2006-10-20

VOL. 4 ISSUE 42

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ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR — FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20-26, 2006

OUR TERMS Recommendations from The Independent’s six-part series on Newfoundland’s Terms of Union with Canada.

POLITICS

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WWW.THEINDEPENDENT.CA —

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

LIFE 17

SPORTS 29

Homeless on streets of St. John’s for 24 hours

Mount Pearl’s Ted Purcell makes waves in Maine

The way it has to be Lost within Canadian federation; solution more provincial control

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’s-length 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 ‘lumped in’ with Atlantic Canada.

TRANSPORTATION Guarantee air links, including to all historical trading partners (London, Boston, New York).

Improve ferry service to be more accessible and affordable.

Assume control of province’s air space.

Recommendations emerge from The Independent’s panel: Ryan Cleary, John Crosbie, Brian Dobbin, Gus Etchegary, Roger Grimes, Ray Guy, Maura Hanrahan, Peg Norman, Nancy Riche, Andy Wells.

STEPHANIE PORTER FINAL OF A SIX-PART SERIES See related transcript from panel discussion page 14; related stories pages 13, 14

A

s The Independent wraps up a six-week series on renewing Newfoundland and Labrador’s Terms of Union with Canada, national political events demonstrate why, again, these issues need constant attention.

Earlier this month, Premier Danny Williams turned up the heat once more, lobbing strong words and threats towards Stephen Harper’s Conservatives over proposed equalization changes and fallow-field legislation.

Facing possible federal policy that will again leave Newfoundland and Labrador behind, Williams was proactive, vocal, and quotable — with only seven seats in the House of Commons,

David Lawton, department head of social studies at Macdonald Drive Junior High in St. John’s, discusses Newfoundland and Labrador history with Grade 8 students Maria Clift and Noel Moffatt. Voyage to Discovery was introduced to the province’s school system two years ago.

Paul Daly/The Independent

sometimes the only way to get heard from this end of the country is to scream.

Six weeks ago, The Independent assembled a panel of diverse experts, who gathered to discuss federal provincial relations, using Newfoundland’s Terms of Union with Canada as a starting point.

New and improved terms were suggested on a number of topics, and ideas, thoughts, laments and wild wishes were bandied about — sometimes with humour, sometimes with anger, but always with

pride and a sincere desire to make Newfoundland and Labrador a more visible, strong, and economically sound part of Canada.

There were recurring themes, including a sense of loss — and of being lost within the large federation — of resources, power, and control over the province’s future.

When asked how to overcome the situation, the same solutions surfaced: a desire for management of our resources, the ability to gather our own roy-

alties, make our own decisions, and actually have some clout within the House of Commons (and the Senate).

Liberal MP Scott Simms, in an interview with The Independent, says his beliefs fall along those same lines.

“Trudeau talked about a strong and central Canada,” he says. “It’s not going to work anymore …

See “We don’t need,” page 4

Taking action Thirty-nine breast cancer patients behind class-action suit against Eastern Health; lawyer applies for certification

By Stephanie Porter The Independent

A

t least 39 breast cancer patients from this province have signed on to try to bring a class-action lawsuit against Eastern Health. The St. John’s lawyer representing the group, Ches Crosbie, filed papers asking for certification as a class action on Oct. 13.

Almost a year ago, The Independent reported the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s had begun retesting tissue samples taken from breast cancer

patients from as far back as 1997 to address possible inaccurate results.

The outcome of the tests — which examine hormone receptors in breast cancer cells for estrogen and progesterone — help physicians determine what course of treatment the patient should undergo.

Patients have been contacted one by one by the hospital, as their results came in. Eastern Health CEO George Tilley says more than 900 specimens were sent to Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto for retesting; the organization has not

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “It’s no spot to try and cheat on your husband.”

— Principal Brenda Roberts on life in Black Tickle, Labrador. See page 3.

released the total number of inaccurate results.

Crosbie says most of the “patients now living” have received the new results, if any.

“But they haven’t completely finished it yet,” he says. “I’m inferring that from the fact I got a call from a gentleman about 10 days ago and they had phoned him.

“His wife is deceased now these last two years and they told him they’re now doing specimens of deceased patients, which would make sense, because

STYLE 19

’Tis the season for creepy, crawly & crazy

LIFE 17

Myrtle Lewis, a breast cancer patient represented by Ches Crosbie. Paul Daly/The Independent

there’s no hurry for that, it doesn’t affect any therapy.

“They wanted him to speak with an oncologist and I can guess from that there’s presumably a reversal in that test, otherwise why take up an oncologist’s time talking to you?”

Susan Rendell talks to the woman behind Rattling Books’ success

The tests in question are referred to as ER (estrogen) and PR (progesterone) receptor tests. The procedures, given to men and women diagnosed with breast cancer, determine whether a particular

Life Story . . . . . . . . . 10 Film score . . . . . . . . . 19 On the shelf . . . . . . . 19 Food & drink . . . 22-23 Classifieds . . . . . . . . 32

See “Every individual,” page 5

2 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

OCTOBER 20, 2006

Loblaws by the lake

Patrick O’Flaherty sees Memorial Stadium as byelection issue

I

note that the Memorial Stadium rezoning issue hasn’t surfaced in the Signal Hill-Quidi campaign. But it will be on my mind when I vote on Nov. 1.

I got directly involved in the battle against the Loblaws superstore soon after Sept. 14, 2005. The appeal board of the City of St. John’s, having advertised that an appeal meeting on the stadium site would be held that day, and having notified area residents of their right to appear and state their views, decided peremptorily not to hear an appeal.

Board members came into the meeting of about 60 citizens, including me, and sat in their places, whereupon the chair,

PATRICK O’FLAHERTY A Skeptic’s Diary Marie White, said she had been “advised” that she didn’t have the “authority” to hear an appeal, and the whole board walked out.

That seemed to me an impudent offence against democracy and fair play.

So, as I said, I got involved. Really by then the battle was over. It had gone on for five years and the media had lost interest. It was probably the hardest fight

ever put up by citizens against a City Hall decision. A huge petition was taken up against the rezoning, a courageous court case against it was fought and lost, veterans and other groups had expressed outrage, fierce lobbying went on behind the scenes, a raucous public meeting at city hall showed officials the depth of feeling against the proposal, the city’s own commissioner decided rezoning was a bad idea — and Loblaws still got its way. (I think now that if they wanted to put a whorehouse on top of Belvedere Cemetery they’d likely get that too.)

The organized opposition by late 2005 had dwindled to four; I made it five. We spent long hours poring over documents

and pondering strategy. The group had only two options. To go to court was one.

We filed an appeal against the board’s decision of Sept. 14 in the Supreme Court, but in the end withdrew it, thinking there was little chance of winning there.

The other option was to go over the head of the municipal council to the provincial government. This tactic was adopted by the four other members of the group just before I joined. Premier Danny Williams, Municipal and Provincial Affairs Minister Jack Byrne, Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Recreation Paul Shelley, and Justice Minister Tom Marshall were informed

by letter in September about various concerns arising from the decision to rezone. The replies were brush-offs. The premier didn’t answer at all.

We decided on Oct. 4 to go a step further. The City of St. John’s Act specifies that on petition from 10 ratepayers who allege that an impartial examination of the finances and administration of the city is needed, the lieutenant governor in council may appoint a commission of three persons to conduct an inquiry. We collected 10 names and sent in the petition. To the best of my knowledge, no reply was sent, apart from an acknowledgement of receipt by Edward Roberts.

Cabinet ministers must have seen how powerful the feeling against the Loblaws proposal was, especially among citizens in the vicinity of Quidi Vidi Lake. The cabinet has the means at hand to stall or stop any dubious proceeding of a dysfunctional or incompetent council. They chose to turn a blind eye.

The Urban and Rural Planning Act requires the minister of Municipal Affairs to “review” any plan or development regulations submitted by municipalities to see if they are contrary to law or government policy — before he registers it in his department, which means its formal acceptance. The period between the submission of the rezoning plan to Mr. Byrne and its registration was so small — three days or less — that he or his officials couldn’t have had time to review it. He rubber-stamped it.

One politician outside the council who advised against the Loblaws proposal and made a sensible alternate development suggestion for the area was Jack Harris, then leader of the NDP and district MHA. Mr. Byrne dismissed it.

So now we have it — a superstore is being built in what was in effect a park in the heart of the city’s east end. It will further clog traffic in an already heavily congested complex of streets, threaten and perhaps contaminate the lake — no environmental impact study has been done — restrict parking, obstruct recreational activity, and be a generally obnoxious, superfluous, and intrusive feature of the area.

I know city council is mainly responsible, but the PC government let it happen and showed contempt for those who opposed it.

Patrick O’Flaherty lives in the provincial district of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

Chartered flight to Iceland cost $27,000 A chartered jet used by Premier Danny Williams and a provincial government delegation to fly to Iceland in late August cost taxpayers just over $27,000, The Independent has learned.

This cost was split three ways: Office of the Premier, $13,681; Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, $9,120.88; and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, $4,560.44. The information was supplied to The Independent through an official request filed under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. While based in Iceland, the premier and some delegates flew to Norway and back on a commercial flight, the costs of which were not included in the above totals.

The premier’s office provided a quote stating a comparable round-trip ticket on a commercial flight from St. John’s to Reykjavik would cost $4,427.50 per person.

When The Independent called the airline, an Air Canada representative suggested the trip, with a four-day stay (the time the delegation spent between arriving and leaving Iceland) would have cost $3,408.68 per person — $1,018.82 per person less than the amount quoted by the premier’s office.

With a seven-day stay in Iceland the fare would have dropped to $1881.00.

— Ivan Morgan

OCTOBER 20, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 3

SCRUNCHINS A weekly collection of Newfoundlandia MP Loyola Hearn lowered the bar for parliamentary debate in the House of Commons this week when he took a shot at Liberal MP Scott Simms’ fivefoot-four frame, referring to him as a “shrimp.” Simms actually started it when he posed a question to the minister of “flip, flop and flounder,” accusing the Conservative government of planning to cut $100 million from the federal Fisheries budget. Responded Hearn, “The biggest problem we have in Newfoundland is an oversupply of one fish. It is called the shrimp.”

In that light, The Independent launches a name-your-MP contest. The rules are simple: come up with a name for each of the province’s seven MPs. The name must be either a fish or crustacean found in Newfoundland and Labrador waters (shrimp or flounder are taken, remember). I personally would have described Hearn as a sea urchin (or the colloquial term, whore’s egg), not so much because he’s a spiny sea creature, but for his lack of spine (at least since taking office). The winner of the best names, as judged by the editorial staff, will receive a high quality and ultrafashionable Independent hoodie. Send entries to the e-mail address at the bottom of this column …

CARTOON CHARACTERS Speaking of poking fun … Brad Cranford of Mount Pearl, a financial

consultant by day and budding cartoonist by night, came up with the two drawings included in this week’s column.

The Conservative Park Boys — Danny as Julian, Tom Rideout as Ricky and Loyola Sullivan as Bubbles. The other drawing, my favourite, is of St. John’s mayor Andy Wells as a brutish piece of tail …

BERG BAGGING The November issue of Toro magazine includes a feature spread on Peak Performers, extreme athletes who do whatever it takes to “summit their sports of choice.” The piece profiled Will Gadd, who journeyed to Labrador last year to fulfill a climbing fantasy: “berg bagging,” or shimmying up icebergs using ice axes and crampons — plus

By Ivan Morgan The Independent

life jackets. “The scale of the icebergs is so large that it’s like climbing floating office buildings,” says Gadd, a.k.a.

Captain Adventure, whose risky ascents earned him a spot on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. “If one of them were to roll over, and they all roll eventually … well, it wouldn’t be good,” Gadd was quoted in the magazine. “It’s one of the top memories of my life: icebergs are so surreal, like floating Dali sculptures, but I’m done climbing on them.” Wonder why …

CHOPPER DOWN The Globe recently carried a threequarter page obituary on Craig Dobbin, including a story on an August 1979 accident involving Newfoundland and Labrador’s most successful son. Dobbin

was on a helicopter excursion around Clarenville with a couple of his bankers and the president of Memorial University when the chopper went down. “The pilot was gaining altitude when the engine failed and the chopper spun down into some trees into a remote location,” read the Globe piece. “The pilot and Mr. Dobbin’s bank manager were killed. The others were badly hurt; Mr. Dobbin, his sternum crushed and his face torn, was the only one who could walk.

Dobbin climbed out of the wreckage and walked a couple of miles until he encountered a railway track. He dragged over a log to mark his access point, then walked up the line until he came across a team of loggers. Using Dobbin’s marker, the loggers retraced his steps to the crash site and helped survivors make it to hospital.

COD END Scientists said this week that a complete ban on cod fishing is the only way to prevent the species from dying in the North Sea. A European rescue plan for cod is apparently failing. Stocks of cod — Britain’s favourite fish — are so depleted in the seas around the UK that there could be a complete ban on catching the fish throughout the next year.

On our side of the ocean, Loyola Hearn has rejected a call to ban bottom trawling. According to DFO’s latest numbers (2004, don’t you know), the landed value of species caught by bot-

tom-trawling gear amounted to a landed volume of 172,000 tonnes, worth a landed value of $230 million.

BIG SPENDER Canada’s MPs and Senators spend $33 million a year on travel allowances that largely cover their travel bills back and forth to Ottawa and around their ridings, writes Alan Findlay of the London Free Press. The average expense bill filed by an MP topped $86,000 last year, Findlay wrote, with Random-Burin-St. George’s MP Bill Matthews leading the pack last year at $277,262. Of course, that’s on top of his base salary of $147,000 a year. Writes Findlay, “By the way, MPs get travel points equivalent to 64 rounds trips to their home ridings, for their own and family members’ use — yet their travel bills are still sky high.”

COPES WELL Finally this week, Dr. Parzival Copes was inducted recently as an officer in the Order of Canada for his work in social services. In the 1960s, Copes, then a member of Memorial University’s economics department, created national controversy in predicting that Newfoundland’s economy would be unable to provide jobs for a large segment of its population. His 1972 report, The Resettlement of Fishing Communities in Newfoundland, wasn’t exactly a best seller, but it did hit the nail on the head. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

Life on the edge

B

lack Tickle is a community of contrasts.

Residents talk of hardships and joys, hope and despair, dreams and reality.

Devastated by the collapse of the cod fishery, Black Tickle is almost completely dependent on government assistance for survival. But it’s also the kind of community that responds to a call from a local company interested in buying bakeapples by picking a stunning $55,000 worth.

“These aren’t lazy people,” says local MHA Yvonne Jones. “They can do a hard day’s work with the best of them.”

Black Tickle is a tiny community on an island off the Labrador coast overlooking the fishing grounds. The community only ever had one reason to exist.

“The fishery, as far as I can see, is the only livelihood for the people in this community,” says Brenda Roberts, principal of St. Peter’s All Grade. Originally from the west coast of Newfoundland, Roberts has been living and teaching in Black Tickle for the past 27 years.

She says since the cod moratorium, the community has been struggling to survive.

After the start of the moratorium, the provincial government invested money to convert the local plant to processing snow crab, but the crab season is very short and the plant does not provide enough employment for the residents to qualify for EI benefits.

“I would say about 99 per cent of the people don’t qualify (for EI). The average number of hours that people get in the plant is somewhere between 150 and 200,” Roberts says. She says a community enhancement project employing 50 people recently started, but it is tough finding something for them to do.

“They’re scratching their heads and wondering what to do, what to do with them, and what to have them work at, because all the government put down was labour dollars — no material to work with. The community’s own resource and financial base is so limited, they aren’t going to get many materials from here.”

Some residents don’t even have the opportunity for work and EI. For them, life can be very hard.

“I know a particular man in the community, I have known him for a number of years. He wasn’t warm. That was a cold house,” says Roberts.

“I knew another family who would have the furnace on for certain days and off for certain days.”

Jones also doesn’t mince words. “People are cold,” she says. “It is that bad. They are that poor.”

In Black Tickle, there is a satellite TV and internet service with hundreds of channels. There are a handful of cars moving along the few kilometres of roads. There are the usual modern conveniences.

But most residents must take buckets to the water purification plant to get drinking water

The 200-plus Black Tickle residents live close to nature, themselves — and disaster

Photos Brenda Roberts

(there’s a limit of two buckets a day). Many people do not have adequate — if any — sewage systems. Supplies, when people can afford them, are purchased from the one store in the community or ordered by phone from Lewisporte and delivered on the coastal boat, which arrives once a week. Prices are high.

Travel is difficult and expensive. People can only leave the island by plane or boat — and, at $350 for a round trip to Goose Bay, air travel is beyond the reach of many in the community.

“Transportation here this fall is enough to rot your guts,” says Roberts. “What can you do? You put up with it, that’s all you can do.”

Which is a philosophy the people of Black Tickle take to many of their troubles. Yet, tough as it may seem to live there, the people who do, love their community.

Dominic Rose, 52, a fisherman, was born in Black Tickle. Without hesitation, he says, “It’s the perfect place to live — all the freedom you could ever want.” He admits he is away the better part of the year, fishing in other parts of the province, but he loves to come home, be with his

family, go out on the land and enjoy the scattered “time” with family and friends.

Rose can’t see living anywhere else. He owns his own home, as do most people in the community. He feels safe.

“We tried to get a full-time Mountie here, but they told us we didn’t have enough crime,” he says.

He would love to see his community connected to the rest of Labrador by road, and argues it would open the area up to development, but admits it probably won’t happen anytime soon.

Most of the people in the community are of Métis descent, and they like living close to the land and water. When not working a paid job, there is plenty to do, gathering firewood, hunting and fishing.

“The men are usually out and gone. In the summer they are gone on the boats, and the winter it’s Skidoos,” says Roberts.

She loves the community and understands why people stay.

“People like having their coziness and their ‘at peaceness’ with each other,” she says. She

remembers a young woman from the community, who was sent to St. John’s for treatment for a sickness. She died while in St. John’s. The $900 fee for returning the remains to her hometown was way beyond the family’s ability to pay.

“Members of the community went around with a hat, and within an hour and a half they had $1,000, and they brought her body back,” says Roberts. “This was blood from a turnip.”

But unless the cod fishery returns, the community’s future seems dark. Young people leave to pursue their education, and most do not return.

Roberts is moving next year.

“I want a bigger school for my daughter. She’s the only one in her grade.”

She says she’ll miss the close-knit feeling and sense of community.

“We’re a couple of hundred people.

Everybody’s nose is up everybody else’s rear.

Everybody knows what you’re at, which is fine as long as you got nothing to hide,” she says, then laughs.

“It’s no spot to try and cheat on your husband.” ivan.morgan@theindependent.ca

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4 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

OCTOBER 20, 2006

‘I love being out here’ NDP party leader Lorraine Michael is raring to go — and to win Jack Harris’ empty seat on Nov. 5

By Mandy Cook The Independent

I

t’s a crisp, grey fall morning and Lorraine Michael, party leader and New Democrat candidate for the upcoming Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi byelection, is excited to find people answering her knock at their front doors. The first day of the work week is not a typical time to catch voters at home, but the first five houses descending the steep top half of Victoria Street in St. John’s prove to be fruitful.

“Did we drag you out of bed?” asks Michael, as a young man in grey sweats and a tousled head of brown hair shuffles to the door. He sleepily answers to the affirmative.

Despite being half-awake, he is receptive and pledges his support. The man says he’s an NDP supporter and is new to the district. Peg Norman, Michael’s campaigning partner, whips out her clipboard to get his telephone number. An accurate voters’ list is a top priority in order to know your constituents before they answer the door.

Michael has taken on the mantle of NDP leader now that Jack Harris has officially retired from provincial politics. Jack’s name is cited regularly between the two women as the “master,” not only for campaigning techniques but for his epic popularity — a point Michael addresses very early on.

“I think people who have voted NDP throughout those years understand they were voting NDP, they weren’t just voting for Jack Harris,” she says. “It’s been our seat for 19 of the past 20 years … I’m convinced I’m going to win this one.”

In the days since the election was called, Michael has identified three

major issues in the district: the lack of maintained housing and repairs, especially in the north end; shortcomings in healthcare services due to insufficient staffing; and out-migration. Michael cites an example where one neighbourhood lost 21 of its 30 grown children to the mainland.

Further down the hill, an enthusiastic NDP supporter comes to the door and engages Michael in a discussion about the lack of “real” opposition in the House. Asked what he thinks her chances of winning are, he is confident.

“I think they’re good down here because people are more in touch,” the Victoria Street resident says. “They’re not caught up in the media bandwagon and they’re more independent thinkers.

That’s why we live down here, out of the establishment. I think her chances are great.”

A tireless champion of human rights and active in Newfoundland and Labrador’s social justice movement for the past 40 years, Michael is determined to bring her vision and tenacity to her district’s issues. She says she is committed to a universal childcare system and is eager to brainstorm with the members of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi about ideas ranging from entrepreneurial opportunities to the environment.

“I’m really excited to sit down with the small business people,” she says, walking up Bond Street, Oxfam and literacy buttons affixed to her three-quarter length coat. “I would really like to get together with them and see what ideas they’ve been thinking about … (I also) really want to push the provincial government in supporting a full comprehensive curbside recycling program.

This is both a provincial and municipal issue.”

Lorraine Michael, NDP candidate in Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, canvasses in the district.

Michael is in tune with her surroundings. She knows several of the residents in each home without referring to the voters’ list and is delighted by a surprise greeting from Greg Malone, a former NDP candidate himself.

“Hi team!” laughs Malone as he walks up to Michael and Norman.

A quick bit of banter and Michael is back to work. She seems as much at ease chatting with her colleagues as she does with strangers on their step.

“I love being out here,” she says.

“It’s so good you know, you knock on a door and a person looks at you and says, ‘I always vote NDP and you’ve got my support,’ it just energizes …

That has to make me feel good.”

This is an important election for the NDP. If Michael is not elected in Harris’ 16-year wake, the party will

lose its official party status, which translates into a lack of funding for offices, materials and manpower. The organizers behind Michael’s campaign aren’t worried.

They say it makes no more difference now than in the last 19 years. As Michael’s campaign manager, Rick Boland, says: “Every election is an important election.”

On Bond Street this morning, Michael has the support of the majority — at least at face value on people’s doorsteps. Barry Hart, an NDP supporter, says he will put an “x” by Michael’s name come Nov. 3.

“I think she’s got an excellent chance because of the history of Jack Harris and the NDP party in this district.”

Paul Daly/The Independent

Number of voters in district of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi: 8085 Maximum amount spent per voter: $3.755 Total allowable budget per candidate: $30,359 Number of by-elections since 2003 general election: 2 (districts of Exploits and Placentia-St. Mary’s) Number of by-elections won by Tory candidates since 2003: 2

mandy.cook@theindependent.ca

‘We don’t need to be the weak partner in Confederation’ From page 1 “And I’m one of the very few Liberals that would say that. But asymmetrical federalism of some sort is what we’ve got, whether you like it or not. And it has to be.”

Simms calls for flexibility within the political system and bureaucracy — because in a country as large and varied as Canada, one policy may never fit all.

“When you look at current federal government policy, we’re only principle beneficiaries if it satisfies everyone else. It’s kind of warped,” he says.

“The federal system tries so hard to be fair to everybody, or the same for everybody so that nobody … bureaucrats and cabinet ministers, they go out of their way, come hell or high water, to make sure they’re flat across the entire region. To make it even for everyone. That’s not necessarily the way to go. It’s not flexible.”

Simms says economic development has to be more autonomous for provinces, and for regions within the provinces. He

steadfastly agrees natural resources should be in the hands of the local economy — the development, the royalties, “you name it.”

He brings up the recent high-profile dispute between Williams and Harper as a case in point.

“What’s happening now with the equalization talks, it’s absurd,” he says. “What are they going to do? What satisfies Newfoundland and Labrador pisses off Quebec, and on, and on … but they try so hard to do this.

