of the day-to-day family vacations. for foreigners, life. Hmm, kind of “Let me be the and respect for like mummering in first to say how wonthe ocean.”

St. John’s; it used to derful a place Mexibe popular but not so co is. I always say ‘forget everything — Darryl Stratton much anymore.”

Stratton says, you’ve ever heard about Mexico and come and visit despite missing his family back me.’ Those that have, have left home, his place is in Mexico for at least the short- to medium-term, pleasantly surprised.”

Stratton says the negative points waiting “to see where the ride about Mexico are the traffic and the takes” him.

“I often reflect on a quote I love poverty. Mexico City is famous for class extremes, and with extrava- by Robert Young Pelton, a Canadigantly wealthy people living along- an who’s travelled to the world’s side the destitute, crime is most dangerous places: ‘I was inevitably an issue. The city is also caught between the desire for new well known for road congestion adventure and the enveloping warmth of home. But like home, and pollution.

The good points win out though, adventure is not places so much as and Stratton says the people in people.’”

Mexico are warm and friendly.

Do you know a Newfoundlander “There’s a very famous saying in Mexico: ‘my house is your house’ or Labradorian living away? Please (‘Mi casa es su casa’) … you see it let us know: e-mail editorial@theinon art work in the markets and it’s dependent.ca or call 726-4639.

Paul Daly/The Independent

LIFE &TIMES

November 14, 2004

Page 21

Kevin Aylward

Paul Daly/The Independent

‘Rabid Newfoundland nationalist’ Former MHA Kevin Aylward says federal/provincial relationship needs work, although it’s not a ‘blame Canada thing’

By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

F

ormer long-time Liberal MHA Kevin Aylward just purchased a house in St. John’s that once belonged to the late Charles F. Bennett, prime minister of Newfoundland under the Anti-Confederate Party.

FINDING THE Ironic, considering Aylward’s benefit analysis current state of Cost of Confederation (political) mind.

“I would call myself now more of a rabid Newfoundland nationalist than anything at this point,” Aylward tells The Independent. “It’s an apt description.”

After 19 years with the Liberal government, Aylward resigned last year as Environment minister and representative for St. GeorgesStephenville East.

Today, he’s focusing on family life and his business consulting company, while still keeping a sharp eye on the political scene — which, he says, is clearly not working.

“I see that the interest is in public policy and I’ve linked up with some people who are interested in advocating public policy from the province in a non-partisan form.”

Aylward says one of the reasons he left government was because he felt a need to step back and view the broader picture. Now, moving in business circles and helping smaller companies navigate the bureaucratic system, he says he’s mixing with real people, those essentially driving the economy.

BALANCE

“I wasn’t surprised to hear the anyone willing to listen. That was other day that there was a new party when he decided it was time for a starting up,” Aylward says of the political vacation. recently announced Newfoundland He says he’s disillusioned with and Labrador First Party. “I hear a lot federal/provincial relations, a commore from a lot of people who are in men sentiment these days. Aylward the business community, people who points to the recent federal election you would normally be surprised to when only 49 per cent of the hear from, you might say.” province’s population voted — the Over his last three years in office, lowest percentage in Canada.

Aylward says he, along with a few “Some people have given up. They other former cabinet colleagues, really don’t know if their vote counts came to the conclusion that the only anymore because of the way the fedway to make Ottawa eral system is operpay attention to the ating … I get a flaws in high-profile, sense from a lot of key issues like the “It’s like, somebody’s people that it’s like Atlantic Accord and got the lever to your there’s a straightChurchill Falls was to on our place, future and if they open jacket go beyond the usual like it’s wrapped “federal/provincial the door a little more, and you can’t move government, healthy either way to try to you’d be able to go relationship-thing. through that door and develop.”

“The last speech I Perhaps that’s gave in the House of sail away and be very how Aylward felt Assembly, I asked that independent and con- when he left poliwe take legal action tics. tribute and create against the federal Aylward was government over the your own wealth, but first elected in the Atlantic Accord, and first you have to open House of Assembly some people sat up in for Stephenville at the door.” their chairs and they the tender age of were, you know, ‘Oh 24, soon after geez, Kevin, that’s receiving a compretty aggressive.’ But it’s not really merce degree and teaching certificate aggressive. If you’re going to defend from Memorial University. He says it your interest, use all the tools. If was overwhelming at first, but “the seven seats is not really doing it for job requires you to either sink or you, then use all the tools.” swim really fast.”

