2006-01-01

VOL. 4 ISSUE 1

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ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR — SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JANUARY 1-7, 2006

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OPINION PAGE 9

IN CAMERA 16-17

Are Canadians wimps?

John Crosbie wants to know

A look back at the best quotes and images of 2005

Eoin George-O’Leary was born earlier this year to Sheilagh O’Leary and Steve George.

Sheilagh O’Leary photos

A people in decline?

Province expected to lose another 400 people in 2006; government focuses on improving economy CLARE-MARIE GOSSE

I

t’s no secret the demographics of Newfoundland and Labrador are steadily changing. There are fewer births, more deaths, fluctuating outmigration, changing industries and increasing urbanization — but what does that mean for the future of the province?

With the lowest birth rate in Canada — a rate that continues to decline — Newfoundland and Labrador faces a challenge.

Ivan Emke, a professor of anthropology and social/cultural studies at

Corner Brook’s Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, says a decreasing population is generally seen as a problem, although it depends on perspective. If people are choosing a better way of life and more prosperity somewhere else, then on an individual level, “you shouldn’t be concerned about depopulation.

“But if you’re concerned about the prosperity of places then there’s a real concern,” Emke tells The Independent, “because obviously we can’t maintain all the rural communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, it’s not possible.”

The Government of Quebec, a close contender for the lowest national birth rate, saw its diminish-

ing birth rates as a real problem in 1988 when it introduced a birth incentive called the Allowance for Newborn Children. Quebec’s Finance minister at the time, Gerard Levesque, announced: “The fall in birth rates is a sign of a people in decline.”

The money enticed people to procreate and although the program was removed in 1997 under the initial belief it was a failure, recent studies have since shown there was a 12 per cent increase in birth rates over that period.

Today, Quebec has an updated child assistance program, offering parents payments which increase in amount with each new birth.

QUOTE OF THE YEAR “I disagree with that (the Gomery Inquiry), I think public inquiry causes too much discussion in public.”

— Former federal cabinet minister John Efford For more, see pages 16-17

BUSINESS 19

A recap of the 2005 business year Ann Bell

Rhonda Hayward/The Independent

Rattling the pots and pans Women’s rights have come a long way in 25 years ALISHA MORRISSEY

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ewfoundland and Labrador is a “completely different” place for woman than it was 25 years ago.

“There’s more respect for the need to have a woman’s voice,” Ann Bell, founder of the provincial Advisory Council on the Status of Women, tells The Independent.

When she began fighting for women’s rights all those years ago, Bell says a politician told her to go “rattle the pots and pans.”

And she did.

“We knew what we were doing was right. It was a cause and we believed in it. If you believe in something strong enough it will happen, but it takes a lot of pebbles in the jar to bring the water to the top,” she says of the advisory council’s 25th anniversary.

“Twenty-seven years ago every time I spoke, I was ridiculed and about 10 years later people started saying, ‘You know, some of the things she’s saying make sense.’”

Despite the progress, Bell says Newfoundland women still have a long battle ahead of them to become equal members of society.

See “It’s not,” page 2

LIFE 13

Christopher Pratt’s Ottawa exhibition Life Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Paper Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

“It changes from year to year somewhat,” says Emke, “but … when you get into three or four (children) you’re talking about $6,000 or $7,000. Everybody gets that when they have a child.”

He says the payments are more a recognition of the cost of having children, rather than an attempt to sway people towards procreating.

“I think some of the policies they’ve used that have been more effective have been their really inexpensive daycare policy, which makes it possible for people to have children and have careers.”

Newfoundland and Labrador has only offered licensed childcare to infants under the age of two since

2002 — and facilities are still thin on the ground, with long waiting lists.

Finance Minister Loyola Sullivan says Newfoundland and Labrador is focussing on attracting and keeping more people in the province — rather than encouraging existing residents to procreate.

He says one of the biggest impediments is the higher wage alternatives elsewhere.

“People in the trades are making up in the $100,000 range in Alberta, as opposed to here where the opportunities certainly are not as great.”

See “We lost as high as,” page 2

‘Trail of the Caribou’ STEPHANIE PORTER

A

Toronto production company is in the midst of developing both a documentary and miniseries about the Royal Newfoundland Regiment — and it’s all because of Pierre Berton.

“Growing up in a small Ontario town, there were a lot of World War II vets,” says Johnny Gardhouse, an executive producer and creative director of Hell Creek Entertainment. “I really got into hearing a lot of these old war stories, and they exposed me to a lot of good books.

“When I was 12 my grandfather gave me Vimy by Pierre Berton — I read that thing over and over and when we started the company I emailed Pierre Berton and I said, ‘Look, we have no money, we’re a really small company, but I’d love the opportunity to turn this into the screenplay.”

The late historian and author gave his blessing. Gardhouse took the opportunity to ask Berton about other great Canadian stories — to which he replied: “You really should look into the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.”

Gardhouse took the advice.

“I couldn’t believe the stories I came across,” says Gardhouse. “Every time I pulled something up on the Net or got a book it was a completely different story, just amazing. I got really intrigued.

“Pierre Berton put the fire into me, and he was right. It’s an incredible story.”

And it’s one that has forever changed the way Gardhouse thinks about this province — and one he very

Toronto company working on documentary about Royal Newfoundland Regiment; honoured to tell ‘great Canadian story’ much wants to share with the country.

Almost two years ago, Gardhouse decided to dive headfirst into the project. He and an assistant flew to St. John’s to spend a week in the provincial archives, sifting through letters and diaries, putting faces on the soldiers and their relatives, gathering background for the work quickly developing in the producer’s head.

Since then, Gardhouse and his partners have been to Newfoundland and Labrador several times, continuing their research and interviewing relatives of the Newfoundland Regiment’s members. They’ve attended the sunrise ceremony on Memorial Day (July 1) and visited the monument to fallen soldiers in Bay Bulls.

Along the way, Gardhouse has developed an outline for a six-part mini-series about the regiment, and found a coproduction partner in St. John’s-based Morag Productions.

“We are the mainlanders,” Gardhouse admits. “And I don’t want anybody to think we’re trying to come in and take their stories …

“I think everybody realizes how sincere we truly are, but there’s no way we could do this without Morag and the Newfoundland Film Development Corporation.

See “Teaching tool,” page 4

2 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JANUARY 1, 2006

‘We lost as high as 7,000 in one year’ From page 1 But Sullivan hopes that will change.

The province’s growth domestic product (sum of all goods and services produced) is the highest per capita in the country, and he says unemployment rates are dropping.

“Employment activity will pick up,” says Sullivan. “We’ll be seeing a full years production on White Rose, of course Voisey’s Bay, and depending what happens in the next few years with our lower Churchill and Hebron Ben Nevis and offshore exploration, there’s tremendous potential.”

According to Statistics Newfoundland and Labrador, the

province is expected to lose another 400 people in 2006, but the decline is far less dramatic compared to past years. Over the last 10 years the population declined by roughly 44,000; predictions for the next 10 years sit at around 5,000.

“We lost as high as 7,000 in one year,” says Sullivan.

“We have projected the margin of population decline into our economic forecast and basically into our revenue stream. We have been allowing for that.”

Although federal equalization, as well as health and social transfers, will be impacted by the decline, he says the money lost will be “minimal … only in

the several hundreds of thousands.”

Although urban centres such as St. John’s are maintaining or growing in population, rural communities are not and services such as emergency response and education will be impacted. A recent Eastern School District report recommended the closure of 23 schools over the next five years, although that recommendation isn’t expected to be followed.

Rural communities are falling by the wayside.

The Municipal Affairs Department was unable to provide exact numbers for the communities resettled in the last 10 years, but since 2000 there have been at least four.

Some smaller communities opt for disincorporation, which means giving up their municipal status and no longer paying taxes to a local council. Or, they go under a regional, umbrella council.

The number of communities that have applied for disincorporation were also unavailable, but a spokesman for Municipal Affairs says it’s not a common occurrence.

Emke says disincorporation is likely to become more common.

“Some communities will survive as retirement communities or tourism communities, but certainly some will stop being municipalities because I don’t see the government support lasting much longer.”

These days, he says picturesque and historic communities seem to have a better chance of survival than those more reliant on industry.

“It’s true that we’re moving towards a service economy where tourism is one of the economic engines … that’s a resource.

“Now there’s clear recognition from government the culture heritage sector is valuable.”

Emke says the death of rural Newfoundland is a “slow leeching.

“If you think of a frog and you throw it into hot water, it will jump out right away, but if you put a frog into a pot and you slowly heat it up it doesn’t jump out and in fact it will cook and die. In a way, outmigration is like that because if all of a sudden 40,000 people were leaving this year, then we’d identify some solution, maybe, or we’d know it’s a big problem.”

Rather than focussing on outmigration, however, he says “inmigration” is probably more important because it’s common for people to move away. The key is bringing them back — along with newcomers.

“We kind of know what the problem is and what some of the solutions would be, like more migration in, but in terms of how to actually make that happen, I don’t think we’ve really figured that out.”

‘It’s not going to happen tomorrow’ From page 1 “It’s not going to happen tomorrow.

It’s the policy makers that are also products of their own environment — most of them are men — and they feel they’re speaking for women, but they’re not.”

Issues like abuse and the scarcity of trade positions for women are just a few areas where improvements could be made, Bell says, adding while more female policy makers may make a change, women in power need to bring an egalitarian attitude to the table.

“There’s a lot of women saying we do OK,” she says. “As long as women are doing what they’re happy doing it’s not necessary that they have to be CEOs or anything. But what we need is a critical mass of women where they can have influence.”

Only a handful of women have stepped forward in this province to run for office in the Jan. 23 federal election.

Bell says most women don’t feel the political arena is a place where they can make an impact.

“Women are a lot more practical and they are getting on with their lives.

They see this political involvement as a nuisance and not something they want to spend their life’s work doing.”

On the positive side, Bell says it’s obvious federal politicians are vying for the female vote by promising better childcare programs.

Joyce Hancock, current president of the advisory council, says the 25th anniversary year wasn’t spent in celebration. The board travelled throughout the province gathering opinions from women in all walks of life. Four reports were eventually drawn up and passed over to government pointing out deficiencies in the system for women, as well as serving as a legacy to the 25 years of activism.

This year wasn’t the most progressive for women’s rights, Hancock says.

Premier Danny Williams has yet to resolve a 25-year pay equity dispute.

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Hancock criticized the premier for much of the year after he removed several high-powered females from their positions, including former Health minister Elizabeth Marshall and Pam Walsh, former president of the College of the North Atlantic.

“It’s been a challenge. You always have to say when are you going to sit down and dialogue and when are you going to stand up and challenge,” Hancock says.

“It was so easy to play the public off to say ‘We can’t give (female public servants) pay equity because our roads are in deplorable shape, because we need more hospital beds. As if women’s equality was a luxury — it’s not a luxury, it’s an absolute necessity and government should be ashamed.”

Meantime, Hancock says giant steps forward have been made in the past 25 years. Transition houses, women’s centres and shelters have been created to protect women. Still, she says the primary issue revolves around violence.

“Violence is the great inequality in the past few days. We have seen two women die, two women who were in relationships.”

A 50-year-old woman was assaulted over Christmas in Norman’s Cove. She later died of natural causes but her 45year-old partner has been charged with assault causing bodily harm.

In another case, a 53-year-old woman from Victoria near Carbonear was shot inside her home on Boxing Day. Her boyfriend has been charged with first-degree murder.

Bell predicts 2006 won’t be an extraordinary year for women’s rights.

“In the political and economic climate that we are in … things will remain very much the same as they are.

That, unless there is a major issue, things are not going to change significantly.

“I don’t see it coming in the next year, but I see it evolving, as a gradual change.”

JANUARY 1, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 3

Hangover helper

By Nicholas Gardner For The Independent

believed in the dictum simila similibus curantur — “likes are cured by likes.”

The remedy stated the only way to get better was to have some of what made you sick. But it doesn’t work.

Having another drink in the morning only delays the inevitable hangover — it will come eventually.

T

he sheets feel a bit damp as drool has been collecting for a couple of hours and you’ve been snoring like a banshee.

Your mouth, cotton dry and pasty feeling, gets the once over with a cautious, exploratory tongue … then the tourni- DRINKING COFFEE quet around your head tightens as presCoffee is also a diuretic. It dries you sure builds. The room, while you realize out faster and can even exacerbate the it’s supposed to be stationary, is a overall effects of the hangover. In other whirling dervish of motion and your bad news, coffee is a stimulant and stomach wants to get off. alcohol is a depressant. Experts believe Sound familiar? If you identify with that the only thing coffee does is make any of these symptoms, then congratu- a drunk more active, and is not a good lations — you have a hangover. cure for a hangover.

As Newfoundlanders we all love a good time — and a good drink or two of SHOWERS rum at that. However, we also love it to Scalding hot shower followed by icy excess at times, so let me tell you a cau- blast of water: Ian Fleming, creator of tionary tale about hangovers.

James Bond, wrote that this was the While there are many “reasons” why start to the Martini-drinking-spy’s day. one might have a hangWhile it seems like a over — like having a good wake-up remesociable with a friendly dy, it will not cure a neighbour — the real hangover.

Alcohol is a drug reason is that there was In Russia, where and a hangover is a bit of overindulgence. they are legendary Alcohol is a drug and for their bouts of the body’s reaction a hangover is the drinking, some body’s reaction to tryswear by cabbage to trying to get ing to get the drug or juice with some carthe drug or toxins toxins out of the body. bonated drink in it.

Alcohol is also a Or better yet, a deep, out of the body. diuretic, which is the rich bowl of borscht reason you have to go (a soup made from to the bathroom so beetroot). many times when “on the go.” Your kidI think I’ll stick to my own remedy neys require water to metabolize and … passing out and staying in bed until break down the alcohol so it “borrows the whole thing is over works for me. it” from wherever it can. A hangover is There are no real cures for a hangover, your body’s reaction to physically dry- but there are some preventive measures ing out after a bit of a bender. you can take.

Now here’s the bad news — there is WATER no real cure for a hangover.

Everybody has a different way of Match every drink with two glasses coping with the excesses of the night of water. Drinking water will counter before. However there are some “reme- the drying effects of the alcohol. dies” for a hangover — some of which Scientists have discovered that your are as old as the creation of alcohol body uses 500 ml of water to break itself and others that are just plain down 250 ml of alcohol. So the more strange. water you drink (and beer does not count as water) the better chance you HAIR OF THE DOG have of getting through the next day.

This myth stems from the Latin Eat and drink — food is a good way father of medicine, Hippocrates, who of helping the alcohol metabolize in

your system. Nibbling on foods (other than salty foods, which only make you want to drink more) will slow down the effects of the alcohol.

of water and some headache pills. This combination feeds the body nutrients, re-hydrates you and dulls the pain. I am going to try this one after my next bender.

Unfortunately, science has not produced the one-stop hangover cure. The only sure-fire way to prevent a hangover is not to drink at all. My hope is that you enjoy your holidays and have a

EAT BEFORE BED Many drinkers believe that the body likes carbohydrates to slowly disperse the alcohol. I have read that the best thing before bed is a banana, a big glass

good time, but remember — the worst thing to happen other than a hangover is an accident. On that note, if you drink — you don’t drive — that’s the law.

Nicholas is an erstwhile chef and food writer now eating in St. John’s.

His regular column returns in The Indpendent Jan.8. nicholas.gardner@gmail.com

Time right for upper Churchill summit Editor’s note: Vic Young, former chairman and CEO of Fishery Products International (1984-2001) was also chairman and CEO of Newfoundland Hydro and Churchill Falls Labrador Corporation (1978-84). He corresponded with then-prime minister Jean Chrétien in 1996-97, calling for a tripartite resolution to the “unconscionable” Churchill River situation.

The following article (the first half of which ran in last week’s Independent) was first published in the 1999 book 50 Golden Years and was based on the details of Young’s correspondence with Chrétien. The dates and figures have not been updated. The fundamentals of Young’s arguments — including a strong focus on the 25-year contract extension — have remained intact and make a major contribution to the ongoing debate over Churchill Falls. Published with permission.

T

he frustration of Newfoundland regarding Quebec’s dominance over its Labrador power resources was never more evident than when Premier Smallwood commissioned a study of the feasibility of a transmission line from Labrador to the island of Newfoundland, across the Cabot Strait into Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and then down into the United States.

The scheme, which became known as

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the “Anglo Saxon Route,” proved to be uneconomic. Nevertheless, it became a stark example of the lengths to which Newfoundland was being driven to find ways to transmit its hydro power from Labrador to export markets without having to deal away economic benefits of the project to Quebec. Newfoundland could not find a way to circumvent the discriminating national energy policy and Canada did not change it. I always wonder if the same situation would have prevailed if Newfoundland had been geographically situated between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

NATIONAL ISSUE Considered in the context of national policy, therefore, Churchill Falls is not simply an issue between two provinces.

It is a national issue which requires an upfront recognition that Quebec’s stranglehold over Newfoundland’s ability to export its energy resources must be changed for future projects (lower Churchill) and revised, at least in economic terms, for past projects (upper Churchill). This stranglehold has been perpetuated by a flawed national energy policy which treats energy resources from oil and gas in one manner and electricity in quite another. The profound impact of this policy on the manner in which Churchill Falls was developed demands the involvement of the Government of Canada in helping to

resolve this issue.

How can a collective vision for Canada exist when one of our nation’s richest hydro resources produces huge returns for Quebec, while Newfoundland, as the owner of that resource, received virtually no benefit? At the same time Newfoundland continues to have one of the highest per capita debts, lowest per capita incomes, highest tax burdens and lowest credit ratings of any Canadian province. Just imagine how different Newfoundland’s overall economic situation would be today if the Churchill project had been developed in a manner which had provided for an equitable sharing of the huge financial returns over the life of the project.

It is difficult to understand why we continue to accept the disparity that Canada’s national energy policy created by its inconsistent treatment of different forms of energy. Who could imagine a situation where Alberta was forced to sell its oil to British Columbia, who in turn gained hundreds of millions of dollars in annual benefits from the subsequent resale of Alberta’s oil to the United States? Why was this inequality so unimaginable when it came to oil and gas and yet so accepted for hydro electricity? Any sense of fairness dictates the need to bring some reasonable balance to this inequitable situation.

See “Unconscionable,” page 20

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4 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JANUARY 1, 2006

The anti-NewYear N ew Year’s resolutions have always puzzled me. People intentionally make a list (basically a catalogue of their shortcomings to date) pointing out how they can transform their lives. They then embark on a mission to lose weight, stop smoking, spend less, give to charity, drink less, find a better job, be more organized, be more patient, and generally become a better person.

Why do we set ourselves up this way? Tackling a New Year’s resolution list is like embarking on an existential crash diet with way more potential pitfalls. Aside from the obvious difficulties associated with entirely transforming your life, January is absolutely the worst time to do it. You’re broke, sluggish, the parties are all over and the weather is about to turn Armageddon.

A recent study showed the post-holiday season is the most difficult time of year for people. The general combination of over-indulgence and stress leads to a serious spike in calls for help with depression, substance abuse and violence after everyone returns to work in January.

It probably doesn’t help that by the end of the month, chances are you’re fatter, smokier, more broke, more uncharitable, more hung over, more professionally unfulfilled, more disorganized, less patient and generally far likelier to go to hell than you were 31 days ago, thanks to a list of unattainable, guilt-inducing promises you’ve spectacularly failed to uphold.

I’ve only ever made one New Year’s resolution list and that was in 1988, the same year I decided to keep a diary.

The diary lasted only marginally longer than the resolutions.

And as for New Year’s Eve …

I think I’ve had maybe one truly noncrappy New Year’s Eve (that I can remember) and just as it was ending, I swung by a friend’s house on the way home and ended up with a cat allergy that practically turned me into Frankenstein.

Strangely, I had absolutely no concept of the significance of the New Year’s Eve celebration-thing before I was 12. It was just like any other night of the year (I guess my parents were smart enough not to make a big deal out of it, pack the kids off to bed at a reasonable hour and make hay while the sun still shone).

When I was 12, my boyfriend at the time, Roland, dutifully called to speak to me just before midnight. I was in bed asleep, but my parents (who were entertaining a crowd of rowdy middleagers) fetched me to the phone. Roland was astounded I was in bed on New Year’s Eve. Never having really thought about it before I suddenly felt astronomically uncool and clueless and hastily mumbled something about not feeling well that night — and so began my journey of failed Dec. 31s.

At the opposite end of the scale, my most exuberant New Year’s Eve came along roughly eight years later.

CLARE-MARIE GOSSE Brazen

I was in my second year of university and had gone home for Christmas.