“Why can’t we do fallow-field legislation? We should be doing it. Alberta has their own expiry dates on leases, but they’re not sure about fallow field. Well, don’t do it then, if it’s no good for you.

Alberta is one of the most generous places in the world for oil companies. Personally, I think they’re too generous. But let them decide that. The federal government shouldn’t be making the same set of rules around the economy of Alberta as they would for the northwest Atlantic.”

At one point in the panel discussion,

businessman Brian Dobbin said, if he had his way, he’d have the province forego equalization and other federal subsidies, in return for having complete management — including the collection of royalties — of the offshore resources, the fishery, even the air space over Newfoundland and Labrador.

That may be an extreme and unlikely scenario, but it summed up what the majority panelists seemed to be getting at: Newfoundlanders and Labradorians would like to regain a sense of control over their economy and land, and an ability to make decisions, for better or worse — not to wait for policy designed in Ottawa, approved by the other nine provinces.

The panel also called for better transportation; constitutionally guaranteed ferry and air services to reduce the tangible feeling of being isolated.

One of the first recommendations of The Independent panel was that MPs from Newfoundland and Labrador should act as a bloc, when issues are of importance for

the province.

Simms offers some hope that this might already be happening. Simms says he’s working with Conservative Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn to set up a strategy meeting between all seven MPs and the province’s senators about the seal hunt.

“It’s one of those things we all agree on,” Simms says. “So when the protests and pressure from Europe … ratchet up early next year, we’ll be ready. All of us.”

As constitutional lawyer Stephen May told The Independent at the beginning of the Our Terms, any actual renegotiation of the constitution is difficult, tangly, and “one would have to be an extreme optimist to ever expect that to happen.”

But there are ways to work to better our place within the federation — perhaps with “asymmetrical” legislation, or just through sheer determination and focus.

“We should be making … jobs ourselves,” Dobbin said. “We should be doing our own research, we don’t need to be the weak partner in Confederation, there’s no reason in the world we should

be the weak partner in Confederation.”

Simms says “the culture is already changing”: he was warned having a Progressive Conservative premier in Newfoundland would prove a liability for Liberals in Ottawa — which has clearly not proven to be the case. Looking back, he says, Roger Grimes “wasn’t particularly friendly” with Chrétien’s Liberal administration either. Provincial party loyalty doesn’t always translate to the national parties — and he believes individual MPs must sometimes break from their party line as well.

“Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are for Newfoundland and Labrador now,” he says. “We’ve had our run-ins with the federal government, and we’ve got to be loud, where there’s only a few of us. If we don’t, it’s lost.

“What choice do we have? As MPs, we’ve got to do the same. In many of these issues, how does the song go?

We’ve ‘gotta kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight.’” stephanie.porter@theindependent.ca

The secret war to sink owner-operator fishermen

U

nknown to the Canadian public, there is a fierce and largely secret battle going on to undermine government policy and radically restructure the Atlantic Canada fishery.

It is a guerrilla war that pits a group of strange bedfellows — a few wealthy fishermen, some fish processors and a number of bureaucrats inside the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans — against the DFO minister and the existing fisheries licensing system.

So far, the strange bedfellows seem to be winning in their stealth campaign to overthrow the foundation of Atlantic

MARC ALLAIN

Guest Column fishery policy. They are succeeding by doing everything in their power to make the existing licensing policies meaningless and unenforceable.

The Atlantic fishery employs over 30,000 people directly and, despite a major stock collapse and a rising Canadian dollar, it is still — at a value of $2.5 billion — the third biggest export earner in the Atlantic region after

energy and forest products.

The current structure of the fishery has been shaped by two fundamental policy decisions made more than 25 years ago. First, the DFO’s owner-operator policy established that on fishing vessels under 65 feet in length, the holder of the licence has to fish it personally. This means that a non-fisherman can’t hold a lobster licence and have someone else fish it, and similarly an active fisherman can’t officially buy a second lobster licence and have someone else fish it for him. The fleet separation policy established that companies that process fish cannot own licences and operate fishing vessels under 65 feet.

Because of these policies, the greater portion of the wealth of the Atlantic fishery today goes not to big fish companies or absentee investors, but to thousands of owner-operator fishermen based in hundreds of coastal communities.

And that’s what the war is about — gaining control over these small owneroperator businesses in Atlantic Canada.

For years, fish companies and other investors have been quietly getting around the owner-operator and fleet separation policies by means of secret “trust agreements” — legal fictions that give control over fishing licences to people other than those entitled to them.

For a long time, these deals were thought to be of marginal significance.

Recently, however, industry and community leaders have awakened to the reality that in some very lucrative fisheries, like lobster in southwest Nova Scotia and snow crab in Newfoundland, the under-the-table trust agreements are threatening the foundations of their local fisheries. Not only do companies now control more and more licences,

but the underground market means most young people in fishing communities can never hope to become owner-operators.

Every time this conflict has come out into the open, the owner-operator and fleet separation policies have been widely supported.

In extensive public consultations for DFO’s recent Atlantic fisheries policy review, the overwhelming majority of individual fishermen and fishermen’s organizations forcefully called on the government to maintain and strengthen the policies. They were supported by the governments of the four Atlantic provinces and Québec and by numerous municipal governments and community organizations. Only a few individuals representing fish companies spoke against the policies.

In response to the strong support for the existing policies, successive ministers of DFO made clear commitments to maintain and strengthen the owneroperator and fleet separation policies.

The new minister, Loyola Hearn from Newfoundland, is the latest to do so.

Last June, in his first appearance before the Senate fisheries committee, Mr. Hearn said: “Our firm belief is that the person who owns the licence, the fisherman who has a licence, should be the one who fishes the resource. He should be the one benefiting from the resource.

The skipper should be in the boat and not down in Florida phoning home orders to several people who operate boats which he owns.

“The department is ready for a fight with the people who benefit from the trust agreements, if that’s what it takes to stop the practice … we let this thing get out of hand.”

Despite the clear message from the minister, nothing has been done to stop

the practice. The changes needed to prevent trust agreements from undermining government policy still haven’t been made and there is no indication from DFO of when they will be.

Worse, the undermining of government policy has become more blatant and open. In Nova Scotia, companies and individuals are buying newspaper ads offering to buy and lease lobster licences, all in open contravention of DFO licensing policies, and yet regional DFO officials are doing nothing to stop it.

Like a cancer on the fisheries management system, this situation is undermining the overall credibility of DFO. In recent meetings in Nova Scotia, for example, fishermen challenged DFO to explain why they should be following the regulations if the department does not enforce its own rules and allows a few companies and rich fishermen to buy up control of the resource.

That is a very good question.

The secret war against the owneroperator and fleet separation policies has successfully forestalled the promises and commitments of three DFO ministers for over four years.

Mr. Hearn is right. The situation is out of hand. It’s time for him to take control, bring his managers into line with departmental policies, and introduce the changes needed to make the policies meaningful again.

Marc Allain is an independent fisheries policy analyst, with a masters degree in marine management from Dalhousie University. He has worked for the last 12 years as an adviser to Canada’s owner-operator fleets, principally in the Maritimes. This article was published last week in the Halifax ChronicleHerald. Reprinted with permission.

OCTOBER 20, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 5

Mill Lane to close

Eastern Health no longer considers sheltered workshops ‘best practice’

By Ivan Morgan The Independent

E

astern Health is closing Mill Lane Enterprises, a popular workplace program for persons with mental illness.

Although a 2003 report by Memorial University’s health research unit praised the Mill Lane program for its benefits, Krista Wade, program manager for Mill Lane, says clinical research now indicates sheltered workshops don’t work.

“What has been happening in the last number of years in the vocational rehabilitation research and literature is that sheltered workshops is not best practice

anymore,” Wade tells The Independent.

“Of course, as health professionals we want to make sure that we are offering best practice.”

Mill Lane is best known for making furniture and textile products.

Wade understands that some people may be surprised by the decision.

“In the day, Mill Lane was seen as doing good things, but the research is telling us now that sheltered workshop can serve to demotivate people,” she says, “and it keeps people in that sheltered environment and it doesn’t help them to move on to normal, competitive employment. Which is what we are seeing — people are not moving on from the program the way it is now.”

Geoff Chaulk, executive director of the Newfoundland chapter of the Canadian Mental Health Association, says his organization is aware of the closure of Mill Lane and supports the move.

“I think the direction they want to head in is a realistic one, and in terms of the mental-health field, it is in keeping with better practice in relation to employment opportunities for people with serious mental illness.”

He says the new philosophy is to make employment better in terms of wages, and make consumers a true part of the marketplace and not removed from the business community.

In the introduction to its 2003 study,

Memorial’s health research unit wrote, “There is a growing awareness that, in addition to medications, skill building and social support enhancement can significantly improve the quality of life for mentally ill individuals.” Yet both Wade and Chaulk now say that research show that the sheltered workshop is not the best approach to achieving this.

Wade insists this is not a cost cutting measure by Eastern Health.

“We are not downsizing the program.

The intent of the changes is not to reduce clinical staff,” she says. “The whole move to the transition and the change really came from the clinical staff — not from the business end.”

Wade says this new approach is pre-

liminary, but that they have consulted with consumer groups, which have supported the idea.

Chaulk says it is time to move on from sheltered workshops.

“The model itself tended to promote dependence as opposed to independence. I think over time with evaluations of this kind of program all around the country . . . there were concerns by consumers regarding the low wage they were getting and the low number of hours,” says Chaulk.

“It met a need, but it didn’t help people move on.” 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.

THURSDAY Vessels Arrived: Jean Charcot, Britain, from sea; Maersk Detector, Canada, from Orphan Basin; Atlantic Eagle, Canada, from Terra Nova.

Vessels Departed: Wilfred Templeman, Canada, to sea; Atlantic Osprey, Canada, to White Rose; Maersk Challenger, Canada, to White Rose.

FRIDAY Vessels Arrived: Cicero, Canada, from Montreal; Maroajoca, Russia, from Spain.

Vessels Departed: Maersk Detector, Canada, to Orphan Basin; Cicero, Canada, to Montreal.

St. John’s lawyer Ches Crosbie

Paul Daly/The Independent

‘Every individual has the right to take whatever action they deem appropriate’ From page 1

Crosbie says. “And those are usually difficult questions in something as complex as breast cantumour needs hormones, such as estrogen or cer.” progesterone, to grow.

Considering most of the affected patients A positive result shows it does, which means learned about the re-testing through the media, the cancer may respond to hormone therapy, such Crosbie says Eastern Health still isn’t commuas the drug Tamoxifen, taken by mouth and gen- nicating well with the public. erally carrying less side effects than chemothera“The hospital has released no new information py, which would likely be required in the face of since about a year ago,” he says. “We don’t know a negative test result. how many specimens have been sent out, we The 39 people involved in the class-action suit don’t know what the percentage of reversals are, so far find themselves in a range of situations. the reversals from negative to positive …

Some, whose original test results proved inac“They have a patient population out there, curate, may not have received the best treatment which is the whole population of Newfoundland regime for their cancer, which may have affected — in that they do all the testing centrally — certheir outcome or subjected them to unnecessary tainly everyone who might have breast cancer, harsh side effects. and they’re not telling them anything, in a generOne woman mentioned on the al sense.” claim, Verna Doucette — one of Tilley says the collection, “(We) would like to the first to approach Crosbie — sending, retesting and review of charges the chemotherapy all test samples was an “extenassure the public caused a severe flare-up of an sive process.” Currently, all old tuberculosis infection in her results are being collated for that we take these left lung. When she got her new analysis and Eastern Health is matters seriously, test results, they showed she double-checking charts to make might never have needed to take sure all affected individuals that we have a the harsh chemicals. have been contacts. He expects (An affidavit from Dr. the review of the retesting to be team of clinical Charles Hutton, a forensic done by the end of November. and administrative pathologist, is included in In regards to the potential law Crosbie’s application for certifisuits, Tilley says “every indipeople working cation as a class-action suit. In vidual has the right to take on this issue.” reviewing the case, he states whatever action they deem Doucette was “a good candidate appropriate and we must allow for Tomoxifen therapy” and that the legal system to address the Eastern Health CEO it can be inferred “chemotheralegal issues.

George Tilly py had done irreparable harm” “(We) would like to assure to her lungs.) the public that we take these Other participants were diagmatters seriously, that we have a nosed with cancer, who may only have had pre- team of clinical and administrative people workcancerous cells. In one case, Myrtle Lewis had ing on this issue.” both breasts removed and underwent a considerCrosbie is still open to hearing from anyone able amount of chemotherapy — which may not interested in taking part in, or hearing more have been necessary. about, the possible class action.

The class action may also represent people “Thirty-nine is a fair number,” says Crosbie. “I who did not have any change in their test results, guess it shows there’s a significant number of but who suffered some mental distress as they people who might be affected, which might be anxiously waited for news, wondering about their 800, from what they were saying a year ago. cancer and treatment.

“All the authorities who studied this question The class action also represents affected in Canada and the U.S. agree that only about 10 patients who are no longer living, on behalf of per cent of people who have been affected by their families or estates. medical negligence actually ever come forward According to another affidavit included in the and do anything about it in terms of taking a certification materials, at least two other St. claim. So if you look at it from that point of view, John’s law firms represent more than two dozen it’s a significant number of people.” other patients, who will join the class-action suit A class-action suit is a long process. Both sides — should it be certified. must file all paperwork by February 2007, at “There’s still scope for the lawyers to represent which point a date for the hearing of the certificaindividual clients in all likelihood, because the tion application will be determined. common issues won’t take care of the question of quantifying damages in individual cases,” stephanie.porter@theindependent.ca

SATURDAY Vessels Arrived: Maersk Norseman, Canada, from Hibernia; Maersk Placentia, Canada, from White Rose.

Vessels Departed: Atlantic Eagle, Canada, to Terra Nova; Maersk Placentia, Canada, to White Rose.

SUNDAY Vessels Arrived: Oceanex Avalon, Canada,

from Montreal; Maersk Gabarus, Canada, from Sable Island.

Vessels Departed: Jean Charcot, Britain, to sea; Maersk Norseman, Canada, to Hibernia; Sir Wilfred Grenfell, Canada, to sea; Maersk Dispatcher, Canada, to Erik Raude.

MONDAY Vessels Arrived: Cabot, Canada, from Halifax; Maersk Detector, Canada, from Orphan Basin; Captain Earl W Winsor, Canada, from Man of War Cove.

Vessels Departed: Olivia, Norway, to sea; Oceanex Avalon, Canada, to Montreal.

TUESDAY Vessels Arrived: Acadian, Canada, from Charlottetown; Maersk Challenger, Canada, from White Rose.

Vessels Departed: Atlantic Kingfisher, Canada, to Hibernia; Cabot, Canada, to Halifax; Maersk Detector, Canada, to Conception Bay. WEDNESDAY Vessels Arrived: Maersk Detector, Canada, from Conception Bay; Atlantic Eagle, Canada, from Terra Nova.

Vessels Departed: Maersk Challenger, Canada, to Terra Nova; Acadian, Canada, to Saint John.

6 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

OCTOBER 20, 2006

Dead reckoning I

f The Independent is off Danny Williams’ Christmas-card list, The Globe and Mail must be mud beneath his feet. The paper’s dirt to me, but then I still read Canada’s “national newspaper” every day, for no other reason than to know the mind of the mortal enemy. It’s not so much that The Globe is a rag; it certainly comes across as a cut above the rest (Rex Murphy isn’t hard to look at either, from this angle, and when the light is right), but The Globe is no friend to Newfoundland and Labrador.

A newspaper is supposed to be a reflection of the people and place. In that case, upper Canadians, as reflected in the pages of The Globe, are sleeveens of the highest order, a few notches below the average skeet. Arrogant, smug, condescending bastards, more like it.

Nothing personal, of course. I write that in the same clever, witty way that Margaret Wente hammered home a point about us a while ago. The outports are a “vast and scenic welfare ghetto” the same way that Ontario is a vast and life-sucking siphon, from the have-not to the have. Danny Williams is “more popular than God” the same way that a central Canadian is God.

RYAN CLEARY

Fighting Newfoundlander On Wednesday, The Globe’s lead editorial was headlined, Reckoning with Danny Williams. The paper called Danny a “bully” for taking on Big Oil. That’s the same Big Oil that bloats itself on billions of dollars a year in oil from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, and the same province that barely limps along on stick-thin economic legs.

Bully about sums it up.

If you believe The Globe, Big Oil didn’t pull out of Hebron talks with Danny Dearest, so much as check into a shelter for victims of boardroom abuse.

Danny and the rest of us who didn’t have the sense to U-Haul it out of here long ago have a tendency to get uppity every now and then, and must be put in our Canadian place, a responsibility eagerly carried out by The Globe.

Quote from the paper’s editorial: “His (Danny’s) orchestrated outrage over the perceived mistreatment of Newfoundland failed to budge battle-

hardened oil executives who are used to dealing with tinpot dictatorships that like to change the rules after the contracts are signed.”

Ouch. Only the negotiations were still going on when ExxonMobil took its marbles and went home to sook.

There were no rules to change; they were in the process of being drawn up.

Danny also went off on Stephen Harper last week in Gander, which The Globe described as “near-hysterical verbal assaults.”

Ottawa must see us coming. We’re so caught up in trying to keep a grip on the $2 billion in Atlantic Accord money we won last year that we can’t make headway on anything else. (A conspiracy theorist would see that as a devious mainland plot.)

Nothing will get done on the federal/provincial front as long as we’re kept busy chasing our own tail. Danny will probably spend between now and the New Year ensuring we maintain our ability to tread water. The premier may be a scrapper, but that’s not much good when his swings don’t connect.

Win, lose, or trash talk all day, Danny has his cheerleaders, Townie backbencher Shawn Skinner being chief pompom swinger. Skinner ripped into

Liberal leader Gerry Reid on CBC Television this week for not standing behind the premier and the people of the province in the latest skirmish with Ottawa. Reid says the premier’s controversial style may be hurting the province.

“Danny is the way and the light,” Skinner seemed to say, hunched over slightly from the hand up his puppet hole. “Ours is not to question why or how high, but to nod furiously when the premier’s lips move so that we’ll eventually get in cabinet one day and worship at his feet.”

Danny had better watch how he spends his considerable political capital — the premier lost the Max Ruelokke round, Hebron’s on hold, and the federal government seems to be cutting every service in Newfoundland and Labrador that’s not nailed to the deck. Quebec also got a big fat apology this week from Danny (for a moment, I thought the Premier had been taken over by the body snatcher that is the plant on the new government logo, but then, for your information, he’s still not taking to The Independent, so he’s still his old self).

The premier keeps warning of dire consequences but he had better be pre-

pared to eventually show his “or-else” card, because his bluff will be called, his reputation tested in an guaranteed showdown. Danny must also keep his eye on the ball in terms of what he’s after.

Winning the Atlantic Accord a second time does not count as a second victory.

Danny faces a fight every which way he turns, on every front, in every corner of his kingdom — the fisheries, energy, oil and gas … at the same time, he seems to be missing an overall game plan (his rural/fisheries playbook is non-existent). The Independent has spent the past six weeks reexamining the Terms of Union, coming up with ways to rework and update the marriage vows so that they work better for us. Mainland Canada must be made to see that Newfoundland and Labrador doesn’t fed bash for the sake of fed bashing. The rest of Canada must be made to see that we have legitimate wants and needs that must be met — for our sake, and the future of the country itself.

Maybe The Independent shouldn’t have stopped at provincewide circulation. Maybe we should have gone national. ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

YOUR VOICE ‘People of Quebec will not suffer nearly as badly’ Dear editor, The federal government has announced that it is putting in place a six-point plan to help Quebec businesses, especially in the forestry sector, after the closure of several mills and the resulting loss of 700 jobs in that province.

“We must help the most vulnerable regions,” Jean-Pierre Blackburn told the Canadian Plastics Industry Association this week.

I would like to take this moment to congratulate the people of Quebec on being powerful enough politically to ensure that when an economic disaster happens in their province the federal government actually steps up to help communities. I’m sure the people who lost their jobs at Abitibi are devastated, just as hundreds of mill workers are devastated in Stephenville after being thrown out of work when Abitibi closed its doors there.

Unfortunately, that situation went

unnoticed by Ottawa since it happened in Newfoundland and Labrador, where there aren’t a lot of votes to be won. Nevertheless, I am sincerely happy for the people of Quebec.

It is never easy when a business shuts its doors. In fact, when the employer is a large one in a small community — as is often the case with Abitibi — the result can be catastrophic. An entire community and the surrounding area can wither and die. People can be forced to move away to find work, homes are lost, and families are split apart. This was the case in our province after the mill closure. With a little luck, however, and with Stephen Harper’s minority trying to curry votes in Quebec, along with the deep pockets Ottawa always finds leading up to an election, the people of Quebec will not suffer nearly as badly as we have.

Myles Higgins, Portugal Cove

‘Pristine’ waters to become industrial waste dumps Dear editor, There appears to have been little publicity concerning a recent news item affecting our freshwater fisheries.

On Oct. 3rd, the federal cabinet approved the changing of the metal mining effluent regulations to allow mines to use pristine water bodies to discharge their tailings waste.

Such waters will cease to be a lake or pond, and are then defined as industrial waste dumps. Alternate technology exists, but the practice of polluting a water body — rather than alternate waste treatment — is cheaper for the mining company. Many of us across the country have lobbied against such a decision for some time, but apparently democracy and science are not of consequence for a less-than-green government.

The immediate effect for us is that Aur Resources, which operates the Duck Pond mine near Buchans, will be allowed to dump toxic waste into Trout Pond, a lake the same size as Quidi Vidi Lake, and into an adjacent smaller lake, both headwaters of the Exploits River. The two lakes have populations of salmon and trout, which will be killed, and of course associated wildlife, such as beavers, otters, and wildfowl will similarly be poisoned.

The life of the mine is expected to be

six years, but the ponds will become toxic waste sites in perpetuity, and will need constant treatment. Over that time there is a possibility that there will be leakage of copper and zinc, which are toxic to fish, and if the retaining dam breaks there will be massive mortality of salmon down the Exploits River. The so-called fisheries “compensation plan” is totally inadequate, and is merely an excuse to allow the mine to pollute the two lakes.

Other mining companies can now follow this route. For example in north central B.C. Northgate Minerals are hoping to use a 6-km long pristine lake to dump their tailings waste, destroying the lake and the outlet river. Similarly Voisey’s Bay Nickel Company will now find it easier to use Sandy Pond in Long Harbour as a waste dump. On election Loyola Hearn was quoted as saying, “Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are sick and tired of seeing their resources being developed for the benefit of others.” He probably had good intentions, but unfortunately industry lobbyists and his friends in cabinet seem to have more influence than he does. All very bad news for environmental protection across Canada in general.

John Gibson, St. John’s

The ranks are swelling Dear editor, I know of one fighting Newfoundlander — Premier Danny Williams.

Sadly, I never supported him in 2003 because I supported a friend. Next time, in 2007, I will vote for him. He stands up for what he believes. Look how he’s handled the Atlantic Accord.

Although he still has a battle ahead of him, Danny is doing a fine job standing up for the province. Separate if we must.

There’s more to life than an EI cheque. People need to take heed to Gus Etchegary’s comments about the fishery. Hats off to Jim Morgan as

well. We need to get behind these people and support them. They need it and deserve it.

These are examples of fighting Newfoundlanders.

Ron Durnford, Stephenville Crossing

AN INDEPENDENT VOICE FOR NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR

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

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

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

Danny Williams launches the new provincial brand held at The Rooms in St. John’s.

Paul Daly/The Independent

Encore, encore Dear editor, The last issue of The Independent carried an article about Premier Danny Williams spending $1 million on promoting the new logo, Newfoundland Labrador and some kind of facsimile of a pitcher plant.

Why the premier decided to take on this project at this point in the game I don’t know. And who in the world

came up with that version of the pitcher plant?

