2005-09-04

VOL. 3 ISSUE 36

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ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR — SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4-10, 2005

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IN CAMERA PAGE 20-21

OPINION PAGE 11

A tasty tour through local organic farm

Michael Harris points to serious flaws in American disaster relief

Cash windfall Price of oil may cut government deficit in half; unions look for more DAVID COCHRANE For The Independent

S

ky-rocketing oil prices are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars of unexpected revenue into provincial government coffers — cutting the deficit to a fraction of what it was when the Williams administration took office, The Independent has learned.

Finance Minister Loyola Sullivan says the high price of oil means provincial royalties will be much higher than the $215 million he projected on budget day in March.

“It (the extra revenue) is going to be in the hundreds of millions. But we don’t know where oil prices are going to take us,” Sullivan says. “It’s probably not going to stay at the $70 barrel. But it’s not going to go down to $30 either.”

Sullivan projected a $492-million deficit on budget day. But that number was based on revenue projections using a $38-US barrel of oil. At the time, finance officials said government would rake in an extra $180 million if oil averaged $45 US a barrel for the entire year.

But the price of oil has far exceeded that modest target, averaging $50 US until July, and more than $60 US since then. Sullivan says the extra oil money See “There is now,” page 2

Alternative transportation: Robyn LeGrow and her horse Eve of Langford Stables, Topsail.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “If the shrimp was coming out of Ontario you could rest assured we’d be looking to do something with European wine, but yet because it’s Newfoundland and Labrador shrimp it doesn’t get the same attention.”

— Premier Danny Williams See page 5

Churchill Falls

Paul Daly/The Independent

Feds may help out with lower Churchill development under Kyoto

CLARE-MARIE GOSSE

T

he provincial government may be able to tap into federal funds to help develop the lower Churchill, federal officials say.

But a Memorial University professor says that’s not likely to happen if the project’s only beneficiary is Newfoundland and Labrador.

Federal government officials working under a Kyoto initiative called the partnership fund visited Newfoundland and Labrador in recent weeks to discuss the potential of the lower Churchill, The Independent has learned.

The development of a hydro-electric power grid connecting the country from east to west was one project mentioned under the partnership fund in

the federal government’s $10-billion Kyoto plan earlier this year. Alex Manson, a spokesman for Environment Canada, says one aspect of the fund is to invest in large, strategic projects of significance to Canada and the provinces or territories.

“Under the partnership fund we have had one set of discussions with our partners in Newfoundland and Labrador and we did receive a basic presentation on the possible lower Churchill project, but no details at all, just a map,” says Manson.

Under the Kyoto plan, the federal government would look at the development of the lower Churchill in terms of the greenhouse gas emissions its 2,824 megawatts of energy could replace.

As well as potentially qualifying for financial assistance under the partnership fund, Manson says the See “We’ll just have to see,” page 4

‘Basically, he’s still around’ William J. Herder founded The Evening Telegram and started a dynasty STEPHANIE PORTER Editor’s note: eighth in a series of articles on the top 10 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians of all time.

The articles are running in random order, with a No. 1 to be announced at the series’ conclusion.

T

Energy dollars OPINION 22

Noreen Golfman on the dying days of summer SPORTS 32

Kirk Fleming bids adieu BUSINESS 24

Future of Robin Hood Bay dump up in the air LIfe Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Paul Daly/The Independent

he odds were against William James Herder when the first issue of The Evening Telegram rolled off the presses on April 3, 1879.

There had already been eight other attempts to launch daily newspapers in the province — one lasted a mere nine weeks, some managed a few months.

The Morning Chronicle made it nearly a decade.

At the time, there was at least one tri-weekly paper and seven bi-weekly papers competing in the limited marketplace — the population of St. John’s was about 30,000; the entire island held about 175,000.

But The Evening Telegram (now The Telegram) bucked the trend and is now celebrating its 126th birthday. It remained in the hands of William Herder and his direct descendants until 1970.

“It was a tremendous, courageous thing to take on,” says Maudie Whelan, a Newfoundland historian.

“It was a very iffy proposition. In fact, it was called ‘Herder’s folly,’ because there were so many papers around at the time … But he had the

courage to do it, he stuck it out, and basically, he’s still around, where others have gone by the wayside.”

Herder was born in New Perlican, Trinity Bay, in 1849. At about age 14, Herder started as a printer’s apprentice at The Courier, a St. John’s-based weekly paper. The paper printed for the last time in 1878 and Herder purchased one of its presses for his own operation.

The first papers were “not that good looking, not so interesting to look at,” says Whelan. The press was old, the print smudged, the four small pages crowded. But within the next three years, Herder purchased a new press and new type. The paper caught on, and circulation grew.

“The most important thing you could say about papers at that time is they really were political agencies,” says Whelan. The Evening Telegram was competitive, in terms of content, design, and politics.

“The Evening Telegram, like its competition, switched political allegances and loyalties both ways,” says Whelan. “It depended on their patronage.”

Author Harold Horwood — an employee of the paper in the 1950s — writes that, by the early 20th century, The Evening Telegram was firmly established as the most important paper on the island.

Herder was “a charming old conservative,” he writes in his book Joey.

“He had started as a printer’s devil but See “A charming,” page 2

2 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JULY 10, 2005

‘There is now a greater ability to pay’ From page 1 — coupled with increased revenue from the new Atlantic Accord — could cut the deficit in half and even drive it below $150 million.

“That is not unrealistic,” Sullivan says. “It won’t be $492 million. It will be down considerably.”

Part of the improved financial position is due to the deep cuts and spending restrictions Sullivan introduced in his first budget.

More of it is due to circumstance far beyond the provincial government’s control.

A barrel of oil was trading at just under $30 US on election day in 2003. This week it hit $70 US a barrel.

RISING FACTORS Sullivan warns the price of oil is “volatile” and lists “everything from hurricanes to the new king in Saudi Arabia” as factors that could drive the price of oil up or down over the next six months and significantly alter revenue projections. The rising Canadian dollar and lower-thanexpected production levels at the Terra Nova oil field will also reduce the size of the windfall. The increased revenue will still be significant, but Sullivan says people shouldn’t expect a governmentspending spree.

“There’s a lot of people in the province who don’t want us to pass debt onto our children,” he says.

“Every dollar of extra revenue over what is anticipated will bring the deficit down dollar for dollar.”

Sullivan’s devotion to deficit reduction will lead to some tough negotiations later this year when government meets teachers and nurses at the bargaining table. The province used its poor financial situation and the possibility of a $1-billion deficit to impose a wage freeze on NAPE and CUPE in 2004. But union leaders say that argument won’t work in 2005.

‘A charming old conservative’ From page 1

A taste what you will pay for a full tank of gas in St. John’s

“A portion of the windfall that is coming into the province has to be shared with the people. We own it,” says Kevin Foley, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers’ Association.

Foley says government should use some of the new money to reduce teacher workloads, cut class sizes and offer teachers a fair wage increase.

“With the improvement in the fiscal situation, people expect that to be shared. Teachers are no different,” he says.

Nurses’ union president Debbie Forward has her own list of demands — including an end to the public sector wage freeze, increased benefits, and more money to recruit and retain new nurses.

“There is now a greater ability to pay,” says Forward.

“It means the premier can no longer stand there and say ‘We can’t afford to do anything, that the province is in crisis.’”

Sullivan says government won’t comment on negotiations until formal talks with the unions begin later this fall.

David Cochrane is a locked out CBC reporter.

had gone on to found a publishing dynasty …

“William Herder and his successors never made an issue of their writers’ politics. If they could produce lively copy, and didn’t slip in too many radical ideas, the Herders would back them all the way.”

With reporters like Joey Smallwood working for them in the early part of the century, a lack of lively, informative — and sometimes controversial — copy was never a concern for Herder or his successors “I think (William Herder’s) legacy came on down to my own time,” says Ray Guy, a member of the Navigators selection panel and a writer with The Evening Telegram from 1962 until 1972.

“The people — Jim Herder, Hubert Herder, Steve Herder, they were the brothers and the cousins who were there at my time — they ran it as a newspaper, of course, but they had a sense of community.

They had to go out in the public streets and either get a hit on the head or a pat on the back.

“That’s the great difference in the paper as it was then and it is now.”

Guy — a lively, caustic writer himself — says “there was an atmosphere there that was really good, and I think the readers appreciated it too … it was a golden time.”

Through those years, The Evening Telegram often functioned — not only as the paper of record — but as an unofficial opposition to the government. Guy remembers then-premier Smallwood furiously threatening to withdraw all government advertising at one point.

The publishers retorted with a “to hell with you” and kept on going.

“We printed a big picture of one of those cowboy heroes with Joey’s head on top, ‘Two-gun Joey strikes again,’” Guy reminisces with a laugh. “We could be quite impudent and saucy … there was a sense of fun about it, that counts for a lot at a newspaper.”

Indeed, the paper frustrated the Smallwood government so much, says

Guy, that the administration printed 100,000 copies of its own news sheet, called The Newfoundland Bulletin — at public expense.

“In one issue alone, there were 18 or 28 pictures of Joey … it was just a showcase for all the good things the government was supposed to be doing.”

Guy has one favourite story that had been passed down through generations of reporters about “old man Herder.”

In 1898 Herder and A.A. Parsons, the editor at the time, were brought to court for a letter published in the paper. The letter charged that a publicly owned steamer servicing the outports of the island (the Fiona) was, among other things, “little better than a floating brothel.”

Herder maintained taxpayers had the right to express their opinions in the press — the judge did not agree, and the two were sentenced to prison for contempt of court.

“He ran up against the government of the day and they had him chucked in jail,” Guy summarizes. “Herder refused to wear the prison uniform, so he sat in the cold dungeon in his long johns and, well, that used to impress the hell out of us.”

Robert Sinclair, now a lawyer with the St. John’s firm Patterson Palmer, worked for The Evening Telegram between 1969 and 1971. At the time, newspapers were the source of information the public turned to.

“The era was quite heady, filled with politics,” he says. And The Evening Telegram was “regularly the source of editorials and investigative journalism, it was a watchdog of the government at the time. I don’t think you could say it was Tory or Liberal, but it was a watchdog. “(Herder) and his family certainly made quite a contribution to the field of journalism.”

Sinclair says there was a big change when Thomson took over the paper.

There was a marked departure from the newsroom.

“There was less staff, less typewriters, travel was reduced and so on … effectively, the nature of investigative journalism wore off.”

Guy has another way to put it. “They ran it like the Colonel ran his chicken stands,” he says.

“The old way was paternalistic, certainly. But I’d take that any day.”

The Telegram changed hands again in 1996, when it was bought by Hollinger.

In 2000, CanWest Global bought the Hollinger chain of newspapers, and in 2002, Transcontinental purchased The Telegram.

Even if the Herder family no longer owns The Telegram, their legacy lives on in the Herder Memorial Trophy, the prized cup of senior hockey in Newfoundland and Labrador. It was donated by The Evening Telegram in 1935 (all seven of Herder’s sons were accomplished hockey players).

The Herder-owned Telegram also began the Tely 10 road race in 1927, a 10-mile road race that is still run every summer.

“If you’re going to mention the media at all (in The Navigators), I think that old man Herder deserves it as much as anyone,” Guy says.

William J. Herder, who died in 1922, was inducted into the Newfoundland and Labrador Business Hall of Fame in 2003 for his vision and determination.

Judges for Our Navigators include John Crosbie, John FitzGerald, Noreen Golfman, Ray Guy, Ivan Morgan and Ryan Cleary.

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 3

‘Battle zone on Harbour Drive’ Mayor of St. John’s says much of harbour front will be ripped up next summer as construction continues toward completion of sewage treatment plant

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

T

Raw state More than 42 million pounds of unprocessed fish shipped out of province since 2001

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

UNPROCESSED SHIPMENTS Fish species

T

Amount exported unprocessed since 2001

1,050,000 pounds he provincial Fisheries Monkfish 99,000 pounds Department has granted Redfish 0 pounds exemptions allowing 42.7 Sea Urchins Cod 1,881,887 pounds million pounds or more than 21,000 Flatfish tonnes of fish to be shipped — (including yellowtail, 31,086,687 pounds unprocessed — out of the province Flounder and greysole) 177,187 pounds since 2001, The Independent has Haddock Hake 126,309 pounds learned.

Pollock 15,691 pounds The majority of the fish — includ0 pounds ing cod and flounder — went to mar- Turbot Total 42.7 million pounds kets in the United States, followed by mainland Canada, China and other went into low value cat food and fishmeal.

Asian countries.

“So our question was ‘Do we Outspoken fisheries advocate Gus Etchegary says that much fish could allow this to be shipped out for prokeep the idle Harbour Breton fish cessing in China and thereby plant, with a workforce of 450, going increase the value of it to the people who are catching it?’ And as far as full tilt for up to 50 weeks.

Provincial regulations prevent fish I’m concerned, we allowed it. It’s landed in the province by domestic something if you talk to the people in fleets from being shipped to market the industry, they don’t process this unprocessed. However, Fisheries so it’s not a matter of taking work Minister Trevor Taylor says there are away from fish plant workers.”

Taylor says it’s not uncommon for a number of reasons for exemptions countries to sell fish to other counto be granted.

The majority of unprocessed fish, tries to process. In fact, processing he says, is sold head on and gutted companies have been buying foreign-caught fish for local plants for a for a specific market use.

“Generally speaking, this stuff is decade.

The province has some of the most going, by and large, to specific markets that demand the product in this stringent processing requirements form. If they can’t get it in this form that state a particular amount of profrom us, well, they’ll get it in this cessing must be met before fish can form from somebody else,” Taylor be shipped out, Taylor says, adding the majority of the groundfish landed tells The Independent.

The fish that’s shipped out whole locally is in a market-ready state eventually gets processed but often at before it leaves here.

He says Norway has been selling the site where the fish is served — a restaurant, for example, Taylor says. unprocessed fish to Newfoundland When it comes to the 448,000 plants for processing for the last pounds or 224 tonnes of cod — all of decade — fish that never would have which was harvested from fish farms been allowed out of Newfoundland and Labrador.

— Taylor says the “I’d suggest fish looks unappeal“Today this fish is we’ve got some of ing when processed the most stringent through traditional not being dumped processing requiremethods.

— it’s all coming ments of jurisdic“So it doesn’t tions in the world.” avoid a fish processashore, it’s reported Fishery Products ing facility here — I n ternational and go to a fish proagainst the quota and spokesman Russ cessing facility the only question then Carrigan says that somewhere else — has sent it goes to the market is what happens to it.” company small fish out of the in the form that it province — mostly leaves here,” he Fisheries Minister to China — for prosays. cessing, but in limAs for flatfish — Trevor Taylor ited numbers. including redfish, He says the company is no longer greysole and some yellowtail flounder — Taylor says it’s cheaper to buying fish from other countries for process the fish, much of which is processing in the province as the venture has become too expensive. undersized, elsewhere.

“That’s a model that we tried and “Do we allow this to be harvested and shipped out for processing some- certainly hoped would work, but did where else or do we say ‘No, we’re not work out well, and, of course, not going to allow it to be shipped I’m talking about the frozen Russian out,’ and therefore it doesn’t get har- and Norwegian cod that we brought vested,” Taylor says. “Today this fish in for processing here in is not being dumped — it’s all com- Newfoundland,” Carrigan says.

He says China’s appetite for fish ing ashore, it’s reported against the quota and the only question then is drove prices up so that “the economic viability went out the window by what happens to it.”

He says small fish historically quite a long shot.”

he St. John’s harbour clean-up project is nearly ready for construction of a conventional primary sewage treatment plant. For the past 18 months, layers of rock have been removed from the southside hills in preparation, with the facility’s foundation finally nearing completion.

Mayor Andy Wells says the project will go to public tender by the end of October, and expects work on the project to begin next spring. The mayor hopes to “turn the switch” on the plant’s start up in January 2008.

The project’s completion will be welcome news to Diana Baird of the St. John’s Harbour Atlantic Coastal Action Program. Bluntly put, the harbour is a mess. Condoms, rubber gloves and floating feces are as common on the harbour surface as gulls or fishing boats. No-fishing signs may be posted around the harbour but residents don’t need to be told not to wet a line — the smell often gives it away.

More than 120 million litres of raw sewage and storm water are discharged into St. John’s harbour every day.

Newfoundlanders are among three per cent of Canadians who have a municipal sewage collection system with no treatment system at the end of the pipe.

“Anything that anybody flushes down a toilet or sink drain is going to end up in the harbour,” says Baird.

Once the sewage treatment facility is up and running, the constant flow of raw sewage into the harbour will stop.

It may take a long time, but Baird says eventually the waters off St. John’s may improve enough to meet provincial and federal standards — they currently fall short.

“Once you stop the flow, with tidal changes, I don’t think it will take very long before we see some significant improvements in the water quality,” she says.

While the sewage treatment facility is being constructed, a great deal of work will also take place on the north side of the harbour next summer. Wells says much of Harbour Drive will have to be ripped up to bring all the different sewage lines together.

“You have to tie together all your outfalls and then link it into the treatment plant,” he says. “All the sewage is tied together, goes into the treatment plant, is treated, and then the fluid is pumped down the harbour and there’s a diffuser that releases it into The Narrows. It’s going to be pretty clean.

It’s going to be a clean harbour.”

Wells adds that crews will have their hands full when work begins on Harbour Drive, and the side effects could upset some city residents — and businesses.

“It’s going to look like a battle zone on Harbour Drive. You’ve got to go down pretty deep; you’ve got to have a gravity flow,” says Wells. “There’s going to be a lot of disruption, but I call it good disruption. We’re working toward cleaning up the harbour. It’s going to be inconvenient and people are going to be fed up, but boy, we’re going to have a clean harbour.”

Business operators on Harbour Drive have to wonder what effect the construction will have on sales, especially since much of the street could be off limit to travellers for the summer.

“It’s a big concern to us. It could cost a big deterrent in sales, and we don’t want that to happen,” says Rob Moore, operations director and part owner of The Keg Restaurant. “It’s a fairly busy strip, so I’m going to assume they’re going to keep some traffic flowing

never informed of any of the proceedings, and had to go searching for answers after hearing rumours Harbour Drive would be ripped up.

“Nobody has informed us of anything,” Moore says. “If you find out anything, let us know.” darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

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4 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

‘On the bandwagon’ Towns such as Harbour Breton, Stephenville, St. Anthony and Happy Valley-Goose Bay have had tough years, but most election slates are full

By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

I

t’s going to take more than the loss of its fish plant to set back Harbour Breton’s town council.

Mayor Donald Stewart tells The Independent he was seriously concerned when, by morning of nomination day Aug. 30, only two people had put their hats in the ring for council (himself and another contender for mayor). A few hours later, however, local candidates demonstrated a healthy turn out.

“I was really pleased, by 8 p.m. on Tuesday night, which was the cutoff, that we ended up with 12 candidates for councillors,” he says. “That was a wonderful sign; we were quite happy with that. The other thing that struck me was that out of these 12 candidates, four were women and a lot of these candidates were of a younger age, by young I mean in their 30s.”

Stewart sounds positive and genuinely surprised by the interest, particularly as the town has suffered so many hardships with the loss of the plant and its struggle for work.

“The tension of the no work and people losing their vehicles and kids going back to school with no money, can’t afford to buy books and that, the tensions are fairly high,” he says. “On top of that, for people to offer themselves for council; they know it’s going to be very stressful, especially over the next

Paul Daly/The Independent

few weeks and months.”

Despite the current situation, Stewart says he has confidence the community will get a fish quota and find an operator for the plant — it will just take time.

Across the island on the west coast, the Town of Stephenville finds itself grappling with a major issue in the run up to the municipal election.

The enormity of possibly losing the Abitibi paper mill hasn’t discouraged the locals from running and may have even inspired a few.

Mayor Cec Stein, who has been the incumbent for 16 years, has got three other candidates challenging him for his post. In total, 15 people are running for the seven-seat council. Stein says some people think, if elected, they can change the face of Abitibi negotiations.

“There’s no matter who gets elected, they’re not going to keep Abitibi here,” Stein says. “Basically, it’s Danny Williams’ final call … I’ve been through five premiers, now, in 16 years and no matter what political stripe, you’ve got to learn to work with them.”

Stein says his main concern regarding re-election is the fact some people might be ready for a change after 16 years. He adds the community will need someone with experience, however, if the mill shuts down.

“There’ll be tough decisions to make and I believe after 16 years here, I think I know what those decisions are. I don’t like them, but somebody has to do it and I guess it may possibly fall on my shoulders.”

One community that has suffered a

poor election turnout is St. Anthony.

Deputy Mayor Douglas Mills seems unperturbed. He says it doesn’t surprise him that only five people (one too few) have put themselves forward as councillors. Two men — both former mayors of the town — are running in the hopes of replacing the departing incumbent Ernest Simms.

“We won’t be having any election for councillors, but we will be having elections for mayor,” says Mills. “For the last eight years the town’s been running quite well and we’ve been moving forward, we’re quite comfortable, so I’m not overall surprised.”

Mills says St. Anthony has no particularly contentious issues, but economic development is a big priority. The town is hoping to build a civic centre, a new

wharf and investigate the possibilities of residential expansion, which can be expensive given the rocky terrain.

One municipality that has its eyes set towards the future is Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Nomination day is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 6 and current Mayor Leo Abbass says he expects a healthy turnout. All six councillors are running again and he says he’s heard of four or five new, potential nominations. So far there’s no word if his position will be challenged.

“First and foremost we’ve got a situation with the Voisey’s Bay travel subsidy, that’s a big issue,” says Abbass.

The owners of Voisey’s Bay have been criticized for offering to pay an 80 per cent travel subsidy to employees hired outside Labrador. Happy Valley-Goose Bay, along with other towns in the area and First Nation groups, issued a demand to the company to withdraw the travel subsidy two weeks ago.

“It has united the leaders in Labrador, in all communities,” says Abbass.

“Everybody seems to be on the same page with this.”

The other big issue for the town is the military base, which is currently undergoing two separate studies to explore possible future uses — a federal study and an independent study for the community’s benefit and perspective.

Abbass says the studies will examine the viability of using the base for Canadian military purposes, foreign military, other federal agencies and private and commercial possibilities.

With the lingering prospect of the nearby lower Churchill on top of Voisey’s Bay and the base, Abbass is hopeful the future will be bright.

