2006-06-25

VOL. 4 ISSUE 25

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ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR — SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 25-JULY 1, 2006

SCATTERED PAST 12

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NEWS 4

LIFE 17

Why are local fur farmers buying mainland fish?

All aboard at the Railway Museum

$1.50 HOME DELIVERY (HST included); $2.00 RETAIL (HST included)

More than weather: a visit with Krissy Holmes

‘Ripe’ for abuse AG says checks and balances absent from House RYAN CLEARY

A

Ed Byrne

Paul Daly/The Independent

n employee of the House of Assembly responsible for the constituency allowances at the centre of a money scandal that rocked provincial politics this week has been suspended by the provincial government, The Independent has learned.

Bill Murray, director of financial operations for the House of Assembly,

left his post on sick leave soon after auditor general John Noseworthy began his investigation into the House’s finances this past winter.

A memo was circulated to security at Confederation Building in St. John’s late this week stating Murray was not allowed on the premises. Sources confirm he was suspended.

The scandal has taken a number of twists and turns since Premier Danny Williams announced on Wednesday he had accepted the resignation of Ed Byrne, one of his senior cabinet minis-

ters.

Auditor general John Noseworthy says the House of Assembly was “ripe” for the sort of alleged wild overspending that led to Byrne leaving his Natural Resources portfolio, given the absence of checks and balances.

But the apparent impact of the growing scandal won’t just be on the provincial treasury — political veteran John Crosbie says the news will confirm for many that politicians in general are “a See “It’s quite a blow,” page 4

Final days of school ‘pure agony’ Students complain little to do in last weeks of school year NADYA BELL

S

ome students and parents had a hard time taking school seriously in the final days of June.

Matthew Hand, for one, says he would much rather ride his bike than sit in class.

Hand is a Grade 7 student at Macdonald Drive Junior High. While his exams finished on June 16, school was still in session until June 23.

When he showed up on Monday (June 19), he estimates only about 15 of 600 students were there — and they were told to play in the gym all day.

Macdonald Drive does not compile official attendance numbers until the end of the month.

“I think they should just give us the days off,” he says. “There is really no point in going to school, ’cause the teachers are going to go correct exams.

“That’s OK, but they shouldn’t bother having school that day because no one is going to show up anyway … I think the school years are long enough.”

A contract between the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers’ Association (NLTA) and the government in September 2002 increased the annual number of teaching days for salary reasons. A representative from the NLTA could not be reached for comment.

Newfoundland’s school year, with 187 instructional days, is three days shorter than the national average.

Quebec has the least school days, at 180.

Darin King, director of the Eastern School Board, says it’s important for children to attend school, even at the end of the year.

“We consider all time in class with See “No benefit,” page 5

The Icebergs, painted by Frederic Edwin Church in 1861, sold for a record $2.5 million in 1979.

Courtesy the Dallas Museum of Art

Following The Icebergs Labrador-inspired painting a landmark for both quality and sordid history; Rooms ‘keenly interested’ STEPHANIE PORTER

T

he tale of The Icebergs is one of those “you-can’t-make-this stuff-up” stories, says Eleanor Harvey — and it’s impossible to disagree.

Harvey wrote The Voyage of The Icebergs, which follows the painting from birth — inspired by sights and scenes off the coast of Labrador — though exhibitions, sales, world travel, mysterious disappearance and triumphant rediscovery, ground-breaking sale, and finally to its current home at the Dallas Museum of Art. Harvey worked as a curator with the Dallas museum, on-and-off, for a decade. With a declared fondness for geology and Arctic-inspired art, she had always wanted to “look at the painting

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “I think I eat the healthy stuff on weekdays so I can live longer to hunt, fish, and eat bologna sandwiches on weekends.”

— Paul Smith, page 30

and really celebrate it,” which she did, finally, through her 2002 publication.

Now the chief curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Harvey is only too happy to take time out to reflect on the convoluted and mysterious story of The Icebergs, painted by Frederic Edwin Church in 1861.

Shauna McCabe, director of The Rooms provincial art gallery, shares some of Harvey’s enthusiasm. McCabe — who first studied the painting in the mid-’90s as part of her PhD — confirms the painting is of “keen interest” to The Rooms, and they have been exploring the possibility of exhibiting the landmark work.

“Beyond the quality of the work itself,” McCabe says, the “exploration that brought Church to Newfoundland, the subsequent losses and rediscoveries of the painting, its mysterious provenance, all of these details are part of how we look at the art work today.”

In a telephone interview with The Independent, Harvey describes Church as a “restlessly curious” lover of natural history. In the middle of the 19th century, he was at the top of his artistic game — young, talented, and searching for excitement. At the time, the Arctic was “the last, great romantic quest,” says Harvey, and Church was susceptible to the glamourous call of the unknown.

“There was no viable good solid reason for going, other than adventure, exploration, bragging rights …”

In 1859, Church set out for the coast of Labrador with biographer Louis Legrand Noble in tow. The pair took a steamship from Halifax to St. John’s, and chartered a schooner to take them along the coast and closer to the ice.

During his weeks at sea, Church made more than 100 sketches and small paintings in preparation for his eventual large work. He was determined, says Harvey, to “know more about his sub-

IN CAMERA 8-9

Remembering the battle of Beaumont-Hamel, July 1, 1916

Over the past year, over 100,000 people have enjoyed the sights and sounds of The Rooms. Now we’re celebrating!

Visit our new Gift Shop on level 1 and find a delight of treasures that you’re sure to love. After a little shopping, enjoy a delicious meal in our new Restaurant on level 4, the view will amaze you!

ject than anybody else did in the art world.”

Although the weather co-operated during the summer voyage, Church had difficulty finding his sea legs.

“Those small sketches are breathtakingly lovely,” says Harvey. “And then when you realize Church got seasick … basically, he’s spending 10 minutes on a sketch and losing his lunch, and 10 minutes on a sketch and turning green over the other side. It’s a marvel the angst didn’t come through.”

Back in New York, Church devoted the winter of 1860-61 to completing The Icebergs. His goal, Harvey wrote, “was to capture both the essence of his experiences and the other-worldly sense of the Arctic environment.”

Although there was much public anticipation for Church’s latest “Great Picture,” 12 days before its scheduled

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See ‘In the crosshairs,” page 2

12 18 21 24 32

2 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JUNE 25, 2006

‘In the crosshairs of history’ From page 1 unveiling, the American civil war began, shocking a nation. Art was no longer at the forefront of the public’s minds.

Renaming his work The North, in support of the unionists, Church went ahead with the opening. Viewers were charged 25 cents. The work was dramatically presented, framed in dark wood and flanked by crimson curtains.

“People would bring their opera glasses,” says Harvey. “Or take the broadside and roll it up like a telescope, and roll it over the painting in order to appreciate the detail …”

After its New York showing, the painting moved on to Boston. It was well received — but no buyer for the $10,000work emerged.

Church decided to send the picture to London, re-renaming it The Icebergs.

Before it left North American soil, the artist made another change: he painted a broken ship’s mast on the ice in the foreground. (Harvey suggests it was to commemorate Arctic explorers who had lost their lives.)

The painting opened in June 1863 in London, to enthusiastic reviews. Before long, the sought-after buyer was found in “the Railway King,” Sir Edward Watkin, a Member of Parliament.

Watkin — who later received a knighthood for his “crucial yet understated” role in Canada’s 1867 Confederation — hung the piece in Rose Hill, his country estate near Manchester.

Watkin remained a leader in the railway business into the latter part of the 19th century. “When he died in 1901,” Harvey writes, “he and The Icebergs disappeared from view.”

Back in America, Church’s three major works after The Icebergs were successes.

His career dwindled and by the 1880s he lived in his country home, his style of work having fallen out of favour, cut off from the art world he had courted, even driven, for years.

But what goes around, comes around, and with the 1950s came art scholars interested again in the careers of the mid19th century American painters. In 1966, the first exhibition of Church’s work since his death was organized. The Icebergs’ absence was felt.

Over subsequent years, a number of art dealers and researchers began their own quests to find the missing Icebergs.

Sandra Feldman, a researcher with a gallery in New York, may have came closest, according to Harvey.

She studied references, researched parliamentarians, and eventually settled on — correctly — Sir Watkins as the most probable owner. Knowing the size of the painting, she and her supervisor — again, correctly — figured the painting may have stayed in the place it was originally hung, passed along over the years with the house.

According to Harvey, after Watkins’ death, the Watkins estate had “served as a home for unwed mothers … an orphanage, and finally a residential assessment centre for delinquent boys.”

But Feldman was not allowed into the building to follow up her hunch.

In the fall of 1978, however, the matron of the centre, Mair Baulch, driven by a need to fundraise, turned her thoughts to a dingy painting that had probably been hanging on an out-of the-way wall for nearly a century: The Icebergs.

Harvey laughs out loud at this part of the story: “How do you lose a six foot by nine foot painting when it never leaves the house?”

The painting was claimed by the Manchester city council as city property.

After consultations, the council decided to auction off the painting — but in New York, where it was thought it would command the greatest price.

And it did. At the end of the evening, The Icebergs sold for a shocking $2.5 million (the record for the sale of any American painting then was $980,000.)

Within weeks, the successful bidders, who remain anonymous to this day, had donated the painting to the Dallas Museum of Art, where it remains a prized centerpiece of the gallery.

Harvey has met the painting’s purchasers on several occasions, and stays true to their wishes to remain unknown.

“It’s one of the reasons this painting holds a special place in Church’s career,” Harvey says. “Certain works of art end up in the crosshairs of history, not of their own devising, not of the artist’s devising … the painting has almost acted as a magnet for good stories.”

While she admits not all agree, Harvey believes The Icebergs is worth the attention it has garnered.

“Church pushed himself. Each painting was supposed to be more difficult, more challenging, more revelatory than the one that came before.

“Before this, there were lots of clunky paintings of icebergs by people who had never seen one before … he was one of those people whose entire reputation was predicated on an acute sense of observation — makes even his large constructed paintings seem like the absolute truth.

“And the luminosity of the colours, the vibrancy of the brushwork … it glows.

“I love that painting,” she says. “I miss it.”

JUNE 25, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 3

SCRUNCHINS A weekly collection of Newfoundlandia

P

remier Danny Williams wasn’t the only one “aNOIAed” by this week’s conference of the Newfoundland Ocean Industries Association in St. John’s, where the pressure was on for him to do a deal on the Hebron oilfield.

The premier has been urged by local suppliers and oil companies to return to the bargaining table since early April, when the Hebron partners and Williams announced they could not reach a deal.

Local oil industry player Cabot Martin returned an award Friday (June 23) he had received from NOIA in 2002 in recognition of his “outstanding and lasting contribution” to the establishment and growth of the province’s oil and gas industry.

In a letter to Ted Howell, NOIA’s president and CEO, Martin wrote: “I return this award in protest of NOIA’s current attempts to undermine the province’s determination to achieve a fair and proper deal on the Hebron project.

Judith Gray

“NOIA has persistently taken similar self-centered, undermining positions on a number of offshore issues stretching back to the original Atlantic Accord negotiations with Ottawa in the early 1980s, a process I remember only too well,” he wrote. “I accepted this award with some reluctance and now realize that I was guilty of an error in judgment.”

The premier has argued there will be enough riches from Hebron for the partners to allow the province an ownership stake of 4.9 per cent.

POETIC JUSTICE While Cabot Martin was at The Independent office, he dropped off a poem he’d written and had been carrying around in his wallet for years. The poem is appropriate considering the upcoming 90th anniversary of Beaumont-Hamel on July 1.

Forget-me-not Nation What sort of nation forgets its forget-me-nots?

And breaks the chain of solemn remembrance for mere holiday?

What sort of nation bears the butt of joke unchallenged for the cash of others?

What sort of nation exists only in the memories of past deeds and the hope of future success.

Can such a nation survive?

TOBIN TIDBIT Funny how this week’s blockbuster news story is about political spending, the same week that Brian Tobin is appointed to head a review of controversial proposed increases to the salaries of Toronto city councillors.

A consulting firm hired by the City of Toronto recommended increasing a councillor’s pay to $95,000 from $87,214. The mayor’s annual salary would jump to $160,000 from $147,856. St. John’s Mayor Andy Wells will probably salivate when he reads that amount — he makes less than $90,000 a year.

Tobin, who makes his home in TO these days, will serve on the review board with Ellen Malcolmson, a senior vice-resident for Bell Canada, and Ian Clark, president of the Council of

Sentry going to his post, Beaumont Hamel, 1916. See pages 8-9

Ontario Universities. The panel has been described as “elite,” but they apparently won’t be paid. How will our Brian get by?

‘EXTRAORDINARY’ SERVICE No doubt about it, Newfoundlanders turn up everywhere. Judith Gray (nee Ryan), originally of St. John’s, recently retired as associate executive director of the Arkansas Bar Association, where she had worked for 40 years.

Judith, who left Town after she married a U.S. serviceman stationed at Fort Pepperrell, was honoured with the C.E. Ransick Award of Excellence earlier this month, given in recognition of “extraordinary” service in the legal profession.

It was the first time the award was presented to a non-attorney.

Photo courtesy Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador

BEST PERFORMANCE Speaking of awards, our own Loyola Hearn was recognized by The Hill Times in Ottawa recently with an honourable mention in the 1st annual Question Period Awards. Under the category Best Question Period Performance, columnist Kady O’Malley says Hearn’s gruff Newfoundland charm and obvious passion for the fishery allows him to defend his government’s policies while directing criticism at the record of the previous regime.

That’s funny … isn’t Loyola following the exact line of the previous regime?

DOUGHNUT HOLES Sgt. Robert Peyton of Grand FallsWindsor was recently mentioned in an article in Maclean’s magazine about

training civilians for work in Afghanistan. The specific soldiers who Peyton was ordering around are training for, among other posts, jobs at Tim Hortons, which has agreed to set up shot within the Kandahar base. The Canadian Forces Personnel Support Agency hires civilians to work on army bases. According to the Maclean’s story, those who work at Tim’s can make around $16,000 in six months, plus another $1,800 a month in tax-free allowance for hardship, risk and foreign service.

Claude Goulet of Happy ValleyGoose Bay is also heading overseas. A barber for 33 years, Goulet was one of the oldest men in training. Wonder if Goulet has a hair trigger? ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

Campus comparisons College of North Atlantic’s Lab West school falling down; not nearly as impressive as Doha facility

By Ngaire Genge For The Independent

T

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$1 million a year in rent, utilities, and insurance out of our operating budget instead of buying new equipment, or expanding programming.”

A dilapidated building isn’t doing much to attract students or staff either, he says.

Aboulazm admits he’s in a catch-22.

Peter Genge photo

DRIVE Our

he College of the North Atlantic’s Labrador West campus smells. Damp carpet, damp ceiling tiles, and damp shoes mingle with must and the scent of new plastic.

The plastic sheeting attempts — and mostly fails — to direct water into the many plastic buckets and garbage bins.

This is a far different College of the North Atlantic than the one being celebrated in press releases this week, releases about the shiny new facilities and $500 million-plus service contracts being signed in Doha, Qatar.

This is a campus with crews that chase leaks all over the roof, and fog rising from the floors whenever it rains.

In Doha, students stroll through a 21building campus with equipment that, according to the college’s own website, is so cutting edge that industry is keeping up with education — not the other way around.

Here in Labrador, residents wonder why they’re the black sheep of the province’s public education system, why it’s always a little different in Labrador.

Students here don’t expect 21 buildings, but they’d like to be able to come in out of the rain once in a while.

In his latest presentation to the Town of Wabush, campus administrator Dr. Azmy Aboulazm said the building in Labrador West is the only one not owned and operated by the Department of Transportation of Works.

“We’re the only campus paying nearly

“As a community, we’re trying to attract new residents, and keep the ones we have to study here instead of sending those dollars away. A college campus should be a tremendous asset in recruitment — we place almost every student we graduate. Employers like the Iron Ore Company of Canada, they could take even more students, if we could produce them,” says Roul.

At the most recent graduation ceremonies last week, nearly half the students were absent from their convocation. They were already working.

The Lab West building, a converted primary school, was never suitable for the trades shops — a point made for at least a decade by Aboulazm, his staff, the community, and students.

Claire Baikie plans to attend electrical courses in Happy Valley-Goose Bay soon.

“They’ve got a residence for reasonable housing, trades courses, and the shops to teach them in,” says Baikie.

“Students in Labrador West have nothing, but in the classes in Goose Bay more than half the students are from Lab West.

I thought the idea behind the CNA campuses was to let students complete studies appropriate for their region in their region. That’s certainly not happening here.”

The Mining Technician program, with a waiting list capable of filling twice the seats available, became all the more attractive with announcements of IOC expansion, new developments at Lac Bloom and Schefferville, and mining potential on the horizon right across the

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Ronnie Barron, also a councillor in Wabush, and leader of the Labrador Party, isn’t surprised by the condition of the local campus.

“It’s another case of government neglect in this region,” says Barron. “We get a reputation on the island as whiners, but, in reality, we see very few of the many tax dollars generated in this region spent in this region.

“Education is no different,” he says.

“It’s easy to put out press releases about success in Qatar. Where on the CNA website are the pictures of our campus?

Nowhere. It’s easy to tout your success when you hide your failures.”

Roul’s frustration is evident when she speaks of students going away to study.

“Our programs are excellent, comparable with anything in the system and our graduates are better than most. Imagine what we could do if we didn’t have this to deal with constantly.”

She doesn’t have to imagine — the 40-year old building has been soaked so often it gives under her feet.

“We’ve had staff with chest congestion and pain, shortness of breath, and persistent coughing,” says Roul, adding staff are otherwise healthy.

Aboulazm hopes to see that all change.

“We’ve been in discussion with the college, and with Works,” says Aboulazm.

“We’re talking about finding appropriate accommodations, whether another existing building to retrofit or a new building to meet our needs.”

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4 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JUNE 25, 2006

Mystery at sea Experts can’t explain why salmon aren’t returning home from ocean

By Ryan Cleary The Independent

Scotland and Ireland.

Slade says salmon numbers are “nowhere near” where they were prior to 1992’s fishery shutdown.

“It’s a concern for DFO,” he says.

Possible causes include pollution in waters close to estuaries, predation from seals, codfish and seabirds, environmental conditions such as high water temperatures and low water levels, and poaching.

C

od may get most of the attention in terms of industry shutdowns, but 2006 marks the 14th anniversary of the death of Newfoundland and Labrador’s commercial salmon fishery.

And while salmon populations are doing “soso” in the province’s rivers, large numbers of fish still aren’t returning from sea — a phenomenon recorded throughout the Maritimes and northeastern seaboard of the United States.

Based in St. Andrews, N.B., the Atlantic Salmon Federation predicted this week that hundreds of thousands of wild salmon will not be returning to their home rivers in eastern North America this year because they have vanished for unknown reasons at sea.

This province is reportedly the only region in North America that is meeting minimum conservation limits.

Donald Hustins, president of the Salmonid Council of Newfoundland and Labrador, the umbrella for a number of salmon conservation groups, says stocks in the province’s rivers are doing relatively well compared to the rest of Atlantic Canada, but numbers are still at 1970s levels.

“We’re holding our own,” Hustins says. While rivers are producing reasonable numbers of fish, the salmon — which swim off to sea at three years of age — aren’t returning from the ocean.

“No one seems to know why. It’s a mystery at sea,” says Hustins, arguing more research must be

An Atlantic salmon

carried out into survival rates. “Virtually nothing is being done at DFO in terms of explaining why marine survival is so low.”

Berkley Slate, staff officer for recreational fisheries with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in St. John’s, says the department can’t explain the low at-sea survival rate.

EARLY CLOSURE The recreational salmon fishery opened earlier this month and is slated to close by midSeptember. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see (river) closures in the next week if the hot weather continues without substantial amounts of rain,” Slade says, adding salmon returns on Conne River on the south coast and Harry’s River in western Newfoundland appear to be on the rise.

