2006-07-30

VOL. 4 ISSUE 30

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Good news, bad news For seven years, Myrtle Lewis of Conception Bay South believed she had cancer.

Three weeks ago, her doctor told her she never had the disease — the test results were wrong. Lewis is glad to be alive, but devastated that her breasts were removed unnecessarily. She’s one of the women behind a class-action suit filed in July against Eastern Health.

‘Why should they get away with what’s been done to me?’

Myrtle Lewis

STEPHANIE PORTER

W

ithin months of being diagnosed with cancer, Myrtle Lewis underwent surgery to have both of her breasts and 11 lymph nodes removed. Then came six months of chemotherapy — treatments she says stripped her of energy and deeply affected her immune system. She can no longer spend time in the sun, play sports, use conventional cleaning products or wear make-up.

In the seven years since her diagnosis, Lewis has tried to get on with life — it’s

Paul Daly/The Independent

been a struggle, but she kept going, just glad to be alive.

All that changed three weeks ago.

Lewis got a call from the hospital July 5.

“Never in a million years” would she have guessed what she was about to hear.

Lewis had never had cancer. According to the oncologist, some pre-cancerous cells were present in her tests — but none of the treatments she went through may have been necessary. Not the radical surgery, not the harsh drug regime.

Now, sitting in the waiting room of Ches Crosbie’s law office in downtown St. John’s, eyes red-rimmed and hands clutching her purse, she looks like she’s still in shock.

“I dealt with the cancer … I thought, I’ll

look at my scars and be glad I was alive to be with my children and my grandchildren and my family,” Lewis says.

“But now, I don’t know what to do, I can’t work, my mind is always racing … this took everything away from me, took all my dignity.”

In October 2005, The Independent learned the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s had begun retesting tissue samples taken from breast cancer patients from as far back as 1997 to address possible inaccurate results.

Lewis’ specimens were among the hundreds retested.

Now she has joined several other women who have signed on to take part in a classaction lawsuit. The statement of claim filed

by Crosbie was served to the defendant, the Eastern Regional Integrated Health Authority, July 7.

As of The Independent’s press deadline, Crosbie had yet to receive a response.

The suit is being filed on behalf of women who had received inaccurate test results — which may have affected their diagnosis or treatment — and on behalf of breast cancer patients who have been on tenterhooks for months, wondering if their health problems were as they had been told.

The tests in question are referred to as ER (estrogen) and PR (progesterone) receptor tests. The procedures, given to men and women diagnosed with breast See “Horrifying,” page 2

Making work Some days on government-funded Job Creation Projects involve hard work; others water balloon fights and lengthy smoke breaks Harbour Mille, Burin Peninsula

Harbour Mille

By Pam Pardy Ghent For The Independent

T

here aren’t a lot of work opportunities in outports like this one on the Burin Peninsula. Five individuals from Bay L’Argent, Little Bay and Harbour Mille have found

eight weeks of work close to home thanks to a federal job creation project — better known as make-work.

The three women and two men show up by 8 a.m, and finish between 4:30 and 5 p.m. The women lug ladders and haul shingles up pointed rooftops. They share a smoke break on the bridge of the fire hall they are renovating, and

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “Ten years ago hot tubs were not common items; now they are like backyard couches.”

— Greg Butler, owner Bubba’s Tubs, page 23

COLUMN 11

engage in water-balloon flights on hot afternoons with the local children to pass time when they’re waiting for materials to arrive.

These people want to work, saying the day passes much too slowly when there’s nothing to do.

“Keep us busy,” they yell at the foreman as he saunters to the store for an

Susan Rendell on the influx of Americans

Paul Daly/The Independent

afternoon snack, “or we’ll drown ya.”

Water balloons have been a hot item at the local convenience store since the project began, thanks to the summer heat and sometimes strenuous work.

The project, the second for the fire department, is a big one. A 16-by-20 foot extension is being constructed to replace the old washrooms and extend

IN CAMERA 8-9

A taste of Moo Moo’s ice cream

the social area for dances, darts and dinners.

Fire chief Burt Wall says the makework project is valued at $20,000 for labour and materials, though he will only see part of that.

“The program pays the salaries for See “Pulling their weight,” page 2

Life Story . . . . . . . 12 Gallery . . . . . . . . . . 18 Book review . . . . . 19 Shift . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Rock Outdoors . . . 32

2 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JULY 30, 2006

‘Horrifying’ From page 1 cancer, determine whether a particular tumour needs hormones, such as estrogen or progesterone, to grow.

A positive result shows it does, which means the cancer may respond to hormone therapy, such as the drug Tamoxifen — taken by mouth and generally carrying fewer side effects than chemotherapy.

If the ER and PR test results are negative, the patient may be given chemotherapy.

Some of the results were reassessed in St. John’s; others were sent to Mount Sinai Hospital in Ontario. The results have been trickling in over the past nine months. Patients are being contacted one by one.

“We’ve been looking at this for quite a while now, since the story first came out,” says Crosbie.

“I wanted to make sure there was a case to take; I consulted with two experts and reviewed several files of clients who contacted us.

“I wanted to make sure we got this right and didn’t start making accusations without some basis.”

Overall, Crosbie says the main allegation is “inadequate quality control in the testing.”

He says there are three specific pools of claimants within the suit.

The first group — an estimated 1,000 people whose specimens were retested — would be looking for compensation for mental distress, whether or not the re-test results were the same as the originals.

“There’s a fairly convincing argument they (officials with the Eastern Regional Integrated Health Authority) mishandled the way they informed people about this. You shouldn’t have to find out about it in the newspaper,” Crosbie says. “They could improve their patient relations, I think.

“Some women have been to see psychiatrists, it’s been that distressing because it does impact your faith in the health-care system.”

The second group — which could be between 30 and 60 people — involves patients who originally tested negative for estrogen and progesterone receptor status, but emerged positive after the retest.

“The difference is, if you’re negative they give you chemotherapy and if you’re not, they (could) give you Tamoxifen which, I gather, is a lot more pleasant.”

(In the case of one woman named on the statement of claim, Verna Doucette, the chemotherapy allegedly caused a flare-up of an old tuberculosis infection in her left lung. Removal of the lung has been considered. As discovered in the re-test, she could have been treated with Tamoxifen — and the lung problems perhaps avoided.)

The third group is made up of women like Lewis, who didn’t have cancer — but were treated for it.

“One hope is that’s a very small group,” says Crosbie. “I don’t know how I’d react to that situation, it’s rather horrifying.”

Lewis can vouch for that.

Although the surgery and chemotherapy altered her life — she could no longer play sports with her sisters and daughters, no longer had the same energy or confidence — she had been secure in her decision to proceed.

“I guess like any woman, with five children and six grandchildren and sisters and brothers, I said, well, if it’s going to save my life, I should go for it.

“I dealt with it good. I looked at it like, I’m alive and so many have died.”

Lewis says her follow-up visits to the doctor showed she was cancer-free — but she was never free from the fear. In her mind, every ache and pain was a recurrence of the disease that she never had.

When the news broke in The Independent about the retesting, Lewis started calling the hospital to see if she her file was affected.

“It was three weeks ago they called me (back),” she says. “I went in, and the oncologist said, ‘We’ve got good news and bad news, which would

Lawyer Ches Crosbie

Paul Daly/The Independent

you like first?’ “‘The good news is you didn’t have cancer,’ he said, just like that. ‘You had pre-cancerous cells.

The bad news — you did six months of chemo, the 11 lymph nodes removed, it wasn’t necessary.’”

The precancerous cells could likely have been removed via lumpectomy — not a double-mastectomy.

“I wouldn’t go and have my two breasts off for just pre-cancerous cells,” she says. “I mean that, it’s a part of your body. Now I take off my clothes and I don’t know if I’m a man or woman.”

Lewis, still bewildered, doesn’t know what to do or think. She currently works at a personal-care home, and has put in notice to leave at the end of September. “I can’t do it anymore, I go into work and my mind is racing the whole time. I work with senior citizens and I love them dearly, but …”

She says she was told she’s not the only one who may have had unnecessary surgery.

Lewis is hoping for compensation (“why should they get away with what’s been done to me?”) — and she hopes her story may encourage other women to come forward.

Crosbie currently represents more than half a dozen women involved in the retesting.

“My clients feel there are many women out there who are upset and feel that they’d like to do something legally or they’d like to have a remedy or they’d like to know what happened,” Crosbie says, pointing out every affected person has the right to choose whether or not to be involved with the legal proceedings.

Crosbie has already filed the statement of claim.

The next step, he says, is to be certified as a classaction suit — which is usually contested, and may take six months or more.

Should he be successful, Crosbie says he’ll then “do whatever has to be done” — examine charts, establish liability, go to trial, or reach a settlement.

“It’s not going to have a quick ending,” he says.

“It’s going to take a couple of years. But that’s usual in litigation.”

The retesting at the root of the lawsuit is still underway.

Susan Bonnell, a spokeswoman for Eastern Health, says “almost all” individuals impacted have been contacted.

“We’re getting near the end, but we’re still doing data collection so we haven’t had an opportunity yet to consider our review process,” she says. “All that they’re able to tell me is each case is unique and every case is being dealt with individually.

Some are taking longer to deal with than others.”

She is aware of Crosbie’s intention to launch a class-action suit, but says she’s unable to comment further. The lawyer for Eastern Health is on vacation until Aug. 7 and could not be reached for comment.

“I’m not sure they (Eastern Health) were expecting it (legal action),” Bonnell says. “It’s a big issue, a big case … I don’t think there’s any real surprise, people always have the freedom to make that kind of decision.

“Our focus has been on addressing the issue and that’s where our heads have been and our focus has been. Not on anything else.”

Pulling their weight From page 1 five people for eight weeks for us from that money,” he says. “All I get my hands on is $3,000 for material, and I budgeted to put in $2,000 of our own money, but it looks like I need to put in another $1,000. I’m almost out now and I haven’t bought siding yet.”

Once the project runs out of money — and weeks — the work stops.

“They’re doing a great job,” Wall says of the hand-picked crew. “It will be done.”

The work is being completed on the cheap.

Windows were donated and redone — the funds wouldn’t cover the extra costs.

Wall is happy with the project. “I started the process in March,” he says. He was helped along by staff at the St. Bernard’s Service Canada office. “I found out I had the money in June, and work stared in July.”

Service Canada, the federal arm that sponsors such projects, has 320 offices in Canada.

Officials process more than 5 million applications each year, accepting 40,000.

Cherie Myles is the community service officer in the Fortune Bay East office — her job is also funded by the job creation project. Myles gets nine months of work and makes $10 an hour, 40 hours a week. When her term is up, someone else replaces her under the same program.

“There is more to this than just earning a paycheque here at home,” Myles says. “It’s also about gaining work skills and experience.”

The jobs have drawbacks. Workers pay taxes, but EI benefits aren’t deducted from biweekly cheques. Even though Myles and others may work enough weeks to qualify for EI, they don’t qualify for stamps.

“When you stop working, the bucks stop, so

The student had no access to a lawn mower and the program couldn’t provide one.

The painting requires a ladder, and the student isn’t allowed to climb on one. There isn’t much for her to do. to speak,” she says. “It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but it isn’t what some may think.”

In this region, encompassing English Harbour East, Grand Le Pierre, Terrenceville, Harbour Mille, Little Harbour East, Little Bay East, Bay L’Argent and St. Bernard’s-Jacques Fontaine, 19 student summer jobs created from federal and provincial government funding.

The federal program paid $6.75 an hour for 35 hours a week for seven weeks. The provincial plan paid the same hourly rate for three 20-hour weeks.

Student programs are geared towards helping the elderly and community beautification, but they are limited by materials and to the cooperation of the community.

A student employed in Harbour Mille had one senior ask for assistance painting and another for help with her grass. The student had no access to a lawn mower and the program couldn’t provide one. The painting requires a ladder, and the student isn’t allowed to climb on one. There isn’t much for her to do.

Skills Link is a 100 per cent federally fund-

ed program designed to help those with no work experience. For 26 weeks, candidates earn income that can help them get on their feet. Many find employment outside the province when the program ends, says Myles, or they wind up back in school.

Myles also assists individuals who are “just short” of their EI weeks find “just enough” work to qualify. “Some come in here and they just need three more hours, or they might need as many as 300 to qualify,” she says. “There are programs for them if we can get them.

We’ll match an individual need to a business requirement.”

Myles says individuals need 840 hours of work in order to qualify for EI the first time, half that the next. Claims run from 38 to 42 weeks, depending on earnings. The top biweekly EI earning is $682 for a single person; $740 for those with dependents.

Last year, 44 people were employed on federal and provincial projects in the Fortune Bay East region.

So far this summer, the only so-called make work project is at the fire hall in Harbour Mille. On this Friday afternoon the five employees are hard at work. There are no water balloons, and few smoke breaks. The toilets were taken out and they need to be replaced quickly for the dart shoot this weekend.

These woman have never done plumbing before, but they are dirty and they are involved. The men claim the ladies can work them under the table, and the ladies agree.

While no one wants to be quoted, all insist they’re earning their money.

No one wants to be seen “not pulling their weight” and being the talk of a tiny, tight-knit town. In outports like this, there are too few job opportunities to screw up the ones you get.

JULY 30, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 3

Sewage treatment plant by 2008

T

his week’s column begins with a correction. The Frank Moores mentioned in the last installment of Scrunchins as the first teacher to work in the School Car, a travelling classroom aboard the Newfoundland Express during the 1930s and ’40s, was not the same Frank Moores who went on to become our second premier. My apologies to Saltscapes magazine, which carried the feature.

As for Frank, a tidbit to make up for it … Frankie baby was too young to have taught in the School Car — he didn’t even graduate from St. Andrew’s College, a private school in Aurora, Ont. until the early ’50s. On the night of March 31, 1949 — moments before Newfoundland John Crosbie joined Canada — the entire St. Andrew’s student body rose to their feet in the dining hall to sing O Canada in honour of the occasion. Moores, along with John and Andrew Crosbie, sang the Ode to Newfoundland. In his book, No Holds Barred, John Crosbie describes their rendition as “rousing.”

THE BASTARD An editor has to keep a sharp eye on copy. You never know what will make it into print. Here’s an idea … if there was ever a hated man in Newfoundland it was Sir Gordon MacDonald, a British governor who lived in St. John’s in the years leading up to Confederation. Referring again to the pages of No Holds Barred, MacDonald was a Confederate supporter, “who encouraged Protestants to vote for Confederation with Canada on the ground that Newfoundland’s Roman Catholic hierarchy supported responsible government.” The Evening Telegram “unwittingly” published a poem to Sir Gordon from an anonymous patriot.

A Farewell!

The prayers of countless thousands sent Heavenwards to speed thy safe return Ennobled as thou art with duty well performed Bringing peace, security and joy Among the peoples of this New Found Land.

So saddened and depressed until your presence Taught us to discern and helped decide what’s best for All on whom fortune had not smiled.

Remember if you will the kindness and the love Devotion and the rest that we the people have for Thee — Farewell!

Read vertically, the first letter of each line spells a word that can’t be repeated in the pages of this family paper.

FIGHT LEFT? Our Danny, for one, is way too good for such an unpleasant word. He’s featured in the July 31 issue of Maclean’s in an article headlined, Go ahead, take your best shot (Danny Williams loves a fight. So he keeps on pickPremier Danny Williams ing them). The article states the premier has made a career out of “tough talk and a talent for the well-chosen fight,” but questions how long that will work for him — “How long before brandished fists and posturing lands him in Palookaville, a permanent contender?”

Said Danny of the lows of public life: “I’ve paid a huge price to be premier … you’re under a microscope, you’re in a fishbowl and your every move is questioned and scrutinized … There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t say, ‘I don’t need this.’”

Commented the Maclean’s writer: “But given the relish with which he speaks of his various battles, it’s hard to believe that either.”

SEXY REXY Maclean’s carried another article in its July 24 issue on The two lives of Sexy Rex Goudie, How many biographies of a Canadian Idol runner-up do we need?

The answer to that question is two, of course — an unauthorized book by The Newfoundland Herald’s Kevin Kelly, a so-called Rex-pert, and an authorized book by Kim Kielley of The Ex/press. Kelly’s title is Guts and Glory; Kielley’s is called Idiolized.

Goudie admitted to some unease with the book project. “To be honest with you, at first I was a little bit skeptical,” he says.

“I mean, how much can you write about somebody who’s 20 years old?”

FLAG FLAP Our Rex wore Pink, White and Green during at least one segment of Canadian Idol last year. Speaking of the old Newfoundland flag, there’s a well-known picture of Joey Smallwood on the Trans-Canada Highway overlooking his birthplace of Gambo. Someone has painted a Pink, White and Green bowtie on the late premier. Looks good on him …

RENT EXPENSE Finally, the spending scandal makes it back into Scrunchins this week. In his 2006/2007 public disclosure statements filed with the office of the commissioner of members’ interests, Eddie Joyce, Liberal MHA for the Bay of Islands district, outlines how he and his wife own a rental property in Corner Brook. That rental property also serves as Joyce’s constituency office.

Wonder how much he charges himself for rent? ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

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t. John’s sewage treatment project is on schedule and on budget — but still a long way from complete.

To date, the city has spent $26,621,165 — nearly one quarter of total budget of $109.4 million. The project is slated to be complete by April 2008.

Currently workers are con-

ers will complete the section from Baird’s Cove to Prescott Street.

“We’re on target for this summer’s work,” says Gerry King of the city’s engineering and planning department. “But it’s really boring, it’s just a hole with a pipe in it.”

Last year workers redirected

the sewage flow from the Waterford Valley, constructed the pumping station on South side Road, and built a “diffused outfall,” or the new pipe to put treated and watered-down sewage into the harbour’s south side.

— Nadya Bell

Endangered dinner Fisheries scientist says Canada less protective of marine resources than other countries

By Nadya Bell The Independent

A

tlantic cod, the fish that was set to be declared an endangered species in 2003, will reappear on dinner plates this week.

The recreational fishery will open around the entire coast of Newfoundland Aug. 1 to Sept. 4, with a limit of five fish per person per day. A limited commercial fishery is expected land 2,300 tonnes of cod.

But scientists who recommended the Newfoundland and Labrador population of Atlantic cod be declared endangered three years ago still worry about the fish’s future.

“I have these questions right now that gnaw at my mind about the potential for recovery,” Richard Haedrich tells The Independent.

“The fishery was closed in 1992, and now 14 years later there has been very little recovery in the northern cod.”

Haedrich studies fish at Memorial University and was chair of the fish committee for the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC).

COSEWIC prepared the 2003 status report on Atlantic cod.

“I can understand why there was the request for the (fishery) opening, and the politicians would want to satisfy that,” he says.

“But I think the cod populations are still at such a low level that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to open them up. What you are doing in that case is really inhibiting any recovery that might take place.

“It is not altogether clear that there will be a recovery, so we ought to be very careful.”

Haedrich says recovery of cod stocks is impossible to predict because there were fishing and environmental disturbances to the ecosystem at the same time.

“When you get numbers so low, the whole system may reorganize itself, so … some other species, because it reproduces faster, comes to dominate,” he says. “That’s a real problem because that could be a species, as far as people are concerned, that is of very

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structing the treatment plant on the Southside Road. The concrete has been poured and workers are completing the underground work.

Along Harbour Drive, the interceptor sewer pipe is being laid this summer. The portion in progress is from Beck’s Cove to Baird’s Cove. In October, work-

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little interest.”

Five varieties of Atlantic cod are listed as species of special concern by Environment Canada. This includes populations off the Maritimes, Arctic, Laurentian North and Newfoundland and Labrador.

All cod were given the status of special concern in 1998. The species was split into separate populations in 2003 because there are slight differences in the fish and health of the stocks.

In COSEWIC’s 2003 report, Haedrich and other scientists said cod should have a much higher rating. Atlantic cod, Newfoundland and Labrador population, was designated as endangered because the population of the species has declined by 99 per cent since the early 1960s.

“The DFO scientists that came out with this dire warning of immanent collapse were clearly wrong.”

Gerry Byrne Atlantic cod (Laurentian North population) was rated threatened because the stocks had declined by 80 per cent. The Maritimes population (including the Bay of Fundy and the eastern Scotian Shelf) and Arctic cod were rated special concern for a 14 per cent decline.

After the report was released, the federal government waited two years before a decision was made. Cod were not declared endangered.

Haedrich says politicians worked “actively to avoid listing the cod. This was the general policy of the Newfoundland government, and they were very vigorous in their opposition.

“These are not people who look at the longterm viability of individual fisheries, they are much more in a business mode, to say that you fish out one species and you switch to another.”

MP Gerry Byrne was on the cabinet com-

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mittee under former Fisheries minister Gerald Regan that decided not to place the Newfoundland and Labrador cod on the endangered species list.

He says DFO’s decision to allow a limited fishery since 2003 shows its scientific data was wrong when the department recommended the endangered classification. DFO has allowed a limited commercial cod fishery on the west coast of the island for the past two years.

“The DFO scientists that came out with this dire warning of imminent collapse were clearly wrong,” he says. “There was no way shape or form that this should ever be declared an endangered species under COSEWIC.” Byrne says that opening of the fishery is good news, and is based on improved scientific indicators for the stocks.

If the species had been rated endangered, legislation would have provided for a management plan created by both federal and provincial governments.

Haedrich says this would have amounted to joint management of the fishery.

“There could have been a whole lot more innovative, local, homegrown Newfoundland solutions. As it is now, it’s all in the hands of the feds.”

Currently is a federal-provincial joint task force is looking at Atlantic cod. Byrne says this is similar to what the environmental regulations would have required.

Other species under consideration for the endangered species list as of June 2006 include Atlantic plaice, Atlantic halibut, spiny eel, pollock, deepwater redfish and ocean pout. Haedrich is skeptical these reports will make any more impact than the 2003 report on cod.

“COSEWIC may make recommendations, but I think the chances that any of these species will be listed by Canada are rather low unless Canada really wakes up to the international situation,” he says. “The international situation is much more protective of marine resources then I get a sense Canada is.”

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JULY 30, 2006

Double dippers Province’s policy on collecting two salaries from treasury appears inconsistent

By Ryan Cleary The Independent

T

here appears to be a double standard, or at least an inconsistent one, when it comes to the province’s policy on double dipping, drawing two salaries from the public purse at the same time.

As retired teachers, MHAs such as Harvey Hodder and Felix Collins collect pensions from their years in the classroom on top of their political salaries. Former politician Chuck Furey, who currently holds a bureaucratic job with the province, was forced to give up his MHA pension as a condition of employment.

Meantime, Phil Wall earns $60,000 a year for his part-time job as the province’s information and privacy commissioner, on top of a pension earned from his years of service with the provincial government.

According to a spokeswoman for the province’s Finance Department, the current policy on double dipping was instituted in 1993 under the administration of Clyde Wells.

Government policy states that “preference be given in hiring people other than those in receipt of any of the provincially sponsored pension plans.”

The issue of double dipping arose

this week with an Independent review of the 2006/07 public disclosure statements for Members of the House of Assembly. Collins, who was elected this past February in a byelection as Tory member for Placentia and St. Mary’s, draws an income as an MHA, as well as from his law practice. He also receives a teacher’s pension.

That appears to go against the 1993 cabinet directive.

Apparently not. Asked specifically about the Collins case, a spokeswoman for the premier’s office would only say the MHA hasn’t broken any rules. Collins couldn’t be reached for comment.

