2005-10-30 by The Independent

VOL. 3 ISSUE 44

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ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR — SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, OCT. 30-NOV. 5, 2005

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OPINION PAGE 11

ARTS & LIFE 17

Michael Harris asks what Karla Homolka will be doing on Halloween

Barbershop chorus celebrates 30th anniversary in St. John’s

BRAVEST MAN IN CANADA

Power broker What entices an oil industry insider to join ranks with province? CLARE-MARIE GOSSE

d Martin, the recently appointed CEO of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, says he’s been on the job precisely 85 days. “Any executive has what they call a 100-day transition period,” he tells The Independent. “So I’m somewhat counting, but more so for achievement than anything else.” Martin, who’s rumoured to have taken a pay cut by accepting the $310,000-a-year (not including benefits) public-sector position to head Hydro, has had his hands full since leaving a management job with Petro-Canada. He now has the task of overseeing the province’s Crown corporation in a bold restructuring move, which will help lead government’s much anticipated, but yet-tobe released energy plan. Premier Danny Williams envisions a stronger Hydro company, with investment stakes in all elements of the province’s energy industry. Sitting in his office on Columbus Drive in St. John’s, Martin is stoic, businesslike — keeping his cards close to his chest. It’s easy to see why Williams selected him for the job, with his steady gaze and unhurried mannerisms, he comes across as a man who’d give little away at the negotiating table. Martin has been busy screening candidates for three new vice-president positions with Hydro and he says the company’s major priority is finishing the restructuring, which he expects will happen by January. Martin says the applicant interest has been high. He adds Hydro already has “some very senior, very competent people.” See “It’s a very,” page 2

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “The company cares more for the beef than they do the human being because if a human being happens to slip on a bit of beef or whatever and fall to the floor they just pick you up, but if a piece of beef falls to the floor they stops the line.”

— Burin native Reuben Mayo of the Lakeside Meat-Packing Plant in Brooks, Alta.

OPINION 19

Noreen Golfman on sealing film

‘A real good deal’ Unlike Stephenville, New Brunswick paper mill to reopen soon without government subsidy By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

s if contemplating a sick relative who has been resuscitated at the last moment and placed on life support, mill workers in Stephenville anxiously stand in the wings, wondering whether to cling to hope or pull the plug and run. It’s a scene all too familiar with the small town of Nackawic, N.B., which has been dealing with the closure of its own mill for the past year. This November will see the facility reopen with two new partner companies, but not before many residents of the community (half of which were employed at the St. AnneNackawic pulp mill) have already hit the road to Alberta where the pickings are richer and more reliable. The Williams government recently stepped in with an energy subsidy offer for Abitibi Consolidated’s mill in Stephenville, which would see the company receive $30 million

over the next three years. The mill is in idling mode, with no firm date set on when it will restart. The town waits to see whether a final agreement will be signed and when the machinery will roll again. Robert Connors, mayor of Nackawic, tells The Independent he’s happy to hear the news the provincial government is stepping in to help fund the Stephenville mill. “That’s good news for Abitibi and Stephenville that’s for damn sure.” Connors compares the Newfoundland and Labrador government’s financial offer to his own town’s situation in New Brunswick. “This pulp mill here has put out $170 million worth of product each year, so that’s a very significant amount of money and a significant amount of wages included in that. So if you’re talking $10 million versus $175 million, I think it’s a good deal, I think it’s a real good deal for the (Newfoundland and Labrador) government.” Nackawic has suffered an excruciating peri-

od of uncertainty since former mill owners, New York-based Parsons and Whittemore, closed the mill and swiftly filed for bankruptcy in September 2004. The New Brunswick government had offered the company millions in repayable loans and payback extensions, but it wasn’t enough. Up to 400 people lost their jobs and some workers also faced the possibility of losing their pensions. The province immediately began looking for new owners, going so far as to hire a consultant specializing in mill closures. A Quebecbased forestry giant called Tembec initially showed interest in purchasing the facility, but eventually backed out with financial concerns. It wasn’t until Aditya Birla Group of India stepped up, announcing a partnership deal with Tembec on April 1 of this year, that the people of Nackawic saw any real hope. Connors says the New Brunswick government See “Moving on,” page 2

Martin got an earful

IN CAMERA 20-21

Previewing music industry awards weekend in Grand Falls-Windsor

Hundreds of e-mails supporting premier’s position sent to PM during Accord dispute

SPORTS 32

An evening with Skate Canada International at Mile One Life Story . . . . . . . . Paper Trail . . . . . . . Events . . . . . . . . . . . Crossword . . . . . . . Fog Devils. . . . . . . .

Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Const. Stephen Knight was christened “the bravest man in Canada” in the Oct. 24 edition of Maclean’s Magazine. Knight was awarded two Governor General Medals of Bravery for rescuing a bouncer from a knife-wielding attacker and a suicidal woman from the Waterford River. Paul Daly/The Independent

10 10 18 28 30

NADYA BELL

ewfoundlanders and Labradorians had some choice words for Paul Martin during the months of Atlantic Accord negotiations last winter. The prime minister’s office received over 200 personal e-mails supporting Premier Danny Williams’ position and demanding 100 per cent of offshore oil revenues. Copies of the e-mails and the routine replies from the prime minister’s office were obtained for The Independent through the federal Access to Information Act.

Most names and other personal information on the letters were erased due to privacy laws. The e-mails were sent to the PM between Oct. 24, 2004 when Williams walked out of talks with the federal government and Feb. 14 of this year, a week after the Accord was signed. One letter writer, a St. John’s lawyer who described himself as “a life-long Liberal, though not henceforth,” wrote that separation from Canada was the best option for Newfoundland and Labrador. “It’s time to secede, Mr. PM. We brought the offshore into Canada in 1949 and we can take it out. Over 25% of the Canadian Armed Forces are Newfoundlanders and they would never draw a See “Poisoned by,” page 2

Bill Manning removed the Maple Leaf from in front of Confederation Building in St. John’s last December. Paul Daly/The Independent

2 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JULY 10, 2005

Bouzan to appeal fishery conviction

ick Bouzan vows his fight has only just begun. Bouzan, a well-known wildlife activist, was caught by fisheries officers with untagged codfish during the south coast food fishery in September, 2004. He and his friend, George Nicoll, were charged with illegal fishing. On behalf of Bouzan and Nicoll, lawyer Jim Bennett fought the charge on constitutional grounds, arguing the federal government does not have the right to regulate the food fishery. He claimed the province has jurisdiction

over the catching of groundfish within three miles of the province’s coast, as outlined in the Terms of Union. On Oct. 28, Judge Harold Porter ruled in favour of the prosecution, fining Bouzan and Nicoll $100 each. “I’m frustrated we’re not getting the justice we deserve,” says Bouzan. “I’m frustrated by the treatment Canada is giving us, by the way Ottawa and DFO deal with us, and the lack of support from our own provincial government. “This is the kind of fight you can’t let go of until you’ve exhausted every

Moving on From page 1 is remaining tight lipped about the various agreements being signed between the new and former mill owners. Aside from negotiating timber rights, loan agreements and some initial funding of roughly $1 million towards winterizing the facility and retraining staff (the mill is being reformatted to produce a different type of pulp product), the province of New Brunswick is not expected to offer any financial subsidies. Sarah Ketcheson, a spokeswoman with Business New Brunswick, says the provincial government and the mill owners will sign the final agreements within weeks, if not days. Until

that time, she says she can’t talk about any specific deals made. “If there is assistance that will come from the province, it will not be a subsidy,” she says, mentioning the possibility of loans only. “It will be assistance in the way that we provide assistance to other companies that come to us and make requests. “That’s something that we did, certainly, with the former owners of the mill over the 40 years of its existence.” Tom O’Brien, mayor of Stephenville, echoes Connors’ opinion when it comes to the money Newfoundland and Labrador’s government has offered Abitibi. He hopes the mill will start producing paper again by December.

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option.” Bennett says he will file an appeal in short order. The basis of the appeal, he says, is in the judge’s examination of Newfoundland in 1949. “The fundamental error, I believe … is he rules we were a colony at the time of Confederation and we were not, we were a dominion,” says Bennett. “We had already achieved dominion status.” In examining the Terms of Union between Newfoundland and Canada, Bennett says the fishery Canada was

given jurisdiction over is the commercial export of salt fish — “not the wholesale fishery, not the food fishery.” Fundamentally, the three men say, this has become a fight for the right of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to be able to fish for their supper. “This is the loss of our heritage and our culture,” says Nicoll. Bennett envisions a provincially regulated inshore fishery, with small commercial enterprises, a tourist fishery and an accessible food fishery. He says he’s prepared to appeal all the way to

‘Poisoned by the event’ From page 1 sword against this country of Newfoundland and Labrador.” Other people spoke of Newfoundland separatism as a growing concern. “I believe this issue is driving a deep wedge between Newfoundlanders and the rest of Canada, to the point where eventually a NL separatist movement will permanently take root,” wrote a Newfoundland engineer working in Ontario. Many people wrote that they were disappointed with the prime minister, including Andy Smith, president of the St. John’s Centre district Liberal association. “You committed to giving us 100% of our provincial revenues. You openly said that Premier Williams’ proposal would form the basis of the agreement. You have reneged on your promise,” he wrote. Smith resigned his position over the dispute. “It was just a gesture,” said Smith in an interview. “I’m still on talking terms with the party, but I was just so poisoned by the event.” The Pink, White and Green came up

frequently as a symbol of Newfoundland pride, especially after Williams removed the Canadian flag from of provincial buildings on Dec. 24, 2004. “We’re tired of being the butt of every joke in Canada. We have our own flag, the Republic of Newfoundland Flag,” wrote a high school student from the province. “It gives me much more pride to fly Green, White and Pink than anything else.” One Newfoundlander summed up the situation to Paul Martin as he saw it in January: “I will assume that you said what you said to get my vote, and the score is Paul 1, Newfoundland 0.” Three different e-mail campaigns asked people to send standard messages to the prime minister. Almost 100 copies were sent of the message beginning “Newfoundland and Labrador was resource-rich when it joined Canada in 1949 …” The prime minister’s office received a handful of letters supporting the federal position in the dispute, mostly from Canadians in other provinces who felt that Newfoundland and Labrador should not continue to receive equalization as well as oil revenue.

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an international court. Others with similar illegal fishing charges may join the court challenge, he adds, and he’s attempting to rally public support for the case — support he says he’s already finding outside St. John’s. Bouzan says the legal action has cost him $11,000 so far. “It means that much to me,” he says. “We’re here to save rural Newfoundland; if it takes this long, expensive, vicious fight, then that’s what we’re going to do.” — Stephanie Porter

“We are attracting some very excellent candidates and hopefully we’re going to be able to fill those positions over the next three or four weeks. “It’s a very exciting time.” Although Martin says Hydro is holding off from physically expanding until future business developments materialize — including the potential lower Churchill project — Hydro has created a new business developments group, centralized its engineering resources and re-organized senior management positions. Despite focusing hard on restructuring, Hydro released a request for business proposals last week to generate 25 megawatts of wind power last week, which Martin says they hope to have up and running by December. It would be a small project to test the economic and technical viability of the energy form within the province. Since arriving at Hydro, a transition Martin says was fairly straightforward given the similarities between the oil and gas and electricity industries, he says he’s been enjoying going out on

the ground and meeting people. He adds he knew he was entering a good company, but he was still “pleasantly surprised. “Everywhere I turn, you know, the passion and the quality of the people and the dedication of this company, it’s sort of overwhelmed me actually.” So what induced Martin — a top oil and gas executive with a resume including years spent with Petro-Canada, Hibernia Management and Development Company and Mobil Oil respectively — to enter into the private sector? “This opportunity came up and I felt I just had to do it,” he says simply. “I’m at a stage in my career where it’s an opportunity to make a difference, I think, in the province I live in.” Hailing originally from Grand Falls, Martin (who is married with four sons) says the opportunity to develop his career and expand into the electrical industry, without having to leave Newfoundland and Labrador, was a big motivator towards taking the job. When asked about the lower Churchill, the biggest file he’s likely to face in his new position, Martin is cau-

One person in British Columbia was offended when the Canadian flag was removed, writing that Williams was behaving like an “unhinged baboon.” On the receiving end of these e-mails was a ‘correspondence unit’ of several officials in the prime minister’s communications office, who read the e-mails and letters and answered them on behalf of the prime minister. Marc Roy, associate communications director for Martin, dealt with the file on Atlantic Accord e-mails and letters. “There is an enormous amount of correspondence that comes in,” said Roy, speaking generally of his work. “It is more than one person could possibly read, but the prime minister is thoroughly briefed on any correspondence.” The new Atlantic Accord deal saw the province receive a $2-billion cheque earlier this year. The new Accord, which passed through the Senate and became law in late June, will mean at least $2.6 billion in additional royalties for the Newfoundland and Labrador government, with $2 billion transferred to the province as an advance.

tiously optimistic. He says if the province decided to tackle the project alone it could easily come up with the expertise in terms of qualified human resources. Financing the project would be another thing and he refrains from commenting on the province’s monetary options, saying it all depends on government’s current energy plan review. “I think, primarily, what’s changed is the electrical demand in the rest of the country and within North America and I think that is really favouring us right now,” he says. “If you look at what’s happening in Ontario where they’re facing an increasing low supply shortage … I think that’s very good for us.” Martin, like Williams, takes a tough line on business proposals, when it comes to developing the province’s resources. “These deals are tough, but I think things are lined up probably as well as they’ve ever been. “But I feel compelled to say again, and this is absolutely true, unless we get the right deal we will not do this (the lower Churchill) — and it’s as simple as that.”

OCTOBER 30, 2005

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 3

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

“They’ve had big dinners, they’ve taken out their veterans and treated them. “Our veterans are getting older and the next time there is a year of the veteran will be 15 to 20 years and there probably won’t be any veterans left,” he says. “If we have one or two left, we’ll be very lucky. So this is probably the last year of the veteran most of them are going to see.” As thrilled as Flannigan is that the year of the veteran has been a success, he is equally disappointed about the fact that 18 legion branches have folded in the province in the past 15 years. And he says some of the 48 active branches in Newfoundland and Labrador are also in danger of shutting their doors. It’s not that membership is so low that branches can’t stay open so much as a lack of internal support. “Some of them (legions) are in desperate need of help,” says Flannigan. “We just don’t have the volunteers. “Most of our problems are not financial — we have a lot of silent members but not very many volunteers. We’ve had branches fold that had 50 or 60 members but only three people actively running the branch.” Considering that legion branches often serve as the social centre of a community, and dedicate themselves to bettering the community, Flannigan says no city or town can afford to lose one. Using his branch in Labrador City as an example, he points out how the legion raises money for the local hospital, holds Christmas parties for children and purchases Christmas gifts for the kids of Labrador so no young child on the Big Land will go without a gift to open on Christmas morning. When a legion closes its doors, Flannigan says a piece of the community goes with it. “It’s not just a body of membership gone,” Flannigan says. “Then the hospital loses, the kids lose …” The No. 1 oath of the Royal Canadian Legion is to honour the memory of soldiers who served in both world wars. When a legion closes, Flannigan worries the memories of the soldiers disappear. “When one disappears, our veterans got a better chance of being forgotten,” says Flannigan. “Our biggest motto is ‘Lest we forget,’ and if we let our legions die, than we’re forgetting.” darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

2005 may be year of the veteran, but 18 legions have closed in the province in past 15 years; volunteers needed

It’s this time of year that the importance of the Royal Canadian Legion in the province is often most appreciated. It’s also the time of year that the organization’s shortage of volunteers is most obvious. The Newfoundland and Labrador Command of the Royal Canadian Legion is preparing for Remembrance Day ceremonies across the province Nov. 11. Although each individual branch handles its festivities, the provincial command sets the guidelines. Branches across the province receive daily requests to have Second World War veterans come into work places or schools to talk about their experiences, with most calls coming in the weeks leading up to Remembrance Day. In regards to the schools, legion members are always pleased to see young people take an interest, says Dave Flannigan, first vice-president and membership chair for the Labrador Command of the Royal Canadian Legion and a member of Branch 47 in Labrador City. “The younger the kids, the more interested they are,” Flannigan tells The Independent. Every year the Royal Canadian Legion sends booklets to schools, with the literature inside varying depending on the age of the young person. Once the children have studied the information and learn what soldiers did for their country, a visit by a veteran is often arranged. Although some of the kids are very young, it is not a problem to keep their attention, Flannigan says. While in recent years it has been difficult to communicate the significance of war veterans to youth, he says respect for the former soldiers is now on a steady incline. “It’s coming back. We went through a generation where remembrance was almost forgotten. But now it’s coming back strong and the kids want to be involved with this stuff. The kids want to remember,” he says. Flannigan says introducing kids to war veterans makes Remembrance Day all the more special. Another factor that adds excitement to the services is the fact that 2005 is the year of the veteran. “Every branch has done something special this year,” Flannigan says.

Lest we forget

It’s a mystery DFO has little knowledge of oil spills outside 200-mile limit By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

Canadian Coast Guard official in St. John’s says less than one per cent of reported oil spills are situated outside the 200-mile limit. But who knows. Terry Harvey of the coast guard’s environmental measures division in St. John’s says nearly all environmental surveillance is done inside the 200-mile limit — not outside. “(Inside Canada waters) is where we concentrate most of our efforts and the reason being that’s where most of the traffic lanes are … and that’s where we have the most jurisdiction or legislative powers to do anything about it,” Harvey tells The Independent. On average, 200 spills are reported each year in waters around Newfoundland and Labrador — as well as on the high seas outside the 200-mile limit. About 60 of those are mystery spills, illegal or accidental slicks left behind by unknown vessels. “But I’d say less than one per cent of what we have in our databank are spills outside the 200-mile limit,” Harvey

says. One slick was reported outside the 200-mile limit on Oct. 12, on a routine flyover, while an Independent photographer was on board a Department of Fisheries and Oceans surveillance flight. The Independent had difficulty finding information regarding oil spills outside Canada’s economic zone. Requests for information directed to DFO’s local offices in St. John’s were passed on to Transport Canada, which, in turn, redirected them on to DFO Ottawa. After three days of runaround the St. John’s branch of DFO responded, advising further follow-up with the federal departments of International Affairs and Transport. Those departments couldn’t be contacted prior to The Independent’s press deadline. Harvey, a member of coast guard for more than 22 years, says satellite technology has been picking up spills recently inside and outside the 200-mile limit — depending on conditions. “In general, most of the spills that we do get reported are relatively small in volume of oil on the surface of the water and coverage over the surface of the water and it’s relatively small and it’s the kind of slicks that usually dissipate

Pascoal Atlantico

Paul Daly photo

within an hour or two and certainly within a day,” he says. As for who regulates waters outside the 200-mile limit, Harvey says an inter-

national body would be responsible for investigation and prosecution of vessels responsible for a slick. He couldn’t say which body.

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4 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

OCTOBER 30, 2005

IN SANCTUARY

Alexi and Angela Portnoy have been living in sanctuary in the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic church in Marystown with their children — Alon, 13; Mark, 7; Anna Maria, 4; and baby Valerie — since early October. The Portnoys are Israeli citizens and have been seeking refugee status in Canada for nine years. The people of Marystown have been vocal in their support of the family; immigration officials have not yet agreed to reexamine the case. Photos Paul Daly/The Independent

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Eye on St. John’s

Halifax takes closer look at mail-in ballot system; more than 2,000 fewer votes cast this year in capital city than in 2001 By Darcy MacRae The Independent

alifax is considering using the same mail-in ballot system as St. John’s in its next municipal election, slated for 2008, says an official with the Nova Scotia city. Jan Gibson, municipal clerk for Halifax Regional Municipality, was in St. John’s from Sept. 24-27 to observe the mail-in ballot system the city used

in its municipal election. Halifax does not currently use any form of mail-in ballot, but Gibson says that could change. “Everything seemed to work fine there,” Gibson tells The Independent. “It is one of the options we’ve observed to see how it’s done.” Gibson cautions, however, that although she was impressed with the efficiency of the mail-in ballot, Halifax is still considering other methods.

