2006-06-11

VOL. 4 ISSUE 23

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ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR — SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 11-17, 2006

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SPORTS 32

Quidi Vidi Brewery ferments plan to go public and international

Branded

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Mario Tee pitches first perfect game since ’48

ON THE ROCKS

Like the Nike swoosh, new provincial trademark to be launched NADYA BELL

F

rom Screech to Butterpot Park to the House of Assembly, all things Newfoundland and Labrador will carry a new logo this fall when the province is slated to follow through on its branding strategy.

“No different than Nike or any corporation that has a brand, I think it’s important that Newfoundlanders domestically and Labradorians domestically — as well as people who aren’t Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, can recognize us by a trademark,” Premier Danny Williams tells The Independent.

He says cabinet is currently reviewing the new “Masterbrand” visual design and marketing strategy.

The strategy aims to streamline over 40 different logos used by the provincial government into a simple hierarchy.

The plan was outlined in a copy of an audit of provincial brands completed by Market Insights in December 2004 that was obtained by The Independent.

But the new branding strategy could change the political ball game, both inside and outside the province, according to political scientist Richard Nimijean, who studies political branding at Carleton University in Ottawa.

“If you frame the debate in terms of who has the better vision — who has the better sense of being a Newfoundlander and Labradorian — that gets away from the question of ‘What kind of public services do we want?’”

Nimijean says the brand will nurture a sense of pride associated with the Conservative government that will challenge the political opposition in the province.

Williams would not offer any clues as to what the new provincial design will look like, but says he is quite pleased with the result.

“It’s a brand that’s intended to show our uniqueness, our character, our resilience, he says.

“We’ve tried to identify something that people will recognize and will become a symbol of what we’re all about.”

The provincial brand is being prepared as Memorial University recently released its new logo, amid mixed public reaction.

Memorial’s brand, entitled “become” and a new design were unveiled on May 23 in an invitation-only event for faculty and staff. The new brand has been criticized for not incorporating the province’s name. The design is a red cliff with the word “Memorial” printed across in white, and “University” underneath in grey.

The main target of the province’s new branding strategy will be Newfoundlanders and Labradorians themselves, Williams says. After the local launch, the brand will be used in national and international advertising and other activities.

See “Branding,” page 4

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “There was nothing there except bones and homes, and folks left the bones in the graveyard where they belong and most took their homes to places that had roads and schools.”

— Gordon Baker, former resident of resettled town of Femme, See page 5

WORLD 19

John Crosbie on the issues of multiculturalism BUSINESS 22

LIFE 17

Labrador facing bright business future

National theatre festival heading east Scattered Past . . . . . . . . .

Life Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Off the Eating Path . . . . . .

Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Sarah Joy Stoker balances upon the shores of Cape Spear. Her dance performance, Rocks On, will feature as part of the 16th annual Festival of New Dance, which runs June 20-25 in St. John’s. The festival is presented by Neighbourhood Dance Works.

Paul Daly/The Independent

Resettlement wave

Residents of three towns ask province to be relocated; government mulling it over RYAN CLEARY

T

hree outports — the latest casualties of an aging and fading population — have asked the provincial government to be resettled.

A spokesman for Municipal Affairs confirms for The Independent that residents of three communities in Newfoundland and Labrador (he wouldn’t be more specific than that) — each with a population of less than 100 — have made written requests in recent months.

The spokesman would not reveal the names of the communities, saying only they aren’t

isolated, “all are accessible by road.” The spokesman says the names of the outports are being withheld because the requests came from individuals, as opposed to official representatives. The communities are not formal municipalities, meaning they don’t have mayors and councils.

Municipals Affairs Minister Jack Byrne wasn’t available for comment this week. The spokesman says government considers resettlement requests on a case-by-case basis.

Three outports have been resettled in recent years — including Great Harbour Deep, White Bay, Petites on the southwest coast, and Big Brook on the Northern Peninsula. The province usually only follows through with resettlement when the overwhelming majority of residents agree, and it’s deemed the move

will save government money in the long run.

Families are usually offered compensation packages ranging from $80,000 to $100,000 (depending on family size), in exchange for the withdrawal of services and the transfer of their properties to the Crown. The Conservative government has said repeatedly it does not support “forced” resettlement.

Wayne Ruth, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Municipalities, says he doesn’t know the names of the communities that have asked the province to be resettled.

With two sons living in Calgary, Ruth can relate to the steady stream of Newfoundlanders heading west for work.

See “What else,” page 4

Idol conversation Shooting the breeze with Newfoundland and Labrador’s own questing knight “The mighty hero of extraordinary powers ... is each of us: not the physical self visible in the mirror, but the king within.”

— Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

By Susan Rendell For The Independent

T

his week I’ve been rereading Joseph Campbell, the famous mythologist whose 1949 classic, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, gave us Luke Skywalker and The Matrix’s Neo. Their creators developed them with the aid of Campbell’s research on the motif of the hero — a motif central to the mythologies of all cultures from the beginning of recorded

history.

As it turned out, Campbell was fitting preparation for a talk with Rex (Latin for king) Goudie, Newfoundland and Labrador’s most recent Canadian Idol contender.

In 2005, Goudie, a selfdescribed “regular guy off the gravel roads of Burlington,” began his mythic journey by taking a seven-hour trip to St. John’s to compete in the local try-outs for Canadian Idol, the television show that offers the Holy Grail of

Rex Goudie on the day of his Canadian Idol audition in St. John’s, 2005.

Rhonda Hayward/The Independent

a recording contract to one lucky/talented young Canadian singer out of a host of hopefuls.

Goudie earned his chance to represent the province on Idol.

He didn’t win, finishing second, but he got a recording contract from Sony anyway —

organized and circulated by

and he also won the heart of his co-contestant and first-place winner, Melissa O’Neil. His CD, Under the Lights, which was released last September, went platinum in December. (The See “More confident,” page 2

2 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JUNE 11, 2006

‘More confident now’ From page 1

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hero, traditionally a “nobody” — a young man or woman of humble origins — leaves hearth and home to go forth alone on a quest. Traditional questing objects include the hand of a prince or princess, a hoard of dragon’s gold, the death of an evil giant who is terrorizing the hero’s land — love, fortune, and fame, essentially. But according to Campbell, the real object of the quest is development of the self.)

I begin the telephone conversation with Goudie, who is in his apartment in Toronto, with a traditional salutation: “Whaddya at?”

“What am I at?” Goudie says. “Not much, now. Just relaxing on the chesterfield this morning, doing a few interviews and everything. Looking forward to the few things I got to do today.”

What about his upcoming tour of the Island, which begins at Mile One Stadium on June 23?

“I’m actually looking forward to starting rehearsals for it this week. We got a lot of good songs we’re going to be doing, good classic songs.”

Goudie says he hopes this tour will show people the direction he’s moving in.

“You know, to be honest with you (the hero is always honest, to a fault) I haven’t really discovered it — but I know the influences and I know once I get the music going what the sound is going to be like.”

Goudie says he’s trying to make his own sound, “trying to step away from the more poppy aspect of it. Something a little bit more edgier and a little bit more — substance.” (The hero is completely focused on the object of his quest — and thus immune to record company marketing managers waving demo-

graphic fact sheets.)

I tell him I read somewhere that he once said, “I want to represent Newfoundland the way she deserves: with guts and glory.”

“Well, that’s the way I’ve always been,” says Goudie. “Very, very proud of where I’m from. I don’t think I’d be the same person if I grew up anywhere else.”

I ask him how growing up here has affected his music.

“You know, growing up where I did, you kind of grew up fast. I mean, I started working with Dad, actually coming up and helping him out when I was eight years old, so I gained all of my values and a lot of my tastes from everybody that’s been around me. We always listened to a bit more of a classic style of music along with traditional music, because it’s what people relate to (here), you know?” (The hero never pretends to be other than what he is, and is proud of his origins.)

How does Goudie feel about the economic situation in the province? Has out-migration affected him personally — his family?

“It has, it has, to be honest with you — it really has. My dad’s got a small trucking company, and this last year or so he hasn’t had much work, so there’s lots of fellows that were with him—a couple of the fellows were with him since day one — had to go away, they had no choice. Can’t stick around and wait on a promise from somebody. I tried to get Dad to pull around the gear for me this summer, but where all the guys are gone, he can’t find anyone to drive his trucks, so he can’t help me do it.”

Goudie’s brother is lucky, he says, he’s working at Voisey’s Bay. But two of his uncles have to leave the province

every year, “at least long enough to get their stamps.” And that, he says, is not only hard on their families, but also difficult for their mother, Goudie’s grandmother, whose husband died last fall.

“It hits hard,” he says. “One less person that she’s got to talk to.” (The hero is protective of the weak.)

Could he ever imagine Burlington not even being there someday?

“There’s a lot of people after going.

And I know I’ve said it, and Dad’s said it too, ‘Well, I’m not leaving.’ And I know there’s a lot of people share the same sentiment, and I’m hoping now that Premier Williams is going to help us out here. There’s lots of resources on the Island … and if fellows don’t have to leave — well, they won’t leave home.”

I ask him if he thinks he’ll ever come back here to live. He says that’s a hard one to answer because he intends to stay in the music business as long as he can, do the best he can. But Goudie’s a pragmatist. He says if things don’t work out for him, he’s got fallback options — and that he’s lucky, because those options would allow him to live in the province.

(The hero is quite willing to go back to being a shepherd or a ploughboy, because his heart never really leaves the kingdom of his birth.)

What kind of changes has he been through since he left Burlington?

“I think the biggest change in myself is that I’ve got a lot better understanding of how music itself works and how the business of music works. I’m a lot more confident … I’m pretty good at holding my own now.”

Goudie drove to Toronto when he moved there, “just to get the feel of it. I find it better to learn Toronto, the way the city works, by driving — sure, it may take you a half-hour to get five feet up the road, but…” (The hero faces “unimaginable torments” (Campbell)) Knowing Goudie has a passion for hockey I ask him what position he plays.

“I’m a goalie, he says.”

I tell him my brother billeted a Fog Devil goalie last year and that I hear goalies are … different.

“You got to be different to be a goalie.

Not everybody is going to stand up in front of a hard, rubber disk that’s coming at you 50 miles an hour.”

He says he thinks about hockey every day and carried his gear around with him during last winter’s tour — just in case.

After this tour Goudie says he’s “heading directly into writing” his next album.

“I’m going to stop playing after my show in Lewisporte in August. I’m going to be working flat out on trying to write as much as I can.”

Goudie insists that he’s not a professional songwriter.

“Not like guys like Jim Cuddy (Blue Rodeo), Bruce Springsteen,” he says.

“I’m not so experienced at it.” It’s about life experience too, he adds. “You think about the years they’ve been on the road, there’s more stories that they can tell through song.”

Goudie says the writing process varies with him — sometimes he goes into it with a definite idea, sometimes words just come to him and he tries to get them down on paper in case they turn into a song. Sometimes he and O’Neil sit around his apartment playing and singing.

I tell him I hear his favourite book is Cassie Brown’s Death on the Ice. “I find that to be a really good book,” Goudie says. “And I think Pamela Anderson should read it. It should be compulsory reading for anyone who is going to talk about the seal hunt.”

I mention I heard a rumour he was taking his parents to Europe this year.

He laughs.

“I was thinking about it — there’s definitely something coming in the way for Mom and Dad as soon as they get time off…”

He tells me he’s thinking about going to Beaumont Hamel.

“I’ve seen pictures of it. My cousin went over there a couple of years ago with his father. He showed me pictures of the big craters where mortars hit and mines went off. And pictures of the tree that most of the Newfoundlanders got killed by (the famous Danger Tree).

That was their Holy Grail, where they went to, where they met, and they were right in the line of fire. It’s powerful (the picture); it moves you.” (Every hero knows a Holy Grail when he sees one.)

One last question: What’s the big picture, in terms of his career?

“The thing now is to try and establish ourselves (Goudie and O’Neil) as artists. That’s going to be the hardest thing for each of us to do. The biggest thing is to stay true and know what you want to do. As long as you’ve got a goal set for yourself and you work hard enough, you’re guaranteed to make it.”

(The hero never loses faith.)

I tell him his fellow Newfoundlanders have a lot of confidence in him; that we think he’ll do just fine.

“That means a lot,” Goudie says. His voice is soft, sincere. And then I say I’ve kept him long enough, and thank him for talking to me. He says “Thank you — an interview that just shot the breeze — that was really good.”

JUNE 11, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 3

S

ue Kelland-Dyer, the Queen of local talk radio, was miffed this week when she was “restricted” from VOCM’s radio call-in shows. She says she was told by a producer that the station had received “complaints.”

Dyer claims certain political forces aren’t pleased with her take on issues — the fishery and outport Newfoundland, among others — and want her silenced.

John Murphy of VOCM tells The Independent Sue hasn’t been barred from participating in any of the open-line programs. Rather, Murphy says the station’s once-a-week call-in rule is relaxed at certain times of the year, like now, with summer coming on and vacations starting up. That means that regulars like Sue are on more than once a week, which led to some complaints from callers who weren’t getting on the air.

“On one occasion this week, the producer of one of the shows mentioned this fact to Sue and said let’s not go on today and call back tomorrow. We had a very busy switchboard that day,” Murphy says.

“There is no agenda, no restricting Sue, no organized complaints, just an apparent competition for air time among many, many callers. It is good to see our people so interested in publicly commenting on the issues.”

So much for political forces …

HOUSE CALLS One thing about Sue, she’s a force on the radio with a quiver full of facts. She scored some points this week when she brought up some old statements made by Loyola Sullivan in May 2003 when he was still on the Opposition side of the House.

According to Hansard, the legislature’s official transcript, Sullivan rose in the House one day to question thenpremier Roger Grimes about the Strategic Economic Plan, which was prepared by Dr. Doug House in the early 1990s for former premier Clyde Wells. That’s the same Dr. House who’s currently championing Premier Danny Williams’ long-term economic development strategy.

Back in 2003, however, Sullivan said House’s plan had an “11-year record of failure.

“How can he (Grimes) defend an economic policy that saw the biggest out-migration of people in our history,” Sullivan asked, “that downsized our population by 10 per cent, the biggest downsizing in the western world since the Irish famines?”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the premier’s point man …

FISH FACTS This year’s small inshore cod fishery off the northeast coast and Labrador (a.k.a. the northern cod zone) is expected to result in a total take of 2,300 tonnes. The five-week recreational or food fishery is expected to result in another 600 tonnes (that’s how much was taken in 2002’s six-week fishery anyway). All told, that’s 3,000 tonnes this year (if you include another 100 tonnes taken by foreigners outside the 200-mile limit), a sizeable increase from 2005’s total harvest of an estimated 1,100 tonnes (remember the blackback fishery and the fat-cat bycatch).

Today’s cod catches are but a speck compared to the catches of old. According to the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ own website, “so important was the cod to the early economy of New England that a carved wooden codfish was hung in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in Boston as a memorial of the importance of the codfish to the welfare of the commonwealth.”

According to DFO, catches of cod from the northwest Atlantic were stable during the 1950s at about 900,000 tonnes, but increased sharply during the 1960s to a peak of almost 2 million tonnes.

Those numbers make our five fish a day seem rather insignificant …

FISHERMEN FIRST Former federal Fisheries Minister Romeo LeBlanc produced a policy document dated May 1976 that triggered a fundamental redirection in Ottawa’s policy for fishery management and development.

Quote: “Although commercial fishing has long been a highly regulated activity in Canada, the object of regulation has, with rare exception, been protection of the renewable resource. In other words, fishing has been regulated in the interest of the fish. In the future it is to be regulated in the interest of the people who depend on the fishing industry.”

Maybe that’s when our problems began …

CODCO PETITION There’s a petition being circulated to put the old CODCO episodes on DVD. Check out this address — www.petitiononline.com/codcodvd/petition.html.

“CODCO represented a new benchmark of achievement in Canadian and Newfoundland television entertainment. It brought a new level of satire, political commentary and humour to Canadian’s living rooms during its run.

It is worth experiencing again — it’s time to see the series released in its entirety on DVD.” Hear, hear. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

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‘We’ll cross that bridge’ Rideout doesn’t rule out joining in P.E.I suit against DFO; hopes aren’t high for NAFO reform

By Ryan Cleary The Independent

F

isheries Minister Tom Rideout is keeping a close eye on P.E.I.’s court case against the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans — and doesn’t rule out joining in if the so-called garden province is successful.

“I’m not prepared to say we wouldn’t, and I’m not prepared to say we would at the present time,” Rideout tells The Independent.

Prince Edward Island sued DFO in 2005, arguing the province wasn’t getting its fair share of resources. The federal government attempted to have the case thrown out, but in a ruling last year P.E.I.’s Supreme Court agreed to let it go ahead.

Ottawa has appealed that ruling, with the case scheduled to be heard in Charlottetown on June 13 and 14.

“When the Supreme Court of Appeal in P.E.I. renders that judgment then we’ll see where we are,” Rideout says. “I mean it could be that it’s thrown out of court, for example.

“We’ll cross that bridge at that point in time. Right now we’re certainly keeping a

close eye on the matter. We prefer to try to work co-operatively with the feds in working out our differences on harvesting and quotas and so on.”

Rideout says P.E.I.’s “disgruntlement” stems from the fact it hasn’t been able to secure access to allocations of northern shrimp.

“So we have to be careful what we’re throwing our lot in bed with,” the minister says.

Several environmental groups have joined the P.E.I. suit, including the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, which has been granted intervenor status in the case. As well, Earth Action of P.E.I., the Ecology Action Centre of Nova Scotia and the Living Oceans of British Columbia have been granted permission to make arguments on the issue of public trust and good faith.

The federal Conservative government has been criticized in this province as of late for allegedly failing to follow through on perceived pre-election promises, including custodial management of the Grand Banks.

The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) oversees fishing in international waters just outside Canada’s 200-mile limit, but is generally seen as toothless, unable to enforce the quotas it sets.

Rideout says it’s not up to him to speak for the feds, but the way he understands it the Stephen Harper administration promised

to give NAFO up to a year or so to work.

“If NAFO hadn’t corrected itself before the end of their first mandate they would move towards custodial management,” Rideout says.

Asked if he’s satisfied with the way things are turning out, he says he has no problem with trying to reform NAFO. “The only problem is there’s been attempts to reform NAFO when I was minister (of Fisheries) back in the 1980s and probably even before that time … so far it hasn’t appeared to work out for our advantage.

“There’s not much point in having an organization that once scientific advice comes in on a quota a country can say, ‘I don’t like that, I’m objecting and I’ll fish what I like.’ That’s one of the terrible problems with NAFO. Then, of course, enforcement with the member countries is another one. So unless that changes significantly then I wouldn’t hold out a lot of hope for NAFO reform.”

Canada hosted a meeting of the NAFO reform working group in mid-April. The group is to make recommendations on changes to the NAFO convention, its mandate, and operating rules at this year’s annual meeting, slated for mid-September in Dartmouth, N.S..

