2006-01-29

VOL. 4 ISSUE 5

—

ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR — SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JANUARY 29-FEBRUARY 4, 2006

—

WWW.THEINDEPENDENT.CA —

$1.00 HOME DELIVERY (HST included); $1.50 RETAIL (HST included)

NEWS 8 AND 9

GALLERY 18

Brad Gushue prepares for Olympics — first of a two-part series

Cara Winsor Hehir’s art explores Comfort in place

Still in the dark Some breast cancer patients still waiting for results of retesting BEN CURTIES

T

he results are in, but Newfoundland’s most famous breast cancer survivor is still wondering if her test was accurate.

Gerry Rogers, director and subject of the Gemini Award-winning documentary My Left Breast, says her doctor is almost certain the tests carried out to help determine her course of breast cancer treatment were among those sent back by the Eastern Health Board to Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital for review.

But information is hard to come by.

“They haven’t told me anything,” Rogers tells The Independent. “Nobody has contacted me about anything. But when I saw my oncologist in late December, she said ‘Gerry, looking at the test results that are coming back and looking at your initial test results, I’m 99 per cent sure that yours would be one of the ones that were falsely negative.’”

In May last year, Eastern Health, which oversees hospitals in the St. John’s area, sent away test results (Canadian Cancer Society spokesman Peter Dawe pegs the number at 1,000) from as far back as 1997 after determining that between five and 20 per cent of the results may have been inaccurate.

The outcomes of the tests, which examine hormone receptors in breast cancer cells for estrogen and progesterone, help physicians determine the

Gerry Rogers lost her breasts to cancer.

course of treatment that a patient should undergo.

The last of the retest results came in last week, but Eastern Health officials have yet to issue a public statement on the issue, electing to wait until they have assessed the retests and notified

Paul Daly/The Independent

patients on an individual basis.

“I’m not sure what the strategy will be at that point until we get them all finished and I guess we’ll decide at that point what we’re going to do publicly,” says Deborah Pennell, spokeswoman for Eastern Health.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “True, the scoundrels got tossed out, but they managed to land very near the door.”

— Michael Harris See column page 11

FILM SCORE 19

Tim Conway spends time with cowboys and Karla O’Connell Street, Dublin.

Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland

Celtic tiger still roars But how is Ireland dealing with problems that come along with such incredible success?

STEPHANIE PORTER

D

enise Scurrey moved from Mount Pearl to Dublin in 2002 to study, but it wasn’t at all what she expected.

“People say, it’s just like Newfoundland, you’ll feel right at home,” she says. “But it was a culture shock at first because I was in a much bigger city and there’s a lot more drugs. It’s just not something you’d see at home, to walk out of your job and see some-

one shoot up heroin. You don’t know how to deal with it or how to react.”

After Scurrey’s eight months of training, she returned to Newfoundland to finish her course work in tourism, moving back to Dublin — and the man she had met there — directly afterwards. The couple lived in the city for three years, and now have two young children.

Scurrey and new family moved to her home province last fall. “We’re just trying to decide which is the better place,” she says.

See “Today’s Dublin,” page 20

SPORTS 32

MUN’s Kerri-Ann Everly’s raw wrestling talent Life Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Paper Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Book review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

When The Independent broke the story in October, Eastern Health officials said they had kept it quiet because they didn’t want to cause mass hysteria.

But Rogers is angry that she had to learn about the testing errors from the media.

“I think as soon as they knew that something was wrong they should have told us immediately, rather than the information coming out because somebody in the media got wind of somebody who See “Rumblings,” page 2

Off the lot

Province adds 253 new cars to fleet since 2004 ALISHA MORRISSEY

T

here’s a distinct new-car smell coming from provincial government parking lots around the province.

Since August 2005, the Danny Williams administration has spent more than $2.3 million on 118 new cars and replacement vehicles.

Tack that onto the $3.3 million spent on 135 cars during the 2004/2005 fiscal year and the number of spanking new sedans, vans, pick-ups and four-wheel drives comes in at 253. Now add that onto the 635 older models and the total in government’s fleet adds up to 888.

The most recent purchases include 25 new cars for workers who were racking up bills renting or driving their own vehicles for work purposes, as well as 93 replacement vehicles.

As of summer 2005, the average age of a vehicle in the province’s fleet was six years, with an average of 120,000 kilometres on each engine. Some cars dated back to 1970, and had hundreds of thousands

of kilometres on the odometers.

Updated age and mileage figures weren’t available by The Independent’s press deadline.

Transportation Minister Trevor Taylor says it was more cost effective to spend about $20,000 each on the new cars than to pay for rentals, travel claims and maintenance costs on older vehicles.

“The nature of the job required them to be on the road everyday that they were on the job,” Taylor says of several employees in Government Services and Fisheries who travel around the province daily.

While there are no estimates available outlining how much it was costing to keep private vehicles on the road or to pay for maintenance of older vehicles, Taylor says a cost/benefit analysis was carried out by the Finance Department before the money for the new cars was allocated.

The Tory government claims the last administration had a freeze on buying or replacing vehicles for government departments during its last two years in office.

Liberal leader Gerry Reid wasn’t See “Cheaper to buy,” page 2

2 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JANUARY 29, 2006

‘Rumblings and rumours’ of legal action From page 1 knew something,” she says. “They should have done it immediately and explained what they did and didn’t know, because we’re not children.

We’re health-care consumers, and this is a system that we all own.”

Instead, Rogers has been forced to wonder what might have been.

According to Dawe, a positive result on the test, called an ER/PR test for estrogen or progesterone receptors, means the patient could respond to a hormone therapy treatment such as Tamoxifen. The faulty tests showed false negatives.

“In clinical trials, Tamoxifen has shown some great results of improving survival rates of women with breast cancer,” says the cancer society spokesman. “If you’re positive, and you get tested and they say you’re negative, you’re missing the opportunity to get the hormone therapy.”

The ramifications are not lost on Rogers, who could have been told about the five-year hormone treatment program six years ago.

“They might suggest now for me to take Tamoxifen, but it seems to me like closing the barn door after the horses are out,” says Rogers, who has lost both breasts.

“I’m well now, but if something were to happen, you would think could this have been prevented?

“I’ve had some friends who have been diagnosed and who have died, who maybe weren’t supposed to die,” she adds. “I’m not making any kind of informed medical pronouncement here, but I had friends whose pathologies indicated they had a pretty good chance for survival, and they died. They were early stages, with no lymph node involvement, and they were estrogen negative; they weren’t on Tamoxifen.

And then they got recurrences and died.

I wonder if their pathology was wrong

too, you know?”

Pennell says it will take at least another month to know how many people may have been incorrectly treated.

“It’s all relative,” she says. “There’s a lot of treatment options and people may have gotten treatment anyway. It’s really hard to determine until we get down through every single case and take a look back.”

“For some people, it’s not going to mean anything,” agrees Dawe. “They may have been offered Tamoxifen or some other treatment anyway. For some people, Tamoxifen may not have been an option no matter what, because there are some side effects. It’s really individualized. Until I get some real good numbers I’m hesitant to talk about anything.”

Eastern Health officials wouldn’t discuss exactly what went wrong — though they have explained that new lab technology caught the errors and led to the retests.

The cancer society hasn’t been told.

“Eastern Health should answer that, but from what we’ve been told it’s a complicated process,” Dawe says.

“They haven’t pinpointed exactly what went wrong. In any biological test there’s going to be a certain amount of false negatives. It just happens that their rate is up around 10 per cent. They’re trying to tighten up their quality control to the point that where they can say ‘We’re doing this test as well as anybody else.’”

Dawe says there have been lots of “rumblings and rumours” of legal action, but he’s heard nothing concrete.

Pennell says Eastern Health hasn’t heard of any lawsuits either.

For Rogers, the errors would be a lot easier to swallow if they were explained.

“For the most part, people are not litigious,” she says. “They just want to be treated with respect and fairness. By handling it this way, it makes people

‘Cheaper to buy a light-coloured car’ Department Government Services Tourism Environment Fisheries Natural Resources Transportation Innovation and Trade Justice Constabulary Total

New cars Number Cost 16 $187,584.00 N/A N/A 3 $55,000.65 2 $23,448.00 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 4 $107,642.00

Replacement Cars Number Cost 9 $142,159.70 1 $21,056.55 6 $121,540.65 N/A N/A 19 $403,867.00 36 $673,139.00 2 $23,448.00 2 $68,589.55 18 $487,028.00

25

93

$373,674.65

$1,940,828.45

Source: Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Transportation

Terrace on the Square, Churchill Square Store Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 9:00am to 5:30pm Phone: 754-9497 diamonddesign.com

From page 1 available to comment on the freeze prior to The Independent’s press deadline.

A 1997 review of the province’s cars noted the fleet, which numbered 869 light vehicles at the time, had travelled in excess of 24 million kilometres with operating and maintenance costs of almost $4 million.

The report recommended downsizing.

All of the new cars purchased by government are silver grey in colour.

“I’m not making any kind of informed medical pronouncement here, but I had friends whose pathologies indicated they had a pretty good chance for survival, and they died.”

Gerry Rogers angry enough to want to be litigious.”

Rogers phoned Eastern Health when she found out the results were in, and was directed to a “patient liaison” voicemail. She hadn’t heard back prior to The Independent’s press deadline.

She says the silence is unfortunate, considering how well she has been treated

by Eastern Health in the past.

“I’ve feel that I’ve had exemplary care,” she says. “Every step of the way I’ve been treated with compassion and respect, and this is totally disrespectful.”

Clarification That particular tint was decided on in the 1980s because it’s cheaper to buy a light coloured car — and the province saves on carwashes.

“You look at grey vehicles even if they’re dirty they don’t look quite so dirty as a black vehicle,” Taylor says, “and if you get blue cars or red cars or orange cars it’s always political foolishness that people get hung up on and … if you happen to get into an accident the cost of repair is a little higher (with dark coloured cars).” alisha.morrissey@theindependent.ca

The story, Study into separate universities to cost $120,000; changes expected, carried in the Jan. 8-14 edition of The Independent read that Memorial University president Axel Meisen had “publicly stated” he’s not in favour of giving the Sir Wilfred Grenfell College autonomy.

In fact, while Meisen has been somewhat cold towards the idea, he’s never publicly stated he’s against autonomy for the west coast campus.

JANUARY 29, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 3

’Tis the season for RRSPs

Buying security

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

day, Riche says.

While retirement may seem a long way off for a person starting a career, he points out the average person will need to tuck away the equivalent of 70 per cent of their pre-retirement income in order to maintain the same lifestyle in their golden years.

“As I see it, there’s only two choices with what you do with your money,” Riche says. “You lend it to somebody else and they pay you a return on it — and that’s what we call a fixed-income investment (RRSP).

“The second major choice is … you have ownership of something and what I mean by that is you have equity or a stock ownership of a company.”

Buying an RRSP in the spring may be as Canadian as watching Hockey Night in Canada, but the end results may not be as appealing as playing the stock market, Riche says.

“I think it’s a cultural thing that we do … rushing in to put it (money) in blindly just to save on the tax, again it’s not just about saving on the tax, it’s about having a long-term savings plan.”

While there’s more financial risk in buying stocks, Riche says that’s the trade off of finances — security for return.

“As you get older your ability to withstand a downturn in the markets is diminished because you’re going to run out of time, so you have to protect to a certain degree the amount of money that you’ve earned.”

Back at the law firm, Durant admits he’s considered stocks as well as RRSPs, but he’s not a big risk taker.

“At this point when I do get any extra (money) it’s not enough to risk.

What I’ll probably do is I’ll put some into the more riskier investments, but I think I’ll always make sure that I have enough in the low-risk investments in case my high risks don’t work out,” Durant says. “I’m just a little bit nervous because obviously I’d like to retire as early as possible, as well I know that having some money put away is pretty important.” alisha.morrissey@theindependent.ca

P

eter Durant wants to spend his retirement living half the year down south.

“I made my mind up on that a long time ago, that’s going to happen if it has to be in a tent,” Durant, a 27-year old lawyer in St. John’s, tells The Independent. “As soon as I can spare a little bit of money I should start putting money into RSPs, even if it’s $50 a month to start something out.”

Durant says he and many of his friends are looking into investing in a retirement fund like an RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan) because their companies don’t offer pension plans.

“I guess as I get older … I don’t want to not have anything put away for when the time comes for when I want to retire and I obviously don’t want to work until I’m 60,” he says.

“Basically, the day I stop working I stop having any income whatsoever.

So I know that it’s extra important for me to put away a significant amount of money.”

RRSPs were started in the 1950s by the Canadian government to encourage Canadians to save for their own retirement. The incentive to save was a tax break on investments like mutual funds, stocks and bonds. The income made through these investments is taxed only after the savings are withdrawn.

Since the ’50s RRSPs have become more complex, says financial advisor Joe Riche, owner of Riche Investments. An RRSP is simply a tax shelter, he says, and what’s important is the actual investments made in an RRSP. “A lot of people lose sight of the fact that the real benefit of an RRSP is not so much the upfront tax savings, but the tax-deferred growth,” Riche says, adding a monthly $1,000 contribution is better in the long fun than a $12,000 investment at tax time. Investors don’t miss the money if they pay in small sums and they will see an average rate of return throughout the year — unlike dumping a lump sum of cash on deadline

• In the 2004 tax year Canadians increased their RRSP contributions by 4.5 per cent, totalling $28.8 billion. More than 6 million Canadians contributed to RRSPs in 2004.

• In the same year 60,690 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians contributed more than $271 million to RRSPs. The average contribution was $2,200, below the national average of $2,600.

• For a tax break on 2005 tax returns all RRSP contributions should be made by March 1.

SCRUNCHINS U.S. BASHING Stephen Harper was criticized during the federal election for his supposed love of George W. Bush and for secretly wanting Canada to become the 51st state. The jury is still out on that one, but Newfoundland has always had a decent relationship with the States. The 1895 book, Caribou Shooting in Newfoundland, by S.T. Davis of New York, was essentially a guidebook on the Newfoundland outdoors.

“Scarcely had the ink time to dry on the hotel register (which charged $1.50 a day for room and lodging, by the way) when up went the flag of our country in our honor. We soon learned that the knowledge that one is an American is a sufficient passport in Newfoundland, not only in the capital of the country, but in every hamlet throughout the entire country.”

A weekly collection of Newfoundlandia CARE BEAR COUNTRY It’s always interesting to read how the mainland press portrays us. In that context, here’s the lead paragraph of a sports story published Jan. 23 in a weekly British Columbia newspaper about a Newfoundlander playing in that province’s junior hockey league: “Colin Greening is much like your typical Newfie. The St. John’s product loves listening to Great Big Sea and watching Trailer Park Boys and he’s as friendly as a Care Bear.”

That about sums us up, wouldn’t you say? The province’s re-branding plan probably needs a little more time to kick in.

BRIAN’S BACK Brian Tobin is in the news again now that Paul Martin has announced his intention to step down as Liberal leader. The Globe and Mail listed our former premier as one of eight contenders for the Liberal leadership.

His strengths: The Globe describes Tobin as a man who can rally around the flag, “most notably” as an organizer of the 1995 referendum rally and his role in the turbot war. “His experience as a Newfoundland premier and federal Industry minister will be cited as proof of economic heft.” His weaknesses: Tobin’s not bilingual; there’s also the abrupt way he pulled out of the last leadership race.

Then there’s the minor detail of where Tobin would run — here or on the mainland. Word on the street is that Tobin wouldn’t have a chance of

Former premier Brian Tobin

winning a seat in this province. So much for a lasting legacy, but then there’s always The Rooms.

FISH IS ONE THING …

Davis told the story of paddling up a river with a Newfoundland guide. He asked the guide whether there was any fish to be caught.

“Fish? No sir — no fish, sir.”

A few minutes later Davis spotted a salmon that weighed between 10-15 pounds.

Explained the Newfoundland guide: “Oh, that was a salmon. There are plenty of trout and salmon in all these waters, but no fish, sir. You know we don’t count anything as fish in these parts but codfish, sir.”

WORD OF THE WEEK The Dictionary of Newfoundland English

2006 CR-V SE 4WD 5-speed Kenmount Road 579.1999 / 800.667.9900 www.cityhonda.com

defines trouting as the widespread pastime of angling for freshwater trout. “On stormy days when the cod fishery cannot be prosecuted … the fishermen go trouting, as they say … the Newfoundlander’s trouting pole is a gigantic affair, and very much resembles a telegraph post.”

OTHER SPORTS BESIDES FISH The first game of hockey recorded in Newfoundland was in February 1896, with a portion of Quidi Vidi Lake cleared for the purpose.

According to volume two of the 1937 Book of Newfoundland, the players used a cricket ball.

“The sticks were walking canes used handle down, and pickets were also pressed into service … Acme skates were used by most of the pioneers. No pads were available, although at a later date magazines were stuffed inside the stockings … kid gloves with fingers cut off were sometimes used to avoid ‘rinding’ the knuckles.”

The first visiting team from Canada came to Newfoundland in 1901. Representatives of Truro defeated the city in a two-game series.

TENNIS ANYONE? Tennis was around long before hockey. In 1876 the name of the club on Forest Road in St. John’s where the game was played was changed to the Newfoundland Archery and Lawn Tennis Club, a name later changed to the Newfoundland Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

...delivers more ¥

2,313

Value Price Advantage $

WINTER

$3,413

SALES DRIVE

in extra value for only

$1,100

• • • • •

16-inch Alloy Wheels Front & Rear Skid Plates Side Step Bars Front Fog Lights Roof Rack

2006 CR-V SE 5-speed *

$

308

Lease from

Quadruple 5-Star Safety

†1

0

$

SECURITY

MORE SAVINGS

All Honda vehicles are delivered with a full tank.

2006 CR-V SE

34 MPG (8.4L/100km) Highway

†

www.honda.ca

Limited time lease and finance offers available only through Honda Canada Finance Inc. O.A.C. *Lease is based new 2006 CR-V SE 5-speed manual (model RD7756E) for a 48 month term, OAC. Monthly payment is $308 with $5,725down payment or equivalent trade-in, respectively. Payments include $1,445 freight and PDI. $0 security deposit required. First monthly payment due at lease inception. Lease rate is 4.9%. 96,000 kilometre allowance; charge of $0.12/km for excess kilometres. Total lease obligation is $17,001.60. License, insurance, PPSA, applicable taxes and registration are extra. Option to purchase at lease end for $14,064.00 plus taxes. †: As reported by EnerGuide published by NRCan – see www.vehicles.gc.ca for full details. †1: Quadruple 5-star safety rating based on crash tests by NHTSA for CR-V for driver, front passenger and rear seat passengers in both front-impact and side-impact crash tests, www.nhtsa.com. ¥: Calculation for $2,313 in extra value features is: 2005 CR-V LX with manual transmission is $28,200. Total value of additional SE features is $3,413 – based on dealer installed accessory pricing. Additional charge to consumer is only $1,100. Savings to consumer is $2,313. Limited time offers. See your Honda dealer for full details.

4 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JANUARY 29, 2006

Meet the member Loyola Hearn is from the Southern Shore, but what else do you know about the MP likely to be province’s next cabinet minister?

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

… but at 3 o’clock in the morning I sound OK.”

WILLIAM LOYOLA HEARN Loyola was the name of the Spanish theologian and founder of The Society of Jesus who lived from 14911556.

BORN March 25, 1943 in Renews on the Southern Shore.

BIRTH SIGN Aries. Symbolized by the ram, Hearn’s birth sign describes him as passionate about things dear to his heart, making him a natural leader. With little patience, however, an Aries can sometimes be combatant.

FAMILY Father (William) was a fisherman; mother (May) was a housewife. Hearn has two sisters and one brother.

Hearn married Maureen (Hynes), and has two children, Laurita (“she’s very political”) and David (currently attending law school in Windsor, Ont.) FAVOURITE FOODS Fish — salmon, trout, cod — you name it, Hearn likes it. He says he also loves to cook and his spaghetti and meat sauce and soup are “second to none.”

FAVOURITE COLOUR Tory blue INDULGENCES Hearn, who doesn’t drink, smoke or swear, says his only indulgences are sports. A hockey player himself — “I’d rather be on the hockey rink than on the floor of the House” — Hearn and a friend began the original Southern Shore hockey league. Hearn was a player and coach in various Southern Shore leagues. He also coached several sports in the school system.

TALENTS Hearn is a well-known songwriter in Ireland and on his native Southern Shore. He’s been known to play the accordion, guitar, banjo and piano at get-togethers.

“If it makes music I can usually play something on it

FAVOURITE TIME OF THE YEAR Christmas. Hearn says Christmas was always important in his household and even this year’s federal election didn’t interrupt his family time.

EDUCATION Hearn spent 12 years as a high school teacher and principal in Renews and Trepassey before being elected to the House of Assembly under Brian Peckford.

He was named Education minister in his second term.

At the time, the province’s teachers were on strike, which Hearn helped end.

POLITICAL LIFE Hearn, who says he was always interested in politics, began his political career while still a teacher on the Southern Shore, running several campaigns over the course of 11 years for noted politicians including Tom Doyle, John Crosbie and Loyola Sullivan before being urged to run himself. Hearn completed three terms on the Renews municipal council before being elected in 1982 for the district of St. Mary’s-The Capes and again in 1985 and 1989. Hearn retired from provincial politics in 1993, only to win in a federal byelection for the riding of St. John’s West in 2000.

He took the riding again later that year and again in 2004 and 2006.

CRITICISM Hearn served as critic for Canadian Heritage, Public Works, Government Services, and Fisheries and Oceans.

IN CABINET(?)

Hearn is expected to be named Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in the upcoming Conservative cabinet, though he jokes that’s the only position he really doesn’t want. He says the challenges of changing a system he’s spent the last four years criticizing could be tough, but “you can handle anything if you want to.

“Whoever gets Fisheries will have a handful.”

MOTTO “Get the thing done and get it out of the way.” alisha.morrissey@theindependent.ca

“I don’t want to be there to pick up a pay cheque or look good or go to cocktail parties with the prime minister — that stuff doesn’t fizz on me whatsoever.”

Paul Daly/The Independent

Friends and foes Byelection pits long-time former next door neighbours against each other

By Ben Curties For the Independent

V

oters in the district of Placentia-St. Mary’s will be treated to a campaign lite in the upcoming provincial byelection: all of the politics of the recent federal election, with none of the negativity.

Liberal candidate Kevin Power and Conservative candidate Felix Collins are old friends, and they don’t plan on letting the seat get between them.

“We were next door neighbours in Placentia for many years and our kids grew up together,” says Collins, a St. John’s lawyer and former mayor of Placentia. “We served on the health care board together. We served on

council together. We’ve had a long community service relationship as well as a neighbourly relationship.”

The two get together over the May 24th weekend for what Felix calls their “usual spring safari,” a fishing trip to Skin Cabin Pond in Placentia.

But first they must battle for the position vacated by maverick MHA Fabian Manning, who resigned his seat to successfully via for the federal riding of Avalon in the Jan. 23 election.

Collins says he and Power met last week but kept politics out of it.

“We’ll meet on several occasions during the campaign and I doubt very much we’ll discuss politics,” he says.

“We might both make a conscious 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

The rush is over, the pudding is gone, and everyone got what they wanted.

Now it’s your turn!

Treat yourself — get here early for …

THE GREAT

big Sale!

effort to avoid it.”

Power, who owns Placentia’s Napa Auto Parts store, says it also makes strategic sense not to discuss politics with Collins.

“No sense in me letting him know what I have to say, or him doing the same thing,” he chuckles. “You don’t forewarn them so they can respond.”

Collins says he’s not sure if it will be awkward campaigning against his friend.

“I don’t know, I haven’t done it yet,” he says. “I don’t anticipate any difficulties. He’s got to run his campaign and I’ll run mine. I don’t anticipate anything personal from either one of us so hopefully at the end of the day we’ll still be friends.”

Power makes it clear he will still try to win.

“This is a political fight and not a friendship fight in my mind, and I’ll take it where I need to take it in that respect.”

He even fires a subtle warning salvo — while talking about the good old neighbourly days, he lets slip that Collins no longer lives in Placentia.

“I’m here on the ground,” Power says. “I’m still working. I’ve had opportunities to leave here. I could have gone. But I wanted to be here. I wanted to make this my place and make it better. I believe that I have the commitment to the area. I know full well what’s on the go around here and that’s the big difference to me.”

Collins, who moved to Mount Pearl in 1992, says he still has family and clients in Placentia and visits all the time. He also points out he’s closer to St. Mary’s than he was before.

SAME CONCERNS Addresses aside, the two seem to share the same concerns. They agree that roads need fixing, and social service access needs improving, and they both insist the Voisey’s Bay nickel plant pullout from Argentia is not a done deal. The main difference between the two seems to be that Collins favours working through Premier Danny Williams’ government while Power doesn’t.

“It’s a matter at this point of philosophies, I suppose,” Power says,

chuckling, “although I don’t know if there’s much difference between one party or another.”

The byelection was to called Jan. 24, but Williams held off. “(The Jan. 24 call wasn’t) really fair to the party workers, quite honestly having just come out of a federal election everybody has been active on the ground,” the premier says. “People need some breathing space and if we had of called it today, nobody would have been able to catch their breath, so it’ll be fairly soon. We’re not going to waste any time — over the course of the next two weeks you’ll certainly see a call, but an exact date I haven’t chosen yet.”

Manning is also keeping a close eye on the race for his old district.

“It’s my hometown so whoever’s elected in the byelection would be my MHA as well,” Manning says. “I have an interest in politics so it will certainly be interesting (to see) who’s going to be representing me for sure.”

The NDP had yet to nominate a candidate by press time. bcurties@hotmail.com

Happening

SHIPPING NEWS

NOW!

