VOL. 4 ISSUE 41
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ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR — FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13-19, 2006
STEPHANIE PORTER
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long with Confederation, came welfare, unemployment insurance, family allowance, housing assistance, and a national old-age pen-
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Give and take FIFTH IN A SIX-PART SERIES See related transcript from panel discussion, page 14; related stories pages 4, 6, 15
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sion fund. There were 12 years of “transitional grants” and, in 1957, the equalization program started. Newfoundland now had a social safety net. And although some of these programs — or those who depend on them — are criticized at times, there is no question they are an important part of Newfoundland and Labrador’s current culture of survival. Equalization was the starting point for The Independent’s panel, who turn their focus to the topic of finances this week.
Equalization is a definite benefit of Confederation, and must be preserved — we’ve earned it The much-talked about program is “the only constitutionally-enshrined financial program” and “one of the underpinnings of the country,” says former premier Roger Grimes It’s also in the news these days, as the national debate about solving the fiscal imbalance continues — a debate Grimes says should make all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians nervous. The panel agreed: equalization is both wanted and needed in this province, and the current national discussions must be
watched carefully so Newfoundland isn’t, once again, short-changed. It’s not a matter of begging for handouts — the province negotiated certain financial Terms of Union in exchange for the many benefits and resources it brought with it into Canada. The panel discussions touched on other issues of concern, including outmigration (less people, less equalization, less ability to sustain all areas of the province), and Newfoundland and Labrador’s consistent inclusion as a part
of Atlantic Canada. “We need to insist that we are dealt with as a province, period, end of story,” stated writer Maura Hanrahan. Once again, it’s a matter of having this province’s distinct voice heard. “When we get lumped in with Atlantic Canada, we have separate economic issues — we’re three-and-a-half times the size of the Maritimes, we’ve got a smaller population, more sparse … The See “Financial,” page 2
FESTIVAL OF FILM
Kelly Davis, executive director of the 17th annual St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival prepares for the event, running Oct. 18-22. See story, page 17.
Disabled students left alone in classroom; government to conduct review MANDY COOK
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hen the fire alarm went off recently at MacDonald Drive Elementary in St. John’s, seven-year-old Cameron , who has cerebral palsy, managed to get out. Barely. His mother, Kelly Warren, says if Cameron had a student assistant with him, she would not have to worry about her son getting out of his school should a real fire occur. “He was alone,” Warren tells The Independent. “No child with a disability should ever be left alone.” Besides requiring an assistant for mobility, Warren says Cameron needs one-on-one attention in his Grade 2 classroom. She says there’s a shortage of student assistant hours for kids with disabilities in this province. The head of the province’s teachers’ association agrees there is a lack of funding for student assistants. A spokeswoman for Education minister Joan Burke says the department is conducting a review. “I know Cameron’s teacher is finding it hard if he needs help with his cutting or with his printing,” Warren says.
NOW
SAILING FROM SANTO DOMINGO
“She can’t give him the attention he needs so he’s slipping behind. I want it nipped in the bud now because it isn’t fair — he’s got the mental capabilities to keep up, he just needs a bit of help.” This comes despite meeting with Cameron’s teachers and therapists in June to assess his needs and assign him a student assistant once school started again in September. “They have all summer to work out all these little kinks,” Warren says. “These things should be in place at the beginning of the school year, and they’re not. Which is ridiculous — why even have the meetings in June?” Last year, when Cameron was in Grade 1, his mother used to leave work and take her son out for recess and lunch because there was no one to help him. Cameron’s muscle tone is weak and he frequently falls down. This September, when Cameron arrived for his first week of school at MacDonald Drive Elementary, there was still no student assistant to help him join the other kids outside for lunch. Warren called the school and arranged to have a student assistant help him at lunch and recess, but it resulted in Cameron losing time with the assistant in the classroom. See “It’s discrimination,” page 4
QUOTE OF THE WEEK "I don’t know if he ever asked for a loan so much as he invited the banks to participate in the honour of being of service to Craig Dobbin." — Harry Steele in a eulogy to his friend. See page 13.
LIFE 19 & 20
Noreen Golfman and Sean Panting talk branding GALLERY 18
Community mural in Corner Brook Paper Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Voice from away. . . . . . . . . . . 12 Food column . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Mark Wood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Paul Daly/The Independent
‘Total devastation’ Experts agree ban on bottom trawling would cripple rural Newfoundland IVAN MORGAN
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total ban on bottom trawling would mean the immediate destruction of at least 13 communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, according to experts contacted by The Independent. The better solution, all agree, is a partial ban and a move to better fishing technology. “If there was an outright ban on bottom trawling there wouldn’t be a shrimp fishery,” says Opposition leader Gerry Reid. “What it would mean is 13 communities would probably die. “Twillingate, Fogo, St. Anthony, Port aux Choix, Port Saunders, Anchor Point, Black Duck Cove, Jackson’s Arm, Bay de Verde, Old Perlican, St. Joseph’s, and one or two more.” U.S. President George W. Bush said recently he is in favour of a temporary world-wide moratorium on bottom trawling. Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn says Canada will not be part of the ban, saying solutions to the problems of bottom trawling must be more practical and realistic. Figures from the federal Depart-
ment of Fisheries and Oceans show that in 2004 the bottom trawling fishery produced $487 million in landed value, which converts to about $1 billion worth of seafood. The industry employs more than 14,000 fishermen and plant workers in Canada. Industry experts say a ban would be devastating to the industry, stopping it dead in the water. Environmentalists favour a ban as a way to protect fish stocks and the marine environment. They see the ban as a step towards a sustainable fishery. David Decker, secretary-treasurer of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers’ Union, says a “black-and-white” solution is not the answer. He says there are areas where there should be a ban on bottom trawling. In other areas — especially in the shrimp fishery — he says better technology should be developed, with trawls that require minimal bottom contact. “But just an outright ban? Let’s face it — it would throw a hell of a lot of communities here in Newfoundland into ghost towns overnight,” Decker tells The Independent. “Everybody is debating the future of Marystown. Well, Marystown is bottom trawling.” See “A foreign,” page 12
2 • INDEPENDENTNEWS
OCTOBER 13, 2006
Financial focus
The fall of northern cod A
s Michael Harris pointed out in his book Lament for an Ocean, the development of technologically advanced factoryfreezer trawlers put unbearable pressure on fish stocks, particularly northern cod, in the North Atlantic. For centuries, catches of northern cod off Newfoundland and Labrador increased gradually, peaking in 1910 at 300,000 tonnes. During the next 50 years, catches were between 150,000 and 200,000 tonnes each year. However, in the 1960s there were stunning increases in North Atlantic catches, especially by West German and Russian factory-freezer trawlers, culminating in the killer year of 1968 when the reported catch of northern cod was 810,000 tonnes. For the first time in four-and-a-half centuries of continuous fishing on the Grand Banks, more cod were taken offshore than inshore. In the years between 1950 and 1970 global landings of fish tripled to 60 million tonnes. Many stocks began to decline to a vanishing point in less than 20 years. These long-distance trawler fleets took spawning and immature fish, discarded what they didn’t want, and misreported catches. An amazing fact is that about eight million tonnes of northern cod were caught in the 250 years between 1500 and 1750 — representing 25 to 40 cod generations, which at those catch rates still adapted to growing fishing pressures. However, between 1960 and 1975 — just 15 years — eight million tonnes were caught during the peak
JOHN CROSBIE
The old curmudgeon period of factory-freezer trawlers. With such huge increases in catches, cod stocks shrunk to the point where they could be wiped out. As a result of worldwide and North Atlantic overfishing, the nations of the world, in 1977 through the UN, made it possible in international law for coastal states to extend control over their fishery to 200 miles from 12 miles. In Canada, this new economic control zone of 200 miles caused over optimism in fisheries management with managers and many scientists believing that there would now be great growth in cod and other stocks. There was great optimism about the growth thought likely to occur in northern cod. THEY WERE WRONG From 1977 to 1988 DFO scientists recommended increases in total allowable catches (TACs), believing there was an increasing resource of northern cod. It turned out they were wrong. The assumption that fishery science was capable of precise assessments and projections as to the state and size of the northern cod stock turned out to be false. When DFO reassessed the state of the northern cod stocks in 1988-89, the science branch concluded that the exploitable biomass (fish 4 years and older) had not grown five-
For centuries, catches of northern cod off Newfoundland and Labrador increased gradually, peaking in 1910 at 300,000 tonnes. fold since 1978, as was thought, but only about three-fold, with the new assessment finding growth to be static or even in decline. This serious over-estimate in stock size meant that the previous TACs calculated to achieve a target fishing mortality of roughly 20 per cent of the exploitable biomass had, in fact, resulted in annual removals by fishing of one-third or more of the exploitable biomass. By that time the stock’s ability to reproduce was weakened. In December 1988, DFO advised the minister that the TAC for northern cod could be 297,000 tonnes, but acting cautiously, he set it at 266,000 tonnes. In 1989 the scientific advice was changed drastically to advise the TAC for northern cod should not exceed 125,000 tonnes in 1990. It was not possible to make such drastic reductions in such a short time span because of the economic consequences from closures of fish plants and the drastic effect on communities, fishermen and processing employees.
From page 1 With respect to the management and control of the fisheries of the world, the fact stocks are a common-property resource makes it next to impossible to administer the fishery in a rational, scientific or effective manner. On top of that, modern technology with respect to catching fish makes it technically possible for every last fish in the oceans to be caught. Even with countries having exclusive rights to manage and administer fisheries out to 200 miles, it was discovered that our fisheries science and management was not capable of accurately estimating the size of fish stock biomass with any assurance of accuracy. As it is well known in this province, there was the additional fact that outside the economic zone of 200 miles it was impossible to administer the fishery effectively since every country had the right on the high seas to fish how it wished and when it wished. As we learned, it was also impossible to have effective management and administration of straddling fish stocks, with control on the high seas left to international organizations such as the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), with no authority to enforce their decisions on quotas or management issues on their member nations. The result was that from 1986 to 1997 EU-member fleets caught over 400,000 tonnes more than their NAFO quotas! John Crosbie’s next column will appear Oct. 20.
region, it isn’t a region.” The Independent’s panel of experts gathered to discuss the state of Newfoundland and Labrador today, reflecting on the effects of the province’s Terms of Union with Canada, and offering amendments to better position the province for the future. The equalization program was developed to ensure all Canadians have equal access to social services and a relatively similar tax burden. Since 1957, Newfoundland and Labrador has received annual equalization payments. Equalization has always made up a substantial portion, up to 25 per cent or more, of the province’s annual revenue. In 1957, Newfoundland was allotted $11.8 million in equalization. That number reached an all-time high of $1.2 billion in 1999. This year — due to declining population (it’s calculated on a per capita basis) and improving economic fortunes — it sits at about $687 million. Finance Minister Loyola Sullivan is confident any upcoming changes to the equalization formula will benefit Newfoundland and Labrador, despite fears to the contrary. Otherwise, he says, one of the building blocks of Confederation is being undermined. “If you increase regional disparities or you don’t eliminate them … then the federation doesn’t serve the purpose it was intended, and the Constitution is not fulfilling the purpose it was intended to serve,” he tells The Independent. Former NDP candidate Peg Norman also points to the importance of equity across the country — and the vigilance necessary right now. “If we’re going to look at our position within the federation of Canada, it’s imperative that we ensure that everybody knows that transfer payments have to be maintained. “Otherwise, what do we have? We don’t really have Confederation.” Employment insurance also means big money to the people of this province — paid out, in part, from other Canadians. In fiscal year 2004-05, 97,000 employment insurance claims were filed in Newfoundland and Labrador, worth a total of $764 million. The EI program is not government funded, but covered by payments from employees and employers across the country. According to estimates, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians pay in less than half of what they receive in benefits. Newfoundland’s financial concerns in the 1940s, which “provided the focus for most of the negotiations” with Canada (according to lawyer Stephen May) in 1947, are alive and well today. Our aging, declining, and spread-out population make for difficulties in providing services above and beyond some other regions in Canada. Equalization must be not only maintained, the majority of The Independent’s panel agreed, but improved. While equalization — and other federal transfers and social programs — does ensure a certain standard of living in this province, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are still seen as the poorest (and among the most heavily taxed) in Canada, looking for a hand out. In 1981, then-premier Brian Peckford addressed this long-standing issue in a public speech, calling for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to be confident in their contributions: “There is absolutely no reason for us to feel we are living off the rest of Canada and hence, that we cannot assert or views on major issues. “There is no doubt we receive considerable benefit from being a province of Canada — in 1979 we received about $1.6 billion from the federal government. But we did not receive it free. “We paid $600 million directly back to the federal government in taxes and the like. We paid another $800 million to the residents of Quebec in economic rent through the upper Churchill contact. We paid $200 million-plus to Canadian manufacturers behind the tariff wall … “Overall, we contributed just as much, if not more, to the rest of Canada as we received.”
Our Terms A running list of recommendations emerging from The Independent’s ongoing six-part series on Newfoundland’s Terms of Union with Canada.
POLITICS Newfoundland and Labrador’s MPs operate as a bloc Senate reform: implement a Triple-E Senate, with equal representation from each province
FISHERIES Management to be carried out by an arm’slength fisheries board. Custodial management of the nose and tail of the Grand Banks.
OIL AND GAS Assume control and management of offshore petroleum resources
FINANCES Preserve equalization and ensure any changes to the equalization formula benefit the province Insist Newfoundland and Labrador be dealt with as a province — not as Atlantic Canada
OCTOBER 13, 2006
INDEPENDENTNEWS • 3
SCRUNCHINS A weekly collection of Newfoundlandia
In case you were wondering how long Newfoundlanders have been around … humans first inhabited the island of Newfoundland in 7000 BC, or so it says in the Newfoundland and Labrador Book of Everything, which hit store shelves in recent days. Most people in these parts know John Cabot came up with the name Newfoundland, but what about Labrador — where did that come from? According to the Book of Everything, the name originated with explorer Joao Fernades, who was a wealthy landowner. And what’s the Portuguese translation of landowner — why lavrador, of course. But I’m not done yet — this book is a Scrunchin gold mine … Motto: Quaerite prime regnum Dei — Seek ye first the Kingdom of God. Provincial tree: (Pine clad hills won’t give the answer away) Drum roll, please … black spruce. Population: island of Newfoundland: 515,591. Labrador: 27,105. That was easy enough, but answer this question: How many people live in Japan, which is only slightly smaller in landmass than the island of Newfoundland? A staggering 127 million — imagine the Friday night crowds on George Street … Did you know: St. John’s is the only city in Canada with radio stations whose call letters don’t begin with the letter C, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) prefix for Canada … ITU prefixes for the Dominion of Newfoundland were VO, as in VOCM — the province kept its call letters after ’49 … NOBLE PRIZE Kevin Noble, the actor best known for playing Joey Smallwood, lists in the Book of Everything his five best things about Confederation: 1) the hope of something better; 2) pride in becoming part of the great nation of Canada; 3) social safety net; 4) we got over our inferiority complex — sort of; 4) The opportunity to pursue our culture. Noble’s five worst things about Confederation: 1) we lost our independence; 2) we lost control of our fisheries; 3) we lost the opportunity to try self-government; 4) we got a new inferiority complex; 5) we gained our “what ifs.” NEW RIDE A new car purchase would normally never make it to this column, except when it’s a 2006 Bently Arnage worth between $212,000 and $242,000. Then it’s a sight to behold and worthy of a mention. Congratulations Premier Danny Williams on the purchase of the beige (some would say cream; others would say antique gold) beauty. Used to be a Jaguar was a sign of prestige in Town. Considering a 2006 Jaguar XJ costs almost $62,000, those days are done. Read one review of the Bentley, England’s most luxurious car: “The level of quality and beauty inside the Arnage is staggering, with impeccably finished wood veneers, glistening chrome, buttery leather and plush lamb’s wool carpeting.” Wonder what moose hair would feel like under foot …
SKIPPER RAY Best known as Skipper on Skipper and Company (1974-1982), Ray Bellew died this week at the age of 67. Born in Montreal, Skipper actually got his acting feet wet in the 1960s, playing in the Canadian series Last of the Mohicans as well as Razzle Dazzle, featuring puppet Howard the Turtle. According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, Bellew was also in The Forest Rangers, Gordon Pinsent’s Quentin Durgens, M.P., Cannonball, CBC TV Theatre, On Camera and Star Time Theatre. Here’s an interesting fact — Bellew had a role in CBC Toronto’s production of Macbeth with Sean Connery, before the actor starred in his first James Bond film … SEPARATION POINT The topic of Alberta separatism made for an interesting read recently in The Globe and Mail. Columnist Gordon Gibson wrote how it is received wisdom in the West that the blackmail strategy — “or else” — has been enormously successful for Quebec in extracting money and special treatment from Ottawa because that province has fashioned the political equivalent of a gun in the separatist threat. According to Gibson, “Alberta is (for the moment) the only other province that could credibly use this tool.” The recent Calgary Congress — a gathering that wasn’t so much about separatism as renewing the federation — came up with three resolutions: calling for Ottawa to stay out of provincial affairs, a reformed Senate, and counterbalance to activist courts. Leon Craig, a University of Alberta professor, told the Congress that unless they had an “or else” in their back pockets they were wasting their time. Reads Gibson’s column: “He (Craig) offered a thought experiment. ‘If you were already independent, would you consider joining Canada under the same conditions as today?” A question we should ask ourselves …
Selling the steak, not the sizzle ‘Naturally grown’ beef producers say their meat healthier, better-tasting — and hope public will agree By Ivan Morgan The Independent ormonal growth promoters, antibiotics, chemicals, herbicides, pesticides — these are some of the things you won’t find in “naturally grown” beef. Nor will the steers have eaten any rendered feed, the sometime source of mad cow disease. What you will find, say farmers who grow the product, is better-tasting meat that is better for you. There are a number of producers across the province testing the market for this product, but it’s a struggle. Farmers compete with supermarkets, cheap imports, and in some cases, moose meat. Harold Tobin, owner of Windy Meadows Farm and Market in Kilbride, refers to steaks offered in supermarkets as “system steaks.” He is clear about why he has invested in the natural grown beef industry: people appreciate quality. “After you have had three or four of my steaks, and I sell you a system steak, you won’t be long telling me,” Tobin says. Naturally grown beef is different from organic beef. Strictly speaking, for beef to be sold as “organic” it has to meet a large number of criteria, including being totally chemical and drug-free and “free range,” as opposed to being confined to a stall or barn. For naturally grown meat, animals are raised on foods such as grass, corn silage and grains (all-natural and vegetarian). Growth hormones, which can speed growth up 35 per cent, and medicated feeds, are not used. “Natural raised is the same way as what my grandfather and father raised them; grass and a small bit of grain to marble the meat,” says George Greening, co-owner of the Discovery Trail Meat Market, in Musgravetown.