Aylward says he got to a point in Aylward describes his younger self his career where he found himself as “idealistic, with a lot of hope.” He continuously pushing agendas on says his first priority was to change natural resources, but couldn’t find the face of his home town of

Stephenville.

“Over a 10-year period, we were able to facilitate the rebuilding of the town, really, in the sense of a new hospital facility, new educational facilities, new schools, the college was upgraded, recreational facilities were all rebuilt … if you do anything in politics — especially when it comes to your constituency — if you can leave it in better shape than when you started, then you’re doing OK.” Throughout his expanding career, serving under four different premiers, Aylward soon discovered that changing the face of Newfoundland and Labrador was less straight forward.

“Churchill Falls, renegotiated right, along with the new lower Churchill deal and revenues from the offshore, could put this place in a very good position for the future.”

Not to mention the fisheries, Aylward says. “The lack of the implementation and taking care of that resource by Ottawa … the way it’s just being allowed to hang.”

Aylward says the message still isn’t getting through, which is why he’s advocating public policy, in the hope that the province might listen and learn from the people, and implement fresh ideas.

“It’s not a blame thing, it’s not a blame Ottawa thing … It’s like, somebody’s got the lever to your future and if they open the door a little more, you’d be able to go through that door and sail away and be very independent and contribute and create your own wealth, but first you have to open the door.”

Page 22

LIFE & TIMES

The Independent, November 14, 2004

A different angle

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

I

Paul Edwards

Q: What do you get when you cross a comedian and a petroleum products engineer?

A: Another night on George St.

n a place where political humour is as common as having a pint at the Duke of Duckworth, Paul Edwards will avoid jokes about the recent offshore oil debate during his upcoming comedy show, Another Night on George St. An oil industry engineer by day, Edwards is an actor/writer/comedian after dark.

“I’d rather not comment on that,” he tells The Independent when asked for his opinion on the recent battle between Premier Danny Williams and the federal government over oil royalties.

Edwards says he likes his day job too much to jeopardize it for a laugh.

“I kind of think that I have the best of both worlds right now. If something were to come up now that posed itself as more of a challenge I would certainly take it. I don’t rule out working professionally as a performer, but right now I enjoy the engineering work that I do.”

Until then, Edwards will continue to travel the world with his day job and take advantage of his evenings off by doing stand-up in Great Britain, USA, and mainland Canada.

“It was amazing how many folks would come out of the woodwork when there were different Newfoundland events in Alberta,” he says of recent trips there.

In his upcoming show at the LSPU Hall, Edwards says he’s taken the best of his three most recent shows (Full Frontal Lobotomy, A Canadian Idle and Another Night on George St.) and combined them for an hour-and-a-half of laughs.

He has created plenty of characters, but avoids the “wacky zoinks stuff,” favouring observational humour.

“A lot of these characters — they kind of see something that a lot of other folks probably wouldn’t and that’s what I try to portray through each of them. It’s to just try to get folks to see something from a different angle sometimes.”

Edwards creates real characters, in real life situations. Bill Zellers, the real estate agent, “where the only B.S. you’ll get is better service,” and Seamus and Liam (a sock puppet), the hosts of Cable 9’s defunct Cooking with Rum and the new, educational program Science with Rum; are just two of the foolish characters Edwards shamelessly admits come from within him.

“I have the best of both worlds right now. If something were to come up now that posed itself as more of a challenge I would certainly take it. I don’t rule out working professionally as a performer, but right now I enjoy the engineering work that I do.”

— Paul Edwards “There’s something of me in all of them … there’s some that are more like me than others. The guys who kind of stand back and balk at stuff a little, are probably most like me,” Edwards says.

“There’s actually an engineer character that I do … and he doesn’t actually get reality.”

He says Zellers became a fullyformed character in just five minutes after browsing the Halifax real estate channel while he and his wife were house shopping.

“There’s just something almost real about him.

“Some of them, they just come immediately and others, you just have to put it on the back burner for a while and just let your subconscious take over and kind of juggle it around a bit.”

CATFUD ALUMNUS For the recently married Edwards, sketch comedy isn’t new. He’s probably best known as the fourth member of CatFud, a troupe of travelling Newfoundlan-

ders (other members were Mark Critch, Greg Rex and Chad House). CatFud disbanded after nearly a decade of laughs and one bad day at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary.

“We did a bunch of shows together and we had a ball,” says Edwards, who joined the group in 1993. The troupe performed one Sunday afternoon on a makeshift stage at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary with Great Big Sea and Snook.