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

40-90% OFF!

Jones New York, Michael Kors, Kasper, Tommy Hilf iger, InWear, Kenneth Cole, Simon Chang, Olsen, Hilary Radley, Teenflo, Liz Claiborne, and more ...

see you there!

MONDAY, JAN. 23 No Report TUESDAY, JAN. 24 Vessels arrived: ASL Sanderling, Canada, from Halifax; Ollie J., Canada, from Long Pond; Fujisei Maru #36, Japan, from Sea. Vessels departed: Ollie J., Canada to Long Pond; Maersk Nascopie, Canada, to Hibernia; Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, to Terra Nova Field; Atlantic Hawk, Canada, to White Rose.

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 25 Vessels arrived: Oceanex Avalon,

27 Rowan Street, Churchill Square Phone: 754-7000 Store Hours: Monday to Saturday: 10am - 6pm Thursday: 10am - 9pm

Canada, from Montreal; Captain Earl Winsor, Canada, from St. John’s.

Vessels departed: THURSDAY, JAN. 26 Vessels arrived: Shamook, Canada, from Trinity Bay; Maersk Norseman, Canada, from Hibernia.

Vessels departed: FRIDAY, JAN. 27 Vessels arrived: Atlantic Eagle, Canada, from Terra Nova.

Vessels departed: Oceanex Avalon, Canada, to Corner Brook; Leonard J. Cowley, Canada to sea; Maersk Chancellor, Canada, to Bay Bulls; Taurus, Estonia, to Flemish Cap; Atlantic Osprey, Canada, to White Rose; Maersk Norseman, Canada, to Hibernia.

JANUARY 29, 2006

Elected Senate still far off; province’s next Senator likely to be appointed

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

T

he vacant Senate seat reserved for Newfoundland and Labrador likely won’t be filled through an election, despite a Conservative election promise to do just that.

Conservative MP Loyola Hearn says it will take time to arrange Senate reform, which would leave the province’s seat empty for too long.

“I’m not sure how long it would take and where the priority is to deal with the elected Senate,” Hearn tells The Independent. “There are other issues that have to be dealt with first … it may be a while before the elected-Senate legislation comes in and in the meantime do you leave Newfoundland without a representative?”

Prime Minister-designate Stephen Harper announced his party’s plans for sweeping reforms of Canada’s political system on the campaign trail in midDecember. More specifically, the plan for an elected Senate where senators would serve fixed terms.

One of the province’s Senate seats was left vacant at the end of December when Senator Bill Doody passed away, just two months before his mandatory retirement on his 75th birthday. Sources say possible candidates for his replacement include former Brian Peckford cabinet minister Joe Goudie (who ran as the Conservative candidate for Labrador in the Jan. 23 election) and NTV’s news director Jim Furlong.

Senators are currently appointed by the prime minister. Over the years, politicos (former premier Clyde Wells among them) have discussed the usefulness of a triple-E Senate (elected, equal and effective) in Canadian Parliament, though a change was never made and the Conservative government isn’t advocating a triple-E Senate.

Hearn says while the concept of an elected Senate is party policy, he’s not so sure it would work in favour of Newfoundland and Labrador.

“All we need are some good people who speak up for us and whether we have 10 or five what difference does it make?”

Hearn asks. “I mean 10 (people) sitting on their hands … it would be better to have one active person up there.”

Senator George Baker tells The Independent he would not only endorse the idea of a complete Senate overhaul, but he would run in an election to hold on to his job.

“I think it is an exciting time … because I think the whole system of approving legislation should be revamped, should be turned upside down,” Baker says. “The House of Commons is not fulfilling its functions as a legislative body and … if you ask a particular politician to explain a piece of legislation that they have voted on they would look at you with a blank look on their faces and ask you what you’re talking about.”

One loophole, Baker says, would be the senatorial age limit of 75 years, which contravenes the Elections Act. Any person, regardless of their age, can run in an election, he says.

Another problem with the concept, Baker points out, is that with two tiers of elected politicians there would be a loss of “sober second thought.” With each piece of legislation taking about two years to pass through each tier of Parliament there would be an election before any legislation is passed.

“Politicians do not have the time to consider legislation … they are worried about getting re-elected,” he says. “You play to the television cameras and the media … if both bodies were made up of politicians under the present rules then a piece of legislation would never be passed in the Canadian parliament.”

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 5

Still at it

Three more foreign trawlers cited for illegal fishing on Grand Banks; Santa Mafalda among them

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

T

hree more foreign trawlers — including the Santa Mafalda, a Portuguese vessel notorious for high seas violations — have been issued five citations in recent weeks for illegal fishing on the Grand Banks.

Two citations were handed down Jan. 14 against the Santa Mafalda for using illegal, undersized nets and failing to separate species of fish in the hold.

A week later, on Jan. 21, two more citations were issued against the Spanish vessel Esperenza Menduima for fishing for a species under moratoria (8 tonnes of American plaice and yellowtail flounder) and mislabelling the catch. The same day the Spanish vessel Hermanos Gandon Cuatro was cited for failing to separate fish caught inside the North West Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) fishing zone from fish caught outside the zone.

NAFO is the organization that monitors fishing outside Canada’s 200mile limit.

While the five citations represent the first for 2006, 16 foreign vessels were issued 30 citations for fishing violations on the Grand Banks in 2005 — double the number issued in 2004.

The Santa Mafalda was boarded by Canadian inspectors aboard the

Canadian Navy vessel HCMS Fredericton. The foreign vessel was fishing turbot on the nose of the Grand Banks when officials discovered the mesh in the netting was three millimetres below regulation size and that the fish stored in the hold was not properly separated by species as is required under NAFO regulations.

NOTORIETY The Santa Mafalda gained notoriety in May 2005 after being arrested for fishing illegally inside Canada’s 200mile limit two years previous.

“I think it (the Santa Mafalda) has been issued 14 citations in nine separate instances over the last 10 years and that’s a matter of concern to us,” Morley Knight, director of conservation and protection with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) in St. John’s, tells The Independent.

“The vessels that have repeated infringements, I guess you could say they are not demonstrating compliant behaviour … and of course within the Canadian context repeat offenders for fisheries offences or any other offences are usually dealt with more severely by the courts and we would hope that the same measure of deterrents can be applied to this vessel when it’s dealt with in its flag state.”

Twenty-eight citations have been laid against Portuguese vessels since

A foreign fishing vessel in Canadian waters.

Paul Daly/The Independent

2002.

Under NAFO rules, Canada cannot arrest ships for breaking the rules.

Rather, it’s up to the home country of a vessel charged with illegal fishing to follow through with court action.

Knight says department officials have

discussed the non-compliance of the Santa Mafalda with European Union (EU) officials.

In the case of the Spanish vessel Hermanos Gandon Cuatro, the trawler was cited while fishing turbot on the nose of the Grand Banks.

Canadian inspectors aboard the Leonard J. Cowley issued a citation for mixing species caught inside and outside NAFO waters. When inspectors boarded the vessel they found fish caught on the Hatton Bank — on the western side of the NAFO regulatory zone — mixed with fish caught just outside Canada’s 200-mile limit.

NAFO regulations read: “… all catches taken from inside the NAFO area shall be stowed separate from catches taken from outside the area.”

The same day, Jan. 21, inspectors boarded the Esperenza Menduima where the crew was hauling in their second tow of yellowtail (which they didn’t have a quota for) and American plaice — a species under moratoria.

Inspectors found a seven tonne haul being processed by workers.

“It would appear to me from what I’m seeing if they got seven tonne in the first tow and one tonne in the second tow when the officers went on board the captain of the vessel it’s possible that he decided to take that net back quickly,” Knight says, adding the ship was supposed to be fishing white hake, but had very little of that species in the catches.

The second citation levelled against the Esperenza Menduima was for mislabelling the catches in the hold.

Knight says the inspectors remained on board the vessel until EU inspectors arrived Jan. 26, after being delayed by two storms at sea.

Over the past decade, hundreds of citations have been issued against foreign vessels, most without publicity.

Renee O’Brien Market Manager

Helping you is what we do.

We do that little bit extra for our customers so they can do whatever they want. We’ve been doing it for years; it’s just the way we work. Atlantic Canada’s largest service team is here, in your community, keeping you connected. We’re at the other end of the phone line too, making sense of the technology we place in your hands, and offering a wide range of innovative products and services packaged in ways to make it simple for you.

www.aliant.net

TM

here. for you. is a trademark of Aliant.

6 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JANUARY 29, 2006

Birth of a party MP Loyola Hearn explains how the Conservative Party came to be

I

t was a chat at the coffee machine that started it all. Val Meredith, the Canadian Alliance MP for the riding of Surrey-White RockLangley, responded to my question as to why our respective parties sat separately in the House of Commons, as we had so much in common.

She said she didn’t understand it either and that we should talk about it. We met for a short discussion and then attended a meeting with a small group of other politicians from both the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties who felt the same way.

A series of meetings, many of them held in secret, went on for over a year. As interest grew in the possibility of a merger, sides began to polarize — those in favour, and those against.

It was unfortunate that the leadership of both groups was not overly supportive. They were undoubtedly concerned about their personal role in any new party. No doubt the attitude contributed to leadership races in both the PC and Canadian Alliance

LOYOLA HEARN Guest Column parties. Two new leaders emerged in Peter MacKay and Stephen Harper, and the dream lived on.

I was in my office when Stephen Harper called and asked if he could drop up. Now when a national leader offers to come by and see a lowly backbencher he automatically says yes. I’ll never forget Harper’s words as he entered: “They tell me you’re the one I have to talk to if we are going to get these parties together.”

We chatted for an hour or so and in the end agreed to keep pushing to find a way to avoid the Liberals staying in power forever. That quickly led to a meeting with my close friend, Peter MacKay, which resulted in a meeting between Peter and Stephen.

The two agreed to pursue possibilities and set up a small group to start the process.

Shortly thereafter, I received another call. This one was from Peter telling me he and Stephen had agreed to pursue possibilities of strengthening the Conservative position. Each leader agreed to send three individuals to meet (secretly) to work on the challenges before us. I was asked to be the PC caucus representative and to work with former Ontario premier Bill Davis and former deputy-prime minister Don Mazinkowski. How could I refuse?

Simple, I couldn’t.

The first meeting set the stage. The Canadian Alliance delegation of Scott Reid (not the one from Paul Martin’s office, but rather the current MP for Lanark-Frontenac-LennoxAddington), Senator Gerry St. Germaineand Ray Speaker met with us at our (secret) location. Their proposal was to find a way to avoid vote splitting. For example, we would run candidates in the east, they would run in the west, and we’d haggle over Ontario and Quebec. We flatly refused that approach. I made it clear that our sole intention was to create

one party. If this wasn’t on the table we were out of there. In less than 10 minutes we had an agreement.

The next hurdle was the party’s name. I suggested we all call ourselves Conservative … the Conservative Party sounded fine with me. After another 10 minutes we all agreed. The major hurdles involved the founding principles and policy direction. We were uncompromising in this as we made it quite clear the coming together meant nothing if we couldn’t create a winning entity.

To do that we had to create a centre-of-right party. It took several weeks of intense negotiations to reach an agreement, but we eventually did. All of that will make an interesting story sometime in the future.

The morning I brought the final document to our caucus every MP was surprised at what we had achieved. Scott Brison best summed it up when he later said, “I would rather belong to a Conservative Party that is progressive than a Progressive Conservative Party that is not.”

Despite his initial support, he later

crossed the floor. For some, it seems a cabinet post outweighs principles.

Joe Clark was not happy we did not keep the Progressive Conservative name. At the same time, we would not accept the Canadian Alliance title.

Changing the name was a no-brainer.

The founding principals came directly from the Progressive Conservative constitution. Then, in March of 2005, we had our first policy convention. The principals and policies are there for all to see. It was a battle to build the foundation, one that would be accepted by all Canadians. We didn’t compromise on that, because we couldn’t if we wanted to win seats all across the country. Turns out we were right. The efforts of many paid off. On Jan. 23rd the Canadian people from coast to coast elected a Conservative government.

Loyola Hearn is the newly reelected MP for the Conservative riding of St. John’s South-Mount Pearl.

YOUR VOICE ‘Make a racket upalong’ Dear editor, like a Rex Murphy or Rick Mercer to Great article regarding the upper champion this worthy cause. I tuned in Churchill (Flick the switch, Jan. 15-21 recently to the CBC national televiedition of The Independent). sion news and saw Mark Kelly interYou are absolutely right — this viewing people in the St. John’s area. gross inequity needs to be brought to I didn’t quite understand his mission the attention of central Canadians and but as always he seems to portray the the folks of the eastern most unflattering images United States. Any and of Newfoundland and its everyone relying on the people and what is most power source needs to be disgusting, it’s seen made aware of the masnationally. sive fiscal travesty of this While interviewing lopsided arrangement you, he appeared to conthat, as you have stated, tinually butt in and not will get even more egreallow you to articulate gious in the 25-year the point you were trying extension starting in Danny Williams to make on the fishery, 2016. or did they severely edit I wonder what the Danny Williams’ the interview? It appears that we can’t strategy will be regarding this mess win for losing. when the lower Churchill comes front I really look forward to and enjoy and centre. the weekly edition of The IndepenWe need an ambassador to continu- dent. Keep up the excellent work! ously make a racket up along. Who Bill Surette, better than a spokesman of excellence Harbour Grace

Staffing hospitals with midwives Dear editor, It is very unfortunate that the problem of midwives in this province still has to be the subject of newspaper articles (Home delivery, Jan. 22-28 edition of The Independent). There has been disgraceful inactivity from successive governments, but as they usually govern by crisis management, fortunately that crisis is not far away.

Many of us have been supportive of midwifery practice here for years.

The history is long, full of “turf protection” by medical organizations, irrelevant arguments and misunderstanding and inexperience.

Unfortunately midwives themselves must share some of the blame for the delay in implementing a service. You article was headed Home Delivery — but initially that is just what we don’t want.

We must first of all concentrate on having midwives in hospitals. Home delivery and other aspects just complicate the issue and are best left for discussion until a proper hospital service is established.

That discussion must then take into account whether or not home deliv-

ery is a standard elsewhere.

The looming crisis comes down to the question who is going to deliver babies? GPs do not want to do it anymore. Obstetricians are pulling out when they can.

In some areas consultant obstetricians are on call for inordinate lengths of time, which would not be tolerated by other professions, and certainly not in the European Union where a doctor’s working time is at last regulated.

Some argue that extra time on call is recompensed, but that does not alleviate the stress and disruption of lifestyle. So midwives in hospitals are the answer supported by obstetricians when the need arises.

They are there all the time for patients, have scheduled hours and give the optimum service mothers are entitled to.

Hopefully the crisis will not be long in coming so that the government will have to take action and midwives will provide the best care for our pregnant women.

David Prior, Whiteway

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

Dear Rick …

Editor’s note: I interrupt my regularly scheduled column this week to bring you a letter I’ve written to Rick Mercer of Middle Cove, the most famous Newfoundlander of us all.

Rick: Saw you on TV the other night. I almost missed it but the kids bawled up to the kitchen the Rick Mercer Report was on. My two boys love your show as much as the missus and me, which makes it that much better. There aren’t many programs we watch as a family (The Simpsons almost count, but the lady of the house doesn’t find it nearly as funny as the men).

All four of us laugh at you, and it’s not easy to get two adults and two kids (one six, the other 10) to find humour in the same show, so it’s all good.

I roared when I saw the distinguished Pierre Berton, at the ripe old age of 86, rolling a joint on one of the great big fat books he wrote. As a boy growing up around the bay, I remember seeing Mr. Berton (in that split second before switching the dial to the only other channel) on the CBC’s Front Page Challenge. It was funny as hell to hear Mr. Berton (the closest thing to Canadian royalty) say that glossy cover books like his are the best surfaces to roll weed on, a remark that’s also funny for its naked truth.

Of course the joke went right over my boys’ heads … they laughed harder at another skit where you tried to grab a piece of cheese from a mousetrap with your tongue (Was the cheese really that tempting?) … laughing again at the sound of the spring going off.

There aren’t many shows today that make us laugh like that. No doubt, your program has its underlying messages. In that skit with Mr. Berton I’m guessing you were telling us it’s OK to smoke pot (and for a senior to roll it).

Fair enough, from a personal perspective I see a joint in the same light as a drink — an attitude more and more Canadians seem to share.

We all laughed again at another

RYAN CLEARY

Fighting Newfoundlander

scene where a squirrel scurried into you pants pocket. That was some funny, when you looked into the camera and asked, “She doesn’t eat nuts does she?” I’m fairly sure there wasn’t any deep meaning to that one, but it was funny, the foolish look on your face.

Another scene (maybe it was the famous rant you do directly into the audience’s face) had you saying the Canadian government should hand over its Gold Card to the military, “so they can be safe keeping the peace.”

The obvious message there was it’s time to beef up the military. Can’t disagree with that either … maybe the Navy will even station a dory or two in St. John’s so we don’t feel so left out.

Halifax gets it all, don’t they? Better yet, maybe Transport Canada will get enough cash so their helicopters can respond to marine emergencies faster after regular business hours. Sorry about the tangent; I have a tendency to

go off the head once in a while myself.

You have a great talent for hammering points home. Talking to Americans was priceless — you had everybody in Canada talking about that one. Wonder if George W. ever touched base with Jean Poutine before he retired as PM? Did you ever think about doing a similar segment, Talking to Canadians, to test their knowledge of Newfoundland and Labrador? That could be great … you could ask people on Yonge Street in Toronto whether Newfoundland should be allowed to pull Labrador over closer to us (the Strait of Belle Isle is such a nuisance).

Better yet, how about asking people on the streets of Saskatoon whether the City of St. John’s should be allowed to slice Signal Hill off at the base so oil rigs can tie up in the harbour. Maybe British Columbians have an opinion on Ottawa backing a massive program to train seals to farm cod, which would seal our fate once and for all.

At this point you’re probably asking yourself the purpose of the letter.

Good question, Rick.

You know how I’ve been bugging you to write a guest column for The Independent — to quote your last email: “My problem is my schedule, but please by all means pester the hell out of me” — well, here I am pestering just like you said to. But in public, which, as you know, is much more effective.

How about writing a piece for the paper?

“About what?” you ask.

“About 800 words,” is my pat answer.

I liked what you said last year when you accepted the honourary doctor of letters from Memorial: “You won the lotto when you were born in Canada, but you hit the jackpot when you were born in Newfoundland.”

Whatever you write, I can guarantee you this: the whole family will read it.

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

JANUARY 29, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 7

Stocking up on beer and popcorn Ivan Morgan says it will be fun to watch Stephen Harper ride herd on resentful Westerners, while keeping eye on opposition

W

hen I first started this column-writing hobby years ago, an old hand gave me this piece of advice: “Never admit you’re wrong.” Right. I predicted a Conservative majority. I was wrong, wrong, wrong and delighted to be so.

A Harper minority is a much more palatable eventuality. It’s even funny if you look at it the right way. Stephen Harper has spent the last decade building a true Conservative party to replace the Progressive Conservatives, and the Canadian public has, in its wonderful wisdom, given him a Progressive Conservative government.

Work with me here. Harper’s minority is such that he is going to have to play nice with the Bloc and the New Democrats. The Bloc will be all about anything that involves gutting the Liberal power base, or divesting federal authority to the provinces. The NDP will be onside for their share of issues too, although that takes us into strangebedfellows territory. Everyone will be about good government and not going to the polls anytime soon. So Harper, if he is sensible, will be able to rule.

IVAN MORGAN

Rant & Reason But at the first whiff of any of the more loony social conservatism that lurks in the right wing of his party, everyone in the Opposition will be in an uproar and Harper will run the risk of everything turning to you know what right in front of his icy cold blues. And he doesn’t want that. So he has to rule slightly right of centre. Sound’s like Mulroney to me.

It’s going to be fun to watch his frustration. He might think the Liberals are rudderless and at each other’s throats, but maybe he missed Scott Brison’s quick interview on CBC TV election night. Brison’s got the Conservative’s number, and was first off the mark election night sounding very much like a leader. Possibly a Liberal leader?

Certainly he can be counted upon to pinch hit in the House of Commons during the interim. He spoke cleanly

YOUR VOICE Gov’t should pay for groomed trails — not Newfoundlanders Dear editor, Can you as Newfoundlanders recall the freedom we once had in this province: the right to catch fish and snare rabbits; the right, by felling nearby logs, to build a cabin in any droke that was pleasing, by any pond or lake in existence; the annual right to kill a moose for the family larder or to jig a cod for the pot; the ability to harness your dog team and travel where you will?

Today we are circumscribed, proscribed and prohibited with rules and regulations that catch in our throats like a nasty piece of phlegm, and no matter how much we try to emit it, it remains embedded in our throats.

Meantime, we pay our annual cabin fees, we buy our rabbit and partridge licences, we purchase our salmon tags that force us to throw back a good catch, we (hopefully) submit our moose licence each year, we dutifully register our hunting rifles while strangers who barely know which end of a rifle the bullet emerges from brazenly kill each other in Toronto, and we accept a federal fish moratorium that bans a yearly recreational fishery while the boys upalong take what they want with impunity as fish

quotas are bartered off to curry favour with international players.

So what’s next? Compulsory permits for using groomed trails? It seems our government wants to attract tourism dollars and tourists by providing a groomed snowmobile trail.

The irony is that many of our locals are not in favour of such fees because it is one more example of downloading onto the common man. Most Newfoundland snowmobilers don’t give a fig for groomed trails. They love a challenge. They are used to crossing bogs in blizzard conditions and in whiteouts that could cause the supporters of the new fee proposal permanent amnesia. They believe a new name for the program should be “Tracks for Trials and Tribulations.” If Tourism Minister Tom Hedderson wants to attract tourist dollars and his expenditures are justified, the tourist income should pay for those groomed trails.

If the dollars are not forthcoming, maybe he should revisit the issue and rethink those expenditures instead of using a captive populace as a convenient cash cow.

Aubrey Smith, Grand Falls-Windsor

‘A city grows or it dies’ Dear editor, Here we go again: Whine! Whine!

Whine! All the hysterical elites of St. John’s are going to start crying again … this time it is the development of the Battery Hotel property.

They just got finished sniveling about the supermarket at the stadium.

Before that Halifax went ahead in leaps and bounds while the same killdevelopment brigade fought for years

to stop the Outer Ring Road.

A city grows or it dies. Get over it people … look at Halifax. Our capital is not a business-friendly city and will never amount to anything more than a self-destructive little village in the rocks and fog of the north Atlantic!

No wonder the rest of Canada ignores us.

David Murphy, Topsail

‘Thanks for doing your job so well’ Dear editor, I wish to thank Darcy MacRae of The Independent for his very kind and accurate article about me chatting about newfies (No laughing matter, Jan. 15-21 edition of The Independent). I was so heartbroken to receive

letters that missed the point so much.

You sure got the point. Thanks for doing your job so well.

Indeed I is, me old cock, long may your big jib draw.

Penn Jillette, New York

and firmly about his party — a responsible federal party with a progressive social agenda. There was fire in his eyes — eyes I’ll bet are on the Liberal leadership prize.

So for the next year or two we will get to watch Harper try to ride herd on a bunch of resentful Westerners who think their time has come, while keeping a wary eye on the Liberals, and humouring the NDP and the Bloc. It’s going to be fun to watch. I’ll have to remember to stock up on beer and popcorn.

In fact, slowly strangling the Liberal party has to be his goal now. If it were me, I would humour the life out of the New Democrats, especially in urban ridings. He should look at them as the rift in the left the Conservatives have always dreamed of. Until he stitched them back together, the right in Canada was split between Reformers and PCs. That rift kept the Liberals in power.

Harper can now lie in bed and dream of an election three years from now where an elated “Preston” Layton leads 50 New Democrats into Parliament, putting the stake through the heart of the

Liberals by dividing the left so that the Conservatives can finally rule with a majority. That’s when the lizard the Liberals keep warning us about will finally burst out of Harper’s chest.

That’s in his dreams, of course.

Meantime, he talks about “accountability.” The word sounds like “witch hunt” when he says it. Bet he finds more Liberal scandals to cash in on. Danny Williams rode that wave here in Newfoundland for a year or two.

Harper talks about building consensus.

I’d like to see him start with women, gays and aboriginals. He and I are white guys. I’m willing to put my issues on the back burner till he “builds consensus” with them. Don’t hold your breath.

And he is going to have to deal with the premiers. Dealing with ours is going to be a little complicated because of what I call the “Manning factor.”

On election night I saw Our Danny telling Peter Mansbridge something to the effect that there was nothing personal in his differences with Fabian Manning. Ha! Nothing personal? I wonder how Fabian feels about that.

For the crime of speaking up for his frightened constituents during last spring’s disastrous crab battle instead of chanting from the Book Of Danny as he was told to, Fabian found himself summarily stripped of all things warm, fuzzy and Tory, and “personally” banished by Danny to the political boonies to sit next to Jack Harris and Randy Collins. He was meant to be an example for any other of Danny’s minions who might decide they are capable of independent, intelligent thought.

Not personal? O brother. This from a guy who flies off the handle if someone so much as suggests his tie is crooked.

I suggest Fabian Manning will remember what Danny did to him till the cows come home. The irony is, Danny did make an example of Fabian. We all learned that if you stand up to a bully, you’ll feel better about yourself, earn a boost in confidence and become motivated enough to make positive changes in your life to go on to bigger and better things.

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

BIG MONEY

St. John’s city council voted to give themselves a 13 per cent raise during a regular council meeting Jan. 23 — the same night as the federal election. The raise will be retroactive to January 2002. Mayor Andy Wells’ salary will increase to $96,402, plus $26,000 in retroactive pay. Wells has said the raise was on par with inflation and salary increases other city workers had received.

