2006-07-16

VOL. 4 ISSUE 28

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ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR — SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JULY 16-22, 2006

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WWW.THEINDEPENDENT.CA —

Regatta sponsor

‘It’s still alive’ Sister Elizabeth Davis calls for review of place in Canada

Ed Byrne gave $3,500 to rowing crew last year; politicians say donations important

STEPHANIE PORTER

S

ister Elizabeth Davis says it’s time for the provincial government to do a “thoughtful review” of the work carried out by the Royal Commission on Renewing and Strengthening Our Place in Canada.

Davis was one of three commissioners — along with James Igloliorte and chair Vic Young — appointed by Roger Grimes’ Liberal government to speak to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, gather opinions and research and develop a vision for the future of this province.

The final report, released amidst much fanfare on June 30, 2003, featured chapters on the province’s economy, history, fishery, society, natural resources, and more. There were a number of associated research papers on everything from Confederation to women’s issues to fiscal federalism.

The final summary chapter presented but one recommendation: that the province follow “a pathway to renewal,” which was broken down into a number of facets.

It also stated: “If the pathway to renewal is having an impact, progress will be evident. It will be important, therefore, that a full assessment of the extent of the progress be undertaken … The Commission recommends that the provincial government undertake such an assessment and make a progress report … on or before June 30, 2005.”

So far, that hasn’t happened. Davis wonders if that’s because, in part, there’s been a change of government.

“I don’t know how the politics of it works,” she says. “Although neither one of the three of us were partisan, I don’t know if (this government) acknowledges that … I think that’s kind of tragic.

“I guess the new government didn’t feel it was their report, and that’s regrettable … I think whoever the government is should take this pretty seriously, because it was the voice of the people of this province — and the people who have left this province to work.”

Davis admits evaluating the status of the report is not as simple as running through a list of numbered recommendations — there are none.

“It’s not a matter of five, six, or seven issues … our primary recommendation was that we have what we call a pathway to renewal, a new way of thinking, and a new way of relating and to assess that is different than asking ‘did recommendation 53 get done?’ or whatever.

“Has anything changed? It’s hard to say. But I think it would be useful to visit that. It’s time for a thoughtful look at whether the report, and the energy that went into it, whether it has made a change in our psyche as a people and in what the government actually does.”

See “We Struggled,” page 10

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “This is the most offensive interview I’ve ever had to do.”

— Premier Danny Williams to The Independent’s Ryan Cleary.

See page 6.

SPORTS 28

The Rock rugby team on a roll GALLERY 18

A visit to Kathleen Knowling’s studio BUSINESS 21

Is private health care already here?

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

By Stephanie Porter The Independent

F

Premier Danny Williams.

Paul Daly/The Independent

Charity case

Premier’s salary reportedly donated to worthy causes; details scant

By Ryan Cleary and Sue Kelland-Dyer The Independent

munity groups. Williams has been donating his government salary from “very early on” in his political career. anny Williams says he donates his Williams, a lawyer by trade who made a entire salary to charity, but only a personal fortune in the cable television busiportion of that generosity can be ness, was elected MHA for Humber West in accounted for. A significant amount of the June 2001. He took over as premier followearnings are given to personal charities and ing the October 2003 general election. He individuals whose identity the premier isn’t earns roughly $150,000 a year as an MHA prepared to reveal. and premier, “100 per cent” of which he “The premier will not be disclosing the gives away. other charities as The Williams 2004 DONATIONS BY THE WILLIAMS FAMILY FOUNDATION INC. many are of a perFamily Foundation sonal and conwas incorporated in Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of St. John’s $4,000 Cerebral Palsy Association of Newfoundland $3,500 fidential nature and November 2000, acWestern Regional Health Foundation $2,000 I can assure you cording to Matthews, Labrador Creative Arts Festival Inc. $2,000 those individuals but could not accept The Margaret Acreman Foundation $2,000 and families cerdonations until 27 Brother T.I. Murphy Learning Resource Centre Inc. $2,000 tainly do not want months later, in School Lunch Association $2,000 Girl Guides of Canada $1,600 their names in the February 2003, when The Arthritis Society-Newfoundland $1,500 paper,” says Elizaapproval was grantDuke of Edinburgh’s Award Young Canadian Challenge $1,500 beth Matthews, the ed by the Canada TOTAL: $22,100 premier’s spokesRevenue Agency.

2003 DONATIONS BY THE WILLIAMS FAMILY FOUNDATION INC. woman.

Prior to that, MatThe Catholic Jesuit School Foundation $5,000 “The premier is thews says Williams South and Central Health Foundation $3,000 not going to divulge donated to various Memorial University $2,500 the names of indiregistered charities Mothers Against Drunk Driving (Avalon chapter) $2,300 viduals and families and charitable activiCanadian Cancer Society $2,000 who are less fortuties.

St. John’s Therapeutic Riding Association $1,000 (Rainbow Riders) nate and require According to TOTAL: $15,800 help. This would be Revenue Canada’s Other monies were donated to non-registered charities completely inapprowebsite, the Wiland charitable activities.

— Source: Revenue Canada priate.” liams Family FounThe issue of transparency and accounta- dation filed returns in 2003 and 2004 — bility has been front and centre since June 2005’s return was filed by the June 30 deadwhen Ed Byrne resigned his Natural line, Matthews says, but has yet to be Resources portfolio, setting off a political processed and recorded. spending scandal that continues to grip the The 2003 return reveals the premier province. The Constabulary is investigating donated $20,000 to his foundation, of which and Chief Justice Derek Green has been $15,800 went to six registered charities — asked to review political spending. $5,000, the largest recorded amount, went Questions have been raised since about to the Catholic Jesuit School Foundation what politicians spend their money on — See “The premier,” page 2 including donations to charities and com-

D

ormer Natural Resources minister Ed Byrne sponsored a women’s intermediate rowing team for the 2005 Regatta to the tune of $3,500, The Independent has learned.

It is not against government policy for MHAs to donate money to charities, community groups, or sports organizations, and — according to policy — they may be reimbursed from their constituency allowance if receipts are given and approval granted by the Internal Economy Commission.

But given auditor general John Noseworthy’s recent reports alleging overspending by four MHAs — Byrne alone may have overspent his constituency allowance by more than $325,000 over a twoyear period — are still the talk of the town, all discretionary spending is being scrutinized.

Heidi Murphy, a member of the Byrne-sponsored rowing team called Procon, confirmed Byrne gave her a cheque for $3,500.

“It was sponsorship that he did for us because we are all from Kilbride (Byrne’s district),” says Murphy, who has a summer job with the Natural Resources Department.

The team rowed in the Atlantic Property Management Female Intermediate No. 3 race, finishing third. Procon — “probably” short for Progressive Conservative, says Murphy — was listed on the 2005 Regatta’s list of sponsors.

She says the team isn’t returning to competition this year.

While Murphy and her teammates certainly appreciated the substantial sponsorship, there have been concerns raised recently about the ability of MHAs to use their constituency allowance for donations to specific groups, which may be seen as garnering political favour.

Speaker of the House Harvey Hodder has instructed all MHAs to keep expense claims to themselves while the current police investigation is ongoing.

“I’ve (given constituency donations) for 10 years,” says Gerry Reid, leader of the provincial Liberal party.

“I’d like to see (the ability to donate) continue, although some people might think it’s an inappropriate use of government funds. The way I see it … it’s a good way for volunteer groups to get a couple of dollars out of government from time to time.”

Chief Justice Derek Green is due to present recommendations about MHA spending allowances in the fall. Reid says he wouldn’t be surprised if the kibosh was put on taxpayer-funded charitable giving.

“It’s a possibility. It depends. But I’m certain the people I’ve given donations to over the past 10 years won’t appreciate it … I do it publicly and I appreciate the fact I’m able to do it.

“If they do it, we’ll just have to live with it. But See “Only the rich,” page 2

COLUMN 11

Susan Rendell on Bucky King, Hobo Bill, and other characters MOVIE REVIEW 19

Tim Conway previews upcoming Nickel Independent Film Festival In Camera . . . . 8-9 Life Story . . . . . 12 Museum . . . . . . 12 Book review . . . 20 Crossword . . . . 24

2 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JULY 16, 2006

‘The premier is absolutely comfortable’ From page 1 (St. Bon’s), a private Catholic school in St. John’s and Williams’ alma mater.

The remainder went to “other charitable activities.” Matthews says the premier gives to both the family foundation and charitable activities that “do not meet the restricted purposes of the foundation.

“In other words, money is given to individuals and families in need who are not registered charitable organizations. For example, a family with a sick child who requires assistance is not a registered charity.”

The 2004 return reveals the premier gave $110,000 to the foundation. Of the $110,000, $66,850 is said to have gone to other registered charities, although only 10 registered charities, having received a total of $22,100, are listed

on the Revenue Canada website.

The remainder was given to charitable activities, although there’s no breakdown of those monies.

“The premier is absolutely comfortable with all of his charitable donations,” Matthews says. “It is frankly incredible that the media chooses to question giving money to charity, instead of focusing on how this money benefits so many organizations, families and individuals.”

The Williams Family Foundation lists three directors, including Maureen Williams and Jilian Morris, the premier’s wife and daughter. A third, arm’s length director, is listed as Don Johnson.

Contacted by The Independent, Johnson says he hasn’t had anything to do with the Williams Family Foundation for about a year due to health issues. “And I honestly don’t know how they’re handling it.”

Since Johnson took ill, Matthews says Williams’ wife and daughter have looked after the foundation’s affairs.

“Separate and distinct from the family foundation, these two directors also administer payments for other charitable activities. For example, giving money to families with sick children, the money is typically used to cover the costs associated with the sick child.”

‘Only the rich’ From page 1 they can’t eliminate constituency allowances totally because you’re going to have to account for travel for MHAs who live outside St. John’s … if you don’t have a constituency allowance then it will go back to when only the rich could run for elected office in the province.”

Ried scoffs at the idea of his donations buying votes. He gives example after example of groups he’s given to: a few dollars so a youth sports team could have matching T-shirts; $200 to a volunteer fire brigade for a new fire suit; a donation to Legionnaires in Twillingate towards a showcase.

“If anyone thinks that Gerry Reid goes out to the Town of Tilting and gives a $200 donation, that I can walk out and say, ‘Yeah, I’m going to get every vote in this town this time because I made a $200 donation,’ then they’re sadly mistaken.”

Reid says he’s learned to budget, allowing a certain amount of donations or financial support a month.

“If you give it all away … obviously, if you run out of constituency allowance, then when you travel … you pay for it out of your own pocket. And that’s happened.”

Reid says the constituency allowance is a way to get a little bit of money throughout all regions of the province.

He admits, though, “all those rules and regulations, and I think I’ve always followed them, they can tighten them …”

Lorraine Michael, new leader of the provincial NDP, is also in favour of donating constituency money to community groups — she says it’s a concrete way for many to interact with their provincial member.

“I think it’s probably an OK use for the money,” Michael says. “The thing I would be concerned about … (is) the kinds of rules and regulations that need to be put in place.”

Michael says every expenditure “needs to be always made public,” and published as a public report every year.

She has little faith in the current published reports from the Internal Economy Commission (“the minutes say nothing”).

“The groups need to be named, and then the people in the district would be able to see a number of things: how much money is going to the community group; they can see if the MHA is being fair and equitable in regards to who is getting the money. Is it the same groups year after year — or is it being spread out among groups in the district?”

Hodder defended his donations to groups in his district in an interview with The Independent last week. A favourite of his, he said, is the breakfast program at Mary Queen of the World Elementary school. He also alluded to attending fundraising dinners for sports organizations, and a “Compliments of Harvey Hodder” support ad in the program accompanying a theatre performance by O’Donel High School. He referred to the donations as “tradition.”

“You have to support your local initiatives,” Hodder said, noting receipts are always required.

“And members are still out a lot of money … if you go to a local bar and you buy somebody one beer or two beers, you don’t feel like saying, oh by the way, could I have a receipt? So that’s out of your own pocket.

“Members will always have more expenses than they have money.” stephanie.porter@theindependent.ca

JULY 16, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 3

SCRUNCHINS A weekly collection of Newfoundlandia The Globe and Mail doesn’t always get it right when it comes to Newfoundland and Labrador, but our “national paper” was dead on about Gregory Parsons earlier this week. The Globe carried a lead editorial about the Parsons case, which made the news again last month with the release of the Lamer report. The editorial’s headline read: How the justice system failed Gregory Parsons. But the last line was the most powerful: “Mr. Parsons was no killer. He was more like Job, being tested by the all-powerful justice system.

Mr. Lamer’s report is a reminder of why the presumption of innocence is the cornerstone of a jusGregory Parsons tice system that is truly just.”

FORT MCNOWHERE Stephen Maher of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald wrote a feature earlier this week about Fort McMurray, Two tales of one city, Fort McMurray: Boomtown with jobs, big bucks and drugs, or a great place to raise a family. The story began outside a truck stop, down the highway from the oilsands at suppertime.

“You can imagine that some of these men are thirsty at the end of a shift. Most are young and single and they’ve got lots of money.

Tradesmen working in the oilsands make $30 to $40 an hour.

They’ll tell you, too.

At the Fort McMurray Newfoundlanders Bar + Restaurant, a private club in a strip mall across the road from a dilapidated trailer park, you hear it every few minutes, in voices thick with outport accents.

“Twenty dollars an hour.”

“Fifteen bucks an hour.”

“Thirty-two bucks an hour.”

The bar is so jammed on Saturday night that the three waitresses behind the bar can’t keep up. The place is full of young Newfoundlanders from rural communities where the collapse of the fishery has sent the young people packing. There are five men for every woman. The CD player plays new country and favourites from home like The Newfie Stomp.

Fort McMurray, they say, is the third-largest city in Newfoundland, although a 1999 census found that only 16 per cent of the population is from Newfoundland. It seems like a lot more. And that percentage wouldn’t include the children of Newfoundlanders, whose accents are almost as thick as their parents’.

Many of the ex-Newfoundlanders hate it here and they don’t mind telling you, and pining for the day when they can go home.

They call it Fort McMisery, Fort McNowhere — and, chillingly, Fort Crack.”

90/10 In light of the recently announced merger between Inco, Falconbridge Ltd. and Phelps Dodge, Premier Danny Williams wrote Prime Minister Stephen Harper urging Ottawa to ensure Inco lives up to expectations they created in the province, including the building of a hydomet processing facility for the nickel ore coming out of Voisey’s Bay. But let’s not leave the feds out of this. In a February, 2005 address to the Empire Club of Canada, the premier had this to say: “Just recently, we were pleased to announce the development of one of the richest nickel cobalt copper discoveries in the world by Inco. The construction is ahead of schedule and on budget — a testament to the company and the many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians employed there. However, when the ore is processed, our province will receive less that 10 per cent of the royalties while the federal government will receive close to 90 per cent.”

Sounds about right … ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

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City’s wireless Internet connections unprotected; malicious use possible — but not common

By Nadya Bell The Independent

T

housands of home wireless networks and their Internet connections are open for public use in St. John’s and Mount Pearl, according to computer professionals.

The increasingly popular wireless modems use radio signals to allow home computers to access the Internet — without the usual network cables. They also allow computers within range to communicate with each other.

Indeed, any computer within 100 metres of the wireless access point may detect the radio signal, and — depending on the network’s security — connect, use the Internet, and delete or add files to shared folders.

Because of the wide range of wireless networks, computers on the street could catch a home signal — and log on to the network, if there is no security.

Chris Rose, computer support with Nerds on Site, says 54 per cent of networks in the city are wide open for public use, based on his surveys.

“Basically when I say open, I mean (homes) that you could drive up outside of and connect to the network and basically make use of it in whatever manner you want,” Rose says.

A survey of wireless networks can be done by driving around with a laptop, scanning for connections, and then plotting the points on a map through the help of a global positioning system.

In an hour, a car driving slowly can

For security…

In order to increase security, networks should be given a new name. This is done by logging on to the router and changing the service set identifier (SSID) to whatever you choose. Next, select that the name not be broadcast.

Also, the default encryption that comes with most wireless modems should be activated and provides decent protection. Computer users who wish to log on to the network need to know the name of the network and password for the encryption. However, some web keys can be cracked within an hour.

Alberta murder charge shocks Burin town

T

he people in the small community of Harbour Mille on the Burin Peninsula are shocked. One of their own hometown boys, Colin Winsor, has been charged with the murder of 17year-old Ashton Moen in Brooks, Alta.

Moen vanished June 19 after agreeing to meet friends for coffee and failing to show up for work at Wal-Mart. A man walking his dog found her body July 1 on the outskirts of the city. She had been wrapped in a blanket and left beside a canal.

An officer with the Brooks detachment of the RCMP confirmed for The

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body else,” Price says.

He says Aliant does receive calls at their help desk from people with problems due to unsecure networks. Aliant’s wireless modem comes with software to automatically configure the network and its computers.

“In most cases if you live in a home with a yard, you’re going to notice somebody sitting in your driveway for half an hour accessing your Internet,” he says. “We see this as more of a problem in multi-dwelling units or apartment buildings where you’re not sure where anybody has access.”

In 2003, a man in Toronto was charged with theft of telecommunications for logging on to a wireless network and downloading child pornography.

Rose says extreme cases like that are not common.

“I don’t know of many people accessing (other people’s networks). And if they are, they may not actually be doing it for malicious purposes, just to get online and check e-mail for a few minutes.”

accurately detect and position hundreds of networks. Driving the speed limit in dense areas around the city, thousands of wireless networks can be found.

Detecting wireless networks is legal — but connecting for malicious purposes is not. Rose makes regular scans of wireless networks in the city, and his company helps people secure their home connections.

Rose frequently surveys Mount Pearl, Cowan Heights and the downtown and east end areas of St. John’s.

“Some areas where I expected to find them I wasn’t finding many,” he says.

“The Admiralty Wood area in Mount Pearl, I expected to find a lot out there, but at the time I didn’t find many. But King William Estates and Cheyne Drive, there is quite a number down that way.”

Aliant spokesman Todd Price says people are responsible for any activity on their network, and although they don’t recommend leaving networks open, it is the customer’s choice.

“Basically customers are leaving their home networks open to abuse from any-

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Independent on July 14 that Winsor had been charged. He could not confirm that Winsor — one of the persons of interest from the beginning of the police investigation — had confessed.

“It’s all speculation at this point, and we want to handle the situation with care where all are concerned,” the officer said.

He added this is the first murder anyone in the Brooks RCMP detachment can remember dealing with, and the city is reportedly taking the news hard.

So, too, is the local community of Harbour Mille. Community members are sending their best wishes to the fam-

Winner

NAME CALLING The Telegram sure has been putting The Independent in our place in recent weeks for our coverage of the political spending scandal. On Saturday, July 8, editor Russell Wangersky wrote the column Wrong numbers and red herrings. Wrote Wangersky: “The real problem is that both House Speaker Harvey Hodder and Ryan Cleary of The Independent are arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”

Fair enough Russell, but could you do us a favour? When you tease your column on the front page — Independant’s snit with Speaker misguided — could you at least spell our name right?