“The guys were pretty receptive, but you could tell they’d rather be watching the football game than a bunch of guys up on a stage,” Edwards says. “It’s not the place that you think of mirth and merriment — it was an extremely tough crowd. Showing laughter is perhaps showing a sign of weakness and not a lot of guys in jail want to do that.”

He says comedy is a rewarding career — especially when the audience laughs. While it’s disappointing when they don’t, an honest look at why an audience isn’t laughing helps him learn more about his craft.

Edwards does a lot of stand-up in Halifax and he can be seen at Gingers, a comedy club there, once a week.

Where can he be seen while on his trip home to St. John’s?

“Paul Edwards will be at the Duke of Duckworth, Paul Edwards will be eating at Two Chefs … and Paul Edwards will probably be having a few pints at the Grapevine and at The Ship and hanging out at the Hall,” he says.

“I’m making myself sound like a total souse bag here.”

He says he misses the atmosphere in St. John’s and hardly a day goes by when he and his wife don’t think about moving home.

As for audiences around the world relating to Another Night on George St. — a tiny road in a province few know the location of — Edwards says not to worry.

“Everybody knows George Street — everybody in Canada knows George Street anyway.”

Another Night on George St. runs Nov. 18- 20, LSPU Hall.

The Independent, November 14, 2004

LIFE & TIMES

S

Page 23

Going public

omething’s been bugging me recently. For the last couple of months, every time I have gone to our wonderful new airport I have been distracted by a tall bronze sculpture in the centre atrium, right by the CIBC bank machine and behind the LED arrival and departure signs. Anyone who knows the sculptural work of Bulgarian-born St. John’sbased artist Luben Boykov will immediately identify this piece as his.

My problem is that I keep worrying about where the airport authorities are going to put this year’s Christmas tree.

Last year’s inaugural green fir stood right in the spot where Boykov’s The Embrace now holds centre stage. It was quite grand, probably one of the largest trees this city has ever dragged indoors, and it was gorgeously symmetrical, stunningly decorated, and magnificently high.

Predictably, some airport regulars were heard mumbling about its extravagance, while others were heard wishing that the money for the tree had gone into more frequent snow clearing, but it sure was lovely and it superbly graced the firstclass transport facility we have so long deserved.

Is anyone asking how Boykov’s sculpture got there and how many nights of snow clearing it might be worth?

Perhaps not. Public art tends to show up and stick around without much notice, that is, unless it offends someone, the way Don Wright’s Red Trench once did.

And so one day you are walking across the marble tiles through some open, light-filled space to get to the escalator from the washrooms; the next you have to walk around a tall bronze pole with large metal wings sprouting from its apex.

One day you are parking your car on Rawlin’s Cross to get a butterscotch ice cream cone at Moo Moo’s and the next you are crowded out by a bronze statue of a little Spencer School girl leaning against a concrete wall. Whether or not anyone notices it at first, public art is vital to the health of any self-respecting community, but perhaps even more important is how it gets into public space in the first place.

This question is set in particular relief these days with the announcement that an unknown 20-something St. John’s artist has been given the go ahead to produce a sculpture called The Rower. As you

Standing Room Only NOREEN GOLFMAN might guess, the piece will honour the muscle-bound participants of the St. John’s Royal Regatta. Elinor Ratcliffe, a private donor, generously offered roughly $150,000 towards the finished product, and this figure is to be matched by the City of St. John’s.

A work of sculpture set somewhere around the lake, honouring one of the city’s most significant annual events, is a good and warm and fuzzy idea.

But did anyone ask you, dear citizen, just how you wanted your tax dollars spent?

That much just might get your winter sidewalks cleaned, too. A work of sculpture set somewhere around the lake, honouring one of the city’s most significant annual events, is a good and warm and fuzzy idea. But did anyone ask you, dear citizen, just how you wanted your tax dollars spent?

And here’s the real point: are you comfortable with the fact there was nothing even remotely like a competition for the honour of receiving so much money to make public art?

NOBLE AIMS I didn’t think so. The city has a public art program with noble aims, at least in writing. As Ron Penney, the chief clerk, recently admitted during a radio interview about the matter, city purchases of art for public spaces are almost always channeled through an arts jury and through an open competition. In this way, all working artists have an opportunity to be selected, to practice their craft, to make a name for themselves. But when a private citizen decides to donate a handsome sum of money towards a public work, the city not only offers to match or, in the words of bureaucratic jargon, “enhance” the contribution, but it also turns the

process inside out — into a closed system. At that point it’s not about the art you do; it’s about the artists you know.