H
NURSING WOUNDS Finally, Flanker Press released a fascinating book this week, The War Letters of Frances Cluett, edited by Bill Rompkey and Bert Riggs. The nurse from Belleoram, Fortune Bay, was stationed in Rouen, France in 1917 during the First World War. The letters she wrote home to Newfoundland told of the atrocities of war, valiant deeds and the despair of young men dying on foreign shores. Wrote Cluett in a letter to her sister Lillian: “You told me before I left I should never stand the work. I remember hearing you say about staying in the ward with the dead. Ah! Lil, many a bedside have I stood by and watched the last breath; with the rats rushing underneath the bed in groups; and the lights darkened. I do not dwell on some of the horrible and terrible sights I have witnessed …” Pray for our men in Afghanistan … ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca
Greening has begun delivering “natural raised” beef to clients on the Bonavista Peninsula and vicinity. Tobin agrees. “Our beef is more like the beef you would have eaten years ago, before the vacuum packing and the gassing and the other different processes. Seniors really like our beef æ they say that’s the kind of beef they ate when they were growing up.” Greening’s market is just over a year old, and he says they are starting to expand beyond their storefront operation into bigger population centres. “Right now we’re trying to get people to come to the meat, and people are not doing that. So we have to take the meat to the people.” Success in Greening’s market depends on understanding market conditions in rural Newfoundland. For instance, the bottom drops out of the meat market in rural Newfoundland in the fall, with the advent of moose hunting season. “Moose makes a complete difference — people are eating moose now rather than beef. We see a big drop in our sales since the moose season opens,” he says. In general, month’s end is the best time for sales. “At the end of the month, when all the money is out — the cheques are out — we have good weeks, but other than that it’s slow, and that’s the trend for all of rural Newfoundland, for everything,” says Greening. Tobin is courting a different market. He is a fifth-generation dairy farmer close to St. John’s. He shut down the family dairy farm five years ago, deciding to attempt to establish a niche market for this type of beef. Quality is his main goal. The farm raises only Angus steers, known for their excellent meat. “I tasted this beef a few times when I was at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin. That’s where I got the idea,” says Tobin. “We decided to go this route. I hope it’s right … It’s an awful
struggle to grow this type of business here in the province.’ Tobin built an on-site abattoir to enhance the quality of his product. “We put a lot of emphasis on no stress on the animal before production, because we really feel it makes it a better product again,” he says. They dry age the beef in a special cooler on site. He has also branched out into producing value-added products like meatballs, sausages and soon, pre-cooked dinners. “We recently started a pet food where we supply people with natural pet food,” he says. He is beginning to grow other meats, like lamb. While Greening sees his future success built on marketing his product in larger urban centres like Clarenville and Gander, Tobin hopes to draw clients to his farm. In addition to his market store, he offers an agri-tourism park, a corn maze and school tours. Both Greening and Tobin agree the business will take time to grow. Both are confident that, once people taste their product, they will be regular customers. “People are starting to get a taste for it. There’s a different taste than what you are buying at the supermarket,” says Greening. “I don’t want to go running down the big supermarkets. I try to not do that. All I say is our slogan ‘Better Meats. Better Choices.’” “Our best marketing tool is word of mouth,” agrees Tobin. “When you and your buddies sit down to a barbecue and you really enjoy it — that’s my main marketing tool.” He is proud of his product, but admits it’s a busy life. “I’m eating really well, when I get the time,” he says with a laugh. ivan.morgan@theindependent.ca
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4 • INDEPENDENTNEWS
OCTOBER 13, 2006
A matter of interpretation Finance minister expects Stephen Harper to keep election promise on equalization
OUR TERMS By Ivan Morgan The Independent
L
Kelly Warren
‘It’s discrimination’ From page 1 “It’s discrimination,” she says. “It stands out more so to a six or seven-year-old at lunchtime when he can’t go outside with everyone else, it’s more noticeable to him. Of course, for me the (lack of) socialization was a huge thing but I never, ever dreamt it would cut away from his in class time.” The director of communications at the department of Education says there have not been any cuts or reduction in funding for student assistants, but says the shortage of student assistants is recognized by Minister Joan Burke as “a reoccurring” problem. “This is the minister’s first beginning of the school year responsible for education,” says Jacquelyn Howard. “It has come to her attention that this has been an ongoing issue, it’s been an issue around the student services process, and she is having a full review of that process done … so hopefully when we go into September of next year these sorts of issues won’t be coming up again.” But Kevin Foley, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers’ Association, says Burke initiated a review into the lack of student assistant hours before the provincial budget came down last spring. He also says there is a lack of money to pay student assistants. “I certainly tell you that I agree with the parent because in my visits to schools one of the first things the administrators will mention to me is that our student assistant hours are being cut,” says Foley. “If the budget hasn’t been cut for that, I’d like to know where it’s going.” mandy.cook@theindependent.ca
oyola Sullivan’s experience as a high school wrestling coach serves him well in the current round of negotiations to solve the “fiscal imbalances” between provinces. As each proposal is offered, Sullivan assesses its value to the province and dismisses any that may pin down the province in terms of inequity. Battles over how to make equalization work are as old as Canada itself. Recently it has been reported the federal government is looking at a new plan for solving that imbalance. Over $687 million will be transferred to Newfoundland and Labrador this fiscal year, so the issue is a vital one. Based on recommendations offered to the federal government by a panel headed by Al O’Brien, former Alberta treasurer, the proposal would benefit every province but this one. Part of the plan would see money clawed back from the new Atlantic Accord agreement, which has caused concern in this province. During the last federal election campaign, the Conservatives promised no province would suffer from a change to equalization, and that Newfoundland and Labrador would enjoy the full benefits of its non-renewable resources. But the O’Brien plan calls for up to 50 per cent of non-renewable resource revenue to be “clawed back,” which would negate some of the benefits of the new Atlantic Accord signed by the Williams government. Sullivan dismisses any concern. “(Federal Finance minister Jim) Flaherty has indicated unequivocally at Niagara-on-the-Lake (meeting of finance ministers last June) that any deal on equalization will be on a ‘go forward’ basis and will not be retroactive or affect anything that has happened in the past,” he says. “Every deal will hold. We fully expect that commitment to be honoured.” Yet the prime minister has said he “doesn’t have a choice” but to move ahead with a new plan. Sullivan agrees a new plan is necessary, but insists it won’t be the one by O’Brien. “There has been no indication by the federal government that they are going to accept the O’Brien report. That’s No. 1,” Sullivan tells The
Loyola Sullivan
Paul Daly/The Independent
Independent. “It would fly in the face of the prime minister’s written commitment to the province during the course of the last federal election.” Opposition leader Gerry Reid worries about that written commitment. He says the letter could be open to interpretation. “It’s a little bit ambiguous,” he says. “While they say they are committed to bringing a balance, you could read the next line two ways. ‘We will remove non-renewable natural resources from the revenue formula.’ That doesn’t say they will remove all of it — and that’s my concern. “But the premier hung his hat on that. You have to ask yourself the question of whether he and the officials in the Department of Finance did due diligence when it came to the response that Mr. Harper got, because he (the premier) came out publicly at that time and said that he was satisfied.” Reid worries the Williams administration has been out-manoeuvred by Harper, to the detriment of the public treasury. “He could have been too cute by half,” he says. “We might have been hoodwinked into believing what he put on paper — or the way we
read what he put on paper.” Sullivan remains firm, insisting the government expects Ottawa to honour its commitment and ensure that Newfoundland is not adversely affected by any new plan. “Our strategy right now is to push to get what is promised.” Sullivan says Canada doesn’t work unless all provinces have the opportunity to be equal. Newfoundland and Labrador will never support a deal that sees it mired in debt. “If you increase regional disparities or you don’t eliminate them … then the federation doesn’t serve the purpose it was intended, and the constitution is not fulfilling the purpose it as intended to serve.” Reid sees another disparity at work. “As always, I think my concern, if we are the only ones being left out is, obviously, the crowd in Ottawa — Mr. Harper included — will look at the number of seats,” he says. “They have three in this province. If they had them all, that’s only seven. Again it looks like we could get shafted because of our small population and the few seats that we have in the House of Commons.” ivan.morgan@theindependent.ca
How finances factored into Confederation By Ryan Cleary The Independent
I
t’s been said Newfoundlanders voted for Confederation with their stomachs, not with their hearts — a sentiment that seems to be based on fact. The Second World War may have served as a boost to the Newfoundland economy, but the years prior to that were no picnic (not with sixcents-a-day dole to live on) — keeping in mind the Great Depression struck all areas of North America with equal brutality. Term 46 of Newfoundland’s Terms of Union with Canada allowed margarine to continue to be manufactured and sold in Newfoundland after Confederation. At the time in the late 1940s, the manufacture and sale of margarine in Canada was regulated by the federal government. By limiting competition with the sale of butter, the legislation promoted a federal policy to support Canada’s dairy industry. Applying that same policy in Newfoundland would have led to a dramatic rise in the cost of living, considering margarine sold for about
half the price per pound of butter. Newfoundlanders just didn’t have the money and regulating margarine would have had “potential consequences,” reads a 2003 analysis of the relevance of the Terms of Union by St. John’s lawyer Stephen May. Besides fear of a rise in the cost of living, there was also concern that butter would spoil quicker than margarine, which would have been a major concern given the lack of serviceable Newfoundland roads in winter at that time. In his book, I Chose Canada, Joey Smallwood wrote that one of the major concerns of Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation was the uncertainty of whether the financial assistance from the Government of Canada, as well as provincial government revenues, would be enough to keep Newfoundland going. “Financial assistance that the potential province could expect from the Government of Canada provided the focus for most of the negotiations,” May wrote in his report. “Newfoundland’s scattered population, its economy and the loss of its ability to impose
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custom tariffs (the latter being a federal responsibility after Confederation) would contribute to an estimated minimal annual provincial deficit of $5 million.” In his report, May wrote that concerns about Newfoundland’s finances were such a “preoccupation” that they prevailed in discussions on Newfoundland’s potential to obtain exclusive or shared jurisdiction over the fishery. Smallwood dismissed the idea because it would “deprive” Newfoundland of the financial assistance of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. May raised that specific point — not to suggest Ottawa was prepared to agree to constitutional provision giving Newfoundland control over the fishery — but to illustrate that “financial concerns and realities hindered even simple discussions on issues pertaining to power transfer and sharing.” On a personal level, the advent of Confederation with its social safety nets such as unemployment insurance and baby bonus were broadly seen as positives stemming from union with Canada.
OCTOBER 13, 2006
INDEPENDENTNEWS • 5
The next challenge High-profile lawyer Jerome Kennedy looks to a new career, says he’s the underdog heading into Nov. 1 by-election By Ivan Morgan The Independent
J
erome Kennedy walks up to the line that says “I want to be minister of Justice” — but he doesn’t cross it. “The justice system is obviously a major interest of mine … I firmly believe that there are improvements that have to be made,” he says. Kennedy goes on to say he is willing to take whatever role he is given, if he wins the Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi byelection scheduled for Nov. 1. After a lifetime spent battling the system, Kennedy wants to be a member of its highest echelons, the latest step in an eclectic career. Kennedy confesses he wanted to study Romantic poets in grad school, but chose law as a practical measure. He didn’t find his passion until he worked with defenceless people in the criminal justice system. One of the highest profile defence lawyers in the province, famous for defending Gregory Parsons, Ronald Dalton and others, Kennedy surprised many with his candidacy for the upcoming by-election. He says he first thought of running in Carbonear, where he was born and raised. But when Jack Harris announced he was resigning, Kennedy reconsidered. “This district suits my belief system, I guess, in terms of its unique and distinct cultural aspects,” Kennedy says. “In terms of a district it is probably the arts capital of Newfoundland, and perhaps the cultural capital of this country.” He is under no illusions that he is on a fast track to victory. “I look upon myself as the underdog in this race. The NDP has held this district for 20 years. They are a very well organized party, and I suspect that all of their votes will be out.” Success won’t come easily, but Kennedy is no stranger to hard work. The oldest of Patrick and Flora (Hogan) Kennedy’s nine children, Kennedy attended St. Joseph’s school in Carbonear, and then St. Francis High in Harbour Grace. After graduation he attended MUN, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English and ancient Greek. At 21, he was off to the University of New Brunswick to study law. He says his heart wasn’t yet entirely in it. He returned to St. John’s and articled at several law firms, remaining unfocussed. “I still had no interest in law,” says Kennedy. “I had no direction — there was no passion there for it. And then I found myself in court. That is where I wanted to be.” Soon he was handling many legal aid cases. “I really started to develop a passion for the criminal law. It
Paul Daly/The Independent Born: Carbonear, 1960, oldest of nine children of Patrick and Flora (Hogan) Kennedy School: St. Joseph’s Elementary, Carbonear St. Francis High in Harbour Grace University: MUN 1977 BA (Hons) English and ancient Greek University of New Brunswick Law School Summer jobs: Coached minor softball in Carbonear Admitted to the Bar: 1985 Employed: Simmonds Kennedy Law Offices Residence: Lives in the district of Signal HillQuidi Vidi Married with two children
revolved around the people-end of it, the inherent unfairness of the system. What I saw was the Crown, the police — the state had all of the resources, all of the investigative techniques. “And here (would be) a person with a Grade 7 education, with a criminal record, who could probably hardly read or write, facing 10 years in jail. So I took upon myself at that point to learn as much as I could about criminal law and to try to ensure a level playing field.” Soon, he began the case that would define his career — the Gregory Parsons case. “I knew as early as 1989 that the (justice) system was dysfunctional. That belief just became cemented with the Parsons case. The Parsons case was devastating to watch — a young man swallowed by a justice system that didn’t question itself.” Kennedy won Parsons’ freedom, along with a number of others, and the province struck an inquiry into the miscarriage of justice. “It was really this summer, after 20 years as a practicing lawyer, I became somewhat concerned about the potential for burnout. The Lamer report was sort of the crowning achievement of my career … so I sort of sat there this summer, thinking, ‘Where do I go from here?’ He says politics — if he wins — might be an interesting new career. On the political spectrum, he says he is not that different from the NDP. He admits to voting for Jack Harris in the past, and to being close to the left-wing party on many issues. “It is just that I feel at this stage and at this juncture in our history, I feel that the premier’s (approach) is really the one that we ought to be taking.” If he gets elected, will the maverick lawyer be able to get along with a premier known for not treating mavericks well? Kennedy says he’s worked with Williams in the past, and has been playing hockey with him on Tuesday nights for the past two or three years. “With the premier, there seems to be an assumption out there that he and I will butt heads,” he says. “I don’t necessarily expect to encounter problems.” He says he’s eager to work hard, ready to learn and willing to tackle any job he might be offered, if successful. But he makes no bones about where his heart is. “I am not assuming that because I have done well as a lawyer that will translate into doing well as a politician. If at some point the premier … if I had an opportunity to chose a cabinet post, then Justice would be the one.” ivan.morgan@theindependent.ca
SHIPPING NEWS Keeping an eye on the comings and goings of the ships in St. John’s harbour. Information provided by the Coast Guard Traffic Centre. FRIDAY Vessels Arrived: Atlantic Hawk, Canada, from White Rose; Atlantic Eagle, Canada, from Terra Nova; Acadian, Canada, from Portland. Vessels Departed: Atlantic Hawk, Canada, to White Rose; Cabot, Canada, to Halifax; Conbaroya Cuarto, France, to fishing; Sir Wilfred Grenfell, Canada, to sea; Cicero, Canada, to Montreal. SATURDAY Vessels Departed: Maersk Dispatcher, Canada, to Orphan Basin; Atlantic Eagle, Canada, to Terra Nova; Acadian, Canada, to Saint John; Burin Sea, Canada, to White Rose; Masonic Norseman, Canada, to Hibernia. SUNDAY Vessels Arrived: Oceanex Avalon, Canada, from Montreal; Newfoundland Arrow, Canada, from Trepassey; Atlantic Osprey, Canada, from White Rose. Vessels Departed: Newfoundland Arrow, Canada, to fishing. MONDAY Vessels Arrived: Polar Star, Barbados, from Bonavista; Cabot, Canada, from Halifax; Adriana, Netherlands, from Rostock; Maersk Nascopie, Canada, from Hibernia. Vessels Departed: Oceanex Avalon, Canada, to Montreal; Trinity Sea, Canada, to Orphan Basin; Polar Star, Barbados, to Belize. TUESDAY Vessels Arrived: Atlantic Eagle, Canada, from Terra Nova; Maersk Placentia, Canada, from Hibernia; Maersk Challenger, Canada, from Terra Nova. Vessels Departed: Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, to Terra Nova; Sir Wilfred Grenfell, Canada, to sea; Cabot, Canada, to Corner Brook. WEDNESDAY Vessels Arrived: Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, from Terra Nova. Vessels Departed: Maersk Nascopie, Canada, to Hibernia; Atlantic Eagle, Canada, to Terra Nova; Maersk Placentia, Canada, to White Rose; Sybil W, Canada, to Long Pond.
6 • INDEPENDENTNEWS
OCTOBER 13, 2006
Words to live by I
n February 2003, the late Craig Dobbin gave a speech in St. John’s during oil and gas week. The speech was described as one of the most passionate ever made regarding Newfoundland and Labrador’s place in Confederation. Some points worth repeating … • Recently, I came across an article in The Globe about our offshore. It was a typical East Coast article and included the following conclusion. And I quote, ‘Several studies have pointed out that the industry has created thousands of jobs and is pouring millions of dollars in the economy of the traditionally have-not region.’ That one sentence makes me nauseous. Think about it. Do you ever read that the oil industry is pouring millions of dollars into Alberta? No! You read that Alberta, and Albertans, are creating billions of dollars in wealth for their province. Why should we be any different? That innocuous statement implies that some group outside the province is pouring money and jobs into the province. They’ve got it backwards. It’s Newfoundland and Labrador creating the jobs. It is our resources and our people who are pouring millions, no,
RYAN CLEARY
Fighting Newfoundlander billions of dollars into the economy. And the truth is, it’s not our economy. • This perception that our economy depends on the so-called generosity of the oil industry is wrong, and sometimes I think our provincial leaders believe it. If we are to change attitudes and change the balance of revenue sharing between Ottawa and Newfoundland, we just destroy that myth. We are not a have-not province — we are very rich. However, the wealth is being poured out of the province. • Who is to blame? Nobody but ourselves. Not the feds — we let them do it. They’re acting in the interest of their voters. They’re doing a great job for the highly populated, rich areas of Canada. • Last year (2002) this province and the oil companies that work here pumped more than 100 million barrels of oil worth $3 billion into the economy … after clawbacks, this province will earn approximately $30 million in
royalties, plus a few million in provincial taxes. What a deal we made there — $30 million on the sale of $3 billion worth of oil. These are the millions of dollars pouring into our economy. That’s one per cent. Alberta, by the way, which has a different deal with Ottawa, earned $5.9 billion in royalties last year. Bravo for Alberta, Newfoundland is proud of you … there’s nothing wrong with making a profit, but there’s a big inequity as far as Newfoundland is concerned. We’re the ones producing the wealth, and we’re the ones left out of the profit equation. • Before you jump to the conclusion that I’m suggesting going it on our own, let me assure you that nothing, nothing could be further from the truth. I’m looking for a way to get into Confederation. • Before we go looking for a new deal from Ottawa, we must stop and determine what we can do on our own. It’s not up to Uncle Ottawa to chart our future. We need to do this for ourselves. • We must build a future based on excellence, rather than one based on handouts. And we must put our energy and ingenuity towards rewriting our agreement with Canada. The new way
of thinking about Newfoundland must start here at home. We need to find the future for ourselves. It must start with a new mindset and vision for our future by all individuals, not just government. To demand less would perpetuate the out-migration of our children from this beautiful place. • If education is the way forward, then surely we must admit that makework projects represent a dead-end. Digging ditches to get enough stamps for pogey is not only ridiculous, it’s demeaning. It’s destructive. It robs our youth of an opportunity to become craftsmen, innovators or leaders. • Government programs have unfortunately become too commonplace in many of our communities. Make-work does not make sense and cannot be continued as a way of life. • I accept that Ottawa played a pivotal role in jump-starting the offshore industry through its support of Hibernia. But that does not give it the political or moral basis to steal the spoils of this industry from Newfoundland and Labrador. Ottawa is entitled to a fair return on its investment. It has already recouped its initial investment (on its 8.5 per cent stake in Hibernia) and is now the beneficiary of
a windfall borne on the back of this province. • Ottawa’s gobbling up of Newfoundland’s oil royalties is not in the spirit of Confederation. We need a policy in which Ottawa commits to reinvesting the bulk of this windfall back into our province … • The objective of equalization should be to allow provincial economies to catch up to a national standard. We’ve got to stand together, 500,000 Newfoundlanders — while there are still that many of us — and present a united front to Canada. • We’ve got to take our message to all of Canada — that Newfoundland wants to get off the dependency treadmill. That we’ve got a five-year or 10year plan to do it. That we need nothing more than our fair share of our resource revenue to accomplish it. If we don’t, be sure of one thing. The current situation will not be allowed to continue. If Newfoundland and Labrador is not allowed into Confederation, we’ll seek a way out. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s up to us to choose our future. Amen. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca
YOUR VOICE The Dobbin effect Dear editor, is mostly our own fault, and that we With so much wealth in this can change it if we seriously wished province, in fact, one of the most to, we choose instead to bitch and richly blessed places on the planet, complain, which serves only to fuel something is not right when we are the insults to which we are so frenot able to look after our own people. quently subjected. Who better than This was brought home by the Craig Dobbin to remind us where we most recent release from Statistics are and what we have to do if we are Canada. Our population is in free ever to get out of this mess and move fall, our outports are decimated and on to something better. emptied of youth as caravans wind “I want,” says Mr. Dobbin, “to try endlessly across the to shock NewfoundGulf, carrying elselanders into realizing where the very what’s happening — Confederation, lifeblood of our that our youth are gone, wonderful though our outport way of life future. Our fingers point to decimated … it may be, is not is Newfoundlanders Confederation as the culprit, and while this must become masters working for us. may be true, a far of their own destiny, However, we do and 53 years in more significant factor is our willingness Confederation has not have choices. to put up with it, to made this happen … I keep on submitting am not telling you it’s like sheep to the outrageous conse- time to undo the union of Confedquences of this very bad deal. eration, I am telling you it’s time to The most bitter irony is that we fix it. It’s time for us to have a second fostered, by handing over to Canada look and develop a comprehensive control of our fisheries, the most plan.” monstrous man-made ecological Though we are victims of conquest catastrophe in the annals of human — we were not conquered by the history, and in which we, excluding sword. the fish, are the primary victims. Confederation, wonderful though The untimely passing of Craig it may be, is not working for us. Dobbin brings into focus the great However, we do have choices. We potential of ordinary Newfound- can get out of it — we can fix it, or landers to achieve with the very best, we can carry on with our stupid if only we would recognize that. The bitching and complaining while trouble is we are hobbled, collective- remaining stuck on the teat. Like ly, by feelings of inadequacy, and Craig Dobbin has pointed out, the demoralized by too many years in a choice is ours. state of imposed dependency. Instead Lloyd C. Rees, of admitting that our untenable state Conception Bay South
Will Kennedy be ‘muzzled?’ Dear editor, Well I guess Danny is looking for a new puppet to join his ranks in Jerome Kennedy (if he wins the provincial seat of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi). I am sure Mr. Kennedy is a fine gentleman with the best intentions, but I am afraid he too will be muzzled under Williams’ tight reign. More power to Mr. Kennedy if he actually has his “own voice,” but somehow I highly doubt it, just look at the cabinet and caucus who had the backbone, morals and who actually cared about our people to stand up against this regime and the rest
of those under his iron fist in government. Thank you to Fabian Manning and Elizabeth Marshall for having the courage to stand firm in their beliefs. These individuals gave me hope that there are others inside the Danny-control zone who will shake the spell of this government. After the smoke clears and this regime has long passed Fabian and Elizabeth will be the true martyrs. Mr. Kennedy I hope I can say the same for you. Roger Linehan, St. John’s
AN INDEPENDENT VOICE FOR NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR
P.O. Box 5891, Stn.C, St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, A1C 5X4 Ph: 709-726-4639 • Fax: 709-726-8499 www.theindependent.ca • editorial@theindependent.ca The Independent is published by Independent News Ltd. in St. John’s. It is an independent newspaper covering the news, issues and current affairs that affect the people of Newfoundland & Labrador.
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Aboriginals left out of Newfoundland’s Terms of Union; Indian Act rights denied them for years
T
he Danny Williams government deserves kudos for certain initiatives but the premier and his cabinet should take a close look at the status of Aboriginals in this province. Newfoundland is home to thousands of Mi’kmaq and their descendants. Conne River is well known but there are a dozen more Mi’kmaw communities. Labrador is home to the Innu, the Inuit, and the Métis, who are of Inuit and European ancestry. These three groups number well into the thousands, constituting perhaps a third of Labrador’s population. Aboriginals in Canada — Inuit, Métis, and First Nations (like the Mi’kmaq and the Innu)— have legal rights under Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. The Crown has fiduciary obligations to Aboriginal people. The relationship is one of nation to nation; hence the existence of treaty rights, land claims, and resource rights. In most provinces, these rights have been respected since Confederation — at least to a degree. First Nations are able to set up reserves and then negotiate to assume responsibility for health, education and other important cultural institutions. Their land claims are accepted for negotiation. Aboriginal people can take part in federal programs like non-insured health benefits, which give them access to dental care, prescription drugs, etc. There are dozens of other such programs for Aboriginal people — unless they live in Newfoundland and Labrador. Here many Aboriginals are disenfranchised and alienated from their rights. This is largely because they were entirely omitted from the Terms of Union with Canada. No one consulted them as the Terms were being developed. No one told the Innu and Mi’kmaq that, as First Nations people in Canada, they had a right to have the Indian Act applied to their communities. The Indian Act is certainly flawed but it does allow First Nations to establish reserves and access myriad federal programs.