For once, all my old high school friends were home at the same time and someone had organized a New Year’s Eve party. There would be cheap drinks, a solid venue, good music and good company. Remembering my previous year’s experience, shivering below the town clock tower, watching my best friend snog a guy I liked, while my boyfriend (who was on the outs) professed his undying love, I felt this year could only be an improvement.

As I had hoped, it was a great night; everyone was on form. I happily danced, mingled and had a few drinks.

I was spectacular; everything was great.

Just as I was reluctantly about to leave, I realized I didn’t have my wallet. A frantic search — including asking everyone I knew (several times) if they’d seen it — revealed nothing, and I assumed it had been stolen.

My ride home (a chivalrous teetotaller) let me use his cell phone and I crawled into his car sobbing and snivelling while trying to cancel my bank cards. It wasn’t until the teller on the other end of the line asked me for my address and I couldn’t remember it that I realized how shamefully drunk, drooling and unspectacular I actually was. I began to bawl and my chivalrous friend had to take over the card cancelling.

A few days later I was back at university when one of my friends called to tell me he’d just picked up his New Year’s Eve pants off the floor and my wallet had fallen out. As my friend spoke, sparks of memory started to fizzle in my brain. Turns out I’d given it to him to hold on to at the party and we’d both instantly forgotten about it. I couldn’t even blame him, really (even though he’d emphatically denied any knowledge of the wallet’s whereabouts at the end of the night); later he’d tried to walk home, fallen into a ditch and gone to sleep. I was lucky he found it at all.

This year, the New Year’s Eve pressure’s off; I’m going to a wedding, so technically, the pressure is on the poor couple faced with the double whammy combination of celebrating not only New Year’s Eve, but their anniversary, every December 31st until the end of time.

Now that’s a scary thought.

To make myself feel better during the wonderful months ahead, I’m going to write up an anti-New Year’s resolutions list: all the bad things I haven’t yet done and hope to do before the year is out.

That way, if I don’t follow through I can feel smug for being good, and if I do follow through I can feel smug for being a goal-oriented achiever.

From page 1 While doing groundwork for the mini-series — now waiting on funding and network approval — Gardhouse and his colleagues connected with members of the current-day Royal Newfoundland Regiment. A new project was born, this time a documentary, this time with a clear production timeline.

Gardhouse and five other crewmembers will travel to Europe this summer with members of the regiment to follow the “trail of the caribou” (the movement of the regiment, from Britain to Egypt and Gallipoli to France), ending at Beaumont Hamel on July 1. It will mark the 90th anniversary of the tragic battle that nearly annihilated the entire Newfoundland regiment (of the 801 Newfoundland soldiers who went into battle, only 68 answered roll call the next day).

“The regiment has really let us inside, let us be a part of their experience,” says Gardhouse. “Some of them know the stories, some are learning along with us.

Some of these guys have been over to France but a lot of them haven’t … I can’t imagine the emotions they’re going to be feeling as young Newfoundlanders.”

The documentary is being funded by, and completed for, the members of the regiment. Gardhouse hopes it finds a public audience as well.

“We think it’s such a great learning tool for the schools, across the country, to show what the men and boys, they really were boys, of Newfoundland did,” he says. “But it’s also a teaching tool for the First World War, about the stupidity or war and the greatness of a band of brothers.”

For Gardhouse, the projects are proving a challenging, moving experience, both personally and professionally.

Coming from a background in stand-up comedy — he still tours frequently, using the day times to write and research, evenings to “tell a few jokes and make some dough” — Gardhouse and a couple of friends decided to start a production company a few years ago.

“I’d been writing for television and doing commercials in the meantime,” he says. “I knew it was something I wanted to do. I love standup but I don’t want to be on the road forever.”

Hell Creek Entertainment’s “bread and butter” is instructional, medical and teaching videos. They also do corporate and commercial work, produce music videos and comedy shows.

This marks their first foray into a major documentary production.

“I’ve written a lot of film scripts, done a lot of television stuff, but when you’re doing a documentary, you have the template, you have your questions, but your subjects kind of go off on these little tangents sometimes and you think, ‘Wow, I never thought of that,’ and I’m finding out a little more every time I go into The Rooms.

“It’s definitely not your cut-and-dried comedy or thriller.”

To that end, Gardhouse has a special request: that anyone who has “stuff tucked away” in an attic, old chests or a backroom — letters, diaries or photographs — let him know, they’d love to have a look.

“Anything to do with the regiment,” he says. “Even if it’s just a story …

That’s the best thing, we’ve heard so many great stories that have been passed down. “(The soldiers didn’t tell) many stories about battles, but they told stories about, in Egypt, you know, great-grandfather was in Egypt and he went to the

‘Teaching tool’

A tribute to Newfoundland veterns in St. John’s.

Johnny Gardhouse

pyramids and for two pounds the 10 of them got camels and did this and that.

Those little stories are fantastic for filling in the blanks.”

Until two years ago, Gardhouse’s only interaction with Newfoundland and Newfoundlanders came during stand-up comedy tours. “I’d just see George Street and the craziness and ‘Oh, we’re having a blast!’ and that was my perspective on it,” he says.

“Now, I’m not just meeting those crowds … I’m meeting people from all walks of life in a totally different scenario and finding out all about them.”

Now, he says he’s looking forward to bringing his wife and family to visit the province, to take them whale watching, touring, and learning about “a great part of the country.”

GENERAL MANAGER John Moores AN INDEPENDENT VOICE FOR NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR

john.moores@theindependent.ca

SALES MANAGER Gillian Fisher P.O. Box 5891, Stn.C, St. John’s, gillian.fisher@theindependent.ca Newfoundland & Labrador, A1C 5X4 Ph: 709-726-4639 • Fax: 709-726-8499 PRODUCTION MANAGER John Andrews Website: www.theindependent.ca john.andrews@theindependent.ca sales@theindependent.ca • production@theindependent.ca • circulation@theindependent.ca

“Even though Newfoundland wasn’t part of Canada at the time (of the First World War), it is now, and I’m just very proud that this is part of the country and that this story can be included in the fabric of Canada.

“I really think this story should be known … it’s a time when our national pride is a little lagging, and we have guys in harm’s way as we speak in Afghanistan … They go so far away to be policemen, keep the peace and try and do their jobs and I don’t want people to forget about them.”

Anyone with material to share can reach Johnny Gardhouse through www.hellcreek.ca or by calling their office (collect during business hours) at (416) 406-1226.

JANUARY 1, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 5

Musician and manager Dan Rubin.

By Stephanie Porter The Independent

M

usician Sandy Morris says he’s drawing the first regular monthly cheque of his life — and it’s thanks to the pension plan of a union that’s barely had a presence in this province in the last few years.

Morris, who has played solo and with the Wonderful Grand Band, Figgy Duff, 8-Track Favourites and many other acts over the past few decades, joined the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM) in 1969. He’s been paying dues ever since.

Last year, at 55, he decided to make use of the early retirement plan, and began drawing a pension. It’s just one of the advantages of belonging to the union, he says, advantages he’s trying to promote in the ever-growing local community.

At one time, musicians from Newfoundland and Labrador who joined the AFM paid their dues to the local in Halifax. After some disenchantment, a group got together in the 1980s to launch local 820, based in St. John’s.

It worked well for years under the leadership of first presidents, Peter Gardner and John Barela. But by the mid-’90s the organization started to lose steam; in the last couple of years it was virtually non-existent.

Last month, a group of musicians decided the time was right to do some-

Rhonda Hayward/The Independent

Union due Local musician’s union relaunching; offering pension, insurance — and maybe even security

thing about it.

“I see so many kids here, I’m working with so many kids,” Morris says.

“And I think, if those guys are going to be playing in this town as long as I have, if we don’t have a union or any sort of pension plan, what are they going to be doing at my age?

“I mean we’re all so proud of our musicians here and we’re always bragging about how much talent there is in the province … but there’s absolutely no security.”

Musician and manager Dan Rubin called a meeting for all interested musicians and music professionals last month. Close to 50 people showed up, a “big relief.” As the previous head of the musicians’ union in Victoria, B.C., Rubin is full of enthusiasm — and experience. He was acclaimed president; Morris is on the board of directors.

Rubin says the first hurdle is to cre-

ate credibility — and show musicians the $85 initiation fee and $130 annual fee is money well spent.

“We need to reassure people that have been members and seen nothing happen for two or three years,” says Rubin. “We need to instantly create very high credibility among musicians.”

He points out the advantages and services offered by the union: a good deal on instrument insurance, pension, help arranging visas to play in the U.S., music performance funds, contracts and a network of contacts. There’s support in case of a cancelled gig or dispute over a contract.

But first, of course, there has to be a contract.

“That’s a tough nut to crack, because everything in this town is done on a handshake,” says Denis Parker, executive director of MusicNL and veteran of the downtown scene. “It’s just insane

SHIPPING NEWS

Keeping an eye on the comings and goings of the ships in St. John’s Harbour. Information provided by the Canadian Coast Guard Traffic Centre.

MONDAY, DEC. 26 Vessels arrived: Oceanex Avalon, Canada, from Montreal; Maersk Norseman, Canada, from Hibernia Field.

TUESDAY, DEC. 27 Vessels arrived: Kozyo Maru # 51, Japan, from

Ireland; Ryoei Maru #38, Japan, from Spain.

Vessels departed: Saunigze, Canada, to Magdalene Islands; Maersk Dispatcher, Canada, to White Rose; Maersk Chancellor, Canada, to White Rose.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 28 No Report THURSDAY, DEC. 29 No Report

what’s going on in a lot of places …

“If we didn’t have a union and the fact they sat down with the CBC and negotiated a contract, that’s why we get paid by CBC and we get paid well. If we didn’t have that, who knows what we’d be making at CBC? Probably the same we’re making on (other TV/radio stations) which is nothing.”

Morris says the union has negotiated wages for CBC and film work. Many bars, clubs and theatres are well known to operate on a strictly under-the-table basis — with mixed results.

“It is to our advantage to have some kind of set up for the local bars and theatres and restaurants and wherever people are hiring musicians,” he says.

“There is a strong tide of musicians who are wanting to have some organization to have some recourse if you do have a dispute with a bar owner or with a contract for a gig.”

Morris says it’ll take time and sup-

port — on all sides — to truly change the way business is done.

“I keep thinking of it in terms of the smoking ban,” he says. “The smoking ban was bound to come sooner or later because people weren’t going to put up with it any more.

“Organizing local musicians into some kind of unit to deal with labour issues, that’s coming too. It’s just a matter of time when it’s going to happen. It’s a huge industry and it does need regulation.”

Tom Loder, marketing co-ordinator for the George Street Bar Owners’ Association, says while he can’t speak for hiring practices of individual bar owners, he frequently uses contracts to book musicians for the festival concerts he organizes.

“We’ve dealt with the union on certain issues over the years, and we’ve also dealt with (MusicNL),” says Loder. “We’ve had disagreements and we’ve had agreements, but generally we’ve got a good working relationship.

“Musicians of course are a very important part of what we do as an association and what a lot of the clubs do as well, so it’s in everyone’s interest to get along and work towards common goals.”

A public information meeting for members and non-members of Local 820, the Newfoundland and Labrador Musicians Union, is scheduled for Jan. 15, 2-4 p.m. in the Choral Room, Music Building, MUN.

6 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JANUARY 1, 2006

‘Every voice must be heard’ T

his sentence, the one you’re slipping into, is not the start of an editorial. It’s in the space where an editorial would normally appear in a newspaper, but it’s not one.

For those unfamiliar with newspaper speak, an editorial is the voice of a newspaper — not necessarily the voice of the people who work for the paper … more the public stand of those behind it.

An editorial is written by an editorial writer who takes what the publisher/company representative has to say and prepares it with the proper garnish. An editorial is almost never signed.

The Independent does not carry editorials. We did, starting in early February, when the paper changed to the current broadsheet format. The editorials didn’t last long before Brian Dobbin, the publisher/owner, began lending a direct hand, breaking with tradition and writing a column himself.

Then, in September, he decided to open the microphone to guest columnists.

In his words from the Sept. 25 edition: “I have decided to open up this page to other opinions … the only caveat we have is that if you’re are going to put the words on paper, put your face next to it.”

The opinions have varied — from Danny Williams, the premier, to Newfoundland businessman Craig Dobbin to David Watts, an editor with the Times of London, to David Boyd, a fisherman from Twillingate.

The following is a selection of opin-

ions expressed in this space over the year 2005: Feb. 20, editorial … A fishery (assuming one lasts) cannot be run out of St. John’s. The cities need rural Newfoundland and Labrador to survive and the outports need the support of the Townies.

March 6, Brian Dobbin … Ireland is its own country. If they were still the ass-end of a larger English governance, I doubt very much they would have the progressive programs and incentives they enjoy today, and I suspect a lot of their time would be spent complaining about their position in the larger group.

Sound familiar? Kudos to their attitude and psychology, the most important difference I see. And by the way, they are still Irish — in other words, you know that part of Newfoundlanders that hates to see another get ahead — well, spend some time in Ireland if you want to know where it came from. At the same time, it’s been overcome.

May 22, editorial … Williams may have crossed a dangerous line when he questioned (Loyola) Hearn and (Norm) Doyle’s loyalty to this province — suggesting they do the right thing and vote against their party to ensure the (Atlantic) Accord’s survival. Williams bleeds Tory blue, but it seems dollars will make him hemorrhage whatever political colour signs the cheques.

June 5, Brian Dobbin … Our $100,000-a-year top bureaucrats we rely on to guide our neophyte political leaders in billion-dollar decision-making are no match for arrogant $300,000-

per-year federal bureaucrats who quite literally look down their noses at their provincial brethren. They are certainly no match for the $2-million-per-year oil executives and lawyers … I’ve got one thing to say to the witting and unwitting who have held back our benefits for so long: boys, there’s a new sheriff (Danny Williams) in town.

June 26, editorial … The passing of Bill 41 (an Act to Amend the Fishery Products International Ltd. Act) is a disaster for Harbour Breton and bad news for the rest of us. Whether that was due to a spectacular lapse in leadership, or the cynical manipulation of his (Premier Williams’) usually carefully controlled caucus, one thing is certain: by allowing FPI to abandon the people of Harbour Breton, Williams and his administration have done the people of this province a huge disservice.

July 24, Brian Dobbin … Hallelujah … and pass the ammunition. I think I’m starting to feel like a fan of the Boston Red Sox last year when the curse of the Babe was being lifted. When I heard the news that Danny Williams had asked St. John’s Mayor Andy Wells to be the provincial nomination for head of the C-NLOPB, I literally stopped in my tracks.

What inspired genius, Mr. Williams. I cannot think of a better individual to ask to serve the province in that capacity … all of you who have ever raised your voice to complain about how our benefits have been robbed from us, here is your chance to yell about something that will truly make a difference.

Oct. 2, David Watts, editor with Times of London … Returning to Atlantic Canada after so long I am both heartened and appalled. Heartened to see the same sterling qualities of commitment and the extraordinary broad range of talents in ordinary people overlaid with a practical ability to work around problems. But I am appalled to find that Terra Nova is affected by the same kind of malaise that once affected old Europe; the feeling that there is no silver lining, that the way forward will always be blocked by lack of opportunity and the dead hand of a bureaucratic government, fogged by a lack of imagination that has no business stifling the talents of ordinary people.

Oct. 16, Danny Williams … We have not always made politically popular decisions and our labour unrest in both springs has been witness to that.

But make no mistake, every decision we have taken has been to improve the fiscal, social, economic and psychological well being of this province … we cannot perform miracles, but we must provide hope.

Nov. 13, James McGrath, former lieutenant-governor … The future of Quebec in Canada is an important issue to Newfoundland and Labrador. Our leaders need to … be prepared for the inevitable outcome. Surely, if you keep funding a cause (Bloc Quebecois) to the tune of $18 million and keep asking the same question, at some point you’re going to get the answer you want. They call this “winning conditions.” We cannot go into this unprepared … our

province needs a plan to deal with the Canada that exists without Quebec. The time for planning is now. This time we need to get it right.

Dec. 4, Twillingate fisherman David Boyd … Maybe for some, Alberta has become more home than home itself. Just think of the answer to this question: where will you see more Newfoundlanders out enjoying themselves among Newfoundland friends, money in their pockets on a Saturday night — Fort McMurray, Alta. or the community hall in Dildo Run? Dec. 11, Liberal leader Gerry Reid … Has the Williams government honoured its commitment to remove patronage from government? In my opinion, obviously not! … Another important issue that has come to light over the past several months is this government’s treatment of high-profile female civil servants and their lack of commitment to women’s rights … It is easy to see that the premier doesn’t like to work with strong and highly qualified females.

Dec. 18, Craig Dobbin, CHC Helicopter Corporation … As unpleasant as it may sound, we need to embark upon a formal process of constitutional reform. Without it, this country will eventually break apart. I believe the stakes are that high. Every Canadian voice must be heard in the political arena, and for that, Canada needs a presidential system of government. We must become a republic, a uniquely Canadian republic.

— Ryan Cleary, managing editor.

YOUR VOICE Give Williams ‘a bloody break’ Dear editor, hard, has a family, and is a credit to What a piece of garbage you wrote our province and every guy there for the Sunday paper (Facts don’t cut knows the deal and just how this has it, Dec. 18-24 edition of The to play out.

Independent by Ryan Cleary).

You are offended by the fact that I’m 52 years old and passionate the premier didn’t reply to the report. about this place Do you think that called Newfoundthis is the biggest land to the point item on his agenda You owe him an where it hurts. I love at this time? Just the people, the spark, look at the people apology. And you the humour, the zest. he is putting in owe me an apology You couldn’t get me strategic positions out of here with a to tackle the issue. and every other bomb!

We also have a barI run my own Newfoundlander with gaining chip at this small business and time called the a mind and a soul. have been successful lower Churchill. for the past 25 years.

Give the man a If there is one point bloody break! Do that defines who we are and where you want $2 billion every month? we belong in Canada, it’s the upper You owe him an apology. And you Churchill deal. My stomach turns and owe me an apology and every other my teeth grit. It is the most detesting Newfoundlander with a mind and a thing that I have to swallow as a soul. He’s working on it and there is Newfoundlander. nobody better to work for our benefit I travel to the mainland fairly often than him. and at all times I am a NewfoundI love your paper. But this time, lander and so very proud to carry that don’t cry to me because we don’t banner. Sometimes I try to explain the jump up and down about your article. injustice that this contract has done Newfoundland is working on the and is doing to my province. Guess problem. what? They really don’t give a damn!

Austin Brophy, We play basketball on Monday St. John’s nights and nine of the guys went to Ben’s for a beer after and I brought up P.S. This is the first time I have ever your article. Every guy there works reacted to an article or commentary.

Upper Churchill boils blood Dear editor, Great column (Facts don’t cut it, Dec. 18-24 edition of The Independent

by Ryan Cleary), but sadly true.

I have only recently become aware of The Independent and have been avidly reading. I am a Newfoundlander but, unfortunately, I am working in Toronto. I don’t consider myself an ex-patriot as I consider myself being out of the province temporarily.

With regard to the potential for reopening the upper Churchill contract, I was not aware of the story. Not surprising, the only news I get here

about Newfoundland are the local stories from Aliant or CBC that seem to barely change. I know my province is more dynamic than that. I am absolutely ecstatic at that possibility.

The upper Churchill contract has been boiling my blood since I learned about it as a teen in the 1980s. Great news.

Hope it results in redress.

I will definitely be making the issue known. Been doing a lot of educating of mainlanders, correcting stereotypes.

Jason D. Walters, Toronto

AN INDEPENDENT VOICE FOR NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR

P.O. Box 5891, Stn.C, St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, A1C 5X4 Ph: 709-726-4639 • Fax: 709-726-8499 www.theindependent.ca • editorial@theindependent.ca The Independent is published by The Sunday Independent, Inc. in St. John’s. It is an independent newspaper covering the news, issues and current affairs that affect the people of Newfoundland & Labrador.

PUBLISHER Brian Dobbin MANAGING EDITOR Ryan Cleary SENIOR EDITOR Stephanie Porter PICTURE EDITOR Paul Daly

All material in The Independent is copyrighted and the property of The Independent or the writers and photographers who produced the material. Any use or reproduction of this material without permission is prohibited under the Canadian Copyright Act. • © 2005 The Independent • Canada Post Agreement # 40871083

The Independent welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be 300 words in length or less and include full name, mailing address and daytime contact numbers.

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

Write on M

ost journalists have two things in common: ego enough to tell a story and stand by it, and skin thick enough to deflect the bullets that are sure to follow. There’s a perfect example to your left on the editorial page, with a letter describing one of my recent columns as “garbage” and a second note praising the same column as “great.”

Letters, whatever the message, are a good sign for a newspaper — they mean people are reading, which is what this business is about.