Let’s face it: because we are talking about art, most citizens don’t really give a squat about who is funding whom or how.

But it’s easy to imagine what would happen if the city decided not to call for tenders on new buildings or major public works projects, regardless of whether any corporate or private money were going into the project, as it almost always is.

The citizenry would be jamming the open lines like rabid dogs and we’d have more than one headline about scandal to share around the water cooler.

In real cities where public art really matters, it is impossible to imagine the kind of bush league defense the city has offered, forking over a lot of money without so much as a whisper of a call for tenders on the project.

The whole matter is worthy of one of Leacock’s satirical sunshine sketches. Young Morgan MacDonald may very well forge a marvelous bronze rower with enduring and poignant effects, but surely there are other artists in the province who might have been given the chance to compete with him for the project? And who might have come up with something less representational, more evocative, perhaps more daring and modern.

It really is terrific that we have a generous benefactor like Elinor Ratcliffe who is actually interested in transforming meaningful public space, and how can one not be in favour of turning a parking lot into paradise?

But as soon as public money enters the flow of creation, then surely the rules of fairness and open access must apply.

The same holds true for the province, for that matter. How did Joey get his bust? Those dogs get their bronzing down by the waterfront, or that Beothuk woman out at Boyd’s Cove?

As a cab driver wisely told me the other day, this place needs some fresh thinking. It also needs an open and fairminded process for the procurement of public art in public space. Otherwise we might as well be living in some banana republic.

Noreen Golfman is a professor of women’s studies and literature at Memorial University. Her next column will appear Nov. 28.

Page 24

LIFE & TIMES

The Independent, November 14, 2004

When bears attack Gros Morne Justice

By Walter Mallery Flanker Press, 2004

On The Shelf

S

et in and around Gros Morne National Park on the west coast of the island, Walter Mallery’s Gros Morne Justice tells the story of Jack Cranford, an outfitter whose business is based outside Deer Lake.

Cranford, it seems, is a man much maligned by fate. While leading a black bear hunting expedition near Gros Morne at the beginning of the book, one of the Americans in his group shoots a cub. Later that day Jack’s son Calvin is killed by the dead cub’s mother. It is deemed a revenge attack.

As if the brutal death of his only child was not enough, Jack is taken to court over the killing of the cub, charged with criminal negligence resulting in death (his son’s, presumably, not the bear’s) and stripped of his outfitting license.

Shortly thereafter, his wife Dorothy suffers a stroke that leaves her paralyzed on one side. Jack is forced to sell his hunting lodge in order to pay the fine and cover the cost of Dorothy’s rehabilitation.

Buried beneath his financial troubles, Jack begins working for the funeral home where Calvin had been employed. The funeral owner, Norm Cotten, is involved in a bit of a sideline enterprise. “He discovered that faking cremations would be much more profitable. It was time-consuming for staff, and the energy bills for the hours of incineration were astronomical,” Mallery, the author, tells us. It turns out that Norm regularly sells the organs of his clients on the black market and disposes of their remains in the woods.

MARK CALLANAN Still grieving over the death of his son, Jack embarks on an effort to tame two cubs he has found in the woods, bringing them food and gradually making them accustomed to his presence. When the park orders a cull in response to further fatal bear attacks, Jack decides to transport Starlight, the male cub, to the safety of his shed, free to continue his roaming in the surrounding woods.

Needless to say, Gros Morne Justice is often disturbing. With its graphic descriptions and, often, superficial portrayal of man’s contact with nature, the novel has more in common with bad made-for-TV movies than with good fiction.

To further complicate matters, Jack embarks on a vigilante quest to dissuade the local bears from eating the human flesh that, because of Norm Cotten’s corpse dumping, has become incorporated into their diet. In some of the book’s more gruesome passages, the author relates Jack’s method of grinding up bodies from the funer-

INDEPENDENT CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Burkina ___ (Africa) 5 Musical Ride guys 9 Quantity of paper 13 Part of rotating shaft 16 Bereaved wife 17 State on Lake Erie 18 Alternative indicator 19 Fuss 20 Eating disorder (2 wds.)

23 ATM request 24 Canadian diva Stratas 25 Nominate 26 B.C./Alta. river 28 Start of a threesome 29 Loch ___ 31 “TrËs ___, monsieur!”