Rhonda Hayward/The Independent

What of the little boats that go out to sea?

Dear editor, As an individual fish harvester residing in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, I have concerns about the direction the fishery has taken over the past few years.

I am very afraid for the future of small-boat fishermen operating enterprises under 35 feet.

The fishery is like any resource — we can take a little for a long time, or a lot for a short time. Our forefathers took a little for many generations, subsidizing their meager income from the fishery by engaging in subsistence agriculture.

The resourcefulness of the people enabled rural communities to exist and even thrive, in spite of the fact that fishing income was far below any poverty level.

In the 1960s revolutionary advances in fishing technology almost overnight changed the centuries-old nature of the Newfoundland fishery. The model of a fishing crew catching and curing their own catch changed to one of catching and selling to fresh-fish plants.

Old established saltfish companies, unable to accept or adapt to the techno-

logical and market changes, fell by the wayside. A new model of fresh-fish plants and large corporations with offshore trawlers brought new prosperity, particularly along the south coast of Newfoundland.

Foreign trawlers appeared in ever increasing numbers to share in the unlimited bounty of the continental shelf.

So what are my fears for the future?

(1) That we will continue to think that bigger is better. A few bigger plants supplied by bigger boats, bigger nets, brighter lights, stronger sonar, more capital investment requiring bigger catches of a beleaguered resource.

(2) I fear major fish companies will be successful in maintaining corporate quotas, frozen at sea, and transferred to transport vessels destined for the cheap labour markets of the world.

(3) I fear that as more lucrative fisheries become less so, a greater pressure on pelagics will result in herring and mackerel stocks collapsing.

(4) I fear that given the current trend of thinking on numbers of processing plants, that small boat fishers will wake

up and find that there is no buyer left interested in their 500 pounds of squid, mackerel or herring.

I agree that the model of large draggers supplying mega plants with hundreds of employees was and is doomed to failure as part of a boom-and-bust scenario, and as such probably no longer have relevance.

My father fished for 60 years, most of those with a six-horse power Acadia gas engine, consuming less than 45 gallons of fuel per season — his total capital expenditure.

Obviously his footprint on the resource was very small. I am not advocating that we all rush out and buy a dory, but I feel we have learned very little from the errors of our past, and continue to drift further and further from a sustainable fishery model. A model in which small-boat fishermen with access to small processors employing localized secondary processing is given top priority.

Such is the only glimmer of hope I see for so many rural communities.

David Boyd, Twillingate

JANUARY 29, 2006

8 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JANUARY 29, 2006

Part one of a two–part series.

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

B

rad Gushue admits life has changed since the Olympic Curling Trials in Halifax late last year.

Although Gushue was a well-known skip — especially in this province — before the event, the entire country became much more familiar with the St. John’s resident when he and teammates Russ Howard, Mark Nichols, Jamie Korab and Mike Adam won the right to represent Canada at the 2006 Winter Games in Italy. Routine trips to the grocery store suddenly became two-hour ventures, autograph seekers are more plentiful, and media from near and far want a piece of the young curler who captured the country’s imagination.

“The demand on our time has been unbelievable,” Gushue tells The Independent. “We went to an event in Winnipeg and I was spending probably four hours a day doing interviews, commercials and whatnot. People want to come up and congratulate you and wish you well at the Olympics.

“It’s a nice feeling, but … we also have to make sure we’re prepared for the games we’re going to play. It’s a difficult juggling act but it’s something we have to get better at.”

At just 25, Gushue has already achieved as much as most skips do in their entire curling career. He is a sixtime provincial junior curling champion, with a national junior title to hang next to his gold medal from the world juniors.

He has qualified for three Briers, and is now just weeks away from taking to the ice as an Olympian.

“For young skips he’s right at the top,” says Howard, a two-time world champion who Gushue asked to join his team last spring. “You think of John Morris (of Alberta) and Brad, they’re like the Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby of curling. I don’t think there’s anybody who’s done as well as they have at such an early age.”

When asked what he believes makes Gushue one of the top young curlers in the world, Howard doesn’t hesitate to point out the 25-year-old’s qualities.

“His focus and his absolute dedication to getting the job done,” says Howard.

“If he writes something on a piece of paper and says that’s his goal, then he’s going to try every single thing he can do to reach that goal. There aren’t too many young athletes who have that kind of drive.”

Toby MacDonald, head coach of the Gushue team, agrees with Howard’s assessment. MacDonald says Gushue’s

Paul Daly/The Independent

Brad Gushue may be just 25, but he’s as focused a curler as Russ Howard has ever seen

‘Sidney Crosby of Curling’

ability to concentrate on every shot of every game has been a huge contributor to his success, as has his willingness to learn from those who’ve been there before.

“He’s got great skill level, he’s got terrific focus, and he’s managed to assemble a great team,” MacDonald says.

“Another part of the reason he’s had such success is he’s prepared to examine all the different ways to succeed.

“He gets older people involved — perhaps with more experience — who can pass along some experience. He realizes if you want something you’ve never had before, you better be prepared to do something you’ve never done before. I think he kind of lives by that.”

The fact Gushue recruited the much more experienced Howard, who turns 50 during the Olympics next month, is a sign of his dedication to reaching the top of his sport, says the former world cham-

pion.

“He’s got a phenomenal coach and went out and got an old guy to play on the team,” Howard says with a laugh.

“And when you really think about that, it was amazing in itself. How many 25year-olds would say ‘Lets go get a senior citizen to put on our team?’ But Brad thought that was the best thing to do, so he did it.

“He doesn’t get enough credit for that decision. They all say ‘Russ Howard has helped the team,’ but who was smart enough to do that? Nothing against John Morris, but John Morris would never dream of doing that.”

Throughout the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, several camera shots showed Gushue and Howard huddled at one end of the ice — the seriousness and tension of the moment written all over their faces — discussing their next shot.

In this regard, Howard says some of the

best advice he has for Gushue is to realize that every once in a while, things aren’t going to go as planned “We’re all 85 per cent curlers, that means we’re going to miss 15 per cent of the time,” Howard says. “You just have to hope you miss the right 15 per cent, not the wrong 15 per cent.”

Staying mentally strong and focused during a game has never been a problem for Gushue. In fact, the mental challenge of the sport is perhaps the one aspect that made him enjoy curling a lot more than he did other sports he played growing up.

“I just liked the strategy about it,” says Gushue. “I like mental games, like chess.

And curling is basically chess on ice.

You have to think two shots ahead of your opponent and make sure you know what they’re going to do so you can call your shot.

“There is more strategy in curling than

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 9 there is in hockey, soccer or baseball.

The other sports are definitely more physical, but the added strategic part (of curling) is what brought me to the sport.”

Gushue began curling when he was 13, and in the early years played the game because he enjoyed it. But a few years later he realized for the first time he was not the average curler and had an opportunity to become exceptional in the sport.

“I was probably in my third year of curling and had made it to the Canadian juniors as a skip,” Gushue says. “I ended up winning all-star skip. At that point I kind of realized I was pretty good at the game and if I worked at it I could probably get to the top of the game, or at least have a chance to.

“The day after we got home from that event I was down practicing. It really sparked my interest in curling even more.”

Of all the people who have influenced Gushue along the way, certainly MacDonlad, Howard, Nichols, Korab, Adam and his family have played big roles in shaping him into the focused, dedicated athlete he is today. But Gushue says former coach Jeff Thomas of St. John’s also deserves credit for helping him become a world-class curler.

“He was my coach for four years — my last couple of years of junior and my first couple years of senior mens — and really helped me make the transition from junior to men’s,” says Gushue.

“My level of curling jumped when he was with us.”

As happy as Gushue is to be heading to the Olympics, he says he is even happier about the fact he’ll be doing so with teammates he’s become so close to. With the exception of Howard, the team has been together for the better part of six years, and has experienced almost every possible situation together.

“All of us put our jobs on hold and devoted 100 per cent to this,” Gushue says. “It’s been a long time, a lot of ups and downs, and it’s rewarding to get to the pinnacle of sports, the Olympics, with these guys.”

When the Olympics come to an end on Feb. 26, Gushue will have to at least partially shift his focus toward his personal life. After all, this fall, he and Krista Tibbo tie the knot. At the same time, Gushue warns nobody should expect the two to compete for a national mixed curling title any time soon.

“She’s not very good at curling, actually,” Gushue says with a laugh. “I think if I had a chance to work with her more, she’d be better.”

Next week: Gushue’s crew. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

Brad Gushue and Russ Howard at Bally Haly curling club in St. John’s.

Mechanical failure ruled out in helicopter crash found on Dec. 17 and was sent to Halifax for testing and analysis.

Investigators told The Independent in early January a wreckage locator beacon malfunctioned in the cold waters off Marystown, leading to the 10-day search for the main body of the craft.

Cottreau says investigators are continuing to gather data in the current phase of the investigation and briefed coast guard officials last week on their preliminary findings.

“We’ll take the time that we need to complete a thorough investigation,” Cottreau says.

Paul Traversy, lead investigator with the safety board, told The Independent in early January the instrument panel and lights from the cockpit were sent to the department’s lab to be inspected

and representatives from Eurocopter, the helicopter manufacturer, and Rolls Royce, the engine manufacturer, were to look over the wreckage.

Manufacturers of the propulsion system — including the blades and inner workings of the engine — will inspect the parts in their labs, Cottreau says.

While the wreckage locating beacons failed, investigators say the two electronic transmitters which would have signalled the crash would have stopped functioning after being submerged in water. Offshore helicopters have a black box and a marine emergency signalling device, but because of its size the MBB-105 helicopter doesn’t carry such equipment.

— Alisha Morrissey

Lowering the limit Efforts continue to lower blood-alcohol levels; drinking and driving up on Avalon

By Alisha Morrissey The Independent

L

obbying efforts to reduce the legal blood-alcohol level across Canada continue as the numbers of impaired driving charges grow on the northeast Avalon.

In 2005, 314 charges of impaired driving were handed out, compared to 280 in 2004 and 250 in 2003.

Ernie Reckling, vice-president of the Avalon chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), says the recent boost in police presence may be responsible for the rise in numbers — not more drunk drivers.

“I believe that there’s still more (impaired drivers) there and if they put more manpower on the street they will still find more,” Reckling tells The Independent.

Reckling is one of many hoping to see the legal blood-alcohol limit reduced to .05 per cent from .08 per cent. And while a bill, currently making its way through the Senate, may hand down a penalty on drivers with .05 per cent alcohol in their blood, Reckling says it won’t help keep impaired drivers off the road.

Bill S-47 would see a driver charged for registering a blood-alcohol reading of more than .05. A first offence would include a $300 fine and a three-month licence suspension. The legislation

• Under the Criminal Code of Canada a person with a blood-alcohol level of .08 or higher faces a one-year suspension of their driver’s licence, as well as a $600 fine.

• In 1994/1995, police in Newfoundland and Labrador were given authority to suspend a driver’s licence for a 24-hour period should they register a blood-alcohol level of .05.

• In 2002/2003, 25 per cent of all impaired driving convictions in the province resulted in jail time, the second highest rate in Canada after Prince Edward Island.

would also allow for the record of impaired driving to be expunged after two years as long as there are no previous or subsequent charges.

Reckling says cops will write up a traffic violation for a person with a blood-alcohol level between .05 and .08 — which is fine, unless the officer is too busy to arrest a person who has a much higher blood-alcohol level.

“So you stop some guy and he blows .11 for instance or .12 and you’re busy and you’re up to your eyeballs … I’m worried if they bring in legislation for a traffic ticket for a lower level of .05 that policemen will just start giving everybody a traffic ticket as opposed to charging them with .08,” Reckling says.

“What they need to do is change the law to .05 and forget the traffic ticket, that’s what they need to do. What’ll happen

then is people will think before they get behind the wheel.

“The police don’t have to spend any money to change equipment or buy equipment or anything. Everything is the same they just start charging people at a reduced number that’s all.”

Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Chief Richard Deering says the Canadian Chiefs of Police and their traffic enforcement committee, of which he is a member, endorses lowering the legal blood-alcohol limit, but in his experience there’s a fine line between blowing .05 and .08 on a breathalyser test.

“I don’t think there’s a big difference and there’s a whole bunch of factors that get involved in terms of what makes a person read .08 and .05 … it has to do with your body weight, your sex … but my experience as a breath tech is it would be very hard to distinguish somebody who is at .08 and .05,” Deering says. “It’s something that I support, anything we can do to get impaired drivers off the road is a benefit.”

The Constabulary wouldn’t have to make any changes to its current bloodalcohol testing equipment and there wouldn’t be much training needed, Deering says.

“We would still look at impaired drivers in the same way,” he says. “I mean the real education piece is if you drink don’t drive — it’s pretty simple.”

Have you noticed the benefits our oil and gas industry is bringing to Newfoundland and Labrador?

Growth in the construction and housing sectors.

Place Bonaventure, St. John’s, NL

T

he Transportation Safety Board has ruled out the possibility of a pre-existing mechanical fault as a contributor in the crash of the Canadian Coast Guard helicopter off Marystown in early December.

John Cottreau, spokesman for the safety board, says the new information doesn’t mean the crash was caused by human error, explaining any number of factors — including weather or other structural problems — may have caused the crash.

Veteran Transport Canada pilot Gordon (Gordie) Simmons, 65, and Carl Neal, 46, a coast guard technician, drowned or died of hypothermia when their MBB-105 helicopter went down Dec. 7.

The main frame of the chopper was

There has been a substantial number of new housing starts in the province because of oil and gas industry activity. That means new business for designers, builders, landscapers, decorators…. The list goes on and on.

To learn more please visit www.capp.ca.

A message from:

403, 235 Water Street, St. John’s, NL Canada A1C 1B6 Tel (709) 724-4200

Paul Daly/The Independent

JANUARY 29, 2006

10 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

LIFE STORY

Power to the people GREGORY J. POWER (1909-1997)

By Ben Curties For The Independent

F The Independent, Vol. 1, Issue 5, 1948

AROUND THE BAY “Mayor Tobias Matthews of Fortune said last week that he welcomed the announcement by Transport Minister Don Jamieson concerning a loan of $152,000 to be made by the federal government to the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation for the purpose of developing 54 building lots in the town.”

— The (Burin Peninsula) Post, Jan. 7, 1972 YEARS PAST “A female resident of Rossiter’s Lane (St. John’s) was arrested last night in a drunken condition while in the company of two men on New Gower Street and was fined two dollars or seven days.”

— The Daily Star, Jan. 7, 1920 AROUND THE WORLD “New York: The police tonight were seeking to determine if two men arrested today on a charge of attacking and robbing a wealthy Texan and his wife of $4,000 in their suite in the Hotel Knickerbocker were the burglars responsible for a series of similar robberies in this city recently that have netted the thieves $100,000.”

— The Evening Herald, Jan. 6, 1920

EDITORIAL STAND “Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Work, doubt, selfdistrust, fear and despair … these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.”

— The Newfoundland Trade Review, Jan. 26, 1946 LETTER TO THE EDITOR “An item on strip teasers in the letters to the editor caught my eye, and when I had finished reading it, I was transported in memory to a day in my mother’s kitchen as a young girl so many years ago … when suddenly my mother and my aunt started a discussion concerning a remark attributed to General Balbo … that ‘St. John’s was the biggest brothel in the world without a roof.’ My aunt claimed that we did not deserve the appellation, that we were a God-fearing and Christian community. They say that time changes everything, I wonder what my old aunt would say if she were alive today? One of my friends claims that Christian morality in St. John’s had been the first victim of our affluent society and that as a result God abandoned us.”

— The Daily News, Dec. 23, 1968 QUOTE OF THE WEEK “News is truth concerning men nations and things. That is, truth concerning them which is helpful, or pleasant, or useful or necessary for a reader to know.” — An answer to the question “what is news?” as asked by an editor hiring a new reporter.

— The Colonist, Jan. 7, 1891

rom poetry to politics to poultry, Gregory J. Power was one of Newfoundland’s most successful and complex figures. On the playing field, he was a future hall-of-fame athlete.

From the columnist’s chair, he alternately praised and scolded Joey Smallwood. A fiery confederate and champion of the poor, he could be chilly at home and downright cold to his enemies.

A descendent of early 19th century Irish settlers in Placentia, Power was born in nearby Dunville on March 22, 1909 to farmers William and Gertrude Power.

In college, Power studied geology but excelled in athletics. He represented Newfoundland at the British Empire Games (later known as the Commonwealth Games) in Hamilton, Ont. in 1930.

He is a member of the Newfoundland and Labrador Sports Hall of Fame, and still holds records in hurdles and triple jump. His athletic fame, however, was cut short by tuberculosis (TB), a disease that nearly cut short his life.

At 21, he returned home to Dunville and prepared to die.

But where Power’s body failed him, his budding intellect emerged. His poetry matured as death “People had nothing,” Donald Power says. “He drew closer, and his writing revealed he was grateful for his life, rather than bitter about his seeming- had just finished living through the ’30s, the ly imminent death. All 13 of Power’s non-satirical Depression, and if you didn’t go into the woods poems — as well as many of his other writings — and fish for salmon or trap rabbits or try to kill a have been collected by fellow confederate Harold moose and have a garden in your back yard, you Horwood in their joint book The Power of the Pen. starved to death.”

When Confederation won the day, Power joined The poems show a young writer gifted with elothe Smallwood government as finance minister quence and sensitivity.

Surprisingly, Power recovered from TB to live and minister of highways, overseeing the construcanother 67 years, eventually establishing a poetry tion of the Trans-Canada through Newfoundland. award at Memorial University. His grandson He had a falling out with Smallwood in 1959 (no one knows exactly why) and Gregory Power III, who took retired to his business — a little over the job of handing out the award, says of all his grandfa“People had nothing. operation called Mary’s Poultry Farms, which he built into the ther’s accomplishments, he prized his poems the most.

He had just finished province’s largest poultry operation. Before long, he turned his “His pride and joy was poetry,” say Power III. “He appreciated living through the ’30s, pen on Smallwood and started satirizing the former premier’s that the most. It was his and the Depression, and if untendered contract handouts nobody else’s.” zanier job-creation schemes.

But while Power may have you didn’t go into the and The two finally buried the hatchfavoured his poetry, he abanet in 1974, Confederation’s 25th doned it early to pursue his more woods and fish for anniversary. high-profile accomplishments.

“Particularly in the later years, After a decade of working on his salmon or trap rabbits Granddad always referred to parents’ farm, he did boiler work or try to kill a moose Joey as his best friend,” Power on the American naval base at III says.

Argentia. His health regained, he and have a garden in He remembers his grandfather set about trying to unionize the as a brilliant man with a vorabase workers after the Second your back yard, you cious appetite for learning and World War. The workers eventuendless stories of Confederation ally unionized, but not before the starved to death.” battles and dinners with queens riot guns came out and Power and prime ministers. But while was hauled in front of base comDonald Power the two shared Liberal Party mand. involvement and a love of poli“He was told he was finished at the base,” says Donald Power, the youngest of tics, Power III says his grandfather wasn’t espeGregory Power’s seven children. “He always cially close to his family.

“The only time that he really showed me any ascribed it to his union activities.”

His political juices flowing, Power followed his meaningful affection, with the exception of handfamily footsteps to the Confederate cause. He shakes, was the day that he died,” Power III assisted the Smallwood campaign by sending out recalls. “He and I were in his room and he just held satirical letters ridiculing anti-confederates in my hand for a while and at one point he rubbed my poetry and prose. He saw Canada’s old-age pen- face.”

Power died of pneumonia on May 15, 1997. He sions and family allowance bonuses as answers to was 88 years old. the enormous inequities plaguing Newfoundland.

Back to the table Provincial government in talks with teachers and doctors; nurses await call to negotiate

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

L

abour negotiations with the provincial government are at a standstill for two unions, while a third is still waiting to begin talks.

Kevin Foley, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers’ Association, has met with the provincial government twice — once in November and again in December — but says while progress has been made, a deal is not imminent.

“We got just far enough to agree to further talks,” Foley tells The Independent. “We will be getting back to the table soon. We don’t have specific dates set now, but they will certainly be going ahead in the future.”

Foley says each side submitted a proposal, and while he will not reveal what the proposals entailed, he does outline what the teachers are looking for.

“Teachers have identified mainly workload issues,” says Foley. “Not to say salary issues are not high on the agenda, but teachers have identified workload issues and things that would allow them to do their work better.

“We have a number of issues in our opening proposal that would deal with the workload issues.”

The teachers’ contract with government expired on Aug. 31, 2004, with teachers working under the terms of the old contract ever since.

The Newfoundland and Labrador Nurses’ Union is yet to discuss a new contract with the provincial government, says union president Debbie Forward.

She says since their contract expired on June 30, 2005, nurses have been preparing their opening proposal.

“Our negotiating team met last week, and we’re pretty close to finalizing our opening package,” says Forward. “But we haven’t got a date set yet.”

Forward also won’t reveal details of the proposal, but did release the general framework of the package.

“We are focusing on improvements in our collective agreement that will help sustain the nursing workforce, help keep nurses in the province in the face of a nursing shortage right across the country,” Forward says.

“Once the specifics do become available, they will be framed around improving the work lives of nurses and making sure we’re keeping them here.”

Forward adds nurses are not going to accept concessions.

“The message has been clear from nurses that they expect to see improvements in their collective agreements, not to be moving backwards,” says Forward.

“Concessionary talks and bringing concessions to the table is not improving work places for the nurses.

“We’re hopeful employers will come to the table this time around with positive proposals versus concessions that will take away benefits from nurses.”

The Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association — representing doctors in the province — has been negotiating with the provincial government for six months, but still does not have a contract finalized. The NLMA refused comment.

“We’re not commenting at this time — we’re still negotiating,” a spokesperson responded via email.

Media reports last week indicate the NLMA is concerned a concession proposed by the government would give the province too much control over how and where doctors practice in the province. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

INDEPENDENTWORLD

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JANUARY 29-FEBRUARY 4, 2006 — PAGE 11

Stephen Harper

J.P. Moczulski/Reuters

Harper’s approach Prime Minister-designate’s first meeting with the media sets new tone

By Chantal Hébert Torstar wire service

C

anada may be about to get its second minority government in as many years, but if Stephen Harper has his way, the similarities between his regime and that of Paul Martin will apparently stop there, and not just because their policies are different.

If there was one element missing from the prime minister-designate’s first news conference last week, it was an air of déja vu. Instead, everything from format to pace spoke of a desire to approach the business of steering a minority government differently.

Start with format: Martin used to run his Parliament Hill news conferences like class reunions. They tended to be sit-down events that featured the occasional prime ministerial joke and an ultra-light news menu.

Harper’s media encounters are more like army briefings. He is economical with his answers. They leave as little to interpretation as to imagination. The news conference was a stand-up affair. It was held in the lobby of the House of Commons — a

setting as removed from that of an expan- alists. sive fireside chat as a sandwich shop from It is understood that Harper will find that of a candlelight dinner. room in his first cabinet for ex-leadership Moving on to pace: Harper has given rival Stockwell Day (although not in forhimself a total of 13 days between the elec- eign affairs) and that he will treat Peter tion and his swearing-in to come up with MacKay with the deference due to a forthe first Conservative cabinet in more than mer federal leader. Martin spent his first a decade. In 2004, months in office banishMartin took 22 days to ing his rivals and their put together his second supporters from his govcabinet in six months. ernment.

If there was one eleThe priorities of the Ultimately, the most prime minister-desigment missing from the telling moment of last nate for the upcoming week’s post-election prime minister-desigsession of Parliament news conference was a can be counted on the sharp rap on the knucknate’s first news confingers of one hand. les of American ambasMartin had so many prisador David Wilkins. ference last week, it orities that he ended up Harper’s public repricoming across as havmand was not prompted was an air of déja vu. ing no agenda and, in by a media query. He time, no memorable volunteered to rebut the record. ambassador for suggesting that the To handle his transition to government, Conservative plan to increase Canada’s Harper has gone outside his inner circle military presence along its Arctic coastline and reached out to some of the veterans of is misguided. the Brian Mulroney era. Even after he Ambassador Wilkins and his superiors at failed to secure a majority in 2004, Martin the State Department should not be the stuck to the same tightly knit group of loy- only ones taking note. The opposition lead-

ers and the premiers should pay attention, too.

As opposed to his predecessor, it seems that this prime minister will be inclined to push back.

For the opposition leaders, that would suggest that their best chances of advancing their agendas will likely come before rather than after the fact of Harper’s first Speech from the Throne and budget. He sounds unlikely to be as willing to rewrite his government’s agenda at the flick of an opposition knife as Martin has been.

As for the premiers, they might brace themselves for a different dynamic when they meet with Harper to discuss fiscal arrangements and health-related matters later this year. Chances are this prime minister will send them home early rather than empty his pockets on the negotiating table to secure a deal from them.

It is too early to know whether Harper’s take-charge approach will work in the context of a fragile minority government. In time, he will have to do a lot of give and take if he is to survive and achieve some goals along the way. But what is certain is that Martin’s approach failed to earn him a passing grade from voters.

What would Attila the Hun say if he were Stephen Harper?

Columnist Michael Harris has a few ideas …

N

ow that the lawn signs have come down, a question looms: was the electoral exercise worth it?

True, the scoundrels got tossed out, but they managed to land very near the door.

And yes, Stephen Harper gets to redecorate 24 Sussex Drive. But will he be in need of a pantechnicon van before the paint dries? After all, the numbers are against him and these sharks are ready to school the second they smell

MICHAEL HARRIS The Outrider blood in the water.