Phil Jenkins of DFO says NAFO’s structure is being examined, “which could include reopening its convention to change the framework that guides NAFO policies.”

He says recommendations may include changes to the so-called objection procedure, which allows member countries that disagree with NAFO quotas to unilaterally set their own.

Other potential topics may include: dispute settlement provisions; regular performance reviews; and the overcapacity of fishing fleets. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

Pilotage authority should be headquartered in Newfoundland: Manning

By Nadya Bell The Independent

T

he Atlantic Pilotage Authority, the federal Crown corporation that runs pilot boat services in eastern Canada, should be headquartered in Newfoundland, says the head of the regional economic development board for Placentia Bay. “There should be something coming from the profits of the Atlantic Pilotage Authority … coming back into the well-being of Placentia Bay,” Calvin Manning tells The Independent.

Manning, executive director of the Avalon Gateway Regional Economic Development Board, says the authority’s management should be based near the business.

Nearly 30 per cent of the pilotage authority’s business in the four Atlantic provinces takes place in Placentia Bay, which brought in an estimated $3 million in tariffs alone last year.

Pilot boats carry pilots to ships such as tankers to guide them into port. Placentia Bay is one of the busiest shipping areas in the province, with a steady flow of tankers sailing to the Come by Chance refinery and the oil transshipment terminal at Whiffen Head.

Tony McGuinness, the pilotage authority’s chief executive officer, says the corporation is

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run efficiently out of Halifax.

“We hardly take any revenue out of Placentia — it all goes back into the employment of the pilots, the employment of the launch crew, the employment of the pilot boats, and we have a very small overhead that is taken for the administration.”

That overhead runs at 15 per cent, McGuinness says, while 85 per cent of revenues are directed back into running the service. The pilotage authority ran a deficit last year, although the budget numbers weren’t available prior to The Independent’s press deadline.

The Placentia Bay service runs at a slight profit to compensate for the other two ports in the district — St. John’s and Holyrood — which run at a slight deficit, McGuinness says.

The Atlantic Pilotage Authority was in the news recently when one of its pilot boats ran aground May 28 in Placentia Bay. Damage to the pilot boat — estimated to cost $3 million to replace — is being assessed to see if repairs are possible. That will depend on the state of the engines, which filled with water when the boat sank.

Pilots have had as many as 1,400 assignments in Placentia Bay a year, although this year the number of assignments is expected to be down because of the closure of the Terra

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“It’s impacted on our operations,” says McGuinness. “It’s one of those unfortunate situations, and we have rose to the challenge.”

Manning says safety is also an issue with having the pilotage authority headquartered in Nova Scotia.

‘DISGUSTS ME’ “It just disgusts me that the health of the ocean in Placentia Bay all too often rests with a decision on a desk in Halifax.”

McGuinness says the authority can control safety from Halifax. He adds fatigue was the prime cause of the May 28th accident.

South Coast Crewing has a contract with the pilotage authority to provide the boats with launch masters and deck hands. Captain Barry Spencer runs the company.

McGuinness says he’s satisfied that Spencer is following the labour code and the contract with his workers.

“There has to be a certain amount of responsibility. Everyone has to take their job seriously and work appropriately, McGuinness says.

“Theoretically while you’re on shift you have to proportion your sleep. That’s what we expect and that’s what the contractor is doing.”

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4 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

Branding ‘often a challenge’ From page 1 “It’s a brand: it’s a recognition of us as a province, us as a people, us as a culture and a heritage. And we hope what we’ve chosen will capture that.”

Governments, states and even cities all over the world have taken on branding strategies since the early 1990s.

Branding is used to sell a region to tourists, international investors and skilled workers. Nimijean says messaging often has to work to overcome a negative image.

“There is a need for honesty in messaging, you just can’t say this is heaven, this is nirvana. In fact you need to communicate a truthful message, and that’s often a challenge,” Nimijean says.

Market Insights’ audit found that the mainland’s opinion of the province, as well as “how we see ourselves” will be barriers in creating a brand for Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Newfie jokes” are only one problem. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians also see themselves as powerless, defeated, inferior and proud underdogs, according to focus group work and research done for the audit.

Political branding strategies can also have negative affects on how public debate is structured, Nimijean says.

“It’s not that Premier Williams’ public policy platform is the right one or the wrong one, but are we evaluating it the right way?”

The new Newfoundland and Labrador brand will have to contend with other political brands. Nimijean says branding strategies being developed on a provincial level may in future have an affect on Canadian nationalism.

“Clearly you have competing interests, Newfoundland and Labrador is competing against Alberta’s new strategy, in terms of not just tourism, but in terms of attracting investment and in terms of fiscal federalism,” he says.

Nimijean adds the real world of politics is complicated by messaging strategies, including branding and positioning in federal debates over revenue sharing.

“The premier’s response to the equalization report is an interesting case in hand … he says historically one of the poorest provinces is losing in this… yet part of the branding strategy is trying to overcome that image of being poor and dependent and a place of poverty, that sort of image — so which is it?”

He says that branding is used frequently on the federal level to focus debate on values rather than policy.

“It’s a very attractive strategy for politicians. We have seen this with Prime Minister Harper, where Canadian values are being framed in terms of an agenda.”

Nimijean credits the Chrétien government’s use of “the Canadian way” and the Canadian brand with stifling opposition to the government’s policy choices during three terms in office.

JUNE 11, 2006

By Craig Westcott The Independent

A

s much as the company would like to do it here, Petro-Canada has no choice but to conduct some of the maintenance, repairs and refurbishment of its Terra Nova oil vessel overseas.

The huge Floating-Production-Storage and Offloading vessel, known in industry parlance as an FPSO, has been out of production since May 7.

That’s when the gearbox on the second of the boat’s two main power generators broke down. It is currently being run by two stand-by generators, which are not powerful enough to pump oil.

The vessel was about to suspend operations anyway for its scheduled maintenance and refurbishment. Repairs to the gearboxes will add four to five weeks to the shutdown period.

Petro-Canada and the partners in the consortium that owns the rights to the 440-million barrel Terra Nova field, plan to spend up to $190 million on the so-called “turnaround.”

The vessel’s bottom will be coated with an anti-fouling agent to repel marine growth, its huge thrusters, or propellers, will be taken out, inspected and tended to, and a number of underwater valves will be replaced.

Added to all that will be the installation of a $10-million new accommodations module, currently under construction at Bull Arm by North Eastern Constructors Limited. The 40bed unit will enable Petro-Canada to increase personnel on board the vessel to 120 workers at a time.

Petro-Canada spokesman John Downton says as much of the repair and turnaround work as possible is being done this side of the Atlantic.

“We’ve got the equivalent of 600 full-time people on it now and have had several hundred people on it for several months,” he says. “All of that work is being done here. The fabrication of the accommodations module is being done here, the cover plate that covers up the opening for the turret when it’s going overseas, that’s being done down in Marystown. Except for the time in the dry-dock and the work that has to be done in the dry-dock, a lot of it is being done here, as much as we can do. We made a conscious effort with respect to the accommodations module, in particular, to get that done in the province.“ But some things, Downton says, just can’t be done here because of the size of the vessel.

The Terra Nova FPSO vessel is currently in production at the Terra Nova oil field on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

Sandor Fizli

Local benefits Petro-Canada slating as much of $190-million Terra Nova turnaround work here as possible “You need a huge, huge dockyard, a huge dry-dock facility,” he points out. “There are no non-military dry-dock facilities of that size on the eastern seaboard of the Atlantic.”

The dry-dock work will be done at a yard in the Netherlands called Keppel Verolme. The

FPSO is still at the Terra Nova site being prepared for the trip overseas starting the middle of this month. Petro-Canada hopes to have the vessel back at the field in September to start hooking up to its wells and resuming production before the onset of fall weather.

‘What else can we do?’

From page 1 He says the people who are “settling in” to rural communities are retirees, people who have no trouble paying taxes but often aren’t prepared (or able) to volunteer for such critical services as the local fire department.

“What’s going to be hard in the years to come is to replenish the volunteer base,” Ruth says. “Who’s going to coach hockey and look after boy scouts and participate in the local service clubs?”

During municipal elections in 2005, Ruth notes that over 40 per cent of municipalities did not elect a full slate of councillors. He isn’t surprised to hear that communities are choosing to resettle.

“People are throwing up their arms and saying ‘What else can we do?’

There’s no young people coming along, all of our schools are closed, there’s no amenities in the town and we’re probably better off in areas that are more vibrant.”

SHIPPING NEWS TUESDAY Vessels Arrived: Atlantic Jet, France, from St. Pierre; Cygnus, Canada, from sea.

Vessels Departed: Maersk Norseman, Canada, to Hibernia; Maersk Chancellor, Canada, to White Rose; Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, to Terra Nova.

WEDNESDAY Vessels Arrived: Hanseatic, Bahamas, from St. Bride’s; Burin Sea, Canada, from Terra Nova; Maersk Placentia, Canada, from Terra Nova; Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, from Terra Nova; Maersk Chancellor, Canada, from White Rose; Alex Gordon, Canada, from Terra Nova.

Vessels Departed: Maersk Dispatcher, Canada, to White Rose; Hanseatic, Bahamas, to Bantry, Ireland; Maersk Chancellor, Canada, to White Rose.

Great Harbour Deep, White Bay • 135 permanent residents in 53 households, resettled in fall of 2002.

• Town dependent on cod fishery, with no road access.

• Government offered to buy properties of 21 non-residents.

• Province paid $1.3 million a year to sustain the town.

Petites, White Bay • Eleven households voted for resettlement in June 2003.

• Community not accessible by road, with no scheduled ferry service. The community did not provide schooling or medical services.

• Relocation expected to cost $1.25 million.

Big Brook, Northern Peninsula • Three households and 10 permanent residents — three of whom were school aged — relocated in 2004.

• Located at the end of a 16 km dirt road, with no medical clinic or church (nearest school 28 km away).

• Cost of relocation $350,000. Province expected to save $122,000 a year by discontinuing road maintenance, bus service and cutting off Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro service. Costs expected to be recouped in three years.

THURSDAY Vessels Arrived: Maersk Nascopie, Canada, from Hibernia; Jean Charcot, Britain, from sea; Anticosti, Canada, from Terra Nova; Atlantic Osprey, Canada, from Terra Nova; Atlantic Hawk, Canada, from White Rose; Cabot, Canada, from Montreal.

Vessels Departed: Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, to Terra Nova; Burin Sea, Canada, to Terra Nova.

FRIDAY Vessels Arrived: Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, from Terra Nova; Cicero, Canada, from Halifax; Teleost, Canada, from Bull Arm; Atlantic Eagle, Canada from Terra Nova; Maersk Dispatcher, Canada, from White Rose.

Vessels Departed: Cabot, Canada, to Montreal; Atlantic Osprey, Canada to Terra Nova.

JUNE 11, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 5

‘No choice but to like it’

Resettled community of Femme lives on in the minds of former residents — and the livelihoods of a handful of lobster fishermen

By Pam Pardy Ghent For The Independent

F

or two months of the year, Femme — a community left deserted through voluntary resettlement in 1954 — comes back to life as a handful of fishing families move in to fill their lobster quotas.

Don Barnes has been fishing the waters off Femme, five miles northeast by east of his Fortune Bay home of Harbour Mille, for 30 years. Each year, from the third Saturday in April until the third Saturday in June, Barnes and three other families have taken up the temporary residence.

Barnes’ wife Ada has been his dorymate for the past 15 years, and the couple’s 17-year-old son Steven has grown accustomed to seeing his parents only briefly during lobster season. Besides drop-ins for supplies when weather permits, communication between Steven and his parents is by two-way radio.

“The folks look forward to going,” Steven says. “And since it’s how they make their living, they have no choice but to like it.”

Fishing from Femme has its perks.

When the workday begins at 4 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m, having no distractions is a bonus. The two-bedroom cabin the Barnes’ stay in was an original homestead and the well — dug more than 80 years ago by the home’s first inhabitants — provides fresh drinking water.

The layout of the coast protects the smaller boats that fish there, and when the weather is too bad to fish from Harbour Mille, pots can still be hauled near Femme. The boats do burn more gas than most inshore fisherman in nearby communities — the same cliffs that shield boats from winds and waves also mean fishermen have to steam further out to set their pots. Barnes burns 19 drums of gas (more than 3,200 litres) in the two months there.

Reg Rose

There are sacrifices to this life.

Steven has been staying with his grandparents or other family during the fishing season since he was two years old.

“When I was younger I used to like going over to help or just pod around,” he says. As he grew older, schoolwork interfered with his stays and he had to remain at home.

“I’m on my own at exam time,” he says. “My grandparents can’t help me with that stuff and you can’t do your homework over a radio.” He works as best as he can on his own or with friends.

Fifty years ago, Femme was a living, breathing community year-round. From the early 1950s to the 1970s, thousands

Paul Daly/The Independent

of Newfoundlanders were prodded into moving from their outports to larger centres. By 1954, when the residents of Femme moved on, 49 communities were left empty.

While it’s difficult to find statistics on the total number of communities or households moved during resettlement, an interim report from the provincial government indicates that 132 communities, containing 3,876 households and 19,197 persons, were relocated by April 30, 1972.

The amount awarded any household who resettled was small, between $300 and $600, but with an inshore fisherman earning less than $900 a year, almost anything was an incentive.

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But the residents of Femme left voluntarily, with no financial assistance from the government.

That still frustrates 77-year-old Gordon Baker. He was born in Femme, and while he hasn’t returned since leaving, he says he thinks about it every other day.

“I guess at the time we all thought life was good because we didn’t know any better,” Baker says. “But once we left, we realized life was nothing only misery there and while others had help, we never got nothing to move. You spend your life building up a home and most just walked right away from it.”

Baker and his two young children left Femme and settled in Burin where

he still lives today.

“All the men worked away on draggers or fished harder than most to scrape by a living there,” he says of his old hometown. When the men went away to work, the women were left with no way to communicate with the outside world. The local school couldn’t keep a teacher and children had no education unless they left and were boarded out in other communities.

“I don’t blame everyone for leaving,” he says. “You had to bounce across that bay for everything. You couldn’t even get groceries unless it was a fine day to cross the bay. There was nothing there except bones and homes, and folks left the bones in the graveyard where they belong and most took their homes to places that had roads and schools.”

While Baker talks of the hardships there, he admits thinking about “home” sometimes breaks his heart. “Bad as it was, we didn’t know it at the time … it was just home.”

His sister-in-law, Hettie Baker, 72, hasn’t been to Femme in three years, though she used to go every year to visit the now-overgrown cemetery.

“I can go back there today and show you where all the homes were and tell you all about who lived in them,” she says. “The last time I was in Femme there was this old house still standing that wasn’t even fit to live in back 50 years ago … I suppose that’s gone now too.”

She fondly remembers Femme as a small but close community, but her brother-in-law is less sentimental.

“Families just couldn’t make a go of it there, there was nothing to stay for and after some folks left, the rest had to come along.

“We had to leave there so we could live and feed our families, and now people go there to make a living to feed theirs,” he laughs at the irony. “Well good for them.”

6 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JUNE 11, 2006

Loaves and fishes T

his week’s announced cod fishery is yet another example of how Newfoundlanders can be bought and paid for. And we come cheap as dirt, or for five fish a day. What did we get last week? Oh right, five weeks more EI. Sure we’re good to go now, a bit of fish and extra pogey, praise Joey for Confederation and its many treasures. The outports may be sunk and the families scattered with the wind but there’s fish at the bottom of the freezer.

My Mother, a born Newfoundlander (pre-’49 delivery) may be a Townie but she was on the ball enough to marry a Bayman. Mother always said we can never be happy as part of Canada because we didn’t vote with our hearts. “We voted with our wallets,” says me Mudder (that’s the Bayman in me talking).

The lovely Mrs. Cleary, a devoted but critical reader, has a point. The first thing that comes to mind with Confederation is … Baby Bonus, which adds up when there’s a baker’s dozen asleep on a cot in the second room. Thousands of Newfoundlanders were also put to work three months before the big wedding day so they’d qualify en mass for Employment Insurance immediately after the ceremony. How sweet was that? We didn’t so much love our Canadian bride back then as the gifts she came with.

Our feelings grew from there.

Danny’s at it again, I see. Why are the feds always at us? We only just got the new Accord and they’re out to repossess it. Danny warned this week

RYAN CLEARY

Fighting Newfoundlander of “dire circumstances” if Ottawa attempts to take back what he got for us, and what do you think he meant by that? Step one: haul down the flag. Step two? Don’t expect an answer from the premier — he may think separation in his head but he’s not ready to bawl it out.

And still there’s the fishery, our cross to bear.

Loyola descended from Ottawa on Thursday and landed on the end of a Petty Harbour wharf, which would have been dangerous had he not been loaded down with loaves and fishes. “Praise Loyola,” shouted the natives as the minister walked among them. “Our prayers are answered, more days on the Bay and fish for the brewis.” The scene couldn’t have been better choreographed if Brian Tobin roared up on a Jet Ski wearing sealskin Speedos and a hairnet made from a turbot trawl.

George Rose may not think fishing cod is a good idea but who asked him other than CBC? What do cod scientists know anyway? They wanted to declare cod an endangered species, foolish buggers. The distant ocean may be empty but there’s fish for the killing in the bays. And fishermen come before fish, sure it’s there on page 3 in Scrunchins detailing how Romeo LeBlanc put the species in

order (and if you read it in Scrunchins …).

And so we’re headed back on the water and all is right with the rock. It’s still up in the air where the 3,000 tonnes per fisherman will be processed, but there are enough plants around yet to spread the work around.

Recovery plan? Industry restructuring? What’s the need of all that when there’s still fish to be had.

The feds got it down, how to play us, and we got it down, how to be played with.

The weather couldn’t have been better for the royal visit. The clothes danced on the lines the day Loyola dropped by Petty Harbour, but then they’re always dancing out that way. The boats bobbed and the sound of a chainsaw rippled through the salty air.

“Talk about contrived,” said one of the media types, and they aren’t easily impressed let me tell you. “I’m a bit concerned about where I am,” said Loyola of the end of the wharf behind him. “I only have one way to go.” But that’s what happens when you become Fisheries minister in a government that tows the bureaucratic line. Loyola announced the Gulf cod quota first, to build suspense before getting to Petty Harbour and vicinity.

Throw away your tags and licences, there’s cod enough for all, and if there’s not we’ll go down fishing. One of the local leaders was heard whispering his gratitude at being legally allowed to do this year what he illegally did last year. At least that stress is gone. We can police ourselves, did you hear? Loyola’s the new sheriff in town and he trusts

Paul Daly/The Independent

us not to kill more than we need. “For he’s the jolly good fellow,” sang one fishermen of the minister, who earned reelection in Petty Harbour that day.

If the day wasn’t truly special enough, someone mentioned the fact it was Oceans Day, June 8th, a time to remember the life-giving role of oceans worldwide.