This has been a fabulous year for The Independent in terms of letters to the editor. The content has been impressive and the volume steady, averaging seven or eight letters a week. That doesn’t include the local letters we drop because they’re published in other media outlets, which happens fairly often, or letters we’re sent from addresses across Canada, letters suspicious in terms of purpose and political affiliation.

Take the letter we received Dec. 23rd from Dr. William Harrison of Keremeos, B.C. Now why would a doctor living all the way across Canada bother writing a letter to the editor of a weekly newspaper in St. John’s about his fears of a Conservative minority government?

Good question … so we try and stick with local letters.

The following is a sampling of the opinions expressed on these two pages in 2005: Jan. 9 … Combining a vast superficial fact base with a profound ignorance of her adopted country Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente’s latest diatribe against newfies might qualify as a hate crime if we were an identifiable group. Nonsense, we’re Canada’s invisible minority. — Jim Bennett, Daniel’s Harbour Feb. 6 … Discovering The Independent, insignificant as that may

RYAN CLEARY

Fighting Newfoundlander sound, has had a beneficial impact on my studies, my career, and my life.

— Ryan Crocker, Stephenville.

Feb. 27 … (I) was absolutely appalled by the use of the picture on the front page — using our hard-working residents as freaks to make a point that make-work projects are degrading. Not all low-income earners and people in the outports who have to apply for these projects agree with your comments. — Linda Walker, Winterton.

April 17 … Thank you for giving us reasons to read local newspapers again, for giving us a safe haven for independent and intelligent thought, for reminding us there are better ways, deeper thoughts and indeed new insights. I greet every paper with excitement and intrigue. — Ray Penton Jr., St. John’s.

May 22 … Is this the best Stephen Harper, the man who would be king, can do? Make disparaging remarks about Belinda Stronach’s leadership aspirations and then reveal how devastated Peter MacKay, her beau of six months, is over Belinda’s move to the Liberals? Harper should aspire to be head of the boy scouts, not this great country of Canada, and MacKay should learn that all is fair in love and politics. — Aubrey Smith, Grand Falls-Windsor.

June 26 … I watched the documentary, Hard Rock & Water, to see how well Iceland is doing as a nation on its own. It makes me cringe to see what’s happening to Newfoundland and its resources in Canada. Let’s go independent. Let’s be ourselves. Let’s increase our can-do attitude and let the world know we can do what Iceland did in 1944. — Ron Durnford,

Stephenville Crossing.

July 3 … As a young person on the verge of graduating from Memorial I believe that if Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, especially my generation, do not fight to control this province’s destiny we will lose it. — John Matchim, Paradise.

Sept. 11 … I believe John Efford is simply incompetent on the federal political scene and does not have, or has lost, the necessary level of integrity to resign. — Ronald Tizzard, Paradise.

Sept. 25 … Boy, would I like to work at the CBC described by Brian Dobbin and Ryan Cleary — the one where employees get 14 weeks holiday per year, and are home every night in time for supper with the kids. — Kathy Porter, St. John’s.

Oct. 2 … The tragedy of the Melina and Keith II is yet another example of how unprepared and inadequate our public agencies are in response to the needs of our most important industry.

— Gabe Gregory, Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s.

Oct. 16 … Enough already! I’m tired of flag debates. — Roy Babstock of Eastport reacting to the push to make Pink, White and Green the official flag.

Oct. 23 … I believe the decision of the administration of St. Bonaventure’s College to ask Alphonsus Penney to celebrate the school’s opening mass in September was wholly appropriate. — Ian Power, St. John’s.

Nov. 27 … The fight and drive of our province is waking from its hibernation. The fighting Newfoundlander has only just begun. — Bonnie JarvisLowe, Shoal Harbour.

On behalf of the staff of The Independent, Happy New Year to you and yours … and keep the letters coming.

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

JANUARY 1, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 7

‘Bread and circuses’

Ivan Morgan says Americans are more interested in Brad Pitt’s latest love life than the important things

B

reaking news! I was flipping through the channels and I saw this emblazoned across my TV screen. My thumb froze over the remote.

What! It turned out to be the latest information on a teenager missing in Aruba — tragic for the family, but hardly breaking news.

The term once had resonance.

Breaking news used to refer to something you needed to know about right away.

The day Ronald Reagan was shot, for instance, or the ravages of a huge tsunami — that sort of thing.

It used to be that when I saw the term breaking news, I got an adrenaline rush.

Now, everything on CNN is breaking news. In the obsessive race for ratings, the term has been rendered meaningless.

This deplorable state of American journalism reflects the deplorable state of American politics.

I have always been fascinated with American politics. I have great passion for the institution of the American presidency. I have so many books on Franklin

IVAN MORGAN

Rant & Reason Roosevelt (my personal hero) that I have lost count. His personal challenges, his complicated relationship with his remarkable wife Eleanor, the strength of his vision, the responsibility he so willingly shouldered still compel me to read everything I can get my hands on about him and his colleagues. He was a singular human being.

The current president of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, on the other hand, is a disgrace to the institution. I think he is a liar or a dupe — and possibly both. I watched his latest television address, where he “took responsibility” for invading Iraq. It was as self-serving a performance as I have ever seen.

The war in Iraq was a mistake from its very inception, and the push to war has

been paved with lies from the president and his cabinet.

Every revelation that emerges about the conduct of the Bush administration since 9/11 confirms my original impression of them. Yet unlike our country, where our opposition is so vocal, there seems only sporadic questioning of Bush’s actions from within the United States. It is a sad comment when the most credible opposition in the country is a comedy show — Jon Stewart’s excellent The Daily Show.

Yet there is some hope. There is a bumper sticker selling briskly in the U.S that states, “I never thought I’d miss Nixon.” When I was growing up Richard Nixon was the physical embodiment of the moral bankruptcy of the Republican right. But even he could be shamed. As Watergate came to light, he knew he had done something wrong. Not Bush, Rumsfeld and the like. They have tortured, spied, and violated every right, law and moral ethic they felt like with the clear-eyed impunity of those who know

they are “doing the right thing” — all while waving their so-called Christian piety in our faces, and they have had to face no consequences.

Nothing scares me more than the morally certain — those who know their beliefs are the only true and correct ones.

People like that are so sure of their cause that they often feel comfortable doing whatever it takes to get their way.

I know another group like that … they live in caves. They are the reason behind all this. We live in a world of fanatical Muslims battling fanatical Christians and (please excuse the overwhelming irony), God help the rest of us if we get caught in the middle.

Franklin Roosevelt faced the combined threat of two industrialized nations — Germany and Japan. Bush faces a ragtag band of malcontents. Roosevelt acted with vision, principle and decisiveness to protect America. Bush prevaricates, and shucks and jives with the truth, all while raping the economy and putting mockery to what little is left that is great about the

ANY MUMMERS ’LOWED IN?

YOUR VOICE Craig Dobbin for president Dear editor, Craig Dobbin thinks outside the box. Bill Gates thinks outside the box. Both have developed very successful enterprises.

Craig was certainly thinking outside the box when he wrote the guest editorial (The great republic) in the Dec. 18-24 edition of The Independent.

At the same time, he put his finger on the pulse in stating: “this country is changing and has been changing for years but our parliamentary democracy is stagnant.” A good example of this stagnation is occurring during this present election campaign where we have three federal leaders playing Santa Claus, the fourth bent on taking Quebec out of Confederation and no substantive issues being discussed.

Craig goes on to identify the major problems “causing every province in this country to feel disenfranchised to some degree and recommends we move towards a republican form of government in order to solve these problems.”

One of the examples he gives … “our new constitution should embody the notion that when you are part of Canada you’re in for good, there’s no exit.”

I don’t intend to address all the issues he raises, but I do want to deal with this one and it does not require a republican form of government for it to be resolved.

Your readers might be interested in knowing that Canada is the only country in the world that has legislated a formula for a province to separate. How did this happen?

After the last referendum in Quebec the federal government referred the matter of separation to

the Supreme Court of Canada as our Constitution is silent on the issue.

It ruled as follows: “There is no right under international law or under the Constitution of Canada, for the National Assembly, legislature or Government of Quebec to effect the secession of Quebec from Canada unilaterally.”

That should have settled the matter once and for all and, based on that ruling, Quebec or any other province for that matter, could no longer be allowed to hold a referendum.

What followed was something different and based on the way the question was referred to the Supreme Court.

In addition to asking the court for its legal opinion, the federal government also asked for its advice on how the Government of Canada should deal with any future referendum. This resulted in Bill C-20, better known as the Clarity Act, which was passed in 1999 and which in turn provides the formula for any Province in Canada to separate.

Quebec has being using the separation lever for the last 100 years and it will continue for the next hundred unless we do something about it.

The answer is quite simple. The Clarity Act is still not part of Canada’s Constitution so all that is required is for the next government to rescind the Clarity Act and abide by the legal opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada that separation is out of the question for any province.

If Craig ever gets his wish and we end up with a republican form of government, I hope he will run for president. He will have my vote.

Burford Ploughman, St. John’s

Mummering, or janneying, isn’t as popular as it once was in Newfoundland and Labrador, but it is still alive and well in most rural areas. Each Christmas, usually beginning Dec. 26th, people disguise themselves in old clothing and travel about the community on foot from house to house, spreading merriment and cheer. These mummers were spotted in Logy Bay outside St. John’s.

Rhonda Hayward/The Independent

United States.

I cannot help but think of the Roman writer Juvenal. Nineteen hundred years ago he wrote despairingly of his country’s slide into dictatorship. As Roman emperors gained more and more power, Juvenal observed that the people of Rome seemed interested only in “bread and circuses.” They seemed uninterested in the important things going on around them.

He saw his fellow Romans as being duped by dictators who empowered themselves and ruined the Empire while providing gaudy distractions for the populace.

I don’t think Juvenal would be surprised by America today. Am I being too cynical? Name me one detainee among the hundreds in Guantanamo Bay. How long has Iraq been a country? Why did Saddam Hussein rise to power?

Now, who did Brad Pitt leave Jennifer Aniston for?

I rest my case.

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

Gutter journalism alive and well … at Toronto Sun Dear editor, Just wanted to add my two cents to the latest fuss over what the upalong crowd is saying about us.

Now let’s see … Bill Lankhof was it? Toronto Sun? Pogey cheques and seal clubbing? Something like that?

The usual.

It seems some of us are a mite perturbed, but I call on them to stop and think about where this stuff is coming from.

They need to realize that Torontonians are backward enough to believe that, should they ever be foolish enough to venture forth on a trip to Africa, they will immediately be trussed up by the locals and then boiled in a pot.

At least that’s what their mayor said one day when I was living near there and I guess he spoke for all of ’em.

I think what we need to realize is that journalists, like everybody, have their lazy days. Poor night’s sleep?

Fight with the missus? Stuck in traffic for three hours?

Some days it’s tough to come up with cutting-edge stuff and that’s where tired and truthless stereotypes come in handy. Even if it blows up in their faces they can always resort to the last refuge of the scribbling scoundrel: i.e. “It’s my job to provoke discussion.”

Gutter journalism is alive and well in this country (see Toronto Sun), as are stupid stereotypes.

The trick is to leave them where they come from ... the gutter.

David Paddon, St. John’s

‘Amazing ignorance, and arrogance’

Brad Gushue

Dear editor, It’s the latest thing to happen in the land of the hosers where they believe Toronto is Canada. Bill Lankhof, a sports writer for the Toronto Sun, is “amused” that Brad Gushue’s Newfoundland team is representing Canada in curling at the 2006 Olympics in Turin.

The last time something as arrogant as this came out of Ontario was when Margaret Wente wrote her hatefilled column about Newfoundland.

But for Mr. Lankhof and the local Toronto hosers, Gushue’s victory is opportune because:

1) They can show off their ignorance by reminding Newfoundlanders that they are not really worthy of representing Canada at the Olympics. Stating that baby seal whacking is a local spectator sport, that Newfoundlanders look up to people named Skip and gnaw on yucky whale blubber, is a great way to show off your amazing ignorance, and arrogance.

2) Mr. Lankhof and his Hoserkind, because their team couldn’t beat Newfoundland at the curling rink, can now feel superior by putting down Newfoundland’s

accomplishment through cliches and slander.

3) Ontario has the Toronto Raptors, maple syrup, toques, the people talk slowly and say “eh” all the time.

Curling?

Hardly as fast as basketball.

Perhaps the Toronto Raptors can represent Ontario in curling and win!

4) Mr. Lankhof, most likely can’t dance, but thrills at blasting bagpipes from behind and sitting on nests of yellow jackets.

He probably doesn’t care that Brad Gushue’s win was more personally satisfying because it made his moth-

er, who is battling cancer, proud of him.

5) Local Torontonians can enjoy their favoured pastime of stereotyping Newfoundlanders.

After all, Newfoundlanders are not as privileged to live in such a pristine area, socially, economically and environmentally, as greater Toronto?

They are so jaded that, instead of recognizing accomplishments, they delight in spreading ignorance about an identifiable group of people.

Ed O’Brien, St. John’s

JANUARY 1, 2006

8 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

LIFE STORY

A piece of the action SIR RICHARD SQUIRES 1880-1940

By Jenny Higgins For The Independent

I

ncompetent, unlucky, helpless and corrupt are some adjectives historians have used to describe Sir Richard Squires, Newfoundland’s prime minister from 1919-1923 and 19281932.

It was under his watch that the infamous St. John’s riot of 1932 occurred — 10,000 people, infuriated by rumours that Squires was lining his pockets with public money, ransacked and smashed all the windows in the Colonial Building while Squires was inside.

The prime minister eventually fled on foot, leapt a fence and dove into a passing taxi to avoid becoming a victim of mob violence.

He remains one of Newfoundland’s most controversial politicians.

Richard Anderson Squires was born at Harbour Grace on Jan. 18, 1880 to parents Alexander and Sydney Squires. After graduating from the Methodist College in St. John’s, Squires went on to study law at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.

In 1902 he became a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and joined the legal firm of Edward P. Morris.

Morris, who was also minister of Justice and attorney general in Robert Bond’s government, quickly became Squires’ mentor.

Shortly after leaving Bond’s government to form his own political party — the People’s Party — Morris invited the young Squires to run for office.

In the 1909 election, the People’s Party soundly defeated Bond’s Liberals — winning 26 out of 36 seats — and Squires was elected to the House of Assembly in the constituency of Trinity.

He spent the following few years as a backbencher and, in 1917, Morris rewarded his loyalty by making Squires the colonial secretary.

However, on Dec. 31, 1917 Squires’ career took an unexpected turn after Morris, his friend and mentor, abruptly resigned from politics.

A new administration was formed, but Squires did not become a member of that government.

Instead, he chose to form — and head — his own party, the Liberal Reform Party.

While campaigning for the 1919 election, Squires promised to improve education, increase old-age pensions, strengthen the fisheries, build more roads and usher Newfoundland into a prosperous, new industrial era.

His platform was a success; the 39year-old Squires became prime minister of Newfoundland.

During his first term, Squires made good on a number of election promises: he created a Department of Education, as well as a Department of Posts and Telegraphs; he put $100,000 towards the creation of a teachers’ training school; and he started Memorial College.

Moreover, he built the Corner

Brook paper mill — a feat considered to be the greatest achievement of Squires’ first administration.

Despite these successes, Squires’ first term was plagued with difficulties.

In the aftermath of the First World War, the demand for fish dropped, along with its price. Unemployment, on the other hand, increased.

Compounding the situation was a war debt of $35 million.

The public held Squires to blame, even though he was in no way responsible for the economic downturn.

Fortunately for Squires, public opinion of the opposition was even worse, and his government returned to power in the election of May 1923.

Less than two months into his second term, however, Squires became embroiled in a scandal that would taint the rest of his political life.

In mid-July, both the opposition and the press accused Alexander Campbell, the minister of Agriculture and Squires’ close friend, of using public money to finance his election campaign.

A few days later, a group of four ministers confronted Squires and demanded he expel Campbell from cabinet.

Squires refused and, in an unexpected move, resigned from the government himself.

INQUIRY William Warren, the minister of Justice, became prime minister and created a commission of inquiry to investigate the charges against Campbell.

The commission eventually concluded that a variety of politicians — including Squires and Campbell — took public money for their own use.

The money included $20,000 that should have gone to the Liquor Control Department, but wound up in Squires’ possession.

Squires was arrested in April, 1924 and charged with larceny, although the grand jury refused to indict him on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

Instead, he was convicted and fined for a lesser offence of income tax evasion.

Squires chose not to run in the 1924 election.

He spent the next four years out of the spotlight, trying to repair his tar-

nished reputation.

Meantime, the Conservative government that took office in Squires’ wake was no less corrupt and no more liked — its members increased tariffs on goods produced by companies in which they were shareholders.

Squires took advantage of public displeasure with the Conservative government during the 1928 election and was once again re-elected prime minister.

The first year of his administration went by smoothly, but it wasn’t long before a familiar pattern re-emerged.

Once again, Newfoundland experienced an economic slump — this time as a result of the Great Depression.

Once again, Squires was accused of stealing public money — this time by the minister of Finance, Peter Cashin.

In Feb. 1932, Cashin accused Squires of taking $5,000 from the War Reparations Commission every year he was prime minister.

At the opposition’s bidding, an inquiry into the accusation was arranged. Governor John Middleton headed up the inquiry and ruled that Squires was innocent. Despite the ruling, and perhaps due to allegations that Middleton didn’t properly investigate the case because of personal bias, there was public outcry against Squires.

On April 5, 1932 a crowd of 2,000 people assembled at the Majestic Theatre in St. John’s and marched to the Colonial Building, picking up an extra 8,000 people along the way.

Once there, the scene grew violent.

Some people threw stones at windows; others rushed inside and ransacked the building.

At one point, a piano was dragged out of the building and into Bannerman Park where rioters smashed it to pieces.

It was later that evening, when the mob was dispersing, that Squires tried to escape from the building by slipping into a waiting car.

However, someone in the mob recognized the fleeing prime minister and yelled: “There he is, there’s the bastard!”

Squires reportedly jumped out of the car, ran through a house on Colonial Street, jumped some fences to Bannerman Street and leapt into a passing taxi, which took him to a friend’s home on Waterford Bridge Road.

Meanwhile, the mob, thwarted in its attempt to catch Squires, marched to a downtown liquor store, chopped down a telephone pole and used it as a battering ram to break into the shop and loot it.

Amazingly, Squires refused to step down as prime minister. He decided to call an election instead — which he lost. The party that ran against Squires won every seat but two.

Squires retired from politics after that and continued his law practice. He spent much of time at his farm in Midstream, which is now a part of Bowering Park. He lived with his wife, Helena and their five children.

Squires died at the age of 60 on March 26, 1940.

AROUND THE BAY “Christmas, 1952, will be celebrated in Newfoundland in greater comfort than for many years past. We have more prosperity than we have ever had before. I believe that 1953 will be just as prosperous, if not more so.”

— The Bay Roberts Speaker, Dec. 23, 1952 YEARS PAST “The year 1919 will be remembered by all marine underwriters, as accidents have been frequent and losses heavy.

During the past three months we estimate that fully 127 vessels employed in our domestic and foreign trade have been lost.”

— The St. John’s Daily Star, Jan. 7, 1920 AROUND THE WORLD “Figures place the total of frozen fish — presumably all kinds and not only cod fillets — at about 29 million pounds this year, or about 10 million pounds more than last year. While some Canadian fillets have been found by United Kingdom importers not to be of the highest quality, Newfoundland fillets are reported to have been all high class.

Unfortunately, British fishing journals usually lump Newfoundland and Canadian fillets together, so that we share that impartially in any criticism of our bigger neighbour’s product.”

— Newfoundland Trade Review, Jan. 12, 1946

EDITORIAL STAND “The old year like many of the earth’s children, seems to be better regarded when it is gone beyond recall, and regret … we would, however, gently hint, that as the year ’58 is the lawful heir and successor of ’57, all debts, promises, and resolutions remaining unfulfilled on the tablets of conscience should be faithfully paid to the coming year.”

— The Courier, Jan. 6, 1858 LETTER TO THE EDITOR “As one who has visited the island of Newfoundland quite frequently, I have a good opportunity to study the conditions under which the people live, particularly those in the outports, and upon whom the question I wish to speak about inflict sits greatest hardships. I refer to the government tariff on imported goods. To my mind, there never was a more disgraceful and irresponsible tariff compiled by any government and the officials who are responsible ought to be ashamed of themselves.”

— The Daily Globe, Dec. 26, 1925 QUOTE OF THE WEEK “There have been always false prophets and false teachers in the world … one of this class, we remember, predicted that the earth would be brought to a close in June last, and strange to say, found believers; yet the globe still feels firm and solid under our feet.”