It could be mistaken for a drawing of some kind of plum or damson. A pitcher plant was not what comes to mind.

We have a bunch of economic woes in this province.

We have highways that are not fit to drive on. We have young people and whole families moving from rural areas

to other parts of Canada in droves, the fishery is in a crisis and here is Danny Williams promoting a logo of Newfoundland Labrador. I guess when the going gets tough come up with a logo and then try to make people proud of it.

Nice going Danny Millions. Can’t wait for the encore.

Marjorie Osbourn, St. John’s.

OCTOBER 20, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 7

A future decided by testosterone I

t is almost a cliché to bemoan the lack of women in politics. Despite all manner of platitudes and lip service to the concept, the cold fact is that after decades of trying to entice, encourage, persuade or otherwise motivate women to enter the political arena, we still haven’t seen much improvement.

Perhaps my whole line of argument is sexist, but I honestly think that the male domination of politics is a liability for which we continue to have to pay. I think we need to have more women involved in the political process, and I think when they do become more involved, they will actually change the process for the better.

I also think there will be an invisible line that we will cross — a moment in time when women will seriously grab the reigns of power — and when we do, the face of politics will be changed forever.

This is not an endorsement (or a lack of one) of Lorraine Michael, the current NDP candidate in the Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi by-election. The good people of

IVAN MORGAN

Rant & reason Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi are in the happy (and rare for Newfoundland) position of having two excellent candidates — the other being PC candidate Jerome Kennedy — for Nov. 1.

It’s just that the way politics is sometimes conducted depresses me. I have been on the inside of enough campaigns, and seen enough of the male side of politics, to openly wonder if we would not be all better off if women had more influence and power.

I have been thinking about this a lot recently, and when I witnessed the huffing and puffing and posturing at the Tory convention in Gander last weekend, it really got to me.

We seem to have entrusted our future to a group of men who bluster, threaten and posture to get their — our — points across. Personally, I don’t want my

future, and my children’s future, decid- Brethren (don’t they always cook up ed by testosterone. the goofiest names?) that her husband Like any ideology, the belief that is gay. This attack has been covered in more women should be in politics the mainstream press. never holds true at the level of the indiTurn that around and apply that to vidual.

Margaret Canadian politics. I Thatcher proved that can’t bring myself all by herself. And to even suggest a political sleaziness local or national We seem to have certainly knows no politician for comgender — woman entrusted our future to parison. Clark has who complains she is been able to govern a group of men who low in the polls New Zealand for because she is female nearly a decade bluster, threaten and might not be facing because of her forup to more tangible skill in posture to get their — midable failings — that is a forming and maintruth I have wittaining coalitions. our — points across. nessed more than Some of her oppoonce. nents, in marginalBut sometimes ized desperation, women are just targets because — and have shown their true colours. This was only because — they are women. New the best they could do. Scary stuff.

Zealand’s Prime Minister Helen Clark, Don’t think that same mentality in her third term, has recently had to doesn’t simmer just below the surface “defend” herself in the press from of Newfoundland politics. It does. rumours started by a fundamentalist I recently attended a meeting with a Christian sect called the Exclusive group of men and women. The men

were getting increasingly agitated over an issue, and began to bellow and pound the table to make their points.

The women sat silently. It wasn’t that they didn’t have useful comments — they just found it a difficult environment to get them across. How many good ideas have we lost — will we lose? — because of this type of behaviour?

The highest compliment I was ever paid was from a female friend watching me with two of my (at the time) young children. “You are the most maternal man I ever knew,” she said. She wasn’t casting aspersions on my sexuality or character — she was saying I was good with my kids. But I had male friends who thought she was making fun of me. Go figure.

And before anyone thinks I am being sanctimonious or snidely metrosexual, let me assure you I can bawl, bellow and bray with the very best of them.

What I am saying is, perhaps I and others of my ilk might just need to learn to sit down and shut up from time to time. ivan.morgan@theindependent.ca

ALLY IN EQUALIZATION

YOUR VOICE Fishery needs an industrial inquiry Dear editor, In reference to John Crosbie’s column in the Oct. 13 edition (The fall of the northern cod), there is need for clarification in assigning responsibility for what is the basic reason for the depopulation taking place in our province. That is the destruction of the northern cod fishery and other groundfish species.

When the war ended in 1945 every shipyard in Europe, Scandinavia and Asia began building fishing vessels.

The UK, while waiting for new vessels, converted whaling ships operating in South Georgia to factory-freezer stern trawlers. In 1950, they dispatched Fairtry 1 to Labrador and attacked the northern cod fishery. East Germany dispatched a converted 10,000-ton freighter with eight satellite side trawlers landing their catches to this floating plant employing 250 workers. Other European countries sent freezer trawlers and by 1968 there were over 1,000 trawlers with 50,000 persons fishing off our coast.

That harvesting capacity was also directed at haddock, flounders, redfish, turbot, mackerel, herring and

other species. The Norwegians were especially productive, operating a 27,000-ton converted freighter named Norglobel. It had a capacity to process 2,500 tonnes of caplin per day and fished caplin stocks on a continuous basis, being supplied with fuel and provisions and relieved of its accumulated cargo by collector vessels sent from Norway.

The catches from this massive effort are well documented. They show just how those uncontrolled foreign fishing vessels from Europe and Asia destroyed, not only cod, but practically every other fish species off our coast. An industrial enquiry, supported by researched review of Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries since Confederation, would hopefully put us on the road to rebuilding our fishery with management based on the Icelandic/Norwegian model. If we are to save rural Newfoundland and Labrador, we have to immediately implement a special fishery-recovery based program supported by the federal and provincial governments.

Gus Etchegary, Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s

‘Woefully inadequate’ Dear editor, I was heartened but puzzled by the way in which you ended your last Scrunchins column … “Pray for our men in Afghanistan.” This prayer seems at once woefully inadequate to describe the diversity of present military deployments worldwide, while also excluding the women who are tasked in operational roles in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Present taskings in the Sudan, in the Golan Heights, in the Gulf of Arabia, and off the coast of Africa (to name but a few) are no less important nor potentially less dangerous than what is happening in Afghanistan. Men and women from the regular and reserve forces are engaged in combat and operational roles in all of these places at sea, on land, and in the air.

It is perhaps due to the presence of embedded journalists in Afghanistan that we hear more about this particular tasking than other ops. It does not mean that we should forget to think of all our Canadian Forces members in all areas of operation, and the civilians whom they seek to help and protect.

There is one other point I should like to bring to your consideration, and that is the media interest on those who die in combat over those who die in other operational or training roles.

Horace suggests “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” but is it any less sweet or glorious to die for your country in any capacity, and not specifically in combat?

S.M. Lewis-Simpson, Harbour Main

Saskatchewan premier and New Democrat Lorne Calvert says he sees an ally in Danny Williams — at least on the topic of equalization. Calvert says he commiserated with his colleague by phone after Williams met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper last weekend.

Paul Daly/The Independent

An aboriginal ‘myth’ Dear editor, Of the myths surrounding the Terms of Union — and your current series proves, again, that there are many – the myth that the Aboriginal people of Labrador and Newfoundland are not constitutionally provided for is among the most persistent, and pernicious.

Section 91(24) of the Constitution Act provides that the federal government has jurisdiction over “Indians and lands reserved for the Indians.” This provision applied to the four original provinces, but it also applies to every other province which has entered Canada, or

been created, since 1867.

As Maura Hanrahan points out in her guest column (Aboriginals left out of Newfoundland’s Terms of Union; Indian Act rights denied them for years, Oct. 13 edition), the Aboriginal peoples of Newfoundland and Labrador have not been treated the same as those in other provinces. This is the result of decades of federal and provincial acts and omissions. However, those acts and omissions occurred despite the Terms of Union and the Constitution, not because of it.

Aboriginal peoples in Newfoundland

and Labrador, including the Sip’Kop Mi’kmaq, have a compelling constitutional case. The Constitution places them in exactly the same constitutional position as the Aboriginal peoples of Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.

There may be no express provision concerning Newfoundland and Labrador Aboriginal peoples in the Terms of Union, but there is certainly no constitutional lacuna.

ests who force them to pick over the carcass of a dying industry only to be left with an EI cheque and cold wintery hopes for an uncertain new season.

It is generally accepted that those with technical skills and higher levels of education will do better in life. Let’s give this to our children. People today often have multiple careers in different industries. Why not our children also?

Further, the contemporary workforce is flexible and mobile. Let’s prepare our children for these opportunities as well.

This is where owning a country like Canada comes into the picture. Let there be no doubt that this perspective may mean the death of many small

communities in Newfoundland and Labrador. Such has been the case everywhere since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. But we owe as much to our children to prepare them for their full potential. Who would want any less for them?

At the end of the day the panel will be, and perhaps should be, frustrated and even angry. But that’s better than the kind of smug self-satisfaction royal commissions display as they hand in their reports like a post-graduate thesis.

Now if just one good idea comes out of it ... just one.

Robert Rowe, St. John’s

Wallace J. McLean, Ottawa

‘Now if just one good idea comes out of it’ Dear editor, The Independent’s initiative in forming a panel to discuss important issues for the province is a worthwhile effort.

I particularly like the edited dialogue sections. They illustrate a group of people who are sincere and are attempting to make a contribution. This, I believe, is undeniable. The dialogue is civilized and informed, but even clearly stated arguments sometimes flounder under the scrutiny of contrary opinions offered within the group.

Even if the dialogue becomes blustery, I’ll take it any day over another royal commission. I would much rather hear “let’s join India” or “let’s appoint

a professional cabinet” than the sterile academic tripe of government-appointed commissions.

The panel’s dialogue exposes their warts, biases, and failings, just like the rest of us. They are spontaneous, risk exposure, and are not burdened by the oversight of some master.

The perspective is clearly and rightly from Newfoundland’s point of view.

This is their obvious mandate as it should be. I have suggested in previous notes that another perspective, one of being a Canadian citizen, might serve us and our children just as well.

While I agree a defense of improving our position in the federation is crucial,

I’m suggesting a change in perspective in our thinking about the great country that we all own — Canada!

It’s all very well to want the wild fishery back, but that’s a dying industry worldwide. In any case, whimpering and blaming others won’t get us anywhere; we made a significant contribution to its current status so there’s little room for us on the moral high ground.

Besides, do we really want to chart the exclusive future of tens of thousands of our children to the stage head and the fish plant line at $11 per hour?

I do not apologize for wanting more options for these children, I do not want them to be slaves of commercial inter-

OCTOBER 20, 2006

8 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

OCTOBER 20, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 9

IN CAMERA

By Stephanie Porter The Independent

R

ay Fennelly credits growing up on Bear Cove Point for his decision to be a photographer. His love of jazz helped him develop his eye — and John Crosbie might have had something to do with his current career, too.

Currently an instructor in the graphic arts department of the College of the North Atlantic, Fennelly has more than three decades of freelance and fine-art photography behind him — and hundreds of stories to go along with them, always told with great enthusiasm in his rollicking Southern Shore accent.

This particular story begins in a lighthouse, on a point of land jutting out between Kingman’s Cove and Renews.

“I was born in the lighthouse, I really was,” he says. “My dad was a lighthouse keeper, my grandfather was a lighthouse keeper. My brother was a lighthouse keeper. I was a lighthouse keeper. That was home; Bear Cove Point was home … Bear Cove Point means everything to us.”

Growing up on the picturesque point, the Fennellys didn’t have electricity (“not that I gave a damn”), but they did have radio and a subscription to Life magazine.

“I grew up with pictures all my life,” he continues. “I knew I was going to be a photographer, I knew. Not thought maybe, kinda, sort of — I knew. When I was 14, I was done. That was it and I haven’t changed my mind since.

“I think what keeps me into it is more the idea of storytelling. I love stories, I love telling stories, and I love listening to stories. And as a direct result of that, I love people.”

Right from the start, Fennelly says, his subjects were varied. In tune with both the subtleties and drama of Newfoundland and Labrador’s land, sea and sky, Fennelly is a remarkable landscape photographer. But he’s also got a talent for catching people and personality on film, often with humour, and always with depth.

“Maybe it’s because I’m Gemini,” he says with a shrug. “And really, I do whatever interests me … but I love people. And I love the absence of people, too. I find both of these worlds really comfortable.”

Fennelly left the Shore after high school, moving to St. John’s to attend Memorial University — just a stop along the way to Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, his ultimate goal in education.

While waiting to be accepted into the Toronto school, Fennelly enjoyed a number of courses, primarily in the folklore department.

“Again, I just like hanging out with people. I like listening to them … I have a real legitimate anthropological interest in the world.” He also threw himself into work at CameraMUN (the campus darkroom/photography studio), where he actually lived, full-time, for a period.

It was also around this time he discovered the world of jazz. Although he’s been taking pictures since age 14, it was at about 19 or 20 — around 1975 — when he realized “it was a lifestyle.”

The big music of the day was disco, but Fennelly, who loved music almost as much as photography, hated the electronic sounds.

“It absolutely got on my nerves,” he says. “I found it really vacuous, particularly in light of the pictures I was looking at.” (He voraciously consumed work by Life photographers and every book of photography he could find — work by Bruce Davidson, Margaret Bourke-White, Diane Arbus, Gene Smith …)

“In reading about Gene Smith, I also read about (jazz pianist and composer) Thelonious Monk, because he lived one floor away in the same building, and Smith would be in his darkroom and Monk would be in his living room, and Monk would have a session …”

Smith, being a jazz fan, set up two mikes in Monk’s living room and ran the speakers into his darkroom — music while he worked.

Fennelly loved the image. And, on a trip to the Avalon Mall, he found salepriced double-album sets by jazz greats.

At first he didn’t understand the music, or like it. But when he heard the opening of Monk’s classic Round Midnight, everything changed.

“I was just woah,” Fennelly says.

“And that was my introduction to jazz. And as a result of that, you learn how to listen, you learn how to hear, and it’s as if the world just completely exploded for me in the best possible way.”

This music, finally, fit with the substance of the pictures he was looking at, the pictures he wanted to take.

On his second try (he submitted the same portfolio twice), Fennelly was accepted into Ryerson. There he met teachers who both intimidated and inspired him. He met mentors, friends, colleagues. And for his final project he spent eight months on the streets of Toronto, gaining the trust of “winos and hookers,” shooting their lives and surroundings.

“I found the winos and hookers to be the most honest people I’ve ever met, to

The adventures of life

Ray Fennelly is a lover of loud people, quiet places, low lighting and improvisation. Whether photographing ‘winos and hookers’ in Toronto, the serene landscape of Labrador, or the sights and characters of downtown St. John’s, he’s equally at ease — and equally successful. Now an instructor at the College of the North Atlantic — and busily compiling his first exhibition in a dozen years — Fennelly dug through his thick files to offer this collection of shots for The Independent’s sixth guest photo spread. this day,” he says. “It was one of those adventures of life.”

One of many.

After graduation, Fennelly worked in Toronto for a year, as a darkroom technician. Then, in 1983, John Crosbie threw his hat in the ring for the federal

leadership race. Fennelly says he spent months following the politician around — and in the process, he met the founder of Newfoundland Lifestyle magazine, who asked Fennelly to shoot the inaugural cover.

“I had landed a job in Brandon,

Manitoba as a staff photographer with the Brandon Sun, that was my first real trade, newspaper photography, I came home for a two-week stint in 1983 to do this shoot … It’s been a long two weeks.”

Fennelly ended up working for the

Evening Telegram for a year, and then struck out on his own as a freelancer, where he remained until three years ago.

In teaching at the college, Fennelly has found another adventure, something else he loves. But as busy as he is with

his students and campus life, he’s still shooting commercially, and for himself.

He’s also working on putting together his first exhibition since 1992, the year he had three or four public showings, “which nearly tore me apart.” For this one, he’s editing down the nearly

7,000 images he shot during this summer’s St. John’s Jazz Festival, looking for 24 to hang in a yet-to-be-determined bar in St. John’s.

Whether fast and furious or slow and lingering, Fennelly is still drawn to photograph all the rhythms of life and his

surroundings.

“Light is the first thing that draws me,” he says. “Because that’s what gets me thinking. I really love low light, I love working in bars at nighttime, I love that whole feel.

“I love when you look at a picture —

and they don’t reproduce well in the newspaper — but I have a lot of pictures that are really dark. Not dark in their humour, but physically.

“And then my mind goes in other directions. There will be things like gesture I really love. I also like the incon-

gruity of people in places.

“And I like the quizzical, the humourous. I like funny things in the world … I don’t live in a bubble. I do know what’s going on in the world and I am sensitive to it. But humour is my way through it.”

OCTOBER 20, 2006

10 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

AROUND THE BAY I have lately heard rumours that Newfoundland will be jumping on the bandwagon and coming up with its answer to Rambo and Matrix. The movie will be called Gambo and will be about an ex-army cadet sergeant who has chosen to live alone and in solitude in a little fishing outport with his family of 25 relatives and in-laws, three cows, two goats, four pigs, 15 chickens, five cats, and a dog. You know, the quiet life. Then one day his commanding officer comes to talk him into coming out of retirement and going on one more mission for his province. This mission the commander says will be to take a specially designed atomic sealing club and combat an army of rabid Greenpeacers protesting in Europe over the killing of thousands of innocent snails for the purpose of supplying escargots to restaurants. – Mike Dinn, On The Town — The Metro, St. John’s, Oct.13, 1985 YEARS PAST But while there has been no scarcity of Newspapers, their price has hitherto placed them beyond the reach of the most numerous portion of the population of the Colony. Until lately, from the want of roads and postal communications, the circulation of Newspapers was chiefly confined to St. John’s, and the number of their readers being limited, their price was necessarily high, but now that the colony is being opened up by means of roads; and that the Legislature has, with very judicious liberality, provided for the transmission of newspapers free from postage, it may be hoped that at least one paper may obtain a sufficiently extended circulation to enable it to be sold at as moderate a rate as the greater number of newspapers of the neighbouring colonies and of the United States, and that without interfering with the support now given to such of the established Journals of the colony, as from talent and consistency have

any claim upon public confidence.

— The Newfoundland Express, St. John’s, Oct. 21, 1851

LIFE STORY

EDITORIAL STAND A serious lack in a vital public service is that of public telephones around these parts. It’s virtually impossible late at night to make a telephone call without bothering some homeowner.

This must be annoying and embarrassing to strangers. Sometimes it is necessary, say when an accident occurs on the road or for some other reason, to put a telephone call through. Pay stations at night are behind locked doors or in some private dwelling. We trust the Avalon Telephone in its new scheme of service will make provision for this aspect of service.

— The Bay News, Bay Roberts, Oct.18, 1958

A sidekick for Smallwood

LETTER TO THE EDITOR Mr. Editor, I am thinking about shutting off these echo sounds, shortly. So many able writers have been attracted to your columns, your last paper to wit, on “historic Trinity” and the doings of a hundred years and more, all most interesting, that my nom-deplume can hardly justify itself in echoing only the recent sounds. Besides, I have heard the muses have stirred the spirit of a local poet to play pranks in rhyme and verse, with the echoes of “your humble dust.” It is this thought that saddens me; for if I am destined to be immortalized, I trust it will depend on something more comforting than the trick and turn of “cheek” music.

Yours very truly, the same ECHOES — Trinity Enterprise, Oct. 18, 1940 QUOTE OF THE WEEK “The elective courses in extracurricular activities at Memorial University will be extended with the installation of a bar to serve alcoholic beverages in the Thompson Student Centre, a building already renowned as the dope capital of Newfoundland. Parents who are working themselves into the grave to send their children to Memorial will be glad to know that a bottle of beer will cost only 70 cents in the new CSU bar, while a shot of liquor will cost 90 cents.”

— The Express, St. John’s, Oct.12, 1973

FREDERICK GORDON BRADLEY 1888–1966

By Keith Collier For The Independent

F

rederick Gordon Bradley was born in St. John’s on March 21, 1888. Educated at the Methodist College, he was a better athlete than student, but he did well enough to decide to study law.

Bradley worked with lawyer and politician James Kent prior to enrolling in Dalhousie University law school. By 1918, he had partnered with Alfred B. Morine, a lawyer, politician — and Confederate.

By this time, Bradley had gained a lot of exposure to local politics and law, and his experiences at university had convinced him Newfoundland’s future lay with Canada.

In 1923, Bradley was a promising young lawyer with a bright future.

Thinking it would help his legal career, he decided to enter politics, as many appointments and positions within the public service were political.

His first election attempt ended in defeat in 1923, but Bradley would not have to wait long for another chance.

Prime Minister Richard Squires resigned amid corruption charges, and after retaining Bradley as his lawyer, engineered the defeat of the Warren government in 1924, triggering an election.

Bradley ran for Walter Monroe, and edged into a seat in the House of Assembly by only five votes. But in 1926, he crossed the floor to sit as an independent, claiming disagreement with Monroe’s financial strategies.

Bradley was a Squires supporter, however, and his resignation was likely part of Squires’ return strategy. Squires’ victory in 1928 saw Bradley become solicitor-general.

The Squires government was one of the longer-lived of the period, and survived a full four years. But the charges hurled across the house by Peter Cashin and Squires’ inability to deal with the country’s financial problems were more than any political party could deal with.

The election of 1932 was the decisive end of the Squires administration, and only two Liberal politicians survived.

Bradley was one of them, suddenly finding himself leader of an opposition that consisted entirely of himself and Roland Starkes.

Under pressure from Canada and Britain, who agreed to help Newfoundland with crippling debt payments, Prime Minister Alderdice agreed to a recommendation to suspend responsible government.

Bradley’s friend and colleague Joseph Smallwood welcomed the recommendations, and Bradley was almost the only member of government to protest. In the final session of the Newfoundland House of Assembly, Bradley fought hard to prevent the adoption of the Amulree report, which recommended the suspension of responsible government — but with such a small opposition, there was little he could do but delay.

With the final dissolution of the House, Bradley was unsure of what to

Frederick Gordon Bradley

do next. He had let his law practice lapse, and as an opponent of commission government, he wasn’t likely to gain an appointment in the civil service.

Apparently, the commission didn’t hold any grudges. Bradley was offered a position as chief magistrate at Bonavista. He lived there, operating several businesses, for the next decade.

By the 1940s, Bradley’s thoughts returned to Canada. He published several articles arguing the merits of confederation, and, after the Second World War, when Newfoundlanders began to seriously consider their future, Bradley found himself back in public life.

Influenced by Smallwood, Bradley ran in the National Convention and was elected for Bonavista South. The two decided their interests were similar, and began to work together for Confederation.

After Judge Cyril Fox’s death in 1946, Bradley became the Convention’s chairman, chairing the delegations to Ottawa and to London. In essence, these delegations were to determine which option would offer Newfoundland the best future, and as chairman Bradley would have a certain amount of power with which to push the confederate cause.

The meetings and negotiations that took place in London and Ottawa over the ensuing months were complex, involving much political work and manoeuvring from all involved.

In the end, Bradley resigned as the Convention’s chairman, having done all he could to push confederation, and referendums were held in the summer of 1948. Confederation with Canada won a bare majority.

Bradley was sworn in as Canadian Secretary of State, Newfoundland’s first representative in the federal cabinet.

Shortly after, he was elected to a federal seat, and held these positions until his appointment as a senator in 1953.

Bradley’s enthusiasm for Confederation was never as unequivocal, never as aggressive as Smallwood’s.

Nevertheless, he had been one of its greatest supporters, and as one of the more experienced and respected politicians involved, his support was crucial to the confederate movement.

Bradley returned from Ottawa to spend his last years in Bonavista. He died on March 30, 1966.

Undergraduate degree of separation Dear editor, This letter is in reference to a letter to the editor (Education denied?) published in the Oct. 13 edition by Sheilagh O’Leary.

Ms. O’Leary writes about two concerns she has with Memorial University. Both are easily explained.

She writes she has been denied entry into graduate-level programs at Memorial University. She also writes that she does not have an undergraduate degree.