A prayer would have been more appropriate. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

YOUR VOICE ‘Most vacuous piece of scribble I have read’ Dear editor, For a week now I have been staring at the most vacuous piece of scribble I have read in a long time and wondering why it is still irritating me (‘Quite unbecoming’ an editor-inchief, May 28-June 3 edition). I think it’s because the letter was such a shoddy defense for DFO management’s frightful history of incompetence and raked Ryan Cleary because he rightly suggested some people at DFO should be fired for said incompetence.

I think what really irritates me is

that the silly epistle was actually signed by a retired manager at DFO — Bruce Atkinson. Lord help us, if I were ever a manager at DFO, with their destructive history, I would never want to admit it, let alone publicly.

I guess modesty and wisdom don’t come to those who never practiced it. DFO management would indeed be a good case in point and Mr. Atkinson is certainly its highliner.

David Murphy, Topsail

‘No one else in Canada would tolerate that kind of comment’ Dear editor, There is no question Newfoundland is the poor relation in Confederation when it comes to the services of Air Canada. Newfoundland tax dollars have been applied to Air Canada’s debt over the years to help keep it afloat.

It would appear that our generosity was soon to be forgotten. The St. John’s-to-Heathrow flights are vital, not only to the general public, but also to business and tourism.

Tourism has become a vital part of our economy and must be supported and sustained by every means possible. It is an insult to expect us and our visitors to over fly the province twice before landing in St. John’s.

Halifax to St. John’s connections are poor and overbooked at the best of times.

The prohibitive cost of all the extra travel to and from Halifax will be an added burden. Air Canada treats us in a deplorable fashion on domestic flights.

The last time I flew on a direct flight from Toronto to St. John’s there were no snacks or meals available for purchase — an entirely different scenario from my previous flight, which was from Winnipeg to Toronto. The flight crew were rude and at times insulting. One flight attendant proclaimed loudly, as she was passing with drinks, that “newfies love their booze!”

I was incensed, no one else in

Canada would tolerate that kind of comment. We need to negotiate with West jet, Canjet or better still Virgin Atlantic, whose services are second to none. Virgin also has landing privileges at Heathrow, which would be difficult for a smaller airline to negotiate.

POORLY RUN The new St. John’s airport also needs to pull up its socks. I arrived from London this week to a complete fiasco. The staff was disorganized, the indicator boards were not up to date, and they were showing advertisements on the screen, whilst people were trying to locate their flights. The speed that the luggage is unloaded is painful, especially when that cluster of planes arrives between 12:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m.

We have a spiffy new airport, which is being very poorly run.

It is ludicrous that all the Halifax passengers from Heathrow are deplaned to go through customs with their luggage. I don’t blame them for being annoyed. Those of us who feel we are getting the rough end of the stick need to write to the minister of Transportation, Air Canada and our MPs. It seems that the people of this province will have to fight for recognition on every front.

Brigid Kellett, St. John’s

AN INDEPENDENT VOICE FOR NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR

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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

Isolation, a Newfoundland myth “Newfoundland isolated? How is that? Her argosies whiten every sea.”

— Robert John Parsons, 1868

O

ne of Newfoundland’s enduring myths is that it was ever isolated. This myth plays to the “poor Newfoundland” ethos, the “poor bald rock” existing in remote backwardness from the rest of the world. This isolation is supposed to have taken place in an age when all long-distance travel was by sea and Newfoundlanders were seamen extraordinaire. In the days of sail our vessels were found in all the world’s oceans. From a time before Gilbert came on his way to start a colony in America, landing at St. John’s in 1583 for supplies (because it was “a populous port, much frequented”) to the 1620 stopover of the Mayflower at Renews, the 1700 visit of Edmund Halley to Tors Cove, the trans-Atlantic cable, supply stops by various Arctic explorers, the flights of Curtis and Alcock and Brown, to the development of Botwood and Gander, Newfoundland has been an important way station in world transportation and communication.

In the 19th century, Newfoundland brigs and schooners sailed from Grand Bank, Burin and other ports to the far reaches of this water world. A hundred years ago, steamship passenger service linked the outports with St. John’s and St. John’s with Liverpool, Cherbourg, Boston and New York.

When the St. John’s dry dock was built in 1884, it was the largest in the world, hardly a necessity for an isolated “Rock.”

Regardless of the facts, the myth persists. Like all myths, it is contradictory. The isolation myth contradicts the Newfoundland-as-a-nation myth.

Both come out of St. John’s, as is to be expected. But it was not Newfoundland that was isolated from the world. It was St. John’s that was isolated from Newfoundland. Outport sailors probably knew more about the back-street politics of Cadiz, Piraeus

DAVID BENSON Guest column

Like all myths, it is contradictory. The isolation myth contradicts the Newfoundland-as-a-nation myth. Both come out of St. John’s, as is to be expected. But it was not Newfoundland that was isolated from the world.

It was St. John’s that was isolated from Newfoundland. and Lisbon than they did of the capital.

But all myths persist because they’re useful. As poor, backward and isolated, Newfoundlanders are less likely to make demands on multi-national corporations who come here to extract our natural resources. We are not supposed to know that any nondescript Third World regime gets a 50/50 split of the revenues from its resources.

Poor, backward and isolated people don’t make serious demands on their governments, content instead to beg for a few handouts they are conditioned to feel grateful for receiving.

Isolated, oppressed people never revolt. It is only when they learn that there are other people in the world living under conditions that are remarkably similar to them and it is only when their expectations are raised and not met, do they kick-up.

Newfoundland’s elites have learned this lesson very well and are careful never to raise expectations. New-

foundlanders are generations away from revolt. They are the most loyal of colonies, the dutiful “Noofs,” self deluded into a sense of isolation and unwilling to take responsibility for their part in the world, or to even recognize that they are part of it.

Even the most defining moments in our recent history — Confederation and the resettlement program — are seen as somehow unique to Newfoundland. It is not appreciated that in the immediate post-Second World War period, over 30 countries were created, dismantled or joined onto their larger neighbours as the victorious Allies redesigned the world.

It isn’t considered that Newfoundland was not the only place to undergo massive resettlement, but the last of many. Most countries had had their version 200 years ago and it was done there for the same reasons it was done here, to provide a mobile workforce for a developing industrial base.

Newfoundland may be more isolated now than it was centuries ago.

Newfoundlanders probably travel less than they did then. As exotic as Dartmouth, Brampton and Fort McMurray may seem, they can hardly compare to Oporto, Pernambuco or the China Seas. But changing technology has undermined our strategic geographical position.

We are no longer a crossroads of the world, but that does not mean that we should wallow in imagined isolation.

We need not surrender every modicum of self-respect to entice anyone, either corporation or tourist. We need not give away everything we have out of fear that the rich and handsome stranger will leave us if we do not. In the immortal words of Captain Billy Winsor, “Let it go to the Jesus bottom!

Ye haven’t got to work for the Yanks for nothing!”

The question is, why can we not work for ourselves?

David Benson lives in Tors Cove. davidlindsaybenson@hotmail.com

JUNE 11, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 7

‘How much rubber chicken can you eat?’

L

ong ago, when pterodactyls still soared over the Earth, my grandfather was lieutenant governor. It was a job he took seriously. In those day it was a job that was clearly defined - the Queen’s representative was supposed to grace the position with dignity and flair.

There were social and constitutional responsibilities. I may be biased, but I think he did a pretty good job.

Since then the role of the LG has become fuzzier. In the years since my grandfather’s tenure, the public role of LG has become less clear and, I think, less relevant. It is a role that has constitutional importance to be sure, but the day-to-day role has grown stale. Too much of it is still swaddled in silly, antiquated stuffiness.

The Queen herself, a shrewd woman, figured early in her career that the job is what you make of it, and she continues to do a fabulous job. Nationally, the role of the Queen’s representative, the governor general, has evolved as well.

Despite some initial public dubiousness at her appointment, Adrienne Clarkson shone in the role. Her open, accessible and activist example set a new standard.

IVAN MORGAN

Rant & Reason Michaëlle Jean certainly seems to be following her example.

Sadly, the role of our own LG has not seen such an evolution. The role needs to be energized and made relevant. It shouldn’t just be an excuse for an endless procession of tedious cocktail parties. That is why I am surprised more hay has not been made from the landmark accomplishment of our latest LG, Ed Roberts. I refer to the fact that he has earned, while in office, a master’s degree in history. Splendid!

As I do with any public issue that interests me, I have been taking a straw poll on how people feel about this.

Some were sour — wondering why he can “go back to school” on the government payroll when they rack up massive debt doing the same thing. Others wondered why he bothered. As one woman said tellingly, “Sure what does he need

YOUR VOICE ‘Like a true Newfoundlander …”

Dear editor, Just want to tell you how much I enjoy your paper. It’s Newfoundland ... plain and simple, no fringes, no bells, no whistles, like a true Newfoundlander, take it as it is, a piece of work.

My family is one of many families that packed up and went away for work. In 1998, right out of the Marine Institute, my husband was told to go to Nova Scotia if he wanted a job in the offshore up there. So off we went.

Last year, 7 years later, he told his employer he wanted to move back to Newfoundland and fly back and forth to join the ship. Luckily, they said go on if you want to. On July 8, 2005 (with a son in tow at that point) we crossed the Gulf with all we owned. I tell you I was one happy lass when that ferry slipped her lines and head-

that for? He got his money made.”

Her attitude reflects a popular view of education that I think needs changing: education as a commodity. Mr. Roberts pursued his degree because of his personal interest in the subject. He doesn’t need to learn history, he’s been making it for the past 40 years. He was interested in learning for learning’s sake.

Yet there were only a few press items in the papers. Axel Meisen made reference to his accomplishment in his speech to Memorial graduates, where Roberts was awarded his degree, but that was about as far as the coverage went. (Speaking of education, the speech, available on his website, contains this sentence referring to Roberts’ accomplishment: “He did so for the shear (sic) joy of learning.” Editors and writers amongst us wince in empathy.)

That Mr. Roberts would return to university to continue his already formidable education is an example to us all. I taught community college computer courses in the evenings for 20 years, and I rarely saw a person regret the decision to get up after supper and haul themselves out to a classroom. While the vast

majority of my students took my course to improve their chances at gaining employment, I always tried to show them the value of computers as an educational tool, and tried to make them see the value in learning. Many of them returned to take other courses. Young and old, they discovered that they enjoyed the process of learning. They learned that education isn’t a commodity, it is a pursuit.

That’s why I think his accomplishment should get more public attention.

More than that, I think Mr. Roberts’ should use his time to re-define the role of lieutenant governor for future generations. I would love to see more public events where he extols the virtue of education for the sake of education, at any age. The glory of Roberts in his current role is the respect he already has. His would not be some idiotic “Read to Succeed” campaign. This is a wellrespected fellow Newfoundlander leading by example.

I checked his official itinerary. Looks like an endless succession of formal luncheons, receptions and dinners. No wonder he needed the distraction, poor

fellow. Now that he is finished, I encourage him to take it a step further.

Your honour: re-define the office that you hold. How much rubber chicken can you eat? How much bowing and scraping can you bear? The respect that your office carries can be turned to the better advantage of all. Let people know of the satisfaction you so clearly derive from your studies. Hell, go do a PhD for that matter, if that’s what floats your boat … just tell us about it.

Don’t just drift along in the meandering stream of pompous, starchy events your protocol officers steer you through.

Drive the bus! Speak to the people of the province about the innate value of education and learning. Speak about the pleasure you have derived from pursuing your academic goals. Make education, and “life long learning” — that clumsy moniker for the pursuit of knowledge for it’s own sake — the hallmark of your tenure.

You have a bully pulpit, sir. You should use it.

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

COD FISHERY OPENINGS

ed for home. We vowed then that we’d never leave again. I only hope that there is something to keep our son here when it comes time for him to make a living.

Rest assured, I’ll be trying to convince him to train in an area where he can find employment in Newfoundland.

I enjoy writing and I actually put pen to paper to keep in touch with some friends on the mainland. So tonight when I wanted to make some return address labels, I added some clip art. Right below our postal code is the proper Newfoundland flag! Not blue, red, white and gold ... but pink, white and green. Keep doing what you’re doing with the paper — I love it!

Lori Munden, St. John’s

Pilot boats aren’t the same as pilots Dear editor, I would like to respond to Nadya Bell’s article, Shipping time bomb, in the June 4-10 edition of The Independent. I am not taking issue with Captain Oscar Blagdon and whether he did or did not report the fact of pilot boat crew fatigue to Transport Canada, and I am certainly not suggesting that pilot boat crew fatigue should not be addressed, but I would like to clarify the connection that seems to be made between the pilot boat accident and the possibility of an oil spill in Placentia Bay. Apart from the headline of her article, Shipping time bomb, Ms. Bell uses as a segue into making the connection, and I quote “Pilot boats transport pilots to incoming vessels, so that they can help guide the ships into port. Pilots are extremely familiar with the waters of Placentia Bay, which is what made the accident so surprising.”

First of all if you were not familiar with the pilotage operation you would probably conclude that the pilot boat “helps to guide the ships into Placentia Bay,” which is not the case,

and you would definitely make the connection between the pilot’s familiarity with Placentia Bay, and the fact the pilot boat went aground. The pilot boat is a very integral part of the whole pilotage operation, but is used to strictly transport pilots to and from the ships, and an accident in the pilot boat, caused by pilot boat crew fatigue or not, does not justify the conclusion, that the risk of an oil spill in Placentia Bay is enhanced, by that fact.

The pilots who guide the ships into and out off of Placentia Bay have had fatigue addressed in the past, and although I am not suggesting it should never be revisited, if followed, the risk of an accident in Placentia Bay because of fatigue is very unlikely.

The risk of an accident, however, is possible, and I share Stan Tobin’s concerns, and encourage him to continue speaking out on all environmental issues, including tanker traffic in Placentia Bay. Captain Winston Collins, Marine pilot (retired) Placentia Bay

‘The more things change …’

Dear editor, You’re bang on regarding Loyola Hearn (Strike zone, June 4-10 edition

by Ryan Cleary). Poor guy. Poor us.

His recent erroneous comments re Air Canada’s decision to reinstate flights from St. John’s to Heathrow didn’t help his credibility either.

Indeed, at a Newfoundland function

here in Ottawa last week when asked about such, his reply was all blah blah blah.

The more things change ….

S. Malone, Ottawa

Federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Loyola Hearn announced June 8 the reopening of a small inshore fishery for northern cod, along with a five-week recreation or food fishery. The fishery will primarily be self-policing.

Paul Daly/The Independent

Memorial’s new logo doesn’t cut it Dear editor, I want to comment on the new branding that our provincial university has decided to move forward with.

Historically, I think our logo and trademark coat of arms were unique and reflective of our history. The new logo (whatever it’s supposed to be) seems to be a piece of paper ripped from the leather bound Newfoundland encyclopedia.

I ask the question, why did the university decide to drop the original logo in addition to the name Newfoundland?

Most other provinces/countries in North America reflect their city, town, state, province in their name as the trademark. I believe this is key to international recognition and familiarity with people.

CONFUSION? University branding should reflect the people, communities, history and achievements of the academic facility.

A logo that looks like a piece of ragged/ripped paper doesn’t make me proud. Look at the universities of Washington, New York, Cambridge, Acadia — all dignified and historic universities have kept their image. By changing it, I believe you not only disrespect its history, but it will only cause confusion and Memorial will fade into blandness.

Dean Penton, St. John’s

Me and my bike Editor’s note: Doug Bird, The Independent’s cartoonist, is currently bicycling across Canada, providing the paper with regular updates on his journey.

A

lmost everyone will ask me why I’m riding my bicycle across the country. It is an unimaginable and perhaps ridiculous idea to most, yet everyone has sincerely wished me well, some a little envious of my madness, still the twinkle of adventure in their eye.

Others feel struggling to the fridge at the commercial break is as tough as life should get.

To me it’s feeling like a kid outside of my neighbourhood, exploring the world on my bike. Of course kids today don’t do that anymore. They have nothing of the freedom I had as a child, nothing of the freedom I have now.

I was giddy with freedom as I roared down the backside of Rodger’s Pass, the highest point on the TransCanada in B.C.’s Rocky Mountains.

After climbing for the better part of 70 km, five grueling hours on the bike, I crested the summit. After a short celebration I attacked the downhill with pure joy. I was gliding at 60k. The hill was endless. I wasn’t worried about the snow tunnels, built to prevent sliding snow from blocking the highway. The tunnels were wide with lots of light —

all but one.

I entered the second-to-last tunnel and it was suddenly pitch dark. All I could see was the small square of light that was the tunnel exit. About half way through I heard the brat brat brat of a truck jake-breaking. Like me, he was ripping down the 8 per cent grade.

I shoulder checked and saw him bearing down on the tunnel entrance. As I moved closer to the shoulder I could feel gravel under my wheels. I could not even see the tunnel wall. I was riding blind at 60 km with a semi-trailer coming hard and I knew he couldn’t see me and I knew my only option was to take the lane in front of him and ride it out. I couldn’t ride blind on loose gravel and debris. I hit the lane and burned it up, pumping off about 1,000 calories in 10 seconds. I shot out of the tunnel only meters before the truck.

I haven’t been that exhilarated/poopyour-pants scared for 25 years. But that’s a little bit of why I am on this trip. Not to take foolish risks, but to do what seems like the natural thing in a world where I am surviving alone on my wits and my bike. I am exploring my world again, making it up and discovering as I go along.

I discovered yielding to very large trucks (and small ones) is a good idea but I’m still burning down the hills like a kid on the last day of school.

Doug Bird is making his way home to Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s.

JUNE 11, 2006

8 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JUNE 11, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 9

IN CAMERA

Business brewing Quidi Vidi Brewery already supplies a healthy portion of the 10-dozen million beer consumed annually in the province, but an upcoming brand launch has the company seeking further expansion.

Photo editor Paul Daly and reporter ClareMarie Gosse visited the former fish-plant premises in Quidi Vidi Gut in St. John’s to get the scoop.

A

decade after launching 1892, its first beer, Quidi Vidi Brewing Company, founded by David Rees and David Fong, is bursting with new business schemes.

The bulk of the company’s current plans centre on their latest product, Iceberg Beer, expected to be launched by summer’s end. Following on the successful heels of Iceberg Vodka, Rees tells The Independent his company is ready to distribute internationally. In order to raise the serious funds required for the undertaking, the company is also seeking a public

listing for the first time.

“We want to get as many Newfoundlanders as shareholders in our company as we can,” Rees says as he cradles a glass of QV Light in the brewery’s refreshment area. “However small, really … here is an opportunity for us to share our company with Newfoundlanders.”

The newly conceptualized Iceberg Beer will be a premium product, he says, made 100 per cent from 12,000-year-old water and packaged in an elegant, frosted bottle.

Although statistics show 20 dozen beer for every man, woman and child in

Newfoundland is consumed annually, Rees says the population just isn’t big enough to justify a brand like Iceberg.

“We’ll take that product and put it in the market as a high-end premium product.

So the whole idea is this: if you want to drink a beer made with 12,000-year-old water, you’re going to have to pay a premium price.”