“I do believe in the next little while that our fortunes will be rising … the potential’s certainly there.”

‘We’ll just have to see what happens’ From page 1 lower Churchill might also qualify under an offset program of Kyoto’s Climate Change Fund.

“In the discussion that the department put out in the middle of August, it says things like large non-emitting energy projects like lower Churchill could be considered on a case-by-case basis for receiving offsets,” he says.

The provincial government is currently considering three business proposals to develop the lower Churchill, as well as the option of developing the resource independently through Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. In the absence of a final decision or an energy plan, however, the

likelihood of negotiating any federal financial input is unlikely.

Carmel Turpin, spokeswoman with the provincial Department of Natural Resources, says the province expects to release a discussion paper in two weeks to encourage input towards forming its energy plan.

“We’ll just have to see what happens,” she says. “It would be difficult at this point in time to indicate how long it would take to finalize.”

Over the years, the federal government has invested billions of dollars in both private and provincial industries across the country.

During its cost-benefit analysis of Confederation last fall, The Independent GENERAL MANAGER John Moores john.moores@theindependent.ca

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calculated oil companies operating in the offshore received more than $5 billion from the federal government in tax breaks, grants and loan guarantees.

Ottawa also makes huge investments in other Canadian industries including Bombardier in Quebec and Nortel in Ontario. The federal government’s return is through the creation of industry jobs and growth in the relevant provinces — rather than direct profit.

The price of oil is consistently rising — hitting the $70 US mark this week — pushing up other energy prices within Newfoundland and Labrador, including electricity from the oil-dependent Holyrood thermal generating facility.

The Kyoto plan, as part of Canada’s commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels, aims to cut 270 megatonnes between 2008 and 2012.

Labrador’s Liberal MP Todd Russell says although the province has yet to present Ottawa with any kind of proposal for the lower Churchill, he has heard “hints and talks” surrounding the east/west power grid proponent of Kyoto’s plan in relation to the hydro-electric project.

He adds many people in Labrador are, for the most part, either strongly for, or strongly against developing the lower Churchill and he says any discussions would have to involve a solid commitment to ensure “a fair and equitable deal for the people of Labrador.”

Steve Tomblin, a political science professor at Memorial, says it’s unlikely Ottawa would consider offering funding towards the potential development of the lower Churchill for financial gain.

“The complication is the battle between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador over the boundary of Labrador, which is always going on behind the scenes and partly explains why Quebec took such a tough position when it came to the negotiation of the original (upper Churchill) contract,” says Tomblin.

With a federal election imminent, he adds Ottawa would be reluctant to upset Quebec by attempting to force an east to west power grid connecting the lower Churchill, and any other route is still likely to be too expensive.

In a February interview with The Independent, federal Natural Resources Minister John Efford said the federal gov-

ernment wouldn’t step in to help the province push a power corridor through Quebec, even though that province’s transmission lines are said to be at maximum capacity.

As for Newfoundland and Labrador developing the hydro-electric power and keeping it within the province to attract new industries, Tomblin doubts the federal government would ever financially support such a proposal — which would see no benefit for mainland Canada.

“This would be perceived, somewhat, I think negatively in places like Ontario where the premier there is saying they’re not getting their fair share.”

Tomblin agrees the most likely scenario for the federal government to invest financially in the lower Churchill is under the Kyoto plan.

“The federal government may decide to get into hydro development and support the lower Churchill, but that would depend on Ontario lining up, pressuring to have access to that resource and finding some kind of accommodation with the province of Quebec … if all the ducks lined up it’s not impossible that something couldn’t happen.”

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 5

‘Laughing stock of the fishing world’ Premier says EU shrimp tariffs don’t have same priority as tariffs on softwood lumber into U.S.

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

P

remier Danny Williams says the federal government should tackle the European Union shrimp tariff with the same ferocity as the softwood lumber dispute with the United States.

The province’s shrimp industry has virtually collapsed in recent weeks, with fish plants closing around the province.

Fishery Products International (FPI) announced Friday it’s preparing to shut down plants in Port au Choix and Port Union at least three weeks ahead of schedule.

“I found it really interesting, you know, the softwood lumber issue was a big issue from an international perspective between Canada and the U.S.,” Williams tells The Independent.

“And here we are with a very prohibitive tariff on shrimp with Europe and Canada’s doing nothing about it … if the shrimp was coming out of Ontario you could rest assured that we’d be looking to do something with European wine, but yet because it’s Newfoundland and Labrador shrimp it doesn’t get the same attention.”

Shrimp advice not followed

The United States has been levying billions of dollars in tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber, maintaining low stumpage fees are a form of subsidy — despite the fact several North American Free Trade and World Trade Organization committees have ruled otherwise.

At the same time, Canadian-caught shrimp has been subject for years to a 20 per cent tariff upon entering the EU. The tariff has been loosened somewhat in recent years in that the first 7,000 tonnes is subject to a six per cent tax.

The tariff is one of the reasons pinpointed for the collapse of the province’s shrimp fishery this year.

Industry representatives have called on Ottawa for years to pressure the EU into lifting the tariff, with no success.

Foreign vessels fishing shrimp just outside Canada’s 200-mile limit can ship their product to the EU tariff free.

Williams says he plans to speak with International Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew and Prime Minister Paul Martin about the tariff.

Both the prime minister’s office and International Trade refused to grant interviews with The Independent when contacted last week, although

International Trade did issue a written statement saying the department is exploring several avenues to reduce or eliminate tariffs on shrimp directed to the EU. “Softwood lumber is a huge issue and … here we’ve got an industry that’s in serious trouble now, and a major, major lift for this industry could be the raising of that tariff and the negotiation of that tariff out of existence so I find that ironic,” Williams says.

At FPI, spokesman Russ Carrigan says the company’s only shrimp plants — one in Port au Choix and the other in Port Union — will close at least three weeks ahead of schedule this year because of the market failure.

Meantime, at least six of the province’s 13 peeling plants are already closed or slated to close with more shutdowns to be announced in the coming days, according to Earle McCurdy, head of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers’ (FFAW) union. He claims 4,000 rural jobs are in jeopardy.

“Canada must be the laughing stock of the fishing world,” he said in a prepared statement.

The St. Anthony shrimp plant shut

down recently, forcing 150 workers out on the street. Days earlier two other plants belonging to the Daly Brothers — one in St. Joseph’s, St. Mary’s Bay, and the other in Anchor Point on the Northern Peninsula — also closed.

An untold number of shrimp plant workers have been laid off as shrimp piles up in cold storage and markets collapse.

Industry representatives have recommended the industry be shut down.

Besides the 20 per cent tariff, they blame the industry failure on legal and illegal foreign fishing outside the 200mile limit, the subsidization of foreign fleets and a shrimp glut in the marketplace.

Foreign fleets fishing shrimp outside the 200-mile limit on the Flemish Cap do not fish by quota, but by sea days — a system that allows them to legally overfish suggested catch limits.

Banned from Canadian ports since last December, vessels from Greenland and the Faroe Islands have disregarded shrimp quotas and set their own — directing hundreds of more tonnes of shrimp into the world market.

Finally, fishing vessels from the Faroe Islands are said to receive a hefty gov-

ernment subsidy, giving them an unfair advantage over domestic fleets.

Representatives also say Royal Greenland, the largest producer of cooked and peeled shrimp, has been creating problems as the company has been catching more shrimp as opposed to buying directly from Newfoundland companies.

The shrimp industry was worth $135 million to the province last year.

Shrimp processing in this province extends from May until October in most years.

Williams says he hopes the Canadian government takes a look at the shrimp tariff through this province’s eyes, now that bureaucrats see the devastation of unreasonable tariffs.

“If it happens to be softwood lumber or if it happens to be BSE (Mad Cow) it seems to get greater national attention than the primary resource of a province that is dependent on the sea and the fishery,” Williams says, “and, you know, the several hundreds of hundreds of communities and families in those communities around this province so we can start to draw analogies and hopefully we can get people interested.”

EFFORTLESS?

A

federal government report recommended four years ago that Ottawa take action against the European Union’s 20 per cent tariff on Canadian shrimp imports.

That recommendation was never followed.

Today, on the verge of collapse, the province’s shrimp industry is still grappling with the tariff.

MP Loyola Hearn, Fisheries critic for the federal Conservatives, says he was there in 2001 when industry and government gathered to discuss options on how to deal with issues preventing shrimp export to the EU — the world’s largest shrimp market.

He says that was when the shrimp tariff was reduced to six per cent on the first 7,000 tonnes.

“It was enough that time to pacify everybody,” Hearn tells The Independent. Hearn and other industry representatives are still knocking round the same ideas suggested in the report.

Suggestions included closing ports to shrimp vessels from other countries — especially those that overfish — and eliminating the tariff altogether.

A more recent suggestion is foreigncaught shrimp landed in the province for trans-shipment to markets around the world be at least partially processed in the province or subject to a tariff.

“You get the argument of well, close our ports … if they had to pay a tariff leaving Canada it’s the same as us paying a tariff entering the European market. The only thing is the minute we impose the tariff do you think they’re going to land here and trans-ship the (product)?” asks Hearn, who says the answer would be no.

“We’re competing with people who come over here and overcatch our fish in what should be our controlled waters and beat us in our own markets and now they’re increasing the quotas again this year … but what’s the good of extra fish if you can’t sell it?”

— Alisha Morrissey

SHIPPING NEWS 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, AUG. 29 Vessels arrived: Maersk Chancellor, Canada, from White Rose; Cygnus, Canada, from sea; ASL Sanderling, Canada, from Halifax.

Vessels departed: Oceanex Avalon, Canada, to Montreal.

TUESDAY, AUG. 30 No report

WEDNESDAY, AUG. 31 Vessels arrived: Atlantic Hawk, Canada, from White Rose; Mokami, Canada, from Cape Dorset; Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, from Terra Nova.

Vessels departed: Alex Gordon, Canada, to Laurentian Basin; Cygnus, Canada, to sea.

THURSDAY, SEPT. 1 Vessels arrived: Jean Charcot, Britain, from Sea; Maersk Norseman, Canada, from Hibernia; Cape Ballard, Canada, from sea; Cabot, Canada, from Montreal.

Vessels departed: Atlantic Hawk, Canada, to White Rose oil field; Atlantic Eagle, Canada, to Terra Nova oil field; Sibyl W., Canada, to Long Pond; Cape Ballard, Canada, to Marystown; Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, to Terra Nova.

FRIDAY, SEPT. 2 Vessels arrived: Cicero, Canada, from Halifax; Atlantic Eagle, Canada, from Terra Nova.Vessels departed: Anticosti, Canada, to Orphan Basin.

Despite recent speculation about his imminent departure from federal politics, federal Natural Resources Minister John Efford released a statement Sept. 1 saying he plans to approach the fall with “appropriate caution” but has no immediate plans to resign. Efford, an insulin-dependent diabetic, is said to be suffering from poor health.

Paul Daly/The Independent

6 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

Die CBC die S

orry about the headline … if I’m going to write a column about what I think, I have to be honest. I have a number of friends and family who work or have worked for this venerable Canadian institution, and they represent some of the brightest and most creative people I know, but I wish the CBC would fold up its tent. Perhaps a privatization is the answer, but I philosophically have a huge problem with supporting this broadcast empire out of tax dollars each year. You remember tax dollars, that’s the line on your paycheck below your gross pay that makes your stomach turn every time you see it.

One problem I have with CBC is the indoctrination that everyone seems to go through when they walk through the door. All of a sudden everything is a case of someone being screwed and some larger entity, preferably business, acting in the role of devil. To say the basic slant of the CBC news reporting is a little left of centre is like saying the war in Iraq is

BRIAN DOBBIN

Publish or perish starting to get a little tangly. I’m left of centre, and I need a set of binoculars to see their perspective some times. A few years ago I was invited to the official groundbreaking of the CHC composite manufacturing center in Gander. Billed as a 21st century steel mill, this $20-million facility was due to employ over 300 people creating new materials for aerospace.

Not a bad day in a time when people were still leaving the province faster than we could make new ones.

The CBC reporter showed up and later that evening I turned on the broadcast to see if they were able to capture the ebullient mood of the people that day. There truly was a palpable feeling of hope for the future and excitement in seeing something real happen. The CBC

version was that Frank Moores had news service. I believe the rest of the showed up and he didn’t have a com- parts should be privatized instead of ment about the Airbus scandal two unfairly competing with companies years before. I called a good friend of that have to bring in enough money mine who worked at to pay their expensthe CBC at the time es. I talk to CBC and asked him what people who have Imagine if we had the hell was wrong their 14 weeks vacawith the producer of tion and a pay packto spend money the piece.

His age that seems out of to preserve our response was that whack with what the CBC had already Newfoundland culture. people are earning in done a story a few private business, and months before on the Our culture is evolving they seem less happy deal and they than those who are now, and I don’t see forced every day to weren’t in the business of promoting it as just the traditional kill something so c o m p a n i e s . they can eat that outport customs Knowing how bright night — sales-wise this person was, I that is. and tastes. then developed a I have empathy for theory they must be those who are locked putting something in the water down out, but that immediate problem does there. not substantiate spending so much I think there are responsibilities the money to support something that is CBC has that are very good uses of already mostly provided by private my money — communication with operators in the economy. The purremote areas, a national weather and ported mandate of the CBC is to pre-

serve the Canadian culture … if you have to spend billions of dollars trying to preserve your culture, you haven’t got much of a culture. The whole idea of culture is something that naturally evolves in a group of people.

Imagine if we had to spend money to preserve our Newfoundland culture. Our culture is evolving now, and I don’t see it as just the traditional outport customs and tastes. Our great love of music and merriment is deep in our culture whether you live in St. Anthony or Circular Road in St. John’s. As I travel more and more, I run into pockets of us planted in different parts of the world. Without fail, when I found out about the Newfoundlanders, they were described as very nice and fun people who were well liked and well thought of. After being introduced, you could see how the basic ingredients have been slightly altered into the local culture, but the essence remained strong. That is a culture that does not need life support.

YOUR VOICE ‘Business reality’ of Voisey’s Bay Dear editor, As general manager of mine and concentrator operations for the Voisey’s Bay Nickel Company Ltd., I am writing in response to comments made in your Aug. 21st column (Old school by Ryan Cleary) regarding the Voisey’s Bay project.

I particularly refer to those comments related to an allowance VBNC provides to employees who live outside Labrador and were required to pay, out of their own pocket, to travel to one of nine designated pick-up points the company has in Labrador.

The recruitment effort aimed at hiring the permanent workforce to support the mine and concentrators at Voisey’s Bay was conducted over a six-month period, beginning in late 2004, and has resulted in more than 380 people hired to operate and maintain the mine/concentrator. To date, about 80 per cent of the fulltime staff lives in Labrador, with the remaining balance of the workforce residing primarily in communities located throughout Newfoundland.

VBNC is operating in a very competitive national labour market for skilled trades as well as technical and supervisory personnel. The recruitment effort VBNC undertook to identify and hire a workforce with the right mix of skills and experience we require to manage commissioning, start-up and operations was exhaustive. The demand for skilled workers in the mining industry is at its highest peak in decades, both nationally and globally. VBNC has encountered a skills gap in our recruitment efforts in Labrador, particularly in the areas of skilled supervisory positions as well as certain

trades. Where qualified, personnel in Labrador were given first consideration for these positions.

Unfortunately in some instances people either did not apply, did not accept our job offers or did not have the skills and experience we require.

Over the past few weeks much has been said about VBNC’s decision to adjust its policy related to the provision of financial support to those employees living outside Labrador.

This adjustment was made in order to help offset some of the costs these VBNC staff members are incurring when travelling from their homes to pick-up points in Labrador. VBNC made its decision after giving careful consideration to the impact that our decision would have on all of our stakeholders. We recognize fully that our decision represents a change in the policy that was in place in March when the operations workforce began regular shift rotations at the mine and concentrator site. The change in policy is necessary to meet the business reality of today to enable us to meet out overall commitment to our shareholders and to ensure the success of the Labrador operation.

VBNC has honoured all of the commitments made in the development agreement with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Our training and employment efforts with the members of the Innu Nation and Labrador Inuit Association have been very successful.

We look forward to continuing to make a significant contribution to the Labrador region.

Bob Cooper, Voisey’s Bay

‘I really enjoy The Independent’ Dear editor, I have clipped the column (Pride and prejudice by Ryan Cleary, Aug. 28 to Sept. 4 edition of The Independent) to take with me to Florida in November. I plan on putting it on the fridge door … well done! I have a good friend near Edmonton (Fairview, Alta.) who is from Glenwood in central Newfoundland. He and his wife are working in the health-care business.

Every time we call to say hi, his wife is listening to VOCM on the computer and, at times, my buddy is watching NTV news on the satellite.

They can’t wait to get home. They have been out there for a few years now. My brother lives out in Summerland — way up in the Okanagan in British Columbia (near Penticton). He tells me he doesn’t know what he would do without the thought of coming home (every second summer) for an extended holiday.

So — you hit the nail right on the head. Not hit it — you nailed it!

Keep up the good work. I really enjoy The Independent.

Bill Westcott, Clarke’s Beach

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

Running on empty It’s tricky to maneuver a four-wheel drive with only one arm and one leg, the other two limbs having been sacrificed to the Pump Gods for a full tank of gas.

The remaining arm and leg won’t be safe for long either, the way prices are gushing. There may come a point when driving is impossible; a head and limbless trunk aren’t enough to drive a car and use a cellphone. (Not so much use the phone perhaps, as politely answer it and tell the person on the other end you’re driving and can’t talk — which is exactly what you’re doing, with one arm.)

One hand is no good for typing either. Not when you’re set on delivering a one-two paragraph punch to John Efford’s head. There’s no sport in raining words on a man when he’s down, unless the man is Efford and he can still do some damage if he gets back on his feet.

Then, most definitely, he deserves a smack in the chops. Figuratively speaking, of course. No call for physical violence in this day and age, especially toward a man in such delicate health.

Efford’s an insulin-dependent diabetic, there’s no denying that (his press release clearly states the fact), so when the man, a federal cabinet minister no less, says he’s having health problems, you can’t exactly question his sincerity.

Still, you can’t help but wonder whether the flushing of his political career down the toilet, a drawn-out ceremony attended by most Newfoundlanders and Labradorians over the past year, may have had something to do with the wind dying on his political sails.

Efford had a great grass roots reputation before he left for Ottawa. He was a man of the people then — not the people he worked with, politicians and the like, who wouldn’t have anything to do with him (refer to 2001 Liberal convention) — but of the common outport folk who worshipped him from afar (meaning they didn’t know him).

Efford proved even an ordinary man could be a hero.

He continued to live in Port de Grave and drove back and forth every day to

RYAN CLEARY

Fighting Newfoundlander Confederation Building — he wasn’t a bayman to be assimilated into the Townie fold.

Efford was all about colour, which is all it usually takes to get ahead, to get the media to eat out of your hand.

“What do seals eat?” was the question of the day in the early ’90s when everyone was searching for something to blame for vanishing cod stocks.

“They don’t eat Kentucky Fried,” offered Efford, and the people loved him — praised him to no end — for the

There’s no sport in raining words on a man when he’s down, unless the man is Efford and he can still do some damage if he gets back on his feet. answer.

But then the colour was endless.

A few years later, while serving as Transportation minister in the Clyde Wells government, Efford made a public plea for drivers to slow down in the snow, offering a personal experience to drive home the point.

“I was driving into St. John’s the other morning and I was passed by a car going so fast I thought I was going backup.”

The “backup” quote was almost, but not quite, as classic as Tom Rideout’s “backable” statement.

Wonder if Efford would commute to St. John’s today given the price of gas?

There’s no reason to make the drive, of course, not having a chance in hell of returning to provincial politics.

Efford has quashed rumours about his impending departure from the federal scene, saying he’s approaching the fall with “appropriate caution.” Bets are he planned to leave but backed out at the last minute — interrupting more than one Ottawa celebration — in spite of being written off so fast.

So what can he do for us now?

Let’s see: he hasn’t exactly delivered on custodial management. He went to Ottawa to help save the fish, remember? To be fair, federal scientists say Canadian science is the best in the world these days (too bad there are no fish left to prove the theory). And he wasn’t exactly a helping hand with the Atlantic Accord. (But then how was he to know we’d suddenly stop taking what we were given?)

It was only a few months ago he told The Independent that Ottawa wouldn’t step in to push a power corridor through Quebec, even though the existing power lines are at maximum capacity.

So there won’t be any help with the lower Churchill either.

Which brings us back to the price of gas. Did you know that the price of a litre in Alberta was hovering Friday at below $1.10 a litre?

Alberta generally has the lowest price for gasoline in the country due to the lowest provincial gasoline tax of nine cents per litre (16.5 cents here).

But then the Western province owns 81 per cent of its oil, natural gas and other mineral resources and rakes in the profit. Newfoundland and Labrador doesn’t own any of the oil or natural gas off our shores — Ottawa owns it all.

Maybe Efford could get ownership back for us. Maybe he could help get a second refinery, too, so we could actually process a drop of the sweet crude from the Grand Banks instead of the sour stuff from overseas.

Maybe a lot of things could happen.

Maybe engineers will figure out a way for my four-wheel drive to get 50 miles out a barrel of the colonel’s chicken.

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

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 7

The day Independence came to town That was the name of the 1775 hurricane that killed 4,000 Newfoundlanders – what would happen if another struck today?

S

unday evening I was lying in bed with the newspapers, a good book, and, in the background on my little bedside TV, CNN’s Aaron Brown talking Hurricane Katrina ashore.

That spectacle became more and more compelling, and soon I was riveted to the TV. It was the perfect melding for a media junkie and weather freak. I watched, fascinated, as the massive evacuation of New Orleans and vicinity started in the face of the slow moving monster. I thought it was cool how the authorities had changed New Orleans’ in-coming superhighway lanes to outgoing. I lay there looking at images of the long line of headlights all facing the same way, inching off to the horizon.

Disaster, live on TV, playing out in what they call “real time.”

Thanks to satellite technology and modern communications, everyone affected had plenty of notice, and evacuations were underway. The notice was good news for the people with the resources to get out. What was it like

IVAN MORGAN

Rant & reason for those who could not?

The idea with Katrina was to get out of the way. The prediction, and there was plenty of warning, was for winds in excess of 225 km an hour and a sea surge of over 20 feet.