At the same time, when Furey was hired this past May as the province’s new chief electoral officer and commissioner of members’ interests — a job that pays more than $125,000 a year — a condition of his employment was that he not draw his MHA pension of more than $60,000 a year while in office.

Furey was a Liberal cabinet minister in 1993 when the double-dipping directive was handed down by cabinet.

“The spirit and intent of the minute in council was that nobody should double dip,” says Furey, who says he would voluntarily give up his MHA pension while serving in his current

position even if he didn’t have to.

“Clearly there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if I had of gone back into government and taken a salary as commissioner and continued to take a pension from the same treasury it would breech the spirit and intent of that minute in council.”

According to Furey, the Wells administration brought in the doubledipping policy in the early 1990s when the province was forced to lay off thousands of workers as a means to cut costs. As it turned out, many of those laid-off workers who had received generous severance packages or pension payouts were being hired back by their “friends” in government.

“To put a halt to that we invoked a new government double-dipping policy that if you took from the treasury once you couldn’t take from it twice,” Furey says. “It covered everybody of course.”

NO COMPLAINT REGISTERED He says he can’t deal with the question of double dipping unless a complaint is registered with his office — and none have.

“If you know X person is double dipping then I would have to review it with the clerk of the privy council and

Felix Collins receives a MHA salary, teacher’s pension and income from his law practice.

Paul Daly/The Independent

get the exact wording and the legal opinion as to whether, in fact, this is double dipping.”

The spokeswoman for the premier’s office wouldn’t comment on why Furey was made to give up his pension while others haven’t.

As a condition of his employment, Len Simms, a long-time Tory MHA who currently serves as CEO of the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation, gives up his MHA pension while in his current position.

Phil Wall was appointed Information and Privacy Commissioner, a part-time position, in December 2004.

He wasn’t made to give up his public service pension, although he says he would if his current job was full-time.

Hodder, speaker of the House of Assembly, collects a teacher’s pen-

sion on top of his political salary of more than $130,000 a year.

Asked for his stand on double dipping, Hodder says in cases where MHAs have earned benefits from previous employment “there’s nothing in the rules that would preclude that.”

“It’s largely a decision that is very individualistic,” says Hodder, who says it’s his understanding the doubledipping policy applies to bureaucrats who are hired back by the province.

Hodder says if he were to be rehired as a teacher he would give up his teacher’s pension. However, if he were to be hired as an investment counselor there would be no requirement to give up his benefits.

Chief Justice Derek Green is currently conducting a review of the MHA compensation package.

Inquiring minds

By Ivan Morgan The Independent

D

espite requests — and at least two petitions — Premier Danny Williams has decided against calling a public inquiry into MHA expense allowances, choosing instead to send the auditor general back in to continue and expand his investigation.

Considering the next general election is slated for Oct. 9, 2007, a little over a year from now, could the decision not to call an inquiry be a political one?

Would an inquiry called today still be conducting hearings or reporting during a general election?

It is difficult to predict accurately the timeline or the cost of an inquiry. The Hughes Inquiry into the Mount Cashel

scandal was initially required to report its findings in 90 days — the report was finally filed almost two years later.

The Royal Commission into the Ocean Ranger Marine Disaster took two and a half years and cost over $2.5 million. More recently, the Lamer Commission of Inquiry into the Cases of Ronald Dalton, Gregory Parsons and Randy Druken took over three years.

Given the span of time involved (17 years) and the types of professionals necessary to accomplish the task — chartered accountants, lawyers, accountants and their support staff — it’s safe to estimate an inquiry into MHA expense account spending since 1989 would take at least a year, and cost well over $1 million. ivan.morgan@theindependent.ca

Premier Danny Williams

ROYAL COMMISSIONS AND COMMISSIONS OF INQUIRY, 1980-2006 Date Appointed July 4, 1980

Date Published 1981

April 23, 1980 June 16, 1977

1981 1981

February 13, 1981 August 20, 1980

1981 1981

March 16, 1982 April 15, 1983 February 20, 1985 October 1985

1984 1984 1985 1985

January 15, 1985 June 22, 1984 March 31, 1987 September 1990

1986 1986 1987 1990

August 31, 1989 June 1, 1989

1990 1991

August 6, 1990

1992

July 1, 1990

[1992]

June 28, 1991

1992

April 19, 2002 March 20, 2003

2003 2006

Commission Newfoundland. Royal Commission of Enquiry into the Financial Losses of Marystown Shipyard Limited.

Newfoundland. Royal Commission on Forest Protection and Management.

Newfoundland. Commission of Enquiry into the Purchasing Procedures of the Department of Public Works and Services.

Newfoundland. Commission of Enquiry Connaigre Peninsula and Area.

Newfoundland. Royal Commission to Inquire into the Inshore Fishery of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Canada. Royal Commission on the Ocean Ranger Marine Disaster.

Newfoundland. Royal Commission on Hospital and Nursing Home Costs.

Newfoundland. Commission of Enquiry into Pole Attachment Rates.

Newfoundland. Commission of Enquiry into Salaries, Pensions, and Other Benefits of Provincial Court Judges.

Newfoundland. Royal Commission on Employment and Unemployment.

Canada. Royal Commission on Seals and the Sealing Industry in Canada.

Newfoundland. Commission of Inquiry, St. John’s Metropolitan Area.

Commission of enquiry into the alleged erosion of the Newfoundland fishery by non-Newfoundland interests Newfoundland. Commission of Enquiry on Pensions.

Newfoundland. Hughes Report: Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Response of the Newfoundland Criminal Justice System to Complaints.

Newfoundland. Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Delivery of Programs and Services in Primary, Elementary and Secondary Education Newfoundland. Royal Commission of Enquiry Into the Involvement of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and any of its Agencies or Corporations with Sprung Sales Limited, Sprung Environmental Space Enclosures Limited or Newfoundland Enviroponics Limited.

Newfoundland. Public Inquiry into Allegations of Irregularities Associated with a Public Service Competition.

Newfoundland. Royal Commission on Renewing and Strengthening Our Place in Canada Newfoundland. Lamer Commission of Inquiry.

Source: legislative library

JULY 30, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 5

‘No conflict whatsoever’

Furey sees no problem with premier’s charitable donations; former Liberal leader calls for more transparency

By Ryan Cleary The Independent

T

he province’s conflict of interest watchdog says he has no problem with the way Premier Danny Williams donates his pay to charity, although at least one critic says the process should be more transparent.

“The fact that Williams gives it (his government salary) away, I mean that’s really his business,” says Chuck Furey, who, as commissioner of members’ interests, is responsible for ensuring MHAs comply with conflict of interest legislation.

“That’s not me pandering to Danny, because I operate this office at arm’s length and I really don’t give a shit what people think of me, other than I tell it like it is.

“And on that one I just believe it’s his personal salary. If he decided to keep it and collect it as a salary and then give it away that’s his business too. If he’d like to be public and say he’s giving it away, well that’s his choice.”

Prior to taking office, Williams, a selfmade multi-millionaire, pledged to donate his government salary — about $150,000 a year as premier — to charity.

He has apparently done that, although only a portion of his generosity can be accounted for. A significant amount of the earnings are said to be given to personal charities and individuals whose identity the premier isn’t prepared to reveal. “The premier isn’t going to divulge the names of individuals who are less fortunate and require help,” a spokeswoman for the premier’s office has said. “That would be completely inappropriate.”

The issue is one of transparency.

The premier’s enormous business interests are held in trust so that he does-

n’t benefit financially from moves he makes while in office. Questions have been raised about money donated by the premier through the Williams Family Foundation in that the registered charity isn’t operated at arm’s length from his office. The premier could also be seen as benefiting politically from how and where he donates his salary.

“Every member is honourable and I accept that that’s why we use that phrase, they are honourable until proven otherwise,” says Furey, a long-time Liberal MHA and cabinet minister. “Whatever Mr. Williams does with his salary is Mr. Williams’ business. And if he gives it to charity I’m sure people will just commend him for it. And I see no conflict whatsoever.”

Asked about the operations of the premier’s charitable foundation, former Liberal leader Jim Bennett says the Williams Family Foundation (which is currently run by Williams’ wife and daughter) should operate at arm’s length from the premier’s office, with independent trustees.

“If you don’t have rules in the first place there’s nothing there to enforce,” Bennett says.

“A lot of the problem is that we really have no clarity in this province in any event … we have no integrity act, we have no integrity commissioner and in my view we haven’t been really serious about accountability until recently.”

Bennett points to a 2005 case in Ontario involving then-Transportation minister Harinder Takhar, who faced criticism after the Toronto Sun caught him visiting his company despite it having been placed in a blind trust when he joined cabinet.

The matter was sent to Ontario’s integrity commissioner, who issued a decision in January that Takhar had vio-

Chuck Furey

lated that province’s integrity guidelines by failing to maintain an arm’s-length relationship with the trustee of his blind trust.

“It turned out that he (Takhar) didn’t do anything improper but it certainly didn’t pass the smell test. It just looked bad,” says Bennett, who says the province should have its own integrity commis-

Do you need a receipt?

Guidelines governing political expenditures vary across Canada

By Ivan Morgan The Independent

A

n Independent investigation of political compensation packages across Canada reveals a wide discrepancy between jurisdictions.

For instance, a Nova Scotian Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) gets $1,000 allowance every month, no receipts required, on top of a $5,500 monthly allowance for office rent, staffing and other administrative expenses.

Next door in New Brunswick, MLAs have a far more stringent compensation package, with strict and detailed guidelines on what they may and may not spend their allowances on, with no general expense allowance.

NEW BRUNSWICK • No general constituency allowance.

• Strict travel allowance • Regular audits, as well as “spot audits” by auditor general • The only photographs that may be purchased are composite photos of current MLAs or of the Queen.

• Auditor general has full access.

NOVA SCOTIA • $1,000 allowance for which no receipts are required.

• Travel allowance includes cap of 52 round trips between district and Halifax per year.

Travel expenses published annually.

• The Internal Economy Board publicizes meetings and is available to media afterwards.

• Auditor general has full access.

ONTARIO • MLAs issued a “global budget.”

• Detailed guidelines for how budget may be spent, but guidelines are not public, nor is any of the information subject to Ontario’s Freedom of Information Act. • Individual member’s expenses are published annually, outlining accommodation expenses (including travel points), staff expenses, including rent, staff costs and communications.

• Auditor general has full access.

ALBERTA • Under the detailed member’s guide are such clauses as “Members may claim expenses for operating private automobiles, including fuel, oil, lubrication fluid, antifreeze, gas-line antifreeze, transmission fluid, brake fluid, steering fluid, windshield washer fluid and car washing and waxing, including labour.

Members may have one car detailing service done during each fiscal year (April 1 to March 31). Please note that any other vehicle maintenance not covered under Members’ Services Orders — for example, tune-ups, tire repair or replacement, engine repair, et cetera — will not be reimbursed.”

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Derek Green has been asked to provide a review of the best practices of other jurisdictions. He will have a wide range to choose from.

Does he recommend a blanket sum ($1,000 per month), for politicians to do with as they wish, as is done in Nova Scotia? Or does he adopt the mathematically intimidating formula for the Members Service Allowance for MLAs in Alberta, “where E is the electors in the most recent list of electors for that constituency, and C is the population in the Member’s electoral division according to the Alberta Population Estimates as reported annually by Alberta Finance Statistics branch, and (a) (i) $21,135 for office operations (ii) $57,513 for staffing (b) + $1.02 x (E ÷ 1.5) (c) + $2,500 + $0.0757 x (C - 14,000) (d) An adjustment amount based on this table and matrix scores”?

Some guidance can be found from other groups. A brief by the Canadian Taxpayers’ Association, referring to the expense accounts of Manitoba’s MLAs, states “MLAs need not be deprived of quality office support, equipment, accommodations when traveling, or adequate funds to dialogue with constituents.

However, asking for regular, annual disclosure of spending is by no means unreasonable.”

Ontario’s Office of the Integrity Commissioner also offers guidance, stating the need to find the balance between assisting a member of the Legislative Assembly to keep the public interest in the forefront while respecting that individual’s right to privacy.

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sioner.

“That’s one of the issues I had with Chuck’s appointment. Chuck is a friend of mine, I just didn’t think it should have been a former political person, even though now he’s on the other side … there’s definitely a need for an integrity commissioner. That’s almost like looking for a gold standard when we haven’t even

got into the metals yet.

“I called for that earlier on and it was almost like I was talking about people walking on Jupiter — never mind walking on Mars. It seemed like we’re so far removed from having any sort of proper ethical guidelines that for someone to raise it seems like it’s a whole revolutionary new idea when clearly it isn’t.”

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6 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JULY 30, 2006

On edge I

nside sources are always nice to have for juicy detail. They say Paul Dicks’ spirit of choice in 2000 when he was a minister of the Crown was 1982 Bordeaux. A fine selection given the ’82s, early on, are said to be the best year since the legendary 1961 vintage. As for the thousands of dollars Mr. Dicks reportedly spent on artwork … most of the pieces, the same sources say, were purchased — not right here — but in Nova Scotia. How’s that for a twist of the knife that’s been stuck in the back of taxpayers these past few weeks?

Here’s a detail I can personally verify — Paul Dicks passed more than one afternoon in the House of Assembly flipping through the pages of a wine catalogue. I used to watch him from the reporters’ perch in the gallery, high above the suits laid out on the seal-skin chairs. Catalogues are much more interesting, even from 30 feet above, than counting the number of school kids asleep in the public seats (highest number of students spotted nodding off in a single session — 11). If the excitement levels weren’t high enough, Wally Andersen would take off his shoes and walk

RYAN CLEARY

Fighting Newfoundlander around the House in his stocking feet.

Riveting stuff.

I wasn’t particularly fond of covering the legislature, because it was boring as hell. Outside Question Period’s first question or two, the rest of the bullets fired by the opposition were usually blanks. No blood sport there.

The antics would still have to be written up for the next day’s paper, even though the drama would play out on the television news later that evening and carried again the next morning on radio.

But a good reporter has to know government inside out, no matter what beat they cover, which means doing time in the beast’s belly. The challenge is to find a new angle to the story of the day, although that means more work, which adds to the hatred of the House.

Politicians are also good to get to know as contacts, future inside

sources. MHAs are the first people to get a call when a constituent has a problem — a.k.a. news story. The trick to getting politicians to feed you on a regular basis is to give them a piece of the cake in the form of a big fat quote. A simple exchange: information for publicity, the name of the game.

With the exception of Harvey Hodder, most politicians are hard to reach these days. So many are apparently too busy in their districts to return calls. So many sources have dried up because of the scandal that grips the land.

It’s almost as if the MHAs are afraid of the questions that might come.

Ed Joyce got a call from The Independent this week with a query about the rental property in Corner Brook that also serves as his constituency office. Does he bill his constituency allowance for rent? If so, how much? Those are fair questions.

For Harvey’s part, he can’t answer because his files have been transferred to the auditor general, John Noseworthy, and that’s a dead end until he’s done asking questions. Ed

said he’d call back in 10 minutes with the information, and never did.

At least Ed picked up the phone — Felix Collins couldn’t be reached to take a question about the teacher’s pension he takes home on top of his MHA salary.

LYING LOW Make no mistake: Mr. Joyce and Mr. Collins have done nothing wrong.

Like most politicians I know, they’re good people. But like most politicians today, they’re lying low until the storm passes.

Only this weather pattern is settling in; there may be no waiting this one out.

Not only is the AG investigating whether 122 politicians over the past 17 years spent more than they were entitled to, he’s also taking a gander at what they spent taxpayers’ money on.

That’s why politicians are on edge.

How will they look if they purchased even a single bottle of 1982 Bordeaux and charged it to their expense account? Forget that, how will they look if they bought a single case of the screw-top stuff? Every meal, every lunch, every plate of

chips, dressing and gravy, bag of potato chips and stick of gum will be reviewed to determine if the money was spent “appropriately.”

According to Noseworthy’s math, there have been, on average, 50 MHAs a year for the past 17 years, multiplied by 40 claims each a year equals 17,000 claims.

That’s 17,000 reasons for politicians to be biting their nails.

And so the AG prepares for an office expansion. He’s secured extra space in the bowels of Confederation Building near the bond vault, the very space that experienced water damage a few weeks ago (a problem with the air conditioner). He’s also hiring more staff to pour over the endless claims.

More than one career will be ruined by this scandal. Politics as we have known it, since Confederation at least, will never be the same again. Watch for the retirements over the next few months. Confederation Building isn’t a fun place to work any more if you’re a politician.

Maybe the next crop will lead to a better vintage. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

YOUR VOICE ‘Our city council at work’ Dear editor, Here are three reasons why I think the St. John’s garbage by-law is a piece of junk: First, don’t push new regulations if you don’t enforce existing ones. Most of the garbage in my area comes — not from gulls — but from the industrial-sized garbage container outside the school next door (its cover is never closed) and from windows of the cars that drop off the kids.

The new legislation will do nothing about that. Quite to the contrary, it will keep city inspectors busy going through my garbage, checking if my garbage bags have the required size and thickness.

Second, one size does not fit all.

Different parts of the city have different realities and need different solutions. Thus, a logical thing to do would be to enforce the outcome, not the means. Ticket me if my garbage gets out — not because my garbage bin does not meet some absurd speci-

fications.

Third, the bag-in-the-bin policy.

Even if you use bins, from now on you will have to put garbage in large plastic bags. To further discourage people from using environmentally sound (reusable) garbage bins — they will have to be weighted — to make dragging them to the curb back breaking.

Thousands and thousands of additional non-biodegradable bags will end up in the Robin Hood Bay dump, along with all the existing garbage bins that do not meet councils’ new requirements.

To sum up: more patronizing micromanagement, more regulations when old ones are not enforced, more pollution, and increased costs to homeowners. All this while diverting resources away from the real litter culprits in many parts of the city. Ladies and gentlemen — our city council at work.

Piotr Trela, St. John’s

Bottom of the barrel Dear editor, At last we have reached the bottom or the barrel as far as the fishery is concerned. Maybe, just maybe, when our fishing population finally realizes what happened this past week in the capital city they will be rocketed into consciousness and demand Premier Danny Williams, federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn and Prime Minister Stephen Harper begin the rebuilding process.

This week we saw the spectacle of two Nova Scotians, John Risley and George Armoyan, and some fellow from Ontario named Hargrove holding an extraordinary meeting to decide the future of our fishing industry and the fate of hundreds of fishing communities. Surely our ancestors must have turned over in their graves many times by now. After five centuries we have given up our independence, and allowed foreigners from North America and Europe to destroy or take from us one of the world’s great fisheries.

A few hundred miles to the east in the middle of the North Atlantic is Iceland. With less than half our population they seized their independence from Denmark, built an economy based on fish that has a per capita income ranked fifth in the world with a quality of life that is the envy of most nations.

Why have we stood by and watched Ottawa bureaucrats and submissive politicians permit foreigners to demolish our treasured fisheries as they impose a moratorium on our fishermen?

When Harper sought election a few months ago he committed to implementing custodial management to start the recovery process. Hearn gave pre-election assurance to all who would listen that a major science program would be implemented to insure successful implementation of custodial management. Before he was elected, Williams promised to travel from coast to coast to bring national awareness to one of the great wrongs ever perpetrated on our people. What happened? This week — with all Canada’s premiers in our midst — the single most important problem facing us wasn’t even on the agenda.

By the way Minister Hearn, in case you don’t know, this year we have only 5.5 per cent of the four major groundfish species that were under quota off our shores in the mid-1970s.

In those days fish plants operated 50 weeks a year, EI was unheard of and Fort McMurray could have been in Asia as far as those workers were concerned.

Gus Etchegary, Portugal Cove-St. Philip’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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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

Danny: Napoleon or just the complex?

B

ased on many years of personal experience, I can tell you there is no harder job in journalism than getting at the truth when politicians of various parties conspire to hide the facts from the public. When they close ranks and circle the wagons, when they and their flaks put the spin cycle on bust to try and put a protective coating on their festering asses, when they twist and manipulate the truth like an acrobatic hooker in a so-called massage parlour.

Then, when they’re caught red-handed gorging themselves from the public trough, they build up a head of righteous indignation, look straight into the TV cameras and declare with all the insincerity they can summon, that they have been unfairly maligned by a pack of yellow dogs — the journalists whose responsibility it is to ferret out the truth without regard for whatever culprit might wind up a casualty.

Take, as an example, the case of David Dingwall, the most blatant one I can think of in recent times. He was a federal Liberal cabinet minister for several years and when his constituents got wise to him and dispatched him to the political scrap heap, his buddies still in office gave him a cushy patronage plum as chairman of the Canadian Mint at a handsome six-figure salary on top of his pension, the Rolls Royce of pensions — all legal of course, but morally reprehensible.

Returning to the gravy train, several months ago the federal auditor general reported that Dingwall had pilfered tens of thousands of dollars by padding his expense accounts and he was forced to resign.

Even though he was officially declared a scoundrel, he professed his innocence and proceeded to apply for a severance package.

He told an incredulous public that he most certainly deserved it, that he was “entitled to his entitlements.” He got the money and disappeared back into his hole. Oh for a touch of Saudi Arabian justice on a one-time-only basis, although I wouldn’t stop at his wrist — I’d cleave the arm off at the shoulder.

Now, let’s come closer to home, and

BILL KELLY

Guest Column our own covey of honourable ladies and gentleman in the venerable House of Assembly. You know, the ones already exposed by the auditor general and the others who, as Ryan Cleary so aptly put it in last week’s Independent, are “quaking in their patent leather shoes.”

They have clamped their mouths shut and are exercising the silence-isgolden rule with all the discipline of a superbly trained German pointer standing on a partridge. They are, after all, every last one of them, members of a very elitist private club that must, at all costs, shield themselves from the prying eyes of the proletariat.

Take Judy Foote. Take her please.

How could we expect Mrs. Foote to speak out when she could be the next to be implicated? A couple or few years ago Ms. Foote, the honourable member for Grand Bank, took her partner on an all-expense-paid trip halfway around the world using public money that could have been spent on badly needed health facilities on the Burin Peninsula — the same faculties of which she now speaks so piously from the ranks of opposition.

And what of the honourable Harvey Hodder? We haven’t heard a squeak from him since he got his tail caught under the speaker’s chair. Except, that is, when his political bosses ordered him to go out a few weeks ago and do damage control when Ed Byrne et al — looking for all the world like Bambis caught in the glare of the headlights — took off into the woods and haven’t been seen or heard from since.

Mr. Hodder showed his true colours alright — yellow for his gutlessness, brown for the stain on his starched shorts, and blue for the streak he made in responding to his master’s command.

That brings us to the premier, a man whose skin is thinner than an eggshell, who takes everything personally, a man who apparently believes he is so far

above the rest of us that he cannot be questioned. Danny acts as though he truly believes in his own infallibility at a time when most people, including Roman Catholics, have come to question the Pope’s. Right now he is railing against The Independent, a paper that, in his opinion, had the temerity to ask some questions concerning his charitable foundation — questions about transparency, about the propriety of running the charity out of the premier’s office, about a real or perceivable conflict of interest.

The questions were all legitimate, but the premier has taken great exception as he does seem to frequently by calling newsrooms in a snit.

Flying into a rage at the least provocation is nothing new for Mr. Williams.

I guess he’s been getting his own way for so long — the yes-sir, no-sir, threebags-full-sir response with employees and underlings bowing and scraping for fear of getting on the bad side of the boss almighty — that he thinks this province is his own personal fiefdom?