Quidi Vidi Brewery is currently set up to handle around four per cent of the province’s beer market. Rees says the international launch of Iceberg means an almost definite, physical expansion to the

Quidi Vidi site. The company has already started assessing possible properties and he says the most likely location for a new building will be Mount Pearl.

“We have quotations on breweries now and we’re ready to roll with that. If the market takes off faster than we’re forecasting, we’ll be building a new brewery very fast here.”

The company also has a launch party planned at the end of June to celebrate another milestone. In an attempt to capture the outdoorsy market and a refusal to resort to cans, the brewery will soon be offering new, unbreakable plastic bottles for its mainstream brands — QV and QV Light.

The brewery currently produces four premium brands alongside QV. Rees says the first, 1892, was so named after the date of the last fire to destroy St. John’s. The name and amber-ale characteristic of the beer was inspired by an old photo taken prior to the blaze.

“In the background of the photo there’s a building and you can read the words on the building, it says Cliff Wood and Company. Now Cliff Wood, we dis-

covered with a little research, actually was an importer of malt, the ingredients for the breweries that existed in Newfoundland prior to the fire.”

Following 1892 came the award-winning Eric’s Red Cream Ale, named after the father of L’Anse aux Meadows founder Leif Eriksson.

Honey Brown and Honey Brown Light complete the brewery’s current repertoire — one of the few honey browns to actually use honey as an active ingredient, Rees says.

As successful as Quidi Vidi Brewery’s co-owner hopes his company will be on an international level, he says the most interesting affects of going public will probably be seen in-province, as locals purchase a chunk of homeland business.

“The idea behind it is this: my company, my beer.

So if you buy, say, 1,000 shares in Quidi Vidi Brewery, well, you have a vested interested in the brewery. So guess which beer you’re going to drink?

You’re drinking your brand, and your family and friends are too, so that drives up your share price, the value of your stock in the company and everybody benefits.”

JUNE 11, 2006

10 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

e-Bay killed the concert fan S omething infuriating is happening in today’s music industry; something odder than the Idol insanity and less controllable than downloading — but unfortunately something that makes perfect sense.

It’s becoming almost impossible to get tickets to any concert worth seeing, unless you’re willing to either line up overnight, happen to know somebody who knows somebody who can fix you up, or you’re prepared to pay a scalper hundreds to thousands of dollars. eBay is screwing us all. Now, people who would never usually consider peddling the Red Hot Chilli Peppers or Roger Waters tickets on the street outside venues are happily buying extras and scalping them online for desperate purchasers to buy/bid on. Tickets from the bonafide distributor — usually Ticketmaster — are being snapped up the second they go on sale before fans even get a chance to hit redial or click a mouse.

Anticipating a summer trip to Toronto this year and starved for concert fixes, I started keeping tabs on the upcoming Canadian tours.

Remembering my concert heyday in Vancouver (about five years ago) and how many huge acts I managed to see in just a year, I was fairly optimistic.

When I discovered one of my favourite bands, Radiohead, was planning a small North American tour in June before officially recording their next album, I was on high alert. I would be at the phone (actually two phones and online) ready to dial/click at the split second those tickets went on sale.

Unfortunately, Radiohead in a characteristically infuriating/quirky way decided they would only stop at small theatre venues, making it triply difficult to score tickets. The band, for those who don’t know, are a bunch of guys from Oxford, UK. They’ve been around for about 15 years, specialize in alternative rock music with great lyrics and melodies and could pack 10 Wembley Arenas. I have lots of favourite artists, but Radiohead is the one band that’s been my constant since teenagerdom.

They tour fairly infrequently and despite my own travels, I always somehow manage to be in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong part of the world to catch them.

Surprise, surprise, my efforts to get tickets to this latest gig were painfully unsuccessful. They did pop up on eBay

CLARE-MARIE GOSSE Brazen

I have lots of favourite artists, but Radiohead is the one band that’s been my constant since teenagerdom. They tour fairly infrequently and despite my own travels, I always somehow manage to be in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong part of the world to catch them. after selling out, but I can’t afford to shell out thousands of dollars.

Of course Radiohead in a tiny art house venue is one thing, but I was equally unsuccessful at scoring tickets to above-mentioned Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Roger Waters concerts — and they were scheduled for the SkyDome.

Ticketmaster and the artists it represents have only just started to actively tackle this online (usually eBay) scalping problem. It was recently announced attractive seats for sell-out shows would be specially held back for fans to bid on over a week to 10 days, with Ticketmaster and the artists splitting the proceeds. Although this may cut the scalpers out to a point, it doesn’t much help the fans’ bank accounts. The highest, regular ticket price for Madonna’s upcoming Montreal two-night stopover was $350, but the highest fan bid was $3,200. At least Madge and her crew aren’t going hungry.

The current problem of getting tickets to decent shows is just the latest in a long line of ever-morphing issues in the music industry.

I love music. When people ask me

what kind, I say, “anything good.” It could be classical or the hardest rock. I think songwriters in the last 30 years have become the equivalent to old school poets. Cranking up good music, with thought-provoking lyrics, original melodies and layers of sound is one of my favourite things to do.

Unfortunately, good music in our current manufactured pop-soaked culture is more illusive than April sunshine in Newfoundland.

You can’t even really blame the music industry — they’re just making money; it’s a business like anything else and they jump to consumer demand.

American music mogul Lou Pearlman, the brains behind NSYNC and Backstreet Boys, summed it up perfectly when he once said, “People often ask me ‘when is this boy band business going to be over?’ I tell them when God stops making little girls.”

(That said, I remember being a “little girl” around the hey day of New Kids on the Block and I had no problem understanding they had more hair gel than musical talent and were bent over for a fat record producer.)

Little girls aside, there are so many mindless people out there happily lapping up Jessica Simpson, Shakira, or the latest manufactured boy band (these days masquerading as a serious punk rock outfit) with yet another video of a lead singer breaking up with a mysteriously tormented hot girl who usually ends up trashing a room — or he ends up trashing a room ...

It’s all hideous. Even a decent music radio station is a virtual nonentity, which is sad because as much as I love all the quality old stuff, I want new material to fall in love with once in a while and it’s hard to come across.

That’s why I need at least the occasional good music, live-concert fix. I need it; in a modern world of so many creatively starved, musical illiterates, it’s all I’ve got.

Maybe the George Street Festival could hook up Radiohead this year?

Crazier things have happened. Quirky old Radiohead likes playing unusual venues (I bet they’ve never visited Newfoundland and Labrador) and eBay wouldn’t get a look in … you just have to pay cover on the night, right? Come on George Street Festival organizing committee — I need my fix. Could you help me out? claremariegosse@hotmail.com

It’s not just about you.

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JUNE 11, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 11

SCATTERED PAST

Scavenging in Bay Roberts ROAD TO YESTERDAY MUSEUM BAY ROBERTS

By Nadya Bell The Independent

B

etty Jarrett’s Road to Yesterday museum in Bay Roberts is like walking through the spoils of a scavenger hunt.

Everything in the museum is donated, and Jarrett says she put it together in six months. The museum opened in 2000 on the top floor of the restored Western Union Cable Building.

In a series of brief areas the museum recreates a merchant’s store, forge, butcher’s shop, tinsmith, print shop and tearoom. Each area presents the scene without labels on the artifacts, leaving curious school children and visitors guessing.

“If you label it you’ll be all day trying to read the labels. We really want to give the original atmosphere,” Jarrett says.

The older kitchen utensils get, the more incomprehensible they seem to become. A string dispenser, glass rolling pin or biscuit cutter may have been indispensable in their day, but they may as well be flint tools today.

Of course a blender, juicer or egg slicer might be pretty bizarre to people

in the future.

“There is a cast iron frying pan here — I’d say that one has cooked up a few meals,” Jarrett says.

Blacksmith William Henry Littlejohn’s forge from Coley’s point is reassembled, intact, in one corner. The original coals are still there, as is his seat for visitors — a well-worn strip of wood across a pail of water. The forge closed in the mid 1960s when it still made horseshoes.

The latest addition to the museum is an archeological exhibit.

Ceramic butter jars and olive pots that were discarded in Bay Roberts harbour in the 16th century landed softly on the sandy bottom and are now resurrected.

Coral covered gallon jugs and teapots protected them so they survived intact.

The jars are prized by archeologists, although they look like the discarded shells of monstrously large sea snails, or luxury homes for hermit crabs.

The old dyes and two presses operated by printer David Russell are arranged to recreate his old shop. Drawers of metal letters line the walls, and the photographed view from the shop is in the window.

On seeing the printing press, Jarrett says one child visitor exclaimed: “Oh, look at the old fashioned computer!” And another asked,

Betty Jarrett.

Nadya Bell/The Independent

“Where is the screen?”

The press once printed The Guardian newspaper for the Bay Roberts area, along with labels and death notices. She says Russell’s own death notice was found set up in the press, ready to be printed the day he died.

A handmade wedding dress belonging to a Mrs. Mercer is on display in a fashion section. The dress, detailed with faded snowflake embroidery, dates back to 1909 and is accompanied by a photograph.

Mrs. Mercer looks fairly grumpy in the wedding picture and Mr. Mercer’s face is obscured by a large moustache.

But smiling wasn’t what you did in photos then, and they likely had a fine day, according the record in The Guardian displayed in the printing shop. Their

presents included an organ from Mrs. Mercer’s father and a pearl handled butter knife.

The newspaper also lobbied to get cable company Western Union to come to Bay Roberts, knowing it would be a contribution to the local economy. The building, built in the fall of 1913, was a relay station during the Second World War, enabling communication between England and the United States. It is two stories high, has seven tall windows along the top floor and granite front steps. The roof is made of poured and reinforced concrete that was raised on top of the finished walls by horsepower.

It took two seasons for Jarrett and her husband Eric to restore the building with the help of Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency funding, back in

June 1997.

“I cried the first time we came in here — I thought we’d never do anything with it,” she says. The building was full of mould, the ceilings had fallen down and teenagers had been hanging out inside.

Completely restored for the museum, the building also houses Christopher Pratt’s art gallery and a small archives.

The town hall leases the bottom floor.

This summer Jarrett and two archivists are restoring artifacts for a military exhibit, and cataloguing items from Russell’s printing shop.

The Road to Yesterday museum can be found at www.virtualmuseum.ca. It is open 7 days week, June to September.

Admission is free.

Williams won’t elaborate on ‘dire’ warning The premier met Thursday in Alberta to discuss Canada’s $11-billion equalization program. Changes proposed by the five-person panel on equalization and territorial finances could have cost the province $200 million a year in revenue, effectively erasing the benefits of the new Atlantic Accord deal.

Following the meeting with the country’s premiers, Williams told The Independent he thought the proposed

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Williams ordered the removal of all Canadian flags from provincial government buildings in December 2004 in retaliation for the federal government’s failure to follow through on a new deal on offshore oil royalties.

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equalization changes were “dead in the water.”

As for the “dire consequences,” Williams wouldn’t elaborate.

“It is what it is. It is exactly what I said it is,” the premier said. “I’m going to cross that bridge when I come to it. I have every reason to believe that the federal government is going to deliver on this, so I’m not going to go out and state a position until such time as that

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VOCM later carried a somewhat alarming nugget on its website: “He (the premier) told VOCM Open Line with Bill Rowe his government wouldn’t stand idly by, and didn’t close the door on attempting to opt out of Confederation if the report is implemented.”

A spokesperson for the premier’s office said later the VOCM report was “stretching it a little.”

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remier Danny Williams won’t elaborate on the “dire consequences” he mentioned earlier this week if the equalization recommendations in a new federal advisory report are enacted.

“If, in fact, the federal government, for whatever reasons, decided to implement this, then from my perspective there would be dire consequences,” he told the media in St. John’s last week.

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JUNE 11, 2006

12 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

LIFE STORY

Caged conqueror Acclaimed author of House of Hate struggled throughout his career PERCY JANES 1922-1999

By David Skinner For The Independent

P

ercy Janes is credited as the man behind “the great Newfoundland novel,” though his career is a vivid tapestry of rises and falls, offering a portrait of a life-long starving artist. He was by no means a perfect man, but his talent and determination made him a Newfoundlander to be proud of.

Born in St. John’s on March 12, 1922, Janes was one of six children of Eli Janes and Lillian Berkshire. In 1929 his family moved to Corner Brook, though he returned to St. John’s after receiving a scholarship to Memorial College in 1938. In 1940 he went to Montreal and joined the Canadian Navy, serving for four years during World War II. After the war he enrolled in a bachelor of arts program at the University of Toronto.

While reminiscing in a 1993 interview with local magazine TickleAce, Janes looked back on his years in Toronto as his best. He took English classes from noted Canadian writer Northrop Frye and Newfoundland’s own E.J. Pratt, and his literary interests grew. After graduation, he decided that he would make every sacrifice necessary to write full-time.

It was also around this time, in 1950, that Janes met and married a young woman from Ontario named Margaret Ruth Bowes. But his desire to be a professional writer, as he later said to TickleAce editor, Bruce Porter, created conflict for the couple.

“I wanted to produce a book and my wife wanted to produce a baby,” Janes said. “I wasn’t ready for fatherhood.”

After four years of marriage, they divorced in 1954.

Janes’ complete devotion to writing didn’t lead to immediate success. His first attempted novel, Desire of the Moth, was repeatedly rejected by publishers. Exasperated after several failed years of trying to get it printed, he left Ontario and headed for England with a desire to make a fresh start.

Life in England as a struggling author, however, wasn’t much different than it was in Ontario. Cheap, tiny rooms, light meals, and long hours of writing became his routine, with a lone egg sometimes making a dinner, and low rent being a godsend.

Through it all, Janes remained committed to his writing.

Unfortunately, his refusal to create anything commercial left him out of the graces of publishers, and with his stubborn reluctance to take a job unless absolutely necessary, kept him in total poverty.

Janes was eventually forced to break from his writing-only policy and work odd jobs to keep a roof over his head. His personal sense of failure over this and his manuscript rejections depressed him considerably.

In 1958 he published his second novel, So Young and Beautiful, with money from his own pocket. He didn’t view it with any great sense of accomplishment, and continued to feel ashamed of his lack of genuine success.

Then, sometime in the1960s, Janes had the idea to write House of Hate, the novel that would finally push him into the writing scene at home and abroad. As he said years later, “It had been lying in my unconscious for some time, and then for some reason it surfaced.”

The novel tells the story of Saul and Gertrude Stone and the children they raise in a western Newfoundland mill town.

Saul is a violent, hate-filled man whose harsh actions and furious temper not only destroys any sense of love in the home, but goes on to influence the growth of his children.

Janes considered the story to be semi-autobiographical.

“I used my family material as raw material,” Janes said. “I had no particular qualms about it at the time… and I expected some flak from that …”

He got it. For the better part of 20 years, Janes remained estranged from members of his family, including his own siblings, some holding such animosity that it even surprised him.

While shopping the novel around, it caught the eye of Farley Mowat, whose praise brought the publisher McClelland and Stewart on board. In 1970, nearly 20 years after he had sworn himself to a solitary life of writing, Janes was receiving rave reviews across Canada.

The reaction at home wasn’t so enthusiastic.

Newfoundlanders either loved House of Hate’s depiction of the Stones, or denounced it as a slanderous portrayal of the province’s culture and family values. Good or bad, the book suddenly thrust a poor, unknown, expatriate writer into the spotlight.

Janes’ story did not end happily ever after. Setting to work on his next book, No Cage for Conquerors, he fell back into his old habits, and grew dependent on his friends living in England. Among them was fellow writer Margaret Laurence, who invited him to stay at her countryside cottage.

The success of his first major novel did not mean the same for his second; Conquerors was rejected by McClelland and Stewart. About the same time, Janes had an emotional falling-out with Laurence over private differences. In 1973 he abruptly decided to return home to Newfoundland, having had enough of British life.

Arriving as the prodigal son, Janes quickly became a part of the community of local artists and writers, and eventually settled just outside St. John’s, in St. Thomas, where he continued to write fiction and poetry.

Janes always remained in the shadow of House of Hate, which riled him to his last days. Believing an author to be only as good as his latest work, he continued to see himself as both a failure and an outsider among his fellow artists.

In his final years, Janes struggled with Alzheimer’s disease. He never remarried, and had no immediate family, depending on his close circle of friends as his mind declined.

On February 19, 1999, his seemingly endless perseverance gave out, and after catching pneumonia, he passed away at the age of 76.

With files from Bruce Porter (TickleAce) and Peter Harley (Percy at the End)

Bat t e r y R ad i o independent production Radio features Audio documentaries Acoustic films Audio guides Winner of the 2006 Prix Maruliç for the documentary Running the Goat www.batteryradio.com

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INDEPENDENTWORLD

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 11-17, 2006 — PAGE 13

Chantal Héberte Torstar wire service Most Canadians have never had occasion to be singled out as a group for the extreme beliefs of a few. But some of us have.

By the time the 1970 October Crisis in Quebec broke out, I had lived in Toronto long enough to know that I only needed to count to three out loud to reveal I was French-speaking but not quite long enough to do anything about it.

In time, I would come to master the sound that is so distinctive of the English language (although the French accent would stick with me for the rest of my life) but in the fall of 1970, I was still a long way from the level of bilingualism that has led me to the pages of this paper.

For Canadian teenagers, the ’70s was a fearless time and Toronto not quite the mega-city it has since become. To make up for the deficiencies of the suburban TTC service, I had become a veteran — if not totally expert — hitchhiker.

That fall, I deliberately became even more inarticulate, striving to stay as silent as possible. I did not want the drivers who picked me up — and who often vented aggressively about the events unfolding in Quebec — know that I was a francophone.

Even more so than today, Quebec politics at that time set the temperature of francophone life in other parts of the country.

Whenever Quebec was undergoing a hot spell, the Toronto climate could turn frigid.

For a while after French President Charles de Gaulle made his “Vive le Quebec Libre” speech from the balcony of Montreal’s City Hall in the summer of ‘67, our Willowdale neighbourhood turned decidedly chilly. Eggs were occasionally plastered on the front windows of our house.

During this period, francophone communities across Ontario were striving to take advantage of then-education minister Bill Davis’s policy of allowing for a public, French-language highschool network.

In these less enlightened years, there was no lack of Ontario school boards willing to treat parental requests for allFrench schools as an act of separatism — in line, trustees claimed, with the setting up in Quebec of the Parti Québécois.

To its credit, the North York Board of Education was not among those. École secondaire Etienne Brûlé, the Toronto area’s first French-language public high school, opened one month before the kidnapping that set the October Crisis in motion.

The early ‘70s was a turbulent time.

In the U.S., young Americans were demonstrating against the war in Vietnam; in Paris, French flower children were tearing up the streets and in Canada, driven by Pierre Trudeau’s language policies, young FrenchCanadians were claiming a place for themselves as francophones outside Quebec.

Late in the summer of 1970, a group of us had placed an order for maca-

Muslim women, believed to be family members of the 17 suspected al-Qaeda sympathizers accused of planning bomb attacks in Canada, leave a bail hearing in the Toronto suburb of Brampton June 6, 2006.

