By Jeff DucharmeThe Independent

Natural Resources Minister John Effordmay be eligible for 70 per cent of his$208,000 yearly salary under the federal

government’s disability plan, according to inter-nal documents obtained by The Independent.

Efford says he’s considering quitting politicsbecause of his diabetes — a serious condition he’ssuffered from for years.

Efford, who takes several insulin needles a day,says doctors have told him he’s putting his healthat risk by staying in the political arena. Longhours and stress are said to be worsening his con-

dition. The MP for Avalon, who won the seat in the

2002 byelection, isn’t eligible yet for a federalpension, but he may qualify for the disabilitypackage.

Efford, who’s 61, would receive health benefitsuntil he’s 65 — if he’s declared eligible for thedisability plan. Payments would be reduced by100 per cent of benefits paid under the CanadaPension Plan, according to the internal docu-ments.

Federal Treasury Board spokeswomanMichelle Laliberte tells The Independent MPs

Healthy benefitsEfford may receive more than $140,000 a year in disability if diabetes forces him to retire

The federal government is paying the bill for11 countries to attend a five-day conferenceon high seas fishing in St. John’s this week,The Independent has learned.

Meantime, as politicians and bureaucrats gather inthe capital city for the federal-sponsored conference,yet another Spanish vessel has been issued three cita-tions for illegal fishing on the Grand Banks.

The Maria Eugenia G. was cited April 21 for misre-porting and mis-recording its catch, failing to keepproper stowage plans, and failing to facilitate the workof Canadian inspectors — whose investigation washalted by the ship’s captain when they began to uncov-er questionable cargo.

The most recent incident raises to 15 the total num-ber of citations issued to date this year — equal to thetotal citations issued in 2004. Nine of the citationsissued in 2005 have been laid against three Spanishvessels.

The conference on high seas fisheries governance,slated for Monday to Friday in St. John’s, was expect-ed to be opened tonight (May 1) with a keynote addressby Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Critics say the conference is a farce, meant to pacifydetractors.

Ottawa is paying for one representative of eachcountry (plus the Fisheries minister, if one attends) for11 developing nations that have signed on to the UnitedNations Fish Agreement, including Iran, Bahamas,Costa Rica, Cook Islands, Fiji, India, Marshall Islands,Micronesia, Namibia, Papua New Guinea andSolomon Islands.

Nadia Bouffard, director of Atlantic affairs with theDepartment of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), says itsinternational practice to pay for developing nations to

Royal Newfoundland Constabulary ChiefRichard Deering has broken his silence.Deering sat down with The Independent

and CBC Radio last week to discuss what theOntario Provincial Police are — and are not —investigating.

The Independent reported last week the OPPhad been called in to investigate two internalConstabulary matters — described as potentiallycriminal in nature — within the force.

One of the files has to do with the Lamerinquiry into the wrongful convictions of RandyDruken, Ronald Dalton and Gregory Parsons. Theother matter, sources informed The Independent,related to a 2003 Constabulary investigation intoprostitution and organized crime.

The Constabulary investigation was closed

before completion, partly due to fundingrestraints. There had been two internal investiga-tions into why the Constabulary case wasdropped, as well as an external probe by theRMCP.

“I can’t tell you what the OPP are here investi-gating, but I can comment on what they’re notinvestigating, and they are not here investigatinganything to do with prostitution,” Deering toldreporters.

“In terms of discussing what they’re here for,there’s a pretty clear policy between policedepartments that … all the media relations aspectof that falls in the lap of the OPP so the contact onthat is Inspector Detective Dave Truax.”

Contacted by The Independent, Truax says theOPP investigation is confidential. He confirmedone of the investigations relates to the Lamerinquiry, refusing to release further details.

He would not confirm or deny whether the sec-ond has to do with the prostitution investigationdropped by the RNC.

The original Constabulary investigationexplored links between organized crime and pros-titution in the St. John’s area, as well as the possi-ble involvement of several “high-profile” peoplein the St. John’s area.

Again, Deering denied the OPP investigationhas anything to do with that file. He said one ofthe probes has to do with possible criminal activ-ity within the RNC carried out within the past sixor eight months.

Helen Cleary-Escott, spokeswoman for theRCMP, says independent investigations are notuncommon and when there are no charges laidfew details are released.

“We would do investigations all the time and ifthere’s no need to — if there’s no charges thenthere’s no need to release any information,” shesays. “If I were doing a murder investigation Iwouldn’t give any of the information about whowe talked to or what we said.”

Deering denies prostitution probeALISHAMORRISSEY

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I disagree with that (the Gomeryinquiry), I think public inquiry causestoo much discussion in public.”

— MP John Efford

See “One step at a time,” page 2

See “The bills have,” page 2

The little show from George Street is about to be cast in the national spotlight. George Street TV, seen late nights on NTV, has been officially picked up by the ComedyNetwork. Donnie Goobie, Scott Taylor and Kent Brown carry their trademark couch on Prescott Street in downtown St. John’s. Paul Daly/The Independent

VOL. 3 ISSUE 18 — ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR — SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, MAY 1-7, 2005 — WWW.THEINDEPENDENT.CA — $1.00 (INCLUDING HST)

LIFE 19Noreen Golfman Rocks On, artthat lives and breathes in St. John’s

SPORTS 32Hockey isn’t just fun onblades — try a sled for size

Paid‘allies’Federal government pays tab for11 countries to attend St. John’sfisheries conference; anotherSpanish trawler cited for illegalfishing on Grand Banks

Life Story . . . . . . . . . 8Voice From Away . 12In Camera . . . . . . . . 20Events . . . . . . . . . . . 22Crossword . . . . . . . 28

IVAN MORGAN 7Don’t hate the player, hate the game

MOVIN’ ON UP

JEFFDUCHARME

John Efford Paul Daly/The Independent

See “On the record,” page 10

VOICE FROM AWAY 12Newfoundlander in Yemen

LIFE 17‘Mother Teresas of the art world’

2 • INDEPENDENTNEWS MAY 1, 2005

attend such conferences and it’s impor-tant for Canada to bring “allies” to thetable.

“The bills have not come in so I can’ttell you what the total budget will befor (the conference),” Bouffard says.

The conference is expected to focusattention on governance of high-seasfisheries. Foreign fishing outsideCanada’s 200-mile limit is said to be aprimary reason why domestic ground-fish stocks haven’t recovered since theearly 1990s, despite commercial fish-ing bans.

Ottawa announced Friday an addi-tional $20 million will be spent overthree years to combat foreign overfish-ing — but the money won’t go directlytowards policing the Grand Banks.

Instead, the funding will be directedto pay for an “ambassador for fisheriesconservation,” a $500,000 contributionto the United Nations Fish Agreementto help developing nations managestraddling and migratory fish stocks,and fund Canada’s involvement in anumber of fishing organizations.

“It (the conference) is a big shamjob,” says Gus Etchegary, a retired fish-ing industry executive and outspokencritic of overfishing and DFO.

Over the past decade, more than 300citations have been issued against for-eign vessels for illegal fishing. Most ofthe citations were issued without pub-licity, often against boats that have beencited frequently but face no penalty intheir home country.

Canada has been repeatedly calledupon to take custodial management ofthe Grand Banks.

Federal Fisheries Minister GeoffRegan says custodial management isstill an option.

“It’s on the table and it remains onthe table and, of course, I’m lookingforward to the report of the advisorypanel on straddling stocks, headed byDr. Art May,” Regan tells The Indepen-dent.

He expects that report to be on hisdesk in June.

In recent years, Ottawa calculatesforeign fleets have increased the catchof illegal species — including cod andAmerican plaice — to as much as15,000 tonnes.

At that level, Regan has said fishstocks face “virtual destruction” in aslittle as three to five years.

At the time of boarding by Canadianinspectors, the Maria Eugenia G. had255 tonnes of groundfish on board —including 91 tonnes of turbot.