A perfect enough example occurred a while back when he warned striking public servants, some of the most poorly paid and hardest working, that he’d stove them out “until the cows come home.”

He did, leaving them on the picket line by for a full month, and then forcing them back to work for less than his original offer. It was petty, vindictive and uncalled for.

Danny’s brand of egotism, his arrogance and pomposity, must be attacked and exposed by the media. Now, we also have our share of pompous asses in the media and they too must be rooted out and shown for what they are. As for the vast majority, the good reporters, researchers, editors and producers, they must be ever vigilant that the next tin-pot dictator is not our own.

I admire Premier Williams in many ways but he needs to take himself down or be taken down a few pegs. I’m not quite sure if Mr. Williams actually thinks he is Napoleon or simply has the complex.

Bill Kelly is a retired journalist living in St. John’s.

JULY 30, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 7

The great Canadian anti-charisma L

ike it or not, we are all going to have to get used to Stephen Harper. In the face of an imploded Liberal Party of Canada and the irrelevant New Democratic Party, it is starting to look like, come the next election, a lot of Canadians are going to sigh and vote Conservative. I think Harper is going to be prime minister for a while.

Small “c” conservatives crow of the ascendancy of conservatism in Canada, but I don’t think that explains Harper’s slow, purposeful and determined (I hesitate to use the term masterful) approach to becoming Prime Minister. I think his success, if it can be called that, has been to provide Canadians with something they crave — stability.

Gone is the Paul Martin–Jean Chrétien infighting that the Canadian public developed a distaste for. Gone too is the famous Tory infighting.

Harper has “united the right” and squashed his competition for the top job. As leader of the Canadian Alliance, Harper proved cagey in his estimation of Peter McKay. In hindsight, Harper’s handling of McKay, however cynical,

IVAN MORGAN

Rant & Reason was right on the money.

Here was a man who pledged on videotape he would not make a deal with Harper’s Canadian Alliance, and then broke that promise, discrediting himself while at the same time playing to Harper’s ambitions.

Since then, McKay’s missteps have managed to sideline both his ambitions and his profile to the point where he now looks more and more like a liability — like someone who is either not capable of the task that he has been assigned, or is being made to look that way by a crafty boss. I think it is a little of both. In either case, he isn’t a threat to Harper’s leadership of the party anymore.

And there is little threat to Harper from either of the other federal political parties. The federal Liberal leadership

race has not managed to garner anyone’s interest, with candidates ranging from the lacklustre to the seedy, and the one opportunity the party had to show the public that they had turned over a new leaf — the revelation that children were donating to Joe Volpe’s campaign in order to take advantage of a “loophole” in the party’s campaign contribution regulations — was so badly handled I think it may have turned many Canadians off the whole leadership race.

It gets worse. The recent announcement that Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis, Volpe’s national campaign manager, resigned over a difference of opinion regarding the Middle East, surfaced and sank again without so much as a ripple.

It is sad to think Karygiannis’ moral compass could guide him through being caught taking $27,000 from the children of a supporter, but apparently not about a matter of international policy.

The campaign is in such disarray that he learned he was sacked from reporters.

They must be yukking it up big time in the Conservative Party backrooms.

It doesn’t get any better anywhere else in the Liberal party. It has a wellearned reputation for arrogance and corruption. It has no vision, no direction, no credibility and more candidates for the top job than Canadian Idol.

Unlike the singing competition, however, no one seems to care about any of the Liberal contenders.

I am old enough to remember Ken Dryden coming into the Stanley Cup and leading the team to victory. That ain’t gonna happen this time. The other candidates are equally tepid, barely getting any notice anywhere in Canada.

Certainly, one of them will win, but is anyone really going to care?

All this could be a real opportunity for the New Democrats, but that has been true for at least 30 years, and their fervent belief that their time has come and Canadians will finally “see the light” has become truly depressing.

Even the Bloc Quebecois has not escaped Harper’s machinations, having failed to see his hand at work in their own back yard.

Harper has, whether his many critics

want to admit it or not, become very prime ministerial in a buttoned-down, starchy kind of way. He has weathered the increasing casualties of a war in Afghanistan, controversy over the handling of the return of slain soldiers, and the storm of controversy regarding his relationship with the national news media.

Like it or not, Harper is being seen more and more as decisive and confident. Like his real predecessor, Jean Chrétien, he has his fingers on the pulse of Canadians, and seems to be routing past media and pundits and conducting a political dialogue with the voters. It is a formal, aloof, and somewhat inexplicable dialogue, but it is a dialogue nonetheless. He seems to have that quintessential Canadian charisma — the anti-charisma.

Will it work? In the face of a Pierre Trudeau it didn’t work for Robert Stanfield or Joe Clark. But there isn’t a Trudeau in sight.

Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@theindependent.ca

FIRST MINISTERS

YOUR VOICE Public disclosure Dear editor, In his Tempest and Tantrum column of July 16, Ryan Cleary begs the question whether taxpayers’ money is being well spent. If Premier Danny Williams is required to publicly account for every cent of his premier’s salary, then I would expect that all others who receive money from the taxpayers’ purse should be required to publicly disclose all their expenditures for scrutiny as well, including civil servants and those who collect employment insurance and social assistance.

Katrina Thorarinson, St. John’s

‘Sleazy tabloid crap’ Dear editor, You know that line between uncompromising investigative journalism and personal vendetta? Turn around ... it’s a long way behind you. It doesn’t matter what the premier thinks of you. He might hold you in such contempt that if you were on fire in the street, he wouldn’t pee on you to put you out, or he might think you’re God’s gift. At any rate, what he thinks of you, or for that matter, what you think of him, is irrelevant.

Unfortunately, you do not seem to share this view.

Your recent story, Charity case, was nothing short of nasty.

The headline, the reference to “details scant,” and the whole tenor of the story would lead one to think that there might be something questionable going on. The average reader would be inclined to think that if the matter warranted front-page coverage, then there must be a story here. The average reader would be right. There is a story here, but the story is the petty way you appear to be abusing the great power entrusted to you.

The Charity case story was fob. Frothy, disgusting and utterly without substance. What the premier does with his salary is his business. He can burn it if he wants. It has nothing whatsoever to do with allowances. By writing the story, you are inviting people to make a connection with the constituency allowance scandal, when the dots aren’t there to connect.

This isn’t journalism. It’s sleazy tabloid crap. And if this is the kind of writing that will keep the paper alive, then put a bullet in it now. If not, why not march all the way down the road to ragdom and do some “investigative” stories about whether the face of Diana can be seen in the bubble or if Elvis runs a B&B on the Southern Shore. You used to be a newspaperman. What are you now?

Don Singleton, Goose Bay

The leaders of Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories met this week at the Fairmont Hotel in St. John’s. After many hours of discussion, on July 27, Premier Danny Williams, chair of the Council of the Federation, said the leaders would not come to an agreement on how the federal government should fix the fiscal imbalance. Each premier will now negotiate individually with the federal government in favour of their preferred manner of dividing the federal surplus among the provinces. Below, from left to right, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald, and New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord.

Paul Daly photos/The Independent

Buck King’s memory ‘cries out’ for an apology Dear editor, I wish to respond to Susan Rendell’s column headlined They’re here, they’re homeless. Get used to it in the July 16 edition.

The article was extremely well written, but the writer’s tangents served only to distract readers and to confuse and waterdown the message she tried to deliver.

Let’s put the tangents aside. They’re meaningless and miniscule in comparison to the grave injustice Ms. Rendell did to the memory of one of the very people she was attempting to stand up for. She savaged the good name and reputation of Buck King — the mere mention of Buck’s name brings forth a flood of fond memories for the thousands of St. John’s and area residents who came to love him.

Ms. Rendell, who appears from the

photograph above her column to be a good deal younger than me, says she first laid eyes on Buck when she was about 20 years old.

That would put Buck in his 60s — about 10 years or so before he died.

I remember Buck from the time I was six years old growing up on Signal Hill.

At that time, Buck was probably in his 20s, although mentally we were equal.

Buck was as harmless as a newborn kitten, as gentle as a lamb. Buck, I remember, would point to a little six- or seven-year-old child and declare for all the world to hear, “That’s my girlfriend,” and he would say it with all the innocence and fickleness of any young child.

The next day, he’d vow his love for a new girlfriend. And so on, and so on …

Buck was always impeccably dressed.

His sister Mary who looked after him all of her life made sure of that. She’d dress him up every day in a spotless plaid shirt, a pair of dungarees with the cuffs turned up and a pair of sneakers.

His hair looked like something out of the middle ages, a style reminiscent of Friar Tuck. Mary or one of his other loving relatives would literally put a bowl on his heard and cut around the edges.

Buck loved sports. He was a fixture on the waterfront and up in Bannerman, playing soccer with the Portuguese seaman from the White Fleet.

And if there was a practice going on for teams representing St. Bon’s, St. Pat’s, Holy Cross, The Guards or any other organization, Buck would be there.

The players would finish their workout, beat to a snot, and Buck, not a fizz

out of him, would carry on to the next pitch and his fourth or fifth practice of the day.

As summer turned to fall and fall gave way to winter, Buck would become a fixture at the stadium, acting as a kind of mascot at the end of the bench of his favourite hockey teams.

I would venture to guess that Buck didn’t take a drink until he was in his early 40s, but, as you can imagine, he could be manipulated and easily led.

It is true that in his declining years Buck could be seen downtown wearing as Kris Kristofferson said, “yesterday’s misfortunes for a smile,” and he’d often ask for a few coppers. And yes, Ms. Rendell, there was time with Buck could be seen with his fly open and his member hanging out.

But no, Ms. Rendell, he was not a pervert or some kind of degenerate.

I know you didn’t say that, Ms. Rendell. I don’t think you even implied it. But you did leave the wrong impression with many readers.

You and The Independent owe Buck King an apology. His memory cries out for it.

By the way, Ms. Rendell, Buck King died not long after Joey Smallwood. Joey had a state funeral at the Basilica of St. John the Baptist. The church was filled to overflowing.

When it was Buck’s turn to be memorialized, most of the same people who honoured Joey were also there for the poor, child-like St. John’s character they had come to cherish.

Bill Kelly, St. John’s

JULY 30, 2006

8 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

JULY 30, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 9

IN CAMERA

Lisa Ryan has been managing Moo Moo’s for more than a decade — inventing, tasting (and sometimes rejecting) hundreds of flavours of ice cream and sorbet. The popular downtown store does a brisk business this time of year, especially when the sun shines. Independent photo editor Paul Daly and reporter Nadya Bell stopped by the operation for a look — and a taste.

M

Cream of the cow

oo Moo’s ice cream is not made in an igloo by dwarves who sneeze when the icicles under their noses get too large.

It is made by Lisa Ryan who loves chocolate sour cherry ice cream, and has carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists from serving ice cream for 20 years.

Just a few steps away from Bannerman Park in St. John’s, Ryan runs the ice-cream kitchen for Moo Moo’s ice cream in the basement of a white building covered with black cow spots.

The ice cream production room and kitchen is steamy, warm and wet — workers wear blue or purple rubber boots with their apron, hair net, surgical hood and rubber gloves.

They tend three ice-cream makers, named Anne, Paul and The Bitch. The first two machines are secondhand from Stockwood’s Bakery and Delicatessen, and relatively content.

The third, more temperamental machine, is a new Italian-made Carpagiani’s ice-cream maker with a

gelato beater attachment. Ryan says she will put the machine to good work shortly, when the store begins producing large quantities of gelato for sale.

Gelato has between six and 20 per cent milk fat. She says they will be leaning towards the lighter gelatos, with very little milk.

Moo Moo’s has produced high-end sorbets — like gelato but with no milk — in small quantities for the Fairmont Hotel and private orders. They cost between $7 and $11 a litre and come in

custom flavours, including partridgeberry, mango, strawberry, and champagne.

“The bakeapple sorbet — when you can get it — it’s the best thing you have ever had in your life — it’s to die for,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Ryan couldn’t say how many flavours of ice cream she and the other employees of Moo Moo’s have made, but it’s in the hundreds. She is constantly experimenting, inventing and forgetting about the batches that

weren’t so great.

She has designed a new type to be unveiled shortly: rhubarb and sour cream pie.

“It’s got rhubarb and graham crumbs,” she says. “Basically it’s like taking the pie and throwing it in the ice cream.”

Turtle cheesecake is one of the most popular ice-cream flavours, and Ryan is especially proud of the chocolate sour cherry, claiming it tastes just like a Cherry Blaster. (After further

research, it’s clear the chocolate and cherry swirl tastes great with chunks of cookie.)

Everyone in Ryan’s family is a little involved in the operation. Wallace Ryan, her brother, came up with the name for the ice cream store in 1989 one night, sitting with his buddies at the Ship Inn. Her father still owns The Market store upstairs where the ice cream is sold. Wallace Ryan, Sr. is lord of the store from his counter — at 75 he has

cut down to 50 hours of work a week.

But he too likes his ice cream, especially the “tornado” flavour.

Lisa Ryan took the ice cream operation over in ’95, and rents the production space from her father. She says the ice-cream business is difficult, especially in Newfoundland, because people only eat ice-cream three months of the year.

In May, Ryan had a birthday party in the ice cream production area for her two daughters, Kayleen and

Hannah. She says it was such a success, she’d like to host children’s parties there if they move to a larger production centre.

“It was like electricity was running through the room from the kids — lots of little giggles.”

But if the customers are any judge, it’s hard not to giggle when you’ve got sticky fingers from a triple-layer ice cream cone: rum butter and raisin, lemon and sour cherry, and banana split.

JULY 30, 2006

10 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

Doug Bird in Saskatchewan.

‘I wanted to see’

Independent cartoonist Doug Bird tries to explain why he rode a bike across Canada

I

have returned from riding my bicycle across Canada. Why does anybody cycle across the country, perform an epic task, take on a big adventure? Is it to say I am here, I lived, I took hold of my own life and crammed more experiences into my limited time on the planet. Or are some people just crazy? I think it’s a bit of both.

Everyone responds to the idea of cycling 8,000 km with a wistful look in their eye while saying they wouldn’t ride to the local convenience store. Most think it’s a worthwhile adventure, a little crazy but at least still profound — not like bungee jumping or parachuting off tall buildings.

There are risks involved in such a long trip but also time to contemplate … not just scream for your life as you plunge into a gorge.

I have thought about the answer only because people ask why I did such a thing. My own motivation is unclear to me. I wanted to see if I could do it. I wanted to see what it feels like to be in great physical shape. I wanted to really see Canada.

I have a connection to many parts of this country. It wasn’t an arbitrary ride to me. I was coming from my birthplace to my home: Vancouver to St. John’s. I could not have completed the trip in the other direction and I marvel at people who ride here with no connection to the place. St. John’s is the starting point or

the end point and little else, a dot on the map that ties up the journey in a neat, coast-to-coast package.

Of course they enjoy themselves while they’re here but are so wrapped up in the start or finish that I don’t think place means that much to them — not as much as it does to me.

Maybe the ride completed my physical and intellectual move from one end of the country to the other. Maybe it was just an excuse to drink a lot of beer.

Oddly, only self-employed people asked me how I could get the time off to do the trip.

Wage slaves can fantasize about having time off, but only the self-employed know it’s impossible. The amount of work I left behind for my partner was staggering and without her support I could not have made the trip.

I am too old to just chuck everything and head out on the road. If you are young enough to recover from big mistakes I recommend you leave today. Two young friends of mine left St. John’s on garage-sale bicycles with about $20 in their pockets. That is the true spirit of adventure. I could get a room and a shower when I needed it or even hop a plane if I had to. These kids were on the road flying by the seat of their pants. I admire them.

Here I am in my old space, my old life.

People ask how was the trip and I have difficulty answering because I have difficulty

understanding it myself. I have changed. Time has become decompressed. The things I did yesterday are so far gone that they feel like years ago.

Pushing on the pedals everyday can only take you so far, so fast and eventually you accept the pace, become used to distances as they really are. Cars and airplanes have trained us to believe it is a small world. It is not. It only feels that way because of modern conveyances. Human powered travel brings the scale back to earth and seems to put more time into the day. I had time to really see everything and now that I am back I am still seeing everything. I am not impatient anymore.

I have rekindled my faith in humankind.

Almost without exception we were treated like heroes the whole length of the country. Sure we ran into a few assholes but really, can you say you’re not an asshole at least once in a while? I forgive myself. I forgive them (except for one particular truck driver who tried to kill us in Ontario and even he wasn’t trying that hard or you wouldn’t be reading this today).

So if you have been saying you’d like to do something big, fulfill a life-long dream or even just respond to a whim, stop talking and do it.

All we take with us is experience. There is nothing else.

Anybody up for a bicycle race?

Doug Bird is The Independent’s cartoonist.

The parent trap As time goes on, Leia Feltham sees her relationship with her parents changing

K

ids and their parents aren’t supposed to get along. It’s one of those unwritten rules of life that are known and understood by everyone.

They aren’t supposed to like the same things either. It’s like once children reach a certain age, similarities in taste, hobbies and interests between them and their parents have to end. No way will they eat that, see that movie or be caught dead wearing that. We’ve all muttered something along those lines in our lives — though I should also say before I go any further there are exceptions to everything. It’s just my opinion, after all.

This summer has been the one of epiphanies, they’re just nailing me like falling bricks. I’m covered in lumps of painful realizations, and I got a new one while searching for music to download. I found I was typing in artists that up until recently I never would have given the time of day to. Liking country music was wrong, it didn’t fit into any image of cool or suit my age and would definitely get me a few funny looks if I turned it on in the car.

I still don’t favor country music, at all. It grates on my nerves actually but I have a sentimental attachment to a few songs.

They remind me of days spent with my father in the basement workshop of my old house. His stereo would always be playing the country radio station that existed back then. After those days had passed, listening to country music didn’t quite fit anymore.

LEIA FELTHAM Falling Face First There seems to be a hidden teenage drive that kicks in that makes kids want to push away from their parents. They’ll jump the nest, ready or not, pretend they can fly — and then have to face the long, rough plummet to the ground.

Being a teenager usually means you want to be you, an individual like no one else, but still somehow fit into a group and feel like you belong. A paradox like that is a bit overwhelming when you’ve barely lived a quarter of your lifetime.

Parents want to be there, give kids the right push, and guide them the whole way.

Despite all their efforts — the questions after school, the ever-popular conversation in the car when there really is no escape — the responses given are not the blatantly honest and unafraid kind of a young child, but the silent ones of an uncertain young adult.

It must be scary for a parent to be left in the dark like that, their own child’s life a mystery to them.

Music, clothes, it all changes. I try to imagine what it must be like for a parent, to watch children grow into their identities. Trying to remain part of their lives, but letting them make their own mistakes and learning the lessons that what every-

one may like, or want, may not be the same.

Trying to understand a parent’s point of view when I’ve never experienced it makes me wish we were born with an immediate understanding of how it feels to be on the other side of the fence. It’s a long struggle to get over that fence and take a look around, and even longer to begin to understand all that you’ve seen. I’m only 18, and the way my relationship between my parents and I has changed is only now apparent to me.

I find myself feeling a little guilty about reacting the way I did as I was growing up, but am I really any different than millions of other kids? I think in everyone’s secret heart of hearts, they never hated what their parents liked, nor did they mean to hide and protect their lives from prying parental eyes.

Some decisions are made without any real awareness and maybe come from instincts that are as old as man himself.

There are a few things I will never budge on when it comes to my parents, like Brussels sprouts, stereotypically enough.

Shopping with my mother will always be adventure, and we will most certainly disagree but we mange to compromise. As for my father, I find myself borrowing from his music collection all the time, digging through his records and finding music that we can both love, if only in secret.

Leia Feltham is a recent graduate from Gonzaga High School. Her column will return Aug. 13.

JULY 30, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 11

SUSAN RENDELL

Screed and coke “They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbours away from her. . .”

Sitting Bull

O

ne day last winter I was in Kent’s watching my sister buy halogen lights and thinking how bracing the smell of a hardware store is; if it were a perfume, I’d call it Brand Nou. Outside Kent’s, the wind was doing wheelies in the parking lot, spraying snow against the windows and howling like a pack of hormonally challenged 17-year-olds. Big storm coming, someone said, so I went to the back of the store and picked up a bag of salt to keep my front steps from getting as slick as my first boyfriend’s hair.

I got to the checkout before my sister, cradling the salt in my arms and waiting for the man in front of me to stop talking to the cashier. He was built like a bull, a small bull in camouflage gear with a bandana tied around his 50something head. Strange time of year for bikers, I thought, and then impatience gave me a nip and I slung the bag of salt on the counter right next to his elbow. Whump.

He turned. “You been holdin’ on to that all this time, ma’am? Why didn’t you tell me to move my ass?” An American biker. “Because I’m a Canadian,” I said.

And then the Bad Thing slipped out before I could stop it: Miss Mannerless strikes again. “You voted for Bush, didn’t you?” I delivered this in a silk handkerchief voice; apparently the handkerchief was red.

First he did a rustic pirouette that ended in the stomp of a steel-toed boot.

And then he roared. “Bush? Bush? Ah hate that man, Ah truly do. Hate him.

That’s why Ah’m here. We’re movin’ here to git away from him. We got ourselves a little place in Hickman’s Harbour, and we’re goin’ to live there.”

I looked past him at his companions, the closest one a woman who reminded me of an older version of Renée Zellweger’s character in Cold Mountain — someone who looked like she shot a cougar from her front steps every morning right before rustling up the grits.

Beside her was a taller, younger bull of a man; undoubtedly, their son. He nodded and smiled at me, the “Howdy, ma’am” unspoken but tangible in the polite eyes, the slight dip of the head.

The woman was telling the cashier how excited they were about the storm.

They were from South Carolina; millionaires and movie stars were getting out of the States, she said, most of them were going to B.C. but some of them were coming this way. They’d left their friends in B.C.; they liked this side of the country better.

“We’re headin’ for Hickman’s Harbour,” the young man interjected; although the cashier already knew that, it seemed as though he couldn’t help unfurling that homely and familiar name as if it were the flag of a new country, or a secret too good to keep.

All of us are descended from immi-

“The Castle” in Logy Bay is owned by an American

Paul Daly/The Independent

The Americans are coming: Bush-whacked and heading north grants; immigration keeps cultures from stagnating. My ancestors on my mother’s side were United Empire Loyalists who left the U.S. because they didn’t agree with its politics. They settled on the south shore of Nova Scotia, kept their Boston rockers and their Boston accents and an anemic form of Puritanism. I believe they have all those things to this day. But at some point they became Canadians.

At some point those new immigrants to Hickman’s Harbour will become Newfoundlanders — if not them, their children’s children. My sister and I are half-thinking about popping out to Random Island to see how Bull and his missus and the kid are doing. Maybe stick around for a feed of caplin and grits, find out if the banjo and the bodhran have managed to strike up an amiable acquaintance.

I still think Bull Senior was a Republican — a redneck Republican of the first water — but what would it take for one of those to flee its native habitat? A regime too hot under the collar for the most crimson of necks, I guess.

Is it true? Are the wagons Newfoundland-ho? I made phone calls until my fingers went on strike, but there doesn’t seem to be any hard and fast information on the topic.

Not many Americans are buying in St. John’s, Keith Bradbury of Re/Max East Coast Realty told me. What about the Battery? I asked, thinking of the house my friends rent there that belongs to a couple in Kentucky, who intend to use it for a retirement home. “Not

unless there’s a good view — and room for expansion,” said Bradbury.