DFO has 90 river guardians in Newfoundland and Labrador, with the provincial government employing another 30.

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn announced earlier this week his department is preparing to beef up its conservation and protection presence in British Columbia Jeff J Mitchell/Reuters The number of enforcement officers there is slated to rise to 176 from 162 with a new $2.4 milAs for the charge from conservation groups that lion federal investment.

About 16,000 resident salmon licences are issued more science would help, Slade says “that’s probably a fair comment.” He adds the low ocean sur- in this province a year, plus up to 2,400 non-resivival rate isn’t unique to Canadian stocks. “The dent licences. There’s no set salmon quota system. problem of poor sea survival rates is a common Rather, rivers are assigned a class from one to four occurrence with all North Atlantic stocks,” he — a class one river allows the taking of six salmon; says, recorded in Norway, the Baltic countries, a class four allows for catch and release only.

‘It’s quite a blow’ From page 1 bunch of sleeveens out for themselves.”

“That’s the biggest danger of all this,” Crosbie tells The Independent. “It hurts the province in the sense of distrust of politicians … It’s quite a blow.”

Byrne, MHA for Kilbride, is alleged to have overspent his constituency allowance by more than $325,000 for the fiscal years 2003 and 2004. The allowance — which paid for expenses including office rental, equipment, supplies and secretarial services — had been capped at just over $30,000 for the two-year period.

Noseworthy met with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary in St. John’s Friday. Police have since begun a preliminary investigation.

Three other MHAs — including a sitting Liberal MHA, a retired Liberal MHA, and a current NDP member — are also being investigated by Noseworthy’s office. He’s expected to report on those files next week.

The office of Randy Collins, NDP MHA for Labrador West, issued a news release Friday afternoon saying the member has retained a lawyer to represent him with respect to inquiries by the auditor general.

The total amount overspent on the constituency allowances may hit the $1-million mark, Noseworthy says.

Further, problems with the allowances — from what Noseworthy has seen — extend further back than the time frame he investigated. It will be up to police to investigate years previous.

In yet another twist, Noseworthy is slated to release a report Tuesday into “questionable payments” made by the House of Assembly to certain suppliers.

Williams says government will also release a statement early in the week.

“This has surfaced as a result of the initiative that my government took in basically having the auditor general go

in and look at this matter,” he says.

“I have a responsibility as premier and leader of the province to put these things on the table … but I think they need to know that as their leader I will certainly be decisive and I’ll act on it very quickly.”

The office of the auditor general initially attempted to review the House of Assembly’s finances in 2000, but auditors were ordered out. Then, in 2002, a legislative committee — which included Byrne — voted to bar the auditor general from reviewing the House’s finances.

That vote was against Williams’ wishes.

Noseworthy, who’s served as auditor general for four years, says he’s never seen anything like what’s he’s uncovered in the House of Assembly.

“Never,” he says. “You would never see this in any government department.

It wouldn’t happen because of the checks and balances, segregation of duties, controls and processes.

“The assembly, it was ripe for this sort of activity. I guess one has to consider we were in there doing an audit in 2000 and we started to find things on constituency allowance claims and the way the Liberal government at the time dealt with the matter. Some things were brought to their attention and they dealt with it by simply asking us to stop doing our work.”

At the same time, Noseworthy says government made an amendment to the House of Assembly Act whereby the controller general’s hands were tied.

“He could get a sheet of paper from the Assembly and whatever he received he would simply have to make a cheque payable to the person that they had named on the paper without any supporting documentation.

“From an audit perspective it was totally unacceptable, but we had no choice but to remove ourselves.”

In Byrne’s case, Noseworthy says there’s no way an MHA could spend 10 times the approved constituency limit

without collusion in the system.

“You couldn’t submit invoices and have somebody keep issuing cheques without realizing that this person is receiving too much money,” he says.

“It just couldn’t happen, that’s my opinion … the House of Assembly generally was being misled.

“That’s a matter that the RNC now will have to investigate and they will have to make that determination. That’s beyond my role. I’m not a judge, I’m not a jury, I’m not a lawyer.”

Crosbie couldn’t compare the scandal to anything in the province’s political history, although he does see similarities to an ethical scandal in Saskatchewan during the 1990s involving the Conservative government of Grant Devine.

That scandal centred on the Conservative caucus and its research and communication allowances, public money given to the party for research and advertising activities. A police investigation revealed that several members of the Conservative party had diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars from the allowances to private numbered accounts in a phony expense-claim scam.

The investigation resulted in the laying of charges and the subsequent conviction of 14 Conservative members of the legislature, including several cabinet ministers, for fraud, theft, and breach of trust.

While Devine was never linked to the scandal, it nevertheless destroyed the provincial Conservative party in Saskatchewan.

“It’s somewhat similar from the point of view that public funding for some particular party was misused,” Crosbie says.

“Obviously everybody is innocent until proven guilty, but it’s got to be a major destroyer of credibility of politicians.”

As for shaking people’s faith in government, Noseworthy says, “My response to all of that is it is what it is.”

Fur farmers buy mainland fish products

By Mandy Cook For The Independent

T

he province’s booming fur industry is buying more than half its food supply — mainly fish offal — from outside the province, says the president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Fur Breeders Association.

Merv Wiseman tells The Independent approximately 32 mink and fox farms across the island must “stand in line” behind fur breeders in Ontario, Nova Scotia and even the United States for the fish by-product used as animal feed.

Wiseman says Newfoundland and Labrador’s supply of offal is delivered in an ad-hoc fashion, and must become more readily accessible to benefit this province’s farmers first.

“The provincial government is going to have to work with us on establishing policy and maybe some regulatory issues and protection will have to be put in place to make sure the Newfoundland fur industry will have first option,” Wiseman says.

The fur breeders association currently purchases offal from some small fish plants around the province, but the vast majority must be acquired through FPI or Ice Water (formerly National Sea).

The larger corporations sell their offal to large fur farms outside the province and do not always have enough for Newfoundland and Labrador’s fur breeders. The fur breeders association must turn elsewhere to acquire enough feed for the animals — recently as far away as Denmark, but mostly from an Ontario broker.

Asked whether the province’s fur farmers will take advantage of this year’s increased caplin quotas, Wiseman says the province must first invest in freezing capacity.

“We took some (caplin) last year and we’ll take even more this year, but not being totally prepared with freezing and holding capacity here in the province, we’re just going to have to watch this go other places,” he says.

Although fur breeders do not rely solely on fish by-product, the chicken and beef offal used for feed does not always come from Newfoundland and Labrador’s abattoirs either, says Wiseman.

“We do have to go outside the province to purchase other types of protein from slaughterhouses, and we purchase some chicken offal from Country Ribbon, but we sometimes have to go as far west as Alberta and Ontario and into Quebec.”

Wiseman says offal is now recognized as a “cash cow.” Considered an environmental hazard when dumped in landfills, fish plants and animal plants can now easily cover their costs of handling the tripe.

“It’s a valuable product,” Wiseman says, “but before it was actually seen as an environmental waste which caused problems.”

He’s most concerned about the lack of holding and freezing facilities. Not only will a substandard feed due to inferior processing endanger the quality and reputation of the fur breeders’ product, a shortage in supply will seriously inhibit the growth of a promising industry.

“We can scream and shout all we want about getting product from caplin discharge, or fish offal from the mainland or otherwise, but if we don’t have the physical and economic capacity in this province for expansion, then we’re going to be in hard shape.”

The fur industry was worth $22 million last year. This year the fur breeders association expects the fur harvest to exceed 200,000 pelts. Mink skins make up the majority of animals farmed, along with a small minority of silver fox. By 2010, fur farmers predict the industry will be worth $200 million.

JUNE 25, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 5

No benefit to extending school year

‘By the seat of our pants’

From page 1

By Ryan Cleary The Independent

T

his year’s caplin quota may be healthier than last, but there’s no way to tell what shape the stock is actually in, says Dr. George Rose, one of the East Coast’s preeminent fish scientists.

He says a caplin survey hasn’t been carried out in years, due to a lack of funding. There’s also no way to tell what impact a caplin fishery will have on remaining cod stocks — due again to a lack of science.

“In terms of the fishery we are flying by the seat of our pants,” Rose tells The Independent from Smith Sound, Trinity Bay. This year’s caplin quota for the so-called northern cod zone (waters off the northeast coast and Labrador) was set in mid-June at almost 35,000 tonnes, an increase of about 7,600 tonnes from 2005.

The fishery for northern cod will also reopen this summer for the first time since 1998. Scientists have condemned the decision given the northern cod stock is still in such delicate condition, showing little recovery since 1992, when the moratorium on commercial fishing was first imposed. An estimated 3,000 tonnes of cod is expected to be harvested this year between the commercial and food fisheries.

Rose says there’s not enough information available to say whether this year’s caplin fishery will hurt cod stocks.

“The problem is we do not know enough about the state of the caplin stocks,” Rose says. Studies of cod diets carried out between 1996 and 2003 revealed northern cod weren’t feeding on caplin “as was their historical habit,” he adds.

As for the health of caplin stocks, Rose’s answer is blunt: “There is no survey of the caplin stock.”

So is caplin science where it needs to be?

“No,” Rose says, “it cannot be without a survey.”

The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (which Rose says has some “excellent” caplin scientists) carries out some research, as does Rose’s group at Memorial University, but the research is limited by funding and lack of ship availability for at-sea surveys.

Derrick Hollett and Pete Cortes

“My funding to do caplin research comes largely from external sources including Iceland,” Rose says.

Estimates of caplin abundance haven’t been carried out since the early 1990s.

Since then caplin have been behaving abnormally — the fish have been smaller (by about 50 per cent, although they’re somewhat bigger in recent years), spawn later in the year, and travel greater distances than historically recorded.

As far as Rose knows (he last conducted offshore work in 2004), there has been little rebuilding of caplin stocks off the northeast coast and Labrador — “where caplin traditionally were very important to the largest aggregations of northern cod that we had.”

To date this year, Rose says caplin have been reported turning up in a few places, but caplin spawning isn’t as widespread as it once was and the timing is still erratic.

“What this means has been debated within science for some time but there is no good answer and the research needed to answer such questions has not been done.”

Rose says there is currently no research being carried out within DFO into the relationship between cod and caplin, although his group has specialized in the connection for a decade.

Rose and his students have been studying cod in Smith Sound since January — including cod numbers, behaviour, reproduction, diet and condition, as well as how their distribution relates to caplin.

“A relationship between caplin and cod is, in my view, certain,” he says. “The only unknowns are fine details of time and place.”

Rose’s work is currently funded by a number of sources, including the Icelandic government, Canadian science networks, CIDA, and grants from Memorial. He does not receive any funding from DFO, although he’s involved with a number of collaborative projects with scientists there.

Rose is currently working on a book on the fisheries entitled, The Newfoundland fisheries: an ecological history. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

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

Research and Development at our university and colleges.

C-CORE’s full-scale pipeline faciltiy at MUN

Scientist George Rose says that’s how today’s fishery is being managed

school. Frequently students choose not to go to special programs and activities offered at their peers and with teachers to be valuable the junior and senior high school level, such time and part of the school year,” King says. as smoking cessation programs, ATV proLearning should also be done outside of grams, and career advice sessions. the formal curriculum that “There seems to be less is tested on exams, he contime wasted, and more of a “We certainly don’t tinues. This includes activifocus on instructional time in ties such as field trips, the primary and elementary have students in physical activities and comlevel than at the junior and puter labs. senior high.” school not doing “We certainly don’t have During exams, Pike says anything … If parents parents are concerned stustudents in school not doing anything … if parents choose dents are often not in school choose not to send not to send their students or because there aren’t enough students choose not to come, teachers to administer exams their students or some of that is out of our and teach the remaining chilstudents choose not dren. control,” he says.

It can be difficult for par- to come, some of that Also, she has noticed that ents to convince their chilin junior and senior high dren to attend during the nice is out of our control.” schools, yearly cleaning is days in June, says Denise scheduled during exams and Pike, president of the the final weeks of classes, Darin King, director Newfoundland and Labrador and classrooms are locked to of the Eastern Federation of School students.

Councils.

“What I’m hearing from School Board “The parents I’ve talked to parents is they don’t know if have said this last week of there was really any benefit school basically was just pure agony — pure to extending the school year,” Pike says. agony for the kids to have to be in the class- “Unless they’re going to give junior and high room, and for the parents trying to get them up schools more human resources, there is no and get them to go, and for the teachers trying way that this is going to be any different. to come up with something to do with them to “When you have hot sunny days, and you’re all in the mindset that summer is comoccupy them.”

Although some activities are valuable, it is ing, it’s pretty difficult to get a child to stay in still a challenge to convince children to attend school when they feel they don’t have to be.”

New R&D spending and infrastructure has developed Newfoundland and Labrador as a centre of excellence in areas like ice and oceans engineering, distance technology and the marine sector. To learn more please visit www.capp.ca.

A message from:

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

6 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JUNE 25, 2006

Guilty as sin Confederation Building. Do not collect $200 (not a chance of that now anyway). Poor ol’ Ed — he’ll most likely serve time in a federal joint on the mainland for his crimes, the Pen being blocked to the rafters with so many innocent men.

RYAN CLEARY

Fighting Newfoundlander

W

hy even bother with a trial?

Ed Byrne is guilty. No question. Beyond the shadow of a doubt. Take it to the bank (or, in this case, direct deposit). Ed sure did.

It’s unanimous, judge — he pulled the trigger. The auditor general found the smoking bills under a bed in the House and spent all week waving the paperwork around in front of the jury (you and me) on the evening news … and you can’t dispute what smacks you between the eyes.

Sure everybody knows it’s true: Ed Byrne fattened his bankbook with the fortune he stole from government’s cookie jar. Court would be a waste of even more of the little money we have, another million reasons (on top of the first million) to consider your local politician a slimy sleeveen (John Crosbie’s word, not mine).

Go directly to jail. Do not pass

RAINBOW CORPSES It’s ironic that Ed should be convicted in the court of public opinion during the same week squirrels were found dead in Town with two paintball bullets to the back of their furry little heads. Only it turned out the story was false — Andy Wells hadn’t bothered to check out the fabrication he had been told. (I suppose you can’t blame an animal lover for jumping to conclusions). The mayor went so far as to name the paintball establishment — without even calling up the owner to check out his backdoor for a sign of rainbow-coloured, hard-as-board squirrel corpses.

It’s also ironic that the dead squirrels should be misreported and a noose wrapped around Ed’s neck during the same week that a report is released on how three men could be convicted for crimes they didn’t com-

mit.

What lesson did we learn from the Lamer exercise? Oh right — innocent until proven guilty. But that doesn’t appeal to Ed’s case. He did it, as sure as paint-ball shootin’.

GET AWAY FROM ME It doesn’t look good for Ed either that the premier distanced himself so quickly from his right-hand man.

(Ed’s biography was erased within hours from government’s website.) It also didn’t help that the auditor general so thoroughly damned Ed in front of the TV cameras. The way John Noseworthy paints the picture leaves little room for doubt — about a pinprick actually.

Let’s go over it again — innocent until proven guilty. Ed may be guilty — it most definitely looks that way — and he may not be. Greg Parsons also stabbed his mother to death, don’t forget. Everyone was sure of that. And hard-ticket Druken gutted his girlfriend and wrapped her panties around her neck for the kids to find the next morning.

Now let’s return to the question of whether the presumed innocent

Ed Byrne

Paul Daly/The Independent

should be named before proven guilty — last week’s topic of the week.

Most everybody agreed a few days ago that the names of people accused of crimes probably shouldn’t be made public until when, and if, they’re nailed to the wall.

Keith McGrath, remember? The

guy whose life was ruined by sexual assault changes that the judge threw out of court.

Let’s ask the question another way: should a cabinet minister be named before he’s convicted? What’s the difference in the two cases?

A few words about Ed Byrne. I remember Ed back in ’99 when he was foolish enough to take on Brian Tobin in a provincial election. Tobin was unbeatable with promises of a better today and a better tomorrow.

Tobin also had better hair than Byrne, which is what ultimately did the young Tory in.

Ed was nervous — you could tell by the way he smoked next to the bus, huddled and hurried, whenever a crowd wasn’t around and he could sneak one in.

Ed knew he wouldn’t win, but he took one for the team, and walked away with more seats than anyone expected. Ed has been a warrior. Now he faces his toughest battle. He may be guilty; he may be innocent. No difference, his political reputation is shot well before the legal battle begins. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

YOUR VOICE Newfoundlander in a Calgary hat Dear editor, I recently came across Stephanie Porter’s May 14, 2006 article, I’ll stick with this, which I found highly interesting.

I graduated from mechanical engineering at MUN with Colin Reddin in May 2004 and have been working in Calgary since June of that year. In fact, I think I can make the claim I was one of the first (if not the first) from our class to make the move to Calgary. As such, I would like to take this opportunity to offer a counterview to some of Colin’s statements, so that other people who are thinking of moving west won’t pass on a nice city such as Calgary.

Calgary is a highly active city.

There are many sports clubs for someone to get involved with.

Calgary has one of North America’s longest public walking/biking trail systems that more or less covers the entire city. The Canadian Olympic Park — the training centre for most future winter Olympians — is open for public use. Many Calgarians take advantage of the mountains (which are relatively close by) to hike, camp, fish, ski, snowshoe, etc.

During summer, people raft or boat down the Bow River, which runs through the heart of the city. There are open neighbourhood rinks in the winter in which people play shinny hockey. The opportunities to get involved are endless.

The work in Calgary is highly rewarding and extremely challenging. I have just celebrated my twoyear anniversary as a project manager at my company, and I have already completed several projects that were worth millions of dollars to plan and execute.

In fact, due to the extremely hot job market in Calgary, many young people entering the workforce are

Colin Reddin

placed into more and more challenging roles. And I would think that the other 20-plus classmates of mine who now call Calgary home would agree.

I find it simply unbelievable that Colin would have the time to take two hours off for lunch. All the work and all the challenge you’ll ever want is here in Calgary, you just have to show some initiative and ask for it.

All this being said, Calgary is not Newfoundland or Labrador (despite the huge amount of fellow Newfoundlanders and Labradorians I have met since I moved here). There are things that all of us miss (like the ocean and family), but most, if not all of us, have a dream to return back home sometime.

Most of us are here to gain experience and pay off student loans and other debts. The pay may be nice out west, but there are some things money cannot buy.

Wayne Manning, Calgary, Alta.

Mechanical engineering, Class of 2004 Memorial University

Environmental war story Dear editor, An issue that I would like to see in your paper is coverage of the environmental warfare that Newfoundland Hydro has been waging in the Holyrood area for many years. The pollution coming from the stacks is colossal. As much as half a billion pounds of sulfur dioxide has been

dumped on us. And now Hydro is using the recently published Cantox study to suggest that there are no problems. The plant now produces 40 per cent of the island’s electricity and for that we have to tolerate 100 per cent of the dust and soot.

Joseph Byrne, Holyrood

AN INDEPENDENT VOICE FOR NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR

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

PUBLISHER Brian Dobbin EDITOR IN CHIEF Ryan Cleary MANAGING EDITOR Stephanie Porter PICTURE EDITOR Paul Daly PRODUCTION MANAGER John Andrews

sales@theindependent.ca • production@theindependent.ca • circulation@theindependent.ca All material in The Independent is copyrighted and the property of The Independent or the writers and photographers who produced the material. Any use or reproduction of this material without permission is prohibited under the Canadian Copyright Act. • © 2006 The Independent • Canada Post Agreement # 40871083

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

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

What motivates the fighting Newfoundlander?

I

n 1995 I visited the Newfoundland Park at Beaumont-Hamel, France for the first time.

I had wanted to do this for many years — partly out of curiosity, and partly because of an incident from my youth.

I grew up in Freshwater, Carbonear where there lived a rather eccentric older bachelor. He allowed the boys of the town, when they reached a certain age and under strict rules, into his house to play cards and socialize. Over time this became something of a rite of passage for the young men of the community. This man’s older brother had been killed at Beaumont-Hamel, and it was apparent the event had an enduring and devastating effect on the family.