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COMMUTING COSTS On to more pressing concerns … you read here last week about former Liberal MHA Tom Murphy who was blasted in 1993 for spending $21,000 in constituency expenses the previous year. Almost $14,000 went to pay for the cost of commuting back and forth from his district to St. John’s — including per diem rates, travel, meals and accommodations.

Thing was, Murphy only lived in Tors Cove, a stone’s throw away from his Confederation Building office. What he did was not illegal — the rules state a politician must live more than 40 km from the capital city to qualify for travel benefits when the House is in session. In that context … last week The Independent printed a total breakdown of all expenses claimed by the province’s 48 MHAs in the fiscal year April 2004 to March 2005.

Here’s a breakout of the travel claims recorded by MHAs who live within a two-hour commute: Roland Butler, Liberal Port de Grave — $14,841.38 in travel, $4,145 in per diems.

Terry French, Tory Conception Bay South — $6,289 in travel, $0 in per diems.

Tom Hedderson, Tory Harbour Main-Whitbourne — $8,483.07 in travel, $1,800 in per diems.

Charlene Johnson, Tory Trinity-Bay de Verde — $16,019.80 in travel, $5,570 in per diems.

Loyola Sullivan, Tory Ferryland — $8,629.85 in travel, $5,850 in per diems.

George Sweeney, Liberal Carbonear-Harbour Grace — $12,167.95 in travel, $2,100 in per diems.

Ross Wiseman, Tory Trinity North — $22,834.02 in travel, $7,151 in per diems.

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ily of the deceased girl, and love and support to the family of the charged man. The two were involved in a previous relationship.

“This is horrible,” Harbour Mille resident Geraldine Keeping says. “Colin was over to visit us in Brooks when I lived there last year, and he was a friend of ours when he lived here, and the Colin I knew wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Many acknowledge Winsor was “different,” but say they never thought he could hurt anyone.

The police investigation is continuing.

—Pam Pardy Ghent

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4 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JULY 16, 2006

Survey says

Do you believe that Harper’s minister of Fisheries is attentive to the concerns of B.C. commercial fishermen?

: CIDED UNDE % 9.5

ATTENTIVE OR NOT Asked if Harper’s minister of Fisheries is paying enough attention to the wishes of the fishing industry or is dominated by the bureaucrats at DFO, 11.8 per cent said fishermen, 78.1 per cent said bureaucrats and 10.1 per cent were undecided.

Harper was in the news this week when he pledged that government will

NO: 115 67.3%

U N D ECID 10.1 ED: %

F

ishermen on Canada’s West Coast apparently aren’t happy with federal fisheries management since the Conservatives took the helm, and now they have a survey they claim backs them up.

“There’s been a feeling out there that there’s really no change with the Conservatives — it’s been the same old Liberal policy. We wanted to confirm or deny if that’s what fishermen were really feeling,” says Eric Wickham, executive director of the Canadian Sablefish Association in Vancouver.

“We feel the survey confirms our suspicions.”

The sablefish association represents 38 fishermen licensed to catch sablefish (also known as blackcod) in a fishery worth an estimated $30 million annually. The survey — prepared by Remark Research between June 30 and July 8 — involved sablefish and halibut commercial licence holders in British

Columbia. Just over 2,200 fishermen are employed by the licence holders.

A total of 337 households were sampled, with 172 completed questionnaires, 71 refusals and 94 no-contacts.

Asked whether the management of the fishery under Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minister of Fisheries (Loyola Hearn) has improved, remained the same, or gotten worse since the federal election, 13 per cent of respondents said the management had improved. Forty-five per cent said it stayed the same, 23.7 per cent said it had gotten worse and 18.3 per cent were undecided.

YES: 21.6%

: RMAN FISHE % 11.8

By Ryan Cleary The Independent

D: CIDE UNDE % 11.1

B.C. poll shows fishermen aren’t any happier with Conservative fisheries policy; Etchegary agrees

Do you believe that DFO-established advisory boards are fairly representing the views of average fishermen to DFO and government?

Do you believe that Harper’s minister of Fisheries is paying enough attention to the wishes of the fishing industry or is dominated by the bureaucrats of DFO?

BUREAUCRATS: 78.1%

YES: 30.4%

NO: 60.1%

Source: Canadian Sablefish Association; Graphics by Steffanie Keating/The Independent

oppose “racially divided” fisheries programs.

A letter to the editor signed by the prime minister appeared recently in the Calgary Herald. “Let me be clear — in the coming months, we will strike a judicial inquiry into the collapse of the Fraser River salmon fishery and oppose racially divided fisheries programs,” Harper’s letter stated.

Since 1992, Aboriginal Peoples and non-aboriginals have been fighting in the courts over aboriginal-only fisheries. Conservatives in the West, including former Fisheries critic John Cummins, have long fought to get

those rights overturned.

Gus Etchegary, a former fishing industry executive and outspoken advocate, publicly supported St. John’s South MP Loyola Hearn leading up to the federal election. Etchegary withdrew that support several months after Hearn took over the Fisheries and Oceans portfolio.

He says the Conservatives aren’t living up to expectations. In fact, Etchegary says the new government has been extremely disappointing.

“I was expecting a real aggressive position to be taken by the new government in respect to dealing with the

problem of overfishing and dealing with NAFO,” he says. “I also didn’t expect the Conservatives to continue supporting foreign fisheries by giving them full use of our ports for all the goods and services we can offer and trans-ship their cargoes to other parts of the world in an unprocessed state.

“All of these things are directly contrary to what we were expecting from the new government, especially in light of the fact that definitive promises were made by the minister of Fisheries and the prime minister that custodial management would be front and centre following the election.”

Marystown fish plant

Paul Daly/The Independent

Waiting and wondering Employees frustrated, worry Marystown plant won’t reopen this year

By Pam Pardy Ghent For The Independent

T

he Marystown fish plant is usually in full swing by now — employment that has kept over 600 people working on the Burin Peninsula, where out-migration has hit hard.

But the plant is still quiet — and many in the area are wary.

Fortune’s deputy mayor Harvey Tulk, who worked for Fishery Products International’s Marystown plant for 36 years, was let go in January due to restructuring.

“Of course there is talk that the plant won’t open,” Tulk says. “The season’s over, isn’t it? All people have to do is look at the situation in Fortune and that would make you think twice about any deal working its way through that would get our people back to work in the Marystown plant.”

Employees who lost their fish-plant jobs in Fortune are currently employed on community projects, earning $8.75 an hour for 14 weeks — just enough to qualify for employment insurance. Tulk says that’s what’s keeping people home, for now.

Bill Stockley is usually working at the plant by now, and the frustration is getting to him.

“Every month there is something new thrown in to keep us hanging in there,” he says. “First this was about us, the workers, and the company getting concessions from the union. But you know what? Even if we agree to every

one of them concessions that plant won’t open.

“The talk turns to income trust and the FPI Act and we got nothing in the world to do with that, so even if we give in, we won’t be getting in to work tomorrow. That’s what it looks like to us out here.”

Confusing? “Hell, yeah.”

Stockley says government has done “absolutely nothing” to help those waiting and wondering.

“None of our skills are applicable to the oil industry,” he says. That keeps them waiting for word from the union.

Union representatives acknowledge their members have every right to be frustrated — and they understand the Marystown plant is usually operational by now. Yet they wonder if rumours about the plant not opening at all are fuelled by “open-line” speculation.

From the union’s standpoint, FPI has stated it will open the plant and they are waiting to hear otherwise. They are scheduled to return to the bargaining table July 17.

Union officials say there has been a lot of “talk” during these negotiations — first with the Barry group, then the Penney deal. When they last left the bargaining table, the talk was on how to operate the plant, not if.

FPI spokesperson Russ Carrigan says the challenges facing the Marystown plant are not based solely on wages and workers — it’s a combination of factors including the dollar, intense foreign competition, the lack of

viable raw material, and the high cost of operating.

“One million per month is our regular loss in operation,” Carrigan says.

“We here at FPI need to work with government and with the union to reinvent the framework and make operations successful.”

FPI has already approached the minister of Labour, requesting a negotiator.

Rumors that the Marystown plant will not open this year are not based on fact, but on speculation, Carrigan continues. There’s only one thing all parties seem to have in common: no one knows what’s going to unfold.

“We were approached by one group to buy Newfoundland-based assets like boats and equipment and we will always listen to serious business offers,” Carrigan says, adding negotiations broke down for business reasons.

“Our preferred option was always having an agreement that the union, the company and the province can live with. Everyone will have to give a little and I certainly include this company when I say that.”

For those waiting to go back to work, that is little in the way of comfort.

“These negotiations are supposed to be about us, and they’re not,” Stockley says. “Permission to send fish overseas is not in the control of a man trying to pay his mortgage … If we can agree to a collective agreement, will FPI send their boats out to fish and send us back to work? I don’t think so … I don’t see any point in negotiating.”

JULY 16, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 5

SHIPPING NEWS Keeping on eye on the comings and going of the ships in St. John’s harbour. Information provided by the Coast Guard Traffic Centre.

SATURDAY Vessels Arrived: Atlantic Osprey, Canada, from White Rose; Katrina Charlene, Canada, from sea; Atlantic Hawk, Canada, from White Rose; George R. Pearkes, Canada from sea.

Vessels Departed: Newfoundland Pioneer, Canada, to Harbour Grace; Atlantic Eagle, Canada, to Terra Nova; Maersk Nascopie, Canada, to Hibernia; Maersk Chancellor, Canada, to White Rose; Atlantic Hawk, Canada, to Terra Nova; Cicero, Canada, to Halifax.

SUNDAY Vessels Arrived: Oceanex Avalon, Canada, from Montreal; Newfoundland Arrow, Canada, from sea.

Vessels Departed: Western Regent, Panama, to White Rose; Riverton, Canada, to White Rose; Oceanex Avalon, Canada, to White Rose, Newfoundland Arrow, Canada, to sea.

HIbernia

‘Fire in premier’s belly’

Paul Daly/The Independent

Brook; Atlantic Eagle, Canada, to Terra Nova; Newfoundland Arrow, Canada, to sea.

WEDNESDAY Vessels Arrived: Katsheshuk II, Canada, from Harbour Grace; Maersk Norseman, Canada, from Hibernia, Burin Sea, Canada, from Terra Nova.

Vessels Departed: Maersk Dispatcher, Canada, to White Rose; Katshesuk II, Canada, to sea.

MONDAY Vessels Arrived: Maersk Norseman, Canada, from Hibernia; Asl Sanderling, Canada, from Halifax; Maersk Chignecto, Canada from White Rose; Maersk Dispatcher, Canada, from Terra Nova; Atlantic Eagle, Canada from Terra Nova; Ann Harvey, Canada from sea.

THURSDAY Vessels Arrived: Maersk Dispatcher, Canada, from White Rose; Maersk Chicnecto, Canada, from White Rose; Trinity Sea, Canada from Dartmouth; Cabot, Canada, from Montreal.

Vessels Departed: Burin Sea, Canada, to White Rose.

TUESDAY Vessels Arrived: Appak, Canada, from Makkovik.

Vessels Departed: Maersk Norseman, Canada, to Hibernia; Maersk Chignecto, Canada to White Rose, Asl Sanderling, Canada, to Corner

FRIDAY Vessels Arrived: Matthew, Canada, from Argentia; Cicero, Canada, from Halifax.

Vessels Departed: Maersk Norseman, Canada, to Terra Nova; Cabot, Canada, to Montreal; Atlantic Osprey, Canada, to White Rose.

“Did your trees get EATEN last year?”

Premier’s cry of broken audit promise part of ongoing power struggle, say experts

By Nadya Bell The Independent

Ocean Industries Association conference last month about the economics of Newfoundland’s offshore oil and gas industry. He says Navigant remier Danny Williams’ latest fight with Consulting’s numbers are consistent with his findExxonMobil is based on a power struggle ings. where facts are secondary, according to two According to Locke’s calculations, the province Memorial University professors. stands to make $16 billion from the three existing “Sometimes when you are up against a very oil fields in the future. powerful foe it’s not always just the arguments you He says the province receives 32 per cent of make,” says Stephen Tomblin, who specializes in total oil revenues from the three fields, with the Canadian public policy. “It’s not always just about companies collecting 47 per cent. The federal govwho has the right facts or the empirical informa- ernment collects the remaining 21 per cent. tion, sometimes it comes down to a question of Locke estimates Hibernia revenues will increase might, or a question of power. dramatically for the province around 2011, when “I think part of the challenge (the premier) faces the oil developments will switch to the second royis the power of the companies.” alty regime, giving the province closer to 30 per Last week Williams publicly stated ExxonMobil cent, well up from the current 5 per cent revenues. had reneged on a promise to allow governmentEstimates calculated by Locke are not official. chosen auditors to review the He says they are based on pubcompany’s books. Navigant licly available information, such “He is seen as the Consulting was to check the as size of reserves and price of company’s claim that Hibernia oil and gas. guy who is fighting was returning less revenue than He says there is information had been predicted when the the battle, and it fits a the public is not hearing about project began. the oil and gas industry from the particular kind of idea province and the companies.

Talks between the province and companies interested in “We don’t have a good bit of about Newfoundland, information developing Hebron-Ben Nevis for any of these oil field broke off three months numbers for a matter of fact,” it resonates, and I ago. Relations have been reportLocke says. think that is reflected edly strained since then.

Tomblin says the clash In the absence of co-operation between the premier and through the polls.” by the company, Navigant ExxonMobil about the fair disConsulting was hired to conduct tribution of oil revenues is a Stephen Tomblin an audit of the company’s profits struggle between opposing culon Danny Williams based on readily available infortures, values and ideologies. mation.

“What is fair is really decided ExxonMobil spokesperson Margot Bruce- by the culture and the ideology,” Tomblin says.

O’Connell says the company provided the govern- “What is right is often determined by the struggle, ment with all information required legally. She and the struggle is not just political it is economic refused further comment. as well.

According to Navigant’s findings, the projected “I think that economic advancement provides life of the Hibernia oil field has increased to almost the fire in the premier’s belly, in the sense approximately 30 years from 18; estimated that he knows that we’re better off than we were 10 reserves have jumped from 525 million barrels to or 15 years ago. He’s more able to take on big 1.244 billion barrels. company interests than would have been the case Operating revenues have increased approxi- when the province was very poor. mately six times over official projections (to “He is seen as the guy who is fighting the battle, $10.07 billion from $1.69 billion), and gross rev- and it fits a particular kind of idea about Newenues have increased by $5.3 billion. foundland, it resonates, and I think that is reflected While ExxonMobil received $906 million net through the polls.” revenue in the last year alone, the audit says Tomblin says Williams’ tactics with ExxonNewfoundland and Labrador’s total royalties since Mobil are similar to Pierre Trudeau’s attempt to the project started have reached only $587 million. take on the oil companies in the 1970s to impose The numbers look impressive, but Memorial greater state control and access to information. professor of economics Wade Locke — a special“This is different, but it is very difficult to take ist in the offshore industry — warns numbers are on powerful economic interests and it was difficult often not the real issue in the debate. for Trudeau and I suspect it will be very difficult “The information isn’t easily accessible or easi- for the current premier.” ly comprehensible for most people,” he says.

Trudeau’s New Economic Policy was ultimately “The problem is that it comes down to — who unsuccessful, with the federal government turning do you trust? You’ve got different positions being towards free trade in the 1980s. put forward publicly, and if you don’t know your“Any premier or any prime minister is in a very self, then it comes down to who you trust.” difficult position when they try to take on the oil Locke gave a presentation to the Newfoundland industry.”

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Glenhill Plaza, Mount Pearl

6 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JULY 16, 2006

Tempest and tantrum I

f Friday, dreaded deadline day, wasn’t bad enough, Danny had to call The Independent first thing in the morning, lose his mind, and then hang up in my ear. I couldn’t get the tape recorder working fast enough to catch all he was saying. The premier went off before I could get a word in.

“This is the most offensive interview I’ve ever had to do,” he said. Had his spit been able to come through the receiver I would have been nailed to the wall. (Which wouldn’t have been so bad, now that I think about it — Newfoundland and Labrador is behind me, on the map.)

Danny was vicious — he’s been pissed at me before, but that other time I got the silent treatment for a few months. No spittin’ nails in that treatment.

“I’m having technical difficulties, premier.”

My tape recorder is a new digital gadget I haven’t quite mastered in terms of the quick draw. The premier mentioned not minding if I videotaped him. I got the impression he didn’t care who heard what he had to say. The premier explained he wanted to talk to me himself, personally, so it didn’t appear he has anything to hide. He also said

RYAN CLEARY

Fighting Newfoundlander “shit” in reference to the topic I had asked to question him on — the fortune he gives to charity.

Danny has always said he’s not in it for the money. Why would he be? He’s got more cash than a couple of dozen 6/49 money trees. He turns every last cent of his $150,000 paycheque over to charity — the public has known about that practically from Day 1 of his political career.

The premier said he didn’t know what kind of “crusade” I’m on. I asked if we could do the interview a little later when my tape recorder worked. The premier said he had a meeting in “three minutes.”

Then he hung up. (I said hello twice to confirm it.)

So here I am, left to explain myself in print.

The point of the story is not to question the premier’s integrity or that of his family. By all accounts, Danny Williams is an honourable man, his

family an upstanding one. I take him at his word when he says he’s in politics — not for himself — but for his province, his children, and his children’s children. A Macleans reporter was in Town this week — I told him what I thought of our Danny, tempest and tantrum, this leader’s edge.

He can’t be bought — a strength some of our poor political ancestors have been lacking. He’s fearless (he’ll tell you that himself) … too many of our leaders have been tin men. He’s also smart and a proven success — a winning combination if ever there was one.

But that doesn’t mean he’s beyond reproach and reporters can’t ask questions. (No chance of that in these pages.)

The point of the front-page story is to question how Danny’s salary is handed out: to what charities, community groups and individuals? Who’s on the receiving end of all that generosity?

From a journalist’s perspective, those are fair and legitimate questions, especially given this day and age of scandal and unchecked expense accounts.

There haven’t been enough questions in the past — that’s obvious.

Each of our 48 MHAs has had a pot

Danny has always said he’s not in it for the money. Why would he be? He’s got more cash than a couple of dozen 6/49 money trees. of money to play with, including a constituency allowance. The premier himself has one. Up until the last time we checked (last week), politicians could spend the money however they wished, with few checks and balances.

Most politicians, like Danny I’m sure, are honourable men and women.

Good leaders all.

But the very existence of allowances raises the natural question whether taxpayers’ money is being well spent.

Could money have been used to influence favour? Who knows? Not me, for one. The concepts of openness and transparency are foreign in this political land.

Four of our leaders are in trouble

with the law because of their expenses, and MHAs have been told to keep a lid on it. (It being what they spend their expenses on.) Now is the logical time to dig, when the way is blocked. The premier has used The Independent as one of the reasons why information shouldn’t be released to the public. Because we may do the kind of “crass job” we did a couple of weeks ago, and throw numbers on the front page.

That is an excuse, Mr. Premier. So is the police probe. Leaking memos to the media about tightened rules and regulations won’t cut it.

Release everything; hide nothing.