Ah, expansion. Hitler called it lebensraum — living room. He had living rooms all over Europe after a while — and even a den; Holland. And therein lies the problem: immigration versus hostile take-over.

(While I was writing this, a former boyfriend who currently lives in B.C. showed up unexpectedly. Sitting in my backyard in his cowboy hat and boots with a cell phone apparently surgically implanted in one ear, he told me between calls that he was here to buy up real estate for re-sale to Americans.

Where? “Oh, land along rivers — outside Botwood, for instance. You can get it in chunks for next to nothing, divvy it up into lots, stick a log house on it for $100,000, sell it to the Yanks for $300,000.”)

NEWFOUNDLAND, N.J. In the vicinity of Newfoundland, New Jersey, (yes, Virginia … ) there’s a castle that was built by a homesick emigrant from England, a poor man who eventually made a fortune in the Land of Opportunity, and whose “dream was to build a home reminiscent of the castles in Great Britain that he remembered from his boyhood years.”

In Logy Bay, a particularly vulgar piece of architecture known as The Castle has been tacked on the side of a cliff; its American owner was homesick for the castles of his native land. Both of them — the one in Disneyland and the one in Disneyworld.

He could be forgiven his aesthetic gaffe/giraffe if that’s all he was guilty of. But it isn’t. According to Peter Gard, one of the founders of the East Coast Trail Association, in the building of this rich man’s conceit, “a perfectly wellused right of way was torn up,” a centuries-old cliff-side path that should be part of the trail.

(In Newfoundland, thanks to British law, no one can be denied access to the sea; unfortunately the wording of the legislation involves the high-water mark, which is often half-way up a cliff in these parts.)

Still, there is room to navigate around The Castle; the problem lies with the owner, who doesn’t want the peasantry on his land.

In a 2005 Globe and Mail article, a writer who came here to walk the trail states: “Developers approach the cashstrapped townships with bagfuls of money, wanting to knock down trees and build golf courses and luxury homes right on the water. Every year a little more of the coastline’s wilderness gets chipped away. ‘I don’t understand it,’ Ed (Delaney, a member of the East Coast Trail Association) said. ‘The people come from outside the province and destroy the very essence of what they came here for.’”

Randy Murphy, president of the East Coast Trail Association, says the Association is working with the government to try to find a solution — eventually legislative — to the problem, and that they’ve received “a very good

response.”

It’s a world-wide problem according to Murphy; for example, coastal access in Nova Scotia, he tells me, is down to five per cent of the land. “If we don’t open our eyes and see what’s happening,” Murphy says, “in five, 10, 15 years our public access will be blocked in a lot of the province.”

Last week some friends and I had a birthday picnic on the rocks at Motion.

Behind us loomed Geoff Stirling’s Whistler-style log mansion, like a rawboned naked woman.

But in front of us the sea lay on her back all silky and mysterious, with whales rising and falling on her breast, and we sat there and drank and ate and took in nourishment from the earth and the sea until the sky pulled its curtains, and then we picked up our gear and went down a trail made by generations upon generations of feet — bare, leather-clad, rubber-booted — our Nikes adding imperceptibly to the path of the province’s history and culture.

There were no large No Trespassing signs like fists in your face, no wire fences snaring everything in sight, the way there are several coves over. Where the gulls wheel and cry, “Mine mine mine!” over the worst kind of American stereotype, Castle Me, Myself and I. Susan Rendell is a freelance writer and editor living in downtown St. John’s.

Her collection of short stories, In the Chambers of the Sea, was published by Killick Press in 2003. srendell@nf.sympatico.ca

JULY 30, 2006

12 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

LIFE STORY

‘Extraordinary how generous he was’

By Ivan Morgan The Independent

S

o many of Dick Buehler’s friends choose the word “generous” to describe the teacher, community leader and local theatre icon.

Richard “Dick” Buehler, who died earlier this month after a battle with lung cancer, left an artistic legacy that lives on in his students and admirers. He was 72.

Born and raised in Centralia, Ill., Buehler, like many young men of his generation, joined the army in 1955. Buehler’s wife, Sharon, says “he started at a community college in his home town, and he didn’t do well, so he decided to go into the army.”

After training as a medic at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, Buehler was posted to the motor pool and shipped to France. After his time in the army he resolved to return to school.

As Sharon says, “part of that impetus to go back to school was that at the time in the U.S. Army you did not have to pass a literacy test, and Dick ended up reading letters to some of his officers, and that really made an impression on him, and so he came back to school.”

He attended college and, after graduation, taught at various schools in various states. In the summers, he worked in seasonal stock theatre productions.

A young man looking to further his career, Buehler accepted a two-year position at the thenfledgling Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Sharon says they came “because of the folklore.

Dick had done his master’s degree in folklore, and Newfoundland offered him a job in his chosen field.”

So began a love affair with the people and the culture of this place that was to last the rest of Buehler’s life. Starting as a lecturer in the English and folklore departments, and rising to full professor, Buehler was still busy teaching long after he “retired.” But the bare outline of his academic career belies the impact he had on his students and his community.

Buehler had been in Newfoundland less than a

year when he formed The Open Group, a theatre company of people who wanted to produce live theatre, but didn’t feel the other companies in St. John’s were open to them.

To join Buehler’s group, one simply had to show up. And many who did are now prominent names in Newfoundland’s arts community.

The Open Group made its mark. Besides performing classic plays, members produced works by local playwrights. Notable among this work was the theatre’s production of Michael Cook’s groundbreaking Head, Guts and Soundbone Dance, and Jacob’s Ladder. Buehler sometimes faced the criticism his group was full of “CFAs” trying to teach Newfoundlanders about themselves.

Sharon says she and her husband felt lucky to arrive in Newfoundland when they did. “One of the things we were surprised at was how much Newfoundlanders looked to the mainland and the United States for … models,” she says.

“And that was surprising because those of us who came in the late ’60s found so much to be proud of in Newfoundland.”

When Michael Cook started writing scripts, the Open Group took “great pride” in producing them for the first time.

“We did lots of other plays, but one of the things we contributed was the first production of Michael’s plays,” Sharon says.

The resurgence in the 1970s of local interest in the province’s own culture was something Buehler celebrated, and participated in.

Friend Denyse Lynde, assessing Buehler’s career, speaks of the value of his teaching — sharing with a new generation of storytellers and writers the craft of acting and the tradition of theatre.

“He was generous, patient, warm, loving, nurturing,” she says. “Basically his students would become an extension of his family. It is extraordinary how generous he was, if you use the word in an honest and truthful way.”

A generation of students, in recognition of their mentor, named their theatre group Dick’s Kids Productions in 1993. The membership of that

Dick Buehler and his wife Sharon with their children Kelly and Michael.

troupe is a who’s who of modern Newfoundland talent: Terri Andrews, Petrina Bromley, Jennifer Deon, Neil Butler, Robert Chafe, Janet Edmonds, Danielle Irvine, Aiden Flynn, Jillian Kieley, and Sean Panting, to name a few. A new generation of actors and performers now call themselves “Dick’s grandkids.” Such is his legacy.

After being diagnosed with cancer, Buehler set up the Dick Buehler Award in Theatre, to fund a student who has completed the requirements for Memorial’s diploma in performance and communications media with hopes to continue professional training.

Last summer, former members of The Open

Group and Dick’s Kids, as well as friends and former students, got together and performed Arthur Miller’s The Crucible at the Reid Theatre.

Ostensibly to raise money to support the award, it was also a chance for a reunion of many of Buehler’s friends and fans. Running two nights in late August, the show earned over $4,000.

Committed to his family, his work and his community, Buehler left behind a legacy that lives in the work of his students. Generous in his teaching, generous in his patience, generous in his love, Dick Buehler’s family and many friends are equally generous in their praise for his life, and the difference he made in theirs.

SCATTERED PAST

The Commissary’s servants Summer staff at Commissariat House in St. John’s recreates the life and times of servants in the 1830s

By Nadya Bell The Independent

S

ummer savory, mint and sage dry on the mantle in the kitchen of Commissariat House over an open birch fire. It is pleasantly warm on a foggy morning — but the summer staff, dressed as servants, must sweat on warmer days.

The administrative centre of the British army in Newfoundland has been richly decorated and restored to the 1830s period at the provincial government’s expense.

Scotsman, commissary and bachelor John Laidley and his four servants lived in the house in the 1830s. The tension between upper and lower classes — master and servants, clerks and soldiers — is evident in every room.

Servants used roughly carved wooden spoons and earthenware bowls to prepare food. The master ate off Blue Willow pattern china depicting Chinese legends of forbidden love.

The summer students prepare Scottish food such as Skirlie, a dish of leftover oatmeal fried with fat and onions, sometimes used as chicken stuffing. For authentic flavour, they use coarse steel-cut oats and unbleached brown flour. As sweetener they use hard cones of brown sugar ordered from a historical reproduction company.

Servants would wash dishes at a sink in front of the window with water from a massive hand pump. (The sink and pipes are all made of lead, and no longer used. Reenactment has its limits.)

MULTI-COARSE MEALS In Laidley’s day, servants carried food for the elaborate multi-coarse meals up the sharply crooked back staircase to the dining room on the second floor. Only guests and Laidley were allowed to use the main staircase.

Up to 12 people would eat off Royal Crown Derby china with a blue-and-gold leaf pattern.

Each guest had Sheffield silverware: two forks and two ivory handled knives.

Hiding under the candelabras are two ornate pepper servers — silver and amethyst dishes with doll-sized spoons for sprinkling the spice.

Only the rich could afford to serve themselves as much pepper as they liked in the 1830s.

A fishbowl mirror in the corner shows the whole room, and was used by butlers. Not permitted to look directly at the guests while they chewed, servants watch the mirror to see when to refresh wine glasses.

After dinner guests would sit in the drawing room and take tea, perhaps listening to someone playing the pianoforte. The piano is faint and in need of tuning, but still plucks lovely high notes.

Charades was a popular after-dinner game.

Ladies sitting on the chesterfield protected their delicate constitutions — and wax-based makeup — from the fireplace heat with an embroidered screen.

As commissary, Laidley placed tenders in the local newspaper for army supplies. Merchants of stone, sand, seal oil, coal and dried beans bid

Commissariat House

Nadya Bell/The Independent

for the contracts, and Laidley would decide which supplies to buy.

Anyone in his position surely deserved the foldaway Chippendale commode with pull-out chamber pot seat. He did, after all, have the honorary rank of captain.

Soldiers entered the building through a separate entrance and waited in the clerk’s office to receive pay. The desks of the three clerks are separated from unruly soldiers by a waist-high fence. Hands that wrote with quills and those that shot guns rarely touched.

The building was completed in 1818 and used until the 1870s. After the British withdrawal, it was used as a rectory for St. Thomas Children’s hospital and later as an old age home.

Ninety per cent of the artifacts in the house are original to the period, but not necessarily to the house.

As much as lords and ladies ruled Commissariat House, today’s staff dress as common clerks or servant girls. In the stable outside, displays speak to the role of servants in 19th century Newfoundland society.

According to court records, Mildred Bevill was beaten to death by her mistress, Ann Coffin. And a want-ad appeared in the newspaper for a servant boy who ran away: he was “…about 17 years of age, 4 feet 11 inches high, Brown Hair and extraordinarily large Ears…”

Master of the house may have gotten the feather bed and the best china; servants slept in the attic but ate in the coziest room in the house — the kitchen.

Commissariat House Provincial Historic Site on King’s Bridge Road, St. John’s, is open daily in the summer, 729-6730.

INDEPENDENTWORLD

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JULY 30-AUGUST 5, 2006 — PAGE 13

A plain clothes RCMP officer asks a protester to move away from the doorway through which Prime Minister Stephen Harper was supposed to enter a news conference in Cambridge, Ont., last week.

J.P. Moczulski/Reuters

A steely-eyed view

Since taking office, Stephen Harper has subtly steered Canada’s foreign relations in a new direction OTTAWA

By Graham Fraser Torstar wire service

A

t one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s first foreign policy briefings, Peter Harder, the deputy minister of foreign affairs, began his explanation of a multilateral issue with the words: “The longstanding Canadian position …”

Harper interrupted.

“Stop right there,” he said. “We are going to look at every issue on its merits.”

As one senior federal official said, not long afterwards: “Previous (Liberal) governments had two questions: ‘Is this consistent with Canada’s previous positions?’ and ‘Is this consistent with the international consensus?’ Now, the question is: ‘Why are we doing this?’”

It is often a good question for new governments to ask, but already, less than six

months after forming a government, Harper is showing he is shifting Canadian foreign policy in a number of dramatic ways.

And even when the policy is not changing, the questions being asked are very different.

Earlier this year, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade sent a request to Treasury Board for $20 million for Canada’s contribution to the United Nations Central Emergency Relief Fund, the fund established so that the UN can respond quickly to international disasters like the tsunami of 2004 without having to raise money before it can do anything.

The request came back from Treasury Board President John Baird’s office with a note in the margin: “Why are we contributing to the UN, which is a corrupt organization?”

The request was ultimately approved — but it took three tries.

The public indications of a shift in policy direction have also been clear.

Queen’s University political scientist Kim Richard Nossal points out that every prime minister wants to make his mark in foreign policy — and Harper has been making a particular effort to change former prime minister Paul Martin’s foreign policy agenda.

There are a number of examples of this.

• Harper was the most forthright and uncompromising of world leaders in his support of Israel’s bombing of Lebanon in comments on the plane to St. Petersburg for the G-8 summit, calling it a “measured” response to the kidnapping and killing of Israeli soldiers and the attacks on Israel by Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon.

As one former diplomat who has been involved in Canada’s Middle East policy

put it, “Canada has moved from 110 per cent support for Israel to 150 per cent support for Israel.”

• The Harper government also moved quickly to declare the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam to be a terrorist organization.

• Harper’s first major foreign trip was to visit troops in Afghanistan. While the Liberals, who initiated the mission, stressed Canada’s participation was part of a 20-nation, UN-authorized intervention, Harper has treated it as if it were a Canadian war.

• The first foreign leader to come to Ottawa and address Parliament was Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who gave a strongly pro-American speech.

“That is a perfect example of the shift,” Nossal says, adding Harper mischievously succeeded in sending a strong message and See “Harper-Hillier,” page 15

Stage presence Logy Bay’s Marie Fewer is in her second season at the Stratford Theatre festival STRATFORD, Ont.

By Geoff Dale For The Independent

L

ogy Bay native Marie Fewer didn’t appear to be destined for a theatrical career.

But through the jigs and the reels, she’s landed in Ontario for her second season at the Stratford Festival. This time, she’s assistant manager of John Webster’s dark Duchess of Malfi, directed by Peter Hinton and The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead, a one-woman show starring Lucy Peacock, directed by Gordie Johnson.

“My folks, in terms of their work,

were never involved in the arts,” Fewer says. Her mom, Catherine had worked for the federal government, and her father, Gerald, worked for the Ford Motor Company.

In their spare time, both parents were involved with an amateur theatre group in Outer Cove .

“Dad helped with the sets and did a lot of back stage work while mom danced,” Fewer says. “But that wasn’t what got me interested. When I graduated from Gonzaga High School (in St. John’s) in 1994, I had no intention of going into the arts. I was just thinking about getting a high-paying job.

“After a year at Memorial University — where I did general studies and a lin-

guistics course — I was considering a job in speech pathology. Dance classes were my saving grace (while I was attending) MUN.” Fewer had no concrete plans to test the theatrical waters, but — even if she didn’t recognize it at the time — the groundwork was being laid for her future in the Mecca of North American theatre.

In 1995, Fewer began training to become a dance teacher at the Judy Knee Studio in St. John’s.

About the same time, she began to travel between Newfoundland and Ontario.

“I graduated from Judy’s in 1998 and was a dancer on the (St. John’s) waterfront for the millennium celebrations in

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2000,” she says.

“While training back home, the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, a modern dance company, toured the province. My friends and I fell in love with the company. That’s where I trained next. After a year, I was back in St. John’s teaching.”

Between 2000 and 2002, Fewer taught dance part-time in Whitby, Ont. “I enjoyed seeing the students progressing, developing and growing, but I didn’t really like the daily teaching routine,” she says. “I enjoyed the creativity at recital time — moving everything into the theatre, adding the lighting, rehearsing. That’s when I felt really alive.”

Looking for a job that would encompass the excitement of the live rehearsal process, Fewer took the advice of three friends and enrolled at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ont. There, while studying to become a stage manager, her career began to take shape.

Between her first and second years at school, she landed a job at the Charlottetown Festival in PEI as a production assistant and apprentice stage manager for a show called Fire.

“In my second year at Sheridan, the musical students were putting on Into the Woods, directed by Christina James,” Fewer says. “I was the stage See “I keep,” page 15

JULY 30, 2006

14 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

Harper to skip AIDS conference

I

nternational AIDS conference officials the conference Aug. 13 at a gala ceremony expressed dismay this week after receiving attended by international dignitaries and capped official word that Prime Minister Stephen by a star-studded rock concert.

Harper would not be attending the attendance Among the guests will be Microsoft billionrecord-breaking Toronto aire Bill Gates, who will summit next month. give the keynote speech, Saying it sends a bad and his wife Melinda, message to the world former U.S. president about Canada’s commitBill Clinton and actor ment to fighting the disRichard Gere. ease, officials hoped Wainberg says Harper Harper would yet change could have satisfied his mind at the 11th hour. organizers by simply “It will send a signal showing up and welcomthat this government pering delegates at the openhaps is not fully commiting event. ted to the fight against “All we would want HIV and AIDS,” Dr. Mark would be for him to be at Wainberg, co-chair of the the opening ceremony 16th International AIDS and to say how commitConference, says. ted Canada continues to “HIV/AIDS kills 5,000 be in the fight against people a day, compare AIDS,” he says. that with any current war Dimitri Soudas, a taking place as an examspokesperson with the ple.”

Prime Minister’s Office, Wainberg says confersaid Harper “gets thouence officials fear sands of invitations and Harper’s absence might Bill Gates will be the keynote speaker at this he can’t attend all the discourage other heads of year’s International AIDS conference in Toronto. events he’s invited to.”

Fred Prouser/Reuters state or high-profile Soudas says Ottawa guests from attending the will instead be representAug.13-18 conference. ed by Health Minister Tony Clement and While it had been widely reported Harper International Co-operation Minister Josée would skip what is expected to be the largest Verner. gathering of AIDS experts in history, his office Conference organizers expect some 25,000 officially replied to the invitation last week, said people will be attending the meeting, roughly Darryl Perry, executive director of the AIDS 9,000 more than the last two international AIDS 2006 Toronto Local Host Secretariat. conferences — Bangkok in 2004 and Barcelona Governor General Michaëlle Jean will open in 2002.

Relatives of Israeli Army officer Brigade Captain Shahar Ben-Yishai, 25, who was killed by a Palestinian gunman during an Israeli army operation in the Balata refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus, cry during his funeral in the town of Tiberias.

Reuters

A tourist town’s struggle Ancient Tiberias on the Galilee hit by rocket barrage TIBERIAS, Israel

By Oakland Ross Torstar wire service

I

f you can’t make money, then you might as well go for a swim in the Sea of Galilee.

That was what Michel Malul elected to do last week — a decision he won’t soon forget.

Normally, the middle-aged Israeli entrepreneur operates a speed-boat that he hires out to the national and foreign tourists who should now be thronging the streets and promenades of this sun-baked town perched upon the shores of the very sea where it’s said Jesus once walked on water.

But there’s a war on now, the tourists have gone, and all the hotels here have been forced to shut down.

Time, then, for an afternoon dip.

Malul had not been in the blue-green waters of the Galilee for very long before he heard the now familiar howl of the local air-raid sirens, warning of another salvo of deadly rockets streaking down from the Lebanese border, 40 km away.

“I am swimming,” Malul said just minutes later, speaking in his imperfect but energetic English. “I hear the siren.

I wait one minute. Then boom!

Boom! Boom! Boom!”

One after another, as many as eight Katyusha rockets — all launched by Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon — plummeted into the water around him, sending plumes of spray shooting skyward, while the basso-profundo thud of their impact reverberated through the mostly deserted streets of Tiberias and beyond.

Malul swam for shore.

Minutes later, he was back on dry land, dripping wet and trembling with excitement, relief, or fear — or maybe all of them together.

Wearing just a gold necklace, a waterproof wristwatch, and a pair of navy-blue swimming trunks, he danced about, slapped his face, waved his arms, and muttered to himself in amazement about his narrow deliverance from a watery

grave.

No one would begrudge Malul his euphoria at still being alive after the waterbound salvo — but the crashing reports of lethal missiles have lately become all too familiar, just as they have all across the northern region of Israel.

By late last week, according to official Israeli figures, a total of 1,453 Hezbollah rockets had hit the country in a little more than two weeks, injuring 1,270 people and killing 19.

About 100 of those projectiles have smashed into Tiberias, causing no deaths but wounding 162 people and flattening a once vibrant touristbased economy during what ought to be the busiest time of the year.

The economic carnage wrought by the war has been disastrous across the north of Israel, where tens of thousands of people have fled their homes, thousands of businesses have closed, and services have been reduced to a bare minimum.

But nowhere has the financial effect been more severe than here in Tiberias, an ancient town that dates from Biblical times and that nowadays depends on tourists for its survival — but all the tourists have gone.

“They just stopped coming,” said Itamar Benzeer, a Tiberias lawyer. “Now people can’t work.”

It was on July 15 that the first volley of rockets hit Tiberias, a town famous for its beaches, its antique tombs, its 12th-century Crusader castle, and its modern-day discotheques.

By July 16, the hotels were empty, and now they are shut tight — the Golden Tulip, the Sheraton, the Holiday Inn, and all the rest.

“Tiberias is a tourist city,” Mayor Zohar Oved says. “We have thousands of small businesses. The basis of their existence is tourism.”

He figures the town, whose permanent population is about 45,000 — though currently a good deal lower — is losing several million dollars U.S. in foregone revenue per day.

Speaking in a fortified bunker called the War Office, located in the basement of the Tiberias city hall, Oved might have been expected to seem somewhat downcast at the collapsing fortunes of his town, but in fact he was jubilant.

He had just received some very encouraging news.

Israeli Finance Minister Abraham Hirchson was appearing live on television that very moment to announce that the national government had finally agreed to underwrite a financial compensation package for the north, something it resisted doing since the war began earlier this month.

The decision means that all Israeli towns in the north of the country, from Tiberias and Haifa to the border with Lebanon, will receive compensation for their financial losses directly or indirectly attributable to the war.

“It’s billions of dollars,” says Oved, referring to the economic damage so far suffered in the entire northern region, although a government statement put the estimated cost of the package much lower — at around $200 million (U.S.).

Still, it’s reassuring news for everyone who dwells in this part of the country, even though it won’t do much to reduce the toll in psychological stress or physical pain exacted by the eerie wail of air-raid warnings or the ensuing volleys of rockets that now haunt the north daily.

Even when the current war in the Middle East ends, it is unlikely that foreigner travellers will soon come flocking back to the shores of the Galilee, where they normally represent about half of this town’s tourist traffic.

Oved estimates that it could take as long as a year to coax the foreign trade back, but Benzeer believes the wait could last considerably longer, perhaps four years or even more.

That is how long it has taken in the past, he said, to regain the confidence of foreign travellers following major outbreaks of violence in the Middle East.

JULY 30, 2006

INDEPENDENTWORLD • 15

Manitoba’s ‘two-track solution’

By Ian Urquhart Torstar wire service

T

he spotlight at the annual premiers’ conference is usually on the big hitters — people like Ontario’s Dalton McGuinty, Quebec’s Jean Charest and Alberta’s Ralph Klein.

