VOL. 3 ISSUE 25
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ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR — SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 19-25, 2005
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OPINION PAGE 11 AND 25
PHOTO ESSAY 20-21
John Crosbie says PM a cling-on; Siobhan Coady on cutting red tape
Basilica celebrates 150th anniversary of consecration
Tobin, Cheney trade off Key engineering jobs evaporated following private May 1998 meeting between former premier and future VP of United States; hundreds of millions in benefits lost AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION
CLARE-MARIE GOSSE
S
even years after a Supreme Court judge ruled the Terra Nova companies failed to honour a benefits plan to bring engineering jobs to the province, questions have surfaced whether the provincial government gave away hundreds of millions of dollars in direct benefits. An Independent investigation delving into the question why the provincial government didn’t force the oil companies to follow through on relocating up to 200 gold-collar jobs on the ground locally, ends with a May 6, 1998 meeting in Houston, Tex. between then-premier Brian Tobin and Dick Cheney. The current vice-president of the United States was then head of Halliburton, one of the world’s largest oil services companies and main service supplier to the Terra Nova project. Chuck Furey, then-provincial minister of Mines and Energy, also attended the meeting. He says Cheney offered a “trade off” for the jobs — and Tobin accepted.
Furey says the “trade off” was in the form of a Halliburton facility in Donovans Industrial Park on the outskirts of Mount Pearl. Furey called the facility a “consolation prize” — insignificant compared to the original engineering deal. “Because anytime you can get engineers here, they’re bringing huge salaries into the province,” says Furey, who has since retired from politics. “They’re transferring technology to local engineers, they’re helping with local companies by building a bridge with these new ideas and new technologies into local companies, and that was the point (of the benefits plan). “They said ‘We’ll fall far behind, we’ll lose a lot of money, we’ll lose a lot of time and it will cost too much.’ We said ‘OK, we hear you.’” Industry expert Cabot Martin couldn’t estimate the worth to the economy of 200 gold-collar jobs. It’s thought to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Natural Resources Minister Ed Byrne, who was leader of the Tory Opposition in 1998 when Tobin met with Cheney, says his party was “strongly opposed” to the agreement between the two. See “Procuring engineering,” page 4 Editorial, page 6
Engineering jobs stemming from the Terra Nova offshore oil project were cast aside following a May 6, 1998 meeting between former premier Brian Tobin and then-president and CEO of Halliburton, Dick Cheney. The two met again in St. John’s in October, 1999 when Cheney, current vice-president of the United States, visited to discuss Halliburton’s role in the offshore. Bob Crocker photography
QUOTE OF THE WEEK “We have a good iceberg viewing area, one of the best, and Twillingate is known for its icebergs. But we’re not Greeland, we’re not Antarctica, we don’t make them, right?” — Cecil Stockley, (a.k.a. the iceberg man)
Paul Daly/The Independent
Everybody loves Mary Province’s favourite A-list actor Mary Walsh on being raised Catholic, CODCO, This Hour, her latest controversial TV project, and ‘her everything’ — Newfoundland By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent
M
ary Walsh says her CBC comedy show, Hatching, Matching and Dispatching, will be filming the next six episodes in Torbay and Petty Harbour in July and August — “if anybody wants to come and throw eggs at us or anything.” Despite some mixed reactions to the offbeat, faux documentary, which piloted in January and was criticized, by
some, for its irreverent take on life in a Newfoundland family business, offering ambulance, wedding and funeral services, the public demanded to see more. Walsh sits in a pleasantly cluttered study in her St. John’s home. She’s finally able to take a breath after meeting the deadline for submitting the first drafts of the new episodes, but is anxiously anticipating an upcoming cast See “My home,” page 2
SPORTS 36
Gearing up for Corner Brook Triathlon Paper Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Life Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Ticket trouble
City tickets bring in $2 million — as much outstanding getting away with not paying their parking tickets — particularly in the case of leased cars. Parking tickets are filed under the licence plate number so that when a arking tickets are a pain, but col- lease expires it’s difficult to track the lections can be worse. The City former driver. Drivers with outstandof St. John’s collected more than ing tickets can also re-register their $2 million from nearly 90,000 parking vehicles in someone else’s name. tickets handed out last year and paid “It is the city’s position that the the provincial government $630,000 province’s actions in failing to take ($7 per ticket) collection action for collecting … is unfair to 2004 parking ticket breakdown the fines (done, the city and conType of ticket Tickets handed out for the most travenes the $15 (Meter expired) 56,992 part, when spirit of our $20 (Street cleaning) 3,346 people re-regagreement,” $30 (No parking) 16,424 ister their Penney wrote in $45 (Snow clearing) 4,688 cars). his November $50 (Parking near a fire hydrant, etc.) 1,372 But not letter. “Such $75 (Handicapped space, etc.) 856 every fine gets action also $20-$30 (other) 50 paid and Robin sends a message King, the city’s to violators that transportation engineer, says there are it is OK not to pay fines for non-movmore than $2 million in outstanding ing violations, but that fines for movparking tickets going back to April, ing violations must be paid.” 1999. King says the city hasn’t heard back “It (the ticket) is never going away, from the province yet, but would like but we’re having some issues collect- to see the provincial government take ing it. It’s the province’s responsibility legal action against individuals who to collect those outstanding fines,” refuse to pay their tickets. King tells The Independent. As for the province’s position, “Unfortunately, they have not been spokeswoman Melony O’Neill says pursuing our outstanding fines.” many outstanding fines are uncolCity solicitor Ron Penney wrote a lectible. letter last November to the Justice Department outlining how people are See “Constantly looking,” page 5
ALISHA MORRISSEY
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JUNE 19, 2005
2 • INDEPENDENTNEWS
My home, my mother my inspiration From page 1 read-through of Hatching, Matching and Dispatching. Walsh’s quaint, downtown house with its lush, green, English garden is homey and relaxed, compared to its quick-witted, animated owner, who describes herself as someone who works well under pressure. As Newfoundland and Labrador’s favourite A-list performer, writer and producer, Walsh expansively answers questions and has no trouble pulling ideas from a seemingly endless fountain inside her head. She tells The Independent the last few, pre-deadline months have been tough. “I hate writing,” she says with a shudder. “My friend said to me I’m like a carpenter who hates the carpentry and only likes the table. And so I like having written, but I hate writing. It’s always very difficult, it’s like pulling teeth … it’s quite grim.” CAREER FEAR Despite the fact her slate is full for the next year or so, in terms of film and television projects, Walsh admits to feeling continuing pangs of career fear since having left her 12-year run on This Hour Has 22 Minutes. She hasn’t ruled out making guest appearances on the show, which she created and which stands out as one of the most successful in Canadian television. Along with local producer and longtime colleague, Mary Sexton, Walsh
recently set up the company 2M Innovations for the purpose of launching Hatching, Matching and Dispatching. She’s keeping her fingers crossed that the show — the concept of which had been germinating in her brain for years — will be as successful as so many of her other ventures. “I still worry about everything all the time, because I just worry I guess, that’s my thing,” she says. “I certainly have thought a lot about leaving This Hour Has 22 Minutes, because at my age, at my great age, one wonders …” Walsh is back for the foreseeable future, living and working full time in her home province. From run-ins with arch nemesis nuns at Holy Heart High School as a teenager, to reading headlines such as “Everybody hates Mary,” during the Hatching, Matching and Dispatching furor, Newfoundland and Labrador has been both cruel and kind to her over the years. But Walsh has no plans to leave anytime soon, although she does admit to having had a brief tantrum over the show’s negative feedback at least once earlier this year. “I was fine with everything until the CBC had this woman in and then she denounced the show (Hatching, Matching and Dispatching) on Here and Now, and I thought, ‘But it’s a CBC show, come on! Get with the f—-ing program!’” Walsh adds she quickly smartened up
and got over it, saying her main aim is to stay and contribute to the film industry on a local level; she has no interest in pursuing a Hollywood career. “I want to build something here. Now that may be totally ridiculous, absolutely outside the realm of what is reasonable or what anyone could have hopes for, but that’s what I want to do.” She acknowledges it’s not easy. When Walsh first pitched the pilot of Hatching, Matching and Dispatching,
“It’s always very difficult, it’s like pulling teeth … it’s quite grim.” Mary Walsh on writing she says CBC wanted to film it in Halifax because of a lack of resources here. Walsh isn’t going to be the only one vying for the province’s scant film production resources this year. She says the industry is “bizarrely overbooked.” Pope Productions has a number of projects in the works, including Above and Beyond, a grand-scale Second World War drama set in Gander, which starts filming this month. Hatching, Matching and Dispatching begins filming in July, and in November Walsh hopes to begin
shooting Young Triffie’s Been Made Away With, a film adaptation of a 1985 Ray Guy play, set in outport Newfoundland. For that project she’s pairing up with Denise Robert of Cinemaginaire, the company behind the Oscar-winning foreign-language film, The Barbarian Invasions. Robert was also behind 2003’s Mambo Italiano, a high-profile comedy Walsh co-starred in. “I don’t know where the crew’s going to come from,” she says, “and the worst thing is, I hope this doesn’t happen, but what’s been happening traditionally is when we have a really good year like that, then we have nothing for years and years because you can just imagine how much energy and stuff it takes and it’s such a small group of people.” Aside from sorting out crew issues, Walsh says Hatching, Matching and Dispatching has come up against opposition from the local church in Torbay and the edgy comedy show might have to relocate the shoot. Walsh admits she seems to offend people on a regular basis, but says it’s never something she intends. She fondly remembers being “denounced from the steps of the Basilica” as part of the comedy troupe CODCO, by the now infamous father Jim Hickey. The public soon embraced CODCO, and Walsh is hoping Hatching, Matching and Dispatching will turn out to be the same — “denounced and re-
embraced.” Walsh has had her fair share of problems when it comes to church figures. When she spoke at an awards ceremony two weeks ago at her old St. John’s high school, Holy Heart, she was quite vocal about how much she hated her time spent there under the stern discipline of the nuns. “I had a hard teenagerhood, so I really just wanted to say that it does get better … I wish I’d thought about it a little more before I spoke because I didn’t really mean to hurt people’s feelings, I think I ended up hurting some people’s feelings.” MUCH CHANGE She acknowledges much has changed since her day, adding her own 15-yearold son Jesse attends the school now. Despite a turbulent childhood and adolescence, she says she never wanted “to get the hell out of Newfoundland and Labrador. “I think I was fairly unsteady, and lost a bit, and having Newfoundland … everything I want to say is too overblown, but it’s kind of like, in a way, Newfoundland has been my home and my mother and my inspiration and my everything really. “It’s like a steadying place for me. It’s like, that’s where I come from. I come from Newfoundland and therefore I have some place to be and some place to be from and so that’s always been very, very important to me.”
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JUNE 19, 2005
INDEPENDENTNEWS • 3
‘They will come, eventually’ A slow start to the iceberg season has tourists and tour operators annoyed, but take comfort — we won’t be running out of the ice giants anytime soon By Stephanie Porter The Independent
C
ecil Stockley, a.k.a. the iceberg man, says it can be tough for visitors to Twillingate to understand there are just no icebergs around this year — yet. “The tourists, their backs are up now, they want icebergs,” says the owner/operator of the Iceberg Shop and captain of the MV Iceberg Alley. “There’s no point in you even trying to talk to that mindset, because some of them have come a long way … “Particularly when there’s a mentality up here that Twillingate is the ‘iceberg capital of the world’ and this kind of silliness.” Last year, by late May-early June, there were plenty of bergs in Notre Dame Bay, with more on the horizon. But this year, Stockley says, is one of worst — if not the worst — for icebergs in 20 years in the tour business. “We hear there’s one about 50 miles from us, coming this way, but when you’re in that situation, you’ve got nothing really to work with. So you’ve got nothing to work with at all.” If Twillingate is having a bad iceberg season, St. John’s and areas south can expect an even worse one, with barely a bergy bit to be found. There’s no denying tourists, tour operators —
and locals — are disappointed. Dr. Stephen Bruneau, scientist and author of Icebergs of Newfoundland and Labrador, says he receives “piles” of e-mails from people outside the province every year, asking where they can go see icebergs, and when. “It’s a terrible question to have to answer,” he says. “It’s kind of like asking ahead of time what the weather’s going to be like.” All the same, Bruneau tries valiantly to explain where, statistically, a visitor’s best chances are. And, statistically, the odds have been low this season. Bruneau says his aunt and uncle from Edmonton are in the province this week for their first visit to Newfoundland. One of the highlights of their trip is to see an iceberg. “And it’s like, holy Jeez, I can’t even deliver a friggin’ iceberg,” Bruneau says. “And of course, I’m personally responsible for this now.” But the relations from away may not be totally out of luck. “I just checked the charts again, in despair, and there are a few flocks coming this way.”
Capt. Brian Penney, superintendant of Canadian Coast Guard operations, is also looking at his latest ice charts. He says a recent observation flight — the weather was too poor to do one earlier — yielded promising results. “There’s nothing like last year, but we now have 165 bergs reported in an area from St. Anthony to Nain,” he says. By comparison, there were 1,500 last year. “They are coming south. Hopefully the bigger ones may come down to the St. John’s area.” GOOD BALANCE Penney hopes this year will end up a good balance — not too many icebergs, which are a “nightmare” for mariners to navigate, but enough spectacular specimens to keep tourists happy. There seems to be no obvious or easy answer for the slow start to this year’s iceberg season. Memorial University professor of geography Norm Catto says everyone just has to anticipate the number of icebergs will
change yearly, and randomly. “It reflects simply how many icebergs are produced up in Greenland,” he says. “It takes several years to make the journey to us, so if conditions change in Greenland, we don’t see the results until several years afterwards.” Catto estimates that for every 100 icebergs produced, roughly five per cent make it to northern Labrador. A smaller percentage find their way southwards to the island. Whether they will be visible from shore is a matter of chance and ocean currents. “There are ways to predict how many icebergs are coming off the Greenland coast,” he says. “But it does not translate into more or less icebergs coming into Twillingate or St. John’s.” Climate change may play some role in the amount of ice Newfoundlanders and Labradorians see in the spring and summer, but Catto says “it’s not that we can say, well, we’re getting less bergs because the climate is getting warmer. Actually in the short term, we should be getting more bergs.” Catto signs off with comforting
words for those in the berg business. “I don’t think we’re in danger of running out of icebergs in the near future,” he says. “It is something we can reasonably expect to continue to see off the coast for some conceivable period of time. “They will come eventually.” Stockley, The Iceberg Man) says he’s long accepted there will be good and bad years — and if he isn’t getting the June “iceberg rush,” there will still be plenty of tourists around to check out his shop, whale tours, and familyrun theatre group throughout the summer. “We have a good iceberg viewing area, one of the best, and Twillingate is known for its icebergs. But we’re not Greenland, we’re not Antarctica, we don’t make them, right? “I’m content to stay the iceberg man. I can run through this.” For more information and current sightings, visit Stephen Bruneau’s Iceberg Observation Network at www.cberg.ca.
One drop is too many 24 oil spills to date this year on Grand Banks; little oil lost By Alisha Morrissey The Independent
T
wenty-four oil spills have been recorded off the province’s east coast to date this year, but it’s not as serious as it sounds. While 7.2 litres of crude oil were lost in six separate spills, another roughly 4,200 litres of hydrocarbons — in the form of helicopter fuel, synthetic-based mud, etc. — were spilled. The largest spill — 4,030 litres — involved a synthetic-based mud that spilled from the semi-submersible drilling rig GSF Grand Banks in April while drilling in the White Rose field. All 24 spills don’t come near the 170,000 litres of crude oil that were lost in November in two separate incidents from the mobile-drilling unit Henry Goodridge and the Terra Nova FPSO (floating production storage offloading) platform. Simone Keough, spokeswoman for the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NOBP), the industry’s regulatory body, says there will always be minor leaks and spills as a part of exploring and developing the offshore oil industry. “While no one wants to see it, it does happen, that there are, you know, minor spills,” Keough tells The Independent. “That’s why there are a number of things, when we look at a
Tug boats tow Hibernia oil platform out to sea.
spill, there are a number of issues that we look at.” Keough says when a spill occurs the C-NOPB doesn’t automatically penalize the companies, but looks at factors including the company’s spill record, how much oil was lost and what sorts of preventative measures are in place on the rig in question. The C-NOPB has never formally
Reuters photo
charged a company for a spill. However, Keough says companies do face costs when they’re forced to shut down operations or implement new procedures. “Under the legislation there are some penalties for spilling in terms of legal action. There could be … I think it is $1 million fine, but there are other actions that we would take. Not all the
actions that we would investigate would get to that point.” She says the most extreme actions include shutting down a company’s operations or taking over the company. As with the case of legal charges, that’s never happened. “It could be a small spill, in relative terms, a matter of a handful of litres, but if we have cause for concern, in
terms of the history of spills, in terms of whether or not we believe there has been a lack of diligence on behalf of the operator, then we may implement a more formal investigation,” Keough says. The investigation into the two spills that took place last November is continuing, with reports expected this summer. While the spills weren’t huge by global standards, they did attract a lot of media attention. “It was the largest spill that we’ve experienced since production and even exploration,” Keough says. John Downton, spokesman for Petro-Canada, the main stakeholder of the Terra Nova project, says a full investigation was completed by the company before making a number of changes to prevent similar spills in the future. He says he appreciates the onedrop-is-too-many mentality, but counters a rig “is a machine in the ocean. “Everything’s regulated, we report to the board and we keep tabs on all of it and we make every effort to prevent anything from going into the ocean.” Oil will be a hot topic in St. John’s this week (June 19th to 23rd) as oil executives from around the word descend on the city for the 21st annual International Petroleum Conference hosted by the Newfoundland Ocean Industries Association.
JUNE 19, 2005
4 • INDEPENDENTNEWS
What to do with the farm; province undecided on future of Salmonier land
A
year after the closure of the Salmonier Correctional Facility, known in prison circles as “the farm,” the province still hasn’t made a decision on what to do with the land, a spokeswoman with the Transportation Department tells The Independent. The provincial government announced the shut down of the minimum-security prison, located 45-minutes drive west of St. John’s, in its 2004 budget as a means to save $1.5 million a year in operating costs. The Independent reported last May that the province had queries about the purchase of the 2,231 acres, 300 of which are cultivated. The land is situated near the Salmonier Nature Park and The Wilds 18-hole golf course. The area, particularly nearby Deer Park, is also a popular cabin retreat. The selling process could include public tender, expressions of interest,
request for proposals or, perhaps the easiest way of all, hiring a real estate firm to unload the property. But the Transportation spokeswoman says there are currently no plans to sell the land. Interviewed by The Independent last year, Richard Kennedy, an agent with Coldwell Banker Hanlon said the land would be more attractive divided into building lots — worth, collectively, millions of dollars. The farm used to hold a maximum of 68 inmates, although prisoner numbers were down at the time of closure to between 40 and 45. All the inmates were transferred to other facilities in the province. With the prison’s closure there was a reduction of $850,000 in the budget for correction officers, money later redirected to a correctional officer training program. — Alisha Morrissey St. John’s Mayor Andy Wells and the City of St. John’s took Petro-Canada and the C-NOPB to court in 1998 over engineering jobs that weren’t delivered under the Terra Nova benefits plan. Paul Daly/The Independent GENERAL MANAGER John Moores john.moores@theindependent.ca
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Procuring engineering work ‘major issue’: Byrne From page 1 “The bigger benefits, outside of the jobs, would have been the ability of the province to improve and broaden its capacity in terms of engineering work and to bring a critical mass of worldclass engineers to the province,” Byrne says. With several oil projects currently in production or development — including Chevron’s Hebron-Ben Nevis, which has yet to present its benefits plan to the province — Byrne says procuring engineering work locally is a major issue. “One of the principles that we’re committed to is the fact that engineering and procurement work must be done in this province,” he says. “The fundamental problem was not with the C-NOPB, in my view, it was with the province, the provincial government led by Brian Tobin.” The Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board is the industry’s regulatory body, established under a provision of the Atlantic Accord. The C-NOPB ensures the province receives its full share of oil and gas benefits. The January, 1998 benefits agreement formed the basis of the conditions for Petro-Canada to secure the rights to the Terra Nova oil field. Despite agreeing to relocate engineering work to St. John’s from Leatherhead, England, Petro-Canada — as chief operator of the Terra Nova project — stated two months later that it would be too expensive and would significantly delay development. After initial opposition, the C-NOPB eventually allowed the decision. Later that year the City of St. John’s took the C-NOPB and the Terra Nova companies to court over the loss to the local economy of the engineering jobs. Justice David Orsborn ruled against the city — saying it didn’t have standing before the court — but said the
Timeline The following is a chronology of events leading up to the loss of Terra Nova engineering work in Newfoundland and Labrador. Most of the information was compiled from a September 2, 1998 Supreme Court decision by Justice David Orsborn — City of St. John’s vs. Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board and Petro-Canada. • Jan. 15, 1998: C-NOPB approves Terra Nova Canada-Newfoundland Benefits Plan, including condition No. 1: “As soon as practicable after Project Sanction, the Proponent (Petro-Canada) relocate engineering and procurement activities for the Project to Newfoundland.” • Feb. 4, 1998: Petro-Canada representatives meet with C-NOPB and announce it would cost $30 million to $40 million to move all engineering activity to Newfoundland from Leatherhead, England. They present the option of a “dual-team approach,” meaning a portion of the work would relocate at a cost of $15 million and a three- to six-month delay. • March 24, 1998: Petro-Canada representatives meet with C-NOPB and announce the “dual-team approach” is not practical and instead offer to give 15 to 20 Newfoundlanders and other Canadians positions with the Leatherhead engineering team in England. • March 26, 1998: John Fitzgerald, acting chair of C-NOPB, writes to federal and provincial ministers, informing them of Petro-Canada’s proposal, stating that an acceptance of the offer would be a “departure” from the benefits plan. He requested an immediate reply to the C-NOPB’s concerns. • May 6, 1998: Then-premier Brian Tobin travels to Houston, Tex. to attend an offshore technology conference. During his visit he meets with Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney and accepts the loss of engineering jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador. Cheney promises to instead set up a Halliburton office in Mount Pearl. • June 30, 1998: Hal Stanley (by then the new chair of C-NOPB) sends a letter to Petro-Canada accepting the company’s proposal to keep engineering activity in England. • Sept. 2, 1998: Judge Orsborn dismisses the city’s application against CNOPB and Petro-Canada’s, stating: “The city lacks the legal capacity or status to bring this application.” He goes on to say Petro-Canada did not comply with the condition of the benefits plan to relocate engineering jobs to the province.
company had failed to live up to the condition of the benefits plan. The condition read: “As soon as practicable after Project Sanction, the Proponent (Petro-Canada) relocate engineering and procurement activities for the Project to Newfoundland.” In his September 2, 1998 decision, Orsborn stated the C-NOPB’s “intent and expectation” was that the Terra
Nova companies would relocate engineering services to Newfoundland “within a few months. “The proponent (Petro-Canada) did not comply” with the benefits plan, Orsborn wrote. “Cost and project scheduling factors were not contemplated as reasons for non-compliance.” Contacted by The Independent for an interview, Tobin declined.
OPP wrapping up interviews
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team of seven Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officers returned to the province last week in hopes of clueing up an investigation relating to the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. Detective Inspector Dave Truax of the OPP tells The Independent there’s an end in sight when it comes to two investigations into the Constabulary, probes that have been underway since mid-April. At least one of the matters centres around evidence and testimony presented at the Lamer inquiry as it relates to the wrongful conviction of Randy Druken and the Constabulary’s investigation. The other has to do with a “previously conducted investigation,” and possible criminal activity within the RNC within the past six or eight months. Truax says no conclusions have been made on either case and of the two investigations, neither has a definite completion date. “It’s continuing to progress. Interviews are being conduct-
ed … and then we carry on and review the evidence as the interviews are conducted,” Truax says, adding he’s “hopeful” last week’s interviews will be among the last. He says the task force is still interviewing both the public and Constabulary members and reviewing documents and will probably return at June’s end or in early July. Truax says the fact the OPP officers return during the first week of every month is just a coincidence as the dates are chosen according to other ongoing investigations. As for what will happen when the investigation is complete, Truax says a review of all evidence will be completed in Ontario. “I know that there will be a day where I can provide you more information,” he says. A long-standing memorandum of understanding between the OPP and the Constabulary allows for the Ontario force to be called in to conduct independent investigations. — Alisha Morrissey
Announcement Derek Frampton has been appointed circulation manager of The Independent. Frampton, a district circulation manager with The Evening Telegram in the early 1990s, has spent most of his life in business management and customer service. “Circulation is one of the most important aspects of
the paper. After the last word is typed, the last picture taken, the newspaper comes off the press and we take the paper to the people,” Frampton says. “I love this job. I love this opportunity. I love this paper, and I love this province.”