Much in the 39th parliament is going to depend on leadership. So what better time to revisit the timeless wisdom of the Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun? Here is one of the many insights

attributed to Attila on the subject of leadership: “By their own actions, not their words, do leaders establish morale, integrity and the sense of justice … they cannot say one thing and do another.”

Paul Martin tried that and went through his enormous political inheritance in just two years.

From Attila’s point of view, the new government’s agenda is clear: the prime minister must stick with the program.

Stephen Harper should pass accounta-

bility legislation, slash the GST, give the provinces the resources to deliver programs, dump the gun-registry, reform our failed criminal justice and prison systems, and begin the task of rebuilding our military.

Some would counsel patience and strategic inaction in a minority situation. If the purpose of governing was mere personal survival that might be true. But Attila advises that tough situations almost never justify sitting on your hands, at least not if you are a true

See “Awash with,” page 12

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?

chieftain. He knew that every decision involves risk and that time does not always improve a situation for a leader.

“The circumstances of a given moment are not to be used as an excuse for being unprepared to make decisions incumbent on a chieftain. Indecisiveness is bred by failure to accept the responsibility of office … initiative in decision-making is not sufficiently demonstrated by a chieftain when it

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.

• An accumulation and cataloguing of our history and cultural development, the material is presented in a continuum of time from the ice age to the Twentieth Century, supplemented by sidebars of interesting information and statistics.

• The poster is of significant interest and informative to history buffs (young & old), tourists, expatriates, cultural supporters, education developers, tourist operators and the general public. Poster measures 2’ x 3’.

Quantity: ________ x $19.95 = ___________________ (Please include $5.00 for Shipping and Handling)

...or place your order by phone: Call Walter Andrews directly at

(709) 726-2671

JANUARY 29, 2006

12 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

Ten good reasons to cheer this vote N

ot every Canadian woke with a smile on his face and a song in her heart after watching the federal election results on Monday evening. Nonetheless, there is much to be positive about in the way this election unfolded.

Here, in no particular order, is a list of 10 things to celebrate from the Jan. 23 result: 1. In Stephen Harper, Canada gets a prime minister from Alberta. After feeling excluded for so long, the West is finally in.

2. The Conservatives, with their welcome breakthrough in Quebec where they won 10 seats, can now be called a

truly national party. Both the Liberals and Conservatives each captured seats in nine of 10 provinces, giving Canadians a healthy choice of two major national parties.

3. In Quebec, the Bloc Québécois under leader Gilles Duceppe fell well short of breaking the 50 per cent mark in popular votes. The Bloc garnered 42 per cent of the vote, down from 48.9 per cent in the 2004 election. It also dropped from 54 seats won in 2004 to 51 seats Monday. The result shows the majority of Quebecers still prefer the federalist option.

4. The Conservatives with 124 seats in the 308-seat House of Commons

have a mandate to lead the delivery of cleaner government in Ottawa that Canadians demand, but their power is subject to a healthy check by 103 Liberals, 51 Bloc Québécois, 29 New Democrats and one Independent.

5. The progressive federalist parties, the Liberals and New Democrats, plus the sovereignist Bloc, which leans left on public policy issues, retain sufficient clout to thwart Conservative policies that do not reflect Harper’s promise to take a “middle-road approach” to key social issues.

6. The Liberals lost, but they did not lose big. They remain strong in Canada’s major urban centres, have

MPs across the country and are well poised to regroup, refocus, clean house and rebuild.

7. Both Harper and Paul Martin gave dignified post-election speeches that raised the quality of public discourse after a campaign that was nasty at times. They reached out to all regions and sought to build bridges to voters who did not support them.

8. Canadians went to the polls in large numbers to cast ballots. Turnout was 65 per cent, up almost four percentage points from the 2004 election.

9. Parliament will be strengthened by the introduction of fresh new faces in all three federal parties, including Josée

Verner in Quebec for the Conservatives, Michael Ignatieff in Etobicoke-Lakeshore for the Liberals and Olivia Chow in Trinity-Spadina for the New Democrats.

10. The NDP under Jack Layton ran a progressive, well-focused campaign.

It will have more members and a strong voice in Parliament.

These are gains for Canadians of all federalist political stripes. The election that few voters initially wanted, especially over the Christmas holidays, ultimately delivered a little something for almost everyone.

— Torstar wire service

‘Awash with the blood of yes-men’ From page 11

IT

COSTS

$ 405

A NIGHT TO RENT

A THREE BEDROOM LUXURY CHALET AT

H UMBER VALLEY R ESORT *

* WAIT A MINUTE ...

THAT ’ S ONLY

$ 68 A PERSON

IF THERE ARE

6

OF YOU .

Luxury doesn’t have to cost a fortune. In fact, at Humber Valley Resort, we’re all about living large— even with a not-so-large wallet. Take advantage of our mid-season rates and book now.

You’ll see what we mean when you get here.

Call us at 1.866.686.8100 or visit www.humbervalley.com, and check out our great package deals.

occurs only in relation to easy assignments. It must be exhibited when facing difficult and high-risk tasks as well.

A sure sign of a weak chieftain is hesitation to act out of fear he might fail.”

Attila would have been the first to say that the last thing the country needs is another Mr. Dithers. In fact, one of his best aphorisms on leadership, or the lack of it, captures Paul Martin’s calamitous stewardship of the nation better than any editorial flogging: “A chieftain who fails to accept full decision-making responsibility — or who blames others for his own bad decisions — is weak and lacking in an essential, inherent quality of leadership.”

One of Stephen Harper’s first tasks is to make a cabinet out of some pretty green timber. With the notable exceptions of Tony Clement, John Baird and Jim Flaherty, his caucus features MPs without much experience in governing.

In the course of deciding who gets what, the prime minister will be taking advice from others. Attila offers this caution about the type of advisors a leader invites to his inner sanctum: “A king with chieftains who always agree with him reaps the counsel of mediocrity … a wise chieftain never kills the Hun bearing bad news. Rather, the wise chieftain kills the Hun who fails to deliver bad news.”

THE WILY MONGOL The Martin PMO is awash with the blood of yes-men.

As for those Conservatives Harper chooses to elevate to the government’s front bench, Attila saw the value of rolling the dice on people who were as green as the grass his Mongol hordes trampled on their way to the Eastern Roman Empire: “A competent chieftain will delegate important assignments to even inexperienced subordinates in order that he might accomplish his mission, develop his subordinate’s skills and demonstrate loyalty and trust in his subordinates.”

Perhaps the most eagerly awaited moment in Stephen Harper’s new career is the first meeting with George W. Bush. Will the Canadian Beaver genuflect in front of the American Eagle or will the PM come out of this new relationship with something of value to this country? His comments about Arctic sovereignty must have impressed even Maude Barlow. But according to Attila, it doesn’t ultimately matter.

“It is best if your friends and foes speak well of you; however, it is better for them to speak poorly of you than not at all. When nothing can be said of a Hun, he has probably accomplished nothing very well.”

While the new prime minister must carefully choose what Attila called his “horse-holders” and diligently study the bones of political caravans past, Stephen Harper is not the only one who could benefit from the wily Mongol’s philosophy. Given what has already happened in the Liberal party, Attila might as well have been covering the election. He had this to say about the departure of a former chieftain: “Regardless of the conditions under which a former chieftain departs his camp — no matter how distasteful or dishonourable — the new leader should neither encourage nor tolerate disrespectful talk of him … If departure should come prematurely, without warning or preparation to receive a new chieftain, tremendous confusion will reign in the camp. This is the most difficult situation for all … those who rank highest must quickly form a council and choose a new leader.”

And so to Attila’s final advice for all leaders, whether Stephen Harper or the suddenly under-employed Frank McKenna: “As a chieftain achieves greater success, the jealousy others feel for him intensifies … when in a political war, a Hun must always keep an eye to the rear.”

JANUARY 29, 2006

INDEPENDENTWORLD • 13

VOICE FROM AWAY

‘Every role one can imagine’ Catherine Handrigan has spent 19 years as an opera singer in Germany, but she returns home to St. John’s every summer

By Catherine Handrigan For The Independent Catherine Handrigan was born and raised in St. John’s, the fourth of eight children. Music was always important to her and her family, both in church and in school. She graduated from Memorial University with degrees in music and education in the late 1970s, and immediately began teaching music at a primary and elementary school in Mount Pearl.

Then her life changed forever …

I

travelled to Edmonton on my summer break in 1982 to spend a month at a summer workshop at the University of Edmonton with professor Theo Lindenbaum. After just a few lessons, he convinced me I was a “singer” and offered me a place in his international singing class in Detmold, Germany.

So in September of that year, after receiving a leave of absence from my teaching position, I headed for Germany with the intention of staying for one year. At the time I had no idea it was to be a life decision.

Professor Lindenbaum learned I had a one-year leave from my job and quickly informed me he needed at least four years to make a “singer” out of me.

If my intentions were only for one year, he said, I should immediately return to my teaching position.

The decision took many sleepless nights, but when I informed the school board I would not be returning, I knew I was doing the right thing. I loved my teaching years, and I still love teaching privately, but how could I give up the opportunity to study with such a great singing teacher?

I also had the full support of my family, and as long as I could go home yearly, I would be all right. I spent four years at the Musikhochschule in Detmold and graduated with top marks in 1987.

Of course, the biggest problem was the language. I remember arriving after three long flights and a train journey late at night and seeing the sign “lippischlandesbrandversicherung,” all in one word.

I remember thinking, “I want to go home and speak Townie again.”

During my studies at Memorial, two German courses were required for all

A paddle steamer on the River Elbe is pictured at sunset in front of Dresden's famous landmarks the Hofkirche (L) and the Semper opera house (R). According to Catherine Handrigan, there are more than 60 opera houses in Germany.

Reuters

singers, but by then it had been six years since I took the courses and I didn’t remember much. It’s one thing to sing a German song with a dictionary and a coach — quite another to deal with daily problems in a foreign language.

Luckily, at the music academy there were many foreigners and we all helped each other. A good Canadian friend who had been there four years helped me open a bank account, rent an apartment, and pay my student fees. While at the academy I took a language course at a nearby university to learn the basics and after that it was clear sailing … but I’m still learning.

I found it both lonely and a complete culture change at the beginning. Back then, stores closed from 1-3 p.m. and closed again from Saturday at 1 p.m. until Monday morning. I couldn’t buy a

City lowers its hiring age to 14

T

oronto is hiring younger. The city has lowered the age requirement in its recreation department from 16 to 14, a move aimed at opening hundreds of parttime jobs to teens in poor, high-crime neighbourhoods.

Positions will range from the entry level, such as a rink attendant, to higher-skilled jobs such as lifeguard and coach and will pay from $8 to $14 an hour. The point, says the city’s recreation director, is to reach young people at a vulnerable age.

“Kids at a certain age start dropping out,” says Brenda Librecz, general manager of parks, forestry and recreation. “We’re trying to find ways to keep them engaged and the best way is to give them a job.”

The city trains young people up to age 14 so they can go on to be coaches and camp counsellors, but until now hasn’t been able to hire them for

another two years. That gap will now be closed, Librecz says.

The change is one of a number of recent initiatives that seek to prevent youth crime through employment and recreation.

Last week, the city and a charity called the Toronto Community Foundation announced they would pay for 120 needy teens to be trained as coaches and lifeguards so they’re eligible for jobs with employers like the city and YMCA. Mayor David Miller has long argued youth unemployment is a root cause of violent crime and formed a policy group in 2004 to help areas like Jane-Finch create job opportunities for poor teens. There were 78 homicides in Toronto last year, 52 of them by gun. Many of the victims and perpetrators were young black men from poor areas.

— Torstar wire service

Diet Coke, sing in my apartment between 1 and 3 p.m., or communicate in the language. The bakeries, the culture, and the travel were overwhelming.

Back then, long distance was too expensive for a student, so calls were infrequent and the days were counted until holidays back to Newfoundland.

After final exams in 1987, one of my first auditions found me in Kiel, a city of 250,000 and capital of the northerly province of Schleswig-Holstein. The job was for a full-time position as a soprano in the opera chorus, with some solo roles as well.

A job as a soloist would mean no permanency. My oldest daughter was only one at the time so I accepted the chorus contract when it was offered. I started in August 1987 and have never regretted it.

This is my 19th season and every

year is as interesting as the year before.

I’ve performed in over 100 operas as a chorus singer or soloist and have played every role one can possibly imagine.

The opera company in Kiel employs about 400 people. We do about seven new productions yearly and any one production can run up to 30 times. I perform up to 100 times every year.

Rehearsals are in the morning and the evening, if we are not performing.

We are both provincial and municipal employees and have six weeks annual holiday. The arts in Germany are almost completely funded by government money and an opera house is an important part of every city and town.

Although I’ve spent half my life in Germany, I still feel very connected to Newfoundland. I come home every year with my two children, Deirdre, 19

and Philip, 7, and German husband, Ansgar. I have always encouraged this connection, especially for my children.

I spend almost all the summer holidays in Newfoundland and it was through my husband that I really got to know the island. Every year we do many kilometres of the East Coast Trail, enjoy the island’s beautiful golf courses, whale watch with our kids, and enjoy the splendour of the island which, of course, I never really appreciated while living there.

I also have lifelong friends — not to mention the enormous family — and I really treasure the visits we have every year.

We just pick up each time where we left off.

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

YEAR OF THE DOG

A worker fixes light bulbs on a sea of lanterns at a temple in preparation for the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Chinese New Year will be celebrated Jan. 29 and will usher in the Year of the Dog. Zainal Abd Halim/Reuters

14 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

JANUARY 29, 2006

JANUARY 29, 2006

INDEPENDENTWORLD • 15

Hamas victory hits ‘like an earthquake’ As the region’s leaders absorb what amounts to a Palestinian revolution, diplomatic gridlock is taking hold RAMALLAH, West Bank

By Mitch Potter Torstar wire service

L

eft standing was a president who still wants peace. But behind Mahmoud Abbas, the defeated Palestinian leadership was in shambles last week, vowing it would have nothing to do with a government led by the unexpected triumph of Hamas.

The militant Islamic group, in its first-ever bid for a role in national politics, collected more than 50 per cent of the vote in parliamentary elections Jan. 25 and will claim a majority 76 seats in the 132-seat Palestinian Legislative Council, according to official, nearcomplete results.

Four victorious independents were also backed by Hamas. Fatah, which has dominated Palestinian political life since the 1960s but alienated voters because of rampant corruption, got 43 seats. The remaining seats went to smaller parties.

The numbers numbed the international community, contradicting all estimates, including earlier exit polls that suggested a narrow victory for Fatah, and ending four decades of virtual one-party rule over the stateless Palestinians.

The stunning turnaround triggered immediate fears of clashes, as jubilant Hamas loyalists and their embittered Fatah rivals spilled into the streets. One such confrontation ended in a brawl on the steps of the Palestinian parliament in the de facto West Bank capital of Ramallah, as marching Hamas support-

Bus slams into music studio

By Curtis Rush Torstar wire service

C

arman Guerrieri, a 49-year-old Toronto music entrepreneur, was at home having a coffee Jan. 27 at around 8 a.m. when he turned on the television.

What he saw turned his stomach.

A Gray Lines bus had ploughed into the front of his Cherry Beach Sound studio and had taken out a support beam, raising the possibility that the building would collapse when the bus was removed.

The studio is part of a multi-purpose production facility built in 1911.

Guerrieri bought the building in 1982, hoping to bring in musicians from around the world to record. It’s full of production, TV and recording studios, as well as rehearsal facilities.

The Tragically Hip were there recently, along with Sass Jordan. And the hit show Canadian Idol recorded there. As well, Guerrieri says he had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in sound equipment over 25 years.

“This hit me right in the heart,” Guerrieri said later. “Nobody even called me.”

Guerrieri, who himself is an artist who records audio for music and for broadcast, rushed down to the studio to make sure no one was seriously hurt.

Two bus drivers were taken to hospital but were released with minor injuries after one had, for some unexplained reason, sideswiped the other at about 6:30 a.m., sending the other bus crashing through the studio’s front door.

Police, fire crews and hazardous materials teams rushed to the scene because 800 litres of diesel fuel were quickly leaking out of the empty bus.

City engineers have told Guerrieri they would be able to extricate the bus and rebuild the front of the studio, but it will be days before he can get back to work.

“I have sessions booked in my studios and it’s very competitive. And now I’ve had to lose a few sessions,” Guerrieri said.

Since he took it over, he has “spent every cent I could make” to preserve the building.

Lew Aldrich, the general manager of Greyhound Canada, which operates Gray Lines, said he doesn’t know exactly what caused the accident.

He said the buses were both going west in separate lanes on Villiers Street, when the bus in the north lane sideswiped the other.

He didn’t identify the drivers and couldn’t explain why two buses would collide on a deserted street that early in the morning.

However, he quickly ruled out street racing.

“I don’t think so. These were two experienced, middle-age operators with many years’ experience,” Aldrich said.

“And buses don’t race well.”

Fatah supporters chant slogans during a protest in Khan Younis, south of Gaza City, Jan. 27.

ers scaled the walls to drape the green flag of Islam.

As the region’s leaders absorbed what amounts to a Palestinian revolution, diplomatic gridlock took hold.

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, facing his own election in the race to succeed a comatose, strokestricken Ariel Sharon, rules out contact with Hamas, warning Palestinians face an era of international isolation unless the group responsible for the majority of suicide bombings against Israel renounces such attacks.

“If a government led by Hamas or in which Hamas is a coalition partner is

established, the Palestinian Authority will be turned into an authority that supports terror,” Olmert says. “Israel and the world will ignore it and make it irrelevant.”

Fatah leaders conceded defeat, with Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and his cabinet submitting their resignations and other party officials calling the outcome more a scathing indictment of government corruption than an endorsement of political Islam.

“It hit us like an earthquake. We wanted a democratic life and it was built on our corpse,” says Abdel Fateh Hamayel, a Fatah official associated

Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

with the party’s young guard.

“I hope that our brothers in Hamas rise to the occasion. Let them say what they will do. But Fatah must bear full responsibility for what happened. The people have spoken out against a party whose agenda has made room for thugs, robbers and dishonest people.”

Hamas leaders appeared taken aback by the extent of victory, initially rebuffing media requests for interviews. The movement, which operates under a charter calling for Israel’s destruction, had mounted a near-perfect campaign under the banner of Change and Reform, promising to focus singularly

on domestic issues while hinting at a new willingness to negotiate with Israel.

Abbas, who will continue to hold the presidency he assumed after winning an election one year ago, said in a televised speech he intends to push forward toward peace with Israel, even as consultations begin with Hamas for the formation of a new government.

“I am committed to implementing the program on which you elected me,” Abbas said. “It is a program based on negotiations and peaceful settlement with Israel.”

Hamas leaders issued a series of statements offering an olive branch to their secular Palestinian counterparts and Israelis alike. The movement’s overall leader Khaled Mashal called Abbas from exile in Damascus, announcing Hamas would seek a political partnership.

Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar, speaking to reporters in Gaza, said the group was prepared to extend the period of tadiyah (calm) agreed to last February if Israel will reciprocate.

“If they are going to continue commitment to what is called quietness, then we will continue,” Zahar told Associated Press. “But if not, then I think we will have no option but to protect our people and our land.”

Palestinian political insiders predicted weeks of back-channel negotiations are likely before a new government can emerge, as a reluctant Hamas grapples with the predicament of assuming a degree of power that exceeds its ambitions.

JANUARY 29, 2006

16 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

$33529(' )RU )5(( /D\DZD\ 5HJDUGOHVV 2I &UHGLW +LVWRU\ %DQNUXSWF\ )L[HG ,QFRPH RU -RE 6WDWXV 1R ,QWHUHVW )((6 ‡ 1R 6WRUDJH )((6 ‡ 1R 7LPH 5HVWULFWLRQV ‡ 3ULFH +ROG 3URWHFWLRQ ‡ *XDUDQWHHG /RZHVW 3ULFHV

&KRRVH )URP 2YHU 'LIIHUHQW 6RID /RYHVHDW 3DFNDJHV ‡ :H :RQ W %H 8QGHUVROG

6RID 2QO\

6RID /RYHVHDW

6RID /RYHVHDW

6RID /RYHVHDW

2WWRPDQ

6RID /RYHVHDW

6RID /RYHVHDW

6RID /RYHVHDW

3LHFH 6HFWLRQDO

3LHFH %HGURRPV ,QFOXGHV +HDGERDUG 'UHVVHU 0LUURU 1LJKWVWDQG

&KHVW $OVR $YDLODEOH

&KHVW $OVR $YDLODEOH

&KHVW $OVR $YDLODEOH

&KHVW $OVR $YDLODEOH

$OO 3LHFHV

$OO 3LHFHV

$OO 3LHFHV &KHVW $OVR $YDLODEOH

&KHVW $OVR $YDLODEOH

'UHVVHU 0LUURU 1LJKWVWDQG DQG &KHVW $OVR $YDLODEOH

$OO 3LHFHV

$OO 3LHFHV

$OO 3LHFHV

&RPSOHWH 4XHHQ %HG

3LHFH 'LQHWWHV $W )DFWRU\ 'LUHFW 3ULFHV ‡ 6DPH 'D\ 'HOLYHU\ ‡ 2Q 7KH 6SRW )LQDQFLQJ

3LHFH 'LQHWWHV $OVR $YDLODEOH $W /RZ 3ULFHV

$OO 3LHFHV

$OO 3LHFHV

$OO 3LHFHV

$OO 3LHFHV

$OO 3LHFHV

$OO 3LHFHV

$OO 3LHFHV

0$775(66 %21$1=$

$OO 3LHFHV

$OO 3LHFHV

$// 0$775(66(6 :,// %( 62/' 21 $ ),567 &20( ),567 6(59(' %$6,6

7UXFNORDGV 2I 0DWWUHVVHV :LOO %H 6ROG ‡ +XUU\ ,Q )RU %HVW 6HOHFWLRQ

)$&725< ',5(&7 35,&,1* 21 $// 2) 285 48$/,7< 0$775(66 6(76 6$0( '$< '(/,9(5< Â&#x2021; )5(( /$<$:$< Â&#x2021; :( :21 7 %( 81'(562/' $GYHUWLVHG PDWWUHVVHV VROG LQ VHWV RQO\ 6HH VWRUH IRU LQGLYLGXDO PDWWUHVVHV DW IDFWRU\ GLUHFW SULFHV .LQJ VHWV FRQVLVW RI SLHFHV

3RVWXUH 3OXV

67$57,1*

$7 21/<

3RVWXUH 3URILOH

)8// HD SF 48((1 HD SF

)8// 48((1 .,1*

<HDU /WG :DUUDQW\

ZS

/7' :$55$17<

'UHDPVOHHS

(QFKDQWPHQW

ZS

/7' :$55$17<

)8// HD SF 48((1 HD SF .,1* HD SF

ZS

/7' :$55$17<

&KLUR (PLQHQFH

ZS

/7' :$55$17<

ZS

/7' :$55$17<

7DEOHV )DEULFV DQG &RORXUV PD\ YDU\ E\ VWRUH

)8// HD SF 48((1 HD SF .,1* HD SF

&KLUR 0DVVDJHU

7ZLQ HD SF

ZS

/7' :$55$17<

$FURVV IURP $YDORQ 0DOO QH[W WR $YDORQ 6RIWZDUH

&$// 7ROO )UHH

HD SF

7ZLQ HD SF

7ZLQ HD SF

)8// HD SF 48((1 HD SF .,1* HD SF

HD SF

([FHOVLRU

2Ò&#x2039;/HDU\ $YH

0RQ 7KXUV Â&#x2021; )ULGD\ 6DWXUGD\ Â&#x2021; 6XQGD\

HD SF

HD SF

<HDU /WG :DUUDQW\

67 -2+1Ò&#x2039;6

2SHQ 7R 7KH 3XEOLF

HD SF

7ZLQ HD SF

)8// 48((1 .,1*

7ZLQ HD SF

7ZLQ HD SF

)8// HD SF 48((1 HD SF .,1* HD SF

HD SF

<HDU /WG :DUUDQW\

7ZLQ HD SF

)8// HD SF 48((1 HD SF .,1* HD SF

3RVWXUH (OHJDQW

7ZLQ HD SF

7ZLQ HD SF

$Q\ VL]H 3RVWXUH 3OXV 6HW

&KLUR

,PSHULDO

9LVLW 8V RQ WKH ZHE ZZZ VXUSOXVIUHLJKW FD /RFDWLRQV DOVR LQ $OEHUWD 0DQLWRED 2QWDULR 1HZ %UXQVZLFN 1RYD 6FRWLD 1HZIRXQGODQG

)8// HD SF 48((1 HD SF .,1* HD SF :H $FFHSW &DVK ,QWHUDF 9LVD 0DVWHU &DUG $PHULFDQ ([SUHVV &KHTXHV )5(( /D\DZD\

INDEPENDENTLIFE

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JANUARY 29-FEBRUARY 4, 2006 — PAGE 17

Beth Oberholtzer

Paul Daly/The Independent

Wonder and weight Beth Oberholtzer’s latest work explores life, death, sexuality and Alpha males

By Stephanie Porter The Independent

A

visit to Beth Oberholtzer’s studio offers just a glimpse of the work she’ll be showing at The Rooms, starting Feb. 3. Hanging from the ceiling in one corner are five brass sperm, each about two feet long, suspended at angles to look like dive bombers or spears aimed for the kill.

Inspired by both her “curiosity about the magic of life,” and George Bush’s declaration of war in Iraq, Oberholtzer calls the piece Alpha Male.

In the opposite corner (opposite in many ways), float a dozen delicate spheres, moonlike, made out of transparent seed pods.