REUTERS/J.P. Moczulski

I know what it’s like to be a Muslim today Columnist reflects on life as a francophone in 1970s Toronto roons sporting the slogan “Frog Power.” The idea, inspired by the AfroAmerican rights movement, was to turn on its head the taunt we had all had occasion to hear on the streets of Toronto.

The macaroons were delivered the very week British diplomat James Richard Cross was kidnapped by the FLQ. They sold like hotcakes.

With the school under police protec-

tion and threatened with firebombing, some concerned parents pleaded with the principal to ban the macaroons. He replied that his school was into fostering pride, not fear.

I remember little of the Grade 12 courses I took that fall; so busy was I shipping thousands of macaroons across the country. From Moncton to Vancouver, francophones —young and sometimes old — snapped them up.

We were always taken aback by suggestions that they were even remotely connected with the violent acts that had taken place in Quebec.In our minds, affirmation and separation were opposite sides of the same coin.

In hindsight, it would have been easier to treat living as francophones outside Quebec as one long hitchhiked ride and try as best we could to melt into the background. As opposed to today’s

Muslim communities, francophones are very much an invisible minority.

But then I, for one, would have missed learning early on that the answer to domestic terrorism involves equal parts respecting differences, and repressing extremism.

Think of it as weeding out a lawn: It will only work if something vibrant is allowed to grow in place of the weeds.

Terrorism and multiculturalism in the West

L

ast Sunday, my wife Jane and I returned to Canada following a cruise visiting Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Russia — circumnavigating the Black Sea, where the contending forces of Christian and Muslim countries fought for hundreds of years.

Never once did we feel in any danger from any of the people we came across from many different nationalities, including the millions of Muslims who live in the areas we visited — especially Turkey.

It was only as we returned to Canada that we had to think about what is the most important issue involving peace, security and violence in our world today — with the news of the arrest of 17 suspects on terrorism-related charges in Ontario.

Why is it that Canadians of Christian

JOHN CROSBIE

The old curmudgeon faith can visit Istanbul and Turkey and not feel any tension or danger, walking together with tens of thousands of Turkish Muslim citizens on the streets of Istanbul? Whereas in many western democratic countries today there are strong possibilities of acts of terror that might be committed by people, who since World War II, have come to these countries, presumably to seek better opportunities for themselves and their children.

Can the attempts of countries such as Canada, the U.S., the United Kingdom and other European (and traditionally

Christian) societies that have taken a multicultural approach, be considered a success or a monumental failure in light of the terrorist threat posed by some of those they have welcomed?

Can the people living in the receiving societies consider their open-door immigration policies to be a success in view of what appears to be the disaffection among many immigrants? Can these open-door policies be considered a success if those who have immigrated — or their children — feel so disaffected, disgruntled, or discriminated against that some are prepared to use violence against their fellow citizens and the governments and authorities of their new countries?

In Turkey, there is no apparent evidence of Muslim citizens threatening or attempting terrorist acts against the government or the people. The modern

Turkey created by Ataturk in the 1920s appeared to have been put on the right footing when it was established as a secular state.

Presumably, successfully functioning democratic countries accept new citizens in the expectation that they will improve their own prospects, but also observe the laws, rules, regulations and mores of their new countries, and accept and observe their guiding political and social principles.

The Islamic Ottoman Empire, dominant for hundreds of years, made room for many other nationalities and adherents of other religions, including Christians, so long as the general rules of that society were observed by all.

Protecting the innocent in our society from terrorism is our most important problem. We cannot welcome immigrants who do not wish to observe the

rules and practices of their new country, nor can we continue multiculturalism as practiced since the Second World War. Later this month, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment will conduct a pilgrimage to France and Flanders, to mark the 90th anniversary of the heroism and sacrifice of the members of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in 1916 at Beaumont Hamel, where the beautiful memorial to those who lost their lives is located. On July 1 it will be 90 years since the Newfoundland Battalion — over 700 strong — went over the top in the Battle of The Somme, with just 68 answering the roll call the next morning. Newfoundlanders in particular will remember and honour the sacrifices of all those who fought for Newfoundland and for See “Defend,” page 15

A stunning collection of photography from the portfolio of The Independent’s own Paul Daly.

Available this summer. To preorder your copy, contact Boulder Publications at 895-6483.

JUNE 11, 2006

14 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

VOICE FROM AWAY Leipzig, Germany

By Caitie Burke For The Independent

W

hen my husband, Vaughan, was offered a postdoctoral position at a renowned research institute in Leipzig, Germany, it was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

We had spent the past seven years at foreign universities, first to pursue my education in occupational therapy and then to pursue his in archaeological science, and were confident we could handle the challenges of living in another foreign country with our nine-month old daughter, Neave. But now I’m beginning to wonder — for we had not anticipated the FIFA World Cup….

I have to admit, I knew very little about Leipzig prior to boarding the plane in St. John’s two short months ago. A few hours Googling the web told me that the city was located where the Parthe and Elster rivers meet in East Germany, near the Polish border.

First settled as a Slavic village between the seventh and ninth centuries, and founded as a city in 1135, Leipzig is known internationally for its long and rich history of education, culture and music.

The likes of Leibniz, Goethe, Schiller, Mendelssohn and Bach have all wandered the city streets before me.

But for the next few weeks the city’s cultured history will be shadowed by soccer mania, as the world’s second largest sporting event steamrolls into town. Leipzig is one of 12 sites to host the FIFA World Cup, where 32 countries will compete in front of one billion viewers worldwide.

To put it in perspective, Leipzig has roughly the same population as the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and they have invested an astounding 91 million euros in the city for the event and are expecting tens of thousands of spectators to visit and show their national pride and love of the game.

Considering myself to be an unofficial expert in major sporting events, I thought I knew what to expect. I was studying in Sydney, Australia during the 2000 Olympics and experienced the intense chaos and patriotism that exploded in the city. I have also lived in Northern England where soccer is a religion and people treat their local soccer club with devout loyalty and enthusiasm.

But this is different. The World Cup is in a league of its own.

As the days to kick-off got closer, the city started to buzz. There are banners on every streetlight, stores have transformed their window displays into “football art” and glowing pink soccer balls sit on

Artists and participants attend the World Cup 2006 opening ceremony in Munich June 9, 2006.

REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

‘In a league of its own’ St. John’s native anticipating World Cup excitement in her current hometown of Leipzig, Germany

top of telephone booths.

Even with all the football hype, I did not anticipate the intense excitement and bustle in Leipzig.

Prior to arriving, my initial thoughts of East Germany involved caricatures based on old James Bond movies. My naïve preconceptions involved expressionless people who responded to questions with one-word answers and a chilly disposition in a city with plain, concrete architecture without colour, character or style.

My initial narrow-minded perspectives have

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changed and the World Cup has provided an incredible opportunity for Leipzig to show its true colours and history.

The city of Leipzig has experienced tremendous change since the revolution of 1989 and the disappearance of the former German Democratic Republic. Historic buildings have been restored and much of the city’s vibrancy and street life has returned.

Leipzig’s residents have invested a lot of time and money to improve its infrastructure and restore its former splendour and grace. Within the city centre, it is an architect’s dream. There are medievalstyle buildings next to gorgeous Baroque complexes, next to intricate ornate churches dating back to the 12th century.

Leipzig is also proud that it was one of the first German cities to conduct peaceful political protests against the former German Democratic Republic in

1989. The protesters had non-violent rallies within the city’s centre to demand rights such as freedom to travel to foreign countries and to elect a democratic government.

Known as the Monday Demonstrations, these peaceful protests grew in such strength that by October 1989, more than 250,000 people had joined the pro-democracy protests. The protests made an incredible impact and are considered a key contributor to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and to German reunification.

And now, merely 15 years later, Leipzig is about to host one of the largest commercial events in the world.

It remains to be seen how Leipzig will respond to the crowds and activity now the World Cup has just started, but given how it has managed its challenges and changes to date, I am looking forward to taking part in this historical event.

JUNE 11, 2006

INDEPENDENTWORLD • 15

22 years for Jeffrey’s killing Five-year-old abuse victim granted justice almost four years after death Nick Pron Torstar wire service

E

lva Bottineau’s knees buckled but she showed no emotion when a judge told her she must stay in jail for at least 22 years before applying for parole in the death of her 5-year-old grandson, Jeffrey Baldwin.

Her common-law husband, Norman Kidman, was told by Mr. Justice David Watt that he had to stay in prison for 20 years before he could apply for parole in the Nov. 30, 2002 death of his grandson.

“The crime is abhorrent to the core values in our society,” Watt told the couple, both 54, in a packed University Avenue courtroom June 9.

During his sentencing, Watt told the couple they would be allowed to apply to have their sentences reduced after just 15 years, although he had few other positive words for Bottineau in particular, whom he described as “morally bankrupt.”

Her “self-perception … is at odds with reality,” Watt said as Bottineau shook her head in apparent disagreement.

“She thirsts for control, but flees from responsibility.”

Toronto’s chief Crown attorney, Paul Culver, says the role played by the Catholic Children’s Aid Society was critical in Jeffrey’s death.

“I was shocked and surprised at the low level of co-operation this society gave to the homicide investigators and later to the prosecutors in the case.”

Last month, Justice Watt found Bottineau and Kidman, both 54, guilty of second-degree murder in his Nov. 30, 2002, death.

During the four-month trial, emergency workers said they were shocked at the sight of Jeffrey’s wasted body when they were called to his home.

The child weighed 21 pounds, a pound less than on his first birthday. He died from septic shock after suffering from bacterial pneumonia, caused by sleeping in his own bodily wastes in a bedroom that was locked nightly from the outside, the trial heard.

Bottineau and Kidman had custody of Jeffrey and three of his siblings and were supposed to save them from a life of abuse at the hands of their birth parents.

Instead, the pair used the children as a source of income, collecting government support cheques in their names while confining the young ones to a dank, cold room in their house.

Court was told Jeffrey was hidden away in the unheated bedroom for as long as 14 hours a day, breathing in the stench of his own urine and feces.

The room contained wet, uncarpeted floors, mattresses soaked through and littered with stains and bags of filthy diapers throughout.

“The inhumanity revealed here has shocked the community,” Watt said.

Defend our way of life From page 13 Canada in both World Wars, in Korea and in other actions and activities that have occurred in our defence in the carrying out of peacekeeping activities.

These sacrifices require us all today to make the necessary efforts to overcome whatever has caused the failures of our immigration policies and multicultural efforts.

If those sacrifices are to be justified, we must defend our way of life, if all Canadians are to have the same opportunities for peace, security and prosperity. Our other great challenge is to defend ourselves successfully against the terrorism threat without damaging or endangering any of our citizen’s democratic rights.

“They must pay a very steep price.”

Jeffrey was treated like a dog: he ate out of a bowl with his fingers and often drank from a toilet when he was thirsty.

Jeffrey and his sister — who cannot be named — were locked up so frequently that regular visitors to the home often had no idea they even lived there.

Although the siblings lived in squalor, the rest of the house was normal, including the living quarters of other children living in the house, court was told.

Kidman and Bottineau were also convicted of forcible confinement in the case of the boy’s sister.

When his sister was rescued from the

house, she too showed obvious signs of starvation — skinny limbs, a distended belly and open sores.

Bottineau’s lawyer, Anil Kapoor, had argued his client did not deliberately kill her grandson. He cited a psychologist who testified Bottineau was mentally handicapped with a personality disorder that prevented her from seeing Jeffrey waste away.

Other expert witnesses contradicted that assessment at trial.

The Ontario coroner’s office has said it intends to hold an inquest into the boy’s death, although a date has not yet been announced.

JUNE 11,

16 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

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SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 11-17, 2006 — PAGE 17

Curtesy of Magnetic North

Magnetic east Major festival gears up to soak St. John’s with theatrical culture

By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

I

t’s only four years old, but Magnetic North Theatre Festival could well be the largest of its kind in Canada, and at the end of June it hits St. John’s.

Vice-chair of the national festival, Artistic Fraud Theatre manager Anne Brophy, says the city can expect hundreds of visitors.

Conservative estimates have numbers pegged at around 300, but she guesses there will be significantly more. Among them will be the cream of Canada’s theatre crop — from actors to artistic directors to writers.

“It’s a big deal,” she tells The Independent.

“We have so many of our most fabulous Canadian theatre artists who are going to be

here … the list just goes on and on, it’s pretty exciting.”

Carrying the festival, which runs from June 28 to July 8, are 10 performances from across the country, chosen by Magnetic North’s artistic director Mary Vingoe, who attends over 400 national shows every year and gathers the best. This year, Newfoundland and Labrador made the cut with an astonishing three performances, as well as a special student presentation from Corner Brook’s Sir Wilfred Grenfell College called Fear of Flight.

The festival, which has its home base at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, plays in the capital city every second year and in another provincial city in between. St. John’s is the second province to host after Edmonton was chosen in 2004.

Brophy, along with Artistic Fraud founder Jillian Keiley, was responsible for snagging Magnetic North’s 2006 run for the province (“we kind of begged”). She says with the popularity of the festival spreading, provincial capitals are now waging bidding wars for 2008.

“Magnetic North, to me, is not just about what it’s bringing here to this province, “ she says, “I think it’s more so what it can leave behind and that legacy is really important to us … we just want to make sure that our artists and our audience get as much out of this festival as they possibly can.”

With an array of events such as master classes, celebrity speaker series and a collection of local theatrical presentations, in addition to the 10 mainline performances, theatre

professionals and amateurs alike might find scoping the festival daunting.

Brophy says there’s something for everyone and passes are available to purchase for those who want to see and attend everything.

At least audiences can be assured that with the best of Canadian theatre up for view, it’s unlikely anyone will leave a performance disappointed.

“It’s a festival that really makes you think, there’s always great discussions after the shows. It’s great programming … I’m a theatre junkie, admittedly, but I think there’s a lot of us here, theatre junkies — or theatre junkies in training.” www.magneticnorth festival.ca See “Magnetic North,” page 20

LIVYER

By Ngaire Genge For The Independent

I

n a popular urban legend, an unsuspecting diver, accidentally scooped up by a roving water bomber, meets his end when he’s dropped into the middle of a raging forest fire.

Pilot Jim Aylward chuckles at the story as he walks across the tarmac at the Wabush Airport.

His water bomber, “really more of a flying boat,” remains the least graceful-looking piece of aviation engineering since the Wright Brothers and their cohorts crashed their bizarre

contraptions at Kittyhawk. Yet, despite its square construction and inelegant lines, Aylward seems fond of it.

“It’s really comfortable,” he says, “much more than it looks.

And the seats are great.”

Aylward’s had lots of time to get used to his craft’s vagaries.

After some air ambulance and considerable bush flying experience, he’s in his 18th season as a water bomber pilot.

He’s busy every year, with occasional arsons in nearby communities, huge forest fires raging in Quebec and campfires run amok.

Dropping bombs Labrador pilot fights fire from above When talking about the water bomber, which truly does resemble a boat, Aylward spouts numbers the way some grandparents

do grandkids’ names.

“She has an empty flying weight of 29,302 pounds, a full scooping weight of 43,500

pounds. Two 600-gallon tanks allows us to carry 1200 gallons of water per trip ...”

The Newfoundland and Labrador government hasn’t been anxious to upgrade its fleet of water bombers to Bombardier’s modern, more widely used models, but Alyward doesn’t mind.

“Sometimes, the older planes are better,” he says.

“The engines are less complicated. It’s like the difference between driving a new car or an old car. The new car might have better gas mileage, but to drive the old car feels better,

sturdier—and all the kinks are worked out.”

A fully fueled plane — with a nearby water source — usually works a four-hour session before needing to return for refueling.

Although it’s possible to fill the tanks on land, the plane is clearly designed for refilling on the lakes. Additionally, the plane carries two tanks of foam.

“The foam mixes with the water outside the plane,” Aylward’s hands roll over one another to demonstrate. “The water and foam are released at See “‘Satisfying’ work,” page 19

JUNE 11, 2006

18 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

GALLERYPROFILE

BILL ROSE Visual Artist

T

ucked away in an intimate room at the back of Christina Parker Gallery in St. John’s is a secret garden.

As with all secrets (and gardens) it appears to be one thing on the surface, but conceals something sinister beneath — like the slugs and soil hiding behind petals.

Established St. John’s artist Bill Rose’s current exhibition The Secret Garden, with it’s richly beautiful floral renditions of oil on canvas, seems vastly different from much of his previous work, which often makes dark political or social statements using pop-culture images. Despite its flowery subject matter, Rose admits his current exhibition is still planted in the shadows.

“There’s always been a darkness or a melancholia to my work and that’s me. I love sad songs,” he says, with a smile and demeanor contradicting his words.

Rose’s flowers pop off their canvases, highlighted sometimes by deliberate black blocking, or simply by their own dark green foliage.

He points to one called Roses For Mother Mary that shows two floral images, similar to one another, but divided in the middle. He explains he began the painting before his mother’s death two years ago. He completed it after.

Another called Only A Special Girl Can Wear Bare Legs Into Fall also features two differing floral panels side by side. But these bright flowers are bolder than the softer, more motherly roses, and are accompanied by a black panel with the title text printed in capital letters.

Rose says the painting is dedicated to his sister who died four years ago.

Not all Rose’s exhibits stem from personal experiences. One, called Trap, is his own copy of the 17th century painting Rape of the Sabine Women. Rose has recreated a slice of the original painting and placed it above the copy of a Dutch, floral still-life.

All of Rose’s work is created using a rigid grid system. He marks sections off on his canvasses and literally fills in one tiny square at a time. Gridding is a common process, used by artists to maintain accuracy in their work, most usually cover up their process beneath paint, but Rose deliberately accentuates his. Which means self-contained, painted pixels become apparent up close, beneath what at first appear to be loose, freehand images.

“The grid gives me focus,” he says.

“Lots of painters tell me they don’t know how I do it because it’s so regimented, but within that little square I have all the freedom in the world.”

Rose — who taught evening art classes at Memorial University for over 10 years — says he learns best through experiment. Any mistakes or errors of judgment he makes along the way he attempts to turn around, transforming them into something else. Like the painting Roses With Sliver of Rembrandt, which began as a side-by-side composition of two panels, one a portrait of Rembrandt, the other of roses. The finished piece, however, is just roses with a small sliver of … something running down the side.

“It just wasn’t working for whatever reason. So I decided, as I often do, to just cut that section off. When I was cutting it I said, ‘Well, what if I leave a little remembrance, or a little scar that he was there?”

Rose painted his first Secret Garden piece as far back as 1991 and has been working on his other floral paintings sporadically over the last five years. He says the intimate, secret nature of the room space, tucked at the back of Christina Parker’s Gallery, prompted him to finally put the show together.

Whether The Secret Garden’s roses and the depths they conceal bear any correlation to the artist’s surname or suggest anything about his own nature is a mystery. For as Rose points out, “There’s a lot of stuff that artists know about their own work that nobody else will ever know.”