JUNE 19, 2005
INDEPENDENTNEWS • 5
Private health care not black and white issue
SPANISH TRAIN PULLING IN
Gander doctor from UK weighs pros, cons of private-public system By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent
non-emergency procedures such as hip replacements. The private system in the UK deals primarily with non-emergency health care. s a surgeon who trained and worked in In the UK, the two systems have co-existed for the United Kingdom — where people decades with privately-insured patients and prican choose private or public health care vately practicing doctors also availing of the pub— Dr. John Haggie prefers the take-it-or-leave-it lic system. Medicare system in this province. It may be an elite arrangment for patients, but Haggie, former head of the Newfoundland and it’s also an elite arrangement among physicians. Labrador Medical Association, who practices in All graduating doctors have to work in the Gander, says the issue of whether Canada should NHS and can only practice privately once they or shouldn’t offer private practice can’t be become consultants. Haggie says becoming a answered with a simple yes or no. consultant is not a matter of passing an exam — “Quite honestly the question is far more com- it’s a decision that rests with superiors. plex than that. If you were to introduce the sys“You had this huge pyramid, very fat at the tem as it stands in the United Kingdom, I think in bottom because every graduate out of medical this province, it would be a school had to do time in surhuge mistake. It would severegery and time in medicine. ly disadvantage everybody “Once you become a con“ ... if you introduce outside, or certainly off the sultant there is an enormous Trans-Canada Highway.” drive to get into private pracprivate medicine, the He says if government were tice and the reason for that is to allow private health care, the NHS is a salaried system people that go and while paying for insurance for with a fairly low level of work in private low-income earners, it could salary.” conceivably compliment the Haggie says most private medicine will be the existing public system, but consultants have to work ones who would that would be an unlikely scepublicly as well just to build nario. up their practice, so they otherwise have A Quebec Supreme Court receive salary for the NHS ruling against that province’s work, refer most of it to resprovided the publicly ban on private health care idents or other surgeons and funded service.” recently opened the gate for make the bulk of their possible changes to the public income from private freeDr. John Haggie Medicare system. lancing. The current argument for “So, I mean, they (private the change, focuses on the lack consultants) did half-a-day a of access to publicly funded services. Advocates week of NHS work and four-and-a-half days a suggest private practice would help solve that. week of private work and they had a very nice “But it won’t,” says Haggie, “because if you lifestyle — They all drove Mercedes.” introduce private medicine, the people that go Although he says the debate over public and and work in private medicine will be the ones private health care is a relevant one and there’s who would otherwise have provided the publicly room for improvement, Haggie’s happy to stay in funded service.” the simpler Canadian system. In other words, medical resources couldn’t be “I much prefer working here. There’s absolutestretched to cover both. Wait lists for many med- ly no doubt about it. You don’t have to be schizical procedures are already too long. ophrenic, to try and run two practices. Haggie says when he left the UK’s National “I think what happens (with the private debate) Health Service (NHS) in the early 1990s, they is there are interest groups that make it into a had a similar problem concerning wait lists for dichotomy, it’s either this or that. certain procedures “Anyone who does that, I’ve found, has usualThe public system works well for emergencies ly got the wrong end of the stick. Nothing is ever such as heart surgery, but falls short in terms of yes or no.”
A
Constantly looking to improve system From page 1 She says many tickets over five years old — about $65,000 worth — were racked up by people who have since moved from the province, passed away, or allowed their car registration to expire. O’Neill says the best way to
collect fines is when a driver re-registers, but the Justice Department is constantly looking for ways to improve the collection system. “We understand that the city does have concerns on this and we really do, as a government, want to work with the city to try and find a solution to the matter.”
The city hands out about 90,000 parking tickets a year for a range of violations. There are currently 32 employees with the authority to ticket cars for non-moving violations on the streets of St. John’s. To date this year 40,000 tickets have been handed out — a few thousand short of an average year.
SHIPPING NEWS
The Woodward Group’s Dorsch.
Keeping an eye on the comings and goings of the ships in St. John’s harbour. Information provided by the coast guard traffic centre. MONDAY, JUNE 13 Vessels arrived: Sir Wilfred Grenfell, Canada, from Sea. Vessels departed: Maersk Norseman, Canada, to Hibernia. TUESDAY, JUNE 14 Vessels arrived: Oceanex Avalon, Canada, from Montreal; Irving Eskimo, Canada, from Dartmouth; Maersk Challenger, Canada, from White Rose; Gulf Pacific, Panama, from Galveston Texas. Vessels departed: Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, to Terra Nova; Anticosti, Canada, to Orphan Basin; Astron, Canada, to Voisey’s Bay; Oceanex Avalon, Canada, to Montreal; Western Neptune, Panama, to Sea; Cape Fortune, Canada, to Fishing.
Paul Daly/The Independent
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15 Vessels arrived: Maersk Norseman, Canada, from Hibernia. Vessels departed: Irving Eskimo, Canada, to Seaport Maine; Maersk Norseman, Canada, to Hibernia. THURSDAY, JUNE 16 Vessels arrived: Alfred Needler, Canada, from Sea; Cabot, Canada, from Montreal; Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, from Terra Nova. Vessels departed: ASL Sanderling, Canada, to Corner Brook; Wilfred Templeman, Canada, to Sea; Maersk Chancellor, Canada, to Terra Nova; Maersk Placentia, Canada, to Terra Nova; Mokami, Canada, to Long Pond; Alfred Needler, Canada, to Halifax. FRIDAY, JUNE 17 No Report
Chris DeBurgh is scheduled to play a show at Mile One Stadium in St. John’s Nov. 9 as part of his Road to Freedom Tour. The Irish singer, with more than 3,000 performances under his belt, played in Newfoundland several times in the 1990s. Paul Daly/The Independent
JUNE 19, 2005
6 • INDEPENDENTNEWS
OUR VOICE
Bamboozlement 101 T
his is a watershed week for me at The Independent. The story you see on the cover of this week’s issue is a perfect explanation of why we’ve put over $1 million of our own money into this newspaper so far, and a concrete example of the point I was trying to make in my last column. Read the story. We’ve done the best we can to make it digestible and understandable. We gave away what I estimate is over $500 million worth of tangible benefits and much more in terms of future development for a building in Donovans. What? Yes, we did. Some will read the facts we’ve presented and think there is more to the story. I don’t believe that. Knowing the players on our side, I would scoff at the idea that anything under the table happened. No, we were just bamboozled … again. Let me give my quick perspective. We started to find oil in the 1960s and ’70s off our coast. By the ’80s we were trying to get our rightful benefits when the Supreme Court of Canada (which has never had a Newfoundlander) decided we did not own the oil. The
BRIAN DOBBIN
Publish or perish federal government did help to get the first deal (Hibernia) done, and for giving up a huge (much more than we thought) amount of royalty money, we got a place called Bull Arm to build many more structures to get at the oil, and 5,000 Newfoundlanders who were supposed to have training. Along comes Petro-Canada with the next project and tells us a gravity-base structure is not economical. It’s only been done in the North Sea for the last 10 years, but they claim it will be a non-starter in terms of cost. What they propose is a FPSO, essentially a big floating ship that connects to the bottom of the ocean by large pipes and sucks the oil out of the ocean floor from numerous wellheads. Having worked on Hibernia for five years, I have an appreciation of the conditions on the continental shelf that caused the design of such an impreg-
nable structure. It was designed for two icebergs impacting at one time, their doomsday scenario. Another scenario that is very hard to plan for is a massive iceberg deeply scouring the shelf, as its billions of pounds of pressure inexorably move across the ocean floor. My understanding of the FPSO plan for such a scenario is to unhook and hope the protection you’ve built over the wells works. If the project is successful I imagine they can produce well over 100,000 barrels of oil a day. If you’re not scared yet you haven’t thought about it. How much oil did the Exxon Valdez have in it? How long will it take to cap wells in the ocean if something cataclysmic like this happens? I’m not an engineer, but the simple analysis to me suggests we would be cleaning oil off our beaches (or someone else’s) for generations to come. I also understood at the time, that this design was having some problems getting environmental approvals in the Gulf of Mexico as they can have bad hurricanes. I would rather take 100 hurricanes on top of the ocean battering a boat, than one massive berg scouring the wellheads below.
For this delivery system, which made the company a lot more money and made Bull Arm redundant, the developers agreed to bring the really important jobs to St. John’s — engineering and procurement. The people who decide what will be built and who will build it. Believe me, wherever these jobs are located, the benefits are immediate. Forget their big salaries that compute to hundreds of millions over the project, forget the gold-collar nature, which will create another couple of jobs for each one here, but think about the impact in establishing St. John’s as the eastern Northern American oil capital. Two months after they agreed to it, they said that even this little scrap of benefit would destroy the economics and stop the momentum of the East Coast oil industry. What? With world supply dwindling and demand doubling, they tried to tell us putting a couple of hundred jobs here would stop the industry. I do not know if that bullshit was more offensive from them or hearing it parroted by our provincial government back to the public. Bamboozlement 101 — see last column for primer on how to put lipstick
on a pig and sell it to the provincial government as a mail-order bride. So you begin to get the importance of all this. This ain’t 15 Marine Atlantic jobs going to Sydney. This is one deal where the province 1) threw away a lot of industrial ground they had gained with Hibernia, and 2) got ripped off and charmed by Dick Cheney into not even collecting the bone that had been promised. And this was not 1965 … this was 1998. Last point — if The Independent had been alive then, I truly believe we would have gotten a much better deal because we would have written about it every week until the questions were answered. For God’s sake, the City of St. John’s sued to try to force the province’s responsibility and was told in court they were dead right but had no standing. That story was never reported with any perspective or understanding, and therefore got lost in the white noise of what Andy said to Shannie the night before. It is important to have an intelligent local press … very important. So keep buying the paper faithful reader, we’re not going anywhere.
YOUR VOICE ‘Insightful and powerful’ Dear editor, Ivan Morgan’s column in The Independent’s June 12-18 edition (Moral implications of making money) was very insightful and powerful. It is incredible that on average our memory of history is about three
months’ duration. People like Ivan do a service to the public through their reminders of long-term histories. Thanks for your article. Dr. K.S. Ramadurai, St. John’s
More clichés than shake a stick at Dear editor, Is it just me, or is language use on a downhill slide? A local magazine’s front cover offers a “sneak peak” at an upcoming event. A local newspaper’s article on the RNC uses the word “breech” four times instead of “breach,” as in “breech of firearms policy.” Spell checker blues. A local radio announcer keeps referring to the Bloc Quebecois, pronouncing it Kwuh-bek-wah, the province’s name Kwuh-bek. In fact, it’s Kay-bek, the Bloc is Kay-bekwah. Who cares? Well, we certainly care when our provincial name is mispronounced. Speaking of mispronunciations, I expect “fustrated” and “infastructure” to show up in the next dictionary as examples of words that are used so commonly that the dictionary police say oh to hell with it. Like making “access” a verb. A spokesperson for the new ATV regulations says it’s “abuse use” they’re trying to curb. Another person on the radio says their water “goes through an extensive processing process.” Clichés, well, there are more clichés around than you can shake a stick at. One cabinet minister is fond of “way, shape, or form.” This is an expression now common as dirt and worth as much. What extra measure or nuance of meaning is conveyed by tacking “shape or form” onto the end of in any way? It’s become fashionable to use euphemisms for the word “money.” People say funds, financial resources, fiscal resources, and (gag) “dollars.” A municipal politician on the radio: “They just don’t have the financial dollars to tackle this problem.” An MHA had a good one on the go a while back. He used the phrase “on a go-forward basis” in just about every sentence. An expression that
make no sense. I kept waiting for a reporter to ask, “Would you ever consider implementing the legislation on a go-backward basis?” A reporter says a crowd with placards is “protesting in favour of” something. Last night he reported another crowd was “protesting against” it. A protest is “a usually organized public demonstration of disapproval.” We know they’re protesting against something — that’s what a protest is. “Protesting in favour of” is an oxymoron — they are “demonstrating in favour of.” A government spokesperson says, “We can’t take action based on antidotal information.” But the worst, by a mile, is “alleged.” “The alleged robber entered this convenience store, allegedly located at the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk, around 11 p.m., and allegedly demanded cash. The alleged manager of the store …” You get the idea. The word is just sprinkled over the facts like salt on fries. The usual rule is that anything that will have to be proven in court is said to be alleged. Apparently, reporters find this notion confusing. On national TV news — “The alleged scandal over the sponsorship program …” A reporter stands in front of a house that has the rear half of a car sticking out of it, saying, “The alleged incident …” When I was in school in the 1960s, much was made of the spelling, pronunciation, and proper use of words. Language mattered. In the ’90s when I read my children’s assignments, I was appalled. They explained, “Miss says not to worry about spelling and punctuation and stuff like that, she says that’ll come later.” Well, Miss, it’s later, and I’m looking both ways, but I don’t see it coming. Bruce Bourque, St. John’s
AN INDEPENDENT VOICE FOR NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR
P.O. Box 5891, Stn.C, St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, A1C 5X4 Ph: 709-726-4639 • Fax: 709-726-8499 www.theindependent.ca • editorial@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 MANAGING EDITOR Ryan Cleary SENIOR EDITOR Stephanie Porter PICTURE EDITOR Paul Daly
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. • © 2005 The Independent • Canada Post Agreement # 40871083
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
Paparazzi pizza RYAN CLEARY
Fighting Newfoundlander
D
anny Williams wasn’t overly impressed with The Independent earlier this month when a picture taken of him behind the wheel of his two-seater Prowler — hair blowing in the downtown wind (believe it: his hair does move) — turned up in the paper. “Paparazzi,” the premier bawled out at a news conference a few days later. “Where’s the fella who took the picture of me in the Prowler? I didn’t know we had paparazzi in this town.” In picture editor Paul Daly’s defense, it’s one thing to hunt down the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, like a dog, for a picture, to track him around town like a National Inquirer shooter chasing the fresh scent of Pitt and Jolie, it’s quite another thing for Williams to pull up in front of The Independent’s front door and park for 20 minutes. What else was Daly expected to do with the camera in his hand? Shoot the potholes? “It would have been rude not to take a picture,” says Daly. The premier obviously didn’t know he had parked in front of The Independent. (Half the staff crammed in the window didn’t give it away.) And if there’s a God in heaven he never will know the paper’s street address — maybe next time Daly will catch the premier in his Jag. Paparazzi is a term Russell Crowe is familiar with, having had to eye-gouge, dropkick and scrawb his way through the throng of photographers that swarmed his every move last week in Town when he dropped by to sing a few songs and taste the fish cakes Alan Doyle’s mother made him. In truth, there was only one incident, and that was when a local newspaper photographer (not Paul Daly, make no mistake) apologized to Crowe for having to take his picture in a George Street alley. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Crowe, I realize you’re one of the most famous
Premier Danny Williams in his Prowler.
movie stars in the world but would it be an inconvenience if I took your picture? It’s all right if you say no. I’ll tell my editor you weren’t in the mood.” Only in Newfoundland! A kick-arse superstar shot can sell for half a million bucks, photographers will tell you. The shots of Crowe taken in Town commanded $500 for the roll, developing included. The price probably would have been higher had the backdrop been a mainland one. (Or had Crowe wound up and drove a telephone at the photographer’s head, but that sort of scene only plays out in New York where they’re not as nice as us.) Crowe could take a few lessons from Jason Greeley on how to draw a crowd. Greeley turned up back on George Street last year after losing on Canadian Idol and Daly had to climb a light pole to save himself from being trampled. Greeley even had bodyguards. Crowe didn’t need them — he doesn’t look a thing like Greeley. Greeley released an album last week at the Avalon Mall and the people were as thick as maggots. The mall hadn’t seen such excitement since the crowd from Another World dropped by a few years ago to dine in the famous food court. Greeley is the golden boy of the moment. His dimples are just lovely. Much like the premier’s Prowler. Williams has gotten an easy go of it so far, but that won’t last. He’s taken a slightly harder time from reporters ever
Paul Daly/The Independent
since Fishery Products International started shaking up (or is it down?) rural Newfoundland. Speaking of FPI, editors are faced with a new dilemma: where to place stories about the company — in the news section or on the business page? Is FPI business or politics? Can you tell the difference? The media can’t tell the difference. The new-car smell is wearing off the Williams administration. Liberal governments of old are still blamed for this and that, but Danny’s crowd are being drilled more and more. Danny is not a bad premier, we’ve had worse, but he’s not perfect. Dropping a wad of cash in a call center’s lap is one thing, checking out its references (not to mention court records), quite another. Williams, no doubt, has the best interests of Harbour Breton at heart, but he seems to be missing the bigger picture — there are hundreds of Harbour Bretons. What’s the long-term plan, Dan? That’s what we’re after. There are two ways for journalists to do their jobs in this town: hold a mike in front of a face and catch whatever pours out, or poke and prod with questions of your own. The cameras will always be on you, Mr. Premier. Save the paranoia for the paparazzi pizza. Ryan Cleary is managing editor of The Independent. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca
JUNE 19, 2005
INDEPENDENTNEWS • 7
Health care, doggy dentists, Harbour Breton and you
I
read a quote last week that’s been bugging me ever since. It was from an article on how the corporate giant General Motors is in real financial trouble. Some financial analyst was quoted as saying General Motors was burdened with lacklustre sales and very heavy health-care payments. Then came the quote. In reality, he said, General Motors is a health-care provider that happens to make cars. Very funny. That’s a glib way of saying General Motors has to “rethink” its health care programs. Nowadays we’re all supposed to be rethinking health care. Many financial analysts and business types claim it’s time to allow privatization of health care. Last week the Supreme Court quite rightly noted that long waiting times for health care are contrary to the guarantee of “security of the person” we all enjoy under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Conservatives across Canada hailed the news as the court saying we should “rethink” the way health care is provided. They applauded the court’s
YOUR VOICE
IVAN MORGAN
Rant & reason decision, citing it as a victory in the battle to privatize health care. I see it more as a kick in the arse to the Liberals. I hear the courts saying “get busy on this.” Those in favour of privatization claim the rich won’t necessarily get better care — just faster. Oh please. On the other side of the argument, I know a few rich people who argue that were it not for their money, they would be dead. Being able to go to the United States and buy immediate health care saved their lives. A pretty compelling argument if you have a million bucks in the bank. Pretty scary for the rest of us. So what to do? Several years ago, Roy Romanow, former NDP premier of Saskatchewan, was hired by then-prime minister Jean Chrétien to head the Commission on the
Future of Health Care in Canada, and write a corresponding report. When he was nearly finished, he gave a talk in St. John’s on his findings. I was there. He said private clinics were a slap in the face to all Canadians. Getting help when you are sick, he pointed out, should never be dictated by the size of your bank account. Dismantle Medicare? Nonsense! Romanow spoke about building on it — with a national drug care program and a national homecare program. Now that’s more like it. We can’t afford not to. Privatization is a direct threat to the health care of the vast majority of us. I like to use veterinarians as a great example of what private health care will mean. When I was a lad we had a cat and a dog, and veterinarians were people who looked after farm animals. Sure some of them also looked after pets, but it wasn’t an industry. There were no giant big-box stores dedicated to all things cats and dogs. Why? No money in it.
Nowadays there is a giant industry predicated on making sure cats and dogs have perfect health. There are doggy dentists and cat psychiatrists. I’m not kidding. And owning a pet is an expensive undertaking. Is this all predicated on a great awakening in the psyche of the nation to the value of our furry companions? No. It is predicated on the fact that there are a lot of people out there with the money to pay for dental care for their dogs. There’s money to be made and people are making it. And when I say every cat and dog I mean, of course, every cat and dog lucky enough to belong to a person with money. Poor people with cats and dogs have to rely on charity. Or be told they shouldn’t have them if they can’t afford them. Have you enough imagination to see the parallels? Within a generation you or your children could easily be viewed as a burden because you got ill and couldn’t afford a doctor. I have been told, twice, to my face, when faced with a particular expense related to my children
(Thank God, not medical) that I shouldn’t have had them if I couldn’t afford them. Nice. Private health care is simply bad news for the vast majority of us. We need to fix our system — not dismantle it. Want another analogy? We saw video this week of our Danny getting all weepy with the good people of Harbour Breton, who expressed to him their deep emotional desire to keep living in Harbour Breton. Stirring stuff. They want to have the right to live in Harbour Breton. The problem is a large corporation, created by our tax dollars, sustained by our fish, made profitable by our labour, lectures us on the fact that they cannot “afford” to keep Harbour Breton alive. Remember the glib quote at the beginning of this article? How long before our government, created by our tax dollars, tells us they cannot afford to keep us alive? Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com
NEW DANCE
Ottawa’s agenda: ‘control and exploit’ Dear editor, After watching Lisa Moore’s Hard Rock and Water on CBC Television I was reminded of a recurring theme — that the federal government is indifferent and neglectful of Newfoundland and Labrador, especially when it comes to the fishery. From my perspective nothing could be further from the truth. I think their policy towards Newfoundland and Labrador and its resources have always been consistent, i.e. control and exploit. This is quite apparent when it comes to resources such as oil or nickel, but how, one might ask, did the destruction of the fishery serve these purposes? In two ways. Firstly, how do you control people, or, more precisely, their resources, which is ultimately what it’s all about? You keep them poor and cut off all capital investment, appropriate or destroy their most important resources (s) and let them wither on the vine. Secondly, I suspect central Canada reaped a windfall in business and trade deals with Europe, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in exchange for allowing them to plunder the Newfoundland fishery. I might add that though Newfoundland and Labrador as a whole has suffered from these policies it’s been rural areas that have suffered the most. Right from the days of Joey Smallwood, rural people have had to endure everything from intimidation and degradation to humiliation and the destruction of their means of livelihood — all in the name of the national policy of building the national dream in central Canada, and yet these resourceful people have always found ways to resist. Joe Butt, Toronto
Caroline Niklas-Gordon visits St. John’s from Toronto for the 15th Annual Festival of New Dance, June 21 - 26, hosted by Neighbourhood Dance Works (NDW). Since 1981, NDW has been committed to the development of a vibrant professional dance community and the advancement of emerging and mature dance artists. For a full schedule of festival events, visit www.neighbourhooddanceworks.com. Paul Daly/The Independent
Taxing birth control to boost population Dear editor, Many of us in Newfoundland have often heard echoes of voices declaring school closures (it seems to be a school per month now), out-migration and, of course, the declining population due to deteriorating birth rates, especially in our rural communities. For example, in the four-year period from 1996 to 2000, the population of Newfoundland and Labrador declined seven per cent, or from 551,795 to 512, 930. In contrast, in rural communities the declining populations are even worse. Over the same period, the west coast community of Hampden experienced a 14 per cent decline, and in nearby Howley a decline of 18 per cent. On the Northern Peninsula, over the same period, the population decline of
Main Brook was 15 per cent, while on the east coast the decline for Sunnyside was 24 per cent. If this trend continues, the communities of Howley and Sunnyside will disappear in 16 years. There are many more examples, but there’s not enough space to document them all. The skeptic may say a rapidly declining population may have little effect on their immediate personal livelihoods — but this is not so. Consider, as couples continue to decline from having children, a much greater tax burden is levied onto the ever-decreasing population base. What has been done to correct this deploring situation? Like most governments of the past two decades, our current government has decided to pay people to stay in these communities.