No one sticks around for that — unless you didn’t have any way of getting out. What if you didn’t have a car?

What if you didn’t know anyone with a car? I watched some old guy being interviewed on CNN saying he and another fella split a $3,400 cab ride to get out. “Worth every penny,” he said.

If you have the pennies.

I heard nothing on the American networks about moving those who couldn’t move themselves. They were herded into stadiums, schools and other public facilities, or left to their fates. What was

unprepared for helping people who couldn’t help themselves.

What if we had our own Katrina here? It isn’t that far fetched. On Sept.

12, 1775, a hurricane called “Independence Hurricane” roared into eastern Newfoundland. It had already savaged the eastern seaboard of what was soon to be the United States (hence the name). Here in Newfoundland, all the fishing boats, with their holds full of fish, were getting ready to sail back to Europe. It was a total disaster. Reports vary, but some report that 4,000 people drowned — 300 people in Northern Bay alone, a sizeable chunk of the population back then. The sea rose 20 feet.

Hardly a building was left standing.

Many of those who survived faced the winter with no shelter and spoiled supplies.

They never saw it coming, poor buggers. If it happens again, we will. Will we be prepared? People in rural Newfoundland are just naturally better prepared, but what about St. John’s?

Would we have places for everyone to

go? Could we get everyone out? Where would the ones left behind go? Who would be the ones left behind? As one of the have-nots, it’s a little more than an academic question to me.

I suddenly had this nightmarish vision of some unknown CBC manager (because of the strike) in Toronto on my TV screen using third-rate graphics to warn us of impending disaster. How about Fred Hutton and Lynn Burry wishing us all luck as the power grids started to go?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not losing any sleep over this. Like all of us, I cling to my illusions. I like to think we build our houses a little sturdier up here.

I like to think the old Newfoundland spirit would kick in, and we would all help each other through. I like to think that the rest of Canada would race to our assistance.

I have to think this way — I might have to bet my life on it.

Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com

DRAWING THE LINE

YOUR VOICE Keeping the faith Dear editor, I have been away from the island for the better part of five years now living and working in the United States of Embarrassment and like most Newfoundlanders long to return home one day. The Independent is the one source of consistent joy and swell to my heart when it relates to Newfoundland.

I can’t believe I only stumbled

it like to have to sit in your house watching the grim Doppler radar image of this maelstrom twirling closer and closer to you, knowing you had nowhere to go?

Something struck me about this whole event. It is just an impression, but it is an unsettling one. There seems to have been a socio-economic dimension to who got out and who didn’t. I think a lot of poor people drowned.

That became more and more apparent in the aftermath. Boats and helicopters were rescuing people trapped by the rising water. Time and again on the TV coverage people could be heard in the background muttering about not being able to afford to escape. It also struck me that this was an angle of the story not being reported by the American networks. In one particularly grisly account, a senior couple had to be rescued from their flooded car, which was surrounded by alligators that had escaped from a nearby alligator farm.

It seems to me, after the fact, that the authorities down there were wholly

across this great source somewhat recently — I signed up for a subscription to the paper today as I have been reading the tidbits offered online and need more! I share the same sort of sarcastic and to-the-point view of the world as you. Please keep your grim view on our political world as it continues to keep the faith in this patriot.

John Feltham, Windsor, Ont.

Too late to stop the Quidi Vidi monster?

Dear editor, I was glad to see there are people out there still willing to fight the good fight. Another supermarket in the city and yet another protest; when will the elected officials of St. John’s realize that the citizens want their green spaces to be left just that — green!

That’s right, their green spaces — not Kevin Breen’s, not Andy Wells’ or Mr. Flip Flop’s (Denis O’Keefe). I have no problem with supermarkets; I have been known to shop for groceries from time to time. I just do not think a supermarket belongs in the middle of a park!

Deep down I think Loblaws agrees with this and that is why they are spending additional monies for a gymnastic complex. They know it’s wrong and they are trying to buy off certain groups to help justify the development.

A supermarket is still a supermarket even if you try and disguise it as something else. I understand that and as it stands right now Memorial Stadium cannot continue to exist in its current form. It has been five years of one fight after another to derail this project. I’m sure if Lord Andy had told the citizens of St. John’s five years ago that if you can help raise some money to offset the cost of placing a responsible alternative to the supermarket on the Memorial site something could have done. A lot of money could have been raised over five years. There are numerous groups, industries, and individuals in the St.

John’s area who on a day-to-day basis place the betterment of St. John’s as a priority. Andy Wells has already stated the mayoral job is a plan B for him. His priority is getting that job within the oil industry. That’s fine — at least he’s honest. But how can someone who no longer strives to be mayor run a city properly? There is more to running a city than just having a balanced budget and raising as many tax dollars as possible, at any cost. The citizens of this city want to enjoy it and they should be afforded that right as taxpayers. They should be afforded the right to walk the lake, watch a soccer game or just feed the ducks with their children without the hustle and bustle of crazy shoppers in the background!

Some would say, “Just think of all the new jobs there will be with another store opening.”

To that I say they intend to close down two of their supermarkets and replace it with one. And if this new supermarket is anything like the one on Blackmarsh Road, when you shop you may not be greeted at the cashier with a friendly voice, but instead by an automated computer voice telling you how to check in your own groceries. Isn’t technology great?

I do not know the answer to this Memorial Stadium problem but I fear it might just be too late to stop this monster.

Robert Moran, St. John’s

Drivers watch out for students Dear editor, The reopening of schools means that children will once again be regularly travelling on our province’s roads. I would like to remind readers that vehicles on both sides of the road must stop when the red lights of a school bus are flashing. The Government of Newfoundland and

Labrador is doing its part to promote safety by reducing the age of our buses and encouraging additional driver training. We need car, truck and motorcycle drivers to do theirs by watching out for travelling students.

Tom Hedderson, Minister of Education

CBC employee Angela Antle drew sketches last week of security guards filming picketers on the line outside the CBC-TV station in St. John’s.

Paul Daly/The Independent

Sailor’s dream Dear editor, Edward “Sailor” White was an unsettling figure in the wrestling ring.

Tattooed, blood strewn over his face and body, one could not help but have the feeling that the WWF tag-team champion (1981) was exposed somehow. In recent years, Sailor White was also an unsettling figure in the political arena. With the highs and lows of his life lived fully exposed for all to see, he never hid himself from scrutiny.

And yet, Sailor White did not believe that he was out of his element in politics; using the language of sport as his analogy for the government game and its traditional “players,” Sailor spoke with the optimism of spirit that made him a great, albeit uncommon, democratic champion.

As the organizer of the Newfoundland and Labrador division of the Green Party of Canada, I was privileged to get to know Sailor beyond the “Moondog” persona when he stepped forward to run as the Green candidate for Bonavista-Exploits in the 2004 federal election. Despite some descriptions, Sailor’s candidacy with the

Greens was not about “celebrity” endorsement; it was about a shared desire to be heard, a shared understanding of values and an expressed concern to improve Newfoundland and Labrador’s present and its future.

White was not seasoned in the “art” of the “appearance” of the politician, but this is precisely the philosophy that the Green Party of Canada rejects.

Sailor’s strength lay in exposing the many sides of each person’s self, without shame, but with acceptance and a desire for change. In the context of a massing ecological deficit, both local and global, it seems that true progress can only be achieved through such an honest examination of our social past, of where we went wrong and what

could be made right. And yet for this, Sailor was always “out there” to have his credibility attacked, bloodied and bruised.

Sailor’s final desire was to start a youth recreation centre in downtown St. John’s. By looking at his own past, Sailor hoped to address issues facing youth that may lead young people down dangerous paths. He felt that young people today, more than ever, need a place to re-experience their lives in positive ways.

Sadly, Sailor would not live to see his dream realized, passing away on Aug. 26.

In honour of Sailor White’s memory, and his motto “to never admit defeat” the province’s division of the Green Party of Canada calls on the candidates for St. John’s city counsel to commit to the progressive planning and development of the Sailor White youth center.

We invite the people of St. John’s to visit our webpage — www.nlgreens.ca — for more information on how to support this initiative.

Lori-Ann Martino, St. John’s

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

8 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 9

Back to the books

‘New friend in Newfoundland’

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

Danny’s talk with American ambassador about foreign overfishing may help province’s fight

Memorial University welcomes back students; more than 2,500 first-years expected

M

ore than 2,500 new students are expected to converge on the St. John’s campus of Memorial University this week. Most will be from the province, but many will also come from other regions of the country and around the world.

“Our enrollments have been growing at a modest rate of about two per cent a year. That’s in spite of provincial demographics, which are going the other way,” says Glenn Collins, an official with the registrar’s office.

Collins says Memorial has been able to continue adding more new students each year because of effective and aggressive marketing and recruitment strategies.

“It takes a while to establish yourself, but when you do it goes beyond marketing then. Students become aware of the product — the fact that Memorial has excellent programs, and a number of different programs,” says Collins.

Sheila Devine of Memorial’s office of student recruitment reiterates Collins’ claims that Memorial’s strong academic programs attract new students, adding that the school’s reputation as a “big” university also aids in recruitment.

“We are a comprehensive university,” she says. “We have a very wide

variety of programs. We offer everything from music to education to medicine to engineering. We’re not a smaller institute with a limited course selection.”

Devine says the school’s reputation has spread throughout the Maritimes, where most of Memorial’s 800 out-ofprovince applications came from this year. Of the three Maritime provinces, Nova Scotia students are the most interested in coming here, says Devine.

“People who are closer to us geographically have more knowledge of us,” she says. “Everything from our weather, our culture and city.”

Devine says Memorial will also see a large number of first-year international students coming to town this week (the official numbers are not available, they will be calculated once classes begin later in the week). She says Memorial concentrates heavily on recruiting international students but the process is complicated.

“First of all we have to tell people about Canada, then we spend some time talking about the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Then we start talking about Memorial University and its four campuses (St. John’s campus, Marine Institute in St. John’s, Sir Wilfred Grenfell campus in Corner Brook and the Harlow campus in England),” says Devine.

Based on statistics from recent years, Collins expects to see continued

growth in the number of international students who attend Memorial in 2005.

Last year, 608 international students enrolled at the university, compared to 523 in 2004 and 442 in 2003.

“International students bring international perspective to the campus, which I think is good for all the students,” says Collins. “It broadens everybody’s horizons — getting people used to different cultures, different ways of thinking.”

Collins adds that the school hopes the rising number of international students at Memorial will lead to more international residents in the province down the road.

“It’s also a part of a provincial campaign to increase the proportion of our international population,” says Collins.

“A Nova Scotia study indicates that a nice percentage of students who study there, stay there.”

Despite the increasing numbers of out-of-province and international students expected to arrive at Memorial in the coming days, the overwhelming majority of the student population (close to 20,000 including full and part-time students) will come from communities in Newfoundland and Labrador.

“We are primarily a Newfoundland and Labrador institution, there’s no doubt about it,” Collins says. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

YOUR VOICE Open Supreme Court to Newfoundlanders Editor’s note: the following letter was written to federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler. A copy was forwarded to The Independent.

It was with interest that I read the notice regarding the proposal to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court of Canada created by the retirement of the Hon. Mr. Justice John C. Major.

I note from the eligibility requirements that, in addition to the more obvious ones regarding years of experience as a judge or barrister, only candidates from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the

Northwest Territories and Nunavut will be considered. This latter “qualification,” the notice reads, is in keeping with your “long-standing practice of identifying candidates from the region where the vacancy originated.”

Newfoundland and Labrador has never had one of its citizens appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Your “long-standing practice” effectively eliminates any potential and suitable candidates from our province. Ergo, under this “practice,” a vacancy can never originate in this region.

Given that members of the Su-

579-STOG 77 Harv Harvey ey Road

preme Court of Canada render decisions that impact on all Canadians, it makes no sense to only consider candidates from “vacated regions.”

I suggest that if the government of which you are a senior member truly wishes to reform the Supreme Court of Canada appointments process, you remove the dubious “regional vacancy” qualification, and allow recommended candidates from all areas of Canada, including Newfoundland and Labrador, to be considered.

Peter Godfrey Clarenville

Road to CONFEDERATION AN ONGOING SERIES

Stoggers’ Pizza

will return next week

P

Paul Daly/The Independent

‘Doesn’t bode well’

Alexi Kolosovs has been in sanctuary in a St. John’s church for 18 weeks. Is anybody paying attention?

By Stephanie Porter The Independent

G

udrun Williams only wishes she’d thought to call the television media to capture the moment.

Last month, she and another volunteer with the Refugee Immigrant Advisory Council drove to Marystown to pick up Alexi Kolosovs’ daughter-in-law and four grandchildren.

Kolosovs, living in sanctuary in the West End Baptist Church in St. John’s, had not seen his family since he stepped into the church last May. “Just to see them together made my heart break,” Williams says.

“He loves them so much and they love him … to separate this man from the grandchildren … he has been the support for these young children. It’s not right.”

Williams is right — focusing media attention on the reunion may have helped Kolosovs’ situation more than she guessed.

Kolosovs came to Newfoundland seven years ago on a fishing boat. The vessel made a supply stop in Bay Roberts, he got off, and decided to stay.

Kolosovs worked as a net-maker for a local company until his work permit ran out. Wanting to be busy, he waited eagerly for his refugee claim to be approved so he could get back to his job.

Last spring, that claim was officially turned down. Kolosovs faced imminent deportation and separation from his fami-

ly. As a Russian-born Latvian, he says it would be nearly impossible for him to work or live in his home country.

As a last resort, he knocked on the door of the Baptist church on Topsail Road, and asked for refuge. Pastor Gordon Sutherland let him in.

That was 18 weeks ago. Kolosovs has not been allowed to leave church grounds for fear of being picked up by immigration officials. He has been living in a small room at the back of the church, and keeps busy painting the building, reading, and studying English.

“Right now I think he’s going through a bit of a hard time because he’s lost the whole summer,” says Williams, who visits Kolosovs at least twice a week.

“He’s 49 years old, and it’s basically like he’s in jail.”

The case has received little coverage since last May. Rachel O’Neill, a counsellor with the Refugee Immigrant Advisory Council, says people in the community have been writing letters, making donations, dropping off food vouchers — though quietly.

“There’s been letters going out from church organizations and church leaders,” O’Neill says. “We’ve gotten some responses, like ‘Oh, we’ll look into this,’ and provincial members say ‘This is a federal issue, there’s nothing we can do.’

“Just nothing really, nothing.”

She says the response from the general public is similar. “They hear the story, and it’s ‘Oh, how sad is that?’ And then they

forget.”

Unfortunately, says Randy Lippert, a sociology professor at the University of Windsor, and author of the upcoming Sanctuary, Sovereignty, Sacrifice: Canadian Sanctuary Incidents, Power, and Law, the lack of attention “doesn’t bode well for his chances of success.”

For his book, Lippert researched the 36 cases of migrants seeking sanctuary in Canada between 1983 and 2003. He’s kept an eye on the four cases since then.

“I could only find one article about (Kolosovs’ case),” he says. “That’s very different from a lot of the other incidents.

Some of them were in the paper … locally and even nationally, every day after a while.

“An incredible amount of effort goes into trying to get the media’s attention by supporters of these people who enter the churches. And it does seem like the ones who issue press releases every day and hold all sorts of events … were more successful.”

Out of the sanctuary cases he studied, 70 per cent of the migrants were permitted to stay in Canada — largely thanks to public pressure. The average stay in church was 150 days; Kolosovs has edged past 120.

But, Lippert underlines, government is not fond of the practice — the last thing officials want is to encourage migrants to go outside the state system and hide out in churches — and, increasingly, churches recognize it is a risk, and expense, for

them as well.

But with immigration laws “constantly changing,” and a system that’s difficult to maneuver at the best of times, Lippert sympathizes with those who turn to church confinement as a last resort.

He offers some advice to those lobbying for Kolosovs. “They have to make it seem like St. John’s is behind this particular individual, not just the church community. The more people that can come down, write letters …

“In some cases, political authorities came to support the case as well, provincial members come on board … publicity is key.”

Lippert says it’s not just a show for the government. “Once people from the community get to know people who have taken sanctuary … they can see that they have been working in their community or volunteering in their community, and they’re fitting in quite well, thank you.”

Williams says there is a community group in St. John’s actively lobbying the federal minister of Immigration — and providing cooked meals for Kolosovs.

She is clearly frustrated at the lack of response from all sides.

“Two or three months ago there was this big deal of wanting to attract more immigrants to Newfoundland,” Williams says.

“And here, they’re tearing families apart, people that have established businesses are forced to leave … we’ve had a lot of deportations lately and it doesn’t make sense.”

remier Danny Williams says a discussion he had a week ago with David Wilkins, America’s ambassador to Canada, may help the province’s battle against foreign overfishing.

Williams says during a meeting with Wilkins on Aug. 28, he identified several provincial issues for the ambassador — including the use of 5 Wing Goose Bay, foreign overfishing, seal boycotts and coastal security.

“I raised the whole issue of foreign overfishing because … if I can raise it to that level and get the heads of state for Canada and the United States supporting Newfoundland and Labrador’s position on overfishing … then that will certainly help us in our arguments with the EU,” Williams tells The Independent.

He says overfishing off the nose and tail of the Grand Banks is an issue for Prime Minister Paul Martin, and — in the interest of conservation and management — it’s probably already an issue for American President George W. Bush.

“The United Nations has certainly already expressed an interest in this, but you know something, this isn’t something that seems to be coming together.

“We seem to have pockets of interest everywhere, at the highest levels, but nobody is really pulling it together, but, you know, it has to happen, we’re running out of time on that resource and we have to deal with it.”

Williams says he also pointed out the problem with enforcing quotas set by the North West Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), the entity that runs fishing outside Canada’s 200mile limit.

“You know, here we are, the EU acknowledges that it’s improper to overfish, yet when it comes to enforcement it goes back to the country and they make a decision on whether their own ship be punished,” Williams says.

The so-called objection procedure allows NAFO countries to opt out of quotas and unilaterally set their own.

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American ambassador David Wilkins and Danny Williams

Williams says he spoke with the ambassador the night before the start of the New England GovernorsEastern Canadian Premiers Conference, held in St. John’s on Aug. 29.

Williams says he also explained to the ambassador the importance of the seal fishery to the province, worth some $43 million. Some American restaurants are boycotting Canadian seafood products in objection to the seal fishery.

The premier says he pointed out the province has several thousand miles of coastline and should be a necessity in border security. He also brought up the significance of 5 Wing Goose Bay. “I can’t say it’s top priority for the American ambassador, but he’s certainly aware of it and when we couple that with the fact that we are an important player in his world because we are an important supplier of energy … so I think he sees the importance of

Paul Daly/The Independent

Newfoundland and Labrador,” Williams says. “I think he sees the synergies.”

As for a response to the issues, Williams says it will take time, but he’s hopeful.

“He basically said that these are issues that he would take under advisement and he would bring them on, bearing in mind the man has only been in office a little over a month.

“You know I pointed out to him that the Appalachian chain of mountains, of course that are on the west coast of our province, are, of course, the same chain as the Blue Ridge Mountains in his home state of Carolina and so when you say that to someone they kind of smile and say ‘Oh, my God, it’s a small world’ and it kind of brings us together … but I got to say we hit it off with Ambassador Wilkins and it went very well and we have a new friend in Newfoundland and Labrador.”

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

10 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

LIFE STORY

‘He earned his way’ Ed ‘Sailor’ White 1949-2005

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

FROM THE BAY “A great deal of stress exists among the fishermen at Flatrock and adjacent settlements in consequence of the short catch of fish and the destruction of the potato crop. We would respectfully call attention of the government to the fact.”

—The Patriot and Terra Nova Herald, Nov. 10, 1866.

YEARS PAST “Night schools opened last week at Durrell’s Arm and Twillingate Harbour; there has been a very satisfactory enrollment of students. At the Academy School 37 are registered, amongst them 12 students who wish to take higher mathematics and advanced English. At the Harbour Centre 27 students are registered, if numbers here could be increased to 35 another part-time teacher could be employed to take the high school students in a separate group.”

— The Twillingate Sun, Jan. 24, 1948.

E

regard to them.”

— The Evening Herald, Nov. 15, 1919.

AROUND THE WORLD “Rumours that Shuswap Lake (in Vancouver, B.C.) has a cave that will rival other mammoth underground wonders of the world are correct, according to R. Roberts of Shuswap, B.C., who declares he is one of the only two white men ever to enter the place.”

— The Evening Advocate, Oct. 18, 1923.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR “To James Rolls Esq., MHA for Fogo, we deplore the painful personal reasons which oblige you to leave the land of your birth, and we sincerely trust that a kinder climate than ours may speedily restore your health and strength.”

A letter signed by the Speaker of the House, and government.

—The Daily Tribune, June 2, 1893 in response to the retirement of Fogo’s MHA as a result of an undisclosed medical condition.

EDITORIAL STAND “Here is an experience in Cabinet making that Mr. (Richard) Squires would welcome … that of the 45 farmers elected not one had approached to ask for a Cabinet position … when he called Farmer members to discuss Cabinet building each one had doubted his own ability and some of them, after seeing him and having the matter settled, had come back to tell him that if he could think of someone better, to do so without

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “We are at home on the French shore and can make our own police regulations. The British have no right to know whether we fish lobsters or not.

They have no right to come here. I regret that after receiving so many concessions England asks us for yet another.”

— The Marquis de Beaumanoir on the rights of the French shore as quoted in the May 30, 1891 edition of The Times

d “Sailor” White may be one of the province’s best all-time athletes — even if many people won’t admit it. During his career as a professional wrestler, the pride of Shea Heights entered the ring with many of the industry’s elite, including Andre “The Giant”, Pat Patterson, “The Model” Rick Martel, the “British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith and Dino Bravo.

He reached the pinnacle of his profession in 1981 when, wrestling as Moondog King, he won the WWF tag-team championship with Moondog Rex (Randy Colley). The short-lived title reign will forever be remembered by wrestling fans from the province and according to a close of friend of White’s, should serve as a reminder of how successful Sailor really was.

“He’s one of the most under recognized people in sport in Newfoundland,” says Jim Furlong, director of news and current affairs at NTV. “Up until a couple of years ago — I’ll exclude the current crop of NHL players — Sailor White had gone as far as anybody in terms of achievement in sport.”