Only then will the province have the restored faith to move forward and past this. With all due respect, Danny, and I’ll say it again: you are a politician and in no position to decide the merits of a public inquiry into the political culture that’s been bred here. You are part of that culture.

There most certainly should be an inquiry. As for calling up and going off your head, that kind of behaviour may work with greedy oil companies and the Canadian wolf, but it won’t work here at home. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

YOUR VOICE ‘Royal Newfie Regiment’ Dear editor, Please grant me a small space in your newspaper to inform the Newfoundland people of a great misrepresentation of our Newfoundland history.

This blatant misrepresentation is currently being displayed at the Newfoundland Railway Heritage site in Humbermouth, Corner Brook. The railway site has a sign, outside the socalled heritage site, that states: “Home of the Famous Newfie Bullet.”

Anyone who knows anything about the history of the Newfoundland railway knows that our train was christened the Newfoundland Express.

This bastardized name, which this so-called Heritage Railway Society put on our train, was branded by American servicemen in 1942. These American servicemen also referred to our train as the “the rusty slug.”

Some businesses really don’t care what a product is called as long as it sells, they have no hesitation in using derogatory and racist names, but a heritage society is supposed to preserve history and present it in a professional and factual manner.

What if we saw a sign referring to the Royal Newfoundland Regiment as the Royal Newfie Regiment? I would suggest to you that heads would roll and rightfully so.

I appeal to anyone who is funding the heritage site in Humbermouth to demand that the society put the proper historical name on our train and let the younger generation know that we will not tolerate the use of derogatory and racist terms when referring to the Newfoundland history and her people.

Bill Greene, Pasadena

‘Keep us informed’ Dear editor, I enjoyed the recent article by Stephanie Porter, however I feel the details of expenses for travel and constituency allowances should be available to residents of the province under Danny’s policy of transparency, openness and accountability. While residents try to support charities, their money is also used by members to secure their image in the district. At least when residents support a charity

they do so on their merit — a member’s support of his/her choice of charity could be in the form of religion, colour, friendship, etc. I found it interesting that all monies available were spent — this seems to be a coincidence. Keep us informed of the happenings of the government. Great work.

Boyd Legge, Mount Pearl

What city does Averill Baker live in?

Dear editor, I just read the article involving Averill Baker, Lawyer says briefcase stolen for client’s papers (July 9-15 edition).

It is alleged that Ms. Baker had sensitive papers belonging to her client stolen from her car. I can only ask, “Ms. Baker are you living in the same city as the rest of us?” In this city numerous people have had their vehicles broken into and some have had items stolen from their vehicles.

Others have had their vehicles stolen and later burned. So why would a lawyer put her briefcase containing confidential information in her vehicle and park it overnight?

Secondly, Ms. Baker says she thought the briefcase would be safer left in her car. The article does not state if Ms. Baker has a car alarm on her vehicle. So she still goes and leaves confidential information in her car. Ms. Baker says she had a number of win-

dows in her house left open because it is so hot out. One would think a person in Ms. Baker’s income bracket would have a central air conditioning unit.

Then there would be no need to keep the windows open.

I would hope that any lawyer or anyone else who handles sensitive papers belonging to their clients would have a safe installed. Also, a lot of people have security systems in their offices and homes. Ms. Baker does not appear to have such amenities in her home.

For a lawyer to not have these safe guards in place seems very peculiar to me. Meantime, I can only imagine that all of this is only adding to the stress Ms. Baker’s client is under. If I had a lawyer who left my personal papers in his or her car overnight I would think he or she is being very careless and I would demand an explanation.

Sheila Hunt St. John’s

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.

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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

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

Cultural genocide

M

ost people don’t know the real causes of the fisheries collapse, and most politicians and bureaucrats hope they remain in the dark.

Ottawa’s insistence on Kent Street management by politicians and bureaucrats with little knowledge of our fisheries has led to numerous mismanagement decisions, from failure to extend jurisdiction to the edge of the continental shelf to declaration of a groundfish moratorium against Canadians while permitting foreigners to continue fishing.

It reflects Canada’s weak and submissive negotiating position at annual NAFO meetings as witnessed by many, including myself, having acted as a commissioner for Canada for many years.

That same weak Canadian position continues today as foreign overfishing has led to the collapse of our fishery and depopulation of rural areas.

DFO’s three most basic errors should be brought to the public’s attention at this crucial time when our rural people are leaving in droves for Alberta. These three decisions contributed to the collapse of our fisheries and brought us to this period in our long history that can best be described as “cultural genocide,” inflicted by the Canadian government.

1) Prior to 1973, Canadian fisheries, to a large extent, were managed by the federal Fisheries Research Board, a group of experienced persons from every sector, from scientists and fishermen to representation from universities, processors, provincial and federal governments. This board decided requirements for sustainable fisheries in Canada. They developed the budget necessary for science programs and generally gave direction to fisheries management. The board, supported by industry, reported directly to the minister, who in turn reported to cabinet. The system was free of politics.

Then, in 1973, the minister, without consultation, dismissed the board and his department took control of fisheries management. From that day onward practically every decision made regarding fisheries has been based on political expediency.

2) In 1975 a new fisheries policy began to evolve and in 1976 the minister announced Canadian fisheries manage-

GUS ETCHEGARY

Guest column ment would take a new direction — shifting regulation from the interests and sustainability of the fish resource to the interests of the people who catch the fish. From that day onwards the fish received very little protection from DFO and its minister.

3) In October, 1971, an industry group called Save Our Fisheries Association made a presentation to the Trudeau government stressing the decline in our fisheries due to foreign overfishing, a stand backed by our best scientists. Following the presentation the Trudeau government advised Premier Joey Smallwood that Canada was committed to extending jurisdiction to take in the entire continental shelf (beyond the 200-mile limit, in other words). This never occurred — Canada extended jurisdiction to 200 miles in 1977, leaving foreign countries free to fish migrating stocks.

The extension of the territorial limit to 200 miles had a positive impact in that foreign fleets were no longer able to fish spawning cod off Labrador. The industry thought the northern cod would be protected and given an opportunity to recover from 28 years of foreign overfishing, Then, on Jan. 9, 1978, DFO announced a subsidy to the Canadian trawler fleet to fish northern cod. The Nova Scotian trawler companies had successfully lobbied Ottawa and a $23,800 financial subsidy was granted to alleviate the extra cost of steaming from Halifax to Labrador.

A protest followed from Newfoundland trawler owners on the basis the fish were too small and would wind up as cheap frozen cod block. The minister ignored the protest, honoured his commitment to the Nova Scotian trawler owners, and along with successive ministers practiced political expediency as though it was their God-given right. It continues to this day.

Recent decisions by the minister regarding the food fishery and the socalled science-based commercial fishery

on fragile bay cod stocks are politically inspired. It matters little to Ottawa that it will undermine any serious Canadian position in NAFO on matters of conservation. The Scandinavians, EU countries and the Russians will simply ignore Canadian negotiators discussing conservation at the next NAFO meeting, scheduled for September in Dartmouth.

The management of East Coast fisheries must be massively overhauled before our fisheries becomes extinct.

DFO ministers without real knowledge of fisheries, assisted by professional bureaucrats with even less knowledge, cannot be trusted to ensure the sustainability of a complex renewable resource.

This lesson was learned over half a century ago in Iceland and Norway.

Lack of accountability and transparency combined with political expediency must be stopped. It is unacceptable to have DFO reigning supreme in granting special favours to select interest groups — favours such as granting harvesting licences to unions, permitting heavily subsidized foreigners who destroy any hope for rural communities to land in our ports, permitting foreign trawlers with foreign crews to reflag as Canadian, and granting them scarce fish quotas to land and transfer without processing.

Still worse is DFO’s decision to permit the landing of undersized fish incapable of reproduction for shipment to Asia or Europe. And that just scratches the surface.

At present over $450 million in Scandinavian and other European money is invested in the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery and their objective is clear. Under the present DFO regime foreigners will own a large portion of the resources left offshore with the intention of freezing-at-sea unprocessed fish and shipping either to home ports in the North Atlantic or to Asia for direct consumption or further processing for markets that we have served for over half a century.

It’s time for us to wake up if it isn’t already too late. One thing’s for sure, don’t look to Canada’s DFO to come to our rescue.

Gus Etchegary is a retired fishing industry executive and outspoken fisheries activist.

JULY 16, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 7

Nickels and dimes D

on’t let them make this go away. A lot of people would dearly love this whole flap about MHA expense allowances to go away. The rings and the fridge magnets and the expense accounts are now all under police investigation. That works, as no one can comment on something that is under investigation. Very convenient. Then the summer gets warmer and people get distracted and the next thing you know, the thing has gone away. This should not happen.

This scandal underscores exactly what is wrong with politics in Newfoundland at the moment. The Liberals have been next to silent. This should be a gift from heaven for them, but they stay silent. Why? Is it because many of them were in government themselves not that long ago? Any decent, serious opposition would be bringing hellfire and damnation down around the ears of the government over this. But not a peep. The Opposition should be the government in waiting, not the past government in mourning.

We are all suffering because of this silence.

IVAN MORGAN

Rant & Reason Not even the NDP can get on their high horses on this one. What is the world coming to?

And now everyone seriously implicated has lawyered up. Confuse, deny, avoid, delay — the rules for dodging blame. You can’t turn on the TV without seeing someone’s lawyer shuckin’ and jivin’ and prevaricatin’ for his or her client. I know this is what they are very well paid to do, but it just seems to be making a bad situation more farcical. In the past few weeks I have heard every angle from “my client’s life is on hold” to “the dog ate my homework.” It would be funny if it wasn’t so insulting.

Once again, there seems to be different rules for those who are elected.

Don’t think so? Try getting in financial trouble with Revenue Canada or a bank, and then storm in and say “Hey — my life’s on hold here.” Good luck

YOUR VOICE ‘Stop trying to be sensational’ Dear editor, I was one of the people who supported your paper and looked forward to getting a copy and reading it from front to back because I believe you were the only true newspaper in Newfoundland, but after the July 2 front page I think you should change

with that.

The disconnect between those apologizing for the MHAs and the rest of us is fascinating. Never have I heard more people — regular taxpaying people — go on longer or angrier than they have about this. And the response from most politicians? Hope it goes away soon.

Never have I seen a political scandal so badly mishandled by politicians. To be fair, the premier put the right foot forward after being apprised of this debacle by the auditor general, but it has deteriorated from there, with the Speaker of the House lashing out at our paper, and advising his MHAs not to say anything, because of “confusion” about expense accounts.

Here’s a much better idea: explain it to us. Not the theory — but the reality.

In dollars and cents. Line item by line item. The auditor general called it the “end of an era.” Who started this “era”?

Who spends what on what? When is an expense allowance a slush fund? How much travel is too much travel? Are some MHAs getting paid for a commute many others have to pay for out of their own pocket? Is there a line?

Has anyone crossed it?

Are there any standards? You bet there are. I have really enjoyed listening to government employees lecturing me about their expense accounts. The speaker was very clear this week that MHAs need their expense accounts in order to do their important work.

The work of a lawyer or doctor on the government payroll may also be important, but how their expense accounts are administered is very, very different. The same phrase kept popping up — nickel and dimed.

One person told me he has a cell phone with a camera in it — and has developed the habit of taking his picture in the restaurants where he eats while away on government business.

His little sarcastic way of trying to help clear his claims. Such is the scrutiny under which he suffers.

Just go ask any organization that gets government funding. Ever since the Gomery scandal, every penny has to be justified five times. I have worked on projects where it took longer to account for the money given than it did to actually do the project.

Yet no one seems willing to explain our MHAs’ expense accounts. Why? We are the poorest province in Canada. Thousands of us have moved elsewhere to find money. Schools, hospitals, highways and practically everything else publicly funded crumbles for want of money. Yet there’s millions of dollars and counting “missing” from the House.

Now we are going to spend millions looking for lost millions. And no one wants to say anything, except the lawyers of those charged.

There’s an election coming in a little over a year. This mess needs to be cleaned up and cleaned up fast. We need clean, clear explanations. We need to have faith in our government. This must not be another scandal that disappears.

I want politicians who are laying low and hoping to avoid this to know something. I know that most of you are decent, honest, dedicated folk. But here’s the thing I am finding out. Most people don’t.

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

INTANGIBLE EVIDENCE

the name of your paper to the Newfoundland Enquirer. Stop trying to be sensational and get back to doing what you do best and that is give the reader the true story — not half the story in the headlines.

Michael Harkaway, Gander

‘The great giveaway’ Dear editor, Premier Danny Williams requests that Prime Minister Stephen Harper intervene on our province’s behalf in order to retain the pittance that we settled for regarding the great giveaway of $62 billion worth of minerals at Voisey’s Bay. After the long suffering spectacle of the upper Churchill contract, and our repeated insistence of “never again,” we are now asking Ottawa for protection for a sleazy deal by secretive negotiators and a sealed contract with enough loopholes that our premier says you could drive a Mack truck through. This, to me, doesn’t cut it.

We receive a limited number of jobs, a promise of a hydromet facility that, conveniently for Inco, keeps

changing location every few years, and a silver plaque on a wall at our local airport.

We should insist that all of the hidden terms of this agreement be exposed and laid bare for all to see.

After all, it is (or was) our resource.

We, as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, have to be the most passive and easy-going group of people on Earth. The great giveaway happened with hardly a word in protest. We cannot blame international corporations for taking us to the cleaners, since we help them to do so. The real question is, how many millions of dollars found its way into secretive bank accounts of our own yet to be named Judases.

Paul Morrissey, St. John’s

Intangible Evidence,featuring the work of Michael Crummey (above) opened at the Rooms July 14. The exhibit draws on the talents of Crummey, Sara Graham, Andy Jones, Alison Norlen, and Graeme Patterson and features five unique installations that incorporate various historical artifacts and records from the collections of the provincial archives and museum.

Paul Daly/The Independent

‘Debunking Baker’s false claims’

Pray for Danny’s good health

Dear editor, that they both claimed to support, and In her July 9th guest column at Harper for inaction on custodial (Newfoundland Day), Averill Baker management. These are useful comsaid this past Canada day evoked ments. mixed feelings. I agree. I was busy Less useful is Baker’s vacuous remembering those who fell at charter cheerleading. She’d have us Beaumont-Hamel. The Dominion of believe Canada’s charter is the sole Newfoundland suffered great and pos- source of Canadians’ civil rights. sibly mortal wounds There are many counduring the Great War. tries worldwide with For someone who civil rights For someone who good claims to take a critirecords and no cal view of Canadian entrenched charter. claims to take a jingoism, Baker spent According to Baker, most of her column crime is worse south of critical view of engaging in it herself. the border. She ignores Let’s start by debunk- Canadian jingoism, some important facts. ing Baker’s false According to the 2005 Baker spent most U.N. Human Developclaims. She said that Prime Minister ment Report, a greater of her column Stephen Harper would percentage of Canbring back the death adians have been vicengaging in it penalty and repeal the tims of crime than charter. She’s wrong Americans. (23.8 per herself. on both claims. cent versus 21.1 per Harper has repeatcent). edly stated his government won’t supOne of the greatest Canadian port any legislation to bring back the shames is one Baker ignores — death penalty. Given that Harper stat- Canada coddles criminals. If Canada ed in the leaders’ debate earlier this was ever put on trial in the court of year that he would like to enhance and public opinion for the devastating improve the Charter of Rights and crime of damaging, infecting or perFreedoms by adding property rights, verting Newfoundland and Labrador’s it’s obvious that he wouldn’t repeal it. political culture, a smart prosecutor To borrow Baker’s words to assess her would need only point to Averill own claims, her ignorance is simply Baker and call for her to be entered as sickening. “exhibit A.” I join her in levelling legitimate criticism at Williams and Harper for inacLiam O’Brien, tion on joint fisheries management St. John’s

Dear editor, I’ve just been reading The Independent and just had to let you know how much I enjoyed Ivan Morgan’s two articles in the July 2 edition.

First, I couldn’t agree more about Danny Williams. He is for sure the right man for the right time. It scares me what a mess we would be in if he were not our premier. I live in Bonne Bay on the west coast. I’m one of those Newfoundlanders who left at 17 and eventually came home to retire. Today the wind is making the bay full of whitecaps and I can’t believe how beautiful and precious

this province is to me. I hope Danny Williams does not get sick from all the stress. It takes a special set of talents to run this province and they are not given to everyone. Let’s pray for his good health.

Second, the piece on Mr. Smith from Brigus. That’s something else that worries me. I’m 62 and I remember when there were quite a few people around with the grit and work ethic of Mr. Smith. Before we had hospitals and welfare, etc. — nature took care of its own.

The only ones to survive were those who were healthy and intelligent. We all

went through chickenpox, measles, mumps etc. when we were kids without ever seeing a doctor. We had tons of kids at our school. Nobody had allergies etc.

How could it have changed so much in 50 years? I wonder where it is all going to end.

As for me — I am so happy to be home. But I don’t have to worry about a pay cheque. That makes all the difference. I am also very happy that we did not lose this paper. May it always be there.

Peggy Zemp (nee Humber), Norris Point

Home at last

B

ut it’s going take a while to get my feet on the ground. Riding my bike has become a lifestyle and the day feels oddly empty without the prospect of a long ride. This could be a reaction to the overflowing job jar at home or the prospect of actually having to do something productive.

I am always glad to come home — I’ve already been greeted with terms of affection by several strangers behind the tills at convenience stores: “Will that be all, my love?” I’m sure this practice is at first unnerving to people from away, but is missed once they go back to their real lives. I missed it. When I leave the island I find it’s harder to establish a connection with other people. They often run away as soon as I speak. I’m not sure if this speaks to their intelligence or if Newfoundlanders don’t care as much

about whom they associate with.

I missed my family. The grandson is now four months old (the first true Newfoundlander in the family) and I want to see every smile and pass him back to Mom whenever any work needs doing. I’m happy to change a diaper or two, but as every grandparent knows grandchildren are the ultimate revenge for every inch of pain your child caused you. Of course, this little boy is too perfect to cause anybody any problems.

Part of my motivation for my crossCanada ride was to role model a life off the couch for the little guy so he would know that life is to be lived and not watched.

The real problem now is to get back to my normal consumption levels. Working hard on the road gave me license to eat and drink as much as I wanted. What’s

the point of good fitness and health if it’s not to balance your other bad habits.

Living pure all the time is not living. It’s like religion: let’s be boring and pious all our lives so we can be boring and pious for eternity. Where’s the reward? The idea is to suffer so that not suffering feels like paradise. I sat behind a round hay bale in the shade of a blazing sun on a Saskatchewan wasteland with a bowl of pasta and a cold beer and I was happy. I earned it.

A lot of people have asked me if I would do it again: In a heartbeat. But I need bigger coolers and a basket for my dog.

Let me remind you, you all owe me a Guinness.

Doug Bird is The Independent’s cartoonist.

JULY 16, 2006

8 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JULY 16, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 9

IN CAMERA

Conne River Powwow J

ust east of Bishop’s Falls, off the Trans-Canada Highway, a gradually descending strip of patchy asphalt splits the island down the middle. A sign at the beginning of Route 360 warns Fill tank before proceeding. Next fueling station 129 km.