However, these quick job-creation projects are short-term solutions, and only seem to deaden the painful voices in the interim, like morphine does to a latestage cancer patient. For a prosperous future we need a solution that will encourage a growing population, and at the same time relieve the per-capita tax burden for our children’s future as well. To create a sustainable culture (and economy) we must look at increasing our population, and government can only act as a financial manager in this process. For example, government must provide a system of funds to encourage its citizens to have more children. Government, as our financial manager, should look at creating a family sustainable tax on all methods of birth control to fund the proposed policy change.
Even the amount paid out to families could be proportional to the levied amount on all birth control methods. Some may think this solution is bizarre, but look at it another way — we levy tax on gas to repair our highways, we tax cigarettes and use the money to pay for our health services. Why not tax birth control methods to encourage a higher birth rate of children. To understand my reasoning, a brief understanding of the motivations of those who introduced birth control in the mid-’60s is needed. It was introduced to increase disposable income. The rational behind the “Great Society” initiative was smaller amounts of children per family would cause an increase in a family’s disposable income. Gilbert McInnis Corner Brook.
odds of winning are approximately 1-500
JUNE 19, 2005
8 • INDEPENDENTNEWS
Twenty per cent of doctors will leave or retire by 2007; medical association says situation critical By Darcy MacRae The Independent
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lose to 20 per cent of the 110 physicians practicing in the St. John’s metropolitan area are expected to leave the province or retire in the next two years, recruiters say. With few replacements available, the president of the provincial medical association, which represents the province’s doctors, says the situation could get unbearable. “That would put us in a critical position,” says Thomas Costello, who practices in Wabush. The province is critically short of all specialty doctors, especially those dealing in plastic surgery, cardiac surgery, radiology, anaesthesiology, gynecology, pathology and psychiatry. Newfoundland and Labrador loses 30 to 50 physicians a year and it’s estimated the province will need close to 300 new doctors over the next five years. “We need to do more to encourage Newfoundland students to go to med school, and hopefully when they graduate they stay here. It’s a long-term plan,” says Lynn Barter of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association. Memorial University graduates 60 medical students a year, but just 40 to 50 per cent of them stay and work here in the province. They often leave for better pay and superior working condi-
tions. “Physicians are working a lot harder than they should be,” Barter says. The Newfoundland and Labrador Health Boards Association, representing the province’s hospital boards, is working to keep more local graduates in the province. Officials approach students at Memorial well before they graduate. As an incentive to stay, they offer students bursaries of up to $25,000 whereby they agree to work one year in the province for every year they receive the bursary. In 2004, 47 students received such a bursary. This year’s statistics aren’t yet available. Foreign doctors are also recruited to fill vacancies. But many such doctors leave for bigger cities such as Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver — where they face an easier transition in terms of cultural and community support — once they complete the licensing requirements that allow them to work elsewhere across the country. As of March 31 this year, there were 446 foreign-trained doctors in the province — 44 per cent of all physicians in the province. Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest percentage of foreign-trained doctors in Canada. In order to convince foreign-trained doctors to extend their stay in the province, they should be better educated on what to expect before they come here.
Support grows for study into link between transformers, cancer
E
lizabeth May, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, praises Norris Arm resident Gerald Higgins in his battle to shed light on the danger of overexposure to electrical emissions. “I think Gerry Higgins’ work is really, really phenomenal,” she tells The Independent. “It’s a terrible tragedy that’s forced him into this work, but people right across Canada know him for his struggle to get attention to this issue and I completely support him.” After his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago, Higgins says he discovered a connection between other incidents of cancer in his community and the close proximity of electrical transformers and power lines. He has since accumulated extensive local research from almost 100 other towns in the province, concerned with the issue. Higgins is calling for an independent study to be conducted across Newfoundland and Labrador to compare cancer rates with electrical readings in the areas. Excess emissions have been scientifically proven to increase the risk of childhood leukemia, as well as exacerbating other cancers and chronic ill-
nesses. “The problem is people keep getting exposed while the case builds up,” says May, “so I certainly support Mr. Higgins and his call for an inquiry in Newfoundland and Labrador. There needs to be public attention on this issue. How big an issue is it? How serious is it? What can we do to protect ourselves?” May, who’s scheduled to visit St. John’s this week to promote her book At the Cutting Edge: The Crisis of Canada’s Forests, recently released a paper on the issue of electromagnetic frequencies with industry expert Dr. Magda Havas from Trent University. She says the dangers of over-exposure extend beyond transformers and power lines. “So much of this we don’t think about; children using cell phones is a concern for me … the British journal of medicine, The Lancet, issued a warning that children shouldn’t be using cell phones, and that’s something that I just don’t think people consider as a threat and a risk. “I’m probably the last of the people who heads an environmental organization who still doesn’t have a cell phone.” — Clare-Marie Gosse
PAPER TRAIL
Nothing says Happy Father’s Day like ‘dress hosiery’ By Alisha Morrissey The Independent
A
dvertisements today suggest dads need gadgetry and technology — not cards and flowers for Father’s Day, but what did families of the past give dad on his special day? The June 11, 1962 edition of The Daily News published an actual story in the news section about new pyjamas and robes for Father’s Day. “Cool Father’s Day gifts for hot summer nights,” read the headline. The accompanying story touched on new fibres made of 50 per cent cotton and 50 per cent polyester that made the robes and PJs dad “really wanted. “Sleepwear and loungewear are back to normal this year. Gone are the gimmicks and tricks that made a man, just ready for bed, look as if he were off to a golf tournament or a sail on the briny deep,” read the story. Apparently the new pyjamas were also a treat for mom. “You’ll find handsome sleepwear for your father’s day gift; enjoy your summer vacation away from the ironing board too.” Two days later, Parker and Monroe — “the shoe men” — advertised their Father’s Day specials with The Daily News. Men’s Italian rompers (a style of dress shoe) sold for $2.98, according to the ad. Other offers for dad’s feet included sandals that oddly resemble the female sandals sold in stores today. The most expensive leather shoes in the ad cost $21.25. The June 14, 1962 edition of The Daily News included an ad for a whole vinyl suit — hooded jacket and leggings — for that sporty-dad. The cost: just $2.75. Ties cost between $1 and $2, belts $1.50 and $5 for the “wash ‘n’ wear shirt.” One of the most popular advertised items in several newspapers were socks — better known as “men’s dress hosiery” — which sold for up to $2 a pair. While Father’s Day wasn’t an official holiday until the late American President Richard Nixon announced it in 1972, the day was wildly celebrated before then. In 1910, a young woman in the States started Father’s Day to celebrate her father who had raised her and her five siblings after their mother’s death. Since then, Father’s Day has been celebrated as the day with the most long-distance collect telephone calls. Some of the cuter ads were printed in later newspapers such as The Sunday Express’ June 26, 1988 ad for Bowring’s. A hand-drawn picture of a little boy in his father’s shirt and tie was printed above the text, “Maybe too big for me, but they’re perfect for dad.” Men’s neckties were on special and
The Daily News, June 1962
sold for $8 to $10 at The London, New York and Paris, and $40 at Bowring’s. The 1980s were the decade of technological advances and, by then, dad could get toys on his special day.
While Father’s Day wasn’t an official holiday until the late American President Richard Nixon announced it in 1972, the day was wildly celebrated before then. Recliners became popular as Cohen’s Home Furnishings offered 25 per cent off all reclining chairs as a part of its “With love … to him for Father’s Day” sale. Sears offered more technology to those shopping for dad in ’88. VCRs made great gifts and cost “only” $449.99. Televisions were also on sale. A 20-inch colour set went for $549.99, plus tax. Another techno-gift for dad was a “mini-car vacuum” available through Forget Me Not, a downtown St. John’s store, which also offered that special, make-you-feel-old gift — a wooden
walking stick. Ads for Warr’s Department Store in Springdale in the June 13, 1979 edition of the Green Bay News asked kids to “give dad our best on his day.” The store’s “best” included hip waders, on sale for $20, sock sets, handkerchiefs, ties and wallets. The Salvation Army fundraisers even gave dad a break, offering fathers a discounted 99 cent car wash. Riffs Home Furnishings in Green Bay offered a less than attractive offer to those shopping for dad. You could get your dad a “slightly damaged” recliner for just $88. The Green Bay News suggested kids get tickets for their dads to go see the “Stars of Wrestling” at the Springdale Stadium. Sailor White, Luis Martinez, The Scorpion and Pretty Boy Ferris were sure to be worth the $4 admission. And while Mouland’s Furniture store tried to sell chrome table sets, recliners and hide-away beds to those wanting to impress dad, the message of the ad was more important. “Dad is the greatest in the eyes of his family. Show him how much you care with gifts he’ll appreciate.” Maybe so, but a card and kiss — yesterday or today — will still suffice on Father’s Day. C-CLASS STARTING FROM
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JUNE 19, 2005
INDEPENDENTNEWS • 9
By Jeff Ducharme The Independent
F
or Myles Rouzes, it’s a hard irony that he has to leave home to keep his family here. The 38year-old works on an Irving tanker — 10 weeks on, 10 weeks off. But like many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, because work at home is scarce he has no choice but to work away. Ten days before he leaves his home in the west coast town of Kippens, Rouzes begins preparing his daughter Jenna Marie for the day he has to leave and return to work. “That’s the sacrifice I make for their happiness,” Rouzes tells The Independent. “Probably the major part of this is keeping my family home. I wouldn’t want to take that away from them.” Morris Keeping of Habour Mille knows exactly how Rouzes feels. For four months at a time, he leaves his sons — five-year-old Riley and eightyear-old Wyatt — at home and travels to Alberta where he works with a gas field maintenance company. The single parent says he makes a good living there, but leaving the boys behind never gets easier. “Each day as it gets closer and closer — it’s too hard to explain,” says Keeping. “I wouldn’t wish it upon no one. “Every time you leave, I know they cry, I cry, you feel like you’re letting them down but you’re doing the best thing for them. It’s the only way you can have something for them money wise,” says Keeping, his voice trailing off. “I just dunno.” Rouzes has seen the impact on his daughter each time he gets ready to leave for work. To cheer her up, he and his wife Alison used to take her to McDonald’s for a treat. His daughter now hates the fast-food restaurant, telling her dad that she knows a treat at McDonald’s means he is going away and won’t be back for two months.
Myles Rouzes
Paul Daly/The Independent
Long distance dads Newfoundland fathers work away so their families can stay here at home “I think it’s going to get harder for a while,” says Rouzes, who has only made it to two of his daughter’s four birthdays. “It’s stuff you can’t get back. There’s lots of things I’ve missed. That’s the major price I pay for this job.” Keeping’s oldest doesn’t even like it when his father tries to get away to go
fishing with his buddies. “He never wants me to leave,” says Keeping. “He’s afraid that I’m going to actually go and leave him and never come back. That’s the way he feels.” The only way Keeping can calm his son’s fears is to take him with him every time he leaves the house, but he’s not about to drag his children off to
Alberta. He was born on the island and that’s where he wants his sons to be raised — close to family and friends. “I only go there to work, because when you’re there working you’re never in the one place … one month we could be in Medicine Hat and the next month we could be in B.C.,” he says. “If I moved them to Alberta, I proba-
bly would get to see them an extra couple of days a month or whatever, but that would be about it.” Keeping was home for the birth of his first son, but had to leave just four days later. He found out about the birth of his second when a friend knocked on his door at 4 a.m. to deliver the news. “I get up at three o’clock in the morning up there because of the time change just to phone and tell him to have a good day at school.” Divorced for two years, Keeping used to work away 10 months of the year, but he cut that in half and watched his pay cheque shrink so he could spend time with his sons. Some fathers may take for granted seeing their child score a goal in soccer or hit one out of the park on a sunny afternoon, but not Keeping. “You’ll kind of be here during the year to get him all started up for a soccer team or a softball team and then you have to go and you don’t get to see him play,” says Keeping. “This is so hard to describe, not being there to see him do it.” Whether it’s riding dirt bikes with his sons, playing dinkies or taking his sons hunting and fishing, Keeping makes the most of being home. Keeping and Rouzes both say they have great support networks at home and on the job. Many of the people they work with are going through the same turmoil — sacrificing their children’s early years so they can have a brighter future. “The people I work with are from Nova Scotia, PEI, all over Canada,” says Keeping. “They’re all going through the same thing.” After being on the boats 21 years, Rouzes still isn’t used to leaving. He says it’s all he knows and he’s “made a good living from it,” but he wishes the job didn’t take him away from his family and his young daughter. “The baby is my main concern,” says Rouzes. “The wife can take care of herself.”
Ecology expert weighs in on province’s environmental state ment and the Innu Nation in central Labrador. That agreement reduced the total-allowable cut and protects wildlife in the region. “There’s never been anything like that in Newfoundland and Labrador before, but we’re still in a place where a lot more public engagement is needed on forest issues.” May admits one ecologically devastated part of the province hits close to her heart — the fishery. “I think one of the great crimes against the biosphere, historically, by humanity, of all time, is that the cod fishery was so badly — I’m tempted to use the word destroyed — though I’m hoping it will come back,” she says. Her pet peeve? Draggers and fish processing companies that encouraged the federal government to “make sure there was always fish going to the fish plants. “The big dragging, the FPI ( Fishery Products International) and NatSea, really were hunting down the cod and the traditional smaller boats were sort of waiting for the cod to come to them. So, in ecological terms, it’s a major disaster,” she says. “I do think that living in Ottawa, but being a Cape Bretoner, I’m always frustrated by the central-Canadian media that never seems to understand that the management of the fishery was in the hands of the federal government.” She says the only tragedy worse than the loss of cod stocks is that no lessons were learned. “It’s very hard to learn the lessons from that collapse when the govern-
By Alisha Morrissey The Independent
A
n expert in ecology isn’t short on words when it comes to the environmental state of Newfoundland and Labrador. From the work in her revised and expanded 1998 book, At the Cutting Edge: The Crisis in Canada’s Forests, to the offshore oil industry’s impact on commercial fishing, to wind power and tourism, Elizabeth May has plenty to say. May, an environmental lawyer and executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, an environmental organization dedicated to protecting global ecosystems, makes no qualms about speaking out against the rapid deforestation of the province and the ill effects that will result from extending forestry operations into Labrador.
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‘SIGNIFICANT ISSUES AHEAD’ “There are very significant issues ahead for the province and for its forests,” May tells The Independent. “Facing facts that there’s historically been over-cutting on the island of Newfoundland means that ecological features are very much at risk. The forest-dependent endangered species really need a substantial shift in the approach to logging.” May, who’s slated to give a public lecture on June 20 at The Lantern in St. John’s, says there are positive things happening in the forestry industry and she’s encouraged by the 2003 agreement between the provincial govern-
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ment never did any kind of inquiry into why it happened,” May says. “That’s why we get people coming up with nonsense like it was the seals, or it was cold water, or it was some sort of bizarre act of God or the worst of them, saying it was too many fisherman chasing too few fish, when half of the quota went to the draggers and the draggers had 10 per cent of the work force.” While she’s hoping and waiting for groundfish stocks to return, May is concerned about the negative impacts of seismic testing by the oil industry.
“I think there’s conflict that no one wants to talk about between converting the offshore to oil and gas … there’s sort of a real ostrich complex going on about what’s more important in terms of what brings value to communities throughout Newfoundland versus obviously what brings large dollars to a couple of corporations. It was the fishery that sustained communities.” While the province has made its share of mistakes, May says the future looks bright — especially with a focus on tourism and, hopefully, wind
power. “It (tourism) isn’t a bad way to go, but it won’t be enough.” She says wind power, on the other hand, could be wildly successful in the province as new technology allows for energy to be stored, shipped, and sold as hydrogen. “If we had substantial wind investments in Newfoundland, converted to hydrogen and shipped out of the province, you’d then have a sustainable, long-term, as in forever, resource because I don’t think Newfoundland will cease to be windy.”
JUNE 19, 2005
10 • INDEPENDENTNEWS
Running over pedestrians when they’re down N
ormally, you expect a police officer responding to a plea JEFF DUCHARME for help to be just that, helpA savage ful, but not this time. The Gastonia Sheriff’s Department of North journey Carolina dispatched an officer to a 911 call early one morning after a man called to report he had been screaming engine broke the still air. struck by a car. But the officer’s He didn’t flinch. Just a crazy kid on arrival only added to the mystery — an early morning joyride, he might the misery and, quite possibly, the have thought. Life was about to change. crime. The sound of the sports car grew The approach of a police car should have been a welcome sight for the louder, got closer. The silly servant stood and sipped victim, but not quite. Shortly after seeing the lights of the cruiser, the his coffee, waiting for the bus as piles man found himself under it. The of paper shuffled through his balding cruiser ran him over — crushed under head. The revving engine was now the wheels of justice. He was proalmost upon him. Out of the corner of nounced dead at the scene. Investigators are unsure whether his eye he saw a flash and then before the man was already dead before he he could dive for cover, he found himwas struck the second time by the self on the hood of a red sports car hurtling out of conpolice cruiser. One trol across the rainthing’s for certain, slicked lot. the guy was definiteOut of the corner of Surely he had ly dead the second mid-life crisis time he was run over. his eye he saw a flash dreams about riding The officer in around in a sports question, J.C. May, and then before he car, but goodness says he was blinded by the high beams of could dive for cover, knows, not like this. There was an approaching car he found himself on absolutely nothing when he ran over the else to hit in the lot poor bugger. The the hood of a red except the bus stop officer has since pole and this silly been taken off the standing road and will remain sports car hurtling out servant beside it — off the job until an of control across the intervention, divine possiinvestigation is combly. The car did pleted. rain-slicked lot. doughnuts with this Reminds me of a fellow on the hood. happening many years ago in Ottawa. A civil servant What flashed through his head surely was waiting for a bus — something would have made for a CBC minithat civil servants spend a good por- series — boring but with lots of tion of their day doing. The bus serv- Canadian content. Finally, after a ride that seemingly ice in Ottawa is exhaustive in its routes that snake through the city and had no end, the car leapt over a curb you almost need a municipal planning and came to a screeching halt. The sudden stop catapulted our degree to understand the bus schedsilly servant unceremoniously onto ule. the pavement. The offending car, SILLY SERVANT SURVIVAL which was later found to be stolen, This poor fellow was standing by took off without so much as the drivthe bus stop with a coffee in one hand er calling 911 to ensure that our silly and his brief case in the other minding servant got the medical aid he so his own business when everything required — such is the lot of civil serchanged radically. Civil servants in vants in Ottawa that even car thieves Ottawa — or silly servants, as take their existence for granted. Ottawans are fond of calling them — As the poor fellow lay there on his spend much of their time trying to back in total disbelief that he had surconvince their superiors they are vived his early morning wild ride on minding their own business. The first the hood of a stolen sports coupe, he rule of survival as a silly servant in was about to face his second indigniOttawa is knowing and practicing the ty of the morning. Seconds after hitart of covering one’s butt. ting the pavement and thanking the As this silly servant stood in the gods above for that sturdy public middle of a vacant lot — not a tree or service health plan, a postal truck structure for blocks — on a rainy came around the corner and ran over weekday morning, he was likely his legs. thinking about how many piles of Oh the indignity of it all. paper he had to move from one side of his desk to the other in his daily bid to Jeff Ducharme is The Indepenvalidate his existence. dent’s senior writer. As he stood there, the sound of a jeff.ducharme@theindependent.ca
GIRL QUEST
A junior class does a demonstration with a hot air balloon that they made at Girl Quest, a science, engineering and technology club that offers hands-on interactive projects for girls in Grades 2-8. Rhonda Hayward/The Independent
LIFE STORY ELIZABETH SWAN 1924-1985 By Darcy MacRae The Independent
E
lizabeth Swan won’t soon be forgotten by the people of Clarenville. A native of Australia, Swan moved to Clarenville in 1953 with her husband, Dr. John Swan, and in 1964 started the Flying Blades, the town’s first figure skating club. At the time, the Flying Blades was the first figure skating association in the province to be formed outside St. John’s. Her dedication to the sport was unparalleled. “She was a passionate volunteer,” says Rod Nichol, who worked alongside Swan on the Clarenville and area recreation association in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Swan, who was affectionately known as Mrs. Figure Skating, was a pioneer of the sport in Newfoundland and Labrador and synchronized skating in Canada. Along with serving as first president of the Flying Blades, she organized the first provincial figure skating championships in 1968. She was provincial figure skating chair for nine years, served as a national director for four years, and chaired the committee that established precision skating in Canada. Swan also conducted numerous workshops and judged many figure skating competitions across Canada and played a major role in having professional coaches become an integral part of the national figure skating association. With accomplishments too numerous to list, it’s not surprising Swan was voted into the provincial Sports Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Canadian Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1995. Her efforts earned her the respect of her peers, while her warm, compassionate personality earned their friendship. “She was a very genuine person,” Nichol says. “She was a very hard working individual; very committed to the efforts of recreation and youth.” Jean Burden worked closely with Swan for years with the Flying Blades Figure Skating Club, and saw first hand what kind of heart she had. Burden says Swan wanted so badly for children to have the opportunity to enjoy skating that if ever a child came along who couldn’t afford skates, but wanted to join the Flying Blades, Swan
Mrs. Figure Skating would find a way to get the child on the ice. Quite often, Swan would magically appear with a pair of skates for the child, claiming she had found them in her basement. After that happened a few times it became obvious Swan was willing to search high and low to find a child a pair of skates, and would even go so far as to buy them herself. “She was so dedicated,” says Burden. “What she wanted was for every kid to be able to skate.” Swan’s dedication to skaters in Clarenville knew no limitations. She would often be at the rink by 6 a.m. to assist in a Flying Blades’ practice, even if only a few skaters would be on hand. She was always eager to stop and talk with parents. “She was a real down-to-earth person,” Burden says. “I’ve never met
anybody like her since.” Swan died in a car crash during a snowstorm on Feb. 25, 1985 (the same year she was named National Volunteer of the Year), on her way home from judging the provincial figure skating championships in Labrador City. Her death rocked the Town of Clarenville and all of those who knew her. “The day we heard she died … was just awful,” Burden says, fighting back tears. “It was heartbreaking to know that somebody like her could go so quick.” In honour of her contributions, Clarenville dedicated a recreation park, featuring a softball field and playground facility, in her memory. The grounds are known as Elizabeth Swan Memorial Park. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca
INDEPENDENTWORLD
SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 19-25, 2005 — PAGE 11
Conservative leader Stephen Harper walks by an early campaign poster in Ottawa last week.
Jim Young/Reuters
Making Mr. Dithers look good There is a vacuum at the core of Harper’s leadership and it’s not about to be filled By Chantal Hébert Torstar wire service
C
all it an astounding case of reverse momentum. As an excruciating Liberal spring comes to an end, the Conservative party is sliding so fast in the polls that it is about to overtake the NDP for last place among the national parties. If the minority government had fallen last week, a summer election would have cost the Conservatives seats in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario. The party has no breakthrough in sight in Quebec. It is lagging behind the Liberals in much of Atlantic Canada. At any given time, this dismal picture would be devastating for the Leader of the Opposition. In this case, Prime Minister Paul Martin’s self-imposed deadline of an election early next year is probably all that stands between Stephen Harper and a fullfledged mutiny. As the Bloc Québécois has discovered, the window for a leadership change is closing fast. As they try to put the finger on the malaise that has undermined the
Conservative’s best shot at power in two ately following the Supreme Court ruling decades, some have pointed to the leader’s on medicare earlier this month. frosty personality. The ink was barely dry on the landmark Others blame the suspicions aroused in decision before Conservative deputy many pockets of urban Canada by the leader Peter MacKay was berating the party’s commitment to social conservative Liberal government for its poor defence of values, suspicions kept alive by Harper’s the status quo. insistence of dragging Standing in for his on the same-sex marleader, MacKay preriage debate in dicted the decision That would require an Parliament. would lead to a 10And others question tier health-care sysopposition that has not Harper’s judgment in tem as each province not staying above the become so spooked by went its merry way fray. Even in its glory into a variety of Liberal rhetoric that it is medicare mixes. days in the mid-’80s, the mudslinging Liberal Rat Forget for a now afraid of its own Pack operated at a dismoment that the tance from John Turner. Conservative party intellectual shadow. (In hindsight, the relentstands for greater less focus on Brian flexibility for the Mulroney’s ethics did provinces to be innonot pay off for the Liberal party in the 1988 vative. An opposition determined to offer election.) an alternative to the government would The bottom line is there has been a vac- have used the Supreme Court ruling as the uum at the core of Harper’s leadership and foundation for a different vision of it will not be filled by the sudden produc- medicare, rather than try to match Martin tion of an election platform later this year. platitude for platitude. That vacuum was in full view immediBut that would require an opposition that
has not become so spooked by Liberal rhetoric that it is now afraid of its own intellectual shadow. Ask voters what they think the Conservative party stands for these days and the answer will most often be against same-sex marriage. On just about everything else, Harper has blurred the lines between his party and the ruling Liberals. There are those who argue that the new Conservative party is too much like the old Reform party. But it could also be said it has missed out on the better part of the gene pool of its parent party. Reform was at the forefront of the defining debates of the ‘90s, calling for the elimination of the deficit, tax cuts, debt reduction, democratic reform and what is now known as the Clarity Act, long before they all became Liberal policies. Taking the lead on those issues initially cost the party a lot of flak. But it also earned it its place on the national landscape. Against all expectations, Harper has salvaged the social conservative conscience of the Reform/Alliance rather than its daring policy brain.