33 Prepare potatoes 34 With: prefix 35 Yukon town near Pelly R. 36 TV hit filmed near Regina: “Corner ___” 37 Light-weight hat for tropics 39 Where some are led astray (2 wds.)

42 Tall and thin 44 French city overlooking Pyrenees 45 Witness 46 It’s illegal to park in front of it 49 Valuable quality 52 City with problem tower 54 Meadow bellow 55 Quaker pronoun 56 Greek letter 57 Sash

al home and lacing them with pepper and garlic.

Needless to say, Gros Morne Justice is often disturbing. With its graphic descriptions and, often, superficial portrayal of man’s contact with nature, the novel has more in common with bad madefor-TV movies than with good fiction. Yet, the biggest problem I have with the story is Mallery’s apparent moral divorce from its implications. Just after Jack has started working for Norm Cotten, he (Jack) brings a body out to the woods and watches as it is devoured by his cubs.

He opened the back door and dragged the body to the clearing.

He stood behind the spruce, curious to see how the bears would relate to the dead man. He anticipated that the bears would be afraid to approach it, but he was not sure (…) The corpse could not feel a thing, he reflected, inasmuch as death was the end of nerve sensation in any animal or human being.

That Jack should conduct such a gruesome experiment only to satisfy his own curiosity is no less monstrous an action for its lack of sadism.

When an assistant of Cotten’s is attacked and literally frightened to death by Starlight, Jack immediately devises a ruse by which the incident will not be traced back to him. After his wife suffers the same fate in her own home, Jack decides to offer up a false description of the assailant in order to save the life of the bear he considers his only friend left in the world.

Though it becomes clear early on that Jack has broken utterly from reality, Mallery (like Jack himself with his bear) cannot bring

himself to pass judgment on him.

We are constantly reminded that, as a child, Jack suffered physical abuse at the hands of his father, that Jack has lost his entire family to violent deaths. Intentionally or not, these reminders attempt to excuse Jack’s sociopathic behaviour.

Overall, Mallery’s prose is pretty shaky. Though his action-driven style breathlessly skips on to the next and the next and the next interesting bit, I must admit that at points I was entertained by the lurid detail of it all. Still, after the

reading there remains that dirty feeling of having been arrested by the sensationalistic. I suspect that we read books like Gros Morne Justice for the same reasons we watch Fox television specials such as the often lampooned When Animals Attack — to be shocked and disgusted, to occasionally empathize, but ultimately, to be entertained.

Mark Callanan is a writer and reviewer currently living in Rocky Harbour. His next column appears Nov. 28.

Solutions on page 26

58 Cut up 59 The whole amount 60 Forecast item, for short 62 Annoy 63 Marseilles miss: abbr.

64 Young Canadian crooner: Michael ___ 66 Capital of Kenya 68 Japanese ___ ceremony 69 French salt 70 Failure 71 Symbol indicating the right-hand part (2 wds.)

75 Patella site 77 Chinese pan 78 Egg-shaped 79 Some cards and tags 82 Petit de ___, N.S. 84 Perching on 86 The same (Lat.) 87 Was not off one’s rocker 88 Regret 90 Sharp pain 92 Fluid component of blood 95 Virtuoso 96 Necessity for summer in the city (2 wds.)

99 Mineral: suffix 100 Dweeb 101 Prong 102 Heaps 103 Rouen refusal 104 Darn!

105 “Parsley, ___, rosemary ...”

106 Sleigh

DOWN 1 Showy apparel 2 Worshipping 3 Word with throat or loser 4 Runs in the red 5 French king 6 French song 7 N.S. basin with highest tides on Earth 8 Ode 9 Gun it in neutral 10 Marry on the run 11 Agreement 12 “One man’s ___ is another man’s poison.”

13 Moby Dick figure (2 wds.)

14 Jose’s farewell 15 A twelfth of a year 16 Canadian inventor of potato digger 21 “In ___ did Kubla Khan ...”

22 Discount sent by mail 27 Communicate 30 Before, of yore 32 Like: suffix 35 Campus assoc.

36 Earth goddess 38 Like King Cole 40 Imitate 41 Attention getter 43 “The curfew tolls the ___ of parting day” 46 “Mr. Hockey” 47 Hither and ___ 48 Phone starter?