Furlong, a life-long wrestling fan, was a follower of White’s career throughout the 1970s and ’80s and the two later became close friends. They spent countless hours discussing wrestling — everything from the moves to the sometimes cut-throat nature of the business. White was a genuinely nice person with a big heart, Furlong says.

“The Ed White I knew was outgoing and warm. He was a good, nice fellow. Everybody who came in contact with him liked him,” Furlong says.

Despite his accomplishments in the ring, White didn’t get the respect he deserves from the sporting community, says Furlong. Since professional wrestling matches have pre-deter-

mined outcomes, he says some people don’t think much of the performers’ efforts. Much like rhythmic gymnastics or figure skating, Furlong points out professional wrestlers are judged by their athletic ability and artistic merit, and White’s success was directly determined by how he combined the two.

“He rose to the pinnacle of his industry. The WWF, that was as high as he could get,” Furlong says. “And he didn’t get there by accident, he didn’t stumble into that. He had a good act, and was a good athlete. He deserved it. He got there because he earned his way there”

White, a member of the Canadian Wrestling Hall of Fame, was known for his outstanding in-ring work and ability to excite the crowd during his career. He was an innovator of sorts, being one of the first to incorporate aerial moves into his matches.

“He was doing aerial moves when very few people were doing it,” Furlong says. “And by aerial moves I mean knowing how to be thrown across the ring, jack knifing through the air and falling correctly so he could get up and do it again.”

White, who also twice ran unsuccessfully for political office, was known for cutting himself with a razor blade during matches to draw blood and incite the audience. The tactic was

a huge fit with fans, although the cuts left permanent scars on his forehead.

Besides his run in the WWF, White also had a productive career in various independent wrestling circuits throughout North America. Toward the end of his career he headlined many local shows, taking to the ring in areas such as Shea Heights, Harbour Grace and Whitbourne.

During a show in Shea Heights six years ago, White demonstrated to Furlong that his sense of humour was as sharp as his ring skills.

“I was sitting with my twin sons (who were 10 at the time) when Sailor walked over to us between matches.

He said ‘Ah Jim, you brought the grandsons with you,’” Furlong says with a chuckle. “I said ‘Ed, give me a break, b’y.’”

Despite earning some lucrative sums during his career (an estimated $2 million), White eventually ended up living in St. John’s on social assistance. Addiction problems with drugs and alcohol led to the financial woes, and also played a part in White serving time behind bars.

By the late ’80s, White had kicked the addiction problems and moved on with his life. Despite losing a fortune and valuable time where he could have improved upon an already outstanding wrestling career, White never complained about his lot in life and refused to blame anyone but himself for his problems.

“The most attractive thing about Sailor White was that he had everything and lost it all himself, but there wasn’t one hint of bitterness in him,” says Furlong. “He was completely comfortable with the life he led.”

In recent years, White drove a cab in St. John’s, and trained local wrestlers looking to break into the industry. On Dec. 2, 2004, the taxi he was driving hydroplaned and crashed.

He broke two bones in his neck and pinched a nerve in his spine.

White remained in hospital in the months that followed, and died on Aug. 26. He is survived by his daughter Rozlynn, grandson Keegan, sisters Mercedes and Jean, and brothers David and Paul. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

INDEPENDENTWORLD

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4-10, 2005 — PAGE 11

An armed policeman is watched by two New Orleans residents in the hurricane-ravaged city.

Jason Reed/Reuters

New Orleans on a hair-trigger Reporter and photographer from the Toronto Star caught in crossfire between police and gunmen NEW ORLEANS

By Tim Harper Torstar wire service

I

wheeled the car around and headed back to the scene of the shooting, looking for Toronto Star photographer Lucas Oleniuk, when the officer turned, spotted me and pointed the shotgun right at the windshield.

“Stop the car right now. Back up, or I’ll shoot,” he screamed.

A couple of others cocked their weapons and trained their guns on the car, purpose in their eyes.

Instinctively, I raised my hands above the wheel and gunned the Pontiac in reverse over fallen tree limbs and debris in the street.

This was our indoctrination into a Big Easy that’ll never make a picture postcard.

Minutes earlier, as Oleniuk and I first saw downtown New Orleans looming after a long odyssey to get into the locked-down

city, he shouted at me to stop when he spot- worked alongside a group of police as they ted armed officers crouched behind a cruis- fired into the building. er, training their guns on an apartment After 15 minutes, the last of more than block.

350 images shot by Oleniuk depicted offiHis welcome to the cers delivering a fierce besieged city came the beating to the two susAfter 15 minutes, the pects, an assault so fearsecond he left the vehicle when three shots rang out some one of the suspects last of more than 350 defecated.

— a quick “pop-pop-pop.”

Oleniuk stumbled behind a Realizing their frontier images … depicted lamppost for protection justice had been captured and began shooting phofor posterity, the police officers delivering a tos. turned on the photograIn seconds, as many as pher, one ripping a camfierce beating to the 40 officers sped to the era from his neck with two suspects. scene, most in marked cars such force it broke its — but one in a Kinko’s shoulder strap. van — some of whom set up behind Another grabbed a second camera and, Oleniuk, their guns aimed over his left somewhere in the melee, Oleniuk’s press shoulder. pass was ripped from his neck.

Others, guns drawn, shouted at me to get The officers fumbled with the cameras, out of the way. finally pulling out the memory cards with Realizing he was in the line of fire, the photos.

Oleniuk raced for cover behind a cruiser and Oleniuk pleaded for the return of his cam-

eras, was rebuffed, then, after retreating about a block, approached them again and asked for his cameras back.

One of the officers who had been hunkered down with Oleniuk during the 15minute shootout said he could have his cameras, but when he asked again for his pictures, he was gruffly told: “If you don’t get your ass out of here, I’m going to break your motherf—-ing jaw.”

In the chaos that is New Orleans, police menacingly pointed loaded weapons at me four times, and Oleniuk and I watched later when four officers armed with machine guns, after first demanding to know where we were going, turned on an approaching cab and screamed at the Hispanic driver to get his hands off the wheel or they’d open fire. When he wouldn’t do so immediately, it appeared for a split second that he would be shot on the spot.

Mercifully, his shaky hands finally See “Life under,” page 13

Disaster waiting to happen Scientists, environmentalists and engineers warned for 30 years that New Orleans would be devastated by anything above a Category 3 hurricane — why wasn’t anything done?

I

f you have ever wondered what all those billions of dollars spent on Homeland Security actually did to make ordinary people safer, Hurricane Katrina has supplied the answer: nothing.

While authorities strain mightily to shift displaced people from the Superdome to the Astrodome, New Orleans is careening into a real life version of Thunderdome. A sniper has fired on an ambulance removing elderly patients from Charity Hospital in the beleaguered city, a pot shot was taken at a rescue helicopter trying to airlift people stranded in the Superdome, and a National Guardsman was wounded in the leg when an angry crowd stripped

MICHAEL HARRIS The Outrider him of his weapon and it discharged.

It is not just the fact that thousands of American citizens are being warehoused in sports stadiums and convention centres, some of them without food or water, for several days. As dreadful as those places are — part open-air flophouse, part sewer, part mortuary — there is something even more disgusting about the fact that the majority of these “refugees” are poor and black.

The hotel guests got to leave the sunken city by arranged bus: for the poorest in New Orleans, the cavalry has yet to arrive.

As old people die, women and children dehydrate and men risk a National Guard bullet by looting for food, water and clothing, the president of the United States delivered one of the worst speeches of his life, or at least he did in the opinion of The New York Times. The Times wrote that the president appeared “cheery” and “casual to the point of carelessness” when he finally came back from his holiday to speak to the nation. And oh yes, did I mention that he delivered that speech a day after it was needed?

It should be remembered that in the wake of 9/11, the U.S. government successfully argued for intrusive new powers to combat terrorism and to prepare a national response plan to deal with future attacks in the continental United States. This time the terrorist happened to be the mother of all storms and the reaction of the federal government, with all its new powers, has been pathetic — a trickle of the basics, food, water, and makeshift shelters that are pitch black at night.

That is not exactly what the American people thought they were getting after 9/11 when the Bush administration declared that it would henceforth be prepared for the worst — chemical or

biological attack or even a dirty nuclear bomb detonated in a major city. As the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, put it, “This is day five of the worst disaster in the history of this city and this country. And not to have the necessary resources is a disgrace.”

Apart from the chaos of the New Orleans evacuation, and the broken promise of a national disaster response that was supposed to be the legacy of 9/11, the Bush administration has other large questions to answer. For 30 years, scientists, environmentalists, and engineers have been warning that New Orleans was a disaster waiting to hapSee “Something rotten,” page 13

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

12 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

VOICE FROM AWAY

‘I don’t wear heels at trade shows’ Bonavista’s Miranda Bradley is making a name for herself in Vancouver’s mining industry

By Stephanie Porter

The Independent

T

wo years ago, Bonavista-native Miranda Bradley says she had almost “no idea the mining industry existed.” She certainly wasn’t entertaining thoughts of a career in the field.

But now she’s moved across the country, is making her mark in a maledominated industry — and loving it.

“I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” says Bradley, a manager of investor communications for Vancouver-based Gibson and Company.

“I understood investor relations, I knew I wanted to do that — but I didn’t understand the mining industry … I would never have thought I’d do this, but I’m glad I did because I can’t think of anything more suited to me.”

There’s no doubt Bradley is approachable, adaptable, and keen on adventure. After just two years in Memorial University, she received a two-year work visa for England. She worked a variety of temp jobs overseas — and did plenty of backpacking around Europe on her down time.

When the visa ran out, she came back to Memorial and finished an English degree.

“Then I was bumming around, it was really hard to get a job,” she says.

Before long, and without knowing much about the city, she moved to Toronto and enrolled in a 10-month public relations program.

After graduation, she worked for different public relations companies in Toronto. On a whim, she and a friend decided to check out a “huge annual mining show” in the city.

“The show just seemed like an interesting opportunity. I started networking, and was offered a job out here that appealed to me,” Bradley says.

“I had never been to Vancouver before, had no idea what it was like before I moved, which is apparently a bit of a pattern in my life … when I get something in my mind I just go after it.”

Bradley laughs, but that kind of

Miranda Bradley

determination might be one of the qualities that has allowed her to thrive in a dynamic and competitive industry.

“My first job, the company I was with, they have a property in northern Ontario,” she enthuses. “We went out to the property and I enjoyed that immensely, I guess being from Newfoundland you just, it’s easy to put on your rubber boots and get dirty and not have to wear makeup.

“I enjoyed that side of it, the actual geological side and picking up rocks … then coming back to Vancouver and getting involved in the investor relations side of it and all the processes, talking to people, talking about stock … all the structure that’s involved — it’s an art, and a science. You bring those two sciences together and you can create a powerhouse.

“I mean mining is a part of our everyday lives, the things we use. The resource industries are extremely exiting …” She pauses.

“I’m sorry, I’m talking a lot but I do get really excited about this.”

Gibson and Company provides marketing services for a number of public mining companies.

Bradley lists some of her duties: to keep investors informed; disseminate information to shareholders; write and distribute news releases; talk to brokers, institutions, money managers,

Russian full rigged brig Pallada (R) and the Mexican barque Cuauhtemoc enter English Bay in Vancouver earlier this summer.

REUTERS/Andy Clark

“high net worth individuals” and potential investors; to attend trade shows and represent the company.

“We do strategic consulting,” she says. “We look for good companies that have a solid product — and keep the people involved with our company happy.”

She says working primarily with men can be a challenge — and a blessing.

“If you’re a girl working in a man’s world, you do have to work harder to prove yourself because people do assume you don’t know anything.

“It’s a real old-boys club. You have to … be conscious of who you are, what you wear, who you spend your time with, and what time of the day you spend time with them … for relationship-building it can be tricky.”

But at the same time, she continues,

Hope for grieving families

F

or Inna Dolgopolsky, the bloodbath at Beslan’s School No. 1 was a call to action.

A mother and a chemical engineer with an MBA from York University who emigrated here from Ukraine in 1994, Dolgopolsky could not just sit back and do nothing as she watched the confrontation with terrorism that left 331 people dead, the majority of them children.

“I was completely shocked as a mother and a human being,” she said from her home in Richmond Hill. “I wondered: someday, could it happen here or to someone I know?”

So last October, Dolgopolsky and three other Toronto-area residents created Hope for Beslan, a grassroots organization designed to offer support and help to the families of Beslan’s School No. 1.

The idea, Dolgopolsky says, was to extend a hand and a heart to those battered families, to create “a circle of goodness.”

It all happened in a rather ad hoc way through the Internet, Dolgopolsky explains. She e-mailed a number of people she had met online about the tragedy in Beslan and they decided to do something.

“Sometimes we say evil creates evil.

Here, maybe, good would create good,” says the 45-year-old product development manager in the auto supply industry.

So far the group of volunteers has helped arrange three paid visits to Canada by children who survived the attack. It also held an exhibition of drawings by many children who attended the school.

This week, Hope for Beslan is sending cards of support to families in Beslan in the hopes they will realize they are not alone.

Next up is to try to get medical help

for some of the child victims who are still seriously ill.

At least 35 children desperately need medical attention, Dolgopolsky says, and she hopes to bring them to Canada or the United States for treatment.

Dolgopolsky sees Hope for Beslan as only the beginning of a movement.“It’s a little nucleus. We’re looking for doctors who will help us, or other big charities,” she says.

“The problems of Beslan won’t stop on the anniversary. We have to give some rehabilitation to those that survived. Their wounds are very deep inside.”

— Torstar wire service

Kiddie Kobbler

being a woman can open doors.

“I’m walking around at a conference and people aren’t expecting to see a girl there. Even when (they hear) a girl on the phone it makes them stop for a second because it catches them off guard. It can give you an opening.

“But you do have to maintain your image and your reputation.”

Bradley says she’s been careful and hasn’t made any social faux pas — “So far so good,” she laughs. “I don’t wear high heels at trade shows.”

Overall, Bradley says she appreciates her colleagues and the people she meets, characterizing them as down-toearth (particularly those “who spend most of their time in the woods”), creative and dynamic, with a few eccentric characters thrown in.

She’s also warmed up to Vancouver, particularly the proximity of the moun-

tains and ocean — and the lack of snow.

But she can foresee the day when she’ll move eastwards, bringing what she’s learned to Halifax or St. John’s — though for now, there seems to be little activity in her field east of Toronto.

“I do miss home like you don’t understand, I’d love to be able to move back tomorrow if I could,” she says.

“My biggest complaint about out here is the distance (from home). There are a lot of good people out here, a lot of opportunity, and the scenery is just amazing … I do really like those things and I will probably stay out here a while because of it.”

Do you know a Newfoundlander or Labradorian living away? Please email editorial@theindependent.ca.

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

INDEPENDENTWORLD • 13

Cellucci’s ‘unquiet diplomacy’

By Chantal Hébert Torstar wire service

From page 11

F

ormer U.S. envoy Paul Cellucci will best be remembered in Canada for regularly taking diplomacy out of the diplomatic relations between the two capitals. These days, the new, abrasive spin he sometimes put on his ambassadorial dealings with the federal government seems destined to become his most lasting legacy.

Over the course of a few short weeks, Cellucci’s successor David Wilkins has shown that he is no more averse than his predecessor to using the media to lob verbal grenades at the Canadian government.

Witness his recent public chiding of Canada for what he described as “emotional tirades” in the softwood lumber dispute.

Cellucci’s gloves-off approach is also no stranger to Prime Minister Paul Martin’s decision to break with the Canadian tradition of appointing senior mandarins and career diplomats to the United States and to post a former politician in Washington.

Former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna clearly operates under different rules of engagement than his bureaucratic predecessors and they do involve more in-your-face candour.

It is a safe bet that this more direct style will be popular in Canada, especially at a time when many are pushing for a more assertive tone in trade dealings with the United States.

It will also probably work wonders for McKenna if and when he decides to run for the leadership of the federal Liberal party.

In a memoir to be published at the end of the month and appropriately titled Unquiet Diplomacy, Cellucci recounts how his own public candour on sensitive Canada-U.S. issues earned him praise from current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Whether the approach produced desirable outcomes is another matter and one that both Canadian and American foreign policy-makers should ponder before they allow the temperature of their verbal diplomatic exchanges to continue to rise.

In hindsight, Canada’s decisions to pass on the American-led coalition in Iraq and on the North American anti-missile shield stand as pivotal moments in Cellucci’s four-year tenure.

Both also amount to glaring failures of his socalled “unquiet diplomacy.”

It should therefore come as no surprise that Cellucci is at his most critical in his memoir when

David Wilkins in St. John’s last week.

he reviews the performance of the successive Liberal prime ministers who presided over those decisions.

But where Cellucci flirts with deliberate blindness or, at the very least, self-serving blinkers, is in failing to connect the dots between his vaunted candour and his failure to impact positively on Canadian public opinion on some of the matters closest to his ambassadorial heart.

To this day, there are more Canadians who see Jean Chrétien’s Iraq stand as his finest hour than his biggest diplomatic blunder.

As for missile defence, the fact the project could not secure solid allies within the Canadian political arena is hardly a token of effective lobbying on Cellucci’s part.

A word, finally, on the former ambassador’s assessment of the Bloc Québécois’s Gilles Duceppe as the most impressive leader on the current Canadian scene. Last year, many Canadians came

Something rotten in the Big Easy From page 11 pen. The city rested on a giant bowl that was below sea level, yet its levees could not sustain anything above a Category 3 hurricane.

Making matters worse, oil drilling in the Gulf Coast area has destroyed protective barrier islands and coastal wetlands, leaving the millionaire’s mansions and the oil refineries alike vulnerable to catastrophic storms.

But instead of buying up floodplain property, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency began doing after the massive Mississippi River flood in 1993, the Bush administration cut $71million for fiscal 2006 out of the funding for the New Orleans Army Corps of Engineers. Those cuts derailed a number of programs, including a study of ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane. Sadly, the death and destruction of Katrina was predictable and preventable — if you looked a little further than sucking out the Gulf’s oil as quickly as possible without regard for environmental degradation.

Despite irrefutable evidence from the

Life under martial law

American Academy of Science (and the rest of the world), President Bush doesn’t think global warming is much of a problem. But in the wake of Katrina, he will have to come up with answers for people like Robert Kennedy Jr., who blame the president for doing nothing about limiting greenhouse gas emissions or, for that matter, pushing stringent fuel economy standards to lessen pollution.

If Washington’s response to Katrina reminds me of anything, it is the debacle of Iraq, a country where there never was a plan for the occupation and countless fingers are now sweating on the trigger of a bloody civil war. In the meantime, daily life for Iraqis is a lot like daily life for that 30 per cent of New Orleans that President Clinton says lives below the poverty line: electricity is shut off for most of the day, water is scarce, and the occupying force has failed to offer Iraqis the most basic form of personal security.

The super-power that can drop precision bombs on Baghdad can’t seem to drop bottled water into New Orleans.

Something is rotten in the Big Easy and it isn’t just the backed up sewers.

Paul Daly/The Independent

away from the election’s televised debates with the same impression.

If Duceppe had run for the leadership of the Parti Québécois — as most Parliament Hill watchers, including those at the American embassy, expected last spring — there is little doubt that Cellucci’s appraisal of his statesmanship would have worked to his advantage.

Given Duceppe’s decision to stick to his day job on Parliament Hill, Cellucci’s praise has widely been read as more of a dig against the other party leaders than a profound statement.

Still, it is worth noting that Cellucci reports that he failed to detect any anti-Americanism in the Bloc’s fierce opposition to both missile defence and the Iraq war.

It could be that the fact that Quebecers were largely sheltered from Cellucci’s unquiet diplomacy by the language barrier made it easier for the Bloc to steer clear of anti-Americanism.

appeared above the dash.

Because New Orleans is under martial law, police need no reason to stop and search anyone or pull them off the street.

There’s no doubt they see journalists as an impediment to their efforts to regain control of their city. But they have also been shot by snipers and looters in the nighttime chaos, and anyone who drives through this city these days knows what it’s like to get a little twitchy.

As one navigates ravaged New Orleans from the east, through Kenner and Jefferson Parish, past the airport and toward the French Quarter, driving flooded streets till the filthy water gets too deep, then trying alternate routes, it is the human toll, not the physical toll, which worsens.

First, there is a single barefoot man walking aimlessly along Airline Highway.

Then others slogging through the floodwaters of Metairie. Then families trudging dispiritedly along the roads of Kenner.

Then, by the time you get to Napoleon and St. Charles in New Orleans, close to 100 sit silently in the middle of debris, watching the strange car navigate among the downed trees in their neighbourhood.

Later, down St. Charles, some try to stop you to ask for rides — “I have a baby ...”

— others glare sardonically, while others peer at the car blankly.

Through downtown, toward the French Quarter, the refugees congregate in groups of 10 or 20. Some have guns, some have crowbars or iron bars, and, mindful of carjackings, you dispense with the hurricane etiquette of treating darkened intersections as four-way stops.

When you park on Canal St. to get a sense of the enormity of the refugee flow as people come down the Interstate overpass, many pushing shopping carts or luggage racks, you sense the desperation. You park close to where others are parked and you regret that you can’t pack them all in your backseat and get them out of there.

And you wonder where the relief workers are.

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

14 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

President of NAPE Carol Furlong Carol Furlong was elected president of NAPE in 2005.

In the more than 100 years since it’s creation, Labour Day has gained a very different connotation in the mind of Canadians than it once had. Today, Labour Day is the last weekend of summer, the last big blowout for camping, BBQing and generally relaxing before the weight of autumn and the new school year descends. Each year, Labour Day weekend stands witness to an exodus of heavily laden vehicles stretched out the Trans-Canada headed for beaches, campgrounds and cottages island wide.

But the origin of Labour Day stems from a far different root than just the need for a long weekend after a too short summer.

As late as 1872 it was illegal for a Canadian to be a member of a trade union. While there were sporadic attempts at formal unions recorded as far back as the early 1800’s, the fear of legal repercussions and the sharp spikes and depressions of the Canadian economy kept most groups from exerting the strength of their potential members. Slowly, confidence in their ability to act as a group — cause the changes they needed to see in the workplace — began to grow and the unions gained enrollment and visibility.