PM a cling-on
Beleaguered Martin will do and say anything to hang onto power
T
he months since Paul Martin became prime minister have exposed him as a man prepared to say and do almost anything to cling to power. Transcripts of the Gurmant Grewal/Tim Murphy/Ujjal Dosanjh tapes clearly suggest the PM is prepared to stretch the truth. When first asked in the House of Commons about the meetings between his chief of staff, his health minister and the Conservative MP, Martin insisted “at no time did I ever say that I would meet (Grewal).” Yet in an apparently undisputed portion of the audiotapes, Dosanjh clearly assures Grewal, “I talked to the PM
JOHN CROSBIE
The old curmudgeon moments ago. He said ... he will be happy to talk to you over the phone tonight or in person if you want to move.” Which story is true? Another illustration of Martin’s deviousness is his behaviour in dealing with the new offshore revenue-sharing agreements with Newfoundland and Labrador and later Nova Scotia. The PM first agreed to a proposal by
Premier Danny Williams during a Feb. 14. phone call on June 6, 2004, when Now four months after that, because Martin was in the middle of a close fed- of Martin’s manoeuvring and deceptive eral election campaign he thought he tactics, both provinces are still waiting might lose. for the promised But he never put his cheques and for the A simple and honagreement in writing, Martin government and after the election to finalize its end of ourable solution was the agreement with tried to weasel out of the deal. the approval of proposed by the It took seven months Parliament. of tough negotiations The new accords Conservatives. by Williams and Nova should have been Scotia Premier John introduced in the Hamm, along with constant pressure by House of Commons in separate legislaStephen Harper’s Conservatives, tion, as was the case with the original before the new promised offshore Atlantic accords of 1985 and 1986. agreement was signed in St. John’s last Instead, Martin improperly included
the new accords in the February budget bill, knowing this would create delays and confusion which he could use to blame the Conservatives — particularly the two Conservative MPs from St. John’s, Loyola Hearn and Norman Doyle. The budget was approved with the support of the Conservatives, but the Conservatives cannot support the new NDP-Liberal supplementary budget containing huge spending increases as part of Martin’s bargain with the NDP to stay in power. A simple and honourable solution was proposed by the Conservatives and See “Unremitting,” page 13
JUNE 19, 2005
12 • INDEPENDENTWORLD
Mississippi churning
Top Tories tout party’s youthful image
Ku Klux Klan members greet Baptist preacher charged with slaying activists 41 years ago
Elastic definition about who’s young
PHILADELPHIA, Miss. By Tim Harper Torstar wire service
rights movement galvanized against such atrocities. But on a Mississippi morning so steamy state troopers were seeking he wheelchair was unfolded, refuge beneath the magnolia tree on the then steadied with care, and courthouse lawn before 9 a.m., there Edgar Ray Killen hauled himself were still many reminders of that horriout of the passenger side of the Grand ble summer of 1964. Marquis, one withered leg at a time, Other reputed Klansmen, who would scowling at the Mississippi asphalt. not identify themselves, sat in the specThe man they call “Preacher” had tators’ section for the morning jury travelled a scant 12 kilometres from his selection. home to the Neshoba County Court Many of the storefronts on this city’s House, but it was a journey that took 41 main streets look stuck in time; the years. Confederate flag — the flag of the Klan More than four decades after Killen — flies from the courthouse and allegedly masterminded the slayings of Killen’s lawyer, full of rhetorical and a trio of idealistic theatrical flourishes , civil rights activists was a defence attorduring the incongruney in the original “Is the Klan here? I ously-named 1967 trial, drama“Summer of tized in the movie will move in the court Freedom,” he Mississippi Burning. to exclude them from arrived to face murA jury hung 11-1 der charges, an 80allowed Killen to the United States year-old man, frail walk free on charges but clearly defiant. of violating the civil of America.” He offered warm rights of the three words only to the men. The holdout James McIntyre two Ku Klux Klan juror 38 years ago members there to said she could never greet him, dressed in the Klan garb of convict a preacher. 2005, suits and KKK lapel pins. Until yesterday, no one had ever “Call me if you need anything, I’m a faced murder charges in connection comin’,” said one of the men, who with the deaths of two white workers, identified himself as Joseph Harper, a Michael Schwerner and Andrew Klan Imperial Wizard from Georgia. Goodman, and a black civil rights And with that, Killen, his chair activist, James Chaney. Their bodies pushed by his stepson, his wife sup- were found buried in an earthen dam. ported by a member of the Klan, Killen, a sawmill operator and allowed himself one more show of ordained Baptist minister accused of bravado, balling his left hand into a fist. rounding up the Klansman that night, “What does that mean, preacher?” has had other run-ins with the one reporter asked. Philadelphia law, but he never left the “Get out of the way,” he growled. community of 7,300. The trial of Edgar Ray Killen is hisLast March, his legs were crushed in toric, another of a series of attempts by an accident when a tree fell on him. the American South to repair the injusThe presence of the Klan clearly tices that were rampant in the 1950s caught defence lawyer James McIntyre and ‘60s, before the American civil unaware and he first denied that his
OTTAWA By Sean Gordon Torstar wire service
T
T
Edgar Ray Killen is wheeled into the Neshoba County Courthouse.
client had been met by supporters of the white supremacist hate organization, coming out of the courtroom to call it a “bald-faced lie.” When a reporter showed him the business card Harper had handed out, McIntyre shrugged, saying he was only repeating what Killen had told him, before heading back into court. Earlier, he denounced the Klan. “Is the Klan here? I will move in the court to exclude them from the United States of America,” he said. “We don’t want the Klan or any other hate group here. They have no business here at all.” Much of the day was pure southern theatre. McIntyre acknowledged it as such, saying any old man in a wheelchair can play the “sympathy card ... you can’t throw it away.” At the same time, he questioned whether Killen can receive a fair trial in this Mississippi town. “Everybody in the world has known about this case,” he said. “There is no place on this Earth that people haven’t
Kyle Carter/Reuters
heard about this.” On his American White Knights website, Harper released an open letter to the media citing four ways Killen’s trial violates the U.S. Constitution. “Why are there so many amendments to protect Edgar Killen?” he wrote. “The answer is simple. Our forefathers tried their best to prohibit injustice in any way possible — to include a trial 40 years after any allegations. “Look around yourselves. Notice what liberal agendas have brought to America. “That is reality. You let it happen.” Derrick Johnson, the Mississippi state president of the NAACP, said the Klan is still active in the south, largely driven underground, using the Internet to fan the flames of hatred. “But you watch: before this is over, one of them will be out here in their robes and hat. They can’t resist,” he said. The Killen trial is expected to last up to three weeks.
Canadian sews up wounded husband
I
t was the first time she was holding a needle to stitch something, but Lisa Blackwood took the challenge head on — on her husband Garry’s head. The 32-year-old from Victoria says she had no choice. Blackwood stitched a gaping wound in her husband’s head — it ran from his forehead to the back of his skull — without anaesthetic after their yacht was wrecked by a storm in the Pacific. She used all the sterile sutures on board their yacht, putting in more than
20 stitches to staunch the blood flowing from the gash. “I knew it was going to have to happen,” she says from a friend’s home in Whangarei, a coastal town in northern New Zealand. While stitching her husband’s wound must have been painful, “he took it really well,” she says. Garry is doing fine now, she says. Earlier, her husband had told the New Zealand Herald: “I look like Frankenstein.” The pair had set out in their yacht Scot Free to sail from New Zealand to
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Fiji, only to be caught in gales and rough seas about 250 kilometres from their destination, on the first leg of a round-the-world adventure. Garry Blackwood, from Scotland, split his head on a rail after a wave hit. The couple lost their storm sail, the engine room flooded and their radio batteries nearly died before an emergency beacon alerted New Zealand’s Rescue Co-ordination Centre to their plight. A New Zealand Air Force surveillance plane found the stricken yacht and a freighter picked the pair up.
Blackwood says they were worried her husband’s condition might deteriorate. “I had all the faith in the boat and in Garry,” she says. “The only thing was with Garry’s cut I wouldn’t know what to do if he got sick.” Blackwood says it was the right decision to abandon the Scot Free, even though it was uninsured and means they will have to start again on their dream to sail around the world. “It was our home,” says Blackwood. — Torstar wire service
ossing a football around, the top Conservative leaders pitched their youthful side after last week’s inaugural meeting of 20 young MPs they will feature prominently this summer to pump the party’s profile. Tory Leader Stephen Harper, first elected at 34, and 39-year-old deputy leader Peter Mac-Kay, flipped each other a pigskin on the Hill’s lawn after claiming to have one of the youngest caucuses in Parliament’s history. “By historical standards, very young MPs are playing “Come on, very promiI’m 39 and nent roles in our party holding.” already ... and we Peter already have a number of MacKay individuals here who will be cabinet ministers in the next government,” Harper said. When he was first elected in 1993, Harper said he was the second youngest in his caucus and one of a handful of MPs younger than 35. “The ages of some of the people who get elected nowadays does surprise me ... Rob Anders (Calgary West) has been elected three times, and is still younger than I was when I was first elected,” he said. The Young Conservative Caucus includes the three youngest MPs in the Commons: 26-year-old Pierre Poilievre (Nepean-Carleton), 27year-old Jeremy Harrison (DesnethéMissinippi-Churchill River) and 26year-old Andrew Scheer (ReginaQu’Appelle). But the Conservative party’s definition of youth is admittedly elastic. Also counted as members are two 36-year-olds, MPs Rona Ambrose (Edmonton-Spruce Grove) and Helena Guergis (Simcoe-Grey), the only women in the group, and MacKay, who enters his fourth decade this fall. Asked if he wasn’t a little old to be labelled young, MacKay smiled and said: “Come on, I’m 39 and holding.”
JUNE 19, 2005
INDEPENDENTWORLD • 13
VOICE FROM AWAY
‘Everything at your fingertips’ Valisha Keough loves life in Seattle, but she still pines for the small town she grew up in By Darcy MacRae The Independent
“It’s just awesome,” she says. Another benefit of living in Seattle is its close proximity to the Canadian border. Keough frequently travels to British Columbia to visit Victoria, Whistler and Vancouver, two to three hours away. She also makes the 16-hour drive to Cold Lake, Alta. to visit her parents (they moved there a few years ago), and to check in on the house she recently bought in the northern Alberta town. Keough comes to Newfoundland once a year to visit family and friends, but doubts she will ever come back to the province to work “unless things drastically change.” Lower pay and a lack of full-time nursing jobs — and her love of travel — are her main reasons for working elsewhere. “Financially, working as a travel nurse is great,” Keough says. “It has given me great opportunities, but I don’t think I’ll live in the United States forever. My goal is to retire back in Canada.”
V
alisha Keough has seen a lot since graduating from Memorial University’s School of Nursing five years ago. The native of Loon Bay, a community of 300 people in central Newfoundland, has worked across the United States as a travelling nurse. She has enjoyed each city she has lived in, but none quite compare to her current home — Seattle, Wash. “It took me two years to get a contract here. A lot of people don’t leave once they get here,” Keough tells The Independent. In most ways, Seattle is nothing like Loon Bay. It is home to close to 600,000 people and serves as the commercial, financial, transportation, and industrial hub for the Pacific northwestern region of the United States. Despite the size and industrial differences, Keough says there are similarities between her new home and the one she grew up in. DEPENDENT ON WATER “They’re totally dependent on the water,” Keough says. “There are so many different marinas around. It’s a big shipping port; it’s a big industry here. There are a lot of fishing ports. And the people are so friendly.” Since becoming a nurse, Keough has lived in Durham, N.C.; Portland, Me.; San Francisco, Ca.; Phoenix, Az. and Modesto, Ca. before moving to Seattle in February, 2004. As a travelling nurse, Keough signs 13-week contracts in cities experiencing shortages. Ordinarily, a hospital uses a travel nurse until a permanent replacement can be found, but often it takes a great deal of time to find a replacement, allowing nurses such as Keough to stay longer than the allotted time if they choose. Such is the situation in Seattle, where Keough has happily remained for the
‘Unremitting Liberal opposition’ Continued from page 11 supported by the NDP and Bloc Quebecois: the Martin government could remove the offshore agreements from the budget bill; thereafter, with the majority of MPs already declared in support of the accords, they would pass easily. But the Liberals have repeatedly rejected this course of action. The record shows that from 1961, when the first offshore oil and gas land regulations were enacted by Canada, on through the Trudeau and Chrétien governments, there was unremitting Liberal opposition to both provinces’ rights to offshore oil and gas revenues. (It was the Conservative Mulroney government, in which I was a cabinet minister, that recognized these rights in the accords of 1985 and 1986.) MATTER OF IMPORTANCE It was only in 1997, when the first oil was produced at Hibernia, four years after the Liberals were re-elected to government in 1993, that the interpretation of the Atlantic accords became a matter of importance with respect to offshore revenues. Martin, then Chrétien's finance minister, argued publicly that Newfoundland and Nova Scotia were already principal beneficiaries under their accords, despite the fact that all analysis indicated that the federal government would receive in excess of 80 per cent of all the offshore revenues. New Conservative leader Harper, visiting Newfoundland and Labrador in 2003, declared as policy: “We have to stop the equalization clawback and cease Ottawa taking 70 cents or more from every dollar (the province) receives in offshore royalties.” Martin again suggested that it was Conservative MPs Hearn and Doyle who were standing in the way of the accords’ passage, while the truth is Martin is deliberately delaying passage for his own purposes. Martin knows if he wants to carry out his commitment, he only has to agree to introduce separate accord legislation. John Crosbie’s next column appears July 3.
The Space Needle, Seattle’s most recognizable landmark, towers over the Flag Pavilion in downtown Seattle.
past 16 months. She has had opportunities to move, but wants to stay in the city she describes as a multitude of different towns joined together. “Everything is at your fingertips. I like the hiking trails, sailing, power boating and camping,” says Keough. “The ocean is right there, and it has all the amenities of a big city without being really big. You don’t feel like you’re in a big city because there are all kinds of quaint little neighbourhoods.” Seattle is known as the “rainy city,” but it actually receives less precipitation (890-970 millimetres a year) than many eastern seaboard cities. It is cloudy more often than most other cities — but the climate is mild, with
the temperature moderated by the sea and protected from winds and storms by the mountains. Unlike Loon Bay, Seattle doesn’t
“Financially, working as a travelling nurse is great … It has given me great opportunities.” have to deal with snow. Occasionally the ground gets a light white coating, but it doesn’t last more than a few hours. “It’s a little treat when there is a
Reuters
sprinkle of snow on the ground, but I don’t miss shovelling,” Keough says with a chuckle. Seattle is known for being home for many talented musicians, which Keough enjoys. Since moving there, she has seen some of her favourite musicians live, including Dave Matthews and Eddie Vedder (of Pearl Jam). “There’s just so much here to do and see,” she says. “I don’t think I could ever get sick of this city.” Last July she attended Bumbershoot, an annual festival of music, art, and crafts held in Seattle. The weekend events attracted more than 100,000 people and left Keough smiling for days.
‘I LOVE IT HOME’ Keough expects to work in a few more cities before settling down. Chicago, Denver and San Diego top her list of places to go, and she’s sure she will enjoy all three. She adds, though, that as much as she enjoys the benefits of living in a city, she still misses the quiet charm her hometown offers. She says, like all people from this part of the world, she will always hold a special place in her heart for the place she grew up o “I love it home. I love the peace and cleanness. I don’t think it’s until you go away that you appreciate the stuff people call boring,” Keough says. “Once you’re a Newfoundlander, it will never leave your system.” Do you know a Newfoundlander or Labradorian living away? Please email editorial@theindependent.ca
JUNE 19, 2005
14 • INDEPENDENTWORLD
Pilsener ... Palestinian-style By Mitch Potter Torstar wire service
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t the last checkpoint out of Ramallah, an Israeli soldier asks what my business is on this battered road to nowhere. “Beer,” I answer. “Taybeh beer.” His frown melts into an encouraging smile. “No problem … I wish I could join you,” the soldier laments. “It’s that way. Have one for me.” Twenty minutes more through soaring, stony hills, the two-storey Taybeh brewhouse reveals itself, tucked discreetly into sloping land beneath the town of the same name. Fittingly, Taybeh is also Arabic for “delicious.” On so clear a day, you can see the mountains of Jordan to the east. Jericho and the Dead Sea are even closer, though hidden from sight at the bottom of the world’s deepest valley. But here on these ancient hills is something you might least expect: one
of the few indigenous breweries in the Arab world and, indeed, the only Palestinian beer. Or, as brewmaster Nadim Khoury sometimes calls it, “the world’s best occupied beer.” Khoury, 43, throws open his doors and inside other Khourys scurry about, like so many beer elves. There are Halla, Buthaina and Madees Khoury running the bottling machine; Canaan and Costa Khoury are packing the finished product into cases. Another batch is nearly ready for delivery. Five years ago, the Taybeh Brewing Company wasn’t such a family affair. Nadim Khoury had three times as many employees working at nearly full annual capacity (5,000 hectolitres, each equal to 100 litres, or 176 pints). Since 1995, the tiny Taybeh operation had built itself a tidy market for fresh, handcrafted beer throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and was beginning to eye exports to Jordan. But all that business paled against the
Israeli market, which was quaffing upwards of 70 per cent of the Taybeh brew. Peace was coming — and the Khourys were making just the thing with which to toast their independent Palestine.
“The Pharaohs invented beer … What we do today is history repeating itself.” Nadim Khoury Today, the flow has tapered to barely a trickle. Khoury estimates business to be off by 80 per cent from that peak in the summer of 2000. The hired hands are mostly gone; now, it’s a mom-andpop beer shop. You can’t help but think the obvious:
that the family’s declining fortunes are yet another example of Palestinians paying the price of violent uprising. Yes, Khoury confirms, the intifada changed everything. His high-end supplies of barley, hops and yeast, all imported from Europe, suddenly became more difficult to get. And his imported Portuguese bottles stalled at the Israeli seaport where he was billed storage fees for his trouble. Even when the ingredients all came together, too often there was nowhere to take the finished product. With a dragnet of checkpoints dotting the distribution chain, Taybeh trucks spent hours baking in the hot sun awaiting the soldiers’ search. Khoury uses no preservatives, nor does he pasteurize his all-natural, Pilsener-style brew — a tasty technique when it’s fresh, undrinkable after a serious dose of Mediterranean sunlight. “Culture, religion, occupation — everything has created problems,” says Khoury. “You sweat to handcraft some-
thing we can take pride in as Palestinians. But the barriers are difficult.” The day’s bottling is done, and one of Khoury’s nephews wanders over with a tall, chilled glass of Taybeh Golden, the flagship brand. It is a beer honest to the German purity law of 1516, with just four natural ingredients — malt from Belgium, hops from Bavaria, yeast from England and pure spring water from the nearby Ein Samia. It tastes Taybeh. And somehow, well, Canadian. As it turns out, Taybeh is Canadian. Khoury says that, when he got serious about making beer, the world had no better supplier than DME Brewing Services of Charlottetown, P.E.I., and it was there that he purchased the entire turnkey operation. But Khoury is quick to remind that beer has been around these parts since antiquity. “The Pharaohs invented beer,” says Khoury. “What we do today is history repeating itself.”
JUNE 19, 2005
INDEPENDENTWORLD • 15
Crooks on candid camera B.C. police are using ‘bait cars’ equipped with video, satellite tracking to catch thieves in the act
VANCOUVER By Daniel Girard Torstar Wire Service
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t’s a simple message from cop to car thief: gotcha. Police across British Columbia’s lower mainland have for more than a year been combating an epidemic of auto theft by employing a fleet of “bait cars” equipped with cameras, satellite tracking systems and ignition controls to catch criminals in the act. The program has not only reduced car thefts by 15 per cent and sent repeat offenders to jail, it’s now making for some entertaining viewing with the launch of a new website — www.bait car.com — that lets you ride along as unsuspecting crooks steal vehicles. So far, in just three weeks of operation, the website has averaged an astounding 65,000 hits a day and attracted attention from police forces and individuals around the world as well as U.S. television shows including A Current Affair and Good Morning America. The website, which features a warning that the videos “contain very coarse language and are not suitable for children,” shows grainy black-and-white footage of thieves breaking into bait cars. Shot by a camera hidden in the pas-
senger seat, they show the driver starting the vehicle and often boasting of the theft to a partner as they race away from the scene. But panic is soon evident. A police car, alerted by bait car dispatchers, appears. When the stolen vehicle tries to race away or make a move to elude the officer, those monitoring it by a global positioning system and camera cut the ignition. Arrests are then quickly made. “You can’t find someone who has not been a victim of crime at some point in their lives,” says Cpl. Tim Shields of the Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team, which runs the baitcar program and the website. “And people who have been victims want to see criminals getting caught. “These videos show that.” Some are also alarming. One shot in June of last year, but only made public this week features a habitual car thief stealing a bait pickup truck. High on crystal meth, he races through residential streets in suburban Vancouver at more than 140 km/h. Along the way he unsuccessfully tries 14 times to fire a loaded handgun out the window, screams obscenities at other motorists and shouts “oncoming” as he weaves through traffic. (Since that time, baitcar regulations have been changed so ignitions are disabled if a thief tries to
(Top) A page from www.baitcar.com, where viewers can see stills and footage from webcams installed in bait cars — viewer discretion advised. (Right) A bait-car advertisement warning would-be car thieves in B.C.
elude police or drives erratically, putting innocent people’s lives at risk. The fear had been that such a move could make the vehicle uncontrollable and more dangerous.) In 34 minutes, police says the man came in contact with nine vehicles — stealing three, breaking into three along the way and colliding with three others. The thief, who had 123 criminal charges in six years, was this month jailed for four years. NEXT FIX Shields says the typical B.C. car thief is a drug addict who is less interested in the vehicle than in using it to commit other crimes such as thefts, break-andenters and purse snatchings to get money for their next fix. They target autos that are easier to steal, such as the Dodge Shadow and F-350 pickup trucks, police say. By contrast, car thieves in Ontario are often involved in organized crime and target the vehicle that is more expensive and can be resold or shipped out of the country, he says. Several police forces in Greater Toronto ran bait-car pilot projects a few years ago, but only Halton police cur-
rently use the vehicles on an infrequent basis. Toronto police stopped using bait cars because they found they weren’t very effective. “We tried using them about four or five years ago and it wasn’t very successful,” says Det. Sam Cosentino, with the Toronto police auto squad. Several legal requirements have to be met in order to use a bait car, he says. And if a bait car is placed in a mall parking lot, for example, police have to post signs stating such a car is in the area. Cosentino says the signs just send the thieves elsewhere. The bait-car concept began in Minneapolis, where police saw a 40 per cent drop in auto thefts between 1997 and 1999. B.C.’s bait-car program, now the largest of its kind in North America, began as a pilot project in Vancouver in 2002. It expanded in May of last year to 16 other municipalities in the lower mainland. During the first 12 months, thefts throughout the lower mainland dropped by 15 per cent — or about 2,000 vehi-
cles — the first reduction after a decade of annual increases. With insurance costs on each stolen auto set at $4,500, savings are estimated to be $9 million. The program cost about $1 million in its first year to buy and equip bait cars and extensively advertise the program, so the public — and thieves — know it’s out there. “We’re definitely headed in the right direction,” says Doug Henderson, a spokesperson with the publicly owned Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC). “But the numbers are still too high and we’ve still got work to do.”