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“We’ll consider all types of options in the future,” she says. St. John’s Mayor Andy Wells says he is not surprised Halifax officials were impressed with the mail-in ballot system. He sees St. John’s as a trendsetter in terms of how municipal elections will be run in future. “We’ve got the most sophisticated election system in the country,” Wells says. “I don’t understand why more municipalities don’t use it.” While Halifax is considering using the mail-in ballot system in their next municipal election, Wells virtually guarantees the system will be used in St. John’s in the future. “I think it’s inevitable. On what grounds would you reverse? If there’s nobody complaining, if there’s 37,000 people who have voted without complaint, why would you change?” Wells asks. “Based on what I have observed during this so-called campaign and the night of the election itself, I think the mail-in ballot is the way to go. I think overall, with 37,000 people voting, that’s pretty good. People say it’s terribly convenient” A total of 36,868 votes were cast in the 2005 municipal election in St. John’s, compared to approximately 39,000 votes in 2001, according to Elaine Henley, the city’s election coordinator. In 2001, 60.4 per cent of registered voters cast their vote, while this year just over 49 per cent of registered voters mailed in their ballot. However, Henley says the lower return may be due to a low number of registered voters in 2001 (62,927), as compared to 2005 (74,833) when the city used an enumeration process that was much improved and more accurate, according to the mayor. Of the ballots that were mailed to eligible voters, Wells says just 3,000 were sent back because they were sent to the wrong address. “That’s a small percentage. It tells me that there were over 70-odd thousand in the city who were enumerated and got their ballots,” Wells says. “That’s a pretty accurate system. It’s far more accurate than the provincial government.” There were 1,377 rejected — or spoiled — ballots cast, while there was just one claim of a fraudulent vote. The claim was investigated but dropped for lack of proof. On election day, 3,338 ballots were damaged by letter openers, but they were not destroyed. All ballots were duplicated in front of scrutineers and accepted. Of the 36,868 votes cast, only 29,244 ballots contained a vote for the mayor’s race. Bristol Communications is carrying out a public opinion poll on the mail-in ballot system for the city, but results are not yet available. Henley is in the midst of completing a report that examines all areas of the mail-in ballot system, including how many votes were cast each day, any problems that occurred and any benefits. She expects to finalize the report in mid to late November. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

OCTOBER 30, 2005

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 5

Taking attendance How much time does your MP spend in Parliament? By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

oting records in the House of Commons have been tabulated for the past year and none of the province’s seven MPs receive a failing grade. Voting records are considered to be an indicator of how much time an MP spends in the House. Some MPs seem

to spend a lot more time there than others. While an MP may very well have a good reason why he or she isn’t in their seat for a vote — including illness, constituency work and travel — voting isn’t just a privilege, it’s an obligation, says Norm Doyle, Conservative MP for St. John’s East. “Some of the MPs don’t take it seriously at all, they hardly ever show up

for votes,” Doyle tells The Independent. “It’s why you were elected. Not only to look after the constituency, but you’re supposed to be there to indicate how you feel about certain issues that affect the country.” Doyle has a 96 per cent attendance record, present at 52 of 56 votes held between Oct. 4, 2004 and Oct. 25 of this year. Both votes he missed were held on

the same evening. Scott Simms, Liberal MP for Bonavista-Gander-Grand Falls-Windsor, says he missed seven votes this session while travelling with two parliamentary committees he’s involved with. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t take his obligation seriously. “I stand up and I vote for 89,726 people so it’s quite a responsibility and I take it very seriously.”

Cory Horner, author of a website that tracks the votes of all Members of Parliament, says while the site is accurate, it does have flaws. Horner says because of the way the federal government tracks votes, his website doesn’t tell you whether an MP abstained from voting or was absent. This session’s votes included the controversial same-sex marriage bill, among other pieces of legislation.

Voting records from the beginning of the 38th sitting of Parliament on Oct. 4, 2004 to Oct. 25, 2005:

Todd Russell Labrador Liberal 89 per cent

Bill Matthews Random-Burin-St. Georges Liberal 82 per cent

Gerry Byrne Humber-St. BarbeBaie Verte Liberal 61 per cent

Scott Simms Bonavista-GanderGrand Falls-Windsor Liberal 87 per cent

John Efford Bonavista-TrinityConception Liberal 62 per cent

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, OCT. 24 Vessels arrived: Teleost, Canada, from Sea. Vessels departed: Oceanex Avalon, Canada, to Montreal; Vega Desgagnes, Canada, to Goose Bay; Maersk Nascopie, Canada, to Hibernia. TUESDAY, OCT. 25 Vessels arrived: ASL Sanderling,

Canada, from Halifax; Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, from Terra Nova Oil Field; Ann Harvey, Canada, from Sea. Vessels departed: Atlantic Eagle, Canada, to Terra Nova; Maersk Challenger, Canada, to White Rose; Ann Harvey, Canada, to Conception Bay; Maersk Placentia, Canada, to Hibernia. WEDNESDAY, OCT. 26 Vessels arrived: Maersk Placentia, Canada, from Saint John. Vessels departed: None

THURSDAY, OCT. 27 Vessels arrived: Atlantic Eagle, Canada, from Terra Nova Oil Field; Maersk Norseman, Canada, from Hibernia. Vessels departed: Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, to Terra Nova Oil Field; ASL Sanderling, Canada, to Halifax; Atlantic Vigour, Canada, to Fishing. FRIDAY, OCT. 28 Vessels arrived: Cabot, Canada, from Montreal; Jim Kilabuk, Canada, from sea. Vessels departed: Maersk Norseman, Canada, Hibernia.

Curator John Maunder at the former Newfoundland and Labrador Museum on Duckworth Street, St. John’s.

Paul Daly/The Independent

No plans yet for former St. John’s museum building; library an alternative

uilt in the first decade of the 1900s, the Newfoundland and Labrador Museum building on Duckworth Street in downtown St. John’s has seen a lot of change over the years. Its current future, since the long-awaited opening of The Rooms, is now wide open for speculation. “No one really has any idea what’s planned for that,” says Jerry Dick, executive director of the province’s Heritage Industries Association. “I don’t think there’s been a lot of discussion on that because our focus has been on the Colonial Building … I’ve heard the possibility of it maybe becoming a court house because I know they’re looking for space.” Government recently released a proposed management plan to revamp the Colonial Building into a cultural centre to house various heritage

organizations, as well as a public interpretation of the province’s political history. The future role of the museum building, which at one time housed the province’s first public library, hangs in the balance. A spokesman with the provincial Department of Transportation and Works says government has yet to make a decision and the future of the building is still under review. Dick says the heritage community wouldn’t be averse to the museum building being used as a courtroom. Personally, Dick would prefer to see a downtown library occupy that space once again — an opinion echoed by many people in the local heritage community. “I think it would be very nice to see it put back as a library … I’d be sur-

prised if anybody was going to follow up with that but I think it would be a nice use for it.” Dick says the heritage community is not currently concerned about the well-being of the building and will wait to see what plans government puts forward before making any recommendations. “I don’t think there are any questions at this point that it won’t be properly preserved, I mean that would be our main concern,” he says. “We would probably only weigh in if we felt something was on the table that was not appropriate, but other than that we don’t have any specific notions ourselves as to what it should be used for. “I guess we’ll let the library folks fight that battle.” — Clare-Marie Gosse

Norm Doyle St. John’s East Conservative 96 per cent

Loyola Hearn St. John’s West Conservative 93 per cent

6 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

OCTOBER 30, 2005

‘And they have a town called Dildo’ W

hat is money? Well, it used to be the value of someone’s labour. Money was created as a way to represent the value of things produced by someone’s labour, like a fish caught in the ocean, or a robe spun by hand, or a spear made from a tree. Perhaps the first money was coloured stones, something that could be carried easily and traded. We evolved, but the concept endured. Today, money is the world’s blood supply. It courses through all parts of our society and allows us to live as we do. It is also essential in creating further improvement to ourselves. It is not nearly enough to talk and debate what the province could be doing to improve itself — we need to do it. Not just government, but we, the people ... and for that, we need money. For a long time now we have exported bright and capable people who could have created here, but we have also exported our other critical ingredient to create — our money. I do not know the numbers, but I know we send much more money out of here to be invested than is invested back in. We also allow a lot of the money

BRIAN DOBBIN

Publish or perish representing the value of our resources to flow to large corporations in other parts of the world, and they do not invest back in nearly as much as they take out. We can debate about whether the Canadian government takes out or puts in, but we won a Michener nomination for our side of the argument. So where does the money come from? Well, therein lies the biggest problem we have: trying to create an economy that can give all of us a chance to live here with a high standard of living. What about the banks and the venture capital companies that exist in our country to do just that? What about the stock exchange, the purest form of wealth with which to create? When I started in business, my first venture to convince someone to invest here wasn’t to brokers or bankers in Toronto, it was to Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, one of the world’s

largest and most active financial centers, I am a Canadian who everyone assumes is quite friendly and honest, and Newfoundland is not regarded immediately as an economic sinkhole. At least not until they talk to their Canadian contacts ... Those trips led to the infusion of a significant amount of money, and with it we began tourism and aquaculture developments here. Seven years later, the tourism project has done as much as we dreamed, and although creating a profitable business, we have withdrawn from aquaculture for the same reason I went to Asia. There was no financing available to continue to grow the business, despite its success. Last week I was in London dealing with financiers for our resort business overseas. We had discussed using the value created in Humber Valley Resort, and one of the merchant bankers called a close friend in the executive of one of the chartered Canadian banks. When asked what he thought about the value of the resort, the Canadian said, “it’s Newfoundland, it’s cold there, and they have a town called Dildo.” Needless to say, the conversa-

tion ended shortly after. Perception is an incredibly important thing in finance and investment of any size. The reason I do not buy public stock is what people think often drives the value more than the reality. Remember the Internet boom and bust? If we are to create the economy here we need to with new sustainable industry, we need to be able to overcome the prejudice that exists in our financial community towards that kind of investment in this province. And to be clear, Newfoundland has no financial community — that exists in Toronto. QUICK SOLUTION So faithful reader, what’s the quick solution? Well, there is none. I think it will take us at least one generation to be treated the same as any other place in Canada for risk capital. What the government does is important, and what we do is even more important. Every success, every ambassador, every good news story chips away at the millstone of financial incompetence we have around our necks. The people who truly control the flow of money inside this country believe this

is the place to send investment to die, not grow. It’s not the official opinion of the nation’s banks and funds, but it is deeply ingrained. Although I chose to try to go around this attitude, I was still rarely able to escape it. Many times when lenders outside the country looked at a project here in Newfoundland with us, they invariably ended up dealing with the central Canadian institutions as any security taken is only as good as your ability to realize it. Canada is very much a closed industry when it comes to the local banks that end up foreclosing. Therefore, their opinion of value is critical. Invariably, these international lenders were told that value was diminished in this province. It’s not all doom and gloom. There is a better attitude here now than there was when I started, and I think our attitude has a lot to do with the perception of us. It is better now than it was 10 years ago, and is getting better ... And as for having a town named Dildo, my merchant banker has fallen in love with the province and is buying a property in Humber Valley, and you can guess the first place he wants to visit next summer.

YOUR VOICE Natuashish: ‘Third World on our doorstep’ Dear editor, In 2004, I worked as an instructor for six months for a consortium of private colleges in Natuashish, Labrador. One of the programs was a heavy equipment operator course to prepare Innu men and women for employment at Voisey’s Bay. I taught the related skills component of that course. All eight men in that first course graduated in a very impressive ceremony, held at the community school auditorium in front of proud family members. None were so proud as the eight graduates themselves, who, for the most part, hadn’t graduated from anything in their lives. The second course I taught was to be a one-year course in basic office administration. Progress was slow as English comprehension and literacy skills were weak for many and much time was spent teaching basic English. Still, progress was made up to the summer break and we were all looking forward to concluding the program in the fall. This was not to be, however, as the band council, which was funding the training, avoided paying its bills beyond an initial commitment and the college, my employer, the company offering the training, pulled the plug before the course was completed. It is fairly obvious from past experience and the current information that the money intended for the training was squandered.

What a travesty for those Innu who were genuinely trying to better themselves within a sea of corruption, abuse and squalor. I feel sorry for them and would certainly have returned to complete the program if the council had paid its bills. I had the pleasure of working alongside some very dedicated staff who were working under very trying circumstances. Unfortunately, many of these teachers were literally driven out of the community by a few very abusive parents. Having experienced the disfunction first hand, I genuinely fear for the future and welfare of these once-proud and independent people, some of whom I got to know, like and respect. I am especially anxious for the children, who, generally, have no real future in that community. I see a pervasive self-destructive syndrome in evidence in Natuashish and I see little future for that community, in spite of its spanking-new infrastructure, unless something drastic is done. By whom I’m not sure, but we all have to share some “collective conscience” and responsibility for this scourge. As someone who has worked in 10 developing countries, I can vouch for the fact, as we’ve often heard said, that we have our own Third World on our doorstep, in spite of being the “best country in the world.” Bob LeMessurier, Goulds

‘Newfoundland’s Vimy’ deserves recognition Editor’s note: this letter appeared in the Oct. 24th edition of the Ottawa Citizen. Reprinted with permission. July 1, Canada Day, is celebrated with great pride across the country. For some Canadians, those in Newfoundland and Labrador, July 1 is also the anniversary of the battle of Beaumont Hamel. It will be 90 years ago next July 1 that, at 9:15 in the morning, 801 men of the Newfoundland Regiment attacked at Beaumont Hamel in the Somme. By 9:45 it was finished. The count of killed, wounded, or missing was 710. Scarcely a household in Newfoundland was untouched. Of the men, it was written: “It was a magnificent display of trained and dis-

ciplined valour, and its assault failed of success because dead men can advance no further.” As they always have, ceremonies of remembrance will take place in St. John’s and at Beaumont Hamel, but nothing will be done at Canada’s National War Memorial. Beaumont Hamel has been described as Newfoundland’s Vimy. In 1916, Newfoundland was not part of Canada. Since it is now, it would be fitting for events in the national capital on July 1 to begin at 9:15 with a brief remembrance service at the National War Memorial. Remembrance is a good way to begin Canada’s national day. Loyola Hearn, MP, St. John’s South-Mount Pearl

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.

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Hashing it out T

he only thing better than Sunday dinner is a Monday evening meal of leftovers, which most Newfoundlanders know as hash. Throw the works in a pan on the stove and heat it up — which is pretty much how this week’s column is panning out. There’s been more news in the past seven days than a reporter can shake a stick at. So I’ve decided to dump the lot on a platter for you to pick away at. “Save the salt meat for your grandfather,” as my grandmother would say. • First, to Jack Harris, who’s decided to walk away from the leadership of the New Democratic Party. Hard to believe it took 13 years for it to dawn on Jack that he will never be premier. He would have made a decent minister in a Liberal or Tory administration, but Jack choose to go it alone in what, for so many lonely years, was a party of one. Jack won’t be making a clean break from politics, hanging onto his seat and $90,000-plus MHA salary to compensate for his lower paying gig as a parttime lawyer … how did he manage to make ends meet? Jack’s eligible for an MHA pension — not a huge one, in the $30,000-a-year range — but a pension nonetheless. The question remains, what will the party do without him? My guess is … nothing. The same as it did while he was at the helm. That may sound mean, but it’s a fact. The NDP has barely made an inch of headway in the province since Peter Fenwick wore short pants — party because the party has a tendency to eat its own. Despite the backing of most of the major unions, the New Democrats — outside the aging granolas in east end St. John’s and the union crowd in Labrador City — are a lame political duck. When Jack goes he should fold up the NDP tent and take it with him. Peg Norman is one of the few names bandied about as potential leadership material. If she had any sense she’d join the Liberals — at least then, if successful, she’d have 11 other losers

RYAN CLEARY

Fighting Newfoundlander to hang out with. • It’s good to get out of St. John’s once in a while to rejuvenate the bay batteries. I happened to be in Stephenville on Oct. 26, the same day Danny held a news conference at the lecture theatre of the College of the North Atlantic headquarters to announce the mill there will live another day. The big announcement was met with … dead silence, not a peep in the room. Looking back, the reaction was understandable considering the amount of firm commitment handed out. There may be a hell of a lot of idle time between now and when the mill finally reopens. The $10 million a year in government subsidy has been described as the biggest make-work project ever, but that’s just not true. Last summer’s crab fishery fiasco resulted in an $18-million make-work project earlier this fall. To review: Danny scores major victory against big bad feds in Atlantic Accord dispute; Danny rolls over and shows his belly in skirmish with Abitibi and FPI. Could there be a trend? Can businessman Danny not eat his own? At one point, Danny was asked what he would do if he was a mill worker with a job prospect on the mainland. That would depend, the premier said. If he was a young single guy he’s “probably move on.” If he was an older worker with deeper roots he’d “give it a chance here.” Just so I have that straight: young people move; old people stay. Sounds like the same old Newfoundland story. • Ever wonder what happens to stories when they fade from the front page? (Outside the ones that are picked up by CBC Radio without giving The Independent credit … Hibernia expan-

sion ring any bells?) Case in point: the Melina and Keith II. The Independent carried articles every week a while back pointing out how it took 1 hour and 55 minutes for the search and rescue helicopter to leave the tarmac in Gander once the mayday was confirmed and the vessel’s location pinpointed. So what happened? Not a thing. Want in on a public relations secret? The easiest way to make sure a story dies is to ignore it. Once the media covers all the angles and tracks down all the reaction, the story fades on its own. In reporter circles, public relations is known as the dark side, which, in my books, makes the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans the Evil Empire in terms of PR talent. So what about the politicians? How do they handle it? MP Loyola Hearn was good enough to ask a question about the Melina and Keith II in the House of Commons during question period earlier this month, tying the topic in with the $42 million spent by DFO on fishy travel and hospitality expenses. Pushed for an answer, Minister Geoff Regan responded: “Mr. Speaker, my Hon. colleague knows full well that our staff with the coast guard and search and rescue do an excellent job, work very hard and are very dedicated. “He also knows my department has over 10,000 employees working in every province of this country, including remote coastal communities where they respond to these kinds of distress calls. In fact, 87 per cent of our employees work outside the national capital region. “We have scientists conducting world-class field research. We have officers conducting fisheries patrols. We have engineers ensuring the safety of wharves and harbours. By their very nature, travel is required.” And it’s there the story ends. Ryan Cleary is managing editor of The Independent. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

OCTOBER 30, 2005

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 7

To heat or eat, that is the question Ivan Morgan ponders how poor people will stay warm this winter

ou shouldn’t have to choose warmth over something else. I know about the cold. I worked for years with a support agency that dealt with street people, desperately poor people, and marginalized people. I saw the suffering the cold weather brought. I saw the danger in a cold snap. I was young and from a warm middle-class home and this was new to me. I guess I knew there were people who were disadvantaged — but staying warm had never been an issue for me. Staying warm can be a full-time problem for some people in winter. For many, just being warm is luxury enough. The popular stereotype is that these are people beset by other problems — deep poverty, substance abuse, and mental health issues. Even when this is true, it doesn’t matter — they feel the cold no different than you or I. The fact is that staying warm is becoming a challenge for more and more people. Warmth in winter is