One evening, when we were sitting alone, he looked up and said, “Joey, you look like a young feller who might go some places in this world. If you are ever over around Beaumont-Hamel could you see if you could find poor Si’s grave?”

It took over 30 years and by then the old man was long dead, but in 1995 I finally did it and found his brother’s grave.

Prior to the visit I frankly did not know much about the park or the events associated with it. Growing up in rural Newfoundland in the 1960s, most of the history that we learned was about Britain, and in later grades, central Canada. Probably not unlike many Newfoundlanders, I had come to view the First World War — and especially the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel — with ambivalence and suspicion. For apart from the terrible loss of human lives, we suspected that something else had happened, something not more terrible but much longer lasting.

I suppose we were not far off the mark, since Newfoundland had gone into this conflict as one of the richest parts of the British Empire, experiencing what has been described as a “Golden Age.” Afterwards things were never the same. Everything seems to have gone down hill and the effects of this, I believe, can still be seen today.

While it is true that the First World

JOE BUTT Guest Column War had a devastating effect on the island, I do not believe that the war in itself was the main cause of its subsequent misfortunes. After all, other countries suffered horribly also. To understand what really happened, I feel you have to look at the broader picture. I believe that the only country that “won” the First World War was the United States, while Britain, France and Germany all lost it. This is borne out by the fact that Britain, after the war, went into a steep decline from which it never recovered. Canada, it seems, quietly and quite wisely (as it turned out) attached itself to the United States. Newfoundland, on the other hand, seemed bound to Britain and consequently paid the price.

Every time I have visited the park at Beaumont-Hamel, there have been sizable numbers of people present.

Apparently it is a favourite with the locals, and of French school children as well. I have also met there people from all over the world, including Germany. Unlike many other memorial sites in northern France, the Newfoundland Park does not have an oppressive sense of tragedy, nor is one overwhelmed by scale, and certainly there is no militaristic swagger or national bravado. This may explain why during the Second World War, when the Germans occupied the area, they dismantled a rather aggressive looking statue of a Highland soldier that the British had erected near the bottom of the park but left the rest of the park un-molested. Incidentally, the statue was re-erected after the war and is still there.

It is said that the park is the way it is because the Newfoundland government did not have the money to build grandiose monuments and dramatically change the landscape. If this is true then it is one instance at least where the lack of means has led to a happy out-

come. The park itself is well maintained, and is very accessible with open walkways, three cemeteries and the Caribou Memorial on its mound. It is a pleasant place for people to simply walk and sit and reflect. About halfway down the park there are the remnants of an old tree that marks the spot where the so-called “Danger Tree” stood. It was here, which was one of the few places in the wire where there was a gap, that so many young Newfoundlanders lost their lives. Below this, near where the enemy’s trenches were, is the “Y” Ravine Cemetery. This cemetery contains the graves, mainly of Newfoundlanders, along with some Scottish Highlanders, and it was here that I found the grave of the young man from my hometown.

Wandering around this neatly kept and pleasant little cemetery, reading the inscriptions on the headstones, I could not help but think about these young men and what they had tried to do and what a sacrifice so many of them had made. The Newfoundland Regiment won honours and accolades — not only here but in many actions afterwards.

By the war’s end they had established a reputation for determination and courage that few, if any, on the Western Front could match. Why had they done it? What motivated them? What did they believe in? What is their legacy?

When you look back on the history of Newfoundland after the First World War and see so much bitterness, selfishness and skullduggery, it’s hard not to be troubled by these questions. Did they do it because they felt they were fighting for “freedom,” or because they felt it was their duty to the King and Empire? Perhaps, but I cannot get the idea out of my head that the real reason they did it was due to a profound sense of responsibility to their country — Newfoundland. If this was so, then the question must be asked — what responsibility do we have to them? Or more precisely (since they are long gone), what responsibility, if any, do we have to what they believed in?

Joe Butt is an artist and poet who is retired and living in Toronto.

JUNE 25, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 7

A Watergate moment

Ivan Morgan as fascinated by the demise of Nixon as he was 30 years ago

M

an, did I have a crush on Susan Dean. This weekend I watched — or more accurately was riveted to — a documentary on the Watergate scandal called Watergate Plus Thirty: Shadow of History. The film sought out and interviewed many of the players in that uniquely American drama of 30 years ago, investigating what, if any, lessons were learned.

I suppose to the majority of the people reading this, Watergate is a history topic. Not me. As I sat in my little house late on a Saturday evening sipping Scotch and hanging off every word, I began to realize the Watergate scandal was so much more to me.

I marvelled at the quality of the videotape from the Senate inquiry.

Except for the fashions — the hair cuts, the glasses, the terrible wide ties of the ’70s — this could have been videotaped last week. The contrast between the serious young people testifying, and interviews with the same people 30 years later placed in stark contrast how

IVAN MORGAN

Rant & Reason we all travel through time: some better than others.

I thrilled at the chairmanship — at the moral authority, the force of character, the southern charm — of the senior Democratic Senator from North Carolina, Sam Ervin.

Courtly and folksy, he was no fool, and no pushover, as more and more of the people called to testify were to learn. His Senate select committee to investigate campaign practices doggedly pursued the extent of culpability of the conspirators, often locking horns with those testifying, never losing.

Ervin’s presence and personality anchored the committee in its inquiry.

When committee member Howard Baker, the Republican Senator from

Tom Hann

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Remarks and incidents such as this one only serves to perpetuate that negative image and attitude.

For years I have been speaking out on this ongoing problem, both inside and outside our province. Over the years I have refused to deal with upper Canadian businesspeople who crack awful jokes and hold on to the image they have of us. Many times I have demanded stores remove from their shelves items such as hats, Tshirts and trinkets that contain degrading terms such as newfie, or contain stupid newfie jokes.

Despite this, we are sometimes our own worse enemy. We continue to contribute to the negativity and the embarrassing image by producing products and telling the jokes ourselves.

We are a proud people with a proud history that contributes to the future of this country and we should not be treated in this manner. Our young people should be taught to stand proud wherever they go in this world, and not tolerate such treatment. Alas, we lose some of them to the long-standing onslaught of negativity. Just last week I was in a store that sold a newfie-flavour ice cream.

I told the server I was somewhat offended by that term, and was told by the young high school student working a summer job that she did not mind being called a newfie. What a shame.

Tom Hann, St. John’s

Pare down the Education Department Dear editor, American humorist Bennett Cerf once defined knowledge as “all the wisdom of the ages ... available to all of us within the covers of books.”

When the Liberal government of Brian Tobin got rid of the denominational education system, it was meant to free dollars from religious educational purposes for general educational need.

Did that actually happen? All one has to do is peruse the education budget between 1993-2001 and see where the largest percentage increase in spending took place — administration within the Education Department.

The result in this appropriation of funds was that the students in the classroom were short changed. The Pathways system of education was initiated, and teachers had to attend ISSP meetings and learn a different curriculum. Teachers were obliged to ensure their charges met the Pathways curriculum “outcomes” as measured in reference tests by the Education Department. This left little time to pass on “wisdom” to students.

the footage. To me it was a sudden, unexpected trip back to visit that awkward lad long buried in the now awkward adult.

As a young man I had marvelled that men in such trouble could laugh on occasion. Now I understand. I once sat in awe as recently fired White House chief of staff “Bob” Haldeman clearly lied to the committee about his recollection of key events. Now, sadly, the Haldermans of the world are all too commonplace.

I could still feel the presence of Nixon in the room, though of course he was never there.

And I could not help notice the elegant Susan Dean, wife of the disgraced White House counsel John Dean, sitting behind him day after day, her hair tied back in a severe blond bun, the picture of coolness, support and stability.

After all, I was 14.

I watched again as Dean, who my parents did not like nor trust — yet grudgingly grew to admire — brought

the whole thing down around his head.

In his testimony he kept using the phrases “at that point in time” or “at this point in time.” Watching it decades later I can still hear my parents’ cheerful chorus of “Then!” or “Now!” as they corrected the TV screen every time he uttered those silly phrases.

Thirty years has not diminished the enormity of what happened. The Watergate story exposed the darkness of Richard Nixon. Deeply paranoid, vindictive and embattled, he lost everything for no other reason than his own twisted personality.

Fascinated at 14, I found myself fascinated again — and fascinated by my fascination. And wondrous at the span of time that has so quickly passed.

And just like that credulous young man in front of his parents’ TV, I was captivated once again by the serenity, the dignity and the élan of Susan Dean.

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

INNU EQUITY

YOUR VOICE ‘Newfie-flavour ice cream’ Dear editor, First of all, let me tell you how pleased I am that The Independent continues to publish diversity in the media … presenting alternatives leads to better serving the public.

I read with interest Craig Westcott’s column (The N-word debate revisited, June 18-24) re the leader of a professional development seminar in Ontario using the terms goofy and newfie in the same context during an exercise using word association to remember names.

How embarrassing and degrading for anyone in the group from this province. And what a sense of outrage must have been felt because of what I consider racist and discriminatory remarks.

This incident points to the longstanding negative image that some mainland Canadians have of

Tennessee (whom Nixon had hoped would help divert the scandal from the inside) impatiently blurted out the question “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” he was asking the question we all wanted answered.

Watergate was a turning point in my life. I remember coming home from school and seeing my Dad’s car in the driveway. Who died? Inside, both my parents were in front of the TV. At 3:30 in the afternoon on a weekday. What the hell? I sat down to watch.

They filled me in along the way.

Slowly the enormity of the situation dawned on me. No General Hospital that afternoon. We ate sandwiches in front of the TV. Supper. In front of the television. I was just old enough, at 14, to get the gist of the careful wordplay and legal jousting between the people called to testify and the members of the committee.

And here I was watching it all again, at the ripe old age of 46. It wasn’t just

Ben Michel, president of Labrador’s Innu Nation, met with Premier Danny Williams in St. John’s late last week. The province is willing to consider an equity position in the range of five per cent for the Innu in the development of the lower Churchill project.

Paul Daly/The Independent

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

M

As a retired teacher and administrator at a number of schools, I have always maintained that good teachers were those who created within their students curiosity. Students learn; teachers show them how to learn. This is applied knowledge, this is teaching wisdom.

Unfortunately, this approach to teaching is not practical when teachers must teach students how to pass reference tests, or any other curriculum-based standardized tests. This is especially true when these tests are being used to measure the effectiveness of schools.

However, there is a remedy to this situation. Begin paring down the administrative side of the Education Department, reinstate full-time drama, musical and physical education programs in each and every school. Funnel the money saved by decreasing the size of administration back into the grass roots of education — more teachers, additional programs and smaller classroom sizes.

John Reade, St. John’s

uskoka country is about as opposite a place as you can find to the loneliness of the Canadian Shield. It’s a heavily populated playground for Toronto’s elite. The shores of every conceivable piece of waterfront are lined with groomed lawns, long wooden piers with gleaming hardwood, Muskoka boats and sleek ski boats.

The homes they call cabins make any of the palaces on Gull Pond look like shacks. It’s an upper-class suburban wilderness with the same odd appeal as a golf course: nature controlled, the

money wins. But who wouldn’t want to spend weekends at the lake wining and dining with friends. I do it. But I can do it at home in Brigus Junction, have twice the fun and not need a few million bucks.

For those less fortunate, a week camping in a national park is just the ticket. Never mind the drunken brawls or seven musical styles competing to be most annoying, it’s still not the city.

The most obvious thing about Muskoka is either the white people are still making all the money or our immigrant population doesn’t see the value in paddling around a black fly-infested swamp in a canoe.

Tourists in Muskoka will pay pretentious prices for everything just to have the chance to see Goldie Hawn or Governor Arnold walk the streets of Bracebridge or shop at the local Canadian Tire. There is bad art for

thousands of bucks and great butter tarts and latté for not much less. How did these people get all their money if they are so damn stupid? I guess being happily shafted is an occupation of the wealthy. Maybe one day I will value money more than time, get a bunch of it together, and understand the impulse to throw it away (good food and wine excluded).

And now Quebec. Some yahoo threw a beer can at us and tried to run us off the road. Ontario plates. So far the people of Quebec are the most like Newfoundlanders, open and gregarious and for the most part open minded. Too bad human life has no value once they get behind the wheel.

Only 1,600 km to the Joseph and Clara.

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

Over the top, boys Dear editor, Australians and New Zealanders consider the Gallipoli campaign in the First World War to be the crucibles of their respective countries, no longer colonies of England.

Canada considers Vimy Ridge to be where she earned the right to exist as a separate nation, no longer a colony.

There were Newfoundlanders at both Vimy and Gallipoli.

On the morning of July 1, 1916 at Beaumont-Hamel, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, young men of

Newfoundland, soldiers of the British Empire, by their willing sacrifice, earned for their old colony the right to exist as a nation.

Of all the plunder the English carried ’ome when they overran the Earth, the most priceless object taken was Newfoundland’s right to govern herself.

In 10 years time the 100th anniversary of Beaumont-Hamel will be commemorated.

What else happens on July 1, 2016?

The Churchill Falls contract expires on July 1, 2041. It is not really a 65-year

contract but rather a 40-year contract and a 25-year extension with an even better deal for Quebec. Do the basic arithmetic (July 1, 2041 minus 25 years) and you arrive at July 1, 2016.

Do we sit in our pews and sing Canada’s praises or do we get redress on the Churchill Falls contract before July 1, 2016? If we could get rid of that imperialistic 25-year extension, it would be a great victory. Anyone else, besides me, got any strategic ideas?

Tom Careen, Placentia

JUNE 28, 2006

JUNE 28, 2006

8 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 9

IN CAMERA

All photos courtesy of Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador

Night scene, Beaumont-Hamel, 1916

Shave after leaving the trenches, 1916

Soldiers of the Regiment peeling potatoes

Officers on S. S. Florizel, WWI, circa 1914

Royal Newfoundland Regiment, J. Goodyear and horse

Two soldiers getting a shave

Newfoundland soldiers in St. John’s Road Support Trench, early morning before commencement of attack, July 1, 1916.

Better than the best

By Nadya Bell The Independent

S

itting in a support trench at Beaumont-Hamel, one of the men from the Newfoundland Regiment whittled a small regimental crest out of the soft chalky rocks in the area.

The trinket is a testament to the moments of boredom of the First World War, as the Newfoundlanders waited for the call to advance on German lines.

It was 90 years ago this week the Newfoundland regiment participated in the tragic July 1 advance in the Battle of the Somme. Of an initial fighting strength of 929, says Bernard Ransom, curator of military history at The Rooms, 92 per cent perished that day.

The battle honours of the Royal Newfoundland

Regiment will be commemorated in an exhibit at The Rooms this summer. Ransom says Beaumont-Hamel is a household word in this province and it’s important that the public has a sense of the history behind the battle.

“We try to explain the reasons for the catastrophic losses, and the strategy or non-strategy behind the whole thing,” he says.

Modern rifles were useless in the medieval style of fighting that took place in close quarters and low visibility, Ransom continues. The Rooms will showcase examples of spades that soldiers sharpened to use as maces, and other pieces of machinery that were used as cudgels.

Trench uniforms, lanterns, weapons and other pieces of equipment will also be exhibited. The museum

doesn’t have any of the original blue puttees the regiment wore, but will show navy puttees, which are similar.

Ransom says the Newfoundland Regiment’s losses were only a fraction of the casualties that took place in the Battle of the Somme.

“Every unit involved was clobbered on that first day,” he says.

Beaumont-Hamel was the first, but not the only time, the Newfoundland Regiment was nearly wiped out in a single battle. On two other occasions the regiment had to be rebuilt: at Bailleul under a heavy German advance, and at Monchy le Preux during the Battle of Arras – where they lost 485 men in one day.

“We know what Newfoundland lost at BeaumontHamel, and we lost a lot of good people, but the

British army lost too because the Newfoundland Regiment in that period was one of the very best infantry units they had. It was a crack unit because of the way they were trained and led,” Ransom says.

The Newfoundlanders were considered among the best in the army partly because of their previous training as the only North Americans in Gallipoli. There, they learned to perform difficult maneuvers, such as how to withdraw from their positions without alerting the enemy.

The motto of the regiment was “Better than the Best.”

Ransom says one of the regiment’s best compliments was from a New Zealand general who galloped up to the front to inspect soldiers digging in at a difficult position.

“He said ‘This is a really weak spot, I hope these guys can hold it’ and he called out to them and said ‘Who are you?’ and they replied ‘We’re Newfoundlanders, sir.’

He turned around and said, ‘Well, I don’t need to worry about any problem here …’

“He was absolutely confident that they wouldn’t give up any ground, and of course they didn’t.”

The British army gave the regiment two highly capable officers, including an unconventional but highly experienced colonel, and a Scotsman who won a Victoria Cross. Ransom refers to them as the maverick and the overachiever.

The Newfoundland Regiment maintained a high standard by only fielding volunteers during the period of the war. Ransom says it’s impressive they were able to create a strong force from such a small population.

“When you look at the record of that regiment throughout the war, I know everyone thinks that their people did best, but truly, in an objective fashion that record was outstanding,” Ransom says.

“Many people would say — why didn’t they just stay home and be outstanding at catching fish? And they wonder if that wouldn’t have been better, and perhaps it would.”

The Newfoundland Regiment left behind the blood of their men on the soil of Beaumont-Hamel, and an aura of significance that carries with Newfoundlanders and Labradorians today.

The exhibit Forget Me Not: Commemorating Beaumont Hamel will run July 1 until Nov. 15.

All photos are available for public viewing at the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador.

JUNE 25, 2006

10 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

Blame it on the editor

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The report of the Lamer inquiry into the wrongful convictions of Randy Druken, Gregory Parsons and Ronald Dalton was released this week. The report called for a review of the Crown prosecuter’s office, among other recommendations. Clockwise from top left: Dalton and his wife; lawyer Bob Simmonds; lawyer Jerome Kennedy; Justice Minister Tom Marshall and Simmonds; Kennedy with reporters.

Paul Daly/The Independent

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y first experience sitting on a throne of power is over. Beginning with The CLARE-MARIE Independent’s June 11 issue, I assumed GOSSE the role of managing editor from Stephanie Porter for two weeks while she went on a much-deserved Brazen vacation.

I’ve worked with the paper for about two years and know all about the foibles of a cyclical week can’t make up and the paper has those in spades.

— striving for deadlines amidst a small staff, the Although there’s always a bit of artistic licence snowballing workload as Friday creeps closer, and allowed for movies (so subscribers and advertisers the late nights of cramming — but having to be — breathe easy). utterly responsible for every word printed lends its I’ve been working for the paper on a freelance own special stressful charm. basis from home for the last two months, so when As a reporter I’ve fielded my fair share of soap- I took the role as all-powerful managing editor I box calls from people with an was glad to see the office was as axe to grind, convinced they’ve unpredictable as ever. And no got the scoop of the decade. I’ve The beauty of being a matter how frustrated I became had stories fall through at the last filling page holes and assigning lowly reporter is that work while trying to get my own minute after hours or days of work. I’ve had people refuse to you can blame it all on writing pieces done, it was worth let me interview them. I’ve had it. people call me up to yell about Because at the end of it all — the editor. “I’m sorry, I something I’ve written, or someafter the hair pulling and late realize Armageddon is nights — were the papers: two thing the paper’s printed.

The beauty of being a lowly almost certainly about crisp, clean creations, full of reporter is that you can blame it colour and quality that I could to destroy Newfoundland, feel responsibility for. The good all on the editor.