But it is often the lesser lights, like Manitoba Premier Gary Doer, that influence the outcome.

Manitoba is to Canada as Canada is to the world — a middle power that can play a role as a helpful fixer.

Geographically, Manitoba sits in the middle of the country — a western province whose Blue Bombers play in the Canadian Football League’s eastern conference. Population-wise, it is again in the middle as Canada’s fifth largest province.

As for Doer, his ebullient personality and relative seniority (he is the third longest-serving premier) also give him clout at premiers’ conferences. And he has a strong tie to Charest, with whom he has travelled abroad on trade missions.

Furthermore, as a New Democrat, he is viewed less suspiciously in Conservative Ottawa than a Liberal like

McGuinty.

So it behooves us to listen when Doer talks.

At the premiers’ last meeting in Edmonton seven weeks ago, Doer expressed anger over McGuinty’s stance against further enrichment of the equalization program, under which the federal government transfers money (about $11.5 billion this year) to the “have-not” provinces (all but Ontario and Alberta).

Doer called McGuinty’s position “antiCanadian.”

That seemed to set the stage for a donnybrook here in St. John’s.

But in an interview last week during the premiers’ conference, Doer’s tone was softer. Indeed, he said he was optimistic an agreement could be reached on equalization and related matters that fall under the heading of “fiscal imbalance.”

But the agreement won’t come at this week’s meeting of the premiers, said Doer. Rather, it will come at the planned federal-provincial conference in the fall, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the table.

And Doer predicted it would be achieved by broadening the discussion from just the contentious topic of equal-

Manitoba premier Gary Doer takes questions in St. John’s

ization to a range of other issues, including increased federal funding on a per capita basis for post-secondary education and infrastructure, removal of provincial barriers to internal trade, and some kind of national regulation of securities.

(Interestingly, all these add-on items have been longstanding goals for Ontario.)

“We could have a fairly comprehen-

Paul Daly/The Independent

sive proposal that, like any proposal, has elements that some would disagree with but where the total package is going to be a positive step forward for all Canadians and, therefore, would be supported by all jurisdictions,” said Doer. “I think there are enough elements that allow me to be optimistic.”

Doer was insistent that enrichment of equalization be part of the package but just as adamant that per capita federal

funding for post-secondary education be increased. He called it a “two-track solution” and added: “I don’t like one track being shunted aside like a foreign object in your salad.”

Doer also seemed resigned to the fact that the Harper government is likely to choose the lesser of the two extant proposals for enriching equalization — that recommended by the federal task force (around $900 million) rather than by the provincial panel of experts (more than $4 billion).

It remains to be seen whether this would be enough to satisfy Quebec, which would have been the big winner under the provincial panel’s recommendations and would make much more modest gains with the federal task force proposals.

But keep in mind that Doer is close to Charest.

It also remains to be seen whether Ottawa can afford a much bigger package of transfers to the provinces if the Harper government goes ahead with recent suggestions that it is proposed to cut taxes significantly in its next budget.

Concluded Doer: “This is Canada, so everything is unpredictable.”

‘Harper-Hillier foreign policy’ From page 13

and (Chief of the Defence Staff Gen.) Rick Hillier,” says Carleton University historian making the Opposition feel quite uncomfortable. Norman Hillmer. “It is a kind of Harper-Hillier Harper’s ministers have read the signals: foreign policy that is very heavy on rhetoric Australian diplomats now have remarkable about muscle and clout and toughness.” access in Ottawa.

The result, he says, is a dramatic shift away And while Martin joked about Canada’s inter- from the tradition established by Lester Pearson, est in “Chindia” — the rising Asian economic Canada’s secretary of state for external affairs in powers China and India — the contraction the 1950s, and prime minister from 1963 until should now be changed to “Jandia.”

1968.

When Harper met Japanese Prime Minister “There’s nothing swashbuckling about Junichiro Koizumi in June, veteran officials and Pearsonianism — it’s all about caution. Pearson Japan experts were impressed at how poised, was the ultimate pragmatist.” clear and candid Harper was Harper’s approach, he says, after less than five months as has been very different: more prime minister. It was clear more aggressive, Harper is willing to take personal, Harper is serious about increasmore ideological, less ing the quality of Canada’s relaa steely-eyed view and nuanced. tionship with Japan.

“What this suggests is a real not worry about annoy- revolution in the way foreign But what also became clear, in the weeks that followed, is policy is conducted,” he says. ing certain segments that Canada is going to shift its Nossal sees the shift as sigattention from China — nificant. of the population.”

Conservatives have been very “Harper is willing to take a critical of China’s human rights steely-eyed view and not Historian Norman policies as they affect practiworry about annoying certain tioners of Falun Gong — to segments of the population,” Hillmer Japan. he says. “His first eye isn’t on In a very short time, Harper risk avoidance.” has refocused Canadian foreign policy in a sigHarper is far from unique as a prime minister nificant fashion, drawing a clear ideological line who has taken charge of Canada’s foreign policy in the sand between Canada’s allies and — but he has been much quicker than most to do Canada’s adversaries, between countries the so. government approves of and countries it does Most prime ministers begin with domestic not. preoccupations, and only later do they become Traditionally, Canada has tried to define its deeply engaged in foreign policy. Their first forrole as a “middle power,” able to mediate eign affairs ministers are usually the strongest between different adversarial countries and members of cabinet, with their full confidence, groups of countries. Forty years ago, former and only later do they name weaker, less experiCanadian diplomat John Holmes dubbed Canada enced ministers. a middle power, meaning one that took “a midHarper, on the other hand, immediately made dle or mediatory position in conflicts.” it clear that he was going to keep an iron hand on Now, Harper is looking much more to the clar- foreign affairs. ity of Australia’s robust approach to foreign polHowever, Hillmer warns that there are dangers icy — emphasizing the role of a military config- for a prime minister who becomes the symbol of ured for combat, rather than peacekeeping — his government’s foreign policy. rather than the mediating approach taken by “It’s a personalized foreign policy,” he says.

Norway, which played a key role in the (ulti- “And that’s dangerous for a politician who wants mately unsuccessful) peace processes in both the a long shelf life.”

Middle East and in Sri Lanka.

That may have been the other surprising thing “The two foreign policy leaders are Harper Harper learned this week.

‘I keep touching wood’

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From page 13 manager and we developed a wonderful working relationship. Her daughter, one of the technical directors at Stratford … called her mom to tell her the festival was looking for an apprentice.

“Christina became my biggest cheerleader, urging me to get my resume in as quickly as possible … I started working in Stratford in 2004 for the rehearsals of Noises Off, directed by Brian Bedford. It was a three-month contract. I recall laughing and laughing at rehearsals — thinking to myself that this was way too much fun to be having at work.”

Working toward her accreditation with the Canadian Actors Equity Association, Fewer added to her growing resume with engagements at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre, including a stint as stage manager for the production Léo.

Now she’s back in Stratford.

“I count my blessings every day that I am here,” Fewer says. “Both the productions are very different, very interesting.”

Redhead is a much lighter show than The Duchess of Malfi — and has a larger cast, of about 25.

This year Fewer was surprised to meet up with a fellow Newfoundlander, Lawrence Haegert, a cast member of Duchess and also in his second season at Stratford.

“Lawrence saw me wearing my Republic of Newfoundland T-shirt and realized where I was from,” she says. “He grew up in Outer Cove and me in Logy Bay. My mom told me that he grew up in my cousin’s home. We never knew each other back home — meeting for the first time in Stratford.”

Next up for Fewer is a stint as stage manager of Theatre Direct Canada’s Babysitter, which she describes as a slasher puppet show for teens.

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After that, it’s a revival of Tarragon Theatre’s Léo.

“As for Stratford next year, I’m keeping my fingers crossed,” she says. “I stand a good chance because I’ve been asked back once before. I think people are happy with my work but I keep touching wood all the same.

“My ideal situation would be a long-term contract in Stratford with a couple of months left so I could do something in Newfoundland over the winter months.”

Do you know a Newfoundlander or Labradorian living away? Please e-mail editorial@theindpendent.ca

JULY 30, 2006

16 • INDEPENDENTWORLD

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INDEPENDENTLIFE

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JULY 30-AUGUST 5, 2006 — PAGE 17

Petrina and the pirates Petrina Bromley brings Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘foolish and fun’ musical to Trinity Bight CLARE-MARIE GOSSE

W

hen she saw the 1980s movie version of The Pirates of Penzance as a child, Petrina Bromley says, she fell in love with Gilbert and Sullivan — for the first time.

More recently, in the middle of touring for Revue and passing time in her hotel room in Gander, Bromley watched the Gilbert and Sullivan story Topsy Turvy on TV and fell in love all over again.

The next day, chatting with fellow actor Rick Boland about the movie, she ended up convinced to direct her own G. and S. production.

“It’s half his fault,” Bromley says, as she talks about The Pirates of Penzance, her upcoming contribution to Rising Tide’s Summer in the Bight Theatre Festival in Trinity.

“It’s really funny actually when I think about it now … I just remember watching (The Pirates of Penzance) as a 12-year-old me and loving it entirely, because it’s so foolish and so silly and the music is great.”

A graduate of Memorial University’s music school in the mid 1990s, Bromley is a mainstay on the local theatre scene, renowned for both her performances (which often favour comedic roles, such as the annual Revue), and her powerful singing voice.

Sitting outside a café St. John’s on a quick 24-hour visit from Trinity, the usually auburn-haired performer is sporting a striking black mane. She self-consciously explains the new look is for her performance in another Trinity production, The Joan Morrissey Story, a tribute to the much-loved Newfoundland entertainer.

This is Bromley’s fourth year in Trinity in a decade’s work with Rising Tide Theatre. The company, nearly 30 years old, is spearheaded by artistic director Donna Butt and celebrates its 12th Trinity festival this summer.

As well as directing Pirates, Bromley is performing as part of the cast of 17, a feat she ruefully says “I would never recommend.”

The Pirates of Penzance is a rollicking tale of mistakes, misunderstandings, love, and the fulfillment of an oath, all set amongst a band of well-meaning pirates residing along the shores of Cornwall, England.

Pirates is no stranger to Newfoundland’s own shores, having first been produced by Sir Charles Hutton 120 years ago, around the same time Gilbert and Sullivan were garnering rave reviews in London and New York. A musician and dramatist, Hutton is credited for building the foundation of the province’s thriving theatre community. By travelling to and from England and Newfoundland, he managed to stage almost all of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas here.

“He wrote it down,” laughs Bromley, who says she remembers being struck by old black and white photos up on the walls of Memorial University’s D.F. Cook Recital Hall, showing Hutton’s acting troupe performing the musical classics.

“One of the stories I read somewhere was he was sitting in the audience, I think during the opening performances of (The) Mikado, and he’s sitting there with his paper making notes, came home and he wrote down what he could remember … they did the production based on what he could remember.

“Just the thought that something like that could have the staying power, even locally, just really kind of excited me about Gilbert and Sullivan.”

As a singer, dancer, actor, director and comedian, Bromley is an example of being “multi-faceted,” a must-have quality for anyone

Petrina Bromley

Paul Daly/The Independent

hoping to land regular theatre work in Newfoundland. Funny, insightful and memorable, she comes across as someone who would be both a director’s and an actor’s dream to work with.

Bromley says although she always wanted to be a performer, she can’t quite remember the exact moment she made up her mind.

“I’ve always been just kind of precocious, although you know what, my family will always say that I was quiet and shy, but in my mind, I was precocious. In my room behind a closed door, I was totally precocious.”

From doing drama in high school and later graduating from Memorial, Bromley just started “falling into gigs accidentally.”

She’s worked in the province ever since, and although she and her husband Roger Samson (a producer on Out of the Fog) have considered moving away, she says she’s happy where she is.

As someone who calls being born in Sydney, N.S. her “secret shame” (her parents hauled her back to Newfoundland two weeks later), and likens a two-year stint in Saskatchewan when she was a teenager to “living on the moon,” Bromley seems destined to continue entertaining crowds locally.

Bromley says performing in the hit musical Cabaret a few years ago in St. John’s a high point in her acting career.

“It was actually so much fun and such a highlight for me that I did have a couple of days when it was over going, ‘OK, well my career is over now. That was the highlight of it and everything else is downhill. Oh well.’ Then I kicked myself in the butt.”

The Pirates of Penzance is quite an undertaking for both Bromley and Summer in the Bight. This year the festival is showing 13 different productions, including locally written pieces, classics such as Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and the festival’s centre-

piece, the Trinity pageant.

The Pirates of Penzance will be a full-fledged, costumed version of the 1870s original, complete with a full musical score and some sneaked-in local references. Although the story line is farcical, Bromley says there’s nothing funny about the quality of the challenging music.

The three leads — Andrew Dale, Calvin Powell and Sarah Loveys — are all Memorial music school grads, which for a theatre festival used to hiring Sir Wilfred Grenfell graduates, is unusual.

“Some of the leads we kind of had to almost headhunt,” she says.

“The music is difficult and the musicals, or the operettas, are still done to this day because they have that staying power Shakespeare has.”

Which makes Bromley, with her talent for comedy and music, a perfect candidate to pull off The Pirates of Penzance. Sir Charles Hutton would have approved.

“It’s kind of an odd thing because (Gilbert and Sullivan) were really a big deal at the time and still are well respected,” she says.

“The plots are so paper thin and foolish and they all turn on just a tiny little insignificant detail, one person says the wrong word and then all hell breaks loose and it all turns into a Scooby Doo ending. It’s just so foolish and fun and I think that’s the reason I like them.”

The Pirates of Penzance runs from August 1 to September 2 at the Rising Tide Arts Centre in Trinity. Audiences are advised to call the box office (1-888-464-3377) before turning up. www.risingtidetheatre.com.

LIVYER

Keeping ties alive Otto Tucker to receive order of Canada for a lifetime of education, heritage work, and enthusiasm

By Ivan Morgan The Independent

N

ewfoundland’s most recent appointee to the Order of Canada, 83-year-old Otto Tucker, says he owes a lot to a teacher who, long ago, had faith in him and encouraged him to further his career. And what a career it has been.

Tucker may be the only Newfound-

lander among this slate of 77 recipients of the Order of Canada, but the province will be well represented.

Growing up in Winterton, Trinity Bay, Tucker recalls his love of the woods and, ironically, his distaste for school. Because of the denominational education system, there were three schools in his small town, and the Salvation Army facility, which he attended, was the smallest.

Drawn to the outdoors, Tucker says

he was happy cutting wood, hunting rabbits and living the relatively carefree life of a woodsman. He disliked fishing — Tucker suffered from seasickness — and his work in the woods kept him out of school a lot, which suited him fine.

At 14, by his own admission, he was practically a dropout, unsure of what to do with his life.

But a Salvation Army teacher, Adjutant Stickland, made the differ-

ence. Stickland saw something in the young man, and encouraged him to go to St. John’s for high school.

Stickland was a graduate of Memorial, and this impressed Tucker.

Partly on his teacher’s advice, partly for adventure, he went. The experience opened his eyes to a whole new world.

Tucker’s education in St. John’s led to teaching in La Scie, Trout River, Change Islands and Gambo.

Tucker still exudes enthusiasm it as he speaks of his early life, his first jobs, the people he met and the fun he had.

He came to know and love rural Newfoundland, but his desire to further his education drew him back to university. In his 30s, already a principal and married with a family, Tucker realized the denominational See “There was,” page 18

JULY 30, 2006

18 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

GALLERYPROFILE

S

andy Newtown says photography has always been part of her life — as a way to remember events and places, “re-experience,” and share with other people.

This month, for the first time, she’s putting her work up for public consumption.

“I’ve always Photographer done it, even from my first Swinger Polaroid camera, I remember the birthday party I got it,” Newton says, tracing back the genesis of her hobby.

“There are photographers in my family. My grandfather was a meticulous (photographer), my uncle was a professional photographer in Toronto … I did a year of journalism in Ryerson and photography was part of that, the darkroom, everything.”

For years, Newton worked with a film camera that had been her father’s, shooting slides when she travelled. In 2005, her old camera on the fritz, she bought a new one, this time digital.

And though she misses slides, she says the new technology has improved her skills, enabling her to judge her work as she works.

Newton shot hundreds of frames last year during a springtime trip to Turkey. She and her husband have now been to the European country five times — an old friend they sailed with in Toronto has several homes there, where they have been invited to stay.

“We’ve had very lovely experiences there,” Newton says. “Like any country, it has its issues … we stay in western Turkey, where there is everything from the traditional to the most modern of the modern. It’s a great spectrum of life.”

Newton mentions the colourful markets, architecture new and old, large tracts of forests and agricultural land.

Her pictures reflect these sights.

“I don’t take pictures of people very often. Sometimes I do — but I’m more struck by the physical, geographical, the light differences of places. That’s what I do, thinking about colours and other things.”

While Newton, a freelance editor and writer, had toyed with the idea of setting up an exhibition of her alwaysgrowing body of work, she says she “couldn’t quite see the path to doing it.”

Some of her friends took care of that.

Having seen Newton’s pictures, one couple — who had been to Turkey with her — mentioned the work to the owners of a gallery in Harbour Grace. They, in turn, came to St. John’s to have a look at the photographs. Impressed with what they saw, they offered Newtown three weeks in their exhibition space.

“It was a really welcome invitation,” she says. “It’s the next step for me … but kind of scary.”

The editing process — Newton is only showing 29 pictures in the show — was daunting. But after much rearranging, eliminating, and discussion with others, she found her theme: Peysaj, the Turkish word for landscape.

As she writes in her artist’s statement, the images were chosen because they represent her interpretations of landscape, “as the near and far, the immediate and the panoramic, the objects that are seen as well as the intangibles that are felt.”

The exhibition shows until Aug. 17 at Victoria Manor Shoppes and Gallery, Harbour Grace.

Newton, who also uses her photography as the basis for painting and drawing (she’s recently taken a number of art classes in St. John’s), says she’s enjoying the new direction her once-quiet hobby is taking.

“I hope this is the start of me sharing things in a wider way. I’m not going to throw my career out the window, but I am interested in letting the creative parts of me have a little more play in the world.”

— Stephanie Porter

SANDY NEWTON

POET’S CORNER Let me burn like that I don’t want to think anymore.

Let me lie here. Let the fiddles mourn with joy at my graveside.

Let these words be my pyre.

Torch them. Let them sizzle like marrow.

Pile on the logs, keep it blazing long into the night, so when friends and lovers gaze from their window they’ll see, in the flames, nothing more than a light by which to better see the lover who stands beside them.

There were others I longed to embrace.

There were others I wanted to hold until my panic subsided.

There was really nothing they could do.

Let those I abandoned, injured, denied, see in this fire, not my faithless body, but the justice of a life collapsing into itself, and a prayer for forgiveness.

In the starling studded morning, when the ground is cold, bring the fiddles one last time.

Let the children dance and reel over my ashes. Yes, let me burn like that.

By Wade Kearley From Let me burn like this: prayers from the ashes Killick Press, 2006

‘There was this one teacher, a fellow named Tucker...”

From page 17 education system was a serious barrier to furthering his career. He quit his job and resigned his commission in the Salvation Army — in those days, Tucker points out, that was tantamount to leaving the priesthood.

He returned to Memorial. In 1958 he completed his bachelor’s degree in education, and was awarded a medal for student leadership. He remembers the university being full of ambitious young people free of denominational divisions.

“There were Anglicans and Catholics and communists and atheists,” he says.

After another short stint teaching, he pursued a master’s degree at the University of Alberta, chosen for no reason other than “it was far away from Newfoundland.” Nonetheless, he returned to St. John’s and taught at Booth Memorial High School (then brand new) while completing his thesis.

As restless and adventurous as ever, he worked as school principal in the communities of Aklavik, then Fort McPherson, in the Northwest Territories. Those positions allowed him to “pay off his debts and make a little money” and head back to university, this time to pursue his PhD at the University of Toronto.

JOB OFFER Upon completion, he was offered a position at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, where he settled and taught for several years. While visiting St. John’s on academic business one time, he was taken aback when the university here offered him a job.

Loyal to the university that had hired him, he nonetheless longed to move back to Newfoundland. His employer at Acadia was sympathetic. Who, his employer asked, can blame a man for wanting to move back home?

Tucker thus found himself back in Newfoundland. Resolutely believing university professors should give back to their community, he wondered what he could do in St. John’s.

It occurred to him the connections between the West Country of England, where so many Newfoundlanders traced their ancestry, and Newfoundland, were slowly being lost. He decided to form a society to promote awareness of those trans-Atlantic ties.

He went to Leslie Harris, Mose Morgan and Harry Cuff for opinions, and was met with nothing but enthusiasm. Buoyed by

Otto Tucker

the support, he advertised a general meeting, hoping a few people might show up.

Tucker still thrills when he relates that over 100 people attended the first meeting of what they christened the Wessex Society, an organization that has explored, celebrated and strengthened Newfoundland’s link to the West County of England ever since.

Already the holder of many prestigious awards, including the Order of Newfoundland, Tucker believes it is primarily for this

Paul Daly/The Independent

reason he is receiving his most recent honour. Maybe — but looking back over his career, one has to wonder if his prodigious energy and enthusiasm are also part of the reason.

And just as Adjutant Stickland is remembered with gratitude by this remarkable man, perhaps many of Tucker’s former students, were they asked what spurred them on, would smile and say, “There was this one teacher, a fellow named Tucker …”

JULY 30, 2006

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 19

A complicated, selfish bedtime story TIM CONWAY Film Score Lady in the Water Starring Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard (out of four)

W

elcome to The Cove, a fivestorey apartment building overlooking a courtyard featuring a periwinkle-shaped swimming pool. Surrounded by lush vegetation, this suburban Philadelphia complex is a mini-oasis, shut off from the rest of the world. It is here that the entire story of Lady in the Water plays out, never taking us beyond The Cove’s property line.

Cleveland Heep (Giamatti) is kept busy in his capacity as building supervisor. Whether it’s performing various maintenance tasks, or enforcing the complex’s two rules (no smoking in the rooms, and no swimming after 7 p.m.), he’s just shy of run ragged. The last couple of days, however, have been a little more troublesome than usual, for someone’s been using the pool after hours, and clogging up the filter.

Finally, one evening, as he’s about to call it a day, he hears a splash outside, and rushes to apprehend the culprit.

Just when it appears he’s too late again, a young woman surfaces to retrieve something from a deck chair, and dives back into the water, where she remains for a considerable time. Flustered, worried about the woman’s safety, Cleveland slips, hits his head and rolls into the pool.

He awakens later, in his own residence, with a young woman (Howard) wearing one of his shirts — nothing

else — and sitting on his couch. She’s very sketchy on details, but informs him her name is Story. Cleveland, uncomfortable with the situation, tells her she can stay a while to rest, but then must leave. They both fall asleep, with Cleveland waking up first and unsuccessfully trying to rouse his new guest.

As he is carrying Story outside, presumably to put her on a lounge chair by the pool, he’s asking questions, expecting no response, when Story utters “Narf.” He has little time to toss that around his mind when he is confronted by a large hyena-like creature that chases him, still carrying Story, back into the house.

Cleveland’s investigations lead him to a tenant of Korean origin who tells him of a “bedtime story” from her youth, in which Narfs (water nymphs) leave the sea and visit the land to affect the lives of certain individuals. He soon discovers Story is, indeed, a Narf, and she’s been sent to find a writer whose life will be changed for the better, simply by meeting her.