Morley Knight, director of conserva-tion and protection with DFO in St.John’s, says the latest incident wasmore a concern for what inspectorscouldn’t see.

“Upon inspecting the after part of themain hold, our inspectors found contin-uing boxes of Greenland halibut (tur-bot) below three boxes of hake,”Knight tells The Independent. “Themaster then stopped the inspectors frommoving any more boxes.”

Knight says there was no way toknow how much turbot was actuallyonboard after the master refused themfurther access to the main hold. Theship is now en route to its homeport ofSpain where it’s expected to be inspect-ed by local officials.

The story, says Knight, is similar to

citations laid April 17 against theMatrioska — a Russian-flagged vesselthat ports in Spain. The ship was citedfor over reporting its catch of shrimp by12 tonnes.

Canadian inspectors suspect theshrimp was actually over reported tocover an illegal catch of turbot.

The Northwest Atlantic FisheriesOrganization (NAFO) regulates fishingoutside Canada’s 200-mile limit on thehigh seas. The organization is seen astoothless, unable to enforce the quotasit sets.

Regan says the St. John’s conferencedoesn’t have anything to do withNAFO.

At the same time, the conference isexpected to deal with some of theweaknesses of the organization —including the objection procedure,which allows countries to disregardquotas and unilaterally set their own.

“We want to increase the pressure toremove procedures like that,” saysRegan.

Entitled The Governance of HighSeas Fisheries and the UN FishAgreement — Moving Words intoAction, the conference will includeworkshops on fisheries-related issues.More than 48 countries will take part,including environmental groups suchas Greenpeace.

Regan says the conference is a neces-sary step in changing global attitudes.

“The way you get internationalachievements is by building consensusand that’s why, as frustrating as it is, aslong as it does take, it’s important towork at the international level and it’simportant to have meetings like we’rehaving in St. John’s.”

can eventually qualify for a pensionwhile on disability. But if there’s anelection before an MP has notchedenough time to qualify for a pensionthey are deemed ineligible for benefits.

With Conservative leader StephenHarper threatening to put the currentLiberal minority government “out of itsmisery” and force an election as earlyas June, it’s highly doubtful Efford cannotch the three years it would take himto meet the six-year minimum to quali-fy for a pension.

That’s unless he runs again, which hehasn’t ruled out either.

UNWAVERING SUPPORTEfford’s unwavering support of

Prime Minister Paul Martin during theAtlantic Accord negotiations and seem-ingly flip-flopping over the same-sexmarriage issue has left him embattled.

Efford’s spokesman Tom Ormsbysays the minister won’t make any deci-sion on his political future until heundergoes more testing in the comingweeks.

“He’s taking everything one step at atime,” Ormsby says of Efford’s future.

Depending on the word from doc-tors, Ormsby says his boss recentlyquipped he may be “healthy enough torun in the next 10 elections.

“But he has to wait for everything tocome back and he talks to his doctor.”

Efford, who served in the provinciallegislature between 1985 and 2000,earns a provincial pension of an esti-mated $75,000 a year.

More than two million Canadianshave diabetes. Type 1 diabetes, the typeEfford suffers from, occurs when thepancreas produces little or no insulin.With no insulin, glucose builds up inthe body, leading to kidney failure,heart disease, impotence, blindness andeven amputation. Sufferers must takeregular insulin shots to keep glucoselevels in check.

Efford suffered a blackout earlier thisyear, which he attributed to his dia-betes.

In 2002, he won the federal byelec-tion to replace Brian Tobin in the feder-al riding of Bonavista-Trinity-Conception, and was re-elected to theredrawn riding of Avalon in the June2004 federal election. He’s served inthe federal cabinet as Natural Re-sources minister since 2002.

Federal Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan will be in St. John’s this week for a conference on high-seas fishing. At least 48 countries are expect-ed to take part in the five-day event. Paul Daly/The Independent.

From page 1

‘One step at a time’

From page 1

‘The bills have not come in’

By Jamie BakerThe Independent

Time magazine talks of his“effective combination ofguile, determination, charmand street smarts,” and calls

him “one of Canada’s most effectiveand entertaining leaders.” SaturdayNight identifies him as “all business”and talks of his Irish temper and unwa-vering stand in the face of opposition.

Toro magazine tagged him “one partTed Turner, one part Johnnie Cochrane,and one part Don Cherry.”

He was Atlantic Business magazine’snewsmaker of 2004 and has been pro-filed by everyone from CBCTelevision’s The National to TheBoston Globe and MacLean’s.

Whether you agree with the analysesor not, there’s no doubt Premier DannyWilliams is getting his fair share ofnational ink, continuing months afterhis war with the federal governmentover offshore oil revenues.

Steven Frank, Time’s Canadianbureau chief, recently compiled an in-depth profile of Williams and, in doingso, thinks he may have come across theprovince’s next candidate for the coun-try’s top job.

“Danny Williams as prime minister?It would be great,” Frank tells TheIndependent. “It might be good to havesomeone not born in central Canadaleading the country. Maybe DannyWilliams will be the man.”

In politics as in life, however, timingis everything. There have been manyNewfoundlanders on the short list forprime ministerial material — JohnCrosbie, Clyde Wells and Brian Tobinhave all been the flavour of the monthwhen it comes to speculation aboutfuture prime ministers. But they alleventually fell off the radar. Crosbiecouldn’t speak “en Français”; Wellsdidn’t have the charismatic gusto; andTobin was trampled by the stampedesupporting Paul Martin.

While many in central Canada were“impressed” with how Williams tookon the federal government over theAtlantic Accord, Frank says Williamscould prove to be more than a one-hitwonder.

“He is showing strong leadership at atime when there are not a lot of strongleaders in the country — he’s grabbingnational headlines by making sure theneeds of Newfoundland are heard,”Frank says. “He seems to be accom-plishing things one item at a time andthat’s setting him apart from his prede-cessors.”

Kevin O’Brien, the MHA for Ganderand parliamentary secretary to the pre-

mier, had a rough go in the House ofAssembly on April 21 when LiberalOpposition leader Roger Grimes sug-gested O’Brien “… was brown for awhile, trying to impress the leader, try-ing to impress the premier, to see if hemight get considered for cabinet.”

Grimes later withdrew his “brown-noser” remarks.

Opposition jibes notwithstanding,O’Brien says there’s no denying theimpact Williams has had in putting theprovince on the national and eveninternational map.

“I think there’s various people andgovernments around the world that areinterested in Newfoundland and

Labrador due to the heightened aware-ness the premier has brought with theAtlantic Accord and so on,” O’Briensays.

“He has the ability within his owncharacter to command attention, and hedoesn’t mind tackling the variousissues that have to be tackled withregards to Newfoundland andLabrador.

“It’s a great advantage.”Noting Brian Tobin was “one of the

great communicators” in federal poli-tics, Frank says the way in whichWilliams has commandeered interna-tional exposure isn’t as much aboutcharisma as it is about results.

“Danny Williams seems to be gettingthings done — maybe that’s the bigqualifier here,” Frank says. “I thinkthat’s what his strength is: he finds outwhat the issue is and he works on ituntil it’s done.”

While probably not as polished asthe Tobin’s of the world, and relativelyinexperienced as a politician, Williamsis learning the game at a rapid rate,Frank says.

“I think he’s effective in using themedia to promote his message and toget the message and needs ofNewfoundland out to the rest ofCanada,” he says. “He realizes, I think,you can jump up and down and scream

all you want, but unless someone canhear you, you’re not going to get any-where.

“Momentum is a hard thing to getgoing and I think he’s actually doingthat. He has had a tremendous start, butwe’ll see how he does.”

O’Brien says Williams’ knowledgeof issues and the way in which herelays his message leaves little roomfor media manipulation.