IVAN MORGAN

Rant & reason becoming a mainstream problem. There are homes — many homes — in this province where hard decisions will have to be made this winter. The decision on which rooms to heat. The decision of what to do without, in order to pay the heat bill. The price of home heating oil has doubled. Government knows this, and came out recently with its home heating fuel rebate — designed to take the edge off the winter heat bill for some people. It will help a few a little in the short term. But the press release, written by some provincial communications weasel, makes it sound like the government cares and is doing everyone a huge favour: “We’ll give you back a lit-

YOUR VOICE Fixed link may ‘ensure our very survival’ Dear editor, I have read with interest a couple of editorials in The Independent recently concerning the feasibility of a fixed link between the island portion of the province and Labrador and am delighted to see the topic is still alive and well in the minds of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Personally I feel that the completion of a fixed link to Labrador is not only imperative to the long-term prosperity of our province, but might well ensure our very survival in the decades ahead. Firstly, as others have pointed out, a fixed link would provide a means of transmitting abundant hydro-generated electricity to the island, reducing our reliance upon expensive oil-generated electricity as well as providing a power base with which to attract industry to our province. Secondly, this past year of soaring energy prices has been, according to some experts, a precursor to what

will be in all likelihood a certainty in the coming decades — namely, a global energy crisis brought on by the burgeoning populations and growing economies of China and India coupled with the inability of world oil production to keep up with demand. If such a crisis were to occur, the economies of the world’s developed nations would suffer a severe recession, if not an outright depression and only those societies with direct access to their own energy resources such as hydro and oil would be in a position to moderate the effects of just such a catastrophe upon their citizens. Besides, even if the aforementioned event were to remain “speculation,” there is no-doubt that a fixed link with a traffic and power corridor from Labrador to the island would be insurance for a more prosperous future as masters of our own destiny. Perry Kendall, Paradise

Archbishop Penney ‘not a scapegoat’ Dear editor, As the mother of a son who was sexually abused by a Catholic priest, I write in response to the letter from Ian Power (‘Archbishop Penney is not to blame,’ Oct. 23-29 edition of The Independent). At no time was it implied in the story that appeared in The Independent (Continuing to condone, Oct. 915 edition) that I did not forgive Archbishop Alphonsus Penney or, for that matter, any of the perpetrators. Forgiving and forgetting are two completely, different things. We can, and many of us do, forgive but we can only ensure that past mistakes are not repeated by remembering what caused them to happen and by removing that cause. While Archbishop Penny may not have been guilty of the crimes committed by priests directly, he most certainly had knowledge of them. Not only was Archbishop Penney in office when many of the incidents took place but, to my knowledge, he did nothing to have the perpetrators removed from positions that allowed the victimization to continue, nor did he report the incidents of which he had knowledge to the authorities. He was not a scapegoat; he knew what was happening and he allowed it

to continue. This inaction may very well have been as a result of his love for the Church and his desire to protect it, and that’s very admirable of him, but the protection of the victims certainly should have taken precedent over the protection of the Church. Mr. Power references J.J. Byrne’s condemnation of St. Bonaventure’s College for taking a “cavalier attitude” towards the scandals and of being desirous to return to “business as normal.” The Church should certainly get on with it and minister to its members with a “go-forward” attitude. However, that “go-forward” attitude should mean just that. The Catholic Church in Newfoundland and Labrador has many fine priests. I would certainly encourage their being placed in positions of leadership for our young people regardless of whether they are “alumnus” or not. Many of us are trying to get on with our lives and with our faith. Having constant reminders of the past flaunted before us makes that very difficult. Editor’s note: the letter writer requested her name be withheld to protect the identity of her son.

tle of your own money so that you won’t freeze.” Gee thanks! But it’s just a Band-Aid solution, and a scrousty little Band-Aid at that. Not everyone heats their home with oil. The real problem is that the price of oil remains high, and everything we use is dependent on the price of oil. Everything. We live out in the middle of nowhere. At the Pearl Jam concert last month, lead singer Eddie Vedder brought his truckers out on stage for a rousing hand. He asked that we congratulate them for driving the band’s gear “all the way here.” As Vedder put it: “Your country is so f—— big!” He ain’t kidding. And everything that we need is brought here by oil. Food, clothes, consumer products — even our gas and oil is brought here by oil. So if the price of oil goes up, so must the price of everything else. Everything gets more expensive. A

nickel here, a dime there — it all starts adding up. So either we turn to the corporations and governments for whom we work for a pay raise (hardy har) or something else has to give. And for some people that eventually means fuel to heat their homes — especially people on fixed incomes. Especially if it gets really cold. We have been blessed with mild winters for a while now, but such has not always been the case. I have a photograph taken by my great grandfather of people driving their cars across the ice to Bell Island. I think it was taken during the Second World War. Regardless of the date, one thing’s for sure — that’s cold! How is the person on a fixed income going to deal with that? Not drive? Not eat? This problem is easy for some to solve. The brain trust in the executive class at Newfoundland Power has solved that problem the way they always have — by jacking up rates.

The price of electricity has gone up 15 per cent to cover their expenses, such as the increase in oil prices and the big salaries we have to pay them in order to stay warm. See how easy it is? But you and I, gentle reader, know what happens if we get behind on our heat bills. We know who we get to turn to if prices get high. We know who we can put the screws to. No one, that’s who. I have a woodstove I use to help my family stay warm in the cold months. I am lucky, as I am still young and healthy enough to cut firewood when I have to. And I have had to. But as I head into the woods, and head into the far side of my 40s, a thought occurred to me for the first time the other week, “What will happen to me when I can’t do this anymore?” Was that just the first of my cold shivers? Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com

LADIES NIGHT OUT

Tracy Byrne, Debbie Budden and Beatrice Seaward on George Street during the annual Mardi Gras weekend.

Paul Daly/The Independent

Province’s flag ‘better suited to a gas station’ Dear editor, I would like to comment on a recent article in The Globe and Mail sharing Newfoundland and Labrador’s beautiful new flag. We Newfoundlanders can look at this new flag and feel something. It represents the history and culture of our island. The current provincial flag was born out of deception and deceit

spawned by the government of Brian Peckford. It held a sham competition inviting submissions when the decision had already been made to commission a design. I was surprised to read that the flag was designed by Christopher Pratt. The design is better suited to a gas station or the corporate logo of a shopping mall. It has a distinct ad-agency feeling, very

pedestrian. You must admit this new image of Newfoundland and Labrador looks very emotional against the blue sky of Newfoundland. The people feel good about this flag. How good it looks along the row of other provincial flags. Long may it fly. Peter Wakely, Newcastle, Ont.

‘Why do skeets put other people though hell?’ Dear editor, I’m a Level II student at Holy Heart of Mary High School in St. John’s. I’m writing about the many break-ins at the school in recent years. On the weekend of Oct. 21, approximately 80 lockers were broken into. In those lockers many students had textbooks, notes, binders, etc. — most of which will never be replaced. The school has no security cameras or

alarms. The equipment was purchased but before it was installed it was stolen. So no one knows who broke in. The school has no insurance to replace the many textbooks and other things stolen from the lockers. This is not the first time Holy Heart has been broken into. Last year the gym office and equipment room were broken into and thousands of dollars worth of sports equipment etc. was stolen.

Also the art room was broken into and thousands of dollars worth of electronics were stolen. Why is nobody doing anything about this? Why do skeets put other people though hell? Why can’t the government or school boards pitch in and help come up with the stolen items? Many of these students can’t afford to buy new textbooks. Bobbi-Lynn Breen, St. John’s

Add pet overpopulation to list of province’s woes Dear editor, I hope this article reaches Premier Danny Williams. Among the issues being addressed in Newfoundland and Labrador today such as our health care system, Abitibi, the changing of the flag etc. sits this question: when are we going to address the problem of pet overpopulation? As unimportant as it might seem to some people, there are many who are

all too familiar with the problem. I for one think some laws and policies should be put in place to ensure that no animal leaves a shelter unless it has been spayed/neutered to prevent more unwanted litters of kittens and puppies. There are answers to overpopulation. Why don’t we, the kind and generous people of this province, help to bring about projects like low cost spay/neuter clinics or mandatory spay and neuter of

shelter animals. These types of projects operate all across the U.S. and Canada. Corporate sponsorship and government funding, along with a donation of veterinarian services one day a week could be a great way to start. Please help end the needless euthanization of puppies and kittens — spay or neuter your pet. Wendy Clarke, Paradise

OCTOBER 30, 2005

8 • INDEPENDENTNEWS By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

s leader of the provincial New Democrats, Jack Harris has had the rare experience of standing up in opposition before five different premiers. Upon announcing his intention to resign Oct. 28, he was as coy as any departing politician about his future plans, but he says he does have a certain desire to write a book, which after his 15 years in the legislature, might make for an interesting read. Harris is also open to other future prospects. He tells The Independent he would like to do some travel “expeditions” (“I went to Peru one time and hiked through the Andes”) and he hasn’t entirely ruled out running for federal politics. “I entered politics in federal life,” he says. “I would have liked to have gone back there, I suppose, not that I regret the time that I spent here. “It’s one of those things that’s been suggested to me. At this point I haven’t made any decisions about any of that. I’m not totally discounting it, but it’s not likely.” Harris laughs when questioned about running again for mayor of St. John’s, should Andy Wells score a position with the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. “It’s not on my radar, put it that way,” he says. Harris intends to step down as soon as a new party head is voted in through a leadership convention, which as yet, hasn’t been scheduled. He says he will stay on as the MHA for Signal HillQuidi Vidi for the foreseeable future, however. He is unapologetic for announcing his resignation with no apparent successor waiting in the wings, but says he thinks there are a number of viable candidates out there. “I don’t have a successor or a succession plan as such and some people might criticize me for that and say, ‘Well, how can you leave without knowing who’s going to succeed?’ “But this is not a corporation that has to move forward without skipping a beat. “To lay the hands on somebody is not, I think, an appropriate thing for a leader to do in our party.” He predicts whoever decides to run will likely be driven by a personal motivation to make a difference. “I don’t know who it’s going to be … but I think there’s lots of issues out there that could strongly motivate someone to the point that they will put the job on the line and steer their life in a direction to try and change that.”

‘I’ve played this role’ Jack Harris may travel, write a book or run federally — but he’s finished with provincial politics

Jack Harris

Paul Daly/The Independent

Harris insists he’s still a strong New Democrat and “probably more convinced than ever of the importance of a democratic socialist form of government. “Unfortunately we have been going in the wrong direction in terms of greater individualism, greater separation of wealth and poverty,” he says of Canada. As a practicing lawyer in St. John’s,

Harris has always juggled his independent career with his political one, and says he thinks it’s important to have that balance — despite the long hours. He calls being head of the NDP a full-time job and being a lawyer, part time. “There are times when it has been difficult, time wise, to do that, but I thought it was important for me to do

that because it gives you the independence that I think you need to some extent to do the job. You don’t want to be overly dependent on a political role because that can lead to compromising what you stand for and what you want to fight for.” Although he will soon lose his strong voice in the House of Assembly, it’s unlikely the public has heard the last of his passionate opinions and hopes for

the province. There’s still that potential book ... “I’m interested in the fact I’ve played this role … it’s a good discipline to be able to collect your thoughts; to say this is what you believe in, this is what you stand for and these are the kinds of things I think could happen to make Newfoundland and Labrador a better place. So yeah, that might be interesting.”

than Newfoundland fish.) “Our delegation did not go to London to seek any material assistance from Great Britain. We need no such assistance,” said Peter Cashin, another member of the UK delegation. Most members of the delegation reported being frustrated by the shortage of answers to their questions. The London Daily Express summarized the treatment of the Newfoundland delegation at the hands of the British government this way: “How cold, graceless, ungenerous and chuckleheaded is the attitude of the Government towards Newfoundlanders? “It could not, it dare not go back on Britain’s pledge of 1934, that as soon as the Island’s difficulties had been overcome, Responsible Government on the request of the people of Newfoundland would be restored … the statement made to the Newfoundland delegation by a government which has poured out millions in dollars to succor strangers

from China to Czechoslovakia in the last two years is contemptible.” Joey Smallwood, who was not a member of the UK delegation, praised the British government for volunteering to continue to oversee the colony if Newfoundlanders chose to stick with commission government. “The very gallantry of it brings tears to my eyes,” Smallwood told the convention. Joe Keough, another delegate who travelled to London, was convinced the UK had dealt with Newfoundland in good faith. In cases where it hadn’t, Keough argued it was Newfoundland’s fault for giving up its own government in the first place.

Cinderella of the empire A review of the Newfoundland National Convention (1946-1948)

ewfoundland may have had a solid relationship with the Mother Country through most of its first 400 years, but the ties became strained in the early part of the 20th century, degenerating to the point in the 1940s that the colony was described as the “Cinderella” of the British Empire. It was the late Ches Crosbie — a St. John’s businessman and father of John Crosbie, former Tory cabinet minister in the Mulroney government and current Independent columnist — who compared Newfoundland to Cinderella. Bad blood developed between Newfoundland and the United Kingdom during the reign of commission government. Up to its neck in debt and in real danger of bankruptcy, Newfoundland suspended its democratically elected responsible government in 1934 in favour of a six-man commission.

Road to CONFEDERATION AN ONGOING SERIES The commission government was essentially ruled by the Dominions office, an arm of the Government of Great Britain. By the mid-1940s, Newfoundland was on its feet financially and the National Convention was held to decide the form of government to replace the commission. The convention was also held to review Newfoundland’s finances to determine whether the colony could once again be self-supporting. Delegates to the convention voted to send a delegation directly to England on a fact-finding mission. Questions included why the commission government agreed to give the United States military bases in Newfoundland for 99 years (in return,

Great Britain received a fleet of destroyers from the Americans), with Newfoundland receiving no remuneration whatsoever. Newfoundlanders such as Crosbie felt the least the commission government could have done was push the U.S. to give the colony preferential tariffs on fish products entering the States. Other topics had to do with the financing of the Gander airport, which the commission government took over at a tremendous loss to the Newfoundland government (despite the fact it was one of the busiest in the world); the reduction of Newfoundland’s longterm sterling debt by applying Newfoundland’s interest-free loans to the United Kingdom against it; and convincing the UK to buy Newfoundland fish and iron ore. (Newfoundland sold fish to the UK during the war at a lower cost than was being paid by the U.S. After the war, the UK chose to purchase fish from Norway and Iceland, which was more expensive

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By Ryan Cleary The Independent

The background for this column is taken from The Newfoundland National Convention, 1946-1948, by James Hiller and the late Michael Harrington, available through the Newfoundland Historical Society and various retail outlets.

OCTOBER 30, 2005

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 9

OCTOBER 30, 2005

10 â&#x20AC;˘ INDEPENDENTNEWS

LIFE STORY

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Tom loved lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; AROUND THE BAY â&#x20AC;&#x153;The new sealer-coaster built at the shipyard at Port Union for the Northern Sealers and Traders Ltd. was launched on Tuesday evening. She is named the Young Harp and is as beautiful as she is staunch. She has been admired by hundreds of people who have visited here. Recently she was sheathed with green-heart plank before launching and will be able to contend with ice.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The Family Fireside, November 1926 YEARS PAST â&#x20AC;&#x153;The official opening prices to be paid to fishermen this season by the Fogo Island Co-Op are as listed: Trap fish 13 to 16 inches â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Dressed: 4 cents. Round: 3 cents. Trap fish 24 inches plus â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Dressed: 7 cents. Round: 8 cents. Flounder 12 inches plus â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Dressed: 5 cents. Round: 4 cents. Catfish â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Dressed: 5 cents. Redfish â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Dressed: 3 1/2 cents. Terbert â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Dressed: 5 cents. Round: 4 1/2 cents.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Fogo Islander, May 1972 AROUND THE WORLD â&#x20AC;&#x153;For the first time Canadian companies are manufacturing projectors for 16-mm sound film.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The Newfoundland Trade Review, Jan. 26, 1946. EDITORIAL STAND â&#x20AC;&#x153;It stands forth prominent as an incubus, which weighs upon and stifles the better and more moral feelings of men, clinging to its human food with a pertinacity and determination fiendish in the extreme ...â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Banner of Temperance, April 26, 1851, editorial about the liquor trade, which the paper strongly opposed. LETTER TO THE EDITOR â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dear sir, the present system of open voting is condemned and put aside by all progressive people throughout the world, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time that Newfoundland should adopt the only way by which the elector has full liberty to cast his vote in such a manner that he need not be afraid of any person, be he merchant, parson or priest, ever knowing how the vote was given. We must have secret voting in this country sooner or later.â&#x20AC;? Signed by a concerned voter. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The Evening Mercury, Feb. 9, 1885 QUOTE OF THE WEEK â&#x20AC;&#x153;I did not feel at all alarmed and I remembered that a few days ago, I had read a paragraph in Chamberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Journal, where it was stated that a person altogether ignorant of swimming might keep himself a long time from sinking by throwing himself on his back, and using his legs as if he were going to go up stairs. I tried this and found it to answer.â&#x20AC;? The letter was signed by a Mr. Smith, who fell from a bridge in the Harbour Grace area, and though unable to swim, saved himself and a â&#x20AC;&#x153;young child who also fell in.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The Carbonear Sentinel, March 3, 1840.

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TOMMY SEXTON 1958-1993 By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

ommy Sexton didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just open doors, he ripped down walls. An all around entertainer, Tommy was an example that artists can be successful in Newfoundland and Labrador. Openly gay, despite a religious upbringing, Tommy was an icon for the gay community and after his diagnosis of AIDS he was a demonstration in tolerance. His mother, Sara Sexton, says she knew her son was gifted â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and different â&#x20AC;&#x201D; from the time he was a toddler. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sure at two he was singing and a little bit of acting, even at two. By the time he was five or six he was visiting people and singing for them in their homes,â&#x20AC;? Sexton tells The Independent. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know at what point he felt different â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I really donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but I sensed it from the time he was four or five when he had all the girls around him â&#x20AC;Ś and heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d imitate them. He loved to dress up, oh my God, he loved the high-heel shoes.â&#x20AC;? Tommy is remembered for his ability to brooch taboo subjects through wacky characters like Marg at the Mental, Nanny Hynes and a Catholic nun. It was through these characters, played out on stage and on television, that Tommy showed off his artistic skills, but it was also a way for him to deal with his personal issues. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think he kind of had an unhappy childhood,â&#x20AC;? Sexton admits. A middle child of nine, Sexton says her son wanted to be all things to everyone. She says his father, Ned, never quite understood Tommyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s passion for acting. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He grew up in a fishing village on Fogo Island and he could be tough and that was just his way of life; he was fishing since he was nine years old with his father and of course he couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see acting as a career at all,â&#x20AC;? Sexton says in her rocking chair, in front of a photo of Greg Malone and Tommy dressed in their nun costumes.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;When I was growing up youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be considered foolish to consider acting.â&#x20AC;? Even after Tommy stared in the title role of Oliver at the age of 12 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; receiving kudos from the artistic and academic communities â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Ned Sexton could not accept his sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s career choice. But Sara Sexton never faltered in her love for her son. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My faith teaches me that that we accept people â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that we accept people as Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s people â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not piousity or anything like that â&#x20AC;Ś Tommy was acceptable to me,â&#x20AC;? she says tenderly. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think my husband ever considered accepting it â&#x20AC;Ś but I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have that problem, he was mine and he was precious â&#x20AC;Ś I have no understanding of someone who canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t accept their child.â&#x20AC;? Tommy was one of an ensemble cast in the wildly popular CODCO from the early

1970s until its bitter end in the early â&#x20AC;&#x2122;90s and worked with comedic partner Greg Malone on music-based shows like The Wonderful Grand Band. Sara Sexton says it was only after Tommyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s death â&#x20AC;&#x201D; due to complications from AIDS â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that she realized what he meant to people. She received letters from HIV positive people who said Tommy gave them courage, people would stop her in the street to tell her what a good person Tommy was. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think he really had to die for us to find out the impact he had on peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s live and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the strange thing, but I really believe that,â&#x20AC;? Sexton says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something hey, after 11 years to hear someone saying that and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re still remembering that.â&#x20AC;? Sarah says her son would be surprised to learn years after his death that his name is still attached to an annual fundraiser and will soon be the name of an independent living centre and the new location of the AIDS Committee of Newfoundland and Labrador. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the miracle to me. I think because he opened the door about AIDS â&#x20AC;Ś I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get over that he could go on TV and say that he had it and everything else. He did it and it showed his courage. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He opened the doors to tolerance for so many things. You know several of their shows were off the wall â&#x20AC;Ś it began to say things about church and state. Newfoundlanders didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do that,â&#x20AC;? Sexton says, holding her hands over her face just as she did when Tommy would pick on the church in his sketch comedy. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Oh, my God Tommy, leave the church alone.â&#x20AC;? She laughs when she explains who each character was modeled after â&#x20AC;&#x201D; her mother was Nanny Hynes and Debbie was likely an imitation of his sister, Edwina. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He used us all, but somehow or another we didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mind. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Tom loved life and he loved to live and he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to let go until the last of it.â&#x20AC;?