One is directly related to the other.

While there are other prerequisites, the holding of an undergraduate degree is a normal and basic prerequisite for admission to graduate programs at Memorial University.

Ms. O’Leary also references her application to receive the Coracle Fellowship from Memorial University.

While it is not usual practice for the university to discuss unsuccessful applications for special programs such as this, Ms. O’Leary’s public letter does require some response.

The university recognizes her considerable artistic skill and well-deserved reputation. The committee reviewing her application gave full consideration to her proposal, taking into account both the specifics and the spirit of the Coracle Fellowship guidelines. It was finally concluded that her application did not meet the guidelines sufficiently.

The Coracle Fellowships and Roundtables are intended to create exchanges between Ireland and Newfoundland and Labrador in all areas relevant to the Irish-Newfoundland relationship, with special emphasis on Memorial University.

The fellowships enable short residencies of leading scholars and practitioners. Fellows are generally academic scholars, senior civil servants or eminent practitioners, whether currently serving or recently retired. In all cases, Fellows will have demonstrated clear interest and expertise in one or more areas relevant to the Irish-Newfoundland relationship. These would include, but not limited to, regional economic or business development, the study of society, history or politics, literature and the arts, technology and innovation.

The roundtables, which are held periodically in both Newfoundland and Ireland, bring together a small number of invited academic scholars, senior civil servants and eminent practitioners for brief, high-level, focused discussions on topical issues of mutual interest.

For example, earlier this month, Memorial hosted the most recent Coracle roundtable that included about 40 business, labour and government representatives. It was hosted by Dr. Steven Wolinetz, of Memorial’s political science department, and Coracle Fellow, Wally Kirwan, from Ireland.

The participants were briefed by the architects of the Irish Social Partnership on the factors that helped turn around that country’s economy followed by a discussion on how similar principles and partnerships might work in this province.

Peter Morris, Associate Director (Communications) Memorial University

OCTOBER 20, 2006

INDEPENDENTNEWS • 11

YOUR VOICE Befuddled or bewildered?

Dear editor, What has become of Loyola Hearn? The poor man seems to be either befuddled, bewildered or plain old fairy struck!

Can it be that poor old Loyola has become so mired in the ooze of

‘Owed’ an MCP card

Ottawa/Gatineau (pronounced gat-zeno-o) that he has become — like Abraham Lincoln said about one of generals — “like a duck hit over the head.”

Joe Butt Toronto

When the lights go out A little house upon a hill, a feeble heart grows faint and still.

As deathly silence cloaks the air, who will know, and who will care?

or will our fathers’ spirits rise.

Tend to the things once so dear, soft voices once more fill the air.

Who will know and who will care?

When the golden rays of the morning sun light the houses one by one, will just the caw of the sullen crow the only sound that comes to ear?

Who will know and who will care?

On Sunday’s morn with week’s work done, will children to the chapel run?

Will familiar hymns the valley flood down to the sparkling sea below?

Who will care and who will know?

When picket fences lean and fall and unkempt grasses grow too tall.

When chimneys stand stark and cold, and broken panes the wet winds blow.

Who will know and who will care?

Will leaky roofs of stores and stage, houses tattered by wind and age, surrender to the reaper’s call because the torch, weak hands let fall?

Who will know and who will care?

David Boyd, Twillingate

Forever will there be no noise,

Dear editor, I have been living in Newfoundland for over two years now, and I have applied for a Newfoundland health card three times and have yet to receive one. My Ontario health card expired a year ago, and since I do not live there I am not eligible for a renewed card.

At this point, I am paying every time I go to a doctor for a regular appointment. I have health concerns that need to be addressed, so not paying is not an option. I am a Canadian citizen and

most definitely should not be paying to see a doctor. However, because I moved here as a student I am denied a health card. Employees at MCP have been rude, unhelpful and uninformative, and I am still without a valid health card since September, 2005. I do not live temporarily in Newfoundland — I moved here permanently, or at least as permanently as I can, considering the necessities of living here are being denied me. I would like to know how I can get the health card that I

need to be able to see a doctor. I am sick of having my needs and rights disregarded. I am a Canadian and a Newfoundland resident, and I am owed a health card.

I am forwarding this e-mail to members of government and the media in order to ensure that I get the proper service, or at least an answer.

Tomasz Mrozewski, St. John’s

‘One of the most despicable photos I ever saw’ Dear editor, I have never seen anything so repulsive than columnist Paul Smith’s column and picture (Hunting for Trophy caribou, Oct. 13 edition).

So macho Paul, just 400 meters away and hidden behind a huge wellplaced boulder, pulled the trigger of his powerful hunting rifle and in mere seconds it was “all over” for a beautiful stag caribou. A caribou that was harming nobody, as it grazed in its own habitat where it belonged.

To add insult to injury, Smith posed boastfully for what I consider one of the most despicable photos I ever saw — the poor dead caribou, lying on the turf with one eye open and staring out of the paper at its readers. I was sickened by such brutal treatment of a beautiful animal.

An animal created by the same God who created Smith and I. Telling readers that it dressed at 160 pounds was even more disgusting — it was downright insensitive to animal lovers. One could visualize that poor stag caribou being hacked up, its heart ripped out of its bulletridden chest cavity, drained of its still hot blood, and its neck and head sawed off for Smith’s prize “trophy.”

How Smith could bring down a helpless unarmed and defenseless creature like that is beyond my understanding. How anyone can carry his “bloody trophy” (caribou neck and head) out of the woods on the back of a four-wheel drive quad and be proud, is sickening. I guess Smith will soon have the poor thing mounted on a shellacked hardwood base. Then no doubt hung on display over his fireplace or on his rec-room wall near his prize gun rack.

Smith and his repulsive and despicable photo of that dead caribou gave me hours of discomfort and sleep that never came easy on that cool dark night last Friday the 13th.

Smith certainly did not impress this Independent reader. I say frankly to him: “So what macho man, you bagged a helpless defenseless caribou with a large bullet to its chest.

What’s next on your heartless agenda, after you’ve finished eating your catch? Perhaps some senseless snaring (strangulation) of a few furry rabbits foraying for feed for their young?

Bill Westcott Clarke’s Beach

Following orders from Premier Danny Williams, security guard, Bill Manning, removes the federal flag from in front of the Confederation Building in St. John's.

Paul Daly /The Independent

Beating a live horse Dear editor, Well isn’t this latest confrontation with Ottawa just another version of take-down-the-Canadian-flag of a year and a half ago? My father often spoke in locally and skillfully crafted parables. He told an interesting one that is certainly appropriate here.

It was about a St. John’s (Townie) clerk who retired to a small village on the Southern Shore. Shortly after moving there, he discovered an old hand plough in his barn and decided to put in a vegetable garden. Noticing that his neighbour had a horse, he asked to borrow the animal for a day to plough. The

neighbour agreed — the horse was old and that if he hoped to get a good day’s work out of her, he would have to treat her with “tender loving care.”

The Townie understood and walked the horse up the road to his house. He hitched up the hand plough, but the horse did not move. He gave her a bucket of cold water and some fresh apples — still the horse did not move.

Then he gave her some fresh grass and brushed her down with cool water … still she did not move. After two hours of this the Townie became so frustrated that he unhitched the plough and walked the horse back down the road to

‘Over-whelming sense of frustration’ Dear editor, I think what we are experiencing with our young people today is an overwhelming sense of frustration due to enlightenment.

Our younger people have a greater sense of autonomy; theirs is a world of technology, fast-paced living and instant gratifications.

I think what we are witnessing today, with fight clubs, beatings, mobs, property destruction, are the rumblings of a growing movement to throw off the

the neighbour.

“You got you work done quick,” said the neighbour.

“No,” the Townie said, “I got nothing done. I couldn’t get her to move” “What?” said the neighbour, and he picked up a piece of 2x4 and started beating the horse around the head. The Townie stopped him and asked, “I thought you told me I had to treat the horse with tender loving care?”

“Oh that’s right, that’s right,” said the neighbour, “but first you’ve got to get her attention.”

John Andrews, St. John’s

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yoke of an outmoded lifestyle.

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ABOVE

& BEYOND

Inspired by the true story of the Atlantic Ferry Organization, this 2-part drama celebrates the passion and courage of the men and women who built Canada’s air bridge to Britain in World War II.

Sunday, October 29 & Monday, October 30 at 8:30 p.m. / 8 p.m. in Labrador Tune in to CBC for additional Ferry Command programming.

CBC Television

CBC Radio

HERE & NOW (5-part series)

THE MORNING SHOW (5-part series)

A GOOD FLIGHT (1-hour documentary)

ON THE GO -

FERRY COMMAND (1-hour documentary)

ATLANTIC AIRLIFT: THE STORY OF FERRY COMMAND (2-part documentary)

Week of October 23 - 27 Weeknights at 6:00 p.m. / 5:30 in most of Labrador Sunday, October 29 at 1:30 p.m.

Thursday, November 2 at 8:30 p.m.

cbc.ca/aboveandbeyond

Week of October 23 - 27 Weekdays from 6:00 - 9:00 a.m.

Thursday, October 26 & Friday, October 27 at 5:00 p.m./4:30 in most of Labrador

OCTOBER 20, 2006

12 • INDEPENDENTNEWS

Ocean Industries W eek OCTOBER 22-28, 2006 A

vast expanse of ocean has shaped the way we live and play, the way we think and the way we do business. It has encouraged us to develop ideas and innovations and establish St. John’s as a Centre of Ocean Excellence.

Mark your calendars for the week of October 22-28 and join us in the City of St. John’s as we celebrate the 4th Annual Ocean Industries Week. This year’s celebration features a tremendous lineup of conferences, seminars and special networking events.

Industry leaders will meet to discuss a broad range of issues from the latest innovations in managing maritime emergencies and utilizing spaceborne radar in maritime operations, to issues surrounding lifeboat safety. Learn how local oil and gas suppliers can seize opportunities in western Canada. Join the discussion on fishery and aquaculture by-products or attend the first ever Exploration Cruise Forum. Ocean Industries Week offers something for everyone and provides an unparalleled opportunity to network with Canada’s ocean and business communities.

St. John’s City Council will officially proclaim Ocean Industries Week in Council Chambers on Monday, October 23rd.

Ocean Industries Week shines a spotlight on Newfoundland and Labrador’s tremendous range of ocean expertise.

What’s Happening...

Fishery & Aquaculture By-product Utilization Workshop

October 22 – 24 Centre for Aquaculture and Seafood Development - Marine Institute www.mi.mun.ca/casd/activities.htm Tel: 709-778-0543

OceanSAR 2006: Spaceborne Radar for Maritime Operations October 23 – 25 NRC Institute for Ocean Technology www.oceansar2006.com

Official Proclamation of Ocean Industries Week

October 23 4:30pm. Council Chambers, St. John’s City Hall. Public gallery open.

NOIA Fall Seminar: Western Opportunities - East Coast Solutions October 24 Fairmont Newfoundland www.noianet.com Tel:709-758-6610

Ocean Innovation Conference & Exhibition: Managing Maritime Emergencies October 25 - 27 St. John’s Convention Centre www.oceaninnovation.ca Tel: 709-758-8365

Exploration Cruise Forum

October 25 - 27 Fairmont Newfoundland www.cruisenewfoundlandandlabrador.com Tel:709-895-7534

Ocean Technology Speaker Series

October 27 7:30am. “Issues in Lifeboat Safety” Dean Pelley, CEO Mad Rock Marine. Foran Room, St. John’s City Hall.

Register via email: business@stjohns.ca or Tel:709-576-8455

Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Culture City of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador Tel: 709-576-8394 Fax: 709-576-8300 Email: business@stjohns.ca Web: www.stjohns.ca

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20-26, 2006 — PAGE 13

‘Survival fittest’ OF THE

Most airports in Newfoundland and Labrador face serious challenges

Paul Daly/The Independent

By Ivan Morgan The Independent

T

he future of Newfoundland and Labrador’s seven airports comes down to the survival of the fittest.

The operation of most airports in the province has been transferred in recent years from the federal government to local non-profit airport authorities charged with making them economically self-sufficient. Although there is good news in Deer Lake and St. John’s, airports such as Wabush, Goose Bay, St. Anthony, Stephenville, and Gander fight to stay aloft. Under the Terms of Union, civil aviation, including Gander, is guaranteed.

STEPHENVILLE Stephenville airport manager Larry Smith still sounds optimistic about the facility’s future, although it is currently in bankruptcy protection.

“We have been holding our own with that and actually starting to climb up the ladder a little bit to get out of the hole,” Smith tells The Independent.

Stephenville Airport made sense when the Americans built it during the Second World War. The base closed in 1966, and the airport has been struggling ever since.

The airport is currently dealing with a shortage of fuel-storage space that has impacted on its ability to make money.

Smith says the airport has seen 800 flights a year drop to less than 200 flights a year because of an inadequate fuel supply. Passenger traffic is estimated at 15,000 per year.

He says they are hoping to soon seal a deal with Shell that should improve their earning potential.

Unlike provincial airports, Stephenville can charge military flights that land there. Because of that, few mil-

OUR TERMS itary craft do.

A bright spot for the facility has been discount carriers providing cheap fares to Toronto and points west (Alberta).

Although they have left Stephenville for the winter to follow southern charter routes, Smith says the business would be there for another carrier.

DEER LAKE The Deer Lake Regional Airport is one bright spot in the province’s troubled aviation industry. Airport manager Jamie Schwartz says 2005 was a record year with 225,000 passengers. “This year we are running about seven per cent ahead of that,” he says.

It is Deer Lake’s third consecutive record year.

A 30-minute drive from Corner Brook, the facility is currently undergoing a $10-million air terminal building expansion and renovation. Schwartz says the facility continues to grow and expand in use.

“We had thought a few years ago that at some point we would reach a ceiling.

Well, we haven’t seen that ceiling yet,” says Schwartz. “We still believe that there is more potential at the domestic market.”

Schwartz attributes Deer Lake’s success to three components: the growing domestic market, tourism, and the development of the international market.

ST. ANTHONY AND WABUSH These two smaller airports are both operated by Transport Canada. As such, all communications about the facilities must go through communications officer Maurice Landry at Transport Canada Communications in Moncton, N.B.

Landry says the federal government still plans to pass control of St. Anthony airport over to a local authority, when they can find people from the area willing to operate it. The goal is March 2007, but Landry says they have not been able to raise any interest from anyone yet. If no one can be found by then, he says, a decision on the future management of the facility will be made at that time.

St. Anthony had 20,400 passengers in

Under the Terms of Union, civil aviation, including Gander, is guaranteed.

2005. As of August this year the number was pegged at 14,800, an increase of five per cent from last year.

Landry says Transport Canada will not be passing control of Wabush airport to a local authority. He says the decision was made because of Wabush’s harsh winter conditions, its isolation, and the dependence of residents on air travel.

In 2005, Wabush airport saw 60,000 passengers pass through the facility. As of August this year, it had 44,000 passengers, an increase of 15.3 per cent from the year before.

GANDER “Our airport has always been in trouble from a business point of view,” says Gander International Airport Authority CEO Gary Vey. “It was never put there to make money, so to speak, it was put there to provide service. Our challenge is to change that raison d’etre, and

change it into an entity that sustains itself.”

While he says they aren’t there yet, he adds “We are close to it; we just can’t seem to get over the high water mark.”

Part of his frustration involves the fact the airport cannot charge for military aircraft that land there. He says that was fine when the government operated the facility, but it makes little sense to a private entity. While he says local economy gets an economic boost, “Everyone gets paid but the airport operators, and we think that is unfair.”

He says the role of the airport in 9/11 proves the need for the facility.

The future of the facility, says Vey, lies in the aerospace industry. Gander offers significant advantages to the industry, such as security, good weather, good location, and equidistance from the two largest trading partners in the world.

But, he says, for that type of industry to succeed, “you have to have an airport.”

He says bureaucratic decisions — like a recent one by the federal government that stopped Polish carriers from using the airport without individual visas for each passenger, are frustrating, and stand in the way of success.

GOOSE BAY Goose Bay Airport Corporation CEO Kevin Aylward also finds the restrictions on his organization frustrating. He says they are waiting on approval of a $10-million federal grant to renovate their terminal that was announced in 2005. He says the current terminal is “totally inadequate” and is hampering their ability to become profitable.

“It is a real challenge to get that business plan going unless you have some sort of financial support that can be there if it is needed.”

He also wonders why they still cannot charge the military for the use of their facilities.

“They (the federal government) are throwing you out there and saying ‘survival of the fittest.’ You take over the assets, we’ll give you a little up-front funding and then you go ahead and survive,” says Aylward. “And they are saying, ‘Gee, let’s tie your hands behind your back.’ That makes it pretty darned difficult.”

He says the airport will always “survive” because of it’s location as the gateway to Labrador. With 30,000 landings and over 100,000 passengers last year, he says Goose Bay is still strong.

“For a northern airport — that’s a busy airport,” says Aylward.

ST. JOHN’S Keith Collins, president and CEO of St. John’s Airport Authority, says his airport has “high-quality problems.”

He says the challenge of his organization is to keep up with the demands of the fast-growing economy of the greater St. John’s region.

“Problems that come with growth tend to be of a different nature,” he says.

Since incorporation in 1998, St. John’s airport has seen a phenomenal 74 per cent increase in passenger volume.

Charging a $10 airport improvement fee to departing passengers raised the capital for the $40 million terminal.

Collins says the terminal was designed and built on a target of reaching one million passengers a year by 2012. They reached that target in 2004 and this year should pass the 1.2 million passengers served.

Unlike airports in other parts of the province, their challenge is not to create growth, but to accommodate it. ivan.morgan@theindependent.ca

Beware deferred payment pitfalls

“B

uy now, pay later” programs are known in the credit and financing world as deferred payment programs, or deferred payment accounts. Essentially, the consumer takes possession of the goods or services now, but the first payment won’t be due for a period of time, usually a year, but often longer. As well, during that time there are usually no interest charges in effect.

If we’re not already, pretty soon we’ll be inundated with invitations from retailers to buy anything we want for Christmas 2006 — without having to pay for it until 2008 or later. The list of options is endless: furniture, appliances, home improvements, jewelry, technology and other equipment. We can Skidoo now but pay in the summer, or cruise now and pay next fall. It’s the “why wait for spring?” philosophy on steroids. But buying now and paying later is not all it’s cracked up to be.

The reality is, contrary to the very best of intentions, most people just can’t find a way to pay in full when

AL ANTLE

Your Finances “later” comes around and boom — you’ve got a new monthly payment.

Because you do, your ability to put money aside for future needs lessens.

And because you can’t save, when another purchase is warranted you’ll be forced into another deferred payment program, and on and on you go.

It’s important to remember a whole bunch of things about consuming this way. After you’ve considered my list of cautions, if buy now/pay later is still for you, it’s OK. But consider some of the hazards.

• Prices on buy now/pay later items are not always sale prices. Customers are sold on the idea of not having to pay for a year or more and, as a result, lose sight of the fact there’s no value or only limited value in the item they’re pur-

chasing. People who are under pressure to replace now are particularly vulnerable. Remember this when your refrigerator dies.

• If you offer to pay with cash at the moment of purchase, you’ll usually get a much better price, even on sale items.

You might get a sofa for $850 plus tax if you write a cheque on the spot. But it’ll be $1,000 plus tax, interest charges and fees, if you go with the deferred payment option.

• It’s not unusual for customers to have to pay a deferral fee in addition to the cost. These fees are typically a flat amount, ranging from $25 to $75 or more. But sometimes they’re a percentage of the amount to be financed, particularly on large purchases. These fees increase the overall cost of the purchase whether we want to acknowledge it or not.

• The financing itself is rarely, if ever, handled by the retailers themselves but is carried out instead by a third party, typically a finance company. Many consumers don’t realize this, since the

purchase was carried out in the retailer’s showroom. The first knowledge they have of the reality is a note from the finance company several days later, reminding them their “credit is good” and that additional funds are close by or just a phone call away. The problem isn’t the third party, it’s their interest rates.

• The annual rate of interest on a deferred payment scheme is usually between 25 per cent and 30 per cent, and on occasion even higher. Again, this makes the overall price quite costly. Repayment terms sometimes reach five years. So if the deferred period is 18 months and the repayment period is five years, the sofa is often well worn before it’s actually owned.

• Because the payment isn’t now and the money to buy doesn’t have to be found today, deferred payment plans pander to our tendency as human beings to put things off, to buy things we can’t afford, and to escape our financial reality. Since they quickly and easily allow retailers to increase sales

and to maximize what goes out their doors, these things are rarely talked about or even considered.

Deferred payment programs restrict future income, limit our future options and certainly limit the benefits of being in control of our income at all times. If we are committed to developing and living on a realistic budget we don’t need a deferred payment scheme in any event.

But if you find your choices are limited, or if you decide for some other reason that these kinds of programs are OK for you, then at the very least, don’t leave the showroom until you’ve written a post-dated cheque for the amount of your purchase, good on the very day the deferred program expires. Then start right away to look for ways to cover the cheque.

Next time we’ll be talking about the financial benefits of a will — just in time for all souls night.

Al Antle is the executive director of the Credit Counselling Service of Newfoundlandand and Labrador.

14 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS

OUR TERMS

T

he Independent’s panel ended on an appropriately strong and forward-looking note — placing the impetus on Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to assert their place within Canada.

“We don’t need to be the weak partner in Confederation,” stated Brian Dobbin, “There’s no reason in the world we should be the weak partner in Confederation.”

The topic for this, the fifth and final segment of the panel discussion, was transportation. Complaints about air and ferry service and air space ownership were aired; the fate of the Gander airport and weather office were discussed.

Overall, the feeling was that Newfoundland and Labrador remains isolated from the rest of Canada because of geography — and the situation isn’t being helped along by the current transportation systems.

Panel participants had been invited by The Independent to meet for an afternoon to discuss Newfoundland’s Terms of Union with Canada. Moderated by editor-in-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).

Comments have been edited for clarity and length.

Ryan Cleary: In terms of transportation, what the Terms of Union guarantees is a Gulf ferry link. The problem is, it doesn’t guarantee the level of service, and there’s been a lot of criticism about that over the years. The other thing that’s in the Terms of Union is the Gander airport, which everybody knows is in financial trouble — while they have the aircraft, the military aircraft going through, because we’re members of NATO, they don’t get any money from it. The other thing, the south coast ferry service, we know that’s been taken over by the province …

Ray Guy: There’s nobody there.

Cleary: And the train system, obviously, (it’s gone because of the) $800-million roads for rails agreement.

Guy: What are we guaranteed?

Cleary: The Gulf ferry link.

Guy: That’s the only federal office here, isn’t it?

Maura Hanrahan: Marine Atlantic, yes, that’s a Crown corporation.

Brian Dobbin: Forget the gulf ferry link and give us back our air space.

Andy Wells: That’s not — you’re not going to get that back.

Dobbin: We started this by saying how would we do a new deal …

Wells: OK. It’s not going to make a difference to Gander, though.

Dobbin: Forget Gander, give us our air space.

Wells: Nobody’s going to use Gander.

Cleary: They did in 9/11.

Wells: You can’t run a modern airport

OCTOBER 20, 2006

‘No reason in the world’

Independent panel recommends better air and ferry service, control of province’s air space

Paul Daly/The Independent

on the basis of something that happens once every … and you can’t run it on the basis of military flights. NATO are not going to pay. What’s important about those bloody planes is that they land and (the passengers) spend money here.

Maura Hanrahan: The living tree, progressive interpretation of the Terms of Union, that’s a legal term, and it’s useful here. We’re saying that, you know, you may or may not be able to have Gander airport, but you can have air space or whatever. It’s a living-tree document, keep that in mind.

Cleary: So if you go with that philosophy, what does that mean in terms of the Gulf ferry link?

Hanrahan: It means it needs to be part of the Trans-Canada Highway, period.

Cleary: Do you agree with that, Mr. Grimes?