MAURA HANRAHAN Guest Column The Innu and Inuit eventually got some respect for their rights; history shows that the same will happen to the Métis. Some Canadians may not like it that Aboriginal people have a special relationship to the Crown but that is the way it is in Canadian law and the Constitution. It isn’t going to change. Aboriginal rights do not mean Aboriginal people live high on the hog, not subject to taxes, or that others may lose their property rights. In fact, in general, Aboriginal people still lag behind in terms of education, health, living conditions (especially access to clean water), and employment. It’s the same in Australia and the United States. It results from multiple, multi-generational losses: loss of land, language, traditional economies, indigenous religions, and family life (destroyed through residential/boarding schools) — none of it by choice. By going some way toward enhancing the socio-economic and health status of Aboriginal people, Canada’s Aboriginal programs and services also benefit others. The Conne River reserve has been a positive force in the entire Bay D’Espoir economy. Imagine if we had more Conne Rivers — as we should. Provincial governments also benefit. The non-insured health benefits program, for example, brings money into the provinces, while enabling
Aboriginal people to maintain and improve their health. Healthier people means less pressure on our Medicare system. But right now the Labrador Métis and most Newfoundland Mi’kmaq are not eligible for this program. From the perspective of selfinterest, then, it is foolish for the province to ignore and even oppose Aboriginal rights, as it often does. The Innu and Inuit have fought long and hard for their rights in the past few decades and they are finally getting some of the success they deserve — the Inuit land claim (Nunatsiavut), the creation of Innu reserves, etc. — but they are still trying to play catch-up with their Canadian counterparts. The Mi’kmaq and the Métis lag far, far behind. The Supreme Court of Canada recently ruled that the provincial government has “an ongoing duty to engage in meaningful consultation with the Labrador Métis” regarding the Trans-Labrador Highway. The premier must know that this has implications for all land claimed by the Métis; hence, the province’s decision to appeal. But this decision is shortsighted and ultimately not even in the province’s interest. The Innu and Inuit eventually got some respect for their rights; history shows that the same will happen to the Métis. We all benefit when this happens. Meanwhile, the Sip’Kop Mi’kmaw Band (to which I belong through my paternal ancestry) and the Ktaqamkuk Mi’kmaq Alliance are suing the federal government for ignoring its fiduciary duties since 1949. They will likely win … something. The federal and provincial governments ought to put an end to this long-term, singular breach. Otherwise, the honour of the Crown will remain tarnished. Maura Hanrahan of St. John’s has a PhD in sea-use law, economics and policy from the London School of Economics and works with Aboriginal organizations across Canada.
OCTOBER 13, 2006
INDEPENDENTNEWS • 7
Have I got a job for you P
ssst. Hey … HEY … Yeah, you. Put down that coffee and pay attention — just read ahead. Need a job? I gotta great one for you. First a quick history lesson. Back in the 1960s there was this fellow named Smallwood, who also thought he was the hottest thing since Nevada tickets. Everyone was so nuts about him, he used to win just about every seat in the House. Hardly any opposition. Sound familiar? Well, anyway, those people in the House who found themselves across the aisle from him felt pretty helpless. At one point there were only three of them, so they decided the only thing they could really do was drive the fellow nuts. No kidding, that was their political agenda. This guy Smallwood, he couldn’t take it, either. Skin as thin as Brian Tobin’s sincerity. So? So there’s an election one year from now. Here we are, coming up on 50 years later, and we are in the same stupid spot. Looks like Danny’s gonna clean ’er. If you could get yourself elected —
IVAN MORGAN
Rant & Reason and that, my ambitious friend, is one hell of an if — you could have this terrific job sitting across from Danny and driving him clear out of his little mind. The way I see it, you won’t have much company, so you’ll be in the same boat as those lonely Tories of long ago. As for driving him mad? Don’t be talking. It will be like shooting rats in a barrel. Where do I start? The province’s infrastructure is crumbling, there are ruts on our highways big enough to farm salmon in. Our schools are old and overcrowded. Our youth are leaving, taking their skills, hope and drive with them. Ten years after an ecological disaster of epic proportions, nothing in our fishery is getting any better. If anything, it’s worse.
YOUR VOICE Where have the patriots gone? Dear editor, Newfoundland has placed the interests of foreign powers ahead of its own for too long. Initially our loyalty was to the British Empire, today it stands with the Canadian federation. Both groups betrayed us because governments, like people, act in their own interest. It’s time we acted in ours. Newfoundlanders, from the time of our population explosion in the early 19th century and the granting of responsible government in 1833, were proud islanders and members of the British Commonwealth. It was this loyalty to the Empire that brought about gargantuan efforts by the Dominion of Newfoundland to aid in the defense of Great Britain during the First World War. However, Newfoundlanders were betrayed and, as an exception to the rule, the dominion was not granted remissions on its war debt. This debt contributed to the deplorable state of our finances during the Great Depression which gulled Newfoundland out of responsible government by Frederick Alderdice’s political party. This betrayal by Great Britain, and our own ilk, was further compounded by the terms dissolving the Commission of Government, which forced Newfoundland into Confederation. Britain had betrayed Newfoundland. This single act of financial ruin perpetrated on the people of Newfoundland did not deter our resolve when the democratic world was once again threatened with war. Our exemplary service to the empire during the Second World War led Winston Churchill, the great wartime statesmen, to organize the British capital to found the British Newfoundland Corporation (Brinco). This capital was organized for the specific development of hydro power at Hamilton Falls as a reward for our service to the empire. The falls were renamed Churchill Falls in honour of Winston Churchill. However, Newfoundlanders were once again betrayed, this time by our supposed Quebec brothers in the Canadian federation and the Canadian federal government. Through Hydro Quebec, a Crown corporation that acts as an arm of the Quebec socialist government, Brinco was infiltrated through shareholder privilege. This gave Hydro Quebec access to our financial status. In a moment of financial despair before the massive operation would go into effect and begin to generate a return, coupled with the loss of our chief negotiators, Quebec forced upon the gullible father of Confederation, Joey Smallwood, the current lopsided deal that sees roughly $2 billion in profit for hydro Quebec while Newfoundland receives a pittance. Yet, Newfoundlanders, the same people who clung to the shores of Newfoundland, endured harsh winters, fished the greatest fishing grounds the world has ever seen, served in the First and Second World Wars as equals with the Dominion of Canada, and who carved a nation out of granite now repose in what can only be described as either muted outrage or as Stephen Harper once noted a “culture of defeat.” Where have all the William Coakers gone who yelled in the House of Assembly as responsible government was stolen from the people of Newfoundland, “Traitors to the land that bore you.” Have we all been gulled into a permanent sense of defeat or has out-migration carried away all our true patriots, all the true Newfoundlanders. As I write this I am overcome with both pride and shame as a Newfoundlander. I do not have a solution to the upper Churchill contract, but grass-root political action is a start. I challenge all Newfoundlanders to write. Express our anger, express our outrage, let’s shame Canada. James Vaughan, St. John’s (visiting from Fort McMurray)
In winter our roads are death traps due to insufficient service. Our government’s response? A reminder from a warm office somewhere in St. John’s to try to drive slower. Terrific. Our justice system doesn’t seem capable of properly enforcing traffic tickets, let alone solving the scattered serious crime. We have the report to prove it. Our provincial ferry service ranges from the clearly desperate to the outright dangerous. We have the report to prove it. Our child protection system couldn’t manage to save the life of a little boy whose mother was to be put on trial for murdering the boy’s father. Not only did they not try to stop her — it looks from here like they may have helped. We have the report to prove it. We have corruption — it would appear — at the highest echelons of government. Scandal and financial improprieties occurred in the very heart of our democracy, our beloved House of Assembly. We lost our democracy, and won it back, all so it could be plundered by this bunch of
second-rate shysters? We are treated so contemptuously by the people with whom we have to do business with that one wonders what — in private — they must really think of us. Our premier’s request for a reasonable share of the Hebron fields prompted ExxonMobil to walk away from negotiations. They are disgusted. They’re not going to be the first company not to screw Newfoundland and Labrador. Our announcement to develop our lower Churchill hydro potential was met with Hydro Quebec’s announcement that they would be developing hydro in direct competition to us, and, in what has to be the most crowning of ironies, probably using the huge profits they make from our hydro to finance it. Last week we were given the latest in a long litany of bureaucratic symbols we are told to rally behind. Is it stupid? I have long stopped caring. I will point out that the one “brand” or “logo” or symbol the people have latched onto — the one popular one,
TRUDEAU TIME
the logo that we have chosen ourselves, which we weren’t billed $1 million for — the Pink, White and Green — remains studiously ignored by the powers that be. I guess there’s no money for advertising companies promoting a symbol we already like. All this to pick from, yet all we get is silence from the opposition. We need you, sunshine — where are you? The Liberal party needs you. Hell, I need you. Don’t make me have to watch a Danny Williams turkey shoot this time next year. Please? Come on, throw your hat in the ring. You could get paid handsomely to take potshots at Danny’s crowd as they slowly rot — and rot they will — over on their side of the House. Sounds like a dream come true. And believe me you would be doing us all a favour. The sad part is you probably aren’t reading this. Why? Because you are probably in Alberta. Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@theindependent.ca
‘I hope to live to see that day …’ Dear editor, I read the Oct. 6 letter to the editor (Faults and facts) by Robert Rowe and I find that he is indeed in need of the facts. His negative attitude is one of the problems we face in this province and why we go retrograde as opposed to forward. The wild fishery is not dead. From what scientific database did he draw that “enlightening” comment? Is it from his vast personal experience? If so, tell me what experience that is. To say that we must all engage in aquaculture clearly shows his total lack of knowledge about the aquaculture industry. The Canadian wildlife Federation, the Atlantic Salmon Federation and many other enlightened organizations have requested the federal government put the brakes on aquaculture. My own personal experience of over 25 years sitting on numerous fisheries committees tells me that a lot of caution is needed in the aquaculture industry. To state that we need to take ownership and responsibility is again proof that Mr. Rowe is living on another planet. Sixteen (16) foreign nations own our fishery resource and they set our quotas. Ottawa also gives these foreign nations special fishing privileges for trade concessions for the sole benefit of mainland Canada and to the detriment of this province. Sudbury, Ont. is getting our Voisey’s Bay ore, Quebec is getting our hydro, and I get hauled into court for exercising my historical and cultural right to put a cod on my table to eat. Ottawa is denying the people of this province the opportunity to take ownership of our resources and become selfsufficient. Wake up, Mr. Rowe, do a little bit of research and maybe your next letter will be a bit more proactive and positive. As for forgetting our past, if we do that we are doomed to repeat our mistakes. The Terms of Union are an insult to the people of this province in that Ottawa is not honouring them. Maybe we do need to separate, and as for former premier Roger Grimes saying that in 20 years this province will not be part of Canada, I hope I live to see that day.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Young Liberals hosted Justin Trudeau, son of the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, in St. John's this week. On Wednesday he spoke with students at Memorial University about his vision for Canada. Paul Daly/The Independent
‘Rise up, take charge’ Dear editor, How pleased I was to hear the comments from the residents of Port Au Choix during the recent forum held in their community regarding economic recovery in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. I recently attended a Coracle Roundtable in St. John’s, sponsored by Memorial University, where a visiting Irish delegation explained that the Celtic Tiger came about as a result of “a sense of a crisis depression which caused a deep emotional commitment to renewal.” This deep emotional commitment across the social spectrum drove a level of economic growth that prior to then, nobody believed was possible. For the first time I am hearing a level of emotional commitment coming from our own people. There is no point in blaming the government, employers, municipalities et al for the situation that we find ourselves in! Blaming only takes away responsibility! You must rise up, take charge, develop your own visions and concepts and make them work.
Government certainly has to be a catalyst in the process and is willing to be so but they cannot (and should not), pilot the ship. Seventeen years ago, a colleague and I started the Positive Thinkers Club. Don’t take no for an answer, don’t listen to the naysayers saying, “You can’t do that” or “It can’t happen here.” It can and it does! All residents of this province are equal to or better than anyone else in the country and the world. Brad Gushue proved it in curling, Craig Sharpe with his voice, the Newfoundland Rock in rugby, Danny Williams in not taking no for an answer. There is a host of locally grown talent (more per capita than the national average) who are living breathing examples of our superiority not inferiority. I am encouraging all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to rise to the challenge. Take charge of your future and live the vision. You can do and have what you want as long as the want is filled with passion and emotion. Dave Rudofsky, St. John’s
Rick Bouzan, St. John’s
As long as Newfoundland is poor … Dear editor, The war in Afghanistan and the relationship between Newfoundland and Labrador and central Canada brings to mind the old saying, “as long as Ireland is poor, England will not want for soldiers.” Joe Butt, Toronto
Disturbing lack of response Dear editor, I read with interest Ivan Morgan’s story on video lottery terminals (VLTs ‘drenched in politics,’ Sept. 22 edition) since I have concerns like most people. It also disturbs me that Dr. Simon Avis will not respond to requests for information. Politics, arrogance, delusions of power — who knows why he would refuse to speak to the public as our paid servant? I do think he needs constant pressure applied. Robert Rowe, St. John’s
OCTOBER 13, 2006
8 • INDEPENDENTNEWS
OCTOBER 13, 2006
INDEPENDENTNEWS • 9
IN CAMERA
Anna and the horse, Holyrood April outing at Brigus (From left Vesselina Tomova, Paulette Cambell, Vessela Brakalova)
Bird Rock, Cape St. Mary’s
The Bell
The Voodoo House, Bell Island
A view of the Kirk and the Narrows
Dusk near Cappahayden
Center - Backyard view, Bond Street
The artist Horan with ’bergs
Playing with dynamics By Stephanie Porter The Independent
M
anfred Buchheit got his first camera at age 7. His father taught him to develop his own film in his early teens. He attended fine art school in Ontario. But it was Newfoundland, Buchheit says, that finally turned him into a photographer. “Newfoundland is totally pictorial,” he says. “It’s a photographer’s dream. The light is different, the scenery, the town, anything you look at is different. Initially, I went nuts with the camera. I couldn’t stop.” Buchheit was born in Alsace, a border region between France and Germany, in 1943. Seven years later, he and his parents immigrated to Canada, settling in Ontario. “I have always been interested in photography, photographing nature, ever since I got my first camera,” says Buchheit. It never left him, through his years at the Ontario College of Art,
when there were no photography courses. “All of the things I learned as an artist applied to photography,” he says. “And I always studied photography wherever I could find it.” (He still does, he points out, never tiring of discussing the craft with other photographers, or of experimenting, observing, learning, picking up tools, tips and tricks everywhere he goes.) After graduation, Buchheit did “what most Ontario kids did,” and moved to the States to find work. He settled in Detroit for a number of years, first working as a pressman for a silkscreening operation — but the job was “much too dirty and much too physically painful” — and then a position at the city’s Grace General Hospital as a medical graphic artist. With an admitted interest in medicine and biology, Buchheit had hopes of moving on in this career, of becoming a medical illustrator, a “true medical artist.”
His personal life was also rapidly evolving. Married in Detroit to an English major, Buchheit says he soon got the urge to move back to Canada. “I’d had enough of guns being pointed at me,” he says, and he came up with two choices: Victoria, B.C., or St. John’s. “My friend from here used to send me letters in Detroit saying things like ‘there’s moose inside the town’ and there’s this, and that … all sorts of things. I was intrigued,” he says. Buchheit’s wife applied to the universities on both coasts of the country, and was offered a fellowship at Memorial. That was 1971 — and, spurred on by the landscape and light around him, his career took a sharp turn. “On my second day here, I was up on top of Signal Hill, looking out over the ocean for the first time in my life and seeing the horizon for the first time, seeing the bulge of the planet, that was a thrill,” he says. “I had a camera and I couldn’t stop
When Manfred Buchheit moved here in 1971, there were few, if any, fine art photographers working in the province. Since then, he’s watched a healthy arts community flourish — and has done his part in teaching, inspiring (and learning from) the emerging talents of the past three decades. This week, the respected mentor and ground-breaking photographer contributes selections from his portfolio of work for The Independent’s fifth guest photo essay. taking pictures.” Buchheit still has thousands of negatives from that period he’s never had time to print. After a brief stint as a darkroom technician in the marine laboratory, he worked as a graphic artist with what is now the Health Sciences Centre. “Being a medical graphic artist, you sort of get an idea what people look like inside, and that helps in a way,” he says, noting that photography began to
take up more and more of his time. In the early ’70s, when there was little in the way of a visual arts scene in the province, let alone a community of fine-art photographers, Buchheit took part in his first exhibition, displaying a series of grainy portraits. It was a group show, also featuring the work of Gerry Squires and Stewart Montgomerie. The second show, this time with potter Peter Thomas, was also well received, in spite of his experimental
shots. “The comment from the local critic was that there were no spots on my prints,” he says, laughing. “I was doing good.” Not long after that, an official from a federal arts organization came to St. John’s, requesting to see work by local photographers. She pulled Buchheit aside. “She said. ‘You’ve got to read Ansel Adams and you’ve got to change the way you print.’ I thought my printing was fine! But then I read Ansel Adams and I realized how far ahead of me he was, took the advice and learned to print properly. “It proved to me to be a key to quality.” It’s knowledge he’s been able to pass on to a generation of photographers coming just after him. Buchheit was the first photography teacher with the now-defunct MUN extension services. He taught hundreds of amateur or aspiring photographers, a few of whom — including Shane Kelly and Sheilagh
O’Leary — have gone on to shining careers in the business. He’s called a mentor to more than one. “If people say I’m a mentor, it’s probably because I love to talk about photography,” he says. Always one to experiment, rebuild and “play around,” Buchheit is known for using a variety of cameras — but perhaps his most talked-about work was done with hand-made or altered pinhole cameras. “I’d either build the camera from scratch, using anything from a cardboard tube to a box or I will modify something, old folding cameras, 35mm cameras, box cameras, Polaroid cameras, taking out the guts and replacing them with a pinhole. Each camera has a different characteristic so it becomes fun to work with it.” Pinhole cameras have no lens — just a tiny hole to let light in — and require a longer exposure time, creating atmospheric, soft, sometimes ghostly images. Recently, Buchheit modified a
digital camera into a pinhole. “(The results) are not as satisfactory as the ones I used to do,” he says. “But at least they’re in colour.” Looking back through his body of work, Buchheit can — as perhaps any artist would be able to — see his personal ups and downs, phases of sadness and seminal moments of inspiration and change. “You also see the faces of the people you were involved with,” he says. “Photography’s a memory trip, a window into the past. To me, it’s a time machine.” This philosophy literally came to life in a project he completed in the ’90s, re-shooting the images of Robert Holloway, a photographer in the late 1800s who documented a number of places around Newfoundland. “He photographed a lot of people and communities in a very thoughtful way,” Buchheit says. “So I did a repetition of his shots.” The project was both “lots of fun” and a true challenge, as Buchheit
attempted to figure out exactly where each photo was taken from. It also offered plenty of opportunity for the exploration of this province, so important to Buchheit’s work. In selecting a group of photographs to show in The Independent, Buchheit turned again to some of his successful experiments. The pieces on these pages were taken with either a disposable panoramic camera — which he took apart and modified into a reusable, reloadable one — or the Horizont, a Russian-made camera in which the lens actually moves, scanning across for a panoramic shot. He’s used the imperfections or mechanical flaws in the cameras to aesthetic advantage, creating engaging, motion-filled shots. “I like playing with dynamics,” he says with a smile. After years of working for himself and freelancing, Buchheit is currently on contract with the provincial archives in The Rooms. He does scanning, printing, and digital reproduc-
tions of archival photographs (“I’m not afraid of digital, though I used to say ‘silver is forever,’” he laughs). Buchheit currently lives in Holyrood with his dog, Frieda (a terri-poo, or terrier/poodle mix), and is working on a body of work, perhaps of the barrens near his home. This province still inspires him — especially the excitement of stumbling on a place he’s never seen before. No longer the lone art photographer, Buchheit is surrounded by colleagues he respects. “I can’t say I was the first photographer in the ’70s, but I think I can say I was on the leading edge of a wave of art that was happening, because at that time there wasn’t anything going on. “Now you can’t go anywhere without running into art.” Manfred Buchheit can be reached at manfredbuchheit@persona.ca stephanie.porter@theindependent.ca
10 • INDEPENDENTNEWS
OCTOBER 13, 2006
Our Country, 1883
AROUND THE BAY A clergyman past middle age, after uniting a loving couple in holy matrimony, was asked by some present at the marriage feast how he, a bachelor, could consistently engage in such ceremonies. The good man’s answer was significant: “In a man’s life there are two periods when he is likely to marry — one when he is young and has no sense, the other when he is old and lost his sense.” He was glad to inform them that he was past the one and had not reached the other. — The Twillingate Sun, Oct. 7, 1880 YEARS PAST Startling Discovery – Lost Manhood Restored. A victim of youthful imprudence causing Premature Decay, Nervous Debility, Lost Manhood, etc., having tried in vain every known remedy, has discovered a simple self cure, which he will send FREE to his fellow-sufferers. – J.H. Reeves, 43 Chatham St., N.Y. — Our Country, St. John’s, Oct. 6, 1883 AROUND THE WORLD “No newspaper ever published pleased everybody, and every sensible taker of a paper, in passing judgment upon it, decides the matter upon the whole appearance of the publication from week to week, not condemning it because he finds something printed therein that displeases him, or considering it infallible because it expresses, from week to week, his exact views. Otherwise the only successful newspaper would be the one which was neutral upon all subjects, or one which never expressed any views on a point of interest, confining itself to mere items of news. These two classes of papers were never known to exist in an intelligent community, after being conducted upon that principle for any length of time, for a community is judged by the outside world by the newspapers by which it supports.” — The Weekly Record, Trinity West, Oct. 13, 1886 EDITORIAL STAND “A Woman’s Friendship — It is a wondrous advantage to a man, in every pursuit or vocation, to secure an adviser in a sensible woman. In woman there is at once a subtle delicacy of tact, and a plain soundness of judgment, which are rarely combined to an equal degree in man. A woman, if she be really your friend, will have a sensitive regard for your character, honour, repute. She will seldom counsel you to do a shabby thing, for a woman friend always desires to be proud of you. Female friendship is to a man the bulwark, sweetener, ornament of his existence.” — St. John’s Daily News, Oct. 10, 1866 LETTER TO THE EDITOR Dear Sir – We the people of Cartwright wish to express our disgust in the article, which appeared in the fourth issue of The Cartwright Courier written by Miss B. Long, R.N. We would like to let the people in other areas subscribing to our paper know that Cartwright is not the louse infected area she seems to think it is. In future we do hope you will have the decency to refrain from having such articles published in the newspaper. The people of this village are extremely proud of their paper and express the wish that it will not be turned into a Medical Journal. Sincerely yours, Disgusted Villagers — The Cartwright Courier, Oct. 31, 1968 QUOTE OF THE WEEK “It’s something like the feeling you have after being in a small boat for a long time in a rough sea,” said one of the rocking chair marathoners yesterday in Mews Drycleaning Limited. Seven women and two men were rocking since ten a.m. Monday morning and, explaining the feeling he had when he took one of the allowed five minute breaks at the conclusion of an hour’s rocking, the rocker said he felt like he was still swaying back and forth, back and forth. Said a lady: “I’ve gotten to the stage now where the chair rocks me — I’ve got it trained real good.” — The Daily News, St. John’s, Oct. 5, 1960