49 Aboriginal TV network 50 Bundle (of wheat)

51 Okanagan area river 52 About: prefix 53 Sort 54 ___ de mer 57 Drool catcher 58 Thick slice 61 Quickly!

63 Overly submissive 64 Youngest person to swim English Channel (1955): Canadian Marilyn

___ 65 Mod or glob ending 67 Unlock, to Browning 68 Excessively (mus.)

69 Italian shrimp 71 ___’s company 72 Dwelling place 73 First mate?

74 Inclined to split 76 Not so taxing 80 Cursed

81 Male deer 82 Prairie product 83 Verso’s opposite 85 ___ firma 86 Where cows are sacred 89 South African coin 91 Picnic spoilers 93 Cuts 94 Indigo plant 97 Man. summer time 98 Duffer’s peg

SPORTS

November 14, 2004

Page 25

Paul Daly/The Independent

‘The complete package’ Jason Little could be playing hockey on the mainland; he’d rather earn a degree from MUN … scoring champion for Junior Caps would also be sweet

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

G

oalies in the St. John’s Junior Hockey League should be afraid.

Very afraid.

Jason Little often cuts through the league’s net minders as if they’re not even there between the pipes. The St. John’s Junior Caps sniper is scoring at such a pace this season that even his head coach is astonished at what he’s accomplished.

“He’s just a natural goal scorer,” Junior Caps bench boss Fred Walsh says.

“Goalies don’t know what he’s going to do. His release is so quick that he makes goalies look as if they’re standing still.

He can go from his right to his left when he’s shooting, and that really throws goalies for a loop.”

BULGED THE TWINE Through the first eight games this season, Little has bulged the twine 15 times.

The native of Grand Falls-Windsor has also picked up six helpers to give him a league-leading 21 points, numbers that have kept his coach smiling since day one of the 2004-05 season.

But Walsh is pleased with more than Little’s stats. He says the 6’1 forward is the complete package, combining speed, soft hands and great on-ice vision to become perhaps the best offensive player in the league.

Little’s capabilities with the puck are what most fans first notice about him.

He stick handles around opponents with ease, as if the puck is attached to his stick with a string. He can beat a goalie with either a deke or his trademark bul-

let wrist shot.

Junior Caps last season) have not only His play without the puck is also caught the attention of local hockey fans worth noting. It often seems as if the — hockey teams throughout the Marpuck follows Little around the ice (the itimes have taken notice. string is a long one). On several occaAlready this season Little has had sions this season, Little has waited off to offers from the Summerside (PEI) Capthe side as players from both teams bat- itals of the Maritime Junior A League tle for a bouncing puck, only to have it and the Port Hawkesbury Strait Pirates squirt lose and land perfectly on his of the Nova Scotia Junior B loop, the stick. host of this year’s Atlantic Junior B Walsh says it’s obviously no accident, Championships. Although Little was considering how often it happens. flattered by both offers, he says the “That’s a natural ability on his part. choice to decline was easy since his You have to be born with that,” he tells main focus is earning a commerce The Independent. “He just reads open degree from Memorial. ice so well. There’s “If I went away now, nobody else in the I’d only have one year league who reads the ice of Junior A and two like him.”

“He just reads open years of Junior B, so I’d Little’s ability to finbe throwing away a lot,” ice so well. There’s ish a play is second to says the 20-year-old. “I nobody else in the none, but he’s also have to put education capable of starting the first for now.” league who reads attack. His long reach That type of dedicathe ice like him.” and quick feet have tion to the books may — Fred Walsh made him an offensive prevent Little from testthreat no matter what ing himself against the situation — even on stiffer competition at the the penalty kill.

Junior A level or from “He actually creates a lot of opportu- getting a guaranteed shot at the Don nities during the penalty kill. His hock- Johnson Cup (awarded annually to the ey sense allows him to read the play and Atlantic Junior B champion), but it has predict what they’re going to do with the impressed the hierarchy of the Junior puck. With a burst of speed, he’ll pick Caps. off a pass and then he’s gone down the As far as his coach is concerned, it’s ice,” Walsh says. “If he’s got to go, he that kind of thinking that has earned Litcan really skate. His skating is kind of tle the respect he receives in the locker deceptive, he doesn’t always look like room. he’s going that fast, but you try to catch And on the ice. him.”

“He could easily be gone away playLittle’s accomplishments this season ing. But it’s good to see him looking and during the 2003-04 campaign (he after his education. He’s got his head on scored 30 goals in 29 games for the straight,” says Walsh.

“He not only leads by example, the boys look up to him because of his nature. He’s just a fantastic person. He gives a lot of respect, so he earns a lot of respect in return.”