Roger Grimes: Absolutely.

Cleary: In other words, you treat the distance between North Sydney and Port aux Basques as a roadway.

Wells: That’s what I understood it was.

We were supposed to get the same benefit as if you drove, that’s all I understand about the friggin’ ferry — and it ain’t the same.

Cleary: What it talks about directly is the train link — as if it were all over rail.

Hanrahan: And we don’t have the railway, so we need a progressive interpretation.

Guy: We’ve got too many roads now.

You’ve got roads going to nowhere … they put one into Harbour Deep or some such place.

Dobbin: The only thing I could think about in terms of transportation is if you

could make it tax-free, take back the airspace …

It’s not so much getting onto the island; it’s getting off. How are we ever going to compete in the world economy if we’ve got to take six flights — I had to fly for 27 hours to get to Hong Kong. I went twice every three months and I had to stop after two years because it was killing me. We haven’t got a link to London.

Cleary: What do you mean by taking back our airspace?

Dobbin: That’s just a monetary thing.

We’re on a vector and thousands of planes have to come through our airspace and they pay for it, and the federal government gets that.

Cleary: What’s the name of the Crown corporation that gets the money from the planes flying through the airspace?

Dobbin: NavCan. Cleary: So you’re saying Newfoundland and Labrador should get that instead?

Dobbin: I think if we’re going to get territorial rights over our ocean, we should get it over our airspace.

Hanrahan: We brought it into Confederation.

Wells: That was a big loss to Newfoundland.

Dobbin: If we’re going to guarantee service, it shouldn’t be ferry service, it should be air service.

Cleary: It should be both.

Dobbin: How many people want to drive over to the mainland?

Cleary: We would, if it was affordable.

Dobbin: Would you? Would you take the three days it would take you? … I guarantee you, the people that get off that ferry to tour spend about $11 a day. They buy their groceries …

Wells: Where’s this?

Dobbin: Anyone who comes to the island and drives off the ferry.

Wells: Oh yes, there’s no money in driving.

Dobbin: Fly-in, they’ve got to spend money. They’ve got to rent a car, they’ve got to …

Hanrahan: It’s not either/or, though, Brian.

Guy: We’ve got to use geography to our advantage. That’s our only advantage here, stuck out, for air travel, for what else I don’t know. I remember doing a

story on Gander (airport) way back when it was Gander, and they took me back in a big room with all these monitors and what-not and you could see where every plane from every part of Europe, and I suppose Asia, came to a point somewhere off Gander, got their instructions to go down, come down and get their elevations, and go then to everywhere from Vancouver to Los Angeles to Mexico City and whatever.

And then, they started to point out, “There’s the gas vents …” In case of any disturbance, the place would be flooded with deadly gas. “And there’s the water vents — it takes one minute and a half to fill this place with water in case it’s taken over.” And I said, “I think I’ve got all the information I need … “ But it was most impressive that the geography of the place demanded that everything come to a point.

Cleary: OK, so we control the airspace, and the cost of the Gulf ferry is the same as going equal the distance over road.

Guy: But it’s hellish! Can’t something be done about that?

Dobbin: I’d ask for guaranteed air transportation.

Cleary: From here to Europe?

Dobbin: Guaranteed to our major historical trading centres, which are Boston, New York and London. Listen, we had 500 years of economic history with the other side of the ocean that we gave up when we joined Canada. No one is more acutely aware of that than I am. Fifty years ago in London, everyone would have known exactly where Newfoundland was. It was their first colony.

Peg Norman: Who said they were going to guarantee the air link?

Dobbin: If they’re going to continue to sustain a national airline that never should have been sustained as long as it has — completely ruining the Canadian industry — well they should at least make sure the damn thing flies us where we need to go.

Cleary: This goes back to the livingtree comment.

Dobbin: There are other airlines out there, who would set up flights, but their biggest fear is Air Canada coming back again.

Wells: I put that to this guy (Air Canada’s) manager of government

affairs, when they pulled out (of the St. John’s-London route). I said, “If the airport authority is successful in attracting another carrier, will you guys leave them alone? Because what I think you’ll try to do is put a flight back in, undercut them, and drive them out of business.”

And he said, “Now, now, Mayor Wells, Air Canada doesn’t operate like that” …

I said, “Well, what are you telling me?

Are you telling me you will or you will not? He said, well we’re always looking for business opportunities …” That’s exactly what they would do.

Hanrahan: There’s no direct flight to Ottawa, and I have to go there regularly.

Sometimes it takes me nine friggin’ hours to get to Ottawa.

Guy: And look at the rates!

Wells: The business is here. We as a city of 100,000, to my great shock, we have for our size, one of the best Air Canada services in the country. Better than Regina, Saskatoon. Only because we generate the business. I’m not saying they’re nice.

Guy: The people in Labrador would say we’re quite well off.

Hanrahan: You should stop saying 100,000, really, it’s 250,000, effectively.

Wells: Oh, I’d stop at Grand Falls if I could amalgamate.

Cleary: The weather station — we’ve got that back now, don’t we? Isn’t that coming back, what we don’t have is the aviation services in Gander?

Wells: They’re bringing back 23 positions I think.

Cleary: Not all the positions.

Hanrahan: I worked on the Fisheries Broadcast. Weather is like a life-or-death issue — it has to be full, complete. Andy, just watch, and see what comes back.

Wells: Oh, I don’t trust anybody. It’s a small point, but it’s indicative: on geology and geophysics, there’s more research being done over in Nova Scotia in the Bedford Institute, on our offshore platforms, structures, than there is in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Grimes: Sure.

Wells: That’s an utter and complete disgrace. Millions and millions of dollars in grants … we don’t have an office of energy here. There’s no one from the federal Department of Energy in Newfoundland, not a single bureaucrat. And here we are …

There’s 50-60 people working on that in the Bedford Institute, they should be in Newfoundland. There’s a big pot of money… they’re doing work on our geology — that should not be allowed.

Cleary: The same culture is there, not just with oil and gas, but with the military for example. You look down at the harbour, and there are no navy vessels, why not? We’re on the edge of the North Atlantic.

Hanrahan: I’ll tell you something else. Indian and Northern Affairs, the Newfoundland and Labrador part of that, is in Amherst, N.S. That’s where they make the decisions.

Guy: Twenty per cent of the military is made of Newfoundlanders, isn’t it? And we’ve got good ol’ Rick there … if we say “We’re not going to put up with this anymore …”

Dobbin: Isn’t all this arguing, to use an analogy again, it’s like saying oh, my brother’s got a nicer pair of pants than I’ve got?

Hanrahan: No, it’s not. These people are making decisions that affect us.

Guy: Knock your brother down and tear the pants off him.

Dobbin: We should be making those jobs ourselves. We should be doing our own research, we don’t need to be the weak partner in Confederation, there’s no reason in the world we should be the weak partner in Confederation.

OCTOBER 20, 2006

INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 15

By land or by sea Seven years after being tagged “cattle cars,” Marine Atlantic president says ferries have improved

By Mandy Cook The Independent

T

OUR TERMS

otal: $427.86. That’s the amount for a family of four, including two children aged 6 and Marine Atlantic have yet to implement recomand 8, to travel the “vital link” on a return mendations made by a federally-appointed comtrip across the Gulf from mittee in 2005 to discern Port aux Basques to North what improvements were Number of passengers Sydney, according to Marine needed.

January to September Atlantic’s reservation desk.

“You can’t provide the Oh, and remember to bring service if you don’t have the 2003: 293,000 peanut butter sandwiches vessels to do that, both on the 2004: 359,000 because that total doesn’t Gulf and the Argentia run,” 2005: 359,000 include food or other incihe says “You need up-to2006: 344,000 dental purchases (although it date, useable, functional vesNumber of passengers does include a cabin). sels to (provide a) service.

June to August Under the Terms of Union The committee recommendwith Canada, this province ed there ought to be a mas2003: 257,000 was guaranteed a marine sive investment by the feder2004: 231,000 highway link to complete the al government to the tune of 2005: 234,000 Trans-Canada highway — probably $750 million.”

2006: 218,000 but not a specific quality of Flood says Marine Atlantic Marine Atlantic budget 2006: $153 M service. In 1999, then is currently in talks with the Marine Atlantic budget 2003: $112 M Tourism minister Chuck federal government to hamBudget source: 56% federal government; Furey issued a scathing mer out a fleet replacement 44% user fees report entitled On Deck and program. He says the freight Below that referred to the vessel, Atlantic Freighter, Year vessels built Marine Atlantic fleet as will be the first one to be Leif Ericson — 1991 “constitutional cattle cars.” replaced, and in all likeliJoseph and Clara Smallwood — 1990 Seven years on, the presihood the Joseph and Clara Caribou — 1986 dent of Marine Atlantic says Smallwood and the Caribou Atlantic Freighter — 1978 the service has improved. will be upgraded, but he does “We are now doing a betnot write off the possibility ter job,” Roger Flood tells that all four vessels might be The Independent. “The customers’ needs are replaced with new ones. Flood says a decision has changing and they are certainly demanding a bet- yet to be made and Ottawa is “acting very coter job. And we are doing a much better job than operatively” with the Crown corporation. we were doing back at that time and we can improve yet. We will continue to strive until we get there but we are not as good yet as we can be.”

In response to Furey’s report, Flood is quick to defend the Marine Atlantic fleet.

“We were never cattle cars,” he says. “The Smallwood and the Caribou were state-of-the-art vessels when they were built and are still good quality vessels. They are now 18, 19 years old so we now need to upgrade them.”

Kelvin Parsons, Liberal MHA for the district of Burgeo and La Poile, says the ferry service is woefully under-funded and the federal government

The Joseph and Clara Smallwood docks at Argentia

As for the argument that residents of Newfoundland and Labrador should pay the same amount to travel the equivalent distance by boat or by car, Flood acknowledges the cost of a ferry ticket is considerably more than the gas to drive a car but the elimination of user fees is ultimately not in his jurisdiction.

“The cost to Marine Atlantic is certainly much higher than it would be to the cost of gas,” he says.

“As far as the ferry rates go, they are among the very lowest in North America and Europe. The debate whether it should be the same as the price of gas or if it should be user pay is a political discussion and I guess that’s where it should stay.”

Paul Daly/The Independent

Parsons says he is a “firm believer” Newfoundlanders and Labradorians should not have to pay user fees to travel from one part of the country to another. He says it is enshrined in the constitution.

“We entered Confederation to be part of Canada,” he says. “We didn’t do it on the mathematical equation of how much it costs to cross the Gulf. We assumed we would get the same treatment as anybody else who wanted to transgress any portion of Canada … that ought to be a cost that should be borne by the federation, not by the users of the service.” mandy.cook@theindependent.ca

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INDEPENDENTLIFE

FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20-26, 2006 — PAGE 17

Mark Griffin, Charlotte Courage and Lesley Bishop in Harbourside Park, St. John’s.

By Stephanie Porter The Independent

F

or 24 hours, Lesley Bishop, Charlotte Courage and Mark Griffin wandered the streets of St. John’s. They acted as if they’d just been kicked out of their homes; one day they had a bed to sleep in, the next they didn’t.

Their goals were to find food, shelter, money, and maybe apply for a job. They took nothing with them except the clothes on their backs; their plan was to seek out services available to the homeless — starting from scratch, as if they knew nothing about soup kitchens, food banks, shelters or crisis lines.

They say the day was “horrible.”

All three are fourth-year social work students at Memorial University. They’re currently doing work placements with Choices for Youth or its affiliated services (Choices for Youth on Carter’s Hill in downtown St. John’s houses a drop-in centre, a number of outreach services, a literacy program and a young men’s shelter). Most of the youth they work with are at risk; many are homeless.

When it was time to decide on a fourth-year project for school, Bishop, Courage and Griffin decided to try to step into the shoes of their clients, if only briefly.

“I was surprised by how many homeless there are,” says Griffin. “The beds (in the shelter) are usually full, and there’s always more calls coming in.

“Initially I got the idea, one of the people that use the services here was telling me about how he slept outside during the tropical storm

Paul Daly/The Independent

‘God help you’ Three social work students lived on the streets of St. John’s for 24 hours; they weren’t expecting it to be so hard and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I have no idea what that would be like.’”

The homeless experiment, which started Oct. 5 at 11 a.m., was designed to be both an “empathy exercise” and a test of the available local services.

The school of social work, hesitant at first, eventually supported the students’ initiative — after a risk management team examined the proposal, waivers were signed, and the proper checks and balances were put in place.

They took safety precautions: they dressed warmly; carried student ID, cell phones and $20; and called their professor at predetermined intervals.

They were prepared to deal with being hungry, sleeping outside, and facing challenges.

They weren’t prepared to be ignored, written off, and terrified.

••• 11 a.m. Bishop, Courage and Griffin left the Choices for Youth building and walked to the War Memorial on Duckworth Street.

“We were still warm, kind of cheery and pleasant,” says Courage. “It was going to be

24 hours without papers or studying, kind of a break. We sat there, joking, as we mapped out our day.”

They figured if they were homeless, they might first head to the church for help or advice. They walked to the Basilica, but the offices were closed for lunch.

12:30 p.m. The nearby Royal Newfoundland Constabulary building seemed the next logical stop. Courage took the lead. “I went up to the desk, and said, ‘Do you know if there are any shelters or food banks in the area?’ and he said, ‘Oh my love, I’m sorry, I don’t know.’”

The group went back to the Basilica, where they were directed to the Emmanus House food bank in St. Bonaventure’s School (right across the road from the RNC).

1:10 p.m. The food bank is open 1-3 p.m., Monday to Friday. Bishop and Griffin decided to enter separately. “You go into a room, and then you’re called into a smaller room, and there’s two people behind a desk,” describes Bishop. “There’s a sign when you go in that you need an MCP card to be given food, but we didn’t take those because, realistically, if

you’re a battered woman leaving your house, you probably wouldn’t take your MCP card.”

When she was asked for her MCP card, Bishop produced her university identification.

“They said, ‘Well, you’ll have to use the MUN food bank,’ and gave sort of vague directions. I said I wouldn’t be able to get there for a couple of days; they said I should go when I could.”

At his turn, Griffin decided not to show any ID. “I said I’d gotten kicked out of my house and that I needed food and they said there was no way they could give me any food whatsoever.

“His advice to me was, ‘God help you.’”

(Griffin admits the food bank experience was affecting from the start. “I was nervous going in because at best I was acting, at worst I was lying, then I found it such an uninviting place,” he says. “It was degrading enough having to ask for food …”)

Griffin asked about other services available in the area, and was eventually directed to The Gathering Place, a soup kitchen at the Basilica.

1:30 p.m. The soup kitchen was closed and locked, with no signs saying when it might be open again.

The trio stopped by Tim Hortons, where Griffin asked for a cup so he could get some water. He was refused.

“This was where I thought I should try to apply for work,” he says. “But if they’re not going to give me a cup, what’s the chance they’d give me a job?”

See “I think,” page 20

Russelling up literature to listen to Janet Russell’s audio-book company is the latest gamble in a life of excellent adventures

A

fter I finish interviewing Janet Russell, I sit down at my dining room table and have a few strictly medicinal drinks (a Greek Muscat bought on impulse weeks ago and regretted after one sip, but I was brought up by Depression-era parents — I always clean my plate and save string, used Band-aids and diabetesinducing wine). Holding my nose with one hand and my wine glass (which used to have Rod Stewart’s fingerprints on it, but that’s another story) with the other, I wonder how I’m ever going to

SUSAN RENDELL Screed and Coke compress the founder of Rattling Books into a few hundred words.

It’s late afternoon when Russell comes to my house from a meeting of local publishers. She doesn’t look any the worse for wear; actually, she looks about 15.

(Later, when she tells me about catching the half-wild Newfoundland ponies of Grand Bank as a kid, riding them bareback and organizing “gymanackas”/gymkhanas — those quintessentially English equestrian events she discovered in pony books given to her by her English mother, and later learned to pronounce — it’s not much of a leap to imagine her then, brown hair flying, shirt and jeans flapping in the wind — and that laugh, on which her life story rides in my tapes, as if everything she’s ever done, includ-

ing delivering her daughter prematurely among strangers, is all part of some excellent adventure.)

Russell comes by her free spirit and enterprising nature naturally. Her mother is a retired nurse who practiced in various parts of the province and on the South Coast hospital boat; her father is the son of Hazen Russell, founder of Bonavista Cold Storage, a fish processing company started in 1939 with the modest intent of freezing blueberries, salmon and cod fillets on a small scale, which became the centre of the fishery

in Bonavista after the decline of salt fish markets. (Her grandfather is on record as saying that northwest Atlantic fish stocks wouldn’t survive if foreign over-fishing continued — a statement made in the 1960s.)

Russell lived in Bonavista until she was five, when her family moved to St. John’s for several years before settling in Grand Bank. She says Grand Bank was “a fantastic place to grow up in.

There were still ponies — we made See “What business,” page 20

OCTOBER 20, 2006

18 • INDEPENDENTLIFE

GALLERYPROFILE

THOMAS RUIZ Visual Artist

P

ainter and graphic artist Thomas Ruiz thought he would be a doctor. Although he never stopped drawing as a child, he didn’t think about pursuing art as a career. His mother thought he should, though — and encouraged her son to create as soon as he was able to put paintbrush to

paper (or walls, in some cases).

“My mom was great because she would take big rolls of mill paper and just cover the floor with it and just let us go crazy,” Ruiz says. “There were five of us; I’m the baby. That would occupy us. Whatever I wanted to do, there was always a really strong

encouragement.”

Perhaps best known for a series of Central Dairies ads, which incorporate red, blue and green milk cartons into a row of similarly coloured houses in downtown St. John’s, or nestled into the crags of the Battery, Ruiz is currently enjoying regular work as a freelance

graphic artist. Citing design work for technology, insurance and construction companies — and even a rug-hooking business in Raleigh on the northern peninsula — the Stephenville native has become what his mother believed he would: a working artist.

Ruiz says his career choice can be challenging and satisfying — and it’s changed a lot since he graduated from the College of the North Atlantic’s visual arts program in 1993 (scoring an unprecedented 100 per cent from his cherished mentor Shelly McCoy).

“God, for years I was doing portraits for $50,” says Ruiz. “The amount of time you put into something, you put weeks or even a month into a painting, and you sell it for $150 — the materials probably cost $150. It’s tough to put a value on your work and for people to receive it at that value.”

Ruiz’s numerous clients obviously value his work. Consilient Technologies commissioned several pieces by Ruiz to encapsulate the guiding principles of their business. One painting depicts a male figure pulling a rope hand over fist while coming up against solid wharf pilings and merchant buildings in downtown St. John’s. Ruiz says it represents the idea of teamwork, achievement and overcoming challenges.

The concept is reinforced with words like “innovative” and “vision” in the background, and, also, by the obvious brute strength and determination in the figure’s physical form. He looks mythical — bulging muscles and furrowed brow delineated by certain, contoured strokes.

The piece, geometrical and illustrative, is diametrically opposed to Ruiz’s quiet study of the lighthouse keeper’s ocean blue water jug and basin at Cape Spear. The artist’s love of colour jumps out, lit by brilliant sunshine streaming in through the paned glass. One white hot spot facing the window is entirely devoid of blue; alternating shadows and light invite the viewer to wonder what else lies beyond the frame.

The range of Ruiz’s influences is evident in his body of work. He says he is “pretty expressionistic for the most part,” and credits a variety of styles and masters for inspiration.

“I’ve been influenced by a lot of different artists,” he says. “Between Impressionistic to Cubism to Kadinsky or Cezanne, I’ve been looking to them for inspiration and extrapolating from them.”

In addition to his graphic design work, Ruiz is currently assembling new paintings for a show that will coincide with Stephenville’s Come Home year.

Despite his success in the corporate design world, he earnestly wishes aloud for an opportunity to present his work for public consumption.

“Now I’ve just got to get into the galleries.”

— Mandy Cook mandy.cook@theindependent.ca

OCTOBER 20, 2006

INDEPENDENTLIFE • 19

A little heavy on the Jack The Departed is one of the year’s best, but could have been so much more TIM CONWAY Film Score The Departed Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson (out of four)

G

angland leader Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), a major figure in South Boston’s Irish mob, has eluded capture for years. This is despite extensive efforts on the part of the Massachusetts State Police, which has dedicated a fair amount of its resources to bringing him to justice.

Two promising new troopers brought into the investigation quickly become integral to the process, although neither is aware of the other’s participation.

Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) seems to have joined the state troopers out of spite.

His parents divorced when he was young, and he grew up moving between his mother’s upper class world and his father’s circles of criminal elements. Despite the opportunities available to him, Billy is loathe to pursue a career that would put him in daily contact with the kind of hypocrisy he has experienced among his mother’s family — yet he resists the urge to be drawn into the life that his father’s family has known.

Billy’s personal history makes him an ideal candidate for intensive undercover work, and he is recruited to just that task by Capt.

Queenan (Martin Sheen). It takes a while, but within a year, he works his way into Costello’s organization, feeding valuable information to Queenan and his right-hand man, Sgt. Dignam (Mark Wahlberg), the only two individuals who know he is operating for the police.

Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), on the other hand, has quickly risen through the ranks, and is attached to the Special Investigations Unit under Capt. Ellerby (Alec Baldwin). Unlike Costigan, Sullivan’s personal history indicates a regular guy from a regular family. What one would not find on the record anywhere, however, is any reference to his close, almost lifelong association with Frank Costello.

Based on a Hong Kong picture from a few years ago, Infernal Affairs, The Departed marks Martin Scorsese’s return to contemporary urban drama, and not without its share of celebration.

Jack Nicholson is Frank Costello in The Departed.

Enthusiastic fans are losing their minds, and any suggestion that this isn’t the greatest motion picture in a decade or more is met with the kind of response accorded to blasphemers in ultra-conservative religious circles. It isn’t enough to concede that this is the year’s first serious contender for Oscars, one must be prepared to openly acknowledge Mr. Scorsese’s infallibility, else suffer derisive tongue-lashing.

With Scorsese in his element, we can be assured of two things: a great looking motion picture; and superb acting. From the sets and costumes to the way they are illuminated and filmed, there’s hardly a moment when we’re not drawn to the screen. Scorsese’s reputation is built upon his talent for elevating the techniques of composition and camera movement beyond craftsmanship and into artistry — and The Departed demonstrates this at almost every turn.

Likewise, under his direction, actors usually turn out some of the best work they’ll ever do.

In his third collaboration with Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio should finally silence the last of his critics, and from here on in, it’s unlikely that he’ll ever be referred to as “... from Titanic fame.” Likewise, Matt Damon’s Sullivan, despite his self-serving machinations, almost always comes across as a likeable character, and while his actions are sometimes despicable, we’re still crossing our fingers in the hope that he’ll change his ways.

Then there’s Jack Nicholson, playing the villain for the first time in a long while. People who’ve never met him refer to him by his first name as though they share a past that goes back to the schoolyard. “Jack’s back!” is on everyone’s tongue as we nostalgically revisit the good old days of the big grin, sunglasses, and front row seat at the Oscars while Billy Crystal mimics him, saying things that only Jack Nicholson could get away with. Bad Jack is just so much fun.

Unfortunately, Bad Jack’s Frank Costello is entertaining in his own right, but he’s just too much here. As a scion of the devil for two thirds of the picture, he transforms into a less rational, crazy Jack, looking more like that bad arrest photo of Nick Nolte than the unscrupulous criminal mastermind who has eluded police for so long.

The amount of screen time dedicated to Costello, and the over-the-top portrayal of the character late in the film, frequently diverts our attention away from the real focus of the story, Costigan and Sullivan. Perhaps this is the price one has to pay for casting Mr. Nicholson, but chances are that he’s professional enough to take it back a notch if asked.

Similarly, a love triangle involving Costigan, Sullivan, and a psychiatrist played by Vera Farmiga, adds little more than length to a long story, and needlessly complicates an already complex tale.