Unfortunately, this simple story gets much more complicated as it goes along until, finally, poor Cleveland ends up on a mission similar to having a ring in need of a fellowship, with job descriptions written by The Da Vinci Code’s Dan Brown.

Lady in the Water is the fourth motion picture written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan since he blew onto the scene with The Sixth Sense seven years ago. While this film, like The Village, his last effort, should find an audience, it’s unlikely to meet with the kind of following he’s accustomed to enjoying.

Moreover, fans who dismissed his previous effort as a mere bump in the road of a talented filmmaker are sure to cringe, watching him veer from left to

We can sit back and admire the cleverness and effort of it, but the job is only half done if we’re not drawn into the story. right and in jeopardy of completely losing control of the vehicle.

Despite the efforts of the cast, one of whom is Shyamalan himself, we never make that leap of faith required to connect with the story. It all comes across as made up, played out at the direction of someone who’s pulling the strings.

Ironically, while we hardly ever forget we’re watching a movie, Shyamalan appears to have forgotten, as with The Village, that he was making one.

Overworked mythology stuffed with metaphor and symbolism isn’t enough.

We can sit back and admire the cleverness and effort of it, but the job is only half done if we’re not drawn into the story.

The primary focus appears to be composing camera shots and choosing camera angles, creating a good-looking result, but in contrast to the often overthe-top orchestration that accompanies the scenes, especially in the final half hour of the film, we’re not moved — we don’t feel anything.

Lady in the Water is two hours of watching Shyamalan playing with his toys, and not once does he invite you to play along.

Paul Giamatti as Cleveland Heep and Bryce Dallas Howard as Story

Tim Conway operates Capital Video in Rawlin’s Cross, St. John’s. His column returns Aug. 13.

Tales from Pigeon Inlet MARK CALLANAN On the shelf The Chronicles of Uncle Mose

By Ted Russell (edited by Elizabeth Miller) Flanker Press, 2006

I

n November of 1953, CBC Radio aired the first episode of The Chronicles of Uncle Mose, written and narrated by former magistrate and schoolteacher Ted Russell. Speaking as his fictional alter ego Uncle Mose, Russell delivered his short monologues to the residents of this province until 1961. Though Breakwater Books has previously collected Russell’s stories in book form, Flanker Press’ recently published edition is the only one currently in print.

The Chronicles of Uncle Mose features 75 of Ted Russell’s tales edited and introduced by his daughter, renowned academic writer and Russell biographer Elizabeth Miller. As Miller points out in her preface, Russell’s radio segment was originally conceived as “a means of communicating relevant information to fishermen living in isolated communities along hundreds of miles of coastline.”

It came to be much more than that.

The residents of the fictional community of Pigeon Inlet took on a life of their own. Uncle Mose, Grampa Walcott, Skipper Joe, Aunt Sophy and others soon became vividly inscribed in the minds of Russell’s audience. Their trials and travails were emblematic of a

province struggling through a period of rapid social change.

By framing elements of social critique within the larger structure of his narratives, and by employing the simple yet compelling voice of Uncle Mose, Russell was free to comment on societal issues without — generally — seeming didactic or overly prescriptive.

He could discuss centralization, the fishery, and the effects of modernization while drawing analogies between the lives of his fictional creations and the lives of his real life listeners.

But what is perhaps most interesting about Russell’s stories is the form they take. Though the tales were obviously made to fit the time allotted for their radio spot on The Fishermen’s Broadcast, their anecdotal narrative length seems as natural a literary form as the

sonnet in poetry. By employing traditional methods such as the tall tale, the stories manage to evoke a strong sense of the oral tradition of storytelling, making them as readable as they are listenable.

Each individual chronicle often hinges on a specific event, as observed or overheard by Uncle Mose, an anecdote presenting some aspect of life in Pigeon Inlet. Often, a problem is presented at the outset, some difficulty besetting Russell’s characters is resolved by the story’s end with ingenuity and comic flair.

Algebra Slippers, for instance, sees Grampa Walcott defeating the local merchant, Josiah Bartle, in a battle of wits; Stealing the Holes witnesses the emergence of a farcical philosophical argument between Skipper Lige Bartle and Uncle Sol Noddy on the essential nature of a hole. Throughout, Russell’s characters make the sort of simple yet profound comments as this one from New Year’s Resolutions: Jethro said he allowed his face was his own and that he supposed he could do what he liked with it.

But Grampa said that’s where he was wrong. A man’s face wasn’t his own. It belonged to the neighbours that had to look at it, and about all a man owned in his own face was the responsibility to keep it lookin’ shipshape.

The cumulative effect of these serialized tales is such that they can be read, back to back, as chapters in a longer narrative, which, if not exactly a novel in its structural arrangement, does present a narrative breadth one could expect

to find in any novel of a decent length.

Yet, unlike chapters of a longer book, each unit of this collection can be taken on its own strengths or weaknesses, without necessitating reference either forward or backward to other tales.

Russell’s writing is often quite evocative in its descriptive powers and in its ability to employ epigrammatic phrases that capture the essence of its subjects. Jethro Noddy’s two weeks’ worth of facial growth is compared to “the nor’west corner of the Gull Mash … mostly bare spots with here and there a clump of ground juniper or a small patch of alders, or a few blueberry bushes or a old gnarled stump.”

Grampa Walcott, a “truthful man,” is

in fact so fond of the truth “that sometimes he stretches it a bit to make it go further.”

It was Russell’s sense of humour, his social relevance, and his aptitude for telling a good story that made his radio segment so popular during its time, and it is these same factors that continue to make his work relevant to a modern audience.

Hopefully, the readers of today will embrace this opportunity to revisit a few old friends in Pigeon Inlet or to make some new and lasting acquaintances.

Mark Callanan is a writer and reviewer living in Rocky Harbour. His column returns Aug. 13.

JULY 30, 2006

20 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

Celebrating in fine style T

his year marks the 30th anniversary of the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival and the 40th anniversary of the St. John’s Folk Arts Council, and they’re celebrating in fine style! The days leading up to the festival are marked with fun and fabulous events.

Sunday, July 30, brings Recitation Night at the Crow’s Nest on Duckworth Street, a great evening celebrating Newfoundland and Labrador’s tradition of storytelling in verse. Presented by the St. John's Storytelling Circle and the folk arts council. The event gets under way at 7:30 p.m. and admission is $2.

Tuesday, Aug. 1, sees Session Night as friends of the arts council take over the Masonic Temple on Cathedral Street to fill every nook and cranny with music. There will be a slow session, a fast session, a song session, and who knows ... some spontaneous dancing might take place! The event kicks off at 7 p.m. and admission is by donation.

Wednesday, Aug. 2, it’s Folk Night at the Ship. Come see the best of Newfoundland and Labrador folk at our all-night open mic. As usual, things get underway at 9:30 p.m. and for just $5 will get you a great evening of fun and music. CBC will be on hand this evening to record the goings on.

Thursday, Aug. 3, brings Multicultural Night at Gower St. United Church, presented by the St. John's Folk Arts Council and the Association for New Canadians.

Come enjoy an evening of music and food from all over the world, featuring The Forgotten Bouzouki, Mopaya, the Mahers Bahers and more! Doors open at 6:30, and entertainment starts at 7 p.m. Admission is $7, with all proceeds going to the Association for New Canadians.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday join us for the Festival in Bannerman Park, dedicated this year to singer/songwriter Steve Woodcock of Halifax and St. John’s, storyteller Mary Power of Branch and singer, Beck Bennett of St. Paul’s.

JULY 30, 2006

Last years Folk Festival attracted hundreds of accordion players.

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 21

22 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

JULY 30, 2006

WEEKLY DIVERSIONS ACROSS 1 Habitual practice 7 Not lower 12 Whale young 18 ___ the Hun 19 Composer Alexina ___ 20 Bear-like 21 ___ and pestle 22 Extreme start?

23 Edit 24 Upon: prefix 25 Sense 27 Ont. town on Grand River 29 Baseball hitter 30 Parasites 32 Alarm 35 May in Montréal 36 If all ___ fails ...

37 Devil 39 Chews on a bone 41 Alta.’s third largest city 43 Call for help 45 Monopolize (the phone) (2 wds.)

47 Stop running 48 Beethoven specialist Anton ___ 51 Oilman’s verb 53 Knot 57 ___ voyage!

58 An Esposito 60 Bend for a low door 62 Tree with high-fat seeds 63 Globe

64 Netherworld (myth.)

66 Sign up for 68 Otic organ 69 Marmora and Galilee 71 Shy 73 African antelope 74 Tot up 75 Jeweller’s unit 77 Nest on a crag 79 Caesar and salmagundi 81 Fleur de ___ 83 Brooding spots 85 Piano part 86 Things 90 Meagre 92 Wharves 96 Stuff 97 N.S.’s tree: ___ spruce 99 Bundle of sheaves of grain 101 Goddess of Earth 102 Ages and ages 103 Mark sale prices 105 Not a copy (abbr.)

107 Take home 108 Arcade (Ital.)

110 Inuit craft 113 Hindu festival of lights 115 Expression of time-telling 116 Official gemstone of N.S. 117 Politician, former

NHL star 118 Ancient city of Egypt 119 More untested 120 Site of P.E.I. Potato Museum DOWN 1 Humpbacks of the Gobi 2 Hypothetical perfect society 3 Harsh 4 Small bird 5 Norwegian saint 6 Equine moms 7 Wailing 8 Campaigner 9 Place 10 Dublin’s land 11 Sphere 12 Longtime “As It Happens” theme: “___ Soul” 13 Neighbourhood 14 Drug of the 60s 15 Workable 16 Put in a box 17 Plume-tailed dog 26 Heart test, briefly 28 Voyageur’s blade 31 Little Heart’s ___, Nfld.

33 Surprise attack 34 They can hold water 36 Blissful gardens 38 ___ Battleford,

Sask.

40 Apartment, to some 42 Archaeological site 44 Ermine 46 Cheap wine 48 Two-part country 49 Unbolt 50 Gandhi’s country 52 Water lily 54 Leading 55 Uses the library 56 Animal fat 57 Pear 59 Mideast country 61 Bicycle part 65 Foals’ dads 67 Governed 70 City of early witchcraft trials 72 Compact ___ 76 Twitch 78 French state 80 Highly excited 82 Bolts in the buff 84 Variety of billiards 86 Spotted feline 87 Pin-on jewellery 88 Discordant sound 89 Become firm 91 Rocky peak 93 Country with longest coastline 94 N.S.-born actress Ruby ___ (“Dames”) 95 Like some lingerie 98 Senegal’s capital 100 Term of familiar address

103 Paella ingredient 104 Infatuated 106 “Songs of a Prairie

___” (Joni Mitchell) 109 Lump 111 Brief deviation

from a straight course 112 Put away the dishes

114 English river Solution page 29

WEEKLY STARS ARIES (MAR. 21 TO APR. 19) A misunderstanding tests the temperament of the sometimes headstrong Aries. But instead of blowing your top, take time for a pleasant diversion while things cool down.

CANCER (JUNE 21 TO JULY 22) A change you’d been hoping for carries an unexpected complication. Stay the course, and things will work themselves out. Be sure to make time for family and friends.

TAURUS (APR. 20 TO MAY 20) A workplace problem could make the divine Bovine see red. But talk it out before you consider walking out. Some surprising facts emerge that change your earlier focus.

LEO (JULY 23 TO AUG. 22) Aspects favor spending time with loved ones. On the job, new ideas are generally welcomed. But some demands for changes could cause problems. Be ready to defend your choices.

GEMINI (MAY 21 TO JUNE 20) You face a choice between ignoring your uneasy feelings about your relationship with that special person and demanding explanations. A close friend offers wise counsel.

VIRGO (AUG. 23 TO SEPT. 22) Good news: That workplace problem is close to being resolved with results that should please everyone. Take time off to indulge your love of fun and games.

LIBRA (SEPT. 23 TO OCT. 22)

Most of the time you are the most unflappable person around. But be ready to be thrown off-balance in the nicest way when Cupid takes aim in your direction.

SCORPIO (OCT. 23 TO NOV. 21) It’s not often when someone tries to “sting” the sharp- witted Scorpion. But it can happen.

Continue to be skeptical about anything that seems too good to be true.

SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22 TO DEC. 21) Your strong sense of self-esteem helps you serve as a role model for someone who needs personal reassurances. Your efforts pay off in an unexpected way.

CAPRICORN (DEC. 22 TO JAN. 19) Someone close considers revealing a painful secret. Withhold judgment. Instead, open your gen-

erous heart, and offer dollops of your love and understanding AQUARIUS (JAN. 20 TO FEB. 18) Your talents as a peacemaker are called upon once more as an old problem re-emerges with new complications. Move cautiously in order to avoid falling into hidden traps.

PISCES (FEB. 19 TO MAR. 20) The artistic side of yourself is enhanced with the reception given to your new project. Use this success as encouragement toward fulfilling your larger goals.

YOU BORN THIS WEEK Your natural sense of leadership is combined with a deep sense of responsibility. People trust you to give them both guidance and understanding. (c) 2006 King Features Syndicate, Inc.

Fill in the grid so that each row of nine squares, each column of nine and each section of nine (three squares by three) contains the numbers 1 through 9 in any order.

There is only one solution to each puzzle. Solutions, tips and computer program available at www.sudoko.com SOLUTION ON PAGE 29

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JULY 30-AUGUST 5, 2006 — PAGE 23

Bubba’s Tubs store manager Sara Chislett

Paul Daly/The Independent

Looking for leisure

Hot tub retailer Greg Butler says economic boom, social trends and love of luxury keeps business alive

By Ivan Morgan The Independent

G

reg Butler wants to see you up to your neck in hot water. Unlike many of our current and past MHAs, however, he says it’s a good thing.

Butler is the owner of local hot tub business Bubba’s Tubs, supplier of hot tubs, swim spas, saunas and all related products and accessories.

With a staff of four, and now in his second year of operation, Butler has passed the “first year” hurdle so critical to new small businesses — and he’s confident about the future.

When asked if his business depends on the economic boom the Northeast Avalon is currently experiencing, he answers “not necessarily.” While hot tubs and their kin are luxury items, he says they are also beneficial, economical and healthy — and symbolic of a generation.

Butler talks about his product more as social trend than indicator of economic well being. The hot tub phenomena, he says, began on the west coast of North America in the ’70s, and has been moving east and into mainstream society ever since.

“It was only a matter of time before they got here,” he says. “Ten years ago hot tubs

were not common items; now they are like someone who is going to buy a hot tub. These backyard couches.” are leisure-friendly people” Butler says hot tubs are — dollar for dollar The majority of Butler’s clients are older — economical recreational items. and more established.

“If you buy a snowmobile, you are only “Most people who buy hot tubs are from getting two or three months 35 to 55 — and the boomer of the year out of it,” he generation turns 60 this “There comes a point year,” he says. “This is a says. “You buy a motorcycle. The weather gets cold, in your life when you boomer driven product. you put the motorcycle There comes a point in your can choose to pull a life when you can choose to away — maybe you get six months out of it every year. pull a snowmobile out of a snowmobile out of “You buy a boat, maybe snowdrift or slip into a hot a snowdrift or slip you get four months of tub every evening … Well, enjoyment a year, then you if you have a few aches and into a hot tub every have to put it away. A hot pains, the choice gets pretty tub is a good leisure evening … Well, if you easy.” expense. You are going to And even if one chooses have a few aches get 12 months of the year the snowmobile, he notes, and pains, the choice the tub is a fine reward for out of it. And there is no extra work — you just one’s struggles. “They’re gets pretty easy.” come home and slip into the great for sore muscles.” water and relax.”

Typically Butler’s clienGreg Butler That said, Butler points tele are people with 15 or out he doesn’t think he’s in more years paid on their competition with other so-called luxury busi- mortgage. They even have a model they refer nesses. to as the “empty nester.”

“We don’t compete against the motorcycle He is quick to dispel the image of his proddealers or the boat dealers. The boat owner, ucts as “sin bins.” He sees the hot tub as an the motorcycle owner, he or she tends to be investment in family life. Unlike watching

television, sharing a hot tub promotes interaction.

“The biggest feedback we get coming back to us is the benefit to families. Teenaged children get in the tub and they chat — they talk with their parents.”

Bubba’s sells and rents tubs. The rentals are soft-sided and are usually hired for parties and special events. Bubba’s sets them up and takes them down.

He compares the cost of upkeeping the hot tub to other leisure purchases.

“The cost of your leisure is the cost of your leisure,” he says. “If you ski, you have transportation costs, lift tickets, accommodations and the like. With motorcycles you have insurance, gas and such. With the tub, the electrical bill is an issue, but not a major one … $20 a month and up is the usual cost, and if you are looking at a dollar a day, that’s not bad. You could pay more for your cable.”

While Butler doesn’t believe his survival rests on the boom economy, he does wonder if he is battling old-fashioned Newfoundland culture. He says he still encounters people who believe if you get wet outside in the cold weather, you’ll get sick.

Ten minutes on a crisp November night in one of his tubs, he says, is the definitive answer to that piece of folklore.

Should we be saving?

H

ow much is enough? Savings, that is. Why should we save at all? The banks are hardly paying anything in interest these days — and is there a relationship between our savings account balance and how much we depend on credit? Should we have a budget line dedicated to savings?

At the Credit Counselling Service of Newfoundland and Labrador, we hear these questions from many of the 2,400 families who come see us every year for help with their household finances.

It’s interesting to look at people’s perceptions of saving, what it is and what it’s for. I recently saw a couple

AL ANTLE

Your finances who felt they were more than “safe” in the savings department. They were setting aside $500 a month in an RSP. Not bad for a mid-40s couple with one child still fully dependant.

The contribution, however, was not toward savings; it was toward retirement savings, which is a different item all together.

Many people are “specific saving.”

They are planning a holiday, a home renovation, or the replacement of a major appliance. They might be saving for a vehicle down payment and have been setting aside money from each of their income sources to reach the ultimate goal. Again, while this is a great plan — and it’s so much sounder than borrowing for these types of undertakings — it’s not “savings.”

Savings — pure savings, simple savings — is a reasonably decent cache of quickly accessible money not earmarked for any purpose other than that you may require it to meet your basic

needs. Accessing this cash, or any portion thereof, does not diminish the value of your RSP portfolio or any other asset; it does not limit your options or choices as a consumer and does not mean the specific projects or purchases you have been anticipating are forced on hold.

Savings accounts, particularly the variety designed to become a cushion for you and your family during an economic pinch, should be added to every month, even during periods of unemployment or under-employment if at all possible.

How much should you aim for? Try

depositing in your account till it hurts.

You’ll know when you’ve reached that level.

Advice like this is bound to aggravate the financial industry types.

Chances are they hold somewhat different views on any number of financial matters. How much to save is only one of these. I believe our capacity for savings is driven by our age as much as anything.

At some points in your life, your capacity to save will be well beyond the industry-recommended standard of 10 See “Successful saving,” page 24

24 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JULY 30, 2006

Dear Clyde …

C

hief Justice Derek Green has been given terms of reference for his review of political compensation. While Green is not conducting a judicial review of past goings-on, he can use a variety of sources to see what should be done in future. He can also summon witnesses …

•••

SUE KELLAND-DYER

Guest column A second letter …

•••

Dear Clyde Wells, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Newfoundland, Court of Appeal You are cordially invited to appear before me on Sept. 5 to explain the original intent of constituency allowances.

Dear Mr. Wells, I need to meet with you regarding your constituency allowances for the years 1989-1991. Further, I would appreciate it if you could provide information respecting spending practices of certain other cabinet ministers for the same years.

Sincerely, Derek Green RSVP Sept. 1, 2006

Sincerely, John Noseworthy Auditor general

••• If the auditor general files a 15.1 (what he filed on Ed Byrne, et al), how will that work in terms of a person of Clyde Wells’ rank? Once he gets the report, will Harvey Hodder jog down to the courthouse to question the chief justice?

As for Paul Dicks and CBC Television reports that he bought wine and artwork out of his government allowance, some St. John’s journalists knew about that when it happened and did nothing.

When Elizabeth Marshall, a former auditor general and current MHA, was going off her head about being kept out of the books, the only people who pressed the matter were ordinary citizens. The opposition did not care, the media brushed it off, and government members circled their wine-

laden wagons.

Moving on … next year’s annual garden party at Government House in St. John’s should be interesting. Will the chief justices, the auditor general, and the speaker of the House of Assembly get together for a tea party with Her Majesty’s rep to see what he knew? The only thing missing here is the looking glass. That should be Chuck Furey, the commissioner of members’ interests, but he was in power during the controversial years.

Will it come down to bounty hunters tracking ex-politicians across the country, disrupting their well-deserved retirement? Will our Brian be hauled out of his consultations with Toronto City Hall? Worse, will our Brian be hauled out of some board meeting to be asked by Hodder — clerk in tow — what he knew?

We continue to drown in scandal and cover-up. We have learned nothing from Mount Cashel in terms of facing the truth. Our province’s incestuous political community continues to weigh us down. The province should place a want ad in papers across the country to attract some of our business grads back home. Job opportunities for auditors and chartered accountants may grow faster than for skilled tradesmen.

As one chief justice chats with another our rural communities pass on without remembrance or even a proper funeral. It’s not likely we’ll save them now.

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

Sears stores scale back

S

ears Canada is closing another floor in its flagship Eaton Centre store in downtown Toronto.

It’s the second time Sears has downsized the former Eaton store since buying it from the failing T. Eaton Co. in 1999.

Sears, which has been struggling and is the target of a takeover bid, says it’s also closing two floors in its downtown Vancouver location. That store was also part of the iconic Eaton’s chain.

Both locations will now have a total of five floors each, Sears Canada spokesperson Vince Power says. A typical Sears store has two or fewer floors, he adds.

The company believes the move will make the stores more productive without hurting sales, Power says.

Departures at St. John’s airport

Paul Daly/The Independent

Airlines strong despite fuel cost Cheaper to fly than drive, global traffic at Pearson up 5.5%

By Kevin McGran Torstar wire service

A

ir travel continues to reach sky high levels in Canada and abroad despite the rising price of fuel and tensions in the Middle East.

In fact, the rising price of oil may actually be benefiting the air industry as consumers discover it may be cheaper to fly than to drive to certain destinations, said Calgary-based airline analyst Rick Erickson.

“I’m at a point where it’s $100 to fill up my car,” says Erickson. “For me to drive to Vancouver is $300, $350 to gas up. Why would I take a day each way on my vacation when I can fly?

“With the price of gas so high, in relative terms, since you’re sharing it with 300 people on board the aircraft, that takes you to the point where it’s more cost effective to fly than to pay out of pocket to fill up a car.”

International passenger traffic for the first half of the year grew 6.7 per cent worldwide, while international

freight traffic was up 5.2 per cent over the same period in 2005, the International Air Transport Association reported last week.

LOBBYING BODY IATA, a lobbying body for most of the world’s major air carriers, said the air industry faces a $112 billion (US) fuel bill for 2006, and an average price of $66 for a barrel of oil.

“The bottom line is all about oil,” says Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s director general and chief executive, in a news release from Geneva.

“Increased political instability in the Middle East does not bode well for a price drop any time soon. The good news is that neither the extraordinary price of oil nor the inching-up of interest rates negatively impacted demand.”