INDEPENDENTWORLD

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2005 — PAGE 11

Indian Affairs Minister Andy Scott pauses while speaking to the media on Parliament Hill. Scott faced questions about the remote northern community of Kashechewan, where the Ontario provincial government will airlift 1,000 residents out because of contaminated water. Chris Wattie/Reuters

Hot dogs cost $11 on reserve Low incomes, high prices are among Kashechewan’s enemies — not just the water KASHECHEWAN RESERVE By Richard Brennan Torstar wire service

aily life here revolves around a few places, but none holds the kind of grip on residents that the Northern Store does. It is the only game in town, the modernday version of the Hudson Bay trading post. But instead of fur changing hands, it’s cold hard cash — and lots of it. A jar of Cheez Whiz costs $17.39, a box of concentrated Tide fetches $21.89, a package of 30 diapers sells for $21.99, a 24-pack of Cottonelle, $19.39 and wieners, $11.19. “Remember, we have to fly this stuff in,” says a manager, who prefaced this by saying he’s been told not to talk to reporters. Most people on the reserve, about 450 kilometres north of Timmins, get by on welfare, shared 80-20 by Ottawa and the province respectively, and find it tough to

get by. Many make ends meet by sharing In the winter the natives can get slightly the wild game brought home by the few cheaper food brought in on seasonal roads who still hunt and carry on a traditional from Moosonee, about 125 kilometres way of life. away. “Everything in that While people don’t store is so expensive,” have far to drive — it says Peter Wesley, a might take 15 minutes “$300 to $400 … that lasts to drive around the janitor at the local elementary school, — they face about four to five days and reserve which is closed high prices for gasobecause of the E. coli line, which recently we are just buying dry scare. sold for $1.85 a litre. “We spend between James and Bernice goods and maybe some $300 to $400. That Koosees, who both lasts about four to five cheap meat like bologna.” work, say they find it days and we are just very difficult to make buying dry goods and ends meet. He works Peter Wesley maybe some cheap at the elementary meat like bologna. school as a teacher’s “It’s been like that since I’ve lived here assistant and she works at the high school and I’ve lived here all my life,” says as a guidance counsellor. Wesley, who has 10 people living in his “The prices in our store keep going up home, a house five people would find and up every month. The cost of living in crowded. our community is too much and that’s why

our people are hungry. They can’t afford to eat nutritious stuff,” Bernice says. Her concern over prices easily slides into her concern for the children who aren’t getting an education because the elementary and high school are closed. “The children need that education. They kids are even talking about going back into the school despite the water because they are getting behind. Some students graduate this year and they want to finish it off. They need to graduate,” she says. Dan Larose, a Grade 8 teacher in his second year at Kashechewan, is asked why he chose to live in a remote area like this, where the young people appear to have no future. “I’m here for the kids. I saw last year the difference I was making and that’s why I came back. It’s amazing to see the selfesteem rise in these kids,” the 34-year-old Sudbury native says. See “Life is,” page 12

They do things differently in Texas What will Karla Homolka be doing this Halloween?

n the run up to Halloween, Karla Homolka went to the Quebec Superior Court to make an argument. The school-girl killer and sexual sadist believes her rights have been violated by the restrictions placed on her at the time of her release from prison. That is, she apparently believes she shouldn’t have to regularly report to police or tell them where she lives and works, and she should be able to supervise someone under the age of 16 and consort with anyone she chooses, including violent criminals. Meanwhile, in Parker County Texas, the director of probation has ordered that all 50 sex offenders he is supervis-

MICHAEL HARRIS The Outrider ing report for a special Halloween vigil in his office. Mike Stack thinks the prospect of hundreds of kids roaming the streets might just prove too much of a temptation for repeat sex offenders. “We will have all our registered sex offenders that we supervise report to our office between 6 and 10 p.m. ... Everyone will be isolated in one area so we can keep track of them.”

Any registered sex offender who doesn’t show up at the office will get a visit from two guys in the same costume they wear year-round — that of a sheriff’s deputy and a probation officer. Stack and his men will also check the homes of parolee sex offenders on Halloween to make sure they have not decked out their homes in lights and decorations to lure unsuspecting trickor-treaters inside. Across the United States, including in Illinois, Virginia, and New Jersey, registered sex offenders will be under some form of curfew or detention on Halloween, depending on their status. There are two main purposes behind

Parker County’s Halloween command performance for sexual predators: It protects children from predators and it shields sex offenders from false accusations. It would never happen here thanks to the sense of entitlement we have ingrained in our worst criminals. In Canada, we have both provincial and federal sex offender registries, and peace bond statutes, but that is all we have. As I have remarked in this space before, we still lack a sexual predator law. That’s why Karla Homolka and equally dangerous sexual predators like Peter Whitmore are at large today. In

places like Texas, which does have a sexual predator law, both of these offenders would be firmly in the hands of the system. Remember, even the Correctional Service of Canada, the most inmate-friendly prison system on earth, concluded that pedophile Whitmore is 100 per cent certain of reoffending over the next seven years. Here’s how the Texas law works. The state reserves the right to commit sexual predators for treatment under a civil statute. (Seventeen states have similar legislation.) The normal due process right to competence does not apply to See “Process has,” page 15

OCTOBER 30, 2005

12 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

Failing only test that matters Federal champion of medicare keeps the people on its watch in living conditions that would shame a Third World country By Chantal Hébert Torstar wire service

he Fathers of Confederation put the running of health care out of the reach of the federal government and into the hands of the provinces 138 years ago. If they were around this week, they would congratulate themselves on their prescience. In recent years, many have argued that if the arbitrators of Canada’s original division of powers had foreseen the advent of medicare and the central place it would come to have in the country’s social fabric, they would have made a different choice. Some, including NDP leader Jack Layton, would like to rewrite the BNA

Act or at least to blur the line that it draws in the social policy sand to allow the federal government to play a more assertive role. Just this week, Layton called on Prime Minister Paul Martin to put more stringent controls on how the provinces craft their health-care systems. In a recent speech to Canada’s top civil servants, Martin issued a doctrine that would basically have the national interest trump the Constitution in matters of social policy. Not a week goes by without his government taking credit for exacting health delivery benchmarks from the provinces. It seems the latter should do as federal officials say and not as they do. Based on the only test that matters

when it comes to the well-being of medicare is a derelict health-care Canadians, that of performance, the administrator that keeps the people on Fathers of Confederation almost got it its watch in living conditions that right the first would shame a Third time. World country. Their only misAs opposed to the Some of the bright minds general population, take was to give the federal govCanada’s on-reserve on the watch for a panernment control aboriginals have the over the health honour of demic have been at work dubious care provided to a living under the tiny minority of of the looking the other way in jurisdiction relatively helpless federal government. As the situation of Canadians. Even Kashechewan. the inhabitants of the that, it seems, was Northern Ontario too much for a reserve of Kashechewan demonstrates, remote central government to handle. For it turns out that Canada’s self- that is a fate worse than having to rely appointed federal champion of on any of the country’s provincial gov-

It’s about time.

ernments for medical and health related services. The dismal predicament of Kashechewan goes well beyond a betrayal of the federal throne speech commitment to improve the living standards of the country’s aboriginal people. It exposes a glaring disconnect between federal claims to exercise effective leadership in the area of social services and its competence to do so. Year in and year out, the worst Canadian health outcomes are observed on reserves such as Kashechewan. Dozens of other aboriginal communities currently do not have safe drinking water. If the federal government cannot ensure minimal health standards for a minute fraction of the country’s population, where does it get the moral authority, let alone the credibility, to oversee the work of the provinces that deliver care to millions of Canadians? If most of the members of a given community are allowed to fall prey to tainted water before decisive action is taken, what is one to make of federal assertions that the Martin government has the wits to react to a national health emergency? After all, some of the same bright minds currently on the watch for a possible pandemic have been at work looking the other way in Kashechewan for years. In recent years, the federal performance has been found wanting in a variety of areas that fall under its exclusive purview. Rather than fix its own house, the Liberal government has routinely used the bulging federal surpluses to flex its muscles in areas of provincial jurisdiction. Would anyone seriously want the people who were supposed to stand guard for Kashechewan anywhere nearer one’s schools, childcare centres, universities or hospitals?

‘Life is very poor here’ From page 11

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“I’m teaching them that Kash is not the end-all and be-all, that there is a whole different world out there. ... As far as I’m concerned, I would love to see those kids graduate from university in (a bachelor of education) program and take over my job.” Kashechewan is supposedly a dry reserve, meaning that alcohol is not permitted, but all it really means is that it sells for prices that would make bootleggers in southern Ontario blush. A mickey sells for $50 to $80, while a 26-ounce bottle of liquor goes for more than $100. In the summertime, an ice-cold can of beer will fetch $10. HIGH INFLATION “Alcoholism is a problem for so many people,” says Douglas Wesley, 43, his broad shoulders framed by the doorway to his home. Wesley is familiar with the disease. He’s headed to Thunder Bay for his fourth attempt to deal with his addiction. His wife Giselle, 47, has also been away trying to kick the habit. Over at the band office, charts and graphs cover the walls where David Wesley, the economic development officer, is trying to make Kashechewan a better place to live. But even for this upbeat individual, it seems like a losing battle. If someone opens up a takeout restaurant in his or her home it’s considered major economic development. “Life is very poor here,” he says. “There are unhealthy living standards. There are overcrowded conditions ... the houses don’t meet building code standards. Inflation is very high. People cannot save money. We don’t even have a bank.”

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OCTOBER 30, 2005

INDEPENDENTWORLD • 13

VOICE FROM AWAY

‘Not so bad after all’

As the United Nations celebrates 60 years, Stephenville native Edward Mishaud says the world organization isn’t perfect — but it is important

By Edward Mishaud For the Independent

citizens turned out in droves earlier this month to elect members to the country’s governing bodies. In these and scores of other countries around the globe, the UN is providing security, building infrastructure in education and health care, and helping fend off disease. If the UN was not present, who would take on the challenge? Beyond rebuilding countries from next to nothing, the UN represents a united hope for a better world. With 191 member states, there is no doubt disagreement and frustration over policies and proposals pushed by one country on the back of another.

he United Nations recently marked its 60th birthday. The day itself — Oct. 24 — is known as UN Day, a time to reflect on the world body’s contributions to achieving peace and equality. This year, the UN has been on a path of reflection. People inside and outside the organization are questioning its raison d’être after years of responding to wars and the plight of the world’s poor. Is the UN still relevant? Can it address the global threats we face today? Is there a better alternative? The verdict? It depends on who you ask. For those critical of the UN, 2005 has provided many opportunities to call for the organization’s disembodiment. The scandal that erupted around the Iraqi oilfor-food program — the UN-administered aid program to offset economic sanctions against the government of Saddam Hussein — brought into ugly focus the organization’s inability to be accountable to the people it is mandated to help. UNPRECEDENTED FURY Previous lapses by the UN, such as its failure to stop the 1994 Rwanda genocide and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, combined with the oil-for-food scandal to create an unprecedented fury of antipathy at the UN. Scores of influential people, from journalists to high-level politicians, have called for the resignation of the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, for not keeping the Iraqi aid program in check. When word surfaced that Annan’s son, Kojo, had worked for a company involved in the oil-for-food program — and from which he received dodgy payments — the controversy catapulted the Annan witch-hunt to new heights. Fortunately for the UN, accusations the secretary-general was involved in his son’s fiasco were deemed false in an independent report. The report did highlight, however, that UN reform is neces-

United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan.

sary if the organization is to avoid such a scandal happening again. As a credit to the secretary general, in 2002 — long before the warning light came on about oil-for-food — he put forward a round of actions on UN reform (in fact, reform was one of his main objectives when he took office in 1997). His reform package included proposals to rid the UN of obsolete committees and tasks and to improve its global image by more effectively promoting its work to the world. In Annan’s own words, it amounted “to a very different way of doing business.” Three years later, in the wake of

Francois Lenoir/Reuters

Annan’s latest push for change at the World Summit in September, many question if business is being done any differently at all. But one of the biggest changes — and why this birthday is a time to celebrate — is a rejuvenated global interest in reviving the UN to make it better respond to the challenges we face. The media frenzy around the oil-forfood scandal clearly demonstrates the UN does matter. Most people want it to continue the mandate it set out with in 1945, framed around the principles of peace, human rights and social progress. Even staunch critics, those who are quick to judge the organization, are

unable to offer any realistic suggestions for an alternative to the UN. While the UN is far from perfect, and has been weak in the past, it is striving to implement change in the most destitute of places. Take the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa: the war-ravaged country is preparing for elections, and the UN is working with the government to prepare the Congolese for the vote. As Newfoundlanders, casting a ballot doesn’t seem to be a big deal, but in Congo, citizens are just being introduced to the electoral process, what it means and how to do it. In Liberia, another war-torn nation,

COMMUNICATIONS At least the UN provides this communications platform, allowing discussion to flow between representatives of countries that in other circumstances would not be caught in the same room. After 60 years of doing business in a highly complex world, the UN does not look so bad after all. Yes, substantial changes within the organization are necessary, especially in terms of its administration, but we have to accept the UN as our collective responsibility. It is a mosaic of the world with each piece representing the good and bad of the international community. If we think the UN is flawed, then criticism should be levelled at members as well as the administration. In the end, it is up to us to guarantee the UN fulfils its objectives. The past year has revealed many unsettling truths about the UN, but we should all look in the mirror and accept responsibility for its pitfalls. Edward Mishaud lives in Germany where he works with the United Nations. (This article presents the opinions of the author. It does not represent the opinion of the United Nations, or any of its agencies, funds, programmes or special committees.) Do you know a Newfoundlander or Labradorian living away? Please e-mail editorial@theindependent.ca.

OCTOBER 30, 2005

14 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

Saint John mayor displays Mao Zedong plaque

BIRD FLU FEARS

By John Chilibeck Telegraph-Journal

n a glass case at the mayor’s office in Saint John, several items from recent trips to China by Norm McFarlane and the former mayor, Shirley McAlary, are proudly on display. Most of the commemorative bric-a-brac is innocent enough, but one item is completely out of place. It is a plaque from the Guilin High-Tech National Industrial Development Zone with a likeness of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong. The communist tyrant in an institution like City Hall should be deeply offensive to anyone who cares about Saint John’s democratic values. Mao was responsible for the disastrous Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution campaigns that lead to the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese. He’s also the strongman who in the early 1950s sent thousands of “volunteers” into Korea to kill Canadian soldiers, some of whom were from Saint Mao Zedong Reuters John. When the tiny portrait of the dictator was menThere have been a number of times when tioned to McFarlane last week, he shrugged his Chinese students in Saint John were too scared to shoulders. Exchanging small gifts is part of the go to police when they witnessed or were victims trade mission. of crime. Many of the international students no “Everywhere you walk there, there’s a huge pic- doubt think of police as corrupt agents of the govture of Mao,” he explained to reporters in his ernment who won’t do much to help them, unless office asking him about his recent trip to China. it’s to crack their heads for getting too close to a “It’s part of their history, and I’m not there to crit- party official or someone else of importance. icize them. That doesn’t mean The chief says he made it I always have to agree with plain and clear in his comments them.” to hundreds of students at the The argument you hear these College in both “When you walk down Concord days is China is now capitalist Shenzhen and Beijing that the and more open and tolerant. the street in Beijing or police are independent from The more goods the Chinese government in Canada. consume, the happier and freer This is commendable because Shenzhen, you they’ll be, the logic goes. he basically gave the students a wouldn’t realize there “When you walk down the primer on a basic democratic street in Beijing or Shenzhen, value. Police do not take orders wasn’t democracy.” you wouldn’t realize there from politicians. They uphold wasn’t democracy,” says the law. Mayor Norm McFarlane McFarlane. Police Chief Al Still, one wonders if sharing Bodechon, who also went on the democratic values of our the trip, agrees. “China is a culture really has anything to do very open, modern, progreswith these trade missions. sive country.” McFarlane learned from the Canadian ambassaThat’s an interesting comment because the rea- dor that life wasn’t so great for the millions of son the police chief travelled to China was to Chinese peasants who have been left behind by speak to students about how easy it is to cooperate China’s great capitalist leap forward. with the law in a non-police state like Canada. He But he still seems more enamored with all the explained in as polite terms as possible. “Because commerce he saw in the affluent cities. of the tradition of the Chinese, they’re hesitant to “I didn’t see a difference between here and any go to police. I wanted to tell the students and reas- place we went in China. If we had to live there, sure their parents, they’d be safe in Canada.” maybe it would be different.”