In April of that year, the first organized workman’s demonstration happened in Toronto. The immediate purpose of the demonstration was the freedom of 24 imprisoned leaders of the Toronto Typographical Union, on strike to secure the nine-hour working day and about 10,000 Torontonians turned out to see the parade and listen to the speeches calling for

abolition of the law that deemed trade unions were criminal conspiracies in restraint of trade.

The Canadian Government repealed the conspiracy laws that same year, but the tradition of the Union’s parade and demonstration continued. It was moved to a later date in the year, and other cities began to join in marking the day as a special one. In September 1882, the city of New York celebrated its first Labour Day under the direction of Peter J. McGuire, the founder and general secretary of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters.

Public pressure soon began to build to establish Labour Day as a statutory holiday in both Canada and the United States. In 1894 the government of Sir John Thompson enacted such legislation, with the Prime Minister himself pushing the bill through Parliament against the opposition of some of his Conservative followers. The observation of Labour Day as a national holiday has continued ever since, celebrated on the first Monday of September.

Today we take paid holidays, safe work places, medical care, unemployment insurance, fair hours, union wages and even having our weekend’s off for granted.

Perhaps the fact that we do is a testament to the enduring success of labour unions in Canada.

With more than 21,000 members, the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees (NAPE), is the province’s largest union. NAPE is a truly democratic union, where

members make the decisions. And while all union decisions are made here in the province, NAPE members also enjoy the support of a national union when they need it. The union elects full-time leaders, benefiting from the dedication and singularity of purpose that can provide.

NAPE is on the forefront of the labour movement. In fact, NAPE was the first Canadian union to pursue a province-wide pay equity agreement through negotiations. NAPE has also taken on the very necessary work of organizing this province’s home care workers. NAPE represents workers in government, health care, education, corrections, food processing, hospitality, security, and financial sectors. They represent more school board and health care workers than any other union in the province. NAPE is well known for their willingness to fight to protect public services and the people who provide them.

NAPE’s staff members provide a full range of professional services, including in-house legal and communications departments. NAPE staff also includes a specialist who helps members appeal workers’ compensation, long-term disability, Employment Insurance, and pension rulings.

While the Labour Day weekend, synonymous with the end of summer, should be enjoyed to the fullest, it is important to remember the role of working Canadians, and the difference they have made in our community both locally and nationally. Our workplace, and perhaps human rights in general would be far different without them.

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

INDEPENDENTWORLD • 15

Weakness persists in Canadian Job Market

OTTAWA - “The trend is good, but it is a weak trend,” says Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress commenting on Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey for the month of July — following up on his comments a month ago when he said pretty much the same thing.

“For working people and people in the labour movement looking for a job market that produces good, well-paying, familysupporting jobs, the good news in this month’s labour force statistics is, once

again, dampened by two factors: too many are left behind and the quality of newlycreated jobs is questionable,” explains Georgetti.

market for students aged 20 to 24 slowed in both June and July. In July, there were 1,230,200 Canadians who wanted to work but did not have a job.

The unemployment numbers - Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey reports that in July 2005, last month, unemployment edged up slightly to 6.8% from a rate of 6.7% in June. Just under fifty-thousand jobs were lost in the construction and manufacturing sectors last month. Despite encouraging signs in May, the summer job

[Economist Pierre Laliberté’s Analysis :] This month’s numbers still reflect the uncertainty that has characterized the Canadian labour market over the past few months. While the overall picture looks good, it hides the weak hiring trend on the part of private employers, and the lower quality of the jobs created.

Indeed, over the past year, employees working on temporary contracts have accounted for no less than 71 percent of the increase in paid employment while they

account for only 15 percent of total employees. Contributing in some part to this is the fact that the public sector has created a disproportionate share of new paid jobs — almost 40 percent or twice its share in total employment – over the same period. This is to say that employers (including the public sector) are not hiring for the long-term at this point.

Part of this uncertainty no doubt emanates from a higher exchange rate and its impact on our economy.

When it comes to manufacturing, the trend is clear for anyone to see: over 168,000 jobs have been lost since the Canadian dollar has started its rise back in late 2002.

16 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

INDEPENDENTLIFE

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4-10, 2005 — PAGE 17

Joan Clark

Paul Daly/The Independent

An audience with Joan

Author of critically acclaimed Latitudes of Melt releases her follow-up book exploring the fine lines between madness and sanity

By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

J

oan Clark’s face lights up as she talks about the jacket cover of her freshly published novel An Audience of Chairs.

The subtle, deep red photographic images show a vacant velvet stool sitting before a piano board. Two little girls with their backs to the viewer stand at the top of the page.

“Moranna, as you know, plays the piano and the piano board there, as soon as I saw (the cover) I thought, my God, that’s a metaphor for madness and sanity,” says Clark.

“Because, what is madness? What is sanity?

And most of us are around middle C, or we

hope to play our lives out on middle C, but then you play on either side of it at different times.”

Moranna MacKenzie is the complex heroine of An Audience of Chairs. She is a woman with a hugely creative mind, overshadowed by mental illness. She lives alone in a Cape Breton farmhouse, constantly struggling to stay on an even keel by playing her piano board, singing, baking and carving. The book follows her tumultuous ups and downs as she reflects on her life and grieves the loss of her two daughters who were taken away decades earlier.

“I’m very interested in people that are on the edge, that don’t quite fit in,” says Clark. “I

don’t know why that is.”

Although she was born and raised in Nova Scotia, spent 20 years in Alberta and even began married life in a hut in the Arctic with her geotechnical engineer husband Jack, Clark has called Newfoundland and Labrador home for 20 years. An Audience of Chairs is her 13th novel and follows on the heels of the critically acclaimed, outport Newfoundland-based Latitudes of Melt. As well as several children’s books and two short story compilations, her other major novels include The Victory of Geraldine Gull, drawn from her Arctic experiences, and Eiriksdottir, about the landings of the Vikings at L’Anse aux Meadows.

As she talks fondly about her most recent

LIVYER

‘Once a CFA always a CFA’ But Stephanie MacKenzie of B.C. has made a home in Corner Brook, although she’s currently in Ireland on a project comparing that country’s poetry to Newfoundland’s

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

S

tephanie MacKenzie grew up in a town all too similar to the one she’s living in now — if only the problems weren’t so similar.

A native of Powell River, B.C., MacKenzie works most of the year as an English professor at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook.

She describes her native home as a beautiful wilderness, a pulp and paper town of 20,000.

“Or it was, before segments of the mill started getting cut back. So there’s been a major exodus — sounds familiar doesn’t it?”

MacKenzie tells The Independent, via telephone from a working vacation in Ireland.

As a contract employee for eight months a year for the past eightish years with Memorial’s west coast campus, MacKenzie says she’s seen the best — and worst — the city and the province have to offer.

After spending a year teaching in

Corner Brook in 1998, MacKenzie returned to Toronto to complete her doctorate degree, returning to this province’s west coast as soon as she could.

“Corner Brook is very much like the place I grew up in … the people there, I’ve made lots of good friends there and my colleagues at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College — amazing,” she says, adding “it’s getting hard, some of the reasons I’d never go back to See “Best community,” page 22

Stephanie MacKenzie

creation — the at times wildly enthusiastic and at others, desperately dejected Moranna MacKenzie — it’s clear the only resemblances between Clark and her heroine are their keen imaginations, enviable talent and a certain penchant for black-eyed, handsome Scottish poets.

Although she admits to having experienced the occasional bout of mild depression in her life, it’s difficult to imagine Clark as anything but passionate, embracing and vivacious. A tall, graceful woman, with a timeless quality and a kindred spirit, she talks easily, laughs quickly, and doesn’t shy away from a question (although she does hate having her picture taken).

She says it took years to build up the courage to finally pin Moranna down on the page.

“The first time I picked it up was roughly 30 years ago and I wrote about 50 pages and I frightened myself. It seemed like a very dark novel … I wanted to do it, but I felt I couldn’t do it. And then I tried it again 10 or 12 years ago and I wrote, I think 30 pages.”

Eventually she says she was ready to “grow See “I’m a storyteller,” page 18

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

18 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

GALLERYPROFILE

SUSAN FURNEAUX Textile artist

S

usan Furneaux enjoys that her work requires time, immense patience, and an intimate connection to the materials she uses. Her projects are all natural, hand-stitched, handdyed, painstakingly — and lovingly — put together.

“It’s a commitment,” she admits, looking at the richly coloured wraps, jacket, and dolls set on her worktable for illustration. The fabric, even after the layers of dye and stitching for texture, must cure for months before it’s unwrapped and ready for hand embroidery, beading and finishing.

The dyes themselves come from a variety of sources. Furneaux makes her own dyes from alder, goldenrod and flowers she collects. She’s had friends send her Queen Anne’s Lace from the mainland, and lichen from rocks in Norway. She also orders dyes from companies specializing in natural products.

Not only is she conscious about the toxins in some commercial dyes, but she enjoys the process and “soft, natural colours” offered by plants and other organic items.

Furneaux’s interest in textiles goes back to childhood; she says she’s always loved making dolls and sewing.

But she didn’t think it was a “practical” career, so she studied graphic design.

When she began working as a graph-

ic artist, she set lead type by hand — a few years later, all the work was being done on computer. “The real hands-on aspect of it was gone,” she says. “That was the part I really enjoyed about it.”

Meantime, Furneaux had been taking embroidery classes at night and discovered her true passion. She began her second career working at the Anna Templeton Centre for Art and Design and elsewhere, meeting other artists and craftspeople, learning new ideas and skills.

These days, Furneaux is readying her new studio on Barnes Road in downtown St. John’s. She’s about to start teaching again: classes for the Anna Templeton Centre’s textile studies program, evening public sessions, and private workshops.

“It is a real niche,” she says. “I enjoy teaching, I learn a lot from my students; I pick up new energy and new ideas.”

Her work requires such focus and care, getting out to lead classes also provides a healthy break.

Furneaux reports her work sells well.

She creates wall hangings and some clothing, generally sticking to wraps or simple, Japanese-style jackets. She’s not about the fashion of the day — “I expect my work to be around a very long time,” she says — and takes great care to ensure the colour and stitching is going to stick around.

Lately, Furneaux says she’s really gotten into making dolls.

“I always found, just when I was at my most busy, getting ready for shows, I would just stop everything at some point, and just make dolls,” she says.

“I’d keep those, or give them away as gifts.”

Now that she makes dolls for sale, they’ve become more elaborate and expressive, drawing on her range of skills.

“The dolls are a lot of fun … and I prefer to make clothing for dolls,” she says, laughing. “I can deal with their egos.” www.susanfurneaux.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

POET’S CORNER End of summer Sweet scent of wet earth Brings me back to my childhood Playing the pre-teen Rain keeps coming down Washing the brown off the grass Lawns are green and clean Umbrellas opened Like bobbing coloured mushrooms Bonnets everywhere Same weather all week Sun might never shine again Clotheslines nude and bare.

A poem by Janet Mary Reid of St. John’s.

‘I’m a story teller’ From page 17 into” the story, and as it happens, the tale didn’t turn out to be as dark as she feared. Clark says she had many fun moments embodying a character with constant delusions of grandeur and a firm belief she could do and be anything in the world.

“There isn’t anything she can’t do; just bring it on.

“Also, she had this monumental pride and I’m really interested in pride. We all need a certain amount of pride but some people have so much pride that it works against them and she was like that.”

Although Moranna seems a tough woman to like, her mad-cap methods appear even harder to understand, which is why when the reader starts to find themselves not only rooting for her, but relating to her, it’s obvious Clark has a gift.

“I think it’s just more important you understand them than like them,” she says of characters in books. “I’ve heard people say, ‘I’ve stopped reading something because I didn’t like the character.’

Maybe that’s a reason for reading more about the character.”

Clark’s next publishing project is a children’s picture book called Imagining Snow, and she’s already contemplating her next novel. She hopes it will be a book for both adults and children — although admits there’s never any way to know where the creative process will take her.

Clark has come a long way from scribbling her first story on the kitchen table during her baby son’s nap times (she and Jack have three children), although she still writes in long-hand (“I think faster than I can type”). She cites the Scottish poet Robert Blake, Dickens and the king of them all, Shakespeare, as

some of her long-time literary loves.

Clark says as a girl in a small, Nova Scotian town, all she could get her hands on were encyclopedias, “boring” Nancy Drew novels and the occasional sneaked romance books from her mother (“I’d lock the door and take her novels down and read all the dirty bits”).

An Audience of Chairs was a story waiting to be told, which has haunted Clark for 30 years. She says part of her fascination with the subject of mental instability began in her 40s, the age her own grandmother was when she drowned herself.

The book is a study of humanity more so than insanity and although Clark toyed with the idea of having a psychiatrist read over a first draft, she changed her mind, realizing Moranna’s personal story wasn’t meant as a “clinical” account. She later received perhaps the highest compliment possible from a man who attended a reading of the book in Nova Scotia a few weeks ago.

“He was a psychiatrist and he’d been in practice for many years. He said he had formed the opinion that poets and fiction writers understood madness better than psychiatrists. That’s what he said. Isn’t that amazing?

“You’re winging it, you know, it’s a story, I’m a story teller … you just try to get inside a person.”

Whether Moranna succeeds in finding her mind and her family is for the reader to discover, but just as the vacant piano stool on the book’s cover appears to be waiting for her to take her place, Clark’s remarkable heroine has already found a role in Canadian literary history.

Joan Clark will read from An Audience of Chairs Sept. 15, 7 p.m. at Chapters. Michael Crummey will also read from his new novel The Wreckage.

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 19

‘An island that refused to die’ Glimpses of life on the Newfoundland frontier

By Sandra Gwyn Editor’s note: the following is the second and final part of a 1971 article — Why doesn’t everybody live in Newfoundland? — written by the late Sandra Gwyn for Saturday Night magazine. Reprinted with permission.

T

he windows of John and Annie Lanes’ shiny sunny kitchen in Salvage are framed with white organdy curtains. They look out on a reach of Bonavista Bay, where John’s mackerel nets are, and Sailor’s Island, where this solid, square white house used to be. They hauled it in over the ice in John’s father’s time, to be closer to church and school. John was only five then, but he still remembers how, for two whole days, the ice was black with men.

For me, this tiny, no-one-knowsexactly-how-old outport nestled round a storybook cove in the lee of lumpy, primeval hills, is the quintessential Newfoundland. I came to Salvage first two years ago, and none of the new places we’ve seen on this trip — not St. John Island, not the sparkling salmon weir at Sir Richard Squires Memorial Park, not even Bonne Bay, that glorious mountain-ringed loch somehow detached from Scotland and set down on the west coast of Newfoundland — comes close to matching it.

More and more people seem to be discovering this place. One reason is that the Eastport Peninsula — Salvage is at the tip and there are six other communities — is hard by the Terra Nova National Park, an easy morning’s reach from St. John’s. Another is that there are sweeping white sand beaches here where you can swim.

So far, Colonel Saunders remains at bay and the nearest Holiday Inn is fifty miles down the road. In place of imported progress, the local community associations sponsor the Eastport Festival (arts and crafts workshops; folk concerts on the beach; a bit of summer stock) and arrange for local fishing families like the Lanes and the Andrew Browns down the road where the others of our group are staying, to take in summer strangers.

There is another view from Salvage, one we don’t like to admit on this sunny morning when fat-cheeked clouds like vignettes on old maps chuff across the sky. Not long before we arrived, Andrew Brown’s fourteen-year-old niece told a Chatelaine interviewer how she’d never been to a movie in her life: “There is nothing for us here.”

We amble down the crooked road round the harbour, trying to decide which house we’ll buy (Jack Pickersgill, we learn, just beat us to the one we like best). Inside the austere, century-old church, there’s a superb Benares brass chandelier some long ago skipper must have bought round the Cape. Eventually, we wind up on the jetty to meet Andrew Brown. Since the longliner he usually fishes in is tied up for repairs, and anyway it’s his birthday, he takes us out in his trap-boat, round the island, up the bay nearly to Eastport.

For “a bit of surprise, my dear” he rounds into Horestinger Gulch, a crevice in the cliffs that’s just wide enough for the boat, a kind of undiscov-

ered Blue Grotto where the light sifts magically into the sea.

After supper (fresh mackerel at the Lanes) we sit in the kitchen and, over blueberry wine, talk of the price of fish and inevitably, of the practices of politics. John Lane can remember, just, the first time Joey ever ran in Newfoundland; back in 1932, when he lost this district, Bonavista South, in the last election there ever was for the old, independent, House of Assembly. He can remember, much better, how Joey launched his campaign for Confederation round here in the spring of 1946. And it will be from these distant outports of the northeast coast, we all agree, citadel of the old Newfoundland, that Joey would summon the remnants of his strength to fight the last election of his life. In my beginning is my end.

A sudden gust of wind rattles the back door. Annie Lane makes a cup of tea and tells us it’s on nights like this, old people say, that the Weatherlight, a strange ghostly glow, appears on the water, foreshadowing storms at sea and death by drowning. All night long, the wind blows and the Atlantic laps on the rocks outside our window. I fall asleep thinking about the Weatherlight, and remembering that last lines from E.J. Pratt’s Newfoundland, the ones that tell: “Of dreams that survive the night of doors held ajar in storms.”

On August 12 in 1845, according to the Fogo Island Historical Calendar, Bishop Field arrived to consecrate the new Anglican church. Exactly one hundred and twenty-six years later, we arrive on the same day the new Central Junior Senior High School does. We arrive aboard the Fogo Transport, the twice daily ferry from the mainland (of Newfoundland, ten miles to the south).

The school arrives in pre-fab pieces, aboard the CN coastal boat, the Glencoe.

The school is what Fogo Island — a bleak, nearly treeless lump of fifteen miles long and ten miles wide, population 5,000 divided among nine communities — is all about. If you’re a romantic, you’d say it’s an island that refused to die.

If you’re a pragmatist you’d say, well, it’s probably a bit early to tell but certainly Fogo does show what you can accomplish with sensitive planning, community participation and the best in audio-visual equipment.

“Five years ago, my son, we were about to be wiped off the map,” Stan Kinden, the blocky, ebullient storekeeper turned community activist who met us at the dock at Seldom Come By says as we pile into his car. “It wasn’t a question of whether we would move from here, but where the government was going to put us.”

There wasn’t a single working fish plant on Fogo; sixty per cent of the fishermen were on welfare. Almost as desperate, Fogo had no spirit left — other than the spirit of destructive parochial rivalry between the communities and the churches, which meant that each settlement had its own tiny denominational school and that some people on this isolated island had never visited a settlement five miles away.

What has happened since then is a

Gord King collection, 1972

good deal easier to record than it is to explain. There’s the central all-denominational high school. (Which, in a clean break with the past, is going up in the exact centre of the Island.) There’s the fishing co-operative, which had twentyeight members in its first year and has 829 now. There’s the Island community, with representatives from every community. There’s the co-operative ship yard which has built seventeen new longliners and where, when we go to visit it, we see four more on the slips.

There are plans for a new co-op fish plant, one which will be able to handle not just cod but also flounder and sole and redfish and mackerel and halibut.

Even the government has changed its mind about Fogo. It will build a slipway for the shipyard, finance a feasibility study for the fish plant. It decided, even before the election, to pave the Island’s roads.

When it comes to why all this happened, you have to go back, mostly, to a few people. Stan Kinden. Don Snowden, the romantic pragmatist who has made Memorial’s Extension Service what it is and who, along with Colin Low of the National Film Board’s Challenge for Change unit, came to Fogo in 1967 to do just that — challenge a community to change itself, using as their instrument films of local people explaining their problems and hopes to the camera. And Dan Roberts, manager of the shipyard, lean, angular, with the face of some Elizabethan mariner out of Devonport. Lack of managerial skill has always been the fatal weakness of the cooperative movement in Newfoundland, or elsewhere. Snowden, the outsider, was probably once the essential man on Fogo. Dan Roberts, the insider, is the man who’s indispensable now.

There’s no way I can adequately describe my own feelings during those two days on Fogo. Humble is the adjective that comes closest. The people of Fogo have changed things that “couldn’t” be changed. Maybe in the long run it won’t work. The co-op and the fish plant and the shipyard and the central high school may not be enough to hold the young people, once they’ve seen television and have enough education to survive in Toronto. The effort was still worthwhile. The effort to preserve a community; to preserve a human environment.

The last evening we spend in the United Church school at Stag Harbour.

We watch some of the original films made by NFB and Memorial. They’re almost antiques now; Stan Kinden’s wife Sophie cracks a bottle against the bow of the first longliner built here: “May God bless her and all who sail in her.” Andrew Brett stands up at a fishermen’s meeting and tells his buddies: “We let the co-op movements we had here before perish in our midst because we were afraid. We know we are not educated and we kept our tongues still.

We should never do that.”

Then we become part of the process.

An Opportunities for Youth apprentice puts us on videotape as we stand up, one by one and give out impressions. “What you’ve done here,” a man who has a fancy title in Ottawa says, “is made people across the country jealous of Fogo.”

In the other classroom, the ladies’ auxiliary has laid out a Newfoundland scoff for us: crispy fried flounder; homemade bread; bakeapple preserves; strong tea. Just before we pick up our forks they assemble, shyly, in front of the blackboard. In sopranos and contraltos, they sing grace.

There’s no room to write about the afternoon spent picking blueberries on the hills round Cape St. Francis as the fog came in, not on little cat feet at all, but bold as brass to the blare of the foghorn. Or the day we drove into St. John’s, the grey old city I was born in, and found the whole of the Portuguese White Fleet packed into the harbour ahead of Hurricane Carol. Or the day we got up at dawn (well dawnish) to fish for cod with Jack Lee and Nehemiah Chafe off Petty Harbour, where the old hook and line methods endure and where we watched them play twin lines like the reins of a nervous thoroughbred. Or the picnic we’d just begun at Brigus when the rains came.

Just before the Ambrose Shea pulls out from Argentia on the run back to North Sydney, I fall into conversation with a teenager from Oregon called Jim whose grandparents, in some perverse reverse twist of the impulse that sent their ancestors over the Rockies, have brought him as far East as you can go in North America. “It’s so beautiful here,” he says, “and there’s no pollution and I met this girl who told me that in all her life she could only remember there being three murders. And what I don’t understand is, why don’t more people live here?”

“Well you see,” I say, “the per capita income is the lowest in Canada, only $1,784 and …” The whistle gives three sharp toots and I never finish the sentence.