While the film offers great lines of dialogue, there is an absence of the depth and emotion that we expect, especially considering the great lengths to which the story takes to set up the characters initially. DiCaprio manages to draw on the isolation of his character, but he’s got nowhere to go with it, and Damon’s got nothing to work with, despite his efforts.

Finally, the last 10 minutes or so are so ridiculous that Nicholson’s last few scenes as Costello seem understated in comparison.

By the end of The Departed, we’ve been certainly entertained and have witnessed some remarkable moments, but there’s that nagging feeling that something’s missing.

A tighter script, with more deeply explored characters, and a closer focus on the two main characters would have made the difference here. This is a very good film, but the fact The Departed is one of the year’s best so far speaks more to the others’ inadequacies than this one’s features, for it could have been much better, a modern classic.

Tim Conway operates Capital Video in Rawlin’s Cross, St. John’s. His column returns Nov. 3.

Hell upon earth MARK CALLANAN On the shelf Your Daughter, Fanny: The War Letters of Frances Cluett, VAD Edited by Bill Rompkey and Bert Riggs Flanker Press, 2006. 176 pages.

T

he annual Winterset in Summer Festival, a literary festival in Eastport dedicated to the celebration of local and not-so-local literature, meditated on and commemorated the Great War. The occasion of this themed event was the 90th anniversary of the devastating losses sustained by the Royal Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont Hamel, an event that has become synonymous in our minds with the horrors of war; with its brutal capacity to erase life and hope, but also with notions of nobility and sacrifice.

When we think of the First World War, we tend to remember most its male correspondents — the poetry of Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon and the Daily News published letters of Frank “Mayo” Lind are the first things to come to my mind.

Editors Bill Rompkey and Bert Riggs offer Your Daughter, Fanny: The War Letters of Frances Cluett, VAD as a corrective to this malecentered world of war writing.

It provides not only a great deal of insight into the occupation of volunteer nurses during that period, but more importantly, a window into the human spirit bombarded on all sides by tragedy.

In October, 1916, Frances Cluett of Belleoram joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) as a nurse. Because of the desperate need for medical support, and unbeknownst to Cluett at the time, the usual six-week training period for the nurses had been shortened to four, the fresh recruits propelled into the aftermath of the ongoing conflict without benefit of more indepth training. Her letters to her mother, Matilda, and her sister Lil (31 in total: 28 to her mother and three to her sister) stand as record of her time in service, observing and recording the details of the war.

The first letter included in the book is dated May 3, 1908. Addressed to Lil, it is included, in the words of Riggs, “because it is a long and newsy letter that provides a great deal of context for those

that follow.” Besides introducing various family members back home in Belleoram, the letter also features the first of many of Cluett’s references to clothing: “When I was to St John’s last fall,” she writes, “I bought a winter’s coat $7.50, dark fawn, or exactly the shade of that one Sam Joe brought me from Sydney.” Her repeated chronicling of her vestments, combined with the results of various shopping excursions, lends a light air to the early letters.

Cluett’s tone begins to darken though in a letter dated May 7, 1917, the first letter after her transfer to the military hospital in Rouen, France. “This is a very wicked world, mother,” she writes. “You cannot realize what sufferings there are: Some of the misery will ever live in my memory: it seems to me now as though I shall always have sad sights in my eyes.”

On Oct. 3 of that same year she writes Lil: “many a bedside have I stood by and watched the last breath; with the rats rushing underneath the bed in groups (…) I could never make you sensible of the sights I have seen.”

It is a mark of Cluett’s fortitude that she is not consumed by the ugliness of her experiences.

Though she is blatantly honest about the horrific aspects of the war, the agony and death of her patients, she is able to maintain a degree of levity. On March 9, 1918, she recounts to her mother how she has had to blow her candle out during her writing as “Matron or Super Night Sister” makes the rounds.

That being said, it is the following lines from a letter dated March 31, 1918, that are the most memorable and affecting: “If this war does not soon end there won’t be a man living on the face of the earth.

It is brutal; it is cold-blooded murder; it is hell upon earth.”

There is no heroism visible, no mythologizing possible in the face of such a plain statement on the true nature of conflict. There is only death and those like Cluett who tried their best to prevent it.

The editors’ touch here is light, with some footnotes included to contextualize or clarify references. As they seem to have added missing words in certain places to support grammatical structure but not in others, a short note on their methodology might have been in order.

But these are small complaints in a book that, if not a joy to read, for it is hard to find enjoyment per se in such subject matters, is without doubt a necessary revelation.

Writer Mark Callanan lives in St. John’s. His column returns Nov. 3.

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Conductors: Marc David & Peter Gardner Host: Lorne Elliott with Averill Baker – Piano Second Prize Winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs

Siochana Irish, Folk, Bluegrass, Country, and Rock and Roll Dermot O’Reilly & Fergus O’Byrne Recipients of the 2004 ECMA’s Lifetime Achievement Awards

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All performing with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra with Special Arrangements by Jim Duff Should an artist be unable to appear, we reserve the right to substitute.

Reception to follow the Big Ticket Gala

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Call 722-4441

OCTOBER 20, 2006

20 • INDEPENDENTLIFE From page 17 1:45 p.m. Cold and wet, the three students went to the gazebo in Bannerman Park for shelter. Boredom set in.

“We didn’t just want to sit there and complain about how bad it was, but we didn’t have the energy or the emotional drive to talk about anything more fun,” Courage says.

Griffin agrees. “That’s when it hit me that I had nothing to do — all these people were passing by, everyone looked so busy and I wasn’t.”

4:30 p.m. They walked to St. Clare’s and find an out-of-the-way waiting room to warm up in. “You’re sitting there, and you’re always just waiting for someone to tell you to leave,” says Courage. “We’d only been doing this five hours, and already we were feeling pretty low,” adds Griffin.

7 p.m. A security guard arrived, and escorted them to the door.

On her way out, Courage stopped by the front receptionist. “I asked if she knew of any shelters or food banks. She said ‘a bank’? and I said no, a food bank.

And she said … ‘Oh, I don’t know …’

“She didn’t offer to help, to ask anyone else, she didn’t ask if we were OK … I mean, I think I looked pretty pathetic. I would have helped me.”

Outdoors, it was seriously raining.

The trio walked to the War Memorial, where they knew Street Reach (an emergency services van which offers street outreach services two evenings a week) would be at 8 p.m.

8:15 p.m. The three students were cold, wet, and hungry when the Street Reach van finally showed up. Courage was overwhelmed.

“I started to bawl,” she says. “It wasn’t because I was that upset, it was more just relief that these people were helping us. Even though we’d only been doing this for nine hours, it was so hard …

“And standing in the line behind us, as we were waiting for our hot chocolate, there was a gentleman with his shopping cart. This is his reality.”

The Street Reach volunteers told the students the Choices for Youth centre was open for drop-in until 11 p.m. They also provided a business card, filled

Paul Daly/The Independent

‘I think I looked pretty pathetic’ with lists of phone numbers for shelters, food banks, crisis lines and more.

9 p.m. At Choices for Youth, the group was given food, a blanket each, a book bag, snacks, and allowed to put their clothes in the dryer. Using the numbers provided, they called various shelters: there was one bed available.

11 p.m. Downtown again, the trio tried panhandling. After an hour, they hadn’t gotten a penny.

“I hated it,” says Bishop. “We did get the experience of how mortifying it is to ask someone for money and even moreso when they don’t pay attention.”

Midnight. They found a bar on George Street with no cover charge, and went in to get warm. Griffin sang a karaoke song so they wouldn’t be kicked out.

1 a.m. Time to find a place to sleep.

“It was a real balance between finding shelter and trying to be safe,” says

Bishop. “We could have gone behind a building, but what if someone came at us? We don’t want to get stabbed for our book bag.”

“And we didn’t want a place where there was a lot of drug use or a lot of violence; we wanted to be safe,” adds Courage.

They settled on three park benches in Harbourside Park — open, but out of sight of Water Street. Sleep was fleeting.

“I didn’t sleep a wink,” says Griffin.

“I guess you’re so used to being in a bed, it’s so private and so closed and you’re safe and there I was so exposed … But so many people walked by and no one said anything, no one noticed.

And there were drug deals in front of us, there was people meeting and doing things and I just pretended to be asleep.

They didn’t even care we were there.”

Bishop was on edge. “Even though this was so constructed, there were three

of us, we had cell phones and $20. But every time you’d hear footsteps, any noise, you’re terrified.”

Griffin started to think about the alternatives. “For the first time I realized how easily people could turn to prostitution and drugs to get off the street and out of the cold … This was Oct. 5. What happens in February? Because people are homeless in February.”

7 a.m. Relieved to see the sun rise, the three went to Atlantic Place, where they found a table in the public cafeteria.

“Every time someone came by we’d try to look like we were doing something so we wouldn’t get kicked out,” says Griffin. “But on the other hand, you want someone to acknowledge you’re there. I didn’t realize how affecting that would be, so quickly.”

10 a.m. The three go back to Choices for Youth and debrief.

•••

Griffin, Bishop, and Courage are proud of their 24 homeless hours, but are still shocked about the experience.

“I’m used to people doing things like holding doors,” says Courage. “I’m a young woman and I’m used to people treating me kindly, but it was like I was invisible and people didn’t care at all.”

“It sounds extreme,” says Bishop.

“But it was that bad.”

All three thought they’d be able to access food, and have trouble grasping the “humiliating” experience in the food bank — and that there were no provisions to offer even a small amount of food to people in immediate need. They say RNC officers and employees of the health system should have been able to offer direction, if not help.

“We’re not accusing the RNC or the hospital or food banks of not being helpful,” Courage says. “Our experience is they didn’t help us in our situation and that’s not blaming them, that’s blaming a huge system …

“It’s survival, and everything is so much work. Where would you get the time and the effort to do something else, look for a job, put together a resume?”

“And every time someone says no to you, you don’t want to ask anymore,” adds Griffin.

Homelessness may not be as visible in St. John’s as it is elsewhere, but it is much more rampant than the general public would ever guess. Which may be one reason the services that do exist are not as visible, or as well known, as they could be.

The three students will use their experience on the street as the foundation for a public forum later this fall. They plan to invite representatives from the organizations they encountered.

They would like to see information cards at the fingertips of every police officer, hospital employee, even storeowners downtown. But most of all, they want people — everyone — to open their eyes.

“It’s not just about the professionals,” says Bishop. “I think it’s all citizens. As people, we have a duty to each other, to help. No one should feel invisible.

“I’m surprised how bad it was.” stephanie.porter@theindependent.ca

‘What business can I start in Tors Cove that I can do from my shed?’

From page 17

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boughwhiffies (forts) in the woods.

Kids had a lot of freedom, and it was a great landscape.

“When I was in high school I wrote a lot. I won a poetry prize, and all that stuff,” Russell tells me, sending poetry and prize and all that stuff over to settle ignominiously in the corner of the room with a shake of her head. Nearly 30 years later, she would found Rattling Books, Canada’s only commercial unabridged audio book company, “coming full circle,” as she puts it. It’s a very large circle.

Russell is 45; by the time she was 20, she’d survived a New Brunswick boarding school (where she kept a stray cat right under the noses of Victorian-style matrons), become a poet, gone to art school in Halifax and worked in a vegetarian restaurant. “He (her boss at Peace Meal restaurant) fired me after I accidentally trashed his juicer,” Russell says. “Well, it wasn’t the first thing. ‘You can’t work in a restaurant,’ he said, ‘but would you like to be my chauffeur?’ — Sure, and get us killed! I think he liked me.”

She’d also been a hermit in a cabin in Cape Breton (“chopping wood and getting water and reading books”), a maker of cedar signs for a factory which also produced parts for grandfather clocks, a … but Russell is barely over the legal drinking age yet, and I have only so many words to spend.

In her 20s, Russell travelled in South America with her husband, Merrill Francis, and worked at a spate of geology related jobs, including camp cook and mapping assistant. She also attended Memorial University of Newfoundland, declaring her major just before graduation, when she discovered she’d accumulated more courses in biology than in anything else.

Was that before the bicycle tour of Ireland and after the cross-country skiing fiasco? I ask. She laughs. “I just wanted to be outdoors,” she says.

After several years as a fisheries observer, Russell decided to do a Masters degree in marine biology. “I was interested in fish, but I didn’t want to go to sea anymore,” Russell says, “because I was thinking of having youngsters.”

Years later, her daughter Antonia arrived unexpectedly during a workrelated trip to St. Anthony, and was named after the town. “I had all the books on childbirth … I was going to read them after I got back,” Russell tells me, looking serious for a moment.

And then her ebullient laughter enriches the air, and I add some of my own.

The idea of Russell slowing down long enough to bone up on something like childbirth seems ludicrous.

She ended up studying seabirds for a

Janet Russell

Masters in biopsychology — specifically, the foraging ecology of Atlantic puffins — spending her summers doing fieldwork on Baccalieu Island and the Funks. She and her husband built a house from scratch — this time she did hit the books to see how it was done — on land overlooking the ocean in Tors Cove.

In 1998, Russell co-founded The Alder Institute, a non-profit collective dedicated to translating science into common language (three of its founding members were ecologists and broadcasters). Alder produced a show called Open Air: Natural History Radio from Newfoundland and Labrador, which was broadcast on community and campus radio stations in Newfoundland, Fredericton and Toronto from 2000 to 2004.

“At the beginning, we said, what’s natural history? And we decided everything is natural history,” Russell says.

Open Air ended up as a magazine style program, running the gamut from Insect of the Month to Andy Jones’ To the Wall. The latter played on a segment of the show called “Tales from the Trail,” which featured local writers and performers.

Although Russell enjoyed working with Alder, “I felt like a gerbil in a rat race,” she tells me. “Constantly writing proposals and reports — there was no end in sight. There was also no money in sight.”

It was time to come up with a forprofit plan. “So I thought, well, I really like doing the writers stuff,” Russell says, “and I love doing audio. So what business can I start in Tors Cove that I can do from my shed? That would be fun and different and put some culture in my life?”

The answer was audio books — although Russell had never listened to one.

That was three years ago. At the end of this month, Rattling Books will send

Paul Daly/The Independent

singer Anita Best and poet Agnes Walsh to Iceland as part of a provincial trade mission. In the former home (now a museum) of Iceland’s Nobel Laureate in literature, Halldór Laxness, they will read from Walsh’s In the Old Country of My Heart, Mary Dalton’s Merrybegot and Michael Crummey’s Hard Light, and other works of Rattling Book authors.

The company has a stellar line-up: Lisa Moore, Mavis Gallant, Joel Thomas Hynes, Janis Spence, Robin McGrath, John Steffler and many other well-known names — Sir Wilfred Grenfell, for instance.

Rattling Books also has a long reach: so far, Russell has found distributors in Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand. The books are also available as mp3 digital downloads from her website.

Earlier this month, the company won an Earphones Award from AudioFile, the American magazine for audio book lovers. The Earphones went to The True Meaning of Crumbfest, read by Russell’s daughter when she was five.

(Obviously, there’s going to be another sequel to the Russell saga — Generation Four: Antonia.)

When Russell began describing her decision to start Rattling Books to me, she paused and grinned. “Totally naïve, right?” I guess.

But Russell strikes me as sort of a cross between Mr. Magoo and Candide. A blind man who always manages to avoid getting creamed, and Voltaire’s artless protagonist, walking the minefield of a corrupt world with innocent determination. Well, Mr. Magoo earned a couple of Oscars, and people are still reading about Candide’s adventures several hundred years later.

Stay tuned …

To hear an excerpt from a Rattling Book, visit www.rattlingbooks.com.

INDEPENDENTSTYLE

FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20-26, 2006 — PAGE 21

“Mollusk Man,” aka Simon Story Paul Daly/The Independent

Boo!

Ghouls, goblins, witches, zombies, axe-murderers, cavemen, cowboys and Indians, cheerleaders, Spongebob Squarepants — dressing up for Halloween never gets old, even if you think you are

By Mandy Cook The Independent

O

f all the seasonal festivities, Halloween is this writer’s favourite. Valentine’s Day is hokey and contrived, July 1 is fun for the fireworks if you don’t blink and miss the whole shot, and Christmas is

great — once you shrug off the obligation of baking cookies and artfully weaving wreaths out of twigs and consume copious amounts of mulled wine instead.

But Halloween … there’s something about the pagan New Year that inspires so many to dress up, goof off and have a silly good time.

Most people have a memorable costume story to tell — from a year when time permitted an elaborate get-up, or about building one upon the foundation of a particularly good prop. In my own case, I eagerly recall the year I went as a green fairy. Dressed in green from top See “A chance,” page 24

OCTOBER 20, 2006

22 • INDEPENDENTSTYLE

TASTE Torstar wire service

O

nion soup is a comfort. You carefully stretch molten strands of cheese to your lips, break through a floating island of toast to reach the dark, steamy broth beneath, then load your spoon with sweet, richly caramelized onions.

What could be better as the cool autumn weather sets in?

This bistro classic has been played out in cookbooks, but in Bouchon, elite chef Thomas Keller devotes four pages to a single onion soup recipe — praising its “warmth, comfort and familiarity,” caramelizing the onions for five hours, fussing over cheese that is both sliced and grated to form the perfect crust. But onion soup needn’t be such a laborious affair.

It’s vital to cook the onions long and slowly, until meltingly tender and caramelized brown, to extract all they have to offer. Homemade beef stock, yellow onions and toasted baguette

FRENCH ONION SOUP • 2 tbsp unsalted butter • 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil • 4 onions (1-1/2 lb/700 g), halved, thinly sliced • 2 cloves garlic, chopped • 5 cups beef stock • 1/2 cup dry red wine • 2 sprigs parsley • 1 sprig thyme • 1 bay leaf • 1/4 tsp each: salt, freshly ground pepper • 8 slices day-old baguette (1-inch thick) • 1/2 lb (225 g) comté cheese, shredded

rounds are traditional. But cooks can and do tinker. Cook’s Illustrated swears by red onions. (The drawback is they turn the soup bluish, which can be countered by balsamic vinegar.)

Using mixed onions is fancier. I have seen the addition of everything from bacon to egg yolks beaten with port.

Wine or cognac is a fine touch.

Splashes of vinegar or worcestershire cut the onions’ sweetness. In a Paris bistro, I ate onion soup sacrilegeously topped with mounded croutons.

As for the cheese, emmenthal, gruyère, asiago and parmesan have landed on top. The French rightly favour comté. It has a deep, nutty flavour with a slight grittiness. It is more creamy than rubbery when molten, and less likely to emit a pool of grease. When it emerges from the broiler, it has a delightful crunch. The downside: comté costs more than twice as much as emmenthal.

Your final decision: Do you need scissors?

Heat butter and oil in large, wide pan on medium-high. Stir in onions and garlic. Reduce heat to low. Cook 1 hour, stirring often, until onions are brown and bottom of pan has brown coating.

Add stock, wine, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Bring to boil on medium-high, scraping pan.

Turn heat to medium-low; simmer 15 minutes. Discard parsley, thyme and bay leaf.

Meanwhile, toast bread until golden. Divide soup among four onion soup bowls set on baking dish. Top each with 2 slices toast. Cover with cheese. Broil until cheese is melted and golden brown, about 5 minutes.

Makes 4 servings.

Udon know how good it is NICHOLAS GARDNER Off the Eating Path

I

have always been fascinated with the Japanese language. During my time at culinary school, an opportunity to take a class in conversational Japanese presented itself, and I jumped at the chance. I started in a class with four others and as the weeks went by, one by one they dropped out, until I was the only one left.

My teacher Hiro Suzuki was a patient man. He corrected me in my mistakes over and over and without complaint. I was pretty good as a beginner. As a special end-of-semester treat I even got to watch Iron Chef — in the original Japanese without subtitles.

While I was studying the language I was also studying the complexity of Japanese food. I have found that the presentation of only a few simple and distinct ingredients is difficult to master as, in the Japanese way, it must be the perfect representation of that food at that moment. Japanese food is simplicity as an art form.

When at home I am always unsure of myself when I make Japanese food. Part of me is unsure how the flavour palate is supposed to develop. Having concentrated almost all my culinary training in French food, the strange world of noodles and broths seems a little “out there.”

My wife and I are of the same opinion: we need to eat more Japanese/Asian foods in the course of the week.

North Americans spend so much of their time buying and cooking great honking slabs of beef for their enjoy-

ment, when in fact we need to abandon that model for a more diverse diet.

I love Japanese food — well, the concept of Japanese food. I love the jewel pieces of fish and the rice, but I hardly like all the tedious preparation to make it.

My wife was in the mood for “noodle bowls,” so that is what I did. I didn’t have any kombu (large pieces of kelp) to make dashi (Japanese stock) so I had to improvise.

Udon noodles (thick buckwheat noodles, available in most large grocery stores) are great for this application.

They need cooking and then rinsing under cold water to remove the starch.

Unlike Italian pastas where the starch is good for making the sauce thicken, Japanese noodles, when cooked in the broth, turns the broth slightly slimy.

In my wok, over high heat, I sautéed julienne ginger (about a knob 1.5 inches long, peeled and finely julienned) for a couple of seconds, then added minced garlic to aromatize. Then I added finely sliced celery for bite.

I then added mushroom slices. I only had button mushrooms on hand, but this would be a great application for shiitake or crimini mushrooms as well.

The final addition was artificial crab.

Crab-flavoured pollock is cheap and flavourful. I coarsely chopped this and added it. The final element was a small handful of seaweed pieces. These rehydrate when cooked, and become soft.

I sautéed all this for a couple of minutes, then cracked one whole egg and

stirred it in.

(The egg needs to cook before adding the broth. Stir it round and round and it will bind to the other ingredients and help the thickening of the soup at the same time.)

I replaced the dashi with a storebought chicken stock and covered the crab, mushrooms and egg with just enough stock to bring it all together. I brought the mixture to the boil and simmered for a couple of minutes.

The final stage was seasoning. I used two dashes tamari (brewed Japanese soy), two dashes rice wine vinegar (for acidity), a pinch of sugar for sweetness, and one final dash of Chinese soy to add needed flavour depth.

I placed cooled udon noodles in the bottom of the bowl and covered with the soup. The broth had little white flecks in it, but that’s the egg protein, and it is tasty. I served it, steaming hot with a pair of chopsticks and a Chinese broth spoon.

Slurp the noodles: slurping (which is an acceptable thing to do, I am told, in Japan) allows for all the flavours to run around your palate. This is much like in wine tasting — you “slurp” to aerate and bring all the distinct characteristics together.

Japanese cooking is not difficult, it just takes time. I have vowed to make more — it tastes good and is good for you — what could be better than that?

Nicholas Gardner is a food writer and erstwhile chef. nicholas.gardner@gmail.com

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OCTOBER 20, 2006

INDEPENDENTSTYLE • 23

DRINK

By Nicholas Gardner For The Independent

I

t’s the very early 1980’s, and I can remember the birthday party like it was my own. It was at my friend Rob’s house. I remember the basement where the party took place. It was a large space, it felt cavernous like the Batcave.

The speckled floor was cold but the room was warm. I can remember that the room was filled with kids playing the newest electronic gaming toy: the Atari 2600. The rest were running around.

There is a memory of the smell of barbeque — indoors. This was novel. No need for coals, or wood to grill the burgers, it was a built-in unit.

An indoor grill — maybe I imagined that — but it still seems real.

But the real stars were the bright red crates, the fuel of the party, the quintessential necessity for a birthday in those days: the mixed crate of pop from the Pop Shoppe.

The Pop Shoppe, for those of you who might have forgotten, was a brilliant idea, far ahead of its time.

The concept was to buy flats of drinks.

Unfortunately, I have forgotten how much they were, not surprisingly as I was only the recipient of the product and not the purchaser.

You would buy the pop and pay a deposit on the glass bottles, just like you do now. But you could mix and match the flavours, and when they were done, you would return the crate of empties and get credit for the next flat based on the cost of the returned bottles.