A rooster is disinfected at a whole-sale poultry market in Hanoi, Vietnam. Vietnam, the country worst hit by bird flu, is considering banning the sale of raw blood pudding following the detection of two new outbreaks of the killer virus in poultry earlier this month. Bird flu fears are rising around the world, with new countries reporting cases and increased safety measures. Reuters

OCTOBER 30, 2005

INDEPENDENTWORLD • 15

PEI plebiscite may alter our democracy

Confederation’s cradle calls a referendum on how to elect MLAs HALIFAX By Kelly Toughill Torstar wire service

rince Edward Island is flirting with a radical election reform that may pioneer fundamental changes to democracy across Canada. Voters in a province considered the birthplace of Confederation will decide next month whether to endorse a new kind of voting system designed to end lopsided majority governments. The coming plebiscite on proportional representation has stirred deep emotion and debate in the tiny, perfect province where not just politics but jobs often ride on election results. Some have accused Premier Pat Binns of trying to scuttle the reform, while others have lauded him for putting P.E.I. in the path of history. Binns, however, says he isn’t trying to do either. “To me, this has never been about trying to make history,” he says. “It’s about making a system as fair as possible.” The current system, in which the candidate with the greatest number of votes in each district wins his or her seat, has created huge majorities that do not reflect the popular vote. In the island’s last general election, only 54 per cent of the populace voted for the Progressive Conservative party, yet the party took 85 per cent of the Legislative Assembly’s 27 seats. In the 2000 election, the Liberal party won 35 per cent of the popular vote, but took only one seat in the assembly. Binns benefited from both those windfalls, but now believes it is a problem that could erode faith in the system. “The outcome was very lopsided in the last three elections in terms of the number of members elected,” he says. “That gave rise to the feeling that there must be something better here that we can do.” It is a problem across Canada. Several political scientists and political activists are pushing for a form of federal proportional representation. British Columbia held a May referendum on a “single transferable vote” proposal, urged by a citizen assembly, but only 57 per cent who voted backed it, lower than the 60 per cent majority needed for it to be law. This spring, Ontario has promised to name a citizens’ assembly, to study versions of proportional representation in at least 80 countries, with an eye to a provincial referendum in 2007. Now eyes are turned east to PEI, to see what its 97,000 voters will decide. Islanders vote Nov. 18 on whether the

province should adopt a new system devised by the Commission on Prince Edward Island’s Electoral Future, headed by Leonard Russell. The commission model calls for PEI to retain 27 seats, but to split them into two parts. Seventeen seats would be elected by voters in each district. A second ballot would decide 10 additional seats, which would be allotted according to the total popular vote. Candidates on the second ballot would be chosen by political parties and would not represent specific districts. Not everyone is happy about the changes, including most of the members now serving in Charlottetown’s historic legislative assembly. A recent CBC Radio poll found just two MLAs solidly behind the proposal. In many districts, MLAs are expected to ensure government services are delivered. In some, the MLA’s office is an unofficial employment agency, hooking constituents to jobs in public service and private business. Some voters balk at assembly members being appointed by political parties from a list, saying that will reinforce the power of backroom politics. Others argue that having parties pick candidates, instead of riding associations, will give officials a chance to bring women, minorities and rural representatives into a political system often dominated by urban white men. “It will change the influence voters perceive they have when they cast their ballot,” Russell says. “It will give more power to the individual vote.” Critics accused Binns last week of trying to scuttle the reform. The plebiscite is not binding and Binns hasn’t said if he will follow voters’ wishes. Russell’s commission wants the new model adopted if 50 per cent of voters plus one endorse it because “when we looked at past plebiscites in P.E.I., none required more than 50 per cent plus one. Governments stand or fall on 50 per cent, and the Quebec referendum only required 50 per cent plus one.” But Binns repeatedly mused in public last week about adopting the B.C. threshold of 60 per cent. Opposition leader Robert Ghiz wants an even tougher standard. He has said the reform should not be adopted unless at least 60 per cent of voters turn out for the plebiscite; it wins 60 per cent of the popular vote and is endorsed by voters in 60 per cent of the electoral districts. Polling suggests the Ghiz Liberals are likely to win the next general election, so stand to lose the most from proportional representation in the short term.

‘FORTY YEARS OF ABUSE’

Some of the Irish national newspaper headlines last week, the day after The Ferns Report into child abuse by priests in the Ferns Diocese was published. Leon Farrell Photocall Ireland

Process has several checks and balances From page 11 these trials. The law covers a variety of scenarios including an out-patient civil commitment procedure for long-term supervision and in-patient treatment of violent sexual predators who have completed their jail sentences but are still deemed to be a risk to the public. It also applies to those who are found not guilty by reason of insanity and who are completing their in-patient commitment. The process has several checks and balances. First the offender’s record is reviewed by a team from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to determine if the person is likely to commit another offence after release. Sixty days after their recommendation, the offender’s case is again reviewed to see if she is suffering from a behavioral abnormality. If it is found that she is, the state’s attorney is notified and a civil commitment petition is filed in district court. Within 270 days, a trial is held to determine if the offender is indeed a sexually violent predator (SVP).

At this stage, the person has the right to a jury trial, to examination by an expert, and to legal counsel. The offender can appear at trial, present evidence, cross-examine witnesses, and view all reports and petitions in the court file. The judge and jury then have to finally decide if the person is an SVP. Jury decisions must be unanimous. If the person is found to be an SVP, he is committed to outpatient treatment and supervision. The judge imposes any restrictions that are necessary to ensure compliance with treatment and protect the community. It is a felony offence to violate any of these restrictions. How long does the treatment last? Until the SVP’s behavioural abnormality has been modified to the point where he is not likely to commit further sexually violent acts. The person’s status is automatically reviewed every other year and they themselves may petition for release from commitment at any time. The test case for the Texas law is interesting. In 2000, the state petitioned to have repeat sex offender Michael

Fisher declared an SVP. Fisher had a long history of violent sexual crimes, many of them committed while he was on parole. One doctor compared him to “a semi-truck careening down a hill without brakes” and said he was a high risk to commit fresh offences. Fisher was found to be an SVP and the presiding judge set over 100 conditions for his outpatient release, including electronic monitoring, a prohibition on involvement with children, an absolute ban on alcohol or visiting parks, movie theatres, malls, or libraries. And oh yes, Fisher had to take part in mandatory therapy sessions. The unhappy sex criminal appealed all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, arguing that the law was punitive rather than civil and that his due process rights had been violated. He lost and the little ghosts and goblins of Parker County are a little safer for it. Here, we can only wonder what Karla will be doing for Halloween. Michael Harris’ column will return November 13.

OCTOBER 30, 2005

16 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

TRICK OR TREAT?

George Bush in Bellvue, Washington

Reuters

School board urges ‘inclusive’ Halloween

ull out the pumpkins, costumes and candy. Halloween is still legal in Toronto schools, say senior board officials. A head office memo urging principals to hold culturally sensitive Halloween celebrations was never meant to spook schools out of the traditional customs, says Yaw Obeng, supervising principal in the board’s equity department. The unsigned memo — titled Hallowe’en at Toronto District School Board Schools: Scarrrrrry Stuff! — urges schools to respect Halloween as a religiously significant occasion for Wiccans and asks them to recognize that some students have had “first-hand traumatic experiences of violence that make talking about death, ghosts, etc., extremely alienating.” But it was not meant to eliminate Halloween from the school system, says Obeng. “We want to continue the fun activities but we also want to make it inclusive,” he says, adding most schools

still hold Halloween activities. The board has issued the same memo for at least three years to help principals and teachers deal with issues arising in their increasingly diverse communities. In the past those included complaints from Wiccans, says Obeng. The fact that he’s had no complaints this year suggests the board has figured out how to do Halloween properly, he said. Nicole Cooper, a first-degree priestess of the Wiccan Church of Canada’s Toronto Temple, calls the board’s concern “sweet and well-meaning” but unnecessary. “Almost all Wiccans enjoyed doing Halloween stuff when they were kids and don’t want to see other kids miss that,” Cooper says. Wiccans call Oct. 31 Samhain and treat it as a New Year’s festival, a time when there is the least distance between the living and dead. — Torstar wire service

INDEPENDENTLIFE

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2005 — PAGE 17

‘Pure beauty’ Barbershop music undergoing revival in St. John’s

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

Anchormen Chorus at the Family Barbershop on Duckworth Street, St. John’s.

Paul Daly/The Independent

isions of barber poles and straw hats melt away when the Anchormen Chorus begins singing a barbershop-style ballad in rehearsals for their 30th anniversary concert. The 52-man chorus rehearses in a basement room of the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre, while founder Alex Andrews describes the style in the relative silence of a nearby room. “It’s the best sounding piece of music next to a symphony orchestra,” Andrews tells The Independent. “There’s nothing purer than the human voice. The human voice makes harmony better than any instrument, better than a grand piano or big organ or anything.” Andrews was 17 when he began singing in a barbershop quartet. “What makes barbershop a different sound is we take our tenor and place it above the melody rather than under the melody,” he says. “There’s nothing else that sounds like barbershop.” The style has roots in AfricanAmerican gospel music and actually began in southern barbershops, where men would gather in a social setting. In this province, barbershop was an import from the American military stationed here beginning in the early days of the Second World War, but died out in St. John’s after the closure of Fort Pepperell (the American base in the east end of St. John’s) in 1959. Sixteen years later, after a 1975 Kinsmen musical, a number of the singers decided to combine their voices in a barbershop quartet. The most recent incarnation of the chorus isn’t just an old-timers club. Members range in age from late teens to early 80s — and they’re not just singing old-time songs either. An annual fundraising concert at the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre, slated for Nov. 5, will feature the music of Billy Joel, Paul Simon and John Denver. “Where the young guys are starting to take an interest in the society, they’re asking for more modern songs that they’re familiar with … for instance, The Beatles, and they’re loving it. The Beach Boys is another,” Andrews says. Harry Wells, president of the local chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society and a member of the Anchormen Chorus, says the

more modern songs are a great way to draw young singers and a younger audience to barbershop music. “We can make the barbershop sound break into other genres and other types of music,” he says, adding the modern songs have been rejigged in barbershop style, but will still be immediately recognizable. The annual fundraising concert will highlight some of the younger members as a quartet. The Good Fourtunes, which includes four members of the chorus, is made up of 17 to 19 year olds. Choral director Andrew Cranston is just 22 and a student of choral conducting at Memorial University. “I just wave my arms, that’s all I do,” Cranston jokes. The audience — while typically the 30-plus generation — is changing too, explains Wells, who’s been a member for nine years. “We’ve done everything from a high school graduation to senior’s homes,” he says, as others chime in, saying they’ve done weddings. Andrews boasts they even sang once for former premier Brian Peckford, the late Gordon Winter when he was lieutenant governor, and former Governor General Edward Schreyer. The profits from the fall concert will be donated in aid of victims of the Stephenville flood and the tsunami in southeast Asia. The concert will include several war songs — including the harmonious Rose of No Man’s Land — in tribute to Second World War veterans. The chorus fundraises throughout the year to help pay for trips to competitions. This year they took first prize in the Atlantic division and fifth in the northeast division of the Barbershop Harmony Society’s annual international competition. While the men could always move on to compete at higher rankings, they say it’s too expensive to travel and — while winning is fun — they just sing for the joy of it. “It would cost a fortune to move 50 men down to Rhode Island to sing two songs,” laughs Andrews. Wells says he disliked barbershop when he was introduced to it by a friend who wanted to recruit him to the Anchormen Chorus — now it’s a pleasure. “I wasn’t a fan of barbershop music. Once I sat in and heard the first practice here I said ‘Geez this is some sound … it’s pure beauty.’” Adds Andrews, “when it grabs you it grabs you.”

LIVYER

For the record

Producer Rick Hollett on his music industry association award nomination, local talent and ‘noise pollution’ By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

f anyone should know the level of musical talent around St. John’s, it’s record producer Rick Hollett. He and sound engineer Kevin Pinhorn help all sorts of artists — from punk rockers to classical musicians and everything in between — arrange and record their musical concepts to CD at Record Time Production’s studio in St. John’s. An accomplished musician himself, Hollett’s saxophone, accordion and

piano playing even make regular appearances on tracks. “It’s taking artists from the ground up and working with them, trying to see what kind of a vision they have for their sound and trying to achieve that for them,” he tells The Independent. “If they already have a band, well it’s much easier, you just bring them in and get them to sound as good as you can, make them as comfortable as you can and let them have fun.” His efforts are paying off in that Hollett has been nominated for a MusicNL award under the category

“Industry Professional.” With his relaxed manner, friendly banter and industry knowledge, it’s easy to understand why people would enjoy placing their musical creations in his hands. Ten years ago — shortly after Hollett decided to branch out from working from home — Record Time Productions also won Studio of the Year. “I was quickly outgrowing my space and kids were coming along and I figured, well I should let the kids have the run of the place, not tell them to be quiet because I’m recording a vocal

Rick Hollett

track,” says Hollett. “When I found this place it seemed to be perfect. He gestures around his small, but comfortable office space, which

Paul Daly/The Independent

includes multiple instruments, recording equipment and the all-important See “The door’s open,” page 22

OCTOBER 30, 2005

18 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

GALLERYPROFILE

Studio ceramics in Newfoundland and Labrador

ive ceramic artists with Newfoundland and Labrador connections are featured in Studio Ceramics in Canada, a new book by Ontario writer Gail Crawford. It’s a healthy representation for a province with very little in the way of pottery history. “It is very new here,” says Isabella St. John, one of the spotlighted artists. “There is no history of pioneer ceramics here as there is in other parts of Canada, even maritime Canada. “Even these big crocks you see with the names of local businesses, they were imported. There’s little or no clay here and few tradespeople came except fishermen.” Studio Ceramics in Canada will have

its St. John’s launch Oct. 30. Coinciding with the book launch is an exhibition, Studio Ceramics in Newfoundland and Labrador, featuring work by the local artists featured in the book — St. John, Bonnie Leyton, Reid Weir, Gail Squires and Ray Mackey — and a juried selection of submissions from other local potters and ceramicists. As far as St. John knows, the first potter to have a studio in Newfoundland was a woman who moved to Corner Brook from Germany in the early ’60s — and later developed a year-long course at the town’s vocational school. St. John began her training there in 1971, becoming one of the first professional potters in the

province. Since then, the clay community has grown. Although St. John says training in the province is “limited,” there are more and more people working in the medium — in a great variety of ways, as evidenced by the exhibition. St. John says her love of clay “happened right away, and I think it usually does. “As soon as I touched the clay and began to see what it could do and how completely you could transform the material in so many different directions … It’s such a living, responsive, immediate material.” John Bear, a member of the craft council’s clay committee (which manages the clay studio in Devon House),

has two sculpture pieces in the exhibition. He credits the studio for allowing many new hands to dig into clay. “I’ve been hanging around there for a couple of years, and I do find it fascinating the creativity that comes through the place,” he says. “There is lots of activity by young people, school kids, teens … and a healthy sprinkling of people such as myself going back to artistic and creative work post-retirement. “All sort of people do interesting things. It’s the nature of clay that the possibilities really are just about infinite and the more you see the more amazed you are at all the work people do.”

St. John, who teaches evening pottery classes, agrees. “It’s a community studio so anyone who is interested can pursue their interest … there are new people who are really progressing rapidly. It’s the passion of clay.” The book and gallery launch begins 2 p.m. at the Craft Council Gallery. Author Gail Crawford and other artists will make presentations, beginning at 4 p.m. — Stephanie Porter Artwork, clockwise from top left: Blue Dress by Isabella St. John, Vice in Pursuit of Moderation by J.C. Bear, Life Cycle II and III by Carolyn Morgan, teaset by Margaret Forsey, Great Frog from Hell by J.C. Bear, and Crosbie Riding the Cod by Bonnie Leyton.

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

EVENTS OCTOBER 30 • Two free guitar workshops at Rabbittown Theatre on Freshwater Road, starting 1 p.m. • Ghost Train at the Museum, Railway Coastal Museum, 3 p.m. $5, 724-5929. • The Woman in Black at the LSPU Hall, 8 p.m., tickets $16 adult, $12 students/seniors. • Ring of Fire at the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre, 8 p.m., tickets: $20, $18 seniors, $15 students, 729-3900. • Skate Canada finale at Mile One

Stadium, tickets $38. • Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador launches Studio Ceramics in Canada, a book by Gail Crawford and the opening of the exhibit Studio Ceramics in Newfoundland and Labrador, 2 p.m., Devon House. OCTOBER 31 • Gala fundraiser at the Fairmont Hotel for the Independent Living Resource Centre, $60 per person, food, entertainment and surprise extreme makeovers, 722-4031.

• The Woman in Black at the LSPU Hall, show time 8 p.m., tickets $16 adult, $12 students/seniors. • Active-Vision: live music for silent film presents Nosferatu, performed by the Black Auks w/Patrick Boyle, 10:15 p.m., Choral Room, MUN School of Music. • Multi-media Art workshop for 10-13 year olds offered at The Rooms, 3:30 – 5:30 p.m. 757-8090. NOVEMBER 1 • Comedian Ron James, St. John’s Arts

and Culture Centre, tickets $35. NOVEMBER 2 • Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council celebrates its 25th birthday and holds a public forum from 7 – 9 p.m. at the LSPU Hall. • St. John’s Storytelling Festival begins 7 p.m. at the Ship Pub. Runs until Nov. 6, with workshops, children’s events, storytelling circles and more on the schedule. Visit www.sjfac.nf.net for a complete list. • Sculpting in Space and Time work-

shop for 9–14 year olds at The Rooms, from 3:30–5:30 p.m., 757-8090. • Ring of Fire at the Corner Brook Arts and Culture Centre, 8 p.m., tickets: $20, $18 seniors, $15 students. NOVEMBER 3 • Michael Hanrahan CD release Tie Me Down, 7 p.m. at Bridie Molloy’s. • Comedian Ron James, Gander Arts and Culture Centre, tickets $35. • Carroll Baker, St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre, tickets $26. • A Night of Bellydancing, at the Kittiwake Dancing Theatre, 8 p.m., admission $10 donation, continuing Nov. 4 and 5. • New music concert by pianist Brian Way, 8:30 p.m., in a St. John’s Heritage Home. Tickets must be purchased in advance at Fred’s Music Store, 198 Duckworth Street. The location of the concert (central St. John’s) will be revealed when a ticket is purchased. NOVEMBER 4 • The Irish Descendants at the Goose Bay Arts and Culture Centre, tickets $22 regular admission. • Comedian Ron James, Corner Brook Arts and Culture Centre, tickets $35. NOVEMBER 5 • The Irish Descendants at the Labrador West Arts and Culture Centre, tickets $22 regular admission. • Comedian Ron James, Grand FallsWindsor Arts and Culture Centre, tickets $35. • The Anchormen Chorus perform at the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre, tickets $15. IN THE GALLERIES: • The Limestone Barrens Project at The Rooms, is a major international exhibition of visual art, music and writing based on limestone barrens of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Great Northern Peninsula, the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario and The Burren in Co. Clare, Ireland. Running from September 17, 2005 to January 8, 2005 NOTES: • Harbour Haunt running nightly until Halloween, 351 Water Street, Adults $7.50, Youth $6.00, 754-1399.

OCTOBER 30, 2005

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 19

‘Storytelling is so broad’

Second annual festival of legends, ballads and yarns celebrates renewed interest in oral traditions

By Stephanie Porter The Independent

ary Fearon says storytelling in this province is experiencing a revival. Between Dale Jarvis’ Haunted Hikes to a monthly Storytelling Circle to Fearon’s own literacy work with parents and children, stories, recitations and ballads are no longer fading art forms. “Storytelling is coming back,” Fearon says. “People are starting to value it again, there’s more talk about it … we’re starting to say ‘Oh my God, we let go of this piece of oral tradition, we’ve got to come back and grab that. “I guess if you get a storytelling circle and festival going it pumps people up.” Drawing and expanding on this momentum, the second annual St. John’s Storytelling Festival runs Nov. 2-6. Featuring storytellers from across the province, Canada and Ireland, the festival offers evenings of stories, afternoon workshops, and a children’s puppet show. Singers, artists, academics and full-time tellers will take part. Of course, storytelling has never been lost in Newfoundland and Labrador. Fearon has travelled across the island, teaching workshops and collecting rhymes, songs and language games, now published in Over the Big Fat Waves. “We met fabulous storytellers,” she says. “There is still this generation of people who have that in their heads, and can use it as a means of communicating and interacting; it’s a strong part of their culture. “Later generations don’t have that.” Fearon became interested in storytelling about a decade ago when she connected with Katherine Greer, one of the founders of the Parent-Child Mother Goose Project. The St. John’s chapter of the program for young children and their parents has been in operation since 1997. Funded by the Department of Education, the project focuses on oral language — rhymes, songs, language games and storytelling — and now holds meetings two mornings a week in the capital city. “I’ve run storytelling workshops across the province, but I still have trouble saying I’m a professional storyteller,” says Fearon. “I’ve always looked at it as a skill that we’re teaching that will build communities and culture. “So to look at it as a form of entertainment is a lot

different for me.” But it is entertaining, she continues, mentioning the many evenings she’s attended informal storytelling circles at friends’ homes, as well as organized events. At the inaugural festival last year, Fearon took part in an evening concert, telling her story beside Andy Jones and a visiting storyteller. She was terrified. “I mean, I teach storytelling, but I was really anxious,” she says. “I told myself I really needed to do it … it’s like the families who come to me and think they can’t tell.” Another challenge, Fearon says, is leading adults to believe — not only can they learn to be comfortable telling stories — but they really can just sit and listen. “People think storytelling is for children,” she says. “We don’t have that cultural experience anymore where you just sit and listen to somebody and you don’t have to comment on it, respond or react. You can just sit and enjoy.” Some of the stories this week will be definitely for adults. For one, Fearon says her favourite stories to tell are more gruesome than most. “At the storytelling festival you can tell everything,” she says. “You have to read your audience first though, because stories can awaken things in people … I know that.” Of course, children are a delightful audience — “they’re so open and they’re not afraid to respond” — and there is an afternoon children’s event scheduled for Nov. 5. Fearon and the other organizers of this year’s festival have expanded their scope this year. “We’re really tying in the idea of recitations and song and that connection to storytelling,” she says. “I learned from a very traditional kind of storyteller, but storytelling is so broad. This festival will really portray that vastness.” Next year’s gathering is already in the works. Organizers are looking to do workshops with teens and youth at risk, leading into a teen storytelling circle. “Last year was really good, and people came … we became a technologically (infatuated) society and now we’ve bought all that stuff, and it’s starting to swing back to other things. “It’s exciting and there’s all this great energy.” For a full schedule of festival events, visit the St. John’s Folk Arts Council website, www.sjfac.nf.net.