“They’re very fragile and tentative and ephemeral,” she describes. “It’s the female counterpart …

“I was thinking about metaphors about sexual competition or competition when it comes to sexuality; how we perceive sperm behaviour as a metaphor for our behaviour.” She looks over at her firstever bronze sculptures.

“We see the guy that goes the fastest and the strongest, charging … but that’s our perception, who knows really? I did read recently that the sperm are actually quite lazy …”

Oberholtzer smiles, concerned about over-simplifying work that emanates both grace and power. She obviously has much on her mind — she’s in the midst of packing up her contributions for an exhibition five years in the planning.

Where wonder, what weight, is a joint

show for Oberholtzer and Will Gill. Both She later moved again, this time to are known for their contemporary, some- Newfoundland. And she found the desire times complex, artwork and explorations to make art — and the impetus to do it of themes of nature, technology, sexual- — waiting. That was 17 years ago. ity and humanity. The complete show “It was a lot of things,” she says. “I promises large installation work, sculp- think I had to grow up a bit. I found a ture, wall hangings, a satellite dish, and really supportive community here that more. encouraged me to get “When we first met, back at it, which was when we first had a sense really great, because I “I find that, right of each others’ work, we knew I had to. realized we really want“And then, having now, we’ve caught ed to have an exhibition small kids really genourselves in this together,” Oberholtzer erated a lot of juice.” says of working with Oberholtzer still paradox. We have this works as a graphic Gill.

“When this opportuniand still has fabulous capacity to designer, ty came up, we had to sit plenty of duties as a down and decide what mother. But she is be inventive and exactly it was we wanted learning to carve out to do … we came up imaginative, and yet time for artwork as with an elemental theme, well. we’re really stunned.” fire, water, air, earth and Her official coming we came up with five, out as an artist in St. because there’s a shared John’s came in the Beth Oberholtzer interest in metal as well. form of a clothesline “But because it’s been installation at Eastern five years and we both work intuitively, Edge Gallery — she did “little drawwe had to get together and re-evaluate.” ings” on cloth diapers, mounted them on Oberholtzer, an Ontario native, says other cloth diapers, then hung them on her true passion hit while at the the clothesline.

University of Toronto. “I went in an aca“It started out, from the beginning, as demic, and came out realizing I really a real identity thing,” she says, adding wanted to make art,” she says. that her children helped lead her down And she did, for a while, before mov- that path. “Because you have to set youring to Vancouver with her then-partner, self aside and nurture these young leaving her artistic community behind. beings, there’s not a lot of time or enerOn the west coast and without work, gy to be lost in your own place.”

Oberholtzer sold all her art supplies and Oberholtzer’s exploration of identity landed a job as a graphic designer. has broadened in her latest work, as she

searches through timelines and cuts through cultural barriers, “trying to figure out what is making us all do what we’re doing.”

There are “codpieces” made, literally, out of cod skin — and the female versions, made from flower petals. And Street Charms, a large-scale bracelet with objects (a pair of glasses, toys, a watch) Oberholtzer found on the street as the “charms.”

She describes another piece in the upcoming show. Called The war womb, it’s a steel structure in the shape of a womb or nest. But set into the very organic and comforting shape are 1,950 military-issue bullets.

“I find that, right now, we’ve caught ourselves in this paradox,” she says. “We have this fabulous capacity to be inventive and imaginative, and yet we’re really stunned.

“I think a lot of these pieces have both sides: the magic and the joy of life, and then … it’s like the sperm, it’s obviously all about life and integral to keeping it going, but then you have governments taking life away. We’re loving, nurturing human beings, but then we turn around and kill each other.

“Probably, if you look at the work, the thread that kind of carries everything through is life.”

Where wonder, what weight featuring the work of Will Gill and Beth Oberholtzer, opens Feb. 3, 7-9 p.m., at The Rooms. stephanie.porter@theindependent.ca

LIVYER

Fogo Islander keeps Flame burning

By Ben Curties For the Independent

C

arol Penton doesn’t turn a big profit publishing a newspaper on Fogo Island, but then no one sticks around there for the money anyway.

The island off the northeast coast has suffered from the collapse of the fishery, and many people are leaving or have left with one-way tickets. But the 3,000 or so who remain still have their panoramic ocean views, their close-knit communities, and their stories.

In turn, their stories have Penton to tell them.

“People say `Please don’t give it up,

it’s the only link to informative news we get,’” she says proudly. “The seniors love it; they get to see their faces in the paper and read about the things that are going on right under their noses that they didn’t even know were happening.”

Penton runs the Fogo Island Flame, a social time capsule for anything she thinks is important.

“It’s a way of preserving rural life in Newfoundland,” says Penton, who freelanced for years with other provincial publications.

Aside from a view-from-away column written by a friend from England, Penton pens the entire 20-page monthly paper.

“Someone said `Where are you going to get enough information to fill it up?’” she chuckles. “Well the paper isn’t near big enough to put in what I wish I could put in there. But then I have to make a little profit as well, so I have to cut some stuff.”

Penton also takes all of the photos for the paper on her digital camera, and lays the whole thing out on her desktop computer. She sends the paper to Gander to print, and carriers deliver 650 copies door to door around the island. Before long, the compliments make their way back to Penton in Joe Batt’s Arm. See “You’re free here,” page 22

Carol Penton

Photo by The Fogo Island Flame

JANUARY 29, 2006

18 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

GALLERYPROFILE

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

CARA WINSOR HEHIR Visual artist

T

he human body is a recurring theme in Cara Winsor Hehir’s work. And in almost all her newest pieces — to be exhibited at the Craft Council Gallery next month — the body on display is her own.

“I think all bodies are important,” says Winsor Hehir. “And I think a lot of times people get left out, they get put down, they don’t feel confident about themselves because of the way they look.

“I think for me to say this is what I look like with my clothes off might make somebody think, ‘Well, she’s not little, she’s got a big butt, she’s confident enough to do it’ … maybe they’ll just think a little differently.”

The pieces for the show, made with such care and attention to detail, are brightly coloured and textured celebrations of self and self-awareness. They may directly present the artist’s exterior, but they reveal much about her introspection and thoughtfulness as well.

“With the really precious hand-dyed fabrics and the stitching and the bits of paper (I wanted to) make them luscious and lovely and make you want to touch them,” she says, laughing. “I pad them all so you want to squeeze their butts.”

The exhibition will be called Comfort in place, a theme Winsor Hehir’s been working with for quite a while — even before she applied for the exhibition two years ago — although the meaning has changed.

In the past few years, Winsor Hehir has gotten married, moved house, and given birth to her first child.

“When I started, I wanted to say that I’ve come through fighting with my body and I can be at peace with it, most of the time,” she says.

But then she got pregnant. And broke her leg. And had a tough time with the pregnancy.

“I went from being really strong and healthy and fit to being this sickly woman who couldn’t even get up and down the stairs and then I had a baby … and your life changes and your body changes,” she says.

“It’s still Comfort in place but it’s a different kind of comfort. Before it was a vanity thing, now it’s I have to be comfortable because I have a child that I’m raising that needs me to be comfortable.”

Winsor Hehir has tried her hand at painting and working in other art media, but textiles remain her first love.

Although the pieces in her upcoming show use some painting techniques, they’re primarily for texture — the focus remains on hand-dyed fabrics, quilting, and embroidery.

“Growing up, I was always in Brownies and Girl Guides and Pathfinders and you do lots of stitching in that,” she says.

“And both my parents are very crafty people … I’ve always been sewing, always made things with my hands.”

Winsor Hehir’s father builds beautiful furniture — and frames all of her work.

The sewing machine she uses today to complete her work is the one her mother taught her to use at age five.

“I guess it’s in my blood,” she says.

Winsor Hehir’s exhibition opens Feb. 26 at the Craft Council Gallery, Devon House.

— Stephanie Porter

JANUARY 29, 2006

INDEPENDENTLIFE â&#x20AC;˘ 19

TIM CONWAY Film Score Brokeback Mountain, 135 min.

Starring Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal 1/2 (out of four)

I

n the summer of 1963, Ennis Del Mar was looking for the chance to get a few dollars in his pocket so he could marry his sweetheart, Alma. Jack Twist needed to bankroll his aspirations in the rodeo. So it was that the two young cowboys wound up herding sheep in the mountains of Wyoming for a couple or few months.

Their living conditions stood in stark contrast to the idyllic setting.

One of them would spend the night and most of the day higher up with the sheep, descending to the base camp tended by the other, whose task was to prepare meals and rendezvous with a supplier once a week.

For the most part, the only human contact they had was one another, and even then, it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a day-long affair.

One imagines such a working relationship would impede any kind of friendship developing between the two men, and especially this pair. A perfect defence to the argument that all cowboys are not the same, Ennis is quiet, withdrawn, and seemingly incomplete without some sort of task to perform, the kind of guy whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unafraid of hard work and only too eager to prove it.

Jack, on the other hand, embodies the romantic notion of the cowboy.

His broad smile and nearly endless chatter about his hopes and dreams paint a picture of hootinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and hollerinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, bronco busting and bull riding. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s living for the roar of the crowds in his ears and all the adrenalin his veins can handle.

Still, during that summer on Brokeback Mountain, Ennis and Jack discovered a connection between themselves that was bigger than the big blue sky above, something so powerful that they were unaware of its strength until the moment came for them to go their separate ways â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and something so durable as to endure the years until their paths crossed once more.

Based on a short story by Annie Proulx (The Shipping News), Brokeback Mountain has been the pet project of screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana for the better part of the last 10 years.

Placed in the hands of renowned director Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Sense and Sensibility), the story has finally sprung to life on the big screen, and become the yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most celebrated motion picture.

Shot in Alberta on a modest budget, but offering breath-taking visuals that are captured perfectly, the film

Heath Ledger (left) and Jake Gyllenhaal (right) star in Brokeback Mountain.

Brokeback shines; Karla stinks has the look and feel of a more lavish production. Likewise, one could spend a fortune on higher profile cast members, but never get performances superior to what we find here.

Heath Ledger must have dug around a hayloft for a couple of weeks to find Ennis, and Jake Gyllenhaalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jack seems like something that came with a shipment of horse tackle. Required to inhabit these characters over a period of 25 years, they never miss a beat, as Ennis and Jack remain authentic and believable over the course of time.

Likewise, the supporting players operate on a level on par with the leads, especially Michelle Williams as Ennisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; wife Alma, and Anne

Hathaway as Jackâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife Lureen.

While the film doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t answer all of our questions regarding the characters and their motivations, it does succeed in presenting a relationship between two human beings who find themselves caught in an almost impossible situation. Victims of time and place, they do the best they can under the circumstances, with their memories, stolen moments, and dedication to one another helping to see them through.

Brokeback Mountain offers everything we expect to find in a great motion picture, from the writing and acting, to the technical aspects of the presentation. A modern classic, it can stand with the top 10 films of

any year. One could argue, however, its current position as the unrivalled choice in almost every circle as the yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best picture is as much an indicator of lean pickings this time around as it is the result of this filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s accomplishments.

Karla, 102 min.

Starring Laura Prepon, Misha Collins (out of four) Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interesting that Karla shows up on our doorstep only a few days after I encountered a news article in which actor Christopher Lee chastises the motion picture industry for misusing numerous young perform-

POETâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CORNER

I see the berg-lined shore, My island home once more.

I tread thy glassy snow-slopes once again, Thoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve wandered far away Across the rolling sea, To find a home beside the hills of Maine.

Thy cherry-cheeked boys, Thy girls with romping noise, Far up throâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; memoryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vale they throng at will; I see the hillside white; I see the moonlight; I see the slides of Granny Batesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Hill The snows of sixty year Have tinged and streaked my hair, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve many brawny sons to manhood grown; I see the churchyard still Beneath the pine-clad hill, Where after death my body will be thrown.

But in the brands tonight I trail a vision bright: A scene that makes my inmost spirit thrill, And I waft a backward sigh For the youthful days gone by, When sliding over Granny Batesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Hill.

By M.A. Devine. This poem was included in the 1937 book, The Book of Newfoundland.

Tim Conway operates Capital Video in Rawlinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cross, St. Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.

His next column appears Feb. 12.

T H E

Granny Batesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Hill Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m wandering back tonight To visions calm and bright, As I sit alone within the firelightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s glow.

To the time when boyish dreams Were tinged with rosy dreams In the merry, merry days of long ago.

One scene amongst them all With pleasure I recall, As memory lingers fondly with me still: Oh! The pleasure and the joy, When I was a laughing boy, And went sliding over Granny Batesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Hill.

ers by casting them into roles that are much too demanding. Lee argues most of these neophytes are doomed to failure, for they are unequipped to handle the rigours of these roles, and then suffer the blame for their lack of success, thus ruining their careers.

With TVâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Laura Prepon assuming the titular role of Karla Homolka in the motion picture that presumes to get to the woman behind the makeup, we are presented with just such a scenario.

While Prepon gives it her all in a mediocre film, she doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t accomplish very much, which could reflect badly on her future endeavours on the big screen. Perhaps sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d have the chops for it in a few years, but not yet, and lets hope she survives this one, for she does demonstrate potential.

The film needs no introduction, thanks to the dust-up of controversy that precedes it, primarily because of diverse factions who havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even seen it. Had they done so, they would have discovered a motion picture that is unlikely to draw much attention to itself.

Presented as Homolkaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recollections of her association with husband Paul Bernardo, as related to the psychiatrist assessing her in relation to her parole application in the year 2000, the film begins in an unoriginal manner, and continues in much the same way.

While delivering her version of the story, Homolka is often reminded by her examiner that established facts contradict her statements, and she is forced to backtrack and start over.

Despite the brutality and violence of the crimes in which Homolka was involved, they are presented in a manner that puts much of the action outside the frame of the camera.

What we see is often not much more explicit than late night television crime drama, yet we are aware of the hideous nature of what transpires.

Misha Collins, as Paul Bernardo, does a superb job here, presenting a character that comes across as wholesome as Archie Andrews, but as deadly and depraved as something from the bowels of hell. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s got good qualities, and heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quite the catch, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just that raping and killing thing. In a way, this seems to be Homolkaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attitude towards the guy, as though she can get him to stop and everything will be OK. Karla raises as many questions as it tries to answer, and its primary focus seems to be relating the story without being too graphic in its presentation. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sacrificed here is depth, as we are not much farther ahead at the end than we are at the beginning.

At the same time, any attempt to discover what makes the likes of Karla Homolka tick is not a wasted effort. When they stop trying is when we should start to worry.

+FMMJDMF DBUT DPNF PVU UPOJHIU

Silver B A L L

+FMMJDMF DBUT DPNF POF DPNF BMM 5IF +FMMJDMF NPPO JT TIJOJOH CSJHIU

Sponsored by

Saturday February 4, 2006 The Fairmont Newfoundland â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Cavendish Square

+FMMJDMFT DPNF UP UIF +FMMJDMF #BMM

A 7pm Champagne Reception

sponsored by in the Garden Court with music by the NSO. 8pm â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Dinner and dance with music by Billy & the Bruisers.

1SFTFOUFE CZ

Helping the NSO support its Symphony Goes to School Programme

%JSFDUFE CZ 5FSSJ "OESFXT $IPSFPHSBQIZ CZ .BSJF $SBHH .VTJDBM %JSFDUJPO CZ #SJBO 8BZ

Black Tie Optional Tickets $125 single

'FCSVBSZ SE o UI BOE UI o UI 4U +PIOhT "SUT $VMUVSF $FOUSF 5JDLFUT DBMM .VTJD CZ "OESFX -MPZE 8FCCFS 1SPEVDFE XJUI QFSNJTTJPO GSPN 3PEHFST )BNNFSTUFJO 5IFBUSJDBMT

(A receipt will be issued for the charitable portion of the ticket price) Peter Gardner General & Artistic Director Principal Conductor Marc David

Call 722-4441

JANUARY 29, 2006

20 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

IN CAMERA

It’s already become legendary: in the past two decades, Ireland has experienced an incredible economic boom.

But as the unemployment rate has diminished and the standard of living has risen, what else has changed? Here, Newfoundlanders who have lived in Dublin — or continue to — offer some impressions of a fast-changing cityscape. Photos by Photocall Ireland.

Today’s Dublin From page 1 On the one hand, Dublin, like the whole of Ireland, is still booming.

There’s a young population, low unemployment, and one of the highest per capita incomes in the European Union — the Celtic tiger continues to roar.

But the racing economy has changed the city in other ways, and not always for the best. Dublin is gaining a reputation for some of the big city problems more often associated with London or New York: drugs, homelessness, increased violence and gangrelated activity.

“I’m used to being in a friendly atmosphere, if someone approached me and asked for money, I say ‘No, I’m sorry,’” continues Scurrey. “When I met people from Dublin, they were like, ‘You have to learn not to talk to people, just keep walking.’”

When it came to going out at night to meet her friends for a few drinks, Scurrey says she preferred to keep to her friendly local pub, and avoid Dublin city centre.

“I was afraid of it,” she says. “I know on George Street there might be the odd fight … but I saw a program over there that deterred me a little bit, you’re watching fights and reading about stabbings and you hear about drive-by shootings along the quays and it made me a bit nervous.”

Glenda O’Keefe, originally from Placentia, moved to Dublin in 1999 just as the economy was really exploding. She loves the city, adding she finds it much more like home than Toronto or other major Canadian centres.

“There is a big sense of community

here. Of course it has its ups and downs — doesn’t anywhere?” she says. “I have been pick-pocketed and had my money stolen, my house has been broken into twice while I was at home.

“I have always felt safe living here, but you have to be careful and aware of who is around you … you always need to make sure the alarm is set on your car, and your house. Crime has gone up over the past few years; a lot of it is down to gangland and drugs.”

But the positive aspects of the economy are equally, if not more, visible for her. There is a major housing boom — fields are being bought up and filled in with housing estates, everywhere she looks she sees old buildings coming down and new ones going up.

“Everyone is trying to buy a house,” she says. “Young people in their early 20s are going for mortgages. The increase in new buildings, the construction work is unreal; it’s taking place on almost every corner throughout Ireland.”

The fact young people are settling into careers and purchasing homes at an early age speaks to a permanence and confidence in the future of the city and country. It also makes for a new relentlessly consumerist society — a change not lost on those who have watched the city move out of the dark economic days of the 1980s.

Peter Hart, Canada Research Chair in Irish Studies at Memorial University, first went to Dublin in 1987 as a PhD student at Trinity College. Cautioning that his view of the city then was through the eyes of a “very poor student living in not-sonice-neighbourhoods,” he nonetheless recounts a vivid description.

• HOUSING: Dublin house prices have risen almost 300 per cent since 1996; growing 9.6 per cent in 2005 alone. Average house cost in Dublin: $488,000 Cdn. Housing outside Dublin about 50 per cent less (BBC News).

• POPULATION: 4,015,676 (Ireland); about 1.2 million (Dublin and area). In Dublin, 45 per cent of the population is under 25; 75 per cent are under 45 (2002 census).

• ECONOMIC GROWTH: 7 per cent per year average, 1995-2004.

• EXPORTS: $66 billion (1999); $103.8 billion (2004).

• UNEMPLOYMENT: 4.2 per cent (2005).

• CELLULAR PHONES: 3.4 million in use (2003) Source: CIA The World Factbook except where otherwise noted.

JANUARY 29, 2006

“Dublin was very poor, and very polluted,” says the St. John’s-native.

“There weren’t emission controls on cars and people were burning very cheap coal and peat, which produced a lot of smoke. The air was extraordinarily polluted, which is a sign of poverty … and that was very evident everywhere.

“Lots of people didn’t have phones in their houses; people on the streets were generally unhealthy, had the physical signs of poverty that Newfoundlanders did decades before … poor housing and poor nutrition.”

It was a homogenous place — virtually everyone was white, Englishspeaking, and all of one culture — rare among European or American cities.

In 1987, the Irish Republic’s per capita income was about 63 per cent of that of the United Kingdom. Three years later, everything began to change.

From 1990 until 1995, the economy grew at about five per cent a year.

Between 1996 and 2000, it grew by about nine per cent annually. By 2000, Ireland’s per capita income topped that of the U.K.; by 2003 it was listed at $25,500 — some $3,200 more than the U.K. average.

The growth came about thanks to a complex and concerted effort — and no doubt some risk-taking — on behalf of government. There was funding from the European Union, but probably more importantly, major changes were made in tax rates and regulations. Improving access to education was a priority; other government expenditures were slashed.

Markets were aggressively pursued.

“People used to talk about the Celtic tiger as a sort of blip or passing phase,” says Hart. “But even though growth has slowed down, it is clearly highly sustained … this is very successful government policy at work.”

Hart lived in Dublin for a couple of years in the mid-1990s, and still returns two or three times a year for work. Students in Dublin these days, he continues, “instead of being poor, now have cellphones and laptops and they dress better. Children are taller and healthier.

“Dublin is clearly a consumer capital now. There are chain stores everywhere, coffee shops and new restaurants, expensive bars, hotels, and all

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 21

the rest of it.”

Hart also points to a growing societal inequality — not because poor people are getting poorer, but much of the wealth is, typically, concentrated higher in society. Housing prices have skyrocketed and, he figures, “there’s no way people’s salaries go up fast enough to allow them to afford houses … so inflation is clearly a problem.”

Hart wonders aloud about some of the choices the government made.

“What do you do with a huge amount of money when you’re in government and you have these incredible growth rates? … Of course a lot of what they did was cut taxes, and all the money went into consumption … so now what you get is the standard consumer society with a huge level of personal debt.

“Is that an improvement in society when presumably the money could have been allocated to public transport, which there are some improvements in but not a huge amount, or the health system, which is not up to general western European standards?”

Hart says his impression is there are more visible homeless on the streets these days — adding his Irish friends beg to differ.

“But crime has gone up enormously,” he says. “I’m pretty sure it’s gangrelated, to do with drugs … but there’s a lot more casual violence, in an English way — young people getting drunk and looking for trouble.

“I’d never seen a fight in a bar or on the street in Dublin, or anywhere in Ireland for that matter, but I’ve seen lots in English cities. I think there is more of that now, the English-style binge-drinking.”

But for all of that, he says, “you won’t find many people who would say the Celtic tiger is a bad thing.”

Drunken loutism is probably another by-product of a city with a young population with money to spend. As Mount Pearl native Alan Pritchett says, when he moved to Dublin five years ago, he read that 40 per cent of the city was under the age of 25 — and believed it. (Today’s median age is listed as 33.)

“It was quite strange, everywhere there were people my age,” he says.

“Everywhere I went in the city it was like being on a university campus.”

It also struck him that people his

own age — he was 25 at the time — seemed more mature than at home; they were well-travelled, well-educated, and buying houses.

“There are brilliant engineers here that are under 25, doing things that people at home are in their late-30s doing. The population is so young, and that’s what’s out there.

“The school system here is great … they invested in education here in the mid-80s because the economy was doing very poorly and they just planned ahead as much as they could, and I suppose it’s finally paid off.”

Pritchett, who works in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries (“bio-pharm”), says the factory he’s working in cost about $3 billion Cdn. to construct.

“And there’s probably, at any one time, two or three projects that big going,” he says.

While house prices have doubled since he moved — he and his Irish fiancée just purchased a home in Dublin — the medical system has its struggles, crime is up, and there seems to be an incredible number of speedrelated deaths on the roads, he has no plans to leave.

“I don’t know when it started to feel like home here, but it has,” he says. “I think going home, I think I would find it too quiet.”

Though she already decided to move home, Denise Scurrey says she doesn’t want to leave the impression Dublin was a bad place to live.

“There’s a lot of great things about Dublin city as well,” she says. “The architecture and there’s so much history, and they preserve everything over there. It is a beautiful spot and I enjoyed my time there.

“You will meet good people, just like here, who will go out of the way and do anything for you.

“But it is hard sometimes.” stephanie.porter@theindependent.ca

“(There are) serious social problems arising from greatly increased levels of alcohol abuse … the problem involves a particular attitude to drink that has become widespread in our society. This attitude prioritizes drinking to get drunk and binge drinking, rather than having a few social drinks with friends.

Drinking patterns have been influenced by changing lifestyles and expectations, more disposable income and a strong focus on consumerism” — Taoiseach (prime minister) Bertie Ahern, BBC, May 2003.

“As somebody who is a connoisseur of pubs I would certainly say the pubs in Newfoundland are far better than the ones in Ireland … the social network that the pubs represent is better preserved here. For an Irish person to come to Newfoundland (today) is to come home … here it’s still real and familiar.”

— former Taoiseach John Bruton, The Independent, Oct. 2003. “(Recent) incidents demonstrate a sinister casualness and randomness in the use of violence which will come as little surprise to anyone familiar with the scenes outside many pubs and nightclubs at closing time or, indeed, with day-to-day proceedings in our courts …. True, Ireland remains relatively safe. The rate of crime — including offences involving violence — is low by international standards. However … we must pay attention before we are directly affected. There is no room for indifference.”

— Editorial, The Irish Times, Nov. 11, 2005.

“Just as it was a century ago, Ireland is a country in search of a national myth.”

— Fintan O’Toole, The Irish Times, Jan. 20, 2006.

JANUARY 29, 2006

22 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

Snake oil and leech cures Charlatan

By Steven Laird Ronsdale Press, 2005, 96 pages

M

ost of those who may recognize the name of Steven Laird will remember it in connection with the St. John’s bookstore and café he owned and operated for a brief period in the late 1990s. Like the fastchanging landscape of commercial ventures in downtown St. John’s, Laird’s poetry has been, up until recently, an impermanent thing, appearing only in literary magazines, there to be read and then gone with the next issue.

Charlatan, his first collection, provides a more lasting, more fitting home for his work.