Child killed in crossfire A two-year-old Canadian boy was shot dead last week in the Cambodian tourist town of Siem Reap, the sole fatality after a day-long crisis in a local school, when 70 foreign children were held hostage. Martin and Michaela Michalik — Slovak-born, Canadian-landed immigrants — and their son Maxim arrived in this sleepy Cambodian tourist destination just a few months ago. Police quoted the gunmen as saying the boy had cried too much, but the father says his son's only mistake might have been that he went looking for his favourite book. Police suspect disgruntled security guards may have been involved in the attack, hoping to ransom the children for cash, arms and a getaway vehicle. Cambodian police later arrested a security guard suspected of masterminding the hostage-taking. — Torstar wire service
ns to visit.
o a million reas n o i t a n i t s e d one
16 • INDEPENDENTWORLD
JUNE 19, 2005
INDEPENDENTLIFE
SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 19-25, 2005 — PAGE 17
page, has always understood and respected the power of music — it STEPHANIE drives her to write, among other PORTER things. But it was only while hosting That Time of the Night that she usic has driven and “realized even more what one bar directed Marjorie Doyle of music can do to people and how her whole life — central music and memory are linked. “The things people carry inside to her childhood, a vital part of her broadcasting career, the focal them the deepest — love, mournpoint for much of her leisure time, ing, pain, they’re all tied to and the foundation of her third music.” Working on that show gave her book. Indirectly, it was also music that an acute awareness of something led Doyle — a passionate else: what it is to be Canadian. Although Doyle was technically Newfoundland nationalist — to finally understand Canada as a born Canadian (Newfoundland country, intellectually if not senti- had joined confederation just a few years earlier), she grew up mentally. Doyle, born and raised in St. with the feeling she and her famiJohn’s, was music columnist for ly were from the country of The Evening Telegram (1989-91), Newfoundland. “I didn’t really understand a columnist in the Globe and Mail (1997-2000) and has been pub- Canada until much later,” she lished in a number of other news- says. “(The radio show) was very papers, magazines, and literary connected to the listeners. It was journals across the country. She late night and people write you a spent 10 years working on various lot and you’re very aware of who’s CBC-Radio shows, including five listening. “And that’s when I understood years as host of the late-night classical music program That Time of Canada as a country — but I don’t think that meant I became any the Night. Last weekend, Doyle took the more sentimental about Canada.” As a university student, Doyle silver award in the essay category of the National Magazine Awards says she was “part of that young, in Toronto for My uncles didn’t rough and rumble, ‘Yah! Leave dance, published in Queen’s Confederation!’ movement.” Back then, around the Quarterly, summer time of the 2004. (See excerpt, province of page 19.) The essay will be I think things are Newfoundland’s 25th anniversary, part of her third book, written about she says nationalReels, Rock and Rosaries: Confessions Newfoundland in ism was even stronger than it is of a Newfoundland today. Musician, to be pubthe national “These days, it’s lished this fall by media that more mainstream,” Pottersfield Press. The she says, “which is winning piece — like would never good, because the all in the forthcoming ideas, the fights, book — begins with be said about are being taken music, and how it has figured in Doyle’s life, any other people more seriously … not pushed in the in a variety of expericorner and written ences and ways. of Canada. off as (the rebelFrom her childhood lion of) youth.” — of which music was Doyle no longer spends her “the centre” — to her current membership in the Newfoundland nights in Bridgett’s Pub ranting Symphony Orchestra Philhar- and railing against Confederation monic and the Holy Heart of Mary and the work of Joey Smallwood alumni choirs, Doyle has no short- (“largely because the pub is age of musical adventures to draw closed”). But she still holds many of the same beliefs, and has found on and explore. “If you’re a classical musician different ways to work for change. “I just think Newfoundland is and played in an orchestra all your life, that’s one experience,” she not understood by most Canasays. “But for me, it was always dians. I think things are written about Newfoundland in the varied … “I was the first woman to join national media that would never the Newfoundland Regiment be said about any other people of Band, to play the piccolo in the Canada.” Doyle is a member of the Bond military band. And that was so different than anything else in my Institute, a clandestine group of like-minded folks whose mandate life, very great, funny.” Doyle also attended the it is to respond to all remarks Newfoundland and Presentation Convent while grow- about ing up, where she learned to sing Labrador published or broadcastfour-part harmony, one of the ed, and deemed prejudicial. The group started about four great “desperate” passions of her life. “That first instant of singing years ago, and has sent out plenty it, hearing it,” she enthuses. “What of their standard letters of comI got from the nuns, that’s another plaint — and received very little by way of response. And that’s all aspect.” On the flipside of that experi- Doyle will reveal about the secret ence, Doyle lived in an “evangeli- society — for now. “There is lots of condescension cal mission house” in Switzerland. “Every time we sat down for a out there,” she says. “I’m beyond meal, we — or everyone except being intellectually bothered by it, me — sang horrible Swiss- beyond even being emotionally German evangelical hymns,” she upset. It’s a lifelong commitment says. “It’s when I realized, my that I intend as a journeyman, an apprentice in this world, respondGod, it’s possible to hate music.” The wide-ranging stories, laced ing to prejudice. “Unfortunately, it takes a lot of with humour and personal observation, broaden out, tied and time, away from what I want to do entwined with Newfoundland now, which is stay at home by issues and culture, Doyle’s other myself and write.” deep and formative passion. For an excerpt from Doyle’s Doyle, as spellbinding a storyaward-winning essay, see page 19 teller in person as she is on the
M
In person or on page Marjorie Doyle is a spellbinding storyteller
Marjorie Doyle
Paul Daly/The Independent
LIVYER
‘There’s nothing pornographic about it’ Photographer’s most rewarding work is of nude women over 40 By Alisha Morrissey The Independent
M
ost people leave their jobs in the evening in hopes of escaping the daily grind, but for St. Phillip’s native Tracy Adamson, her work is her life. Adamson, a photographer, says she takes a camera with her nearly everywhere she goes. Even after her heart was broken a
couple of years ago, Adamson took solace through the lens of her camera. Sitting on a beach she drew a heart in the sand and took a series of photos of the heart being slowly washed away by the tide. Today, that series of photographs is the best seller at her gallery and shop, Shades of Grey, on Water Street in downtown St. John’s. None of Adamson’s work is a chore. She says her most rewarding photo-
graphs are nudes, commissioned by women, mostly over the age of 40, who want to feel sensual and beautiful in a captured moment. She says every woman wants to see herself in an attractive light through someone else’s eyes. Adamson’s mother, who was somewhat reluctant at first, is even prepared to strip down and have her picture taken. Please see “Sexuality,” page 22
Tracy Adamson
Paul Daly/The Independent
JUNE 19, 2005
18 • INDEPENDENTLIFE
GALLERYPROFILE MARGARET BEST Visual Artist
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argaret Best pulls out a sketch — a long piece of paper covered with pencil and paint illustrations of flowers — preparation work for one of the pieces in an exhibition this summer in Ferryland. It’s crumpled, folded, and a little dirty — the perils of working outdoors in Newfoundland and Labrador. “It was such a windy day in Ferryland,” Best, a native of Fermeuse, tells The Independent. “I had to put the paper and the sketch pad down and hold it down with rocks and kneel on the ground, on the pathway in the garden, and do the sketch.” Best spent a good bit of time in the gardens beside the Colony of Avalon building in Ferryland, in preparation for her show A Brush with History: the Gardens of the Colony of Avalon. She selected six flowers from the medicinal and “Gentleman’s” (decorative) gardens — patterned after 17th century gardens in England — to research and paint. There will also be one landscape painting, Lord Baltimore’s View 1628, on display. The paintings vary in size and treatment, offering a loving, close look at the colours and textures of the blossoms and land. Best has been drawing since age six, and remembers winning her first poster contest in Grade 4. Being one of 11 children, there was always plenty of activity — and a lot of pencils and crayons — around the house. Best’s art training virtually stopped while she raised her own children, but over the past five years she’s been voracious in attending workshops outside the province. Although she dabbles in oils, acrylics, and other media, Best’s focus these days is on painting in watercolours: landscapes, still life, and plants. Flowers, in particular, have been a lifelong fascination for her. “I’ve always just loved flowers, from the time I was very young my grandmother had a beautiful garden and I spent time with her in it,” Best says. “As my time painting flowers has pro-
gressed, I’m getting into more close-up … there are dozens of colours in one petal which I love to try to capture.” Over the summer, Best plans to complete studies of two more flowers, as well as several collages, including paint-
ings, text and maps about Ferryland. A great supporter of the artistic community, Best organizes the annual Southern Shore Art Exhibition, July 2324, an event she began 15 years ago. She also organizes a summer art workshop
series, based in her Island View Studios in Tors Cove, taught by herself and a number of local and visiting artists. “Part of the painting workshops, and a lot of the landscapes I have done, take place along the East Coast Trail,” she
says. “Weather permitting, of course.” A Brush with History’s opening reception is slated for July 3 in the Colony of Avalon building. For more, visit www.margaretbest.com — Stephanie Porter
The Gallery is a regular feature in The Independent. For information, or to submit proposals, please call (709) 726-4639, or e-mail editorial@theindependent.ca
JUNE 19, 2005
INDEPENDENTLIFE • 19
My uncles didn’t dance Marjorie Doyle spent a summer in the early ’70s working for J.R. Smallwood; away from the office she was an anti-confederate Editor’s note: the following is an excerpt from an essay by Marjorie Doyle, first printed in Queen’s Quarterly, summer 2004. The piece won the silver award in the essay category at the National Magazine Awards held June 10 in downtown Toronto. Printed with permission.
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his colonialism was the fertile breeding ground for young Newfoundlanders waking up to a Newfoundland consciousness or nationalism in the ‘70s, a period described by Sandra Gwyn as a renaissance in Newfoundland art. The support, money, and performance opportunities for most music and theatre were under the control of a “director of cultural affairs,” a position and title reminiscent of minor functionaries in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Titipu. Around the real and symbolic figures of cultural power, there grew up indigenous theatre collectives like Codco and the Mummers Troupe, and groundbreaking musical groups like Figgy Duff. Things happened quickly in these years, and soon there was a much-needed reversal in who “owned” Newfoundland culture. But there was one unfortunate piece
of fallout: the baby that went out with the bath water was classical music. Not native, not indigenous, it was dismissed as part of a culture that had been imposed on us and, in the minds of some, had nothing to do with us. It was shoved out of the canon of acceptable Newfoundland artistic activity. Perhaps it has something to do with a weird sense we have of ourselves: there is something laughable about singing our songs in a certain way, as if the songs — or perhaps we ourselves — are not worthy of such fanciness. For my own part, I was in something of an unusual position. I was urban, and around that time in Newfoundland, you could scarcely qualify as a Newfoundlander if you were from St John’s. There were narrow definitions about what a real Newfoundlander was; all of a sudden pedigrees from outports were sought and touted up. One university professor from a small community on a remote coast showed up at Memorial University speaking with a British accent. Within a year or two, the carefully nurtured affectation was dropped; he threw off his loafers and started teaching class in his rubber
Marjorie Doyle
boots. Outport was in, and the more legitimate your claim to this heritage, the more of a real Newfoundlander you were. My parents were both from small outports, but during my childhood we had no connection with their places of
Paul Daly/The Independent
origin. My four grand-parents had place, not even my dad, who died died before I was born. My mother’s when I was three. So the outport in family had long moved from her birth my childhood, despite my parents’ place, and her seven siblings had left background, was a remote concept. Newfoundland. There was no one (My mother did take me around during remaining on my father’s side who retained a connection to his birth See “...a Newfoundland Nationalist,” page 23
Pitt and Jolie save ‘silly concoction’ Mr. & Mrs. Smith Starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie 1/2 (out of four)
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hunder rumbled and lightning lit the night sky that fateful day five or six years ago when John and Jane met in Colombia. Immediately smitten with one another, the meteorological manifestations of that evening couldn’t penetrate the little world they created between themselves. Complete strangers only hours earlier, they quickly became masters of a domain that extended no further than one another, and in that little microcosm, just as in the much larger realm to which they were impervious, the sparks were flying. Shortly thereafter, they married. Sometimes these whirlwind romances last, and sometimes they don’t, so it comes as no surprise that five or six years later, electrical fireworks have dulled to drizzle and fog, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith find themselves seeking counselling. Unfortunately, these sessions can only work when the participants are open and honest, and in the case of our formerly kinetic couple, the process is doomed from the start, for each is hiding a big secret from the other. Ironically, it’s the same secret. Both John and Jane Smith are assassins for hire, each working for different agencies, and neither aware of the other’s activities, until circumstances draw them into a situation where they find themselves unwittingly committed to killing one another. Again, there is irony to be found here with respect to, figuratively speaking, the state of their marriage. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie star as the titular unhappy couple in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and watching the film, one becomes instantly aware of how rumours get started. Despite a story in which no effort has gone into making this world of contract killers believable, we don’t care. Events are fabricated for no reason other than to imperil our two leads, forcing them to fight or flee for the benefit of our entertainment, and we couldn’t care less. All logic flies out the window as we become entirely caught up in the moment, regardless of how artificial it may be, and this is primarily due to the chemistry between Pitt and Jolie. It has less to do with their respective ranking on People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People list than their ability to slip into their characters and make them seem real. While the plot is often brutally blunt, and some of the lines seem intended for cartoon characters, both leads endeavour to present realistic human beings caught in an unrealistic situation. We are always aware that each is entertaining more than a single thought or purpose — that there are credible, conflicting emotions working through their minds. Then again, they’re not on their own, as director Doug Liman, who has gone from the dialogue driven independent Swingers, through Go, to The Bourne Identity, is no stranger to any of the elements introduced here. Consequently, whenever the action, the comedy, the romance, or any com-
TIM CONWAY Film score bination thereof, is fired up, he guides them with ease. At no point are we led to expect anything too cerebral, yet Mr. & Mrs. Smith is sure to draw fire for not exploring the characters more deeply, or for that matter, more of the dynamics of marriage. For what it is, however, a silly concoction with the occasional connection to the reality of relationships, it does the job well. Cinderella Man Starring Russell Crowe and Renée Zellweger 1/2 (out of four) A couple of years ago, Ron Howard and Russell Crowe teamed up to take us into the life of a Nobel Prize-winning mathematician. Now we find them again bringing another biographical tale to the big screen, in a much different arena. Cinderella Man tells the incredible story of James Braddock, once a rising star in boxing circles who fell on hard times during the Great Depression, and his sudden, unexpected rise to fight for the world heavyweight title. A story of underdogs and second chances that recalls Seabiscuit from a couple of years past, Cinderella Man enjoys the benefit of solid movie-making all around. From the production design to the cinematography, the recreation of time
and place is effective and engaging. Howard’s newfound maturity keeps the sentiment in check, despite the screenplay’s occasional obvious attempts to draw tears from the audience. On these terms, the film would be considered better than average, but the performances of Russell Crowe, as Braddock, Renée Zellweger as his wife Mae, and Paul Giamatti as his manager, Joe Gould, elevate the picture to much greater heights. From start to finish, one doesn’t see Russell Crowe, but Jim Braddock, for while sitting in the audience, one might conceive of Russell Crowe making a heroic comeback near the end, but the guy up on the screen, although he has the heart for it, has us doubting it all the way. While the story doesn’t provide Zellweger with any Oscar-courting moments, those long soliloquies that beg Academy voters to sit up and take notice of “emoting,” she easily holds her own alongside Crowe’s Braddock, and as supporting players do, helps define his character as well as her own. Likewise, Paul Giamatti’s Joe Gould gives us another set of eyes from which to view Braddock. Moreover, he does great service to our understanding of boxing managers, providing insight into the importance of their relationship with the guy who’s on the hurtin’ side of the ring. We’re sure to hear all kinds of criticism from various corners regarding the accuracy of certain events and the portrayal of certain individuals, but that always seems to happen when biopics have a chance for an Oscar or two. What is certain to bear out, however, is
that feeling of satisfaction one gets having seen a truly wonderful motion picture.
Tim Conway operates Capital Video in Rawlin’s Cross, St. John’s. His next column appears July 3.
JUNE 19, 2005
20 • INDEPENDENTLIFE
IN CAMERA
Church on the hill
The Basilica of St. John the Baptist celebrates the 150th anniversary of its consecration this year, as a religious centre for culture, history, architecture and art. New carpet has been laid and pews polished as thousands of new visitors are expected to flock to the city’s best-known landmark. Photographer Rhonda Hayward and writer Clare-Marie Gosse visited the Basilica recently. This is their report:
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tanding halfway up the East Tower of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, historian John FitzGerald says it’s “amazing” the two famous towers on the city skyline are still standing. He explains how the rough sand used in the mortar of the concrete walls was impure, meaning when it comes in contact with concrete, the two start to break down. “There’s a huge bell up in the top of this tower that used to swing. The other tower had eight bells and they used to swing and when they’d all get going they’d start synchronizing and the tower would start to go like this,” says FitzGerald, swaying on his feet. “So in fact what they did, they put in ring beams, they took out the inner wall, they rebuilt the concrete wall, they put stainless steel bolts, from the
massive stones outside, right into the ring beams inside and tied the whole works back together. “So this is as solid as it gets.” Good to know, especially when a 155-year-old, two-tonne cast-iron bell hangs somewhere high above. The neighbouring West Tower is still wrapped in familiar scaffolding and is out of bounds to anyone without a hard hat and a signed disclaimer. The reconstruction work is progressing at full steam, to have it stripped and safe by mid-August, just in time for the official anniversary mass, Sept. 9, to mark the building’s consecration. FitzGerald says he would like to see the interiors of the towers, with their three levels, used as public exhibition space some day. As chair of the Basilica’s museum committee and a member of the 150th
anniversary organizing committee, FitzGerald knows almost everything there is to know about one of the province’s most prized landmarks. He was also once assistant organist, and on his tour of the building, he stops off in the choir gallery to demonstrate the volume and power of the pipe organ — the largest of its kind east of Montreal. Voices waft up from the main body of the Basilica below, as children weave around the altar, rehearsing for a grand-scale musical production to be held this Friday, June 24, the feast of St. John the Baptist. Miracle in Stone, A Sacred Musical by Brother J.B. Darcy will be one of the largest of the many events to take place this year in celebration of the 150th anniversary. The cast of roughly 100 includes an orchestra, dancers, choir and performers. Both the parish priest, Father Ray Earle, and FitzGerald himself have parts. “This pageant is about the people who built it (the Basilica). It’s a bit of the consecration, there’s a bit of dance, music, the maypole, you’ve got the laying of the cornerstone enacted …” On May 20, 1841, Bishop Anthony Fleming blessed the cornerstone as a procession of thousands of Irish Catholics looked on. Over the following years, the massive construction work was undertaken, often by volunteers — men, women and children —
JUNE 19, 2005
rich and poor alike. On Jan. 6, 1850, Fleming celebrated the first mass in the still unfinished Cathedral, but he died the following July. His successor, Bishop John Mullock, performed the official consecration five years later. At the centennial celebrations in 1955, the Cathedral was formally recognized as a Basilica by Pope Pius XII. (The word Basilica means royal hall.) At the time of consecration in 1855, the Cathedral was not only the largest Irish church in English-speaking North America, but FitzGerald says it was part of the oldest Catholic diocese. With every nook and cranny filled with fascinating sculptures, paintings, carvings, not to mention stories — the Basilica is one of the province’s most visited historic sites. “We’ve done sort of a little clickerthing in the past, and the best we can estimate is between 17,000 and about 24,000 (visitors) a year,” says FitzGerald, “which places this … about third or fourth after Cape Spear, Signal Hill and Gros Morne.” And those numbers are expected to go up when The Rooms finally opens its doors June 29.
INDEPENDENTLIFE • 21
“It’s going to bring about an additional 60,000 people per year into the neighbourhood,” says FitzGerald, “which is going to create an increased demand and interest and sustainability here.” At least the recently laid $100,000 new carpet and flooring will be put to thorough use. As parish priest of the Basilica, Earle admits maintaining such a welltrodden building can get pricey, although he’s ready for the challenge of more visitors. “We’re used to that. It’s a good point we have all these tourists coming, but there’s also the flip side … the people walking through the Basilica, it takes its toll on the building.” Earle, 45, came from two parishes in Marystown and Burin before accepting the position of parish priest and administrator two years ago. He says it was nice to come back to his hometown — although ministering at the Basilica was a change of pace. “Things just happen at the Basilica, that’s one of the neat things … I just have to show up.” Earle will be playing the role of Bishop Mullock, the Cathedral’s consecrator, in the upcoming pageant.
He has a great appreciation for the “architecture and beauty” of the building, which he says is sometimes overlooked. “A lot of people don’t appreciate what we have. It’s an extraordinary building to think this was built in the 1840s. To be able to just accomplish that was extraordinary and a lot of the things in the Basilica, of course, are priceless.” Listing them all would take pages. From the instantly recognizable guardian statue of the Immaculate Conception in the front grounds (1858) as she gazes towards the Narrows, to the startlingly beautiful Dead Christ, sculpted in 1850 and purchased in Rome. The life-sized pale marble image lies sprawled before the altar in pride of place. To the right hand side of the original consecration tablet, hung up at the rear of the church, is the Mission Cross. A larger than life-sized piece, this detailed image of the crucified Christ was erected in 1882. A sweeping groove flaws the wood at the foot. “This is literally a century of people reaching up and, you know, they touch it and they make the sign of the cross,” says FitzGerald, demonstrating the motion.
Walking to the front of the Basilica, past the altar and behind, he points out sights many people wouldn’t notice, like two high grilled windows with bird’s eye views of the congregation. Mercy and Presentation sisters in the adjoining convent can participate in the mass from behind the panes. Unlocking a tiny door directly behind the altar, FitzGerald leads the way into the Basilica’s compact crypt, where five of the 14 bishops are buried. Two of the caskets are visible, but FitzGerald says the exact locations of the other three are unknown. The tour finishes at the Basilica museum, situated in the administrative centre of the archives, or the old Bishop’s Palace, as it was once known. The wing is directly connected to St. Bonaventure’s College next door. The museum opens to the public for the summer at the beginning of this week, but the official opening will be held on June 30. FitzGerald says local artist Gerry Squires will unveil 100 limited edition lithographs for sale. The images depict the second Bishop of St. John’s, Patrick Lambert (the image is based on another local artist, Scott Goudie, because nobody knows what Lambert looked like).
Squires will create a commemorative sculpture of the lithograph in honour of Lambert, funded by the money raised. FitzGerald says around 5,000 books, many hundreds of years old, are shelved on the walls of the museum, which contains a variety of exhibitions, from old, opulent vestments to golden chalices hundreds of years old. There is also a large, leather-bound book called the Cathedral Register. It lists all the men who contributed to the building of the Basilica between 1834 to1857. “You look through the Cathedral Register, it’s not all Catholic men who are doing this,” says FitzGerald, gesturing around. “You can look at the surnames, you can see the communities they come from. This is the people of Newfoundland and Labrador who did this. “That is quite remarkable and it says something, regardless of whatever the religious views were and however sectarian the politics might have been. It says something about how people perceive the importance of these structures. “This stuff is embedded in Newfoundland history.”