For the next two hours I dodged potholes, squirrels, and miscellaneous road kill until reaching my final destination: Conne River — home of Newfoundland’s only officially recognized Mi’kmaq reserve.

The Miawpukek Band Reserve Powwow happens at the union of two rivers at the mouth of Bay d’Espoir — an open field dotted with teepees, tents, RV campers, food stalls and a wooden arbour at the centre.

Conne River’s 11th annual powwow seemed at first to be like any

Each year near the beginning of July, a four-day festival is held at Conne River on the southeast shore of Newfoundland, the province’s only recognized Mi’kmaq reserve. The Miawpukek Band Reserve Powwow features games, crafts, food, dancing, singing and other traditional ceremonies. Ryan Davis travelled from St. John’s to Conne River to experience, photograph and write about the event. other summer festival across the province — live bands, games of chance, glow-sticks and fried foods.

A few clues suggested otherwise:

moccasins and dream catchers for sale, “Indian tacos,” and of course, the towering teepees.

The first people I met were four

women from Stephenville Crossing.

They were among only a few females to sing and drum at the powwow.

With a deep fryer in tow, they travelled route 360 to sell fries, hotdogs, and moose burgers. I sat with them to fold napkins and we chatted about the dos and don’ts at a powwow: no alcohol or drugs; never photograph the sacred fire (later Chief Mise’l Joe jokingly suggested that such action would cause a camera to spontaneously combust); during the flag ceremony, stand and remove your hat (unless you put a feather in it).

People travelled from as far as the Gaspé Peninsula and Cape Breton for this celebration of First Nations culture. It began with the flag ceremony.

To the beat of the drums, community elders and honoured guests carried

flags and staffs to the central arbour for display.

Initially, I was attracted to the Conne River powwow by the promise of the sweat lodge involving a cleansing ritual steeped in tradition and soaked in sweat … a ceremonial sauna that purifies the body, mind, and spirit.

The sweat lodge itself is a crisscross of tree branches forming a rounded 12-person tent-like structure.

Covered in canvas, the structure sits over a pit, two-feet deep, with room for the brave around the periphery.

Albert, a Conne River local, guided this sweat. He asked us to remove any metal jewelry and enter the hut.

Huddled around the pit, we watched as a pitchfork dropped red glowing stones (known as “the

Grandfathers”) into the pit.

As Albert explained, during the sweat we would be honouring the four directions (north, east, south and west). He suggested the lodge itself was representative of the womb.

Albert’s son closed the tent.

Only the glow from the stones lit the room. Some prayers were recited in the Mi’kmaq language as Albert tossed ground sage and sweet grass over the stones. They sparkled and disappeared. The scent engulfed the room.

Outside, a valiant rendition of Shania Twain’s Whose bed have your boots been under? shot out of the karaoke machine and echoed through the Conne River Valley. I felt I might pass out. Not from the music, but from the intense heat spilling from

the hot rocks as Albert splashed them with water-drenched tree boughs. I felt like my nose had melted away.

To my relief, we were permitted a break after two rounds.

Some didn’t return for the second half, and I was on the fence. But my fellow sweaters encouraged me to finish, and I returned wearily. Albert handed me some ground herbs and asked me to throw them onto the stones.

PEACE PIPE They sizzled and caught fire.

During the next chant he included my name (perhaps some kind of antivomiting incantation). The sweat ended with the passing of a peace pipe and a final song.

There was a lot to take in over the

four-day powwow, and I felt I had only scratched the surface. But the close-knit nature of the community was quite apparent, and was evidenced by the final two dances of the festival.

One was a dedication to a recently deceased resident of Conne River.

The deceased’s family joined the dance and those on the outside of the circle held their fists in the air in what appeared to be a show of solidarity.

To end the powwow, the announcer called on all present to participate. I crossed over the yellow rope that marked the dancing area to join hands for a final dance around the arbour. It was in this moment I felt Route 360 had brought me full circle.

More of Ryan Davis’ work can be viewed at www.alchemyofmotion.com.

JULY 16, 2006

10 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

‘We struggled from day one’ From page 1 Davis points to the resolution of the Atlantic Accord as one quantifiable success of the past three years — but also notes that little progress has been made with regards to the fishery or the lower Churchill.

Although it has been three years, Davis says the commission’s report is never far from her hands or thoughts.

For her, it represents a period of great learning, a source of pride, and an indispensable teaching tool.

Davis, a native of Fox Harbour, Placentia Bay, is a member the congregation of the Sisters of Mercy. She began her career as a teacher, but moved into health-care administration in the early 1980s, serving as assistant executive director at St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital, assistant medical director and executive director. In 1994, she was appointed president and CEO of the Health Care Corporation of St. John’s.

She’s now a doctoral student in scripture at the Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto, and hopes to graduate within a year or so. She also sits on a number of boards, including the Medical Council of Canada, the Canadians Health Service Research Foundation and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

“They see me as a member of the public,” Davis says, smiling. “I’m looked at as an informed citizen; someone who dares criticize the way it is now.”

To that end, she is frequently asked to speak at national and international conferences, and is a regular guest lecturer in business classes at Queen’s University.

Davis says the royal commission report has been useful virtually everywhere she goes.

“It’s amazing to me how many people I encounter as I travel around the country — I mention I’ve worked on this commission, they’re very very interested,” she says, adding she’s given away four boxes worth of reports in her travels.

Davis says the people who approach her are interested in questions of democracy; where it’s going and how ordinary people can communicate and be involved with government. Unlike the formality of many royal commissions, Davis says Our Place in Canada was deliberately grassroots and inclusive, focused on meeting literally thousands of people belonging to a variety of social groups, ages and regions.

“It’s amazing (the people I meet), their interest in the process, in how we engaged people, how we talked to people about something so fundamental to the province,” she says.

“I think all of us are struggling to find a way to get the people’s voices back into influence government …

People are becoming more and more discouraged with government — and how can that work?”

Elsewhere in Canada, Davis continues, people are asking the same sorts of

Sister Elizabeth Davis

Paul Daly/The Independent

questions the people of Newfoundland are — the current discussions about the fiscal imbalance are just further evidence the public is disenfranchised and disenchanted with federalism. Though Our Place in Canada is very specific to Newfoundland and Labrador, Davis says, it sheds light on the situations in other provinces, even other countries.

“I believe that’s why people from England, the States, Australia are interested in the report. It’s not that they know very much or care very much about a little province in Canada; they see it as reflective of their concerns.

That’s a good part of the aftermath.

“But I don’t know if as many people

home here have the interest I’ve seen from people across the country.”

Looking back, Davis says there’s one thing she and her co-commissioners “never felt at peace with” — one gaping hole in the body of work they weren’t able to fill.

“We weren’t asked to address the issue of rural Newfoundland and Labrador, but there was no way it wasn’t always there with us,” Davis says.

“We weren’t able to get to the depth of that issue and we strongly recommended the government pay attention to the deliberative process (we used).

“We struggled from day one, that that reality was there and we wished we had

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the mandate or the time to address it.”

Whether the government ever decides to do a progress report or not, Davis hopes the report survives in the classrooms and libraries of the province.

In the end, Davis best evaluates the success of the royal commission by reflecting on how it has affected her, personally.

She says she — and Young, and Igloliorte — learned significantly, even changed some of their points of view, during the 14 months of travel, planning, talking, listening, deliberating, and writing.

For example, Davis says she’s “embarrassed” she didn’t know more about aboriginal issues before 2003.

Deeply affected by some of the First Nations people she met, and has continued her learning about other cultures and issues vital to the province.

“We always, from the beginning, said we didn’t want this to be a report that just lay on a desk somewhere and got covered with dust,” she says. “I can honestly say it changed me. Vic has said it changed him … in that sense, it’ll never leave.

“It’s become, for me personally, a wonderful tool to help others understand this province … and I’ve used it as an example of our need to change the way we exist as a province in the 21st century.

“I think in that way, the report is still very much alive.”

h, the things we do in the name LEIA of friendship.

FELTHAM I thought about this while waiting in the St. Falling John’s airport at 4:30 face first a.m. for my friend to finally return from vacation. Somehow, at that hour, everything My friend’s family and has a certain clarity it didn’t before. Maybe I woke ourselves up it’s an illusion generatlong enough to wave ed by too many cups of coffee and a large intake our streamers like of sugar … but I can’t deny the peacefulness half-assed cheerleaders of just before dawn. and thoroughly I used to work a job that involved an embarrass her when overnight shift. Usually at some point I’d feel her plane finally arrived. like I couldn’t stand it any longer and I’d either cry, scream at a customer, or walk out of the building. But at 6 a.m., I could look out the window at the deserted street, and whatever sense of anger or frustration I had would melt away. I’d drag myself home, tired, sore and grateful I was lucky enough to see the sun rise once again. So 4:30 a.m. isn’t a bad time to be reunited with someone who manages to get me through all those maddening moments in life.

Standing in the airport, I didn’t feel as blissfully optimistic as that, but I was happy nonetheless. Happy and a little ridiculouslooking, holding red-and-white streamers left over from Canada Day and resembling a wilting flower trying to hold its head up from lack of water (or, in this case, sleep).

My friend’s family and I woke ourselves up long enough to wave our streamers like half-assed cheerleaders and thoroughly embarrass her when her plane finally arrived. That’s what good friends are for, after all.

This particular friend goes away every summer, so for about seven weeks of the year I feel like I’m on my own.

She’s like my gravity, keeping me firmly planted — and once she leaves it’s like I’ve lost control and I’m drifting out into space. There isn’t that person there to pour my heart out to, who I know will offer advice or guidance.

When I have a problem, the kind that’s difficult to even admit to myself, she can’t be there the way I need her to because she’s miles away. I feel selfish for wanting her to always be there, with a joke or a hug or a latenight drive to make me feel better — a weight is so much easier to bear when it’s shared.

I know I’m inevitably getting older and I wonder if learning to be alone is part of being an adult. While I was in school I knew I could always find a friend to talk to in the hallway or in class.

High school is over now, and finding a shoulder to cry on doesn’t seem to be as easy anymore. Everyone has his or her own worries, stress and responsibilities that only seem to multiply over time. I’d feel guilty even mentioning my problems when someone else already has a world of trouble on the mind. So where will I go then?

It’s hard to trust your own advice, to find faith in your instincts and intuition. Seeing a situation through another set of eyes, ones you trust, makes a solution that much clearer. I find it hard to admit I need someone else, that I’m not always strong enough to stand on my own two feet, but I think this friend knows me well enough that I don’t need to say I need help, because she’s already there giving me a hand.

My one hope is that all the teen angst, drama and just plain insanity of the time I’ve spent with my friends will count for something in the end. The best relationships I have are the ones that have overcome all the shouting matches and time apart, and maybe that means they can survive university, full-time jobs and family.

I know that I’ll need that good friend when walking down new and uncertain roads. I can see myself in the distant future calling her up with a screaming child in my arms and asking what’s the best thing to do if a kid has swallowed a quarter.

I’m sure she’ll laugh at me, like she always does, and find the words I know will get me through one more long day.

Leia Feltham graduated from Gonzaga High School in June.

JULY 16, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 11

SUSAN RENDELL Screed and coke A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.

— Mahatma Ghandi

T

his was supposed to be a profile of Hobo Bill.

I spent three days stalking park benches all over downtown St. John’s in the summer heat without anything to show for it except the loss of two pounds of winter wobble and a pair of rancid sneakers. (My cat, who is particularly fond of foul scents, slept with his head on them and a radiant smile on his face until my daughter banished the sneakers, and the cat, to the garden for airing.)

I once spent a few hours with Bill on a bench, just chilling, as the kids say. Talking history and politics, the ebb and flow of nations and ideas. Admiring the season, which was spring, newly minted.

The reason I was seeking Bill Cherniwchan — Bill Chan or Hobo Bill, one of the Legends of the City of Ditto — who for many years has lived outdoors night and day in St. John’s except in the winter, was owing to a rash of stories that recently appeared in a local weekly newspaper. Well, not exactly a rash: two big pustules that made me gag over my lunch.

The first article was entitled “Don’t give them any money.” It began by comparing the city’s street people to the stench that comes up from the sewer outlet in the harbour, a.k.a. the Bubble. The title was a quote from the mayor, and reminiscent of Nancy Reagan’s ever-so-enlightened reaction to America’s drug problem: “Just Say No.” My copy of the tabloid found alternative employment under the litter box.

Two weeks later, I opened the same paper to find the same reporter throwing a punch at Hobo Bill.

Most of the article was taken up with a cruel description of Bill’s messy bedroom and less than adequate personal hygiene.

Rumour has it Bill Gates has Asperger’s Syndrome, a kind of high-end autism. Symptoms are well-above-average intelligence and impaired social functioning — and sometimes an aversion to soap, which appears to be the case with Gates. But if that reporter had been interviewing Gates instead of Hobo Bill, you can be sure the soap issue wouldn’t have made her list.

The article’s grand finale: Hobo Bill had been offered “a clean bed … at the Waterford Hospital.”

And refused it. (Go, Bill. I’ve visited the Waterford enough times to come to the conclusion I’d rather sleep on the bed of the Waterford River with the fish.)

Only two quotes from Mr. Chan made the piece, the second slipped slyly in at the end, after all the decent people had their say: “I’m not crazy … I’m uncertified. That means I’m sane, right?” The photograph of Bill accompanying the article managed to make him look like … well, any one of us on a bad day.

Bucky King is included in a mural on Duckworth Street, St. John’s. Paul Daly/The Independent

They’re here, they’re homeless.

Get used to it Writer Susan Rendell asks why St. John’s pays to immortalize the likes of Bucky King — while humiliating and harassing its current offbeat citizens There’s a new mural beginning its life on Duckworth Street, just past City Hall. While I was having a smoke outside the Sprout one evening, one of the figures suddenly caught the corner of my eye — and then hauled both eyes over — lo and behold, there was Bucky King, as big as life and looking twice as saucy.

And so he was. For those of you who don’t remember St. John’s when it could walk and talk and curse on its own, let me tell you about Bucky.

I was about 20 the first time I laid eyes on him. He was standing on the corner of Water and Baird’s Cove, a short, fat man who, as my mother would say, was obviously “not like us, dear,” hands and mouth at the ready. To unzip his fly or lasso you with a rope of obscenities. Disgusting? A little. In those days,

however, Bucky King, garbage day, dog droppings, the phone company, the bank, and kids (untended, underfoot, helmet-less, sans cell phones) were more easily navigated than they are now.

Garbage was collected on the same day every week. You could throw out anything. Until the first of many subsequent choke-chain by-laws appeared – about which Ray Guy once wrote a really, really funny column. All those big strapping men, and suddenly they couldn’t heft anything that didn’t weigh under three ounces and come in a regulation green bag with a bow on top. (It just got more surreal — now you have to cover your garbage bags, in case a pigeon gets its foot caught in one and tears the plastic; a blanket will do, as long as it’s approved by the Inspector of Garbage Blankets. George Orwell must

be spinning in his grave — with delight).

Dog droppings? Paris is full of them, and there are no leash laws, but the streets are hosed down once a day, and les chiens have yet to proclaim a republic of poodles. Or even bite the mayor’s derriere.

The phone company charged a modest fee for equipment and service and claimed full responsibility for jacks. You could even call them up and talk to them; they were just over the road, not in Mumbai.

The bank lived up the street, spoke perfect English, and didn’t rip off your child’s savings account with service charges. If you asked the teller to hold an incoming cheque or two until after payday, she said sure. Because she knew where you worked and for how long, and she could make the kind of decisions bank managers would get put in the stocks for these days. (Or taken out of them.)

Kids? We were out and gone after breakfast, racing the declining sun home where we were fed and put to bed under protest. Bicycling all over the city and its environs, making fires and roasting potatoes on Red Cliff, lying in the juniper bushes and squinting our eyes to see if Ireland would magically appear over the whale’s road stretching between our countries and histories.

Bucky King? We manouevered around him, knowing we were in no danger of being raped or pillaged; the odd sighting of a retired penis wasn’t about to send us for counselling. Besides, we liked his … Bucky-ness. He was full as a tick with life.

I finally found Bill, but he wasn’t there. A friend who works for City Hall called one night to say Bill was living in the park across from Breen’s (formerly Lar’s). I got up the next morning, itching for an interview that would put a face on one of the Bubble People.

But as I was going out the door my friend phoned again: the city had just removed Bill’s bench. Ripped it up by the roots. Shortly after, Bill was taken away in an ambulance.

I called Paul Mackey, the city’s director of parks, who told me Bill’s park and the one on the corner of Prescott and Duckworth were on the roster for upgrading. That the missing benches had nothing to do with Bill.

It’s two weeks later, and there’s no further sign of council activity in either park. (My friend says not to jump to conclusions; council crews work in mysterious ways their wonders to perform.)

Two days after Bill was removed, his gear was still there, a couple of garbage bags stuffed to the gunnels, a water bottle; a shirt trampled in the dirt.

Beside one of the holes that used to contain the leg of a park bench, a water glass full of carnations lay on its side. It reminded me of the plush Barney I saw at the foot of the War Memorial on one of my Billinspired hikes.

Query: What’s up with a city that pays good money to immortalize the likes of Bucky King and humiliates and harasses its current crop of offbeat citizens?

One afternoon a few years ago, my sister’s sister-inlaw found Bill putting a quarter in her parking meter, one step ahead of the meter maids. “Aren’t I supposed to be giving you quarters?” she said, astonished.

“He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work …”

JULY 16, 2006

12 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

SCATTERED PAST

‘The finest room in the colony’

By Nadya Bell The Independent

made by the priest after mass were kept in the Basilica publication books. The entry on Sunday July 10, 1892 reads: “There was no publications today in consequence of the great calamity that has happened in our city on Friday evening and night, when the best part of St. John’s east was entirely destroyed by fire, which caused such a panic that everyone is excited and frightened and nearly 12,000 persons are left homeless, over 2,000 houses were burned besides stores, wharfs B… Four persons were burned to death, namely: Mrs. Catherine Stevens, her daughter Louisa Stevens — lived on Meeting House Hill, and the servant girl, name not known. Also, Miss Catherine Molloy, Bulley’s Lane, an elderly girl not married.”

Dohey says the book collection is the oldest in the city — the fire of 1892 did not touch the library.

The library started with the collection of Bishop Mullock, stationed in St. John’s from Spain. He brought 1,200 rare books with him, making the church’s library twice the size of the public library in St. John’s.

The oldest book is from 1524, a copy of The Gospel According to Mark by Erasmus. A valuable first edition copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince is kept in a storage vault.

A

church library sounds like the mustiest place in the city, but the Basilica museum in the Episcopal library is in an airy yellow room with tall windows.

Chandeliers hang from the moldings on the vaulted ceiling, and shallow, wooden bookcases line the walls, leaving enough room for a ballroom dance, or the king’s banquet.

At the far end of the hall, in the place of honour, is a slightly tattered original painting of Bishop Michael Anthony Fleming in a plain wood frame. The first bishop of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist looks over an elaborately carved oak table and 18 chairs.