Through its five thematic divisions, the poetry of Charlatan turns to the task of deciphering the language of the universe, and of universal elements.

Language is the vehicle here but it is also as much the subject of the poems as anything else. Often, the two are indivisible as in Con’s Hill, the first poem of the collection: You can read these hills in translation but to capture the thrill of their speed

MARK CALLANAN On the shelf you must hold your walking stick against them like this, and allow the squandered rain to roll from their backs with gossip.

This focus on landscape as language is again drawn out in poems like Fewer’s Lane where the wood “opens / its carmine pages” and in Furey’s Hill where the wind is “handwritten in loose cursive.” A further suggestion of the relationship between land and language is made here: the earth itself composes its poetry, it writes itself into being.

The book’s second section, entitled Diction, dives even deeper into the realm of words. In a way, it is perhaps the least successful of the book’s divisions, for while the others manage to engage in linguistic playfulness without becoming self-absorbed, Diction sometimes indulges a little too much in the sound of its own voice. One such piece is Tremors, a poem that plays at wordassociation:

been such a long liedown among the reedy boulders shoulders/shudders

a beautiful lyrical piece and manages to highlight one of the book’s constant preoccupations. “No, the house has not fallen / Into smallness,” the poem begins, “the kind that occupies / Things while you take thirty years / To walk back to them.” It continues down this nostalgic path toward home, building in tension and momentum until the full-stop imposed by a single line set apart in its

own stanza: “That mailbox named my father.”

This is a motif carried throughout the entire book — the idea of naming places, objects, people, as if to name them alone is to conjure them into existence. And there is definitely a magic in knowing the proper names of things.

Children love learning new words, sounding them out, correctly employing them. The word knife may never rival an actual knife in practical application, yet it has its own life in the imagination when conjured. Laird’s poems delight in this conjuring and share that sense of delight with their readers.

Despite the suggestion made by this collection’s title, Laird is certainly no fake. His poems may sometimes have the charlatan’s misleading charm about them, but at their root is a deep sense of connection with both language and the universe it attempts to evoke. Rarely can one find a poet with such stylistic range as Laird, with such sheer passion and casual restraint. Charlatan deserves an audience much larger than it currently commands.

Mark Callanan is a writer and reviewer living in Rocky Harbour. His column returns Feb. 12.

• Recital series with guest artists Alasdair Black (viola), Heather Tuach (cello) and Maureen Volk (piano). D.F. Cook Recital Hall, MUN music school, 8 p.m.

• TaDa events presents Cats, St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre, 8 p.m. Continues until Feb. 5 and Feb. 8-12.

and for details.

• Youth and adult showcases at Mount Pearl’s Frosty Film Festival, Feb. 12, 5-9 p.m., Empire Theatres Mount Pearl. Applications and short film (25 min. max.) from young filmmakers welcome — for ballots, visit your school’s main office. For more, e-mail frostyfilm@aamp.ca.

FEBRUARY 4 • Opera! D.F. Cook Recital Hall, MUN School of Music, 8-10 p.m.

IN THE GALLERIES • Humble Goddess by Nicole Pitcher, Craft Council Gallery, Devon House.

• FLUX and the alchemy of motion: celebrating travel photographer Ryan Davis presents new images from Southeast Asia, China, and India, The Sprout Restaurant.

• Exhibitions by screenprinter Daryl Vocat (Ontario) and video artist Catherine Ross (New York), Eastern Edge Gallery.

• Where Wonder, What Weight by Will Gill and Beth Oberholtzer, The Rooms, 7 p.m.

A relationship is equally suggested between “eclipse and “collapse,” “encroaching” and “crouching.” That the last line, “:groan,” makes clear Laird’s comic intentions is not enough to lift the poem above the level of simple wordplay.

But then, Laird is not one to falsely weight all his work with gravitas.

Sometimes his poetry is happier to “clap its hands and sing, and louder sing” than brood over darker themes. Laird can tell a joke with as much ease as he can slip into the surreal declarations of the jilted lover in A Rose in Your Teeth: if you really loved me your accordion might be red your dress might flicker and your hat might be tilted in a jaunty way, between wild rhinos on the esplanade He can equally engage in deep meditation as in Quarin: “I am left under blank lightning; dry seeds sink in the White Sea at Alexandria.”

Ilderton stands out in the collection as

EVENTS JANUARY 29 • Autobahn, a new play by Neil Labute (Nurse Betty, In the Company of Men).

Directed by Brad Hodder with live music by Pat Boyle and featuring Neil Butler, Ruth Lawrence, Steve O’Connell and more, 2 p.m., Masonic Temple, 753-7900.

• The Avalon Unitarian Fellowship’s regular Sunday service starts 10:30 a.m. at the Anna Templeton Centre, Duckworth Street.

• Memorial University’s dean of medicine, Dr. James Rourke, leads third of four public discussions on health research, 2:30-4 p.m. at the Fluvarium.

Guest speakers will address current research on breast and ovarian cancer.

• Rising Tide Theatre’s Revue 05, directed by Donna Butt, featuring Rick Boland, Petrina Bromley, Glenn Downey, Sean Panting and Jim Payne.

Gander Arts and Culture Centre.

• Soup Theatre Presents Crane Wife, a Japanese folktale told through puppetry

and dance, a collaboration between Darka Erdelji, Jason Smith, Susan Kent, Chris Driedzic and Nicole Rousseau, matinee 2 p.m. LSPU Hall, 753-4531.

• Banff Mountain Film Festival, a collection of the most inspiring and thought-provoking active, environmental, and adventure mountain films at the Inco Innovation Centre, Memorial University, 7-11 p.m. For ticket info call 745-6626 or visit www.banffmountainfestivals.ca.

• Singers Helping Singers concert, with The Boys Ensemble of Shallaway, MUN Chamber Choir, The Philharmonic Choir, Les. Ms., Newman Sound, Lady Cove and Cantus Vocum, 8 p.m., Gower Street United Church.

JANUARY 30 • Journaling Club discusses and practices various techniques for your writing, call Edith Lynch for location, 738-4932.

JANUARY 31 • 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.

FEBRUARY 1 • Folk night at the Ship Pub hosted by , 9:30 p.m.

• Local doc Stealing Mary: last of the Red Indians at Empire Theatres Feb. 1, 7 p.m.

FEBRUARY 2 • MUN Cinema series: Lie with me (Canada 2005, 92 min), 7 p.m., Studio 12, Avalon Mall.

FEBRUARY 3 • Exhibition opening: Where Wonder, What Weight by Will Gill and Beth Oberholtzer, The Rooms, 7 p.m.

• Boyd Chubbs, Rose and Thistle, 6-9 p.m.

COMING UP • Acting workshop: introduction to and advanced Shakespearean text workshops with Danielle Irvine will be offered starting Feb. 11 in St. John’s to help interested actors get the most out of Shakespeare’s text. Classes will be scheduled in a combination of group work and individualized sessions over four weeks, leading to a final performance. E-mail sbts@nfld.comto register

‘You’re free here’ From page 17 “I love when somebody says ‘Oh my God, that story you ran about so and so’s little girl who’s sick with leukemia was just beautiful’,” Penton says. “I’m known for being able to put into words what needs to be said. It’s just the artist in me.”

The artist in Penton has other outlets as well.

She leads the church choir at Mary Queen of the World, where she has played pump organ, autoharp and guitar since she was 11. She also does comedy performances as Grandma Etheridge, a very old lady with dating problems, and is considering going out for the St. John’s Fringe Festival.

Her four children have inherited Penton’s love of music. Jack, 10, dreams of making it in the NHL but plays guitar like his mother, while Mike, 7, likes to make everyone laugh and sings Penton to sleep with songs like Aunt Martha’s Sheep or Chainsaw Earle. Her daughters love to sing as well, and both plan to try out for Canadian Idol; Katie, 17, will audition in St. John’s while Charlotte, 22, will make the trek to Edmonton from Provost, Alta., where she works as a secretary for a fibreglass company.

While many people in the province consider themselves Newfoundlanders first and Canadians second, Penton considers herself a Fogo Islander

above all else. She was born in Coachman’s Cove on the Baie Verte Peninsula, but was adopted at six months and brought to Fogo Island, where she intends to stay.

“I can get up in the morning, and in five steps from my patio I can sit on a rock with a view that encompasses the ocean and just watch the seagulls and listen to a conversation by two older people about how times have changed,” she says.

“You’re free here. You don’t have the constraints of city life. I couldn’t handle the being stuck in traffic. It would be nice to be able to pop over to the theatre and watch a movie, but it’s better to be able to sit on my patio and sip coffee and just do nothing.”

Penton left briefly at the age of 38 to take journalism at the College of the North Atlantic in Stephenville where her oldest daughter Charlotte was studying. However, she didn’t finish the program because young Katie missed home — and admittedly, so did she.

“I missed my environment, my extended family and friends and the trail that I walk on a regular basis encompassing the Atlantic Ocean,” Penton says. “I remember returning in April and walking on that trail with snow to my knees. I didn’t care.

I was home and that walk confirmed it.” bcurties@hotmail.com

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JANUARY 29-FEBRUARY 4, 2006 — PAGE 23

Donna McCarthy and Laurie Clouston

By Ben Curties For the Independent

A

fter winning three awards at the Cannes festival in France last year, advertising producer Donna McCarthy has been shortlisted to go back this year — as a judge.

“It’s up to some guy in Belgium, believe it or not,” says McCarthy, creative director of the St. John’s agency Dory Advertising, musing it would be nice to get a free trip to France.

Not just anyone gets an invite to judge at Cannes; McCarthy is one of only three Canadian nominees. But not just anyone has 400 national and international awards to her name, either. McCarthy’s secret: be funny.

Fortunately, she lives in Newfoundland, a pretty funny place.

“The way people speak out here is funny, and there are a lot of funny people,” says the former Torontonian. “If you pick that up and use it, it’s going to be better than any of the stuff that’s being done anywhere else.”

McCarthy finds inspiration everywhere, from improv comedians to supermarket lineups. She also draws heavily on locals for radio voices, recruiting the likes of CODCO founder Andy Jones and St. John’s Mayor Andy Wells — both of whom volunteered to be in ads for the Nickle Film Festival.

PaulDaly/The Independent

One hilarious spot has the deadpan mayor taking credit for the entire festival.

“He’s brilliant,” McCarthy says of Wells, recounting how she explained to him the basic premise of the ad and let him go off on tape. “I actually really liked him afterwards because he’s very funny.”

From Hatching, Matching and Dispatching star Jonny Harris to Amy House — is there funny person McCarthy hasn’t managed to recruit?

“I’d love to have Mary Walsh in the studio,” McCarthy sighs. “It’s come close a couple of times on some pro-bono stuff. I’m sure it will happen. It just has to be the right project.”

With so much talent in her adopted home, McCarthy has little need to look elsewhere.

“If it’s clearly recognized that the best comics in this country are coming from Newfoundland, then there’s obviously something going on here,” she says. “Marketing agencies have to tap into that, especially if they’re situated here.”

Still, McCarthy says many local agencies choose Toronto or Vancouver for both talent and production of private and government contracts.

She says Dory Advertising is trying to let people know they create and produce award-winning radio, television and print ads in St. John’s.

Hunky Dory St. John’s advertising agency making its mark with local talent

See “A new kind,” page 25

VLT loophole closing; bars to start pulling machines

By Ben Curties For the Independent

B

ar owners say Newfoundland and Labrador’s newest VLT crackdown will hurt an industry already reeling from last year’s smoking ban.

The province is set to begin removing video lottery terminals from any location with more than five terminals, closing a loophole that saw many bars divide themselves into sub-bar “sites” to access more VLTs. “The existing business will be hardpressed to survive even without any reduction of VLTs,” claims Marcel Etheridge, president of the Beverage

Industry Association of Newfoundland.

“If this goes through there will be a total collapse of the industry.”

“This industry has gone into recession,” agrees bar owner Rick Young.

“With the additional loss of VLT revenue, this is going to impact our business even further. It’s going to make things very difficult.”

Etheridge and Young sit in Young’s so-called “multi-site” building in St. John’s, which encompasses Stanley’s, The Rec Room, The Green Room and The Bella Vista. A lone customer plays a VLT while an overhead TV broadcasts live poker. Young’s business currently has 20 VLTs, but starting in April the Atlantic Lottery Corporation will

carry through on government policy by removing three machines a year from his building until he’s down to five machines.

The removal policy is part of a government initiative to lower VLT machines in the province by 15 per cent from the current 2,687. The province’s VLT regulations currently allow bars to have five machines “per site.”

Businesses argued that if a mall could have three bars in a single building then bar “locations” could also consist of multiple sites, each with five VLTs. The Atlantic Lotto officials agreed, as long as each site had a bar with staff, See “Multi-sites,” page 24

Rick Young

Paul Daly/The Independent

24 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JANUARY 29, 2006

A taxing effort Recovery of school debts crawls along

By Ben Curties For the Independent

T

he province’s Finance minister says government has collected $1.6 million of $48.3 million in outstanding school taxes.

Loyola Sullivan tells The Independent his ministry has sorted through enough of the 29,000 outstanding accounts to whittle the remaining amount unaccounted for to $34.2 million.

Of the $14.1 million processed last year, government collected $1.6 million and forgave $8 million due to low income. Much of the remainder consisted of forgiven interest under a separate amnesty program for people who worked out payment plans before the end of 2005.

At the current rate of collection, government will collect about $6 million in total, just shy of the $7 million to $8 million Sullivan predicted when he announced his department’s contentious plan to collect unpaid school taxes within two years.

Much of the opposition to the plan

Loyola Sullivan

came from the government’s decision to charge retroactive compound interest on accounts dating back to 1992, the last year school tax was charged. Many people ended up owing many times more than their original debts in interest charges.

Sullivan eventually announced that anyone who worked out payment before the end of 2005 had the option

of paying the principal and three years of interest.

Anyone who missed the cut-off date will have to pay the full amount.

“There were a lot of people out there who had the financial means who incurred a debt and were aware of it for the last several months and procrastinated on that — we can’t control those elements,” Sullivan says.

“Those are their decisions they have to make when they get the notice,” he adds. “I would think several months is pretty sufficient time for someone to come and see us and try to work out an arrangement.”

Sullivan says people were notified of their debts through the Canadian Revenue Agency, which has withheld some tax refunds.

He says his government hired six full-time workers to help university work-term students wade through the accounts, and estimated the cost of the recovery program was between one seventh and one quarter of the revenues recovered.

Collections breakdown ✐ ✐ ✐ ✐ ✐ ✐ ✐

$48.3 million total outstanding taxes $1.6 million recovered $14.1 million processed $34.2 million still outstanding $8 million forgiven due to low income $6 million projected recovery (based on current 11 or 12 per cent recovery rate) $7 to $8 million predicted recovery rate at start of program

Bank-merger odds fall after win

By Stuart Laidlaw Torstar wire service

B

ank shares that had surged on bets that mergers might finally come to Canada’s financial sector with a Conservative majority government are now deflating with the reality of another minority Parliament.

“The market is betting that bank mergers are not going to happen,” Tom Kersting, a bank analyst with Edward Jones, says.

Shares in the Bank of Montreal fell $1.57, or 2.3 per cent, to $67.03 on the Toronto Stock Exchange last week, while the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce shares fell $1.43, or 1.8 per cent, to $78.35. The smallest of Canada’s Big Five banks, the two were seen as takeover targets if mergers became a possibility.

In the closing weeks before the federal election, shares in both banks surged as it became clear that the Conservative Party led by Stephen Harper would win, possibly even forming a majority government.

Some of those gains began to be shaved ø, however, as it became evident that a majority government was less likely.

“You’d have to assume there’s a greater likelihood of these bank mergers happening if there was a majority Conservative government,” Gavin Graham, director of investments at Guardian Group of Funds in Toronto, says.

Canadian banks have effectively been kept from merging since 1998 when then-finance minister Paul Martin blocked two planned mergers, one combining BMO with the Royal

“The market is betting that bank mergers are not going to happen.”

Tom Kersting, bank analyst Bank of Canada and the other coupling the Toronto Dominion Bank with CIBC. A report on CNBC on election day saying the Bank of Nova Scotia would bid for BMO if there was a Conservative majority sent BMO shares briefly surging that day. Both banks refused to

comment.

Plans by the outgoing Liberals to publish a policy on bank mergers were delayed several times. The guidelines were originally to be completed by June 2004, but were postponed by the federal election that month. After several more delays, the idea was simply shelved.

Kersting says hopes that the stalemate might change with a new government were dashed with the election of another minority government, saying the fact that the Conservatives will have fewer seats than the outgoing Liberals probably ensures that there will be not movement on the issue.

“I don’t know what the Conservatives would have to gain” by putting forward a bank merger policy with a minority government, he says. “For bank mergers, it’s going to mean more

of the same … Clearly, the market is disappointed.”

Mergers would probably lead to branch closings and lost jobs as the newly combined bank looked for ways to trim costs, and no government wants to be seen as bringing in a policy to encourage that, Kersting says.

“If they tried, they could find themselves right back on the campaign trail,” he says.

Conservative MP Monte Solberg, whose name has been raised as a possible finance minister in the new government, says bank mergers would not be a priority for his party.

Banks have responded to the policy vacuum by expanding abroad. BMO, TD and Royal have expanded in the U.S. market, while Scotiabank has focused on the developing world, particularly Latin America.

‘Multi-sites’ trimming down From page 23 and many bars installed new infrastructure accordingly.

However, government officials now say they want to restore the spirit of the original law in the spirit of competition.

“The original intent was not to have multisites,” Finance Minister Loyola Sullivan says.

“There may have been avenues to generously interpret what it was, and that’s why the decision was to reduce multi-sites to five machines.”

Young says he feels betrayed by Atlantic Lotto and government, having spent money to comply with the rules — only to have the rules change.

“The businesses went and did what Atlantic Lotto wanted them to do, and built the infrastructure, and are being punished for being too successful,” Etheridge adds.

Sullivan says government wants to establish fairness in the system in line with the original intent.

“If we’re going to reduce to 2,280 machines at the end of the day, and we allow multi-sites, there’s going to be a lot of areas that don’t have the opportunity to participate on a level footing,” he says.

REVENUES LOST Etheridge says that bar revenues are down 1015 per cent since the smoking ban came into effect on July 1, 2005. He wonders why government doesn’t allow VLT numbers to come down through attrition.

“We’ve had approximately 20 bars gone under now, and another 30-40 are going to be gone in another month,” he says, visibly angry.

“Within six months they’re going to have machines coming back like crazy, so let the machines come back and don’t send them back out.”

Sullivan doesn’t believe attrition rates will accomplish the government’s reduction goals, saying that most of the bars closing will be single sites.

“How many multi-sites have closed their doors compared to the single sites?” he asks. “I doubt if there’s any, or very few.”

Etheridge confirms that some multi-sites are no longer staffing some of their bars.

“You might see some places doing that right now,” he says. “I guess they realize that the government is going to take the machines anyway, so they might as well cut their costs as fast as possible in order to survive because they’re going to be down to five machines.”

Young says he staffs all of his bars “when he can,” adding he’s had to cut his staff by a third since the smoking ban. He suggests Atlantic Lotto has unofficially relaxed their staffing rule because of the industry collapse.

“It’s not being enforced,” he says.

Atlantic Lotto spokesman Robert Bourgeois says sites that break the rules could lose their VLTs. “Officially, the bar must be staffed,” he says.

“And if it’s not, I would ask anyone who’s aware of that to contact us so we can look into it. We haven’t had any complaints about that but certainly if we had we’d look into it and we are going to go around and examine what the situation is and ensure that bars are in compliance with that.”

Atlantic Canada collected $464 million in net receipts from VLTs in 2004-05, $118 million of which went to the Newfoundland and Labrador government. But Bourgeois says VLT revenues are already down 20 per cent since the smoking ban came in.

Young and Etheridge say any lost gambling revenue is going to countries such as the Cayman Islands, which operate gambling websites. Etheridge types “online gambling” into Google and comes up with 11.2 million results.

“Everybody can go in their homes and gamble away, and that money will go to another part of the world and we get no benefit whatsoever,” he says. “It doesn’t provide jobs. It doesn’t develop any businesses. I don’t understand that.”

JANUARY 29, 2006

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 25

Don’t expect tax cuts right away Reducing the GST first in a long line

T

axes always lurk in the background of election campaigns.

But this time, taxes were front and centre in the party platforms.

Canadians could choose between two opposing visions on how to relieve their tax burden and increase disposable income.

The incumbent Liberals proposed a variety of wide-ranging income tax cuts in their mini-budget last November.

Some measures would be phased in only by 2010. But others — such as a $500 increase in the basic personal exemption and a one percentage point decrease in the tax rate on the first $35,595 of income — took effect right away.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives proposed to cut the seven per cent goods and services tax to six per cent right away — and to five per cent by the end of their mandate.

This is a promise that incoming Prime Minister Stephen Harper can’t break, even with a fragile minority government. It was a centrepiece of his campaign and one of his top five priorities.

“The GST cut is fundamental to his platform. His credibility would be seriously in doubt if he didn’t do it,” says Finn Poschmann, associate research director for the C.D. Howe Institute in Toronto.

But there’s a problem with lowering the GST rate right away.

The first income tax reductions announced by the Liberals have already passed into law. The Canada Revenue Agency has sent out millions of tax forms, incorporating the changes for the 2005 tax year.

“Can Harper change the GST rate midway through 2006?” Poschmann asks. “It’s unlikely. He may propose looking at it in 2007 instead.”

The delay makes sense. With the Liberals’ income tax measures in place for the first year, the Conservatives may not have the revenue needed to pay for their GST promise.

However, there’s danger ahead. The provinces may want to grab some of

ELLEN ROSEMAN that GST money for their own purposes.

It all boils down to “fiscal imbalance,” a major talking point in the campaign. Some provinces feel they give more tax revenue to Ottawa than they get back in benefits.

In their election platform released Jan. 13, the Conservatives promised to address the fiscal imbalance. But they didn’t include any cost estimates for dealing with it.

Global Insight (Canada), an economic consulting firm, has a solution. Let the provinces take up the tax room vacated by Ottawa, managing director Dale Orr says.

By reducing the GST, the Conservatives can give provinces the ability to increase their sales taxes by one percentage point, “to get a start on reducing the fiscal imbalance,” Orr says.

A tax cut for seniors could take effect in the Conservatives’ first budget, says Don Drummond, chief economist for the TD Bank and a former federal financial official.

The Conservatives promised to increase the pension income credit to $2,000 (from $1,000). This would allow taxpayers over 65 to get more money from a pension plan or RRSP free of tax.

Such a change would be very easy to implement, Drummond says, requiring a change to just one line in the income tax return.

Not so for other tax changes proposed by the Conservatives, which are more difficult to implement and could take years to go into effect.

For example, Harper made a latecampaign announcement that he wanted to reduce the impact of capital gains taxes on sales of stocks or property.

Taxes would be deferred as long as the seller reinvested the proceeds with-

Prime Minister-elect Stephen Harper

in six months.

“Don’t look for anything on capital gains taxes in the 2006 budget,” says Poschmann.

“Getting the right legislation and regulations will take some time and careful thought. Otherwise, it could be problematic.”

The Conservatives have allocated $150 million a year to finance the proposed capital gains tax deferral. That may not be enough, especially since it’s not clear how the new rules would actu-

Patrick Price/Reuters

ally work.

Given the “difficult reception” a capital gains tax deferral would probably receive from the other parties, says Orr, “the Conservatives may well decide to put this item on the back burner in their first budget.”

Finally, there’s another pressing tax issue for the Conservatives, left over from the Liberal regime.

After the income trust debacle, the Liberals promised investors more tax relief on their corporate dividends.

That change is to go into effect for the 2006 tax year. But no legislation or regulations are yet in place.

It’s clear that hard choices will have to be made by the incoming government. Promises have to be paid for and new laws have to be steered through a Parliament. So, don’t hang your hat on getting any tax cuts, except for the GST reduction, which may not come in until next year.

— Torstar wire service

‘A new kind of model’ From page 23 Dory’s local clients include City Honda, Telelink and the LSPU Hall.

The agency even handles radio production for other ad agencies — another commonly outsourced service.

“It’s a new kind of model for an ad agency in that we do work with other agencies,” she says. “That’s not something that you typically see, but it’s working very well for us.”

The 20-year ad veteran attributes Dory’s success to a simple business model in which the people pitching the ads are the ones making them, unlike one massive agency she worked at in Toronto where female executives pitched tampon ads and ultimately delegated them to 22-year-old men who wanted to make beer commercials.

Dory is based on the Taxi agency in Toronto, which restricts its model to an accounts person, a writer, a client, and an art director — the number of people who could comfortably fit in a taxi.

Dory’s staff stands at seven; presumably, you can fit a few more people in a dory.

Three years ago, Target Marketing in St. John’s asked McCarthy to come down from Toronto to be a creative director.

“I didn’t know much about New-

foundland, but Toronto was becoming a very tense market for me,” she says.

“It’s a difficult thing to make a living in advertising in Toronto, not because there’s not a lot of jobs but because of what’s expected of you in terms of your time and energy and the political side which I’m not very good at anyways. I was just at a point in my life, with two little kids, where this sounded like a healthy choice.”

McCarthy moved to Portugal Cove with her husband Jerry Taylor and her two sons James and Max, and fell in love with Newfoundland. But as time went by, she began to feel stifled, eventually starting up a new company with former co-worker Laurie Clouston.

With three initial clients to defray start up costs, the two started working through studio partner Record Time.

They officially launched their tiny Dory agency a year ago and started racking up awards.