— Editor of the Observer’s Weekly, Jan. 6, 1958

Here are 2 great GIFT IDEAS from the NSO – Call 729-3900 Our Annual BIG BAND Show TRIBUTE to MOTOWN & SOUL And the NSO plays Classic Movie Music Peter Gardner & Jim Duff conductors Featuring Kelly-Ann Evans with Janet Cull and Crystal McCarthy vocals Symphony No. 25 Ist movement Mozart (Amadeus) The Gadfly Shostakovich (Reilly, Ace of Spies) Nocturne Khachaturian (The Oneiden Line) And the original score for the film Lieutenant Kije by Prokofiev.

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Friday January 27, 2006 Arts & Culture Centre – 8pm

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Enjoy a sampling of some of his great music including concertos, sonatas, operatic arias, quartets and serenades performed by the NSO Sinfonia, the Atlantic String Quartet, pianists Maureen Volk and Kristina Szutor, Duo Concertante, vocalists Jane Leibel, Catherine Fitch, Caroline Schiller, Shelley Neville, and Robert Colbourne, the MUN Chamber Orchestra with conductor Vernon Regehr. Also Alison Black violin, Pemi Paull viola, Victoria McNeill horn, Michelle Cheramy flute, David Reid euphonium and members of the NSO oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn sections.

Mozart — the guest of honour — will be there to blow out the candles on his cake ... all 250 of them!

Tickets: $20/$17 Call 729-3900 May be available at the door.

INDEPENDENTWORLD

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JANUARY 1-7, 2006 — PAGE 9

Get going already, 2005 The last 12 months, full of petty disputes and huge catastrophes, have worn out their welcome

By Lynda Hurst Torstar wire service

ability on climate change. Less so on the charge that government response to Hurricane Katrina was less than swift and far from sufficient. o, 2005, be gone. You have appalled us Although the calamity of a flooded-out New long enough. Take your naked brutalities, Orleans didn’t appear to stress him unduly, Bush your natural and manmade disasters, your did have thoughts about it: sheer, outright freakishness on fronts big and “My thoughts are, we’re going to get somebody small, and shove them into the bin over there, the who knows what they’re talking about when it one beside the cat box, marked Toxic: Do Not comes to rebuilding cities.”

Recycle.

No doubt he was prodded into action by his misAll that was missing was a plague of locusts. leadingly benign-looking mom. After thousands of But famine, check. War, check. Pestilence? It’s survivors — black, poor and now homeless — en route with the avian flu. were bused to Houston’s Astrodome, Barbara This year, those with faculties intact finally Bush told a local radio station, “What I’m hearing, understood that the planet has to get its environ- which is sort of scary, is that they all want to stay mental act together, now. Not, however, a close-by in Texas.” nation whose name Paul Martin was warned by its And, of course, there was the year-long pretense ambassadorial minion not to the Iraqis appreciate America utter. for bringing them terror and Our defiant prime minister chaos, er, peace and democra(a.k.a. Mr. Dithers, according to cy, death counts (30,000+ Iraqi “If it’s in the paper and civilians, 2,100+ U.S. military) The Economist) said it anyway: “The United States.” Then he to the contrary. doesn’t involve a cat said it again: “The United Bush was as reassuring as States.” ever: has, have got people eating lasagna, George there “Iraq So uh-oh on that score. that are willing to kill, Who could blame the and they’re hard-nosed killers.

Bush probably hasn’t despairing president of Kenya, And we will work with the Mwai Kibaki, for taking to his Iraqis to secure their future.” read it.” bed for two solid weeks back in In his withering Nobel Prize January? Apparently the failure for Literature acceptance Jon Stewart to stamp out government corspeech, British playwright ruption, coupled with the Harold Pinter let the U.S. have squabbling of his two wives, it: “You have to hand it to drove him between the sheets.

America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipuRighty-ho. To each his own alternative reality. lation of power worldwide while masquerading as Turkmenbashi the Great, as Turkmenistan’s a force for universal good. As a salesman, it is out erratic president-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov is on its own and its most saleable commodity is officially known, has been living in one for quite self-love.” some time.

Not that Dubya would have read Pinter’s tribA lot of things irk Turk the Great. He had ute. As the Daily Show’s most excellent Jon already prohibited opera, ballet, long hair and gold Stewart noted, “If it’s in the paper and doesn’t fillings and this year added recorded music in involve a cat eating lasagna, George Bush probarestaurants and at private parties to the banned list. bly hasn’t read it.”

Oh, and lip-synching.

That could explain his gobsmacked reaction He didn’t want to “see these talentless old when the president of Brazil showed him a map of singers lip-synching to songs,” he said with dis- the country during trade talks this fall: “Wow!” gust at a cabinet meeting aired on state TV. Bush enthused. “Brazil is big.”

Having found his alternative reality five years And Denmark is small. But Bush claimed it as a ago, George W. Bush clung limpet-like to it pal this year. “I’m looking forward to a good through a hectic 2005. night’s sleep on the soil of a friend,” he told the “See, in my line of work,” he explained in May, befuddled Danes before descending for a visit in “you got to keep repeating things over and over June. and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of Thank God for the Scots is all we can say. catapult the propaganda.”

Catapult, he did. Icebergs weren’t yet drifting See “I’m shocked,” page 10 down the Potomac, so he had semi-plausible deni-

G

Images from 2005: Katrina’s heartbreak; George Bush; Prince Harry causes a stir on the tabloids.

Reuters

Do voters care or are we all just wimps?

I

t seems to me the main election issue is whether Canadians want a properly functioning, competitive and healthy democratic system. Do they care?

Governments must change from time to time, since it is inevitable that such a party becomes complacent and arrogant, with the prime minister and members considering themselves entitled to whatever rewards and positions they aspire to.

This has happened with the Liberals over the past 12 years. There is evidence of corruption, favouritism, mal-

JOHN CROSBIE

The old curmudgeon administration and excessive patronage, as shown by Justice John Gomery’s findings regarding “elaborate kickback schemes” benefiting the Liberal party in Quebec.

PM Paul Martin and other senior Liberals seem to believe they are enti-

This and other scandals amounted to tled to ignore solemn promises — such as to abolish the GST, as Martin and his a terrible record in governance that led to the extraordinary predecessor Jean Opposition effort to Chrétien promised in 1993.

The voters must decide defeat the government because it “no Even more signifiwhether they ignore longer had the cant is Martin’s attimoral authority to tude toward conflict this behaviour or govern.” of interest rules when The voters must he was Finance minchange the government decide whether ister. He acted to they ignore this ensure that Barbados remained a tax haven for Canadian behaviour or change the government, enterprises, including his own family’s indicating to politicians that such Canadian Steamships Ltd. behaviour will neither be approved by

See “The new non-debate,” page 10

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

Ê

Looking for the perfect gift from home to send away?

nor forgiven.

The current campaign has featured a positive and informative presentation of Conservative Party policies, ranging from cutting the GST by 1 per cent immediately and another 1 per cent in four years, to giving families with children under age six $1,200 a year towards child care expenses. The latter plan would transfer money directly to parents to spend as they see fit.

The differing philosophies of the Conservative and Liberal parties are

Name: ________________________________________ Street Address: _________________________________ City/Town: _____________________________________ Area Code: _____________ Phone: ________________

Authored by Walter Andrews and Illustrated by Boyd Chubbs • Where Once They Stood is a unique Newfoundland & Labrador chronology presented as a beautiful poster.

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JANUARY 1, 2006

10 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

The new, non-

FISH FLY

debate format From page 9 now clear as a result of the statement of Martin spokesman Scott Reid, that parents might use the Conservative childcare benefits to buy “beer and popcorn.”

That this was not an aberration but a true expression of Liberal philosophy was evidenced when this same view was expressed by Martin Liberal strategist, John Duffy, who added, “There is nothing to stop people from spending it on beer or popcorn or a coat or a car or anything.”

Finally, a note about the first debates among the leaders: The supine new format is an example of what wimps we’ve become. This is not a debate, it’s a farce — no penetrating questions, nothing viewers can make a judgment on. To think this new “non-debate” format makes a contribution to people’s choice of which of the leaders should be prime minister is nightmarish.

Nevertheless, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper showed himself in both debates as a young, intelligent, moderate; a middle-of-the-road thinker heading a party more than capable of taking Canada forward safely and securely into the future.

Martin, conversely, continues to fit remarkably the judgment of Benjamin Disraeli who said, in referring to Sir Robert Peel, “(his) smile is like the silver fittings on a coffin” and, about his Liberal opponent William Gladstone, “He made his conscience not his guide but his accomplice.”

Chinese fishermen throw fish into the sky during the celebration of a winter fishing festival at Chagan Lake in northeast China's Jilin province. The festival runs until Feb. 6.

Reuters/China Newsphoto

John Crosbie’s column returns Jan. 15

‘I’m shocked, I’m shocked’ From page 9

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Residents of Dundurn in the Scottish highlands turned out en masse to meet a construction crew when it arrived to start work on a new housing site. As the bulldozer moved in to clear a field, the villagers screamed: “Don’t move that rock! You’ll kill the fairies.”

The developer scrapped his building plans immediately.

When several European countries expressed astonishment over the U.S.’s habit of “rendering” terror suspects, via their airbases, to torture-friendly Mideast states, former secretary of state Colin Powell called them on it: “There’s an element of Casablanca to the European reaction,” Powell dryly noted. “The inspector says ‘I’m shocked, I’m shocked.’ The Europeans cannot be shocked.”

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FRIGHTENS CHILDREN Nor, apparently, can our (formerly) own Conrad Black.

Despite facing criminal charges that could net him 95 years in the slammer, Lord Black resolutely stuck to his injured-party alternative reality.

“I have no doubt that mothers in America use my name to frighten their children into finishing their vegetables,” he told Fortune magazine, momentarily forgetting Canadian moms. “But this is not a permanent state of affairs.”

Meanwhile, the rest of the world soldiered on, one step forward, two steps back.

Ontario avoided a wrong turn when Premier Dalton McGuinty said no in September to sharia and all other forms of religious domestic arbitration, finally concluding what was patently obvious to others: “We are all to be held accountable by the same law.”

But several American states took 10 steps back when local school boards decided the “theory” of intelligent design, i.e. creationism rebranded, should be taught alongside the “theory” of evolution.

That was good news for a fundamentalist group in Kentucky. It began construction on a $25-million Museum of Creation to lure visitors interested in learning how dinosaurs and humans co-existed millions of years ago.

One exhibit will show a Tyrannosaurus Rex chasing Adam and Eve out of Eden, thus unleashing “real terror” into the world. (As opposed, presumably, to the London underground version that saw 52 killed in July.)

CALL ME SIR A crony with a camera did in the luckless Prince Harry, snapping him in party mode as a member of the Nazi Afrika Korps, complete with swastika. He’d barely recovered from the furor when he started at Sandhurst Military College, there to be introduced to one Vincent Gaunt, Warrant Officer First Class.

“Prince Harry will call me sir and I will call him sir,” Gaunt said later. “But he will be the one who means it.”

Prince Charles finally wed Camilla Parker Bowles, ever the girl of his dreams, albeit now a middle-aged one. “The saving grace,” said a caller to BBC Radio, “is that it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to breed.”

Come the big day, April 8, no April 9, most Brits were indifferent. As poet Pam Ayres put it in a royal-wedding verse: “My mother said ‘Say nothing/If you can’t say something nice’/So from my poem you can see/I’m taking her advice.”

Unlike Mike Forbes, a Texas emergency call operator, who was reprimanded after a woman called to report her 12-year-old daughter kicking a hole in the wall. “Do you want us to come over and shoot her?” he’d replied.

Unimpressed with world saviour Bob Geldof’s plans for another concert to end African poverty — without any African performers — several Ugandan protesters greeted him on a pre-Live 8 visit with placards reading, “Geldof sober up and shut up.”

GETTING TO HEAVEN Speaking of which, the Irish were mightily aggrieved in January when their atmospherically smoky pubs were forced to go tobacco-free, sabotaging the tourist-board posters and alienating the regulars.

“What will they do next — ban the drink because the alcohol’s no good for you?” snapped one non-smoking but wary Dubliner, adding with unassailable Irish logic: “None of us would ever get to heaven if we didn’t die.”

Having exhausted all forms of alternative reality over the years, counterculture journalist Hunter S. Thompson ticked that final option in 2005, via a shotgun blast to the head. His acolytes urged the rest of us to salute his passing by checking out our “inner Gonzo.”

We would have, but it might have killed the fairies.

JANUARY 1, 2006

INDEPENDENTWORLD • 11

Handguns not just big city problem

VOICE FROM AWAY

Blame it on city crime or country gun culture, New Brunswick has a high rate of firearm deaths MONCTON

By Nina Chiarelli Telegraph-Journal

E

Korean children receive gifts until about age 10.

Reuters

Spicy octopus, Skid Row wishes, 12 hours in church …

A Newfoundlander away reflects on his third Christmas in Asia

By Tim Hiscock For the Independent

I

’m getting ready to leave my office in Osan high school for the day. It’s the Christmas season, but you wouldn’t know it if Santa was sitting on your lap.

It just isn’t that important in Korea.

Christmas is here, like it is basically everywhere else around the world, but not Newfoundland-style. There are no lights, trees and random decorations around the town, no streets full of taxis driving the drunks home after the Christmas party, no hordes of people in the malls buying presents. Well, the malls are full, but not for Christmas so much, it’s just Koreans like to buy stuff.

It’s a very commercial country.

Christmas sneaks up on you, and the sense of longing to be home — that you’d expect to be associated with a Christmas away from home — isn’t really that strong. It’s only when you flick on the American Army TV station and see Skid Row band members wishing you happy holidays that you even remember.

But there are those who attempt to bring the best of the season here.

Korea’s version of Canada’s wonderland has a Christmas theme this month, and the employees of the movie chain CGV (like Empire Theatres) are all dressed like a cross between elves and candy canes. Quite scary, actually.

You might think Korea doesn’t have Christmas because they’re Buddhist, right?

Actually, Korea is 52 per cent Christian. It’s all a result of American missionaries bringing food, clothes and many, many Bibles to help this country during and after the war. And it stuck.

It’s interesting that in Korea Christmas is about Jesus and not Santa Claus the way it is for most people in

our country and culture. (Sorry if I offend anyone with that comment, but you know it’s true.)

Korean Christians go to church Christmas Eve around six and stay there all night singing and talking and doing odd versions of Christmas plays.

They go home about 6 a.m., and they’re back to church at noon for another service. Yikes! I have enough trouble going to church for an hour on Christmas Eve to make Mom happy.

As far as the fat elf with a penchant for break-ins and cookies goes, he visits some children until they’re about 10,

Well, the malls are full, but not for Christmas so much, it’s just Koreans like to buy stuff. It’s a very commercial country.

then it’s over. No gift exchange, no stockings for your 23-year-old sister, no allowance-saving to buy dad a tie.

It’s done. Mom says “Santa Hapaboji” (Grandfather Santa), isn’t real and he’s never coming again. End of story.

Kinda harsh if you ask me.

The only true gift exchange in Korea comes for dating couples. Boyfriends and girlfriends buy gifts for each other and share a moment. But that’s done on Valentine’s Day, White Day, 100-days Day, Pepero Day and a few other “spe-

cial days” that would take me another page to explain.

The only true feeling of Christmas as we know it lives in the foreign community, which is quite large. This was my third Christmas in Korea. My first was great. I had a hotel room with three friends, and about 30 other friends in other rooms. We had a serious boozeup and karaoke party (quite popular in Asia if you hadn’t heard), a secret Santa gift exchange and a Hilton hotel Christmas buffet in the morning. I got a toy gun.

My second Christmas, to be honest, was spent mostly in bed. There was a big party at my friend Marty’s apartment on Christmas Eve and I had a bit too much soju (Korean booze) and suffered my merry day away trying to keep my Christmas pizza down.

Last year I was home in St. John’s with my family, and I’ve got to say it was one of the best Christmases I’ve had since I found out Santa’s deal. And I wish with all my heart that I could have been home for this one, but that’s the price you pay when you follow your sense of adventure to the other side of the world …

But don’t worry about me, I have friends here and a girlfriend who put on a bow for me so I had something to unwrap.

I hope you really enjoyed that turkey dinner and thought of me slurping down my spicy octopus noodles, because for some reason or another turkey seems to be an endangered species in Korea.

Anyways, hope you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Oh yeah … New Year’s Eve … well, that’s another story …

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

ight handguns are stolen from a Cape Breton apartment. A cache of unsafely-stored firearms are found as police raid a marijuana grow-op in Chipman. A man robs a Moncton pharmacy with a gun, stealing money and frightening the clerk.

There are more guns out there than people think.

While New Brunswick’s cities are relatively small compared with metropolitan centres across Canada, the shooting death in downtown Toronto this week of an innocent 15-year-old girl out hunting for Boxing Day bargains isn’t something Atlantic Canadians can ignore.

“Dealing with a certain level of activity in Saint John with the criminal element, there’s that realization and expectation that when we go in we’re going to see a handgun or a rifle,” says Insp. Bill Reid, in charge of Saint John’s criminal investigation division. “We certainly see a lot of weapons.”

Reid says the criminal element almost always counts on handguns to back up their malicious and violent intents.

“The few shootings that we’ve had have been handguns … They’ve been retaliatory in nature,” he says.

Whether handguns are easier to conceal, or easier to get hot off the street, police in New Brunswick are protecting themselves from unexpected run-ins.

“I cannot deny that we are getting calls, and we are getting firearms complaints,” says RCMP Sgt. Ron Gosselin.

While Toronto recorded a record number of fatal and non-fatal shootings this year that were drug and gang related, much of it was isolated, involving different factions feuding

over turf and control of drug territory.

Some of the shootings were retaliatory acts, or revenge for bruised egos, perceived slights and disrespect, police believe.

Ross Faulkner, owner of the largest firearm store in New Brunswick, The Gun Dealer in McAdam, insists the issue isn’t guns, it’s crime.

“I am a responsible firearm owner, and there are many responsible firearms owners,” he says. “And why do we, as responsible firearms owners have to pay the price for the criminals in Toronto? Why don’t they just get control of the criminal problem? Why are these criminals still walking the streets?”

Faulkner says he believes the gun violence in Toronto is gang-related.

“Let’s face it, there’s seems to be a gang and a drug-related problem.

Let’s enforce the laws.”

However, Wendy Cukier, the volunteer president of the Canada’s Coalition for Gun Control, said shooting can happen anywhere.

“Shootings have happened in sleepy little towns, and they’ve happened in big cities,” she says.

Cukier says no city or province can become complacent because violence is happening three provinces away.

The group points to research released by the Canadian Firearms Centre showing New Brunswick’s average annual rate of firearm death between 1989 and 1997 is the highest among the provinces at 6.9 per 100,000 people, well above the Canadian average of 4.3 per 100,000 people.

Between 1991 and 1995, New Brunswick had an average annual firearm death rate of 11.4 per 100,000 people among youth aged 15 to 24.

That is almost twice the national rate of 6.3 per 100,000 people “When you have homes with guns, you higher rates of gun deaths, home violence,” she says.

JANUARY 1, 2006

12 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

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INDEPENDENTLIFE

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JANUARY 1-7, 2006 — PAGE 13

Witless Bay Overpass, 1996

Winter at Whiteway, 2004

Deer Lake: Junction Brook Memorial, 1999

The Americans: Off-Base Housing, 1999. Images courtesy National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

Newfoundland advocate From blizzards to abandoned military housing to statements on Confederation, Christopher Pratt’s Ottawa exhibition is personal and political OTTAWA

By Nadya Bell For the Independent

I

n the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, a block from the parliament buildings, hangs an oil painting showing the tattered remains of a Canadian flag flying above a wharf in Whiteway, Trinity Bay. Known for his austere and architectural artwork, this exhibit of Newfoundland artist Christopher Pratt’s oil paintings shows the personal and political character that has surfaced in his recent work.

“You reach a point where you don’t particularly care about the arcane nuance of aesthetics, especially if you’re a realist,” Pratt tells The Independent.

Pratt’s oil paintings from the past 20 years

are on display at the national gallery until Jan. 8. The exhibition then travels to Halifax, St. John’s and Winnipeg.

The show interprets Christopher Pratt’s work in the political and historical context of Newfoundland and Labrador, while the paintings have received critical acclaim for their aesthetic value.

But Newfoundlanders visiting the exhibit when it arrives in the province should expect a personal appeal in paintings that show the backdrop of life in Newfoundland and Labrador — from a White-Out at Witless Bay Overpass, to an apartment in St. John’s in Basement Flat, to waiting for the boat at Portaux-Basques in Ferry Terminal.

Over a thermos of tea and a drive around Trinity Bay in February 2003, Pratt sketched out the rough details for Winter at Whiteway.