Secretly, I hope late at night the ghost of Fleming returns to the museum, to use the banquet table for boardroom discussions with other departed historical figures — Archbishop Michael Howley, John Reeves, Newfoundland’s first Chief Justice, and perhaps the unnamed servant girl who died in the fire of 1892.

Archivist Larry Dohey says he and his colleagues frequently uncover new tidbits of information in the collection.

One record unearthed just three weeks ago says four people — not three as was previously believed — died in the fire of 1892. Records of public announcements

Basilica museum in St. John’s

For a take on Newfoundland politics published just after the French revolution, the library has a copy of the History of the Government of the Island of Newfoundland, 1793, by John Reeves.

The collection is labelled with Dewey decimal system tags, but the acidic glue used is eating into the spine of every book. Dohey says they hope to remove the tags soon.

Plastic faux wood panelling on the floor is the only real disappointment for visitors to the room. Dohey hopes the original floor, intact below, can be restored eventually — though it has been severely damaged by years of use and

Paul Daly/The Independent

carpet glue. After serving as a public library, St. Bonaventure College used the room as an examination hall.

An illustration entitled Newfoundland Cod-Fishery – Announcing the sad news, shows a woman weeping in her kitchen filled with children and fishing nets. Next to it is a sick call box, ready with a crucifix/candelabra, holy water bottle, and what look like little silver baster brushes for anointing a dying person.

Bishop Mullock’s gold ciborium and chalice — worthy of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade — is displayed, as well as Archbishop Howley’s monstrance, a

pointy gold device for displaying the blessed Eucharistic Host.

Three types of colourful liturgical vestments are next to two large gilded bronze croziers (staffs) in a case. The smaller of the two is fabulous, curved and scaled with the head of a serpent licking its tongue back on itself.

Every stained glass window in the room is slightly different. The afternoon sun shines patterns onto the floor, and it is easy to see why, after attending a New Year’s Day celebration in the library, Colonel McRae called it “the finest room in the colony.” nadya.bell@theindependent.ca

LIFE STORY Geologist wrote a telling account of two years of exploring the province

By Ivan Morgan For The Independent

J

oseph Beete Jukes was neither born here nor died here. In fact, he lived in Newfoundland for only two years, but during those two years he travelled the island and left a fascinating account in a book, Excursions In and About Newfoundland During the Years 1839 and

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1840. It is a compelling snapshot of this place and the people who lived here almost 200 years ago.

Jukes was born in England and educated at Cambridge. Showing an interest in and an aptitude for geology, he studied with the best geologists. After his graduation from university and an apprenticeship, he received a commission to perform a geological survey of Newfoundland.

At that time many in the colony and in England hoped Newfoundland held vast untapped mineral resources — especially

JOSEPH BEETE JUKES 1811-1869

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sels, and on landing there seemed to be much bustle and business going on. The melting of the previous winter’s snow had, however, furrowed the streets in various places with gutters running across them, while from their ill-kept state, from their long, straggling, and irregular appearance, the narrow dirty alleys and lanes leading out of them, the dingy aspect of the unpainted houses, and the groups of idle and half-drunken sailors and fishermen, the absence of street lamps and drains, the entire want of all police, and the air of disorder and confusion

which reigned throughout, it was evident that the scene was a foreign one.”

Jukes was not impressed. In St. John’s less than a month, he was witness to a dangerous fire. What happened astonished him. “I was, however, much struck with the stupid indifference of a large part of the lower class of the population … no inducement or excitement beyond that of present pay and reward seemed sufficient to rouse one of the hundreds of great idle fellows that stood around to stir hand or foot for the preservation of the houses and property about. I was afterwards told, indeed, that by far too many of the population looked upon a fire as a godsend, more especially if it reached or threatened a merchant’s store, when a regular system of plunder was carried out unblushingly, and, as it were, by prescriptive right.”

He hired a man to assist him, a fellow named Kelly, “a rough-looking subject … with a strong brogue.” Kelly was to prove both a boon and a torment to Jukes in his travels, but Jukes writes about him with a gruff fondness.

One night on an geological excursion, Jukes and his hired help sat around the campfire “and spun yarns; among which Kelly’s were conspicuous, partly for the humour with which they were told, and partly for the astounding lies they contained, himself the witness and voucher for every one of them.”

But his attitude towards Newfoundland changed as he began to travel through the outports and meet the people who lived there. His relationship with his Mi’kmaq guide, Sulleon, was particularly strong.

Jukes’ admiration for his guide’s knowledge of the land and his character was profound. His exploration of the interior of the island would not have been possible without Sulleon.

Jukes’ Newfoundland is a Newfoundland we can still recognize today, a hard place with a kind people, breathtaking scenery and mosquitoes that “came in such clouds before my face that I could not see to write in my notebook, while the eager voracity with which they fastened on every inch of skin exposed was absolutely terrifying.”

Students of politics will find his observations of 167 years ago depressingly familiar. “There is now, unhappily, very considerable bitterness of party spirit; but what the cause may be no one seems able to tell. There are no political principles involved in the disputes: indeed, I cannot call to mind having ever once heard a political principle stated, either publicly or privately, while I was in the country.”

He wrote about our ancestors with clarity and humanity, and like so many after him, he came to love this place and its people. At the end of his book, he warned his readers that Newfoundland was a rough spot, but “as far as the inhabitants are concerned, under a rough exterior (visitors) will meet with sterling kindness and hospitality.”

In 1840 Jukes left Newfoundland, never to return. He went on to a distinguished career as a geologist and naturalist, travelling the world, researching, recording and writing.

He became a beloved professor of geology at Dublin’s Royal College of Science of Dublin and died in Dublin, in 1869, from the complications of a head injury, at the age of 58.

INDEPENDENTWORLD

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JULY 16-22, 2006 — PAGE 13

An armed railway police officer stands guard at a railway station in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata July 12, 2006. Police stepped up security across India on Wednesday after bombs killed more than 160 people and wounded hundreds in packed commuter trains and stations in Mumbai.

Jayanta Shaw/Reuters

Global security tops G-8 agenda Terror bombings, nuclear threats urgent matters as Harper attends first summit on full world stage

By Les Whittington Torstar wire service

T

he latest bombing atrocity in India has ensured Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other leaders of the world’s major industrial democracies will spend much of this weekend meeting in Russia trying to deal with terrorism and other global security threats.

The three-day Group of Eight summit is running July 15-17 in St. Petersburg, and will mark Harper’s first appearance as prime minister on the full world stage.

This year’s G-8 summit — which also includes leaders from Russia, France, Germany, the United States, Japan, Britain and Italy — will be unusual for many reasons.

Russia, which only joined the former G7 in 1998, is the host of the event for the first time amid diplomatic jockeying over how to tap President Vladimir Putin’s peacemaking and energy-trading potential without endorsing his government’s shaky

democratic practices.

And unlike many previous summits, which amounted to high-level gabfests about how the world was unfolding, this one comes at a moment of unusual political and economic peril arising from terrorism, nuclear ambitions in North Korea and Iran, and skyrocketing global petroleum prices.

“It’s a crisis-ridden summit,” says John Kirton, director of the University of Toronto’s G-8 research group.

At last year’s G-8 in Scotland, the main themes were climate change and African development, he says. “Those were slowburn subjects — important yes, but they weren’t acute crises” like the nuclear standoffs with North Korea and Iran and, now, the July 11 attacks on a commuter rail line in Mumbai, India, Kirton says.

Last week, the United Nations Security Council decided to consider sanctions or possible coercion against Tehran after the Iranian government declined to respond promptly to a proposal to open talks over its disputed nuclear program.

The G-8 will be seized with urgent questions about how to respond to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, which reached an alarming stage last week when the isolated communist state test-fired seven missiles that might in time be capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

With both Iran and North Korea, Putin is in a pivotal position because Russia’s assistance is needed to wind down the crises.

VEXING ISSUE Consequently, the vexing issue of whether Putin is worthy of playing host to a G-8 group committed to expanding democratic values is likely to be defused. The Russian government’s steps to limit economic and political freedoms have prompted widespread questions about Putin’s leadership, with some critics saying he has no business hosting the prestigious G-8.

But U.S. President George W. Bush is likely to restrict any confrontation with Putin on this subject to their private, one-

on-one talks. Ditto for Harper, Canadian officials told reporters.

Harper, who has visited Canadian troops fighting alongside the Americans in Afghanistan, appears certain to be in a comfortable position when the G-8 discusses terrorism and security. But just what position he will take in advancing an independent commitment to multilateral diplomacy and peacekeeping remains to be seen.

“Canada should try to extend its diplomatic role as a bridge builder, particularly when it comes to North Korea,” says Lloyd Axworthy, the former Liberal foreign affairs minister, now president of the University of Winnipeg. “But it’s hard to say how far Mr. Harper will go. Up to now, he’s been pretty much cheering the American deal on border security and terrorism.”

On the way back to Canada, Harper will stop in France to visit the Vimy Ridge memorial near Lille and visit with President Jacques Chirac in Paris.

VOICE FROM AWAY

The Walters’ travelling road show Structural designer, cartoonist and self-proclaimed adventurer, Snowden Walters has settled in Calgary — for now

By Stephanie Porter The Independent

A

s Snowden Walters talks from his home in Calgary, he says his kids are practically bouncing off the walls.

The children — a son, aged 10, and two daughters, 8 and 6 — are on summer vacation, which is exciting enough.

But soon they’re going on the real holiday: back home to their “other” house in Outer Cove. Walters will join them in August before they all head back out west before school starts.

The family moved to Alberta last September.

“They’ve adjusted well to the move,” Walters says. “But they can hardly wait

to be home.”

Walters has moved around his whole life, and seems well on the way to instilling that same adaptability in his young ones.

Born in Come by Chance, Walters spent his earliest years on Random Island, Trinity Bay, before moving on to the “then-emerging, cosmopolitan mining environment” of Labrador West, getting an early taste of cultural diversity.

Walters went on to spend sometime as a self-professed ski bum in Whistler in the late ’70s before returning home and completing the naval architecture program at the College of Fisheries, Navigation, Marine Engineering and Electronics (now the Marine Institute).

He credits an early interest in art for leading him into drafting, and the career path he has since followed.

Walters started in shipbuilding; then — always open to change — he moved on to oilrigs, then sub-sea work. His current work relates to the Alberta oil sands. It all adds up to 25 years of marine, structural and piping design and technical illustration — and a quarter-century of travel to work in Ottawa, San Diego, Vancouver, New Orleans, Mobile (Alabama) …

His family stayed in Newfoundland while he worked some of the shorter contracts — before moving house to Calgary, he worked four months in Marystown (commuting home to Outer Cove on weekends); prior to that, five

months in Alabama. Before that, there was a six-year stint in Newfoundland working on White Rose, Terra Nova, and Hibernia.

“I’ve always been a bit of an adventurer,” Walters says. “And it’s been interesting, but at the same time I think I’d rather be home and take my vacations away … luckily, I have worked in some places that are considered vacation destinations.”

He admits he and his family are probably in Calgary for the near future, but he’ll be back in Newfoundland as soon as the work comes around again.

“I’m hopeful,” he says. “I’m keeping an eye on different companies … for the moment, there’s not a lot (of work).”

But being a structural designer is only part of Walters’ working life. As if he’s not busy enough — he admits his job is quite intense these days, with all the Alberta boom — he’s always got feelers out, looking for freelance work as an illustrator and cartoonist.

“I keep an idea file around at all times,” he says. “I come up with an idea … and then sometimes, I’ll get an hour here or an hour there to work on something … or, when the kids feel like colouring or painting, I’ll do some too.”

While in Newfoundland, he took some art courses/workshops, including one at St. Michael’s Printshop. But he’s been drawing forever, and considers See “I look,” page 15

JULY 16, 2006

14 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

Nancy Kerr and James Fagan from Great Britain.

Friends from across the Atlantic his year’s Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival welcomes several friends from across the Atlantic, including the exciting duo of Nancy Kerr and James Fagan from Great Britain and a number of noted Irish performers. Look for these performers both on the festival’s Main Stage and taking part in the Common Ground series.

Kerr and Fagan combine their talents to create a full and complex sound featuring fiddle, viola, flat-backed bouzouki and rich vocal harmonies. Winners of the 2003 BBC Radio Folk Award for Best Duo, they perform both original compositions and the traditional music of the British Isles and Australia.

Rob Murphy is a familiar face in Newfoundland, having spent 19 years in St. John’s as a vital figure in the traditional music scene. After returning to Ireland in 1999, Rob settled in Cavan where he has become a key influence in session playing and local performing competitions.

Also hailing from Cavan Town is accordion player Martin Donohoe, known for his fine traditional performing. Martin has traveled much of Europe and America and has won many prizes for his highly creative playing; he is known as a producer and broadcaster specializing in the music of Cavan and is adept in a variety of playing styles.

Singer and lilter Seamus Faye is noted for traditional tunes and singing with a very strong local flavour. As the first-ever All Ireland Champion in lilting, Seamus has been a major influence on Cavan musicians over the years. Now in his 70s, he continues to pass along this important tradition. Seamus has captivated audiences throughout Ireland and remains one of the few people practicing the rare art of lilting.

Another singer and lilter of note is Aoife Murray, the youngest of the Irish performers, also an All Ireland Champion.

Aoife currently studies traditional music at the University of Limerick under the enthusiastic direction of Michael O Suilleabhain.

Fiddler Seamus Creagh is no stranger to Newfoundland and Labrador audiences, having made regular performances at the St. John’s Folk Club and folk festivals over his five years in the province. Known for his relaxed style, Seamus is recognized as one of Ireland’s finest fiddle players. Since his return to Ireland, he has been visited by a constant stream of Newfoundland musicians.

See you at the festival!

T

– Jean Knowles

JULY 16, 2006

INDEPENDENTWORLD • 15

‘I look for the gag’ From page 13 himself to be self-taught when it comes to painting.

“I enjoy the humourous stuff the most,” he says. “I look for the gag — it could be political; could be the weather. I’ve done a series around Newfoundland expressions …”

He’s also designed T-shirts for Regatta rowers, published editorial cartoons in a number of newspapers, designed tourist maps and restaurant placemats, and done illustrations for Downhome magazine (including monthly panels with their mascot, Salty, and regular cartoon strips featuring Clarence the Christmas Caribou).

And so on.

Currently, Walters is developing a cartoon strip called Sculpin Tickle.

And, most recently, he’s taken up painting seascapes — mostly from his memories of home. Indeed, a majority of his artwork seems to be inspired by or reflective of his home province.

He says living away has given him perspective on the place that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians hold in the “grand mosaic.”

That, and he’s a little homesick.

“I miss home, basically, and everything that comes with it,” he says.

“Friends, family, salt air, breeze, fog …”

As for his children?

“The kids, they take it all in stride,” he says. “I call it the Walters’ travelling road show.”

For more on Snowden Walters’ work, contact snowden300@hotmail.com Do you know a Newfoundlander or Labradorian living away? Please email editorial@theindependent.ca

Thin gruel so far from Liberals

A run-down of some of the better proposals from leadership candidates — where they exist

By Carol Goar Torstar wire service

T

he first third of the Liberal contest is over. If you’re a moderately interested observer, you probably have a rough idea where most of the candidates stand on Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan — and very little else.

If you have a taste for low comedy, you might have enjoyed the foofaraw that broke out when it was discovered that small children were making large donations to Joe Volpe’s campaign; an embarrassment he compounds at every available opportunity by boasting that he gave the money back and demanding that other candidates ban donations from minors.

If you have betting instincts, you might be paying attention to the early odds placed on the 11 contestants by journalists and political hacks.

But if you’re an average citizen listening for ideas that might affect your life or influence your vote, you’d be hard pressed to come up with any.

It is not entirely the candidates’ fault.

Making allowances for that, it is still fair to say that nothing the Liberal leadership contenders have served up so far is likely to cause Prime Minister Stephen Harper much concern or give substance-hungry Canadians much to chew on.

For the benefit of those who haven’t followed the less-than-exciting policy discussions of the last three months, here are a few of the better proposals that have surfaced. Most are too

sketchy for informed analysis.

Bob Rae is promising to overhaul Canada’s income security system, eliminating the “poverty traps” that prevent parents from becoming self-sufficient and children from getting a fair break.

Although the success of this endeavour would depend on federal-provincial cooperation — always a dubious proposition — it is good to see a national politician offering to reach out to those left behind.

Gerard Kennedy says he can eliminate the “immigrant success gap” within a decade. He intends to do this by changing Canada’s admission criteria to favour skilled labour, improving language training, putting more focus on family unification and giving the provinces, municipalities and business a role in setting immigration targets.

Martha Hall Findlay sees globally competitive cities and towns as the key to the nation’s future. She would strengthen Canada’s municipalities by funnelling federal dollars into their communication and transportation infrastructure. This, she says, would allow them to deal with pollution and gridlock and attract new business.

Stéphane Dion aims to harness market forces to take megatonnes of greenhouse gases out of the air. His primary vehicle would be an emissions trading system, which would enable polluters to buy and sell carbon credits to fulfill the requirements set out in the Kyoto accord on climate change.

Scott Brison proposes to set up an International Youth Internship program to tap into the idealism of Canada’s

next generation. He would offer highschool graduates an opportunity to work with non-government aid organizations in developing countries.

Maurizio Bevilacqua thinks Canada should double its inflow of immigrants to keep the economy humming. He would do it in stages, raising the admission level from 240,000 to 325,000 immediately, then ratcheting it up to 490,000 by 2016.

Carolyn Bennett aspires to put citizens at the centre of the democratic process, showing that it is possible in the Internet age for a leader to listen to the people, respond to their concerns and incorporate their priorities into the national policy agenda.

Michael Ignatieff calls the emerging rural-urban divide the “great unmentioned challenge” to Canadian unity.

His solution would consist of convincing immigrants to settle outside major cities, letting communities set priorities for their region and wiring up all of rural Canada to the Internet.

It is hard to find anything sufficiently tangible to highlight in Ken Dryden’s platform; anything different from past Liberal policy in Joe Volpe’s approach; and any actual proposals in Hedy Fry’s enthusiastic rhetoric.

The race is still in its early stages and the party’s renewal commission has 32 task forces at work, drafting policy papers on everything from fundraising to federalism.

It is possible that everything will come together in a coherent national vision by election-time.

Still unsatisfied? Me too.

JULY 16, 2006

16 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

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INDEPENDENTLIFE

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JULY 16-22, 2006 — PAGE 17

Paul Daly/The Independent

The kids wanna dance, and act, and …

By Mandy Cook For The Independent

T

he open, sunny studio room on the top floor of a downtown St. John’s building is atwitter with children’s chatter. Thirty kids of all ages, shapes and sizes have prepared for two weeks for a moment like this one: media coverage.

Ranging from age 6 to 16, these children aren’t your average summer day-campers — they are the next generation of “triple threats.” There are no glitter and glue projects or afternoon movies for these kids (maybe some glitter …). They are determined to be the next big thing.

The brainchild of Julia Halfyard, a

“Sometimes when you’re an artist in Newfoundland and Labrador you have to be a little entrepreneurial about other ideas.”