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

20 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

IN CAMERA

Fresh from the farm At the Rabinowitz Organic Farm in Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s, the best produce of the year is just getting ready to pick — and visitors might be surprised at the variety of berries, fruit, vegetables and herbs being grown without chemicals or artificial fertilizers. Photo editor Paul Daly and senior editor Stephanie Porter spent a morning exploring the farm, tasting all the way.

M

ike Rabinowitz begins a tour of his farm in the kitchen, where a number of freshly picked vegetables are arranged for tasting and viewing. He’s selected some of the newer, lesserknown crops as an introduction: purpleskinned carrots, Black Krim tomatoes, purple-flecked “dragon’s tongue” string beans, tomatillos, a tray of live sunflower sprouts.

The black tomato is the star of the produce — its deep red flesh is rich, sweet and ripe; the flavour is unlike anything available in conventional supermarkets.

That’s what Rabinowitz is counting on. He and his wife, Melba, own and operate the Organic Farm in Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s. They’ve been working for more than a dozen years to expand their operation — without using chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

The results may surprise some.

Although the farm produces potatoes, carrot, turnip, cabbage, squash, beets and greens — the staples of Newfoundland and Labrador’s produce sections — the gardens and greenhouses also provide

eggplant, artichokes, miniature squash, monster pumpkins, round zucchini, edible flowers, fava beans, the “fastest tomatoes in the world,” dozens of herbs, and more.

“Some of these things have never been available in the province before,” Rabinowitz says. “I grew up in New York city and I’d never even heard of some of these things.”

As an urban kid, Rabinowitz says being a farmer was always a fantasy. He had a small hobby garden during a stint in Louisiana, and when he and his family moved to Newfoundland in 1977 — Rabinowitz accepted a position in the psychology department at Memorial — he decided to give it another go.

Rabinowitz takes great pride in his garden, the new seeds and species he’s trying, the flavours he’s able to deliver.

Walking in front of the house, Rabinowitz heads down the hill, beginning the tour in earnest.

This particular plot, surrounded by tall gooseberry bushes, is part of one of Rabinowitz’s many experiments. There are rows of tomato plants, heavy with a new breed of tomato for the farm — and

they’ve borne their first bright red fruit less than two months after planting outdoors.

That kind of speed is unheard of in this province, Rabinowitz says, picking a small tomato and popping it in his mouth. And, he adds with a smile, it tastes better than most outdoor varieties.

Bet on it — he’ll be growing more of these next year.

The market for food from the organic farm is growing, and Rabinowitz is constantly researching to become more efficient, more creative, and more diverse in his produce.

Every week in the summer and early fall, the farm workers deliver a bag full of the freshest produce to the 50-plus organic enthusiasts who are members of the Veggie Co-op.

Certain produce — cucumbers, tomatoes, herbs and salad greens — is sold at select grocery stores in St. John’s.

And this year, farm manager Mark Wilson has been making a concentrated effort to generate new accounts among the top restaurants in St. John’s.

Diners at Bianca’s, the Fairmont Newfoundland, Magnum and Steins, the

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

Casbah, the Sprout, and a number of other establishments are being treated to local, fresh, specialty produce from Rabinowitz’s land.

While the chefs may turn to larger suppliers for most of their produce, “it’s like we provide the toppings, the garnish,” says Wilson. Snow peas, baby eggplant, tiny patty pan squash, miniature beets — red, golden, candy striped — and fresh herbs are top sellers.

Wilson walks towards one of the two large greenhouses on the property, pointing out the long, healthy cucumbers inside. It’s his first year on the job, and he says he’s been putting in 60hour weeks to take advantage of the short growing season.

Wilson grew up on a farm in Ontario, where he was used to planting on the May 24 weekend.

“Here, it’s probably June 24, and you might still get a frost,” he says. A frost in late June killed some early plants.

“And there’s so many rocks, it’s ridiculous!”

Wilson hopes to continue catering to the high-end food market this fall by developing cool-weather produce —

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 21

micro greens, for example, that “can add height and texture to a plate.” He’s also going to try his hand at growing organic shitake and other mushrooms.

To the left of the greenhouse lies one of the biggest gardens, filled with lettuces, chard, kale and more.

“This hasn’t been a great summer,” says Rabinowitz, in spite of the harvest in front of him. “It’s been cold and there hasn’t been any rain. We’re late getting some of these crops to sell.”

Organic farming is labour-intensive — almost all the work is done by hand, especially on hilly terrain, where the tractor cannot be used. There are about 10 workers on the farm this time of the year, including two WWOOFers (Willing Workers On Organic Farms — volunteers who will work 25 hours a week in exchange for room and board) from Japan.

Rabinowitz is only around the farm in the mornings and weekends (“I can’t work out here any more, but I can nag,” he laughs) — in the afternoons, he’s at the university, doing his “other” job.

“There’s so much to do, there’s never

enough time … This year, I’m hoping, we’ll be able to break even at least on salaries,” Rabinowitz says, surveying a patch of flawless cauliflower.

“This place has got to break even soon, I can’t afford to subsidize it anymore … it’s a quarter-million (personal) investment right now.

“We’ve got to find ways to be more efficient.”

He points to two cabbage patches, one just a dozen feet from the other — both are ready for the picking, but one group was planted six weeks ago, the other six weeks before that. The soil makes all the difference, he says.

“It takes time to get everything right.” Building up nutrients in soil is a careful process of adding compost and growing the proper ground cover between rows — clover works well, Rabinowitz explains, and suppresses weeds in the meantime.

“It’s unrealistic to think you could (get the soil right) in less than five years.”

Rabinowitz does receive government grants from time to time. The farm is in the last year of a three-year experimen-

tal greenhouse gas mitigation project — the aim is to build up soil using only plants.

He’s got no shortage of vision or plans. He purchased 17 more acres of land two years ago where he’d eventually like to raise local species of trees, perhaps even live Christmas trees, for sale.

He’s also planted a number of fruit trees — pear, plum, apple, sour cherry, sweet cherry. “There’s about 12 or 14 varieties,” he says. “They’re experimental as well, we’ll see what works here and what won’t.”

The second greenhouse houses the roots of the giant pumpkin plants (the vines and fruit stretch well outside the walls) and thousands of tomatoes. The other vegetable gardens are bursting with squash, potatoes, turnips … and then there’s the perennial herb garden, warm with sweet and spicy scents.

Even as it grows, the organic farm remains a family farm. Rabinowitz’s daughter, Toby, is an artist, with a studio overlooking the fields. His son, Louis, is active in the farm operations.

This year, the farm was given the

environmental award from the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Agriculture — a big boost for Rabinowitz.

“I didn’t even know they knew I existed,” he says with a shrug.

He pauses to pick a leaf off a lavender plant, and passes it along to be tasted. “You wouldn’t believe how often this is used in cooking,” he says, expectantly. “And you wouldn’t believe how good it is.”

While Rabinowitz does truly enjoy researching and trying out different vegetables, herbs and fruit (“Melba thinks I’m crazy but I really love biodiversity”), there is a real pragmatic side to the work — the effort to grow the most flavourful, plentiful, and saleable produce in Newfoundland’s often trying weather conditions.

“Farming this way, learning these things … I think it’s important to the province,” he says.

The Organic Farm is open to the public, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays until November. Located at 42 Churchill’s Rd., Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s.

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

22 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

DINNER & SHOW Spirit of Newfoundland Productions and

Go Nuns Go! In September this zany group of performers is going to Waterford, Ireland to compete in an International Music Theatre Competition.

To get them ready to win, they have 3 shows in St. John’s

Bill Murry stars in Broken Flowers.

B

k o o

N

ow

! !!

September 11, 12 and 16

579-3023

Majestic Theatre 390 Duckworth Street

Showtime 7:00

The crooked world of late summer T

here are so many reasons to be crooked right now. Labour Day weekend signals the end of summer with a hard knot in the gut. One day you’re sipping gin and tonics in the backyard and the next you’re putting away the lawn furniture. There is so much crankiness out there the place should be declared a danger zone.

Think of all the people who have reason to be anxious right now: Dean Brinton must be, as he faces explaining why The Rooms is going to be turned into The Divisions; CBC employees must be, while they consider how much outdoor gear they’ll need; CBC viewers and listeners must be, as they crave quality programming like addicts in rehab; bar owners must be, as they wonder where all the drinking smokers will go; John Efford must be, as he wonders where he’s going to put all those tchochkas from his Ottawa office.

And we’re not even talking about drivers facing punishing gas prices, kids and teachers returning to crummy schools, Newfoundlanders returning to Alberta, or fishermen, paper mill workers, and Ed Byrne’s accountant. The air is saturated with a toxic mix of pollen and late season grumpiness.

The only way to escape is to get some art into your system, or at least to see something spiritually nourishing, like Broken Flowers, a perfect low-key movie about a guy who has more reason to be crooked than Ray O’Neill after election day.

Bill Murray stars as Don Johnston, an obviously rich guy with an exhausted soul. One of the recurring jokes in the film is that people are amused by his name, wondering if he shares the persona of that other Don, the one with the fake tan and the linen suits who once hunted down all the vice in Miami. But Bill Murray’s Don could not be further away from that one.

Murray’s Don made it big in the

NOREEN GOLFMAN Standing room only dot.com days, but when we meet him he is wearier with life than an existentialist in heaven, more couch slug than potato.

Staring vacantly into the television screen, scarcely managing the energy to take a sip of wine, Don embodies the postmodern male, all dressed up and nowhere to go. His gorgeous girlfriend is leaving him, but he can barely manage the energy to react.

At that moment of almost complete abject emptiness, a pink letter arrives from an anonymous former lover. The letter announces that Don has a teenage son somewhere out there in the world who might soon come looking for him.

The main body of the film then involves Don’s crappy rented-car journey to four former lovers, each of whom is an eligible candidate for motherhood.

This plot device works well not only to profile four very different kinds of women (and different actors, from Sharon Stone, Jessica Lang, Frances Conroy, to Tilda Swinton), but also to study four different kinds of social milieus, from middle class suburbia to hillbilly hell.

And so Broken Flowers is a bit like a travelogue through Anywheresville, with Bill Murray as the reluctant tour guide, tentatively taking us along on his uneasy little quest. As he drives along the anonymous highways of America you can see by the trees that it’s autumn in more ways than one. Don is past middle age, coasting into the last stage of his life with not much more to show for it than a neat car and a really handsome track suit.

Broken Flowers creeps deliberately towards its ambiguous conclusion. This is not a Hollywood movie in which the

central character has a major transformative experience, finding love, God, or even peace of mind.

No, here we have more realism than soap opera. Here the lead character moves not by leaps and bounds but by centimetres towards just a hint of selfawareness.

Bill Murray is simply brilliant in the role, deeply expressive with a mere flinch of his facial muscles or a concentration of the brow. He is this generation’s answer to Buster Keaton, a man whose eyes could tell a thousand tales, whose face was his unique acting signature. If ever an actor deserved an Oscar for understatement, it’s this guy.

There is no false hope in Broken Flowers, but there is possibility, a sign that autumn might bring with it something redemptive. Life is chaotic and human beings are a messy unforgiving lot, but if this guy can find some comfort in the universe all is not lost.

When I saw this very fine movie last week the theatre was about two-thirds full, not bad for an alternative offering without a car chase, explosion, or climax.

But then it’s probably true that a good many people thought they were going to see a whacky comedy featuring a Saturday Night Live alumnus. The laughter in the audience at the beginning of the movie was just a little too forced, too hungry for broad comedy and escape from the crooked world. But the power of the thing was such that at some point everyone calmed down and settled into something more serious and uncertain.

Yet inexplicably, when the credits started rolling, the grumpy people behind me muttered loudly that they wanted their money back, spoiling the mood and reeling me back into the crooked world of late summer. Happy seasonal transition time.

Noreen Golfman is a professor of literature and women’s studies at Memorial.

Her column returns Sept. 18.

‘Best community I’ve ever lived in’ From page 17 Powell River are beginning to hit Corner Brook too.”

She says she fell in love with the city, its talented people and the academic life at the university. But she was sickened by the way contractual employees at the school — and at most universities in Canada — are treated, and the way the city is perceived by outsiders.

“I dare say the situation is much like growing up in Powell River. You’re considered to be from the sticks and you’re not as smart as other people and everything good happens in Vancouver (or St. John’s) and it’s hard to get around that sometimes,” MacKenzie says. “I hope to God that what happened in Powell River — where the people let in these big chain stores and the kids left in mass exodus — the same thing doesn’t happen in Corner Brook too.”

MacKenzie says that’s why she’s so proud of her recent scholarship from the Ireland Canada University Foundation.

The foundation was established 12 years ago by well-known businessman Craig Dobbin, owner of CHC Helicopters. The Canadian scholarship — $8,000 towards short-term visits to Ireland for research relating to both countries — was given to MacKenzie this year in support of the third in a trilogy of books comparing the

poetry of Ireland and Newfoundland.

The third installment will compile contemporary poetry from Ireland and Canada — including several up and coming poets from Newfoundland and Labrador.

WELL VERSED She co-edited and co-published Backyards of Heaven in 2003 and in 2004 she released However Blow the Winds. After studying the poetry of both places, MacKenzie says she’s come to discover the similarities between Ireland and this province end when it comes to the verse of either place.

“In the poetry, I’d say the first thing that strikes me is that Irish poetry tends to be more mythologically dependent and Newfoundland poetry tends to be more narrative inflected, there’s a closer affiliation with oral storytelling traditions.”

After living in the province on and off for eight years, MacKenzie still doesn’t consider herself an honourary Newfoundlander.

“Once a CFA always a CFA … it seems like you have to spend 25 years in Newfoundland to be considered a Newfoundlander,” she says with a laugh.

“I contribute to the community and I must say, the community contributes to me too — it’s the best community I’ve ever lived in.”

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4-10, 2005 — PAGE 23

Leaside Manor Heritage Inn, St. John’s

Rhonda Hayward/The Independent

Taxing tourists Estimated $10 million collected since 1999 from accommodation tax

By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

W

hen tourists check out of their St. John’s hotel rooms they might not notice a seemingly small three per cent addition to their bills, but since 1999 city guests have contributed almost $10 million to local coffers in accommodation tax.

This form of taxing all fixed-room accommodations — including summer lodgings offered at Memorial University’s student residences — was set up primarily to cover debt servicing costs for St. John’s Convention Centre.

The money retained each year goes into a reserve for civic centre financing and is

divided with Destination St. John’s.

Robert Bishop, the city’s treasurer and director of finance, tells The Independent the amount of tax collected — an estimated $1.8 million last year alone — has been steadily rising, along with tourism numbers.

“If you look at the occupancy rates, they’ve dropped a bit over the last year or so, because there’s so many new rooms,” he says, “but if you look at the number of rooms sold, it’s going up all the time.”

St. John’s is anticipating at least two new hotel developments over the next few years and Bishop says the tax also applies to lodgings such as the Littledale Conference Centre and short-term apartment rentals.

He adds when the convention centre is paid off in 20 years, the funds will continue to go towards settling Mile One’s remaining debt — as would any excess money.

“It is somewhat arbitrary to separate the two buildings (Mile One and the convention centre) in any case, as they are connected and use a common, single heating and ventilation system etc and are both used for major conventions.”

He says the amount collected in accommodation tax covers the civic centre’s mortgage.

“The first half a million dollars (a year) comes to the city … the next $250,000 goes to what’s now called Destination St. John’s for operating costs, and anything

over $750,000 gets spread 50/50 between the city and Destination St. John’s.”

Destination St. John’s is an industry driven marketing organization, working to represent the city and attract corporate meetings, conventions and leisure or business travellers.

To date, the city has received over $7 million in accommodation tax and Destination St. John’s, just under $3 million.

Many capital cities in Canada carry similar money-generating destination taxes, although they go by a variety of names.

In Nova Scotia, the tax is set at 1.5 per cent of the room rate. The 15 per cent HST is then tacked onto the total.

‘The jury is out’

Question remains whether insurance rates have actually gone down

By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

D

espite the provincial government issuing multiple auto insurance reforms over the past year, questions are being raised as to how much the average consumer is actually saving.

According to Opposition MHA George Sweeny, Government Services critic for the provincial Liberals, the savings — which should amount to as much as 20 per cent less than customers were paying pre-August 2004 — have yet to materialize.

“Many people would tell you they haven’t seen it,” he tells The Independent. “No tangible results to show that they received this discount.”

Sweeny blames a lack of government enforcement and the timing of the implemented regulations.

In August 2004, after the province had already announced a freeze on rates, it passed an additional mandatory 15 per cent reduction in premiums. On Aug. 1, 2005, following a Public Utilities Board review, an additional five per cent reduction was introduced in the House of Assembly, as well as the elimination of rate discrimination based on age, gender and marital status.

The 2005 reductions are not expected to show immediate savings for the consumer, due to the fact insurance companies had until Sept. 1 to file their rates with the Public Utilities Board. Some companies may manage to remain exempt from the reductions based on

financial situations; the others will be expected to issue rebates.

Craig Dowden, a spokesman for the Insurance Brokers Association of Newfoundland, says the rate assessments may take some time.

“I don’t expect this to be something that’s going to happen overnight, because I was talking to someone a little while ago and there are three companies in Nova Scotia that submitted their rates nine months ago and are still awaiting approval on them. The Public Utilities Board doesn’t do an actuarial analysis themselves, they send it off to an independent actuarial firm.”

Consumers, however, should have already noticed a drop in rates after last year’s 15 per cent reform, he says.

Sweeney disagrees. He says due to

the timing of the reform in August 2004, he suspects many insurance companies had already applied to the Public Utilities Board to increase their rates.

“The reduction was offset by an increase.

“I’d like to see the minister (Diane Whalen) get on top of this situation and deliver on the promises that have been made,” he says. “Back when this government stood for election, they promised substantial reductions in insurance costs and they just haven’t delivered.

We’re just not seeing it. I know I received my bill a little while ago and I certainly didn’t see it.”

Sweeney says he even decided to switch insurance companies.

“I just shopped around and I did save some money, but I combined my home-

owners and automobile insurance and I didn’t do it lightly, because I was with this company for a long time.”

Dowden says insurers are still waiting to see what the Public Utility Board’s rate approval analysis will turn up and whether consumers really will see a further five per cent reduction as well as savings for those affected by gender, sex and marital status.

“Are they seeing further reductions?

The jury is out to a certain extent right now … we’re all waiting to see what’s going to happen with that.”

Whalen was unavailable for comment, but a spokeswoman with the provincial Department of Government Services and Lands says it’s still too early to tell how the reforms will affect insurers and consumers.

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24 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

Collateral damage starting to mount from CBC lockout mavens want to hear. Publishers are hoping to get their authors on CBC Radio programming such as Sounds ust because they’re not pounding Like Canada or Newsworld’s Hot the pavement on the CBC picket Type in time for the all-important lines doesn’t mean other people Christmas book-shopping season.

Theatre companies and music ensemaren’t hitting the skids.

With the lockout of 5,500 bles, especially smaller local groups, Canadian Media Guild members now depend on appearances or mentions almost three weeks old, the effects on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning or are starting to be felt outside the pub- Here and Now to reach their audiences. lic broadcaster.

Meanwhile, freelance producers Consider Starweek and other TV listings guides, as well as entertain- and reporters, who are not on longment magazines. Planning for editori- term contracts but still depend on al content — at this, the start of the CBC for a steady income — review2005-6 season — is all but impossi- ing films or music, for instance — are ble, no thanks to uncertainty over also out of luck.

The WGC is warning that “develCBC-TV’s schedule.

For example, two of the splashiest opment of future programs has also productions the network has mounted been put on hold” which will affect in years, the two-part biopic Trudeau: people and business “well down the Pierre Elliott, and a Shania Twain road.”

It won’t be long until merchants in movie-of-the-week, slotted for Sept.

25-26 and Oct. 2 respectively, might media-heavy neighbourhoods such as not get the big promotional push they Riverdale and the Beaches feel the pinch. With some of their best cusdeserve.

That means ratings won’t be what tomers no longer collecting a paycheque, the retailers they should be and restaurateurs — and advertiswill see business ers won’t be decline — and some happy.

As for CBC and the of their best cusLast week, Guild, it’s time both tomers perhaps even all-important seeking jobs. cover stories for came down to The ripple effect is both were killed sending waves outbecause it’s too earth — for all kinds side Canada’s borrisky highlightders, to public ing a show that of reasons. broadcasters around might not go on. the world who pick “We’re in a up CBC programtremendous vacuum,” Starweek editor Gord ming for their audiences.

One of the most popular programs Stimmell said, explaining how more than a few of his editions are already on the U.S.’s National Public Radio (NPR) is As It Happens, hosted by affected.

Publicists, many of them freelance, Mary Lou Finlay and Barbara Budd. who had worked to procure covers, or Last week an NPR producer invited lined up interviews with program me to appear on the network to stars, or other promotion, are seeing explain why the show was being their strategies unravelling — and are replaced by repeats of the thoughtful wondering whether their work will be documentary series, Ideas.

One of the biggest questions is the for nothing.

There’s uncertainty among media long-awaited launch of Canadian buyers, who wonder who will see satellite radio: will CBC be ready to their commercials, and even actors go with its promised programming?

Last year, the public broadcaster, and other artists, who may — or may not — be on call for promotional along with Standard Broadcasting, partnered with the U.S. based Sirius interviews.

“It’s truly heartbreaking,” says Satellite Radio to form Sirius Rebecca Schechter, president of the Canada.

Next month, the federal cabinet is Writers Guild of Canada (WGC). “A lot of time, talent and money was expected to rule on the controversial invested in the creation and produc- June 16 licensing decision by the Canadian Radio-television and tion of these programs.

“The lack of promotion is not only Telecommunications Commission disappointing for the people who (CRTC).

There’s no way the service can worked on these productions, it’s unfair to the taxpayers who funded launch without its critical Canadian these projects in anticipation of the content — which would give its uniquely Canadian content the CBC Canadian rival, John Bitove Jr.’s rival Canadian Satellite Radio, a decided is mandated to deliver.”

It’s no help that CBC is less than competitive edge.

As for CBC and the Guild, it’s time definitive about its intentions.

“The plan is the schedule; that’s both came down to earth — for all what we’re going to do,” spokesper- kinds of reasons.