“I’m sorry, I realize Armagedsort rather than the wake-updon is almost certainly about to but my editor just won’t sweating-at-night sort. destroy Newfoundland, but my I’ve always felt somewhat let me cover it …” editor just won’t let me cover overwhelmed by the power of it …” print; by the fact a story I write “You have a complaint? Hmm, yes, very valid, can be taken as strict verbatim by readers. It’s so but all complaints simply must go through the edi- easy to skew viewpoint and perspective by the tor you see. Let me just transfer you …” careful laying down of words that it’s not surprisI guess the last two weeks were my payback. ing people often feel uncomfortable with the press Phone hollering, e-mail spewing, freelancers cav- and feel nervous giving interviews. How many ing, stories crashing, and me jerking awake at major scandals have come forth thanks to newspanight with sudden realizations of tasks left undone, pers? How many wrongs have been righted and visions of large blank spaces on pages and writers rights been wronged? threatening to go AWOL. Nothing of scandalous proportions occurred I began to realize that if I was to be managing during my two weeks holding the power. Danny editor fulltime, I’d probably no longer be the sort W. didn’t officially declare independence thanks of person who tries to avoid upsetting people, to a potentially bad equalization reform (although must return calls and e-mails immediately and that might have proved entertaining). No one generally tries to keep everyone happy. By the end yelled at me, and I hope I didn’t piss anyone off of my first week I was already ruthlessly erasing too much. The staff all rallied round and were e-mails, deleting phone messages, mercilessly great; the freelancers delivered and as far as I chopping stories and happily hovering on the know, took my inexperienced edits with good brink of bawling people out. grace. Nothing caved on my watch and that was all The Independent, through its many metamor- I cared about. phoses, is quite a bizarre place to work at the best By the time I stumbled out of The Independent’s of times (not to mention the fact being a reporter offices at the end of my M.E. stint it was the early puts you in some crazy situations anyway). hours of the morning and I was heading home to The staff has always said there should be a keep writing and meet my own story deadlines movie made about the paper, from The before catching a plane the next day. I was dead Independent’s tenuous, heated beginnings, follow- tired, a bit spooked out by the deathly quiet in the ing through with several dramas, quittings/firings, office, my butt was asleep and I was cross-eyed. near death experiences, and concluding with an But power is never quite so satisfying if it doesawards ceremony where the paper racks them all n’t come with a bit of pain. up at about the same time it crashes in a blaze of glory. The best storylines are the ones you just Clare-Marie Gosse’s column returns July 9.

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JUNE 28, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 11

Hynes sight

Singer/Songwriter Ron Hynes

T

he Man of a Thousand Songs – responsible for such definitive anthems as No Kathleen, Godspeed and, of course, Sonny’s Dream – will be recognized at the 30th annual Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival in early August for a lifetime of achievement as one of Canada’s most prolific singer/songwriters.

Throughout his career, Ron Hynes has articulated the heart and soul of the province with his songs about simple people and the angst and joys they encounter in everyday life. Born in St. John’s and raised in Ferryland on the Southern Shore, Hynes began singing on the coffee-shop circuit more than 30 years ago. His influences were typical: Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Del Shannon, but his own influence on the new generation of singer/songwriters has been anything but. It is his mentoring and friendship to emerging artists in Newfoundland and Labrador that has gained Hynes this latest accolade, as well as many others.

Though his career has spanned three decades, Hynes, like the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival itself, is showing no signs of slowing down. Sonny’s Dream is considered to be an international folk classic. It and many other of his songs have been covered by dozens of artists around the world, including Emmy Lou Harris, Christy Moore, Mary Black and Valdy. His latest release, titled Ron Hynes, is touted as his best work yet.

Hynes is a five-time East Coast Music Award winner, a Genie Award winner, and past Juno and CCMA nominee. He has been recognized by the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Arts Council as Artist of the Year (1992) and presented with the prestigious Arts Achievement Award (2004). He also holds an honourary doctorate from Memorial University in acknowledgement of his songwriting and contribution to the arts. Hynes will now add the St. John’s Folk Arts Council Lifetime Achievement Award to that list, joining the ranks of such cultural icons as Frank Maher, Becky Bennett, Ruth Matthews and Gerald Campbell.

The award was established in 2002 to recognize those who have made it a lifetime goal to enhance the cultural life of the province, and to encourage the continuation of that rich culture into new generations of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. It is awarded each year at the Folk Festival in Bannerman Park and this year the ceremony will take place on Saturday, Aug. 5. This will be one of the many highlights of this year’s festival as it is a Come Home Year in celebration of 30 years of promoting and helping to preserve the music, songs and dancing of Newfoundland and Labrador. The lineup will include young beginners on the Neil Murray Stage, wellestablished national folk artists, and some of the best of our own world-class musicians. For the complete line-up and other information about the 30th annual Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival look for this page in The Independent each week and visit www.sjfac.nf.net.

JUNE 25, 2006

12 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

SCATTERED PAST

Riding the rails NEWFOUNDLAND RAILWAY MUSEUM

By Nadya Bell The Independent

B

etty Allan took the train in 1957 with two young children — and one on the way — all the way across the island. Her husband John, whose family they were going to visit in St. John’s, sat in the back of the train in a cheaper seat.

She says she’s surprised she didn’t loose the third child. The ride was rough and lasted a day and a half with all sorts of delays.

Now living near Toronto, Betty says her family has chosen to fly to Newfoundland ever since.

Returning once again to visit family in Portugal Cove this summer, Betty and John went to the Newfoundland Railway Museum to pick up some souvenirs and breeze through the exhibit.

Half the interior of a train is re-created in the museum, showing double seats facing each other. Rather foamy models of upper-class Newfoundlanders enjoy empty coffee cups and plates in the dining car. Silverware and art deco lamps make it genuinely fancy, although the carpet looks too plush for a working train.

The lower-class Newfoundlanders in the back of the train are outfitted for trout fishing, apparently taking advantage of the cheap fares the line

offered on Victoria Day weekend.

The original furniture from the train is snugly shaped, like outfitting for a ship. “Off” the train, in the main museum, there are some much larger oak specimens from the offices of the train managers.

Sir Robert Gillespie Reid’s station agent’s desk is an ornate trap with pigeon holes, as befitting a family that alternately constructed, operated and owned the railway. And if the historical description put together by Historians Melvin Baker and Bob Cuff is correct, they had a very shady relationship with the government.

Reid is commemorated on the outside of the building, but inside displays allude to the fact that the Reids were not well liked, and perhaps contributed to the bankruptcy of the province. This is a bit controversial — museum texts usually prefer to avoid political judgments.

The Newfoundland government approved the construction of a railway in 1880. The first company, Blackman Syndicate of the U.S., went bankrupt after three years and only 60 miles of the rail had been constructed.

Enter the Reids from Scotland, who completed the railway, and the same year the first train crossed the island the government of Newfoundland signed the controversial 1898 railway contract. The contract turned ownership of the railway over to Reid, and gave him the responsibility for operat-

A display at the Newfoundland Railway Museum.

ing the rail.

The same contract also required Reid to run a St. John’s streetcar, turned over ownership of Petty Harbour hydroelectric station, and sold Reid the island’s telegraph service. But his the deal gets even sweeter.

The Reids also operated a ferry service to North Sydney at a slight profit, because their contract with the government was slightly more than the operating cost.

A photo taken in 1903 of Reid and his son in his father’s Rolls Royce at the top of Signal Hill proves that St. John’s favourite make-out spot was also a good spot for business kings of Newfoundland to survey their territory.

The Reids weren’t afraid to take over for the government — they printed their own scrip notes to pay their employees, creating their own currency that merchants would honour.

Prime Minister Robert Bond asked the Reids to sell part of the railway ownership back to the province. Reid wanted to charge many times the original price for the railway, and Bond refused. The government’s relations with the company were apparently “strained” for the next 20 years.

Reid backed Bond’s rival Edward Morris and the People’s Party in the election of 1909. Morris won the election on the promise of constructing branch lines to more remote communities. But only four out of six branch lines were ever built, and they cost more than double the contract price.

During the First World War, more traffic and less workers on the rail wore down the equipment. The Reids wanted the province to join Canada and sell the railway, rather than fix it themselves. Newfoundlanders still believed the Reids were getting rich, but low rates and loosing money on branch lines and repair had made the

Paul Daly/The Independent

railway unprofitable.

The railway service unceremoniously halted in 1922 when workers weren’t paid by the company. The government’s subsequent buyout of Ried contributed to Newfoundland’s bankruptcy in the 1930s.

Despite the financial woes of the rail, it still prided itself on a reputation for having the best food on the island.

Cook Toby Jackman and others had as their motto “Tasty meals, Delightfully prepared.”

They charged 30 cents for fresh fish, which you could get with three different types of vegetables: potatoes, peas and corn.

But there was really only one thing that seemed to speak to Betty and John Allan in the museum — they pointed at an old photo of a train climbing up a hill — “There’s the Newfie Bullett!” they said.

LIFE STORY

Finding herself in France St. John’s-native Margaret Macperherson became an award-winning artist, known and respected across Europe MARGARET CAMPBELL MACPHERSON 1860-1931

By Ivan Morgan For The Independent

M

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most popular piece was her portrait of the wife of Newfoundland’s then-governor, Sir Henry McCullum. After the exhibition she left, never to return.

In 1900 she was asked to exhibit three of her paintings at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. The yearlong world fair, organized by the French government to celebrate the advent of a new century, was attended by 50 million people.

As there were no other entries from Newfoundland, the Canadian delegation allowed her to include her paintings

argaret Campbell Macpherson was born in 1860 in St. John’s, the daughter of St. John’s merchant Peter Macpherson and Susannah (Campbell) Macpherson, and sister to Campbell, Clunie, Archibald, and Lucy.

Like many of her time and social class, her parents, having the means, chose to educate their children in Europe. Margaret was no exception, and after attending Wesley Academy in St. John’s, she was sent off to finish her education in Edinburgh and on the continent.

She was very close to her brother Campbell. He had excelled at school in England, showing every sign of developing a very promising academic career. Unfortunately, his father’s untimely death spelled the end of that.

Campbell’s fate was to return to St. John’s at the age of 18 and run the family business. His little sister Margaret was eight. Despite his own setback, Campbell was determined that his sister, whom he loved dearly, should not be likewise hampered.

And she wasn’t. She too showed brilliance from an early age. From Margaret’s earliest years it was clear she was a Margaret Campbell Macpherson strong personality, and she showed incredible talents in draw- with theirs, exhibiting her works in the ing and painting. After her formal edu- Canadian section. She won a Bronze cation in Edinburgh, she studied paint- Medal. Although her Newfoundland ing in Paris under Dagan-Bouveret and relatives always resented her accomGustave Courtois, both well-known plishments received Canadian recognition — and not the proper recognition artists of the time.

She devoted her whole life to her art, Newfoundland deserved — she must becoming very well known in European have been very grateful to the Canacircles as a fine post-Impressionist and dians, considering they made her win portraitist, especially in France, where possible.

Margaret and her lifelong companion she lived.

From her first very popular exhibition Josephine Hoxie Bartlett, a well-known in Edinburgh in 1882 when she was 22, American painter in her own right, lived Margaret never looked back. She devel- and worked for decades in a house they oped a formidable reputation, exhibit- purchased together in Versailles.

Margaret slowly became more and ing for many years at the finer French and English galleries, including the more interested in, and renowned for, “Nationale” and the Royal Academy. her painting of flowers and landscapes, She spent the rest of her life living and especially of the breathtaking gardens of Versailles, near her home. working in Europe.

In 1906 her beloved Campbell, by In 1896, at 36, Margaret returned to St. John’s for several months to visit now one of the most successful busifamily and friends. An exhibit of her nessmen in all of Newfoundland, died works was organized and held in the while visiting her in France.

In 1914 the lives of Margaret and her Colonial Building, to great acclaim. The

partner were disrupted by the First World War. France was in peril, and they made their way to safety, staying with friends in Switzerland, living on the shores of Lake Geneva, where they painted and waited for the war to end.

Margaret wrote that she hoped it would not last a year. Her fears, perhaps now charming and quaint, were very real to her. In a letter to her nephew, Dr. Cluny Macpherson, she wrote “… everyone’s help is needed in crushing these odious Huns. It would be terrible if they made a successful attack against London. I see by today’s paper that they are beginning to fortify it, but what can one do against Zeppelins!”

The toll of the war was great on her, and she wrote with horror the reports she got from friends in her beloved France. “We cannot bear to think of dear France … devastated and no relief, and there is great misery there as in Belgium.”

On letterhead from the Grand Hotel Angleterre, in Vevey, Switzerland Margaret notes: “It is hard our being obliged to stay on here, but a bomb fell quite near us the other day, and we are in fear of our house being burnt. I really don’t know when it will be safe to go back, especially as we are neither of us strong enough to nurse in the hospitals. The number of wounded is becoming something awful.”

The letter was dated Oct. 24, 1914. She and the rest of her world had no idea just how awful. But she and Bartlett did find their way back to their little house in Versailles after the war, and lived and worked happily together for many more years.

Margaret Campbell Macpherson died at Versailles on May 16, 1931. Her two great nieces had come from Newfoundland to care for her, and were with her when she died. In her will she left the bulk of her estate to Josephine Hoxie Bartlett.

The Macpherson family lost touch with Bartlett after Margaret’s death, but there is, in the Chelsea Children’s Hospital in London, England, endowed in the name of Josephine Hoxie Bartlett, a bed, dedicated in perpetuity to the loving memory of Margaret Campbell Macpherson.

The Rooms will host an exhibit Two Artists Time Forgot: Frances Jones Bannerman (1855-1944) and Margaret Campbell Macpherson (1860-1931) in fall, 2007.

INDEPENDENTWORLD

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 25-JULY 1, 2006 — PAGE 13

Aviation workers muzzled No whistleblower law to protect them; dozens want to talk but say they’re afraid

By Robert Cribb Torstar wire service

M

ore than three-dozen airline pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers and Transport Canada employees say they are afraid to speak out about serious safety concerns in Canadian skies — an industry code of silence that has triggered calls for whistleblower protection aimed at aviation workers.

While U.S. airline workers have a federal law upholding their right to speak out without fear of reprisals, their Canadian colleagues say sharing what they know would jeopardize their livelihoods and careers in aviation. With families to support, they cannot take that risk.

Four Air Canada Jazz mechanics were recently suspended when they warned of poor maintenance at the airline that threatens passengers’ safety.

The widely publicized disciplinary action triggered a chill across the industry.

In the past two weeks, an investigation by the Toronto Star, the Hamilton Spectator and The Record of Waterloo Region has revealed growing cracks in Canada’s aviation industry, with close calls in the sky, growing numbers of mechanical defects and lax oversight of airlines.

Consider this from a Transport Canada inspector: “Inspectors ... will bring to (our) management’s attention a case where a company is not complying with the safety-related regulations and management then tries to find a way to make the issue go away without putting any burden on the company.

Management would frankly rather not know about any safety issues. ... I can’t go on the record for obvious reasons.”

From a Nav Canada air traffic controller: “This system we have in place is broken ... We are becoming increasingly tired, distracted and overworked.”

From a pilot with a major Canadian airline: “They’re running the airplanes ragged.

We’ve got airplanes going back and forth, back and forth across the Pacific with snags that need to be fixed and maintenance is chasing them but they have no chance.”

Like several of his colleagues, the pilot originally agreed to share his comments on the record. But he changed his mind after the four mechanics were suspended for speaking publicly about being pressured to cut corners and release planes into service with potentially serious defects.

Jazz officials said they will investigate the claims, adding that safety is their first priority.

Federal Transportation Minister Lawrence Cannon defended his department, saying Canada’s aviation systems are among the safest in the world and there’s no evidence to suggest the allegations of the Jazz mechanics are true.

“From Transport Canada’s perspective, Air Canada Jazz is conducting a safe operation.”

More than a dozen Jazz mechanics — on the condition of anonymity — said they share the same concerns raised by their suspended colleagues.

“At times, safety is compromised,” said a Jazz mechanic who has worked for several airlines in Ontario. “(Pressure) to cut corners is something that all mechanics encounter in the industry. It’s a known stigma.”

Cannon said proposed amendments to

Officials and recovery experts are framed in the burnt out shell of Air France flight 358 as a Air Canada jet comes in for landing at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Aug. 5, 2005.

Reuters

Canada’s aeronautics act would allow airline companies and individuals to report on minor regulatory violations on a confidential basis. But such reports would be kept from the public even under federal access to information rules.

“Here we’re seeing an attempt to make

vital safety information more secretive,” says Peter Julian, NDP Transportation critic. “There is no way anyone can argue that more secrecy is in the public interest. I think we need whistleblower protection so that when we learn of these allegations, the people who bring it forward are protected.”

Airline workers say they want protection when they report their concerns to employers or federal authorities or go public with the complaints.

Those who manage Canada’s aviation See “I don't think,” page 15

VOICE FROM AWAY

‘A high level of trust’

Carbonear-native Robert Ash, once on track to becoming a classical pianist, is now a successful oncologist in Ontario

By Geoff Dale For The Independent

S

Robert Ash in his London, Ont. office.

Geoff Dale/For The Independent

everal years ago, while walking down a hallway at Memorial University between classes, Robert Ash sauntered past some science classes — and made a momentous career switch.

“I was coming back to the music school from the cafeteria when I walked by the biology labs,” says Ash. “That represented a symbolic change of mind. I was the youngest of four boys at home and all of us had been studying classical music.

“Yet I knew that it was unlikely that I would become a full-time musician.

Education seemed to be where I would end up … (but) I just couldn’t see myself in the classroom. Considering all the support and effort my parents had put into my musical studies, I was more than a little nervous about telling

them about my change of heart.

“In the end they were surprised at my decision but they were also very supportive.”

Ash now works as an oncologist (a medical doctor devoted to cancer diagnosis and treatment) in the London, Ont., Health Sciences Centre’s regional cancer clinic.

Born in Carbonear in 1967, Ash attended James Moore Central High School before heading to Memorial in St. John’s, where he initially studied for a joint degree in music and music education.

“My mom (Sylvia) had a musical background but my dad (Don) didn’t,” he says. “They were very supportive of our musical training … I remember when I was a youngster, my dad driving me all the way from Carbonnear to St. John’s for my first music lesson.

“I recall him making the drive in the middle of a snow storm in January …

(My parents) invested a lot of time and effort in our education, so it wasn’t surprising I was nervous when I told them that I was going into medicine. Funnily enough, none of my brothers ended up in music either.”

While he had initially considered getting into obstetrics, a radiation oncologist at MUN helped change his mind — a major decision that led him to move across the country to southwestern Ontario.

Ash decided to do his residency in London, beginning a rewarding and exciting career in a field of medicine that has made major strides over the past decade. He also studied for his fellowship at the USCF in San Francisco.

“I’ve been in London since 1995,” he says. “Other than my growing interest in oncology, there were other reasons why I took this route. When you’re a See “Telling it,” page 14

JUNE 25, 2006

14 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

$15 billion spending spree for military

By James Travers Torstar wire service

T

oday Prime Minister Stephen Harper is putting finishing touches on a more than $15-billion plan to give the military bucks for its bangs and the economy bang for the bucks.

Sweeping and risky for a minority government, the spending spree will fill cracks between the defence minister and Canada’s top military commander with aircraft, ships and trucks.

Everyone seems a winner in contracts that Liberals considered on a smaller scale but couldn’t execute. Air force, navy and army will get the “kit” needed to respond nationally as well as internationally, every taxpayer dollar will generate another in economic benefits and philosophical differences between Defence Minister Dennis O’Connor and Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier will be patched if not repaired.

Is this too good to be true? Yes, but not as much as opposition politicians will claim or cynics assume.

It remains an open question if Canada really needs to spend more than $3 billion on four heavy-lift Boeing C-17 Globemaster aircraft and there is certain to be controversy over contracts that severely restrict competition. What’s not in doubt is the importance to the military of checking off so much on its lengthy shopping list.

“This is the perfect package,” says historian and military expert Jack Granatstein. “It will go a long way toward filling the gaps for the forces.”

Along with the Globemasters, the proposal cabinet has endorsed and Treasury Board will consider includes more than $2 billion for three supply and troop carrier ships, up to 17 new-generation Hercules transport planes, about a dozen heavy lift Chinook helicopters and 1,000 replacements for 24-year-old trucks.