Mary Fearon

Paul Daly/The Independent

Sealing beauty

ast weekend over 800 people jumped to their feet to applaud a locally grown documentary film. It was closing night of the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival and the feature presentation was Anne Troake’s My Ancestors Were Rogues and Murderers. Pouring into the lobby, flushed and excited over what they had just seen, many satisfied spectators declared the film should be mandatory viewing for every Newfoundlander. Even more observed that the film should be mandatory viewing for every foolish contributor to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). Produced by the National Film Board and made right here in the province, My Ancestors Were Rogues and Murderers is really the first extended artistic argument we’ve seen against decades of IFAW propaganda. The film operates brilliantly on several levels, all working in a graceful balance. First it needs to be said that My Ancestors Were Rogues and Murderers is highly entertaining, beautifully shot and informative without being didactic or boring. What we have here is an implicit defense of the sealing industry, but at its core the film is really is about the people who have long lived with its

POET’S CORNER ARRIVAL I died so completely that Fall That the world suddenly stopped, Like the doldrum dreams in childhood. Hanging tough, like the alders, Touching the aluminum sky Outside my winter window, I reached the spring sun And the safety of your love. When autumn comes stealing again, Laundering and starching the garden trees, I’ll write a verse For every leaf that dies. I’ll never be caught With my back to the wind Now that we’re here, at last. A poem from the 1985 book Beginnings by Robert Burt.

NOREEN GOLFMAN Standing room only harsh realities, specifically the director’s family based in Twillingate. In 2000, in a tragically recurring drama, the raging sea took the lives of Twillingate residents Roger Butler and Gary Troake, the latter the director’s cousin and a well-known spokesperson for the industry. Gary had spent most of his adult life working up an impassioned discursive position, determined to contest the doctrines of the IFAW machine on the world’s stage, a selfstyled David among the well-funded Philistines. Inspired by Gary’s life, a life snatched cruelly and too young, Anne Troake decided to honour him and what he stood for. Fortunately, by the time he died Gary’s profile was high enough to have generated a sufficient amount of surviving media material, and so he is revived as fully as possible by this film, speaking beyond his watery grave with characteristic wit and passion. Indeed, Troake is astute to have made Gary one of the central “voices”

of her film, articulating an incisive analysis of why Newfoundland suddenly became the victim of a misguided environmentalism. What is especially appealing is Gary’s tough ability to nail the hypocrisy of the IFAW antisealing campaign, pointing out, for example, that their celebrity advocates care no more about seals than he does about the spiders in his woodpile. Offsetting Gary’s forceful outrage is the self-effacing charm of the director’s grandmother, fully alive to the camera and her curious granddaughter. This bright, wry older woman’s story captures almost a century of life in Twillingate and the long-standing dependence of the community on the annual seal harvest. Her account of her own youthful first encounter with a seal is at once moving and amusing, while director Troake matches her voice with fascinating archival images to prove it. We are also reminded of how insecure and unsophisticated a young Newfoundland girl must have felt in the bustling world of Montreal, where she somewhat reluctantly trained to be a nurse. Homesick and out of water, so to speak, she carried her cultural difference around like an unshakable weight. Listening to her story, the audience comes to appreciate the vulnerability

of the outsider, a sympathy that carries over into a deeper understanding of just how vulnerable the sealers and their families would be to an aggressive international campaign against their livelihood. Even more to the point, that campaign not only targeted the business of the harvest but it also demonized, and continues to demonize, an entire people. To its great credit, the film serves to humanize the bloody, messy business of sealing. It is neither sentimental nor romantic, preferring to let Gary and his family speak plainly and for themselves, underscoring the laws of nature and necessity that have informed their lives for so long. At some point even the most skeptical viewer must recognize the absurdity of Brigit Bardot and her ilk campaigning against people she has never met, whose lives mean nothing to her. Unlike her self-important camera-hogging posturing, the unpretentious candour of the Twillingate subjects is obvious and endearing. So who then will see this marvelous documentary, beside the enthusiastic festival audience? The question hovers over its production like a mad taunt, but it must be taken seriously. The National Film Board, and particularly the Atlantic regional office that

backed its development, showed an intelligent courage by supporting Anne Troake’s dream. Now it must extend its support into a vigorous marketing campaign, ensuring the project doesn’t fade into another dustbin of history. It is one thing for Newfoundland audiences to be reminded of why fighting back is important. It is another to expose others, many others, to the guts of the argument in the first place. For the most part, the IFAW has won the debate by hijacking it. But finally, there is something to fight back with. To date, My Ancestors Were Rogues and Murderers is being rejected by other film festivals, the most appropriate first-run vehicle for exhibition. You do not have to know a lot about film to know that this film is a triumph of sound and image. But sometimes bad things happen to good films, and when a documentary like this is being overlooked you can smell the burn of political correctness in the air. Anne Troake and her team have produced a splendid gift. It’s time to share it. Noreen Golfman is a professor of literature and women’s studies at Memorial. Her next column appears Nov. 13.

OCTOBER 30, 2005

20 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

IN CAMERA

Making music Patrick Boyle, up for four awards

Jason Greeley received four nods

Sherry Ryan plays a showcase Nov. 5

The Cormiers have three nominations

The votes have been cast, the stages booked, showcases planned, gala show unveiled … The former Music Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador will hold its annual conference, general meeting and awards show Nov. 4–6 in Grand Falls-Windsor. Picture editor Paul Daly has photographed a number of the nominees and performers; senior editor Stephanie Porter spoke to some members of the association for thoughts on the weekend ahead.

Denis Parker, executive director of MusicNL

Jill Porter, up for three awards

t may be Larry Foley who put it best. A member of the 8 Track Favourites — the country revival band with a leading five nominations at next weekend’s provincial music industry awards — Foley says he’s at turns surprised, anxious, and blasé about the event. “Awards shows freak me out generally,” he says. “Because you’re like ‘Oh I hope so, oh, I don’t care, well really I do care, well really I don’t care’ … There’s just such a range of emotions go with it, you know, no matter what level these things are. “(The nominations are) pretty cool, I mean the band has had a good year and it’s nice to see it reflected somewhere.” MusicNL — formerly the Music Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, officially renamed last

week — will throw its annual threeday conference, general meeting and awards show in Grand Falls-Windsor, beginning Nov. 4. Foley and the 8 Tracks are just a few of the many musicians and industry players who will make the trip to central Newfoundland for the weekend to network, play, jam, watch, listen and enjoy. A veteran of the local music scene — he’s also frontman for the Punters — Foley has been to more than one music conference, had his part in more than a handful of nominations. The highlight this time around? The 8 Tracks will back Newfoundland country singer Dick Nolan to celebrate a lifetime achievement award, to be presented at the MusicNL closing gala.

“I think it’s a milestone,” Foley says. “You hear so many stories from veteran musicians, like ‘Oh we were in such a place and we were playing with Dick Nolan’ and it seems like long long ago and far away — it’s cool to do it, but there is a sense of continuity about it.” The pairing was Nolan’s idea — but, as Foley points out, the band might have made the first gesture: on their recent CD, a Dwight Yoakam lyric was changed from “while we’re dancing to an old Buck Owen song” to “… a Dick Nolan song.” Jazz trumpeter Patrick Boyle will also be prominent during the awards gala — he’ll play from his debut solo CD Hold Out, and back performers Kelly-Ann Evans and George Morgan. With four nominations this year, Boyle says “it all really does feel good.

OCTOBER 30, 2005

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 21

Dick Nolan will receive a lifetime achievement award Nov. 6

George Morgan, up for one award himself, and five more with the 8 Track Favourites

Sandy Morris has two solo nominations, and shares in five for the 8 Track Favourites

Chris Andrews of Shanneyganock has four nods

Mick Davis and Chuck Tucker of The Novaks have five nominations

I’m still getting to do my own thing but I’m still that sideman guy that I’m known for. “I’ve been playing on everyone else’s record and now it’s like my record is getting a bit of tout.” Hold Out was released in March, and has been selling, he says, “as well as a jazz record can sell in St. John’s.” Having participated in jazz festivals, music showcases and awards events in the province and beyond, Boyle says the MusicNL weekend is generally “a bit more fun … less industry schmooze, a bit more about getting everyone together and seeing what everyone else is up to.” In that spirit, while Boyle plans to take in, and make use of, a seminar on touring during the conference, he says he’s “not looking it as a business weekend. “It’s like, I put this record out, some people liked it enough to tick my name on a ballot, so I’ll go out and enjoy the weekend.” The music events begin Friday night with showcase performances by upand-coming musicians. Seminars begin bright and early the next day, followed by industry awards, more seminars, and showcases. Sunday morning brings more panel discussions, followed by the always-popular songwriters’ circle.

The awards show — featuring 14 performers, including country singer Rod Jackson with a 60-member choir, last year’s Idol Jason Greeley, Colleen Power, Barry Canning, Jill Porter, Siochana (the RNC band) and more — is the official finale. “We’re looking for the same kind of event we had in Rocky Harbour two years ago,” says MusicNL executive director Denis Parker. Having the conference outside of St. John’s every second year generally creates a more intense, community-spirited event. “There will be lots of open mics, lots of opportunities for people to play, lots of late-night jams,” Parker says. “The focus is on the youngsters on the first two nights, generally turning to the celebs on the last night, you know. Great showcasing … “There’s nothing outrageously new … it’s the same kind of schedule as other years.” But a fresh venue, different top nominees, and new buzz bands keep the event from feeling stale. Hey Rosetta! a six-piece alternative rock band heavy on lyrics and strings, is one of the newest of the new — the current lineup has only been in place since September. But they quickly caught the ears of the MusicNL staff and landed a showcase. “We’re super excited we got the

showcase, real excited to go out there,” says Tim Baker, the band’s founding member. “It’s kind of like we’re hitting the road for the first time: one gig at Mingles, Grand Falls.” Baker says he attended much of last year’s conference in St. John’s. “I don’t really know the game very well,” he says. “I tried to get my head around what you’re supposed to do to be a well-known musician.” This time around, Baker is just planning to meet people, talk about what to do next, and gather contacts for the future. “Meeting other bands you can play with and start partnerships with … I don’t really know what’s going to happen, I don’t really know who attends these things. “I guess we’re going for exposure and to meet people and it’s going to be fun, how can it not be? All those musicians in the Mount Peyton hotel …” Up for two industry awards himself, Lyle Drake, owner of Avondale Music Ltd. says he’ll be heading out to Grand Falls-Windsor to “see what’s going on, take in all the festivities, and hopefully see some nice new exciting acts.” While Drake’s business focus is traditional music like nominees Shanneyganock and the Cormiers, his label also supported the 8 Track Favourites and Jason Greeley — meaning he’s got

Kathy Phippard, up for two awards

some interest in virtually every award category. “More than anything else, I go out to support the industry at this stage of the game … being one of the people in the industry that’s been around for a while and supports as many artists as we can through the activities we do. “That’s mostly what the weekend is to me — to show support, keep in touch with people, keep those relationships going.” MusicNL executive held a press conference last week to launch their new name, logo and website. President John Hutton also announced a new member resource centre — including a computer station, music and book library — and a sound recording initiative, which will offer funding assistance to artists from a starting pot of $40,000. “We give back over 40 million in GDP of the province. We do contribute

a lot to the economy in the island and Labrador,” Hutton says, excited to be able to lead into the 2005 conference with a new look, new T-shirts — and new money. Gearing up for the weekend ahead, Larry Foley says even though he’s been to a number of music industry gatherings, it’s “absolutely” still fun. “I mean, crusty old musicians go ‘Oh God, this that the other thing about awards and conventions,’” says Foley. “But no matter what level these things are, if it motivates someone to get their act together to do something, that’s a good thing. “It’s nice the community salutes its own, I think that’s key in any walk of life or any discipline but for those who haven’t arrived yet, it’s a good thing to know there’s something to be part of. “It keeps the wheels of the machine moving, that’s probably the most important aspect of it.”

OCTOBER 30, 2005

22 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

A chef, a cheat and his dinner M

y wife is constantly asked, “What does your husband do?” To which she replies, “Oh, he’s a chef.” The eyebrows generally raise and the excitement in the voice quickens, “Oh, you are so lucky, you must eat well!” Truth be told, we do eat well, and I have to do the dishes too. However, to eat well without spending all my time in the kitchen, I will let you in on a little secret of the cheffing world — are you ready? Cooks cheat. “Cheat at what?” you might ask. A cook cheats in the way that a magician cheats: the audience believes the bunny rabbit was never up his sleeve at all. Cooks in restaurants cheat because the cheating works and they can get away with it. An unhappy customer who sends back food could indicate that a whole table worth of food should be re-done. That little hiccup, on a very busy night,

NICHOLAS GARDNER Off the eating path could ruin the flow of service. A few cheats will prevent a crisis. The French have a saying, “an ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins.” How many times have you eaten in a restaurant and seen that one person in your party of four has a bit of extra sauce on an otherwise well-planned plate? It’s a diversion. The beef or other type of meat has possibly dried out a little or has been cooked to just the wrong side of perfection. The cook adds a little more sauce to the plate to make it look luxurious and tosses on that tall, pokeyou-in-the-eye garnish to wow you, and presto, the sleight is made. You might notice the food is a bit overdone, but

who cares? There’s sauce to mop up and it tastes so good. Not all restaurants do this. In fact, I worked at one restaurant where an over cooked steak landed the grillardain (grill chef) a one-week vacation — without pay. Perfection is the only acceptable standard for any high-end restaurant. That being said, I’m not perfect in the kitchen. I have made my fair share of mistakes, but every mistake I made, I fixed. This is where cheats become a handy tool in a cook’s arsenal. I cheat in my home kitchen. I cheat because I know the end result tastes like it wasn’t a cheat at all. So, with that confession, I give you some of my home cheats. One pre-packaged box of macaroni and cheese — as simple as it sounds — can be the first step in creating a gourmet meal. The little box holds 4 servings of pasta (really child size). Cook pasta,

add your own sauce (admittedly, the flavor of powdered cheese product is sometimes a heart-warming thing), toss in lots of sautéed garlic and vegetables, top with freshly grated parmesan and a few leaves of fresh basil, and you have a meal in 10 minutes. Fresh frozen vegetables — I clean and blanch fresh vegetables in boiling water and then freeze them in portioned bags. Feeling like a lazy man, I pull one out a few days later and toss it into a sauté pan — no cutting, no mess. One container of low-fat sour cream — a cream sauce taste with half the fat and half the time to reduce as there is less water content than a full-cream sauce. And finally, a jar or two of curry pastes — I won’t proselytize the merits of a good curry, but a good curry is a beautiful, beautiful thing. I have a good spice collection and I am able to blend the coriander, curry powder, pepper,

turmeric and other lovelies into the right proportions but sometimes letting someone else do the work for me is like going out to eat. I have one last cheat for you, one to dazzle your next dinner guests. Take that empty sour cream container used in that cream sauce, and cut out the bottom and place in the centre of a nice dinner plate. Place your starch of choice (mashed potatoes, rice) inside, pack it down lightly and remove the container. Place your freshly cooked chicken breast on top at an angle. Place vegetables around and drizzle on your new sauce over the chicken. Garnish with a thyme or chive sprig. What looks great, tastes great. The worry is over — now if only I could get someone to do the dishes for me. Nicholas Gardner is an erstwhile chef and current food writer now eating in St. John’s.

‘The door’s open’ From page 17 sound-proof isolation booth. With his love for music — particularly jazz — Hollett admits people often ask him why he’s never put out his own record. “Don’t ask me why,” he says with a laugh. “I wouldn’t know what to do. Would I do a Cajun accordion record or would I do a jazz saxophone record? You can’t put it all on the one CD I suppose. I’d probably be drawn to something that would make me the least amount of money.” Hollett mentions a certain desire to record a jazz trio album with piano, bass and drum, but quickly adds “a million people have done that. “But I think I’d like to do it because it might be somewhat different to everyone else’s …” he muses. From an early age, Hollett says he started to play accordion by imitating his parents, who are from Newfoundland, but moved to Ontario shortly after he was born. Intrigued by the wistful stories he heard about the province, Hollett decided to rediscover his roots and headed back to Newfoundland in his early 20s. He got involved in the local music scene, married a local girl and decided to stay put. Hollett clearly has a strong respect for the provincial music industry. He calls some of the talent he sees “groundbreaking” and expresses a certain level of frustration at the lack of national media attention given to provincial artists, particularly when east coasters have had so much success of late.

New Glasgow, N.S. singer/songwriter J.D. Fortune recently won the international reality T.V. show Rock Star: INXS and Newfoundlander Rex Goudie came within a hair’s breath of winning Canadian Idol. Hollett says he knows of some local artists who have already applied for the second season of Rock Star (which is rumoured to be looking for a replacement lead singer for Van Halen) and says, “They’ve got all that it takes. “People come down here and they’re so amazed at what they see and hear … the diversity and the excellence that’s coming out of here.” But marketing can be tough in a province where artists generally represent themselves. “We’ve reached the production level and we’ve reached the musical level, so now people in the business community need to take note. “I think the door’s open for anyone who wants to jump in there.” Despite his appreciation of the local music scene, he does have one pet peeve, which coming from a record producer may seem a little unusual: “The noise pollution that’s around … you go down to the George Street Festival and walk by, what are you going to hear? You’re not going to be able to talk that’s for sure … nowadays the speakers and the technology’s getting so good, so much better, so much louder that the sound engineers are still putting everything up on bust. “I don’t mind it getting loud when there’s a certain dynamic reason for it to get loud, but to start out loud, where have you got to go?”

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Shades of Black movie st in Hamilton Ontario.