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22 • INDEPENDENTLIFE
‘Sexuality is very important in my life’ From page 17 “It makes me feel guilty taking people’s money because I think I just had fun for the afternoon,” Adamson says of the commissioned work, which is completely confidential. The client is handed over all pictures — negatives and all. She says clients often say their friends and family don’t know who the photos are of, but the women will often proudly declare the photos are of themselves. “I think as women we have to give ourselves the gift that we are sexual, we are sensual creatures. So sexuality is very important in my life,” Adamson says. Would she pose nude? “When I was in my 20s I might have had the body, but I wouldn’t have done it. Now that I’m 34 I don’t care. We have much more confidence as women,” she says. “It just comes with age. I think it comes with experience. You’ve got to go through it. It’s like I say to my son, ‘You’ve got to get the bangs to learn. We can talk ’till we’re blue in the face, but ’till you get out there and get into it …’” A single mother, Adamson says she has no problem with her 13-year old son’s curiosity and admiration of her pictures.
“He loves it. And that’s the thing too, it’s so soft,” she says. “There’s nothing pornographic about it because it is so soft, it is so subtle. “I’m far from a single parent,” she admits, explaining her son’s father’s huge role in his life — as well as her extended and immediate family who provide a large web of support. Adamson says being a single mom did limit her options somewhat. She didn’t have the opportunity to go away to college to study photography so she attended every night class she could find and gained as much experience as she could through odd jobs. In her 14 years of snapping photos of families, weddings and sit-onSanta’s-lap-at-the-mall gigs, Adamson says she was “drained” and needed to do something for herself. Then came the nude work. When it comes to putting down the camera at the end of the day, Adamson says between her work and her son she doesn’t have much time for anything else. “I don’t do a whole lot,” she says laughing. She’s even booked two jobs later this year in Alberta, where she plans on taking a vacation. “This is the most fulfilling work personally, that I’ve done.”
TUCKAMORE LAUNCH
Nancy Dahn, Timothy Steeves and Vernon Regehr prepare for their June 19 concert at the D.F. Cook Recital Hall at Memorial University’s Music School. The St. John’s Day event marks the launch of the fifth annual Tuckamore Festival of chamber music, to be held August 8-12. The show begins at 8 p.m.; admission is free. Rhonda Hayward/The Independent
Safer’s debut an ‘impassioned presence’ Bishop’s Road, By Catherine Safer Killick Press, 2004
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argely set in and around a fictional street in downtown St. John’s, Catherine Safer’s first
novel is an extraordinary tale. It revolves around the lives of a group of women who live in the boarding house of one Mrs. Miflin — an uptight, penny-pincher of a widow who hates everyone and everything except for the Lord her Saviour, spiritual self-flagellation, accumulating money she will like-
ly never spend and waging verbal and psychological warfare on her charges. The main plotline involves Ginny Mustard, a woman abandoned at birth by her well-to-do mother. Ginny was raised in an orphanage run by Catholic nuns and then lived on the street for a time before winding up as a boarder at Mrs. Miflin’s. She likes drawing, falling asleep in neighbours’ yards and singing to the exhumed baby skeleton in Mrs. Miflin’s attic. She’s an odd duck, but then, so are most of the characters in this book. Living under the same roof as Ginny are Ruth, a curmudgeonly middle-aged woman with a penchant for dressing “like a bruise”; Maggie, who carries a shoebox full of letters with her everywhere she goes and remains utterly mute for the early part of the novel; Eve, an elderly lady (“big and strong with no softness to her bones at all”) whose great passion is gardening; and Judy, a young offender remanded to the
MARK CALLANAN On the shelf custody of Mrs. Miflin for the length of her probation. When Mrs. Miflin breaks her leg and is confined to bed, her boarders quickly take to their newfound freedom “like those little ones you see sometimes when the bell rings for recess in October, like birds freed suddenly, startled by release, but leaping and running, pushing, grabbing at the morning in their brightly-coloured sweaters and their hair moving with the wind as feathers do.” From Mrs. Miflin’s accident onward, life on Bishop’s Road falls into chaos, spiralling through a murder, new arrivals, departures, a birth, a death and beyond. It does so with comic punch
and lyrical tenderness in a prose style that is rhythmically compelling: “Lights from the north are dancing over Bishop’s Road. Streaking blue and pink and rose, green and yellow, as far as anyone can see. The air is right and the temperature cold(.)” One of the most interesting features of Safer’s novel is her use of narrative voice. Though Bishop’s Road is told from a third-person unlimited perspective — knowing and seeing everything that goes on within the world of the story — it is a voice so idiosyncratic as to border on being a character itself. “You can’t expect to get away with treating God’s creatures like that Mr. James, even when they look odd and don’t speak your language,” Safer writes regarding Ginny’s ill-treatment at the hands of a minor character named Howard James, “Such a lovely gift was that Ginny Mustard and now you’ve thrown her back in His face […] Better to spit in His eye than to do what you have done.” Later, the author levels her judgment at Mr. James: “Oh well, serves him right. He wasn’t very nice to Ginny Mustard, after all, and one mustn’t spend too much time worrying about him.” Obviously, Mr. James is not meant to be dwelled upon by readers. And in truth, he figures so very little in the story that it is clear he is more morality lesson than true character. This is one of Safer’s weaknesses: she can’t help but interfere at key points to make sure her readers are reacting appropriately to her beloved or despised creations. While this authorial intrusion does work well generally, it sometimes degenerates into pure proselytization. The only other criticism I can make is that Safer has a tendency to elide certain scenes or plot points in the interest of keeping up narrative momentum, as in the disorienting pace (and apparently thematic pointlessness) of Judy’s brief foray into the world of modelling, making “truckloads of money” in Vancouver. It comes so far out of left field and then fades so quickly into nothing that one is left puzzling over its inclusion. Largely though, Bishop’s Road is an impressive debut. From the very first line it is clear the driver of this vehicle we’re hitching with is no detached observer of daily minutia, bored with life and cruising for the sake of seeing someplace new, but an impassioned presence who wishes to convey us to a favourite place of hers to meet the people who live there; people who are crazed, sad, funny and (in full flight or with wounded wings) desperately beautiful. Mark Callanan is a writer and reviewer living in Rocky Harbour. His next column appears July 3.
JUNE 19, 2005
‘I was a dedicated Newfoundland nationalist’
INDEPENDENTLIFE • 23
CINDERELLA MAN
From page 19 the summers to see outport Newfoundland. She taught me to respect the life and work of a fishing community; the word “bayman,” a derogatory term for an outharbourman, was forbidden in our house.) I was surrounded in school by girls who went to their grandmothers for weekends, who went “around the bay” for the whole summer, who were part of huge extended families. Whenever I phoned a classmate to chat about school or homework, there was an aunt or uncle in the background, someone there for dinner, or there to mind them because their father was away or their mother was ill. It looked awfully rosy in there, through the collective window of my girl friends’ homes. I was from a family short on home life: brothers were always away at boarding school or in the seminary or married. I had no uncles who danced. My great-uncles, all dead, had been writers, folklorists, balladeers, publishers. I had to walk in shame during those delicate years, was scarcely a Newfoundlander at all in the Nazi-Newfie kingdom of the late ‘60s and the 1970s. Yet I was a dedicated Newfoundland nationalist, ready to walk in the parade that would lead us out of Confederation. I was the gofer for my brother Bill, carting gear around the island as he made his ironic film Pure Silver, celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary (1974) of Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation. I behaved suitably outrageously to actors who were imported from away to work in local theatre groups. (I was, however, extremely polite to Rick Salutin.) And I felt like an undercover agent, toiling by day for Joey Smallwood as a writer and researcher for his Book of Newfoundland, knowing, with the certainty and purity of youth, that my healthy clear-minded anti-confederate stance was the right one: Smallwood had screwed Newfoundland. I had ended up, that summer, working for him accidentally. He had called the university asking for suggestions for a recent grad who could do the work, and I was recommended. He was a good employer; he paid well, and there was no job I could have been happier with, but I was aware of the double nature of my life. At that time Mr. Smallwood’s “office” was the second floor of a private home on Forest Road in the east end of St John’s. He worked in the master bedroom, and my space was an open area adjacent to the main door, so that I saw the few visitors who came and went. I had heard Mr. Smallwood’s voice on the radio probably twenty times a day my whole life; his voice and image had dominated Newfoundland until his political defeats of 1971-72. This remote demigod, this bogeyman of my childhood, was now a small, funny-looking man, casually dressed in slippers and a silk lounging jacket, working about ten yards from me. I felt like Dorothy when the wizard came out from behind the curtain. We had daily “meetings.” I didn’t say a word, just scribbled in my notepad how many print inches I was to write about each subject in the biography section. It was the summer of anti-confederate sentiment among the young, because of the twenty-fifth anniversary, and here I was working with the enemy. A greater irony was Joey’s own status at this time: this “Father of Confederation” was shunted aside during the celebratory year because his Liberal party was no longer in power. He was a Newfoundland patriot in his own way, attempting a monument to Newfoundland’s past with his book. I was a daily witness to Joey burying himself in his work as the grand party went on around him. A loyal band of supporters tried to cobble together a small corner of it for him, a parallel celebration, but it was the poor man’s feast. A dinner was planned for a school auditorium in Conception Bay. Around the office, it was assumed I would go. My whole summer was spent in the anti-confederate underground; now here I was expected to attend a dinner honouring this icon of Confederation! At that time, I lived in jeans and work boots, making exceptions for wakes and funerals. I drove to Bay Roberts, and in the parking lot of the school, squatting in my green Datsun hatchback, I struggled into a bra, skirt and blouse, nylons and dressy shoes, an impostor on many fronts as I walked into the school auditorium. I couldn’t say no. Yes, he was former Premier J.R. Smallwood; he was the “only living father of Confederation”; he was the focus of all my anger about Newfoundland’s loss of nationhood — before I met him. Now, he was my tolerant employer — who treated me well, called me “Miss Doyle,” and picked me up once when I was hitchhiking. He was also an old man, left out of the best party in town, a party celebrating the event he created. He was like a puzzled husband refused admittance to his own anniversary dinner. He had been a tough, fierce, ruthless politician, yet at some level he did not understand this turn of events. There was a naive streak in him — perhaps a romancing brought about by age. He was hurt. The complete essay will appear in Reels, Rock and Rosaries: Confessions of a Newfoundland Musician, to be published this fall by Pottersfield Press.
Movie star Russell Crowe dropped by George Street in St. John’s early last week to play a gig at O’Reilly’s Newfoundland Irish Pub with his good friend, Alan Doyle of Great Big Sea. Photos by Paul Daly and Rhonda Hayward/The Independent
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24 • INDEPENDENTLIFE
‘Everbody needs support’ Family group helps parents learn about their kids — and themselves By Alisha Morrissey The Independent
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aising kids is a hard job. Isolation and fear can cripple a parent with a newborn or a slew of youngsters, but a community of support can make all the difference. While parenting classes were once viewed as rehabilitative learning for delinquent parents, today’s workshops and support groups can foster learning for parents and their kids. Deborah Capps, program facilitator with the Brighter Futures Coalition of St. John’s and District, says the programs provided through the service have created a circle of support in 13 communities in the province. The programs serve as early-childhood education for children up to age 12. Programming for parents can include everything from pregnancy support and children’s nutrition to book clubs and adult computer literacy programs. “Parents and children come together to have fun activities, to get involved in their community,” Capps tells The Independent. “We can provide support and resources and you know, parenting today is a very busy, stressful job and everybody needs support.” The playroom at Holy Cross Elementary School has all the usual toys and games found in a pre-kindergarten classroom. A highlight is a leafygreen tree painted on the back wall with dozens of pictures of babies, tots and parents stuck to it. The tree is being taken over with pictures as the Brighter Futures community grows. Five children play in the sandbox and quickly head over to the art easels for some painting. All of the children were brought up within the Brighter Futures community. Gillian Foley and Julia Hall started in a baby playgroup and worked up through programming until Grade 1. Capps says in the seven years Brighter Futures has been in the community, she’s seen family support services grow immeasurably. Though funding and government participation is greatly needed to make programs available in more rural areas, Capps says the isolation often creates a better reason to form services.
Catherine Jacobs reads to Selina Reid in the playroom of Holy Cross Elementary.
“It’s developing in a really unique way because of the small communities … everyone knows everyone, everyone worked together to get one of these programs,” she says. While play group and junk construction are two popular and fun programs, the coalition also gives workshops for potty training, behavioural classes and how to deal with stress. “We try to find out from the parents what they need rather than coming in as a group of experts and saying we know what you need,” Capps says. And while many of the programs are focused on parenting and developing
community contacts, the programs provide more than just playtime for the kids. “I think their relationships within their own family grow stronger and they develop skills that can take them right through life. I mean we don’t just focus on school readiness skills but certainly their language and their social relationships,” Capps says, adding the programs are often held at school buildings so kids get to know the school and teachers and so do their parents. Teachers at the school say they can tell when children have been through earlychildhood education because they are
Rhonda Hayward/The Independent
more confident. Capps says Holy Cross gets many requests from parents living outside the district wanting their children to attend the school. However, there are challenges. “I think there are always families we cannot connect with for whatever reason … that is challenging and we know that there are some programs that if parents just came and got involved that they’d get something from it or they’d enjoy it.” Some sites will have summer programming, but it will depend on attendance numbers.
Catherine Jacobs teaches the children drama, the parents computer skills and reads to the babies attending Mother Goose. Her son, 11 years old, didn’t go through Brighter Futures, but did go to another site. Jacobs says it was a “huge” benefit to them both. “It’s great companionship too, because it’s parents with parents and that’s what I love about it too because I can still come in and talk about things with Andrew and some of them have older kids as well.” All of the Brighter Futures programs are free of charge.
EVENTS JUNE 19 • Hard Rock and Water, a documentary comparing Newfoundland and Iceland by Barbara Doran and Lisa Moore, airs on CBC TV 9:30 p.m. St. John’s Day celebrations • Tales and Tunes to Delight and Amuse presented by St. John’s Folk Arts Council and the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland & Labrador. Crow’s Nest Officer’s Club, 1:30- 4:30 p.m. • Garden party on George Street, noon–5 p.m. • Gossip Tour of downtown St. John’s at the Eastern Edge Gallery 1-4 p.m. • Devon House clay studio and open house workshops, every hour from 1-4 p.m. • Freedom of the City ceremony and parade, begins at Sgts. Memorial on Queen’s Rd, 2 p.m. • Turkey tea, eat in or take out available,
Club One, George Street, 5 p.m. • OZFM Concert in the Plaza featuring The Madman Orchestra, Adam McGrath & the Tearjerkers and more, 7 p.m., Prince Edward Plaza, George Street. • Tuckamore Festival 2005 launch concert, 8 p.m., D.F. Cook Recital Hall, School of Music, MUN. JUNE 20 • Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) annual meeting, main auditorium, Health Sciences Centre, call 834-7663. • Stink by Jenn Goodwin and Sarah Doucette, two Toronto dance artists performing an acrobatic piece, all ages, 2 p.m., The Anglican Cathedral, 753-4531. • Flanker press presents a night of storytelling and the official launch of Wonderful Strange by Dale Jarvis, 7- 9 p.m., Newman Wine Vaults (436 Water Street), 739-4477.
JUNE 21 • 15th annual Festival of New Dance featuring 24 visiting artists, performances each evening at the LSPU Hall, continuing June 21-26, call 7534531 • 21st annual International Petroleum Conference East Coast Canada Oil and Gas: New Basins, Strong Markets, Global Opportunities, runs until June 23. ª Offshore Newfoundland Petroleum Show, Mile One stadium, until June 22, register at www.petroleumshow.com. • Rug hooking workshop with Elizabeth Dillon, Anna Templeton Centre, 6-10 p.m., call 739-7623. JUNE 22 • Three-day drawing and painting workshop with artist Julia Pickard begins. 10 a.m.–3 p.m., Anna Templeton Centre, call 739-7623. • Folk night at the Ship Pub, 9 p.m. Smoke-free. JUNE 24 • Seniors’ day at MUN Botanical Garden, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. To book your seat on Cook’s Bus and Charter call Ron at 364-1184. • Keyin Idol, in support of the Children’s Wish Foundation and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, 8-10 p.m., Dooly’s, Kenmount Road. • The St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre presents Teddy Bear Picnic, with Terry Rielly, noon–2 p.m. Admission: Non-perishable food item for the Salvation Army food bank. JUNE 25 • Charley Pride, Mile One Stadium, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., tickets $48.50. • Fresh Voices concert featuring David William and Ashley Fayth, Gower Street United Church, 8 p.m. IN THE GALLERIES • Land of the Weather, solo exhibit by Louise Sutton, Leyton Gallery of Fine Art, until June 25. • Seasons of the Heart, an exhibit by Michelle Whitten LaCour, MUN Botanical Garden, until June 26, Call 737-8590. • An exhibit of artwork by Pat Hayden Ryan, on display at Balance Restaurant until July 11. NOTES • Prince of Wales Collegiate Class of 1980 is having a 25th anniversary reunion July 22-24, 2005. For more information, e-mail mmiller@mun.ca, call (709) 726-6810 or visit the PWC website at http://www.pwc.k12.nf.ca/Alumni/. • The 2006 Sound Symposium has issued a call for proposals to all sound artists. The deadline is July 15, 2005. For details and an application form, visit www.soundsymposium.com or call 7541242. The festival will take place in St. John’s July 14-22, 2006.
INDEPENDENTBUSINESS
SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 19-25, 2005 — PAGE 25
No deep fryer in this kitchen New vegetarian restaurant fills gap in downtown St. John’s
By Stephanie Porter The Independent
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t. John’s is known for its fish’n’chips, seafood, pub grub and, increasingly, fine dining, but vegetarian fare — outside the odd sandwich or salad — is notoriously difficult to find. And so some greet the opening of the city’s first strictly vegetarian restaurant with delight, some with curiosity, others with skepticism. “We’ve had lots of people come by and peer in the window as we were getting this place ready,” says Marina Schiralli-Earle, one of the two owner-operators of The Sprout, now open on Duckworth Street. “Lots of people have been coming in, before we were open, really excited about it. We thought more people would be intimidated by the idea of an all-vegetarian … but so many people say they can’t wait to come.” Schiralli-Earle, 28, and her business partner Julia Bloomquist, 24, are hardly intimidating themselves — these days they’re all welcoming smiles and unabashed pride. The women renovated and decorated their new space (the former home of Classic Café west) into a cozy, friendly restaurant with plenty of plants, light, and a corner nook with books for both kids and adults. Schiralli-Earle, originally from New Brunswick, and Bloomquist, from Ontario, met several years ago in a “bush camp in northern Ontario.” Schiralli-Earle was in the kitchen; Bloomquist was tree planting. “And last summer we were both working in the kitchen, cooking together,” says Bloomquist. “It was a great way to test out the team.” Schiralli-Earle met her future husband in the camp up north (he’s from Carbonear) and the couple moved to St. John’s after getting married. Bloomquist had visited the province several times, and finally moved to Newfoundland last year. “I fell in love with St. John’s,” she says. “It definitely feels most like home.” The women have worked “almost exclusively” in restaurants over the years — most often in small vegetarian places like The Sprout. “We both envisioned ourselves doing something along these lines,” Bloomquist says. “Not only vegetarian food, but just really wholesome, unprocessed food … We both really believe in it, and we enjoy eating out as well — and there just weren’t too many places to access that kind of food.” While Schiralli-Earle is a strict vegetarian, Bloomquist says she eats some fish — though most of her meals are vegetarian. But they say everyone will find something to enjoy, and leave The Sprout with a bellyful. “We believe it’s really simple to cook this way,” says Bloomquist. “We’d like to make it more possible for people to incorporate it into their diet. “It’s good to be balanced.” When designing their menu, which features salads, soups, chili, sandwiches, burgers, noodle and rice bowls — and weekend brunch items — the women aimed to be efficient in terms of supplies, and costeffective for the diners (nothing is over $8.50). They also plan to serve organic coffee and daily freshbaked muffins.
“We’ll have a special every day, so there will be lots of room for creativity,” says Bloomquist. “We just want to start with a small menu that’s really consistent.” The first-time entrepreneurs say they use all local distributors, and as many local products as possible. Now that the menu’s up in the window and the door is open for business, the women can reflect back on the 10-month process of getting a new operation up and running. A year ago, they had plenty of ideas — and food service experience — but not much in the way of business savvy. They contacted the local Y-Enterprise centre. “They walked us through our business plan, helped us get our vision down on paper,” says Bloomquist. “The initial step was just making sure we could work in this kind of environment, just the two of us in such an intense project.” While they spent months developing and hammering out their business plan they kept their eyes peeled for a place to call their own. When the current location opened up for rental, the pair knew they had found what they were looking for. “To have the space was so key,” Bloomquist says. “The first week was all about ripping booths out, pulling stuff down — and a lot of anxious nights feeling, realizing this was really happening.” The women did not receive any funding for their business, and admit they’re “doing it on a very small budget.” That’s why they — and plenty of supportive friends — did the renovations themselves. It worked out well, says Schiralli-Earle with a laugh, “though everything took at least 10 hours longer than we anticipated.” The biggest lesson learned, she continues, is that sometimes it’s better to do the tough stuff first. “We focused a lot on aesthetics first,” she says. “And then we went into the kitchen and realized, oh! We have to do this and this and this … next time, we would do it in reverse. “I kind of feel, though, that having this space we never covered up the windows or anything, so people (walking down the street) have been watching the process.” In the end, Schiralli-Earle and Bloomquist were about two weeks later opening than first planned. “It’s a little disappointing,” says Schiralli-Earle. “But it’s kind of time to relax a bit. We were stressed to the max and I think if we’d opened that first week we would have had nervous breakdowns.” The women say they’ve maintained their friendship through the whole setting-up process, and are now are just eager to see their dream restaurant fill with patrons. So far, they say, other shops in the area have been supportive. “In this end of town, there seems to be a movement to include lots of small, independent businesses,” says Bloomquist. “People head down here who are open to something a little different. “I mean, we don’t even have a deep-fryer.” Marina Schiralli-Earle and Julia Bloomquist in The Sprout, their new restaurant in St. John’s. Paul Daly/The Independent
Cutting red tape I
mpediments to business impair economic growth, job development and trade. Effective regulation facilitates development while ensuring safety, security and solid public policy. According to the Fraser Institute, more than 117,000 new federal, provincial and local regulations were enacted between 1975 and 1999, an average of 4,700 per year. The total cost to Canadians to comply annually with regulations from all levels of government is an estimated $103 billion, or 12 per cent of our gross domestic product. Red tape is created at that point on the scale when government responsibility and requirements outweigh benefits derived. Across the country the overburden of regulation to business is finally being
SIOBHAN COADY
The bottom line recognized and impediments are being removed. Consider, for example, in New Brunswick where there’s a ministry, headed by the premier, dedicated to red-tape reduction. The committee’s findings and status reports are filed regularly. The recommendations already implemented — 30 to date — include a pilot for a single point registration of construction fees and the streamlining of interactions with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. There were
numerous other regulations reviewed in 2004. Following this, the office of and maintained as is. the Treasury and Policy Board continFive years ago in Nova Scotia they ued its oversight role, offering individstarted a similar uals and businesses a process called the contact point to raise Red Tape Reduction According to the Fraser concerns about govInitiative. The task ernment red tape. Institute, more than force was mandated I particularly liked “to make recommenthe wording at the 117,000 new federal, dations that would beginning of the provincial and local eliminate unnecesreport, a definition regulations were sary red tape that actually: “Red tape is delays or stifles busiunnecessary, uncoenacted between 1975 ness development. In ordinated, or unjustiand 1999, an average essence, the task fiable requirements or of 4,700 per year. force was directed to restrictions, compliidentify how to ance, implementation, improve both the province’s regulatory or overly burdensome administrative system and how it is administered.” costs that impede business developThe final red tape report was tabled ment, economic development and job
creation.” Here in Newfoundland and Labrador, a Red Tape Reduction Task Force was first announced in budget 2003. The initiative didn’t really get underway until this year when Minister Kathy Dunderdale announced the initiative would proceed. It is truly unfortunate we are behind on this but government is to be commended and congratulated for pushing forward on this important and necessary review. Government pledges support and promotion of small- and medium-sized business, which is one way to demonstrate its commitment. The task force is to report back by late fall with its recommendations. I’m See “Meeting, not exceeding,” page 27
JUNE 19, 2005
26 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS
Are we thrilling ourselves to death? Coasters strive for higher G-forces, ride designers balance fun with safety
Roller-coasters like The Dragon Fyre at Paramount Canada’s Wonderland reflect riders’ constant desire for greater exhilaration. Experts say that quest can be risky for some.