Julia Halfyard

professional singer living and working in St. John’s, Musical Theatre Summer Studio is a summer program promising pupils a two-week intensive course in three performing arts: acting, singing and dancing.

Halfyard came up with the idea last summer to help bridge the financial gap between her musical gigs.

“Sometimes when you’re an artist in Newfoundland and Labrador you have to be a little entrepreneurial about other ideas,” she says. “And I love children, and I love watching children and I think they should be exposed to as much as possible, so this was a great summer project to come up with.”

The chatter gives way to a choreographed entrance. First the older girls appear in a united front, clutching their prop scripts to their chests while singing their lines — the opening number of the Broadway hit musical The Producers.

Then the little ones rush out and hit their mark, jumping into the chorus, followed by the rest of the group, until the room is filled up with song.

“Give me some faces!” shouts Victoria Wells-Smith, the dance coach, over the music.

“Smile!” coaches Halfyard, beaming herself.

A carefully practiced whirl of summer-coloured tank tops and shorts, jazz shoes and bare feet, rolled-up jeans and sports jerseys — the kids are hav-

ing the time of their lives. Poses are struck by sticking a hip out here, a flourish of the hand there, exaggerating facial expressions to tell the story in the song. The kids are on.

Nine-year-old Samantha Parsons is just getting started on the stage.

“I like acting,” she says, swaying to the music in her purple-flowered sundress. “You get to be in a play and sing. I was in a play at Christmas and in the spring. I think.”

Ginger-haired Kyle, also 9, says he enjoys several aspects of the camp.

“It’s really fun,” he says. “I like acting and dancing. You can get up and get a bit of exercise. I like singing too because everyone can hear you. A lot of the time at concerts everybody sings and you can’t hear yourself.”

Although the majority of campers are girls, there are a healthy number of boys dancing and singing along, too.

Many of them perform solo numbers and put themselves front and centre during their turns in the spotlight.

Timmy Parsons, 11, says he is learning now in order to try his hand at stardom later.

“I like to sing,” he says, resting against the wall after his part is over.

“I’ve got to practice if I want to be on Canadian Idol.”

Wells-Smith, a long time student and teacher at the School of Dance

Wanting to give kids — and herself — something else to do in the summer, Julia Halfyard started a musical theatre camp

See “Let’s do it again!” page 20

When two festivals collide CLARE-MARIE GOSSE

S

ummer’s arrived and the local festival scene is rolling. With so much on offer it can be hard to book time and audiences for the city’s performance venues — so when organizers of the Nickel Independent Film Festival and the St. John’s Jazz Festival discovered the two events would be running the same week, they decided to make the most of it.

Filmmakers and jazz musicians get together this week to produce old-style silent movies, complete with live music at the screening “When we realized that the festivals were taking up the same week it made most sense to work together and see if we could take advantage of the fact,”

says Nickel Film Festival president Baptiste Neis. “The main thing we’re doing, and the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council have come on to support this event, is a joint — it’s almost like a workshop — it’s an opportunity for filmmakers and jazz musicians to work together on an old style of film.”

On the morning of July 17 (a day before the first film rolls at the Nickel and two days before the start of the Jazz Festival), a group of experienced See “A whole,” page 20

Kirk Newhook, executive director of the St. John’s Jazz Festival.

Paul Daly/The Independent

JULY 16, 2006

18 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

GALLERYPROFILE

KATHLEEN KNOWLING Visual Artist

K

athleen Knowling leads the way through her house — every bit of wall covered in art — and up the stairs to her top-floor home studio. She smiles when she walks into the room, filled with natural light and summer breeze.

“If you’re polite you’ll say you like the artwork,” Knowling says with a laugh.

“Most people come in here and say they love the room.”

The room, which Knowling had built onto her former bungalow after her children moved out, is certainly worthy of praise — a wide-open studio space, view of Signal Hill through the trees, windows all around …

But the most striking thing about Knowling’s studio is the work — the sheer volume, the variety, the quality, the energy of it all. There are paintings, big and small, abstract (“but people here don’t seem to buy abstract …”), still life, portrait and landscape, hooked mats, watercolours, acrylics, oils and collages.

Artwork on the walls, in stacks on shelves, on every page of sketchbooks Knowling made herself. It’s the kind of space most visitors would love to spend a day nosing around.

Knowling was born in St. John’s in 1927. She remembers growing up in a town with little in the way of art galleries — or art appreciation. Nonetheless, she went on to study art history, earning a bachelor of arts in 1950 from Columbia University, in New York. From there, she spent two years in Paris, studying museum and fine art collections.

Then along came family — a husband and three children — and her art career was put aside until about 1975.

(Knowling says she also once thought she wanted to be a poet “but then I realized I didn’t really like reading poetry … but I loved looking at art.”)

In 1979, determined to become a professional artist, Knowling says she enrolled at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She completed one semester.

“I figured if I was going to do this, I might as well get on with it,” she says.

She’s been prolific in her work ever since, exhibiting across Canada. She has taught art and led book making workshops across the province.

She describes her work as celebratory — she’s not one to bemoan history past, speaking enthusiastically about the vibrant cultural life in Newfoundland and Labrador today.

Knowling is part of a group exhibition, Traditions in Transition: contemporary hooked rugs of Newfoundland and Labrador, on display at the Sir Wilfred Grenfell College Art Gallery in Corner Brook until Aug. 19.

In August, she’ll be artist-in-residence in Trinity for a month (for the third year in a row) and will hold a month-long exhibition at the Twine Loft Studio in the community. And there’s an exhibition in the works with Tara Bryan — a two-person show that, Knowling says, will focus on pears, which frequent the work of both women.

And for those in or visiting St. John’s, Knowling’s wonderful, lively, colourful home studio is open for visitors, by appointment.

To arrange a studio visit, call 7265410.

— Stephanie Porter

JULY 16, 2006

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 19

Lots to see at the Nickel

Our movie man runs through the line-up of the sixth annual Nickel Independent Film Festival TIM CONWAY Film Score

H

aving successfully celebrated its fifth anniversary in style, one might expect the sixth Nickel Independent Film Festival would be just about getting back to business.

Fortunately, there was an increase in submissions this time around, and despite the major film projects that commanded almost all of the province’s talent in 2005, a number of local filmmakers were still able to turn out works of their own.

Consequently, with seven scheduled programs over five days, almost a third of its content dedicated to local material (more if we include pictures from two ex-pats), and selections from South America, the U.S., the rest of Canada, and western Europe, this sixth Nickel appears to be an anniversary celebration in its own right.

Opening night, July 18, kicks off featuring two festival stalwarts, as versatile filmmaker Roger Maunder screens his music video of Colleen Power’s wonderful Newfoundland Weather. Following this is a clever picture, The Seventh Dog, about the consequences of living in modern America if one’s ancestors are from the Middle East.

FLY-ON-THE-WALL GEM Jordan Canning, who garnered a lot of praise last year, returns with her second film, Thick and Thin, an insightful look at the dynamics of friendship through the lives of two teenaged girls. Next is one of a number of films from Quebec to screen at the festival this year.

Nothing Girl, an astute fly-on-the-wall gem, shot entirely without dialogue, leads us through a day in the life of a young girl who is certain to find trouble or have trouble find her.

Finally, locally born Philip Lewis co-directs Eye on the Guy: Alan B. Stone & the Age of Beefcake, an informative and entertaining documentary that explores one of the superstars of the underground industry that developed in the ’50s and ’60s, when the reins of censorship were held pretty tight. Operating out of his suburban Montreal basement, Stone, a talented photographer, made a living selling photographs of strategically barely-clad male body-builders to an eager clientele.

Opening with a hat-trick of crime stories, Wednesday evening offers two great local shorts, The Fighter, a smart film about a young man assaulted in a parking garage, and Two or More, another gem set in the underworld of criminal enterprise, sure to be a big hit with viewers. Rounding out the first half of the program is The Unfolding, a clever and polished picture concerning a reported hold-up at a bookstore.

After the break, Dark Arc out of B.C., the festival’s only feature length drama, tips its hat to David Lynch and company with the intertwining lives of an advertising executive, a non-sexual escort and a minor aristocrat. Exploring art and perception, occasionally pretentious, yet not too high-minded to prevent bubble-gum pink

Une âme nue glisse a l'eau vive

Ensemble ou Séparé

Thick and Thin

Blackout

Sculpture Club

Radio

At the Quinte Hotel

from becoming almost a separate character in the film, Dark Arc is sure to get viewers talking afterwards.

Thursday offers two shows, one in the regular program, and then a late-night horror line-up. The earlier event begins with six short films, including Lisa Hoffe’s insightful Trailblazing, about a group of women who have worked their way into the male-dominated tour guide industry in the Himalayas.

After the intermission, we find An Ordinary Family, a moving documentary of a middleclass family in Argentina struggling to survive following the collapse of their economy a few years ago. Fighting circumstances not unlike those in certain regions of this province, the tenacity and drive of these people should inspire us all.

How to Serve Your Fellow Man (literally), is one of two local films in the horror night lineup. The other is Moonlight in Your Blood, a creepy tale of addiction escalating into vampirism that is sure to simultaneously delight and nauseate fans of the genre. Included in this event is Rogairi, an award-winning gothic short from Ireland that’s also a crowd pleaser.

Friday kicks off with an engaging British film, Deep Vain, that seems inspired by David Cronenberg’s early work, and finishes with Barbara Doran’s frank and often hilarious Keeping up with Cathy Jones. In between, along with a couple of entertaining shorts, is The Day Before Tomorrow, a film from Colombia. Occasionally melodramatic, and featuring the cinema’s most unbelievable police detectives, the film is noteworthy in illuminating an emerging feminist ideology in a male-dominated society.

The last day of the festival — Saturday, July 22 — features an afternoon program of children’s films. Again, Maunder leads off the event with The White Balloon, an imaginative tale of a balloon that wants to be free to soar the skies, but to do so, must leave behind the little boy with whom it has had so much fun.

Other local entries are Planet Gortt, a delightful short animation, and I Want It All, a fun picture about greed and Kraft Dinner.

The evening program starts with local-born Bruce Alcock’s celebrated At the Quinte Hotel, an animated film set to an Al Purdy poem, and finishes with My People’s Journey, Christine Poker’s informative and often personal documentary. Poker follows the lives of the Innu from before their relocation to Davis Inlet through to their final move to Natuashish. A fitting closing to this year’s event, it’s not to be missed.

With such a varied selection of quality productions, it seems independent filmmaking is thriving, and the Nickel Independent Film Festival is set for another year. More importantly, for the next week, film fans will have a number of options beyond the commercial summer offerings, the opportunity to see motion pictures that we’d otherwise miss, and the pleasure of seeing local films as they are meant to be seen — on the big screen.

Better still is the chance that one of them will inspire our next great local filmmaker, who could just be sitting in the audience.

Tim Conway operates Capital Video in Rawlin’s Cross, St. John’s. He is on the board of directors of the Nickel Film Festival. His column returns July 30.

JULY 16, 2006

20 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

Writing with feeling MARK CALLANAN On the shelf A Perfect Night to Go to China

By David Gilmour Thomas-Allen, 2005

T

here is nothing that plays quite so heavily on society’s collective fears as the thought of losing a child. We are still haunted by the memory of James Bulger, bludgeoned to death with bricks at the site of a Merseyside rail line — killed by 10year-old children, no less. More recently, the death of Cecilia Zhang, abducted from her north Toronto home in 2003, shocked the country. It’s hard to say exactly which is worse: a missing child that never resurfaces or a child found weeks later, a rag-doll corpse in the ditch of some deserted access road. The former allows a constant (though perhaps false) hope while the latter at least offers closure, if little else.

A Perfect Night to Go to China, David Gilmour’s sixth novel, is about the the disappearance of a young boy.

The story is narrated in the first person

by Roman, the Toronto-based host of a popular television arts show (a fictional counterpart to Gilmour’s real life CBC program Gilmour on the Arts). In the first few pages of the book, Roman puts his son Simon to bed, ducks out for a couple of drinks at a bar down the street and comes back to find Simon missing.

Roman’s wife blames him for his irresponsibility. “If you’d had a pot on the stove, you would have gone home,” she says. A policeman follows Roman around, insinuating that he has either hidden or killed his own son. For his part, Roman fantasizes about getting a call from the police that they’ve found Simon. He remains convinced Simon is alive, claiming he “can hear him talking.” As the days and weeks progress with no new developments in the case, Roman slips into a private world of blame and regret. He begins medicating himself with alcohol and pain killers.

In interviews, Gilmour has said he used his relationship with his son Jesse as an inspiration for the book, wonder-

‘A whole other dimension’ From page 17 filmmakers and jazz musicians will gather for the Super 8mm workshop.

Super 8 film was developed in the 1960s — it’s since been replaced largely by video, but is still in use by amateur and professional filmmakers looking for an old-time or stylized, grainy look.

THREE FILMS The workshop participants plan to split into three groups and, over the course of the week, create three separate silent short films.

The films — accompanied live by the workshop’s musicians — will be shown Sunday, July 23, as part of the jazz festival’s closing night dinner and show at The Majestic Theatre.

Kirk Newhook, artistic and executive director of the jazz festival, says the filmmakers are allowed minimal editing.

“There’s no mixing afterwards,” he says. “They have to conceive it, write it, make sure it’s shot in the order that it’s to be seen and then musicians have got to put music to it.”

Filmmakers might be less accustomed to off-the-cuff improvisation, but for jazz musicians it’s an important part of their craft. The only guideline for the film/music teams is the subject matter of the films should be global, in keeping with the world music theme of the night.

Newhook says most of the evening will be taken up by a performance by the festival’s own World Jazz Orchestra, made up of five local and five visiting musicians. The orchestra will perform a two-hour set after only three days of writing and rehearsing.

As well as the musically accompanied Super 8 films and the World Jazz Orchestra performance, audi-

ing what he would do if his own child disappeared. It is the sort of hypothetical situation we all mentally rehearse from time to time; Gilmour’s exercise is useful to us only insofar as it can convincingly convey Roman’s point of view. And it does: Roman’s crisis is rendered in fluid, simple prose.

Descriptions tend toward the utilitarian, though when Gilmour’s instincts allow him moments of indulgence, the results are arresting: The clouds disappeared at the side of the window, you had the feeling they doubled back around on the other side of the sky and then replayed themselves. I waited for the beginning of the loop, the part I’d already seen. I said to myself, Is that it? Or is that it?

The narrator’s tone ranges from tender (“He had a way of running that broke my heart, as if he were charging at something, as if the excitement of life was more than his limbs could balance”) to viciously critical (“There was a new makeup girl, an empty-headed chatterbox who stabbed at my face with

her eyebrow pencil as if she were a pointillist”) as he wavers between selfless love for his son and his own selfinvolvement. Gilmour’s great success is in balancing the two.

In his T.S. Eliot Prize lecture, The Dark Art of Poetry, contemporary Scottish poet Don Paterson suggests that one aspect of risk-taking in poetry is in “writing with real feeling … while avoiding sentimentality.” Similarly, narrative risk is not necessarily about writing in a fractured postmodern mode (as we sometimes tend to think); it can be as simple as attempting to create true emotional depth without falling into facile play on public sentiment.

While Gilmour makes some strange narrative decisions towards the end of A Perfect Night to Go to China, he generally pulls the story off with memorable flair and insight, and by using a character that we as readers may find difficult to like. That we can find redemptive qualities in a failed father and difficult man like Roman is proof of Gilmour’s talent as a storyteller.

awarded the 2005 Governor General’s Award for fiction in English. It was also nominated for a ReLit Award in the novel category; Lisa Moore won this year’s ReLit award for her first novel, Alligator.

A Perfect Night to Go to China was

Mark Callanan’s column returns July 30.

ALL OUT FOR BRIAN

ences can expect flamenco dancing and some other surprises.

“It’s not just that the audience comes and has dinner and ‘oh, there’s a band,’” says Newhook. “It’s going to be a whole experience and this Nickel collaboration is going to add a whole other dimension to that.”

Neis says the Nickel has always tried to draw attention to the importance of collaboration in filmmaking.

“One of the things the festival has had since its conception is live performers as part of the festival, interspersed with the films … that was also one of the things that lent us to thinking that doing something with the jazz festival made a lot of sense.”

As well as local and international film and video screenings, the Nickel will host actors’ workshops and question and answer sessions with filmmakers, and showcase theatre pieces and readings.

The Super 8mm workshop hails back to an old-fashioned way of making movies. It also continues the Nickel’s tradition of showing films alongside live performances.

“We thought it would be a really interesting opportunity for some skilled filmmakers to work with some skilled jazz musicians,” says Neis.

“Shooting Super 8 at film festivals is something that’s started to gain popularity around the world in the last number of years and there is actually a Super 8 film festival now … it’s what any of our parents would have shot home videos on in the 1960s and ’70s.”

From page 17 where the camp is taking place, says boys are starting to show more interest in the performing arts — even dance.

“A lot of boys are slowly starting to get into singing and theatre,” she says. “They come here to this camp to improve on those two things and then they get thrown into the dance aspect as well. They’re competitive so they want to keep up with the girls. The guys are the ones screaming, ‘Let’s do it again!’”

The students work through each number, clapping and stamping in time to big band jazz. It’s apparent by the happy faces and high energy that these kids are in their element.

The Nickel Film Festival runs July 18-22 (www.nickelfestival.com).

The St. John’s Jazz Festival runs July 19-23 (www.atlanticjazzinitiative.com).

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‘Let’s do it again!’

Musician Dave Panting (above) has organized a benefit show for his son Brian, featuring some of the province’s top acts, including Blair Harvey, the 8-Track Favourites, Dermot O’Rielly, Sons of Erin, Colleen Power, the Planks, Jim Fidler, Funky Dory, and more. Brian, 22, has cerebral palsy, and fell severely ill four months ago. Although the symptoms have been brought under control, he must live in a more controlled environment. All money raised at Panting’s benefit will go towards a down payment on a home in Halifax, near the QE Hospital, where Brian’s mother, Genevieve Lehr, will care for him. The music starts 8 p.m. at Club One, St. John’s, Thursday, July 20.

Paul Daly/The Independent

MORE THAN HIGH NOTES But Halfyard also wants to teach her students the ropes of becoming working entertainers. Besides learning their lines and hitting the high notes, the kids are given lessons in set design and are introduced to entertainers making a living in the industry.

“We had (Newfoundlander) Jonathan Monro in — he was in the original Producers in Toronto,” says Halfyard. “He’s a singer, actor, dancer and composer. He spoke with them about how professional you have to be, how focussed you have to be, how your words have to be crisp and how you need to have wacks of energy. He did the original choreography with them. It makes (performing) accessible.”

Maggie, age 13, is using her experience at the camp for just that purpose. She knows she will be able to put what she learned in the past two weeks towards future opportunities.

But she keeps in mind the main reason for going to summer camp in the first place.

“You get to hear feedback about what other people think of your acting,” she says, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. “I like it for what I can use from this when I go to audition for a play or musical. But I just enjoy it.”

For more on Julia Halfyard’s Musical Theatre Summer Studio, call 722-5957.