Traffic at Toronto Pearson International is reaching record levels with the airport on pace to reach 31 million passengers for the year for the first time in its history. The number of international passengers using the

facility is up 5.5 per cent, transborder up 1.4 per cent and domestic travellers up 2.7 per cent in the first five months of 2006.

“It’s a pretty good start to the year and summer is busier,” says spokesman Scott Armstrong. “It looks like it’s going to be a record year.”

WestJet and Air Canada are due to release second-quarter financial statements in the next two weeks, but traffic is up for both companies.

During the first six months of 2006, WestJet’s load factor increased 6.1 percentage points to 78.4 per cent, compared with 72.3 during the same period in 2005.

Air Canada — on a 27-month growth streak — has seen its international traffic rise 4.4 per cent, transborder traffic rise 14.7 per cent and domestic traffic rise 3.4 per cent.

“Air traffic is strong these days and the economy is a big factor,” says Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick.

“Lots of people are travelling.

Obviously, people are finding our fares attractive.”

“We’re doing some compacting,” he says. “Every category will still be represented.”

There is no impact on staffing levels in the stores, and he says the plans were announced internally last March. The company has yet to decide what to do with the empty floors.

The move will cut lighting and cleaning costs.

Sears’ majority shareholder, Sears Holdings Corp. in the U.S., has made a bid for the rest of the company in order to take it private.

A group of minority shareholders has complained about the offer and asked Ontario’s securities watchdog to investigate. A decision is pending.

The company owns 220 stores across the country — Torstar wire service

Factory outlook rosier: poll

C

anadian manufacturers are feeling a little less glum about the coming months, highlighted by an improved outlook for production levels and rising new orders, according to Statistics Canada’s latest factory survey.

Despite a strong dollar, high energy prices and ever-increasing competition from low-wage Chinese factories, 20 per cent of Canadian manufacturers say they will increase production in the third quarter, while 20 per cent say output will drop, Statistics Canada reported last week.

Three months ago, 14 per cent of manufacturers polled said they will ramp up production, while 27 per cent expected to cut output.

The rebound in sentiment suggests Canadian factories may be getting back on their feet, helped along by recent weakness in the loonie and heavy investment in machinery and equipment, said Eric Lascelles, senior strategist at TD Securities. “The sector clearly isn’t out of the woods yet, but (yesterday’s) report suggests that the steady barrage of bad news could be starting to end.”

StatsCan surveys about 4,000 firms every three months, giving more weight to those with higher output and more staff.

The survey results point to flat

growth in manufacturing in the next quarter, not bad considering the challenges firms continue to face, says Doug Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns.

“To be at neutral is almost a win these days.”

Expectations of rising production were strongest among food, chemical, plastics and, not surprisingly, petroleum and coal producers. Nondurable goods makers are becoming more optimistic, with 15 per cent more predicting rising output than falling production.

Pessimism dominated the prior quarter, with the balance of opinion — the portion of firms expecting increases subtracted from those expecting lower output — at minus 5 per cent.

The picture is less rosy among durable goods makers, though even they are less bleak.

Eight per cent more firms expect lower output than those predicting higher production, a sharp rebound from the previous month when the balance of opinion was minus 28 per cent.

“It is better news that was expected,” says Porter. “The manufacturing sector is managing to muddle through. It really is the durable sector that is more pushed around by global events.”

— Torstar wire service

Successful saving From page 23 per cent of your income. For example, at 51 years old, with your children either marginally dependant or not dependant at all, with your mortgage paid in full and your debts under control, why would you settle for a savings level of only 10 per cent? Conversely, at 28 years old, with two children and halfway through a maternity leave, why would you beat yourself up because you only reached 2 per cent?

People who understand savings are possibly the most successful consumers of credit products. They know what saving accounts are and why they have them. They know savings take many forms and require some discipline. They know that if they fall on tough times and have to depend on credit, they are seriously adding to their cost of living — at a time when they can least afford it. Credit is a promise to pay someone else a part of your yet-to-be earned income, while savings is a promise to yourself to keep a portion of your already earned income.

The ideal peak for a saving account balance is when just owning the account makes you feel safe. For some, it may be an account that has three months expenses sitting there — while for others, it may be six or more months.

Whatever the case, savings is about feeling secure, about limiting stress and panic during a life crisis, and keeping all options open. Most importantly, it’s about confirming in your own mind that you understand the nature and limits of both your income and expenses.

Al Antle is executive director of Credit Counselling Service of Newfoundland and Labrador Inc.

JULY 30, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPECIALSECTION • 25

What’s new in the automotive industry

JULY 23-29, 2006

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Me, the Missus and a ’59 Chevy A

bout 20 years ago I had a desire to own a local musician who’s quite blind. really old truck, something with an exag“You’re going to love this truck man,” I told gerated cartoonish quality about it, so I Jim. “She’s a ’59 Chevy, candy-apple red, and big saved some money and started looking around the fat tires on ’er.”

Avalon Peninsula. Most old trucks “Bring me over,” said Jim, “I want to either weren’t for sale or had been comfeel it.” He hugged the front of the truck. pletely restored and were too expen“She’s beautiful,” he said. The truck was sive. One Sunday night I dreamt about flat black with snow tires and was indeed an old black truck parked behind a beautiful, but I told Jim the difference fence with little round bullet-shaped and he really appreciated the joke. signal lights. On Monday afternoon, I It was precisely that unrestored beauty saw an ad on a notice board: For Sale, that got the attention of a film crew that 1959 Chev Truck, 6-cylinder, 3-speed. was shooting Gordon Pinsent’s movie, $700. I tore off on my bicycle to the John and the Missus, at the time.

MARK address and there it was, behind a fence, The crew asked if they could use my WOODS big and black with bullet lights, just like truck in the movie.

WOODY’S in my dream. I knocked on the door of “What does it pay?” I asked. the house and the owner answered. “$100 a day.”

WHEELS “She sold?”

Good enough. They used my truck for “Nope.” seven days and I got to see how movies “Here’s a hundred bucks, she’s mine.” The were made. phone in the house rang — a call about the truck, One fine day they sent me to wardrobe, dressed four seconds too late. me up like a miner and got me to sign a form. Yes, I showed up the next day with the remaining I’m in the movie. I drive a load of injured miners $600 and threw my bike in the back of the truck. to the hospital in the mine-accident scene. The The Chev had a standard shift on the steering col- camera was about 12 feet in front of me and it was umn, something I’d never operated before, so the huge! The producer was huddled around it with guy handed me the shift pattern on a piece of about 20 people, it was a really big deal. paper.

Jackie Burroughs, the actor who played the “Want me to drive it home for you?” he offered. Missus in the film, came over to me and held my “Sure,” I replied, “and wake me up at eight and arm. drive me to work.” We had a good laugh and I “I’m going to come running up the road all worturned the key … nothing happened. The ‘59 ried about the mining accident and I want you to Chev had a starter button on the floor. Nice. come really close to me when you’re driving by,” That old truck became an extension of my per- she said. “Now you come close, but don’t you sonality, a float in the parade of life. I had a huge worry about me, OK?” Malamute that rode in the back; you’d see us comYou got it, Missus. ing a mile away, everyone would wave and smile.

Jackie went back up the road and when the We had a lot of fun. director yelled action I tore off in the truck, sprayThe first time I met Jim Fidler he asked for a ing gravel over him and his entourage and almost ride home. Everyone knows Jim, a wonderful mowing down Jackie Burroughs, who sidestepped

the truck. I didn’t know she was also a dancer.

“Cut,” yelled the director, who had a fit.

“What are you doing? You’re going to the hospital, drive slow!”

“But Jackie said ...”

“This is my movie, not Jackie’s!” the director said. Fine.

Jackie liked her version better, and during the second take winked at me as she jogged by.

A year later the movie came out. There’s a very emotional scene where a young family is being resettled and their son is in the back of my truck

with their furniture. They are about to drive away when Gordon Pinsent says, “Just a moment,” and he picks up a small rock, giving it to the boy. “This is where you’re from, and your father, and his father, too. Remember that.” And they drive away in my truck.

I shed a tear every time I see that scene. For the dialogue, my truck, Jackie Burroughs and my dog.

Mark Wood’s relationship with Jackie Burroughs fizzled after the filming of John and The Missus, and they parted ways.

26 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JULY 30, 2006

Car thieves shift gears YORK REGION VIDEO AIMS TO COUNTER WAVE OF AUTO-RELATED CRIME

By Curtis Rush Torstar wire service

N

ew anti-theft devices have prompted thieves to adopt more sophisticated and more brutal methods to steal luxury automobiles, Toronto’s York Region police are warning.

In the past two weeks, there have been two serious carjackings in which individuals were followed home and attacked in their driveways during the day.

One man was attacked in his driveway in Markham. A woman was attacked after she drove up to her Vaughan home.

The thieves roughed up their targets and then got away with an Acura MDX SUV and a Nissan 350Z, both valued around $60,000 to $70,000.

The woman phoned 911 with the licence number of her sports car. Police later spotted the vehicle and gave chase, but ended up losing it on the highway.

Police believe both vehicles were chopped up soon after. Their parts were likely shipped overseas, perhaps to Russia.

In 2005, there were 16 carjackings in York Region. This year, there have been 12 carjackings, a 50 per cent increase from the same period a year ago.

This spring, police held a summit meeting to decide what to do. Since then York Region has launched an education program aimed at car

owners and added more investigators to fight the criminals.

Det. Sgt. Fred Moffatt, who heads the Auto and Cargo Recovery Unit and the Hold-up Unit for York Region police, says sophisticated criminal gangs are likely behind the increase in auto thefts, but that it is lower-end criminals who are actually pulling off the jobs.

“CRIMINALS ARE NOW DOING THEIR HOMEWORK,” — DET. SGT. FRED MOFFATT Although new, higher-end vehicles have immobilizers, which make them impossible to steal without their keys, some car thieves haven’t been deterred. They have just changed the rules of the game. Instead of hot-wiring, they have turned to carjackings and home break-ins.

Since many people leave their car keys near the door, thieves are often able to quietly enter, snatch them and drive away while the car owner sleeps.

“Criminals are now doing their homework,” says Det. Sgt. Moffatt.

For instance, they may know what hours the prospective victim keeps, where they live, what valuables they have at home and the route they drive.

To counter this threat, police in York Region are beefing up the number of investigators.

And, in what is considered to be a first in Canada, police have produced an educational video that was introduced this week to 119 Esso and Canadian Tire gas outlets across the GTA. In the video, broadcast on TV screens above gas pumps, a police officer talks for 10 seconds on the importance of locking your car while you pump gas. Drivers are reminded to take their keys with them when they go into the shop to pay.

What’s surprising to police is the number of people who are driving up to convenience stores in $80,000 cars, leaving their vehicle running while they dash inside. A few minutes later, their luxury vehicle is gone.

Moffatt says non-violent property crime isn’t normally a high priority, but that is changing.

Even York police Chief Armand La Barge is increasingly becoming concerned about the escalation in car thefts and carjackings in the region.

“Untold millions of dollars worth of vehicles and cargo are stolen ever year across this country and programs such as this will help stem the tide,” he says.

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Ellen Roseman Torstar Wire Service o you pay at the pump for gasoline with a credit card? Do you know that gas retailers put a hold on funds in your account of up to $100 or $110 — no matter how much fuel you actually buy?

It takes a day or two for the hold to be removed. So, if you’re close to your credit limit, you may find the credit card is refused when you use it for another purchase.

The same thing happens when you use a debit card to pay at the pump. If your bank balance is low, the hold on your funds may scuttle your next purchase.

Jennifer Paige thinks such a practice is unfair, especially for low-income customers.

Imagine a single mother who buys $25 worth of gas at the pump and has only $100 in her account. With her funds frozen by a hypothetical $100 gas purchase, she may not be able to buy baby formula.

“I fail to see how gas stations could be entitled to exercise such a policy, particularly without informing the public,” Paige told me.

Gasoline retailers aren’t alone in pre-authorizing a certain amount on a credit or debit card. This also happens with hotels and car rental outlets.

The concern: What if you leave without paying what you owe?

“Pay at the pump was introduced because of added convenience for our customers. Unfortunately, it also attracts fraudsters,” says Jon Hamilton, a spokesman for PetroCanada.

“It’s important to know up front that the customer can cover the cost of the goods or that the card is legitimate.”

The maximum used to be $75. But higher gas prices are leading to higher pre-set amounts, says Robert Thiberge, a spokesman for Imperial Oil. He didn’t even know about the policy until he received a few recent complaints from customers.

“The problem is accounts are not reconciled right away,” he adds. “For the majority of people, that’s not an issue. But what if you’re very tight on your credit limit? You may have a problem when you go to make your next purchase.”

There are no rules governing the holds on funds applied in debit and credit card purchases of gas at the pump.

Financial institutions and retailers can set their own policies.

But lack of disclosure and possible penalties are an issue for the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.

For a debit-card holder, “the hold on funds beyond the amount purchased may cause a cheque to bounce, with all the problems that entails,” says John Kane, a spokesman for the federal regulator.

“For a credit card holder, the hold may exceed the credit limit and result in over-the-limit fees.”

In some cases, the gas station may flash a message at the start about a hold on funds. You have the option to decline the maximum purchase and you can enter a smaller amount.

“But it has come to our attention that the hold is still routinely placed on the larger amount, even if the consumer has entered a smaller amount,” Kane says.

His advice: If you think you’re close to your limit, pay inside at the cash register. No holds on funds are applied there.

If you do pay at the pump, ask the gas retailers about their policies. And avoid locations where the policies aren’t known to you.

$

2006 OUTBACK

Hidden perils in paying at pump

D

Subaru has turned steel and rubber into gold. *

Paul Daly/The Independent

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 27

Over and out?

MOLSON MAY PULL OUT OF TORONTO’S GRAND PRIX; SOCCER REAL COMPETITION

G

rand Prix Toronto (née Molson various and sundry Formula Atlantic (a Indy) has two big hurdles to clear race around the Confederation buildings as it starts planning for 2007: in St. John’s in 1974 was won by Tom Who will be the title sponsor? Molson Klausler), Formula 5000 and U.S. Auto is likely over and out.

Club Indy-car races, they’ve been ever soHow will it compete against slowly pulling the plug on the the FIFA Under 20 World Cup sport. Labatt hasn’t been active soccer tournament in Toronto? in the auto-racing arena for Many of the games will be held some time and Molson is out of next July at that brand spanking it — or nearly out — now. new soccer stadium they’re Why? building over at the CNE, Canadians aren’t drinking as which is exactly when and much beer any more, for where they hold the car race starters. And demographics are every year. changing: much as a guy like NORRIS MCDONALD First, the sponsorship probme hates to admit it, auto raclem. Although there has been ing isn’t the draw it once was no formal announcement, I for young men 19-25 and it’s have been told that this was the young men 19-25 that beer last year for Molson sponsorcompanies covet. ship of the Toronto Champ Car So good luck to the folks at race that’s been running along the lake Grand Prix of Toronto, because finding a shore and through the streets of the “Ex” title sponsor in this day and age isn’t all since 1986. that easy.

Molson’s withdrawal from sponsoring And farewell to Molson, if — in fact — major open-wheel auto racing events in it’s the end. On behalf of the sport, thank Canada began two years ago when the last you for being a friend.

Molson Indy Vancouver was held and the Now, that soccer tournament.

Champ Car World Series announced it The people at the Champ Car World had awarded a race to Edmonton for 2005. Series have got to start looking at the calAlthough Molson stayed on as beer-gar- endar a little more closely. Much as those den sponsor in Edmonton, it took a pass on folks would like to think that the world title sponsorship. That was the first step. revolves around them, it ain’t the case.

Next, it quietly put the Toronto and This year, for instance, the Toronto race Montreal Molson Indy races up for sale. was scheduled on the same day as the To keep rival Tony George and the Indy World Cup soccer final. Not a smart Racing League at bay, Champ Car owners move.

Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerald Forsythe But next year, they have really big purchased both of them; part of the problems.

Toronto deal was that Molson would stay The Toronto Grand Prix is scheduled on as title sponsor for the first year. This for Friday, July 6 through Sunday, July 8. was apparently not the case in Montreal, However, there are preliminary round where the word “Molson” is nowhere to games of the soccer tournament scheduled be found in advertising for next month’s for the new stadium at the Exhibition on race there.

Thursday, July 5, and on Sunday, July 8, Molson’s withdrawal creates a dilem- which just happens to be race day. ma: there’s not a lot of big company Uh-oh. money floating around out there.

And soccer is scheduled to be played in Canadian auto racing made it this far Toronto on either Saturday or Sunday of thanks to beer and cigarettes. Starting in the following two weekends.

1961, when it sponsored the first Player’s Now, perhaps there’s some way that 200 at Mosport, Imperial Tobacco was they’ll be able to work this out. Maybe the consistently front-and-centre with money soccer game will be played at night on and expertise until run out of town by race day Sunday, hours after the Champ governments and the anti-tobacco lobby.

Car race is over. But the major problem And while Molson and Labatt took remains: how to create excitement and turns over the years sponsoring the sell an event when you know you’ll be Formula One Grand Prix of Canada and directly up against something that the

TRACK TALK

Forsythe CHAMP car driver A.J. Allmendinger of the U.S. smokes his tires and makes donuts as he celebrates winning the Grand Prix of Toronto July 9,.

Reuters

whole world will be watching?

Let’s just hope the Grand Prix powersthat-be don’t wait too long to start beating the drums for the 2007 race. Attendance was down this year and if they want to get those missing people back, and to head off the soccer onslaught, which will be formidable, the promotion leading up to next year’s race has got to start pronto.

And there’s got to be a hook. The race needs a goose. There were many reasons why overall attendance was down this year. Among them: The event felt tired. There wasn’t the sense of excitement that there’s been in years past.

There was next-to-no Canadian presence. There was no CASCAR; there was no Canadian Formula Ford series.

Other than Sebastien Bourdais, Paul Tracy, Justin Wilson, A.J. Allmendinger and one or two others (including the other Canadian drivers Andrew Ranger and Alex Tagliani), the Champ Car World Series is populated by people who are not blue-chip talents — and that’s being kind.

Race fans are not stupid; they know this.

(Would Blue Jays fans continue to support the club if half the guys on the field belonged in Syracuse? I doubt it.)

There were fewer vendors and lots less

We Race.

to do in the National Trade Centre this year. And what was with those strip shows anyway?

Edmonton, for the second year in a row last weekend, put on a terrific event and provided enough off-track entertainment to keep the whole family happy.

You know, for a race fan, that you’re

pretty close to Shangri-la when you have six good drivers to keep the Champ Car race interesting, plus the Atlantics, plus the CASCAR Super Series, plus a midway with carnival rides for the kiddies, plus eight rock concerts featuring big names like Honeymoon Suite and Kim Mitchell, plus ... etc.

So what can Toronto do to beef things up? To make what has been a great event over the years even bigger and better in future?

In a nutshell — other than the obvious, such as bringing back CASCAR, or the impossible dream of unification, which would bring Marco Andretti, Danica Patrick and Marlboro Team Penske to town — I’d argue that Grand Prix Toronto needs a second headline event.

For instance, I’d bring in the Rolex/Grand Am sports car series. Run CASCAR about an hour after final Champ Car qualifying on the Saturday — say from 4 p.m. to 5:30. Then, starting at 7 p.m., I’d run a four-hour sports car event that would finish under the lights.

I’d also run all the races — Atlantics and Champ Cars on Sunday, the Rolex cars and CASCAR on Saturday — on the original Lakeshore Raceway circuit envisioned back in the ’60s by John Bassett Jr. and George Eaton.

The course would stay the same except instead of turning back into the Ex from Lake Shore Boulevard. at Ontario Drive, the cars would continue at top speed west past Liberty Grand to the intersection with British Columbia Road and the hard-right hairpin there would spin them back into the grounds, where they could rejoin the present circuit near the fountain.

I’d say a plan like that would create a real buzz.

Wouldn’t you?

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28 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

JULY 30, 2006

Favourite road trippers

A

s thousands of Americans hit the highway for summer holidays, the road test editors of Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com chose 10 current vehicles they thought would be well suited for road trips and then asked shoppers which of these vehicles they would most like to take on the road this summer.

The results have been tallied and Land Rover Range Rover Sport was the overall winner, capturing 16 per cent of the votes.

Placing second, with 14 per cent of the votes, was Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra GT500.

Three cars tied for third, with 12 per cent of the vote. They were the Honda Civic Hybrid, the Chevrolet Corvette Z06, and the Porsche Caymen S. Other vehicles rated in order were: Volvo C70, nine per cent, Toyota FJ Cruiser, seven per cent, Pontiac Solstice, five per cent, and Mazda MX-5 Miata, two per cent.

“The differences among the consumers’ favorites reflect varying opinions on what makes a great road trip vehicle,” said Jack R. Nerad, executive editorial director and market analyst for Kelley Blue Book.

“To some, cargo space and passenger comfort matter most. To others, fuel economy is a key consideration, while still others seek the pure enjoyment of driving.

CARS AND

CATS plastic seat, arguing over who had to sit from the cage. closest to the cheap Styrofoam cooler Michelle and I instantly rolled up our rubbing rhythmically against a suitcase windows. The rush of the wind from the in the back. The cat cage had to be on front seat momentarily covered up our the seat between us, and we lived in genius decision, as we stared at each perpetual fear the cat other in horror. You know how would emit something some parents solve the problem, nasty from one end or the and then ask questions later? other.

My dad didn’t subscribe to During one excruciatthat school of thought. As we ingly hot journey, we got a flung ourselves wildly around great idea. We’d glanced the backseat looking for the cat, over at another car and a string of expletives exploded seen a cat sitting in the rear from my father. He’d found window, happy as can be.

Nooly. Under his feet.

LORRAINE In that spot where people As he pulled the car over to SOMMERFELD usually put a Kleenex box, the shoulder, my mother joined for some absurd reason. in the yelling. Two crying girls, How are you supposed to two crazy parents, one cowering reach back there to blow cat. I’ve blocked out the rest of your nose? the traumatic trip.

Anyway, this cat looked blissful.

A few years later, I was heading up Nooly could also be blissful, we rea- north with Allergic Sister and her cat soned. Dogs love driving in cars, and (told you Mom lied). Once again, this we figured it was because nobody cat was making whale music in his crammed them into a little cage. cage. But we had a plan. We pulled into Imagining an end to the plaintive cry- a rest stop, my sister clipped a little ing, we eased open his cage to let him leash on the beast, and we got him out out for a few minutes. for a walk. She put a little dish of water Twenty pounds of angry cat leapt down for him. He looked mostly bewil-

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“Do you think he looks OK?”, she asked me with a frown.

“He looks fine,” I replied. “You look like a dork.”

Cats have three basic life skills. They eat, they poop and they sleep. If you take away the first, they don’t have to do the second, and sticking them in a cage for a few hours just helps them do the third.

Today, our two cats are great travellers. They don’t whine for a DVD player in the van, they don’t beg to stop for McDonalds, they don’t announce they have to pee every 20 minutes, and neither one has ever asked if we’re there yet.

They recline in their personal little cages, and don’t have kick fights. If they have burping contests, they keep it to themselves. They don’t make me play “I Spy” on roads that only contain fields and asphalt, and they don’t shake up cans of pop just to “see what happens”.

Maybe it’s time for a couple more cages.

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W

e didn’t have pets when I was a kid. Mom told us my sister was allergic to cats and dogs, which turned out to be a lie, but served her purposes well. When a stray cat found his way into our home, that sister had moved out and my mother had no good excuses in reserve.