“He’s got the ability to articulate aview and an issue in a way that every-one can understand,” O’Brien says. “Ithink this kind of attention will hold usin good stead for a long, long time tocome.”

MAY 1, 2005 INDEPENDENTNEWS • 3

‘We need jobs for Newfoundland’Hard to pinpoint number of federal government jobs eliminated in this province over last decade

Alisha MorrisseyThe Independent

When it comes to calculatingthe number of federal jobslost in Newfoundland and

Labrador in recent years, it’s practical-ly impossible.

Statistics Canada reports there areapproximately 8,300 federal govern-ment employees in the province today— including those working at postaloutlets and other so-called federal gov-ernment business enterprises — com-pared to 12,818 in 1993.

That’s a loss of 4,518 jobs.Officials with the province’s labour

front, however, say more than 9,000federal jobs have been lost going backto 1992.

Larry Welsh, regional representativefor the Public Service Alliance ofCanada, the union representing federalemployees in the province, says severecuts to federal jobs in the mid-to-late1990s saw a huge number of jobs lostacross the country, but there’s been lit-tle to no recovery in this province.

Shifting positions — and sometimeswhole departments — to otherprovinces is the problem, Welsh says,

but government’s latest strategy to cutcosts sees departments shaving five percent off each of their budgets asopposed to across-the-board cuts.

“It’s a slower approach than when …they came out and said we’re cutting25,000,” Welsh tells The Independent.“The new approach is a chipping awayand it’s not as noticeable.”

Welsh says the province’s federalcabinet representative, John Efford, hasbeen a detriment when it comes toattracting federal jobs here.

“If you had a cabinet minister and he

had the ear of the cabinet and the ear ofthe prime minister and the who’s whoand that was one of their priorities —that was what they talked about whenthey went to meetings — we need jobsfor Newfoundland,” Welsh says.

He says he’d be “surprised” if Efford“has even thought about it.”

Efford disagrees.“That’s not only been a priority of

mine — because there may be or theremay not be an election — it’s priorityNo. 1,” he says. “When you look at thenumber of federal jobs here inNewfoundland per capita and com-pared to other parts of the countrythere’s some areas of the countrywhich is greater than Newfoundlandand some that have got the same prob-lems that we’ve got here.”

According to Statistics Canada, theprovinces with the lowest proportionalnumber of federal governmentemployees are Alberta (82 federalemployees per 1,000), Ontario (85 per1,000) and Quebec (93 per 1,000).Newfoundland and Labrador has 109federal employees per 1,000 people.(Of course, the province’s population

DannymaniaPremier getting huge mainland media exposure; talk of ‘Prime Minister Williams’ making rounds

See “Federal jobs” page 9

Editor’s note: John Crosbie’s twice-a-month column isn’t due to appear in TheIndependent until next Sunday, but he took the time to write a poem as a specialpolitical treat.

Paul Martin our vaunted economic savior,Has not matched expectations with behaviour,Balanced budgets no longer in style,Since Minority Government is really quite vile.

The New Democratic Party will save him from harm,$4.6 billion for them has great charm.Big spenders they’re now a cozy coalition,To stay in power their real left-wing mission.

What difference about some fraud and corruption,Liberal patronage, payoffs and deception,Allied with the righteous and the saintly,The sins of the Liberals will dim faintly!

The NDP hitherto morally and ethically straight,Not caring about their electoral fateBoth righteous and red!Are now bent more broadly than even their Ed,As they leap to the rescue of the morally dead!

Jack Layton has laid down the line,To gain power ’tis worth crawling through sponsorship slime,And returning a gain to the scene of the crime!As the socialists give their helping hand,To the most flawed politicians in the land!

Liberals believe to be in power is sublime,No matter what it takes at any time,To have power, influence, patronage, rewards,To divide among the Liberal and socialist hoards.I watch with glee to observe the verbose,Rush forward to join the Liberals as toast!

The Martin-Layton follies

“It’s a slower approach than when … they came

out and said we’re cutting 25,000. The new approach is a chipping

away and it’s not as noticeable.”

Larry Welsh

4 • INDEPENDENTNEWS MAY 1, 2005

Stand by your DanManning turfed from post after going public on crab plan; no intentions to run federally or cross floor By Jamie BakerThe Independent

Fabian Manning may not like what’s going on inthe political sandbox right now, but that doesn’tmean he’s going to take his ball and go home.

Manning, Tory MHA for Placentia-St. Mary’s,was removed from his parliamentary secretary’spost by Premier Danny Williams last week aftergoing public with concerns about what he feelswas a lack of consultation in implementing thenew raw materials sharing plan for the crab fishery.

The raw material sharing system, set-up as atwo-year pilot project, caps the amount of crabeach plant gets, but effectively guarantees eachplant will receive a set amount of crab to process.

Government claims the plan ensures regionalstability as a result of a more orderly fishery.Fishermen and their union, who say the planunfairly favours processors, have been protestingdaily at the House of Assembly and have blockad-ed Placentia Bay and St. John’s Harbour in protestof the plan.

Late last week, government offered to whittlethe two-year project down to one year, but the offerwas rejected by the union.

Manning says he went public with his concernsknowing full well there would be consequences.He shoots down any suggestion he made the moveto spur his personal popularity for a possible feder-al election run.

Manning admits he has been contacted aboutrunning federally but, he says, half the members ofthe Tory caucus have also been called.

“My interest in federal politics is not even aquestion — this situation is much bigger thanFabian Manning and the pay cheque I receive,”

Manning tells The Independent. “This is an issuethat’s fundamental to the future of ruralNewfoundland and Labrador.

“I’m telling you, we have a major problem onour hands.”

If the Liberals are rubbing their hands togetherin anticipation Manning might cross the floor tojoin the opposition, they may as well forget it.Manning says he may have lost a $25,000 chunk of

salary, but that doesn’t mean he’s going anywhere.“I have no plans to cross. I never gave it a first

thought, let alone a second thought. The fact is Iconsider myself an employee of the people inPlacentia-St. Mary’s. I’m here to represent them.

“I plan on staying a member of the party, eventhough I fundamentally disagree with govern-ment’s process here.”

Manning says he won’t allow inside politics to

deter him from “speaking on behalf of the peopleof my district.”

He says he’s been expressing his concerns with-in the caucus since the plan was announced onMarch 2.

“I’ve travelled throughout my district and metwith fishermen and plant workers, as well ascommunity leaders, and I can’t find anybodywho’s comfortable with what we’re doing here.”

Manning says it’s not that he doesn’t agreewith government’s plan for the crab fishery asmuch as he dislikes the way in which it wasimplemented — without consultation. He wel-comed news that at least some dialogue was tak-ing place last week, even though the unionrejected government’s offer to reduce the planfrom two years to one.

“My proposal last week was to get some good,concrete dialogue started and to reassess theposition and put together some offers. I ampleased at least there’s discussions going on andsome movement to get this issue resolved. That’sbeen my message all along.”

He says people in the industry, who are direct-ly affected by such a plan, including fishermen,plant workers and processors, should be able tosit at the table to plot a course of action.

“We have a fishing industry that’s worth a bil-lion dollars and we’re going to make a funda-mental change to a crucial part of it, but we’renot going to consult with the people that are outthere involved in it? I have a problem with that.

“I understand their position and their right tohold that position. But I also have a right tospeak out for my people. If that’s contrary towhat government is doing, that’s all I can doabout that.”

Fabian Manning Paul Daly/The Independent

Keeping an eye on the comings and goings of theships in St. John’s harbour. Information providedby the coast guard traffic centre.

MONDAY, APRIL 25Vessels arrived: Maersk Placentia, Canada, fromHibernia; Katrina Charlene, Canada, from Burin;ASL Sanderling, Canada, from Halifax.Vessels departed: Cabot, Canada, to Montreal.