Rick Eglinton/Toronto Star

Becoming Black

t’s lunchtime and Conrad Black has made a modest meal of beef stroganoff, rice and salad before rising majestically from the table. “Right,” he booms to all within earshot, “I’m now ready to meet the maggots of the media.” It’s not the real Lord Black of Crossharbour, but certainly a more than reasonable facsimile thereof. We are in downtown Hamilton, in the old-world Hamilton Club where stern oil paintings hang on the walls, impassive witnesses to the organized mayhem that is a movie set. The movie in question is Shades of Black, about the embattled former chairman of Hollinger International, who stepped down in 2003 after allegations that he had misappropriated funds. The CTV movie stars Toronto actor Albert Schultz as the Crossharbour Kid himself and Vancouver’s Jason Priestley

(Beverley Hills 90210) as a investigator posing as a newspaper reporter. Schultz, 43, plays Black from ages 28 to 61. This afternoon’s scenes feature the older Black, and hairdresser Sandy Sokolowski has meticulously applied grey streaks to Schultz’s hair and added a pair of caterpillar eyebrows before handing Schultz over to makeup artist Linda McCormack, who is using latex to create folds on Schultz’s eyelids and enlarging a fake mole on his right temple. Slender Hollywood starlet Lara Flynn Boyle, who plays Barbara Amiel, Black’s second wife, is expected on set in the next day or so, but she and Schultz have already shot scenes in London, England. “She’s a hoot,” he says, bemoaning the fact the 35-year-old doesn’t have to spend the one hour-plus in makeup that he does. “Look at Barbara today: she doesn’t age.” Later, the affable, media-friendly Schultz reveals it was charm that won him the role. The public image of Black may be of an aggressive man, but the private man is different. “Ivan Fecan (CEO of Bell Globemedia, which owns CTV), told me the reason he wanted me to do the role was because of the charm I could bring to it,” Schultz says. “He knows Black and says he is an extremely charming and likeable guy.” Schultz describes the movie as an epic story about a man who defies the stereotypical image of the modest, retiring Canadian. “He stands out because of his hubris, his arrogance, his accomplishments.” His task, is to convey the complexity of the man, the shades of light and dark that make up “a very complicated individual who just happens to live on a very grand scale.” Schultz is not attempting to mimic Black —”I am not Rich Little nor do I want to be” — but Priestley still feels Schultz has caught the man precisely. “To me, he is Conrad Black and when I see real pictures of Conrad Black, I go, ‘Who’s that guy?’ He really has embodied the role,” says Priestley. As we leave the set, Schultz and Priestley are rehearsing the final scene of the day: “This is typical of second-rate journalists,” Schultz roars at Priestley’s character. “I don’t care to tell the media what to write, but I do ask them to think for themselves.” Fade to Black. — Torstar wire service

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2005 — PAGE 23

‘No-court’ divorce By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

amily lawyers in Newfoundland and Labrador may soon have some mental and financial relief to offer clients going through divorce. St. John’s Lawyer Shelley Bryant is encouraging a practice known as collaborative family law, or “no-court divorce,” within the province’s legal system. The process is designed to cut costs, time and emotional stress during divorce proceedings by using nonadversarial collaboration between clients. Both parties make an agreement not to go to court and final decisions are ultimately made by the clients themselves, with neutral help from lawyers, financial advisors, counsellors and child specialists where needed. Newfoundland and Labrador is the last province in Canada to adopt collaborative family law, which was created in the 1990s by a divorce lawyer in Minneapolis. Bryant is currently organizing a training session for lawyers, counsellors, therapists, social workers and financial specialists in the province, which will take place on Nov. 28 and 29 at the law society building in downtown St. John’s. “I’m trying to move the initiative forward,” she tells The Independent. “Over the years I’ve spoken with a number of family law practitioners about collaborative family law, trying to get an idea of the level of interest and it’s very high.” Bryant recently left a larger, local firm to set up her own practice and she says she hopes to use the collaborative approach — which she first came across at a conference in Kelowna, B.C. in 2002 — in all her future family law files. She acknowledges how frustrating traditional divorce litigation can be for both lawyers and clients — who have the additional stress of expense. “It’s exhausting, it’s emotionally draining for everybody and as a practice, something that you do day in and day out, it gets very difficult.” By introducing counsellors — either financial, mental or both — to divorce proceedings, Bryant says couples end up saving more money by the hour and speed up the process of reaching a resolution. “Right now lawyers are called upon to act as therapists, in divorce, in separation, that need for therapy, the lawyer gets asked to fill that role,” she says. “We’re not trained in it; we can’t deliver that service in the way that a therapist can and it’s more expensive for a lawyer to act as a therapist.” One of the major differences between the collaborative approach and tradition-

al divorce proceedings is the removal of the threat of having to go to court. Instead, clients work to reach a resolution without any litigation and get to negotiate on their own terms. “They’re brokering the deal themselves, with the assistance of professionals,” says Bryant. “There’s all kinds of things in relationships, give or takes and factors that nobody knows other than the two people who are in that relationship.” She adds the process, which promotes a certain level of mutual respect, is particularly important when dealing with children and issues of custody and spousal support. Statistics collected over the years show the average collaborative family law divorce lasts between two and four months and costs between $2,500 and $5,000 — roughly a tenth of the cost of a traditional divorce that goes through the courts. If at any point during the collaborative process couples decide they can’t reach a resolution and insist on going to court, both representing lawyers must withdraw and the file is given to a litigation lawyer. Bryant says failure to reach a resolution when using collaborative family law is uncommon. She adds the process has proven hugely popular with both clients and lawyers, even though the latter stand to make less money per individual file. She says it will give another option to those people who fall just short of claiming legal aid and don’t want to risk the potential high costs of obtaining professional representation. “Right now in Unified Family Court, over 50 per cent of litigants are unrepresented … I think there are a lot of potential clients who if they felt that they were in control of the process, that it was going to take a lot less time, they were going to be making the decisions and not the judges and it was going to cost a reasonable fee to get a good service … I think that they would be more inclined to take that. My belief is that lawyers may have more clients at less overall income per file.” She says legal aid, — which is often over burdened with divorce cases — has also expressed an interest in the new approach. Bryant says using the collaborative process will improve her job as a family lawyer and she predicts more lawyers may turn to specializing in family cases. “I’m really excited about it. I think it will be enjoyable work … it being socially valuable in the big picture, in terms of being productive. “I think there’s more lawyers who’d be inclined to practice family law in this way. I think people shy away from it because it’s gut wrenching and exhausting.”

Collaborative family law could cut cost of splitting up by thousands

VLT revenues down 20 per cent; Atlantic Lotto says smoking ban not solely to blame — oil prices, Internet also having impact By Darcy MacRae The Independent

he number of video lottery terminals (VLTs) in the province is up slightly from one year ago, but revenues from the machines are down close to 20 per cent, says an official with the Atlantic Lottery Corporation. While the head of the Beverage Industry Association of Newfoundland says the decrease in profits is a direct

result of the smoking ban, an official with Atlantic Lotto says blame can be shared. As of Oct. 22, there were 2,667 VLTs operating in Newfoundland and Labrador — up 20 from the same time last year. At the same time, revenues from VLTs are down 18.7 per cent from last year. Robert Bourgeois, spokesman for Atlantic Lotto, says the smoking ban, which came into effect July 1, has had an impact on VLT revenues, but he

insists it is not the only reason for falling profits. “While the smoking ban would be one of the reasons for that, we’re not convinced it’s the only reason,” Bourgeois tells The Independent. “If you compare to a year ago and look at things like Texas hold’em poker, things like gaming on the Internet — the growth there in terms of the gaming dollar — there’s definitely more competition for the gaming dollar than there was in the past.”

Some of the alternatives to VLTs — mainly Internet gambling — are of concern to the corporation, says Bourgeois. He points out that many online games do not feature the same safeguards and regulations as those provided by Atlantic Lotto. “It is a concern to us because some of it, especially the stuff on the Internet, is unregulated,” Bourgeois says. “It’s actually money that’s leaving the region. We provide a form of regulated gaming and all of the revenue is

Continued on page 24

Simply fill out this form and mail to Walter Andrews, 5 Dartmouth Place St. John’s, NL, A1B 2W1

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returned to the provinces. Whereas a lot of the money involved with Internet gaming is just leaving the region. “For the system we have (Internet gaming), you have to prove that you are who you say you are and that you’re of age. We have systems in place to do that, but I’m sure the protection is not the same for these other sites — not only for age but just in terms of responsible gaming.”

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Authored by Walter Andrews and Illustrated by Boyd Chubbs • Where Once They Stood is a unique Newfoundland & Labrador chronology presented as a beautiful poster. • An accumulation and cataloguing of our history and cultural development, the material is presented in a continuum of time from the ice age to the Twentieth Century, supplemented by sidebars of interesting information and statistics. • The poster is of significant interest and informative to history buffs (young & old), tourists, expatriates, cultural supporters, education developers, tourist operators and the general public. Poster measures 2’ x 3’.

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24 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

OCTOBER 30, 2005

Canadians linked to oil kickbacks Come By Chance refinery processed Iraqi oil when country was levying illegal surcharges By Olivia Ward Torstar wire service

iplomats, politicians, businessmen, officials, and even a Vatican priest, have been caught in a sandstorm of scandal from the probe of the Iraq oil-for-food program. A U.N. committee report charges that about 2,200 companies worldwide put more than $1.8 billion (U.S.) into the pockets of Saddam Hussein’s government. Russia and France were hardest hit by accusations of bribery and kickbacks, levelled by the U.N.-appointed Independent Inquiry Committee led by former US Treasury Secretary Paul Volcker. But in its final report released yesterday, the committee also spotlights a handful of Canadians: • It alleges that a consultant for Maloney Industries of Calgary, now Hanover Canada Corporation, transferred more than $100,000 (US) to a Jordanian bank known as a conduit for kickbacks. The committee said the amount wired was the same as a sum Maloney claimed as the cost of sending Canadian experts to set up and supervise the equipment in Iraq. But Volcker concluded there was no evidence Maloney was aware its nature, and an executive of its Houston-based parent company Hanover Compressor, Rick Goins, said “neither Hanover, nor Maloney, nor its employees or officers was aware of bribes or kickbacks.” • The report says Dr. Hamid Majid, the Calgary-based consultant, admit-

Come By Chance refinery

ted he had wired Maloney money to the bank, but said it was for “commissioning and start-up” and denied knowing that the account in Jordan was controlled by Iraqis. • The oil-for-food program was to

Paul Daly/The Independent

ease poverty after sanctions were imposed on Saddam’s regime. Iraq was allowed to sell some oil in order to import humanitarian goods, but subverted the plan with bribes and “surcharges.”

• The report alleges that a French consultant, Serge Boidevaix, helped the Swiss company Vitol to obtain Iraqi oil at a time when he knew Iraq was levying illegal surcharges. Vitol, which owns a refinery at Come By

Chance, Nfld., has said some of the oil it bought from Iraq was refined there. But the company, and Boidevaix, have denied wrongdoing, and Vitol eventually cut off its business with Iraq.

Ontario imports Manitoba power By Naomi Carniol Torstar wire service

nergy-strapped Ontario signed a six-year, $500 million deal last week to import hydro

power from Manitoba. By 2009, Manitoba will send Ontario enough energy to power 250,000 homes annually. Ontario, which will start by buying 150 megawatts next year, also agreed

to pay half the estimated $120 million to $160 million cost to upgrade transmission lines to accommodate the increased flow of power. Ontario is scheduled to close the last of four coal-fired power plants in 2009. Government officials praised the deal, saying it brings Ontario residents a cleaner source of fuel. However, some critics worry about the consequences the deal might have for First Nations communities. The deal announced last week is the first of two phases to import hydroelectricity from Manitoba. Upgrades to the lines will likely be finished by 2009. The lines will then have the capacity to transfer 400 megawatts to Ontario. On a peak day in the summer or winter, the province consumes about 25,000 megawatts. The second phase of the deal, which

is still under discussion, involves constructing the 1,250-megawatt Conawapa generating station in northern Manitoba. DAM PLAN COLLAPSED Plans to build the dam began in the 1980s, but fell apart in the early 1990s. In 2003, the two provinces embarked on a feasibility study on the project. The study was completed last year. The Conawapa dam, which could be complete by 2015, would deliver 1,500 megawatts over a new transmission line. The line’s location has yet to be determined, says Riva Harrison, a spokesperson for the government of Manitoba. And the dam will have almost no flooding, Harrison says. “These are not the dams of yesteryear that flooded mile after mile and caused damage to

the surroundings.” But phase two won’t be cheap. The transmission line alone will cost at least $1.5 billion while the dam will cost a minimum of $3.4 billion, Harrison says. Some believe that’s a low estimate. A Winnipeg Free Press report said the project will cost closer to $8 billion. Officials from both provinces said yesterday’s deal benefits the environment. It is “one of the single largest greenhouse gas-reduction initiatives in Canada, equal to removing 500,000 vehicles from city streets,” Manitoba Energy Minister Dave Chomiak says. Ontario also hopes to import electricity from other provinces. In March, the government put in a joint bid with Hydro-Québec and SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. to develop two hydroelectric projects in Labrador.

VLT revenues impacted From page 23 There are still more factors contributing to the decrease of VLT revenues besides competition for gaming dollars. “Even the price of gasoline, the price of oil, would have an effect — although it would be smaller,” says Bourgeois. “People need to spend more money on gasoline and there is less money for entertainment and gaming is a form of entertainment.” Marcel Etheridge, president of the Beverage Industry Association of Newfoundland and owner of the Captain’s Pub and Captain’s Quarters hotel, disagrees with Bourgeois’ num-

bers. He says VLT revenues are down more than the Atlantic Lottery Corp. is letting on. “I think they’re wrong — it’s down more than 20 per cent,” Etheridge says. “It’s more like 25-30 per cent.” Etheridge also disagrees that gaming alternatives and the rise in gasoline prices are having major impacts on VLT revenues. He says the answer is simple. “Smoking ban — it not only affects the VLTs, it affects all revenues,” Etheridge says. “Bar sales, pool table sales, juke box sales, miscellaneous sales. Everything that goes on in a bar. The number of people has dropped off

drastically.” Since 1995 provincial revenues from gambling activities have increased over 56 per cent from $69.2 million eight years ago to $108 million in 2004. The majority of sanctioned gambling within the province is managed by Atlantic Lotto, which is jointly owned by the governments of the four Atlantic provinces. According to the corporation, since commencing operations in 1976 it has paid the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador $1.132 billion. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

OCTOBER 30, 2005

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 25

Mike Cassese/Reuters

‘Dignity and respect’ Up to 150 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians walk picket line outside Alberta beef plant; no sign of end By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

heir marriage isn’t a month old and Burin natives Craig and April Hiscock are standing on opposite sides of a picket line at the Lakeside Meat-Packing Plant in Brooks, Alta. Craig Hiscock has been a mechanic on the production floor of the slaughterhouse for nine years. His wife April, an invoicing clerk with the company, was classified management support when the strike began Oct. 12. Hiscock tells The Independent his wife hasn’t complained about problems crossing the lines. Rather, April complains about the slow work days as more than 2,300 workers — an estimated 100 to 150 of whom are from Newfoundland and Labrador — walk picket lines outside. “A little hassling, but not too bad. They don’t have much choice,” Hiscock says of his wife and the other Newfoundlanders forced to cross the picket lines. “I bet there’s not a whole lot of Newfoundlanders crossing over the picket line. There’s a few but not a whole lot.” When asked if any of his family work in the plant, Burin-native Ruben Mayo responds, “No, it’s only me and thank God for that.” Living in Brooks, Alta. for eight years, Mayo works as an electrician in the slaughterhouse’s maintenance

department. “If any other member of my family were working in the plant chances are they would be on the production line,” Mayo says, adding that’s a terrifying thought. Mayo, shop steward for the United Food and Commercial Workers’ union, says the strike comes down to two issues. “We’re looking for dignity and respect for the people,” he says. “We’ve got people from time to time who have been refused to use the washroom and they have urinated themselves on the (production) line. “We got people in there if you get hurt … they don’t want you to go see a doctor because once you see a doctor there’s a possibility you’re going to look for (workers compensation) …and once that happens they’re really, really unhappy with you.” Negotiations between the union and Tyson Foods are stalled. Mayo says the strike isn’t about money, while company spokesmen say it is. Gary Mickelson, spokesman for Arkansas-based Tyson Foods, which owns the meat-packing plant, says stories of unfair work practices are simply “rhetoric” and “sensationalized claims” shared with the media as a union strategy. “We do everything we can to treat our team members fairly. While no company is perfect, we value our team members,” Mickelson says. “We work hard to make sure that we treat our

workers fairly.” The company regularly recruits workers from other provinces — especially those with high unemployment rates — which accounts for the high number of Atlantic Canadians and immigrants walking the picket lines, says Mickelson. Mayo says the recruiting done by the company is deliberately focused on low-income people living nowhere near the plant. “They hired very, very few people from this area because the people in Alberta know what type of company this is,” Mayo says. “They go to every other province and every other country who don’t know what Tyson is about. “The company cares more for the beef than they do the human being because if a human being happens to slip on a bit of beef or whatever and fall to the floor they just pick you up, but if a piece of beef falls to the floor they stops the line.” For now, Hiscock stands around a camper on the picket lines with his other buddies from “back home” as they cook supper. Despite his homesickness for family and saltwater and his battle against a giant corporation, Hiscock says Alberta can’t be beat when it comes to providing a future for his wife and young son. “Alberta — it’s the land of opportunity here. It’s one of the best provinces in Canada as far as I’m concerned for opportunity and work.”

26 • INDEPENDENT SPECIAL SECTION

OCTOBER 30, 2005

INDEPENDENT SPECIAL SECTION • 27

AD #: 200510-1223 CB

Employment Opportunity

Executive Director Ad #: 200510-1184 St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales, which was ranked as the # 1 law firm in Atlantic Canada in a recent survey conducted for Canadian Lawyer magazine, has more than 210 lawyers and 300 support staff throughout the region. Our St. John’s office, with 34 lawyers and 34 support staff, is seeking to fill the newly created position of Executive Director. The position entails responsibility for the office’s overall administration, including finance, information technology, human resources and facilities management. The role of Executive Director will involve participation in both local strategic planning and marketing efforts. The successful candidate will be a CA or CMA who possesses strong relationship, problem-solving and planning skills. He or she will have a high energy level and will be a hands on type person who is comfortable in a multitasking environment. Prior experience as an administrator of a law firm is preferred, but not required. Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales offers a challenging and progressive environment and the successful candidate will be rewarded with an appropriate compensation package. If you feel you meet or exceed our requirements, please reply in confidence with a detailed curriculum vitae and references via fax, mail or e-mail by October 31, 2005 to: Lewis Andrews, Q.C. Managing Partner Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales P.O. Box 5038, St. John’s NL A1C 5V3 Fax: (709) 722-4565 E-mail: landrews@smss.com No telephone inquiries please. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

When results count.