The painting shows a life preserver, oil barrel

and fish-splitting table on a wharf below a flagpole bearing ragged bits of a Canadian flag.

“Circumstances that strike you do so for a reason, and you don’t always know what that reason is until you’re well into it,” Pratt says.

“It was after I was working at it that I realized the symbolism.”

He completed the painting in 2004, just as Premier Danny Williams removed the Canadian flag from provincial government buildings during the Atlantic Accord dispute.

“Here was the splitting table, here was the oil barrel, the life ring thrown to us or at us by the federal government — because it’s a federal government wharf — and this tattered Canadian flag,” says Pratt.

“The flag looked like a pair of underwear and the rag on it looked like a necktie, and I saw the humour in it afterwards.”

But Pratt says the message of resource exploitation and poor governmental relations is in line with his political opinion.

“We are not successfully integrated into Canada yet,” he says. “If I didn’t have that sense of where we were in Confederation, I think the juxtaposition of certain elements wouldn’t have appealed to me as they did intuitively at the time.”

The national gallery show finishes with Winter at Whiteway, prominently displayed in the final room.

Curator Josée Drouin-Brisebois says the painting has been well received in Ottawa because she incorporated social and historical context into the descriptions of the work.

“I think there are issues that need to be See “Never occurred,” page 18

LIVYER

Looking back From the Newfie Bullet to Her Majesty’s Pen and all stops in between, Jim Lewis has had an interesting career

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

J

im Lewis is a jack of all trades, albeit a self-professed master of none.

The now-retired “Townie” began his first job hunt at a bowling ally after dropping out of school at the age of 13. Lewis, 68, went on to serve as a steward on the Newfie Bullet, and worked in the mines at St. Lawrence and Labrador City. He’s been a soldier, a brick maker and, for more than 30 years, a prison guard at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary.

Lewis now lives in Portugal CoveSt. Philip’s with his wife Peggy, grown daughter Jennifer, and a plethora of animals. Both Peggy and

Jennifer work in the horse stables while Lewis sits at the kitchen table.

“There’s lots of things that I liked to do in my life and I’ve had to give them up now,” he says, laughing off his “condition” — Parkinson’s disease.

Lewis was one of the first people in the province to receive his high school equivalency, following which he joined the Canadian army. While stationed at the military base in Gagetown, N.B., he was involved in a bus accident and broke his back.

“After a while I got depressed with that because I was going nowhere fast and I didn’t know what to do with a broken back, especially in the army,” Lewis says. His back never bothered him when he returned to St. John’s to

help his father with some heavy lifting, he says, making the bricks that built Memorial Stadium. “… 44,000 concrete blocks. Your gloves would wear out first and then the skin on the tips of your fingers,” he says of transporting the huge slabs of cement. “That was a big job.”

Lewis soon became restless and left to work in the St. Lawrence fluorspar mines. Lewis quit because of the same dust that killed so many men and returned to St. John’s.

One day, Lewis’ father introduced him to a friend who turned out to be the superintendent of Her Majesty’s Penitentiary in St. John’s. The man offered him a job and Lewis took it.

“There was so many people (inmates) that had problems,” he

Jim Lewis

says, admitting to taking pity on a few. “I seen several that I really felt bad for. Course you could see that they really had quality.

“Other fellers, I’d notice that they would make the move when they got about 35 years old, they’d just give up coming to the penitentiary. There

Rhonda Hayward/The Independent

was a change in their life and I suppose they realized spending their life coming back and forth from the penitentiary they had nothing to show for it.”

Peggy, in from the barn and making See “Looking around,” page 18

JANUARY 1, 2006

14 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

GALLERYPROFILE

NICK LANGOR Photographer

S

eventeen-year-old Nick Langor has been seriously developing his technique and eye for photography for almost two years. His efforts have just been rewarded in fine style: the Gonzaga student is the only Canadian selected for this year’s North American Nature Photography Association’s scholarship.

In February, he’ll travel to Denver, Colorado to participate in the association’s annual general meeting. Most importantly, as a scholarship recipient (there are also eight youth from the U.S. and one from Europe in the program), he’ll have the chance to spend three days with professional photographers shooting in various locations with topof-the-line gear.

“The association, basically their goal is nature conservation and fine art in nature photography,” says Langor. “I didn’t really expect to hear back from them … so I’m really happy about that.”

It’s not entirely surprising Langor would be a candidate, with his love of the outdoors and well-rounded extracurricular and academic experience — and an impressive and wideranging portfolio developed through exploring this province and beyond.

“I always had an interest in photography and being able to capture things on film,” the Grade 12 student says.

“I had an old film camera and started playing around with that and that got me really interested … then I bought a digital and did a lot of biking around St. John’s, taking pictures of surroundings and friends.”

Last April, Langor spent a week in Labrador for a hockey tournament (where he also got to shoot the northern lights); he spent five weeks living and studying French in Quebec in the summer; he was in Alberta for a school leadership conference in September, when he had the opportunity to explore Jasper, Banff, and the surrounding mountains.

While nature photography is his first love, Langor says he’s starting to get into sports, portraits, and other kinds of shooting these days.

And though he’d like to make a career of photography, he plans to enroll at Memorial next September. “I’m going to get a degree first, and see where it goes from there,” he says.

“I’m probably going to do something with the environment, maybe environmental engineering … something to help tie in with nature photography and that kind of thing.”

— Stephanie Porter

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

JANUARY 1, 2006

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 15

Geisha a flawed film Memoirs of a Geisha (145 min.)

Starring Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh (out of four)

L

FRIENDSHIP IS ... RABBITTOWN

TIM CONWAY Film Score

ife isn’t too rosy for young Chiyo. Not 10 years old, she has been sold into servitude to a geisha house in Kyoto, Japan’s Gion subtitles, Memoirs of a Geisha gives us a district. Harshly punished at every turn, cast of Asian performers whose abilities she finds herself scorned, almost imme- in English run the gamut of proficiency. diately, by the house’s head geisha, It’s safe to assume that some of them Hatsumomo, who sees Chiyo as a poten- deliver their lines phonetically, without any understanding of what they’re saytial threat to her position.

One day, a stranger’s kindness awak- ing, and we’re in the same boat.

While the major actors come across ens in her the desire to become a geisha.

She eventually ends up under the tute- fine, many of the supporting ones leave us scrambling to put lage of Mameha, things into context in Hatsumomo’s rival order to discern what’s and one of the counjust been said. try’s greatest geishas.

Zhang, Li, and Yeoh In addition to the are captivating in their training she receives roles, straining against at Mameha’s hand, the material to provide Chiyo, who is us with something of renamed Sayuri, depth. What we don’t learns there is a politihear from their mouths, cal element to the prowe can find in their fession, and one caneyes and subtle body not rise to the top language. It is clear that without the assistance they are exploring their and guidance of wise Ziyi Zhang respective characters to and powerful friends. find meaning and motiBased on the worldThere’s probably vation to pass along to wide best-selling us. Unfortunately, they novel by Arthur no malice ... or are working against the Golden, Memoirs of a deliberate attempt purposes of this film, Geisha is another where meaning seems motion picture that to con audiences, but irrelevant. comes to us bearing a While depth is sorely number of prestigious in its enthusiasm, lacking, pacing is drasaccolades, most tically worse. Running notably a couple of Hollywood seems way past two hours, Golden Globe nomiwith few moments of nations for Best Score so exuberant that it levity, the film feels (John Williams), and Best Actress (Ziyi squeezes the life right much longer. In addition, our sense of time Zhang as Sayuri). In out of the material. within the film is never addition, Gong Li has clearly set out, so when received the National Tim Conway we find ourselves in the Board of Review’s middle of WWII, it Supporting Actress award for her performance as comes as a bit of a shock.

The film’s greatest transgression, Hatsumomo.

Chances are that when the Oscar nom- however, is its gleeful embrace of meloinations roll out, we’ll see these repeat drama, to the point one could be forgivthemselves, with additional nods to en the assumption Memoirs of a Geisha some of the various crafts involved in the is adapted from one of those paperback production. Cinematography, costume romance novels featuring a likeness of design, makeup, and production design Fabio on the cover.

At a certain point, about two-thirds of are strong contenders at this point. In addition to the strong performances of the way through, the story takes a turn in the three primary actresses (adding this direction and never looks back. The Michelle Yeoh as Mameha), they are the hope we’ve maintained for so long, that best components of an otherwise flawed our patience and diligence will meet reward, is dashed for good. film.

Whenever a novel as popular as In the works for years, and originally a pet project of Steven Spielberg, who Memoirs of a Geisha comes along, serves here as executive producer, Hollywood gets excited at the prospects Memoirs of a Geisha is directed by for- of cashing in on an established hit. They mer choreographer turned Oscar-win- call it a built-in audience, a fan base ning director Rob Marshall. Taking the eager to see their favourite book spring leap from Bob Fosse’s Chicago to to life on the big screen.

There’s probably no malice there, or Depression-era Japan isn’t one Marshall accomplishes gracefully, particularly deliberate attempt to con audiences, but with respect to the finer points of the in its enthusiasm, Hollywood seems so exuberant that it squeezes the life right story and characterization.

By focusing on plot and visual presen- out of the material.

It probably began with plans of epic tation, the result is a motion picture that seems unconvincing and meaningless, proportions and talk of Oscar, and in jig having overlooked the importance of time all clear perspective became lost in connecting the characters with the audi- the shuffle. In the effort to create a specence in human terms. Moreover, very lit- tacular motion picture event, the concept tle effort is directed towards exploring of making a good movie based on the prominence and mystique of the Golden’s novel faded into the background as two-and-a-half hours of “so geisha in Japanese culture.

Aggravating our ability to immerse what?” emerged. ourselves in the film is the choice of so Tim Conway operates Capital Video in many actors who speak with heavy accents. In a picture that would have Rawlin’s Cross, St. John’s. His column been best presented in Japanese with returns Jan. 15.

Clockwise from left: Steve Cochrane, Joel Hynes, Brenda Bazinet, Andy Jones, Matt Lemche, Adriana Maggs, Sherry White.

Adriana Maggs

Above: Sherry White and Adriana Maggs; below, Steve Cochrane and White

Rabbittown, a new CBC comedy pilot filmed in St. John’s, airs Tuesday Jan. 3 at 10 p.m. Written by and starring Adriana Maggs and Sherry White, Rabbittown is billed as “vinyl siding and linoleum floor heaven” — and the story of the “back-biting, back-stabbing, low-blowing friendship” between best friends and competitors Louanne (Maggs) and Odelette (White). It also stars Brenda Bazinet, Steve Cochrane, Joel Hynes, Andy Jones and Matt Lemche. For more information — or to comment on the show — visit www.cbc.ca/rabbittown.

Justin Hall photos

Warm up to the pink, white and green...

JANUARY 1, 2006

16 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

IN CAMERA

Worth repeating

Each week, The Independent’s editorial staff selects a quote of the week to run on the front page. The quotes are drawn from all sections of the newspaper and are usually topical, often humourous and occasionally controversial. This week’s photo essay is a look back at the best quotes of 2005, along with some of picture editor Paul Daly’s more memorable photographs.

JAN. 2-8 “Who’s Danny Williams?”

— Mike Leman, Port aux Basques native living in Alberta, when asked for reaction to the premier removing Canadian flags from provincial government buildings.

JAN. 9-15 “Fling out the flag, o’er creek and cragg.

Pink, white and green, so fair, so grand.”

— Beginning of the chorus of Michael Francis Howley’s song, written in 1903, about the tri-colour flag.

JAN. 30-FEB. 5 “There was no champagne. We’re still on a tight budget.”

— Premier Danny Williams after signing the new Atlantic Accord deal with Ottawa.

FEB. 6-12 “Will the wood supply issue shut us down next week? No. Will the power issue shut us down next week? Yes.” — Roger Pike of Abitibi Consolidated.

JAN. 16-22 “We think that NAFO is managed by Canada.”

— Luz Maria Duran, fisheries journalist for Faro De Vigo, a newspaper in Spain.

FEB. 13-19 “The powers I have are astronomical in terms of investigation. They just don’t want me looking at their files. This is their protected world.”

— Fraser March, Citizen’s Representative.

JAN. 23-29 “If I was (U.S.) secretary of Energy, I’d be on your doorstep.”

— John Dyson, former head of the Power Authority of the State of New York on lower Churchill development.

FEB. 20-26 “A Newfoundlander is the greediest man around. When he got going, he wanted everything. If he didn’t get it all, he didn’t want none.”

— Byron Adams, retired fisherman.

FEB. 27-MARCH 5 “Where do you fit people in government offices when they’ve worked on a farm?”

— Larry Welsh of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, representing federal government workers at the experimental farm in St. John’s.

MARCH 6-12 “Would you bet your country on the possibility that the crazy folks in Pyongyang might not hit Toronto when they aimed for Chicago?”

— Peter A. Brown, columnist with the Orlando Sentinel.

MARCH 13-19 “There’s no doubt that there’s an increased complacency in Newfoundland.”

— Tim Buckle, president of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Association, commenting on the killing of Alberta RCMP officers.

MARCH 20-26 “Not all odd-looking lights in the sky are UFOs ... we often misinterpret common objects.”

— Lee Tizzard, St. John’s, UFOlogist.

MARCH 27-APRIL 2 “(Mel) Gibson belongs to a splinter Roman Catholic sect much given to wearing barbed-wire jockey shorts because it feels so good when you take them off.”

— Ray Guy. APRIL 3-9 “The way he (the Pope) approached his position, it meant a whole lot to all Catholics ... all of a sudden he wasn’t

some fictitious character, he was a real person.”

— Jack Parsons, Flatrock resident reminiscing about the late Pope’s visit.

APRIL 10-16 “People who do not understand each other … are communicating through prayer and music and everything — it’s just fascinating.”

—St. John’s native Sarah Foley upon visiting the Pope’s public viewing in Vatican City.

APRIL 17-23 “I may only catch the dumb ones.”

— Memorial University professor Robert Lewis on students who plagiarize APRIL 24-30 “Money was literally thrown at us — there was money for everything from infrastructure to agriculture down to special products, etc.”

— Irish journalist Eamonn Farrell on EU’s role in creating the new Ireland.

MAY 1-7 “I disagree with that (the Gomery inquiry), I think public inquiry causes too much discussion in public.”

— MP John Efford.

MAY 8-14 “It is the flesh and blood of exiled Newfoundland, the bodies and souls who still face the sad exodus, which must command the thoughts and efforts of any Newfoundland administration.

It’s the people, stupid. The Rock never cries.”

— Ray Guy. MAY 15-21 “The premier would have starved these people out and probably destroyed rural Newfoundland and Labrador this summer by not allowing this fishery to proceed.”

— Liberal MHA Gerry Reid.

MAY 22-28 “That’s what we’ve saved a little bit of money for, for those last days, there will

JANUARY 1, 2006

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 17

OCT. 2-8 “There isn’t much time during the day when I am not thinking about preparing or eating food.”

— Nicholas Gardner, The Independent’s food columnist.

OCT. 9-15 “We’re saying, what are the issues now that are important? Renegotiation of the upper Churchill, which everybody has written off as impossible, you’ve got to shame them into it. It has to be shown and repeated and repeated. This is why The Independent is playing an important role in this movie.”

— Geoff Stirling OCT. 16-22 “I’ve seen cases where people were in court fighting over the plastic flower pots in the back yard.”

— Lawyer Bob Buckingham on the money couples can spend on divorce proceedings.

OCT. 23-29 “My modest objective? ... to hear before I die, not jokes, but people demanding of their politicians in a variety of settings around the world: ‘Why can’t we be more like Newfoundland?’”

— Cabot Martin.

OCT. 30-NOV. 5 “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 on the strike at the Lakeside Meat Packing Plant in Brooks, Alta.

NOV. 6-12 “And then over in Newfoundland, (the new brides would) get to the railway station … and standing there waiting for them was this man in hip rubbers and cap … it was quite a shock.”

— War bride Barbara Barrett on the surprise some new brides would get upon arrival.

NOV. 13-19 “The outmigration of 50,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians over the last 10 years has been a deliberate strategy to infiltrate the country and control the army.”

— Premier Danny Williams on his master plan for NewfoundCanada. in St. John’s, but they’re probably looking for a stereotypical model on TV, not recognizing that might not be the case.”

— Kerri Mahony, Street Reach co-coordinator.

JULY 17-23 “I feel that if Newfoundland had gotten a fair break on its resources and (given) the frustrations we’ve had with — particularly Ottawa, but also almost equally Quebec — if … we had a chance at being self-sufficient, I’d say separation would be an easier thing to pull off in Newfoundland than Quebec.”

— Frank Moores, former premier who passed away in July.

be someone with her, holding her hand, 24 hours a day. We won’t leave her alone.”

— Rod Etheridge on his mother, Ceeley, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.

MAY 29-JUNE 4 “Evil is always all around us. Never hate anyone, ever. All we can ever do is love one another.”

— Phillip Reitman, Holocaust survivor.

JUNE 5-11 “If a male recognizes himself as a sexual assault survivor, the first thing that becomes an issue is your sexuality.”

— Sean Beulman of St. John’s after launching a human rights challenge against the rape crisis centre.

JUNE 12-18 “If we really wanted to keep youth in the area we’d give them a lousy education.”

— Dr. Ivan Emke, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College.

JULY 24-30 “(John) Efford weirds me out.”

— Columnist Ivan Morgan.

JUNE 19-25 “We have a good iceberg viewing area, one of the best, and Twillingate is known for its icebergs. But we’re not Greenland, we’re not Antarctica, we don’t make them, right?”

— Cecil Stockley (a.k.a. the iceberg man).

JUNE 26-JULY 2 “When I die, I’m going to be 110 years old and shot by a jealous husband.”

— Dick Nolan, Newfoundland’s first Juno nominee who’s best known for Aunt Martha’s Sheep.

He passed away in December.

JULY 31-AUG. 6 “Lots of people are homeless ... it’s interesting to me that people don’t think it’s here because it’s so pervasive.”

— Jim Crockwell, Choices for Youth shelter co-ordinator.

AUG. 7-13 “There’s no reason that (Loblaw’s supermarket on the Memorial Stadium site) shouldn’t go ahead ... unless one of the six (councillors) changes their minds and if they do they’re going to be eaten alive.”

— St. John’s Mayor Andy Wells.

JULY 3-9 “I detested his intestines when he lived and I’m still not sure he’s dead right now due to the absence of a wooden stake and a burial at a crossroads.”

— Ray Guy on Joey Smallwood.

AUG. 14-20 “We want to be very clear from the start we’re not opening a hospice. We’re not opening a facility where people are going to go and die.”

— Bill Downer, executive director of province’s AIDS committee on opening of the Tommy Sexton Centre.

JULY 10-16 “People would say there is no prostitution

AUG. 21-27 “I can’t get into it. It is a political question

and one that unfortunately I’ve got to avoid. I’ve got several views on it quite frankly but I can’t give them to you.”

— Premier Danny Williams on his feelings about the Pink, White and Green.

AUG. 28-SEPT. 3 “I’m a grandmother, I’m an active person.

I want a fishery. I want someone to pay attention to what’s happening in Newfoundland.”

— Shoal Harbour resident Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe on why she took part in the food fishery protests.

SEPT. 4-10 “If the shrimp was coming out of Ontario you could rest assured we’d be looking to do something with European wine, but yet because it’s Newfoundland and Labrador shrimp it doesn’t get the same attention.”

— Premier Danny Williams SEPT. 11-17 “I definitely judge people who move away; I’m a fairly cruel person when it comes to people bailing on Newfoundland.”

— Tonya Kearley-Russell, Trinity cartoonist and creator of the cartoon Baychick.

SEPT. 18-24 “I’m single, very single. Hopefully that will change and hopefully I’ll improve the social life too.”

— Mount Pearl Mayor Steve Kent on his busy schedule.

SEPT. 25-OCT. 1 “I would say it was most appropriate. He was a graduate of St. Bon’s.”

— Father Vernon Boyd on former Archbishop Alphonsus Penney giving mass at the St. John’s school.

NOV. 20-26 “He always said it was the bunch up in Russia … and they were experimenting with some kind of high-frequency whatever they put up in the sky.”

— Cynthia Bickford on her father’s Bell Island bang theory.

NOV. 27-DEC. 3 “There’s definitely a bucket we end up in — whether that’s a business setting or in a social setting — of the stereotype of maybe being a little slower; people that are nice and friendly …”

— Trevor Adey, CEO Consilient Technologies.

DEC. 4-10 “Beamed Smallwood: ‘Glory, hallelujah; praise God from whom all blessings flow!’ The $1.1 billion Churchill Falls project, he prophesied, would make Newfoundland ‘the most industrialized province in Canada.’”

—Time Canada, Oct. 14, 1966.