TUESDAY, APRIL 26No report

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27No report

THURSDAY, APRIL 28Vessels arrived: Jean Charcot, Britain, from sea;Atlantic Eagle, Canada, from Terra Nova; MaerskChallenger, Canada, from Aberdeen.Vessels departed: George R. Pearkes, Canada, tosea; Aveirense, Portugal, to sea; Atlantic Eagle,Canada, to Bull Arm.

FRIDAY, APRIL 29No report

SHIPPINGNEWS

Rhonda Hayward/The Independent

By Jamie BakerThe Independent

There may only be seven federalridings in Newfoundland andLabrador, but there’s no shortage

of speculation as to how things couldplay out should the writ be dropped inthe coming weeks.

Most of the federal election rumoursare swirling in Avalon, where LiberalMP and Natural Resources MinisterJohn Efford is contemplating retire-ment based on declining health.

Efford, who has seen his public sup-port plummet in the wake of theAtlantic Accord talks, says his health(diabetes specifically) — not polls —will determine whether he runs.

Meantime, he says he’s not con-vinced there will even be a federal elec-tion.

“Well an election’s not coming up fora long while yet — as much as StephenHarper would like to have one I thinkit’s going to be a long ways off,” Effordtells The Independent.

The only place where there arewholesale guarantees is Labrador.There will be a by-election there onMay 24 to replace the seat left vacantby the death of Lawrence O’Brienunless a general election is calledbeforehand.

In St. John’s South, it had been spec-ulated incumbent Conservative MPLoyola Hearn might jump to Avalon ifEfford retires. Sources close toHearn— a likely candidate for a cabinetportfolio if the Conservatives win gov-ernment — say that’s not the case.

As for possible opponents, SiobhanCoady carried the Liberal banneragainst Hearn the last time out and has-n’t ruled out giving it another shot.

“I do have a desire to represent whatI consider the new Newfoundland andLabrador in Ottawa, so obviously I’mconsidering it,” Coady says.

In St. John’s North, ConservativeNorm Doyle is leaving no doubt hisname will be on the ballot seeking re-election.

“I am running, and I’ve had everyintention of running no matter when anelection happens, whether it’s a monthfrom now, a year from now or twoyears from now,” he says.

Contacted by The Independent, for-mer provincial cabinet minister WalterNoel confirms he’s thinking about hav-ing another crack at Doyle.

As with every federal election, anumber of sitting MHAs and cabinetministers are said to be contemplatingmaking the jump — including TomRideout and Ed Byrne.

Byrne, sitting MHA for Kilbride andthe province’s Natural Resources min-ister, nixed the idea of running federal-ly, saying it hasn’t even crossed hismind.

“It’s not even a story b’y,” Byrnesays. “I’ve spent 11 years getting whereI am now. I’m here and I have no inter-est in running in federal politics. I’mhappy and content where I am.

“I’m not interested and I haven’ttalked to anyone about it.”

Rideout, MHA for Lewisporte andthe province’s Transportation minister,is said to be considering running eitherin Bonavista-Exploits against incum-bent Liberal Scott Simms or possibly inAvalon.

Rideout did not return TheIndependent’s telephone messages.

While there may be no shortage of

rumours, there is a shortage of oneimportant thing in most districts —cash. Many associations are still reelingfrom the last federal election, and theprospect of having to ante up for anoth-er round in such short order is creatingheadaches.

“No question it will be tough on allassociations across the country,” saysHolly Pike, NDP riding president forHumber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte. She’sconsidering running again againstLiberal incumbent Gerry Byrne. “Ican’t imagine many associations havemuch cash in hand — I know we don’t— with the last election only monthsago.”

“It makes things a lot more difficultin terms of donations, because there’sonly so much you can collect,” says St.John’s North Conservative riding pres-ident David Hurley. “The only consola-

tion we have is that the other parties arein the same boat.”

Another issue factoring into the elec-tion debate is whether the sponsorshipscandal is preventing big-name Liberalcandidates from stepping forward.

Noel, for one, says the Gomeryinquiry won’t impact his final decision.

“I ran last time in spite of the spon-sorship scandal and it was a big issuethen,” Noel says. “As a matter of fact,were it not for that issue, the Liberalsprobably would have returned with afairly comfortable majority. For the pasttwo years we’ve been pre-occupiedwith this partisan politics and the busi-ness of the country is not getting done.”

Coady says the opposition partiesshould let the Gomery inquiry finishbefore attempting to force an electionso all the details can be known to votersand clear-minded decisions can be

made.“If we can get to the bottom of this, I

think that will shed a great amount oflight on the intricacies of government,”Coady says. “My concern is, if we gointo this early, that won’t take place andit will deter anyone from ever doing soagain.”

While Efford touted Prime MinisterPaul Martin’s “courage” in dealing withthe issue, in a surprising statement, hesays he doesn’t agree with how pub-

licly the situation has been handled.“The prime minister called the

Gomery inquiry to let Canadians knowvery clearly that he disagrees with anywrong doings in the system that hewanted to get this out in the public … Idisagree with that,” Efford says. “Ithink public inquiry causes too muchdiscussion in public. He wanted to behonest and he wanted to be clear withCanadians.”

— With files from Alisha Morrissey

MAY 1, 2005 INDEPENDENTNEWS • 5

The areas for the east end of St. John's include: Elizabeth Ave west Lemarchant Rd./Lime St. Gower/Bond St. Signal Hill Rd. Churchill Sq. area Fox Ave. area Airport Heights area

Ready to runRumours rampant about who’s running federally; Efford says election ‘long ways off’

Photos by Paul Daly/The IndependentJohn Efford Norm Doyle

Iread with some trepidation last weekChina’s state oil company was mak-ing major investments in the Alberta

oil sands, and Husky Oil was alsoaggressively spending in the Canadianoil and gas industry. Having spent a lotof time in China over a five-year span,including having operational offices inHong Kong and Taiwan, the news sentshivers up my spine.

Let me put to rest any thoughts that Iam xenophobic. The Chinese are a trulyremarkable people and I continue tohave a network of close personal andbusiness relationships there. Their cul-ture is one of the most ancient on earth;they were pushing the advances of civi-lization when my ancestors were decid-ing which mud and stone village to rapeand plunder.

My fear comes from an appreciation Igained of what is happening politicallyand economically in China these days.Perhaps my point is best explained bysome personal anecdotes. About fouryears ago I was standing in a large fieldoutside the city of Ningbo, a beautifultourism destination in mainland China.Rich in history, architecture, and culture,it was one of their “smaller” cities, prob-

ably only 10 million people or so.I was in the company of provincial

and city development officials and theywere explaining their plans to constructa major industrial park on the land. Nowtheir version of an industrial site is notours. Instead of warehouses and laydown areas, they mean high-tech manu-facturing centers in a planned communi-ty for people to work, stay, and recreate.I had visited one in Taiwan that had70,000 employees and produced $18billion US in revenue the year before.

The officials explained that within afew months they would have the majorinfrastructure complete and companiesand developers such as ourselves wouldbe able to start building the structuresnecessary for the park.

As they said this I looked out oversmall houses and farms as far as the eyecould see, with animals being pennedand crops in the field. I asked how long

they thought it would take to acquire theproperty and what difficulties they antic-ipated expecting people to move off landthat had probably been cultivated forgenerations, centuries perhaps, in theirfamilies.

The response was that everyonewould be gone by the end of the week asthe bulldozers were arriving Mondaymorning. I came back to that site lessthan three months later and the roadswere paved and streetlights working. Iimagine a lot of those farmers are nowliving in the new apartment monolithsthat go up every day there.

The second personal experience I hadthat highlights my point is an investmentdeal I was involved in with the owner ofRed Dragon cigarettes, a premiumChinese brand. I toured one of his facto-ries in a province of 80 million inhabi-tants (again, not their largest by anymeans). The amount of cigarettes spit-ting out of the machinery was incalcula-ble. I imagine they rounded off to thenearest million when they did their dailyinventory.