“We’re trying to get back to just having insight and creative solutions that have been judged around the world to be really solid,” she says. “That’s as breakthrough as someone can get. All these other layers that big agencies tend to provide clients with — it’s just money generating stuff. It’s really not in the clients’ best interests as far as we’re concerned.”

Stop a heart attack before it starts.

Your support is vital.

Research into the root causes of heart disease and stroke will help millions live longer, healthier lives. As a leading funder of heart and stroke research in Canada, we need your help.

Call 1-888-HSF-INFO or visit www.heartandstroke.ca

Shelley Bryant, M.Sc., LL.B., is pleased to announce the opening of her legal practice.

Bryant Law Office focuses on four main practice areas: Collaborative Family Law, a new and innovative legal model for separation and divorce without court proceedings, Personal Injury, Wills & Estates, and Elder Law. She looks forward to serving new and existing clients from her office on Bates Hill.

4 Bates Hill PO Box 2114, Stn C St. John’s, NL A1C 5R6 T: 709 753-9339 F: 709 753-9755 bryantlaw@nf.aibn.com

26 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JANUARY 29, 2006

200511-1534-CB

Location: St. John's, NL

PRODUCT ENGINEER

Mobile Computing Analysts Ad #: Mobile Computing Analysts-CB

Rutter Inc. is a publicly traded (TSX:RUT) global enterprise providing innovative, 21st century products and engineering solutions to multiple sectors, including marine operations, oil and gas, defence and aerospace. To support ongoing work and upcoming initiatives, we have an immediate requirement in our Research & Development (R&D) department for a Product Engineer.

Charles River Consultants has provided Technical Help Desk Support, Application Development and High Definition Imaging personnel to Major Corporations for long-term assignments for over twentythree (23) years. We are currently searching for two additional Mobile Computing Analysts.

PRODUCT ENGINEER – VERIFICATION Reporting to the Director of Research & Development, the successful candidate will be responsible for independently applying electronic hardware and software test theories and principles to verify product performance. In this key position, the successful candidate will be required to write programs to validate product functionality; execute test cases and gather statistics to allow for analysis of test data; analyze test data to identify incorrect behavior and potential causes; isolate and reproduce errors and identify root causes; report bugs for action and resolution by project team; develop and maintain testing documentation; research and develop new test techniques and strategies to maximize efficiency; and generate accurate product documentation for user manuals and training material.

Responsibilities include: • Mobile and Remote Access Platform System Configuration • Work in conjunction with the Mobile Remote Experts group to identify and resolve issues with remote remediation efforts to patch and update remote machines • Trouble Shooting remote connectivity issues • New and Emerging Technology Evaluation/Piloting • Off-Site Conference Remote Access Solutions and Support • Training users on procedures and policies, as well as the use of Firm's remote access tools • Train divisional helpdesks on supporting all remote access methods and tools • Mobile System and Technology Administration • Advises client users on the capabilities of client Mobile Computing and Remote access capabilities and recommend the best fit for their requirement - Supporting Dial up, Broadband, VPN, Citrix, and various other remote technologies • Administration of authentication tools such as SecurID and Active Directory • Application support including but not limited to Windows XP, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer and various other browsers, VPN, Firewall, and Antivirus software • Supporting high profile clients including top level executives and managing directors • Supporting wireless devices such as RIM Black/Blueberries • Assisting users with the post cloning process to configure freshly built machines to connect properly and carry over their settings from regular profile.

A self-starter who enjoys working in and contributing to a culture of information sharing, cooperation and team effectiveness, the successful applicant will also possess: • A relevant university degree, preferably in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a computer-related discipline.

• Excellent documentation and communication skills, in addition to fluency in spoken and written English.

• Skills in a Windows and Unix environment – scripting, system administration, and software development (C/C++) are considered assets.

• Excellent troubleshooting skills and ability/desire to suggest improvements in order to meet customer needs and expectations.

• Innovative, independent thought combined with the ability to work in a collaborative team environment.

Skills/Qualifications

Rutter offers a very competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package, which includes an Employee Share Purchase Plan and profit sharing through a progressive bonus system. This is an exceptional opportunity for professional growth within a publicly traded company.

We thank all candidates for their interest; however, only those selected for interviews will be contacted.

• Computer Science Degree or Diploma in Computers preferred - Certifications would be considered an asset • Minimum of 5 years experience required • Extensive knowledge of the following: • Windows XP • VPN • Broadband(DSLCableISDN) • Active Directory • Wireless (802.11 b/getup/IP) • Blackberry • Candidate has to pass security background checks, including financial • Documentation experience with a minimum of 5 - 10 years business experience

Rutter is an equal opportunity employer.

Please forward your resume (in confidence) on or before February 17, 2006 to: Product Engineer – Verification

Rutter Research & Development 22 Pearl Place St. John’s, NL Canada A1E 4P3

Please email résumés with salary range expectations to hrtech@crc.net and include Mobile Computing Analysts-CB in the subject line.

Email: careers@rutter.ca

Financial Consultants Ad #: CB-02-012409

C A R E E R E L E VAT I O N Sheppard Case Architects has an exciting career opportunity for an ARCHITECTURAL TECHNICIAN.

Investors Group Financial Services has been a leader in Canadian financial planning for over 75 years. With a solid reputation and market leading systems and support, Investors Group is looking for driven, business-minded professionals across Atlantic Canada who are only satisfied with the best life has to offer.

Interested applicants with a minimum of five years experience should send a resume to Roxanne Seymour at info@sheppardcase.nf.ca.

Key Qualifications include: • An outgoing, confident personality • A strong sense of independence and desire to succeed • A professional demeanor • A proven track record of success • A natural instinct for networking and building relationships • A dedication to professional development

Sheppard Case Architects is a full-service architectural firm based in St. John’s. We provide innovative building solutions to a broad spectrum of clients across Atlantic Canada.

Team Leader- Crane Crew

Location: Labrador City,NL

Ad #: CR-05228

Reporting to the Superintendent - Main Service Shops, the Team Leader (Crane Crew) will be responsible to ensure maintenance activities are carried out to fixed plant, mobile equipment and associated facilities in a safe and efficient manner to enable the Maintenance department to meet the present and future needs of the business.

The successful candidate will under his/ her control:

Work Experience:

• Ensure all work is carried out safely • Ensure job procedures are followed correctly and Maintenance activities are carried out as planned • Monitor compliance to maintenance schedules and provide timely feedback to Maintenance leadership • Ensure data integrity is maintained to ensure maintenance information systems are updated and accurate • You are a highly motivated individual with strong communication skills; you have the ability both to work independently and to contribute effectively to a team effort

Essential

Desirable

Essential

• 3 year Technology diploma • Post Secondary Education

• Newfoundland Grade XII or equivalent

• Business experience with maintenance related activities • Basic computer literacy

Desirable • Overhead Crane and Elevator Maintenance Experience • Leadership experience • First Aid Certificate • Font line supervisory experience • Familiarity with relevant regulation

Compagnie minière IOC

While not required, the following advantages would be recognized: • Professional designation from or current enrollment in the Certified Financial Planners Council of Canada program • Experience in the financial services industry • Completion of licensing for mutual funds and insurance Successful Financial Consultants with Investors Group can expect the limitless financial rewards and personal freedoms that come from independently operating their own business. Together with the finest support systems in the industry, their level of success is determined by their own activity. There are also management opportunities available for the right candidates.

To find out what your true potential is, send your resume and cover letter quoting reference #CB-02-012409 to: Consultant Resumes Kim Jordan Suite 1409, Purdy's Wharf Tower 2 1969 Upper Water St., Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 3R7 Fax (902) 422-5334

JANUARY 29, 2006

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 27

Financial Advisors Ad #: 04-227-CB

Management Ad #: JAN09M-CB SS Subway Ltd established in 1986 with the first Subway restaurants in CANADA, is now hiring:

Location: St. John's, Gander, Marystown and Bay Roberts, NL, Canada Company URL: http://www.lfs.ca Contact Name: Geraldine Sturge, Senior Administrative Assistant Optifund Branch Manager Contact E-mail: geraldine.sturge@LFS.ca

• Location Management

Be Daring! Join the LFS Team!

• Assistant Managers • Night Management

Laurentian Financial Services (LFS) is part of Desjardins Financial Security, with assets of over $80 billion, the 6th largest financial services organization in Canada . We are a Canadian leader in the financial services industry with a dynamic coast-to-coast network, comprised of 43 financial centres and more than 1,100 associate partners.

LFS is a full service financial services provider with access to multiple insurer and investment fund products. Our track record is based on the quality of support services delivered to associates with a company wide commitment to professionalism. We believe in listening to our associate's needs for providing the products and tools needed to maximize their value in meeting clients' financial planning needs.

Due to our exceptional growth we are looking for individuals to join our newly established financial centres in St. John's, Gander, Marystown and Bay Roberts, NL in the role of Financial Advisors.

Join the LFS Team and improve your business by: We are looking for people who are: 1. Staying independent, while maintain access to • Entrepreneurial a multi-disciplinary team and qualified experts • Problem solvers 2. Receiving financial backing to purchase viable • Out-going blocks of business • Commitment to quality 3. Having access to multiple insurers and products and • Hard working more than 60 mutual funds and segregated fund companies • Professional 4. A competitive pooled compensation bonus structure • Service oriented and immediate vesting • Computer literate 5. Incentive plans based on multiple insurers' products, • Committed to continuing education and mutual and segregated funds personal development 6. New associate training and mentoring programs • Experienced in sales (an asset but not necessary) which are unique in the industry 7. Market planning and support Interested individuals are invited to apply directly to Geraldine Sturge, 8. Business continuation support Senior Administrative Assistant Optifund Branch Manager via e-mail 9. Leading edge technology at geraldine.sturge@LFS.ca quoting Ref#: 04-227-CB.

for their multi-unit operation in St. John’s, Mt. Pearl, Paradise.

Successful candidates would have experience in the food service and/or hospitality industry, demonstrate mature business judgement, and hold strong problem solving and communication skills.

Responsibilities may include: Maintenance of all standards relevant to the franchise.

Financial record keeping & banking.

Marketing Human Resources Cost Control

Competitive Remuneration may include: NEW Progressive Salary & Quarterly Bonus structure Health & Dental Insurance ADD & Life Insurance Health & Fitness Benefits Flexible Scheduling Professional Development Training benefits To arrange a confidential interview, please forward your resume and cover letter, quoting JAN09M-CB, to: SS Subway Ltd Human Resources Dept.

25 Kenmount Road, Suite 204 St. John’s, NL A1B 1W1 Or by email subway@nfld.net

All hot and bothered?

Business Manager • Ad #: CB-Business Manager

We understand. It’s those columns of truly smokin’ numbers you found yourself working on at 3am. You’re burning the midnight oil because as our Business Manager you’ve got a lot to do; deal with the day-to-day management of our accounts, prepare and maintain budgets, liaise with the accounting department, and make sure each and every one of our clients feel warm and fuzzy inside. But what makes you truly sizzle is all that hot new business you bring in, and we are 100% cool with that (though we do find the air-conditioning in November a little much). You’ve been pushing the mercury ever higher since you finished your business degree, but somehow you still manage to order new printer cartridges before the old ones run out and make sure the mail gets through. You bring a business degree and 2-5 years experience and we’ll bring an asbestos mouse pad. If you’re familiar with our industry, we’ll even throw in a fire-retardant desk chair.

Primary responsibilities will include:

Other qualifications:

• Prepare proposals and budgets for new business development.

• Develop and maintain high-level client relations with existing and potential clients.

• Conduct research and prepare quotes to support the development of proposals for new business opportunities.

• Network with new and existing clients to promote Wavelights Product Inc. • Complete monthly billings activities.

• Prepare and maintain budgets, quotes, and estimates for clients and accounting department.

• Secure job and purchase order numbers for projects.

• Match expenses with applicable receipts and submit to accounting department.

• Complete office administrative work including the ordering of supplies and receive and sending mail on a daily basis.

• Microsoft Office; Microsoft Manager; Internet • Interpersonal and communication skills required for working with clients and internal departments.

• Problem solving.

• Ability to work as part of a team.

• Good organizational skills and ability to multi-task.

This position is located in St. John’s, NL, and is being offered on a permanent basis. Please e-mail your application, stating the position title (CB-Business Manager), to Human Resources at april@m5.ca. Applications will be accepted up to February 3rd, 2006. For further information on Wavelight Productions Inc., please visit our web site at www.wavelight.ca.

Wavelight Productions Inc. is an equal opportunity employer offering a competitive salary and excellent benefit package.

EDI Administrator Ad #: EDI CB

E-operations Manager Ad #: CB-EOP/2306

Charles River Consultants has provided Technical Support, Application Development and High Definition Imaging personnel to major corporations for over twenty-five (25) years. We are currently searching for an EDI Administrator for St. John's, Newfoundland.

The EDI Administrator responsibilities include: • Analyze, design and develop specifications for enhancements and extensions with EDI application interfaces and maps.

• Coordinate EDI testing and trading partner implementation initiatives.

• Coordinate with application development and DBA functions to ensure availability and reliability of EDI systems to meet business demands.

• Ensure that EDI - related production and procedures are maintained and executed, including development, change requests, and enterprise integration projects.

• Experience interacting with clients to ensure all issues are resolved in a professional and timely manner.

Required Skills and Experience: • Combination of education and several years of experience in the EDI field.

To apply, please email résumés with salary range expectations to hrtech@crc.net and include EDI CB in the subject line.

Maternity Leave Position

Are you miser approved?

We're looking for an e-operations manager, specializing in the design, development and administration of our web-based advertising medium. You're a powerful combination of IT and ideas. You understand marketing and consumer promotions, specifically for the web. Both sides of your brain are in sync... the technical side and the creative side. As our e-operations manager you can speak AP, PHP, MySQL and are fluent in CSS and XHTML. You'll work directly with our sales and marketing team and be responsible for the day-to-day general operations and management of our exciting new advertising medium. Post secondary education in the related fields with previous experience would be a definite asset.

WCYi is seeking a qualified individual for their business consulting division.

The position will involve preparing business plans and related duties. The Business Consultant will also be responsible for project, client and associate management. The successful candidate possesses a university degree in commerce and/or business administration. They will have a minimum of 2 years of experience in business planning. Previous experience and/or knowledge of current funding programs and experience in working with small business owners would be considered an asset. See www.wandacuffyoung.ca for further information.

Please forward your resume and cover letter stating expected salary and listing three references, in confidence to WCYi by February 1, 2006.

Attention: Dawn Green WCYi 842 Conception Bay Highway, Suite 1 Conception Bay South, NL A1X 7T4 Fax: 709-834-4650 Email: dawn@wandacuffyoung.ca No phone calls please.

Send your resume quoting #CB-EOP/2306 and cover letter to the address below before February 3, 2006 or email april@m5.ca.

No phone calls, please.

Human Resources P.O. Box 13305. 4th Floor.

5 Job Street. St. John's. NL. A1B 4B7 miser.ca is an equal opportunity employer offering a competitive salary and excellent benefits package.

28 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JANUARY 29, 2006

WEEKLY DIVERSIONS ACROSS 1 Irish parliament 5 B.C. poet Phyllis ___ 9 Food, slangily 13 Recedes 17 Subcontinental prefix 18 Needle case 19 Tomato variety 20 Streetcar 21 Canadian precision pilots 23 Former 25 Post-secondary institution 26 Express appreciation to 28 Positive electrode 29 Sort of ending?

30 Blue flag 31 To and ___ 32 Up in the air 35 Like happy families 38 Italian one 41 Agree (with) 42 ___ Lanka 43 Regatta blade 44 Wing-like 45 Roman greeting 46 Ocean vessel 50 Togo’s neighbour 51 Crossed out 52 Virtuoso 53 Mineral: suffix 54 Gland that responds to stress 56 Indolently 58 Not: prefix

59 Two-syllable foot (poet.)

60 Dramatic domain 63 One in M¸nchen 64 1900 in Rome 65 N.B. summer time 68 Notice of intent to marry 69 Statistician’s rate 72 Price ___ 73 Ailing 74 Slapstick ammo 75 Shortened alias 76 Hindu spring festival 77 Before: prefix 78 Erasing key 82 Typeface feature 83 Overfished Atlantic species 84 Mine entrance 85 Scandinavian rug 86 Owl (Fr.) 89 Bunches 91 Set of assumptions 95 Capable of changing to fit 97 Square in London 99 Polynesian necklaces 100 French in 101 ___ dixit 102 Counterpart of lui 103 Alley 104 Darn!

105 Lice eggs 106 Throw

DOWN 1 Frisbee or CD 2 Part of A.D. 3 Object of worship 4 One of poor moral character 5 Put on the scales 6 Peut-___ 7 Bloom-to-be 8 Where to get a steakfrites 9 Area in front of the hockey net 10 Wind instrument 11 City in Siberia 12 Buddhist temple 13 Prefix relating to a people or culture 14 Vivacity 15 Kind of eagle 16 Peter Pan pirate 22 Banting and ___ 24 Potato fungus 27 Belonging to him 30 Pelvic bones 31 N.B.’s tree: balsam ___ 32 It’s between Pickering and Whitby (Ont.) 33 Not taped 34 Certain religious vow 35 One of N.W.T.’s eight official languages 36 Japanese carp 37 California wine valley

38 Capital of Mongolia 39 Grandma, to some 40 Kind of thermometer 42 He designed the maple leaf on our flag 44 “Excuse me ...”

46 Old sailors 47 Underground worker 48 Impassive 49 Tropical plant used in cosmetics 50 Native prairie grass: blue ___ 55 Judicial opinions 57 Damp and chilly 60 Tsp’s larger cousin 61 Tresses 62 Sword and sandals movie 64 P.M. Pearson, to pals 66 Spanish artist Salvador 67 Work week whoop 70 Blondie’s shriek 71 Treaty 74 Cushion 76 Receiver alternative 78 Boxing match 79 Most secure 80 Surrey summer time 81 Political cartoonist Terry Mosher 82 End of year-end song 83 Thicket of trees 85 Puts potatoes through the mill 86 First black Canadian to win the Victoria

Cross 87 Inkling 88 French bathtub

89 Skier’s pick-me-up?

90 Arm bone 91 Moisten plants

92 Allied victory site of WWII 93 Snaky swimmers

94 Very (Fr.) 96 Say further 98 Start of cure?

WEEKLY STARS ARIES - MAR 21/APR 20 You're called into action at work, Aries. Prepare yourself mentally for a challenging week ahead.

There will be no time to party or relax, as all eyes will be on you.

TAURUS - APR 21/MAY 21 You are put to the test, Taurus, when a coworker is absent from work for a few days. It will be your responsibility to cover for this person. Show higher-ups you can handle it.

GEMINI - MAY 22/JUN 21 Don't shy away when a challenge is presented to you, Gemini.

Now's your chance to prove to others that you have what it takes to get the job done. A little help from friends could be a benefit.

CANCER - JUN 22/JUL 22 A work opportunity arises on Friday, Cancer. Don't check out early just because the weekend

has arrived. Put in a few extra hours to finish a project.

LEO - JUL 23/AUG 23 A getaway is just what you need, Leo. Pack light and head out on your own for a much-needed rest. If others look at you strangely, just smile and continue with your plans.

VIRGO - AUG 24/SEP 22 A surprise is in store for midweek, Virgo. It has romance written all over it. This could be the opportunity you've been waiting for. Use it to your advantage.

LIBRA - SEP 23/OCT 23 Misunderstandings at work put you in the hot seat, Libra. Cool down flaring tempers with some well- crafted words. Expect opposition to your apologies.

SCORPIO - OCT 24/NOV 22 You can't fit another thing into your week, Scorpio, so why try?

Slack off after Wednesday - you deserve and need some time to yourself for a change.

SAGITTARIUS - NOV 23/DEC 21 Put the breaks on that big idea you have, Sagittarius. It really is too good to be true. Trust others when they offer their opinions, because they know what's right.

CAPRICORN - DEC 22/JAN 20 You're acting selfishly, Capricorn, and making enemies in the process. Remember, the world doesn't revolve around you, so give others some time to shine.

AQUARIUS - JAN 21/FEB 18 A responsibility at home calls you away from work for a few days.

Don't let it worry you. Your supervisor will understand that this is important business.

PISCES - FEB 19/MAR 20 Stop and smell the roses, Pisces,

instead of just running from one appointment to another. Enjoy the scenery for a change.

FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS JANUARY 29 Ed Burns, actor (38) JANUARY 30 Christian Bale, actor (32) JANUARY 31 Justin Timberlake, singer (25) FEBRUARY 1 Brian Krause, actor (37) FEBRUARY 2 Christie Brinkley, model (52) FEBRUARY 3 Maura Tierney, actress (41) FEBRUARY 4 Natalie Imbruglia, singer (31)

Fill in the grid so that each row of nine squares, each column of nine and each section of nine (three squares by three) contains the numbers 1 through 9 in any order.

There is only one solution to each puzzle. Solutions, tips and computer program available at www.sudoko.com SOLUTION ON PAGE 31

JANUARY 29, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 29

By Damien Cox Torstar wire service

S

oon, Mario Lemieux will no longer own any part of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Last week, he decided he will no longer skate for the team.

Betting men, you have to figure, would certainly start leaning toward wagering that this team won’t be alive in its current home beyond 2007.

There’s still hope, of course, and Lemieux made it clear last week at his retirement announcement that (a) his decision wasn’t linked to the questionable future of the Penguins and (b) that he still believes the team can be saved.

That will require a new arena and that prospect is linked to an application for a licence to operate a slots/gaming operation that would, in turn, generate funds to pay for a new facility. Maybe that’s the way such projects are built nowadays and Pittsburgh is a better hockey city than some would suppose, but it all seems a long shot.

Moreover, if Mario, merely the most popular athlete in the history of that very historic city, isn’t around as a player, owner or executive to shepherd the project with his considerable pull, it seems doubtful it will all happen at the end of the day.

For Lemieux, a man who fought against back problems, cancer and hip problems to forge a longer NHL career than seemed reasonable for an athlete faced with such difficulties, it was a faulty ticker that finally pulled him off the rink, a heart arrhythmia problem that popped up in November and just wouldn’t go away.

He’ll need surgery before summer to fix the problem and that problem, combined with his age, made it clear to the spectacularly talented 40-yearold that the muscle memory of his younger days wasn’t going to be enough any more in a faster, more open NHL. He pulled himself out of consideration for the 2006 Canadian Olympic team in December.

“If I could still play the game, I’d be on the ice,” he says, also revealing he recently had a repeat episode of his heart problem.

“To have it taken away is difficult to accept. But I have some experience at it.”

If life was fair, this season would have gone very differently for Lemieux and the Penguins in his final tour of duty. Huge hopes were built up during the summer when the Pens won the draft lottery and the right to draft

Pittsburgh Penguins' Mario Lemieux announces his retirement at a news conference at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Penguins' Mario Lemieux announces his retirement at a news conference at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania January 24, 2006.

REUTERS/Jason Cohn

Adieu, Lemieux Sidney Crosby, an event that may have caused a little too much organizational optimism and motivated GM Craig Patrick to go on a spending spree to sign players like Sergei Gonchar and Ziggy Palffy.

But the season went sour in a big way. Palffy packed it in last week, and head coach Ed Olczyk was cashiered in December.

Lemieux, mercifully, wasn’t in the lineup for all of that. Since a repeat heart episode began to bother him in

the third period of a game against Buffalo Dec. 16, Lemieux hasn’t played. He says, from that day forward he began to contemplate ending his wondrous playing career as a galaxy of new stars dominates the league.

“All I can say to these young players ... enjoy every minute of it,” Lemieux said last week, choking back tears for a moment. “Your career goes by very quickly. And it’s a great game.”

Coming out of his first retirement in 2000 and then captaining Team

UPLIFTING

Canada to victory in the 2002 Winter Olympics and 2004 World Cup, turned out to be a deeply satisfying phase of Lemieux’s career. Clearly, however, he wanted his lasting legacy to be the survival of the Penguins in the city he now calls home and he leaves the playing surface without having been able to guarantee that despite tireless efforts since gaining part-ownership of the franchise in 1999.

To be sure, the iffy future of this

team is nothing new. While new stadiums were built for the NFL Steelers and baseball Pirates, the Penguins were never able to attract support for a new arena that would have cemented their future. Mellon Arena, formerly known as Civic Arena or the Igloo, is now the NHL’s oldest building and the Pens’ lease there expires at the end of next season. As big as Lemieux’s aura was, he could never get powerful politicians to sign on and fund a new arena.

579-STOG 77 Ha Harv rvey ey Road

Stoggers’ Pizza Rethink your Pi Pizz zza! a!

Nick Roberts of Mount Pearl is headed Down Under this winter. The 21-year-old has been named to the Canadian weightlifting team for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia, which run March 15-26. In Nov. 2005, Roberts made headlines in his home province by breaking nine provincial records at the Newfoundland Junior/Open Weightlifting Championships in St. John’s. Roberts is a cousin of weightlifter Bert Squires, who represented Canada at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Rhonda Hayward/For The Independent

No money in cards for CFL players, U.S. company says

By Rick Westhead Torstar wire service

F

or the time being, diehard CFL fans will have to be content collecting programs, posters and footballs.

For a second straight season, the league will remain the only North American professional sports league without a set of player trading cards.

After weeks of negotiation, the collectibles company Upper Deck has informed the CFL players union that it won’t proceed with plans to print a series of CFL cards. California-based

Upper Deck doesn’t believe there’s a market for a CFL set, a union official says.

CFL players have been left without trading card revenue since the Pacific card company folded in 2004 following a two-year contract with the players union. Under its contract with the CFLPA, Pacific paid the players union roughly $10,000 a year. Pacific produced cards that depicted about 140 of the CFLPA’s 500 members.