— Clare-Marie Gosse The Secret Garden runs at Christina Parker Gallery until June 30th. Other current exhibitions include Elements and Landscape featuring work by Carol BajenGahm, Barb Daniell and Susan Sarioglu.

JUNE 11, 2006

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 19

Who needs icebergs?

Province’s arts and culture scene is (un)-natural wonder

T

here is a lot going on for the arthungry resident or tourist.

Icebergs seem to have gone the way of cod, cheap hotels, and the typewriter. Forget our unreliable natural attractions. It’s time we dropped the false advertising, faced up to climate change, and started featuring images of some of the amazing cultural attractions this province has to offer.

In the next couple of months we can all avail of anything from a Festival of New Dance, the first-class theatre extravaganza that is Magnetic North, the Sound Symposium, Nickel Film Festival, the literary/writers festivals of Winterset and Woody Point, jazz, folk, and chamber music festivals, not to mention the ongoing offerings in Cow Head, Battle Harbour, Trinity, and so on.

Reading a local weekly entertainment guide you can see why it’s called the Town Cryer. There’s almost too much to do and see and so it’s easy to produce tears of frustration, or guilt.

Take the current slate of exhibits at The Rooms. Most Canadian art galleries would trade their gifts shops for just one of the four shows now on display for your viewing — and listening — pleasure.

Arguably the centrepiece of the four shows is Christopher Pratt, a show that needs no qualifying title and comes to us direct from a widely acclaimed exhibition at the National Gallery in Ottawa.

Make no mistake about it: this is a staggeringly great event, the first time that so much of Pratt’s work could be available at once, in all its gorgeous and complex power.

Much has already been written about Pratt’s paintings, and the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition is a fine piece of work, in the quality of both the images and the analytical essays.

In particular, the piece by Josée Drouin-Brisebois has garnered a lot of attention because it situates Pratt’s work in a political and decidedly Newfoundland context. It is common to think of Pratt’s paintings as modern, abstract representations of order and design, and

NOREEN GOLFMAN Standing Room Only rarer to consider the social, cultural meanings at play in his large, deliberate frames.

But Newfoundlanders who have been gazing at Pratt’s work far longer than almost anyone else already see what Drouin-Brisebois is writing about: the tensions, ambiguities, and even the ironies that emerge from the rigorous geometry of his practice. Pratt’s persistently imposing straight lines reconfigure the wildness of snow or sea, or the emptiness of a building, a room, a ferry terminal. The works are demanding, moody and intellectual, and we love them for the experience of all of the above.

It is not unusual to hear some complain that they “don’t like” Pratt’s work because “it’s too cold and unemotional.” Frankly, these comments always strike me as really dumb. The viewer is always compelled to stand inside the landscape of the frame, not merely to stare at it from the outside but to see it from within, to locate oneself in that often unsettling moment where the human and the “other” intersect.

Sometimes the other is actually another human, but most often it is the world itself. If you want a warm, fuzzy experience then go open a greeting card. If you want a provoking psychological experience with this place and the world to which it belongs, then go see this magnificent, luminescent show.

What’s truly remarkable about what’s happening right here right now is that there are three other exhibitions occupying the gallery space of The Rooms that deserve respect and attention.

Being on display in the same house, so to speak, that features the work of a Christopher Pratt is a little like going on a date with George Clooney. Sure, it’s bound to be exciting but you’re likely to be competing for his attention with

Christopher Pratt

everyone else.

I have already written enthusiastically of the uniqueness of the Douglas Coupland exhibit, Play Again?, which shows off its shrewd methods throughout the summer. Opening on the same day as the Pratt show was Silver and Stone: The Art of Michael Massie, also on view right through to early September. It’s an interesting fact that Labrador native Massie is as well known and admired in art and collectors’ circles as Pratt, but less familiar to the general public. If we have any self respect this show ought to change all that.

Indeed, walking up from the thirdfloor gallery where Pratt’s paintings are hanging in all their magnificent monumentality you encounter a smaller display space where Massie’s exquisitely wrought teapots and carved figures are awaiting your delight. Raised in the cul-

‘Satisfying’ work From page 17

Pilot Jim Aylward

the same time and they tumble together in the open air, making the mixture that eventually falls on the fire.”

Once a strategy for fighting a fire has been decided, activity within the plane is highly regimented and if a mechanical system fails, there are ways to manually drop water.

When asked if he’s ever felt endangered over a fire, Aylward just shrugs.

“There’s danger in any job, if you stop and think about it a lot.

“Sometimes, there’s simply no way to get to a fire. If the turbulence is too bad, you’re too high, and it’s pointless to drop water because it’ll evaporate long before it reaches the ground … for that you need the big water bomber.” He grins and points in the general direction of heaven.

Though both bomber crews and fire departments fight the same enemy, there’s no true association of services. The dividing line between jurisdictions seems to be trees.

“If it’s in the woods, it’s ours; if not, it’s theirs,” he says.

On call all summer long, Aylward says he hasn’t had a vacation with his wife and children in 18 years.

The duty shift schedule is intense. A 14-hour shift allows for eight hours of bombing time, then a few hours off and moving-about time, then eight hours of down time, then back in the air again. And there’s no guarantee that down time won’t be spent traveling to fires elsewhere — Quebec and across the country.

Inside the province, six water bombers serve six regions.

“It would not be rare for all of them to be on red (high alert) at the same time, but often we can shift a crew and help out elsewhere. For example, while we were in Val D’Or (Que), the crew from Goose Bay was in here, covering both regions.

It’s safe enough when it’s been raining heavily in both regions, but, if things got hot in Goose Bay, he’d be recalled there, we’d be recalled here, and the folks in Quebec would have to look elsewhere for extra crews.”

It’s an unusual lifestyle.

“I own two of everything. Two razors, two toothbrushes, two everything … the bag is always packed.

We have training runs every third day …” He laughs, “They own us.”

What does the demanding schedule offer in return?

“I find it very satisfying. You go, you do something, you see immediate results. Gives you a good feeling every day.”

Paul Daly/The Independent

ture of the modern comic book as much as that of his Inuit heritage, Massie has evolved a highly original style.

Look at the way he animates his materials, bringing the surprise of originality to older themes: teapots carved into being as stunningly beautiful objects of silver and wood; hunters and fishermen crafted fully into life in seductively polished stone. No wonder collectors from all over the world have descended on the show to harvest Massie’s talent.

The connection between Pratt and Massie becomes clear when you realize that they are both working with and reworking the material of this place, its history, traditions, and its rich well of stories. Moreover, both have achieved prominence on a bigger international stage, obviously connecting their own experience of a specific place — whether the Salmonier Line or Happy

Valley-Goose Bay — to a larger community of world citizens.

Finally, consider surrounding yourself with the musical installation of Janet Cardiff’s Forty Part Motet, the award-winning recording of a 40-person choir performance of a well-known Tudor piece by Thomas Tallis. Listeners have become intimately engaged with the installation, responding to the 40 encircling speakers by lying on the floor, listening attentively to each and every speaker, and essentially giving new purpose to the notion of walking around in circles. As with Christopher Pratt, the Cardiff show comes to us directly from the National Gallery in Ottawa. Things sure have come a long way.

This summer, take a tourist out to lunch and then spend some time at any one of, or all of these amazing shows.

Icebergs are so yesterday.

BAYCHICK

By Tonya Kearley and Laura Russell

JUNE 11, 2006

20 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

Silicone enhancements P

ersonally, I don’t see anything wrong with silicone augmentation. I mean, if you are looking to make more of what you already have, then silicone is the way to go.

Silicone is soft, pliable, strong enough to resist manhandling, and if properly looked after, will last a long time. I know for sure, the first time I got my hands on some, I was hooked.

When it comes to tools in the kitchen, silicone is one of the most versatile compounds. As a space-age technology it stands up like Teflon as a time saver and more importantly, it makes better food and here’s why.

When the rubber on a regular spatula dries up, it gets brittle and there is a good chance it will break off during your next cake making session: rubber scented chocolate cake, anyone? When working with foods that can get hot like melted chocolate, sauces, or meringues, go for silicone. While you can get a brace of spatulas in every supermarket

NICHOLAS GARDNER Off the Eating Path and generic dollar store for cheap, they are not heat resistant. The modern rubber used for ordinary, non-heat resistant spatulas is made of a compound not dissimilar to an elastic band. Rubber, as a natural compound, contains some moisture and when it is heated sufficiently, will dry out. Silicone will not because it has a significantly higher melting point than plain rubber.

My silicone spatula is made by Le Creuset — one of the grand makers of kitchen equipment. While they make excellent hand tools, they are more noted for their heavy, enamel-coated braziers. Mine is bright red and is heat resistant to 400 degrees, which is hotter than any sauté pan will get. Due to its

construction it is both durable and flexible.

Silicone is also in a couple of other baking tools. Silpat is a reusable baking sheet liner, perfect for making cookies or other goods. I especially like them for making parmesan cheese crisps.

The silicone allows the cheese to brown but is slippery enough to allow it to come off, even when soft. One tablespoon of parmesan or asiago cheese in a little pile and baked in a 350-degree oven until the cheese starts to turn golden makes a great garnish and crunchy texture for a cold salad.

For serious foodies, the Silpat is divine. Soak ultra thin mandolin sliced apple in simple syrup (1:1 ratio of sugar and water simmered until the sugar dissolves and then cools) overnight and then bake the slices slowly on the Silpat in a 300-degree Fahrenheit oven — you’ll get crisp, golden apple slices, suitable for a garnish or a crunchy snack. Cooking with a Silpat ensures

POET’S CORNER Gill Nets Spiders make up silken twine.

From shed eaves dangle their webs like gill nets — four or five in line.

And one at right angles.

Flies turn at the wall of mesh, turn again — too near and late — into fatal fetter.

Spiders strip the flesh, mend again their gear and wait — yarn about the weather.

By David L. Benson from his 2002 book And we were sailors …

the slices don’t stick and become golden.

The same company (Demarle) makes all sorts of other useful moulds including stars, quenelles (football shaped), pyramids and other funky looking shapes.

As well as being heat resistant, silicone is freezer proof. So instead of using the baking moulds for cakes try them out for individual ice cream molds. Who needs a scoop when there is a mould at hand?

When I was looking at all the tools that are available here in town, I found other implements that are useful.

Silicone padded rolling pins, in a rainbow of colours, allow for easy release of pastry from the pin. For those of you who are more afraid of pastry, this could be helpful in keeping the final product together and not in a bunch of different pieces.

The most ingenious product, however, also has a catchy name: foodloops.

Foodloops are reusable silicon food ties. These ties are perfect for people who are tired of using butcher’s twine or have difficulty trussing a chicken or turkey. These remarkable loops are quick fastening and quick releasing — you’ll never use twine again.

If you are building a kitchen on a budget and cannot manage all these products, then get a silicone spatula first. It is a bit expensive at about $20 for one, but believe me, it works well with anything. It is one of the few tools that can be used to stir curry for dinner then be used to scrape down a cake batter the next day.

Now, don’t you want to get your hands on some silicone enhancements?

Nicholas is an erstwhile chef and current food writer now eating in St. John’s. nicholas.gardner@gmail.com

Magnetic North performances ADRIFT ON THE NILE (neworldtheatre, Vancouver), LSPU Hall, June 29, 30, July 1, 2.

Based on a novel by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, Adrift on the Nile takes place in Cairo on the cusp of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. A group of Middle Easter intellectuals gather every night on a houseboat to smoke hash in a hallucinatory attempt to escape the turbulence of their time. Their peace is shattered, however, when a young journalist joins the group.

BIGGER THAN JESUS (WRYD Productions and Necessary Angel Theatre Company, Toronto), D. F. Cook Recital Hall, June 28, 29, 30, and July 1.

This one-man show weaving irreligious comedy and dramatic intensity has toured internationally and picked up multiple awards along the way. Written, performed and directed by Rick Miller and Daniel Brooks, Bigger Than Jesus uses energetic performance and live video projections to take the audience on a charismatic contemplation of the

mysteries of life.

GOODIES, BEASTIES AND SWEETHEARTS (Le Theatre des Confettis, Quebec City), Eleanor Mews Jerrett Instrumental Room, June 29, 30, July 1, 2.

One for the kids — large or small.

This colourful performance explores taste and smell with a cabaret-style performance.

HOW IT WORKS (Mulgrave Road Theatre, Guysborough, N.S.), LSPU Hall, July 5, 6, 7, 8.

Written and directed by celebrated Canadian playwright Daniel Macivor, How It Works enters the head of an articulate teenage girl whose world has collapsed following her parents’ divorce. This “witty” and “moving” coming-of-age drama examines parenting and family in the modern world.

MARY MAGDALENE AND ADVENTURES IN SOBRIETY (St. John’s), Eleanor Mews Jerrett Instrumental Room, July 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Berni Stapleton is Mary Magdalene.

After spending 2,000 years in mourning, Mary’s a lost soul sleeping on the streets of Toronto until she happens upon Alcoholics Anonymous and decides to investigate the 12 steps towards sobriety with hilarious and touching results.

NIGHTINGALE (Artistic Fraud, St. John’s), Petro-Canada Hall, July 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

An Artistic Fraud original created by Jillian Keiley and Robert Chafe, Nightingale is the story of a young Newfoundland woman who leaves her home in pursuit of fame and finds it as a “sensational diva” gracing stages across Europe and America. The costs of fame and ambition prevail throughout the performance, until the play’s ironic end.

OUT OF THE BOG (St. John’s), Petro-Canada Hall, June 29, 30, July 1, 2.

Written and performed by Jonny Harris and directed by Andy Jones, this hilarious, left field one-man show is carried by a young man musing on subjects such as premature fears of dying, discussions with St. Peter and a pirate with irritable bowel syndrome.

PORTRAIT OF AN UNIDENTIFIED MAN (Sleeping Dog Theatre/National Arts Centre, Ottawa), LSPU Hall, July 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Written and performed by Pierre Brault, this award-winning one-man show, described as “a man in a living painting,” follows the story of infamous art forger Elmyr de Hory. The action begins with an accidental forgery in a Paris garret in 1946 and travels across two continents and four decades as de Hory turns the art world upside down.

THE BLACK RIDER: THE CASTING OF THE MAGIC BULLETS (November Theatre, Edmonton and Vancouver), Reid Theatre, June 30, July 1, 2, 3, 4.

Described as “a Faustian tale of addiction, loss and how love at any cost can be fatal” this award-winning musical operetta based on a German folktale promises to deliver the heights of doom and bliss — as well as some expressionistic comedy along the way.

THE SATCHMO’ SUITE (The Eastern Front Theatre Company, Dartmouth), D. F. Cook Recital Hall, July 5, 6, 7, 8.

A musical play featuring some jazz music, classical, and Louis Armstrong himself. A modern-day black cellist struggles with his craft and summons the ghost of Armstrong to help him out. This “entertaining” and “powerful” show had audiences jumping to their feet.

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 11-17, 2006 — PAGE 21

Oil and water NOIA’s annual do promises to draw crowd despite Hebron hold up

By Craig Westcott The Independent

I

f there is a shadow hanging over the upcoming 22nd annual International Petroleum Conference scheduled for St. John’s this month, Ted Howell isn’t letting on.

The new president of the Newfoundland Ocean Industries Association has jumped into the role just as the fat was hitting the fire over the breakdown in talks between the provincial government and the Hebron-Ben Nevis consortium led by Chevron Canada Resources.

Howell’s second week on the job, he had to represent Newfoundland’s oil industry at the world’s biggest oil show, held in Houston last month.

Come June 19th, he’ll be playing host and taking questions about Hebron from many of the more than 500 delegates expected at this year’s St. John’s conference.

“Absolutely, in private conversations and at the social events there will be a lot of discussion about that,” Howell allows. “There will be discussion of the historical impact of oil and gas on our economy and what impact is a short term deferral going to mean to the economy?”

But Howell says the situation involving Hebron doesn’t seem to be having an effect on delegate registration, which is going strong and picking up.

Howell says it’s impossible to say how long the Hebron Ben-Nevis delay will last.

But no matter.

“There’s still lots of opportunities ahead,” he says.

This year’s conference will feature the usual project updates on Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose, as well as technical presentations on the Orphan Basin, natural gas and western Newfoundland onshore exploration.

TD Bank Financial Group vice-president Don Drummond is the keynote speaker on the first day of the conference; journalist Gwynn Dyer will offer the keynote speech the next day; and economist Wade Locke is promising to separate fact from fiction where the economics of the province’s oil industry are concerned.

But the highlight of the conference is likely to be a panel discussion moderated by journalist and commentator Rex Murphy. The topic is whether Newfoundland is open for business.

Neither one of the four panelists — St. John’s Board of Trade president Ray Dillon, CBC reporter David Cochrane, D.F. Barnes president Jerry Byrne, and Brian Lee Crowley, president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies — is known to be shy.

Howell figures their discussion will generate some interesting questions from the floor.

Meanwhile, aside from its relevance to the oil industry, the conference is also important to the St. John’s economy, notes Howell, who is a former president of City Hotels and director of Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador.

Ted Howell, new president of NOIA.

Paul Daly/The Independent

There goes that N-word again P

.A. Douglas is a successful business consultant and human resources trainer who conducts expensive and well-attended seminars in posh places including Banff, Walt Disney World and Niagara Falls.

His client list includes General Motors, Disney and Kraft.

Unfortunately, like many successful Canadians, Mr. Douglas seems to have a poor view of Newfoundlanders.

I know this because my wife attended one of his seminars last week.

One of Douglas’ sessions features a word association trick for remembering people’s names. He tells the students, mostly middle managers and supervisors from government departments and big companies from across Canada and the United States, to size up something about a person’s face or appearance and try to associate it with their name.

CRAIG WESTCOTT The public ledger

He then flashes a series of faces on a projection screen, one by one, so that the students can take some practice. A lady with a long nose like a spout happens to be named Mrs. Kettle.

Associating her nose with her name is what Douglas calls “applying the mental slap.”

Among the faces is a foolish looking fellow with eyeglasses. “This is Mr. Newfie,” says P.A. Douglas and the class roars appreciatively.

“There is a joke there somewhere isn’t there?” he adds. “Newfie.”

Douglas then asks the students what word best describes the man. They offer the obvious one.

“Goofy,” a bunch of them shout.

“Does he not look goofy?” agrees Douglas, choking back laughter, and then reinforcing the lesson that the mental slap is goofy Newfie.

He cautions the crowd to remember the man’s name is actually Newfie, not the slap associated with it, an important thing to keep in mind, he notes, if you have to introduce Mr. Newfie to someone.

“Got it?” asks Douglas.

Unfortunately yes, we got it. We get it all the time. Some of us put up with it. Others don’t. Goofy goes with Newfie the way drunk used to go with Irishman, or cheap with a Scot.

However, nobody gets on with that insulting foolishness anymore, at least not in a public venue like a large conference.

My wife, being the only delegate from Newfoundland at the conference, walked out.

Fortunately, I had been tipped beforehand that Douglas performs this routine at many of his seminars and had been sure to supply my wife with a recorder to catch that part of his performance on tape.