This was a man of significant wealth.The owner was an investor in a pro-

posed high-tech Newfoundland indus-trial park the Taiwanese governmentwanted to build here (another story …probably a three-column series). Whenwe met at the signing ceremony toannounce his Canadian investment, Inoticed he brought with him a smallerolder man. Not dressed in the expensiveclothes our cigarette man was wearing,he looked slightly rumpled and out ofplace as he stepped out of the late-model Mercedes sedan our investorarrived in.

I asked my partner who this man was,and why was he being treated with suchobvious deference by everyone. It wasexplained to me that he was the seniorparty official responsible for the ciga-rette industry. One word from this indi-vidual and our wealthy investor was outof the cigarette business and all of thebenefits it provided him. Needless tosay, a lot of people kissed rumple suit’sass that day.

What I learned was there is a veryunique blend of dictatorial communismand entrepreneurial capitalism evolvingin China.

The Chinese rightly believe this istheir century. The 19th belonged to theEuropeans, the 20th to the NorthAmericans, and this 100 years will seethe sheer number of new affluent con-sumers in China overwhelm what havebeen the traditional economic powers.

So why the shivers at their investmentdollars?

Because the environmental and eco-nomic pressures of the western worldare slowly but surely being addressedthrough our system of social democracy.Yes, we consume unjustly a significantmajority of the world’s resources, notthe least of which is fossil fuels, butbecause environmental groups areallowed to protest and citizens can speakout, there are systemic brakes in thewestern world to runaway capitalism. Inmy opinion, these brakes do not exist inthe China of today.

If global warming concerns you now,wait for Chinese industry to flex its mus-cle. The five most polluted cities cur-rently in the world are in China. Thatscares me.

Does this mean they should not beallowed to develop their economies likewe did? Of course not. But remember,you are dealing with a governance sys-tem that allows no debate, no freespeech, no lawsuits to stop environmen-tal destruction.

The party decides what it wants to doand does it — end of story.

Does this make their money less valu-able? No, but the incredible consump-tive forces the Chinese will bring to bearin the next decades are something weshould all be concerned about. I don’tknow what the answer is; I wish I did.Some of my very worldly and sophisti-cated Chinese friends suggest that with-out the complete authority of commu-nism, that part of the world would trulyspin out of control with the combinedenergies of hundreds of millions of newcapitalists and consumers.

From what I have seen there, I cannotdebate that point too long, but I Iike tohold onto the naiveté that lets me believefreedom of speech and choice is trulythe only way for us to evolve and dealwith some of these enormous challengeswe will all face globally over the nextcentury.

Maybe we may escape the inevitablecrisis that will occur when oil and steelare so costly only the wealthiest canafford to drive, when the basic livingcosts include oxygen or ultraviolet radi-ation treatment, but will our children?

The multinational corporations andwestern governments love to talk aboutthe size of the Chinese markets that aredeveloping, but I fear by the time westart asking these questions, it may betoo late.

6 • INDEPENDENTNEWS MAY 1, 2005

OURVOICE

Beware the Chinese bearing gifts

Danny Williams must havelearned by now aNewfoundland fisherman isn’t

as easy to put in his place as the primeminister of Canada.

Paul Martin is a joke compared to theskippers who play chicken with76,000-tonne oil tankers in PlacentiaBay. Williams is talking to them like(and this may send him over the edge)a townie lawyer, just what he doesn’twant to do.

Martin backed down, fishermenwon’t. Williams is the god of themoment in Newfoundland and Lab-rador; everybody, and his mother,loves him; he’s the darling b’y of themainland media — Time, SaturdayNight, MacLeans; he can do no wrong;he is our champion the same as Tobin,Wells, Peckford and Smallwood beforehim.

That kind of stroking breeds arro-gance.

Arrogance breeds failure.Williams has to be careful not to get

too cocky. As wonderful and winningas he is, the premier’s reputation won’tget him over this particular blockade inthe political sea lane. A premier withtwo years experience under his beltcan’t expect to waltz into an industrywith a 500-year history, turning it on itshead, without explaining himself fully.

The kind of change that Williams ispushing (even if it’s one year instead oftwo) must be carefully fed to ruralNewfoundland, so that it doesn’t chokethe life out of the messenger.

Remember how, during the NAPEstrike, Williams had the nerve to walkout the backdoor of ConfederationBuilding and chat with strikers on thepicket line?

Notice how he isn’t spending any

time down on the wharf these days?Does Williams believe in what he’s

doing to the crab fishery the same wayhe believes in how he’s handling ourcheque book? Or is the premier givinghis golden boy, Trevor Taylor, toomuch rope?

The answer isn’t clear, which is whythe public seems divided on the issue.Case in point, backbencher MHAFabian Manning has been forced towalk the plank. (Williams’ ship issound enough not to suffer a mutiny,although there’s said to be more than ahint of turmoil in caucus.)

Both sides of the crab issue havepoints.

Government’s point is the crab fish-ery needs stability; so does ruralNewfoundland. No one can argue that.

Fishermen, on the other hand, haveevery right to fear a system that favoursplant owners — descendents of thesame merchant system that enslavedthem for generations.

How would Williams have reactedwhen he owned Cable Atlantic if thefederal government limited the homeswhere he could sell cable?

He would have went mental, ofcourse. Talk about the U.S. testing amissile over the Grand Banks,Williams would have fired a ball of TVantennas at Ottawa from the top ofSignal Hill.

It’s more than a little ironic that oneof this province’s most successful busi-nessmen is tinkering with the same

free-market economy that made him amulti-millionaire.

It’s one thing for a premier of thisplace to take on the might of the feder-al government, to give Ottawa a swiftkick in the arse, to do a David andGoliath on Martin’s head; it’s quiteanother thing to mess with JoeFishermen from Average Cove.

Ottawa can always be bashed toscore a few points. Outport Newfound-land is sacred ground.

For a master communicator, Wil-liams needs to work on his communica-tion skills. Talk to fishermen, Mr.Premier. Tell them why your govern-ment’s plan is a good one. Tell themwhy they have nothing to be worriedabout.

Visit the wharfs; ease their fears.Don’t ignore them, ban them from

the legislature, and vow your way orthe highway.

The premier made Martin live up tohis election promise. Fishermen expectthe same from the premier, whose gov-ernment promised consultation beforeimplementation.

In the end, Williams landed the newAtlantic Accord deal, but it still mayend up dead in the water. The bill maynever pass before a federal election,and Martin may have had the last laugh(even if he’s out of office).

Williams has the power to get hisown way again this time, but if he does-n’t handle the crab dispute right, win orlose, fishermen — representing somuch of rural Newfoundland andLabrador — may also have the lastlaugh … at the polls.

Ryan Cleary is managing editor ofThe Independent.

ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

Talking at them

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. • © 2005 The Independent • Canada Post Agreement # 40871083

RYAN CLEARYFightingNewfoundlander

YOURVOICE

AN INDEPENDENT VOICE FOR NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR

P.O. Box 5891, Stn.C, St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, A1C 5X4Ph: 709-726-4639 • Fax: 709-726-8499

www.theindependent.ca • editorial@theindependent.ca

The Independent is published by The SundayIndependent, Inc. in St. John’s. It is an

independent newspaper covering the news, issues and current affairs that affect the people of Newfoundland & Labrador.

PUBLISHER Brian DobbinMANAGING EDITOR Ryan ClearySENIOR EDITOR Stephanie PorterPICTURE EDITOR Paul Daly

The Independent welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be 300 words in length or less and include full name, mailing address and daytime contact numbers. Letters may be edited for length, content and legal considerations. Send your letters

in care of The Independent, P.O. Box 5891, Station C, St. John’s, NL, A1C 5X4 or e-mail us at editorial@theindependent.ca

Calling Abitibi’s bluffDear editor,

Just as Grand Falls-Windsor wascelebrating its centennial associationwith the pulp and paper industry andthe founding of our wonderful town,its people are about to lose their veryculture. It is to be snatched away fromus by a company with a cash-flowproblem and a need for more profit, acompany that has been, for somedecades now, harping on the need formore concessions.