PERSONAL SUCCESS While he enjoys the personal success, Little is also happy to be able to make a few friends along the way. Two years ago he made waves in the West Coast Senior Hockey League when he picked up 20 points in 20 games for the Grand Falls-Windsor Cataracts as an 18-yearold rookie playing against men — many of whom had major junior, university and professional hockey backgrounds.

Despite his success that season, he insists dropping to the junior ranks and playing with guys his own age has been much more enjoyable.

“When we go on road trips I have a lot in common with the guys. When I was with the Cataracts, the guys were talking about their wives and their kids while I was just trying to get into university.”

With his soft hands, smooth stride and outstanding hockey sense, there’s no doubt the senior hockey ranks of this province have not heard the last of Little. But before he moves on to the next level, he still has one more year of Junior B eligibility, a season his coach predicts will be one fans won’t want to miss.

“I think he can be and will be a dominating player, based on his scoring potential alone,” Walsh says. “He’s going to challenge for the scoring title this year, and then you have to consider he still has another year left. I think next year it (the scoring race) will be a foregone conclusion.”

Darcy_8888@hotmail.com

Page 26

SPORTS

The Independent, November 14, 2004

The Great One scores Bob the Bayman BOB WHITE

I

Zac and his dad Tracey Cooper get ready for a game at Prine of Wales arena in St. John’s.

other team — what a concept!), too many teams these days prefer to concentrate on limiting the other team’s chances, then hope for the best when they get a scoring opportunity. If all that goes as planned and they get a lead, they sit on it.

We’ve all seen this style of hockey, and we’ve seen teams with mediocre talent go all the way and capture the Stanley Cup (see New Jersey Devils). It has been argued that slow, low-scoring games are the result of league expansion and a watered-down talent pool. I beg to differ. There’s abundant talent, especially when you consider the NHL attracts the best players from the top hockey-playing countries.

I’m all for good hits, and a scrap here and there — but keep your sticks on the ice and take chances with the puck. Be creative. The

same logic should also be adopted

by Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow. But that’s another story …

GRETZ PICKS UP ANOTHER PASS If I was to add something to Gretzky’s sentiments, it would be that kids today are forced to specialize in one sport too early, which takes away from a player’s ability to be creative and rely on instincts.

I’ve been involved in many sports over the years, playing, coaching and/or reporting on them — hockey, soccer, basketball, softball, among others. In many cases, a screw-you mentality exists.

Hockey is famous for that — like no other sport exists. If you want to play other sports, go ahead — just don’t expect to play triple A squirt.

Paul Daly/The Independent

You have to be serious and dedicated to play on all-star teams. Yes, I know there is no such thing as triple A squirt, but with the way things are going in hockey, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it one day soon.

There will come a time when an athlete — if he/she wants to reach an elite level — has to focus primarily on one sport. That age should be 16 or 17 — not 10 or 12.

Before that time comes, let the kids play as much as they want, in as many sports as they (and their parents) can fit into their schedules.

GREAT ONE LEADS WAY TO VICTORY While Gretzky commented on the state of hockey, he didn’t care to comment on the lockout and what he thinks needs to be done to

break the impasse. He passed, which is a shame. I’d say Gretzky is the perfect guy to help solve this problem.

As one of the game’s legends, he understands a player’s point of view. Gretzky (part-owner of the Phoenix Coyotes) can also contemplate things from the perspective of an owner.

He has the respect. He has the experience. If they asked me, I’d tell Gary and Bob to bet on Gretsky to step in and put things on ice.

If time keeps passing by, the NHL may melt away for good.

If that happens, where will kids find their inspiration?

Perhaps The Great One could lead us to a new age of hockey.

Mythologically speaking, it would be fitting to have a Phoenix help hockey rise from the ashes.

Solutions from page 24

read an interesting quote from Wayne Gretzky last week.

Score another one for The Great One. “Improving the game has to start in minor hockey,” he said. “You have 10-year-olds being taught the left-wing lock and 12-year-olds being taught the trap.”

Gretz was referring to some of the problems that afflict the game he perfected. His understandable take on the state of the NHL was that you can’t expect players to change the way they play the game, when it has been ingrained in them since atom.

The ratings-raters of the National Hockey lockout (er, I mean League) want teams to score more and adopt a more freestyling brand of hockey — easier said than done.

Blame is quick to be pointed at coaches like Jacques Lemaire for ensnaring the sport in a trap.

Gretzky, for his part, points the finger at the minor system. All Lemaire is really doing is playing the cards dealt him. Players can more easily become successful in that style, because it is familiar.