By Christian Controneo Torstar Wire Service
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igher, faster, upside down and … ? Whatever it takes to melt your mind, churn your stomach and hand you your lunch. Every year, there’s a fresh contender on the amusement park scene. But has the race to deliver the next great midway breath-snatcher finally outstripped safety? Days after a four-year-old boy died on a spinning ride at Walt Disney World, investigators are still trying to determine how. He didn’t fall off. The ride didn’t break. In fact, it operated exactly as it should, by using centrifugal force to simulate weightlessness. The boy simply lost consciousness and died later at the hospital. With the advent of monster rides such as the current coaster champ, Kingda Ka in New Jersey — with its top speed of 206 km/h and record-setting plunge of
139 metres — the question arises: are we thrilling ourselves to death? “Questions are being asked,” says Richard Sawyer, an engineer at Toronto’s Sawyer, Duncan and Associates, who has worked in the industry for 20 years. “And I don’t think anybody has come up with an answer. Sure, they put signs up saying you have to be healthy and not pregnant (or with) back problems and blah blah blah, but people tend to push it. “Generally, what you find in these instances (is that) there’s some preexisting condition which may or may not have been known, and the ride just triggered it.” The name of the problem is G-force. Fighter pilots, who train at up to nine Gs, know all too well the heart-hammering authority of gravity. You feel higher G-force whenever you speed up, slow down or turn a corner too quickly. At high levels, it’s measured in Gs: one G equals the force of gravity pulling you toward the earth.
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It’s a matter of the heart being able to pump enough blood to the head. Under extreme gravity, it has to work much harder — and there’s risk a bloodstarved brain could fail. Mission Space, which the four-yearold rode, hits only two Gs, but many more intense amusement park rides routinely put passengers through 3.5 Gs. The SkyRider, at Paramount Canada’s Wonderland, even hits four Gs, but Sawyer says the issue is the duration. “If you ride at the front there’s a spike there at 4.5 Gs,” he says. “And you know what? You barely feel it, because it’s transient.” “Later on in the ride, you’re pulling about three Gs in the horizontal loop, and that’s sustained. You really feel that one. There’s less Gs, but you really feel it. “You get to a point where people are not going to sustain those G rules.” But technology is, after all, a doubleedged sword. Just as it enables designers and engineers to build more freakishly fast rides, it also allows them to build them more safely. “There certainly is that consumer drive out there, that people want something new,” says Roger Neate, manager
of operations for the Technical Standards and Safety Authority. “But our job is to make sure when something new comes along that it’s completely safe.” Every ride in Ontario must be reviewed and inspected by the standards authority, often using devices called accelerometers, which measure G-force and can trace exactly where it spikes. The device also reveals which seats get the brunt of the force. There’s a reason why thrill-seekers aim for the front of the coaster and the less stout of heart head for the back. Paramount Canada’s Wonderland doesn’t push the extremes of height or G-force. “We really don’t go after those kinds of rides,” says Kristin Williams, a spokesperson for the park. “It’s much more sensible to put in a ride that you know will cater to the majority of your guests.” About half of Wonderland’s visitors are families with young children. But Wonderland does play the novelty card, by necessity. More than 70 per cent of visitors hail from the GTA, in contrast to destination parks like Disneyland that attract pil-
Charla Jones/Toronto Star
grims from around the world. Because it must appeal to a repeat market, Wonderland’s buzzword is “new” — from last year’s Tomb Raider, which propels riders horizontally, to this year’s The Italian Job Stunt Track, where riders accelerate through the air in Mini Coopers. “Whereas Universal or Disney could wait to put in a new attraction every four years, we need to put in something every year,” Williams says. Newer breeds, like The Italian Job, may seem to offer the most intense experience ever, but the goal is not so much speed as simply to be different. The new ride launches riders to 65 km/h in less than three seconds — the equivalent of 1,500 horsepower. But the Minebuster, a park classic since it opened in 1981, actually travels faster, at 90 km/h; it also climbs higher and lasts longer. Just don’t rule out old-school favourites like the spinning teacups. “They’re kind of a puker, if you know what I mean,” says Richard Sawyer, who counts his wife as someone who will never set foot on one again. “They can really mess you up.”
77 Harv Harvey ey Road
Stoggers’ Pizza The“best The “bestpizz zzain intown” town”is is
BACK!
Retailers tightening return policies in attempt to deter fraud and abuse TORONTO By Ellen Roseman Torstar wire service
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ang on to your receipt when buying products that may have to be returned or exchanged. And when buying gifts, ask for a gift receipt. That’s good advice now that major retailers are tightening their return policies. Wal-Mart Canada, which has 235 stores across the country and six big-box Sam’s Club outlets, put up signs last month outlining its new policy. “In the past, our policy was virtually open-ended and less-defined,” says Kevin Groh, a spokesman in the retailer’s Mississauga head office. “We’ve put parameters around it to make it consistent and better understood.” Wal-Mart gives “no-hassle refunds with few restrictions,” he says, if customers have receipts. Without a receipt, customers will be offered exchanges, credits, gift cards or repairs. Customers have to return unwanted items within 90 days to get a cash refund. Groh calls this “a soft deadline” and says Wal-Mart may act after that period if there’s damage or a reasonable concern about product quality or customer satisfaction. A 90-day return policy with receipt is becoming standard in the retail industry. It’s seen as a way to combat fraud, abuse and the cost of processing returned merchandise. Canadian Tire Corp. also has a 90-day return policy and tells customers to save receipts. But it has a few more conditions: you must return an item “in its original condition and packaging,” along with the Canadian Tire money issued at the time
of purchase. And valid photo ID may be required. A Canadian Tire store in Kelowna, B.C., came under investigation recently by the British Columbia information and privacy commissioner, David Loukidelis, because of its return policy. A customer complained that a store clerk asked for her name, telephone number and birth date. She refused to provide the information. While she did get the refund eventually, she was told she might not get one in future without giving the requested personal information. A store manager later said the information was needed to protect customers. It would allow the store to follow up if there had been an error in the processing of the return. The customer made a complaint under British Columbia’s privacy legislation, the B.C. Personal Information and Privacy Act. (Ontario follows the federal business privacy law.) In his ruling issued last month, the B.C. commissioner accepted the argument that collection of personal information is needed in efforts to deter criminals. Given the significant incidence of fraud, he says it was reasonable to ask for customers’ names, addresses and phone numbers as a condition of giving a refund. However, he recommends that Canadian Tire clarify the wording. For example, “valid photo ID may be required” could be amended to say “identifying information will be required for returns and valid photo ID may be required.” The Canadian Tire store in Kelowna didn’t get off scot-free, however. The B.C. commissioner says it was unfair to force people to give personal information in order to be contacted by tele-
phone. The store had been using an automated telephone-dialling program to call people and ask them to provide feedback on their experience in returning goods. The commissioner says individuals weren’t required to provide personal information for the purposes of customer satisfaction follow-up — and couldn’t be denied refunds for that reason. As for the customer’s complaint she had been required to give a date of birth, the store said this was not so. “If the organization did ask for this information,” the B.C. commissioner says, “my preliminary view is it should be optional and must be clearly so.” Caroline Casselman, a spokeswoman for Canadian Tire Corp., said the B.C. commissioner had validated its return policy practices. “While the overwhelming majority of customers are honest, a small percentage of customers are not,” she says. “As a result, retailers do have to take precautions to combat the problem of fraudulent merchandise return, a significant issue in retail that increases costs for all customers. “We carefully guard our customer information and we use it only to track product returns to protect against fraudulent returns.” What if you’re asked for personal information when returning products? Ask to see the company’s privacy policy. Find out why the information is being collected and for what purposes. Also, ask how long it will be retained. The B.C. commissioner said he wasn’t convinced that personal information had to be held indefinitely. He ordered the Canadian Tire store to provide a schedule of when the documents would be destroyed.
JUNE 19, 2005
By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent
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usy dog owners needn’t sit at work, worrying about what heinous damage their bored pup is inflicting on their furniture because they’re running late and haven’t been home in nine hours. Creature Care pet sitting and dog walking service is ready to help out. The St. John’s company will send a pet sitter to either hang out with Rover in the house and keep him occupied, or work off his energy by taking him for a walk. “When we first started we thought the pet sitting was going to be our business,” says Wendy Scammell, co-president of Creature Care, “it turned out the dog walking is every bit as big as the pet sitting.” Scammell sits on a couch in her front room and talks about the business venture she and her sister, Jackie Osmond, embarked on back in 2002. Creature Care is currently the only pet sitting and dog-walking company of its kind in Atlantic Canada and offers pet owners an alternative to using expensive and — for some animals — stressful doggy day-care or kennels when they can’t be around to mind their animals. HORSES TOO “We look after anything, reptiles, snakes, we’ve done ferrets, you know, guinea pigs, rabbits, you name it,” says Scammell, adding some of her staff are trained to handle particular animals. “In fact, we’ve talked about whether we would do horses. We do have a pet sitter who has experience with horses, so if the demand is there, then we do everything we can to accommodate clients’ requests.” The requests are steadily mounting. Scammell says Creature Care had originally planned to service the St. John’s/Mount Pearl areas only, but they’ve expanded to include Conception Bay South, Torbay to Pouch Cove, and are expecting to branch out to Portugal Cove-St. Phillips.
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Creature comforts St. John’s pet-sitting company will take Rover for a walk or watch him overnight
She says the six staff she currently employs will probably rise to around eight or nine by summer’s end. They don’t hire just anyone. Not only does Creature Care mind people’s furry prized possessions, but they also have to enter into people’s homes when they’re not there, sometimes for overnight visits. Scammell says clients need to feel they’re getting a secure service. “People we have as pet sitters, it’s obvious, as soon as you meet them, they’re just overflowing with enthusiasm about cats and dogs.” She adds both the client and sitter have the right to refuse service if they don’t feel comfortable. Fees range from between $15 (a 30minute visit/walk) to $65 (an over-
(Left-right) Jackie Osmond, co-president of Creature Care, with Purrsephone; Wendy Scammell, co-president of Creature Care with Xcalipurr; Catherine Dwyer, professional pet sitter/dog walker with Suki; Robbie Lownds, professional pet sitter/dog walker with Coco; and Lynn Flaherty, pet parent, with Gunnar. Paul Daly/The Independent
Following the indie-yuppie herd ‘I may work for The Man 9-to-5, but at heart I’m still a starving undergrad with a pure taste’
Meeting, not exceeding From page 25
By Dana Brown Torstar wire service
sure it’s working hard to ensure it covers the gambit of regulations, including the burdensome and expensive paperwork involved in Workplace Health and Safety, development applications and government tendering. Often the regulation makes good sense but the paperwork is particularly onerous. It will be critical to the success of the task force to ensure broad consultation with business, industry associations and key stakeholders. In other provinces this entailed website development, discussion papers, round tables and toll-free telephone access. Let’s make sure we consider all the possible regulatory impediments. I do know the St. John’s Board of Trade, and I’m sure other groups, are preparing comprehensive briefs that will help with the task. The bottom line is the government’s job is to facilitate economic activity while protecting its citizens. Provisions for all regulations to have a periodic review is necessary to ensure they are meeting, not exceeding, this mission.
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ichael Verhoeven is a new kind of yuppie. The 23-year-old Toronto investment accountant listens to his iPod at work, hits the coolest concerts in town and admits he can’t resist peeking in on poptart-driven reality shows such as Newlyweds and Britney and Kevin: Chaotic. He’s an urban, upwardly mobile, blog-loving, MP3-downloading consumer of trendy “independent” culture, and he’s part of the newest generation to make a name for itself: the indie-yuppies, or yupsters, if you will. Made up of perpetually hip professionals who unapologetically mix their love of underground-nouveau with their nine-to-five careers, the “indie-yuppie” has become one of the hottest buzz terms in cyberspace. Identified by Vice Records label manager Adam Shore several weeks ago in an interview with the Columbia Spectator, the label has kept bloggers as far away as Germany and Australia busily debating just what it means to be an I-Y. Shore’s comments were originally just a passing remark about what he felt was an “indie-yuppie establishment” crop of bands coming out. He called the music of several “indie-yuppie” artists “boring” and likened their work to “fancy-coffee-drinking, Volvoriding music for kids.” Shore says he never meant for the comments to reflect an entire lifestyle. “Had I known I was coining a phrase, I would of made a better one,” he jokes. But when his remarks were picked up by New York-based blog www.stereogum.com, the message boards began filling up. Scott Lapatine, who runs the popular website, began a cheeky “You know you’re an indie-yuppie when … “ contest, which received more than 350 entries. “I knew it would strike a nerve with people,” says Lapatine, a 27-year-old, self-described IY. “The buzz bands that Adam Shore namedchecked — Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Death Cab for Cutie — they’re sacred cows on the music blogs and he called them boring.” For Verhoeven, participating in left-leaning indie culture while lining his pockets with a well-paying day job isn’t that big a deal. “I work in accounting and I work for a big
night stay with two separate daily visits/walks). Clients and their pets have a free half-hour interview with the sitter before being assigned. Sitters also write a journal about the animal’s experience or leave a phone message, water plants and make sure security is taken care of in terms of taking in mail and switching lights on and off. Scammell says they use colourcoded keys and make sure they don’t dress in the usual dog-walker vests when visiting homes for security purposes. Scammell, who is a wife and mother of three, worked in fundraising for the Canadian Mental Health Foundation before taking maternity leave in 2002. Just as that was coming to an end, her sister returned from living in Toronto and pitched the idea for Creature Care, based on a pet-sitting company there. “She said we should start a business. I said I’ve always wanted to, I’ve just been looking for the right idea. “Both of us were always the animal owners and pet lovers in our family and it just clicked with us. Yes, this makes so much sense. And everybody around us went, ‘What? You’re going to do what?’” As a busy mother, Scammell can work from home, in a business that has minimal overhead and is steadily gaining in popularity. She says the main challenge, so far, has been educating the general public to the concept of pet sitting. But word of mouth is spreading. The clients also seem happy. What often ends up happening is one particular sitter tends to do the same pets on a regular basis. “You get pet sitters and animals that bond and I actually just got an e-mail from one of our clients in Torbay, it almost brought me to tears,” says Scammell. “She was talking about how wonderful the pet sitter was with her dog and how it really makes her feel good leaving her house, knowing that she has this person that loves her dog as much as she does.”
Toronto investment accountant Michael Verhoeven is part of the newest generation to make a name for itself: the indie-yuppies, a group of professionally hip individuals. Vince Talotta/Toronto Star
company,” he says. “And on the other hand I’m listening to all this music that says that stuff is not necessarily bad, but they don’t really promote it … it’s not a contradiction to me, but I guess I could see other people out there saying that.” But it’s not politics that have been blazing up the message boards, says Lapatine, and he has yet to see an overt clash of indie purism with yuppie consumerism. “It’s more about, “I may work for The Man 9-to-5, but at heart I’m still a starving undergrad with a pure taste,’” he says. But that pure taste doesn’t come cheap. What was once a grassroots, economically accessible scene has turned into big business. Second-hand T-shirts and jeans — staples of the indie wardrobe — can now be found new but fashionably worn-in at pricey upscale stores. I-Ys not only have to pay for their music and rising concert ticket costs, but also the high-tech tools that allow them to keep abreast of the latest breaking news. Ryan Austin, a 23-year-old law student and communications officer from Calgary, spent more than $600 on his iPod a little more than two years ago. “Now you can get four times the size for less
than I paid,” he says, laughing. Austin is an avid blogger and voracious reader — he’s always scanning the Internet to see what’s new, hip and happening. It’s the fusion of underground cool with mainstream chic that’s the backbone of the I-Y mentality. Robyn Paton, a 26-year-old marketing specialist and self-described I-Y from Ottawa, says she and her friends have even seen a change in the way employers are reacting to this new professionally hip generation. “We’ve noticed a shift in that people are taking time off to go to music festivals … or coming in a little late because they’ve gone to a show and it’s not a big deal,” she explains. Paton says she still loves the indie scene in which she grew up, but there’s no denying the divide between the up-and-coming hipster crowd and the daytime responsibilities of the IY sect. “There’s lots of shows on school nights,” she jokes. “The people who are not the 9-to-5 workers … party until it’s late, until the bar is closed and the rest of us are going ‘You know, I have to get up at nine or I have to be at work at 8:30 so I have to go home. This is fun, but I have to be a grown-up now.’”
A LITTLE OF YOUR TIME IS ALL WE ASK. CONQUERING THE UNIVERSE IS OPTIONAL. Think it requires heroic efforts to be a Big Brother or Big Sister? Think again. It simply means sharing a few moments with a child. Play catch. Build a doghouse. Or help take on mutant invaders from the planet Krang. That’s all it takes to transform a mere mortal like yourself into a super hero who can make a world of difference in a child’s life. For more information...
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Newfoundland 1-877-513KIDS (5437) www.helpingkids.ca
28 • INDEPENDENTSPECIAL SECTION
JUNE 19, 2005
JUNE 19, 2005
INDEPENDENTSPECIAL SECTION • 29
30 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS
JUNE 19, 2005
JUNE 19, 2005
INDEPENDENTFUN • 31
WEEKLY DIVERSIONS ACROSS 1 St. Francis of ___ 7 Alternative to plastic 11 Plunderer 17 River of London 18 Sorcery 20 Palestinian sect, once 21 Interfere 22 Ruminant of Peru 23 Essential organs 24 I have 25 Fine and ___ 27 Large bird of S. America 29 Recline 30 Lady loved by a swan 32 Dawn goddess 33 Group of experts 35 “___ we forget” 36 Characters in fables, usually 38 Heel (Fr.) 39 Defensive strongholds 40 Here in Le Havre 41 Not sterile 42 French bag 43 Linen or cotton 46 Busybody 47 Compound in garlic 51 Depend 52 A Bachman 53 Belgian singer 54 Foofaraw
55 Means justifier 56 U.N. envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa 57 Goddess of agriculture 58 Bridle mouthpiece 59 Partook of 60 Not being used 61 Stream 62 Gator’s cousin 63 Quebec’s anthem 65 Up in the sky 66 She swam all the Great Lakes (1988) 67 Natural resource 68 Is aware of 69 French salt 70 Bent over 73 Grand ___, N.B. 74 Least fresh 78 Georgia, to Georges 79 N.B. artist Molly or Bruno 80 Tio’s wife 81 Puget Sound whale 82 N or S 83 Luigi’s “See you later!” 84 Quebec’s Arcand 86 Sports host MacLean 87 Of the North 89 Morse Robb’s invention: electric ___ 92 High ground 94 Beneficial
Solutions found on page 32
95 Author from Wingham, Ont. 96 Rainiest city: ___ Rupert, B.C. 97 Break it to me ___ 98 To kill (Fr.) 99 The Solar ___ DOWN 1 ___the Hun 2 Beardless 3 Saturday in Ste. AdËle 4 Mischievous child 5 Sow 6 Like El Al 7 Respiratory infections 8 With skill 9 Red or Caspian ___ 10 Prosciutto 11 Luxuriate 12 The East 13 Believer: suffix 14 Seller 15 Sign up 16 Turns the hands back 19 Musician Ofra ___ 26 Yeses and ___ 28 Female lobster 31 Friendship 33 Maritimes fun: kitchen ___ 34 ___ mater 35 Plural of locus 37 German exclamation
38 Is inclined 39 Della ___, B.C. 41 Canadian film award 42 Glossy 43 Fatty part of milk 44 Slow (mus.) 45 The ___ Days Coat (Laurence) 46 Small sailboats 47 Montreal stop sign 48 Sask. town named for wild goat-antelope 49 Nitwit 50 Kick it up a ___ 52 Do a hue anew 53 Complaints 56 B.C./N.W.T. river 57 Public land: ___ land 61 ___ and dagger 62 Instrument of 19D 64 Szumigalski or Bowering 65 Tolstoy’s Karenina 66 N. Zealand parrot 68 Toronto fireworks company 69 Elastic-top stockings 70 Mattress denizen 71 Serving no useful function 72 Rabbits’ home 73 Extinct giant bird 74 Cdn. identifier 75 Deviating 76 Candle bracket
77 Bicycle built for two 79 Ace Bishop 80 Male voice
83 What David Copperfield was born with
TAURUS: APR. 21/MAY 21 Watch your temper this week. You may end up driving someone away with one of your sudden emotional outbursts. GEMINI: MAY 22/JUNE 21 This is not a very good week to purchase secondhand items. They could be of poor value. If you are looking to make a purchase, shop around for a few weeks, then decide. CANCER: JUNE 22/JULY 22 You will have an especially easy time with teamwork and shared projects. A lot will be accomplished. LEO: JULY 23/AUG. 23 This will prove to be an exception-
ally talkative week.even for you! It's an ideal time for exchanging views, making deals and having heart-to-heart conversations with those you love. VIRGO: AUG. 24/SEPT. 22 You may have recently been involved in some activity that you don't want to become public knowledge. But your secrecy may be noted by those close to you and lead to difficult questions. LIBRA: SEPT. 23/OCT. 23 This week could easily start with some family arguments connected with leisure activities. Try to be more decisive when it comes to making plans with friends. SCORPIO: OCT. 24/NOV. 22 You'll have to try to be less straightforward than usual. There is a problem - something to do with a close friend - and you could be involved. It's a situation that doesn't call for straight talk, so try
90 Tire trapper 91 Zebu’s kin 93 Fleur de ___
POET’S CORNER
WEEKLY STARS ARIES: MARCH 21/APR. 20 Efforts to impress other people could have disconcerting results. Don't expect favors from others now. A relationshipwith a member of the opposite sex could become serious.
84 Venture 85 Frisky, for a fogey 88 Newt
to keep your opinions to yourself. SAGITTARIUS: NOV. 23/DEC 21 Recent disagreements with family members should be resolved. You will find that tensions at home have been alleviated. CAPRICORN: DEC. 22/JAN. 20 Make sure social activities don't conflict with your rigorous work schedule. If you neglect your respon-sibilities, you could find yourself in a bad situation next week. AQUARIUS: JAN. 21/FEB. 18 You may not have as much energy as you think, so slow down your pace. Steer clear of conversations about politics or religion with family members who have opposing views. PISCES: FEB. 19/MARCH 20 Because Pisces tend to feel sorry for themselves, they are often held back from the good things in life. You can't improve your life if
you're always drowning in sorrows. Many good things could happen this week, but you won't be able to experience them if you're home sulking. FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS JUNE 19 Kathleen Turner, actress JUNE 20 Cindi Lauper, singer
THE WAY OF CAPE RACE Lion-hunger, tiger-leap! The waves are bred no other way; It was their way when the Norsemen came, It was the same in Cabot’s day: A thousand years will come again, When a thousand years have passed away — Galleon, frigate, liner, plane, The muster of the slain.
JUNE 24 Jeff Beck, guitarist
They have placed the light, fog-horn and bell Along the shore: the wardens keep Their posts — they do not quell The roar; they shorten not the leap. The waves still ring the knell Of ships that pass at night, Of dreadnought and of cockle-shell: They do not heed the light, The fog-horn and the bell — Lion-hunger, tiger-leap!
JUNE 25 George Michael, singer
A poem by E. J. Pratt from the 1962 book, Here the Tides Flow.