It matters not how smartly the log-haul crew keeps the logs moving onthe belt. It is futile to discuss the qual-ity of the stock and paper testing. It istruly of little concern how fast themachines turn and the amount of pridewith which the machine crew starts anew reel and delivers a new batch ofpaper on the shipping floor. Nor doesit matter if the lowly broke hustlerdoes an honest day’s work.

What odds if the paper trucks get toBotwood in a timely and safe fashion.In the giant scheme of things, the millworker can work his fingers to thebones and no one gives a tinker’s dam— except the worker, and his family,and his community.

Cash-flow problems are not anexplanation for depriving some 125workers of a job. Cash flow is a book-keeping term that means a companyhas over-extended itself and has toomany irons in the fire. Cash flow willnot suffice as a reason for destroyingthe culture our people developed for100 years.

We are a town of rabbits, moose andhouse parties. We are a town of gen-

erosity and compassion. We are atown of veterans and legionnaires andchurch organizations. We are the off-spring of the finest and most coura-geous baymen that Newfoundland hasever spawned.

Yes, I am grateful my father had 48years employment in the mill. Yes, Iam thankful I could finance my uni-versity education as a member of theLocal 63 union, but by God the busi-ness world of papermaking should beappreciative too. They should appreci-ate the fact we let them cut our forestsfor years without any reforestation.They should be grateful our peoplewere not sluggards, but true crafts-men. They should acknowledge howfreely we let them draw on the powerof the Exploits River, a power that wasour birthright.

Finally, they should realize we didnot give them our forests and rivers sothat they can harness our rivers forextra profit, work our people to deathwith unrealistic production demandsand take raw material from our tim-berlands and ship it off to bolster asecond mill while this one is dimin-ished. Maybe it’s time we stoppedbeing pawns in an economic game inwhich the company thinks it holds allthe cards, and called their bluff. Howcurious it is that our paper company isnow at its most militant when thearoma of some $2.2 billion is waftingdown from Ottawa. If we are weak,our survival may depend on some ofthose dollars.

Aubrey Smith,Grand Falls-Windsor

Dear editor,The opinion of Trevor Taylor pub-

lished in The Southern Gazette onApril 19th shows a very biased anduntruthful attempt to justify govern-ment’s misguided policy on the rawmaterial sharing program.

The program is grossly discriminato-ry against fisherman, and makes themvirtual slaves to the processors. It alsoshows the level of contempt the Torygovernment holds for fisherman.

A fisherman cannot exert the samenegotiation strength as before the rawmaterial sharing program. It is obviousthe government consulted with theAssociation of Seafood Producers.Taylor tells us the cabinet was briefedin February on the pitfalls facing theindustry this year. He stated they had toact to save the fishery.

Mr. Taylor, along with the other min-isters, was brainwashed. I have neverseen a processor go bankrupt. I haveseen them merge. I have seen them conmillions from governments. They cango to the Maritimes, the U.S.A and buyup plants.

The action shows how barren theminds of the Williams’ governmentare. If they really want to improve thelives of plant workers they should befighting for increases in cod quotas.Mr. Taylor has had a remarkable trans-formation — from fisherman to hard-nosed company-supporting hack.Maybe he should re-evaluate his careeroptions. He is still young and if he hasthe guts to tell Danny to fly a kite, hemay survive and earn his pension.

Joseph Edwards,Lawn

‘Tell Danny to fly a kite’

BRIAN DOBBINPublish or perish

MAY 1, 2005 INDEPENDENTNEWS • 7

YOURVOICE

Iwas watching MuchMusic the otherevening, happy to be doing nothingin particular, when I was suddenly

presented with the spectacle ofOutKast’s Big Boi grinning at me frommy TV screen. Smiling the confidentsmile of the truly successful, he leanedinto the camera and said “Don’t hate theplayer — hate the game.”

It immediately struck me: that linecould be Paul Martin’s epitaph.

I apologize to anyone who reads meregularly. Writing about Gomery again?Yup.

How could I not? We are watching thedestruction of the federal Liberal Partyof Canada. We have witnessed the spec-tacle of a man — Paul Martin — whoapparently cannot discern the differencebetween a crisis for his party and a crisisfor the country. Alphonso Gagliano,once a powerful man in Quebec, now ashabby joke, issues a press releaseaccusing Martin of destroying the partyand possibly the country. That’s howlong they have been in power. They

think the party dying is the countrydying.

It is the Liberal party that is dying.Paul Martin is killing it.

I have never seen what others saw inMr. Martin. Much has been made of hisso-called business “genius.” I get tiredof unfettered rapacious heartless greedbeing touted as a virtue to be admired.From what I understand, he moulded asuccessful shipping industry by arrang-ing his affairs in such a way that he did-n’t have to pay Canadian wages ormaintain Canadian safety standards forhis employees. This is brilliance?

Furthermore, his career as a Financeminister entailed taking a lot of benefitsaway from people who paid their taxesto receive them. And he didn’t even

lower their taxes. A lot of kids have mas-sive student loans because of him. A lotof people didn’t get the medical treat-ment they deserved because of him. Icould go on. Tommy Douglas he ain’t.

As a CEO of his own company hewould not have tolerated — not for onesecond — the kind of slipshod financialgovernance that allows $100 million todisappear unaccounted for. Anyone inhis company who did anything compa-rable would have been fired. Pronto.Yet he asks us for our forgiveness.

As a politician he hated theChretienites so much the line between“us” and “them” was fatally blinded. Hemight of thought there were two differ-ent Liberal parties, but Canadians don’t.Chretien knew there wasn’t. He booby-trapped the office before he left, andwalked away chuckling, wondering ifMartin was smart enough to defuse it.He wasn’t.

Sadder still is the fact that he, asLiberal prime minister, had to cut a dealwith Jack Layton. I am pretty sure I

would rather go down in flames. Notthat we won’t all benefit from thechanges to the budget — we will. ButMartin looks desperate. Why make theleader of the fourth place political partyin the House look prime ministerial?There are worse things than electoraldefeat. We are seeing that now.

Saddest of all is that the very forcethat makes the Liberal party strong —that collective sucking up for power andprivilege — is now unravelling at anastonishing rate. Not only at the Gomeryinquiry, but across the country. The gluethat holds the Liberals in power, theunshakable certainty that they — andthey alone — will control access to thecookie jar, is weakening by the day. Thesuck-ups and the self-promoters — thebackbone of the Liberal party — arestaying at home. A lot of folks who havebeen tub-thumping Liberals for yearswill now quietly slip from sight. To par-aphrase the great American film produc-er Samuel Goldwyn, in the next electionthey will stay away in droves.

Yet, strangely enough, I still thinkPaul Martin is fundamentally a decentguy. Furthermore, I think there is noquestion he would make a better primeminister than Stephen Harper. It doesn’tmatter. There are rules to the game ofpolitics. I didn’t write them and neitherdid Martin. A strong leader can re-writethose rules. Martin won’t. He played thegame and misjudged at every point. Thepoor man is even reduced to taking crapfrom Bono. When will it end?

I think he’s a decent, principled, con-scientious man caught up in a politicalmaelstrom not of his making. And it isgoing to bring him down. It is going tobring down the Liberal Party of Canada.It is going to inflict a Harper govern-ment on us all.

Thanks to the vagaries of time andcircumstance, a good man has put us allin a very bad spot. But don’t hate theplayer. Hate the game.