There’s still a slim chance that the union will wind up with a card set — it just won’t be one that generates any revenue. CFLPA vice-president of

marketing Craig Cripps says it’s possible that Upper Deck could still print a limited set of cards if the union can coax one of the CFL’s larger sponsors to cover the costs in exchange for printing their corporate logo on each card.

The card business remains in a protracted slump that drove long-time sports card company Fleer out of business last year. Upper Deck bought Fleer’s assets for $6 million (U.S.).

The Providence Journal newspaper recently reported that sports card sales totalled $260 million (U.S.) in 2005, compared to $1.2 billion in 1991.

30 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS

JANUARY 29, 2006

Rossi’s still got the magic touch World Cup ’82 hero wows Italian fans on visit to Toronto

By Cathal Kelly Torstar wire service

T

wenty-four years after 250,000 people poured onto the streets of Toronto chanting his name, Italian soccer star Paolo Rossi quietly slipped into Toronto last week to meet a few fans and launch a new wine.

For a moment, after he led his country to the 1982 World Cup championship, Rossi was the most celebrated athlete in the world. Today, at 49, he is still as trim as he was in his playing days. His trademark mop of hair remains, though it is flecked with grey. And he is modest and reflective about his sporting achievements.

He charmed young and old alike during a morning visit to Toronto and signed autographs and introduced a wine made from grapes grown in his own Tuscan vineyard. The first vintage — Borgo Cennina 2003 — will appear in liquor stores June 10, the day after World Cup 2006 begins

Part of the reason for his popularity is that Rossi was a hero not that different from the rest of us. At 5-foot-8, 145 pounds, his greatest attribute was his nose for goals. In fact, he did nothing exceptionally well except score. But precious few players have ever had what Italy manager Enzo Bearzot called Rossi’s “opportunism.”

Rossi has visited Toronto three times to play exhibition games, most recently in 1989. He spoke admiringly of the “particular passion” of the city’s fans.

“Even today, the memories are still there, twenty-five years later,” Rossi says.

He diplomatically wagers Italy is one of the favourites in the in the 2006 World Cup, along with Brazil and England.

“But to win is very difficult,” Rossi says.

Rossi’s path to World Cup glory is all the more remarkable because it began in disgrace.

After announcing himself at the 1978 finals in Argentina, the young striker was implicated in

OF THE

DEVIL WEEK

a Serie A match-fixing scandal in 1980. Though Rossi denied being part of any plot, he was punished with a two-year ban. Rossi’s suspension ended in April, 1982.

Although the striker was desperately short of match fitness, Italian coach Enzo Bearzot controversially recalled Rossi to the national side only five weeks before the start of the World Cup in Spain. Rossi’s long layoff showed. He failed to score in the first round and had to be substituted at the half in a match against Poland.

LIMPED INTO THE SECOND After three ties, Italy limped into the second round on goal difference. Rossi improved in the fourth match, a win against defending champions Argentina, but once again he did not score.

In Italy’s fifth game, Rossi exploded.

He single-handedly pushed his team past a heavily-favoured Brazilian side featuring immortals Zico and Socrates, scoring three

times in a 3-2 win. He once again provided all of the offence in the Azzurri’s 2-0 semifinal victory over Poland. In the final against West Germany, Rossi potted the opener in a 3-1 win, helping to secure Italy’s third World Cup. In Toronto, thousands flooded Little Italy’s St. Clair Ave. chanting, “Ros-si ... Ros-si ...

Ros-si.” The Star called it the city’s biggest party since the end of WWII. Rossi achieved far more in his career, but nothing could match those few perfect days in Spain. Since then, Rossi has distanced himself from the sport. He famously loves to scuba dive.

In 1997, he cage-dived amidst Great White sharks. To describe what it is about being underwater that he so enjoys, Rossi used words like “peaceful,” “calm” and “the feeling of being alone.” Of course, that is the opposite of what he must have felt on the field.

“Soccer was a parenthesis in my life,” Rossi says. “I only want to look forward.”

WORLD CUP QUALIFIER

Ivo Mocek Age: 17

Hometown: Ostrava, Czech Republic Height: 6’2 Weight: 185 lbs Position: left wing How acquired: picked up in a trade with the Val-d’Or Foreurs on Jan. 7, 2006. Mocek was originally selected by the Foreurs with the 44th pick in the 2005 Canadian Hockey League import draft.

Good first impression: in his first game as a Fog Devil on Jan. 22, Mocek picked up an assist on Anthony Pototschnik’s opening period goal versus the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles. St. John’s went on to win the game 5-3.

Mount Pearl’s Rod Snow (far right) is expected to be a member of the Canadian national rugby team that will battle the United States in a World Cup qualifier this August in St. John’s. Rugby Canada announced last week that the contest would be played in the provincial capital on Aug. 12 at the Swilers Rugby Complex. The winner of the game advances directly to the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France.

Paul Daly/The Independent

Best friends air it out for Turin spot Two aerialists engage in gut-wrenching duel for one Olympic berth

By Randy Starkman Torstar wire service

T

he telephone hit the floor back home in Grande Prairie, Alta., the second that Ryan Blais told his brother he’d won the recent men’s World Cup freestyle aerials event in Lake Placid.

After all, Blais had bought plane tickets for his parents six months earlier for the Turin Winter Olympics. But his brother dropped the phone too quickly in his excitement. Despite that recent victory, Blais is not going to Turin.

“They thought I was pulling a prank,” Blais says of his phone call.

“But that’s how good our team is. To win is not enough. I can look back and say they’re sending the right guys. I’m so proud of the team, it’s crazy.”

Blais was edged out by teammate Jeff Bean of Ottawa, who finished second in Lake Placid but got the Olympic nod because he led on points entering the event.

The Canadian men’s aerials team is on an incredible roll heading to Turin. Calgarians Kyle Nissen and Warren Shouldice are 1-2 in the World Cup standings and the team has won 12 of a possible 24 medals. It’s a remarkable achievement considering world champion Steve Omischl of North Bay, Ont. has been slowed by a heel injury.

Yet Omischl was one of those hoisting Nissen on his shoulders when he keyed a 1-2-3-4 finish in Mont Gabriel, Que., this month. These athletes, who push each other during training and compete hard against each other, have also managed to support each other superbly.

“You really do become friends; you have to, to survive,” Bean says.

“What you see on the outside — pictures of us playing poker, pictures of us on the podium being

DEVIL STATS NAME Scott Brophy Oscar Sundh Luke Gallant Nicolas Bachand Zack Firlotte Wesley Welcher Marty Doyle Olivier Guilbault Ryan Graham Sebastien Bernier Matt Fillier Pat O’Keefe Pier-Alexandre Poulin Anthony Pototschnik Jean-Simon Allard Rodi Short Ivo Mocek Josh McKinnon Jonathan Reid Paul Roebothan Matt Boland Kyle Stanley

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

# 12 10 6 23 5 14 43 21 16 44 27 11 18 24 4 15 9 8 n/a 19 26 3

GP 43 32 45 46 47 47 47 47 36 46 40 35 47 41 42 14 19 24 2 8 23 44

G 18 9 16 19 7 15 9 11 8 6 5 3 4 7 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

A 24 33 24 18 26 12 14 9 11 13 8 10 7 2 6 2 2 1 0 0 0 0

GOALTENDER

W

L

GAA

S.PCT

Ilia Ejov Brandon Verge

11 6

13 11

3.74 4.19

.892 .888

PTS 42 42 40 37 33 27 23 20 19 19 13 13 11 9 8 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 Stats current as of press deadline Jan. 27

HOMEGROWN “Q” PLAYER Robert Slaney Ryan Penney Colin Escott Chad Locke Brent Lynch Brandon Roach Mark Tobin

HOMETOWN Carbonear St. John’s St. John’s St. John’s Upper Island Cove Terra Nova St. John’s

TEAM Cape Breton Cape Breton Gatineau P.E.I. Halifax Lewiston Rimouski

GP 45 8 31 12 23 44 48

G 3 1 4 3 3 14 20

A 4 3 9 3 1 25 16

PTS 7 4 13 6 4 39 36

GOALTENDERS Ryan Mior Roger Kennedy Jason Churchill

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

TEAM P.E.I. Halifax Saint John

W 14 8 13

L 27 2 27

GAA 4.05 3.78 3.74

S.PCT .893 .875 .903

happy for each other. Those are reality. Those aren’t phony.”

After Bean secured his third straight trip to the Olympics, the vanquished but valiant Blais planted a big kiss on his teammate’s cheek on the podium.

“How can I not be happy when one of my best friends lands the jump of his life to make it to the Olympics?” Blais, 26, says. “When he landed it, my stomach just sank, I was heartbroken, but I had a smirk on my face, too.”

Considering he came out on top, Bean wasn’t feeling so great the next day — and it wasn’t because he had a hangover.

“It sucks,” the 29-year-old from Ottawa says. “I have a lot of mixed emotions. I just left the Olympic training centre where we were staying and I gave Ryan a hug — he had tears in his eyes. Part of me is happy. Part of me is sad. The other part doesn’t know how to feel.”

ROOMMATES What makes the story more remarkable is Bean and Blais were roommates for most of the past month as they battled for that one Olympic berth.

“Do you think it’s weird we’ve been rooming together?” Bean recently asked Blais.

Blais was taken aback at first.

“I think I fed off it,” he said. “I don’t think I would have wanted it any other way.”

“Me, too,” Bean replied.

Bean was out celebrating after he secured his spot on the Olympic team and later found a phone message from Blais waiting for him. His teammate poured his heart out and told Bean to go to Turin and get redemption for Salt Lake City, where it was felt he was robbed of a medal by the judges when he finished fourth.

“My wife and my aunt listened to the message and they both had tears in their eyes,” Bean says.

And the winners are ...

From page 32 go to Michael Ryder of the Montreal Canadiens.

Bonavista’s finest is proving his rookie year is not a fluke and that he will be in the NHL for a very long time.

Honourable mentions: Dan Cleary, Detroit Red Wings; Darren Langdon, New Jersey Devils; and Ryan Clowe, San Jose Sharks. (If I missed any other Newfoundlanders who’ve played in the NHL this season, just add their name to this list, thanks.)

Golden Mac for top rookie: This one hurts. Oh how I want to say Sidney Crosby has been the best rookie of the first half. It just feels wrong to exclude a fellow Nova Scotian from an award as treasured as a Golden Mac, but the truth is Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals has been the better player so far. But for the record, if I had to choose one of these guys to start my franchise with, it would be Crosby, he’ll be the better player in a year or two.

Honourable mentions: Crosby; Henrik Lund-

qvist, New York Rangers; and Dion Phaneuf, Calgary Flames.

Golden Mac for most valuable player: This is another tough call, but for me it comes down to two players — Jaromir Jagr of the New York Rangers and Eric Staal of the Carolina Hurricanes. In the end I’ve got to go with Staal as the MVP of the first half because he’s led Carolina to first place in their division with a support staff a lot weaker than the one Jagr has in the Big Apple.

Honourable mentions: Jagr; Ilya Kovalchuk, Atlanta Thrashers; and Miikka Kiprusoff, Calgary Flames.

Golden Mac for most missed Newfoundlander in first half: Jason King, Vancouver Canucks.

King suffered a concussion in last year’s AHL playoffs and was out of action up until only a couple of weeks ago. But he is playing with the Manitoba Moose now, and I fully expect the Corner Brook native to be in Vancouver shortly. darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca

JANUARY 29, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 31

Pat Quinn delivers wisdom from the bench

By Randy Starkman Torstar wire service

I

Chad Locke

Rhonda Hayward/The Independent

‘The right place for me’ Chad Locke finds a home in Charlottetown; finally realizing dream of playing in Q

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

A

s far as Chad Locke is concerned, major junior hockey has been worth the wait.

For the past few seasons Locke was on the radar screen of several major junior teams, and last summer was a second-round selection of the Victoriaville Tigres in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League midget draft. It appeared the Shea Heightsnative was about to fulfil his dream of playing the highest level of junior hockey in the country, but when he attended the Tigres’ training camp in August, Locke realized his dream would have to be put on hold.

“I didn’t think Victoriaville was the right place for me,” Locke tells The Independent. “The language barrier was a lot harder for me, going from an English community to a French community. It’s hard to get around just speaking English.”

Three weeks after arriving in Victoriaville, Locke informed the team’s coaching staff he wished to return home. He hadn’t officially made the team by that point, but all signs indicated the Tigres’ had a place on their roster reserved for the 17-year-old.

Knowing he was closer than ever to playing major junior, the decision to leave Victoriaville was certainly not an easy one.

“My goal was always to play major junior hockey,” Locke says.

“But I talked to my parents about it, and the right thing for me was to go home.”

LOOKING FOR A TRADE Upon returning to Newfoundland, Locke suited up for the St. John’s midget AAA Maple Leafs, the same club for which he starred the previous two seasons. He began ripping up the provincial midget AAA league, scoring 58 points in 25 games, but all the while was waiting to see if Victoriaville would trade him to a team in an English-speaking community.

During that time Locke kept an eye on the Quebec league, taking in a few St. John’s Fog Devils’ games at Mile One. On the ice for the home team were several young players Locke suited up alongside in previous seasons with the AAA Leafs, including Wes Welcher, Matt Boland, Ryan Graham and Pat O’Keefe.

While Locke was happy to see his friends doing well, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment.

“It was hard to go down and watch it, just thinking I could be playing in this league,” says Locke.

The waiting game ended for Locke just before Christmas when Victoriaville traded him to the PEI Rocket. His new team flew him to Charlottetown on Boxing Day and just 24 hours later Locke made his major junior debut versus the Saint John Sea Dogs.

“I was quite happy,” Locke says. “I used to visit PEI with my family Solutions for crossword on page 28

CHAD LOCKE, 17

Hometown: St. John’s Team: PEI Rocket of the QMJHL Games: 12 Goals: 3 Assists: 3 Points: 6 Early Christmas gift: Locke was traded to the Rocket just prior to Christmas, and made his debut for the team Dec. 27 versus the Saint John Sea Dogs.

when I younger and knew it was a nice place.

“The people are great. When you walk down the street, everyone will say hi to you. It’s a lot like home, actually. It’s not a big change for me.”

Locke got off to a hot start with his new club, picking up five points in his first six games. He has cooled off a bit since, but is still a solid contributor to the Rocket in their battle with the Fog Devils and Sea Dogs for the final two playoff spots in the Q’s eastern division.

“I was very impressed with him as soon as he got here,” says Yanick Jean, head coach of the Rocket. “He showed me right from the get go that he would be a good player.”

In the provincial midget AAA league, Locke was a gritty player who also possessed smooth playmaking abilities and a nice set of hands. He was the midget AAA Leafs captain and undisputed leader, demonstrating the same qualities he has also shown Jean in Charlottetown.

“He’s a character player,” Jean says. “I like his work ethic. He’s a skilled player, too.

“He’s got to work on his skating, but he’s going to be a great junior player for sure. He’s already playing on one of our top three lines.”

While the adjustment to major junior hockey poses its challenges for Locke, he has also had to find his niche in the Rocket locker room.

Joining a new team is not easy for any rookie, especially one who joins a club half-way through the season.

Luckily for Locke there was already one Newfoundlander in the locker room ahead of him in goaltender Ryan Mior, a St. John’snative.

“Ryan’s been here for two years now, so it makes it a lot easier having another newfie on the team,” says Locke With his place in the lineup secured and his dream of playing major junior hockey in the midst of being fulfilled, it couldn’t get much better for Locke. The young centreman certainly has no complaints, and is content to enjoy playing hockey on another well-known island.

“It’s a good place to play,” Locke says. “We get a lot of fan support and the coaching staff is great. The team is coming along now, we’re over .500 since Christmas.” darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca Solutions for sudoku on page 28

t all started because Pat Quinn was desperate for a cigar. Naturally, he couldn’t smoke inside the Canadian team’s quarters at the Olympic Village in Salt Lake City in 2002. So he moved outside, found a bench to sit on, and lit up.

No one was prepared for what happened next.

As younger athletes wandered by the then 59-year-old head coach of the Canadian men’s hockey team, many sat down. Old enough to be their grandfather, they confided in him their hopes, fears and frustrations. The Toronto Maple Leafs coach, who cultivates a gruff image with the media that scrutinize his every move, became a voice of wisdom to the athletes, some of whom didn’t even know his name.

“Every night, he would sit on a park bench right in front of the house and just talk to people,” says freestyle skier Steve Omischl, then 23. “He definitely made himself a figure people could approach. It was great.”

Quinn became such a mainstay on that bench that volunteers printed a “Pat’s Bench” sign and stuck it on his daily resting spot.

Omischl, the reigning world champion in men’s aerials heading into next month’s Turin Olympics, sat next to Quinn at the end of a long day where he crashed on his first jump and wound up 11th in his event.

“He said, ‘Don’t worry about what other people think. Just do what you need to do to get the job done,’” Omischl recalls. “I felt like a loser. He was just good to talk to at a time like that. You just need someone to listen. It was better than talking with our coaches. All they wanted to talk about was how we screwed up.

“I talked to him for like an hour. He was telling me some of his stories. I asked him what his biggest challenge was. He said it was dealing with the media, that there was too much hype.”

Quinn was experiencing his own travails at the time. The Canadian hockey team struggled in the early going in Salt Lake, getting hammered 5-2 by Sweden and eking out a 3-2 win over lightweight Germany. He’d had to bench Curtis Joseph, a move that may have precipitated the goalie’s later departure from Toronto. Wayne

Team Canada head coach Pat Quinn.

Gretzky’s outburst about everybody being out to get Canada was still reverberating around the village the day Quinn spoke with Omischl.

But Quinn wasn’t preoccupied with hockey. And athletes found they didn’t need to be a hockey fan to communicate with him. Snowboarder Jasey-Jay Anderson — who didn’t know Quinn’s name — plopped himself on the bench after finishing a crushing 29th in the men’s parallel giant slalom.

“He’s this big, burly, kind of husky guy, kind of intimidating,” Anderson says. “I just sat there and we just started chatting. He was a great guy. I just picked at his brain a little bit. I’m Mr. Zero on hockey. I didn’t even know his name. I saw his face before, so I knew he was the coach. I asked him questions about his career. I never asked about the athletes he coached, just mostly places he lived and things he saw that he appreciated. He sat there enjoying that cigar. We had good chats.

REUTERS/Mike Blake

He’d ask me stuff. Pat Quinn was cool.”

Quinn remembers the conversation as well and is still irked by something Anderson’s coach, who also joined the conversation, said to him after the snowboarder had departed.

“His coach said, which I didn’t like very much, ‘Oh, don’t worry about him, he made a million-two last year,’” Quinn says. “Well, it’s nothing to do with money. Not a thing. So some of them do make a few bucks, but that’s not what you’re on that board for.”

Quinn says he got as much out of the conversations as the athletes.

“It was such a pleasurable thing,” he says. “I look back now and say, ‘Okay, was it a pleasure because it was just nice to meet these people or was it the fact that you won at the end that made it great?’ I think it was the fact, win or lose, it was one of those things that turned into a ritual for me that was very enjoyable.”

INDEPENDENTSPORTS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JANUARY 29-FEBRUARY 4, 2006 — PAGE 32

Kerri-Ann Evely

Paul Daly/The Independent

The natural

MUN’s Kerri-Ann Evely isn’t the most experienced wrestler, but she’s one of Canada’s best young grapplers

By Darcy MacRae The Independent

K

erri-Ann Evely is a raw talent. The 21-year-old Carbonear native wrestled very little in high school, and really didn’t get serious about the sport until she came to Memorial University in St. John’s in the fall of 2002.

In a very short time span, Evely has become one of the top university wrestlers in Canada. Just last year she won a bronze medal in her weight class at the CIS (Canadian Interuniversity Sport) championships, and earlier this month attended a camp run by the Canadian national wrestling team.

“She’s come along quite a bit in terms of technique,” says professor Glen Clark, head coach of MUN’s wrestling team. “She’s talented anyway, and she works really hard.”

Evely tells The Independent wrestling came naturally to her. She admits that most of her opponents have a lot more experience than her, with some having wrestled competitively since childhood. But Evely doesn’t like to use her lack of experience as an excuse, preferring to work hard to catch up with her competition.

She’s had a lot of help, especially from her coach.

“This year I’ve had a lot of support,” says

Evely. “Glen looks for extra tournaments for me to attend so I can get extra experience. I’ve gotten to more competitions, which aid in the development of my wrestling skills and abilities.”

Evely says her wrestling skills haven’t suffered too much as a result of picking up the sport late, but admits a lack of competition has hindered her development.

The AUS (Atlantic University Sport) conference has a limited wrestling schedule as it is, but when you’re on the lone wrestling team in Newfoundland, finding an abundance of matches can be a challenge.

“The thing I’m maybe a little behind on is the competition. This year I’ve been getting more, and that little bit extra goes a long way.

But where we’re on an island, we’re kind of isolated from all the competition,” Evely says.

“In Ontario itself, there are (21) universities, and probably half of those have wrestling teams, so they all compete against one another every second weekend. We get two or three tournaments over a period of three months.

That’s where I feel we fall behind.”

In an attempt to help Evely overcome the odds, Clark helped her earn a spot at a national team training camp earlier this month in Chula Vista, California, a suburb of San Diego. National team members from Canada and the United States were on hand during the camp, as well as national team prospects such

as Evely. national team, Evely has a few more urgent Each day Evely and her fellow wrestlers matters to attend to. First is this weekend’s awoke at 6 a.m. and went for their morning UNB Open in Fredericton, New Brunswick run, followed by some light-hearted aerobic (results not available prior to press deadline) training such as a game of soccer. At 9 a.m., followed in a few weeks by a CIS national Evely was on the mat, practicing her wrestling qualifier.

By then she’s expected to be on her way to techniques for two hours. Although she had her second straight CIS much of the afternoon to herchampionships, the same self, Evely returned to the event at which she won mat at 4 p.m. for another “We get two or bronze last year — the first two-hour practice. national medal ever won by “We sure wrestled a lot,” three tournaments a member of the MUN she says with a laugh. “In women’s wrestling team. total we had about five or six over a period of “It was my goal last year, hours of training a day. It and like anyone who was intense. three months. achieves their goal I was “It definitely helped me a ecstatic,” Evely says. lot. I learned some new techThat’s where I feel Looking ahead to this niques and different styles of year’s CIS championships, wrestling.” we fall behind.”

Evely faces a rough road as Being identified as a canshe hopes to better last didate for a future spot on Kerri-Ann Evely year’s performance, the Canadian national although that doesn’t mean wrestling team meant a lot to the kinesiology student isn’t Evely, but she admits — with a chuckle — she’s still a bit unsure if it’s up to the task.

“It’s going to be really tough. This year something she’ll pursue long term.

“Well … that’s definitely one of Glen’s she’s wrestled the two girls she lost to last goals,” Evely says with a chuckle. “But it year, and lost both times. But they were close, would be a major achievement, that’s for tough matches,” Clark says. “It’s really too close to call right now.” sure.” darcy.macrae@theindependent.ca Before she considers making a push for the

The Golden Macs

F

irst of all, I’ll admit I haven’t checked the calendar lately. Actually it’s more like I didn’t check the schedule lately, as in the NHL schedule.

Since the beginning of the season I’ve been planning a column honouring the top performers from the first half of the 2005-06 NHL campaign, but upon closer inspection of the standings the other day realized I’m off by a week … or maybe two.

Sure, some teams have almost played 50 games already, but in my defence the Olympic break wasn’t even started yet and for many that is considered the official mid-way point of the season.

Before I get started let me explain a little about the Golden Macs — that’s the name of the awards handed out by yours truly, kind of a catchy name don’t you think? — they’re not your typical awards. Oh sure, I name a best defenceman, top goalie and all that jazz, but I also like to spice things up a bit with a few outside-the-box awards you won’t see at most ceremonies. Anyway, here we go, let’s see who’s going home with a Golden Mac. Golden Mac for top goalie: Miikka

DARCY MACRAE

The game Kiprusoff, Calgary Flames. Kiprusoff has picked up right where he left off the last time we saw NHL hockey. He is the Flames’ firsthalf MVP and best goalie in the world right now.

Honourable mentions: Martin Brodeur, New Jersey Devils; Dominik Hasek, Ottawa Senators; and Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers.

Golden Mac for worst No. 1 goalie: This is a tough call. A few goalies who are supposed to be their team’s top puck stopper have really stunk up the joint this year. Right away Patrick Lalime (St. Louis) and Jocelyn Thibault (Pittsburgh) come to mind, and one look at their statistics will tell you why. Nikolai Khabibulin has been a huge disappointment in Chicago, but the Golden Mac in this category goes to Jose Theodore of the Canadiens.

I admit there are other goalies who’ve played worse than Theo, but this is personal. I’m a Habs fan — a big Habs fan — and I’m tired of watching Theodore underachieve. I say it’s time to trade Theodore while he still has some market value.

Honourable mentions: As I wrote earlier, Lalime, Thibault, and Khabibulin.

Golden Mac for top defenceman: Scott Niedermayer, Anaheim Mighty Ducks. The smooth skating defender is still the best d-man in my books, even if he is playing for a joke of a franchise.

Honourable mentions: Nicklas Lidstrom, Detroit Red Wings; Zdeno Chara, Ottawa Senators; and Dion Phaneuf, Calgary Flames.

Golden Mac for most gentlemanly player: Just kidding, I couldn’t actually hand out an award like this. It’s hockey, not checkers, there’s not a whole lot gentlemanly about it.

Golden Mac for best performance by a Newfoundlander: Easy choice here, it has to See “And the winners are ...,” page 30