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28 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

OCTOBER 30, 2005

WEEKLY DIVERSIONS ACROSS 1 Gripped 5 Hurry 9 Almost too articulate 13 Coiffure with height 17 Pelvic bones 18 Machu Picchu builders 19 Inadvisable action 20 German Mrs. 21 Singer Arden 22 “Cinnamon ___” (Neil Young) 23 Tip (Fr.) 25 Enjoyed to the max 27 Post-shower sprinkle 29 Japanese flavouring 30 These (Fr.) 31 Mattress denizen 33 Terry Fox’s hometown: ___ Coquitlam, B.C. 35 Sock end 36 Ont. summer time 37 Guesses wrong 39 Small overflow dam 41 Under: prefix 43 Chasing game 46 A Levesque 48 Give off 50 Aesop output 54 India tourist stop 56 Brief deviation from a straight course 57 Where to find algae 59 Ripped 60 Harvests 62 Home town of Columbus

65 Canadian city flooded by Hurricane Hazel (1954) 67 Winnie the ___ 69 Country lodging 70 To, to Teutons 71 Like some flights 74 Inuit hooded shirt 77 Stealing 80 Help hoods 81 Singer born in Consort, Alta. 83 Strike-caller, for short 85 French currency, now 86 A Bishop 88 Jump 90 Land behind the house 92 Outer edge 93 Continental abbr. 95 Quiz option 97 Dry: prefix 99 Eggs 102 N. Zealand parrot 104 Farm unit 106 Actress Molly (“Kissed”) 110 Salt (Fr.) 111 Norse god 113 Edible seaweed 115 Sesame plant 116 Relating to the skin 119 “TrËs ___, monsieur!” 121 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 122 Stratford’s river

Solutions on page 29

123 She (Fr.) 124 Secondhand 125 Above 126 “Let the ___ of the world ...” 127 Non-metric road unit 128 Dispatched 129 Roman fiddler DOWN 1 Scarf or veil worn by Muslim women 2 Make joyful 3 Like office notepads 4 Second longest river in Europe 5 Oil drilling apparatus 6 Apartment 7 Quarrel 8 Make holy 9 Econ. indicator 10 Be in the offing 11 Northern People 12 He made “The Grey Fox” 13 Alien craft 14 Cost 15 Ventured 16 West in Brest 24 Quebec beef 26 Siamese sound 28 Indigenous language 32 ___ Cup 34 Kettledrums 38 Hose mishap 40 Carnival city 42 Historic site of last battle in Northwest

Rebellion (1985) 43 Road surfacing 44 Sit in the cellar, maybe 45 Small anchor 47 Wool coat wearer 49 Great leveller? 51 Happiness in Honfleur 52 Light Rapid Transit 53 Musician Brian ___ 55 Last Supper guest 58 Actor McKellar (“The Red Violin”) 61 Drunkard 63 Famous falls 64 Man. neighbour 66 Maze runner 68 Whole: comb. form 71 Catch 72 Japanese belt 73 Chum 75 A Vanderhaeghe 76 Giant film technology 78 Part of TGIF 79 Actor/singer Jackson 82 Court divider 84 Get ready for the OR 87 Where to find the Dempster highway 89 The ref drops it 91 Colourless 94 Buy back 96 Long-lost ship of Arctic explorer John Franklin 98 West-coast state 99 Peterson of jazz

100 French widow 101 Some clarinets 103 Garlic mayonnaise 105 Beethoven wrote

“f¸r” her 107 “The ___ of hearts, he stole ...” 108 Go into

109 Backward-looking style 112 Void 114 Hammer part

117 Hill insect 118 Notice 120 Summer time in St. John’s

WEEKLY STARS ARIES - MAR 21/APR 20 This could be one of those weeks where you have a lot of nervous energy but don't know just how to put it to use. Try exercising to reduce feelings of anxiety.

LEO - JUL 23/AUG 23 Check your bank balance a little more frequently this week, Leo. A financial faux pas may leave you with less cash than you had expected in your account.

TAURUS - APR 21/MAY 21 You have big plans for your future, but haven't yet begun to execute them, Taurus. Use this week to mull over your goals and write down a firm plan of attack.

VIRGO - AUG 24/SEPT 22 If you want to enjoy the most from the week, Virgo, let a special partner take the lead. Being in charge of planning activities all the time can be draining. Leave it to another.

GEMINI - MAY 22/JUN 21 An idea that's been buzzing in your head will sound pretty advantageous to higher-ups at work, Gemini. Expect winning reactions from them, but looks of jealousy from co-workers. CANCER - JUN 22/JUL 22 A fascinating conversation is at the heart of your week, Cancer. It will bring resolution to the conflict you've been facing lately. Just don't celebrate too soon.

LIBRA - SEPT 23/OCT 23 This is a perfect time to clean out the clutter that has been accumulating in your home or office. Dig through the mess and get your stuff in order before it invades your life. SCORPIO - OCT 24/NOV 22 You need to find a way to enjoy yourself now that there is so much work on your plate, Scorpio. A vacation or at least a few days

away from the job are in order. SAGITTARIUS - NOV 23/DEC 21 You're feeling in the mood to decorate, Sagittarius, or take on a home-remodeling project. Enlist a few helping hands or the job could become unmanageable. CAPRICORN - DEC 22/JAN 20 As a hard-working Capricorn it comes as no surprise that dedication is the way to tackle tasks. Yet, even the most stoic go-getters need a break once in a while. Enjoy it. AQUARIUS - JAN 21/FEB 18 A financial gain makes spending on big-ticket items that more doable, Aquarius. Just be sure not to go overboard, or else you'll be digging yourself out of quicksand. PISCES - FEB 19/MAR20 You will have tons of energy this week, Pisces, and you can direct it

in any way you'd like. Spend some time with a loved one. FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS OCTOBER 30 Gavin Rossdale, singer (38) OCTOBER 31 Vanilla Ice, singer (38) NOVEMBER 1 Jenny McCarthy, actress (33) NOVEMBER 2 K.D. Lang, singer (44) NOVEMBER 3 Roseanne, actress (53) NOVEMBER 4 Sean Combs, singer (33) NOVEMBER 5 Shakira, ssinger (23)

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 29

OCTOBER 30, 2005

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 29

‘Getting caught up in the night life’ From page 30 Hayward does not see his comeback as a one- or two-fight return. He wants to box professionally for at least three or four years, and possibly longer if everything goes well. He says he has to put a winning streak together of five or six fights before the boxing world will start to notice him again. Should he succeed, Hayward thinks he’ll be in position to challenge for the Canadian bantamweight championship, a title currently held by Steve Molitor of Ontario. “With the way boxing works, you can work your way up pretty quick,” Hayward says. “You have to keep winning fights. The better your record is,

Ryan Mior at Mile One in St. John’s.

Paul Daly/The Independent

Mior’s time has come By Darcy MacRae The Independent

yan Mior has paid his dues. After two years of proving himself as a backup goalie in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, the St. John’s native was finally given the chance this season to carry the load as the PEI Rocket’s No. 1 netminder. And the results thus far have been outstanding. “He’s consistent, and is being a leader for us,” Yanick Jean, head coach of the Rocket, tells The Independent. “I can’t ask for anything more. If I didn’t have him, this hockey team might only have two or three wins.” Mior used his two years as an understudy to help develop his game at the major junior level, but now is at a point in his career where he needs to be a starting goalie in order to further his development. Judging by the way he played when the Rocket visited the St. John’s Fog Devils on Oct. 21 and 22, Mior is indeed ready for the challenges of being a team’s starting goaltender. “All I can do is just laugh right now,” Jean said moments after Mior made 36 saves in a 3-2 Rocket win on Oct. 21, a contest in which the 18year-old was named the game’s first star. “It’s just amazing the way he’s playing. If I was an NHL scout, I’d take a good look at him.” Mior was nothing short of outstanding in the 3-2 win, making several highlight reel saves. Fans were left wondering how Mior could be beat after he slid across the crease and kicked out a one-timer from Sebastien Bernier in the first period. Later in the third he snapped an Olivier Guilbault wrist shot out of the air with a glove save just as it appeared the puck was destined for the top left-hand corner of the net. When he was announced as the game’s first star, those still in their seats were quick to show their support for the hometown boy, regardless of which team he played on. The gesture brought a smile to Mior’s face.

St. John’s native excels as starting goalie for PEI Rocket; New York Rangers have eye on him “It meant a lot to come back,” Mior says. “It was a great time to come back and play in such a good building with a lot of good fans.” The fact is Mior has a lot to smile about these days. His save percentage of .919 is the fifth best in the Q, with three of the goalies ahead of him having played less than five games (Mior has played in 12). His play has also put him on the radar screens of NHL scouts. But as far as Mior is concerned, the most important thing is he’s playing almost every game for the Rocket. “It’s a big relief going into the games knowing you’re going to play and knowing you’re the guy they’re going to depend on to get the win,” says Mior. “It’s better than always having to wonder ‘Am I going to play?’” As far as the NHL draft goes, Mior

“If I didn’t have him, this hockey team might only have two or three wins.” Rocket head coach Yanick Jean was first eligible back in June, but did not get selected. He can still be picked up this year, although he says it’s not an issue he spends a lot of time thinking about. “As long as you’re playing well the NHL and the draft will take care of itself,” Mior says. Although he wasn’t drafted this year, Mior did receive an invitation to attend the New York Rangers training

camp. The Rangers did not offer Mior a contract, but expressed enough interest to indicate they may be looking for his name once the 2006 NHL draft comes around. Even if the Rangers never give him a second look, Mior says taking part in the team’s training camp was a “great experience. “It’s an unbelievable city — a lot different than where I come from. Just the way the players are treated — what they get, the facilities they train in — is just amazing.” Mior has unquestionably come a long way from the 16-year-old rookie who made his debut with the Rocket in 2003. But making the transition from raw prospect to established junior hockey veteran has not been easy. Mior says he took advantage of advice from coaches and teammates and found he had to work his butt off on and off the ice — which meant training with more intensity than he ever had before. “Sometimes it’s harder when you’re younger. You’re expected to be the hardest worker on the ice, and coming into the league I didn’t know what it was to work hard. You have to watch the older guys and learn from them,” says Mior. “Playing under some good coaches (Jean this season and former Montreal Canadiens’ coach Alain Vigneault the two previous years) really helped me a lot.” Mior says his main concern these days is helping the Rocket secure a playoff position. His efforts between the pipes will surely play a big role in helping the Rocket fight off challenges from teams such as the Fog Devils and Saint John Sea Dogs for the seventh and final post-season berth in the Q’s Eastern Division. Like the Fog Devils and Sea Dogs, Mior says the Rocket will have to dig deep and produce their best effort every night if they want to be successful. “Nothing is going to be easy for us,” he says. “We’re going to have to work hard every game and fight for everything we get.” darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

the more calls you’re going to get to fight. Once you get your name, you get ranked. Then you can challenge a guy who has a title.” It may be premature to talk about winning championships just a week before your first fight in two years, but Hayward has little choice. At 28, he needs to start getting wins under his belt. Considering the force he once was in Canadian boxing, climbing back to the top in a short period of time isn’t out of the question. “That’s our long-term goal, but it’s not that far away,” says Hayward. “I think within a year, a year and a half, I could be fighting for the Canadian title.” darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

Mighty struggle From page 32 who held their breath every time Al MacInnis wound up in anticipation of a twine-bulging howitzer. I think Cherry knows this. I think he is well aware of how much better today’s game is than any other version of hockey offered by the NHL in quite some time. But when the game has passed you by and you are more of a circus show than a hockey analyst, you have to say something that catches people’s attention, don’t you? Thinking his negativity comes across as intelligence, Cherry is critical of today’s NHL because he hopes it will make him seem smarter than all the other fans who love it. But like the times he’s called visor-wearing players chickens, referred to Europeans as cowards or called Sidney Crosby a hotdog, Cherry has once again come off as little more than a washed-up coach with a big mouth. Solution for crossword on page 28

EJOV’S CHANCE TO SHINE Much has been made of Fog Devils’ goalie Brandon Verge coming down with mononucleosis. And for good reason — the 20-year-old has been the team’s best player thus far. Having said that, it should be fun to see how backup goalie Ilya Ejov fares in Verge’s absence. Ejov is a talented goalie, no doubt, but earlier this year he struggled mightily. My guess is he is not accustomed to sitting on the bench for long stretches of time between starts, so it is taking some time for him to get used to his new role. Judging by the way he played in the team’s 4-2 win over the PEI Rocket at Mile One on Oct. 22, Ejov is indeed quite capable of making an impact at the major junior level. The more he plays, the better he will be, and the more likely the Fog Devils will make the playoffs. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca Solution for crossword on page 28

30 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS

OCTOBER 30, 2005

OF THE

DEVIL WEEK DEVIL STATS

Luke Gallant, defence

NAME Scott Brophy Luke Gallant Oscar Sundh Marty Doyle Nicolas Bachand Matt Fillier Pier-Alexandre Poulin Wesley Welcher Brett Beauchamp Sebastien Bernier Anthony Pototschnik Maxime Langlier-Parent Pat O’Keefe Olivier Guilbault Philippe Cote Zack Firlotte Jean-Simon Allard Matt Boland Josh MacKinnon Kyle Stanley Steve Tilley

POS. C D LW RW RW LW C C D D RW LW D RW RW D C D D D RW

# 12 6 10 43 23 27 18 14 2 44 24 16 11 21 22 5 4 26 8 3 25

GP 11 15 10 15 14 15 15 15 14 14 11 13 8 15 14 15 15 5 10 12 14

G 6 3 2 2 6 3 4 3 2 1 4 3 0 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0

A 7 9 10 7 2 5 3 4 4 5 0 1 4 1 2 2 2 0 0 0 0

GOALTENDER Brandon Verge Ilya Ejov Devin O’Brien

W 3 1 0

L 7 4 0

GAA 4.08 5.85 3.07

S.PCT .893 .817 .800

PTS 13 12 12 9 8 8 7 7 6 6 4 4 4 3 3 3 2 0 0 0 0

All stats current as of press deadline Oct. 28

HOMEGROWN “Q”

Age: 19 Hometown: Bedford, Nova Scotia School: Memorial University Favourite hockey team: Montreal Canadiens Favourite hockey player: Jarome Iginla Hobbies: golf Favourite movie: Old School What do like best about St. John’s: “I like everything. It’s a great town – great people and a great atmosphere. It’s similar to back home – on the ocean and everything.”

PLAYER Robert Slaney Colin Escott Ryan Graham Justin Pender Brandon Roach Mark Tobin Sam Hounsell

HOMETOWN Carbonear St. John’s St. John’s St. John’s Terra Nova St. John’s Pound Cove

TEAM Cape Breton Gatineau Gatineau Halifax Lewiston Rimouski Victoriaville

GP 14 14 16 7 14 16 2

G 0 2 6 0 5 5 0

A 1 3 1 0 10 5 0

PTS 1 5 7 0 15 10 0

GOALTENDERS Ryan Mior Roger Kennedy Jason Churchill

HOMETOWN St. John’s Mount Pearl Hodge’s Cove

TEAM P.E.I. Halifax Saint John

W 5 2 4

L 7 1 9

GAA 3.09 3.36 3.75

S.PCT .919 .857 .894

Back in the fight After a two-year hiatus, Jason Hayward returns to ring with eye on Canadian title By Darcy MacRae The Independent

I’ve never been in this kind of shape. I want people to see I really did train for this fight … at the end of the night I want to be able to say I impressed ason Hayward never wanted to stop boxing. myself.” He loved the sport — and still does. He credStanley is impressed with Hayward’s new found its boxing for giving him “focus and direc- dedication. When Hayward, who began boxing at tion” at a time in his life when street fights and 15, returned to the Hard Tack Boxing and Fitness arguments with teachers were the norm. Club six months ago, he was carrying 165 pounds Then two years ago — not long after turning pro on a 5’7 frame. Considering Hayward fights at 125 — the St. John’s boxer hung up his gloves. pounds, Stanley admits to chuckling at Hayward’s “I just needed time to myself; I extra chub. had some personal issues going “It was almost funny to look at on in my life. I needed to get my him at that weight because he’s a head straight and I couldn’t focus “I want people to see small-statured guy,” says on boxing,” Hayward tells The Stanley. Hayward works out I really did train for Independent. twice a day — once in the ring Without getting into too much with Stanley, and a second time this fight … at the detail, Hayward says the “responin a weigh-lifting and cardio sessibilities of raising a child” and sion at Definitions in downtown end of the night I the break-up of his parents’ marSt. John’s. He says a strict diet riage were among the issues he want to be able to say helped him get down to his fight had to deal with. He wishes now weight. He credits his trainer for he had handled things better. I impressed myself.” providing the motivation. “I didn’t want to quit in the first “Without John, I wouldn’t be place,” says Hayward. “There sitting here having this interview Jason Hayward was a lot of stuff going on in my with you.” life and I didn’t handle it the best The long road back to the ring way I should have.” is nearly complete for Hayward. Leaving the sport brought an end to what had After two years of wondering what could have been a disappointing pro career. been, he can’t wait for the bell to sound the first His amateur career was another story. As a round. teenager and into his early 20s, Hayward was one It’s not as if Hayward was the only one who of the country’s top fighters. He won the national thought he was wasting his talent. Working as a intermediate flyweight championship in 1995 — bartender for the last two years, he was constantly the same year he boxed as a member of the told he should be in the ring — not serving drinks. Canadian national team at the President’s Cup in “I’d be working at a bar downtown and people Greece, where he won a gold medal. would be like ‘What’s up Hayward? You still boxAs a professional, however, his record was one ing?’” he says. “Then I got to stand there and win, two losses and a no contest. explain ‘No man, I took some time off.’ Every time It was hardly the career start he had hoped for, I’d say that to someone, they’d say ‘Dude you got and no doubt played a role in his decision to walk to get back at the boxing, what’s wrong with you? away from the ring. Hayward and his trainer John Down town drinking and partying, you gotta train. Stanley agree that he didn’t properly prepare for You’ve got the skill and the talent.’ I’d hear that his bouts as a pro. over and over again.” “I didn’t train hard for those fights,” says Hayward admits to “getting caught up in the Hayward. “I always had the skill and technique, night life” during his shifts as a bartender, a factor but I was getting tired at the end of fights. I didn’t that contributed to his weight gain and lack of do enough conditioning.” motivation. The late nights caught up with him, a Now 28, Hayward is more focused than ever and point that was hammered home when he decided to hungry to reclaim his spot as one of the top boxers get back in the ring. in Canada. His comeback begins Nov. 5 at the “I abused my body with everything you can Glacier in Mount Pearl when he battles American imagine,” Hayward says. “When I came in for my fighter Bobby Connors in a six-round flyweight first day of training, I hit the bag for one round and bout as part of Budweiser Night at the Fights. was out of breath. Now I can go six rounds, easy.” “I haven’t missed a practice in six months. I’m See “Getting caught,” page 29 dedicated,” says Hayward. “I’m in tip-top shape —

OCTOBER 30, 2005

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 31

INDEPENDENTSPORTS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2005 — PAGE 32

ICE DANCE

Skate Canada International attracted some of the top skaters from around the globe to Mile One from Oct. 27-30. German skaters Robin Szolkowy and Aliona Savchenko (top left) dazzled the audience and the judges, taking first place in the pair’s competition. Paul Daly/The Independent

Sour Grapes F

or some people, negativity equals intelligence. They figure by criticizing, downplaying, or looking for a negative spin, they are somehow coming off as smarter than everyone else. By their logic, condemning a person, event or team that another has praised makes them look like they have knowledge the rest of us don’t. We all know people like this. They’ll argue chocolate tastes like mud if they think it will make them sound more intelligent than the person next to them. As a sports writer, I see and hear a lot of that type of thinking every day.

DARCY MACRAE

The game In the case of some sports personalities — both near and far — constant criticism and the search for the negative angle is tiresome and unnecessary. Case in point: Don Cherry. Grapes usually saves his admiration for players whose only skills are giving and receiving a punch. He is known for

tossing praise the way of his friends, regardless of what they have done or not done. The fact remains Cherry knows little about hockey. Sure, he was once the NHL’s coach of the year. But that was 30 years ago. Today’s game has passed Cherry by. So much so that his analysis of players and game situations is laughable. The only reason people tune in is to see what outrageous thing he’ll say, not because his insight into hockey is of any value. To make up for his lack of knowledge, Cherry reverts to the tried, tested

and true format of criticizing for the sake of criticizing. His negative comments toward the style of hockey played in the NHL these days are proof of it. Let’s be honest, the “new” NHL is producing the best hockey we’ve seen in the past 15 years. Skilled players are dominating, goals are up, goons are seeing less ice time, and the fans love it. I have yet to talk to a follower of the game who doesn’t enjoy what they’re seeing on television, yet Cherry feels obligated to criticize. Following the Leafs/Flyers game Oct. 22, Cherry complained defense-

men weren’t permitted to mug opposing forwards in front of the net and pointed out that defensemen scoring from the blue line with blazing slap shots was “not hockey.” Only Cherry would bitch about such things and long for the days of clutch and grab hockey. Really, who finds watching a no-skill thug such as Wade Belak hook, trip, spear, and bear hug talented players like Joe Sakic or Paul Kariya entertaining? And who says watching a defenseman score with a nice shot isn’t fun? I know a lot of fans See “Mighty,” page 29