JUNE 21 Prince William, royalty JUNE 22 Carson Daily, TV personality JUNE 23 Selma Blair, actress
JUNE 19, 2005
32 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS
Nick Dinkha, a 36-year-old Bay Street bond analyst and one of the estimated 25,000 Assyrians in the greater Toronto area, sports the Assyriska scarf. Rene Johnston/Torstar
Special club, special fans Assyrians around the world follow the exploits of their beloved Swedish team, Assyriska, on the Internet By Cathal Kelly Torstar wire service
T
he rising fortunes of a small Scandinavian soccer team founded by factory workers has become the unlikely focus of an estimated four million Assyrians worldwide. Assyriska Foreningen Sodertalje’s three-decade long progress from a weekend kick-around club to a professional side in Sweden’s elite league is a sporting fairy tale. In Canadian terms, it’s the equivalent of a beer-league hockey team making the NHL. But Assyriska is much more than a sports success story. The team has become the national obsession of millions of immigrants scattered around the globe. Like the Kurds, the Assyrians — a stateless nation of middle-eastern Christians who come from an area bounded by Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey — have never had their own country to root for in the Olympics. What they have is Assyriska. “It’s our national team,” says Nick Dinkha, a Bay Street bond analyst. Dinkha, 36, is one of the estimated 25,000 Assyrians living in the greater Toronto area. Like many of his compatriots, he goes to extraordinary lengths to follow the tiny club thousands of kilometres away. The games aren’t broadcast live internationally, so Dinkha is forced to follow via Internet radio ... often in Swedish. “You don’t really understand it. But
you can hear the names of the players,” Dinkha says. But why listen at all, if you can’t follow the game? “Why do people listen to opera? They can’t understand that either,” says Layth Jato, president of Toronto’s Assyrian Athletic Club. “For us, it’s saying, `there they are.’ That’s enough.” Assyriska was started in 1971 in the town of Sodertalje, home of tennis legend Bjorn Borg. The founders were Assyrian immigrants working at the local Scania truck factory. The name “Assyriska” paid tribute to their heritage. After four years, the team was admitted into the seventh division — the lowest rung in Swedish football. By the mid-’80s, the team had risen as high as the fourth division. In order to spur its progress, in 1990 Assyriska began admitting non-Assyrian players. “We are southern, warm-blooded people who like to run with the ball. It’s good to have a couple of solid Swedes at the back,” Assyriska administrator Fehmi Tasci explains to London’s Observer. Last year, it made history by winning promotion to Sweden’s highest league, the Allsvenskan. It celebrated by hiring a Portuguese coach to lead a multi-ethnic side populated by Assyrians, Swedes, a Ghanaian, a Bosnian and a Sierra Leonean. It began its first season in the top tier in April. It’s struggled so far, winning only two of nine games. But that does-
n’t seem to bother the Assyrian fans much. Internet chat rooms usually filled with heated discussions about the war in Iraq now devote almost as much space to soccer tactics and Allsvenskan results. When the games aren’t available on radio in any language, Swedish Assyrians update live game scores while thousands around the world huddle over their monitors. “We’re in 82 countries, but the Internet has become our home,” Dinkha says. If they can wait, fans can catch postgame highlights on Assyrian-language satellite TV. Dinkha is trying to organize live broadcasts of the games at the Assyrian community centre in Mississauga. He’s already bought the big-screen monitor, but he’s still trying to untangle the mysteries of Swedish satellite feeds. For many Assyrians, travelling to Sodertalje to watch a game has become a pilgrimage of sorts. “More and more, you see people who have visited family in Sweden wearing the scarves and jerseys in Toronto,” Dinkha says. Assyriska’s immediate challenge is surviving in the Allsvenskan. It’s playing in a borrowed stadium against better-funded rivals like Malmo and Djurgardens. A new 6,700-seat facility won’t be ready until the Swedish season ends in October. All in all, the odds seem long. But Assyrians in Toronto and around the world are intent on enjoying every minute of the ride.
Solution for crossword on page 31
A LITTLE OF YOUR TIME IS ALL WE ASK. CONQUERING THE UNIVERSE IS OPTIONAL. Think it requires heroic efforts to be a Big Brother or Big Sister? Think again. It simply means sharing a few moments with a child. Play catch. Build a doghouse. Or help take on mutant invaders from the planet Krang. That’s all it takes to transform a mere mortal like yourself into a super hero who can make a world of difference in a child’s life. For more information...
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Newfoundland 1-877-513KIDS (5437) www.helpingkids.ca
JUNE 19, 2005
INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 33
Walker leaves home soil with his head held high Door open to play for World Cup team
By Richard Griffin Torstar wire service
A
n odd scene unfolded on June 15 as the St. Louis Cardinals faked a group stretch on the shaggy, phony grass at the Rogers Centre. There appeared Toronto Blue Jays coach Ernie Whitt on bended knee in front of a seated-on-the-ground Larry Walker, as if proposing marriage. Close enough. What the Team Canada manager was actually proposing was a spot on this country’s roster for the baseball World Cup next spring. No, that’s not tampering. “We talked about it, yeah,” Walker says. “I’ve been in the dark about when it starts, where it’s at. I gave him the same answer I can give myself, fairly. I still have four or five months left and then some decisions will be made. I’m going to try and keep myself in shape to keep that door open. It’s a long way to think about it.” Even if he does represent his country next spring, June 15 was likely Walker’s final game on Canadian soil. When he spoke to the Toronto media on June 13 about what it meant, his eyes glistened with emotion. Obviously it meant a lot. “I pretty much know this is going to be it,” the Maple Ridge, B.C., native says. “Unless these teams meet in the playoffs.” It’s been a long road since the day in
a now baseball-less city, remembering his first Expos game on native soil. It was August ‘89, a two-walk performance off the Giants’ Mike LaCoss. After the homestand, the Expos flew to the west coast. In San Diego, within days of the Sept. 1 expanded rosters, Walker was farmed out. They told him not to leave town because he’d be back, but to maintain a low profile because of pesky major league rules. The next morning a group of reporters went poolside, only to discover Walker lazing on a deck chair in shocking lime green shorts with a tall iced tea and sunglasses. Laying low? He has never been scared of authority. TOO BAD “Did they want me to crawl between the mattresses of my bed and don’t breathe and not see the light of day? I didn’t know,” Walker says. It’s too bad. His five seasons in Montreal (1990-94) should have been more rewarding, leading to the creation of a national hero of Gretzky-like proportions. It didn’t. Even though he has become the greatest Canadian position player in major league history, his Montreal years seem unfulfilled. “I don’t want to say this wrong, but I thought (my Montreal time) was going to have more meaning than it did,” Walker says. “This is no knock against the French, but Montreal would much rather have a French-Canadian playing in Montreal than just a Canadian. It
wasn’t what they were looking for. “It turns out they wanted a Frenchspeaking, left-handed, power-hitting Canadian. I don’t think I fit the mold 100 per cent. Only half of it.” In 1993, Montreal-born pitcher Denis Boucher arrived to a hero’s welcome despite mediocre career numbers in an up-and-down career. His first start packed the Big O. “That gave me more proof that was what they were looking for,” Walker recalls. “When they rolled out the (Quebec) flag on the mound for Denis, that just reiterated what I’m saying. I paid one lady all winter to try and teach me how to speak French. I guess I wasn’t cut out for it.” All the emotion he had for playing his final games on home soil had all but disappeared by the time he gathered his bats and walked up the tunnel to the visitors’ clubhouse following a 5-2 loss to the Jays on the 17. “The end of the road’s here,” he says with resignation. “I have no problem living with that. I’m not cutting myself short in my career. It went a lot longer than I expected. My knee held up longer than doctors expected. I’m grateful. I’m not going out of this game leaving a lot behind.” Actually, Walker is leaving a lot behind. He leaves Canadian ballplayers — professional, college and high school — who may not have stayed with the game if not for the hall of fame success of an ex-hockey goalie.
Felicien on target to defend her title By Randy Starkman Torstar wire service
P
erdita Felicien’s coach maintained last summer that the Pickering, Ontario hurdler would be better in the long run because of the disaster that befell her at the Athens Olympics. Nothing Gary Winckler has seen since alters his opinion. Winckler is pleased with Felicien’s form as she prepares to defend her title in the women’s 100-metre hurdles at this year’s world championships in Helsinki in August, although there are some technical changes that still need to be made in advance of the big event. Coming off a recent victory in Switzerland over Jamaican rival Brigitte Foster, Felicien is currently ranked No. 2 in the world in her event,
has twice beaten Joanna Hayes of the U.S., the world No. 1 and Athens Olympic champion, and also owns four of the top 14 times posted this year. “Athens was certainly disappointing,” says Winckler. “As I said then — and still believe — she will be better in the long term for what happened. I think each year she’s matured a little bit more, had a little better focus on what she needs to know.” Felicien’s victory last month at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore., gave her the fastest time of the season at 12.58 seconds, but that was eclipsed last weekend by Americans Michelle Perry (12.45) and Hayes (12.47). Winckler says he doesn’t pay attention to the opposition, preferring to concentrate on what they can control, which in this instance are some glitches which have appeared in Felicien’s form.
“It’s just small issues, some things with her lead leg and how it comes off the hurdle to put her in an optimal position for the finish,” he says. “These are things she’s done well in the past but drifted away from.” The heel Felicien injured in Athens still flares up at times and forced her to pull out of a final in Germany on June 12, but she looked sharp in beating Foster in Switzerland two days later. One concern Winckler has is that because the women’s 100-metre hurdles is not part of the Grand Prix circuit this season, there are only a limited amount of races between now and the worlds for Felicien to hone her technique under pressure. “We’re going to try to simulate things in training to give it the feeling of a race to make up for the fact there’s not the same quality of races,” he says.
Domi wants to stay a Leaf ‘Lot of fuel left in tank,’ says No. 28 By Ken Campbell Torstar wire service
T
ie Domi desperately wants to retire as a Maple Leaf, but in the new NHL he might not be able to. The fact remains that once the league opens for business again later this summer, Domi will be a 35-yearold unrestricted free agent in a sea of available players looking for work. He will likely fetch no more than half of the $1.9 million (all figures U.S.) he would have been paid last season had the league not locked out its players. That is, if the Leafs want him back. Things will be crowded for the over30 set with the Maple Leafs and while his close relationship with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment chairman Larry Tanenbaum and his immense popularity will work in his favour, Domi has come to the realization that his desire to stay a Leaf could cost him money. Domi typifies the stunning reversal in player attitude that has seen much of the rank-and-file go from militancy nine months ago to now talking about forging a partnership with the owners, all the while submitting to almost every ownership demand. “I’ve been fortunate and my family has been very fortunate, but times have changed,” says Domi. “In all professional sports, times have changed and everybody realizes that. “The corporate sponsors aren’t going to dish out the money and the TV contracts just aren’t there. We’re not the NFL.” Domi feels he has something to offer the Leafs. “I’m totally prepared to negotiate with Toronto once a deal gets done. That’s where my heart is and there’s no other place I would picture myself,” Domi says. “I’m 35 years old and I’ve got a lot of fuel left in my tank. I’ve got two or
three years left in me where I can play at a high level and I think I’ve proved that the last few years.” Domi acknowledges that he remains a little disillusioned by the process, saying that many of the concepts that were discussed in a meeting he brokered in December between Tanenbaum and Pittsburgh Penguins owner Mario Lemieux are the same ones that are being agreed to under a new collective bargaining agreement. NHL senior vice-president Bill Daly, NHL Players’ Association senior director Ted Saskin and NHLPA president Trevor Linden also took part in the meeting. “(Tanenbaum and Lemieux) are friends of mine and the ironic thing is that one guy is a top revenue guy and the other guy is the lowest revenue guy and you get them to agree upon something and you can’t sell it to the guys in charge of the whole situation,” Domi says. Domi had said earlier in the lockout that either NHL commissioner Gary Bettman or NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow would likely lose his job as the result of the lockout. He backed off a little yesterday, but did say that neither will likely be fondly remembered. “All I know is I wouldn’t want to have a legacy under my umbrella of being the one who cancelled the season,” Domi says. “That’s not a great legacy to have, to be the guy who cancelled the season or to be a part of cancelling the season.” But Domi saves his real vitriol for the owners, with the exception of Tanenbaum. “Some of these owners are going to try to come out and be heroes after this is over,” Domi says. “Look at a guy like (Boston Bruins owner Jeremy) Jacobs. He had one of the jewels of the United States and he just let it go. He did nothing to improve his team, he did nothing
to market his players and he’s one of those guys who doesn’t care. Same with the guy in Chicago (Bill Wirtz). He doesn’t even show his games on TV. That guy in L.A., (Philip) Anschutz probably doesn’t know what his players’ names are. (Carolina Hurricanes owner Peter) Karmanos was one of the guys who created this problem with the (Sergei) Fedorov situation. The guy in Nashville (Craig Leipold), who is he, really? “Instead of trying to save Nashville and Carolina, why didn’t they try to save Winnipeg and Quebec? “That’s the most disappointing thing.”
JUNE 19, 2005
34 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS
NEWFOUNDLANDER CUT
Geoff Drover's professional football career came to an end last week when the Kilbride-native was released by the Winnipeg Bluebombers. Drover had spent four years with the club and is the only Newfoundlander to play in the CFL. He is now on his way to the North West Territories, where he has accepted a job as the town of Fort Smith's recreation programmer. Paul Daly/The Independent
Fan-friendly event From page 36 athletes. What makes the event so fan-friendly is once the competitors complete their swim in the Glynmill Inn pond, they run up a 200-metre incline and pick up their bikes at the transition center at the Sir Richard Squires building, an area fans can easily pile into. The switch from bike to run occurs at the same spot, which also serves as the finish line. Fans get to know the athletes through the home-stay program, where the people of Corner Brook open their homes to many of the international competitors while they’re in town. Some west coast residents have become life-long friends with athletes from around the world. “That’s something special about our race; we hear from the athletes that they love the people in Corner Brook,” Ryan says. “People exchange Christmas cards and send e-mails throughout the year.” Although the Corner Brook Triathlon doesn’t run until July 17, the entire week before hand is filled with events — including a cycle challenge, road races, a swim relay and “kids of steel” competitions. The contests lead up to the main event and help create an atmosphere of excitement, Ryan says. “It’s not just a race that happens in Corner Brook; it’s an event the entire community supports.” Although the triathlon is still weeks away, Ryan says it’s already the current topic of discussion for the people of Corner Brook. “There’s already a buzz around the city. You hear people talk about who’s coming back this year and who’s going to enter the race. There’s a lot of excitement already,” she says. When the Corner Brook Triathlon began in 1982, just 12 competitors took part. In recent years, up to 180 people have entered the amateur side alone, and that number is expected to grow in the future. Ryan says the community is proud the event has grown from a local competition into a premier triathlon and multisport festival featuring national and international athletes. “It’s phenomenal,” she says. “We’ve become a staple stop on the ITU circuit.” The Sports Network will broadcast taped footage of the event later in July. Ryan says the added exposure on Canada’s top all-sports channel helps attract both athletes and spectators to the province. “It’s a fabulous benefit of being on the ITU circuit.” darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca
Death of senior hockey From page 36 as Brookfield, Oxford and East Hants quickly iced junior squads, and fans couldn’t get enough of the enthusiasm demonstrated by the young players. Senior hockey — which was on fragile ground to begin with — was shown the door. Senior team owners realized they couldn’t compete for the same fans as junior teams. Junior hockey was what the paying customers wanted. Take the 1998 Truro Bearcats, for example. After several very successful seasons, the Bearcats hosted and won the 1998 Allan Cup. They brought the national championship for senior hockey to their hometown — and promptly folded. It wasn’t that they didn’t have fans — they filled the Colchester Legion Stadium on a nightly basis — and it obviously wasn’t because they weren’t successful. The Bearcats closed shop because the Town of Truro had secured a Maritime Junior A Hockey League franchise for the 1998-99 season. Despite the long-time backing of fans and the corporate community, the senior team knew they couldn’t compete with the junior squad for support. Basically, Truro was only big enough for one team, and the Allan Cup champs weren’t the one of choice for hockey followers in the town. That could easily happen in this province. Junior hockey is already strong in the St. John’s area (Gerry Taylor does an excellent job running the local Junior B league) and last year a new junior league formed in central and western Newfoundland. Once the Fog Devils take off in the fall, it might be just a matter of time before junior teams start popping up in communities throughout the province. Towns like Gander, Stephenville and Clarenville love their hockey and would be more than pleased to have a team to call their own. Given the cost of running a senior hockey team these days (have you heard the rumoured budget of the Herder champion Deer Lake Red Wings?), hockey minds in the province may jump at the chance to operate a team with fewer expenses and a roster full of kids who play simply because they love the game. Add it all up and you have the death of senior hockey. Senior hockey is trying to make a comeback in Nova Scotia this year via entries in the new Canadian Elite Hockey League, but some skeptics believe it won’t work. Even if it does, there is no debating the number junior hockey did to senior in the past 10 years. The same situation will arise here if senior teams in the province don’t clean up their acts. They have to start working together instead of trying to one-up each other, they have to stop being so short sighted and self centered, and most importantly, they must look at the big picture before making decisions. If they don’t, it will only be a matter of time before junior hockey lays senior hockey to rest. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca
JUNE 19, 2005
INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 35 By Darcy MacRae The Independent
For kicks Almost 3,000 kids registered for soccer in St. John’s this summer; league president says he can see why
Pat Fleming, president of the St. John’s Youth Soccer Association
Rhonda Hayward/The Independent
T
here are reasons soccer is the most popular sport in the world. It’s affordable, fun to play, and requires only a ball and a group of players to chase it. The sport is becoming more popular with each passing year on the island’s east coast, with more than 3,000 kids registered to play this summer in St. John’s alone. “It’s a wonderful game,” says Pat Fleming, president of the St. John’s Youth Soccer Association. “It teaches you sportsmanship, discipline and how to work within a team. It has a lot of positives. I can’t think of any negatives.” Fleming has been involved with the local youth league since it began in 1985. Back then, the association had 800 kids signed up, not a bad total at the time, but well below today’s number — more than 3,000. Growth here is similar to that in other parts of the province and country. Fleming says it’s due, in part, to the improved play by Canada’s national men’s and women’s soccer teams and the growing awareness of the importance of exercise for children. “You get outdoors, you get healthy, and you make new friends,” Fleming tells The Independent. Another reason the game continues to grow is cost. Parents pay just $110 to register their child for house-league play, and an additional $120 if the kid plays on an all-star team. Full uniforms are provided, so the only equipment needed is a pair of cleats and shin guards. “It’s an affordable sport, especially for parents who want to register two or three kids,” Fleming says. The St. John’s Youth Soccer Association emphasizes soccer fundamentals, the importance of teamwork, fair play and having a good time. The latter is the most important as far as Fleming is concerned. “First and foremost, it has to be fun for the kids playing with St. John’s youth,” he says In past seasons, teams in Fleming’s association have claimed multiple provincial championships in A, B, and C divisions. As happy as Fleming is with the results, he says they come about as a result of stressing fun. “We tell the coaches to make sure the kids enjoy themselves. When the kids are enjoying themselves, winning is a progression from there.” Players in the St. John’s youth league, and throughout the province,
are divided into age groups, from fourand-under to 18. Every player is assured two house league games a week, while those on all-star teams receive additional playing time on the weekends. In total, the association will field between 140 and 150 teams this summer. Considering there are also senior men’s and women’s soccer teams in the city, time on the pitch, to put it lightly, is in great demand. Fleming says scheduling can sometimes be difficult, but overall everybody works together for the betterment of the sport. “With 3,000 kids playing in St. John’s, facilities are at a premium,” he says. “We could use more fields, but they are expensive to build. In all fairness, the city has been fantastic over the past number of years. They’ve refurbished and built new fields and without the city’s sponsorship, we couldn’t function.” GIVING BACK With so many players and teams, Fleming says finding enough coaches is always a concern. Quite often, men and women who played the game growing up — some at the Challenge Cup level — will give back to the sport by coaching a youth team. And then sometimes Fleming has to call on a parent who’s not overly familiar with the game. Those coaches work hard to make up for their lack of experience. “It’s amazing how quickly these people pick it up.” Parents almost always take part in coaching clinics, such as the one to be held by Sean Fleming — a Canadian Soccer Association national staff coach since 1997 — from July 17-19 in the greater St. John’s area. Such clinics are for all parents — inexperienced or advanced. “You think you know the game, but when you sit down and listen to some of these guys talk, you realize just how much you don’t know,” Pat Fleming says. As the summer moves along, he’s slated to take part in at least two or three youth soccer games a week throughout the city. Fleming sees soccer as the highlight of his day. “You go down to the field and watch the micro division (four and younger), and they’re kicking a ball as big as they are,” Fleming says with a laugh. “You sit back and watch and say ‘I can see now why I’m still involved.’” darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca
INDEPENDENTSPORTS
SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 19-25, 2005 — PAGE 36
Scott LeDrew, former competitor on the professional International Triathlon Union tour.
By Darcy MacRae The Independent
A
ll eyes in the triathlon world will be on Corner Brook early next month. From July 9-17, the 24th annual Corner Brook Triathlon will grab the attention of the west coast city and fans around the globe. “We’ve become a name to know on the world triathlon circuit,” says Janice Ryan, general manager of the Corner Brook Triathlon Committee. “We feel we’re helping to put Corner Brook and the province on the map.” The Corner Brook Triathlon is one of only two Canadian stops (Edmonton is the other) on the International Triathlon Union tour, which crowns a triathlon World Cup champion each fall. Up to 75 professional athletes descend on Corner Brook each July to compete in what many call the toughest course in the world. “It’s a physically challenging course,” Ryan tells The Independent. “The run
Paul Daly/The Independent
World class Just 12 competitors took part in the 1982 Corner Brook Triathlon, compared to 180 signed up to compete in next month’s race. Corner Brook is already buzzing. course has a lot of hills, and we also have a major climb on our bike course — unlike many of the bike courses in other parts of the world that are relatively flat.” The challenging course attracts many of the world’s top triathlon competitors, including Nathan Richmond of New
Zealand, Annabel Luxford of Austria and Canadian Simon Whitfield, the triathlon gold medalist from the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. “There are definitely some good athletes,” says Scott LeDrew, who competed on the pro triathlon circuit from 1988-93
and now competes at the amateur level. “You see Olympic-calibre athletes every year.” The Corner Brook Triathlon also attracts plenty of top-flight amateurs from this province, the rest of Canada and the United States. Competitors who finish first or second in their division (based on age — each division is separated by five years) in Corner Brook advance to the World Age Group Championships, making the event a huge draw for athletes everywhere. Joining the competitive athletes will be several people who enter simply as a means of living a balanced life. They enjoy staying fit and like the triathlon because of the personal test it presents, regardless of age. As an example, LeDrew says there are competitors every year in the 80-84 and 8589 divisions. The Corner Brook Triathlon attracts huge fan support, with spectators lining the streets to glimpse local and international See “Fan-friendly,” page 34
Death by Devils
Major junior hockey may drive senior hockey out of the arenas
T
he St. John’s Fog Devils could be the death of senior hockey. The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team will undoubtedly attract a huge following — not just in St. John’s — but from across the island. They will be bigger than the baby buds ever were, and will make the same type of impact on hockey here as the Halifax Mooseheads and Cape Breton Screaming Eagles did in Nova Scotia. And that’s exactly why the Fog
DARCY MACRAE
The game Devils could bring an end to senior hockey. Let me explain by venturing back a few years to the not-so-distant days of
my Cape Breton youth. I was 15 when the Mooseheads became the first Q team based outside Quebec in 1994, and remember vividly the stir they created. Newspapers, television newscasts and radio talk shows were flooded with excitement about the new brand of hockey. As is the case now in St. John’s, Halifax had just bid farewell to the AHL and was looking forward to major junior hockey. Once the games began, fans flocked
to the Halifax Metro Centre in droves. They couldn’t buy tickets fast enough. The Mooseheads were so successful the league decided to open up shop in Sydney three years later when the Screaming Eagles took to the ice in 1997. Fans loved the junior game — the big hits, offence, and local talent quickly made everyone forget about the AHL. As the major junior teams continued to grow fan bases in Halifax and
Sydney, a ripple effect occurred in many of Nova Scotia’s smaller communities. Due in large part to the excitement caused by the Mooseheads and Screaming Eagles, suddenly everybody wanted to watch junior hockey — of any kind. Towns that used to ice senior clubs were now putting together Junior A, B and even C teams. Communities such See “Death of,” page 34