There is an obvious common denominator. Each piece of equipment will make it easier to move a military that Hillier is making more operational, tactically effective and visible.

“You can’t do much if you can’t get there,” says a defence source. “All this stuff is about getting there.”

It’s also about the politics of spending money at home. Instead of grabbing a single headline, Harper will begin a series of local announcements highlighting regional economic gains.

Those benefits will be spread coast-tocoast and, if history is a guide, will reflect partisan priorities. That means Quebec, along with Atlantic Canada and British Columbia, will profit particularly handsomely.

But it’s the contracts themselves that will be most closely scrutinized.

O’Connor’s background as a defence industry lobbyist guarantees every cent will be followed to its final pocket while the decision to fast-track bidding is just as certain to end in losers crying foul.

No fool, Harper knows what’s ahead and is demanding unusual diligence.

While his government will use the suspect Advance Contract Award Notification system to rush approval, it’s taking extra time to make the purchases bul-

let-proof.

That, along with the fact some of the billions were previously committed by Paul Martin’s Liberals, partly explains why one of the largest military expenditures in Canadian history was left out of this year’s budget. But it’s also true the government needed time to cope with starkly contrasting military visions.

Hillier is rebuilding the forces in his boots-on-the-ground image. To make that a reality, he desperately needed modern equipment for the troops as well as to persuade his generals to accept unpopular structural changes.

Hillier is being given most of what he wants and O’Connor will get C-17s, planes that could be more cost-effectively leased, to wave the flag at home and abroad.

It’s an adroit, if costly, compromise officials are confident voters will accept from a new government pressing ahead with a long overdue military refit.

Finally convinced the military deserves help, the country may well welcome quick action by a new administration travelling light and fast without Liberal ethical baggage.

Still, something this big could go terribly wrong for Conservatives.

Surveillance aircraft, until recently considered a priority, are being deleted along with Arctic icebreakers. It’s likely disadvantaged suppliers will challenge the contracts in international trade tribunals or domestic courts.

They might not have a case; they do have a point. By writing contract specifications to effectively predetermine the winning firm or consortium, the government both skews competitive bidding and the notion of fair play that public works rules are written to protect.

Harper is ready with this counterargument: In some cases, notably that of the C-17s, there is only one viable choice and to delay would only prolong already impossibly tortured military purchases.

What the government hopes is that the applause from military supporters and the communities that will benefit most will overwhelm corporate and political criticism. Chances are a government that hasn’t done much wrong is now betting right on a bold plan to toss billions at a threadbare military.

Corporal Darren Hilder/Reuters

‘Telling it like it is’ From page 13 GP (general practitioner), often people want to see you regardless of how serious their problem is or whether it’s just their perception of how serious it is.

“With oncology, you develop a deep relationship with your patients, seeing them through what is an extremely tough and trying period in their lives.

You get to follow their progress over a long period of time. It can be emotionally draining at times but with success rates increasing, it is a very gratifying experience to see your patients improving and responding to treatment.”

Ash finds a great deal of career satisfaction from working in an award-winning medical centre that focuses on both treatment and academic pursuits — as well as being a major player in a technology-driven field where dramatic

changes over the years are resulting in increased success rates for patients.

In addition to his clinical work in London, Ash also heads out for regional monthly visits with patients in nearby Woodstock, about 40 kilometres away.

“My visits to Woodstock mean those patients don’t have to travel for their checkups and examinations,” Ash says.

“One of the high points in my career was receiving an award of excellence recently from Ontario interns, in large part for teaching. It’s a bit unusual when I recall not wanting to teach music.

“And there are also those low points.

Irrespective of how sophisticated treatments have become, in some cases the outcomes are poor, despite your best efforts. You can get very discouraged telling people of your own age about

the prospects for their parents.”

As for his own approach to a field he clearly loves, he said its matter of “telling it like it is.

“People know that there is no BS when they are dealing with me,” he says. “Whether I’m working with my patients, their families and colleagues on a day-to-day basis, I want to ensure there is always a high level of trust involved.”

And what about revisiting his days as a budding classical pianist or heading back to Newfoundland for visits?

“Well, I just never play the piano anymore,” he said. “I’ve been back home but my parents got to spend their first Christmas here in London and they just loved it. One of my brothers lives in Oakville and I have an aunt living in the area, so I do see family members.”

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper greets former headtax payer James Pon during a ceremony in Ottawa June 22.

Dave Chan/Reuters

Canada has an apology virus John Crosbie would never apologize for anything he was not personally responsible for, and implores politician to do the same

I

n the history of every country there are past events that today appear discreditable, deplorable, immoral, unethical and certainly regrettable. All nations have at some time in their history behaved or acted in ways we would not countenance with the prevailing views and thinking currently in fashion.

However, most countries do not make it a practice to apologize constantly to groups or people treated harshly at some point in their history.

Canada’s politicians have an apology virus today. We are in danger of becoming a nation of apologizers and a woeful and wimpish people.

The Canadian government recently apologized to, and arranged compensation for, Japanese-Canadians who were forced to move out of British Columbia during the Second World War when invasion of the West Coast by Japan appeared possible.

This proceeded even though we have never received an apology from Japan for the harsh treatment received by Canadian prisoners of war taken at Hong Kong and elsewhere, nor has Japan apologized to countries such as China for the inhumane treatment of its people when Japan invaded China in the 1930s.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has now apologized to Chinese-Canadians for our racist immigration laws of the past — and announced a compensation package. The previous Liberal government had announced proposed payouts of $2.5 million to the Chinese community under the Acknowledgement, Commemoration and Education Program — along with $2.5 million for UkrainianCanadians (who looked for $12.5 million) for their relatives’ internment during the First World War and $2.5 million to Italians (who were expecting $12.5 million) for the internment of 700 men in the Second World War. The Conservatives have pledged to honour all three agreements.

All parties appear willing to compensate ethnic groups for past wrongs and the cost is likely to escalate as other groups insist that their grievances about Canada’s past actions deserve compensation and apology.

These include Germans, who expect $12.5 million for the internment of German-Canadians during both world

JOHN CROSBIE

The old curmudgeon wars; Jews who expect $2 million because of strict immigration rules that prohibited them from entering the country from 1923-1945; Sikhs who request $4 million because of past immigration restrictions and disenfranchisement until 1947; and Croats are expecting $2.8 million based on their internment experience and groups such as African-Canadians and Doukhobors — all looking for redress for discrimination practiced against them earlier in our history.

Where this will finally end, we can’t now estimate.

Others apart from the Canadian government have acted to apologize for alleged past wrongs — such as the City of Halifax when it prepared to celebrate its 250th anniversary. Micmac leaders in Nova Scotia threatened to disrupt the celebrations unless the mayor apologized for the fact that Halifax’s founder, Gen. Edward Cornwallis, had paid for Micmac scalps in the EnglishFrench wars 250 years earlier. The mayor did apologize.

I would not apologize to anyone for anything that occurred before I was born nor apologize for actions that I was not personally responsible for nor involved with.

I deplore this willingness to issue apologies for past deplorable events, since every country has much to apologize for — and Canada is one of the least guilty of them. Surely we should accept responsibility for discreditable acts or policies that occur in our time and not be pressured into compensating ethnic groups or anyone for wrongs of the past.

This willingness to apologize for our past appears to be part of the political correctness that has done so much damage to straight-talking, honest dialogue and debate in Canada.

The pusillanimous political apology epidemic now underway should cease.

While politicians are ready to apologize and to compensate people for the failures of the past, it is unlikely that any Canadian government or politician will

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JUNE 28, 2006

INDEPENDENTWORLD • 15

Newspapers reject merger watchdog Senators want ownership reviews `Deeply flawed,’ Torstar CEO says

By Graham Fraser Torstar wire service

T

he newspaper industry has reacted negatively to a Senate committee recommendation that the Competition Act should be changed so that media mergers are reviewed and then approved by the government.

Calling the recommendation “troubling,” Anna Kothawala of the Canadian Newspaper Association says the committee is being inconsistent.

“In one breath they say that they are

‘I don’t think the minister should be downplaying this’ From page 13

system downplay the concerns from pilots, mechanics and controllers.

Transport Canada officials say there are sufficient measures in place to protect aviation workers with concerns to report.

Officials with Nav Canada, the private company that operates the nation’s air traffic control system, say that, while there is a problem of understaffing in some facilities, it is spending $40 million a year on recruitment and training and has introduced a “fatigue management program” to ensure “maximum alertness on the job.”

Air Canada officials say they welcome any initiatives that will make the aviation system safer and that the company has an internal, non-punitive reporting policy for safety concerns.

Last week Alberta justice Virgil Moshansky, who led the country’s last major inquiry into aviation safety after the crash of an Air Ontario jet in 1989 that killed 24 people, called for the federal government to launch a new public inquiry in light of what he calls “backsliding” safety standards in the industry.

“When you’ve got mechanics on the front lines saying you’ve got a problem and the guy who wrote the definitive report on aviation safety saying it’s time for a public inquiry, I’d be very worried,” says David McGuinty, Liberal Transportation critic. “I don’t think the minister should be downplaying this.”

Many aviation professionals expressed support for the idea of a public inquiry to help reverse what they call a decline in safety standards that is undermining public safety.

“The cost-cutting and general laissez-faire attitude of the authorities and the major airlines (has) left some gaping holes in the public trust,” says Capt. Raymond Hall, a 33-year Air Canada pilot. “We’re continually being pushed to go further with fewer resources and that inevitably leads to cutting some corners.”

Hall is among the few willing to speak on the record. While he has concerns about repercussions, he says public safety is more important.

One of Hall’s Air Canada pilot colleagues, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a “perfect storm” is forming around public safety thanks to an “overburdened, under-funded, somewhat inefficient government regulatory body, a privatized air traffic control system, continuing industrywide financial crisis (and) demoralized, angry, fatigued, embittered, fearful employees within the transportation system.”

On June 21, MPs finished debate on the federal whistleblower legislation covering public sector employees. It must still pass through the Senate before being proclaimed law. But the protections offered do not extend to employees of private companies such as airlines.

In the U.S., federal whistleblower legislation covers airline workers who report revelations about serious safety problems to independent federal authorities.

Airline workers who are suspended, harassed, demoted, blacklisted or disciplined as a result of speaking out can receive everything from job reinstatement to costs associated with filing their complaint.

In 2001, George Gulliford, a former United Airlines mechanic, was reprimanded for reporting aircraft defects to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The U.S. Department of Labor eventually concluded the airline violated federal whistleblower protections. United was ordered to withdraw the mechanic’s reprimand and pay his attorney fees.

In another case, Northwest Airlines mechanic Thomas Regner was fired after raising concerns about mechanical issues in 1998. After more than two years of legal wrangling, he won a legal decision that awarded him his job back and over a year’s worth of back pay.

not interested in having governments in the newsrooms of the nations, but in the next breath they apparently are,” she says.

On June 21, the standing Senate committee on transport and communications presented its final report on the Canadian news media. The report called for the enactment of a new section of the Competition Act to deal with the mergers of newsgathering organizations.

The mergers would be assessed on the basis of cross-media ownership in particular markets, development of a domi-

nant position in a particular market, or the acquisition of more than a particular percentage of audience or subscribers, such as 35 per cent.

Once certain thresholds in those areas were reached, a review of the merger would be triggered automatically, a panel would be created and a recommendation made to the government — which would decide if the merger should be allowed.

Kothawala says it was troubling that the report said freedom of expression is enhanced or more easily exercised if

there are more media owners.

“It is not the role of government to define the parameters of press freedom, nor under which ownership models there is more or less of it,” she says.

“Section 2b of the Charter (which protects freedom of the press) is not applied selectively to certain types of media owners.”

She argues the Senate committee had not substantiated its claim that press freedom is enhanced by having more media owners.

“There’s not necessarily a correlation

between the style of ownership and freedom of the press and quality of news content,” she says. “They say in one breath ‘We’re not saying big is bad,’ and on the other hand they’re recommending favouring smaller family-run newspapers with tax deferrals.”

Robert Prichard, president and chief executive officer of Torstar Corp., called the recommendation “deeply flawed,” saying that the problem it purports to solve doesn’t exist, and that its proposed solution would make the situation worse.

JUNE 28, 2006

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SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 25-JULY 1, 2006 — PAGE 17

Krissy Holmes

Paul Daly/The Independent

The weather girl’s story Writer Susan Rendell catches up with Krissy Holmes — writer, filmmaker, and Karl Wells’ summer stand-in “Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice.

— Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

W

hen asked which character from a book or movie she most identifies with, Krissy Holmes doesn’t hesitate.

“Alice,” she says. “Alice in Wonderland.”

Holmes, a 25-year-old native of St. John’s, is filling in for Karl Wells as CBC’s Here and Now weather person while Wells is on vacation. She’s the tall, slim blond who dances the weather from B.C. to St. John’s every night at 6:50, hands dipping low to catch the rain, flying up to greet the sun.

The first time I see her in action, she reminds me of a ballerina. Specifically, the ballerina from Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, who dances better than the rest of the ballerinas, but because his story takes place in a dystopia where everyone is forced to be equal, she must wear heavy weights attached to her legs. Or a pair of square black glasses, in Holmes’ case.

I watch her as she moves gracefully across the map from west to east, keeping up the tradition-

al weather patter. Until she gets to L’Anse au Clair, which is in for a thunderstorm. “Hey,” says Holmes, “thunder and lightning! Well, if you’re into that sort of thing, why not open the windows and enjoyit? That’s if your kids aren’t in the habit playing with coat hangers on their heads.”

A quirky weather girl with glasses — what’s up with that? Well, apparently the days of meteorological Vanna Whites are over. According to Doug Letto, producer of Here and Now and Holmes’ boss, Holmes was chosen to fill in for Wells because of her professional acumen, not her cheekbones or her yellow hair.

“Krissy’s appearance on the show is related to her ability to do the job,” Letto says. “She’s typical of a lot of young people who’ve come to us with a tremendous set of skills.”

Holmes started working for CBC as an assistant director (AD) in April. At the end of May, she was asked by Letto to replace Wells for six weeks. Although Holmes was hired in a technical capacity, Letto offered her the live, on-air job because he was impressed by her calm under fire — in particular her ability to handle herself and the audience when she served as the floor direc-

tor for the taping of the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council Awards.

That taping, and the taping of the Janeway Celebration Concert, where Holmes served as assistant script director, were pieces of cake compared to Holmes’ prior experience as an AD on Gordon Pinsent’s Heyday, the upcoming CBC mini-series Above and Beyond and Legends and Lore, a television series for GlobalHolmes describes this type of work, with its large casts and budgets to match, as “a very people-oriented process, where you’re constantly trying to get everybody where they’re supposed to be at the right time — when time is money, big-time money.”

Holmes says Letto’s offer to fill in for Wells made her feel “like I’d won a really strange reality show where the winner actually … loses. No, actually what happened is that I was chosen randomly from a studio audience …” She’s kidding — but there’s been teasing, mostly from her friends, who know her as someone more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it.

Holmes comes to CBC with a background in television broadcasting from Ottawa’s

Algonquin College, including postgraduate work in dramatic script writing. In Ontario, she worked on “corporate demo tapes and semipolitical stuff,” and local satellite news. “Plus,” says Holmes, “I was making a lot of my own (videos) up there, because they had all the resources.” She also worked at the University of Ottawa as a mockumentary producer. In 2002, when she was 21, The Jesus Lawyer, a short film Holmes wrote and directed, debuted at the Nickel Festival.

Prior to her stint at Algonquin, Holmes took film studies at Carleton, which she says was a good program, but not for her. “I didn’t want to be a film critic, and that’s what they were turning out.” When she left Brother Rice High School, she wanted to be a geophysicist, “but my brain didn’t go very far with that because although it was interesting enough, I knew I wouldn’t be able to contribute to that world.”

Contribute, to Holmes, means creative contribution — something she’s been doing since she was 10. She started out drawing pictures (her See “Who could be Karl,” page 20

LIVYERS

Art-rocking all over the place Finished his long-awaited CD, Andrew Pike already knee-deep in other projects

By Stephanie Porter The Independent

A

ndrew Pike describes his new double-CD release as if it were a scrapbook — words and melodies from moments of his life, tinged with nostalgia, evoking as many places and moods as there are tracks.

“I can’t really explain it,” Pike says of the collection called Souvenirs. “(Each song) is a moment in time for the writer — and I always feel, when I go back to listen to older material I get kind of nos-

talgic. Music is like that for people who are listeners, and it’s that way for writers too.”

That feeling of looking around, and back, travels through the album art as well. A photograph on the back cover is of Pike’s father, as a young man in 1967, in a tree. The photo beside it is of Andrew looking up into a similar tree.

“My dad can’t really play anymore, but there he is, he’s part of this,” Pike offers by way of explanation.

Family factors significantly in Pike’s work, as it does his life. Born and raised

in Mount Pearl, Pike moved to Vancouver a dozen or so years ago, where he worked in a group home. Eight years later, when his father fell ill, he returned home.

Even on this day, in full-tilt promotion mode for his work, Pike is full of stories about his parents (some reflected in the lyrics). Then there are his “only-child projects”: his mother’s CD and a book of poetry by his father. “(My mother) wrote quite a few pieces in the ’80s and ’90s, basic classical pieces. And we’ve been doing

arrangements for them, I’ve been souping them up a bit,” Pike says.

Pike makes it clear this isn’t just a gift for his mother — he believes the melodies are strong enough that they deserve to be brought to the next level.

“She’s delighted, but I think she’s getting a bit of an ego now,” he continues, laughing.

As for his father, the onetime musician is also a published poet, with some of his work appearing in the Newfoundland Quarterly over the years.

Pike’s got a number of other things on

his plate: he teaches guitar and voice lessons at a school, and from his home.

He does some music production work — his own material, and this summer he’ll be working on a CD for Greg Tobin, formerly of Signal Hill. Pike has played with the St. John’s-based Greek band, the Forgotten Bouzouki, for years, and he’s planning to soon revive his ’80s-style, George-Street friendly hard rock group, Frankie Goes To Holyrood.

And then there’s Souvenirs. The first See “Like a weight,” page 19

JUNE 25, 2006

18 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

GALLERYPROFILE

Elian Semigak

Fanny Broomfield

Billy Gauthier

John Nev ille

First Hands Gallery

Emma Flowers

Angela Andrew

W

hat started as off-the-cuff musing during a board meeting — “wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a space, someday, dedicated to aboriginal art?” — has, not even two years later, come to life in the Devon House Craft Centre.

The First Hands Gallery begins in the building’s entranceway, with a wall-mounted display case holding smaller pieces by some of the province’s many aboriginal craftspeople and artists.

On the other side of the foyer is the main event: a small room, well lit and specifically designed to showcase crafts and sculpture work on pedestals, behind glass, and on shelves. Handmade tea dolls, woven grass baskets, leather boots, carvings of antler, bone, stone, hide and wood — and more — are carefully and respectfully placed.

Caroline Clarke, marketing projects co-ordinator for the craft council, has been with the First Hands project since the beginning.

“The craft council has always wanted to do this,” says Clarke. “We represent about 250 craftspeople in the store; we haven’t been able to give this specific group proper space, they’re kind of all mixed in with everyone else.

“We also needed space and pedestals for larger sculptures, so people can walk around, really look and appreciate …”

This newest addition to the craft centre — there are two other galleries on the second floor — cost about $50,000 (of which $20,000 was spent on art). The funds were made available through the City of St. John’s — as a 2006 Cultural Capital of Canada project — and the Craft Industry Development Program.

The gallery officially opened on National Aboriginal Day, June 21. It’s open to the public daily — and Clarke hopes for a frequent turnover of work.

Currently, about two-dozen aboriginal artists are featured.

“We’re open to new faces,” says Clarke. “We’re certainly hoping this extra space will encourage others to come forward.”