Ivan Morgan can be reached ativan.morgan@gmail.com

Writing Paul Martin’s epitaphIVAN MORGANRant & reason

CRAB PROTEST

915 Topsail Road, Mt. Pearl364-2423 Toll Free: 1-800-349-6999

email: sales@tuckeracura.com

Deareditor,This is in response to an article in the

March 27-April 2 edition of TheIndependent quoting Jean-PierreAndrieux,Spain’shonourarycounsel inNewfoundland and Labrador on thesubject of overfishing.

We commend Mr. Andrieux for hiscandid statements. Afishing vessel is aself-contained world, a microcosm ofthe society from which it springs.Crewmembers who sail together foryears are a tight-knit group who havelearned to depend on each other in badtimes.Theirverysurvivaldependsonit.

Fishermen have traditionally beenpaid by performance. For most of histo-ry, the defining factor between success-ful and unsuccessful fishers was howmuch they caught and how fast theycaught it.

Normally, captain and crew sharedthe outfitting of the vessel and any prof-it that might ensue. This system pres-sured captains to catch fish and crew tomaximize profit any way they could.Fishermen catch fish. It is their profes-sion. They are hunter/gatherers in themost basic sense. Restrictions on fish-ing activity have now been applied tothis traditional mindset. With the intro-duction of 200-mile limits after the UN

LawoftheSeainthemid-1970s,coastalstateshadachance tomanage their fish-ery resources, which were decliningunder increased fishing pressure. Withthis came regulations — catch restric-tions, mesh size, quota limits.Expensive fisheries patrols and inex-pensive fisheries observer programmeswere instituted.

Conservation is not what a fishermandoes.Afishermancatches fish, trying tomakealivinginafluctuatingandunpre-dictable industry in a harsh environ-ment with the addition of often confus-ing regulations. The need for observersaboard fishing vessels came directlyfrom an understanding that fishers aredriven by the need to catch fish and thatanti-conservation practices will occurregardless of their legality, if the profitmargin requires it.

If NAFO countries are serious aboutconservation, they must have bindingquotas based on sound scientific princi-ples, real regulations that can beenforced by their own inspectors andeffective observers independent of thefishing vessels and the fishing industryitself. The same is true for Canada.

Richard Gill,St. John’s

Editor’s note: The following letter waswritten to The Independent regardinga recent column by Bill Rowe pub-lished in The Telegram.

Dear editor,No Mr. Rowe, I don’t think you will

get your wish. I don’t believe the fed-eral Liberal-sponsored corruption inQuebec will enrage Quebecers to thepoint of separation. At least I hope not.However, if we had enough peoplelike you, trying to be another MargaretWente, then I could be wrong.

Having lived in Quebec during theso-called Quiet Revolution, I canassure you most Quebecers have avery finely tuned political awareness.Compared to some of our Newfound-land political wannabes, even theaverage Quebecer is a “Fast Eddie” atour political pool table.

As one of our learned elite youshould know that for every Laurier orTrudeau, la belle province has alwayshad its Louis-Joseph Papineau, Lev-esque or Bouchard to tell Quebecersthey have been victimized by theEnglish-federal conspiracy.

As a lawyer, you should be aware ofthe depth of damage to the soul andspirit of a true victim or one who hasbeen repeatedly told they are a victim.Ask yourself why, in the early 1990s,

our justice system finally evolved tothe point where victim impact state-ments became a reality — at least onpaper!

Yes, the sponsorship scheme wasexactly what it has been called — ascandal. That said, I would be first tosay go ahead and spend another $200million or $300 million of our tax dol-lars in Quebec tomorrow, proving itwould be spent to present researched,factual historical, financial and evenpolitical data to our fellow Canadiancitizens in Quebec.

On radio you, Mr. Rowe, refer toyour staggering insights. Could younot see the only weapon of massdestruction the “gang of separatists”have is the wall of lies and deceiterected by the politicians.

Quebec has been allowed to gradu-ate hydro-electrical engineers whoknow nothing about the upperChurchill, PhDs who know nothingabout the 1927 Privy Council or theexistence of a Quebec-Labrador bor-der. I am ready to financially support ahomegrown version of Voice ofAmerica or Radio Free Europe ifthat’s what it takes to bring truth to ourfellow citizens in Quebec.

Can we count on your support?John Adams,

Hr. Grace

Dear editor,Recent landings by the Russian facto-

ry trawler Tynda in Bay Roberts revealour decimated fisheries will never berestored to the level of the large, healthyresource we transferred to Ottawa in1949. Uncontrolled foreign fisheries onthe continental shelf, combined with theunder reporting of catches and theimpact of removing huge quantities ofimmature fish from the ecosystem willresult in the extinction of major ground-fish species.

We have provided the news mediaacross Canada with details of this bla-tant misreporting, as well as a perspec-tive on the quantities of immatureforeign-caught fish landed inCanada, and trans-shipped to mar-kets. We have been convinced byknowledgeable sources that theTynda catches are typical of all for-eign landings in Canadian portssince the same cod-end mesh sizeused by the Tynda is used by all 20NAFO members. It is not difficultto understand the dimension of thiscontinued massacre on the remain-ing fish left outside the 200-milezone.

In one trip the Tynda landed inexcess of 1.1 million individual turbot,weighing between eight and 17 ounceseach. Other than Canada, no other coun-try would permit fishermen — foreignor domestic — to engage in the massdestruction that has been taking placeon our continental shelf and appears toget worse and worse as time goes on.

The same scenario applies to misre-porting catches. The Tynda reportedcatching 1,030,182 pounds of ground-fish, but when the cargo of fishmealproduction and frozen cod liver weightwas calculated the actual catch wasshown to be 1,658,315 pounds.

It’s been almost 14 years since agroundfish moratorium was imposed onCanadian fishermen, yet foreignershave continued to fish in an unrestrictedfashion. Those irresponsible foreignfishing nations will continue to fish anddestroy what is left of our once greatfishery unless a Canadian governmentdisplays the fortitude required and

places real value on fisheries likeIceland and Norway. Canada must takecontrol of the continental shelf, andthrough custodial management, rebuildour fisheries for the benefit of all.

We should not waste taxpayers’money and valuable time on interna-tional conferences. The new govern-

ment in Ottawa should prepare a docu-ment — based on the history of our fish-eries since the invasion of foreigners inthe early 1950s — and present our caseto the UN, Food and AgricultureOrganization and, if necessary, theWorld Court in The Hague. An accurateaccount of the last 55-year history ofour fishery will demonstrate it is impos-sible for a fisheries commission com-posed of 20 nations to manage a com-plex ecosystem on a sustainable basis.This recommendation should have thehighest priority on the agenda of theMPs representing Newfoundland andLabrador after the next election.

As Newfoundlanders and Labra-dorians, we must ask ourselveswhy our elected representatives,our unions, our seafood companiesand community leaders don’tembrace this issue. Why we wouldfight so vigourously against our-selves in full view of the nationaland international public — as wehave this past week — and still notmuster the same enthusiasm todefend our history, our culture andour children’s future in preservingone of the greatest renewableresources that graces our planet? Is

it political expediency, is it lack ofcourage, is it because we have leaderspreoccupied with their own self-servinginterests, or is it because we have lostsight of who we are and where we camefrom?

Gus Etchegary,Fisheries Crisis Alliance

Why do we not defend ourselves?

Fisheries Minister Trevor Taylor offered Friday, April 29, to cut back the two-year raw material sharing pilot project to one year, an offerrejected by the fishermen’s union. Fishermen have protested at sea and on land since the plan was announced in early March.

Average Quebecer a ‘Fast Eddie’at our political pool table

Fishermen catch fish

Paul Daly/The Independent

Paul Daly/The Independent

Rhonda Hayward/The Independent

8 • INDEPENDENTNEWS MAY 1, 2005

Rock ’em sock ’em curlingAfter having lived in northern

Alberta, it’s easy to under-stand why curling is so pop-

ular there. When it’s that cold andthat bleak for that long, any enter-tainment, no matter what, is wel-come.