DEC. 11-17 “Going to see Revue is like putting on a Christmas concert when all the family is home.”

— Donna Butt, director of Revue ’05.

DEC. 18-24 “The other thing about canvassing, I don’t want to be the one standing at the door when people have their doors wide open, letting the heat out — not when they’re paying a fortune.”

— Nancy Riche of the NDP. DEC. 25-31 “Hockey Day in Canada has probably surpassed discussions about Santa Claus.”

— Stephenville councillor Darren Roberts on CBC hosting its sixth annual event there on Jan. 7 in the west coast town.

JANUARY 1, 2006

18 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

The arrival of a novelist

POET’S CORNER Christmas after taste ’Twas the day after X-mas and all through the land the creatures re-stirring putting out the glad hand.

The creatures they pranced and they danced and epistled with hooves in their mouths they could no longer whistle.

The shockings were hung with much fun and fanfare in hopes that St. Gomery would soon re-appear.

Their noses how red, like Pinnochio’s, in-bred; their gall, as they call, us appalled, give away, give away, give away all.

Out on some lawns there arose such a clutter and many of those ended up in the gutter.

Bob LeMessurier, Goulds

‘Looking around for something I wanted to do’ From page 13 coffee, smiles. She says her husband was always well respected at the prison.

Former inmates often sent Christmas cards or called Lewis at home. The family even had a murderer eat at their dinner table after being released from prison with no place to go. “(It was) not physically hard, but mentally hard because you always had to keep ahead of the inmates because they were always up to something,” Lewis says, adding it was one of his better jobs. “Then, of course, the age got in the way and I had to retire.”

Lewis’ favourite job was working on the CN train between Port aux Basques and St. John’s — the Newfie Bullet, the name given to the

passenger service.

He spent about three seasons working on the train before becoming a prison guard.

Meeting people and finding out why they were travelling was always his favourite part of the job, Lewis says.

“If they were just coming to visit Signal Hill because that was something they wanted to do, they were very interesting people.”

With no promise of full-time work, Lewis decided to take the job at the prison.

“You had an interesting life,” Peggy says to her husband with a proud grin.

Lewis shrugs off the praise.

“I guess you could say that in the beginning I was looking around for something I wanted to do. I did (find it) a few times.”

Mark Callanan looks back at Wayne’s Johnston’s first work, published 20 years ago The Story of Bobby O’Malley

By Wayne Johnston Oberon Books, 1985

I

t recently occurred to me that the year now drawing to a close is the 20th anniversary of the publication of Wayne Johnston’s first novel. If I knew for certain I’d be writing this column in five years time I might postpone a retrospective of this sort for the anniversary of a quarter century, but these days the old I Ching will only dole out projected gains for Google’s stock. So I’d like to take you back to the beginning of Johnston’s career, 1985’s WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award-winning The Story of Bobby O’Malley.

Written from the first-person perspective, Bobby O’Malley features the narrative of its title character from his earliest childhood up to the age of 16.

Bobby O’Malley is the son of Agnes O’Malley, a mother enamoured of the religious life, a “latent nun” who fancies Bobby a priest, and Ted, television weatherman, unfaithful husband and gleefully eccentric character. Further fixtures in Bobby’s childhood are his Uncle Rennie, Aunt Dola, and their four daughters.

Bobby’s parents are “renters, almost always turfed out by people who [want] to buy” – a state of affairs that necessitates frequent relocations. “By the time I was 16,” Bobby says of his childhood, “I had lived in eight houses.” They move from place to place, forming natural chapter breaks in the early stages of the novel as each new episode of their accommodation ends and another begins.

Catholicism is lampooned throughout the novel. There is a great scene of “pious gouging of eyes” in which Bobby’s family is locked in a battle of virtue with Rennie’s, both camps praying aloud in separate rooms of the house, trying to outdo each other in volume: “I pelted puny Aves at the enemy,” Bobby tells us of his small contribution to the battle — in his fam-

MARK CALLANAN On the shelf

Central to the book is a concern with arrivals and departures — how our connections to the people we have known and places we have been are severed by death or circumstance. “It struck me how, all my life, I had been leaving people and places behind, and yet saw those people and places every day,” Bobby ruminates in the second half of the book. He goes on to say: The truth was that I had left nothing behind, but had had,in the midst of many friendships, to see friends fade to mere acquaintances, and homes to houses, overnight. It seemed that if I stayed in Kellies long enough, I would start all over again: first friend, first house, second friend, second house; and would, the rest of my life, go round and round, not really knowing anyone, not really living anywhere.

ily, the rosary is not so much prayed as wielded.

Mr. O’Malley’s lines are, for their sheer comic playfulness, among the most entertaining in the book. Like Uncle Reginald from Johnston’s third novel The Divine Ryans, Ted O’Malley is one who indulges at every chance in wordplay (he is, in this way, an early prototype of the Uncle Reginald character): My mother warned against a tooliteral interpretation of Catholic dogma. Fire, she said, was a metaphor for some “more subtle, but no less purgative agony.”

“Like throwing up?” my father said. “They should call it regurgatory then.” He imagined a million retching sinners, a million sinners throwing up for a thousand years.

In regurgatory, he said, we’d all be on a boat and seasick, heaving our sins over the side— “and everywhere, the smell of fatback frying.”

“Hardly subtle,” my mother said.

He is striving to belong, to find the sense of affiliation with a place and time and population that forms a large part of identity. But he is also struggling for greater self-knowledge; his ultimate rejection of his mother’s plans to ship him off to the seminary is an affirmation of his growing sense of identity.

That The Story of Bobby O’Malley is an early novel is clear once one has read Johnston’s later work. Some of its scenes, like insecure children playing the fool to please, overreach in their attempts to elicit laughter. Likewise, Johnston’s prose does not flow as fluidly here as in his later work.

But these are deficiencies to be expected in a first book and should not be allowed to distract from what truly matters: that in Bobby O’Malley there is a unique and compelling voice, which, even as it occasionally warbles in pubescent tenor, proclaims the arrival of a novelist of no small worth.

Mark Callanan is a writer living in Rocky Harbour. His column returns Jan. 15.

‘Never occurred to me to live anywhere else’ From page 13 discussed, offshore oil, the moratorium,” says Drouin-Brisebois. “I think when you see the things that have happened, you tend to understand a little more.”

Born in 1935, Pratt has been witness to many changes in Newfoundland history, from Confederation and resettlement to Churchill Falls and the collapse of the cod stocks. Having just celebrated his 70th birthday in December, the artist calls himself a “vanishing breed” — a pre-confederation Newfoundlander.

“I am an advocate of life in Newfoundland regardless,” he says. “It has never occurred to me to live anywhere else.”

He says he does not see himself as an ambassador or representative of Newfoundland, despite the fact that nearly all the paintings in the exhibit are privately owned in different parts of Canada.

The paintings Military Presence and Whaling Station speak to changes caused by the American military bases and the end of the whale fishery. Re-settlement is addressed in A Blizzard at Boswarlos, which shows an abandoned house in a snowstorm.

“Abandoned spaces, a whole aban-

doned way of life is there,” says DrouinBrisebois. “There is this acknowledgement of the past, but also looking at the present.”

It is difficult to escape an eerie sense of déjà vu in some of Pratt’s paintings. This is the reality of life in Newfoundland — open spaces, lone buildings, highways, and the occasional moose. It is the world any Newfoundlander sees out the car window.

Pratt says he had a seminal moment that changed how he develops paintings while driving under the Witless Bay overpass during a snowstorm.

“A couple of ptarmigan bombed across the road in the storm, and I hadn’t seen ptarmigan up there for years and years,” Pratt says. “It was kind of a thrill, and I decided not to postpone it.

“Now I tend to take things off the top of the pile, as opposed to the bottom, and so they haven’t gone through such a long period of abstraction, and they retain more of the narrative of the occasion.”

Accordingly, he says the feelings in his more recent work are more generous — even those that convey feelings of loss, confusion and isolation.

“I don’t think it’s necessary that the work speak well of Newfoundland to be

good work,” Pratt says The paintings give a view of Newfoundland that is neither kitschy nor commercial, but communicate much of the emotion behind the pace of life in Newfoundland. Open spaces and a sense of self-sufficiency come with the silence and loneliness of the Newfoundland landscape.

“Pratt is more a theatre for something to happen and you’re the main character,” says Drouin-Brisebois. “There is isolation, but there is also a presence because you feel like you’re involved.”

Sunsets allow Pratt to bring out the tension between the artificial and natural light. In the Driving to Venus paintings, viewers can see the headlights of the car on the road, or the oncoming lights of a car around the bend in Witless Bay Overpass.

When the exhibit arrives at The Rooms, there will be 10 less paintings — including The Pedestrian Overpass, three of the Driving to Venus series and Military Presence — because some owners do not want their works to travel.

The exhibit will be in St. John’s from June 2, 2006, until Sept. 4, 2006.

EVENTS JANUARY 1 • Classes for adults at the Anna Templeton Centre starting this month: in machine sewing, quilting, rug hooking, watercolour painting, art exploration and more. Also family workshops in basic printmaking and theatre games; kids workshops in art, theatre and sewing basics. For more information, contact the Centre at 278 Duckworth St. or call 7397623.

JANUARY 2 • Winter classes for adults and kids begin this month in the Clay Studio, Devon House Craft Centre, Duckworth St. Beginner and intermediate classes as well as portrait and other workshops. Visit www.craftcouncil.nf.ca or call 7532749 for details or to register.

JANUARY 3 • Spirit of Newfoundland’s Christmas cabaret, dinner and show featuring Shelley Neville, Sheila Williams, Peter

Halley and Steve Power. Majestic Theatre, 390 Duckworth St., 7 p.m., 579-3023. Also running Jan. 4 and 5.

• Open studio at the Anna Templeton Centre dye studio every Tuesday evening, 7-10 p.m. With Susan Furneaux, dye technician, 739-7623 to book space.

JANUARY 4 • Folk night at the Ship Pub with Graham Wells, Paddy Mackay and Jason Whelan, 9:30 p.m.

JANUARY 6 • A staged reading of The Dead, by James Joyce, adapted by Bryan Hennessey. With Kay Anonsen, Neil Butler, Michael Chaisson, Aiden Flynn, Bryan Hennessey, Brad Hodder, Nicole Rousseau, Joan Sullivan, and others. Rabbittown Theatre, 7:30 p.m., 739-8220.

• Are We There Yet? musical comedy, dinner and show, at the Majestic Theatre, 390 Duckworth St., 7 p.m. Also playing Jan. 7, 13, 14, 20, 27, 28, 579-3023 for reservations.

• What’s New in Alzheimer Disease Treatment? A lecture by Dr. Anne Sclater, professor and chair of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Health Sciences Centre, main auditorium, noon.

JANUARY 7 • Rising Tide Theatre’s Revue 05, directed by Donna Butt, featuring Rick Boland, Petrina Bromley, Glenn Downey, Sean Panting and Jim Payne. St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre, 8 p.m. Continues Jan. 8 and 11-15.

COMING UP • The 2nd annual Rock Can Roll Independent Music and Video Festival takes place in St. John’s, Jan. 20-22. For more information, visit www.rockcanrollrecords.com

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JANUARY 1-7, 2006 — PAGE 19

Gavin Anstey outside Hostyle on Water Street in St. John’s.

Rhonda Hayward/The Independent

‘Things are happening here’ Business optimism down last year; fingers crossed for 2006

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

G

avin Anstey knew he would face challenges opening a specialty apparel store in St. John’s — but he wouldn’t risk opening his shop around the bay.

Hostyle, which opened Nov. 15 on Water Street in the city’s downtown, is designed with the unique in mind … no two items are the same. Anstey says a shop like his would never survive in rural Newfoundland.

“There’s not enough of a market, there’s hardly enough of a market here in St. John’s now, but I mean you travel to Toronto or Montreal and there’s a billion stores like me,” Anstey tells The Independent.

Fresh into the business world, Anstey is optimistic about his shop’s future, but not all business owners in the province feel the same.

“We survey our members regularly throughout the year,” says Bradley George, director of provincial affairs for the Newfoundland and Labrador branch of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, “and during 2005, levels

of optimism within the Newfoundland and Labrador small- and medium-sized business community dropped.”

The main concerns brought up by members include the cost of fuel and the impact of a jump in insurance rates, George says. The Quarterly Business Barometer, a publication complied by the federation, showed a slight rebound in business confidence in December, he says.

Rural business operators face different challenges from their urban counterparts. A shortage of qualified trades workers is the latest hurdle, added to the list of expensive transportation and a shrinking customer base, says George.

This year, the City of St. John’s approved 146 new businesses — 39 retail, 19 restaurants and 45 home-based. A comparison for 2004 wasn’t available.

Meantime, as of October, 44 businesses filed for bankruptcy in the province — including 12 in the retail sector, six in construction and six in accommodation and food service.

As of November’s end, Statistics Canada’s labour force data shows unemployment was down to 14.7 per cent compared to last year’s

15.7 per cent mark. With the exception of the south coast — which saw a 2.2 per cent rise in unemployment to 21.8 per cent, all regions of the province saw an increase in employment in 2005.

Finance Minister Loyola Sullivan projects even better employment figures in the coming years, while acknowledging rural areas are having a tough time.

“Rural employment in our province is about 30 per cent of the work force and that’s higher than any other province in Canada,” he says, adding in the fishing industry a drop in employment is balanced against a higher valued product. “But employment levels are down. Rural Newfoundland and Labrador, while we’re never going to see a return to the ’70s and ’80s … there are opportunities out there in areas that can employ people significantly.”

Premier Danny Williams says while the province is unable to deal with world fuel prices and declining natural resources in relation to local business (fish and fibre specifically), government is trying its best to boost confidence

through tax incentives and venture capital programs.

“We can’t go out and just create business in rural Newfoundland and Labrador … We have to first of all market the province, we have to make it a good place to live and invest and raise a family,” Williams says. “If you live in rural Newfoundland and Labrador you know you’re at a competitive disadvantage anyway because you’re on an island … so what we have to ensure as a government is that we put everything else around entrepreneurs in small areas that we can.”

National attention brought about through the province’s dispute with Ottawa over the Atlantic Accord and frequent visits from world leaders (New England governors, Irish prime minister, U.S. ambassador to Canada) is beginning to create buzz, the premier says.

“I think the optimism kind of happens though because we are a province on the move. I continue to call us Canada’s youngest, coolest province … I think people come here and say ‘My gosh, things are happening here.’ There’s that sort of vibrancy on the ground.”

Former PM turned down federal involvement in reopening upper Churchill contract

By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

I

n a 1997 letter, then-prime minister Jean Chrétien refused to offer any federal assistance towards solving the ongoing dispute between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador over the lopsided upper Churchill Falls contract.

The correspondence was sent in response to a letter from Vic Young, then-chairman and CEO of Fishery Products International and former chairman and CEO of Newfoundland Hydro and Churchill Falls Labrador

Corporation (CF(L)Co).

Chrétien wrote: “You suggested that the federal government initiate a tripartite process to resolve the Churchill Falls dispute between Newfoundland and Quebec. As you are aware, the contract governing the sale of electricity from Churchill Falls was signed by Hydro Quebec and Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation. The federal government believes that the dispute surrounding the terms of the contract is best resolved by the two contracting parties. Should both the Province of Quebec and the Province of

Newfoundland ask the federal government to act as a facilitator in resolving the issue surrounding Churchill Falls, I would be prepared to assist.”

Faced with what appeared to be deliberate avoidance on the part of Chrétien to acknowledge the key points outlined in his original letter, Young responded: “You confirm that the federal government’s position that ‘the dispute surrounding the terms of the contract is best resolved by the two contracting parties.’ Of course, the fundamental objective of my letter was to present a comprehensive

rationale as to why you might consider changing this long-standing position in order to assist Newfoundland and Quebec in reaching a solution to their Churchill Falls impasse.

Unbelievably, your response did not see fit to address any of the points put forth in my letter. It was extremely disappointing.

Young had proposed a “tripartite process” to initiate a “Churchill Falls summit” involving Ottawa, Quebec and Newfoundland sitting down to rework the contract. The process which would ideally lead to a fair rate of return for Newfoundland and

Labrador from future Churchill Falls power, a balanced revision of the 25year contract extension clause (which activates in 2016), a degree of federal compensation for the province and an agreement to expedite the development of the lower Churchill.

Young sent his original letter after then-Newfoundland premier Brian Tobin had delivered several national speeches concerning the inequities associated with the upper Churchill.

In eight detailed pages, Young outlined the problems of the 65-year See “Do or die,” page 21

20 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JANUARY 1, 2006

From page 3 My involvement in the Churchill Falls situation dates back to 1978 to 1984 when I was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro Group. At that time I was part of a serious attempt, fully supported and largely financed by the Government of Canada, to develop the energy potential on the lower Churchill River.

The federal and Newfoundland governments invested $15 million in the Lower Churchill Development Corporation, but failed to trigger the development of either the Gull Island or Muskrat Falls power sites because of an inability (once again) to strike a deal with Hydro-Quebec for the wheeling of power surplus to Newfoundland’s needs.

During the same period I was also involved in two unsuccessful court cases initiated by the province of Newfoundland to access power from Churchill Falls for energy requirements on the island. In addition, I appeared on several occasions before the National Energy Board in an attempt to gain the support of the board pertaining to the situation where Quebec was offering power to United States utilities “as surplus to Canadian needs,” while refusing to offer such power to Newfoundland. Our persistent failure before the board only served to reconfirm the lack of will by federal authorities to help bring about some element of fairness in the Newfoundland/Quebec energy interface. While oil and gas flowed freely between other Canadian provinces, Canada’s energy policy and institutions firmly maintained Quebec’s total dominance over Labrador’s hydroelectric resources — past, present and future.

On a far more encouraging front, I chaired discussions between Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and Hydro-Quebec in 1984, aimed at renegotiating an overall settlement to the Churchill Falls situation. While this particular set of negotiations eventually failed, it was extremely significant that during the course of our discussions, HydroQuebec agreed in writing “to devise a formula whereby Newfoundland would receive a fair and equitable return for the electricity produced, taking into account the need to adapt the terms of existing arrangements to the new reality which has arisen since the original arrangements were entered into.”

There have been subsequent negotiations with Hydro-Quebec which also proved unsuccessful despite a demonstrated will by both sides to try and find a settlement.

In hindsight, these negotiations could not have been expected to succeed. The unbridgeable gap between Quebec and Newfoundland was made all the larger by the absence of the Government of Canada from the negotiating table. This, after all, is a dispute which can only be resolved with the participation of the three parties who helped shape the Churchill Falls arrangements in the first place, i.e.

Newfoundland, Quebec and Canada.

The two provinces can agree to develop Gull Island and Muskrat Falls and they can agree to solve the financial viability of CF(L)Co, but no settlement of the inequities of the Churchill Falls contract can be made without Canada. Firstly, the dol-

Vic Young and Jean Chrétien

Paul Daly/The Independent

Unconscionable inequities lars involved are too great and secondly, more importantly, Canada’s policies were at the heart of Quebec’s ability to crucify Newfoundland in the final contractual arrangements.

I wrote Prime Minister (Jean) Chrétien in December of 1996 to express my frustration at the lack of action on the Churchill Falls issue and to suggest a possible solution. I recommended that the Prime Minister convene a Churchill Falls Summit of the three involved parties. On the agenda for this Summit would be the blueprint for a tripartite agreement to resolve this long-standing energy dispute. The blueprint would involve terms and conditions resembling the following: 1) Newfoundland and Quebec would agree to an equitable sharing of future benefits from the Churchill Falls project. Such an arrangement would recognize Newfoundland’s position as the owner of the resource while also recognizing Quebec’s significant support which made the project possible. It would involve greater access to Churchill Falls power and energy by Newfoundland; an improvement in the existing rental and royalty payments to Newfoundland; and revised financial arrangements so that CF(L)Co, as the operator of the project, would retain its ability to earn a reasonable return over the life of the contract. It is noteworthy that past offers from HydroQuebec have recognized the need of making changes along these lines.

2) Quebec would agree to revise the most dra-

conian element of the contract, i.e. the 25-year extension which imposes declining energy rates.

While the 65-year term would stay intact, the energy rates during the final 25 years would be changed as part of the arrangements to protect CF(L)Co’s long-term financial position and to give Newfoundland an equitable share of the benefits.

3) The Government of Canada would agree to revisions in its overall fiscal arrangements with Newfoundland to compensate it in a reasonable manner, for some portion of its lost benefits from the project. These fiscal revisions, which could take place over some reasonable time period, would acknowledge the undeniable role of national energy policy in the development of the Churchill Falls resource. This is the essential element which has been missing in all previous attempts to bridge the gap between Newfoundland and Quebec.