By having a space dedicated to aboriginal artists — most are from Labrador, with a number from the Conne River area of the island — Clarke says the council is better able to provide background and context for the work. The “educational component” takes the form of a binder, filled with “stories and myths and legends that have influenced some of the work,” plus artist- and project-specific details.

“There just wasn’t much space in St. John’s to show this work properly,” Clarke says, naming the Native Friendship Centre and Red Ochre Gallery as two exceptions.

“There are really significant pieces here you’re not going to see anywhere else. We just want to show them to people.”

First Hands Gallery is on the ground floor of Devon House, 59 Duckworth St. — Stephanie Porter

JUNE 25, 2006

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 19

Give dance a chance As the Festival of New Dance draws to a close, Noreen Golfman suggests we stop worrying about ‘getting it’ — and enjoy

A

lmost everyone likes to dance.

Almost everyone likes to watch others dancing. Watching bodies move is fascinating. Dancing is social license to be foolishly unco-ordinated, or gorgeous, sexy, and just plain abandoned in public.

Contemporary dance is a different story. Its core audiences are fiercely loyal to the genre, but tend to be elitist in arty, eclectic ways. Contemporary dance makes a lot of people nervous.

Like a lot of contemporary art, it suggests you have to be in the know to get it. It intimidates just by showing up.

Dance is also a largely underappreciated part of art education. In an artdeprived education system, if lucky, a student of any age is indoctrinated into the core genres of western culture, notably the high art-sanctioned fields of painting and music. Rarely is dance a considered element of an art curriculum. Little girls might dream of being ballerinas and so inevitably acquire an early appreciation of stubbed toes and the colour pink, but awareness of the many modern and postmodern genres that classical ballet spawned is pretty thin.

Show me a university with dance theory courses on the books and I’ll show you a small liberal arts college.

If popular notions of dance are defined strictly by the experience of the Nutcracker Suite it is not surprising that dance is also generally thought to be an almost exclusively female domain.

This, like so many of the myths about dance, tends to inhibit appreciation and

NOREEN GOLFMAN Standing Room Only stunt audience growth.

And so it is not surprising that without any opportunity to learn, without context or knowledge of the historical roots or social effects of dance, the entire genre is absent from most people’s brains. The bigger issue here is that so much of western education discourages whole sides of our imagination.

Like non-representational painting, contemporary dance suggests, but does not necessarily tell, a story. Instead, it works through an idea. And these days, ideas, as a glance at the tabloid display at your local grocery store will prove, are hard to come by. Unfortunately, we are being hard wired to be frightened by art forms that hint at something meaningful instead of painting it by numbers.

Here’s a thought. What if instead of Hockey Night in Canada, the CBC sponsored Dance Night in Canada?

OK, it’s crazy, but we’d be such a different kind of country — hip, cool, on the outer edge of creativity.

This column appears near the end of the Festival of New Dance, sponsored by the 25-year-old local company, Neighborhood Dance Works, a division of the Resource Centre for the Arts.

Indeed, NDW is a vital part of the RCA

Sarah Stoker

family, rounding out the wheel of genres spinning out from the LSPU Hall almost every day of the year. The festival is the glamourous highlight in a busy year of performances, helping to advance awareness of the beauty and power of contemporary dance for local audiences.

Events like this always pose the same questions: how do you build audiences for such an esoteric genre? By all accounts this year’s festival has inched its way towards the goal of enhancing awareness and building on a foundation of achievement.

Local artists like the defiantly original Sarah Jay Stoker have performed with the stars of acclaimed Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver companies.

You can’t help but stretch yourself simply by being a spectator, because there is always something new to discover about the body, about how it can be deployed to evoke an idea, a theme, a mood, or even a story.

Dancers’ bodies, unlike most of ours,

Paul Daly/The Independent

are uncannily flexible, drawing lines in air we’d never even dream of tracing.

They are our Platonic bodies, enacting our fantasies.

Imagine for one moment being a dancer, practically naked with yourself on a bare floor, moving in the live moment in the darkened theatre before an expectant, even an insecure audience. What does it take to put oneself out there? Ego? Narcissism? Talent?

Guts? Perhaps all of the above.

Look: what we all have to do is stop worrying about getting it. We just need to watch, enjoy the body in motion.

Surrender the need to figure it all out.

Notably, Sunday evening’s closing night performance at the LSPU Hall by well-known Vancouver-based Martha Carter will cap an entirely innovative program designed both to startle and inspire.

Carter is an internationally acclaimed dancer who fuses every style from ballet to hip hop. Whatever she does, it will be startling. Whatever it is, we will

all learn something from it.

The organizers of this year’s festival have a lot to feel good about. That we keep hosting events like this says a lot about the city’s capacity to tolerate innovation and experimentation. There will always be detractors or even those who don’t get what the fuss is all about, but invariably others will discover the appeal. The audience will grow a bit.

Younger people will want to be part of the experience. Slowly, surely, and with renewed confidence, the audiences will grow, the dancers will return.

The Festival of New Dance is our own happy rite of spring.

Stop worrying about rural Newfoundland, the World Cup, or Canadian Idol for a night. Get some perspective.

Take a risk. Follow a hunch. Go see something innovative. Get rid of your fears. Give dance a chance.

Noreen Golfman is a professor of literature and women’s studies at Memorial. Her column returns July 9.

POET’S CORNER Fireworks In Victoria, we could sleep in while the rest of the country went over the top to celebrate. The parties there are much later than ours are in St. John’s. Here, we wake up early, just to prepare the fireworks, and show the rest of the country what for.

Before it was our birthday, we went over the top to show the world that we could put up fireworks with the best.

And that on St. John’s Road, there lived men yet Andrew Pike

Paul Daly/The Independent

‘Like a weight has been lifted’ From page 17

single, the lively Riverboat, is playing on local radio, and Pike is working towards performing some local gigs and perhaps an official CD launch.

The double-CD took more than four years to pull together, and Pike is still taking his time with each step.

Each disc features nine songs, the first nine being more upbeat, with a bigger sound, often including horns and strings.

The second half, though not vastly different in tone, is more guitar-driven, slightly moodier. In all, a solid rock record, with plenty of guest vocalists, musicians, layers of sounds, and tight lyrics.

“I was worried people would say I’m all over the place in terms of direction,” says Pike. “But people say they like it and leave it in the car, instead of saying I’m art-rocking all over the place.”

Finally having the CD in hand is a relief — Pike says he was starting to feel he’d been talking about his impending release forever. “A lot of people were

asking me ‘When is it going to come out? When is it going to come out?’ … it was starting to get to me. Now it’s like a weight has been lifted.”

Escaping that albatross has proven a motivator. Amidst all his other plans, Pike is already planning his next release, which he figures will be more laid-back, a stripped-down affair after the busy sounds of his debut (his roommate recently moved out, taking the TV — he has a quieter, more thoughtful environment to work in, which Pike says is reflected in his newest music).

Then there’s the CD of songs he was working on even before this one …

“But the focus now is to get playing my own stuff,” Pike says, sounding as if he’s reminding himself that Souvenirs still needs his attention. He insists he’s not anxious about performing — just wants to ensure everything is exactly in place.

“I’ve got to get a band together for myself … I’ll go after a couple of lowkey gigs and then, when I feel comfortable, I might get out there.”

who felt salt water in their veins.

Wrapped up, like birthday presents with wire bows.

On our birthday, I watched the fireworks above Quidi Vidi crack and glow as they fell.

The sound like shells breaking against the surf of Newfoundlanders over the top.

I took a breath, ready for anything.

Birthday candles, blown out all over the French terrain.

Andrew Bonia is a Newfoundlander currently living in New Haven, Conn.

JUNE 25, 2006

20 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

‘There’s always one’ Billboard vandalized; festival director surprised it would happen in St. John’s

By Stephanie Porter The Independent

L

ast week, some one — or some people — took their frustrations out on a billboard in front of the LSPU Hall.

The sign advertises the Magnetic North theatre festival, running in St. John’s from June 28 to July 8. But it was one specific production — Bigger Than Jesus — that was targeted.

“The word Jesus had been scratched, hacked out,” says Nicole Heringer, a publicist for the festival. “And the billboard had been beaten apart … it was just hanging, it was a hazard to passers-

by and we had to fix it right away.”

Mary Vingoe, the festival’s artistic director, says she was taken aback by the vandalism.

“I was surprised because Newfoundland is famous for its irreverent humour, especially with things religious and Catholic, so I just thought this was the last place it would happen,” she says.

“But as people have explained to me, there’s always those that are more conservative and even though there’s a substantial amount of humour there are still people who don’t like anything that might be … too irreverent.”

Bigger Than Jesus is co-written and performed by Rick Miller. It’s a one-

man play described by one reviewer as “the best post-modern Jesus play that you are likely to see now and in the future.” It’s won a number of Canadian theatre awards, has toured the country, and is now in the midst of a world tour.

“It’s refreshing,” Vingoe says of the show. “People are looking for a fresh look at things; people want a fresh version of the story.

“It’s such an invigorating piece and it asks a lot of questions and it is very irreverent and very funny. Where it’s played in other parts of the country, the more liberal religious groups have actually gotten on board and sold out whole nights.”

Even in St. John’s, certain religious organizations have bought blocks of seats, including a group from Gower Street United Church.

Vingoe, who has been familiar with the show and its travels, says she’s never heard of any other acts of vandalism related to the piece.

“And that’s why, I honestly didn’t think it would happen here,” she says.

“But then, other people in the office have said, well, there’s lots of different Newfoundlands and you’ve been hanging out with the arts set …”

Vingoe invites anyone who objects to the work to come see it — and then make a proper judgment call (“I’d just

love to get them through the door,” she says).

She also mentions Miller will host an event he calls “Drink with Jesus” after some of the performances; he invites audience members to share a glass of wine and argue with him.

“In other cities, people have just flocked to this. They share the wine, and if people have any issues, just let them talk it out … (Miller) is a true performer, this guy.”

In the end, Vingoe isn’t too concerned about the vandals, so much as annoyed.

“There’s one in every crowd,” she says. “I guess we found that one.”

Great escape M

y life right now is torn in two. With the summer finally here, my life should be in the garden, taking hikes with my wife — generally getting my Vitamin D requirements.

But alas, I have succumbed to the dark side. I only want to watch World Cup football.

My waking moments are filled with planning what foods are going to be served with which match. Considering my heritage, I can’t seem to sit and watch a match without a requisite beer in hand.

Even though the “King of Beers” is a major corporate sponsor for the World Cup, I can’t bring myself to support drinking Budweiser — it seems so un-European. I feel that if you want to indulge in the true spirit of the matches, you should drink the beers of the nations playing (or as best as can be found in the local beer store).

For games versus the UK, I lean towards hearty favourites, which tend to be pub beer to be appreciated in standard pint glasses. I like Bass pale ale and Boddingtons cream ale. Both are suitable for cheering on the Lions. Personally, I like the bitterness of Bass, which lends itself well to sipping during the match.

Germany, the host team, now on a good run for the championship, is a great maker of beer and we are fortunate to have a good selection. Becks, Dab, Faxe, and Radeberger are all good choices, and easily available. Becks is my clear choice, with that slight bite at the finish which easily echoed the snarling chomp they took out of the USA team in the first round.

However, my wife has informed me that total “couch-potatoism” is not allowed during these sunny days. In order to keep me away from the lure of the World Cup we headed out of town, far away from the television screen.

On one sunny Saturday morning we spent the day in Bay Roberts enjoying the local scenery. With the local museum and the Christopher Pratt gallery in our sights, we started our trip.

The museum held a lovely representation of the local history as seen through the trades originally established in Bay Roberts. Though small, it was easy to navigate but rich in information.

Located in the same building was a gallery housing some of Christopher Pratt’s private collection of his own work.

NICHOLAS GARDNER Off the Eating Path After we perused the artifacts, we headed to the gallery only to discover that the pictures were still being hung. My wife and I were the first people to look at the exhibit. We later were talking to one of the men in charge of hanging the pictures in The Rooms for the large Pratt retrospective, and he said, “He was here just a while ago.”

“Who?” my wife asked.

“Chris.”

We just missed the artist himself as he walked the gallery alone — what a shame.

After we left, we started down the shoreline to Madrock Point. As we were nearing the final dirt road, we noticed the little café.

“I think he’s in there,” I said, “Christopher Pratt.”

So we walked in and diagonally across from us was Christopher Pratt and a group having lunch.

Now I am not a fan boy, nor was I going to say anything, but it was a nice touch to see a newly hung exhibit by an artist and then to spot said artist in the same day — somehow it felt very privileged.

However, this is a food column and it would not be fair to miss the true star of the trip: a lovingly crafted and certainly homemade blueberry pie won the day.

What we found at Madrock Café was fine, honest and simple fare suitable for any tourist and local alike. I would definitely recommend any of the pies. The blueberry pie held crisp pastry and simple fruit — not over sugared, nor too tart. Accompanied by a cup of tea, it certainly hit the spot.

We’ll be going back to the gallery, when all the work is hung. As well, we will go for a good hike and have a spot of tea. Bay Roberts is a friendly place full of beauty and art — just a great World Cup escape away.

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

‘Who could be Karl?’

From page 17

A LITTLE OF YOUR TIME IS ALL WE ASK. CONQUERING THE UNIVERSE IS OPTIONAL. Think it requires heroic efforts to be a Big Brother or Big Sister?

Think again. It simply means sharing a few moments with a child. Play catch.

Build a doghouse. Or help take on mutant invaders from the planet Krang.

That’s all it takes to transform a mere mortal like yourself into a super hero who can make a world of difference in a child’s life. For more information...

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Newfoundland 1-877-513KIDS (5437) www.helpingkids.ca

father is Derek Holmes, a local muralist), and moved on to cartoons. But the speech balloons kept getting bigger and bigger; eventually Holmes realized she was a writer. Her favourite topics were witches, sorcerers, secret clans. Holmes says they were “pretty traditional, in that there were always the young people trying to break away from the old people’s patterns. But all of them were lost.”

The witches quickly turned into denizens of St. John’s — street people and corner boys — and Holmes discovered the joys of satire. At 11, she wrote a novel featuring a plane crash in the mountains. “Did they eat each other?” I ask. “No,” she says, making a face — her comic mask flickers, and is replaced by a mock tragedy mask. “They just starved to death.” She says writing the book “was torturous.” But as a writer she felt she had to produce a novel, so she gritted her teeth and kept going. Holmes is currently reading Lisa Moore’s Alligator and “really liking it.

“What do you see yourself doing in the future?”

I ask her.

“I want to buy a cheesy old boat and be a pirate,” says Holmes. “Or a seagull that thinks she’s Jimmy Swaggart. I want a series of bizarre — well, interesting — jobs. Essentially, I want to be a writer, creative director and a development consultant. I want to be an impressionist! Or Debbie Travis.” She laughs, and I look around the living room of the house in the Outer Battery where Holmes lives with her boyfriend, Mike Dowding, bass player for the popular band Love Hijacker. Eclectic is a good word, but it’s not really up to the job.

So many diverse elements — a picture of Jesus, an antique cabinet full of action figures, a bass guitar, a pre-Raphaelite style painting which used to work its fairy magic on the walls of Angel House, “weathered” chairs — found objects, given objects, stuff picked up here and there and redeemed by Holmes and Dowding.

Outside the big bay window, a cluster of flickering lights suddenly scuttles up the harbour, tinny music and bleary voices blaring — O’Brien’s boat tour is back in port.

The night turns over and settles down again, except for Mrs. Budgell and Drooly’s occasional rush to the front door: “Cat! Cat! Cat!” bark the two dogs as a shadow slides across the front deck.

Both dogs were adopted from the local no-kill animal shelter, Heavenly Creatures, seven-year old Mrs. Budgell the victim of out-migration from Fogo, one-year-old Drooly orphaned by a teenaged mother-to-be.

So how does Holmes feel about her new, albeit temporary, gig? “It’s one of those jobs you looked up to when you were a kid — like, umm, that would be a cool job. This industry allows you to do a bunch of things. It allows you to have a long list from weirdjobs.com — or inquirewithinweirdjobs.com.”

A week before she went on air, Holmes made her own best-of-the-weather-people video from cross-country satellite feed to help her prepare. Of course, Karl Wells made the cut. “People were saying to me all the time, ‘Now, we don’t want you to be Karl.’ Who could be Karl? I can be Karla though (laughs). They said be yourself, but tone it down.” (I wish they’d left that last part out.)

Holmes thinks it might be more than a coincidence that she’s filling in for Karl Wells. Over the last several years she’s been working on a screenplay called The Weather People, featuring suicidal water chuggers, a band of drug-running psychics, and a young pirate girl whose family never sets foot on shore — narrated by Karl Wells.

Holmes recently received a grant for $5,000 from the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council to produce a collection of short stories.

The collection (Nightmares for Dreadfully Ugly Little Children) features “a murder of awkward individuals, who can best be described as splinter units of both former and existing selves, suffering from a patriarchal seventh-generational curse.” “ Here and Now has been suffering from poor ratings since 2004, when head office cut back local supper-hour programming by half an hour. Letto says ratings have increased by 40 per cent since then, and that CBC “is going to keep on producing what I consider the best television journalism in the province. Tell your readers to stand by — CBC may have some surprises for them in the fall.”

Will Krissy Holmes be in that loot bag? I’m sitting here with a coat hanger on my head, just in case.

Susan Rendell is a freelance writer and editor living in downtown St. John’s. Her collection of short stories, In the Chambers of the Sea, was published by Killick Press in 2003. srendell@nf.sympatico.ca

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 25-JULY 1, 2006 — PAGE 21

On the picket line in St. John’s

Paul Daly/The Independent

‘Only job I know is Pepsi’

Browning Harvey employees about to mark one month on picket line, fear company doesn’t want them

By Pam Pardy Ghent For The Independent

J

ude O’Reilly has been doing work for Browning Harvey Ltd. since he was a small boy. Other than two days at a bicycle shop, Pepsi is the only company the 37-year-old has worked for.

“My father owns one of the trucks,” a sunburned O’Reilly says, taking a short break from the searing heat on the picket line. “I worked with him delivering Pepsi since I was 10, then started with Browning Harvey in ’89 and this is affecting me big time.”

O’Reilly is one of 63 Browning Harvey employees — most of whom work at the bottling plant in St. John’s — who have been on strike since May 29.

O’Reilly’s father is an independent driver, and delivers Pepsi products to the same stores his son is picketing.

“My father has got to work, I understand that completely,” O’Reilly says, admitting that he and his father have different opinions on the current labour dispute. While there are no hard feelings, he says, the two have tried to avoid each other, and have only spoken briefly, since the strike began — mostly out of respect.

“I don’t want anyone asking me where past few years, and in July the company the drinks are, and he doesn’t want anyone will bring in more gadgets that will further asking him where we will be,” O’Reilly reduce the workforce. One new proposed continues. “This way we can both give an machine will eliminate 10,000 annual work honest, ‘I don’t know,’ back if we needed hours, he says, pointing out some employto.” ees work between 1,200 and 2,000 hours a Browning Harvey year. employees are representWhile the new machines ed by NAPE local 7003. will save the company Union representative and money, Squires says he “We voted 100 contract negotiator doesn’t understand why Randy Squires says talks some of the savings can’t per cent to be out have stalled. While the be given back to the union has made many employees in the form of here on strike and offers, he says the comfair severance packages. pany has not come back “Let those with 30-plus we are in it for the with any of their own. years retire,”says Squires, long haul.”

While there are many a 34-year veteran himself. issues, including wages “And let the young ones Striker Craig Barnes and benefits, in this keep their jobs and raise strike, Squires says the their families at home.” main one is severance.

And home is where these “Those on the bottom guys want to stay, O’Reilly of the seniority list have no future unless continues — it’s why they’re picketing and we get the severance packages we are look- handing out flyers every day. ing for,” Squires says. “We need some to “(Some shoppers) come out and go, get out early to make room for the other ‘Hey, we didn’t buy Pepsi,’ like we should guys.” be proud or something, but they have a Squires says 15 jobs have been lost Mountain Dew in their hands, and that’s though technological advancement over the still a Pepsi product,” he says. “What they

are doing is spending their hard-earned money on mainland drinks and that’s taking away local jobs.”