OCTOBER 13, 2006
INDEPENDENTNEWS • 11
VOICE FROM AWAY
Kentucky woman Foxtrap native Heidi Caravan has met celebrities from Margaret Atwood to Bill Clinton as news director at American radio station By Pam Pardy Ghent For The Independent
E
very week, WFPL-FM provides programming for more than 50,000 listeners in central Kentucky and southern Indiana. Heidi Caravan, 38, is the director of news and programming at the station — and she is one of ours. Caravan (nee Porter) hails from Foxtrap, and while she might be up to her eyeteeth in all things American, she knows where “home” is. “I talk about it all the time, I don’t hide who I am,” she says of her roots. “I’ll get razzed once in a while … anything with an ‘r’ and a vowel sound gives me away. “I say elastic band, they call it a rubber band, I say someone is being cross or crooked, they think that’s funny, but you just have to have a sense of humor about the differences, and I do.” Caravan’s career in journalism began with a struggle. She was working a few part-time jobs in the province after graduating from college in Stephenville. “I was working for Q, but then the station automated and Ron (her husband, who also worked for Q-Radio) and I were both let go and we had to go on the dole,” she says. The freelance work she was doing on the side just wasn’t enough. “We knew we would have to leave to eat, so Ron found a job and I followed.” They moved to Kentucky in 1997. While her husband worked with the Kentucky News Network and Clear Channel Communications, Caravan eventually joined WFPL, a Public Radio Partnership in 2000 to produce State of Affairs, a local call-in program. Over the years, Caravan has met some interesting people. The program’s guests have included Randy Cohen (“The Ethicist,” NY Times), Steve Coll (Pulitzer Prize-winning author), Heloise Cruse (Hints from Heloise), and author Margaret Atwood. “Johnnie Cochran surprised me,” she says, of O.J. Simpson’s late lawyer. “He was just this really nice man, I was
expecting to meet this hot shot but he was this down to earth, considerate man.” Caravan was equally impressed by Bill Clinton. “I had heard he was an amazing orator, but I wasn’t prepared to be so sucked in,” she says with a laugh. “He is a great public speaker and he has this amazing ability to just grab ya — but not in that way.” The topics covered on State of Affairs are similar to call-in shows in this province, but one program held more meaning than others. It was the one on breast cancer. In December 2005, Caravan felt an odd pain in her bones. Tests revealed she was fine, but by New Year’s Day she knew something was wrong. “I found a lump, was told it was nothing and I was told not to worry.” But Caravan had lost a friend to breast cancer at the age of 42 and was taking no chances. She was diagnosed on Valentine’s Day. “I have lobular breast cancer and I’ve probably had it, undetected, for six or seven years,” she says. “It’s considered a stage-4 breast cancer, but I have heard of one person who has had this now for 23 years.” Caravan’s bones are “filled” with the disease, and while she is taking treatment, surgery isn’t an option. Her hips are cracked so she uses a walker to get around. She has a tumor in her neck so she wears a brace — but she’s still
jovial and incredibly positive. “People have it worse than me,” she says. “I’m doing what I love and you know, you can laugh or cry, I choose to laugh and to stay positive.” Caravan doesn’t get home to Newfoundland much anymore — the two days down and back is too hard, she says — but one trip helped her connect Kentucky to her Newfoundland roots. “We were driving by the crash site in Gander and I realized it had been 20 years,” she says. On December 12, 1985, 256 Americans were travelling home for the holidays from the Middle East to Fort
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Campbell, Kentucky. The plane stopped in Gander to refuel and shortly after lift-off, plunged to the ground. No one survived. It was the worst military crash in American peacetime history and the worst air disaster in Canadian history. Caravan knew she had to produce something to commemorate the anniversary of the tragedy. “I had such a response to that piece from so many people, I am just so proud and glad that I did it, being from home and now living here it just touched something on all sides for me,” she says. Caravan has no plans to return to
Newfoundland except to visit. She is, she says, at home in Kentucky. “The weather here is just the best — except when it’s mid-July and 100 degrees, but the fact I don’t have to shovel snow makes up for that.” She adores her career and the people she gets to work with. Life, she says, is great. “I do miss family, but we stay in touch. About the only thing that I can say is a sad thing is that I really miss the ocean, it used to be so close.” Do you know a Newfoundlander or Labradorian living away? Please email editorial@theindependent.ca
OCTOBER 13, 2006
12 • INDEPENDENTNEWS
YOUR VOICE Education denied? Dear editor, I would like to comment on the philosophy of the administration of Memorial University. I am a professional Newfoundland art photographer born and living in St. John’s. For 16 years I have been involved in research and production in fine art, folklore, anthropology, art education and women’s studies. Over the past four years, I have applied and been denied access to postgraduate programs, as well as a Coracle Fellowship at MUN. Though I do not hold a completed undergraduate degree, I have completed courses and workshops at MUN, Concordia University, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and Rockport Maine. I find it infuriating that the MUN administration repeatedly rejects my applications for a masters program. I have applied to both the women’s studies program and to the MPhil in Humanities supported
by the departmental committees, only to be rejected by the administration. Recently, St. John’s City Poet Laureate Agnes Walsh and I applied for a Coracle Fellowship. Again, the programming committee was extremely supportive of our application, but we were rejected once it was laid on Dr. Axel Meisen’s desk. Apparently, no one was awarded the fellowship this year. Is this based on an outdated administrative model that does not take professional experience into account? My application was deemed acceptable for an MFA to Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and universities in Ireland. I have an incredible level of expertise to offer a post-graduate class. How do I, as an intelligent and experienced Newfoundland art professional, access higher education? Many of my academic colleagues are astounded at the negative responses I have encountered regarding denied access to Memorial
“How do I, as an intelligent and experienced Newfoundland art professional, access higher education?” University. I have a powerful presence in the Newfoundland arts scene and beyond, because of (not despite) the fact that I am a single mother of three. But my family situation doesn’t enable me to travel freely to another university abroad. Should I really be forced to continue this cycle of out-migration for educational services that can and should be provided to me here? Sheilagh O’Leary, St. John’s
Memorial logo ‘uninspiring’ Dear editor, With the start of a new fall semester at Memorial, I am once again on campus. The signs that have been put up with the new Memorial logo caught my attention. Unfortunately, my response is negative because all I feel and see is a blob. Symbols speak on their own by eliciting a response from within. Any marketing expert would certainly want the response to be positive. Memorial University of Newfoundland has adopted a new symbol through their new branding approach for marketing our university. This symbol suggests to me that if I attend Memorial I will become lazy and lifeless, in other words a blob. It evokes nothing in me, and is most uninspiring. I feel angry that our very own university is “branding” us in this way to the rest of Canada and the world. We as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are oozing with creativity, intel-
ligence, a spirit that is alive due to our full and colourful personalities. We love to laugh, sing, our eyes twinkle with joy, and we give compassion to those in need. How else would we have survived for over 500 years? I feel insulted by MUN’s unilateral decision. Our politicians on all levels are constantly challenged with getting a better, more equitable deal with Canada while Memorial brands our very own people with a logo that, to me, says we are nothing. If we continue to present ourselves to the rest of Canada, as well as to the rest of the world in this manner, we will not be respected, nor taken seriously. We must engage and insist upon our own self respect, so that others everywhere will have no other choice, but to respect us because we demand it and expect it. Janine Piller, St. John’s
‘A foreign invasion’ of fishers From page 1 He says the inshore shrimp fishery alone produces 160 million lbs of shrimp, which are brought onshore for peeling. “That’s a significant industry in terms of Newfoundland.” Decker says developing new technology is vital. He refers to work done by the Marine Institute and other institutions researching the use of ‘semi-pelagic’ trawls, which are designed to minimize contact with the sea floor. This is especially useful in the shrimp industry. BAN NOT THE ANSWER Mark Small, a fisherman in Wild Cove, White Bay, fishes shrimp from his longliner the Patricia S. He says a ban on bottom trawling would ruin him. “As an independent fisherman it would be devastating for us,” says Small. “I don’t see where those people are coming from, calling for the banning of bottom trawling. I think there are other ways to go about this, other than bans.” He worries that a ban would not be a cure; it would be the end of the industry. “I have seen the federal government ban this and that and we have never been able to get it back once the ban goes in place.” He also sees improved technology as a better solution than a ban. “Surely with the knowledge that we have in our universities and our marine institutions we will be able to come up with a way to harvest fish without using a bottom trawl.” Long time fisheries activist Gus Etchegary agrees. He even questions the need for a ban. He points out that Iceland, the most successful fishing nation in the world, with a well managed, sustainable fishery that comprises 75 per cent of their total economy, still uses bottom trawls. “How in the name of God can you discount the fact that this country, so dependent on the fishery, is not supporting an outright ban? How can you say they don’t know what the hell they are talking about?” asks Etchegary. DISTRACTION Etchegary says a ban on bottom trawling is just a way of distracting from the real issue – the complete mismanagement of the resource by Ottawa. He says fish have disappeared because of overfishing, not the damage done by bottom trawls. He says the Hamilton Inlet Bank has been scoured by icebergs for tens of thousands of years, yet still produced a healthy biomass of cod that existed until overfishing destroyed the resource. “It was producing one of the largest, most productive fish stocks in the world, and it didn’t change until there was an invasion — a foreign invasion — of foreign fishers.” Opposition leader Gerry Reid worries public opinion outside of the province might prove devastating to the province’s economy. “Someone who doesn’t know the fishery might hear of a ban on all bottom trawling and think, ‘Yeah, that’s the right thing to do.’ But they wouldn’t know the impact that would have on our economy,” he says. “I am certainly not going to go out and say ban bottom trawling and close 13 communities in this province.” Minister of Fisheries Tom Rideout was not available for comment. ivan.morgan@theindependent.ca
INDEPENDENTBUSINESS
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13-19, 2006 — PAGE 13
The late Craig Dobbin
Paul Daly/The Independent
‘He galvanized the room’ The Norwegians, too, will remember Craig Dobbin …
By Cabot Martin For The Independent
W
hen the call came it was still unbelievable. Craig was gone. I write not as to where I was or who told me, although I will remember. I will not even paper over a sad estrangement that, towards the end, made me see far less of him than in many years before. And no need to sing his praises or count his many triumphs; those will be attested to by many, and rightly so. Only a single story to mark his essence. It was way back in 1985, in those simpler times when we had both cod and offshore oil to spur our imaginations. I was Craig’s very junior partner in an offshore joint venture with a very prestigious Norwegian engineering group. We were in Bergen, Norway on the morning of perhaps the third day of a site visit along Norway’s beautiful western coast. As usual, the pace had been frenetic. Both by day and by night and by land and be sea, we had pushed the bounds. But that night was to be very special. Our Norwegian partners were the toast of the Norwegian offshore sector — a break-though company that heralded that country’s future offshore accomplishments. And that night, in the holy of holies, in Oslo’s upstairs, dark-timbered Ship Owners’ Hall, they would host the cream
of Norway’s offshore industry and civic life in their formal duds to celebrate their 10th anniversary. Everyone would be there and we were, as they say, in rough shape. Not only that, Craig was to speak, to bring greetings from Newfoundland, to mark their new initiative to export
Norwegian technology. Daunted (dare I say daunted?) by this prospect, we retired to the sauna for a strategy session. “I’ve got to talk to them in Norwegian,” says a decidedly unilingual Craig. “They would really appreciate that. You have to show respect.”
Words of Steele A funeral mass for Newfoundland businessman Craig Dobbin was held Oct. 9 at the Basilica of St. John the Baptist in St. John’s. The following are excerpts from Harry Steele’s eulogy to his friend:
I
n the world of business, I venture to offer, there was never one like him before and there won’t be another after. There is no carbon copy. I have known CEOs, the heads of great family businesses, corporate high-flyers, the men and women who run — or rule — the markets of this country. He alone, of all I have known, went out into the world with a confidence and nerve that I have never seen manifested in anyone else. Craig was almost indecently confident. He took on deals that would put the rest of us in shock … like he was taking a warm bath. When times were tough for Craig — and they were tough often enough; more than the rest of us might be able to endure — he wandered into the loan committees of the big banks like a conqueror. It always gave me a charge how See “What a rise,” 15
“Great idea,” says me, skeptical and foggy. “Miss,” says Craig, to an outrageously beautiful blond sauna attendant. “Can you help me write a speech in Norwegian?” Thereupon occurred an act of extraordinary intelligence on Craig’s part, not to mention patience on Miss Sauna’s. Craig wrote down what he wanted to say and then asked her to say it slowly in Norwegian. She did, with bemusement at this outside-the-job-description request. Craig scratched down a few letters at each of her slow sonorous enunciations, half words, rises, falls, so that phonetically, the stark letters and groups of letters represented in sort of a short hand, the Norwegian words as spoken. He slowly read it back to the young lady’s amused delight. “No, no. You must say …,” she gently admonished. So she said it again. And Craig wrote it down again. “No, no, no …” She said it again and Craig scribbled again. In time, the change room floor was littered with the scratchings of progress. Like two roads converging, the differences were obliterated; cadence, inflecSee “To the youth,” page 15
What’s a brand worth? Plenty, writes Ray Dillon, including the opportunity to grab people’s attention, tell our story and demonstrate our strengths
S
everal years ago, the company I worked for was acquired by a mainland interest. At an introductory meeting a well-intentioned Albertan cracked the joke, “Now that there is a bridge built to ‘New-finlind,’ does that make you all mainlanders, or are we all Newfies now?” While my thin-skinned constitution caused me to be annoyed by the mispronunciation of my home province and use of the term “Newfie,” what was most alarming was the complete lack of knowledge and differentiation by people in my own country of two entirely different provinces. This example is far from isolated. We’ve all experienced it. For as much as we believe we are unique, by many we are thought of as no more than an Atlantic Canadian homogeneous blob. Business and leisure travelers view our provinces as practically the same, with some areas just a little harder to get to
RAY DILLON
Board of Trade than others. Perhaps it was with this in mind the government launched its much-hyped and long-anticipated new brand. And while there has been criticism of the brand chosen and the cost to produce it (with the invariable lowest common denominator comparison to the number of hospital beds that could have been purchased with that money), this criticism has been surprisingly light, which politically translates into an overwhelming endorsement of the branding strategy. A brand is more than a logo. It is a symbol of identity and a collection of perceptions in the mind of a consumer. Walter Landor, one of the greats of the advertising industry, said simply, “a brand is a
promise.” By identifying and authenticating a product or service, it delivers a pledge of satisfaction and quality. The notion of a brand being an asset is a relatively new phenomenon, and for the most part has been the domain of the big business only. However, over the last decade the notion of branding for small and mid-sized business as well as various levels of government has moved from the esoteric to the generally accepted. The realization that care and nurturing must be given to more than just the things you can stub your toe on is now mainstream. The value of brand development and maintenance has arrived. So what’s a brand worth? Large successful organizations value their brands into the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, with a select few valued in the billions. A company’s balance sheet will list a significant portion of its total assets as “goodwill,” much of which is tied to its brand. Nike values its brand at over
half a billion dollars. Coca-Cola has trademarks alone valued at $2 billion, with goodwill and other intangible assets listed at another $2 billion. Surely an entire province’s brand value has to be significant? However, like so many of our other assets (think water, fish, oil, timber) we have become lazy and careless with our brand over the years, with over 40 different logos and images representing our province. In a world of increasingly sophisticated leisure travelers and a foreign business community with a staggering amount of choice in where it can operate, the continued lack of attention to the Newfoundland and Labrador brand will only serve to undersell ourselves to the world. The logo itself is stylish and unique. In a sea of flags and coats of arms that traditionally represent places, it will be noticed above the traditional sameness. Brands are, however, more than stylized
images. To become successful they need to become the embodiment of an organization and its people, their values and culture (think of an organization like the YM-YWCA and all of the things their “Y” means to their community). This will be a formidable task for our province, given the relatively modest means we have to invest at this time, but a worthwhile cause. That you love or hate the logo is almost irrelevant. What’s important is that it gets people’s attention, and offers us the opportunity to tell our story and demonstrate our strengths and advantages as a people and place. Perhaps even more importantly, it signals that we are recognizing the value of yet another important asset that will be key in bridging future prosperity. Ray Dillon is President of the St. John’s Board of Trade. His column will return Oct. 27.
14 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS
OCTOBER 13, 2006
OUR TERMS
M
ost members of The Independent’s panel tended to agree: equalization, guaranteed in the Constitution, must be preserved. And a watchful eye must be kept out these days, as changes in the formula are put forward and debated. The panel participants had been invited by The Independent to meet for an afternoon to discuss Newfoundland’s Terms of Union with Canada. Moderated by editorin-chief Ryan Cleary, the talk explored — but wasn’t limited to — five categories: politics, fisheries, oil and gas, finances and transportation. Wells, former Liberal premier Roger Grimes, entrepreneur (and NDP candidate) Peg Norman, St. John’s Mayor Andy Wells, writer Maura Hanrahan, businessman Brian Dobbin, commentator Ray Guy, retired politician John Crosbie, activist Nancy Riche and fisheries advocate Gus Etchegary took part. (Note: Crosbie and Riche were absent from this segment of the discussion). This, the fourth of five excerpts from the discussion, starts on the topic of equalization and meanders through issues arising from the use of the phrase “Atlantic Canada” and some further thoughts on outmigration and the worth of the oil industry. Next week, the discussion winds up with the fifth and final topic: transportation. Comments have been edited for clarity and length. Ryan Cleary: Finances. I’ll let you take the lead on this one, Mr. Grimes. You’ve dealt directly with Ottawa in terms of equalization … would you change anything? Roger Grimes: The thing everyone needs to be a bit nervous about right now is the present-day discussion about the only constitutionally enshrined financial program … (equalization) is one of the underpinnings of the country, period. That’s why it’s in the Constitution as being the only guaranteed financial instrument that the Parliament of Canada must devote money to every year. And the Parliament decides how much … They change the rules form time to time. But, as long as the fundamental premise stays the same — that there’s a redistribution of wealth to guarantee some equality of service throughout the country, if that basic premise is maintained we’re going to be all right. Whenever changes are considered with respect to that, people should be very nervous. Cleary: So as long as the principles of equalization are adhered to, we’re good for finances? Grimes: The rest of it is the kind of thing John Crosbie talked about, the oneoff kind of deals that happen all the time, the Roads for Rails, do this for that, something for ports and harbours, that stuff is going to happen. Maura Hanrahan: Canada health and social transfers, the same way … Grimes: That’s a program controlled completely by the feds, and they decide themselves what to do. There’s no constitutional provision that says they have to have that. Peg Norman: The whole purpose of going into Confederation in my mind would have been to see that we had equity across the country, regardless of where you lived and we’ve seen the Tory government, when they ran two elections ago, part of their platform was the elimination of transfer payments. Martin, when he was Finance minister, also agreed with the elimination of transfer payments. I think, if we’re going to look at our position within the federation of Canada that it’s imperative that we ensure that everybody knows that transfer payments have to be maintained. Otherwise, what do we have? We don’t really have Confederation. Cleary: So that’s the one thing about the Terms that does work, then. Norman: Well it doesn’t work very well. I think there are things that can be done to improve it, but I think it’s imperative that we maintain it. Cleary: What do you think, Brian? Brian Dobbin: I’m a bit too radical for this discussion. Cleary: Be radical, then. Dobbin: Stick them up your ass, is my attitude. You give me management of my oil and gas and my fisheries and my offshore and give me five years and I’ll get the unemployment rate down to 5 per cent and a balanced budget. Hanrahan: But then we’re no longer in the Confederation of Canada. Dobbin: I don’t believe that. We’re a very strong member of Confederation. I agree with Craig (Dobbin)’s theory — which is, I don’t want to get out of (Confederation), I want to get into it … Ray Guy: Why don’t we hear more from the rest, the other Maritime provinces? Have they been there so long, have they been so numbed by the system of Confederation, are they so used to it that they can’t think of anything else? Dobbin: I think that’s a good point. I think we didn’t start with the right question, we should have started with ‘are we happy in our situation in Canada?’Are they happy with their situation? Is anyone? Guy: You never hear a peep from Nova Scotia. They always get two or three strong federal ministers. They’ve been in it so long. Dobbin: You think their rate of contentment is higher.