Nooly had been roaming the streets for months when we got him, but that didn’t stop us from buying him a cat cage and forcing him to make the trek to the cottage with us. He would yowl at the top of his lungs for three hours. It was that deep strangled cry that sounded as if someone was performing experiments on him. My father would grind his teeth while my mother would resolutely stare straight ahead pretending she couldn’t hear him.

My little sister Michelle and I would cram French fries through the holes in the cage, and try to pet him. This pretty much consisted of poking him and wiggling our fingers, which usually just served to make him yowl louder.

That ’76 orange AMC station wagon had no air conditioning. We would take turns ripping the skin from the backs of our legs as we pulled them from the

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JULY 30, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 29

New-world gear meets old-world sport From page 32 day or two salmon fishing on the Emerald Isle? I rent a car in Galway and head out of town along the north side of Galway Bay, towards Connemara. This was my first taste of European driving. Narrow roadways that would be posted at no more than 40 kph in Newfoundland had speed limits of 100 kph.

To sweeten the intensity, I’m driving on the left side of the road. Only 50 miles to Ballynahinch — I settle my nerves and even manage to absorb the expanse of green fields and stone walls that surround me.

Every field holds cows, sheep or horses, a credit to Irish self-reliance. An elderly lady with a crooked stick directs a dozen or so sheep across the road and into an ancient stone barn, probably predating Cabot’s discovery of Newfoundland. The hills of Connemara loom high in the morning sun. This is very surreal.

At 10 a.m., I arrive at Ballynahinch Castle, an old but magnificent estate with an intriguing history that includes pirate queens and rich Indian princes.

Another story for another day — today I’m here for the salmon that swim in Ballynahinch River that flows though the private property of the estate.

The estate fishery is managed by Simon Ash, an enthusiastic young man, originally a city boy from Dublin. He completed a four-year degree in environmental science and landed a dream job as Ballynahinch’s fishery manager.

We exchange salmon stories over strong coffee, in front of a grandiose stone fireplace, topped by a rough sawed Irish oak mantle. It dominates the castle lobby while harbouring a smoldering fire of peat — its pungent smoke hangs heavily in the air.

A fine old split cane rod fitted with a vintage reel hangs above the mantle.

The dark oak paneled walls are adorned

with “black and whites” of anglers with their prizes, their attire much more formal than mine. Catch and release was decades away. I feel the history.

There’s an inescapable irony here, me rigged with the latest factory-made fishing technology — breathable waders, graphite rod, etc. Simon is a progressive, conservation-first angler and manager dedicated to restoring Balynahinch River to its former glory.

Its abundant salmon and sea trout

runs were decimated by disease from nearby fish farms. Thankfully the farms have been shut down and the fish are rebuilding.

The river is lovely, nestled in the Twelve Bens Mountain Range, surrounded by the lush pasture and forest.

It meets the sea in Bertraghboy Bay near the town of Roundstone.

There are stone fishing piers built out into the river, strategically located for casting on the best salmon holding

pools — talk about convenience. They were built by Maharajah Ranjitsinji, a former owner of Ballynahinch estate, who had a taste for salmon fishing but an obvious distaste for getting his feet wet. If only he could see my modern breathable wading gear.

Simon and I fish and chat away the day, hooking and releasing several dozen fine fat sea-run brown trout. My Irish salmon eluded me until after supper.

Finally it all came together with a

hitched Green Islander on one of Simon’s favourite pools. What a day. I didn’t fancy driving after dark, so I said my good-byes and headed for Galway city as the sun set over the hills of Connemara.

Paul Smith is a freelance writer living in Spaniard’s Bay, enjoying all the outdoors Newfoundland and Labrador has to offer. flyfishtherock@hotmail.com

Argos hurting at gate: owner

Jay heats up when he’s hot at brass

By Rick Matsumoto Torstar wire service

By Richard Griffin Torstar wire service

rgonaut co-owner Howard Sokolowski doesn’t expect the gate for their CFL games to suffer because of the loss of star running back Ricky Williams.

“To be perfectly candid, Ricky wasn’t brought in to boost the gate,” says Sokolowski, who was at yesterday’s practice at the team’s Mississauga facilities.

“Ricky was brought in to help us win football games.”

Attendance for the first two home games this season at Rogers Centre is down by a total of 2,935 from the initial two outings a year ago, according to the Argos’ media relations department.

Sokolowski says Williams’ signing in June spurred the sale of season tickets. However, he suggested the Argos’ less-than-stellar start has led to the attendance decline.

The Boatmen lost both pre-season games to Hamilton. Then, after winning the regular-season opener against the Tiger-Cats, they lost their next two games on the road to Winnipeg and B.C. before returning home for another encounter with the Blue Bombers.

“The town is all about winning teams,” says Sokolowski. “There have been baseball and basketball teams here who have had stars but didn’t noticeably increase the gate. You increase the gate by winning games and championships. That’s why Ricky was brought in.”

Both home games were on Saturday afternoons, a schedule that will be reevaluated for next season, Sokolowski says “Maybe we’ll look at Thursday or Friday nights,” he says. “We’re learning as an ownership group and trying to figure out what is the best schedule for our fans.”

The World Cup also had a serious effect on attendance at the Winnipeg game, he says.

Argos attendance increased 33 per cent in each of the two years after Sokolowski and co-owner David Cynamon purchased the team from Sherwood Schwarz before the 2004 season.

“You can’t sustain that level of increase,” Sokolowski says.

While he declined to give numbers, Sokolowski says the team will not lose money this season. “We turned the corner last year. In fact, we’re ahead of our projection.

“I think winning the Grey Cup in our first year helped tremendously, then we ended up in first place in our division last year and had a tremendous gate for that last game.”

Meanwhile, Sokolowski, a member of a committee seeking new owners for the Ottawa franchise, said it has received serious inquiries.

“It’s way too early to talk about anybody specific, but I can tell you we’ve had several sophisticated first looks and we’re hopeful we’ll have a team in the nation’s capital in 2007,” Sokolowski says.

Solutions for crossword on page 22

Solutions for sudoku on page 22

A

L

ast week, Major League Baseball, under terms of its minor-league drug-testing policy, announced Jays pitching prospect Richard Rodriguez had been suspended for 50 games. GM J.P. Ricciardi’s response was firm, but forgiving.

“We as an organization adhere to the major-league drug policy, but we also believe in giving a player a second chance,” Ricciardi says.

Say what? In early July, after three lines of sarcastic dissent directed against Jays management, written on a clubhouse chalkboard, Shea Hillenbrand, that same evening during a game, was told to pack his bags and get out of town.

Obviously, cheating with drugs can be forgiven. Expressing one’s unhappiness cannot.

And whatever happened to Vernon Wells’ assertion, at the All-Star Game in Pittsburgh, that the players could police themselves and did not need Ricciardi or others sticking their noses in player affairs? Management doesn’t seem to believe their clubhouse leader can handle the rank and file by him-

self, despite his meetings.

Meeting 1: In Kansas City before the break, the Jays held a players-only meeting to thrash out their listless play in Texas. The next day, their GM was calling them out in print, in a rant from his Boston-area home, thousands of kilometres away.

Meeting 2: Recently, before a game at the Rogers Centre, another playersonly meeting was called to thrash out the thorny issue of Hillenbrand’s acting like a self-absorbed boor. With Wells and Gregg Zaun about to shut down Shea’s quote-of-the-day habit, manager John Gibbons rushed in to throw gas on the fire, challenging Hillenbrand to punch him.

Again we ask, whatever happened to the Jays players being allowed to police themselves? In each case, nobody would have even known about the player meetings without unwanted intervention from management.

One benefit seems to be emerging from the two-week-old Ricciardi rant and the one-week-old Gibbons showdown with his disgruntled DH. Wells, the most veteran Jay in terms of consecutive service and the players’ spokesman, has channelled his anger at management into another red-hot

offensive streak — temporarily interrupted by the back spasms that have kept him out of the lineup the past two games in Seattle — leading to AL player-of-the-week honours.

Vernon’s bat seems to heat up every time he gets angry. Last season, on May 14 in Cleveland, Wells, off to the slowest start of his career, had been horrible in the absence of Carlos Delgado.

He was promptly criticized in a column for his failure to be a leader in the lineup. His response was four homers and eight hits in his next six games, getting him back on track. Grrr.

A little more Wells slagging from those outside the players’ room and Vernon might actually become the AL MVP. Wells might not need any help.

He should already be considered one of the leading candidates.

If the Jays continue to hang tough, it will be because Wells has continued to lead the offence. Some other leading candidates for AL MVP would include David Ortiz, Derek Jeter, Pudge Rodriguez, Joe Mauer, Jim Thome and Michael Young.

The task of hanging on in the playoff race is daunting, with only 12 home games in August and 17 on the road.

30 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS

JULY 30, 2006

Placentia results

T

he 43rd annual Placentia Regatta crowned its champions on July 22.

O’Dea Earle won the men’s championship (9:36.25), followed by Pat Hearn Distributors (10:24.75), Eastern Flyers (10:36.00) and Universal Environmental Services (10:40.00). The ladies’ championship went to OZ FM (5:14.06), followed by Smith Stockey (5:31.43), Baker Hughes (5:38.06) and Target Marketing (5:51.06).

This is the first jewel in the VOCM triple crown of Regattas. The Harbour Grace Regatta was to take place July 29, although results weren’t available prior to our press deadlines. Check back next week for news and results.

Paul Daly/The Independent

‘Bigger than Christmas’ T

he alarm goes off at 5 a.m. and you roll out of bed to check the weather for the wind-chill factor and to see if the forecasted snow is actually falling.

The weather determines how many layers of clothes will be needed that particular morning and if I have to scrape the car windows. Sound fun?

You may have heard it or said it yourself — “I’d like to row in the Regatta just once.” Many people row every year but like many things, it’s not for everybody. Like many of my fellow rowers, gym workouts and ergometer (rowing machine) training beginning as early as October — 10 months before the next Regatta — is quite common. Seven of those months involve grueling dry-land training in preparation for tackling the chilly waters of Quidi Vidi Lake that first Monday in May. The temperature slowly rises, as does the intensity of workouts and commitment levels. Most rowers see their crewmates more than their own families. Morning row, work, evening row, gym or a scheduled crew run, eat and then sleep to reenergize enough to do it over again the next day.

That goes on for three months … all in preparation for one day. That one day could bring rain, wind or grueling hot

rowing conditions — rowers must be prepared for anything.

There are other pressures. As a crew you hope everybody performs at 100 per cent, rowing your best time of the year and ultimately finding your crew at the kegs again that evening for a shot at the championship.

There can only be one winner.

Regatta Day often leads to tears, for both winners and losers, within a span of 10 minutes or less. But that’s what makes the day so special.

Rowers are often asked the question, “You must be crazy to put in that much training for one row?” (Hopefully two.)

Are we crazy? From a rowers’ perspective, we think the people still in bed on Regatta Day morning at 8 a.m. for the start of the first race are the ones missing the boat.

For me, Regatta Day is bigger than Christmas. It brings more excitement than when I was 10 and desperate to know whether Santa would bring me the Nintendo I asked for.

On Regatta eve I will walk the shores of Quidi Vidi and see hundreds of familiar faces. I will stop to chat with Mickey Dwyer (50-plus year Regatta veteran) and he will tell stories of Regattas gone by that a book has yet to capture. I will wake up Regatta morning with butterflies as they announce the day will go ahead, butterflies that will remain until the gun sounds. I will row my race hard until the pain is intense. I will cross the finish line and — win or lose — I will be proud to say I have put in a solid year.

If I may be so bold as to speak for most rowers/coxswains — we won’t row this Regatta Day for medals, trophies or accolades. We row for the love of the sport and the history that stands behind it.

Making history

I

n 1901 the Outer Cove Fishermen’s Crew set the course record at 9:13.80, a record that stood for 80 years until 1981 when Smith Stockley broke the record with a time of 9:12.04. Outer Cove recaptured the record the next year with a time of 9:03.48. Seven years later, in 1989, the record was captured

by RNC-Lakeshore Homes, rowing an impressive 9:00.96. The year 1991 saw the covenant nine-minute mark fall as Smith Stockley-Outer Cove rowed 8:59.42. That record stood until 1997 when the Butternut crew row 8:57.14. The record may break again this year — on July 25 the Crosbie Industrial Services crew rowed an “unofficial” time of 8:56.89.

— Races times recorded on www.stjohnsregatta.org

Media coverage

W

hile Rogers may have dropped Regatta Day coverage, national and print media are increasingly interested in the event. Monday morning I’m scheduled to give a rowing less to the host of Breakfast Television, CHUM TV, Toronto. On Wednesday morning I’m slated to speak with various Ontario newspapers — including the Toronto Star — as they cover North America’s oldest running sporting event.

JULY 30, 2006

INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 31

Predictions From page 32 RACE NO. 14: SMITH STOCKLEY MALE ALL COMERS — 2 P.M. Stake 1: Ta-Da Productions Stake 2: Shooters Stake 3: Corner Brook Sea Men Stake 4: Fennelly’s Custom Sheet Metal/ Carrier Heat Pumps Stake 5: Independent pick: Shooters RACE NO. 15: HARVEY’S OIL FEMALE JUVENILE #2 — 2:20 P.M. Stake 1: Hawco King Renouf/Embroidme Stake 2: Martin Whalen Hennebury Stamp Stake 3: Ches Crosbie Stake 4: NL Containers Stake 5: White Ottenheimer & Baker Independent pick: White Ottenheimer & Baker RACE NO. 16: MERLIN DVR FEMALE MEMORIAL — 2:40 P.M. Stake 1: Bell Express-Vu Stake 2: CHIMO Stake 3: George’s Mountain Village Sculls Stake 4: Murphy Centre/Teamsters Stake 5: Misfits Independent pick: Misfits RACE NO. 17: COCA COLA FEMALE ALL COMERS — 3 P.M. Stake 1: Carlson Stanley Ltd / Molson Distributors Stake 2: Auto Parts Network Stake 3: City Tire & Auto Stake 4: Restwell Mattresses Stake 5: Magic Wok Independent pick: Magic Wok

Stake 4: Triple E Painters Stake 5: Independent pick: NL Housing RACE NO. 22: ATLANTIC PROPERTY MANAGEMENT FEMALE JUVENILE NO. 4 — 4:40 P.M. Stake 1: Eastern Edge Credit Union Stake 2: Stake 3: Smokers Help Line/Lung Association Stake 4: Stake 5: Ocean’s Choice International Independent pick: Eastern Edge Credit Union RACE NO. 23: CITY OF ST. JOHN’S FEMALE LABOUR — 5 P.M. Stake 1: Canadian Idol/CTV Stake 2: Orthopedic Solutions Stake 3: Stake 4: Drive a Deal Stake 5: Munn Insurance Independent pick: Canadian Idol/CTV RACE NO. 24: FEMALE DISTRICT NO. 2 — 5:20 P.M. Stake 1: Voisey’s Bay Stake 2: Stake 3: Dandelion Green/Larry Squires Surveys Stake 4: Hava Java/Cutting Edge Stake 5: Universal Corporate Wear/Health Quest Independent pick: Voisey’s Bay RACE NO. 25: FEMALE CHAMPIONSHIP RACE — 7 P.M. Independent pick: OZ FM RACE NO. 26: MALE CHAMPIONSHIP RACE — 7:30 P.M. Independent pick: Crosbie Industrial

RACE NO. 18: CORBY DISTILLERIES MALE DISTRICT — 3:20 P.M. Stake 1: Atlantic Physiotherapy Stake 2: Stake 3: Petro Canada Stake 4: Stake 5: Adesa Independent pick: Atlantic Physiotherapy RACE NO. 19: CENTRAL DAIRIES FEMALE INTERMEDIATE NO. 2 — 3:40 P.M. Stake 1: M-5 Stake 2: Thrifty Stake 3: N & G Stake 4: K-Rock Stake 5: McDonald’s Hardware Independent pick: Thrifty RACE NO. 20: ALIANT FEMALE JUVENILE #3/MIDGET — 4 P.M. Stake 1: Universal Midgets/Cablelync Stake 2: Allan’s Video Stake 3: Household Movers Stake 4: Brigus Electrical Stake 5: Independent picks: Allan’s Video (Juvenile) Universal Midgets/Cablelync (Midget) RACE NO. 21: ALEC. G. HENLEY & ASSOCIATES FEMALE SERVICE — 4:20 P.M. Stake 1: NL Housing Stake 2: Mega Trends Bay Strokers Stake 3: Stone Valley Crew

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You have to see it to believe it.

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The accommodations are magnificent.

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Canada’s best kept secret.

1.866.686.8100 humbervalley.com

INDEPENDENTSPORTS

SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, JULY 30-AUGUST 5, 2006 — PAGE 32

North Atlantic Rowing Crew: Cox Gord Delaney; Stroke Krista Carew; No. 5 Susie Ennis; No. 4 Amanda Whelan; No. 3 Rosalind Parsons; No. 2 Alison Moore; No. 1 Kim Hawco.

Paul Daly photos/The Independent

Independent picks T

he 188th Royal St. John’s Regatta is scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 2nd (weather permitting) at Quidi Vidi Lake. A total of 106 crews are scheduled to participate in 24 races, followed by the two championship races.

Below is the complete Regatta Day race schedule, as well as the winning picks as selected by a panel of Independent experts.

RACE NO. 1: NTV MALE AMATEUR — 8 A.M. Stake 1: O’Dea Earle Stake 2: Ron Fougere & Associates Stake 3: Lamb’s Rum Stake 4: IKM Testing Stake 5: Crosbie Industrial Independent pick: Crosbie Industrial

Stake 3: Baker-Hughes Stake 4: Roebothan McKay & Marshall B Stake 5: Totally Tanned Independent pick: Baker-Hughes RACE NO. 5: MOLSON MALE MASTERS/INTERMEDIATE/JUVENILE — 9:20 A.M. Stake 1: HMP/Pat Hearn Distributing Stake 2: Eastern Flyers Stake 3: Stake 4: Donalco Atlantic Stake 5: HMP/Pat Hearn Distributing (Masters) Eastern Flyers (Intermediate) Donalco Atlantic (Juvenile) RACE NO. 6: MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY FEMALE COMMERCIAL — 9:40 A.M. Stake 1: Kool Rite Stake 2: RCMP Stake 3: Audio Systems/Teletronics Stake 4: MUN Ladies Stake 5: ASCO Independent pick: Audio Systems/Teletronics

RACE NO. 2: CBC MALE LABOUR RACE — 8:20 A.M. Stake 1: Carew Services Stake 2: Mike Foley’s Martial Arts Stake 3: RNC/Magna Construction Stake 4: Marine Institute Stake 5: Aliant Independent pick: Carew Services

RACE NO. 7: SOBEY’S FEMALE GENERAL WORKERS — 10 A.M. Stake 1: Canadian Forces St. John’s Ladies Stake 2: NL Hydro Stake 3: Stewart McKelvey Stake 4: Roebothan McKay & Marshall A Stake 5: RNC/Murray Premises Independent pick: RNC/Murray Premises RACE NO. 8: ULTRAMAR FEMALE JUVENILE NO. 1 — 10:20 A.M. Stake 1: CHC Stake 2: Marco Construction Stake 3: Auto Parts Network/Shoppers Drug Mart Stake 4: St.John’s East Kinsmen Stake 5: Independent pick: Auto Parts Network/Shoppers Drug Mart RACE NO. 9: WINNERS/HOMESENSE FEMALE INTERMEDIATE NO. 1 — 10:40 A.M. Stake 1: Bill’s Cycle & Sport Stake 2: PF Collins Stake 3: Signs Now/Arctic Spas Stake 4: Investor’s Group Stake 5: Assante Independent pick: Bill’s Cycle & Sport

RACE NO. 3: NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR HYDRO FEMALE AMATEUR — 8:40 A.M. Stake 1: OZ FM Stake 2: St. John’s Racing & Entertainment Stake 3: North Atlantic Petroleum Stake 4: Smith Stockley Stake 5: Central Dairies Independent pick: OZ FM

RACE NO. 10: NORTH ATLANTIC PETROLEUM FEMALE DISTRICT/MASTERS — 11 A.M. Stake 1: Q-Max Stake 2: Excel Electrical Stake 3: Daley’s Stake 4: Provincial Airlines Stake 5: Go Healthy Independent picks: Daley’s (Masters) Provincial Airlines (Senior Ladies) RACE NO. 11: NEVILLE & BUTLER FEMALE CLUB — 11:20 A.M. Stake 1: Window Shop Stake 2: Express Stake 3: EMCO Stake 4: Canjet Airlines/Penauille Stake 5: Tony Morrison-Scotia Mcleod Independent pick: Express RACE NO. 12: THE TELEGRAM MALE SERVICE — 11:40 A.M. Stake 1: Canadian Forces St. John’s Men Stake 2: City Men Stake 3: Waterford Men Stake 4: Stake 5: Target Independent pick: Waterford Men RACE NO. 13: VOCM MALE MIDGET — NOON Stake 1: Mama Soula’s Stake 2: Stake 3: Marco Group Stake 4: Mask Security Stake 5: St.Francis Foundation Independent pick: Marco Group

RACE NO. 4: NEWFOUNDLAND POWER FEMALE MERCANTILE — 9 A.M. Stake 1: Target Marketing Stake 2: Schlumberger/Western Geco

See “Predictions,” page 31

My first Irish Atlantic salmon

M

y size-10 Green Islander fly creates that irresistible Vshaped wake as it slithers across a cool mountain-fed stream. The water is crystal clear, but sparkles in brilliant blue, reflected from a cloudless late-afternoon sky.

I’m focused intently on my fly, all thoughts of the outside world pushed aside. My sole purpose is to present my offering in the most fish-pleasing fashion possible. My muscles respond to currents and eddies, twitching intuitively, their motion amplified by a ninefoot stick of graphite that continually

PAUL SMITH

The Rock

Outdoors adjusts the fly’s watery path.

There’s a swirl just behind the fly as it crosses a ripple. The game is on.

Maybe my Green Islander was moving a little to fast. I duplicate the cast as best I can and mend line to slow it down. Nothing; slow it down a little more. Another swirl, but this time it’s

followed instantly by a huge tug.

Instinctively my arm reaches skyward to set the hook. Fish on.

The rush of hooking a wild Atlantic salmon, fresh from the ocean, never seems to fade — but this one is special.

The water I’m standing in doesn’t flow from the hills of the Northern Peninsula or the remote wilderness of Labrador. It flows from the hills of Connemara.

I’m in the west of Ireland, fishing the Ballynahinch River and there’s a feisty salmon demonstrating her aerobatic capabilities in an attempt to dislodge that foreign object stuck solidly in her

jaw. The struggle continues for four or five minutes before she capitulates to the steady pressure.

With the rod held high I raise her head from the water and slide my free hand down the line to grab the barbless hook. A firm pluck and she’s free again, none the worse for her brief ordeal.

Next week I’ll be in Labrador, searching out the distant cousins of my first ever Irish Atlantic salmon.

Both of my daughters are musically inclined. I listen to everything from blues to metal but can’t carry a tune, even if the future of salmon fishing

depended on it.

My youngest daughter, Allison, became involved with a music group at Ascension Collegiate that was planning a tour of Ireland. My wife and I decided to tag along. We would finally experience the land and culture that has influenced our own so significantly, while seeing our daughter and her friends perform Irish-Newfoundland music in Ireland. What a vacation. How could it possibly be better?

Fishing of course. Why not get in a See “New-world,” page 29