With the pickets guarding the plant, products that were bottled locally are not making it to market, and what is being sold on the shelves is being brought in from outside the province.

On June 21, the union renewed a call to the public to boycott all products distributed by Browning Harvey. Browning Harvey bottles and/or distributes about five dozen different flavours and products, including many varieties of soda, juice, Gatorade and bottled water.

The men standing guard outside a St. John’s grocery store on this hot day say they aren’t going anywhere.

Craig Barnes, 48, has been with the company for 32 years. He says days spent on strike aren’t as bad as being treated “like garbage” by his employer.

“We voted 100 per cent to be out here on strike and we are in it for the long haul,” he says.

Edgar Blackwood, 50, has 29 years punched in and agrees, adding he doesn’t see a quick end to this strike. “We’re all See “One greedy,” page 22

A new Atlantica As global trading patterns change, Ray Dillon says it may be time to revisit our economic roots

D

iscovered and named by geologists, “Atlantica” was a major super-continent that formed on Earth nearly two billion years ago. Like today, the only constant then was change, and as a result of continental drift, Atlantica eventually splintered and ground itself into much smaller bodies of land.

Just as plate tectonics has altered the face of the planet, the emergence of the Far East as the new global economic powerhouse will radically change the role played by this part of the world.

The emergence of this period’s Atlantica may just help in the transition.

Today, and in this part of the world, the term Atlantica is loosely described as the geographic international trading corridor that runs from Buffalo, N.Y. through the northeastern United States to Atlantic Canada. Within this zone are

RAY DILLON

Board of Trade 23 border crossings, 11 major truck gateways and seven major rail gateways. This region is naturally tied together by similarities in geography, economic trends, trading patterns, problems and experiences.

A conference organized by the Atlantic Provinces Chamber of Commerce (APCC) was held June 8-10 in Saint John, N.B. to further the notion of Atlantica. The conference’s stated goal was to find a way to promote the trade-oriented region of Atlantica, while examining and promoting ways to renew the positioning of the northeast as the epicentre of trade between the NAFTA partners and the European

Union.

The road to accomplish this outcome would require fostering partnerships between businesses in this region, promoting growth of East Coast port facilities as global competitors, promoting the development of an east-west interstate highway through the northeastern U.S. to foster corridor options for Atlantica businesses, and encouraging inter-provincial and international trade through the removal of barriers and harmonization of regulations.

Many believe Confederation in 1867 changed our natural north-south trading pattern in Atlantica in favour of an eastwest corridor, thereby shifting power to central Canada. Historically, the capital-intensive, trade-oriented region of Atlantica was an economic powerhouse.

Trade was with upper and lower Canada, the U.S., the Caribbean,

Europe, northern Africa and parts of Asia. Since Confederation, Atlantic Canadians have struggled to feed a smaller central Canadian market. They have been virtually cut off from a much larger and more immediate northeastern U.S. marketplace, due to tariffs and artificially created barriers. Many believe it is now time to recreate the pre-Confederation environment as a means to position us in the new global economy.

Proponents of Atlantica see three primary areas of focus to enhance the region: energy, transportation and tourism.

With five per cent of the world’s population consuming 25 per cent of the world’s energy, access to reliable energy (be it electrical or carbon-based) is crucial. Atlantica has tremendous resource potential, but strategic, targeted investment along with an open mar-

ket focus will be required to capitalize on the opportunity to move this energy, through electrical transmission lines or pipelines, across Atlantica and beyond.

Global trading patterns and shipping infrastructure have undergone massive changes over the last 20 years. PostPanamax container ships (those too big to travel through the Panama canal) have created the opportunity to make Halifax the western world’s east coast port of entry for the movement of goods. But to accomplish this, significant upgrades to the road and rail system will be required to accommodate the new multi-modal reality that has overtaken the transportation industry.

The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative has the potential to alter how and where North Americans travel.

Beginning in December of this year, all See “Fundamental shift,” page 22

22 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

Selling landfill byproduct

By Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon Telegraph-Journal

JUNE 25, 2006

GRADUATION DAY IN QATAR

T

he Fundy Region Solid Waste Commission could soon have a new source of revenue — selling methane gas produced by the landfill.

General manager Jack Keir has had preliminary discussions with at least two potential partners.

The Saint John Transit Commission is exploring the idea of reusing the methane for city buses.

And Floating Pipeline Company Inc. (FPC), which builds compressed gas containers that can be shipped, is in negotiations to buy methane from the landfill and resell it to a third party.

“There’s definitely some interest there,” Keir says.

More potential partners interested in using the methane to run machinery or heat buildings could come out of the woodwork once the commission has a gas collection system in place, he adds.

As it stands, the commission had to issue a second call for tenders to build the system.

The first call for tenders, which included capping cells, came back last month with no bidders.

Keir suspects most of the local contractors who would normally bid on such a project are simply too busy with other work, such as the $750-million Irving Oil/Respsol liquefied natural gas terminal at Mispec Point.

Work was scheduled to begin mid-June and be complete by mid-October.

Keir is hopeful the collection system will still be operational by mid-November.

The methane will just be burned off initially.

But if all goes well, the commission could be selling it by next spring, he says. Keir could not estimate how much the methane might be worth.

Preliminary studies have shown there’s enough methane at the landfill to start reusing it immediately, Keir says.

But the levels won’t peak until 2022 and the landfill will continue to produce methane long after it closes.

“So that’s 55 or 60 years of gas generation,” assuming it continues to produce for about 15 years after its scheduled closure in 2046.

Bruce Hollett, president of College of the North Atlantic, stands in the foyer of one of the buildings on the college’s Qatar campus. On June 19, 136 students received diplomas during the Middle East campus’ second graduation ceremony — a sharp increase from the 71 honoured during last year’s event. College of the North Atlantic is entering the fifth year of its 10-year contract with the State of Qatar.

Paul Daly/The Independent

Senators urge overhaul of CBC Network should drop sports, adsStable, long-term funding urged

By Graham Fraser Torstar wire service

T

he Canadian Broadcasting Corp. should get long-term stable funding and stop broadcasting sports and showing television commercials, a Senate committee has recommended.

The committee also calls for the cabinet to examine certain media mergers that are now looked at by the Competition Bureau.

“We have come to the conclusion that CBC-TV in particular — and the two networks, in both official languages — is in danger of losing its way,” Senator Joan Fraser says about the recent report.

“It’s trying to compete head on with the private sector where such competition is neither necessary nor, indeed often, in the public interest.”

The senators point to the decision by CBC to run a United States reality show during the time period when The National is broadcast as an example of their concern over the intention of competing with CTV’s Canadian Idol.

“They made our case for us,” Fraser says.

“They feel compelled to seek ratings to get (advertising) dollars. They shouldn’t have to do that.”

The committee report on the Canadian news media calls for a new process to exam-

“We have come to the conclusion that CBC-TV in particular — and the two networks, in both official languages — is in danger of losing its way.”

Senator Joan Fraser ine media mergers, with a review process to be triggered automatically in certain circumstances, such as cross-ownership in particular markets, dominance in particular markets or the control of more than a certain percentage of the audience or readership.

The process would call for a review panel to be created with representatives from the Competition Bureau and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that would make a recommendation to the appropriate minister.

The decision to allow a merger or to require changes to its terms would then be made by cabinet, and the minister responsi-

ble would explain the decision on Parliament Hill.

Conservative Senator Pat Carney dissented, arguing that the public interest is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which identifies freedom of the press as a fundamental freedom. She urged that all mergers be more effectively scrutinized.

“My objection is the recommendation that media companies be treated differently from other companies,” she wrote.

News and information, the committee concluded, has not been a priority for either the Competition Bureau or the Canadian broadcast regulator.

The committee made 40 recommendations, and 10 suggestions, including the requirement that all media outlets state the identity of their controlling shareholders.

The Broadcast Act should be amended to give clear priority to news and information programming.

The broadcast watchdog should be given the responsibility of monitoring licence holders to see whether they live up to their promises, and, if not, the power to levy fines.

The committee also recommended that a minister be required to sign any search warrant that is sought in order to go through a reporter’s notes.

‘One greedy company’ From page 21 laughing out here now,” he says. “But come back in December and see our faces when they are freezing and we’re hurting a little more. We will still be here, but we just might be a little less friendly.”

Brad Mansfield, 30, has six years with the company and the least seniority.

“This isn’t easy,” he says. “You live paycheque to paycheque at the best of times, but when you’re on strike it gets worse … you got to believe in this. It’s our livelihood. I’ve never

worked outside of the province and I hope I never have to.”

O’Reilly says he may have to face reality and leave the province to work. He has a young son and a wife who isn’t currently employed.

“If I loose my job, I got to pack up and leave,” he says. “The only job I know is Pepsi … as long as they keeps bringing in scab drinks, and the public keeps buying them, they will keep us out and in the meantime my bills are piling up and I’m falling more and more behind.”

The picketers hope the strike won’t last long but, like O’Reilly, fear it might. “I don’t want no trouble for nobody,” he says. “I need to protect my family, to provide for them and to do that I need to protect my job. That’s why I’m out here. Ask the company what they got to say about us out here.”

Representatives for Browning Harvey had no comment.

“This could be the death of Browning Harvey in Newfoundland,” Squires says. “I got the feeling they don’t want us back. They are one greedy company.”

Fundamental shift of world economy From page 21 air and sea travel between Canada and the U.S. will require a valid passport, with land crossings following in December 2007.

In order to continue to capitalize on the growing tourism market, the provinces and states of Atlantica will need to find creative ways to keep the movement of people as free and unrestricted as possible.

In spite of irrefutable evidence of the change in global trading and the impact it is having on North America, some refuse to entertain the notion of Atlantica for even a moment.

Small numbers of protesters made brief made-for-television appearances during the Saint John conference, while their respective labour and social sector PR machines cranked out releases condemning the idea of Atlantica as if it were the devil’s candy.

The message was that Atlantica was a plan being secretly hatched by Atlantic Canada’s business elite, which, if enacted, would destroy the quality of life for Atlantic

Canadians, stealing benefits and social programs, raping natural resources, and condemning the environment.

On the surface, the potential conflict was attractive to many media outlets, and there was significant coverage of the conference.

But even the mainstream media had a hard time following the doomsday theory.

Atlantica is not a sinister business plan hatched in the backrooms of the corporate elite. The notion of a return to economic union and freer trade between the Atlantic provinces and the northeastern states has been around for more than 100 years. The most recent initiative could not be more openly publicized — it had been beaten to death in one Atlantic Canadian magazine for the last five years.

As it is being discussed today, Atlantica is a bit of a non-event for Newfoundland and Labrador. With an initial emphasis on Halifax as a super-port, and the requirement for improved multi-modal transportation and power connections between the Maritimes and the northeastern states, our province is

given little mention.

But with the emerging opportunities of the Labrador portion of our province, one can easily imagine a time in the not-too-distant future when Atlantica may play a bigger role here.

Better we are involved in the discussion today than to scramble for inclusion down the road when the foundation has been established and is hard to change.

All the sentiment in the world for a return to the way things used to be will not change the economic juggernaut that is China. There is a fundamental shift moving the world’s economic epicentre from the western to the eastern world.

The changes in global trading patterns are as unstoppable as continental drift. While some continue to hold their ground, cling to outdated ideals, and try to resist change, the earth beneath our feet continues to shift, inch by inch, day by day.

Ray Dillon is president of St. John’s Board of Trade. His column returns July 9.

JUNE 25, 2006

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 23

Premier’s vision poor beyond Holyrood S

everal years ago we elected a man who sold nationalism to beleaguered federalists who had watched Ottawa rape the province for over 50 years. We must now examine Premier Danny Williams’ success in order to prepare for the next federal election and what will be our most crucial vote.

Danny immediately capitalized on the potential of the first minority government in Canada in 25 years. This meant our seven otherwise worthless federal seats were finally worth something.

To give the premier his due, he took advantage of the circumstance and wrestled Ottawa to win a commitment, albeit verbally, to remove offshore oil royalties from equalization. Based on my direct experience with our bureaucrats within the Department of Natural Resources, the premier also showed leadership when he directed civil servants to abandon their belief that our province was getting a fair share from the federal government.

To be blunt, I do not believe this would have occurred — federal minority or not — with Lloyd Matthews or Walter Noel as minister, or, regrettably, Roger Grimes, who didn’t have the political capital, at the helm.

Now let’s get down to business!

THIRST FOR ENERGY Danny enjoys record high oil prices, with a globe thirsty for energy. His ability to maximize profits from consumers is exactly what he did in the case of Cable Atlantic.

The other important advantage given to the premier from past toils is the province’s continued ownership of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. (Unfortunately, he was for privatization when he was still in the private sector).

Now that the province has some cards it can play and money to spend, it’s easy to give premature sainthood to our leader. This adoration is as ill-advised as that bestowed on Clever Clyde or Benevolent Brian. During times of great financial hardship we borrowed on our future to keep our culture, communities, and people in our province.

We believed in the value of rural Newfoundland and Labrador and supported the notion that investing in our outports was not only socially responsible but necessary for our own existence. Yes we built roads, hospitals, and community infrastructure from pensions and we knew that this money would eventually have to be repaid.

SUE KELLAND-DYER

Guest column We struggled to keep our refineries, paper mills, fish plants, and mines. We lamented the loss of our upper Churchill revenues while cursing Ottawa for the destruction of our fishery and continued indifference to our people. We have fought the loss of our railway, bases, airports, lighthouses, and general federal presence.

Through this we have stood tall and vowed to survive!

It was more than just politics that caused us to accumulate debt for goods and services needed by our people. It was more than just fools guided by emotion! It was driven by a sense of pride and knowledge that our real wealth, our natural resources could provide the lifestyle we desired for all our citizens.

Now that we are starting to enjoy some financial security from those resources, Premier Williams is leaving our people and communities to die.

To hell with our paper mills, to hell with our fishplants and fishers, to hell with Harbour Breton, Anchor Point, Fortune, Bonavista, Stephenville, Grand Falls-Windsor, St. Josephs, and Mary’s Harbour, the greater St. John’s area is rich. What more could we want. For all the mistakes in our past and the misfortunes of being unequal in a federation called Canada, our leaders of yesterday saw some value in who we are and where we came from.

For all the luck this premier has enjoyed, his 20-20 vision deteriorates rapidly to severe nearsightedness once he clears Holyrood. Our premier needs to do the tough stuff — fight with Ottawa for management of our fishery and custodial control of our Grand Banks. Use our hydro-electricity to attract paper mills, refineries and industrial investment instead of exporting unprocessed hydro to Ontario and Quebec.

My god, for the first time in our history the combination of minority federal governments and absolute greed respecting minerals, oil and energy allow us to have our cake and eat it in whatever community we choose.

Sue Kelland-Dyer was a policy advisor to former Liberal premier Roger Grimes.

36 for 12 issues tax included

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Premier Danny Williams addresses the press on Wednesday, June 21.

Paul Daly/The Independent

24 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JUNE 25, 2006

WEEKLY DIVERSIONS ACROSS 1 Oceanic flux 5 Duration 9 Sarcastic laughter 13 Darling family’s dog 17 Its capital is Muscat 18 Important cultural figure 19 Newspaper opinion piece 20 Words on damaged wares 21 It starts May 24 or so 23 Appearance of a trait from previous generations 25 Good feller?

26 Pre-Easter period 27 English “O Canada” author 28 Uses a lasso 29 Smelting refuse 30 N.W.T.’s mineral emblem 31 Family dog, for short 32 Niagara Falls attraction: ___ Clock 35 Hide-hair link 36 B.C.’s official bird: Steller’s ___ 37 Quebec game 40 Lake of Geneva (Switz.)

41 Ont. town with large flying saucer 44 Runs 45 Yemeni port 46 Scan 47 Sphere

48 Voyageurs’ craft 49 Pester 50 Ruler of Iran, once 51 Scandinavian rug 52 Ferguson of “Air Farce” 53 N.B.’s bird: black-___ chickadee 55 Free 56 Saturday in Ste. Adele 59 Affirmative vote 60 Musician’s engagement 61 Surrender 62 Of the nature of: suffix 64 B.C./N.W.T. river 67 Caviar 68 “Later!”

69 Type of tale 70 Hankering 71 Alta. town with museum of old vehicles 73 Canadian jazz pianist Oliver ___ 74 Earth: prefix 75 Nanny’s baby 76 Born (Fr.) 77 Until now 78 Tavern by a tube station 79 Lucre 81 Small salmon 82 External 85 P.C. 86 Park of “Air Farce” 87 Revival tech.

90 Roman restaurant 92 French restaurant 94 Run pointlessly 95 Triumphs 96 What dryers trap

97 Fake shot in hockey 98 Prompter 99 French river painted by Monet 100 Nervously irritable 101 Tropical wood DOWN 1 Early Roman garment 2 Invention of Kroitor, Ferguson and Kerr (1968) 3 Duel starter 4 Conclusion 5 Insensitivity to sounds (2 wds.)

6 Hockey violation 7 ___ Tremblant, Que. 8 World lang.

9 Victoria’s Empress 10 Plant louse 11 What a Hamburger may be called 12 Foofaraw 13 Rich and influential one 14 Pronto!

15 French resort 16 Requests 22 ___ Fairclough 24 “King Kong” actress 27 Not new 29 Long-necked bird 30 Well-behaved 31 Hasty escape 32 Love handles, e.g.

33 Alta. site of 1947 oil strike 34 Last Greek letter 35 Biblical ark-itect

36 Punch type 37 Classical pianist Kimura Parker 38 I problem?

39 Take advantage of 41 Honey wine 42 Guitarist Liona 43 The Victorian, e.g.

44 Vocalist Siberry (“Small Fires”) 46 Ostrich-like bird 48 ___-by-Chance, Nfld.

50 Hurried 51 Oil drilling apparatus 52 Slot cut into a board 54 Heap of material to be burned 55 C’est tout ou ___!

56 Watery septet 57 Paul Anka’s first hit 58 Firth of Forth, e.g.

60 Luba of “Air Farce” 61 Killer: suffix 63 If all ___ fails ...

64 Pull laboriously 65 Blood pressure raiser 66 In the past 67 N.S.’s official tree: ___ spruce 68 Musical staff sign 69 Commotion 71 Curved bone 72 Solely 73 Foggiest city: St. ___, Nfld.

75 Skater Browning 77 Snug and warm 78 ___ Piper picked a peck

...

79 Mistaken ___, Nfld.

80 Use art gum 81 Sound of a large bell

82 Auricular 83 Language of Pakistan 84 Fairy ___ 85 Journey

86 Parched 87 One of N.W.T.’s official languages 88 Rockies rodent

89 Stink 91 Take credit?

92 French wheat 93 Ont. cottage time

WEEKLY STARS ARIES (MAR. 21 TO APR. 19) You feel ready to face up to a major change, although it might involve some risks. A once-dubious family member comes around and offers support and encouragement.

TAURUS (APR. 20 TO MAY 20) Move forward with your plans, despite discouraging words from those who underestimate the Bovine’s strong will. Your keen instincts will guide you well.

GEMINI (MAY 21 TO JUNE 20) A misunderstanding is easily cleared up. Then go ahead and enjoy some fun and games this week. A Libra might have ideas that merit serious consideration for the future.

CANCER (JUNE 21 TO JULY 22) You might feel as if you’re in an emotional pressure cooker, but the situation is about to change in your favor. Take time out for some well-earned fun.

LEO (JULY 23 TO AUG. 22) A shift in your workplace responsibilities creates resentment among some co-workers. Deal with it before it becomes a threat to your success on the job.

VIRGO (AUG. 23 TO SEPT. 22) Expect some surprises in what you thought was one of your typically well-planned schedules. Deal with them, and then enjoy some lighthearted entertainment.