‘The region is not a region’ Independent panel recommends vigilance over equalization discussions; believes province shouldn’t be lumped in with other Atlantic provinces
Former premier Roger Grimes
Andy Wells: They got screwed in 1867. Seriously, if you look at Nova Scotia, before Confederation, the lines of trade were north to south, they were trading right into the U.S. seaboard. They were a wealthy territory or whatever they were. Of course once Confederation came in, down came the barriers to trade, they had to trade east and west and that’s how they got screwed with the national tariffs. No truck or trade with the Yankees … all that did was screw Nova Scotia. Guy: Was it such a vile violation that they’ve been speechless ever since? Wells: I can’t speak for them, I know they’ve screwed us on the airport, Air Canada, so I don’t have much time for Nova Scotia. Guy: Well who does? But because they’re second on the ladder, they look down on us as lower … We’ve got the same ocean more or less, we’ve got the same … what do these people think? Hanrahan: Can I just bring up something that’s related to finances? And that is, more and more, we’re being treated as part of a region called Atlantic Canada Wells: Yah, well screw that, honey. Hanrahan: We’re culpable of that in our newspapers, some of us have used that phrase, Atlantic Canada, but we need to insist that we are dealt with as a province, period, end of story. Wells: Hear, hear. Hanrahan: If you look at programs and services, there might be what they call a funding envelope for a service and we’re in with Atlantic Canada. So 95 per cent of the funds for that service might go to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick but we’re considered covered off and we’re not. We have to make this a big issue. Wells: I will not refer to us as being part of Atlantic Canada. Guy: But, Andy, don’t you think you get a different view from here? In the rest of the province as far as I can tell, the lights are blinking out all along the shore. Wells: That’s happening all across Canada. Hanrahan: Across the world. Guy: I’m talking about Newfoundland, not the goddamn Atlantic provinces! But here in St. John’s, Nan and Poppy are rushing in, and Darlene and Darren are high-tailing it to Alberta … so you get a relative bit of growth here. The oil people come nosing around, they patronize the hotels. I think it’s an entirely different picture here. Wells: It is. I make the argument that we have more in common with urban areas in the rest of Canada than we do with rural Newfoundland, unfortunately. As Maura just said, this is not just our reality, it’s all across the world. If you talk about China, did you know there’s going to be 300 million people living in rural parts of China the next 10 years are going to move to the city? It’s not just happening here. I have a friend in Norway, people are leaving rural Norway. Cleary: No, the difference here is the fact that our fishery has been destroyed. Wells: There are the same problems all over the world. People are leaving rural areas for whatever reason because they’ve got nothing to do. If you can’t give people something meaningful to do in their lives, they’re going to leave, unless you’re going
Paul Daly/The Independent
to subsidize them through some kind of make-work project and stuff like that. Guy: They could come here and be a civil servant. Wells: What would you do? What would you do, if you’re living around the bay and you’ve got no prospects. Guy: I’d go to B.C. Wells: Newfoundlanders are not lazy, they want to be doing something. Guy: When the youngsters were fairly small, one came home, and we asked her where her little friend at school was from. And, being the proper Townie, she said, ‘Oh I don’t know, Dad, one of those Bay places.’ I said, Jesus, if your grandmother could hear you, she’d have the knife across your throat. Hanrahan: Another thing, when we get lumped in with Atlantic Canada, we have separate economic issues — we’re threeand-a-half times the size of the Maritimes, we’ve got a smaller population, more sparse, all that kind of stuff. The region, it isn’t a region. Gus Etchegary: There’s a distinct difference between Nova Scotia and the Atlantic provinces and this one. And our late entry into Confederation really exacerbates the differences. We have been behind always. Guy: Tell that to Cape Breton. Etchegary: Even Cape Breton. The fact is … that when we went into Confederation, all these things were established in Atlantic Canada. All these (federal) departments were there. And you know, the fact of the matter is, the situation was worsened by the fact that in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, when we were getting used to Confederation and there were exchanges between Newfoundland and Ottawa, 95 per cent of the meetings between Ottawa and St. John’s were held in Halifax. But coming back to this business of the oil and gas, you (Wells) make a projection ahead 70 or 80 years from now. That’s pure speculation. Wells: I said, might. Etchegary: In 25 years there might not … the first chair of the C-NLOPB, when Hibernia started, he told me it had 16 years of life. That’s what he told me. Wells: It’s up to 30 now. Dobbin: Because that’s the lie Mobile told them. Etchegary: The fact remains, it’s not renewable. Wells: I’m not saying it’s renewable, but I’m saying we’ve got a 50-year horizon to do something with this place and if we can’t do something, then we should, whoever’s around then should just, Jesus, put on that 25-pound weight and jump into a clean harbour. (Everyone laughs) Dobbin: But there’s no point staying in a welfare state. Wells: Four years, eight years, 10 years … based on what we know, based on what people are saying, is we have a world-class — I hate that expression … We’ve got a lot of oil and a lot of gas and we’ve got the possibility for creating the basis for some serious prosperity. Whether or not we manage it correctly remains to be seen. Cleary: OK, let’s push ahead to the next category … Next week: transportation.
OCTOBER 13, 2006
INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 15
Working for EI From the first days of Confederation, Newfoundlanders have been drawing unemployment benefits By Mandy Cook The Independent
F
ord Parsons, a 60-year-old forklift operator at a fish plant in Triton, Notre Dame Bay, doesn’t know how he’s going to make it through this winter because he hasn’t got enough hours to claim employment insurance. He is so concerned, he sent a fax detailing the exact number of hours he’s worked processing mackerel for the entire year — 475, or about 12 weeks — to numerous government and union officials and members of the media. It’s information usually thought too personal to be shared, let alone publicized in a faxing blitz. Suggestions of a pay cut to $11 an hour for FPI workers, like Premier Danny Williams’ suggested several weeks ago, worries Parsons. “Marystown was guaranteed 35-40 hours a week,” he says. “We’re not guaranteed nothing. If we were on a guarantee of 35-40 hours a week work, you would consider a small cut. But how can you cut on my hours?” Parsons’ plight is a common one. His EI claim, or employment insurance, will not amount to much with only 12 weeks of work under his belt. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador has had a history of reliance on unemployment benefits. The late Ted Russell
“Marystown was guaranteed 35-40 hours a week. We’re not guaranteed nothing. If we were on a guarantee of 35-40 hours a week work, you would consider a small cut. But how can you cut on my hours?” Forklift operator Ford Parsons said, in the months leading up to Confederation, the Newfoundland cabinet realized Newfoundlanders would be unable to receive unemployment insurance because they had no stamps for books and thus made no contributions to the fund. Newfoundlanders, therefore, did not qualify for benefits. Russell, a politician in the 1940s, is quoted in Uncle Mose: The Life of Ted Russell: “Immediately, thousands were put to work — in
January and February — at such jobs as repairing roads and mending cemetery fences. On March 31, having supplied these men with stamps, the government fired them, thus qualifying them for benefits. Many men forgot all about fishing that spring. For many, it was their first experience with legal cheating; thousands have never recovered from it.” According to Service Canada, there were 97,000 employment insurance claims filed in Newfoundland and Labrador in the fiscal year 2004/2005, amounting to a total of $764 million worth of employment insurance cheques. For the tax year ending 2002, workers and employers paid a combined total of $307 million into the employment insurance pot — not even half of what Revenue Canada pays out in EI to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Parsons says he is too old to pack up and move away in order to survive. He says he’s worked too hard to lose the “little bit” he has to bar it up and leave his home town. A fellow forklift operator even gave up two of his own weeks to allow Parsons’ a little bit more work. “He carried the seniority so he had a nice few good weeks, right? So he gave up two weeks so I could get two sensible weeks to see if I could survive.”
Ford Parsons’ hours of work April 24-April 29: 15 May 1-May 6: 54 May 8-May 13: 55 May 15-May 20: 15 May 21-June 3: 18 June 5-June 10: 19 June 12-June 17: 7 June 26-July 1: 21 July 3-July 8: 26 July 10-July 15: 68 July 16-July 22: 20 July 24-July 29: 16 July 31-Aug 5: 14 Aug 14-Aug 18: 14 Aug 28-Sept 2: 13 Sept 14-Sept 9: 8 Sept 11-Sept 16: 17 Sept 18-Sept 23: 33 Sept 25-Sept 30: 42 Total hours worked in 2006:475 Number of EI claimants in NL, 2004/2005: 97,000 Total amount paid out in EI benefits in NL, 2004/2005: $764 million Total amount paid into EI in NL, 2002: $307 million
mandy.cook@theindependent.ca
‘To the youth of our two nations’ From page 13 tion, intonation and all. “Perfect,” she said with delight to her first, and surely favourite, language student. So, armed with that precious piece of paper, in a code that no KGB agent could break, we dashed to the airport to catch the plane to Oslo. That night was more than I could have imagined. The place was a sea of tuxes; the fare robust; the air of pride and accomplishment palpable. When Craig’s turn came, the audience was interested; when he finished, they rose as one. And it was not simply an act of politeness … he galvanized the room. I turned to one of our Norwegian partners and asked: “What did he say?” With pride in his eyes, he reported: “Something very appropriate and in good Norwegian. He said: “Ladies and Gentlemen: I would like to propose a toast to NPC, to Nortek and to the youth of our two nations.” Exactly, word for word, what Craig had asked the young lady to teach him. Were I as good a student.
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16 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS
OCTOBER 13, 2006
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INDEPENDENTLIFE
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13-19, 2006 — PAGE 17
Karla Pilgrim
Paul Daly/The Independent
‘I can’t escape it’ Music has always been part of Karla Pilgrim’s life — from her earliest days in a bassinette under the piano at church, to her current job as a gigging musician. Next stop: Nashville.
I
t’s a cool, clear Thursday night and a happy crowd has gathered at the Rose and Thistle pub on Water Street in St. John’s. Honeyblond hair pulled back in a knot off her pink, cherubic face, Roddickton native Karla Pilgrim kicks off her black pumps on the bar’s rough wooden stage. Unlike most of us, she doesn’t need the extra inches. She is a tall, broad woman and has a voice to match. Country is her muse, but Pilgrim has an exhaustive store of classic covers ranging from Sarah McLachlan’s Angel to Jann Arden’s Good Mother to draw from. She readily fields raucous requests shouted out from the audience with an accom-
modating and polite: “Yes, ma’am, I can do that.” Instantly, she launches into Kris Kristofferson’s Me and Bobby McGee to the delight of the young girl parked in front of the stage. Alone under the spotlight, Pilgrim sometimes sings with her eyes closed, sometimes calmly staring down the crowd over her microphone. As much of a presence as she brings to the stage — which she does in spades — it’s her powerhouse voice that nails you to your seat. She belts out the big moments, softly breathes the quieter ones, and easily travels up and down the octaves. Tanya Penney, herself a wellknown local chanteuse, raves about
her colleague after stepping off the stage for a duet with Pilgrim. “She has a breathtaking voice,” says Penney. “She really is a fantastic performer. I would say she has a world-class voice.” The next day, Pilgrim is tending bar on George Street. Between holding down her day job and gigging around town, she’s finally about to achieve one of her lifelong dreams: traveling to Nashville, Tenn., the heart of country music and home of the Grand Ole Opry. In Pilgrim’s mind, it was a guaranteed eventuality. “Living in Roddickton, it’s such a small place, it’s so isolated and so religious, there’s no bars, and I didn’t think (a music career) was out there
for me,” she says. “All that was in my head was, ‘Nashville.’ I was like, OK, I’m in Roddickton, here’s Nashville, how do I get there?” The answer appeared in a commercial that invited aspiring country music singers to audition for Nashville Star, the country version of reality-series American Idol. Now in its fifth season, the show launched the career of Nova Scotia native George Canyon, who has since gone on to rack up multiple country music awards. The long lead up to Pilgrim packing her bags and dropping $1,800 for her plane ticket starts in her tiny See “I’m going to wing it,” page 20
Stories for screen
Directors Jordan Canning and Victoria King on their latest work — and what being a woman in film, in Newfoundland, is all about By Devon Wells For The Independent
I
t’s a world away from Hollywood, with more fog lights than spotlights, but the City of St. John’s touches down on the global film scene with the annual International Women’s Film Festival. Although big-name talent will be screening their work this year — Mary Walsh and Gwyneth Paltrow, for
instance — it’s the lesser-knowns who give the festival its life, showing their flicks to an audience eager for something new and strange. The festival’s mandate is to highlight women in key roles in the film industry, particularly those of screenwriter, director, or producer. There’s an impressive amount of homegrown talent floating around. Jordan Canning is relatively new to the industry, even though she’s grown
up with the movies (her mom is a production designer). Young and hip, she sits in Hava Java gushing about film; her second short film, Thick and Thin, will screen at the festival next week. “I didn’t want to wait another year to make another film,” she says, citing Pillow Talk, her debut film that took home the William F. White Award for Excellence in a First Film Production at last year’s festival. “I was eager to get back at it and really wanted to keep
learning.” Initially called Thick as Thieves, Thick and Thin follows two girls who get into a dodgy situation one day after school that brings them closer together. The film evolved from a short story Canning had written that was reworked through a screenwriting workshop. “I guess I just had some issues about teenage girls that I needed to get over,” she says. “I find friendships between teenage girls really interesting and
bizarre sometimes — the people you become friends with in high school even though you have nothing in common with them and they treat you like garbage.” Tense connections crop up again and again in Canning’s films: Pillow Talk is about a couple, Thick and Thin is about friends, and her latest film, Here On In, is about a father and daughter. See “It’s a struggle,” page 19
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OCTOBER 13, 2006
18 • INDEPENDENTLIFE
GALLERYPROFILE
Jon James photos
Corner Brook’s community mural CORNER BROOK By Jonathan Walsh For The Independent
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midst major renovations inside the Sir Wilfred Grenfell Art Gallery, student Logan Wood and gallery director Gail Tuttle recently began an innovative art project, combining creative talents from the university and those of the community. Shared Vision: Painting a Togetherness Mural, began on Sept. 30. “The gallery is trying to make art accessible,” says Wood. “A lot of people have the idea that the art gallery only serves the college community, or is only for people who have a fine arts background.
“But that’s not true. This is a public art gallery, and we want to get that focus out into the community. We want to show people what we have. The exhibitions are of contemporary and relevant work, that people can relate to and appreciate regardless of their artistic background.” While Grenfell students of all disciplines have been adding work to the mural, Wood is astounded by the interest from other members of the community. Members of the public are welcome to stop by and paint, draw, or otherwise add to the ever-expanding art space during gallery hours. And Wood says the response from all quarters has exceeded expectations. “It has been evolving everyday,” says
This is a public art gallery, and we want to get that focus out into the community. Logan Wood
Wood, a social-cultural studies student. “And the metamorphosis of the mural is what makes it so exciting and relevant. “When we think of communities,
there are always social changes. It’s the ability of the people to work together and evolve that keep the community together … We’re trying to reflect this in the work in a way that is free of judgment and criticism.” The mural has also provided a chance for young artists to debut their talents. With the assistance of art teacher Eileen Murphy, Grade 7 students at G.C. Rowe Junior High will add pieces of themselves to the mural. Using images of the students in active poses, Murphy will help them create silhouettes. “For the children, this is a big opportunity,” says Murphy. “It is such a gift from the college, for the students to present their expressions in a profes-
sional gallery. “These students are innocent and new. So it is a great time for them to realize that art is a part of our world. It is a chance for the creative spark to soar within them, and to be encouraged to draw, paint, and be imaginative.” The project is scheduled to conclude Oct. 28, when the public is invited to partake in the closing ceremony. Until then, Wood and Tuttle welcome the people of Corner Brook and surrounding areas to join in, channeling artistic creativity and establishing lasting bonds between casual observers and the campus art gallery. For more gallery information, visit www.swgc.mun.ca/artgallery
OCTOBER 13, 2006
INDEPENDENTLIFE • 19
Belonging to the brand A
ll the fuss about the recent provincial branding exercise brings Marshal McLuhan’s famous dictum sharply into focus. Wisely anticipating the dominant place of advertising in our culture, the high priest of pop culture recognized over 40 years ago that the medium was the message. You could make any product attractive if you packaged it well. Indeed, if you didn’t then your product would sink to the bottom of the bin like a remaindered novel. The global village in which we live is so much more a market place of images than it was in McLuhan’s own time that there is enormous pressure on anyone hustling a product to have it stand out boldly. In McLuhan’s time, branding exercises were subtle affairs, almost imperceptibly rolled out to sneak up on the consumer. One day you just knew Coke was It or that You’d Come a Long Way, Baby. Partly because of the understated, some would say sneaky, ways advertisers once deployed their campaigns, suspicion grew that consumers were being coaxed into buying products through subliminal seduction. This notorious phrase was popularized in the early ’70s by a maverick self-promoter named Wilson Bryan Key, who claimed ads for whiskey, soap, and dozens of other ordi-
NOREEN GOLFMAN Standing Room Only nary objects deliberately concealed images of skulls, animals humping, suggestive body parts, and other vaguely associative concepts. People went quite crazy about all this twaddle and although it was never clear what naked breasts in an ice cube would do to help the sales of a certain brand of whiskey, Key made a killing by promoting paranoia and even giving advertisers a few neat ideas about how to package their product. At the core of his outrageous claims, however, was a kernel of advertising truth related to McLuhan’s own argument — that is, that twists or plays of meaning do help shape what people think about a product and actually influence its value. Today, all the stealth has gone out of advertising campaigns and we now openly rely on the media to announce a media campaign, to show the twists of meaning. The common practice of launching a campaign has been directly driven by the Internet where you can dramatically mark a specific moment in
time to unfurl your image. There is no longer anything to apologize or be defensive about and the seller usually volunteers all you want to know about how the image was arrived at and how we are to interpret its meaning. So it is that the province staged a flashy, unabashedly proud press conference to herald its new brand. That the conference was scheduled for The Rooms was especially apt, underscoring the artiness of the exercise and elevating it above the level of crass commercialism. It is safe to say the campaign launch was an instant hit, if not a show-stopping jaw-dropping, gobsmacking dazzler. How can one not harbour affection for that odd fuzzy headed, pink carnivore called a pitcher plant? To date, it’s been the least exploited natural object around, without the cute-factor of a puffin or the forbidding grandeur of an iceberg. It’s still fresh, familiar enough to make sense but free of cliché. Amazingly, it hasn’t yet appeared on tshirts, plates, or coffee mugs, and it hasn’t been crooned about in song. Speaking of which, young Melissa Murphy’s clear clean voice on the animated video that brings the pitcher plant to life puts the tingle deep into the spinal cord. How brilliant to draw on a
Director Victoria King
Paul Daly/The Independent
‘It’s a struggle’ From page 17 “I definitely think I have a story style, which I may want to break out of at some point, but the running theme in Jordan Canning films seems to be simple little meditations on relationships between people,” she says. But film is more than just story, and Canning is growing more aware of her visual style. “I love movement,” she says, going on to explain the complex dolly and jib setup she used for the swooping shots of Here On In, and the rugged handheld shots of Thick and Thin. “Of course, it has to suit the film.” Still, virtuosic shots are no problem with the crew available in Newfoundland, through the Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers Cooperative (NIFCO). “Starting out, Newfoundland rocks,” says Canning. “For me, being a brandspanking new filmmaker starting out, it’s probably the best place in the universe to be … It’s so small, but we have such amazing resources through NIFCO and through the crew we have here and through the mentors we have here. “There’s really nothing standing in your way.” Cut 14 years into the future and Jordan Canning could be Victoria King, the seasoned documentarian and CBC producer who is also screening a new film, Becoming 13, at this year’s festival.
Shifting from the funky Hava Java to the more urbane Coffee and Co., King shares the same enthusiasm for film as Canning, but it’s tempered into a polished, but warm, professionalism. Becoming 13 follows three 12-yearold girls from St. John’s over a ninemonth period as they make the transition from childhood to adolescence. While these years are undoubtedly tough, King says the media has blown the image of the angsty teenager out of proportion. “The majority of girls are doing very normal, not-risky things and just struggling like everyone else is in their lives to get through their own set of stresses,” says King. For the film, King recruited the girls — Avi, Jazmine, and Jane — from schools and youth groups and tracked them over the year, watching them change and mature. “It’s that time (of your life) … when you’re just buzzing,” says King. “Every day you’re learning another thing about how you interact with the world.” Like Canning, King started her career by hanging around NIFCO and getting instant hands-on experience. “I wanted to learn the craft of that kind of storytelling. I guess it always comes back to wanting to tell stories.” While she initially planned to move into cinematography, King soon realized she longed to direct her own work, and that meant documentaries. “Lots of people are led into documen-
taries because it’s the kind of place you can start without needing a great big gigantic crew, like you do on dramatic films,” says King. “But the reality turned out that I happen to love that kind of engagement with people and telling stories about people’s lives.” There’s no shortage of captivating material in her home province. Besides Becoming 13 and her work for CBC, King also made the award-winning White Thunder, a historical documentary about Varick Frissell, an American filmmaker who came to shoot a film on the seal hunt for Paramount in the 1930s. Frissell was killed in an explosion aboard the ship. Stories like these can’t be found anywhere else, she says. “The kind of stuff that I’m interested in, I can do out of here,” says King. “I’m happy to travel and do my work that way, but I’m fully embedded in Newfoundland and St. John’s.” With a strong community of supporters and a booming festival to show their work, it’s getting easier for Newfoundland women to make headway in the film industry. “It’s a struggle,” says King, “but it’s no more of a struggle than lots of work other people do.” The 17th St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival runs Oct. 18 – 22. See www.womensfilmfestival.com for schedule.
POET’S CORNER The Philosophy of Berry Picking Berry picking with the gatherer’s instinct we hike the trails high on the smell of fall an occasional, “Is it much further?” Berry picking it was worth the walk we arrive to the abundance of berries in this solitude we reminisce over new friends their thirst for life, for adventure the adversity they, we face.
And old friends only permitted a short time to touch hearts SO, That, as we gather a few more to last the winter we can’t help but remember Berry picking together we regale
To Alexandria at our fortune: “Look at the size a dis one!” as we sit berry stained the fall sun warming our skin illuminating those frosted treasures awaiting Berry picking with the coolness of fall creeping in, we kneel, stained fingers buckets and stomachs filled knowing
it’s time to go Berry picking containers filled somehow our walk is lighter. and there is no “How much further?” the day of berry picking behind Us we proudly say: “These should last the winter!” By Fleur Kenward, St. John’s
15-year-old to sing of a new dawn. You’d have to feel guilty for dismissing it all as a giant waste of taxpayers’ money. This is what’s so smart about it. McLuhan recognized that for the product to work it actually had to promote the consumer. Good advertising provides consumers with an identity, a sense of belonging to something, even if it’s just a community of consumers who all like/use/wear/eat/smell/visit the same product. Not participating in it suggests a cranky mean-spiritedness. And so it is especially important that the community from which the brand has sprung gives its consent. Only then can one pitch it to where it is ultimately destined, in the words of the premier, the “competitive global marketplace.” As the last few weeks have shown, the brand is working at least on the first level, as an invitation to belong to a community of users. In the age of the Internet and easy technological access, the product also invites active participation in its own creation. Already there are playful riffs on the brand, signaling its inherent appeal and pliability. A mere few days after its launch, CBC Radio’s Weekend Arts Magazine played a wonderfully inventive remixed “house” version of Murphy’s song. Audibly amused host Angela Antle wel-
comed more versions of the same for our listening pleasure. On NTV, Pete “Snook” Soucy quickly teed off in typical hilarious fashion on the image, arguing that the stylized heads of the pitcher plant resemble the big buttons on his mother’s coat, and no doubt many other punsters and players will be taking shots, at once cheap and affectionate, at the new brand. For McLuhan and his followers these are clear signs of the success of the campaign, an acknowledgement that the consumer has already taken possession of it, helping to define it in the “cool” dynamic and interactive environment McLuhan so famously described. Whether the brand travels well beyond the borders of the community that shaped and is reacting to it remains to be seen. Will browsing tourists desire to be part of that community, anxious not to miss out on its charms? Will modern consumers see and hear it in the absurdly cluttered, noisy media environment they inhabit everyday? Perhaps. McLuhan also wrote, “Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery.” McLuhan would approve. Noreen Golfman is a professor of literature and women’s studies. Her column returns Oct. 27.