Everything about this labour disson Jason MacDonald says. “We’re going to have to make a decision at pute suggests that, until the parties sit some point … The lockout is day by themselves down and start talking, the pavement won’t be the only thing day.”

That’s not the kind of news arts taking a pounding.

By Antonia Zerbisias Torstar wire service

J

Paul Daly/The Independent

Saving Robin Hood Andy Wells favours extending life of existing dump over new landfill site

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

T

he Robin Hood Bay dump in St. John’s may be replaced by a regional landfill site — or not.

While Environment Minister Tom Osborne and Municipal Affairs Minister Jack Byrne have yet to reach a decision on whether St. John’s can keep its dump, Mayor Andy Wells says it would be cheaper to remediate the current landfill than to shut it down.

The provincial government has a waste-management strategy in place which calls for the shutting down of all unlined landfills in the province by 2010.

For the Avalon Peninsula, the province has proposed one landfill —

known as Dog Hill in Conception Bay South — replacing the 43 dumps in the region.

Studies completed for the province have suggested the cost of shutting down Robin Hood Bay, while protecting the environment in terms of cleanup and leaching into the ocean near the landfill, to be upwards of $150 million.

Officials with the city contend that although Robin Hood Bay is unlined, a retrofit and upgrade — including introducing facilities for recycling and other waste-management options — could be a cheaper alternative to closing it.

Several initiatives to clean up and collect future leachate, a chemical soup leaking from the dump, are also proposed as a part of the retrofit, which could cost as much as $30 million.

With the retrofit, the dump at Robin Hood Bay could operate for another 35 years — servicing 15 to 20 communities.

“Things are taking a little longer, but it’s a complicated issue and you’ve got to allow time for it to work itself out,” Wells says, adding he’s confident the life of Robin Hood Bay will be extended.

“What we have proposed to the provincial government is that our people believe that Robin Hood Bay can be successfully remediated or upgraded to an environmental standard that is more than reasonable — certainly acceptable by any established guidelines.”

Osborne and Byrne are still deliberating on the request for exemption for Robin Hood Bay and a decision is not expected for some weeks, according to a government spokeswoman.

Wells says he’s worried about the cost of dumping at a new site.

“If there was a new site established there would be an enormous increase in your tippage fees (for handling garbage),” he says. “I think we’re handling everything now at Robin Hood Bay for about $23 a tonne.”

The added benefit to retrofitting Robin Hood Bay, Wells says, would be the introduction of curb-side recycling as recycling infrastructure would be a part of remediation.

Wells suggests a so-called threestream curbside collection system would eventually begin in the city with garbage and compost being collected every week and containers and fibrous materials being collected every second week.

“Everyone wants to do it. There are issues there, but what we’re prepared to do is to start immediately on the construction — once we get the OK on Robin Hood Bay — we’d be immediately prepared to start on construction of the infrastructure.”

Wells says the province is aware of the plan and it would only take a year to construct a facility.

“We’re absolutely confident in Robin Hood Bay.”

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 25

Construction near Thorburn Road, St. John’s

Paul Daly/The Independent

Construction ahead

Provincial road money almost spent; could have done with millions more: minister

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

T

he province is nearly done spending its $48.7 million provincial roads budget, but Transportation Minister Tom Rideout says it would have taken more than $100 million to appease the hundreds of requests submitted for road work this year.

And nearly $500 million just to play catch up with the province’s deteriorating roads.

“The departmental projection is if we were to fix our road infrastructure and catch up on the lag time that we’ve lost over the past several years we would need to be spending approximately $60 million a year for the next eight years … just to catch up and fix the past,” Rideout tells The Independent.

He says the number or requests hasn’t been tabulated simply because there are so many of them.

“We get requests from MHAs, we get requests from municipalities, we get requests from organizations …

hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of requests in total,” Rideout says.

“The department tries to analyze every request that we get and then, based on the amount of funding available, we have to have some kind of a priority list to work from.”

Rideout says the provincial roads program — which was originally budgeted for $30 million — will likely see a bigger injection of funds as years go by to allow for more projects.

Nearly 15 of the 48 political districts in the province will receive between $1 million and $2 million in road construction. Overall, the money seems to be evenly distributed between Tory and Liberal districts.

However, individual Tory districts received the most cash, including more than $3 million in Baie Verte; $2.54 million in Bonavista South; $2.61 million in Lewisporte; and $2 million in St. George’s-Stephenville East.

“I make no apologies for spending money in districts represented by government members … particularly districts that were for 12 or 14 years represented by those members when we

were in opposition and they basically got nothing,” Rideout says. “We try to be fair and balanced.”

Of the 40-odd roads projects (nearly one in every district) announced by The Independent’s press deadline, Rideout says the majority of the work will continue as late into the fall as possible to minimize work carrying over into next year.

Rideout has taken criticism from the official Opposition, with the Liberals putting out their own regular press releases questioning the timing of road work announcements and saying the work can’t possibly be tendered and completed before the end of the year.

Much of the work was announced late into the summer — 12 projects were announced after Aug. 1.

“It really depends on the kind of fall that we have,” Rideout defends. “I remember last year we were able to lay pavement well into October. So if we have that kind of fall again we would anticipate most of our work getting completed, but you know if mother nature turns on us sometime in early October there may be some carry over

Gulf Coast was the U.S. Achilles’ heel

By David Crane Torstar wire service

A

Canadian dollar at 87 U.S. cents as a result of the terrible devastation in the Gulf region of the United States? That’s where we could be headed, according to the chief currency strategist of Citigroup Inc., Steven Saywell.

As Hurricane Katrina drives up oil and natural gas prices, Canada is expected to gain significant export revenues, making our dollar a petro-currency. Canada is the largest supplier of oil and natural gas to the United States; our refineries will be under pressure to increase gasoline and aviation fuel exports as well.

Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that while the region of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama represents only about three per cent of the U.S. economy, the devastation there will have economic consequences that reach around the world.

In oil and gas markets, Hurricane Katrina may turn out to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Even before this event, which has hit hard U.S. oil and gas production facilities and refining in the Gulf, global oil markets were tense, with a precariously narrow gap between supply and demand that left little room for supply interruptions.

Now we have a serious supply interruption that can only be partly offset by releasing oil from the U.S. strategic reserve because about 10 per cent of U.S. oil refining capacity has been hit by Hurricane Katrina. No new oil refining capacity has been built in the United States since the 1970s, despite huge oil industry profits. So a loss of U.S. refining capacity has always been a risk for the United States.

A LONG WAY FROM CANADA? But the ramifications go far beyond oil and gas prices.

Hurricane Katrina is expected to cut U.S. economic growth in the third and fourth quarters this year, and perhaps next year as well. This is a new factor the Bank of Canada, next Wednesday, and the U.S. Federal Reserve, on Sept. 20, will have to consider when they hold their next meetings on interest rates.

While New Orleans is a long way from Canada, it is also a critical part of the North American logistics and supply system, and it could be out of operation for some time. The Mississippi River has been called the aorta of the American economy and New Orleans its entry point. Now that key port could be out of action for months.

The insurance industry is expecting claims of up to $20 billion (U.S.). That is just manageable, but it will lead to higher premiums certainly in coastal areas and could mean increases generally. This doesn’t include flooding claims, since private insurers won’t cover flooding. A U.S. government agency provides this insurance and about 1.3 billion businesses and homes in the Gulf region are covered.

The entire region is now a serious health disaster area.

Hurricane Katrina has created a vast toxic pool of water, with heavy metals, oil and chemicals, along with industrial waste, human feces and the decayed remains of humans and animals that will eventually be flushed out to the Gulf of Mexico. There it could linger for a decade.

“There is not enough money in the gross national product

of the United States to dispose of the amount of hazardous material in the area,” said Hugh Kaufman, a senior analyst at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But the hurricane also raises key issues of U.S. priorities.

In his bid to deliver huge tax benefits to wealthy Americans and, through the energy bill, to oil companies already reeling in vast profits, U.S. President George W. Bush has been cutting back on spending proposals to meet urgent public needs.

One example has been the well-documented need for better flood protection in the Gulf. But the Bush administration’s most recent budget proposal cut back on that spending, and the Republican Congress was going along with this budget-slashing.

The grossly mismanaged U.S. response to Hurricane Katrina in the first few days will also raise questions. The United States was terribly unprepared for a storm it knew was coming, and painfully slow to respond once it hit.

Bush left his ranch — but to attend Republican fund-raising events, not to make the hurricane his top priority.

We won’t know the full consequences of Hurricane Katrina for some time. But already we know that we have to change many of the things we do. A place to start is to get rid of gas-guzzling vehicles, which is why we should not lower gasoline taxes despite higher pump prices.

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till next spring.”

Unlike previous years, Rideout says, carry over work no longer affects budgets for the next fiscal year.

Rideout says more work will be carried out on the Trans-Canada Highway as a federal/provincial infrastructure agreement has recently been signed.

26 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

WEEKLY DIVERSIONS ACROSS 1 Type of hound?

5 Fitted or fated start 8 Roughing It in the ___ (Moodie) 12 Public plugs 15 Post-game sum-up 17 Witness 18 Prefix referring to farming 19 All over 20 ___ nous (between us) 21 First word of 2001 Munro title 23 Relocate 24 Imps 26 Sailor’s drink 27 Spain and Portugal 29 Edward to his pals 30 Bagpiper’s beret 32 Window pane sealer 36 Make into law 37 Wing-like 39 Fish eggs 40 Golfer Weir 41 Site of annual Mariposa folk festival 44 Nfld. fishing village 46 Toy that “walks” downstairs 47 Actors Jennifer and Cynthia 49 Not Wanted on the ___ (Findley) 53 Cats and canaries,

e.g.

54 Conceal 55 These (Fr.) 56 Convent dweller 57 Pack animal?

58 A Lemieux 60 Poet Erin (Search Procedures) 62 Pistol 63 Fury 64 Scot’s word of regret 65 French Miss: abbr.

66 German Mr. 67 Dictator 69 Source of cocoa 71 Covered with fuzzy green stuff 73 “The Ballad of the ___ Cocktail” (Service) 75 Some English kings 77 Impertinent 79 “There it is!”

80 It may put you in a difficult position 81 Ofra Harnoy’s instrument 82 Mideast Heights 85 Pecan or filbert 86 Comics bark 89 Passionate 91 No big wheel 93 Group of Seven artist 95 Flunks the polygraph 96 Co-founder of

SOLUTION ON PAGE 31

National Ballet 101 Healthy oil 102 Bereavement 103 Magician’s stick 104 ___ and cry 105 To swim (Fr.) 106 N.S. summer time 107 Novgorod no 108 Wind dir.

109 Tree trunk DOWN 1 Highest point of a wave 2 Therefore 3 Group of eight 4 Reheat 5 Sort of ending?

6 Shakespearean king 7 Cessation 8 ___-relief 9 Word of disgust 10 ___ Lanka 11 Native of Arizona 12 Jacket with a hood 13 Gadget 14 Perspiration 16 Coach’s spiel 19 Pleasant or useful feature 22 Outback runner 25 Sudden rush 28 Author of The Island Walkers 31 Avril follower 33 Verifiable 34 Toddlers

35 Slangy affirmative 38 Hub-to-rim lines 41 Site of P.E.I. Potato Museum 42 Comedienne Erika 43 Social connections 44 Shout for a matador 45 “Somewhere ___ the rainbow ...”

46 Nautical pole 48 Flap 50 Violinist Dubeau 51 Protects 52 Way in 54 Prince Charles, e.g.

55 Actor’s entrance indicator 58 City with most huge snowfall days (25+ cm) 59 French act 60 Provincial rep.

61 Field of study: suffix 65 1900 66 Hooded sweatshirt in Sask.: bunny ___ 68 Stuffy 69 Pacific salmon 70 Dying sea 71 Powerful person 72 Speech 74 Tail verb 76 Many, many moons 77 Portion of time 78 Most ancient 81 Lily family 83 German exclamation 84 ___ Ark

86 Male friend (Span.)

87 Make merry 88 Jacques of song

90 A night on the ___ 92 Lions’ prey 94 Piece (of bacon)

97 ___ an egg 98 Of the nature of: suffix

99 B.C. summer time 100 Type of shirt

WEEKLY STARS ARIES - MAR 21/APR 20 Hold on to the things you deem valuable, because your life is topsy-turvy this week, Aries.

Expect turmoil and confusion -but the good news is that it will be short-lived.

TAURUS - APR 21/MAY 21 Stop stalling when it comes to an important issue, Taurus; someone is waiting for your answer on the subject. Make a decision and let this person know how you feel.

GEMINI - MAY 22/JUN 21 A big change in your life has you feeling overwhelmed and anxious. If it seems like the walls are closing in on you, a change of scenery will do the trick, Gemini.

CANCER - JUN 22/JUL 22 You've been faced with a great challenge, Cancer, and this week the burden gets a bit lighter.

Enjoy the freedom, however

short it may be. Libra shares in your enjoyment.

LEO - JUL 23/AUG 23 Big plans for the weekend mean that you'll have to buckle down during the week, Leo. Keep your nose to the grindstone and Saturday will be here before you know it.

VIRGO - AUG 24/SEPT 22 Someone is interested in starting a relationship with you, Virgo, but you're just not into the idea.

Let this person down gently so there are no hard feelings.

LIBRA - SEPT 23/OCT 23 A new friend isn't what he or she seems, Libra. You may want to re-evaluate your relationship before things get out of control.

Seek the advice of Pisces.

SCORPIO - OCT 24/NOV 22 Big changes are in store this week, Scorpio, and you're not

happy one bit. A creature of order and routine, this switch will catch you by surprise. Just go with the flow.

SAGITTARIUS - NOV 23/DEC 21 This is no time to make rash decisions where family is concerned, Sagittarius. Put any plans for a big move or change on hold for another few weeks.

CAPRICORN - DEC 22/JAN 20 Things are getting much more serious where a relationship is concerned. For singles, marriage could be in the air. For couples, a time for reconnection is imminent.

AQUARIUS - JAN 21/FEB 18 It's time to face up to your responsibilities, Aquarius, and get your head out of the clouds.

Your family needs you the most right now, not your friends or coworkers.

PISCES - FEB 19/MAR20 No matter how much noise you make, a tantrum will not get you your way, Pisces. Try another route for changing minds.

FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS SEPTEMBER 4 Beyonce Knowles, singer SEPTEMBER 5 Raquel Welch, actress SEPTEMBER 6 Hugh Grant, actor SEPTEMBER 7 Jason Giambi, athlete SEPTEMBER 8 Pink, singer SEPTEMBER 9 Adam Sandler, actor SEPTEMBER 10 Ryan Phillippe, actor

Fill in the grid so that each row of nine squares, each column of nine and each section of nine (three squares by three) contains the numbers 1 through 9 in any order.

There is only one solution to each puzzle. Solutions, tips and computer program available at www.sudoko.com SOLUTION ON PAGE 31

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

INDEPENDENT SPECIAL SECTION • 27

28 • INDEPENDENT SPECIAL SECTION

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

H

Humber Valley Resort, located in the heart of the beautiful Humber Valley on Newfoundland's west coast, is a vacation destination for internationals and locals alike. Comprised of some 2400 acres of forested mountainside vistas along the Humber River, the Resort offers a world class lifestyle not only to its guests, but also its employees.

Whatever the season, the lifestyle opportunities and recreational activities are endless. In winter, premium downhill skiing and snowmobiling are just outside your office door, as are kayaking, golfing and world class salmon fishing in the summer, just to name a few.

Founded, owned and operated by Newfound Developers Group of Companies, Humber Valley Resort is the first of several planned international resorts.

MANAGING DIRECTOR Competition # HVR-2005-21

The Managing Director will be challenged with the pivotal responsibility of planning, organizing, directing, controlling and evaluating the development and operation of Humber Valley Resort and Strawberry Hill Resort with the possibility of expanding to other resorts worldwide. You will be responsible for effective and positive management and recognize and reward employees’ positive performance with opportunities for growth.

Main Duties · Responsible for the development, daily operation and maintenance of the Resort · Promote and maintain positive customer relations by insuring that first class customer service is provided to all owners and guests · Effectively oversee the management of all departments of the Resort · Prepare, plan and manage the operations budget, and monitor revenues and expenses · Conduct Management Meetings to ensure the cohesion of departments affecting the overall success of the Resort · Develop, implement and evaluate policies and procedures for the operation of the Resort · Prepare reports and statistics related to their areas of responsibility · Negotiate with suppliers and administer contracts for the provision of materials, supplies and services · Oversee the resolution of personnel and customer issues · Ensure departments work within their budgets, and analyze differences between budget and actual results · Achieve profitability in revenue generating departments while providing premium quality guest service · Motivate, train, and inspire the team members to provide outstanding guest services while developing a culture that is dedicated to exceeding guest expectations · Provide Public Relations as required Employment Requirements · A university degree with a major in Business Administration, Commerce or Accounting · 10+ years of Managerial experience · 10+ years financial analytical experience · Must have an understanding of sales and marketing budgets, and requirements to achieve profitability · Exceptional proficiency in the areas of budgeting, forecasting, and the review of profit and loss statements and a deep understanding of how the day-to-day operation translates to the financial performance of the resort · Experience with real estate or resort development would be an asset · Experience in the European resort market is desirable The successful candidate will be an outgoing, confident and a dynamic individual. All applicants must demonstrate superior leadership, time management, written and oral communication skills.

Deadline for applications is 4:30 pm Friday, Sept. 9, 2005 Please quote competition #HVR-2005-21 when submitting resume, cover letter and references to: Human Resources Humber Valley Resort P.O. Box 370 NL A0L 1K0 Fax: (709) 686 1249 e-mail: employment@humbervalley.com

w w w. h u m b e r v a l l e y. c o m

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 29

Older, wiser Tucker hopes to ditch sideshow Winger eager to prove he’s matured on ice

By Mark Zwolinski Torstar wire service

D

arcy Tucker wasn’t just whistling Dixie last week when he talked about being 30 years old and scoring 30 goals for the Leafs this season.

A 15-month lockout layoff, stomach surgery, and the passage of time appear to have given Tucker more confidence, and a more mature outlook on the game.

“Let’s face it, it’s up to me if I make myself a better player,” Tucker says. “I think I’ve taken strides on and off the ice. Hopefully what I’ve done over the last (15 months) makes me a better player and a better person.”

While he didn’t set definite goals for himself, Tucker expressed confidence when asked if he can break the 30-goal barrier for the first time in his six-year NHL career.

The confidence stems from a reshaped workout regimen developed after his surgery in June 2004.

Much of the upper body work that previously took up his gym time was shed in favour of “core” training, the popular leg and stomach conditioning routines many pro athletes are turning to.

“I worked differently than before,” says Tucker, who has gone from a cruising weight of about 187 pounds when hockey was last played to a more svelte and taut 177 pounds.

“I tried to work for speed and the offensive side of the game. Three or four days a week I was also on the ice with a group of players. We didn’t bang each other around, we worked with the puck, and I worked on my hand speed, my release, my shot, things like that. I tried to do that a lot, to take myself to the next level, and I hope it bodes well for this season.”

It appears the door is open for Tucker to take aim at new offensive plateaus.

How much that door remains open will be seen when training camp starts Sept. 12.

Tucker won’t place himself on a line, but pre-camp talk has Leafs coach Pat Quinn giving him a chance to play on a top line with Mats Sundin and Jeff O’Neill.

“It looks like I’ll get an opportunity to take on a bigger role on the ice

and leadership wise,” Tucker says.

“People might not believe this but I don’t say much in the dressing room.

I leave that voice to other guys. I’d like to be the guy who leads on the ice. But we have a lot of guys who were leaders and captains with other teams. I don’t see leadership as being a problem with this team.”

Tucker once had excellent offensive numbers. He was part of three Memorial Cup-winning teams in Kamloops during his four-year junior career, produced over 135-points in each of the final two years in junior, and was voted the AHL’s top rookie in 1996, scoring 29 goals in 74 games with Fredericton.

He also had O’Neill as a linemate, and Jason Allison as a teammate, as part of the gold medal winning Canadian national team at the 1995 world junior championships.

The Montreal Canadiens, who drafted him in the eighth round in 1993, were already stacked with talented offensive centres like Saku Koivu, Vincent Damphousse and Pierre Turgeon, and tried to remake Tucker into a defensive forward.

The experiment didn’t work particularly well, and Tucker was done in Montreal after less than two seasons.

Trades brought him to a brief stint in Tampa, then to Toronto, where he became a fan favourite, piling up penalty minutes and scoring at least 20 goals in two of the previous three seasons (he was on pace for 30 in 2003-04, but missed 18 games due to surgery on his stomach and eye).

But along with the adulation in Toronto, Tucker has frequently given critics ammunition to roast him for his exuberant, emotional approach.

He became noted for on-ice antics, and it overshadowed his positive contributions to the team.

Now, at 30, and with four seasons in Toronto in which he has drawn almost as many reviews of his “Sideshow Bob” persona as his hockey talent, Tucker sees higher ground for himself.

“I probably shot myself in the foot at times with overzealous physical play,” Tucker says. “This year there’s an opportunity maybe to not bang around so much, but to be a factor physically and make room for my teammates.”

Toronto Maple Leafs left winger Darcy Tucker celebrates his team's third goal with teammate Ron Francis (L) during third period action in Game 4 of their NHL Eastern Conference semifinal in Toronto, April 30, 2004. The Leafs defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 3-1 to even the series at two games apiece.

REUTERS/Mike Cassese

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...

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Patrick’s Cove native Carl English (R) controls the ball as he is pressed by Panama's Jair Peralta during their FIBA Americas championship match in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Aug. 27.

REUTERS/Jose Miguel Gomez

Down time for Canadian hoops Two years to prepare for Olympic bid

By Doug Smith Torstar wire service

C

anada Basketball officials insist that from disappointment comes optimism, that the failings in 2005 will lead to success in 2007, that the international situation as it stands now is not nearly as bleak as it appears.

“The rebuilding has to begin right now,” Fred Nykamp, Canada Basketball’s executive director, says.

“Realistically, this is a reflection of where the senior program has been.”

This, of course, is nowhere. The senior men became only the second Canadian team in 40 years to fail to qualify for a world championship when they flamed out of the qualification tournament in Santo Domingo last week, leaving Canada with nothing to look forward to until the 2007 qualification process for the Beijing Olympics.

Not to worry, say Nykamp and first-year national team coach Leo Rautins.