LIBRA (SEPT. 23 TO OCT. 22) Be careful: What appears to be a

solid financial opportunity might have some hidden risks attached.

A hazy personal matter needs to be cleared up.

SCORPIO (OCT. 23 TO NOV. 21) It’s a good time to strengthen ties with family and friends. You might feel unsure about a recent workplace decision, but time will prove you did the right thing.

SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22 TO DEC. 21) Just when you thought your relationship was comfortable and even predictable, your partner or spouse could spring a potentially life-changing surprise on you.

CAPRICORN (DEC. 22 TO JAN. 19) Your usually generous self is overshadowed by your equally strong suspicious nature. You might be judging things too harshly. Keep

an open mind.

AQUARIUS (JAN. 20 TO FEB. 18) Love and romance dominate the week. Married Aquarians enjoy domestic harmony, while singles could soon be welcoming overtures from loving Leos.

PISCES (FEB. 19 TO MAR. 20) An old health problem recurs, but it is soon dealt with, leaving you eager to get back into the swing of things. A favorable travel period starts this week.

BORN THIS WEEK You have an independent spirit that resists being told what to do.

But you’re also wise enough to appreciate good advice. (c) 2006 King Features Syndicate, Inc.

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

MAY 7, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPECIALSECTION • 25

CARS

26 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JUNE 25, 2006

JUNE 25, 2006

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 27

kph...

at

28 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JUNE 25, 2006

JUNE 25, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 29

30 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS

JUNE 25, 2006

Bannock: bread on the move PAUL SMITH

The Rock

Outdoors

T

here’s nothing quite like homemade bread when you’re out in the country. At home, bakery bread might do fine, especially in our hectic modern world. Nowadays, there’s typically no full-time homemaker in the family to take sole responsibility for a fresh supply of bread.

Bread comes ready made from the supermarket, sliced and ready for the toaster.

Then there are the health considerations — white bread just won’t do. Our family’s taste has evolved over a bumpy road to whole grain breads, zero fat, high fibre, and all that good stuff.

My typical lunch sandwich is lean chicken or tuna, lettuce, mustard and maybe some roasted peppers atop 12grain supermarket sliced bread. What a contrast to the bologna sandwiches my mother made for my excursions: a slab of Maple-Leaf and a slice of cheese — slobbered in mustard — between two hearty slices of her lard-rich, homemade bread. And, oh how I love a bologna sandwich. I still make them for my fishing and hunting daytrips.

Goldie manages a few loaves of homemade bread in her busy schedule, and we spare it along; Sunday breakfast, hunting trips, etc. I think I eat the healthy stuff on weekdays so I can live longer to hunt, fish, and eat bologna sandwiches on weekends.

Which brings me to the gist of this week’s column; we need good hearty bread to sustain us on those long hikes

Paul Smith/For The Independent

and canoe trips into the back country.

Homemade bread fits the bill for shorter treks, but for longer expeditions it’s far too bulky and susceptible to mould, especially in damp conditions.

But what’s a trout or salmon fry without bread? All protein and no carbs, and you certainly need carbs to paddle a canoe all day. Early Canadian voyagers and pioneers found themselves with

this exact dilemma. It would be impressive and convenient if bread could be made quickly on the trail from non-perishable dry ingredients. Bread in a frying pan or “bannock” is the solution.

Bannock is a simple variety of scone that originated in Scotland. Native peoples learned of bannock from early European explorers and adopted it as their own. There are many variations of

Riley’s 18-year chase finally ends

T

o a man who once said the only things he felt were winning and misery you can now add relief.

Pat Riley’s 18-year odyssey chasing another NBA title ended in Dallas on June 20, giving him the fifth championship of his coaching career and allowing him a chance to exhale.

“You keep chasing it, you keep chasing it, you get tired,” an elated Riley said after the Heat dispatched the Dallas Mavericks 95-92 to win the NBA championship in six games. “This gives me a sense of absolute freedom from having to chase it, desperately chase it.”

It was special because of the special skills of 24-year-old Dwyane Wade, the gifted guard who had 36 points in the clincher and because of the special motivational abilities of the 61-year-old coach, who persuaded 15 disparate personalities to come together to pursue a common goal.

It was Riley who started dumping little cards with a picture of the NBA championship trophy on one side and the team’s mantra “15 Strong” printed on the other into a large bowl-like object

that sat in the middle of the team’s locker room.

It was the kind of corny shtick few could get away with. But Riley somehow persuaded Wade, Shaquille O’Neal, Antoine Walker, Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning and a gaggle of other strong personalities to play along.

“He said that’s what it’s all about, he walked around and gave every player a card that says we’re 15 strong, (that) there’s a lot of doubters out there and the only way (we) can do this is to stick together,” said Wade. “It just got bigger and bigger and our belief just got stronger and stronger in each other.

Whether the Heat can get Riley his sixth title next year will be determined by how he tweaks the roster this season. Miami has hardly the deepest team in the league and Payton and Mourning are free agents. O’Neal is slowing down at 34 years old, bench players like Michael Doleac, Shandon Anderson and Derek Anderson hardly ever play, so to think this same roster will be intact a year from now is far-fetched.

— Torstar wire service

traditional bannock throughout Canada.

My first bannock was served to me by the Cree of northern Manitoba. They liked to spice it up with seasonal goodies like blueberries or lake trout eggs.

You can’t beat caviar bread; I loved it, it was almost as good as my mother’s homemade.

Bannock is simple to make — that’s the whole idea. The main ingredient is

flour: white, whole wheat or a mixture to taste. Four cups makes a hefty frying pan full, which will certainly fuel up four or more hearty canoeists. Add salt and sugar to suit your own taste, but a couple of teaspoons of salt and two or three tablespoons of sugar is a fine starting point.

Next you need milk. Add 3/4 to a full cup of powdered milk (real milk is fine if you are practicing at home). Finally, add three or four tablespoons of baking powder. Mix and store the ingredients in some sort of waterproof container. I prefer the larger plastic peanut butter jars, but anything will do, even a sealable plastic bag.

Now, after you’ve canoed or walked all day, you’re hungry. Combine your dry mix with two to three cups of water.

At this point you can throw in some berries, raisons, nuts, fish eggs or whatever is available and tickles your fancy.

Mix it until you have a consistency that pours slowly but levels out in the frying pan on its own.

Make sure your pan is well greased with butter, oil or fat pork, whatever you have. Fry for about five minutes or until a golden brown crust is formed.

Flip over and repeat on the other side.

Cook until the centre becomes firm.

Break apart the bread with your hands and share with your hungry comrades.

Give Bannock a try on your next camping trip. Besides sharing in a long woodsy tradition, you’re being selfreliant and resourceful; qualities often missing in our pre-packaged and disposable world.

Paul Smith is a freelance writer living in Spaniard’s Bay, enjoying all the outdoors Newfoundland and Labrador has to offer. flyfishtherock@hotmail.com

Hangovers order of the day Burger and chips and, of course, a couple of pints Frankfurt, Germany

By Cathcal Kelly

I

t’s 2 p.m. at O’Reilly’s pub and the breakfast crowd is beginning to roll in.

Burger and chips, please. And, oh yeah, two pints of lager.

There are lots of heads in hands — reminders of the night before.

The English were the first to arrive at this World Cup party.

They came off the trains at the Frankfurt hauptbahnhof in the thousands — as many as 100,000 — two weeks ago, ahead of their team’s opening match with Paraguay at the Waldstadion.

On that first day, they managed to make it about 100 feet outside the train station, directly across from O’Reilly’s.

While the team has moved on, to Nuremberg and Cologne, hundreds of their fans remain here on their soccer holiday.

Michael, a boyish Californian who works the bar at O’Reilly’s, has been doing double shifts to serve the soccer tourists.

“The English have been really good, actually,” he says, leaning over the bar between orders.

“Well, pretty good.”

Pretty good?

“There was the thing with the ashtrays.”

The ashtrays?

“I was working in the back a couple of nights ago. All of a sudden all the waiters and busboys start running around taking the glass ashtrays off the tables and replacing them with these little plastic ones.”

Why? “The English started hitting each other with these,” he says, holding up one of the hefty bludgeons. He lets it drop to the bar with a resounding “thwack.”

Was anybody hurt?

“I imagine they were.”

German officials have been going to great lengths at this World Cup to praise the behaviour of English fans, notorious in the past for drunken excesses and hooligan outrages.

“We are extremely happy at how the English fans behaved,” Frankfurt city spokesperson Nicholas Muenster says. “Their reputation for bad behaviour is long outdated and their behaviour’s excellent.”

The only thing that seems to really annoy Germans is the English fan favourite, 10 German Bombers, sung to the tune of 10 Green Bottles.

“There were 10 German bombers in the air (repeat), And the RAF from England shot one down, There were nine German bombers in the air.”

“The English have been really good, actually.

Well, pretty good.”

A Frankfurt bartender on visiting customers And so on.

“Many English people have come in to ask about coming back here,” a Nuremberg tourism official said after England’s second- round match in that city with Trinidad and Tobago. “They will be welcomed back as friends, because that’s how they leave us.”

Only a handful have been arrested, most for being drunk and disorderly, which in Germany costs you a 200 euro fine and a night at Chez Polizei.

Back at O’Reilly’s, the joint’s packing up ahead of the Germany-Ecuador match. There are no Germans or Ecuadorians here. The England-Sweden match isn’t on for another six hours. Will they just stick

around?

“They come here for breakfast, whenever they wake up.

They drink until dinner. They have dinner here. Then they’re the last ones to leave,” Michael says.

“It only really gets bad on Sundays,” he says. “They think we’re going to throw them out early, so at 2 or so they rush the bar and order so many drinks that we have to stay open later.”

Later, by O’Reilly’s standards, is 5 a.m.

“Two more weeks,” Michael sighs, pouring out another pint.

“They’ve promised us all a big bonus at the end of the World Cup. Then I’m going to sleep.”

Over in a corner of the bar, a pair argues about Michael Carrick, the young English star who may or may not feature at this tournament. It gets heated.

Another fan comes over to soothe the combatants. The two are evidently friends, because they’re easily calmed.

“I’ll get youse another pint,” the intervenor says.

Even better.

It’s another day at the World Cup. Here’s to tomorrow’s hangover.

JUNE 25, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 31

Young squads finding stride in Germany

By Cathal Kelley Torstar wire service

A

ll the style so explosively shown by Argentina and the Netherlands early in this World Cup was being kept carefully under wraps during a dreary goalless draw between the two nations last week.

There were glimpses of beauty — Carlos Tevez nutmegging Kew Jaliens on the touchline, Lionel Messi sending the ball one way, running the other and the two of them meeting up once again on the run.

In Messi and Tevez we saw the great strength of this Argentina squad — youth. Youth is the real theme of this World Cup so far. Those favourites who have put their faith in energetic, but inexperienced players are thriving.

The Argentines field the greenest squad at this World Cup. In 2002, they managed only two goals and bombed out spectacularly in the first round.

Three games into this tournament, they’ve scored nine times. At times, they’ve looked like a team for the ages.

Coach Jose Pekerman made his reputation winning three world championships with Argentina’s under-20 squad. In Germany, Pekerman has put his faith in players he knew as children. Now grown into young men, they are richly rewarding his confidence.

“What the team has been stating on the pitch is that Argentina has potential,” Pekerman says.

That’s the understatement of the tournament. Their 6-0 dismantling of Serbia and Montenegro is already being talked about here in hushed tones as a “near-perfect” performance.

Though they haven’t yet produced the white heat of Argentina, the orange attack of the Netherlands also looks formidable. Coach Marco Van Basten faced criticism at home for leaving several established stars out of his team. Nobody’s complaining now that the early results are in.

The other side shot through with real quality at this tournament is Spain.

Like Argentina, Spain broke its national team apart after disappointment in 2002 at Korea/Japan. Only two starters remain from that period.

France is the cautionary tale in this case. “French soccer” has become a byword for “geriatric.”

Returning here with the same core that disappointed in Korea/Japan, Les Bleus picked up where they left off in poorly played draws with Switzerland and Korea.

Keep your eye on the ball.

Hack-a-Shaq From page 32 be ultimately successful by employing the Hack-a-Shaq tactic.

And Zo has always been an aggressive (some say dirty) defender who is especially adept at timely forearms and elbows.

For all that , Miami’s Dwyane Wade is a treat to watch. He’s smart enough to use Shaq’s presence the right way, and talented enough to take over a game all by himself.

Would the Heat have won without Shaq? Not a chance. As good as Wade was, and will continue to be, Shaq is still too dominant for other teams and Wade would not have been as effective without the Diesel on the floor.

Which is why I hope he retires soon.

I know it’s early, but I predict Steve Nash and the Suns to win it all next year. And, perhaps even more of a gamble, I predict the Toronto Raptors will make the playoffs.

F U L L 18 O P E N T H I S S E A S O N !

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INDEPENDENTSPORTS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JUNE 25-JULY 1, 2006 — PAGE 32

By Bob White For The Independent

W

hen he first picked up a badminton racquet over 30 years ago, Wayne Somers never envisioned the sport would take him all over the world.

Not as an athlete, mind you — though he still loves playing the game.

As an executive member, Somers has travelled the globe to promote the sport and takes pride in his contribution to its development on provincial, national and international levels.

“There’s no question I am passionate,” Somers says. “You don’t spend as much time as I do travelling for the sport if you don’t have a passion for it.”

Somers is currently in an influential position as member of council for the International Badminton Federation (IBF), a four-year term which will end in 2009 after the 2008 Olympics hosted

by Beijing, China. Somers will meet with the rest of the IBF in Beijing during the Olympics.

Somers is the first Canadian in over 30 years to serve on the International Council. He was elected during the 2005 meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Somers grew up in Carbonear, and was a junior high school student there in the late 1970s when he got the badminton bug. John Hall, who was then administrator of the Carbonear General Hospital and an executive member of the Newfoundland Badminton Association, instructed Somers and others in the fundamentals of the sport.

Somers had some modest success on the provincial level, but was unquestionably bitten by the badminton bug.

Hall persuaded him to join the provincial executive in the mid-1980s and he’s been a devoted volunteer to the sport ever since.

Somers spent 12 years on the provincial executive in various portfolios, including five years as president (he was also chair of the appeals committee and the nominations committee for Badminton Canada at this time).

In 2003, Somers was elected vicepresident of finance and administration for Badminton Canada, a position he still holds.

Somers serves on the IBF marketing committee and as deputy chair of the appeals committee. There aren’t many sports where a Canadian is in the loop on an international level, and Somers is convinced having a voice from this part of the world will mean good things for the sport in Canada, even though it may not be easily visible for those at the local, grassroots level.

“It is a hard sell to the membership sometimes,” Somers said of the benefit of having a close link with the interna-

“Doors are starting to open for our provincial athletes on the national scene and our national athletes on the international scene.”

Wayne Somers

Mitchell Webb and Candice Petten of the Canada Winter Games training squad practice behind Wayne Somers, member of council for the International Badminton Federation.

Badminton takes flight The first Canadian on the International Badminton Federation council in 30 years, Wayne Somers sees a bright future for the sport in Newfoundland and Labrador tional body. “For many members in Canada, there is a tendency to disregard the international aspect, but it is becoming more and more important.”

Somers believes Canada’s influence on the global scene can trickle down.

He points out the federal government contributes about $500,000 to the sport in Canada each year.

That pales in comparison to the government contribution in China, a badminton hotbed. The Chinese receive a multi-million dollar budget annually for the sport. Ironically, the more success Canada has on the international, high-performance stage, the more money it would be able to receive from the feds.

Of the $500,000, nearly 70 per cent is

earmarked for the development of highperformance athletes and teams.

Badminton Canada can use better results in international competitions to request more money.

And, in Somers’ opinion, the only way to achieve better results is to improve the players. The best way to do that, he says, is to develop advanced training methods. Of course, nothing beats playing against the best in the world and that’s where Somers’ position on the IBF can come in handy.

In early 2007, Canada will host the world’s top players in the event dubbed “Road Show” where Canadians, especially junior-aged players, can train and compete against the world’s elite.

Canada is a member of the Pan

American Badminton Confederation (PABC), which looks after badminton in North and South America and the Caribbean. In international rankings, Canada is the top country within the PABC. “My involvement with PABC is a great opportunity to bring international tournaments to Canada which carry with them important ranking points to help our players qualify for the Olympics,” he says. “I am also able to leverage funds from PABC for development camps for our younger players.”

Newfoundland and Labrador has produced top-notch national players, including Glovertown’s Samantha Ralph, who won the under-19 national

championship a couple of months ago.

Somers calls Ralph’s win a “huge accomplishment” and he predicts similar success for Ralph and other provincial athletes in the future.

“Doors are starting to open for our provincial athletes on the national scene and our national athletes on the international scene. One of my goals is to help give our athletes a bigger profile and improve the overall calibre of our athletes.”

Somers says the recent rise in junioraged athletes from this province bodes well for its future and he hopes to continue to do his part so one day badminton players from this province and across Canada can stand with the best in the world.

n’t for a couple of deflections, most notably the first two goals of game seven, the outcome could have been in favour of Edmonton. But, hey, that’s hockey — and a good bounce is part of it. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t.

The Oilers’ playoff run will still go down as proof that in this new era of the NHL, any team is capable of success in the playoffs. For an eighth seed to get this far is great for the league and for the game.

final series.

What transpired, though, was closer to a throwback of the ugly 1990s style of bruiser-ball, which coincidentally reached its peak during the Pat Riley — yes the same Pat Riley who now coaches the Heat — days of the New York Knicks. The basketball was defenseoriented, with lots of clutching and grabbing. Sort of like the days of the trap in hockey, for you puck devotees.

In my opinion, the finals ended up in this way because of the Heat, especially with Shaq and Alonzo Mourning.

I’ve never been a fan of Shaq or Zo, for different reasons. Shaq is so big there’s no player who can do much to prevent him from establishing position down low. Once he gets close to the rim, it’s a dunk or an easy layup. He can’t shoot free throws, but I’ve yet to see a team

Daniel Ryder’s big chance

L

ast week, Bonavista’s Daniel Ryder was named to the national junior hockey team development camp, to be held July 23-28 in Calgary.

Ryder will try to become the first player from Newfoundland and Labrador to make the national squad since his older brother Michael, who played for the bronze-medal team at the 2000 championships in Sweden.

The camp will give the Calgary Flames a great look at their blossoming prospect in Ryder, who was picked 74th overall in the third round of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. Ryder is coming off a superb season with the Peterborough Petes, whom he led to the Ontario Hockey League championship and a trip to the Memorial Cup. The Petes’ top scorer in the OHL playoffs, Ryder won the Wayne Gretzky 99 award as the league’s play-

BOB WHITE

Bob the bayman off MVP with 15 goals and 31 points in 19 games. His team didn’t fare so well at the Memorial Cup, but Ryder has proven to scouts he has the goods to compete at the next level.

A solid camp next month in Calgary and following his big bro’s Team Canada selection would improve his chances of making the Flames for the upcoming season. A shot at a world junior championship would be sweet as well.

••• Speaking of the junior camp, of the 44 players invited to the Calgary camp,

11 are from Quebec Major Junior Hockey League teams.

I wonder how long will it be before a Fog Devils player is selected to try out?

That would be a good measuring stick for the franchise, and to have a player at that level would speak well for the Devils.

••• Well, the Carolina Hurricanes pulled it off and you have to feel good for guys like Rod Brind’Amour and Glen Wesley, who’ve paid their dues and could be considered model citizens in the professional hockey world. These guys work hard at their craft and are always in great shape, as evidenced by the quality of play they were able to produce throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs, despite their advanced age.

But the Oilers were awfully close to pulling off a major comeback. If it was-

••• Switching to basketball, I was expecting more from the NBA finals, and not just because my pick, the Dallas Mavericks, came out on the short-end of the stick to the Miami Heat. I was looking forward to more of the wide-open style featured in the Dallas-Phoenix western conference

See “Hack-a-Shaq,” page 31