OCTOBER 13, 2006
20 • INDEPENDENTLIFE
I’m not an advertising genius, but … Sean Panting has his own ideas for the provincial branding campaign
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o it looks like, for better or worse, we have a new provincial logo. Danny Williams et al rolled it out last week amid the kind of hype usually reserved for election campaigns and fish plant re-openings. It’s hip, it’s cutting edge, it’s going to change the way Newfoundland and Labrador does business in the 21st century … it’s a pitcher plant. Or, more accurately, it’s three pitcher plants perched like bulbous alien invaders over the words Newfoundland and Labrador. Plus, they used a Celtic font. Fancy. Leaving aside the whole pitcher plant issue for a second, using those two words — “Newfoundland” and “Labrador” — was an inspiration so simple it’ll have every graphic design team in the free world slapping their foreheads in awe and wonder. If you want people to know a product is from Newfoundland and Labrador, just write the province’s name on it. Of course there’s far more to it than that. These people are professionals after all. You see, instead of writing out the correct name of the province, they’ve omitted the unnecessary “and.” It’s a bold design move that says, “Newfoundland and Labrador: we’re way too busy growing our economy and thinking outside the box to waste our valuable time with conjunctions.” Pretty smart, hey? I’m sure it was worth every penny they (that is to say we) spent on it. Danny certainly seems to think so. And as for the pitcher plants, he feels they’re the perfect symbol for Canada’s youngest and coolest province. Because nothing says young and cool like a plant
SEAN PANTING
State of the art that eats bugs. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have a great deal in common with the pitcher plant. That’s what the ad campaign we’re paying for says, anyway. What’s that supposed to mean, exactly? Are we a vegetative yet carnivorous people who enjoy standing around in the bog? Frankly, I’m confused. Now, I may not be an advertising genius, but I’ve got a couple of halfdecent provincial symbol ideas myself: 1) A rock. More than fish, more than trees, and certainly a hell of a lot more than pitcher plants, rocks are what this province is all about. They’re what it’s made of, for starters. And if we’re talking symbols for toughness and resilience, given a showdown between a rock and a pitcher plant, my money is on the rock every time. 2) Maybe we should forget the flora altogether and move right on to the fauna. I ask you, what member of the animal kingdom is more beloved in these parts than the mighty moose? Providing artistic inspiration and protein-rich nutrition to everyone from Lloyd and Brice to Buddy Whatshisname and the Other Fellers, the moose is a true Newfoundland/Labrador icon. Granted, they’ve developed a bit of a P.R. problem what with them standing
Premier Danny Williams at the brand unveiling
around in the road and getting hit by cars all the time, but by the same token that’s just the kind of “takes a licking and keeps on ticking” behavior we as a people hold in such high regard. I can see the ad campaign now: “They may be large, stinky and monstrously stupid, but like the proud Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who hunt them down and shoot them, they’ve managed to overcome these shortcomings to become one of the tastiest creatures in the woods.” Or something like that. I’m still working on the wording.
home community on the Northern Peninsula. Both of her parents were involved in their town church — her mother the organist and her father the choir director. Pilgrim’s church was of the apostolic faith, started by a black missionary from California who infused the community with southern gospel music. And, in turn, influenced Pilgrim’s musical tastes. “They used to have me in the
bassinette when they’d take me to choir practice and put me under the piano when I was asleep,” she says. “When I was awake I’d be passed around in the choir while they were rehearsing. It was from when I was born — I can’t escape it.” Pilgrim steps away from the tall stool she’s sitting on to serve a patron at the bar. As she returns, she recognizes her own voice over the sound system. It’s her demo recording, filled with covers and original material. Her voice is confident, rich and
hard cash. Let’s slap the little buggers all over our products and see if we can’t get them to do us a bit of good for a change. Or alternatively, if you really can’t stomach the idea of cozying up to the cod-stock decimating little rascals, how about putting pictures of sealers clubbing them on all our products. That’ll get some attention. And you know what they say — there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Sean Panting is a writer, actor and musician living in St. John’s. His column returns Oct. 27.
EVENTS
‘I’m going to wing it’ From page 17
3) Two words: baby seals. Let’s face it — say “Newfoundland” anywhere else in the world and people, if they’ve heard of us at all, will think of one of the following three things: icebergs, whales or baby seals. With icebergs at risk due to global warming and whales being so last century, that leaves your pal and mine, the loveable, huggable white coat seal. I figure we should take a cue from all the protest groups who’ve been able, time and time again, to parlay the white coat’s supernatural cuteness into cold
Paul Daly/The Independent
accented with lovely vocal trills. Singing is her comfort zone, and it shows in her casual approach to the moment she’s been waiting for all of her life. “I don’t know what I’m going to sing until I get on stage,” she says. “I’ve got enough country songs in my back pocket to pull out. I’m going to wing it. I’m not even nervous for some reason. Even if nothing happens. I can say I’ve been to Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry.” mandy.cook@theindependent.ca
OCTOBER 13 • Launch for Mary Dalton’s new book of poetry, Red Ledger. Music and readings, 5 p.m., LSPU Hall, St. John’s. • The Good Thief, by Conor McPherson, peformed by Aiden Flynn and directed by Chuck Herriott. Rabbittown Theatre, St. John’s, 7398220, 7:30 p.m. OCTOBER 14 • A Cabaret Night of French Song, with Mary Barry, Anita Best, Jean Hewson, Christina Smith, and Colleen Power, 8 p.m., French Community
Centre, 65 Ridge Rd. (beside the Marine Institute), St. John’s. • The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (abridged), a celebrated comedy about three modern-day Shakespearean actors out to perform all of Shakespeare’s works in one play, 2 p.m., Rabbittown Theatre, St. John’s, 739-8220. • Sean Panting in concert, 8 p.m., Rabbittown Theatre,739-8220. • Respect! A tribute to the women of Motown, featuring Janet Cull, KellyAnn Evans, and Crystal McCarthy, Gander Arts and Culture Centre, 8 p.m. OCTOBER 15 • Avalon Unitarian Fellowship regular Sunday service, 10:30 a.m., Anna Templeton Centre, Duckworth Street, 726-0852. • Active Vision, live music for silent film with Pat Boyle (trumpet) and Adam Tiller (synths), Rabbittown Theatre, St. John’s, 739-8220. • Respect! A tribute to the women of Motown, Gordon Pinsent Centre for the Arts, Grand Falls-Windsor, 8 p.m. • Kevin Collins in concert, St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre, 8 p.m. Also performs Oct. 16. • A Choral Benefit Concert for Bridges to Hope/Food aid centre, featuring the Philharmonic Choir of the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, Vanier Elementary School Choir, Gower Street United Church Senior Choir, The Anchorman Barbershop Chorus and more, 2:30 p.m., Gower Street United Church, St. John’s. Tickets at the door. OCTOBER 16 • Mark Victor Hansen presents Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul, Mile One Centre, St. John’s, $99. • Respect! A tribute to the women of Motown, Goose Bay Arts and Culture Centre, 8 p.m. OCTOBER 17 • Intro to Etching Workshop at St. Michael’s Printshop begins Oct. 17 and continues for four Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30 p.m., call 745-2931 to register. • Respect! A tribute to the women of Motown, Labrador West Arts and Culture Centre, 8 p.m. • Anna Templeton Centre fundraising Moroccan dinner, Ship Pub, St. John’s, 6:30 p.m., 739-7623 for reservations. OCTOBER 18 • Folk night at the Ship Pub, St. John’s, with Bill Garrett and Sue Lothrop, 9 p.m. • St. John’s Women’s Film Festival opening night, St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre, 8 p.m. Workshops and screenings continue all week, visit www.womensfilmfestival.com for details. IN THE GALLERIES • Toward a More Indigenous Art, by Michael Pittmen, RCA Gallery, LSPU Hall, until Oct. 15. • Thaddeus Holownia, The Terra Nova Suite, The Rooms,. • Works by Jim Miller and David Wright, Ocean Road Gallery, Terrance on the Square • New work by Louise Sutton and Greg Bennett, Leyton Gallery.
INDEPENDENTSTYLE
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13-19, 2006 — PAGE 21
Flowers Dried flower arrangements keep beautiful bouquets in your home all winter long By Mandy Cook The Independent
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ny interior decorator worth their salt knows the final, most important touch when finishing a room is a gorgeous flower arrangement in the entry way or on the coffee table in the living room. Now that summer is waning, fresh flowers — wild or cultivated — will become an indulgence purchased at a local florist shop. But if you want to extend the flower season into autumn, you can pick your last garden blooms, carefully dry them, and keep the blossoms on hand to admire the cold months through. According to a floral designer at Murray’s Horticultural Centre and Garden Centre in Portugal Cove,
for fall there are countless options when it comes to drying and decorating with flowers for fall. What is paramount, however, is the time at which flowers are harvested and gathered for the purposes of drying. “You’ve just got to get them at their optimum,” says Martha Tarrant. “Don’t wait until they’re gone past their healthy blooming stage. Get them just as they’re starting to bloom.” Whether you snip some hydrangeas (a puffball, lilac-looking kind of flower) or purple millet (a corn-like plant with a fuzzy, foxtail flower) to brighten your home through the dreary months of winter, there are three simple steps to follow: collect them at the height of their blooming point; hang them upside down to maintain their shape; and, in some cases, desiccate the flowers with silica gel (purchased at craft stores) and store under optiSee “Hassle-free,” page 23 Paul Daly photo/The Independent
OCTOBER 13, 2006
22 • INDEPENDENTSTYLE
TASTE
Skirting spinach turmoil CHICKEN & SPINACH SOUP
By Amy Pataki Torstar wire service
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resh spinach is a dodgy prospect these days. Bagged and loose spinach from the U.S. was banned last month after officials linked it to a widespread E. coli outbreak. Even with the problem stopped at the border, the taint lingers in eaters’ minds. The ban wasn’t an issue at the Niagara Street Café, where chef Michael Caballo continues to use organic spinach from Ontario. Caballo currently dresses baby leaves from Soiled Reputation near Stratford with arbequina olive oil and lemon juice as a garnish for poached chicken with corn and garlic. “I know where my spinach is coming from,” Caballo says. “Maybe this will give restaurants a chance to serve local produce.” It certainly gives us a chance to reconsider using frozen produce. Freezing can kill certain microbes but, more reassuringly, frozen vegetables retain more vitamins and minerals than fresh. For those reasons, I often use frozen Canadian spinach for cooking. It’s perfect for the garlicky Middle Eastern chicken soup below, where the texture doesn’t suffer. And neither do we.
Adapted from Joan Nathan’s The Foods of Israel Today, this soup is from the Galilee region of Israel. By adding cooked rice to the bottom of the bowl and ladling broth and solids over, this soup is substantial enough for a meal. • 2 tbsp each: vegetable oil, olive oil • 1 lb (450 g) boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch cubes • 10 cloves garlic, peeled, crushed • 300 g package frozen chopped spinach, defrosted • 8 cups chicken broth • 1 tsp salt or to taste • 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg • Juice of 2 lemons • Hot cooked white rice, to taste (optional) In large pot, heat oils on medium. Add chicken. Cook, stirring, until golden, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add garlic, spinach, broth, salt and nutmeg. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer briskly 15 minutes. Add lemon juice. If desired, put rice to taste in bottom of soup bowl. Ladle soup over. Makes 6 to 8 servings.
Writers caught up in the ’net W
hen I am not writing about food, I am reading about food. And some of the better writing is found without leaving your chair — it resides on the Internet. When the first blog emerged in 1997, it was an online journal referring to itself as a web-log — only to be hastily shortened to “blog.” Since then, the Internet has evolved as fast as our ever-expanding universe. Just a simple Google search of the word “blog” reveals 2.65 billion results. We see the use of the personal blog as much as we see the personal website. Why do I differentiate the two? Simple: content. If the site is a first-person account of feelings and opinions, then I call it a blog — as do most people. A website is full of the “cold hard facts.” Blogging has become as much a cultural phenomenon as it is a writing phenomenon — to some, sharing the mundane allows us to see that we are not all
NICHOLAS GARDNER Off the Eating Path that boring. However, like all content on the Internet, we should take the writing with a grain of salt or two. My favourite aspect of the blogging community is a growing legion of food writers — just sharing their thoughts, recipes and love of food. One of the first real food blogs created was Chocolate and Zucchini (www.chocolateandzucchini.com) written by Clotilde Dusoulier. She is possibly the most interviewed and referenced Internet food site. Living in Paris, France, she gave up her day job to concentrate full-time on her blog. Not only has C&Z, as it is affectionately known, produced some fabulous writing and photography, it has
permanently placed Dusoulier in superstar status in the online world. She caught the attention of the on-line community with her multitude of awards and soon will hit the shelves as she is releasing her own cookbook based on her blog. There are countless more — some are very well done and have high readership, while others are just sporadic musings on food. When looking for a good site filled with decent food writing start, at Food Porn Watch (foodpornwatch.arrr.net). Every site is hand-selected and vetted for content. You will find hundreds of blogs — all different. Some professional, others not, but all sharing their love of food. Like the Passionate Eater (passionateeater.blogspot.com), a collection of reviews, complete with pictures of food consumed. As well, the recently closed Year in Food (yearinfood.blogspot.com) was a collection of daily restaurant reviews.
When I am not writing on a food blog (I maintain two), I read other newspapers online and find where the best of the best hang their digital shoes. John Mariani (www.johnmariani.com), acclaimed food critic and author of some of the most significant food reference books, sends out a weekly e-zine on food and drink. If you are New Yorkbound, he is a good read before you go. For good video try the New York Times (www.nytimes.com). There, you will find older audio interviews with Ruth Reichl, now the editor of Gourmet magazine. In addition, both the paper’s food and wine critics have blogs — wine critic Eric Asimov as well as Frank Bruni, the man who took over when Reichl left. Across the pond, critical reading includes the incomparable A. A. Gill of the Times of London, (www.sundaytimes.co.uk) whose acid wit is articulated with the brightness and precision of a laser. He reviews restaurants as one
should — with bias towards the sublime and intolerance towards restaurants built on hype but little else. I know in the past I have said information on the Internet is a bit sterile. However, if you dig deep enough and separate the chaff from the wheat, you find that there is a common thread in all of them: a passion to explore a conversation in food. These writers love to share stories and make the world we live in a little smaller and a little more tolerable at a time when these ideals are sadly shrinking away. These sites are increasing every day. The Internet allows us to take a trip around the world or find the latest food news or take a surrogate reservation at a top restaurant — all without leaving the comfort of home. Nicholas Gardner is a freelance writer and erstwhile chef living in St. John’s. nicholas.gardner@gmail.com
OCTOBER 13, 2006
INDEPENDENTSTYLE • 23
Hassle-free plants for your home From page 21 mum conditions. “It’s good to dry them in the dark and cool,” says Tarrant. “The more light they have, the more they’re going to lose their colour. Silica gel is a good way to dry them as well — just spread it out in a tray and gently cover the blossom up and give it however many days is recommended for that type of flower.” Stylists recommend placing your vase on a lazy susan spinner, which allows a full 360 degree view of your arrangement. Then it is just a matter of deciding what kind of design style appeals to you — a full, traditional bouquet, or a sparse, clean, modern look. Tarrant says the two styles have their distinct differences. “In modern you’ve got more clean lines, a very minimal effect, very minimal usage of flowers and materials,” she says. “You’d only use I’d say about three different types of flowers when you’re doing something modern. “Traditional, you’ve got more of a full effect and you get to use a lot more variety. Modern styles are very linear, a straight-up vertical design, traditional designs are very asymmetrical, that type of thing.” Flower favourites at this time of year are the harvest-perfect, vibrant orange Chinese lanterns. Native to Asia and Japan and a member of the nightshade family, the plant is comprised of numerous delicate, paper-like husks that climb up a spindly stalk. Silver dollars are drying right about now, and lavender, tansies and poppy pods are just a few flowers to integrate into an arrangement for your home. Pop them into a champagne glass or vase made of wood or stone and you’ve created a cheerful and visually interesting bouquet.
Kristin Sweetland
Paul Daly/The Independent
And the best part about your dried flowers? You’ll never have to remember to water them. mandy.cook@theindependent.ca
DETAILS
History’s hot date with today Local designers say their clientele look to combine treasured items with current trends By Heidi Wicks For The Independent
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uildings tell the story of a town. In Toronto, the sun ricochets off sky-scraping, pointy towers and shiny condominium complexes. As sleek as the Bay Street suits that live in them, $2 million condos overlook the jungle of snazzy granite and oh-so-stainless steel. Meanwhile, St. John’s Crayola row-houses cuddle apartments with dangerously crooked stairs, slanted hardwood floors and avocado-coloured appliances. The homes at the core of any city exude the people’s collective spirit. And in St. John’s, local designers attest to the fact that the city’s dwellings pulsate imagination and heart, showcasing unique flair on the trends that conventional décor magazines preach. If Oprah’s Nate Burkis spied the wood-panelled, spoon collection-ed walls in so many Newfoundland homes, he’d likely fall to the floor in dismay. But if those spoons are beloved, then they should stay rooted right underneath the framed poster of Jesus. “Ignore the trends!” laughs Kristen Sweetland, owner and operator of Uredesign, a St. John’s-based business that uses people’s oldest and dearest items to create a fresh look. “We’re penny-wise people (here in Newfoundland),” she says. “We’re a very imaginative, traditional and generational society and (unlike most), we still hold very traditional, down-home values. I think this is reflected in the homes here. I’m all about using people’s own items, and making them look fantastic.” Sweetland, who is close friends with Chris Hyndman and Steven Sabados (also known as TV’s original Designer Guys), recently hocus-pocused a long forgotten microwave stand into a sexy entertainment unit. Perhaps Newfoundlanders won’t be so different for so much longer. “Actually, if there’s one design trend I’m noticing throughout North America, it’s that there is a real yearning again to host 1950s-style dinner and cocktail parties at home,” she says. “People everywhere are investing much more love and pride into their homes, just because they’re spending more time there. Society is changing. More people work from their homes now, and more people want to create that cocooning, ‘popcorn and movies’ feeling.” Whether this means society is returning to more
traditional values because they’re wary of traipsing the streets — or whether there’s just not enough time or money for people to have an office and home in different locations — there’s little disputing the current volume of home décor magazines on store shelves. Elizabeth Kennedy of PHB Group, a St. John’sbased architectural firm, is passionate about the design movement’s growth spurt in this province. After completing a design degree at Ryerson University and living in Toronto for seven years, Kennedy was easily convinced when an opportunity arose to return east. She has had a hand in designing everything from the Martini Bar on George Street to Ballistic on Water, to the RCMP buildings. “Interior design is not only colours or paint or furniture. It’s a way of working with people to create spaces that are healthy and productive,” Kennedy says. “There seems to be a consciousness within the design business and with my clients to find systems that lower the amount of energy consumption and create a more ‘green’ design.” The need for highly educated designers is increasing, says Kennedy — and don’t assume a designer is someone who likes looking at paint swatches. Design represents the growth of a healthy world. “All design fields tend to work together in the psychology of design, colour theory, light requirements, proximity, ergonomics. All of these areas come into play when designing. There is no real prominent area, they’re all incorporated to be successful. “Technology is definitely one of interior design’s best friends, and there needs to be great knowledge of how materials are made, and what we can do to put appropriate materials in contact with humans.” In Paris there is the Eiffel Tower, and Centre Pompidou. London has the Tower, and the Gherkin. Both cities are steeped in history, yet they continue to produce architectural beauty, with antique and contemporary structures merrily fusing. From the steps of the Basilica to the doors of Tthe Rooms, the rich historic character of St. John’s resounds from the walls of its buildings. The story of this town is that yesterday’s treasures are going on a hot blind date with contemporary St. John’s culture. heidi_renee79@hotmail.com www.uredesign.com; www.phbgroup.com
Serena Evans
Paul Daly/The Independent
Designing on a roll
S
erena Evans, design consultant at the Paint Shop on Torbay Road, St. John’s, loves digging into her clients’ personalities and reflecting it through their home décor. An upbeat, outgoing and talkative individual usually lives surrounded with brightly coloured walls and funky furniture, she says. Other clients are petrified of change and colour — but if she can convince them to paint their kitchen red, they almost always end up loving it. Above, Evans is pictured with rolls of Toile — elegant, French-inspired material she’ll often use on bedding in a client’s master bedroom. And
there’s wallpaper to match, ideal for the en suite bath, instantly coordinating the rooms. “Wallpaper is slowly coming back,” she insists, “we still use it in front entrances, halfbathrooms … it has a nice, warm look, and adds a little more accent.” There’s also a hot new wallpaper on the market called Muralflex — in comes in a variety of metal looks, including tin, copper, and antiqued metal. It stands up to wear and tear and is much easier to install than sheets of metal. “It’s big for back splashes in kitchens, or ceilings in restaurants and bars,” Evans says.
OCTOBER 13, 2006
24 • INDEPENDENTSTYLE
The décor of three decades ago returning
Two-tongued moose and other myths
By Jo-Ann Dodds Torstar wire service
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aving been to both high school and university in the ’70s, I saw some horrific décor trends surface — and now they’re back. During that time, my parents, who usually are immune to trends, ripped up their fabulous black-and-white linoleum floor to install icky yellowish coloured tiles that were the dernier cri of the ’70s colour palette. The kitchen with its yellow cabinets and black formica countertop lost its graphic punch because of that awful floor but on the positive side, if the cat threw up on it, it would be days before anyone noticed. THE NATURALS The ’60s were about sleek lines, man-made materials and übercool décor, but the ’70s rebelled against that and emphasized a return to nature. Previously sensible people were either rushing to press wild flowers in parchment and making them into lampshades, hewing wood to make strange rustic furniture or making ugly pots in ceramics classes. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, caused a whole generation to question the use of pesticides and challenge companies that polluted the air. PLANTS Every ’70s pad had plants — spider plants that died when people forgot to water them; ficus trees that lost all their leaves if they caught a cold breeze; and avocado trees in large pots. The word macramé became a verb, as in, “I macraméd a plant holder for my spider plant.” COLOUR The colour palette consisted of brown, avocado green, lime green, harvest gold, burnt orange and beige, in keeping with colours found in nature. These colours were enthusiastically applied with no calming neutrals like black, white or grey to tone things down. LIGHTING Lighting design veered from ersatz Tiffany lamps in
Seventies printed shorts modeled with a checkered motif pull-over as part of Pierre Balmain’s readyto-wear fashion collection in Paris. Jack Dabaghian/Reuters
’70s heaven harvest gold, olive green and brown complete with Fat Albert bulbs to bachelor pad lamps such as a chrome ball base and large black shade or Victorian-styled lamps with fringed lampshades.
DEN FOR MEN Esquire magazine was considered the bible of the man in the know for décor, stereo maintenance and bartending. A bachelor pad stocked
with a TEAC tape deck, decent turntable and old icebox converted into a bar was de rigueur for the gent who wanted to attract “chicks” and impress his friends.