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JULY 16-22, 2006 — PAGE 21

Dr. Peter Collingwood, clinic chief of diagnostic imaging with Eastern Health in St. John’s.

Paul Daly/The Independent

‘It’s here already’

Private healthcare already in province; former head of medical association says official two-tier system won’t work

By Clare-Marie Gosse The Independent

A

year after the Supreme Court of Canada’s controversial ruling allowing freedom of choice in accessing private health care, the two-tier debate rages on.

Gander-based consultant and surgeon Dr. John Haggie, former president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association (NLMA), was part of a Canadian Medical Association (CMA) task force responsible for a detailed report on the debate. He tells The Independent that private practice — somewhat of a grey area — already exists in Newfoundland and Labrador.

“It’s here already, but it’s actually at the discretionary end as it were,” says

Haggie. “It is at the moment confined to cosmetics, but there are surgeons, for example, who are looking at doing varicose vein procedures.”

Where do you draw the line between cosmetic needs and medical needs?

“That’s a difficult decision for the clinicians sometimes,” he says. “What is an ache or a pain, compared with an oddlooking leg? MCP leaves the discretion to the physician.”

The private healthcare debate springs from frustrations over wait times and access to care in Canada. The CMA initiated the task force — in which Haggie participated as the province’s representative — after its annual debate last summer when it became clear physicians, in need of more information, couldn’t agree on the public/private issue.

“The physicians can debate it and then use that debate to inform the public debate, because that’s really where the battle’s going to be.”

John Haggie The report, entitled It’s About Access, was released last month and will fuel the CMA’s 2006 debate in August, in Charlottetown, PEI. Haggie says although the task force intended to escape political rhetoric when examining the issue, decisions won’t be

made by the physicians at their meeting in August.

“It’s going to be made by the politicians,” he says. “To go back to CMA’s aim when they struck this taskforce, what they were trying to do was … say, ‘Well look, these are our options, what happens if we choose option A rather than option B?’ “The physicians can debate it and then use that debate to inform the public debate, because that’s really where the battle’s going to be. It’s going to be out in the House of Commons and the House of Assembly.”

Haggie is from the U.K. where private health care is offered as an option, parallel to the public system. Having worked See “Desire for change,” page 23

Contract guarantees Opposition questions Ottawa’s role in Inco processing plant

Q

uestions are being raised about why Premier Danny Williams has asked the prime minister to seek guarantees from Inco regarding its commitments to Newfoundland and Labrador, considering the Voisey’s Bay Development Agreement already protects the province’s interests.

The request comes on the heels of the proposed merger of Inco with Phelps Dodge and Falconbridge. The premier recently wrote Harper urging the federal government to carefully review the deal.

“Obviously the future of Inco has a tremendous impact on this province, particularly the people of the Argentia region where just a few short months ago the president of Inco presided over a sod-turning ceremony,” the premier

said in a prepared statement. “I have written the prime minister to seek his assurance that, as the Government of Canada proceeds with its due diligence of takeover and merger arrangements involving Inco, it will ensure the company commits to the use of hydromet technology in Newfoundland and Labrador for its Voisey’s Bay project.”

Liberal leader Gerry Reid doubts the sincerity of the premier’s request to the prime minister.

“He (Williams) has always wanted the deal to fail. We signed a good contract which guarantees that any successor to Inco will have to live up to the contract and that means a secondaryprocessing facility in Newfoundland and Labrador,” Reid tells The Independent.

Lorraine Michael, leader of the New Democrats, suggests the premier’s move may be pure optics. “I don’t know what’s in the premier’s head, but the contract is clear on a processing facility for the province.”

For her part, newly appointed Natural Resources Minister Kathy Dunderdale agrees that Inco is legally bound to put a hydromet or alternate nickel processing facility in the province. She adds, “It doesn’t look after our interests to the degree that says it has to be established in Argentia. That is the issue.”

The Voisey’s Bay contract outlines time lines for all phases of development, including the construction and operation of a secondary-processing facility. The company is operating a demonstration plant in Argentia, with a

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decision to be made in November 2008 on whether to proceed with a commercial hydromet facility.

Reid questions why Williams is involving Harper at all.

“It’s a little premature for the premier to ask for guarantees to use a research and development technology in 2006 when the proving out won’t be completed for another two years.”

Michael says if the hydromet technology doesn’t work Inco must build a proven processing facility in its place.

“Until there is a conclusion to the research it is unfair to ask (Inco officials) to commit to hydromet.”

Reid says Ottawa doesn’t have a role in the Voisey’s Bay development, a deal between the province and company.

“He (the premier) knows that, he’s a

lawyer,” Reid says, accusing Williams of diverting attention from his “failed rural development policy.”

Argentia was the site originally chosen by Inco for construction of the hydromet facility, although the company said recently it prefers Long Harbour. The two communities aren’t that far from each other, but Dunderdale says expectations have been raised in Argentia over the years that it would be getting the processing plant.

“Recently they (Inco officials) are backing off on that condition in saying there are barriers to them doing that,” Dunderdale says. “Our position is that while we recognize that there are some challenges around that we feel that they can be mitigated.”

— Sue Kelland-Dyer

22 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JULY 16, 2006

House of Assembly

Paul Daly/The Independent

Pay back Sue Kelland-Dyer says there’s a double standard for MHAs who aren’t made to repay excess claims

W

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hen you receive money from govern- Justice. The Government of Newfoundland and ment that you are not entitled to you Labrador has been advised by the auditor general, must pay it back — unless, it seems, no less, that excess payments have been claimed you’re a politician. and received by four memOverpayments are combers. Most ordinary mortals mon in the federal and are not so lucky to have the SUE provincial governments in and competency of KELLAND-DYER resources programs such as social the qualified auditors and assistance, income tax or chartered accountants of the News to me employment insurance.

AG’s office to determine their These overpayments are fate. More often than not it’s a often a result of fraud or a result of mistakes by a department employee running a check on the company or individual, an employer, or govern- numbers. In other words, John Noseworthy — ment itself. with the benefit of a full audit process — has conIf you commit a fraud or make a mistake cluded they have received money they were not regarding your income tax and the Canada entitled to.

Customs and Revenue Agency finds out they’ll For the moment, consider these four MHAs be in touch soon enough. The taxman will tell innocent of all charges that they may or may not you how much you owe and how to pay it. If be faced with under the criminal justice system. they determine that waiting for their money may That’s the work of police, prosecutors and the not be wise, they can seek an order to move in courts. quickly to seize assets. Who determines the The same holds true for people who may be overpayment — well it could be an auditor, investigated for income-tax evasion, falsified EI accountant, or another employee of the depart- claims, or providing fraudulent information to ment that happens to be reviewing, assessing or receive income support. If charged and found reassessing your return. It could be picked up by guilty, these people will face appropriate sentenca computer program or a tip from an outside per- ing. son or company. From there, you’re advised and What is unique is that for all other cases — no the collections division does its job. There are matter what the reason for the overpayment — rules on how much they can collect over a spec- collection procedures are still pursued by the ified timeframe and they are usually associated appropriate departments and are not hindered by with ability to pay, assets, and/or hardship. a police investigation.

This same process is generally used with EI Regardless of why these people were paid more and income-support payments. In all cases the than they were entitled is beside the point and a individual or company has a right to appeal deci- matter for someone else to determine. The matter sions. for the IEC, the House of Assembly, government So what about the MHAs who have received and Finance is to begin the process of collections overpayments or excess payments from their con- to recover the excess amounts. stituency allowances?

Over the past few weeks voters have expressed Let’s look at another example: a person who outrage and dismay at MHAs using their concontinues to receive EI cheques after their claim stituency funds to buy rings or give personal runs out. Just because you submit claims and donations to one group or another. somebody pays them does not exonerate you But as long as the amounts claimed fell within from repaying money if there’s an overpayment. allocated budgets it remains a personal choice of the Now back to our MHAs. They knew or ought MHAs what they do with their money — unless, as to have known what their individual constituency Harvey Hodder has mused, it forms part of the inforallowances were, and even if they did not they are mation for the police investigation. responsible for claiming only the amounts they For me, the issue is why MHAs who have were entitled to. received excess amounts are not being hounded by When Ed Byrne, Randy Collins, Wally the IEC or Finance to pay the money back? This Andersen, and Jim Walsh claimed and received double standard is as detrimental to our democracy more than they were approved by the Internal as the whole sordid affair. While ordinary people are Economy Commission they became responsible tracked for school tax, HST or others debts to the to the people of the province and responsible to Crown, MHAs are left to decide for themselves pay it back. whether the same applies to them.

Why and how the overpayment happened is not Sue Kelland-Dyer was a policy advisor to the concern of collections, the Finance foremer Liberal premier Roger Grimes.

Department and/or the IEC — it’s a matter for sue.kellanddyer@gmail.com

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JULY 16, 2006

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 23

Energy drop extends Canada’s export slump Exports from Newfoundland and Labrador are up 24 per cent this year

By Steven Theobold Torstar wire service

O

ntario’s automotive sector supplanted the country’s energy producers as the key source of some much-needed strength in Canada’s stagnating export numbers.

Total exports in May dropped to $37 billion, down 0.2 per cent from the prior month, led by a 4.6 per cent decline in energy exports, Statistics Canada reported last week.

Canada’s overall merchandise trade surplus managed to increase, to $4.1 billion from $3.9 billion in April, because imports dropped more sharply than exports. Imports fell 0.8 per cent to $32.9 billion.

Weak export results were spread across most industries, though the automotive sector posted a surprise 2.9 per cent rise from the prior month, to $6.8 billion.

Despite that performance, for the first six months of the year, Ontario ranks second to last among the provinces in export growth, with total shipments up a modest 1 per cent, ahead of only Nova Scotia’s 4.2 per

cent decrease.

Exports from energy rich Newfoundland, Alberta and Saskatchewan are up 24 per cent, 18 per cent and 15 per cent so far this year, according to EDC calculations.

Industrial goods and materials producers also posted a strong May, as high base metals prices helped drive exports up 4.3 per cent from April to $7.5 billion.

Imports were led by a 1.9 per cent rise in machinery and equipment purchases, reflecting a continuation of businesses taking advantage of the strong dollar by ramping up investment spending.

Canadian manufacturers, struggling with a strong dollar and increasing competition from low-wage China, were encouraged by the Bank of Canada’s decision on July 12 to reiterate it is finished raising interest rates.

Lower interest rates undercut a currency by making investments in a country less attractive.

The U.S trade deficit, meanwhile, grew to $63.8 billion (U.S.), up $500 million but about $1 billion lower than forecasters expected.

Energy saving potential massive Demand growth could be halved; politicians have the power

By Tyler Hamilton Torstar wire service

C

anada could slash growth in energy demand by more than half by 2025 if Ottawa and the provinces implement aggressive conservation and energy efficiency policies and push the adoption of new energy technologies, says a comprehensive national study released last week.

But the report, funded by the Canadian Gas Association, Canadian Electricity Association and Natural Resources Canada, warns that achieving such targets will be challenging and that even with a best-effort outcome, “half of future demand growth will have to be met with new (energy) supply.”

Under what’s called a status quo scenario, the study concludes that growth in energy demand could be reduced by 16 per cent if existing subsidy programs, policies and awareness campaigns were relied on over the next two decades.

But a 56 per cent reduction in growth could be achieved under an aggressive scenario. Here, the addition of hefty subsidies for solar and geothermal technologies, stricter building codes, stronger energy efficiency standards for appliances, and higher density land use policies would be required.

The aggressive scenario also assumes introduction of carbon emissions caps or taxes, such as those proposed by the Quebec government, as a way to encourage energy efficiency and reduce consumption. Electricity rates should also be set to more accurately reflect fluctuating energy costs.

“It would be a fairly substantial change,” says Mike Cleland, president and chief executive officer of the gas association, adding governments would need to be heavier handed about con-

servation. “It’s about making sure people see the real price of energy, and that has all sorts of political consequences.”

Francis Bradley, executive spokesperson for the electricity association, says the report is “realistic” and gives policy makers what they need for informed discussion.

But Mark Winfield, director of environmental governance at the Pembina Institute, says the findings are conservative at best.

“Their aggressive scenario doesn’t seem very aggressive to us at all,” says Winfield. “It explores some possibilities, but should not be treated as the last word on energy efficiency.”

Still, both associations hope the report will be discussed during a meeting of the Council of Energy Ministers next month in Whitehorse.

Bradley emphasized the report is about energy conservation broadly, meaning it looks at reducing demand for all fossil fuels. Transportation fuels are excluded.

Ontario, on the other hand, has been largely focused on electricity conservation in its plan to reduce its power consumption by more than 6,000 megawatts over the next 20 years.

Julia McNally, manager of planning and reporting in the province’s Conservation Bureau, says the findings will be included in the power authority’s “integrated power system plan” to be presented in early 2007.

To date, efforts in Ontario include a recycling program for old refrigerators, air-conditioning upgrade rebates, and the PeakSaver program for reducing air conditioner use during peak summer hours. On July 15, Toronto Hydro’s 10/10 Program began, offering a 10 per cent discount on electricity bills for households that can reduce their power use between July 15 and Sept. 15 by 10 per cent.

TRANSPORT CANADA WARNS AGAINST USING WATER TOYS FOR BOATING Transport Canada warns against using inflatable selfpropelled water toys for boating.

These toys are not designed for boating activities and Transport Canada considers their use to be unsafe for such activities.

Transport Canada recommends that inflatable selfpropelled water toys, if used at a beach or lake side, should only be operated: • •

in shallow waters where the operator can wade; and under adult supervision, when used by children.

Any other use of this device may result in a significant hazard for the user(s) and may be subject to fines and prosecution.

Detailed information about pleasure craft requirements can be found in Transport Canada’s Safe Boating Guide: https://www.tc.gc.ca/marinesafety/TP/TP511/menu.htm.

Desire for change From page 21 in both England and Canada, Haggie says he prefers the system here — but there is definite room for improvement, a fact highlighted by the CMA’s report.

It’s About Access includes a review of other countries’ health policies, a scorecard of 10 principles to help assess various proposals, and four scenarios covering different levels of public and private care possibilities.

Opinion was divided among 1,000 adults questioned about their hopes for the future of health care. The only real consensus found was a desire for change.

Haggie says it’s impossible to predict the result of officially introducing private care into the system, especially in Newfoundland and Labrador.

“At the moment you haven’t got the staff to run a publicly funded system in some areas,” he says.

Haggie was head of the provincial medical association during the doctors’ strike in 2002. Although now slightly more comparable to other provinces, Newfoundland and Lab-

rador is still losing physicians to the mainland. He says the problem, highlighted by shortages in rural areas, will increase if a parallel system is introduced.

“If you open up a parallel private system … you might find that people would leave the public system to go into a privately funded system that was also privately delivered.”

LIMITED APPEAL Haggie says he doesn’t think there would be much demand for private healthcare in the province — other than perhaps among select, financially comfortable residents within the St. John’s area.

“The CMA’s position, as well, is that what you need is an adequately resourced and adequately funded public system — and the rest is icing really.”

He admits the resources in the province are not always there, particularly for patients waiting to access certain services, such as MRIs. “A friend of mine went to Halifax last week for an MRI because he was in pain and he needed one for assessment for suitability for sur-

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gery,” says Haggie.

“The (local) surgeon had said, ‘Look, my hands are tied until I can get this result.’ He drove to St. John’s, got on a plane, flew to Halifax, had his MRI within a week … and then came back with the films and the report and that speeded things up.”

Anecdotally, Haggie has heard of several other people who have chosen to speed up the diagnostic process by heading to the mainland for MRIs. Haggie says often the biggest wait time is for an appointment with a specialist — not the time between seeing a final specialist and getting surgery.

“CMA and the NLMA … are very concerned about the collection of wait-time data,” Haggie says. “What it doesn’t acknowledge is the patient may have waited longer than they should have done ever … to see their primary care physician or … the orthopaedic specialist or the general surgical specialist, or they’ve had to go off to Halifax to get their MRI because there’s a two-year wait on the machine in St. John’s or Corner Brook.”

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24 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JULY 16, 2006

WEEKLY DIVERSIONS ACROSS 1 Strikebreaker 5 Site of Gaelic College: St. ___, N.S. 9 N.S. town with Highland Village 13 Murmurs of bliss 17 Thus 18 God of France 19 New Mexico town 20 Chimney deposit 21 Pervades 23 In good order 25 Pekoe pouches 26 Céline’s sister 28 Worth 29 Don’t just seem 30 Alone in Amiens 31 A Dryden 32 Back of a boat 35 Official flower of Nunavut: Purple ___ 38 British Broadcasting Corp.

41 Join with a blowtorch 42 Owns 43 Drool-catcher 44 Prefix with trooper 45 Everything 46 Barbecue seating (2 wds.)

50 Mideast Heights 51 French wheat 52 Sign 53 Summer mo.

54 Fabric length 56 Type of tissue 58 “It’s freezing!”

59 Danger 60 Word that sounds like another 63 Caviar 64 These (Fr.) 65 Turned on 68 La Scala production 69 Travelling within a circuit 72 Virtuoso 73 Uncustomary 74 Enjoy a snowy hill 75 The Victorian, e.g.

76 Tied 77 Schooner serving 78 Ont. site of Canadian Clock Museum 82 Sting 83 Parrot 84 Teak or cedar 85 “Eureka!”

86 Tropical vine 89 Muscat-eer?

91 Taser (2 wds.)

95 Large Ontario park 97 Excellently 99 Medicine container 100 Employed 101 Equal (Fr.) 102 Melody 103 ___ Grey tea 104 Sicilian volcano 105 Toulouse Lautrec’s

tooth 106 Georgia, to Georges DOWN 1 Fall mo.

2 Like Big Bear 3 Taj Mahal city 4 Rain missiles on 5 Saying 6 They’re picked by the particular 7 Genealogy word 8 N.B. site of Atlantic Balloon Fiesta 9 Nothing to fear but fear ___ 10 Island with Pearl Harbor 11 B movie genre 12 Egyptian cobra 13 Grey 14 Type of frost 15 Arizona natives 16 Editor’s “Leave it!”

22 Deserve 24 Hook’s sidekick 27 Yes in Ypres 30 Prov. half covered by forest 31 Soviet secret police 32 Large mop 33 Tattle 34 Our most northerly island 35 Large bag 36 Baseball stat.

37 Unsubstantial 38 Crimean port 39 Boast 40 Raspberry stalk 42 Actor Martha ___ 44 Seed containers 46 Anka’s 1957 hit 47 Sask. town named for wild goat-antelope 48 Ont. lake with world’s largest freshwater island 49 Give consent 50 Grain to be ground 55 Gladiatorial venue 57 Apple centre 60 Israeli folk dance 61 Australian stone 62 Item for “testing, testing” 64 Painter Emily 66 Cake decorator 67 Hiker’s shelter 70 Upset 71 Thin as a ___ 74 Salty expanse 76 Issue 78 Faculty head 79 African country 80 Charged particle 81 Expressed vocally 82 Closed 83 Small rise 85 Lopsided 86 Wash 87 Pelvic bones

88 Gelatin from seaweed 89 Expel

90 Look or bearing 91 Senorita’s lang.

92 Sate

93 Forearm bone 94 Novgorod no 96 Prov. with about 25%

of Canada’s population 98 ___ of consent

WEEKLY STARS ARIES (MAR. 21 TO APR. 19) You’re not Sheepish when it comes to asserting your opinions on what you think is right or wrong. Be assured that you’re being heard, and something positive will follow.