They know how to play — and win — that way.

On the other hand, if coaches had players who were used to playing a more wide-open style, they would drop the puck and send the players off to the races.

So how did it get to this point?

It’s difficult to pinpoint when it all began to change, but perhaps you can refer back to Gretzky. His Edmonton Oilers of the 1980s were so dominant and so potent offensively that maybe they spawned today’s style of slow-it-down, grind-it-out hockey. Coaches, as they are paid to do, had to devise a way to win against such teams.

Whereas the Oilers used their offensive skills for their defensive strategy (Score more goals than the

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The Independent, November 14, 2004

SPORTS

Page 27

Events NOVEMBER 14 • Casavant Frères 125th Anniversary organists include Kim Adams, Deborah Bannister, Stephen Candow, David Drinkell, Carl Goulding, David Peters, Robin Williams, Patricia Young and Casavant Frères representative Lester Goulding, 3 p.m. Tickets $10/$7, Cochrane Street United Church, St. John’s.

• MIANL Awards, Convention Centre, St. John’s, 8 p.m. Tickets available at Mile One box office.

• National Child Day, H.G.R. Mews Community Centre. Activities include face painting, mascots, games, displays and crafts, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, and Sky High Amusements. 2-3:30 p.m., free. 576-8600.

• ‘From Jigs to Django’ music workshop, featuring Duane Andrews with Steve Hussey, Gordon Quinton, and Eric West, 2:30

p.m., $12/$8, Masonic Temple, Cathedral Street, St. John’s, 5768508.

• Tea and Tales: an afternoon of storytelling, Murray Premises Heritage Shop, St. John’s. Author Kevin Major will be present for scheduled readings and book signings, 2-5 p.m. 753-5528.

NOVEMBER 15 • Ron Sexsmith and Sarah Slean, St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre, 8 p.m. Tickets $27.50 in advance, $35 at the door.

• World and Canadian music, Alberta style featuring Matt Masters, CBTG’s, George Street, St. John’s, 10 p.m., $5.

NOVEMBER 16 • Kevin Collins, St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre, 8 p.m. Tickets $22.50.

NOVEMBER 17 • Jazz Ensemble chamber music, D. F. Cook Recital Hall, MUN. 8 p.m. Tickets available evening of performance $10/$5, 737-4455.

NOVEMBER 18 • The Better Business Bureau’s 8th annual live auction, 7 p.m. at the Guv’nor Pub, Elizabeth Ave., St. John’s, viewing time 6-7 p.m.

Tickets: $10, 364-2222.

• Another Night on George Street, Paul Edwards, member of the former comedy troupe Cat Fud, Nov. 18- 20, LSPU Hall, Victoria Street, St. John’s.

• The Beatles dinner theatre, The Majestic, 7 p.m., 579-3023, reservations required.

• 31st Annual Christmas Craft Fair, Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John’s Convention Centre, Nov. 18-21, Admission: $5, 256-8698.

• Marine 2004, over 130 exhibitors showcasing aspects of the Fishing and Marine industries.

Mile One Stadium, St. John’s, Nov. 18-20.

• Rose Hoskins: Poet of Trinity, White Rooster Productions, at the Rabbittown Theatre. $12/$6. Starring Ruth Lawrence and Nicole Rousseau, Nov. 18-20.

NOVEMBER 19 • A Christmas Dance for singles (40 and over), Bally Haly, Logy Bay Rd. 9:30 p.m. Tickets $10 (must be picked up in advance.)

Call Anne: 739-5097.

• Billy and the Bruisers, Outlaws Warehouse Saloon, 6–10 p.m.

Charitable donations will be accepted on behalf of the Janeway.

• Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra’s Masterworks #2 – Scheherazade, St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre. Tickets: $15-$31, 8

p.m.

NOVEMBER 20 • Westray, The Long Way Home, presented by Two Planks and a Passion Theatre, St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre. Tickets: $20 ($15 student/senior) Please note that tickets purchased in the spring will be honoured for these performances.

IN THE GALLERIES • Segments by Anita Singh, Bonnie Leyton Gallery of Fine Art, St. John’s.

• 3 Visions 3 Cities, by Grant Boland, Boyd Chubbs and Scott Goudie, and Intimations by Audrey Feltham, Christina Parker Gallery, St. John’s.

• An exhibition of new prints by Lori Doody, Twisted Sisters Boutik, 134 Water Street, Thursday, Nov. 18, 6-9 p.m.