’m a Daddy’s girl, but just because I’m his “little treasure” doesn’t mean he won’t sell me out to my mother when it suits him. Survival of the fittest, he tells me. A few months ago my mother started saying odd things. “Does your laundry detergent just evaporate?” she asked once. “Is your detergent full when you buy it?” was another. A few comments later I had to ask. “Mom, are you saying I’m stealing your laundry detergent?” She shot me a look. “No, but I do go through a lot.” The next topic was toilet paper. A few mornings I brought my own when I went for a visit — taking it again when I left. I got The Look and she called me a brat. Then it was the bottles of lobster. “I’d make chowder if I had a few bottles,” she said one day. “It would be nice to have a lobster salad, but I don’t have many left,” was another. “Are you saying I am coming up here and gaffing your canned goods?” I asked. She said no, but she looked contrary. “Dad has to be eating it,” I told her in my defense. “If he did, I would have a bottle to wash now wouldn’t I?” she spat back. I marched down to the store. “Dad, Mom thinks I’m stealing your lobster.” The look on his face gave him away. “I know,” he laughed. “I’ve eaten the whole case and she’s been blaming you for months.” It all came together. The lobster started to go missing, then she started to think the rest of her stuff was disappearing too. In my father’s defense, my mother can be tough, and he has had to learn to adapt. She isn’t trying to be mean. Dad is diabetic and he doesn’t make diabeticlike choices when it comes to grub. He eats after she goes to bed, and he eats like a man with something to hide. He won’t scoop food out, he smoothes it down so it looks untouched. He cleans up crumbs, he washes dishes. With the lobster, he was not only washing the jars and lids, but he put the empties in a hidden case. “We’re telling her,” I said. And we did — he ’fessed up, producing the cleaned empty bottles. “Fine,” my mother said. “Now call and order me some beet because all my last year’s bottles have gone God knows where.” ••• Aliant has done wonders to change my attitude about their services. I actually had someone call me to see if my phone worked after one storm — it did. The rep called the shop and my father answered. He couldn’t hear her — something was wrong with the phone there. She sent someone to check on it. The problem was user error. We were, it seems, too stunned to use the new phones we bought. We had the volume turned down so low we could barely hear a thing. One lady asked for a bag of carrots and I sent her a box of chicken and some Mr. Clean. The phone is fixed.
PAM PARDY GHENT
Seven-day talk It’s safe to place orders. ••• I had moose tongue and taddies the other day for supper, so did the fella who gave it to me. “Imagine the chances,” he winked. “A moose with two tongues!” Another guy didn’t shoot a moose with two tongues, but did get two with the same bullet. Again. I’m sure this can happen, but it just seems to happen so often. I’m not sure if we have poachers or liars out here. Probably both. ••• My son made a bow and arrow with his buddy while I was away. He stayed with a friend and his mom — the man of the house works in Alberta on the six-and-two deal and was away. The boys helped themselves to what they needed to construct these weapons, seemingly unaffected by the absence of a guiding male figure. Someone asked me in Town recently how my boy was making out without his father around. I felt like smacking him. You work so hard as a single mom that comments about you child “lacking” in anything can trigger hostility. My son fished, camped, swam, roasted wieners, and played ball this summer. I pitched a tent with the help of another mother and two passing men (when I got stuck a little). I didn’t need help the second time. I can start a fire, and use a pocketknife. So can my son and all his friends. Now that school has started, I get his butt to karate and track, I struggle with Grade 4 math homework and I wrangle the lad in from his rompings in the evening so he can rest up for another day of the same. My boy’s life is full because I, and other mothers like me, do the best we can, but it’s more than that. Our kids don’t know they are doing without. In our little outport world, there are only two daddies of school-aged children who stay home — and that’s because they’re full-time fishermen. Every other kid, out of the 23 here, has a dad who is away now, who will be leaving soon, or who has been gone before. The only time of the year our community has all its men at home is Christmas. Are our kids doing without? Of course. They have no fathers — on hand anyway. That’s about as “without” as you can get, but I’d rather we say these kids are making do without instead of saying they are doing without. Having a phone daddy is the norm here. That’s why having a phone that works is so important. Now, I have to go. I have a coffee to nuke and moose tongue evidence to dispose of. I might even make a phone call or two. When that’s all done, if I feel like it, I’ll eat some stolen beets. Can’t blame my dad for everything. Pam Pardy Ghent lives in Harbour Mille, Burin Peninsula. Her column returns Oct. 27.
Efficient homes wave of future
J
ust north of Toronto, Vaughan city council has approved eight new subdivisions with 1,058 Energy Star-rated homes near the Kortright Conservation Centre, one of the largest tracts of energy-efficient houses on the drawing board in Ontario. “We believe there will be a big demand for these homes as the cost of energy climbs,” Vaughan’s economic development commissioner Frank Miele says in an interview. Developers for the site, which include Royal Pine Homes, have agreed to design and build the homes to Energy Star standards, Miele said. Future plans for the sustainable community pilot project include an additional 500 homes, a school and some commercial development. Energy Star establishes an energy savings rating system for windows, fixtures, furnaces, building products, fireplaces, insulation, appliances, hot water heaters and even landscaping features such as sun-blocking trees. Homes built to Energy Star standards may include upgraded insulation, highefficiency heating, air conditioning and hot water systems or airtight ductwork. The system is being touted as a big energy saver. Energy Star homes consume as much as 40 per cent less energy, producing two to three fewer tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually than a home built to the minimum Ontario Building Code standards. Miele says Energy Star standards will add $4,000 to $7,000 to the cost of each home, but will save homeowners about $750 a year in lower energy bills, meaning the additional upfront costs are recouped within 10 years. — Torstar wire service
What’s new in the automotive industry
OCTOBER 13-19, 2006
FEATURED VEHICLE
INTRODUCING THE ALL NEW SATURN AURA Everything about the Saturn AURA has been designed for the drive, from its sophisticated exterior and exceptionally quiet interior to its performance, safety and technologically advanced power train. With the power of the available 251-hp V-6 engine with variable valve timing, standard features such as OnStar®, XM satellite radio, double paned insulated noise reduced windows, standard 6 airbag system and available Panoramic Sunroof, the 2007 Saturn AURA keeps you protected, connected and pampered wherever you go. It’s different in a Saturn! The Saturn AURA is available at Hickman Saturn Saab located at 20 Peet Street in St. John’s, NL. Picture taken at the GEO Centre, St. John’s, by Paul Daly.
All-terrain workhorses W
e didn’t always have a problem with ATVs, they were nice little machines as I recall. Honda introduced the All-Terrain Cycle in 1970 as a three-wheel unit with a modest 90cc engine. By 1980 the engine size had increased to 185ccs and the ATC’s popularity soared here in Newfoundland. It was an indispensable work machine for traversing harsh terrain and hauling firewood and wild game. Our safety record was also exemplary — while we were using the machines for work, the rest of Canada made the most of their fairly flat terrain by increasing the machine’s speed (and accident rate). Our machines were worked so hard, in fact, that we were one of the few places in the world that bent the otherwise indestructible rear axle. Honda sent a couple of engineers from Japan to investigate the phenomenon and brought along some experimental ATC tires. The dozen or so tires were shipped on a length of steel with bars welded on the ends for security
The world's first ATV, Honda's three-wheel US90, was introduced to America in 1969 and later renamed the AllTerrain Cycle 90 (ATC).
and deposited in a local chain-link fenced yard. By the end of the weekend the tires were gone. Obviously, the axle bending locals loved the tires. They had little regard for the laws of physics or any other law for that matter … except “finders keepers.” Undeterred by their brush with the locals, Honda introduced their first four-wheel All
Terrain Vehicle in 1984 with a 200cc engine and to a false sense of security, just hop on, grab the the three-wheel ATC was phased out as an unsta- bars and hit the throttle. And that’s just what kids are doing, ble design. In 1986 they introduced and they might as well just drive it their first four-wheel drive ATV with an straight to the hospital. It takes a lot of even more powerful 350cc engine. This is a good time to point out that skill to operate one of these machines … by today’s standards, 20 years later, they handle like a water buffalo in the this would be considered a small corners and weigh almost as much. machine. It’s embarrassing that so many kids The engines got bigger over the years have been injured over the past few years — between 1995 and 2003 it went from — it means that we as parents have 400cc to 650cc, and now Honda’s 2007 underestimated the associated risks of MARK model sports a 680cc engine. Naturally, riding these newer, larger ATVs. So WOOD technological advancements were made much so, in fact, that our government WOODY’S had to step in and protect us from our in all aspects of the machine and they’re truly well made. stupidity. WHEELS own I chose Honda as an example — they We don’t really have an ATV problem invented the machine and to their cred— we’ve got a people problem. It’ll take it encourage responsible riding. There are warning a bit of time to fix but we’ll be all right. stickers all over their machines: “Always wear a Remember when nobody wore seat belts? Hard helmet, eye protection, boots, gloves and read the to believe it wasn’t mandatory to buckle up. owner’s manual.” But this is no toy, and therein lies the problem. Mark Wood of Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s was You don’t have to balance an ATV, which leads once an ATV technician.
26 • INDEPENDENTSHIFT
OCTOBER 13, 2006
Schumacher’s retirement bad for business T
he reason Bernie Ecclestone and and starts dancing around after winning, other members of the Formula as he did in Japan Oct. 8. One establishment keep saying And, yes, he’s probably the best racthey don’t think Michael Schumacher is ing driver on the planet at the moment. really serious about retiring is because But, when all is said and done, what if Michael goes, they know the World you see is what you get and there’s not Championship Grand Prix circuit will a whole lot more there. just about be devoid of star power. Kimi Raikkonen is another in this It’s not just wishful thinking on their category. He’s a terrific racing driver part. They don’t want him to but he has the personality of a go because it will be bad for trout. When something amusbusiness. Think about it: after es him, he allows the corners Michael, who else in F1 these of his mouth to curl up just a days gets the juices flowing smidgen, which is equivalent like he does? to the rest of us rolling around Jacques Villeneuve, always on the floor, killing ourselves good for a quote, has been laughing. forced out and seems intent He does not, as we say in on joining the open wheel the biz, make for very good NORRIS exodus to NASCAR. Juan copy. MCDONALD Montoya, another colourful Felipe Massa is in the character, saw no future in unfortunate position (like F1, so bailed out early (and Rubens Barrichello and Eddie acquitted himself very well Irvine before him) of having last weekend by finishing to play second fiddle to third in his first big-league stock car Schumacher. Massa’s got some personrace, an ARCA event at Talladega). ality and had some potential after winSensing trouble on the horizon, F1 ning the Turkish Grand Prix (which he tried but failed a couple of years ago to did decisively) but then went down in convince NASCAR star Jeff Gordon to just about everybody’s estimation by give F1 a try. Earlier this year, Valentino failing to capitalize on that opportunity. Instead of announcing he was going Rossi, the great Italian motorcycle star, tested with Ferrari and fingers were to race for Renault or Williams next crossed that he’d make the move to the year, he indicated he’d be happy to setred cars and position himself to become tle in at Ferrari — a move that doomed the next Real Deal. him to mediocrity forever. It didn’t happen, of course, and writFor instance, he won the pole last ers for the British and European racing weekend in Japan and led from the start. publications are still wringing their Go for it, boy! But then, in the words of hands over this. Jean Todt as quoted by Bob Varsha on So, if Michael goes, who’s left? Speed Channel, he did “what all good Who’s out there with the talent and No. 2s know to do” — he let up on the charisma to turn the international racing accelerator and let the No. 1, world on its ear and fill the void created Schumacher, pass him for the lead. This was tragic to watch. You’d have by his leaving? Fernando Alonso is a nice enough thought Massa would have learned young guy. It’s mildly amusing to watch something from watching what haphim imitate a bull, or a fish, or a horse, pened to his countryman, Barrichello. or whatever, when he gets out of the car But no. Once a No. 2, always a No. 2,
TRACK TALK
Ferrari Formula One driver Michael Schumacher of Germany walks to his pit, after speaking to his team's technical director Roth Brown, as he retired from the Japan Grand Prix with an engine failure at the Suzuka circuit in Suzuka, central Japan Oct. 8, 2006. Yoshikazu Tsuno/Reuters
apparently. Jenson Button still gets hearts beating quickly in some quarters — the U.K. magazine industry, for instance — but because (like David Coulthard before him) he hasn’t been a winner on the track, his all-round marketability has suffered greatly. After that, when it comes to personalities, you can forget it. Fisichella, Heidfeld, Ralf Schbumacher, Trulli, Klien, Rosberg, et al. These people are all fabulous drivers, but don’t inspire debates at the coffee shop or in the bars. Which brings us back to Michael. People either love him or hate him but, either way, they watch him and talk about him. Think back to the days of the late’80s, early-’90s, to the days of Mansell and Piquet, Mansell and Senna, Senna and Prost and all those guys. All those drivers, or combinations of drivers, stirred emotions — just like Schumacher. The difference, of course, was that when they left the scene, there was someone ready and willing and able to carry on in that great, charismatic, tradition: none other than Michael Schumacher. Not this time. It seems that along with every conceivable driving record you can think of, Michael Schumacher is also planning to take something even more valuable away from F1 when he goes: Its heart. FERRARI FAMILY When Schumacher announced his retirement, Ferrari made a big deal of the fact that he would always have a place with the team. He was a part of their “family.” Columnists and commentators speculated as to what his role would be. Would Luca di Montezemolo step down as president and let Michael take over? Would team principal Jean Todt go on sabbatical and let Michael run the team? Would Michael be a special ambassador, or act as a liaison officer between the drivers (Raikkonen and Massa) and the mechanics/engineers? Well, er, it seems Ferrari doesn’t have a specific role in mind for Michael, after all (more or less confirming what many people have felt all along — that he was pushed out of the team). Michael, according to Ferrari, can pretty much decide what he wants to do and then the team will try to accommodate him. That, suddenly, is not as warm and fuzzy a situation as it was first made out to be. If Ferrari really wants Michael around after the end of this season, I would suggest they might have a role/job in mind for him that would benefit both. Otherwise, they’re just playing nice as they prepare to show him the door. But then, once outside that door, a ride with Renault in 2007 is just a phone call to Flavio Briatore away … PUSH PUSH PUSH The first rule of motor racing is to never let up; to push-push-push. So, after starting from pole last Sunday, Massa led the Japanese Grand Prix but then eased off to let Schumacher past. Schumacher was winning the race until his engine blew up. Alonso then won and Massa finished second. But what if Massa had continued to lead? What if he’d kept his foot in it and hadn’t let the king past? It’s very possible that a) Massa would have won that race, and b) Alonso, by finishing second, would only be eight points ahead of Schumacher instead of 10. The championship could still have been in some doubt. Team orders, anyone? … TIME ZONES Talking of TV (we’re not, but we will anyway), the last two F1 races were held in the Far East. The China race (Oct. 1) went to the post at 3:30 a.m. (all times NL), and the lights went out to start the race in Japan last weekend at 2:30 a.m. Oct. 8. It got a little tough to keep the ol’ eyelids propped open. Next Sunday, the race is in Brazil. Pre-race is scheduled for 2 p.m. with the start set for 2:30 p.m. So we can all go to church, eat lunch and settle into our easy chairs to watch the last F1 race of 2006, right? Wrong. TSN, the F1 rights-holder in Canada, is committed to showing the Subway 500 Nextel Cup race from Martinsville, Va., that day. The race starts at 2:30 p.m. TSN’s schedule indicates that the F1 race from Brazil will then be shown on tape at 6 p.m., right after the NASCAR race. Don’t count on Speed to give you your F1 fix as-it-happens. When there’s not a conflict, TSN and the Speed Channel have an accommodation in which both channels show F1 races at the same time. But because of the rights issue, and in order to protect its interests, don’t be surprised if TSN insists on a blackout of the F1 race on Speed.
OCTOBER 13, 2006
INDEPENDENTSHIFT • 27
Driving a chance to connect with children R
By Tyler Hamilton Torstar wire service
T
he future of the automobile could very well be parked in Michael Angemeer’s driveway. The president and chief executive officer of Veridian Corp., an electricity distribution company that serves 106,000 customers east of Toronto, is the first to drive a Prius that can be “filled up” by plugging it into a standard electrical outlet. Last month, Angemeer took his corporate Prius to a small company called Hymotion Canada, which spent just two hours retrofitting the vehicle with a $14,500 battery system. A 5-kilowatt lithium-ion battery, designed by A123Systems Inc. of Watertown, Mass., was dropped into the trunk where a spare tire used to be, and a power plug was installed on the left side of the rear bumper. What Angemeer drove away with was a “plugin” hybrid-electric vehicle that can travel 55 kilometres on a single battery charge while using only a trickle of gasoline for acceleration. Such a trip might need just 60 cents worth of electricity — about the cost of a full five-hour battery charge — and $1.40 worth of gas, based on mileage of about 2.4 litres per 100 kilometres. That’s almost double the mileage — and less than half the emissions — of a regular Prius, which recharges its battery through regenerative braking. “It’s great where you have short hops, such as driving from work to home and back,” said Angemeer, pointing out that beyond 55 kilometres the gas engine kicks in and mileage begins
to drop. Veridian, in co-operation with St. Lawrence College in Kingston, will spend the next few months studying the performance of the vehicle. The utilitiy is planning, along with help from Transport Canada, to do similar retrofits to General Motors and Ford hybrids that are already in the utility’s fleet. Alternative charging options are included in the study. Later this month, Veridian will begin installing a solar panel system at its Ajax office that will charge Angemeer’s car while it’s parked at work. A solar panel is also being installed atop the car, allowing it to slowly charge while on the go or parked at another lot — assuming it’s sunny. The main goal, however, is to pressure the auto makers to embrace plug-in hybrids as a mass-market design. “Nobody else in Canada has really picked up on this, and I think it’s time to make some noise about plug-in (vehicle) technology,” Angemeer said. “It’s not so much this is the exact car people are going to buy. It’s that we want to show people this is possible.” Veridian is the only Canadian utility and one of only two Canadian companies (the other is Toronto-based electric car maker Feel Good Cars) to become a member of a Texas-based consortium called Plug-In Partner. The group, whose members include a wide range of businesses, utilities, municipal governments and state agencies, aims to show auto makers that plug-in hybrids represent the best hope of weaning North America from its oil addiction.
07 Honda: the power to have more funx2
2007 Civic DX 5-speed sedan/coupe * %
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Carof theYear †4 North American Carof theYear †2
Best New Economy Car †3
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Plug-in Prius car’s future?
POWER SHIFT
All lease and finance offers are from Honda Canada Finance Inc., O.A.C. *Leases are based on new 2007: Civic Sedan DX 5-speed (model FA1527EX)/Civic Coupe DX 5-speed (model FG1127E)/Fit DX 5-speed (model GD3727E) for 60/60/60 month terms respectively, OAC. Monthly payment is $218/$218/$209 with $1,786/$1,926/$1,408 down payment or equivalent trade-in, respectively. Payments include $1,225/$1,225/$1,225 freight and PDI. $0/$0/$0 security deposit required, respectively. First monthly payment due at lease inception. Lease rate is 5.9%. 120,000 kilometre allowance; charge of $0.12/km for excess kilometres. Total lease obligation is $15,042/$15,042/$14,421. License, insurance, applicable taxes and registration are extra. Option to purchase at lease end for $6,792/$6,872/$5,243 plus taxes. †: 5.9% purchase financing for up to 60 months available on new 2007 Fit models, O.A.C. Finance example based on a 60 month finance term, OAC: $14,000 at 5.9% per annum equals $270.01 per month for 60 months. Cost of borrowing is $2,200.52, for a total obligation of $16,200.52. †1: Based on annual sales by category in Canada as reported by AIAMC, January 2006 †2: North American Car of the Year awarded to 2006 Honda Civic at Detroit Auto Show January 8, 2006. †3: Best New Economy Car awarded to 2006 Civic Sedan by Automobile Journalists Association of Canada on December 6, 2005; www.ajac.ca. †4: 2006 Car of the Year awarded to †4: 2006 Car of the Year awarded to 2006 Honda Civic by Motor Trend on November 22, 2005; www.motortrend.com. Limited time offers. See your Honda dealer for full details.