TAURUS (APR. 20 TO MAY 20) Your sense of justice makes it difficult not to speak up about a recurring matter involving a coworker. But, once again, you need facts to back you up before you can act.

GEMINI (MAY 21 TO JUNE 20) Romance is still dominant, and if Cupid misfired before, don’t worry. He’ll take better aim at someone new this time around.

Expect favorable news about a financial matter.

CANCER (JUNE 21 TO JULY 22) The zodiac’s Moon Children can expect things to work out pretty much as planned. One negative note involves a minor relationship problem that suddenly turns serious.

LEO (JULY 23 TO AUG.22) You’re suddenly being asked to make choices between two practically equal offers. Which one to choose? Easy. The one most likely to gladden your Lion’s heart.

VIRGO (AUG. 23 TO SEPT. 22) Once again, you’re confronted by a workplace problem you thought you’d already resolved. This time, you might need to go higher up to find a just resolution.

LIBRA (SEPT. 23 TO OCT. 22) Good for you: You’re determined

to stick with your goals and ignore those naysayers who might try to discourage you. You’re on the right track. The challenge now is to stay on it.

SCORPIO (OCT. 23 TO NOV. 21) You’ll soon get news that is supposed to help you with a troublesome situation. Use your sharp Scorpion instincts to determine if the information is reliable.

SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22 TO DEC. 21) If you learn someone has betrayed your trust, don’t just accept it and walk away. You need to know why that person decided to do what he or she did.

CAPRICORN (DEC. 22 TO JAN. 19) A painful family relationship problem could finally begin to heal. Be prepared to show more

flexibility than you might like. But it could be worth it.

AQUARIUS (JAN. 20 TO FEB. 18) It’s a good idea to enhance your career skills so you’ll be prepared to accept a more responsible position when it’s offered. A friend returns a favor just when you need it.

PISCES (FEB. 19 TO MAR. 20) Show that strong, steely backbone that you usually hide, and demand to be included in any family decision-making that could affect the well-being of a loved one.

BORN THIS WEEK You can be happy being alone at home. But you also love exploring the world outside and meeting new people and sharing new ideas.

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 27

JULY 16, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 25

France’s soccer team captain Zinedine Zidane (right) in a television interview with journalist Michel Denisot (left) in Paris, July 12.

Daniel Bardou/Reuters

The Cup’s surprising legacy After affaire Zizou, look for video replay to be part of game BERLIN, Germany

By Chris Young Torstar wire service

S

o what do we make of this 18th World Cup as it quickly fades into memory?

Superb organization. Great hosts. Half a million visitors from outside the host country, and millions of Germans, putting on one hell of a party that lasted 31 days.

There were performances of individual brilliance, Fabio Cannavaro at the heart of the Azzurri defence standing taller than anyone else — at least I thought that way. Zinedine Zidane was voted Golden Ball winner for best player despite his meltdown in the final.

A Team Germany that under Juergen Klinsmann played into the final weekend and went out with a victory and a love-in at the Brandenburg Gate, and a Team Italy under Marcello Lippi that might not have put forth its best effort of the tournament in the final, but were typically well organized at the back through Cannavaro, Marco Materazzi, Fabio Grosso, Gianluca Zambrotta and all-world goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, and up to the nerves of the penalty shootout that had haunted them so often in the past. Throw in the trouble at home, and they were remarkably resilient.

Like Jose Pekerman of Argentina, France’s Raymond Domenech failed to press home the advantage when Les Bleus had Italy on the ropes during the second half of last week’s global final. Pekerman abruptly tendered his resignation after falling in the quarter-finals on penalties to the hosts; Domenech will likely do the same, and England’s Sven-Goran Eriksson, the biggest flop, would have too if he wasn’t already ticketed out. It’s the World Cup way.

At the opposite end of the coaching spectrum, Klinsmann and Lippi joined Australia’s Guus Hiddink and Portugal’s Luis Felipe Scolari as the frontrunners for the Good Egghead award.

But it’s the picture of Zidane leaving the Olympiastadion pitch and the World Cup stage for the last time, 10 minutes before he was supposed to, that will be recalled. And in the larger picture, it points to a brave new world for FIFA — if only they would admit it.

In one of his more grandiloquent moments

— and that is saying something — Joseph (Sepp) Blatter declared that the future is feminine, and promoting the women’s game has indeed been one of the FIFA president’s positive legacies. Another could well have been on display in that moment of shifting balance when Argentinian referee Horacio Elizondo reached into his pocket for a red card that amounted to walking papers for Zidane.

At least according to Lippi, it wasn’t what Elizondo had seen, but what his colleagues in the technical area, the fourth and fifth officials on the game starting list, had observed on the television replays: a fierce, premeditated headbutt from an enraged Zizou into the chest of Italy defender Materazzi.

“You will realize it was not Materazzi who got the attention of the referee,” Lippi told reporters afterward. “It was the fourth and fifth officials looking at the video at the edge of the pitch. We did not do anything. They saw it and they called the attention of the referee.”

Never before has video been used in a World Cup game to determine a referee’s decision, but there’s no reason not to make this kind of thing standard. The game is too difficult to officiate, the play-acting too good from the players and the stakes too high to have it any other way.

In this World Cup, the referee crews wore headsets that allowed them to communicate with each other for the first time. It was that “wait a minute” moment when Elizondo grabbed his earpiece, well after the foul that he didn’t see, that made that call. He stopped to listen, ran to the touchline for a quick word with a colleague, then ran back out and pulled out the banishment card.

“The fourth official saw it as it happened on the pitch and directly advised the referee and the referee took action. Full stop,” FIFA spokesmen Andreas Herren told the BBC, denying any video input into the decision.

But the evidence suggested something else, and perhaps instead of burying the evidence, something in the way of video replay on the game’s biggest stages — the World Cup and its qualifiers, the Euro, Copa America etc. — should at least be put in on a trial basis.

This is not to suggest adopting the NFL’s paralysis-by-analysis approach to video replay, with its coach’s challenges and its deadly five-minute delays. Blatter’s reluctance

to employ video review stems from concerns about interrupting the flow of a match, but this took no more than a few seconds and came from the secondary officials, who assumed greater importance at this World Cup. And besides, what interrupts the flow more than a player falling to the ground as if shot by the barrel of a gun, stretchered off in apparent agony and then waving to come in after a 30second blow and a gulp of water?

That moment in the last game, may well go down as earth-shaking, and much more than merely a proud and revered pillar of the game sent off for a nasty, needless moment of madness, followed by endless speculation on what Materazzi said to set him off so.

They got the call right. Imagine a review of Florent Malouda’s flop in the seventh minute that earned France a penalty and its only goal.

A quick look at that one, Materazzi closing but not touching him, and countless others over the last 31 days, would have pegged it as a dive.

Just over 100 minutes later in a world championship game, a new legacy dawned for dear old Sepp: the future is video.

26 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS

JULY 16, 2006

Rogers retires Regatta Day coverage

D

Time trials

aisy Smith, 83, has never missed a Regatta at lakeside, but this year, due to illness, she may miss her first.

Daisy had planned to watch her son and four grandchildren take to the waters of Quidi Vidi Lake on Rogers Television, which had planned full-day coverage of the 188th Royal St. John’s Regatta. Daisy will have to change her plans – Rogers has decided not to cover this year’s Regatta, slated for Aug. 2 (weather permitting).

Mel Taylor, regional manager with Rogers Television in St. John’s, says Rogers is tied up with Summerbreeze, its new daily summer program.

“We want to be a year-round operation and we did the best we could,” Tayor says when asked why the Regatta has been dropped from Rogers’ summer program for the first time since 1991 (the 2002 Regatta wasn’t broadcast either after Rogers mobile unit went down).

“We used to get seven days of programming over three months; we are now getting 60 additional days and all our resources will be dedicated to Summerbreeze.”

The news shocked the Royal St. John’s Regatta Committee. “The Regatta committee is very disappointed

S

Photo by Paul Daly/The Independent that Rogers provided such late notice of their inability to cover the event,” says Gary Squires, committee president.

With Rogers priding itself with such tag lines as “community matters” and “more local than ever,” the feeling lakeside is that the Royal St. John’s Regatta – the oldest running sporting event in North America – should be given more coverage, not less.

For his part, Taylor says the one-day Regatta coverage is a “massive production investment” and preparation for the coverage typically takes a month.

The final decision was made by Roger at the local level a couple of months ago.

Squires isn’t pleased with the delay in passing the news onto the Regatta committee, only learning of the decision July 5 – four weeks before the Regatta.

According to Taylor, it takes about a month to prepare to televise the Regatta – meaning it’s virtually impossible for other media outlet to jump onboard.

Squires says late notice precluded the possibility of lin-

aturday, July 8, saw 104 crews take to the water for 20 time trial races. On the men’s side, Crosbie Industrial finished with the top time of 9:09.38, followed by O’Dea Earle (9:18.18), Lambs Rum (9:41.98), Ron Fougere & Associates (9:52.27) and IKM Testing (9:56.45). On the Ladies side, OZ crossed the line in 5:08.96, followed by North Atlantic (5:15.95), Smith Stockley (5:18.25), St. John’s Racing and Entertainment (5:23.81) and Central Dairies (5:26.42).

ing up another media to carry the full race schedule.

Taylor says earlier notice wouldn’t have made a difference, nor would a station provide the level of coverage Rogers has in the past. He hopes the local community respects Rogers’ decision, focusing on the 15 years of coverage that has been provided.

He may not get the support he hopes for.

“Our supposedly local television station has turned its back on the Regatta for a breezier era of summer programming, it’s disappointing,” says rower Angie Clarke. “The Regatta reaches beyond the 106 participating crews and weaves its way through their families, friends and Regatta enthusiasts.”

On a personal note, as a rower, coxswain, and Regatta lover, the decision saddens me. In 2000, when my mother was going through chemotherapy, I coxed a ladies’ crew at the Regatta. While she couldn’t be there in person, my mother tuned into Rogers that year for her last Regatta and watched as I won one last race for her.

Placentia Regatta to take place July 22

A

ccording to a Government of Canada website, the Fishermen’s Race of 1877 was won by a crew of fisherman from Placentia. Edward Sinnot of Placentia built a boat, christened the Placentia, to race in the Regatta. On Aug. 4, the crew hoisted the boat on their shoulders and left Placentia to walk 90 miles over rough trail to St. John's. Arriving in St. John’s on Aug. 8, they raced the next day

and won the Fisherman’s Race in the quickest time of the day (10 minutes, 28 seconds), and were awarded a gold sovereign. The victorious crew are said to have lifted the boat to their shoulders and walked home with it. In fact, the Placentia was sold for $112 at the Market House in St. John’s. In 1987, the Placentia Fishermen’s Crew of 1877 was inducted into the Regatta Hall of Fame.

JULY 16, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 27

‘Important tradition’ From page 28 time for me to play for Canada at home.”

There’s no question the Canadian team knew what they were doing when they went with St. John’s as host, and also knew the impact having Snow in the lineup would mean for fan support and home-field advantage.

“I’m sure the Canadian team wanted to come to an environment where the fans were passionate about rugby and the players would feed off that,” says Parfrey.

The veteran coach knows a thing or two about motivation. The Irish-born doctor recalls getting the provincial team he was coaching about 15 years ago to sing the Ode to Newfoundland before a big game. It’s a tradition rugby teams from this province have carried on, one that holds special meaning for all.

“It’s an emotional thing,” says Wilson.

“We are all a tight group, and especially being from Newfoundland it seems we take more pride in where we’re from than other provinces. It (singing) really gives you an edge.”

“It certainly gets you fired up,” Fagan agrees. “Rugby is a game where you have to be willing to put your body on the line and pay the price. And there’s no doubt, the more fired up you are, the better.”

In addition to both national anthems, Parfrey plans to have the Ode sung before the Canada-US qualifier, to honour the locals who are playing and to get the home crowd revved up. And to rattle the resolve of the Americans.

“The game is being played here in our province so it makes sense. And it is kind of an important tradition for us.” whitebobby@yahoo.com

‘Downright shocking’ From page 28 on Italian defender Marco Materazzi than about Italy winning the title.

Sad fact, but Zidane’s exit from the World Cup was downright shocking, even for casual football fans. To put it into context, Zidane’s transgression would be like Wayne Gretzky spearing a goon in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup final, in overtime, as the game was about to be decided by a penalty shootout.

Yeah, that is shocking.

Now, Zidane has been known to lose his temper, but he is better known for his superb skills. While browsing Google video last week, I saw a seven-minute highlight clip of Zidane’s career and it was truly amazing. He can do things with his feet and a ball that most people would have problems doing with their hands. His vision, touch, creativity and knowledge are easy to see.

On the other hand, I also saw a video of Materazzi’s most notorious tackles and man, he is one dirty defender.

In an odd way, I’m impressed with Zidane that he chose to retaliate on Materazzi the way he did. If reports are correct and the Italian thug insulted Zidane’s mother, sister and wife in the manner that some have suggested, I have to say that I would have probably done just what Zizou did.

There is a limit to how much trash talk anyone can take, and I guess Materazzi knew what would drive Zidane over the edge. whitebobby@yahoo.com Solutions for crossword on page 24

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INDEPENDENTSPORTS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JULY 16-22, 2006 — PAGE 28

Robert Wilson of the Rock is grabbed by the chest during the team’s July 8 game against the Nova Scotia Keltics. The Rock won 76-15.

Bud Daulton/For The Independent

All fired up The Rock rugby team having another great season; four locals may play World Cup qualifier in St. John’s

By Bob White The Independent

T

he summer of 2006 is shaping up to be one for the ages for rugby fans in this province. The Rock is poised to repeat as Rugby Canada Super League champions, a title they won for the first time last year in Regina, Sask.

As of The Independent’s press deadline, the Rock remained undefeated this season (they were scheduled to host longtime rival Toronto Xtreme July 15 at Swilers Rugby Complex).

If they win against Toronto, the Rock will host the national final, where they will likely face a rematch with the Saskatchewan Prairie Fire.

If all goes well, the Super League championship will be decided Aug. 5 in St. John’s.

Just one week later, on Aug. 12, the same pitch will play host to what has been referred to as the biggest interna-

tional match in North America in three years as Canada hosts the U.S. in a “million-dollar” World Cup qualifying game.

A win for Canada guarantees a spot in the World Cup later this year in France, and a million bucks of financial support from the International Rugby Board to prepare for the event.

Make no mistake, these are highstakes games and the local rugby community is ecstatic about playing host.

And it doesn’t hurt that four of our own will figure prominently in the World Cup qualifier. Rock players Rod Snow, Mike Webb, Robert Wilson and Andrew Fagan are part of the 30-member group the national team will be picked from.

Snow, a Canadian veteran of three previous World Cups, and Webb, a British Columbia native, will play for Canada. Wilson and Fagan, both 22, have been members of Canadian teams in the under-19 and under-21 groups

before, and if they don’t see any action with Canada this time around, they will benefit greatly from the experience of training with the senior team.

The significance of these games is not lost on Rock players and staff, and all hands want to take advantage of a boisterous home crowd. Behind the scenes for all of it will be the guru of rugby in this province, Pat Parfrey.

“We are playing better rugby this year than we did last season,” says Parfrey, the Rock’s coach. “If we continue to play that way, we should be in a good position.”

Despite being a younger member of the Rock, Wilson sounds like a veteran when he cautions not to look too far ahead in the Super League action.

However, he says it would be a great honour to win back-to-back titles.

Fagan agrees, adding it would be redemption, especially for the older players, to knock off longtime nemesis Toronto en route.

“For the older guys, they were on the other end of some big losses to Toronto, so it would be sweet to have some payback, and on our home field,” Fagan says.

Snow had retired from rugby, but when he learned St. John’s would host the World Cup game, he planned a comeback. He’s happy to be helping the Rock while he hones his still considerable skills.

To bring home a second straight national championship, which would be the first ever repeat for any team from this province in any sport, would also be a fitting legacy for Snow, easily the greatest rugby player from this place.

“The opportunity to play again for Canada, in such a vital game, and in front of the fans here, was too much to pass up,” says Snow. “It will be a dream come true. This will be the first See “Important tradition,” page 27

Sticking up for Zizou

I

’ve heard of a few other teams from other sports that sing the Ode to Newfoundland prior to a big national or international game, but there’s no question rugby teams are the trendsetters here.

And it would be a great tradition for other teams from other sports to adopt on a more full-time basis.

Like the rugby players I’ve spoken to say, we in this province are unique and face different challenges than other provincial sports teams do. To gain an edge when we sometimes fall short in other categories (like training, money, geography, etc.) makes perfect sense.

That said, should teams from Labrador sing the Ode to Labrador when they travel to competitions, both on the island and elsewhere? Had to

BOB WHITE

Four-point play ask, for my friends in the Big Land.

Or maybe teams from this province can sing both?

••• Speaking of singing, hockey fans and officials in Clarenville are singing the blues these days — the Caribous senior team from that town has been denied entry into the Avalon East senior league. The decision was handed down last week and the league cited extended travel and associated costs as some of the reasons.

On one hand, it would have been

nice to see another team in the league, just for variety’s sake. But I doubt the team would have been competitive, especially considering how the league featured basically one strong team and three weaker teams last season.

There was no stiff competition for the Herder-champ Conception Bay Cee Bee Stars, and to water down the league even more would most likely make the Stars that much stronger.

Still, in a perfect world, it would be great to see senior hockey spread across the island, and by spread, I mean having the talent equally spread out. If stockpiling of talent happens unchecked, then the league, which is really entertaining and good value for fans, will ultimately fall by the wayside.

••• Patrick’s Cove-native Carl English

is back with the Canadian senior men’s basketball team this summer.

He’s in Toronto for a training camp before the team is picked, and then it’s off for a three-country European exhibition trip over the next two months.

The national squad will first head to Bormio, Italy in a four-team exhibition tournament with Greece, Serbia and Montenegro, and the host Italian team. The team will then travel to Germany to play a two-game exhibition series against NBA-star Dirk Nowitzki and the German National Team in Hambourg July 28 and Nurembourg, July 30. The team will complete the 2006 season in Maribor, Slovenia, playing in the International Alpos Cup against Venezuela, Lebanon and Slovenia.

English is coming off a good run

with the national team last summer and an up-and-down season playing professionally in Italy.

He and his former Virtis (Bologna) team have decided to part ways, mutually breaching the two-year contract English signed last year. English will be looking for a new job for the upcoming season — this summer tour with Team Canada is important.

Whether in North America or overseas, English has lots of ball left in the tank and I truly hope he finds the way to his stated goal of playing in the NBA. ••• Well, the World Cup is over, but it seems more people are talking about Zinedine Zidane’s head-to-chest-butt See “Downright shocking,” page 27