4) Newfoundland, Quebec and Canada would agree to expedite the development of the lower Churchill with appropriate wheeling of energy, surplus to Newfoundland’s needs, to customers in Ontario and/or the northeastern United States. The project would bring immense economic benefits not only to Newfoundland, but also to Quebec and Canada. It would be a multi-million dollar development involving thousands of jobs in Newfoundland and Quebec and billions of kilowatt hours of renewable energy for Canada’s future.

The Prime Minister’s response was swift and negative. His letter stated: “The dispute surround-

ing the terms of the contract is best resolved by the two contracting parties. Should both the Province of Quebec and the Province of Newfoundland ask the Federal Government to act as a facilitator in resolving the issue surrounding Churchill Falls, I would be prepared to assist.”

He missed (or pretended to miss) the two key arguments I had presented. The first was “It is not just between two parties,” and the second was that “Canada must be at the table as a full-fledged partner,” not just a facilitator.

While the Prime Minister refused to become involved, Newfoundland and Quebec have since proceeded with a major announcement that they are going to attempt to negotiate the development of the lower Churchill sites and possible expand the existing Churchill Falls site. In and of itself, this is tremendous news for both provinces as it provides a vital opportunity to create jobs, energy and the associated economic wealth which comes from the efficient development of low cost energy resources.

These negotiations will also provide an opportunity to sort out CF(L)Co’s financial viability. They will not, however, provide an opportunity to settle the Churchill Falls inequities.

Should there be a favourable deal negotiated with respect to Gull Island, Muskrat Falls and the expansion of the Churchill Falls project, which brings billions of dollars of long-term benefits to Newfoundland, as owner of the Hydro resource, we must not interpret this as making amends for the past. These are the kinds of returns due to our province as the resource owner of the Churchill sites. It is those kinds of returns that we were denied in the Churchill Falls contract.

Regardless of the benefits derived from the Lower Churchill, they cannot even begin to make amends for the upper Churchill. It would be another sad day in our history if the benefits of a new deal were placed before the people of Newfoundland and Labrador in that context. If there is ever to be a fair and equitable settlement of the Churchill Falls arrangements, it will require a tripartite process which takes into account the legitimacy of Newfoundland’s ownership position; builds upon the goodwill demonstrated by Quebec in past negotiations; but more importantly and essentially, involved a Government of Canada willing to acknowledge its vital role in resolving a situation which was inextricably linked to flawed national energy policy.

There will be those who argue that it is time to get on with the future and not dwell in the past.

Churchill Falls, however, is very much about our future. The unconscionable inequities of the contract will continue to unfold for another 42 years until the year 2041, unless a resolution is reached.

This is not an issue that is going to go away and it is not an issue that we should allow to become “water under the bridge.” There must be some reasonable accommodation made by the three parties involved and it can only happen if we hold the feet of the federal government to the fire until they come to the table with a political will to be a part of the solution.

God guard thee Newfoundland!

JANUARY 1, 2006

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 21

Beware Toronto, CNN tells viewers

YEAR-END HIGH

Shootout could hurt tourism — though post-9/11 New York still booming

By Rick Westhead Torstar wire service

T

he cast of CNN’s American Morning TV show issued a warning this week to viewers: beware of Toronto.

In a segment airing alongside stories about efforts by U.S. soldiers to help an ill Iraqi toddler and a woman’s attempts to file a restraining order against talk-show host David Letterman, CNN anchors discussed Toronto’s Boxing Day shootout that killed 15-year-old Jane Creba and left six others in hospital.

“The murder rate in Toronto has doubled this year,” Miles O’Brien said.

“There’s a whole, you know, crime spree underway.”

Already battered in recent years from after-effects from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, outbreaks of SARS in 2003, and from an increase in the value of the Canadian dollar, which makes it more expensive for foreigners to travel there, Toronto’s tourism industry now faces another hurdle: how to reassure prospective visitors the city is safe.

“Toronto’s got a big problem on several levels,” says Allan Bonner, a crisis management consultant whose clients have included a number of petroleum companies since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

“People make instant decisions these days and many would think nothing of saying, ‘Let’s not go to Toronto.’ They just see the news on TV about the murders here and make the ill-informed decision that the city has some sort of problem.”

The flurry of shootings on Yonge Street a day after Christmas that left a teenager dead marked the 52nd firearm-related death in Toronto this

“Toronto’s still a safe city, and we’ll keep marketing it that way,” Toronto Tourism spokesperson Andrew Weir

year, nearly twice as many as a year ago. The city’s homicide toll stands at 78, close to the record 88 murders in 1991.

The Boxing Day shootings remained front-page news late last week for newspapers in Montreal, Calgary and Saskatoon, and also received coverage in the large-city U.S. papers such as the Miami Herald, the Charlotte Observer and the Chicago Sun-Times.

TOURISTS SEE “A PROBLEM” Bonner said the sentiment that Toronto may be a place to avoid could be heightened among American tourists who “happen to remember SARS, or remember Canada’s position on the Iraq war. Now they see that people are shooting each other in Toronto.

They wouldn’t necessarily think ‘Oh, but it’s still safer than New York or a U.S. city.’ They just see that there’s a problem.”

In the first quarter of 2005, which is the most recent quarter for which statistics are available, roughly 558,000 Americans travelled to Canada, a slight increase over the 556,000 who came here during the comparable period a

year earlier, according to the Toronto Convention and Visitors Association.

There were 160,000 overseas visitors during the first quarter of 2005, up seven per cent, the city’s tourism office reported.

Toronto Tourism spokesperson Andrew Weir says the trade association, which is funded by members including hotels, restaurants and convention centres, will continue to buy ads in newspapers and magazines in New York, Washington and Chicago to promote tourism here.

In 2005, the group expects to spend $2 million (Cdn) on ads in the U.S. after buying no ads in 2004.

“Toronto’s still a safe city, and we’ll keep marketing it that way,” Weir says.

Still, Peter Degraaf, a Bracebridge real estate agent, says Toronto’s recent spate of high-profile murders might also deter tourism from nearby satellite communities.

“This stuff sends a shiver down your spine,” Degraaf says. “When I was a kid, I remember taking school trips down to Toronto and the highlight was walking Yonge Street. No way a parent is going to let their kid do that now.

They’re going to be sticking to bigbox stores or places with high security.”

To be sure, Toronto’s tourism challenges would seem to pale next to those faced by cities such as Madrid, London or New York, which were forced to grapple with attracting tourists after major terrorist attacks.

And even those cities managed to post strong tourism-related statistics in the wake of the attacks.

New York, for instance, drew a record 30.2 million domestic tourists in 2002, up 2.2 per cent from the prior year, although the number of international tourists slipped.

Do-or-die condition From page 19 contract, which sees Hydro-Quebec purchase almost all power from Churchill Falls at a rate equivalent to $1.80 a barrel of oil (dropping to the equivalent of $1.20 a barrel of oil before the contract term is complete).

The letter pointed out Canada’s national energy policy prevents Newfoundland and Labrador from transmitting its hydro power to export customers and that Quebec’s refusal to allow the flow of Newfoundland and Labrador power through its province is “straining the bonds of our federation.”

Young also placed particular emphasis on a 25-year contract extension demanded by Hydro-Quebec. The last-minute, do-or-die condition came at a time when the Newfoundland and Labrador company overseeing the

Churchill Falls development, CF(L)Co, was on the verge of bankruptcy.

The original deal between Hydro-Quebec and CF(L)Co was only made possible through assistance from the federal government. Given that, Young asked Chrétien to initiate the tripartite process between the three parties.

He highlighted that through previous discussions between Newfoundland Hydro and Hydro-Quebec in the mid-1980s, Hydro Quebec agreed in writing to “devise a formula whereby Newfoundland would receive a fair and equitable return for the electricity produced, taking into account the need to adapt the terms of existing arrangements to the new reality which has arisen since the original arrangements were entered into.”

That so-called letter of intent was never followed up on.

Employees at a Seoul stock brokerage throw stock order slips in the air to celebrate the year’s closing of the stock market. Seoul shares hit an all-time high late last week as strong industrial output data lifted blue chips such as Hynix Semiconductor while brokerages rallied on government plans to ease regulations in the sector.

You Sung-Ho/Reuters

Internet women’s use grows

W

omen are now as likely to use the Internet as men, yet a new study shows that gaps remain in what each sex does online.

Men who go online are more likely to check the weather, the news, sports, political and financial information, the Pew Internet and American Life Project reports. They are also more likely to use the Internet to download music and software and to take a class.

Online women are bigger users of e-mail, and they are also more likely to go online for religious information and support for health or personal problems, says Deborah Fallows,

who wrote the report based on six years of surveys.

About two-thirds of the 6,403 adults surveyed by Pew during 2005 said they use the Internet. By gender, it was 68 per cent of the male respondents, and 66 per cent of the female participants — a statistically insignificant difference.

Barry Wellman, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto, says he was struck by the similarities and the affirmation that the Internet is so integrated into the lives of men and women that “they aren’t even thinking they are going on the Internet anymore.”

22 • INDEPENDENT SPECIAL SECTION

JULY 17, 2005

JULY 17, 2005

INDEPENDENT SPECIAL SECTION • 23

24 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JANUARY 1, 2006

WEEKLY DIVERSIONS ACROSS 1 Thick slice 5 Thrash 9 Goes astray 13 Identical 17 Bytes preceder 18 ___ and hearty 19 Small: prefix 20 Child’s ___ 21 Was indebted to 22 A McGarrigle sister 23 Nose (joc.)

24 She in Sherbrooke 25 Pre-school school 28 Colour 30 Respect 31 Hard in Le Havre 32 Author Timothy (The Piano Man’s Daughter) 36 Spoil (as a reputation) 39 Too lonely for words 40 Liberals 43 Help 44 Brief salon job 45 Important cultural figure 46 Loch ___ 47 Early fur trading co.

48 Smallish community 49 Ecclesiastical affirmatives 50 Chum 51 Emblem of Wales 52 ___ Nostradamus (Douglas Coupland) 53 Here (Fr.) 54 Au ___ (goodbye)

56 Not in stock 57 Author Yann ___ (Life of Pi) 60 Otic organ 61 Indian lentil 62 Venetian ruler, once 63 Sock end 65 Burn with steam 68 Foundation 69 Aussie hopper 70 Lions’ prey 71 Tuber made into poi 72 Army post 73 As ___ as I can tell 74 Nfld. poet E.J. 75 Opposite of doing 77 West African country 79 Depending (on) 80 Japanese capital, once 81 Pitch a tent and settle in 85 Ottawa fig.

86 Related through the mother 89 Hockey’s Gordie 92 Wide-eyed 94 Popular hero 95 Goat’s milk cheese 96 Angry 97 Painter’s model 98 Pith helmet 99 Apartment 100 Native nation 101 Tinter 102 Greek mountain 103 Alley

SOLUTION ON PAGE 25

DOWN 1 Elizabeth Ruth’s 2005 novel 2 First black woman mayor in Canada: Daurene ___ (Annapolis Royal, N.S., 1984) 3 Word with double or free 4 Unpaid accounts (2 wds.)

5 The Buddha’s teaching 6 Phoned 7 Forearm bone 8 Bewhiskered 9 Cinder 10 Nice nothing?

11 Cellular letters 12 Religion of India 13 It’s higher on the highway (2 wds.)

14 Entirely 15 Seasickness: ___ de mer 16 Look at 26 Long fish 27 Large cask 29 Numero ___ 32 Fiddlehead, e.g.

33 Skate string 34 Neighbour of Windsor Castle 35 Longings 37 Pole tossed in Scotland 38 Football action

39 Moist 40 Econ. indicator 41 Aft 42 Bit of U.S. above 49th parallel: ___ Royale 44 Odist 47 Rich family’s son 48 Inuit ancestor 49 Spread unit 51 RRSP consideration 53 Villain in Othello 55 Early bicycle 56 Hop-drying kiln 57 Author of Alligator (2005): Lisa ___ 58 Sicilian smoker 59 Mannerless oaf 61 Mend a sock 62 Cross-dressing 64 Superlative ending?

65 Arouse passion 66 Walking stick 67 Inland Asian sea 68 “World’s largest Western ___” (Edmonton) 70 Opposite of awkward 72 Its capital is Helsinki 73 He wrote Tango on the Main 74 Pub unit 76 Eastern way 77 St. John’s summer setting 78 Everyday items used to teach 80 Avid

82 Sports venue 83 Morning in Marseilles

84 Licence ___ 86 Method 87 Binding promises

88 Cuts 89 Secreted 90 Magnetite, e.g.

91 Growth on the skin 93 A Vanderhaeghe

WEEKLY STARS ARIES - MAR 21/APR 20 Romance should be in the air this week, Aries. If you don't have a sweetheart, you can easily come up with a project to enjoy; something that captures your tender side.

TAURUS - APR 21/MAY 21 You'll get lots done in the way of repairs or renovations on your home, Taurus. Progress will be easy with a few extra hands to pitch in. Invite friends to help out.

GEMINI - MAY 22/JUN 21 You'll feel like indulging loved ones this week, and you should go right ahead, Gemini. Make a purchase that allows you to feel decadent, without worrying about the price.

CANCER - JUN 22/JUL 22 It'll be fun to give into your sentimental feelings early in the week, Cancer. Consider a lazy week full of daydreams and relaxing in your

favorite chair.

LEO - JUL 23/AUG 23 Use this week as an opportunity to rest and bolster your health, Leo. You'll need full strength for the arduous tasks awaiting you in the weeks to come.

VIRGO - AUG 24/SEPT 22 Your family might need a little extra TLC this week, Virgo, so don't make plans to be out of town. You're the only one who can serve as a mediator when things get rough.

LIBRA - SEPT 23/OCT 23 Be sure others don't play on your sympathies this week, Libra.

Otherwise, you could be made a fool. Seek advice from a friend if you feel someone is trying to take advantage.

SCORPIO - OCT 24/NOV 22 You will feel quite passionate about helping others this week,

Scorpio. Volunteer for a service that assists needy individuals. It will be a humbling and gratifying experience.

this week, Pisces. Putter around without any tangible goals. But snap out of it for Sunday - drama is in store.

SAGITTARIUS - NOV 23/DEC 21 You will feel upbeat and downright playful this week, Sagittarius. Have fun with this youthful attitude by hosting a crowd on the weekend.

FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS

CAPRICORN - DEC 22/JAN 20 Take it easy this week, or else you'll be sure to burn yourself out, Capricorn. You've been tackling too many projects, and now you have to schedule some rest.

AQUARIUS - JAN 21/FEB 18 A close friend needs some extra support, Aquarius. It really won't be what you say but the closeness you'll provide that will be most appreciated by this person.

PISCES - FEB 19/MAR20 You'll prefer to be a homebody

JANUARY 1 Verne Troyer, actor (37) JANUARY 2 Cuba Gooding, Jr., actor (38) JANUARY 3 Mel Gibson, actor (50) JANUARY 4 Deana Carter, singer (40) JANUARY 5 Diane Keaton, actress (60) JANUARY 6 Gabrielle Reece, athlete (36) JANUARY 7 Nicolas Cage, actor (42)

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 25

JANUARY 1, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 25

Time for Jays’ fans to step up to plate One good binge deserves another

By Richard Griffin Torstar wire service

regarding Toronto’s fans in the 11 years since I have been commenting for the Star were 1997-98. The addiith the acquisition of mon- tion of Roger Clemens as a free agent ster third baseman Troy for two Cy Young Award-winning Glaus, the Blue Jays puz- seasons produced no noticeable spike zle, in their own minds, is now com- in attendance. It was bizarre for plete, perhaps with one too many observers and discouraging for the pieces still in the box. The money is team’s front office. It will be disaster spent. The needs have been filled. for the Jays if the fan apathy of those They feel they can contend for a wild years is repeated. card.

Even in games in The Jays overpaid which Clemens was for B.J. Ryan to send the announced a message. They starter, there was no One thing the extended the consignificant increase Jays did not do is tract of their GM to in sales. There was show direction. They no bump in season lie to their fans. overpaid for A.J. tickets. Why would Burnett to show they Jays, after that They have spent the the could outbid the big experience, try again boys. They offered money they promised by spending on a too much in talent superstar? for Lyle Overbay to The Rocket they would. firm up first base. earned the pitching They found their 40Triple Crown in both homer man in Glaus. of his seasons, leadThey’re at their financial limit. ing the AL in strikeouts, wins and One thing the Jays did not do is lie ERA. In ‘98, the Jays won 88 games, to their fans. They have spent the the most since the World Series years, money they promised they would. In yet fans continued to stay away, maktruth, it’s time for the fans to step up ing lame excuses about the strike and and be counted, fulfilling their part of “a pox on both their houses.” Get over an unofficial, unholy bargain. it, fans.

Many are the fans who for the last If those former patrons who stated four years were outspoken in boy- they wouldn’t come back until the cotting the Jays because they were Jays started spending money do not clearly not trying to compete. These step up to the box-office now after same fans must now step up and Ricciardi’s off-season spree, then spend their own money to buy tickets what possible reason would Rogers for a team that has committed the have to commit another $210 million funds experts believed it had to in (all figures U.S.) the next time the order to be competitive. decision comes up, between 2008-10, Not everyone among the general if he feels it won’t be reflected at the populace is so obliged, just those who gate. had been ripping the organization This doesn’t mean that we agree since the Jays cut payroll after the hir- with all of the Jays’ acquisitions. ing of general manager J.P. Ricciardi It’s tough enough to make up 15 in 2002. games in the standings on one team, much less two — the Yankees and TIME TO DIG DEEP Red Sox. Countless were the times I heard Think about it. None among the fans claim they didn’t go to games O’s, Marlins and Brewers, from because the Jays were cheapskates. whom the Jays’ latest trophies were They claimed, convincingly, that as acquired, finished higher than third in soon as the Jays stepped up to the their divisions in 2005 and the financial plate and spent the money to Diamondbacks finished second in the compete with the Yankees and Red pitiful NL West with 77 wins.

Sox, they would return to the Rogers But there is no doubting that the Centre. That time for digging deep is Jays are making an effort. The only now. caveat to president Paul Godfrey’s It’s not saying the Jays now have enthusiasm is that there have been the proper pieces to win. It’s more a many GMs through the years who matter of good faith. have done a great job with low payIt’s the only way to tell owner Ted rolls, but blew it badly when given the Rogers that he is on the right path, money to spend. even if some of the moves turn out to It is Ricciardi’s legacy on the line. be misguided.

But in the meantime, there is a return Fans had the chance before but did- on investment that ownership needs to n’t. The most revealing seasons see in order to continue to spend.

W

Singer Sheryl Crow and Lance Armstrong pose as they arrive at the 2005 American Music Awards in Los Angeles.

REUTERS/Chris Pizzello

Sex, drugs and rock & roll From Lance to Jose to the Original Whizzinator, 2005 just about had it all

By Garth Woolsey Torstar wire service

E

ric DuBose, a pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, earlier this year was stopped while driving under the influence in Florida. The arresting officer suspected something was wrong as DuBose struggled when asked to recite the alphabet. DuBose said: “I’m from Alabama, and they have a different alphabet.”

Sometimes it seems as if pro athletes are from a different planet, translation required.

Take Jose Canseco. Here’s a guy who has been on the fringes for a long time, essentially blackballed by the baseball establishment. Here’s a guy who earned an athletic reputation as a slugger and a moral reputation as a slug. But this past year Canseco sat in a U.S. Congress hearing and managed to come off as the most honest and upstanding among a blue-ribbon group of current and former ball players called to testify about the thorny subject of performance enhancing drugs.

Testifying under some variation of the hypocritical oath, Rafael Palmeiro testified he was cleaner than Tiger Woods’ smile after a visit to the hygienist.

Underneath, though, it turns out Raffy was rotten. Where’s Mark McGwire these days, anyway?

In 2005, Sports Illustrated asked 50 PGA Tour players if they’d agree to abstain from sex for a year if it meant they’d win a major tournament. Thirtyeight per cent said they’d make that

deal, although one reportedly wanted to know first: “With my wife?”

Sex (check). Drugs (check). Rock and roll?

Sheryl Crow and Lance Armstrong have become a duet: “His line of work is so much cooler than mine now,” she said after attending his final Tour de France tour de force. “It’s so much more fun and the personalities are so much more interesting than in rock and roll.”

Interesting? Among the things we learned this past year that we really didn’t need to know is that Mark Cuban, the gazillionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, doesn’t wear underwear. At least that’s what he told Playboy magazine and why would he lie about something like that?

POKER POPULAR Maybe it was the NHL lockout that opened up all the air time, maybe it is the proliferation of on-line gambling venues waiting to fleece the thundering herds of sheep, but poker gained a foothold on all-sports television in ‘05.