Afterwards, I confronted Douglas as he was packing away his audiovisual equipment. He denied that he makes fun of Newfoundlanders.

“No. No,” Douglas insisted. “In which part would that be?”

When I recounted for him the exact part where he gets into the goofy Newfie routine, Douglas responded, “I’m not going to answer that … we never mentioned Newfoundland in any way. The group is the one that suggested the word Newfie, not me.

Nobody was making fun of anybody.”

When I asked P.A. Douglas whether he would name one of his name-association characters Mr. Chink or Mr. Wop, or use some other ethnic slur, he

See related story “Business and pleasure,” page 22

seemed offended. When I allowed that Newfoundlanders are the only people in Canada that he could disparage and get away with it, Douglas retorted, “Oh don’t be so sensitive.”

To which I replied, “I think you’re an arsehole.”

Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps I am too sensitive.

Many Newfoundlanders don’t mind the term Newfie. Some of them even embrace it. But they are growing fewer in number. It’s hard to see how one wouldn’t feel insulted and hurt by the connotation.

Goofy Newfie? It’s a mental slap all right.

What do you think?

You can let me know, or contact P.A. Douglas yourself. Log on to http://www.padouglas.com/services.ht ml to send him a note. cwestcott@nlrogers.co

22 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JUNE 11, 2006

Business and pleasure Annual Labrador conference as noted for nightlife as it is for getting down to business

By Craig Westcott The Independent

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hen it comes to combining business with pleasure, no people are better at it than the organizers of the annual business conference and trade show held in Happy Valley-Goose Bay every year.

Known during its first decade as the Voisey’s Bay and Beyond Conference, this year’s event has been re-named Expo Labrador 06.

It’s an attempt by the organizing committee, which includes members of the town council and local chamber of commerce, to keep a good thing going now that its original raison d’etre — looking for ways to tap into business spin-offs from the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine — has largely ended with the mine finally in production.

But as important as the economic presentations and business discussions are, what draws many people is the fervour of the social activities, not the least of which is the annual affair thrown by entrepreneur Barney Powers. It usually includes a backhoe bucket filled with icecold beer, table loads of lobster, steak, hors d’oeuvres, and a couple of hundred hearty cel-

ebrants partying long into the Labrador night.

“I don’t think anyone goes away saying they had a poor time,” allows conference chairman Ken Anthony. “I think they have a great time.”

Aside from the social events, delegates to this year’s conference have a lot to anticipate from a business intelligence viewpoint. Even more than the island, Labrador seems to be bursting with economic opportunity. The big topic on everyone’s mind is the proposed development of power stations at Gull Island and Muskrat Falls on the lower part of the Churchill River.

But that’s only the half of it. There’s a promising iron-ore project near Schefferville, a uranium exploration rush underway in the central mineral belt, a wind power proposal still in the works (despite opposition from the provincial government), talk of a second national park for the region, and anticipated growth in the logging and lumbering industry. Phase III of the Labrador highway construction is also underway.

Some of the topics will be on the official presentation list, others will be the subject of discussion over beers at the various social events.

Anthony says the conference’s new name better reflects the wide scope of activities and potential opportunities in Labrador. But from an event standpoint, things aren’t really that different.

“We always spoke about resource development in Labrador in addition to the Voisey’s Bay project (in the past),” he says. “Mining is still important, but it’s not the whole focus.”

About the only drawback to this year’s conference is its timing. As in previous years, its schedule clashes with the annual Newfoundland Ocean Industries Association’s conference in St. John’s. Expo Labrador runs from June 18-21. NOIA’s oil show runs June 19-23.

With the size of Newfoundland and Labrador’s business community only so big, many business people have to pick one event or the other to attend, even though they would like to have a hand in both. Complaints about the scheduling conflict finally seem to be registering.

“It’s too late to do anything in 2006, but in 2007 we’re going to be going after the oil conference,” Anthony says. “So people can go to St. John’s and do that event and then come up and do our event.”

Great divide Despite the fisheries summit fishermen and processors still far apart on certain issues

By Craig Westcott The Independent

T

hey seem to have tried hard enough, but there’s been little narrowing of the issues dividing fishermen from processors and even between processors when it comes to repairing the fishery.

Take the issue of marketing.

The union contends the province should organize the processors’ export efforts, thereby controlling what goes into the market and when, in a bid to influence prices.

The processors say no way, at least not until some of the structural problems besetting the industry, such as overcapacity, are settled.

“We’re competing like dogs on the wharf for raw material and the nature of the beast is that’s going to carry over into the marketplace,” says Derek Butler, executive director of the Association of Seafood Producers, which represents most of the processing companies in the province. “It’s not going to be a matter of ‘OK, now we’re all friends, let’s go to the marketplace and work together.’”

Butler was a big proponent last year of the controversial raw materials sharing system, what the union called plant quotas. He still thinks a system for sharing the crab supply among processors would lead to more stability, an orderly way to rationalize the industry, and possibly even more co-operation when it comes to exporting Newfoundland seafood.

The union remains opposed to the idea.

Fish, Food and Allied Workers’ union president Earle McCurdy doesn’t agree with linking competition on the wharf with competition in the marketplace. McCurdy argues that just because a company has a processing licence, it shouldn’t automatically have the right to export fish.

Fish, Food and Allied Workers’ union president Earle McCurdy.

“We clearly need some form of coordinated marketing,” he says. “And the provincial government has a role to play in putting that together.”

Which raises Premier Danny Williams’ notion that a consortium of Newfoundland fishing interests should band together and buy the marketing arm of FPI Limited, Ocean Cuisine International.

Representatives of the processing sector, the union and government have gotten together once since the fisheries summit of two weeks ago to discuss the idea, and another meeting is planned for next week. But it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.

“The idea is worth considering, so we’ve

Paul Daly/The Independent

done that and we’re still in the process of consideration,” Butler notes. “But I think our general inclination is no, we do need to have more marketing co-operation, we need to achieve the same end but maybe the means will be different.

“The reality is the FPI marketing arm is obviously an expensive piece of equipment and not necessarily for sale,” he says. “So our challenge is — and I think the premier is right — we need to achieve more marketing collaboration and cooperation, and what might be the means to achieving that is what we’re wrestling with. And then again, you can’t divorce it from the structural issues … when we address the structural stuff, we‘ll be able to work together cooperatively.”

IMPLEMENTING AN EMERGENCY PLAN IN YOUR WORKPLACE PREVENTION WORKSHOP SERIES - Emergency Preparedness This practical workshop will provide OH&S professionals and other stakeholders with an overview of emergency preparedness as it relates to the management of your occupational health and safety program. Participants will gain knowledge of:

] ] ] ] ] ]

the legislative requirements for an emergency response plan; the role of emergency preparedness in building an effective OH&S program; the benefits of an emergency preparedness system; a strategic, responsive emergency response plan; the emergency response team: who should be involved and what are their roles; and much more...

Location l l l

Gander, Albatross, June 13 Marystown, Hotel Marystown, June 14 St. John’s, Holiday Inn, June 21 Workshop times (8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.)

REGISTRATION IS FREE To register for workshops please call Valerie Ducey at (709)778-2926, toll-free 1-800-563-9000 or e-mail vducey@whscc.nl.ca Visit our website www.whscc.nl.ca

PRIME

JUNE 11, 2006

O

n a recent visit to Chester Dawe, I noted that it seemed symbolic one of the first changes made by its new owner, Rona, was to replace the cash register debit machines. The new swipe terminals now sport the logo of the Quebec-based bank that services the Quebec-based building materials giant. While it hurts to see the money and profits from this Newfoundland building supply icon go elsewhere, something far more valuable than just money may be leaving the place we call home, and it could take a generation or more to repair the damage.

Newfoundland Telephone. Johnson Insurance. Canadian Helicopters. The Evening Telegram. VOCM. Cable Atlantic. Stratos. Robinson-Blackmore. These are just some of the many local business powerhouses that have been sold to mainland interests or have relocated their head-offices outside of this province over the last few years. That this has happened is not the problem. That we are not replacing them is.

There is a natural growth cycle for most successful businesses. Success leads to growth and expansion. Continued success requires further growth and expansion. When organic growth is slow or no longer possible, and growth through acquisition is too expensive or elusive, then an organization itself becomes an acquisition target. Chester Dawe has been on both ends of this equation — a few years back purchasing the smaller, stagnant, Hickman Building Supplies, only now to have been purchased themselves by Rona, a large national chain.

To be purchased by a larger national or international business is most often a testament to the owner’s success — the recognition of having built a business that is so valued that others will pay a premium to acquire it.

However, our province’s failure to replace these successful enterprises is leading to a hollowing out of our local business community that may well take generations to replace.

The hollowing out of Canada’s corporate world is a phenomenon that has received some attention in the national media over the last few years. In an attempt to determine if fact supported the anecdotal evidence, Statistics Canada undertook a detailed study of head office movement in Canada for the period of 1999 to 2002. While modest, there was in fact

New QuebecHydro line will help Ontario

By Tyler Hamilton Torstar wire service

H

ydro-Quebec, which has raked in huge profits by exporting surplus electricity, is moving forward on plans to build a $400-million transmission line capable of carrying renewable hydropower to energystarved Ontario.

The 1,250-megawatt line, expected to be complete by 2010, will be able to transmit enough electricity to power 75,000 homes.

It would nearly double the amount of transmission capacity now linking the two markets.

“It’s like building a new highway between the two provinces to exchange electricity,” says Marc-Brian Chamberland, spokesperson for Hydro-Quebec.

“We believe it’s a good opportunity because we will be able to provide renewable hydro electricity to Ontario and help the province with its goal of reducing emissions.”

Chamberland says the utility has been interested in building such a line since the late 1990s and had gone so far as to receive all regulatory approvals.

But the project was delayed because Quebec didn’t have enough surplus electricity for export to make the investment worthwhile.

MORE FOR EXPORT Hydro-Quebec chairman Thierry Vandal told reporters at a news conference in Montreal last week that the province’s investment in new hydroelectric dams and improved energy conservation have freed up more electricity for export.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest revealed last month that the government-owned utility will invest $25 billion in new hydro projects that would generate 4,500 megawatts of new power. More than 20 per cent of that is earmarked for export.

Bruce Campbell, vice-president of market development at the Independent Electricity System Operator, which manages the power balance in Ontario, says the province has long anticipated such a link and can easily accommodate the additional power on this side of the border.

“We have strong transmission to bring it into eastern Ontario,” says Campbell, adding that Toronto will be able to directly benefit from the line.

“It broadens the diversity of our potential imports, which is always a good thing. It also adds competition to the market for selling into Ontario.”

Ontario has been struggling to bridge a growing power gap resulting from increased economic growth and plans to shut down its five coal-fired plants by 2009.

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 23

‘Invest now’

Despite province’s oil-rich economy investments still needed RAY DILLON

Board of Trade a growth in head office employment in Canada over this period, at about 1per cent. And for Newfoundland and Labrador? Over that same period of time our head office employment dropped by almost 3 per cent. A small decrease, but perhaps the “canary in the coal mine” indicating that we need to rejuvenate our focus on innovation, business creation, and development.

It would be easy to dismiss these Stats Canada findings as an anomaly — many argue we are in the “golden years” of commerce in St. John’s. Unemployment is half of what it was in 1990. GDP, real income, housing prices and just about every other economic indicator continue to head upward. But when you consider that the boom we are in is almost exclusively tied to the oil industry, you realize just how tenuous this economic resurgence really is.

The impact of the oil industry is obvious throughout the capital city — from construction, to service and supply, to the support of the non-profit and arts communities. But, while this involvement may be a mile wide, it is only an inch deep. The money spent by the oil industry is directly tied to our oil reserves.

When the oil is gone, so too are the dollars that we have become dependent on. This is not a criticism of the industry, but rather a reality of any non-renewable resource sector.

The capital region is doing quite well as a result of the burgeoning oil industry, perhaps too well. With so much success and wealth being created as a result, there seems to be little interest or enthusiasm for the development of other products, industries or sectors, by either the private or public sectors.

If we don’t regain our focus on innovation and development, one day the oil will be gone,

or the cost to produce what is left will no longer be economically viable. When this day comes — and it will — we can be adequately diversified and prepared to ride out this change, having groomed replacements for the patriarchal business success stories of our generation. Or, we can be like so many other resource-based economies that are ill prepared to deal with the massive changes required when their one-industry town loses its main economic generator. Lacking in the right infrastructure, training, and resources to compete in a world that has passed them by, too many of these communities are left to chase economic development “rainbows” that seldom lead to continued economic success.

Small business certainly fuels our economy.

At the same time, the mid-sized and large locally owned and managed companies clearly add so much to our community. These are the organizations that offer meaningful, challenging management positions to our engineering and business graduates. These are the companies that provide much-needed longterm leadership and financial support to the arts and non-profit sectors. Without the continued growth and development of these types of businesses, we run the risk of becoming a city and a province with too many civil service and branch office jobs, a landscape dotted with government buildings and strip malls.

There are a few organizations that show promise — Rutter Technologies and Consilient are just two that stand out as having the potential to be replacements for those that have left us of late. But, they are at critical junctures in their own young and successful corporate lives, and we need many more like them to guarantee enough will grow to fill the void that has been created.

So, we can either choose to do small repairs on our home now while we have the time and money, or we can neglect the maintenance and be forced to do major renovations down the road, not knowing if we will have the time or cash to do it correctly. I say, invest now.

24 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JUNE 11, 2006

WEEKLY DIVERSIONS ACROSS 1 Frederique’s father 5 Jokes 9 ___ Tremblant, Que. 13 Town E of Dawson City, Yukon 17 Airline to BenGurion 18 Where to find the Taj Mahal 19 Eye part 20 It flows through Stratford, Ont. 21 Commotion 22 “... where the buffalo ___” 23 Nothing in Names 24 Gave a loan 25 You press on it 28 Spanish aunt 30 Snarl 31 Contend 32 Fabric length (still) 36 Dolt 39 Aurora ___ 40 Judicial opinions 43 Spring mo.

44 Capital of 57 Down 45 Feeler 46 Town beyond Hope, B.C. 47 A geisha may tie one on 48 “See ya!”

49 Like some cats 50 I problem?

51 Of the flock 52 Corn unit 53 Wind dir.

54 Most curious 56 ___ de mer 57 B.C. island 60 Refuse visitor 61 Sires 62 Our K.D. 63 At the ___ of my tether 65 Avarice 68 Tempo 69 TGIF part 70 See 71 Rules 72 Hay unit 73 N. Zealand parrot 74 Eagle’s nest 75 Freezing rain 77 Regular morning event 79 Violently frenzied 80 Jam container 81 Big ___ 85 Did possess 86 Jeune fille 89 All: prefix 92 Second-hand 94 Wheels for grads 95 Simple soul 96 Prompter 97 Assistant 98 Polish prose 99 “Some friend you are,” more classically

100 Horse’s gait 101 Went over the limit 102 Sets of equipment 103 Female rabbits DOWN 1 Small (Fr.) 2 Ont. town on Grand River 3 Basement health hazard 4 Lengthen 5 Gather up and store 6 Wide-eyed 7 Seize 8 Russian tea urn 9 Nfld. seabird 10 Roman poet 11 Birth name indicator 12 Trumpet blast 13 Not fitting in 14 Roman greeting 15 Hither and ___ 16 Prov. with most thunderstorms 26 Pelvic bones 27 Assist 29 Fury 32 Rockies park with Burgess Shale 33 Wing-like 34 Venomous lizard: ___ monster 35 Catch sight of 37 Garb of 53D 38 “Ben-Hur,” e.g.

39 Piglet’s pop 40 Tint 41 Othello villain 42 Dolt 44 Cockpit face 47 Hop-drying kiln 48 Discontinue 49 Town with record coldest temperature (63) 51 “You can ___ a horse ...”

53 Sisters 55 Good suit go-with (2 wds.)

56 Tear gas 57 Persian Gulf emirate 58 Back of 59 Nay sayer 61 Inner part of the hand 62 Legal attachment 64 River of Wales 65 Almost too articulate 66 The Kentucky Derby, e.g.

67 Pitcher 68 Parallel ___ 70 Dug (a trench, e.g.) farther down 72 Quebec painter 73 Painter of A Prairie Boy’s Winter 74 Fixer-upper phrase 76 Assam or Darjeeling 77 Heavy-hearted 78 Nincompoops

80 Wearied 82 Sask. town between Eston and Elrose

83 Best of the bunch 84 Rene’s refusal 86 Ancient Persian

87 Noon in Nantes 88 Leave out 89 Fall mo.

90 Sartre’s wall 91 New: prefix 93 Drink slowly

WEEKLY STARS ARIES (March 21 to April 19) A heads-up alert to all free-spirited Ewes and Rams: Be wary of a deal that could result in compromising your independence. Check every detail before making a commitment.

TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) New facts emerge that help put an irksome workplace situation in perspective. Meanwhile, pay more attention to a family member who needs your wisdom and strength.

GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) A slight setback in plans is nothing to worry about. Use this delay to deal with a number of matters you might have ignored for too long.

Expect news from someone in your past.

CANCER (June 21 to July 22) You’re entering a period of stabil-

ity. Use it to straighten out any outstanding problems related to a very personal situation. Also, pay closer attention to financial matters.

LEO (July 23 to August 22) As much as you love being a social Lion, you might well benefit from staying out of the spotlight for a while. You need time to reflect on some upcoming decisions.

VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) A difficult family situation improves, thanks to your timely intervention. You can now start to focus more of your attention on preparing for a possible career change.

LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) An on-the-job change works to your benefit by offering new

opportunities. It’s up to you to check them out. Meanwhile, a stalled romantic situation starts up again.

SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) That flare-up of Scorpian temperament cools down, leaving you more receptive to suggestions about changes that might need to be made in your personal life.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21) An unusual period of indecisiveness is a mite frustrating. But things soon clear up, allowing the sage Sagittarian to make those wise pronouncements again.

CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) You might feel that you know best, but it’s not a good idea at this time to try to force your opinions on others. Best advice: Inspire change by example, not

by intimidation.

AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) Some setbacks could affect your plans to fortify your financial situation. But things start moving again by early next week.

Meanwhile, enjoy your resurgent social life.

PISCES (February 19 to March 20) Show that often-hidden steely spine of yours as you once again stand up to an emotional bully.

You’ve got the strength to do it, especially as friends rally to your side.

YOU BORN THIS WEEK: Your ruling planet, Mercury, endows you with a gift for writing.

Have you considered penning the world’s greatest novel?

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

JUNE 11, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPECIALSECTION • 25

26 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JUNE 11, 2006

JUNE 11, 2006

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 27

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28 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JUNE 11, 2006

JUNE 11, 2006

INDEPENDENT SPECIAL SECTION • 29

30 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS

JUNE 11, 2006

World Cup bliss From page 32 they have a chance.

••• The World Cup is underway and soccer fans all over the world are in bliss. Perhaps some of the more ecstatic are in England, where star Wayne Rooney has recovered nicely from a broken foot and has received clearance to play for his country.