Fred Prouser/Reuters
ecently, for the second time in as many homes, why are there people that don’t have weeks, I was reading that one of the one?”). They have to put up with me reminiscbest places to talk to your kids is in the ing like an old coot on a front stoop (“I rememcar. I believe that. What kids see as “getting a ber when this was all orchards, as far as the eye ride somewhere” I see as “being held could see”), and I have to tolerate captive.” their excitement about a new paintAll the ingredients are present for a ball arena (“right here — you can’t true heart-to-heart. Nobody can look say it’s too far to drive to!”). No anyone directly in the eye; nobody doubt about it, the biggest bridge is can get up and run away; the scenery required right there in the car. anywhere provides enough material We’ve talked about conspicuous for a lifetime of conversation. consumption as another over-sized Because I am the Worst Mother in SUV goes flying down the highway. the World, I won’t let Marc, 14, and This usually leads to discussions LORRAINE SOMMERFELD Jackson, 12, use their iPod things about Third World crises, which are other than on long trips. The only so conveniently drowned out by the music in their ears will be my dulcet hum of our First World sound tones, dispensing wisdom and advice effects: click and buy, lock and load, in a way they will come to apprecipoint and shoot. ate. This is what I keep telling them. We were driving downtown the I’ve noticed some changes over the years. other day when Marc barked at me to stop. It The boys used to be really eager to talk about seems like he went from squeaking to barking sex. Now that I’m finally ready to discuss it, overnight. they’re not quite so gung-ho. Perhaps it’s I pulled over, and watched as he hopped out because it used to be a discussion centered on and ran back to the crosswalk. There was an my romantic life, and now it’s about theirs. elderly man who not only looked lost; he When I was in high school, there were jocks, looked like he might fall. In my rear-view mirgeeks and stoners. Now there is this complicat- ror, I watched as my son steadied him, spoke to ed hierarchy of Emos, punks, Goths and preps. him, and helped him cross. And they kept walking. Oh, and jocks, geeks and stoners. As we drive past people I looped the van around and intercepted them a block later. walking, the boys clue me in. A little disoriented, the gentleI get a window into their If you’re in the car man thought he was making world, and I’ve discovered if I his way to a doctor’s appointkeep all judgment out of my with your kids ment. I listened as my son voice, they’ll tell me all kinds explained it was Sunday, and of things. anyway, you might said we would take him home. Hair-raising, breath-suckMarc had a front row seat to ing things, but important as well lock the the illness and premature things nonetheless. doors, shut your deaths of my parents. At a One time we were driving young age, he learned a lot down a side street, when a mouth, open about dignity and pride. At dog bolted from its owner and every age, I’m learning a great ran into the car. We weren’t your ears and free deal about my son. going fast, but the thud of the If you’re in the car with hit was reflected in the feel of up your heart. your kids anyway, you might my heart crashing to the floor. as well lock the doors, shut We all hopped out, the dog your mouth, open your ears was fine, and I was a wreck. Everyone was reassuring me the animal was and free up your heart. I’ve learned to turn off okay, and the owner was apologizing profuse- the radio, as well as my prejudices, and let ly for the dog’s action. I was proud of my sons them introduce me to their world, through their as I saw their instincts kick in; they wanted to eyes. Forget the one-way glass of a television; the help — though Marc still refers to this as the real world is right outside your windshield. time I ran over a dog. We’ve had discussions about homeless peowww.lorraineonline.ca ple and urban sprawl (“if there are so many
honda.ca
28 • INDEPENDENTFUN
MAY 7, 2006
WEEKLY DIVERSIONS ACROSS 1 Headscarf 6 ___ Nostradamus (Coupland) 9 Upon: prefix 12 Canada’s first woman doctor 17 Betel nut tree 18 Birthday number 19 Rejections 20 Raptor’s claw 21 Thumb a ride 22 Destroy 23 Wood (in building) 25 Stated 27 Not: prefix 28 Fungus affecting grain 29 Gross on screen 30 Try to outrun 31 Sum for services 32 Hand-dyeing technique 34 Mineral: suffix 35 Northernmost tip of mainland Canada: ___ Peninsula 39 The ___ Days Coat (Laurence) 40 Present 42 Dance 43 Besides 44 S. African money 45 Blvd.’s cousin 46 Whole: comb. form 47 Pierced with horns 49 Ribonucleic acid
50 Stubborn as a ___ 52 Tyrannosaurus rex 54 Nova Scotian who founded a shipping line 56 ___ tongues (Nfld. dish) 57 One of N.W.T.’s official languages 59 Gilbert and ___ 61 Ancient Persian 62 Front of truck 64 Happening 66 Tease 67 Kind of salt 68 Prefix with medic 69 Acapulco aunt 70 Crash into 71 African antelope 72 Guitarist Bachman 73 Most are a snap to use 76 Business letter abbr. 77 B.C. spring flower: blue ___ 78 Poppy mo. 79 Winnie the ___ 80 Witty remark 81 Muddle 83 Fall mo. 84 Religion of the East 88 Latticework 90 Me (Fr.) 91 Make beam 92 Strainer 93 Ballpoint 94 Soap ingredient, once 95 Rule (Fr.) 96 Pulp and ___
97 Type of whisky 98 Summer time in Sheet Harbour 99 Bundle of sheaves left out to dry DOWN 1 Sunk fence 2 Blue flag 3 Fast planes 4 Agreed to 5 Persian Gulf country 6 Hurricane that flooded Toronto in 1954 7 Victorian expletive 8 Okay 9 Lure 10 Composure 11 Suffix for a doctrine 12 Not mono 13 Goal 14 Hodgepodge 15 Refuses to 16 Canadian lang. 24 Obscure 26 N.W.T. hamlet, in brief 27 Crooner Dusk (Back in Town) 30 Widespread 32 Highest Alp: Mont ___ 33 To a sickening degree (2 wds.) 35 Moguls skier Alexandre ___ 36 River of N Quebec
37 Of the nature of: suffix 38 Find a sum 39 He was # 4 on ice 40 Orang specialist: Birute ___ 41 I have 42 Tenor Vickers 46 Holed up 47 Pledge or pawn 48 Belonging to us 50 Brewer’s grain 51 Internet address 52 Ferguson of “Air Farce” 53 Instant lawn 55 Sister 56 Dishonourable sort 58 Poets of old 60 ___ and vigour 61 Intermediate: prefix 63 Goose ___, Nfld. & Labrador 64 List ending 65 Train service 67 ___ a Long Journey (Mistry) 68 Leaflet 70 “Bolero” composer 71 It’s tied 72 Marauders 74 Bitter salad green 75 Kind of skate 76 Geological epoch of mammals 77 What cows chew 79 Welfare benefits
80 Like Quebec’s revolution of the 1960’s 81 Coloratura solo 82 Ont. town with
Canadian Clock Museum: ___ River 84 “First lady of the guitar”
85 Shakespearean villain 86 Normandy city of WWII fame 87 Overly submissive
88 Recipe amt. 89 Mar. follower 90 Provincial rep. Solutions page 31
WEEKLY STARS ARIES (MAR. 21 TO APR. 19) You could be caught in a torrent of advice from well-meaning friends and colleagues this week. But remember, Lamb, you are at your best when you are your own inimitable self. TAURUS (APR. 20 TO MAY 20) Expect strong efforts to get you to accept things as they are and not question them. But ignore all that and continue your inquiries until you’re sure you have all the answers you need. GEMINI (MAY 21 TO JUNE 20) Heavier than usual family and workplace duties compete for your time this week. Try to strike a balance so that you’re not overwhelmed by either. Pressures ease by week’s end. CANCER (JUNE 21 TO JULY 22)
It’s a good time for the Moon Child to show off your uniquely inspired approach to the culinary skills — especially if they’re directed toward impressing someone special. LEO (JULY 23 TO AUG. 22) You might be happy about the reemergence of a long-deferred deal. But don’t pounce on it quite yet. Time can change things. Be sure the values you looked for before are still there. VIRGO (AUG. 23 TO SEPT. 22) Try to rein in your super-critical attitude, even if things aren’t being done quite as you would prefer. Remember: What you say now could create an awkward situation later on. LIBRA (SEPT. 23 TO OCT. 22) Although you can expect on-thejob cooperation from most of your
colleagues this week, some people might insist on knowing more about your plans before they can accept them. SCORPIO (OCT. 23 TO NOV. 21) Creating another way to do things is commendable. But you could find some resistance this week from folks who would rather stick with the tried-and-true than try something new. SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22 TO DEC. 21) You can usually keep your aim focused on your goal. But you might need to make adjustments to cope with unsteadiness factors that could arise over the course of the week. CAPRICORN (DEC. 22 TO JAN. 19) News arrives about a projected move. Be prepared to deal with a series of possible shifts, including starting and finishing times, and
how much the budget will actually cover. AQUARIUS (JAN. 20 TO FEB. 18) A new relationship needs time to develop. Let things flow naturally. It could be a different story with a workplace situation, which might require faster and more focused attention. PISCES (FEB. 19 TO MAR. 20) Accept a compliment without trying to troll for any hidden reason beyond what was said. After all, don’t you deserve to be praised every now and then? Of course you do. YOU BORN THIS WEEK: You like to weigh all possibilities before making a decision. You would be a fine judge, or even be a star in a jury room. (c) 2006 King Features Syndicate, Inc.
Fill in the grid so that each row of nine squares, each column of nine and each section of nine (three squares by three) contains the numbers 1 through 9 in any order. There is only one solution to each puzzle. Solutions, tips and computer program available at www.sudoko.com SOLUTION ON PAGE 31
INDEPENDENTSPORTS
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13-19, 2006 — PAGE 29
Hunting for trophy caribou PAUL SMITH
The Rock
Outdoors
I
shot my 2006 caribou last week. I had my heart set on getting in the Boone and Crocket record book this year but, oh well, there’s always another hunt. Actually, I was even more intent on outdoing my hunting buddy Robert’s 2005 stag. We are locked into a fierce and friendly caribou competition. His was easily a record-book animal at a very symmetric 35 points and dressing 240 lbs, but Robert broke the antlers into halves on the ATV haul out. Just the same, he has a very impressive woodland caribou rack on his garage wall and I do not — not yet anyway. Let me explain “fierce and friendly” competition, which on the surface might appear to be an oxymoron. Fierce, friendly and helpful might be a better description of our hunting relationship. It goes like this: Robert and I draw caribou tags on alternate years, so while we hunt together, only one of us can shoot an animal each year. Both of us are fiercely trying to outdo the other but within the parameters of a very strict ethical code. When I have the ticket to shoot, Robert does his absolute honest best to help me harvest the finest caribou specimen we can find, and vice versa. Although there are plenty of trophysized critters in Newfoundland, finding them is often akin to finding a needle in a bog. There is plenty of room for caribou to be, and judging from my experience, 30-plus points animals are about one in 100. Given there are approximately 1,400 caribou in our hunting area, there are only 14 of what we are looking for in hundreds of square miles. But we have been persistent and lucky, having harvested three caribou with over 30 points in the last five years. It has taken many hours of glassing over barrens with binoculars and spotting scope, as well as passing on very tempting shots when patience wears thin. To complicate things further, our code strictly forbids taking an inedible animal just for its rack. Caribou began to rut in October and the males are absolutely unfit for consumption during this period — which means we have only September to harvest a nice, fat, pre-rut stag. These are indeed the finest wild table fare our land has to offer. Post-rut stags are edible but very lean and diminished after their frantic month of reproducing. So far, Rob and I have only harvested succulent pre-rut stags. This season I ended up in a jam. It was very late September and Robert still had the record. We hunted hard and only spotted one potential trophy and he didn’t like the look of us from a mile away. Smart caribou. The early season was so hot we
Paul Smith with this year’s caribou.
feared our venison would spoil on the homeward journey so we tended to yard work while the caribou sunned themselves. Then there was the tail end of a couple of hurricanes that swelled rivers to formidable depths — too risky to cross. Between work and Mother Nature, Robert and I got four days of hunting in before the rut cut us short. On the fifth, our standards went down. Any decent stag would have to do. We were in the country well before daylight and drove our quads to the end of a registered, but very rough trail. After all the bounding around I was happy to shoulder my rifle and hunt on
foot. Actually, I was shouldering a brand new rifle in a calibre that I had never tried before — .270 win. I meant to have it scoped and shooting on target for opening da,y but between fishing trips and muck-ups with scope bases, things had gotten delayed. This rifle is an on-going project, a straight-from-the-factory Savage .270 in all-weather stainless steel that I’m customizing into a lightweight mountain or backcountry rifle. I’m trimming this already low weight rifle down even further, with a new allcarbon composite stock and a compact scope. The grand scheme is heading
towards sheep hunting in the Rockies — someday. I’m getting all the bugs out of my backcountry gear and skills right here on the Rock. By the way, you would be amazed what difference a pound makes on a rifle when you’re slugging it over the barrens for hours on end; hence the .270 project. I should get back on topic and shoot my caribou. After an hour of walking and glassing from hill-tops, Rob and I spotted a decent stag and several does grazing lazily on a ridge just a few kilometres away. We decided this was it. We circled for a downwind approach.
Finally, we were at 150 yards and hidden behind a huge, well-placed boulder. I bundled my jacket on the boulder and steadied my rifle across it for the shot. A minute latter the stag presented his fore-shoulder and my finger tightened on the trigger. It was all over. He dressed out at 160 lbs, not even close to Robert’s record. It’s going to be tough to beat. On the bright side, we enjoyed five wonderful days on the barrens, and my lightweight rifle project is off the ground. Paul Smith freelances for Spaniard’s Bay. flyfishtherock@hotmail.com
Recently, Capital Hyundai’s Frank Howard approached Blueline Sports with a proposal to put his car company’s name on Prince of Wales Arena. Well, the guys who own Blueline are no fools, and even if they are in the process of divesting themselves of their rinks, agreed to Howard’s idea. Thus, Prince of Wales Arena is no longer. No, the rink is still there. It’s just that Prince of Wales Arena is now Capital Hyundai Arena. That huge white backlit sign that jumps out at you as you drive up Pennywell Road tells you all you need to know. The juxtaposition of the bright
sparkling new sign against the dingy brown, dilapidated old building is kind of funny, really. But not as funny as the thinking behind the decision to buy the name to a building that lived half a century as Prince of Wales Arena. Does Frank Howard really think that because he paid to change the name, that people will actually start using it? I casually asked one of the owners last week about his hockey status this year, and he informed me he plays a couple of games, including one at Prince of Wales. Now, if the owner calls it Prince of
The renaming game T
here is probably no sporting event in the province that honours history quite like the Royal St. John’s Regatta. The centuries-old Day at the Races actually runs by the motto, “Let the races be governed by tradition.” Yet, for all its insistence in honouring the past, the Regatta Committee was actually — and I can’t believe I’m saying this, since this group is the biggest Old Boys Club on the go — progressive. That’s because the Regatta Committee of old — as far back as the early 1900s — sold the naming rights to the racing shells that were used. The legendary Blue Peter that Outer
DON POWER
Power Point Cove rowed to the famous 9:13 in 1901 — and other incarnations that followed — was actually sponsored by Blue Peter Steamships, a company owned by the Job Brothers, if I’m not mistaken. It was hardly thought of as revolutionary at the time, and few who were involved in that decision-making process could have predicted the proliferation of arenas, fields, parks and rac-
ing shells that have since sold their names. Selling rights to buildings is perhaps the hottest money- making trend in professional sports, although it can hardly be classified as new. Wrigley Field in Chicago, that venerable home of the Cubs, was named after the company that owned it. Same thing with Busch Stadium in St. Louis, named after the famous beer man (and just after major-league baseball rejected Budweiser Stadium). Selling your stadium’s name brings in big dollars, which can help any pro team. Now, it appears the purchasing of naming rights is thrusting itself on amateur sports.
See “Laughing,” page 30
A stunning collection of photography from the portfolio of The Independent’s own Paul Daly. Available this fall. To preorder your copy, contact
Boulder Publications at 895-6483
30 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS
OCTOBER 13, 2006
Kubina absence poses problem By Damien Cox Torstar wire service
O
ne game into last season, the Maple Leafs had to deal with an eye injury to Mats Sundin. Four games into this season, it’s an important defenceman, Pavel Kubina, who has been lost with a strain of a ligament in his left knee, probably for at least 15-20 games and perhaps longer. Kubina, to be sure, isn’t Sundin. But he was the most significant free agent acquisition of the off-season for GM John Ferguson, a player slated to handle major blue-line minutes and ease the burden on Tomas Kaberle and Bryan McCabe. Moreover, the Leafs had two veteran centres, Jason Allison and Eric Lindros, to pick up the slack for the 13 games Sundin missed. They have nobody with experience who can come close to matching the
contributions of the towering Kubina. Without him, the Leafs were beaten easily on opening night by Ottawa. With him, the Leafs swamped the Sens, lost to the Canadiens in a shootout and defeated the Panthers in a shootout. The immediate solution here, and the likeliest, would be to move Wade Belak back to defence again and insert Alexander Suglobov into the lineup for tomorrow night’s game in New Jersey. The Leafs believe Belak can play defence, mostly based on his contributions after the trade deadline last year when he was a blue-line regular. Most hockey people, on the other hand, don’t believe he has the mobility or hockey sense. Other than the fact he takes obvious penalties and then chirps about them, he’s a far more effective fourth-line winger. Beyond the Devils game, Brendan Bell could be back from a foot injury as early as Saturday, but Bell has only ever
Toronto Maple Leafs Wade Belak fights with Boston Bruins Colton Orr (R) last season. Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters
played in one NHL game. Staffan Kronwall, Carlo Colaiacovo and Andy Wozniewski are all at least two weeks or more away from returning to active duty. As it stands, the Leafs do have two sets of defensive pairs in McCabe and Kaberle as well as Hal Gill and Ian White. Both McCabe and Kaberle exceeded 30 minutes of playing time against Florida — Kaberle clocked in at 33:40 — and are used to carrying a heavy load from seasons past. A third pair of Jay Harrison and Belak, or Harrison and Bell, or even one of those players with Brad Brown, currently with the Marlies, might be serviceable for a short period of time. But not for a month or more.
There is the trade route — Florida didn’t dress Steve Montador on Monday, New Jersey has Dan McGillis and his $2.2 million (all figures U.S.) contract in the minors — and there are a few remaining free agents, including Brian Leetch and Jason Woolley. Woolley couldn’t make the Hurricanes lineup out of training camp, while the 38-year-old Leetch hasn’t retired but hasn’t said he’s going to play this season, either. “I think if he wasn’t going to play he would have made that decision by now,” said Leetch’s agent, Jay Grossman. Leetch played 28 games with the Leafs — 15 regular season, 13 playoff — in the 2003-04 season before the league went into a lockout. According to Grossman, the veteran defenceman
has good memories of playing in Toronto. “He loved playing with Bryan McCabe,” said Grossman. “He’s already come out and said that McCabe was the best partner he ever played with.” Leetch, of course, is a different type of player than Kubina. Moreover, he made $4 million with Boston last season and can probably, given that a number of teams may be interested in his services, still command in excess of $2 million this season. That would be tight for the Leafs, who are only about $1 million under the $44 million cap. Then again, they wouldn’t have to account for Kubina’s $5 million while he is out. Leetch is skating with the Boston College hockey team these days, but he’s not in game shape and Grossman said it’s unlikely his client will jump quickly at any situation. “I think he’ll be cautious,” said Grossman. Best bet? The Leafs will kick the tires on Leetch and others while assessing whether White, pretty solid in four games so far, is really ready to step up and be a legitimate No.4 defenceman. This problem, you see, has more to do with White’s capabilities than those of Belak or Bell or Brown. If the 22year-old White’s not ready, expect the Leafs to go fishing. Ferguson, with his own future cloudy, won’t let a promising start be derailed by one injury.
Laughing all the way to the bank From page 29 Wales, how do you expect me to call it anything else? Prince of Wales’ name change is a curious example of a company infusing money into amateur sport. Another locale will announce a name change next week. The St. John’s Curling Club is now the Remax Centre. I’m guessing that last year’s excitement over Brad Gushue’s curling rink — and Russ Howard’s inclusion on it
— has spurred Jim Burton of Remax to spend some of his fortune. (Howard’s a Remax agent in Moncton; Burton is a broker in St. John’s.) Before the rink travelled to Italy and won gold, I emceed a fundraising banquet for the team and I recall Burton sitting next to Howard with a glee reserved for a 10year-old sitting next to Wayne Gretzky. So to be part of the scene, he buys in. It’s what people with money do to be associated with sports. (See Geoff Stirling and the previously mentioned
Solutions for crossword on page 28
Solutions for sudoku on page 28
Regatta. Money guaranteed his place into that event’s hall of fame.) To be sure, amateur sports could use an infusion of cash from any company, and if the curling club can make any sort of improvement to its facility because of the dough, more power to it. My only question is why do these people think it’s worth the investment? Unless they’re in it for the very long term, do they really think people can change old habits? It’ll take at least a generation of hockey players to stop calling Prince of Wales Prince of Wales. Ditto the curling club. Unless you own the original moniker on a building, buying in is a waste of money for the incoming business or individual. (Mile One comes to mind, regardless of whether it’s a stadium, centre or arena. Probably the biggest waste of money is the changing of that surname; Dwight Yoakam surely wouldn’t have refused to sing in a stadium, and most people just call it Mile One.) For the owners who sell, they’re laughing all the way to the bank. donniep@nl.rogers.com
OCTOBER 13, 2006
INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 31
South Africa’s Cup full of woes By Cathal Kelly Torstar wire service t’s nearly four years until kickoff, but the buzzards are already circling around the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Rumours are rife that FIFA has designated Australia as an “alternate host,” though soccer’s governing body denies it. The United States has also been mentioned as a possible fill-in. Germany felt the need to announce it is not willing to host another World Cup in four years. South Africa’s effort has been plagued by organizational snafus, spiralling costs and the general feeling that a developing nation is not up to the task of hosting the world’s biggest sporting event. Several soccer eminences have already criticized South Africa’s progress, not the least of whom was Germany 2006 boss Franz Beckenbauer. “The organization for the World Cup in South Africa is beset by big problems,” Beckenbauer says. “But these are not South African problems, these are African problems. People are working against rather than with each other.” In South Africa, the Kaiser’s broadside prompted outrage from some and agreement from others, which sort of proves his point. The nation has successfully hosted cricket and rugby World Cups, but 2010 will be something on a vastly different scale. Several huge stumbling blocks must be overcome. They include:
I
INTERNAL DIVISIONS South Africa’s two largest communities have a clear sporting divide — blacks generally follow soccer, while whites follow rugby and cricket. The best existing stadiums in the country are primarily rugby pitches. Thus, the organizing committee was faced with a thorny decision — refurbish the existing stadiums, leaving an enormous legacy to rugby fans, or create new soccer-specific stadiums, which would likely become white elephants after the World Cup. The organizers have chosen to refurbish five stadiums (including four rugby fields) and build five new “multi-
Archbishop Desmond Tutu dances as he addresses crowds attending the 2006 Homeless Soccer World Cup in Cape Town, Sept. 29, 2006. Mike Hutchings/Reuters
purpose” venues. That sort of pricy difference splitting is unlikely to please everyone. SPIRALLING COSTS When South Africa was awarded the World Cup in 2004, organizers estimated stadium costs at $330 million (Canadian). Last week, in announcing their final construction plans, that estimate had risen more than three-fold to $1.2 billion (Canadian). As precious months slip by with no action, all levels of government continue to bicker about who will foot the bill. Jabu Moleketi, the head of the government’s 2010 technical committee, has warned that if construction is not underway by January “we are in serious trouble.” INFRASTRUCTURE HOLES South Africa lacks a modern, transnational rail system. Its roads cannot accommodate the expected increase in traffic. There aren’t nearly enough hotel rooms. And those are just the most pressing problems. That leaves organizers with less than four years to create a First World infrastructure in a vast, underdeveloped nation. Did we mention that the money to pay for all this has yet to appear? SAFETY CONCERNS South Africa is plagued by violent crime. There were 19,000 homicides there in 2004, the second worst per-
capita rate in the world aside from Colombia (a country which, incidentally, gave up the 1986 World Cup). Plans are in place to hire 11,000 police officers and dramatically increase electronic surveillance. But as things stand, South Africa faces huge difficulty convincing visitors they will be safe. SUSTAINABILITY It’s one thing to build a 100,000-seat stadium — like the proposed Soccer City in Johannesburg. It’s another thing to justify it. The most popular pro-soccer team in South Africa, the Kaizer Chiefs, draws an average of 23,000 fans to a home game. Tickets cost roughly less than $3. It’s stating the obvious to say that South African soccer has little need for — and even less ability to maintain — 10 enormous facilities after the summer of 2010. South Africa will host the Confederations Cup in 2009 — a final opportunity to prove they are up to the World Cup challenge. Until then they will lean on their strongest supporter, FIFA boss Sepp Blatter, who has staked his personal legacy on staging a successful World Cup in Africa. His single-minded backing may be enough to save this bid. Whether it’s enough to ensure a successful tournament is another question entirely.
CLASSIFIED
INDEPENDENTCLASSIFIED FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13-19, 2006 — PAGE 32
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