Well, for those wishing its return, I have discovered Pop Shoppe pop is back and as good as ever.

I found several stores across the city carrying the new line of Pop Shoppe pop. I purchased the complete line — just to see if it was as good as my childhood memories.

Searching stores across the city I found cream soda, pineapple, cola, grape, Lime Rickey, root beer, and black cherry. For all you trivia fans, the entire Pop Shoppe line also included lemon-lime, grapefruit, Sparkle Up (like 7-Up), Festival Dry

Paul Daly/The Independent

Might as well go for a soda (ginger ale), blackberry and cherry cola.

Popping the top of the root beer was nostalgic.

It is a deep and very potent version of the favourite childhood drink with underlying vanilla tones and plenty of creamy coloured fizz. I want to try another and make a root beer float — just add one scoop of vanilla ice cream.

The black cherry was, as most drinks of this

A huge generation gap, already Leia Feltham on the ups and downs of today’s addiction to technology that much longer. The half-hour it takes to get home gives me too much freedom to worry about all the things that a good song could make me forget.

Sometimes while gazing at a computer screen I feel a little paranoid, like I’m being watched. Even though I know there is no true consciousness inside the hardwiring of my computer, I still find it hard to ’m not very old, but I can still remember when forget all the Armageddon-type movies where the not everyone had a computer. I got one when I overconfident humans are overtaken by their own was seven, and I used the same one up until last technology. year. Windows 95 all the way. At least my Internet These thoughts raced through my mind at 1 a.m. was upgraded to cable early on so I didn’t have to when, while finishing my history paper, the formatlisten to the painful wailing and screeching of dial- ting all went to hell for unknown reasons. Hours of up. work had to be fixed and I’m sure parts of my brain There are kids now who I meet exploded from blinding frustration. who’ve never even heard of dialWhile cursing on my computer up, let alone gone a day in their life — as if it could hear me and feel A little music without a computer. Imagine that, a guilty — I contemplated watching huge generation gap already. it go up in flames. Then I wondered makes the My problem with computers and if it was at all possible that my technology in general is my computer was mocking me. difference dependency on it. It’s like having a Laughing evilly and silently at my dozen parasites leeched onto me. misfortune. Watching Maximum between being Rather than sucking blood, they Overdrive many times lately has drain me of precious time, and I messed with my overtired mind a alone and feed off the entertainment given in bit too much. feeling alone. return. It’s a twisted love/hate symDespite trying my patience, techbiotic relationship that is created. nology has made some situations in Computers have produced a genermy life easier. Like when friends ation of addicts and I’m one of them. move away, or when I’m in a long distance relaThe first place I go when I get home is the com- tionship. The Internet gives me a connection to the puter. Sometimes I sort of test myself. I’ll try to people that can’t be present in my everyday life. walk by and act all nonchalant, like I don’t even Seeing someone you love smile or laugh over a know it’s there. That lasts about five minutes and webcam can’t feel the same as experiencing it in before I know it I’m mindlessly typing away. person, but with miles separating each other it can Most days I go on ignoring the obvious — that fill a little of the void. I feel a bit grateful in those I’m wasting my time by playing games and getting moments that I was born into this day and age. lost in the infinite web — and succumb to temptaWhether I love or hate it, I won’t be igniting my tion, but it doesn’t even end there. I rarely leave computer anytime soon and my iPod will continue home without my iPod. The fact I spent $500 on it to be joined to me at the hip. Every now and again means I need to milk it for all it’s worth, because I think I need to step back and remember what it paying tuition is more important than buying new was like when my imagination and a stack of books frivolous and expensive toys. was all I had. There’s still a pile by my bed, dusty However, of all my personal purchases I’d have but full of possibilities. to say my iPod is definitely my favorite and most Endless information is at my fingertips with the utilized. I find lately, in particular, I spend a lot of Internet, but the real world that is waiting to be time on my own, in the library studying or on the experienced and explored is just outside of the bus. A little music makes the difference between monitor. Time to disconnect. being alone and feeling alone. What I hate is that I’m accustomed to always having music so that Leia Feltham is a first-year Memorial University when I have to go without it time seems to stretch student. Her column returns Nov. 3.

LEIA FELTHAM Falling Face First

I

flavour are, quite medicinal tasting. However, after it had calmed down and come to room temperature (not recommended, but it happens when you start a sugar bender) it became mellow and very real tasting. You could almost bite into the pits of the cherries.

My favourite, though, is the Lime Ricky. It has been for as long as I can remember. It isn’t too

fizzy. It isn’t too sweet, it’s not sour and it’s not overpowering. It has the subtle flavours of lime without the harshness of the biting acidity.

As I write this, I remember the simple times — simple parties, clean, harmless fun and the Pop Shoppe. Soda the way soda should taste. nicholas.gardner@gmail.com

OCTOBER 20, 2006

24 • INDEPENDENTSTYLE

DETAILS GIFT CARDS As often as you can, buy any restaurant or gasoline cards to be used for teen gifts or stocking stuffers.

Redeem Air Miles for goodies early.

By Patricia Dorst Torstar wire service

W

e’re all still eating turkey leftovers but it’s not too early to think of Christmas.

By being organized and prepared, you and your family can enjoy the holidays. Who wants to be a frantic shopper late in December, making bad choices and facing huge credit card bills in the New Year? Spread the expenses and work out over the fall and relax.

Get out your calendar and plan your way into December. Imagine being so ready, with gifts bought and wrapped and cards sent, that you can have a stress-free Sunday, baking cookies with the kids or strolling the streets, enjoying the holiday lights.

KEEP A LIST And check it more than twice. Write down the names of everyone receiving gifts and meticulously note every gift purchased, before you store it away.

Keep all purchases in one area — under the bed, back of the closet — so they don’t get misplaced. And hide the list, too, of course.

Scribble down gift ideas when they strike and stick them into the folder. Collect pages with gift ideas from newspapers or magazines.

RECIPES Review your holiday food, baking and cookie recipes. List foods and ingredients and check them off as you purchase them. Doing this on a weekly countdown will keep your food budget in check while stocking the pantry. (Some items such as red and green Rice Krispies are available only close to Christmas.)

CHRISTMAS CARDS This year, save Christmas card envelopes in your address book. Purchase discounted cards on Boxing Day but don’t put them away with last year’s orna-

SPECIALIZED GIFTS Order personalized pencils for the kids early.

Stationery stores also need lead time for address labels and writing paper. Monogramming can take towels from ordinary to extraordinary but that requires time, too.

STOCKING STUFFERS Grab a small gift bag per person and put the stuffers in throughout the year. That makes it easy to transfer everything into stockings on Christmas Eve. LIQUOR Purchase an extra bottle of wine or spirits weekly to stock up for consumption or gifts.

CREDIT CARDS Stick to your budget and try to pay by cash so you don’t suffer from January credit card blues.

holiday planning ments. Keep the boxed cards in a convenient desk drawer so you can address the envelopes over the fall.

Take advantage of early mailing deadlines.

manicure/pedicure as a gift together? Pooling your money to purchase one great gift for a niece going on a trip or a nephew away at school is a great idea.

ADULT GIFTS Open a discussion, uncomfortable or not, on whether you want to draw names, which can certainly help your budget. Set a price limit. How about all the sisters-in-law or gal friends enjoying a pre-season

CRAFTS Involve children in making special gifts for friends and grandparents. A framed photo or handprint can be treasured for years. Check out the craft classes at Michaels arts and crafts stores for ideas.

RECEIPTS Keep all receipts of purchases in one envelope for quick retrieval if needed for returns.

BUY WHEN TRAVELLING Pick up a great pair of earrings or scarf if you are travelling throughout the year. Or frame a photo taken on your trip. Don’t even think of getting a gift that says “My father went to Hawaii and all I got was this T-shirt.”

WRAPPING Find a spot where you can keep tape, tags, scissors and paper. By wrapping a gift or two when you have a few minutes, you have broken a big job down to size.

Self-adhesive gift tags are the best. Put the decorative ribbons or bows on later, closer to Christmas.

‘A chance to dress up, have fun and be someone you’re not’ From page 21 to bottom and accented with plastic leaves pinned to a shoulder or a toe or behind an ear, the piece de resistance was a giant set of dragonfly wings that extended past my outstretched fingertips. Impressive in scale to say the least, but the get-up proved to be wildly impractical once I realized I couldn’t fit into the bathroom, let alone a crowded dance bar.

Simon Story, a biology student and another Halloween enthusiast, has been working on several incarnations of his favourite costume, Mollusk Man, for a couple of seasons now. His inspiration came to him as a junior biologist watching nature programs on TV. “I’ve always had a fascination with giant squids,” says Story. “I saw Fred Aldridge go down in a submersible looking for them when I was about eight years old. They’d wash ashore in Newfoundland fairly often I guess in comparison to other parts of the world.

They captivated me at a young age.”

Story is keenly counting down the days to All Hallow’s Eve. He says dressing up for Halloween is a matter of shirking real life’s daily demands and taking time out for fun.

“It’s when a bunch of people can get together and not take themselves too seriously,” he says. “I think that’s really important and refreshing. It’s a lot of fun to put a costume together and do that.”

And let’s not forget: a great costume can pay, big time. But it’s a fierce fight if you want to be a contender at George Street’s Mardi Gras event. Saturday Oct.28, will see 20,000 revelers compete for a grand prize of $2,500.

Last year’s big winner was a carbon copy of Bubbles of Trailer Park Boys fame, with many honourable mentions such as a full-on, body-painted Medusa, complete with snakes woven into her hair, and a man inside a fullyoperational teddy bear vending machine.

Bob Taylor, executive director of George Street Festivals, says some “die-hards” take their costumes so seriously they start building them a full year ahead. Despite the intense competition, however, he says Halloween is a lark for people who like to have fun and use their imaginations.

“It’s a chance to dress up, have fun and be someone you’re not,” says Taylor.

So if you’re wondering what to go as for Halloween this year, remember: have fun, step up to the challenge and make sure it’s washroom accessible. mandy.cook@theindependent.ca

OCTOBER 20-26, 2006

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‘Action is the attraction’ “Every Sunday he’s a dirt track demon in a ’57 Chevrolet.”

— “Rapid Roy,”

by Jim Croce

F

or a backyard mechanic it’s quite an honour to be called up to the major league and crew with my brutal brother-in-law’s race team.

He’s Ches Cole, No. 61, and for him racing is a family sport. His wife Marina (a.k.a. “Reen the stock car queen”) has won numerous awards.

Their daughter Rachel started racing motocross this year and is very competitive. We’ve also got another brotherin-law on the team, recently retired chief petty officer of HMCS St John’s fame, Jeff Hansen, who shoulders a lifetime of mechanical discipline.

These in-laws are outlaws, and we’re here to race.

The Avondale Speedway is a 3/8mile dirt oval with a nice tight motocross track on the infield and a dream come true for Bernard and Gloria Hickey of Avondale. They’ve built it up over the years with the slogan “action is the attraction,” but it’s much more than that. It’s a version of a Mad Max circus, a veritable Roman tinge of chariot racing in an outport setting where hundreds of volunteers,

mostly from the Avalon Peninsula but Fine display. from as far away as Gander and The six-cylinder class took the field, Bishop’s Falls, show up to battle. Build a bit quicker but just as saucy until one it and they will come. On guy lost it on turn two and hit raceday the population of the bank. Boom. The ambuAvondale doubles, to 1,500 lance lit up and headed over from 750. but was waved off in favour of In this circus the Hickeys the tow truck, which hauled go by their stage names, him off the bank. I couldn’t Bern and Glori, but for the believe he started it up and purposes of story telling they limped back to the pits. shall be affectionately printEverything was gone off the ed now and forevermore as front, just a motor spewing MARK Burn and Glory. juice and steam with some WOOD By early afternoon the kind of mesh hanging out, WOODY’S remnants of radiator. stands were full and Burn assembled the gladiators in driver crawled out of WHEELS theThewreck the pits for the requisite drivand there was a ers’ meeting. Even the forflaccid passenger-side air bag eign press are here, some exotic crew spewed on the floor — totally laughcalled The Scope, digging the scene. able under the circumstances.

The crowd is entertained with some Then the big eights raced and we motocross action before the four-cylin- were all envious … beautiful, loud, fast der class takes the field and this is a car machines spewing gravel sideways on commercial that’s worth the cash. The a dirt track. Pushing their steel to the b’ys favour Mazdas, Hondas and limit and occasionally, right off the Toyotas and I’m completely amazed at track. My favourite explanation, “ I hit the abuse these cars can take. It’s a the second turn too fast and ran out of huge field of excellent tight-packed, talent.” door-slammin’ action. One car’s bonnet During the intermission there was a flipped up over the windshield and the couple of guys on motorcycles jumping driver peeked out under it to complete over the full length of a yellow school another four laps and finish the race. bus, or “cheese-wagon.” The guys did a

Mark Wood

couple of jumps to warm up, then started stunting, kicking out their feet, flying no-hands and stuff. The b’ys were appropriately called NF Lunatics. I’s impressed.

Well, they had all the main races after that and to top it all off a Hummer full of Buy and Sell “Island Girls” presented the awards.

Then all the steaming cars and

wrecks were loaded back up on trailers by the unsung heroes of the day. Behind every machine is a team of mechanics who wrench this circus and the only day they’re not working on your car is Sunday. Race day.

Mark Wood of Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s won the 2003 Media Challenge Stock Car Race.

26 • INDEPENDENTSHIFT

OCTOBER 20, 2006

Don’t weaken industry: Chrysler

By Tony Van Alphen Torstar wire service

O

ttawa should be careful in imposing emission regulations on new vehicles because it could weaken the auto industry, hurt consumers and actually harm the environment, warns the head of DaimlerChrysler Canada Inc. Chief executive Reid Bigland says mandatory regulations won’t make much difference in improving the environment because new vehicles are responsible for only 1 per cent of Canadian greenhouse gas emissions annually, and tailpipe pollutants have dropped dramatically through major technological advances.

Furthermore, unique Canadian regulations could make vehicles more expensive because of the need for additional equipment. That would make new models unaffordable to some, reduce production and cause motorists to keep their spewing clunkers longer, he argues.

“Not only would it create an incentive to keep the older vehicles on the road, but it could also have a very damaging impact on the auto industry,” he says.

Bigland, who jumped into the chief executive’s job three-and-a-half months ago, says Canada’s 18 million autos on the road now account for 12 per cent of the country’s greenhouse emissions and 9.5 per cent of smog.

At the same time, 2006 models represent only 1 per cent of greenhouse emissions, he says, suggesting auto pollution will gradually decline as older vehicles are scrapped.

The federal Conservative government plans to introduce a Clean Air Act next week that will lead to a year of talks with industry and the provinces over regulations for pollutants.

Top auto-industry executives, including Bigland, met with federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Environment Minister Rona Ambrose in Ottawa for consultations on regulations beyond 2010.

“Not only would it create an incentive to keep the older vehicles on the road, but it could also have a very damaging impact on the auto industry.”

Reid Bigland The auto industry is currently reducing greenhouse gases under a voluntary agreement with the federal government.

“I think we’ve got to keep those communications open so we don’t come up with a solution that is more destructive than constructive when it comes, not only to the industry, but the environment,” he says.

Industry insiders have said it is unlikely Ottawa would impose regulations that would be different from those

in the United States or that would leave the Canadian auto sector, which is a key economic engine of the country, at a disadvantage by forcing manufacturers to make changes for different markets. Auto makers in Canada currently export most of their production to the United States.

Ottawa is also talking to the oil and gas industry, but Bigland, a former Thornhill Thunderbird junior hockey player, stickhandled around the issue of a mandatory national fuel standard.

“Not necessarily,” he says. “I think it needs a holistic approach.”

The auto and oil industries have bickered over fuel standards for years.

Bigland says it makes no sense to develop technology for autos to clean the environment and improve efficiency when fuel quality stands in the way.

“In many cases, the technology is there, but it’s just not being fully utilized,” he says.

Bigland, who previously worked in several sales positions in the heavytruck industry, did not dismiss the idea of tax credits to get old autos off the road but emphasized that any strategy should encourage motorists rather than force them.

“From my perspective, I would want to deploy more of the carrot approach as opposed to the stick approach if we add public enticements. At the end of the day, grandma may not want to get her 1987 vehicle off the road, and I’m not really looking to strong-arm grandma in order to do it.”

Bigland also says his company won’t push sales just to protect market share: “Market share is vanity. Profitability is sanity.”

Fuel economy a bigger factor

D

espite the recent dip in gas prices, several months of higher prices have taken a toll on consumers as new-vehicle shoppers are more frequently citing gas mileage as a reason for rejecting or accepting a vehicle, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2006 Escaped Shopper Study released last month.

The study, which examines why U.S. consumers consider a model, but ultimately purchase a different make or model, finds that nearly 17 per cent of new-vehicle shoppers cite fuel economy as a reason for vehicle rejection, up from 13 per cent in 2002.

Today’s gas prices have made more of a priority.

Poor economy is the third-most cited reason for rejecting a vehicle, following “total price too high” and “total monthly payment too high,” respectively.

Nissan’s electric hybrid system

B

y 2010, Nissan Motor Co. will build and sell its own hybridvehicle system, limiting its licensing ties with Toyota Motor Corp. to the Altima sedan due out next year.

Japan’s two biggest carmakers signed a deal in 2002 under which Toyota would sell its hybrid system to Nissan.

Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said hybrids make little business sense because of their low profit margins, despite their higher retail price.

The Altima hybrid (non-hybrid, photo c), due next year, was merely a necessity to clear California’s average fuel economy regulations, he said. Still, Nissan has been working on its own hybrid technology and executives have said it’s as good as any other system on the market.

Road rage’s rampage

F

ifty-nine per cent of U.S. workers surveyed by CareerBuilder.com admit to experiencing road rage while traveling to and from work. One in 10 report they usually or always experience road rage during their commute.

The survey, completed in June, included more than 2,200 workers.

Incidents of road rage predictably climbed with the length of the commute.

Still, 30 per cent of workers with commutes of less than five minutes still say they experience road rage on occasion.

The same goes for 42 per cent of workers with commutes of less than 10 minutes.

Women were slightly more apt to feel road rage than men.

Sixty per cent of women reported road rage compared to 57 per cent of men.

OCTOBER 20, 2006

INDEPENDENTSHIFT• 27

The beauty of ‘arrive and drive’

TRACK TALK

say that he saw an opportunity to get into grass-roots kart racing and has built the business up to what it is today), Cameron Motorsports has trained and developed some of Canada’s top up-and-coming young professional racers (for instance, the 2006 Formula BMW-USA champion, Robert Wickens of Etobicoke, is a C.M. alumnus).

But it’s the “arrive-and-drive” program, which is open to all ages and skill sets, that is the bread-and-butter of the business.

For a relatively small amount of money (less than $100) you can purchase a spot in the program. A licence to race will set you back another $10.

But after that, every time you show up to race, it costs only $50 for a pit pass and that gets you a professionally prepared race kart, track time, insurance coverage for damages, gas, a pit crew, any training you might need and other, assorted equipment.

You then race against people in your age and weight groups. If you’re 50 and weigh 220 pounds, you’ll be out there against (mostly) other 50-yearolds who weigh around 220. You will not be racing against someone who’s 10 and comes in at 45 pounds, soaking wet.

Standings are kept. As Rick Dawson, the company’s marketing and advertising director, explains it: “You can race as often as you want, but only

Keep a can opener in the glove box LORRAINE SOMMERFELD EXPLORES THE TENSE, TESTY LAYERS OF MASSIVE PARKING GARAGES

There’s no racecar to take home and repair.

No oil changes or gear changes or other routine maintenance chores that require time away from the family during an evening at home.

You go to the track, sit down in the car, pull on a crash helmet, and floor it. scheduled ‘league’ races will count in the standings.”

As mentioned, top speed for most “arrive-and-drivers” is 45 mph. But, if you’re good enough to perhaps move up a notch or two on the excellence ladder, Cameron Motorsports has a scholarship program in which participants (for a few dollars more) can drive quicker karts (as fast, perhaps, as 75 mph) and learn to do some of the

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hen my mother moved into an apart- Gravol, my friend and co-pilot squealed that ment, she was thrilled at the idea of she’d found a spot. It was in the wrong direction, downsizing. She took just the things but we decided to go for it. Bad move. You want she wanted, and left the rest behind. I bought the to know what’s tougher than driving around in a house, and I won’t attempt to explain just how space-challenged parking garage? Reversing much a rat can pack if a packrat was around one with a mean looking guy named Alfred. glaring at you through his windshield.

Ten years on, I’m still divesting I got lost in another one on the weekmyself of my father’s treasures. end. The elevator buttons only said Like most families, we parked in the Level 3 and Level 5, and I was certain driveway. The garage was full of stuff. we’d parked on Level 4. I’d pretty I have fuzzy childhood memories of much decided my van had been swalparking in there, but I know my mom lowed in some time-space continuum, wasn’t the one who pulled the station when we spotted a garage attendant in wagon into that tiny space. It was like a vest with a walkie-talkie. As she LORRAINE threading a needle. turned and ran the other way, I figured SOMMERFELD At her new apartment building, they she ignored all parking garage orphans. assigned my mom a parking spot in the I’d rather have found a St. Bernard underground parking. The superintendwith a little barrel, though we’d probaent took her down one day, showed her bly still be there. the numbered spot, and indicated the I always pause on entering these direction for coming in and exiting. My mother garages, because I don’t know how high the smiled, and thanked him. height restrictions are. I drive a van. I still change And parked up top. metric back to imperial, and have to decide if I’m A week later, the super caught up to her and taller than my van when I stand beside it. The explained that her reserved spot was underneath, image of wedging myself in the opening like a and that she was parking in Visitors Parking. She cork in a bottle is unsettling. would have to park below. My When Mom moved, I was mother smiled, apologized, and sympathetic to her plight, and thanked him once again. decided she just needed some And continued to park up top. practice. Initially, her reserved My mother was The game continued through spot was right beside a pillar. that summer. My mother was She told the super it wouldn’t do, just a tough lady just a tough lady to argue with. and parked up top. She needed a She had a smile as sweet as sugar middle spot. He sighed, and gave to argue with. and a spine forged from steel. in. I’m not sure how many peoBut with winter approaching, she ple got bumped.

She had a smile knew she’d finally have to naviShe still scraped the fenders of as sweet as gate the bowels of the building, the car as she tried to judge the and conquer her fear of cement distance. It also became rapidly sugar and a spine apparent that she could only park pillars.

I didn’t blame her. I hate all her spot if the two neighbourforged from steel. in those big parking garages. They ing spots were empty. If they measure off a perfectly portioned weren’t, my mother would go space for two cars, and then despark up top. ignate spots for three. I keep a can opener in the One time she parked in someone else’s spot, glove box so I can get out. I drive around and left a little note on her windshield for them crouched over, because I think I’m going to telling them to park in hers. She may have been bump my head. I hate the artificial lighting; I stubborn, but she was polite. hate the tight little turns at the end of the tight litAt the time, my mother was driving a new car. tle aisles; I hate the jumble of arrows that all I still have it. The scrapes from the pillar are still seem to be at cross purposes. there. And somewhere is a parking garage with a I was in Toronto recently, hunting down a cement post covered in Intrepid green paint. parking spot in a crowded garage. As I whirled round and round the levels fast enough to need a www.lorraineonline.ca

mechanical work associated with racing.

Which is where Jim Wenger is today. An initial “rookie arrive-anddriver” eight years ago, he’s progressed.

“The karts are more powerful (30 horsepower, as compared to 6 or 7 hp) and you can drive them faster,” he said. “You’re competing at a higher level; the people you’re racing against are the best of the group.

“But what’s interesting is that you learn to do some of your own mechanical work and they hold seminars on things like setup and how tire choice and tire pressure can affect the handling of the kart, and so-on.

“The mechanics are still there to help, but you feel more involved.”