Both point to the youth of the team that lost three of four games in the Dominican Republic and got bounced before the second round began. They point to the international success of the under-21 team, which finished third at its world championship earlier this month, as

proof that the future is full of talented players.

But they are talented, young players without significant international experience and, because of Canada’s failure in the past week, they won’t play another important game until the Olympic qualification tournament.

Now the difficulty will be getting the promising young players — such as Vancouver’s Levon Kendall, Carl English of Newfoundland, Juan Mendez of Montreal and Toronto’s Denham Brown — to give up part of their summer next year for what will amount to a series of exhibition games. If they don’t, Rautins runs the risk of trying to qualify for the Olympics with another group of players unfamiliar with each other.

“Obviously, you’re never going to have everyone together all summer,” he says. “But you can do it in stages where you have some groups and then meld those groups together.

“We can take our best young kids and our best young senior team players and specifically orchestrate training camps and programs to help us get to the Olympics.”

To think the 2007 Olympic qualification process will be easy is ridiculous, however. Not only is the Olympic tournament more difficult to get into — only 12 teams go to the Games; 24 are at the worlds — the

intensity of the qualification process is exponentially greater than it is for the world championship.

For the past two Olympics, the FIBA Americas region has been allotted only three spots — a determination that comes out of the final standings at the world championship.

Considering that Argentina is the Olympic defending champion with a roster full of young stars and the Americans plan to use a dozen NBAers in the Olympic qualification process, in all likelihood Canada will be facing tough competition for one remaining spot.

There is also a chance the region will get only two berths in the 2008 Games, which would make it a near impossibility for Canada to qualify.

The best thing might be that the failure of this team will have minimal impact on the financial picture at Canada Basketball. Nykamp says the business plan is built around a quadrennial that begins and ends with the Olympic Games and while it’s obvious that not going to the worlds will be a huge hit to the public profile of the senior men’s team, it won’t have a terrible impact on the bottom line.

“Now the work really begins for us,” Nykamp says. “The senior program has had probably the worst of all situations in the past years and we have to change that.”

30 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

Devil in the decal

When it comes to sports merchandise, fans want to look good; Fog Devils hats already sold out, jerseys on everybody’s wish list

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

S

ports merchandise is high fashion. Jerseys — hockey, basketball, baseball and football — are as popular away from the playing surface as they ever were on, while hats continue to be the biggest seller in most sports stores.

Some sports merchandise has been a hot commodity for years — clothing featuring the logos of traditional favourites such as the New York Yankees or Montreal Canadiens — while other clothing fluctuates in popularity, especially with teenagers.

“Young customers often buy the hot new logo or jersey,” says Andrew Corbett, owner of Maverick Sports and Collectables on Water Street in St. John’s. “They also like jerseys of the teams that are doing well, teams winning championships.”

Ever since October 2004, Corbett has hardly been able to keep a Boston Red Sox cap on his shelves. He says the reason is simple.

“When the Red Sox won the World Series, every fan wanted a hat,” says Corbett. “All the Red Sox fans were coming out of the closet.”

Hats are always a hit with customers, says Paul Thomey, owner of That Pro Look in the Avalon Mall. Many teams have their standard logo as well as alternate and vintage logos, all of which are printed on hats, particularity baseball teams — many of which offer hats in a variety of colours.

“Baseball hats sell year round,” Thomey says. “And with back-toschool, we’re selling quite well in the way of the headwear line.”

Traditional baseball favourites such as the Yankees and Red Sox are always hot sellers when it comes to sports merchandise. While their jerseys and Tshirts are popular, their famous hats — with the storied intertwined NY and the celebrated red B — attract customers with a taste for tradition.

“The Yankees and Red Sox are No. 1 and 2 (in terms of sales), but the Blue Jays aren’t far behind,” says Corbett.

Hockey fans are just as loyal as their baseball counterparts, often preferring merchandise bearing the colours and logos of hockey’s most storied franchises, the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs.

Darren Ryan inspects the latest arrival of hockey jerseys at That Pro Look in the Avalon Mall.

Fans often like to have their name printed on the back of a jersey, or perhaps the name and number of their favourite player. When it comes to the red, white and blue of the Canadiens, one name in particular is extremely popular with local consumers.

“Half of the Montreal jerseys we sell have Ryder on the back,” Corbett says.

As is the case with other sports merchandise, hockey fans are also interested in the popular new logo, jersey or player. In the case of teenage phenom Sidney Crosby, his presence has suddenly made the Pittsburgh Penguins jersey a hot commodity after it collected dust in recent years.

The hottest new logo on the local sports merchandise scene locally is

without a doubt the St. John’s Fog Devils. Throughout training camp at the Mount Pearl Glacier and during the club’s two exhibition games at Mile One Stadium last week, fans quickly purchased hats, T-shirts, golf shirts and hooded sweat shirts. Already the club is completely sold out of hats, with a new order on the way.

Brad Dobbin, governor of the Fog Devils, says there has been a great demand for team products, so the organization is marketing to various groups.

“The golf products, wind shirts and polo shirts, are aimed at an older crowd,” he says. “But we’ll have fitted T-shirts for women and some infant wear.”

Paul Daly/The Independent

Dobbin expects the team’s jerseys to be their biggest seller, based on the interest shown thus far. He says since the team unveiled its logo, fans have been inquiring about when and where they can get their hands on a jersey.

“We’ve had hundreds of requests for jerseys,” Dobbin says. “Not just from within the province, but from people who’ve moved away also. We’ve had requests from as far away as New Zealand.”

Much of the popularity of the Fog Devils’ merchandise can be attributed to them being a new team, Dobbin says, and the fact that their logo has caught on with their audience, particularly young people.

Such consumers often wear a hat or

jersey based solely on how it looks, even if they are not a fan of the team the merchandise represents.

“A lot of kids really like the (American college sports) hats and sweaters,” says Thomey. “A lot of it is the look. The kids come in and say ‘That’s a cool hat.’ They don’t really care which college it is.”

NFL and NBA apparel are also musthave items for many teenagers. As is the case with other sport apparel, the biggest sellers often have the names of the top stars on the back, with many local consumers looking to have names such as Brady, Manning, Bryant or O’Neal across their backs. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

Blue Jays prospect Quiroz is no stranger to adversity — both on and off the field

By Richard Griffin

I

t has taken seven minor-league seasons — a few more than expected — for super-prospect Guillermo Quiroz to reach this point, sitting on the Jays bench, drawing an occasional start for the final month of the schedule.

Entering his second big-league September, this time he’s hoping to make a career of it. The Venezuelan catcher originally signed with the Jays in September of ’98, at the age of 16.

“I had no idea what was going on when I signed,” Quiroz says. “I was really young. After a couple of years, I started to realize how tough it was.”

It has been tough sledding for Quiroz both on and off the field. At the past two major league camps with the Jays, he disappointed observers with his awkward play behind the plate. In a 17game trial last September, he hit just .212.

“I have a lot of confidence in

myself,” Quiroz says. “I’ve been working a lot on my catching skills — receiving, throwing, calling the game, everything.

“It’s just learning my own team. It’s going to be a big responsibility.

I’m going to have to get them to learn to trust me.”

“I was working a lot on receiving, especially balls to my left-hand side. I missed a couple in spring training games. Right now it feels easy. I was working in the batting cages with the (pitching) machines and stuff.”

His progress was set back in three consecutive years, by serious injuries.

In ’03, his first season at Double A, he

suffered a collapsed lung, missing the final month. In ’04, at Triple A, he broke his left hand. This spring he underwent surgery on May 9, when his other lung collapsed, missing two months.

“I was scared for my career, my health,” Quiroz recalls. “I was frustrated. I thought I had a pretty good spring and was ready for the season. I had to sit back for two months, without doing anything, just letting the lung grow back.

“What it does, it just makes you stronger. It makes you grow up. You learn how to live with those kinds of things and you learn how to live through them.”

Nothing about Quiroz’ future is guaranteed other than the fact he remains one of the organization’s valued prospects. Gregg Zaun has guaranteed his contract for one more season as starting catcher, meaning Quiroz could either go back to Triple A for more seasoning next year or look for-

Terra Nova Texas Hold’em Golf Tournament

ward to about 50 starts in a backup role.

“He needs consistency, more than anything, feeling comfortable at this level,” first-base coach Ernie Whitt says, head bobbling slightly. “It takes a couple of years to fine-tune things.

Because there’s so much that he has to learn, not only about the opposing hitters, but his own pitching staff. What they’re capable of doing, what they’re not capable of doing. What the opposing hitters are able to hit, what they’re not able to hit. It’s the most important part and it takes the longest to learn.”

Blue Jays manager John Gibbons insists Quiroz will play his fair share of games down the stretch. With Ken Huckaby as the second catcher, Gibbons was reluctant to even give Zaun two innings off. Now, two nights per week would be good. For the most part, the 23-year-old will sit, watch and learn.

“It’s just learning my own team,” Quiroz says. “It’s going to be a big

responsibility. I’m going to have to get them to learn to trust me. They saw me for a little bit last September. They’ve been seeing me for a couple of years in spring training.”

Whitt, who doubles as the Jays’ catching instructor, feels that once Quiroz experiences some success at the major-league level, he will settle into a long major-league career.

“It snowballs quietly,” Whitt says.

“It’s more feeling comfortable with yourself and what you’re capable of doing, having the patience of the manager, the GM and the coaching staff to live through some bumps in the road.

Most young players are going to make mistakes. Unfortunately, at catcher it stands out, because everything is focused around home plate.”

In four seasons under general manager J.P. Ricciardi, the Jays have used eight different catchers, with only Zaun catching as many as 100 games.

Quiroz, in a couple of years, is expected to stabilize that situation.

‘They were dog fights’ From page 32 as big a part of their success as their abilities at the plate and in the field.

“The team chemistry was excellent the past five or six years. The fellas are a lot of fun, even if I was the brunt of a lot of the jokes,” says Fleming, who admits he heard a lot of old-man jokes in recent years.

Although the Caps have had their way with Corner Brook, the Barons have come close to ousting St. John’s more than once. Since Fleming first began playing with the Caps, he has been a part of several intense battles with the west coast city, and on more than one occasion was on the losing end of a provincial final. He says these days the teams are on relatively friendly terms, but in years past, some series took on a personal tone.

“They were dog fights,” he says.

“There was shouting back and forth, guys hitting home runs all over the place in Corner Brook and then going down to St. Pat’s with the big crowds. It was great.”

One of Fleming’s fondest memories was from his very first year with the

Caps in 1983. The team dropped the first three games of the series in Corner Brook before staging a massive comeback in St. John’s one weekend later, winning four in a row to take the provincial title. Two things he will always remember about the series are the great crowd support the Caps received and the team’s refusal to give up.

“When we came back in town, we had a lot of fans at the field,” he says.

“We never thought about losing.”

Fleming says coaches Gulliver, Joe Wadden, Pat Hurley and Baz Whalen all played big roles in his success over the years, as did teammates Andrew Simmons, Dean Norman, Mark Healey, Peter Cornick and Gulliver while he played with the Caps.

Despite his retirement from the Caps, Fleming says he’s not through with baseball just yet. He wants to continue playing in the local senior league, and given his success this year, he appears to have plenty left in the tank.

“I’d like to play until I’m 50,” he says. “I don’t see why I can’t as long as I stay in shape.” darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 31

Announcer-less CFL games draw more viewers Fans tuning in to silent CFL games

By Chris Zelkovich Torstar wire service

W

hat in the name of Lord Grey is going on here? The labour-challenged CBC airs Canadian Football League games without announcers, sacrilege in the world of television sports, and it comes up with some of the largest audiences of the year.

Does that mean fans of Canadian football prefer the sounds of silence?

Will penurious networks jump at the chance to cut announcers? Will Chris Walby become the largest man on the unemployment line?

Probably not, but you have to wonder.

The Aug. 27 game between the B.C. Lions and Saskatchewan Roughriders, which featured management-operated cameras and the lone voice of the Taylor Field public address announcer, attracted the CFL season’s largest TV audience: 580,000 viewers.

That’s 41 per cent higher than CBC’s season average of 410,000 and marks the second successive weekend of above-average ratings.

More amazing, despite predictions of viewers turning off their TV sets in frustration, Saturday’s audience actually grew as the game went on.

It peaked at an amazing 746,000 near the game’s conclusion, a number normally reserved for the likes of the Labour Day games.

“It demonstrates that despite the labour dispute we’re able to provide the fans with an exciting game and good coverage of the game,” CBC spokesperson Jason MacDonald says.

While the jury is still out on whether or not the CBC provided good coverage, it does raise a question: Do sports fans really need two or three announcers calling games with a couple of reporters patrolling the sidelines?

Not surprisingly, TSN football announcer Chris Cuthbert has no

Not a contact sport

By Glen Colbourn Torstar wire service

T

he genteel game of golf doesn’t generally lend itself to injuries, unless you count mood swings.

But golfers do get knocked out of commission. Vijay Singh, for instance, pulled out of last week’s Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston because of back spasms brought on by playing table tennis with his teenaged son. Singh’s isn’t the most bizarre disablement in golf. Here is a compendium of the sport’s strangest sidelinings: Loren Roberts: Roberts pulled out of the 1998 Masters after breaking two ribs while sneezing. The sneeze “sent me to my knees and I kind of felt something pop,” he reported. Wrote Golf Magazine columnist David Feherty: “He was lucky. If it had been a fart, he might have shattered his pelvis.”

Ernie Els: In 2003, the South African adopted a regimen of twicedaily workouts to improve his fitness.

His game improved significantly ... until he hurt his right wrist walloping a boxing heavy bag. “I was thinking of taking out a little frustration on the Solution for sudoko on page 26

Solution for crossword on page 26

punching bag, but I’m not a pro,” he said.

Colin Montgomerie: The Scot was knocked out of the 2003 British Open at Royal St. George’s with a sore wrist injured on his way to breakfast before the first round. He was leaving his hotel and stared with disappointment at the grey sky. “I couldn’t believe it was raining and, as I looked up, I tripped over a step and fell nastily.”

Rocco Mediate: After winning the previous week’s PGA Tour event, Mediate was on a high — until he was forced to withdraw from the 2000 PGA Championship after his chair collapsed outside the clubhouse at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky. He sued the manufacturers of the chair, settling for an undisclosed sum.

doubt there’s little relation between the ratings and the lack of announcers.

The game’s the thing, in his mind.

“I think we’re all getting fooled a little bit,” he says, noting that games involving the undefeated Lions have produced the top four CFL audiences this year. “I’d love to see (ratings) for the radio broadcast in Vancouver. I’m sure they had their biggest audience by a country mile.

“I still believe in what they do and I think you’re missing a lot unless you’re getting some commentary.”

He cites several incidents in both CBC games that left viewers in the dark because of the lack of commentary.

Not surprisingly, Rogers Sportsnet baseball announcer Jamie Campbell agrees.

“Sports is a combination of athletics and entertainment and a big part of that entertainment package is animated play-by-play,” he told colleague Mike Toth recently.

“In fact, a lot of play-by-play men, such as Foster Hewitt and Bob Cole, are more well-known than most of the players.”

The CFL isn’t convinced fans prefer commentary-free games, but is delighted with the ratings.

“I think it really speaks to the strength of the CFL brand,” CFL broadcast director Chris McCracken says.

But McCracken is reluctant to say viewers are showing a preference for less chat.

“There’s no research that really speaks to that,” he says. “We’ve had both positive and negative feedback on the issue. We still want to see network-quality, high-end production that includes play-by-play. We feel our fans deserve that.”

There are other factors at work here.

The amount of publicity the first game received no doubt piqued interest. As they say in showbiz, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

The Aug. 27 game gave rabid Lions fans a rare opportunity to see their team because most home games are blacked out.

Adding to that is the CFL’s hot hand. TSN is averaging 366,000 viewers for its football broadcasts, up 17 per cent over last year.

The CBC is averaging 426,000, which represents a 15 per cent increase. But you can’t argue with the numbers the past two games have produced.

Cuthbert still isn’t convinced that announcers are an endangered species. Given a choice, fans still prefer to have somebody tell them what’s going on, he says.

“If they were doing that and there was also a channel with commentary of the same feed, I really don’t believe very many people would be watching the non-commentary feed,” he says.

“It has all of us thinking a little bit on what’s the right amount, but I’m not a believer yet.”

Sports fans young and old From page 32 holdouts and collective bargaining agreements. We were more concerned with who won and who scored.

In our youth, the antics of Terrell Owens and Vince Carter wouldn’t have bothered us one bit, just as long as they helped our favourite team win. Their childish behaviour could sometimes pass for being cool in our youthful eyes, while these days such conduct makes us want to turn the TV off.

If a star player like Alexei Yashin walked out on our favourite team, we’d probably hope and pray that management would do everything possible to bring him back in time for the playoffs. But now, we’d rather see

him traded to a lame-duck franchise with no chance of winning, someone like the Islanders.

In short, it was easier to be a sports fan when we were teenagers. We didn’t always see what meatheads some of these people can be; we didn’t recognize that at 15, we showed more maturity than half of the entire NBA. Instead, we just watched and enjoyed. The dunks, the saves, the home runs — they all meant more than they should have and certainly more than they do today.

Toward the end of our chat, when we were good and convinced that we are nothing more than old men with cloudy memories, there flicked a glimmer of hope that perked us up.

The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League regular season starts in just a

couple of weeks, and since we’re both in cities with Q teams (my friend lives in Halifax), we should have plenty of info to exchange and debate.

By the time I logged off the computer, I couldn’t wait for the junior season to begin so we could break down which city had the better team, which players were the ones to watch and what club would go further in the playoffs.

In a matter of minutes, we went from grumpy 20-somethings complaining about how quickly their youth disappeared to a pair of friends who simply love to talk sports.

Maybe things aren’t as different as we thought. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

INDEPENDENTSPORTS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4-10, 2005 — PAGE 32

Kirk Fleming

Paul Daly/The Independent

Going out on top Kirk Fleming is walking away from the senior Caps baseball team on his own terms

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

O

ne thing Kirk Fleming never wanted to do was stick around too long.

Since he first played for the St. John’s Caps senior baseball team in 1983, he insisted he wouldn’t be one of those players who continued to play well past his prime.

Considering he batted over .400 at last week’s Canadian Senior Baseball Championships for the Caps in Kamloops, B.C, it is safe to say the 41-year-old went out on top.

“I know I can still play,” Fleming tells The Independent. “But at this point, I’d rather spend the time with my family (his wife Bev, son Ryan and daughter Sheena).”

At the conclusion of the Caps final game at this year’s nationals — a 7-0 win over

Alberta to even their record at 2-2 — Fleming’s coach and long-time friend Sean Gulliver announced to the team that Fleming was retiring from the Caps.

Teammates applauded the career of one of the best players in Caps history, and offered handshakes to show their support of his decision. The reception left Fleming very emotional, and reminded him of how tough it will be to sit on the sidelines when the team goes into battle next year.

“I don’t even want to think about it right now,” he says.

For many years Fleming has been a prominent member of the Caps lineup. His ability to hit for power and average made him an ideal middle-of-the-order hitter and his good speed and strong arm were always an asset in the outfield. He has fond memories from his many games in the red and white, and says it is impossible to name a

favourite moment because there were so many he will forever cherish.

“You can’t really pick a particular thing, but just the fact that I was able to play at nationals against great teams was a lot of fun,” Fleming says.

Since he was a teenager, Fleming has been one of the St. John’s Senior Baseball League’s top players (he currently leads the Shamrocks and the entire league in runs batted in). But his play at the national level is what many baseball followers often refer to when discussing his prowess on the diamond. Individually, he doesn’t have any regrets, having always played well at the Canadian championships. But from a team perspective, he says it is tough to accept that the Caps were never able to get over the hump and win a national title.

“It’s definitely disappointing,” Fleming says. “I figured last year (in Moncton) for

sure we had a great chance.”

Although the Caps have had difficulty finishing the job at nationals, they’ve had no problem fulfilling their potential at the provincial level. For the past six years the team has topped the Corner Brook Barons in the all-Newfoundland final, a feat Fleming says they should be able to continue.

“If they stay together, they’re going to win the next five or six years too,” Fleming says. “They have good pitching and defence — probably the best defence in the Atlantic provinces.”

The bulk of the Caps squad consists of guys in the mid to late 20s — players with many solid years ahead of them. But their on-field skills are not the only reason they’ve found success, says Fleming. He feels the way the Caps have gelled has been See “They were dog fights,” page 30

The days of yore A

t the risk of offending some people, I’m going to come right out and admit that lately I feel old. Considering I’m only 26, I know I have no right saying this, and in 40 or 50 years time will look back and think how foolish I was to print such a statement.

I began feeling this way after entering an on-line community of people from my hometown. There were pictures of former friends and acquaintances I hadn’t seen for quite some time, some not since high school.

While I enjoyed reading about where they’re living now and where they

DARCY MACRAE

The game work, I was shocked at how much different so many people look.

Some have added a few pounds; others lost a little hair. Most had a couple of laugh lines that weren’t there the last time I saw them. Upon discovering the differences in appearance, I started to wonder if people would have the same reaction if they saw a picture of

me.

Sure, I still have that boyishly handsome look, but a few differences are probably noticeable to those who haven’t seen me in a while.

After inspecting how much older everybody in the on-line community looked, I entered the chat room and struck up a conversation with an old friend. We were both talking about how long it’s been since we saw most of the people on the site, and joked that we were the only males whose hair line hadn’t moved back a couple of inches.

We eventually got to discussing how

different things were 10-12 years ago.

Not just the fact that we were in junior high and high school and were more concerned with getting a date to the school dance than we were about paying the oil bill, but the way we saw the world.

Of course, our world back then consisted primarily of girls and sports.

And since neither of us had much luck with the ladies (well, he didn’t anyway), we spent a lot of time talking sports.

On the school bus, in the classroom or in the cafeteria, we lived to debate who was the best goal scorer, who had

the best home run swing and which quarterback had the strongest arm.

Hardly a day went by when we didn’t have at least one “serious” discussion about such matters.

Although my friend and I still enjoy sports today, we agree that back then, sports meant more to us. Not because the athletes were any better, but because we looked at professional sports through a different set of lenses than we do now.

For starters, we didn’t pay attention to contract negotiations, training camp See “Sports fans,” page 31