Miraculous? Perhaps, but the conspiracy theorist in me thinks it might just have been a scheme to throw off the competition and give the English a mental edge.

I wonder if Rooney will get a little more rough action from the opposition to see if he really is 100 per cent?

••• Switching gears, I wanted to send some kudos towards a corporate citizen. Persona has signed on to become the major sponsor for the Conception

Bay North Minor Soccer Association, a commitment that totals around $20,000 for jerseys and other equipment. Some might perceive that as a shameless plug, especially considering I am a member of the association’s executive, but in this day and age it’s nice to see that kind of support to minor sports. Of course, local businesses are inundated with requests, and many make contributions on a smaller scale (all of which are gratefully accepted), but when a company steps up with a considerable amount of money, it’s good stuff.

The CBN organization and a minor program in Sudbury, Ont., are the only two associations to benefit from Persona’s support this year. The Burin Peninsula soccer association was the first Persona recipient last year. Susan Trask of Persona says the company has received great feedback from the initiative and is looking forward to continuing its success. whitebobby@yahoo.com

Simulation stimulation Bad actors could play major role in Cup outcome

T

he Germans call it den sterbenden schwan machen — doing the dying swan. For Brazilians it’s piscin — the swimming pool. Most nations have a similarly cheeky play on words to describe diving or, as it is officially known, simulation.

Once viewed by Europeans as a plague introduced by South Americans, simulation has been enthusiastically adopted by players from all nations.

The diving crisis is about more than looking for penalty kicks. It’s a malaise that prompts some players to whine at every call, to fake injury after every tackle. It’s a Machiavellian ailment that justifies all sorts of shameful behaviour, as long as it’s done in the name of winning.

FIFA has vowed — again — to get tough on diving at this World Cup. Referees have been instructed to clamp down on eight problems: elbowing, reckless tackling, shirt-pulling, timewasting, attitude toward referees, diving, behaviour in the wall during free kicks and wearing jewellery. Maybe they’ll get somewhere with that insidious pendant problem this time around. For all the rest, we shouldn’t harbour much hope.

The high stakes of the World Cup make it inevitable that at least one match will be turned by an unscrupulous bit of play-acting. Seven likeliest candidates: DECO PORTUGAL The Brazilian-born Portuguese star is as unscrupulous as he is talented, which is to say quite a bit. He likes nothing better than to go on mazy runs, looking for contact in and around the box.

Poutometer: 8 out of 10 ARJEN ROBBEN NETHERLANDS His constant sprawling about the pitch is one thing, but the amount of whining he does about it is really unbearable in a player so gifted. His reputation so precedes him that he is currently shown in an Adidas ad campaign being tripped by a 10-year-old and then begging for a call.

Poutometer: 7 out of 10 JOSE ANTONIO REYES SPAIN On a team that makes simulation a point of pride, Reyes is the worst offender. Though he shows remarkable

strength on the ball when running in midfield, it vanishes as soon as he enters the box. He spends more time on the pitch smiling ruefully at the assistant ref while pulling up his socks than he does running at the defence, with predictably poor results.

Poutometer: 6 out of 10 DIDIER DROGBA IVORY COAST The Greg Louganis of big men.

Earlier this season, after handling the ball before potting a goal, Drogba did a mini-Maradona and admitted his misdeed to the press. When an outcry erupted, the Francophone player claimed he’d been mistranslated. Shameless, really.

Poutometer: 9 out of 10 RONALDO BRAZIL A brisk wind is capable of knocking over the Golden Boot winner once he’s got the ball at his feet. In fairness, he’s been kicked to pieces over the course of his career, but as age and injury whittle away at his once-legendary speed, Ronaldo’s willingness to go down easily has increased proportionally.

Poutometer: 8 out of 10 PAVEL NEDVED CZECH REPUBLIC It’s the hair that makes it work for Nedved. His flowing mane really does look quite impressive as he’s hurtling toward earth after some imaginary contact with a defender. Also, it allows him to hide his giggles as he rolls around clutching his ankle as though his foot needs to be amputated, mere seconds before leaping up to demand the right to take the free kick.

Poutometer: 7 out of 10 FRANCESCO TOTTI ITALY The Roma midfielder is renowned in his homeland as a bit of a blunt instrument, but it’s the rest of us he must really think are stupid. Spitting in the face of Denmark’s Christian Poulsen at Euro2004 cost him his tournament and Italy its title shot.

Poutometer: 6 out of 10 — The Toronto Star

Paul Smith/The Independent

‘Now we got a camp’ Freshly cooked salmon and single malt plus some attention to detail makes for comfortable camping in Labrador

L

ast week a co-worker asked me where we stayed while fishing in Labrador. “We stay in a tent,” I blurted out with little thought.

He shrugged his shoulders and responded with a very unimpressed sounding, “I see.” He obviously expected something more, maybe a chalet or a Fifth Wheel. “I should say, a camp,” I added defensively, sensing that this needed further explaining.

Put on the spot, I couldn’t think of any word or phrase that accurately portrayed our Labrador living accommodations. I chose camp over tent, based on my own preconceived notions (as I later discovered when I dug out my dictionary). In my woodsy mind a tent is a small nylon shelter that sets up quickly and keeps you out of the rain, sun and flies. You can’t stand up, cook, or dry your clothes in it; a tent is just a portable place to grab a night’s sleep. On the other hand, a camp has a wood stove, and you can stand up and walk around in it. You can cook up a meal, put up a clothesline, and warm your cold tired feet in front of the fire.

Camp or tent made no difference to my associate. His casual question, probably just idle chat on his part, needed answering. I’m not sure if he wanted it or not, but he got the full story. It went more or less like this.

Rod, Chris, and I first ventured to Labrador in the summer of 1998. We were fishing our favorite Northern Peninsula rivers, but the dreaded low water affliction was rendering the salmon somewhat sulky. Tales circulated about rain in Labrador and fine fishing on the Pinware. A consensus was swiftly reached and we were off on the next ferry leaving St. Barbe.

We were in instant awe of the Big Land — but the weather was

PAUL SMITH

The Rock

Outdoors absolutely horrible.

The three of us stood on Lundrigan Field, our proposed campsite just south of the Pinware Bridge, trying to convince each other that we could survive here long enough to hook a Labrador salmon or two. We had two small department-store variety dome tents to shield us from 30 to 40-km winds off the north Atlantic and driving rain that bordered on slop snow.

Where would we cook supper after all day fishing in the rain? Outdoors in the rain, of course, with clouds of black flies for good measure. Yes, Labrador black flies are very tough critters, with no aversion to wind and rain. Where would we dry out our damp clothes to fish another day?

These were deep questions that could only be pondered over a nip of scotch in a warm cabin.

HOOKS AND HOT TUBS Back to Forteau we retreated and booked a cabin with a whirlpool tub for three days. The nasty weather hung on but the fishing was fantastic.

The lure of the Big Land had hooked us and we would return.

Plans had been hatched over our favorite single malt for a proper camp.

It would be a Labrador tent, 10 by 12 feet with a wood stove. Our home away from home was sewn together in the winter of 1999 by Newfoundland Sail Works. Made from the finest fire-retardant canvas, it featured a screened rear window, a stove flange, and loops through the

centre for a clothesline. Matt Brazil, a retired welder and Labrador tent aficionado, made us a proper campstove complete with spark safe drafters and adjustable leveling legs.

Excellence is always in the details.

Our Hilton hung from a 14-foot main pole supported on each end by a 7foot A-frame. After a few test runs, we could set camp in about 30-minutes co-ordinated effort. We were ready.

In July of 1999 we arrived at the Pinware again and erected our camp on the Lundrigan field. Locals sometimes refer to it as the Fly Pit. The weather was hot and sunny, a far cry from the year before, but that’s Labrador, volatile and unforgiving.

The flies attacked with unrelenting savagery for the full 30 minutes of our well-rehearsed tent pitching, but she went up in fine form.

Chris and I carried the stove in and Rod erected the chimney. Next we cut a supply of dry firewood and stacked it behind the stove. When all was organized we suited up and went fishing. We returned after dark, tired and hungry. Rod lit the fire while I cleaned a salmon and Chris peeled potatoes. The crackling fire quickly stole the chill from the Labrador night. A mixture of spuds, whole onions, and salt beef bubbled on the stove while we sat back in our folding chairs, puffing cigars and sipping Scotland’s finest. Waders and damp clothes hung on the line. The air was heavy with smoke and steam; the exotic aroma of Cuban cigars blended with the familiar smell of salt beef cooking. Chris opened the rear window. A fine fresh salmon waited patiently to join the potatoes in the bubbling pot. Rod sums it all up; “Boys, now we got a camp.”

JUNE 11, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 31

Weighing in on baseball draft

By Allan Ryan The Toronto Star

C

oming soon to a ballpark near you: Tobi Stoner, Tyler Weeden and Kylee Hash.

Well, OK, maybe in four, five or six years. And then again, maybe not at all, since, of the 1,500 or so amateurs that baseball’s scouting departments divvied up this week, only about one in 20 will make it to a major-league clubhouse — even if only for a bag of seeds.

Other future attractions: Pedro Beato, Deik Scram, Kitt Kopach, Thomass Pham, Yasser Clor, Kyeong Kang, Brandon Belt, Zachary Clem, Joe Moos, Eddie Crow, Derrick Loop, Dan Pfau, Easton Gust and Kodiak Quick.

Fighting words: When the Angels took catcher Hyun Choi (Hank) Conger with the 25th first-round pick this week, the club official making the announcement over the conference call identified his team by its full name, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (near Knott’s Berry Farm).

Drafting next were the Dodgers, whose first-rounders are traditionally announced by franchise icon Tommy Lasorda, who, this time, was tweaked to call his team “the only major-league team in Los Angeles.”

Talking to reporters later, Angels scouting director Eddie Bane dismissed Lasorda’s crack as “nonsensical, silly stuff,” adding, “the other team up north pulled some Mickey Mouse stuff.” Said Lasorda: “I say what is Mickey Mouse is for them to have Los Angeles in their name.”

Son of a &%$#: The Dodgers also had the 31st pick overall and, with it, snapped up high school shortstop Preston Mattingly, son of Yankees great and now coach Don. No word if George Steinbrenner tore a strip off anyone in his scouting department, but Lasorda was heard to mutter, “Thank you, George.”

Other fathers’ sons: Jeremy Barfield (OF, ninth round, Mets), son of Jesse, brother to Padres second baseman Josh; Jon Fernandez (SS, 48th, Jays), Tony’s kid; Candy Maldonado (OF, 46th, Devil Rays), son of, you’ll never guess; Stephen Puhl (C, 17th, Mets), son of Terry of Melville, Sask.; Kyle Drabek (RHP, first, Phillies), son of Cy Young winner Doug; Dave Cash (2B, 40th, Orioles), son of, well, Dave; Joshua Lansford (3B, sixth, Cubs), son of Carney; Kyle Williams (2B, 47th, White Sox), son of White Sox general manager and one-time Blue Jays baserunner Ken; Trent Henderson (SS, 37th, Astros), son of Dave; Kyle Page (OF, 48th, Nationals), son of Mitchell; John Shelby, (2B, fifth, White Sox), son of John; Ben Petralli (C, 17th,

Tigers), son of Geno; Chad Tracy (C, third, Rangers), son of Pirates manager Jim; Kurt Bradley (2B, 33rd, Dodgers), son of Phil; Lance Durham (OF, 45th, Tigers), son of Leon; Chad Gross (1B, 26th, Astros), son of Kevin; Marcus Lemon (SS, fourth, Rangers), son of Chet; Scott Thomas (C, 38th, Cardinals), son of Lee; Tyree Hayes (RHP, eighth, Devil Rays), son of Charlie.

Also in the genes: Twins Jeremy (LHP, 19th, Cubs) and Josh (48th, Red Sox) Papelbon, both right-handers like their brother Jon, the current closer in Boston; twins Stephen and Justin Figueroa (SS and 2B, ninth and 42nd, both by the Jays), sons of Bien, who appeared briefly for the Cards in 1992 but now a Class-A manager with the

O’s; and Zach Helton (2B, 37th, Rockies), cousin to Colorado first baseman Todd.

Wet your whistles: Ben Pfinsgraft, Keith Demorgandie, Jordan Kopycinski, Stan Posluszny, Jeremy Goldschmeding, Mike Bolsenbroek, Kelly Sweppenhiser, Brad Schwarzenbach, Tylien Manumaleuna, Austin Bibens-Dirkx, Lance Zawadzkiss, Kanekoa Texeira and Donald Cyzy.

Taking smack: The Yankees beat the Red Sox 2-1 earlier this week, in large part because of rookie Melky Cabrera’s eighthinning, over-the-wall catch on a would-be homer by Manny Ramirez.

Said David Ortiz: “That’s why, when I hit my (poop), I hit it 500 feet. That way, I don’t have to deal with that bull (deleted).”

Keep your eye on the ball.

Solutions for crossword on page 28

F U L L 18 O P E N T H I S S E A S O N !

Solutions for sudoku on page 28

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INDEPENDENTSPORTS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 11-17, 2006 — PAGE 32

Paul Daly/The Independent

By Bob White For The Independent

Career HIGH

B

y his standards, Mario Tee was a little rushed prior to starting his first game of the season on the mound for the Shamrocks in St. John’s Baseball League play last week.

He normally likes to be at St. Pat’s Ball Park no less than 45 minutes before a game, but Tee got a little tied up at work and was running late on June 5. He arrived at St. Pat’s about 20 minutes before the game against Gonzaga Vikings. It was enough time for a stretch, 10 or 11 throws in the bullpen, a light run and a toss with a teammate.

What followed, however, was one of those rare nights that few get to experience.

The Shamrocks, three-time defending league champs, blanked the Vikings 3-0, but the real story was Tee, who became the first pitcher in the St. John’s league to record a perfect game since 1948, when Bill Harris turned the trick for St. Bon’s (according to information posted on the Sports Phone website).

While Tee, 25, has been a pitching force for years, this is new ground for him. He had never thrown a no-hitter, and the closest he had come was a two-hitter on a couple of occasions. So when he had gone through the first three innings unscathed, it was just like many other games he has pitched.

“After the third inning, it was nothing new to me to be in that position,” Tee says.

“But, as the innings crept by, I guess I was pretty aware of what was going on.”

Tee admits being in that position, with a perfect game on the line can be tough for a pitcher, but he quickly credits his teammates

Shamrock’s pitcher Mario Tee first to record perfect game for a local league since 1948

for their help in accomplishing the feat.

“For a pitcher to throw a perfect game, the defense behind you has to be flawless,” Tee says. “And they were.”

The later innings included some tense moments, when hard-hit balls by the Vikings threatened to spoil the effort. Tee said centerfielder Mike Pottle made a great play tracking down a deep drive by Dave Delaney.

Ageless catcher Peter Cornick, soon to be turning 51, snagged a tricky pop-up in foul territory. And Neil Tibbo, filling in at third base, which is not his normal position, stopped a rocket drive down the baseline

and threw to first-base for the out.

With those kinds of plays providing even more adrenaline for Tee, the pitcher stuck to a simple plan: throw a strike early and try not to get behind in the count.

“Any pitcher will tell you it’s much easier to pitch when you are up in the count. I was nervous, but the one thing I didn’t want to do was get behind and then put more pressure on myself. Luckily, I was hitting the corners pretty good and things fell into place.”

The last out was a ground-ball right back at Tee, who fielded it and got the out at first.

His teammates rushed the field and a mob

scene followed.

“There was a decent crowd (watching the game), but I’m not sure they knew what was going on until after. But my teammates knew, and so did the other team. It was a great feeling.”

Asked to rank the perfect game in relation to his career highlights, Tee is unequivocal.

“Far and away, at least individually, this is the best accomplishment of my career.”

However, Tee adds that the highlights of being a part of provincial and city league championship teams are equally important to him, and he says he hopes to one day soon be a part of a provincial team that wins the national senior men’s title.

He says the province is getting closer to that goal. Despite earning the right to represent the province at this year’s nationals, the Shamrocks will not be attending this time around. Tee hopes his team can win the provincial title again this summer so they can represent the province in the 2007 nationals.

While his season got off to a perfect start, a perfect ending for Tee would be a fourth straight league championship and a provincial title. He figures both goals are not going to come easily, especially since the St. John’s league is the strongest it has been in years.

With the Greensleeves team dissolved and its players dispersed to the remaining four teams, he says each team has more depth, and more talent.

“The league has definitely gotten stronger, it’s much more competitive than the past few years.

“We’ve got quite a potent offense and we’ll definitely be shooting for another championship.”

On ice and under pressure A

fter reading reports of Team Gushue picking up a new player from Alberta, Chris Schille, for the upcoming curling season and effectively relegating Mike Adam to resume his role as the team’s fifth, it struck a chord with me.

No, I don’t think it was a slap in the face to Adam, who selflessly stepped aside to allow Russ Howard a spot on the team and helped lay the foundation for Olympic golden glory.

To me, the development marked a true sign that, above all, this team is professional, in every sense of the word. In pro sports, some tough choices have to be made. We see it all the time in other sports like hockey, baseball, basketball

BOB WHITE

Bob the bayman and football. How often does a team trade away or release a guy who has given his heart and soul to a franchise, who was a fan favourite? Moves like this are done with one objective in mind: to win.

And, as they have shown the world, Team Gushue knows how to win. Many followers raised their eyebrows when Howard joined the team, but the move was made to add his experience and skill

level to the team. It paid off, big time.

Now, because of their success, this new move will likely be scrutinized even more and there will therefore be pressure to bear. Perhaps the most pressure will be on newcomer Schille, who has some big shoes to fill and a spotlight to play under.

Adam should be disappointed, but at the same time he can still play an integral role on a team that, when all’s said and done, will go down in history as a pioneer in both our province’s history and the sport of curling itself.

••• If the Edmonton Oilers can overcome the agonizingly stinging loss in the open-

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ing game of the Stanley Cup finals, the season-ending injury to Dwayne Roloson, and the subsequent 5-0 schmoking in game two, it would amount to the greatest comeback in league history.

Being down two games to none is one thing, but the way in which the Oilers lost, and seeing their star goalie go down is especially demoralizing. To bounce back from that and win the franchise’s fifth Stanley Cup would be remarkable.

Can they do it? One of the goalies, Jussi Markannen or Ty Conklin, will have to step up in a big, big way, but perhaps more importantly the rest of the team have to regain that swagger that says they believe they can do it. It cer-

tainly wasn’t there in game two.

It’s amazing how one bad bounce can change an entire playoff series, not to mention a team’s psyche.

I wonder what would have happened in game two had Conklin and Jason Smith not coughed up that puck to Rod Brind’Amour, sending the Hurricanes to victory in the opener? What if the game went to overtime and Edmonton stole one on the road?

What if … well, it’s pointless to wonder what would have happened, but if the Oilers are thinking like myself and many others out there, this series is over.

If they can somehow manage to refocus, See “World Cup,” page 30