For those who might doubt the bona fides of a card game as sport, here’s the clincher: Some players have taken to calling Ace-King in the hole “an Anna Kournikova’’ — looks good but often can be beaten.

(Kournikova last January inspired serial stalker William Lepeska to swim across Biscayne Bay in Florida in search of her mansion. When discovered by police near her place, naked, flushed — though apparently not royally — he screamed: “Anna! Save me!”)

Not to be outdone by a mere card craze, the World Chess Boxing Organization recently crowned its first European heavyweight champion, Bulgaria’s Tihomir (Tiger) Titschko. He beat Andreas (Doomsday) Schneider of Germany in a new hybrid sport that features alternating rounds of four minutes of chess, followed by two minutes of boxing, maximum six rounds at the board and five in the ring. Checkmate or knockout? Name your poison, but don’t bleed on the board.

Unavoidable question: Has Mike Tyson heard about this?

The things you learn reading the sports pages: Hands up, for instance, if you’d ever heard, until Onterrio Smith of the Minnesota Vikings was caught with one in his airline luggage, of The Original Whizzinator. Not everyone needs a fake penis designed to help one pass a urine test, but if you ever did ... well, now you know.

What planet do you figure Mike Danton of the St. Louis Blues was on when he tried to arrange to have his agent, David Frost, killed?

Ricky Williams, the Miami Dolphin, spent time touring this planet and possibly others before finally deciding the money was better back in the NFL. Among the places he visited that we can locate on a map were the Australian outback and India, where he spent several weeks huddling up with one Swami Sitaramananda, apparently working on a new playbook.

Earth to sports world: Happy New Year.

Solutions for crossword on page 24

‘The hockey education was unbelievable’ From page 28 arms over the 0-2 start. However, the threat of wide spread panic came to a halt when Canada hammered the Czech Republic 5-0 in their following game.

Up next was a date with Germany, a contest Canada was expected to easily win. But as was the case in the first two games, Canada failed to meet expectations and barely got by the Germans 2-0.

“I think we went into the German game with some overconfidence, and there was no reason for us to be overconfident,” Paiement says.

With a less-than-spectacular record of 2-2, Paiement’s team now faced their toughest test — a game against Russia in the quarterfinals.

Unlike past world juniors when Canada finished high in the round robin and faced a lower seed in the early stages of the playoff round, this time around it was the Canadians who were the lower seed — and the underdogs.

That said, Paiement’s team gave it their all in the game with the Russians.

The contest was a classic Canada/Russia affair, with thunderous hits and big plays. While Canada was led by Luongo, Brewer, Lacavalier and Tanguay, the Russians countered with an equally strong cast with Andrei Markov, Oleg Kvasha and goalie Denis Khlopotnov leading the charge.

After 60 minutes of hard-fought hockey, the teams were tied at one and headed for overtime. One goal was all that separated each club from a berth in the semi-finals and the guarantee of playing for a medal.

But it appeared as though the game would have to be decided via the shootout as time ran down in the extra frame. With under a minute to go, fans watching across Canada wondered what shooters Paiement would send over the boards in the shootout.

But it never got that far.

“We were only 20-some seconds

away from going to a shootout with the Russians when they got a two-on-one and scored,” says Paiement, his eyes looking upward, to the side, as he seemingly envisions the goal one more time.

“We were so close to playing for a medal … we were right there.”

The loss to Russia eliminated any chance for a medal, and left the entire team disheartened, Paiement says. The team would lose two more games before the tournament ended, dropping a 3-0 game to the United States before an embarrassing 6-3 loss to Kazakhstan.

The end result was an eighth-place finish and a lot of questions.

The most commonly asked question thrown at Paiement was “What went wrong?” It is a question he still has difficulty answering.

“I don’t think there’s a simple answer,” Paiement says. “There were a lot of little things that I could have done better … but I keep those things to myself.”

‘UPSET AND DISAPPOINTED’ Looking back today on how things unfolded in 1998, Paiement says he is still “upset and disappointed” about the eighth-place finish. He says he never forgets just how close his team came to beating the Russians, a victory that would have propelled them to at least the bronze medal game.

Paiment points out that such is often the case in hockey, where the margin between winning and losing is often miniscule at best.

“Every year — except for the lockout years (1994-95 and 2004-05) when the Canadian teams were power houses — if you talk to any other coach, the difference between winning and losing was very small,” says Paiement. “Looking back at that year (1998), (Eric) Brewer has a slap shot in the last minute of regulation that hits the post. If he scores, we’re going to the medal round and probably go all the way to the final. But he didn’t score and we go to overtime

…”

The eighth place finish not only ended Canada’s streak of gold medal wins, it also tainted Paiement’s reputation — at least for a little while. He has no doubt that it affected his career, and even now — eight years later — he is sure proteams would still take the ’98 tournament into account when scanning his resume.

“I think for me to ever get a chance (at pro hockey), I would have to win something big,” Paiement says. “Until I’m part of a team that does that, they (pro teams) won’t seriously consider my candidacy.”

Although he remembers nearly every detail of the 1998 world junior’s, including the crushing loss to Russia, Paiement insists he does not dwell on it.

He says the reason he does not is simple — he has other priorities, just as he did when he returned from the ’98 tournament and was faced with the task of turning around the Moncton Wildcats.

“The team was struggling at the time in Moncton, so I didn’t have a chance to mourn or think about it. I knew everybody was disappointed, and the most disappointed was me. But I had to move on, if not our team in Moncton was not going to do very well.”

Paiement says he still watches the world junior’s on television each Christmas and New Year’s, and says he’d probably coach Team Canada again if asked, although he’d prefer if a young, up and coming coach was given the chance, as he was in 1997 and 1998.

Despite the hardships endured at the ’98 tournament, Paiement has many fond memories of the event — a competition that helped him grow as a coach and a person.

“What I enjoyed most is the exposure to other coaches and their philosophies,” Paiement says. “The hockey education was unbelievable and the life experience was great.” darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

Solutions for sudoku on page 24

26 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS

JANUARY 1, 2006

JANUARY 1, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 27

‘Not easy to play for’ Corey Crocker demands a lot from his players, but so far it’s working wonders in Amherst, N.S.

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

I

f every hockey season would go as smoothly as this one for Corey Crocker, he’d be coaching pro before his 35th birthday.

In his first season as head coach of the Amherst Ramblers of the Maritime Junior A Hockey League, Crocker is enjoying the view from the top, as the Ramblers currently hold down first place in the Maurice Bent Division and sport the league’s third best winning percentage (.703).

Despite the early season success, Crocker wouldn’t be shocked if a few players didn’t always agree with his coaching style and philosophy. After all, he’s the first to admit he expects a lot from his players.

“I’m not easy to play for,” Crocker tells The Independent. “I demand hard work and discipline … I like teams that are hard working and creative.”

Crocker, a Harbour Grace native, has gotten the most out of his players thus far, even if he’s still getting to know some of them. Most of the players on the Ramblers’ roster were already property of the team when he accepted the head coaching position over the summer, forcing Crocker to do some serious homework in the time leading up to training camp.

He quickly did some research on both his team and the league, since he wasn’t overly familiar with the Maritime junior A circuit. Despite his preparation, Crocker had to wait until training camp to get a good grip on the type of team he had.

Once he saw his players take to the ice, he knew the team had a lot of potential.

“I saw we had a lot of speed — a lot of skill — up front,” says Crocker.

“We weren’t too solid on the back end, but that’s what coaches are for.”

The first few weeks of training camp also helped Crocker gain a better understanding and appreciation for the league.

“I had heard a lot of bad things about the Maritime junior league … it was known years ago as a goon league with fights upon fights. But when I came here my eyes opened up big time,” says Crocker. “As with any league right now, it’s mostly a speed

Corey Crocker

and skill league. There are some great, great players here.

“Two things I was very impressed with were the toughness and the speed of the game. Chances are if you’re not fast in this league, you’re not going to survive.”

At 27 years of age, Crocker is one of the youngest head coaches in the Maritime league. Part of the reason he has been able to advance so quickly in the coaching ranks, he says, is his playing background.

Crocker spent three years with the Peterborough Petes of the Ontario Hockey League (winning an OHL championship in 1996) and one year with the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers. He’s also played his fair share of senior hockey, giving him a broad outlook on various ways to approach the game.

His experience was put to the test early in the Ramblers’ training camp when 17-year-old defenceman Geoff McNaughton came to Crocker and told him he was considering quitting hockey altogether. The young bluelin-

Paul Daly/The Independent

er had recently been cut from major junior, and was disenchanted with the business side of the game.

“He’s 17 years old, and was promised everything in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League,” says Crocker.

“We sat down and I told him some of my experiences from playing and told him to play for the love of the game.”

McNaughton decided to stay in Amherst and quickly became one of Crocker’s most reliable defenceman.

Earlier this month he was called up to Gantineau of the QMJHL, and Crocker was happy for the young player.

“I enjoy coming to the rink and dishing off what I’ve learned as a player,” says Crocker. “I enjoy teaching players the details of hockey I was taught.”

Crocker says his age has actually been a benefit in junior hockey, especially when dealing with players such as McNaughton. Although he demands a lot from them, he says players know their efforts are always appreciated.

Bolland’s on right path

By Ken Campbell Torstar wire service

B

ig-time NHL prospect, native of Mimico, childhood star in both lacrosse and hockey, dad from Scotland, London Knights standout, pivotal member of Canada’s world junior team.

Brendan Shanahan, circa 1987? Not exactly, but we can understand the confusion. After all, David Bolland’s career path has been remarkably similar to that of Shanahan, his favourite player and good friend.

But it’s here at the 2006 world junior championship that Bolland is hoping to take a wildly divergent turn from Shanahan. As an almost-18year-old, Shanahan was part of one of Canada’s biggest disgraces on the international stage at the ‘87 event in Piestany (in then Czechoslovakia), getting kicked out of the tournament after an enormous punch-up against the Soviets.

Although this year’s team lacks nothing in the physical side of the game, as evidenced by the punishment they administered to Finland Dec. 26, there’s little reason to believe that coach Brent Sutter would allow his team to lose its composure.

Bolland, meanwhile, is part of the leadership group with this year’s team and is a key offensive contributor. Not only is he playing on the top offensive line with Woodbridge whiz Andrew Cogliano and Kyle Chipchura, he’s also anchoring the point on the power play.

If not for the superior money offered by a hockey career, Bolland might have been just as inclined

to play in the National Lacrosse League as the National Hockey League. Bolland maintains that some people insist he’s an even better lacrosse player than he is a hockey player.

“Oh, boy, that would be a tough choice,” Bolland said when asked which career he would pursue if lacrosse offered the same lifestyle as hockey. “It would be a toss-up, but I really wouldn’t know. I love lacrosse and I know I would have loved to play it if it weren’t for hockey.”

QUICK RELEASE That explains the quick release on a shot that has found the net 28 times already in just 27 games for the Knights this season. Like Shanahan, the second-round pick of the Chicago Blackhawks in 2004 played elite competitive lacrosse until reaching Jr. B and was drafted by the Mississauga Tomahawks junior team.

“I wanted to keep playing the year I was drafted (2002) but I would put on some weight and I’d play lacrosse and I’d lose it all,” Bolland said, “so I had to make a choice.”

It seems he made the right one. After being the last cut of last year’s team — arguably the best one any country has ever assembled for this event — Bolland went on to win the Memorial Cup with the equally dominant Knights and was a shoo-in to make the Canadian team this year. And while his inspiration has always been Brendan Shanahan, he owes much more of his success to Shanahan’s brother, Brian, a former pro lacrosse player and an analyst for the Rock games.

Confident in the new year From page 28 World Baseball Classic, the men’s hockey competition at the Olympic games gives us a rare opportunity to see the sport’s absolute best go head-to-head.

I think the results will mirror those of 2002, with Canada taking gold. The only difference this time around is that guys like Dany Heatley, Vincent Lecalvier and Jason Spezza are going to lead the way instead of Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman and Paul Kariya.

The Manning Bowl: I have a sneaking suspicion that the 2006 Super Bowl is going to be an allManning affair. I’m talking Peyton vs. Eli in an allout QB battle for NFL supremacy. I can hear the sceptics already, and yes, I know this is in all likelihood a long shot, since Eli’s New York Giants would have to get by the Seattle Seahawks first. But I just have a hunch ...

Our Sea-Hawks aren’t bad either: Speaking of Sea-Hawks, how about the ones playing basketball at MUN these days? I’m looking forward to watching both the men’s and women’s b-ball teams compete for their respective conference championships in 2006, and doubt I’m alone in thinking this could

be the year MUN hangs two AUS basketball banners from the field house rafters.

Battle for Avalon East: Southern Shore is looking like the favourite to win the Avalon East Senior Hockey League crown this year, but come playoff time they will face a stiff test from Mount Pearl and Conception Bay North. Mount Pearl’s lineup has been devastated by injuries in recent weeks, including one to leading scorer Terry Ryan. But if they can put together a full roster of healthy players by February or March of ’06, they just might be the team to upset Southern Shore.

Blue Jays return to glory (hopefully): Could this be the year the Toronto Blue Jays return to the post-season? I certainly hope so, and I think the additions of Lyle Overbay, B.J. Ryan and A.J. Burnette were a step in the right direction towards earning a playoff berth in the American League. The Blue Jays definitely overpaid for both Ryan and Burnette, but if they can perform as expected, the next couple of years could be interesting ones for Canadian baseball fans. However, if the Jays don’t add at least one true power hitter to their lineup, the additions of A.J and B.J. will probably be wasted. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

“What’s helped me the most is that I’m not much older than some of the kids,” says Crocker. “They respected me because I have new ideas and if they work hard, they get rewarded. I try to be creative with the players and meet them half way.”

NOT ALONE To a degree, Crocker is not alone in Amherst, since the team has six Newfoundlanders on the roster.

Andrew Hill of St. John’s, Andrew Pearcey of St. John’s, Jeremy Kavanagh of Logy Bay, Keenan Leonard of St. John’s, Matt Squires of St. John’s and Ryan Smith of Mount Pearl play key roles in making the Ramblers a first-place club, but Crocker insists he had little to do with them landing with Amherst.

“It’s coincidence. All these guys were drafted by or played for Amherst before I got here,” Crocker says. “I had no impact on the Newfoundlanders coming here, but I’m proud of every one of them.”

Crocker’s coaching experience

before joining the Ramblers came from serving as head coach of the TriPen Frost Midget AAA team. He still has the same coaching style with his new team, but says there are some differences in dealing with junior players as opposed to ones in midget.

For starters, the players are a little older and some have greater responsibilities, whether that be trying to earn a university degree or maintain a fulltime job while playing the 56-game Maritime junior A league schedule.

But the biggest difference Crocker sees is the relationships he has with his assistant coaches.

“I have four assistant coaches … one is 57 years old, one is 47 years old and our goalie coach is 60. I come in as a 27-year-old and run the show and I have to tell these assistant coaches — who are old enough to be my father — what to do,” says Crocker. “That was a major difference for me but luckily my assistant coaches are great people away from the rink plus great hockey minds.”

Although he enjoys it in Amherst, Crocker may not be in the small, Nova Scotia town for long. Those in the hockey community often mention his name whenever a major junior coaching vacancy comes up, and it appears it is a move Crocker would most certainly make.

“I’m definitely looking to make coaching a career,” says Crocker.

“And coaching at this level is a fulltime job.

“I want to coach at the major junior level and keep working my way up.”

But with the second half of the Maritime league regular season under way and his sights set on a first-round buy for the Ramblers (they would get one if they finish first in their division), Crocker has little time to worry about his next coaching job. Instead, he’s going to enjoy life as head coach of a first-place junior A hockey club and let the future take care of itself.

“Amherst is an unbelievable place to play and coach. We’re averaging 1,700 fans a night and the fans really get into it,” says Crocker. “Since I took this job, I’ve learned so much as a hockey coach and as a person that it’s going to help me for years to come.” darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

INDEPENDENTSPORTS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JANUARY 1-7, 2006 — PAGE 28

Fog Devils coach Real Paiment

Paul Daly/The Independent

Long December Eight years after guiding Canada’s entry at ’98 world junior’s, Fog Devils coach Réal Paiment opens up about the tournament that tainted his reputation

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

R

éal Paiement knows first hand how important the World Junior Hockey Championships are to Canadians.

Each year between Christmas and New Year’s, people from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia crowd around televisions to cheer on Canada’s best young hockey players, expecting the young men to win yet another gold medal.

The St. John’s Fog Devils head coach and general manager was an assistant coach with the Canadian team that won gold at the 1997

world’s in Switzerland, and remembers fondly the admiration that awaited the team when they returned to Canada. But Paiement also recalls the outcry of anger, frustration and disappointment that poured from the country’s hockey fans after the 1998 world junior’s when Canada finished in eighth place — an unheard of position for a traditional hockey super power.

Paiement was the head coach of the ’98 squad that gave Canada its lowest finish ever at the world junior’s. Sitting in his office adjacent to the Fog Devils’ locker room at Mile One in St. John’s, he recalls with great detail every game Canada played and also remem-

bers the negative reaction awaiting the team when they returned home from Finland.

Sports writers and broadcasters across the country called the team failures, criticized the players’ efforts, and ridiculed Paiement. It was a scene Paiement would rather forget, but never will.

“It was very tough for everybody involved,” Paiement tells The Independent. “Because I was the decision maker, I was the one hardest hit by the media. I knew if we didn’t win gold … I knew when I took the job that would happen if we didn’t win gold.

“I knew when we lost to the Russians (in the quarterfinals), I was going to be hit hard, but you’re never really prepared for that.”

Going into the ’98 tournament, Canada was coming off five consecutive gold medals at the world junior’s, a record-setting run not matched since by any other nation. The expectations for the ’98 team — which included several future NHLers, including Roberto Luongo, Eric Brewer, Vincent Lacavalier and Alex Tanguay — were just as high, which was

just fine with Paiement.

“Every year when you represent Canada, you’re going for gold,” says Paiement. “That’s what you build your team for and that’s what the players have in mind.”

But signs of trouble were prevalent immediately at the ’98 tournament, as Canada dropped its first game 3-2 to the host team from Finland. The Canadians made a steady parade to the penalty box in the contest, although to this day Paiement questions whether they deserved many of the penalties.

“I was at the tournament before (in 1997) and told the players (in 1998) the refereeing is different in Europe,” says Paiement. “But from what I saw the year before, I didn’t think we were undisciplined in that first game against the Fins. I didn’t think we took bad penalties, so there was a concern about it.”

Canada fared no better in their second game, when Sweden blanked them 4-0. Back home in Canada, fans and media alike were up in See “The hockey,” page 25

Looking to 2006

L

ooking back now, I must say 2005 was a good year to be Darcy MacRae. I started writing fulltime for the top newspaper in the province, purchased an almost-new car, went home to Nova Scotia for Christmas and continued to be lavished with gifts and admiration from the legions of young, female fans who read this column religiously.

Overall, 2005 was my favourite 12month cycle since 1993 — the year the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup, the Blue Jays won the World Series and I discovered the warm, fuzzy feeling a six-pack of beer provided me and my friends on

DARCY MACRAE

The game the scattered Friday night.

In fact, 2005 ended on such a high that I can’t wait to see what 2006 has in order for me. Considering how good things have been going, why shouldn’t I feel confident the next 12 months will also be a smashing success?

Here’s a list of some of the things I’m most looking forward to in 2006.

Gushue in Italy: I’m the first to admit I’m not the biggest curling fan in the world, but I do enjoy a good game. When Brad Gushue and his rink hit the ice at the Olympics in Turin, I fully expect to be glued to the television with the intensity I usually reserve for the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Gushue just might leave the Olympics with a medal around his neck, but even if he doesn’t he’ll still have accomplished a lot more than most athletes. And at just 25 years of age, I dare say the Turin games are not the last Olympics Gushue he will attend.

Defending The Rock: For the past

few years The Rock rugby team was on the cusp of greatness, but after claiming the 2005 Canadian Super League title, the club will take to the field in 2006 with the swagger of defending champions.

When opposing mainland teams make their way here this summer, they’d better be ready to face an opponent determined to defend both their home turf and their super league crown.

The world’s best, Part 1: I love a good game of baseball, and I expect the inaugural World Baseball Classic to be the best ball I’ll have seen in quite a while — if not ever. In all honesty, Canada will probably get its clock

cleaned against star-studded teams like the United States, but it will still be interesting to see just who wins the tournament. My money is on the Dominican Republic to take the championship, with the one-two combination of starting pitchers Pedro Martinez and Bartolo Colon leading the way. Of course, having a batting order that includes Albert Pujols, Alfonso Soriano, Miguel Tejada, Manny Ramirez, Vladimir Guerrero and David Ortiz doesn’t hurt their chances either.

The world’s best, Part 2: Just like the See “Confident,” page 27