Like many people, Wenger was attracted to motorsport but didn’t have the time, or money, to get involved.

“I initially gave karting a try at the West Edmonton Mall when I was out there for a visit,” Wenger said. “Then I saw an ad for the Cameron Motorsports program and two or three of us decided to give it a try. I’m the only one who’s kept it up.”

Meantime, Wenger is looking forward to the finals.

“I finished second in my group last year,” he said. “And I have third place pretty well wrapped up this season.

But who knows? Maybe I can improve on that in the final races.”

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J

im Wenger is a news editor for He’s an “arrive-and-drive” racer. He Global Television and lives in shows up, pays his money, and goes Don Mills with his wife racing.

Anne and their three sons — That’s right. There is nothuniversity students James ing more to it than that. and Matthew and There’s no racecar to take Christopher, who goes to home and repair. No oil high school. changes or gear changes or While a lot of guys his age other routine maintenance — he’s 54, by the way — chores that require time play golf or go bowling for away from the family during physical and social recrean evening at home.

NORRIS ation, Wenger likes to do You go to the track, sit MCDONALD something a little edgier: down in the car, pull on a once or twice a week, from crash helmet, and floor it. about the first of April This weekend and next, through to the end of just like the U.S.-based October, he goes kart racing.

SCCA national runoffs, in It isn’t that he gets out there and which all the top non-professional thinks he’s the next Paul Tracy or Tony road racers in that country gather in Stewart. He’s not on a career path. And one place for a single, final, take-noalthough the karts he and others drive prisoners showdown race in all of the are capable of going from a top speed dozen-or-so open- and closed-wheel of 45 miles an hour up to 70 or 75, he classes, about 800 “arrive-and-drivdoesn’t have a death wish, either. ers” from all over southern Ontario He’s simply out there with a bunch will be at the Cameron Motorsports of other people his age and weight Karting Complex on Upper James who share his passion for motorsport Street in Hamilton for the Canadian and want to have fun without a) getting Rookie Karting Championship finals. hurt and b) going broke.

And every one of those 800-or-so And the absolutely wonderful thing entrants will be goin’ for the gold. about this particular hobby is that, Now, Cameron Motorsports is one unlike a lot of other auto racing enthu- of Canadian racing’s most interesting siasts, he doesn’t have to own or pur- stories. chase any of his own equipment — no Started a dozen years ago by Bob car, no tires, no crash helmet, no noth- Cameron of Toronto (it’s a bit of a long ing. story how it happened, but suffice it to

honda.ca

28 • INDEPENDENTFUN

OCTOBER 20, 2006

WEEKLY DIVERSIONS ACROSS 1 Foxlike animal of S. Africa 5 Highrise, e.g.

9 Prov. with heaviest hailstone (290 g, at Cedoux) 13 The Ruby on “Corner Gas” 17 Feather stoles 18 Grizzly 19 Stratagem 20 Norway’s patron saint 21 Not straight 22 Sailboat with two hulls 24 Monet’s mother 25 External 27 Hockey box 28 Pen name of Canadian author of Hardy Boys series 29 Go places 31 East Timor’s capital 32 René’s refusal 33 Official gemstone of N.S. 36 Fireplace fuel 37 Steel maker 41 Festive celebrations 45 Satirical singer Nancy (“Stickers on Fruit”) 47 Took first 48 Cellular letters 49 December perennials 51 You (Fr.) 52 ___ du jour 53 Inuit’s inner parka 55 Tests of a gruelling

kind 57 Eye part 59 English noblewoman 61 N.W.T.’s flower: mountain ___ 63 Is outstanding 67 Kind of tide 69 Utopias 71 National Park on L. Erie: Point ___ 72 P.M. known as “Rex” 75 Suffered from 77 Vulgarity 79 Brass instrument, in brief 80 Expert ending?

81 Ethical 83 Celebrated in song and story 85 First Inuk in NHL: Jordin ___ 87 Allow 89 Reduce, ___, recycle 90 OR caregivers 91 Put down 93 Laura ___ 97 One living abroad, briefly 100 First Canadian in space 103 One who socks it away 104 “___ my lips!”

105 Like some brush work 107 ___ de foie gras 108 Eleven (Span.)

109 Particularly cruel boss

110 Equine hair 111 Not a copy (abbr.)

112 Fly like an eagle 113 Marsh grass 114 Smack 115 Stains DOWN 1 Superior of a monastery 2 French sister 3 Mythical figure 4 Town with clearest skies year-round 5 CBC’s older brother 6 Jump 7 Palm fruit 8 ___ Manan, N.B. 9 One doesn’t make a summer 10 Well sealed 11 Kill 12 A Dryden 13 Due to arrive 14 Michael Fox in “Family Ties” 15 Yukon town named for a card game 16 ___ Steven 23 Letters 26 Assassination of a king 28 Distribute sparingly 30 Volcano flow 32 Aboriginal 34 Hawaiian tuber 35 Picturesque Ont. village on Grand River 38 Alberta’s provincial

bird: great horned ___ 39 Giant N. Z. bird, once 40 Picnic pest 41 Study all night 42 Not for 43 Transportation line 44 Toil 46 Debtor’s quick promise 50 Winter conveyances 52 Tempo 54 CBC’s longest-running radio show: “The Happy ___” (1937-59) 56 Fishhook line 58 Costs of doing business 60 Crude boors 62 Scoff 64 Yukon town near Mayo and Keno 65 Shakespearean king 66 Hot 68 Norm on the links 70 Stuffing herb 72 Beaver baby 73 Equal: prefix 74 Modern: prefix 76 General who defied UN order to withdraw from Rwanda 78 God of Greek myth 81 ___-Joli, Que. 82 Highly educated 84 Ten-footed creature 86 Stock exchange figure 88 Colour 92 Judges

94 Egg-producing organ 95 Knot again 96 Sediments

97 Cupid 98 Foreign: prefix 99 Large Mexican rodent 100 Pledge

101 Dying sea of central Asia 102 Arm bone 105 Please in

Acapulco: ___ favor 106 Sure thing!

Solutions on page 30

WEEKLY STARS ARIES (MAR. 21 TO APR. 19) A bold approach has served you well in your workaday world, but you’ll find that your private life will blossom in a more moderate atmosphere.

TAURUS (APR. 20 TO MAY 20) Your determination soon pays off now that your goals are in sight. But be alert to a possible development that could cause problems if mishandled.

GEMINI (MAY 21 TO JUNE 20) Expect the unexpected this week.

Most surprises will be welcome, but even the less pleasant ones can be handled with patience and common sense.

CANCER (JUNE 21 TO JULY 22)

Learn to listen to the truth, even if it upsets your perception of how you believe things are or should be. A family matter requires sensitive handling.

LEO (JULY 23 TO AUG. 22) Unsettled situations don’t get sorted out while you’re catnapping. So stop putting things off, and work out a schedule to help get your life back in order.

VIRGO (AUG. 23 TO SEPT. 22) Someone close might be preparing to move away. Repress the temptation to try to change his or her mind, and instead offer loving support.

LIBRA (SEPT. 23 TO OCT. 22) Be careful about finances this week. Invest only when you’re

sure of your facts. Renewing ties with an old friend turns out to be a very wise move.

SCORPIO (OCT. 23 TO NOV. 21) A new wrinkle appears in a deal you thought had been truly well ironed out. Use this delay to dig for any facts that might still be hidden.

SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22 TO DEC. 21) There is still a need for you to be super-wary of commitments.

Take things step by step, and reject attempts to get you to hurry up.

CAPRICORN (DEC. 22 TO JAN. 19) That cautious, conservative side of you is about to be overwhelmed by your equally strong sense of adventure and curiosity.

Go with it.

AQUARIUS (JAN. 20 TO FEB. 18) Cupid favors both attached and single Water Bearers this week.

Help the chubby Cherub do his job by showing a little more affection than usual.

PISCES (FEB. 19 TO MAR. 20) Changes in your professional life might affect your personal relationships. You need to reassure loved ones that there is no change in your feelings for them.

YOU BORN THIS WEEK: You enjoy your own company, but you also thrive in the presence of others. Counseling and clergy are good career choices. (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 30

INDEPENDENTSPORTS

FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20-26, 2006 — PAGE 29

By John Lynch For the Independent

I

t’s the kind of beginning that ice hockey dreams can be made of. NCAA rookie Teddy Purcell scored three times in his first three games of the season to pace the University of Maine Black Bears to an unbeaten record in NCAA Division 1 hockey.

The 21-year-old forward scored once in the team’s first win — a 3-1 victory over the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers on Oct. 6 — and scored twice in the team’s 6-3 win over Bemidji State (Minnesota) University Beavers Oct. 14. The team also won its second game of the season 7-1 over the Beavers Oct. 13.

Purcell is currently in his first year of a four-year scholarship (worth about $100,000 U.S.) as a result of his performance during 2004-06 with the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders in the United States Junior Hockey League.

The St. John’s native set the all-time career points record for the RoughRiders with 138 points in the two years he played there. Last year, he set the all time team record for assists with 52.

“Playing in the United States Hockey League was great preparation for playing NCAA hockey,” he says. “Lots of players graduate from USHL to play at this level.”

“I talked to a lot of other schools but I really wanted to go to this one right from the start and I committed early. I liked the idea of being close to Canada.

“The first game we won over the Minnesota Golden Gophers was in front of 15,232 fans. I’ve never played in front of a crowd like that before. The (Golden Gophers) play in the same arena as the Minnesota Wild in the NHL. “I was pretty nervous before game time, but things calmed down after the first few minutes. I was on the ice when our team scored 20 seconds into the action. That gave us a pretty big lift.”

The two games the Black Bears played against the Beavers took place in Orono Arena just outside Bangor.

The Black Bears play in a conference known as Hockey East, which also includes the University of Vermont Catamounts, Boston College Eagles, Northeastern Huskies, Boston University Terriers, University of Massachusetts-Lowell River Hawks, University of Massachusetts Minutemen, Merrimack College Warriors, University of New Hampshire Wildcats and the Providence College Friars. Each team also plays some matches against other squads outside their conference each season.

“It was a real thrill to score a couple of goals on Saturday night with my parents in the stands watching,” Purcell says. “This is definitely a higher calibre of hockey than junior A. It’s faster and the players are bigger. In fact, it is a lot faster than I expected but I’m adjusting well to it.”

Each day brings a two-hour on-ice workout session.

“We also do dry-land training twice a week and do video tape preparation before we play an opponent too,” he says.

“It is important to have that intense preparation because you need it. In junior A, there might be a few weaker players on each team but definitely not at this level. Preparation is huge.”

While Purcell has not quite made up his mind yet about what major he wants to pursue at the University of Maine, the campus itself is to his liking.

“I’m leaning towards a business major but I’ll have to see on that,” he says. “Everything is within a two-minute walk of all the places you need to go.

There are a lot of brick buildings and it looks really nice.”

Considering the cost of travel to and from Newfoundland, Teddy Purcell, Sr. is also glad his son picked a spot closer than Iowa to play hockey in.

“To go to Iowa to watch games, it took about 18 hours to get there and four plane stops each way from St. John’s,” he said. “This way is a little easier and we plan to go to Maine again to see Teddy play.”

Just being at Orono Arena in Maine for the opening games of the season was an experience Teddy Sr. and his wife Mary Lynn won’t soon forget.

“It was something alright,” he says. “Their arena reminds me of the old Memorial Stadium in St. John’s. It was sold out (5,500 spectators) and the fans were pretty pumped. The school band with about 80-90 members played in one section and there was another section filled with fans dressed in school colours.

“Another group of half-naked kids ran around freaking out every time the team scored a goal. I’ll never forget it after Ted scored the game winner on Saturday night and they were running around celebrating that.”

‘Adjusting well’ St. John’s native Ted Purcell has a roaring start to his four-year hockey scholarship at the University of Maine

RoughRiders' Ted Purcell and Indiana's Nicholas Bailen fight for the puck April 8, 2006 at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena in Cedar Rapids.

Laura Segall/Maine Gazette

No competition makes Newfoundland players soft

C

leary appears to have matured, and that’s saying something.

There was a story out of Harbour Grace about 13 years ago of a young Danny Cleary and his brashness.

Cleary, the story goes, was just home from a starring season with the Belleville Bulls of the Ontario Hockey League. Just 15, Cleary exploded on the major junior scene and was touted as a potential NHL first round pick.

He scored in excess of 100 points in his rookie year, and was destined for greatness.

Except in his own head, greatness had already arrived.

So Cleary walks into this bar in his hometown, swings the door wide open and announces his presence.

“Hello boys, Daniel Cleary is here! Who’s going to buy me a beer?”

According to a friend of mine who claimed he was present, there were a number of people rushing to the bar to get a drink.

A couple of years later, Cleary, now a first round pick of the Blackhawks, is cut from

DON POWER

Power Point not one, but two Canadian junior hockey teams. Immaturity, the unofficial reports stated. (Ask Real Paiement, he was on the coaching staff for both teams.)

Fast forward to this season, and Cleary — unbelievably, almost 28 — is now a mainstay on the Detroit Red Wings.

Reports out of Detroit this training camp had everybody impressed with the Harbour Grace native. One Detroit paper even noted Cleary is nicknamed “Hybrid” — a cross between Kris Draper and former captain Steve Yzerman.

Even Cleary recognized he needed to change to survive. Free falling from Chicago to Edmonton to Phoenix and on the edge of dropping out of the league altogether will do

that to you.

“I’ve got a niche here, I know what my role is — be good on faceoffs, be strong in the (defensive) zone, skate and be hard to play against,” Cleary was quoted as saying.

“Be more confident with the puck and make smart plays and offense will come.”

It’s the same thing Mike Babcock has stated: you don’t lose the offensive ability that Cleary has displayed in the past.

One of the problems Cleary faced was the same one most of the highly touted Newfoundlanders did: a lack of competition.

As a minor hockey player in a small town, he was never challenged for a spot on the team, much the same way John Slaney never had to make a team, or Terry Ryan or Harold Druken were pushed.

That, in my mind, makes them soft.

Put Cleary or Slaney or perhaps the others in an Ontario small town and they’d be forced to compete for a spot on the all-star teams, thereby ensuring a stronger work ethic and need to compete.

The other problem with the Newfoundland kids is that draft day to them is often the end of the journey: “We made it to the NHL.” For most of the other players who are splattered all over TV that day in new suits, it’s the start of the journey, not the finish.

Perhaps that’s why a guy like Michael Ryder was never mentioned in the same breath with the other players like Cleary. He flew under the radar until junior, when his shot and goal scoring ability moved him into the news.

The good news out of all this is that it appears — from all the reports out of Detroit — that Cleary has grasped the situation with both hands. He’s realized what he needs to do to be successful in the NHL, and he’s not afraid to work at it.

It’s a tribute to the maturity level he now appears to possess.

So next time he’s back in that pool hall in Harbour Grace — if ever — it may be him buying the drinks.

HOCKEY IS INVISIBLE HERE As you read this, I’m just returning from a golf vacation in Myrtle Beach (more on that next week), and you need a lot of time on your hands to find a hockey highlight down here.

ESPN, which used to broadcast hockey but now doesn’t, regards hockey in the same light as monster trucks and wrestling, which is to say it doesn’t. You’ll see scores scroll across the bottom of the screen during SportsCentre, but you’d be hard pressed to find a highlight.

The Outdoor Life Network, which broadcasts hockey in the States, doesn’t have a news-style program comparable to SportsCentre (at least none that we saw), so hockey highlights are all but invisible.

Occasionally ESPN flashes a goal or fight, but don’t hold your breath waiting for it. If the NHL wants the game to grow in the United States, they need television exposure.

Right now, they’re not getting it. donniep@nl.rogers.com

30 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS

OCTOBER 20, 2006

Don’t leave home without your axe T

he leaves are turning from summer green to a kaleidoscope of yellow, orange, red and all shades in between. I love this time of year. Evening fires are burning, and the aroma of wood smoke hangs in the evening air. But falling leaves and rekindled woodstoves remind us that winter is coming and the weather is cooling quickly.

Fall is a fine time to roam the country, whether you’re searching for your moose, running beagles, shooting ducks, shooting pictures, or just rambling about and sucking in some fresh air.

Get out and enjoy, but play safe, the outdoors is “real” in the true sense of the word. If you get in trouble you might be on your own with your life depending on your own resourcefulness and skill. It’s not like Survivor where a rescue medical team comes running when you suck smoke down your lungs from a campfire or cut yourself with an axe.

Oh, and speaking of axes, never go in the woods without one.

In my youth I did crazy things. My obsession with duck hunting was the source of many important lessons learned the hard way. On a windy and cold November morning Chris Coombs, Boyd Winsor and I jumped out of my pickup just as daylight was breaking in the eastern sky.

As always, we debated whether we

PAUL SMITH

The Rock

Outdoors would take our rubber clothes with us.

This was the pre Gore-Tex world and lightweight, breathable raingear was a decade away. Our commercial fishing rain clothes were tough but heavy. If the day looked all clear of precipitation we would travel light — minus five pounds of rubber.

“I’m taking my rubber pants for crawling around” says Chris. “Nah, it’s going to be a nice day. My rubber clothes is staying in the truck,” Boyd responds. I agreed with Boyd and off we went.

The trudge to our backcountry duck pond (no ATVs either) took two hours through thick woods and bogs, but we were greeted by several dozen quacking Black ducks. We crawled into our duck blind and waited for them to swim within range. Two hours went by and we were growing impatient. Chris and I decided to move down around the point and try to sneak up on the uncooperative birds.

Boyd stayed in the blind just in case.

Chris and I used the cover of thick spruce to get within 100 yards of the feeding ducks, but between us and the pond was 80 or so yards of open wet

Paul Smith photo

bog. We would have to slither on our bellies to close the gap. Chris pulled his rubber pants on but mine were, regrettably, back in the truck.

We inched forward on our guts, pushing our shotguns forward as we went. In no time I was soaking wet, but there were ducks to shoot and I was young, tough and foolish. In about 20 minutes we were at the edge of the pond, huddled behind a low clump of black spruce with ducks swimming along in front of us.

The adrenaline was pumping and we were high on the moment.

I didn’t feel the water next to my skin as it conspired with the cold wind to

steal heat from my body. Lead sprayed from my Remington and Chris’s Browning. Five ducks lay dead on the water. We retrieved our birds and headed back to the blind.

Sitting motionless in the blind allowed a chill to creep though my body. I flapped my arms but it did no good, I was losing body heat fast. To compound the problem, it began to snow, wet snow that did double duty and soaked us like rain. Chris and Boyd were cold and uncomfortable but I was absolutely chilled to the bone. I was shivering uncontrollably.

I had never heard of hypothermia but I

had enough sense to know that I was in trouble. I sucked up my pride and said, “boys, ducks or no ducks, we got to get a fire in or I’m going to freeze to death.”

Every stick of wood around was soaking wet from the wet snow and the previous day’s downpour. Without an axe there would have been no fire and I just can’t imagine how I would have made it to the road without a warm-up. But we each had a small pack axe and went to work breaking open dead trees to get at the dry wood inside. In 10 minutes we had wood and kindling stacked and ready to go.

The fire blazed up and I immediately felt its healing effect; steam bellowed from my wet pants. After I warmed up a little I got really brave and dried my wet pants on a stick over the fire. Boyd fetched water and we boiled up some tea. After an hour I was warm and ready to tackle the walk out.

Just about everyone knows not to venture into the wood without matches, but many don’t appreciate the importance of a small axe. Under harsh weather conditions it could be as simple as “no axe, no fire,” and that could cost you your life.

Paul Smith is a freelance writer living in Spaniard’s Bay, enjoying all the outdoors Newfoundland and Labrador has to offer. flyfishtherock@hotmail.com

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INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 31

Mats Sundin finally feeling love from fans

Policies on Occupational Health and Safety and Return to Work

By Damien Cox Torstar wire service

q Do you have a policy statement(s) that is signed and dated by the highest-ranking official in your organization?

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q Does your statement identify the roles and responsibilities of the people involved?

Ovechkin (2004).

That barrier has been smashed forever, and it was Sundin and the Nords who smashed it. etting his just due has been heavy sledding The other element of Sundin’s pioneer status for Mats Sundin. Don’t know why that is, was that he became captain of the Leafs far before exactly. Don’t know why Doug Gilmour such an honor was even widely considered, let and Wendel Clark were both far more celebrated alone fashionable. as Maple Leaf captains, or why fans saved their He wasn’t the first, of course. Defenceman Larsaffections for Curtis Erik Sjoberg of the Joseph and Tie Domi Winnipeg Jets was but seemed to always that progressive withhold them from team’s captain when Sundin. it entered the league When it comes to in 1979, and Peter sports fans, these Stastny captained the things are not always Nordiques from explainable. People 1986-90. simply feel as they do.

But the concept of This may now be Euro captains cerchanging, and maybe tainly didn’t become it took a 500th goal to an immediate trend make it happen. after Stastny. Just as Still, though, it the notion of Euroseems peculiar that peans as head coacharguably the most es hasn’t caught fire compelling element after Alpo Suhonen of No. 13’s story — and the late Ivan Sundin as hockey pioHlinka guided neer — has been vastChicago and Pittsly underplayed. burgh, respectively, It’s rarely highlightit seemed for a time as though no leagueed, for example, that wide breakthrough Sundin was the first European ever selectfor European captains was in the offed with the first overing. all pick of the NHL There remained entry draft, an event the bigoted sense that marked a signifiamong some NHL cant alteration in the thinkers that Euromindset of the North A m e r i c a n - b a s e d Toronto Maple Leafs' Sundin salutes crowd after scoring peans couldn’t cap500th career goal in overtime to defeat Calgary Flames in tain effectively, and league.

Mark Blinch/Reuters even that a team In 1974, with Borje Toronto Oct. 15. could only have so Salming and Inge Hammarstrom having already landed as free many Euros to be successful.

By the time the Leaf captaincy opened up in agents in Toronto, the New York Islanders opened some eyes when they drafted defenceman Stefan 1997, there were 20 Canadian captains and four Persson with the 214th pick and turned him into a Americans wearing the “C” in the 26-team league, but not a single European on a full-time basis. versatile NHL defenceman.

The Lightning were sharing the captaincy The first European taken in the first round was Bjorn Johannson, a defenceman, by California in between Swedish winger Mikael Renberg and Paul Ysebaert, a veteran NHLer from Sarnia but 1976.

It wasn’t until five years after Johansson — who that was as far as any team seemed willing to go played only 15 NHL games — that another first before Sundin was named full-time captain of the round Euro was realized, but both Jiri Dudacek Leafs.

Nine years later, there are 13 NHL captains who (17th, Buffalo) and Jan Ingman (19th, Montreal) were born in Europe, and Sundin was the player didn’t pan out.

As players from Esa Tikkanen to Uwe Krupp to who led the way and truly proved a captain didn’t Petr Svoboda filtered into the NHL during the have to be a Canadian or an American to success1980s, no team was willing to use the first overall fully hold the post.

More important, Sundin did it under the intense pick on a player from the other side of the Atlantic scrutiny of hockey-mad Toronto, far different than Ocean.

Sundin changed all that when Quebec took him shouldering such a load in San Jose or Long in ’89, not just by being drafted first, but by then Island. developing into an elite NHL and international It’s been years since anybody seriously quesplayer. By his third season, he was a 47-goal scor- tioned Sundin’s heart, and certainly now his stats er. are solid evidence of his skill and production.

Only one more European (Roman Hamrlik, ’92) But add in his pioneering ways on behalf of all was taken first over the subsequent nine drafts, but European players, and there seems little question in the last eight drafts three Europeans have been he’ll enter the Hockey Hall of Fame one day — grabbed with the No. 1 selection including Patrik Stanley Cup or no Stanley Cup — as one of the Stefan (1999), Ilya Kovalchuk (2001) and Alex greatest Maple Leafs.

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Photos by Paul Daly/The Independent