Think about how curling cameabout in that God-forsaken frozenland: listen b’ys, farmer Fred says wecan only tip cows on Tuesdays andThursdays because it’s screwing upmilk production. So we’re going tohave to come up with something forthe rest of the week. Let’s freeze astrip of ice, draw two circles at eachend, give everybody brooms, andthen throw rocks ateach other.

The Scottish layclaim to inventingthe game, but thenagain, they claimeverything.

And to make iteven more attractiveto the cow-tippingcrowd, drinking wasnot only allowed, itwas stronglyencouraged.

But even with thetwining of two suchvalued Prairie pas-times — drinkingand throwing rocks— curling still strug-gles to attract any-thing but its tradi-tional fan base.They’ve strappedwireless micro-phones onto theplayers to bring thestrategy to the fans(curling is all aboutstrategy), jazzed-upthe team outfits withbright colours and graphics, all butremoved the take-out game, and put atime-limit on each contest.

As a former player, I can attest tothe fact that curling is a great game— the sport is growing in leaps andbounds. But from a non-initiated fanstandpoint, the game is only slightlymore exciting than watching cars rustin the middle of an Arizona desert.Curling is akin to being a Vietnamsniper — hours and hours of bore-dom interspersed with a few secondsof excitement when one brilliant shotis made.

I stopped curling seriously whenbeers and smokes were banned fromthe ice surface — the perfect sporthad eluded me once again.

If those who guide the game ofcurling want to jazz up the game,they should consider allowing bodycontact. More than once, after takinga sip and a puff, the urge to throw outthe broom and hook a member of theother team’s front-end as they passedby became almost, at times, over-whelming.

In Qatar, where sand is their snowand camels are their cows — camelracing is the big sport. One can onlyimagine it came about the same wayas curling did — a bunch of sheikssitting around taking draws off thewater pipe, looking for something todo on a Qatar Saturday afternoon.

Cow racing would never work.

Cows are too stupid to run on theirown — that’s what makes them sucha good food source.

In that Persian Gulf country, boyjockeys ride camels on oval courses.Young boys are kidnapped or boughtfrom poor families to compete asjockeys.

To ensure the boys are at theirlightest weight, they are often under-

fed and live in bleakconditions.

To put an end tosuch abuses, design-ers have invented arobot jockey.

“We can’t stopthese races. They arepart of our historyand tradition, so wehave tried to find analternative,” SheikAbdullah bin Saud,who’s in charge ofthe robotic jockeyproject, said in anAssociated Pressinterview.

Just like theycan’t stop camel rac-ing in the PersianGulf, the milkindustry can’t affordto let those Prairiefolk go back to full-time cow tipping.But the creation ofrobotic curlersmight be just theticket.

We could invent agame of robotic curling and let robotcurlers knock each others’ block off— rock ’em sock ’em curlers. Justlike the Rock ’em sock ’em Robotsso many of us enjoyed when we wereyoung, the aim would be to cause acompetitor’s robot head to pop off. Ifthe head pops off, then that roboticcurler is out of the game and thatsquad has to curl with one less playerfor 10 minutes to a minimum of twocurlers per team — one to throw theremaining rocks and sweep, andanother left to skip.

Skips would be untouchable aslong as they stay within the rings. Butthe moment they leave the rings,they’re fair game.

To encourage fan participation,empties could be heaved at the robot-ic sweepers as they made their waydown the ice. Players knocked out bya fan would be gone for the entirematch — it’s harder to nail a curlerfrom the stands than on the ice — andonce again, to a two-player-mini-mum.

Maybe Canada doesn’t need anoth-er sport where fans throw things andcompetitors beat the crap out of eachother on a sheet of ice, but sincehockey is currently on strike, itcouldn’t hurt.

Jeff Ducharme is The Indepen-dent’s senior writer.

jeff.ducharme@theindependent.ca

JEFF DUCHARME

A savagejourney

‘Colourful character’Former Conception Bay South MHA Bob French ‘always had an opinion’

LIFESTORY

By Jamie BakerThe Independent

Bob French is perhaps bestremembered as the popular andbombastic MHA for the district

of Conception Bay South, but his son,current MHA Terry French, says hisfather was also a bit of a softie.

That doesn’t mean French wouldn’tspeak his mind when he felt the timewas right.

In fact, Terry says there was never amoment when his father couldn’t pro-duce an opinion about something.

“You had to know my father … hewas a pretty colourful character, andsometimes he was a bit louder than heshould have been, but he alwaysseemed to manage to get the job done,”Terry tells The Independent. “Most ofthe people who knew him would proba-bly tell you his bark was worse than hisbite.”

As a teenager, Terry says there wasmore than one occasion when the elderFrench “set him straight.

“I worked with him and for him whenwe had the convenience stores and gasbars and the big joke is always that Iquit twice and was fired three times,”Terry laughs. “He always had an opin-ion and he wore his heart on his sleeve.He didn’t hide behind the curtains andwhisper things.”

Before French became well-known inpolitical circles, he was known for hislove of sports and dedication to improv-ing sporting facilities in his hometown.

Softball was his biggest passion.“(Softball) was my father’s lifelong

interest,” French says. “He was presi-dent of the local league for, I think, 12years and he was involved in buildingthe new Topsail ball field, first, and then

he was part of building the field inKelligrews as well.”

French was born in St. John’s, butmoved to Conception Bay South as ateenager. In his adult life, he wasinvolved in various political and leader-ship campaigns, even back as far asJoey Smallwood’s days.

He entered politics himself in 1984when was elected as councillor in CBS,serving one term.

After that term, French stepped out ofpolitics until 1996 when he ran success-fully for the Tories in the provincialgeneral election.

He was re-elected by a landslide in1999.

Getting elected as a Tory in the 1996campaign, Terry says, was an accom-plishment onto itself given the factsome were predicting the newlyappointed saviour, Brian Tobin, might

win all 48 districts. In the end, the Conservatives scraped

out nine seats.“It was a challenging time to get into

politics. Every door you knocked on,you were campaigning against BrianTobin and his popularity. We won thatone fairly significantly though, some-where between 400 to 500 votes I think.

“In 1999, I think he probably had thebiggest majority, maybe except forRoger Fitzgerald, of anyone on our sideof the house.”

Despite French’s popularity andaccomplishments as an MHA and towncouncillor, Terry says his father’sfavourite position was actually one heheld outside politics — chair of the1996 provincial summer fames in CBS.

“It was something he talked aboutdoing, believe it or not for a number ofyears. He was delighted to take that on.It was a couple of years of planning, soI would say, looking back on it now thatwas his proudest moment.”

When French passed away on Aug. 2,2002, then-premier Roger Grimes saidhe was a “loss to his community andthis province,” and provincial flagswere lowered to half-staff.

Then Government House leader TomLush said “Bob French contributed agreat deal to his town, his district and tothe province.”

Now himself a very popular andrespected MHA, Terry credits a lot ofhis success to his father.

“Let’s face it, if you had to write apolitical script for someone running fora seat, it was certainly written for me.The advantage I had was that my fatherwas well known and well respected.

“Politics for him was like everythingelse — if he was into it, he was into itfull force.”

By Alisha MorrisseyThe Independent

The First World War’s Battle ofGallipoli wasn’t the most signif-icant fight the Newfoundland

Regiment participated in, but it was thefirst action 1,076 soldiers saw and anopportunity for the them to make a goodfirst impression.

Newspapers back home here inNewfoundland heralded the victory ofCaribou Hill on the Turkish peninsulaof Gallipoli (the overall battle lasted 11months; Newfoundlanders took part forfour months) and called for more volun-teers.

The April 27, 1916 edition of The St.John’s Daily Star included a synopsis ofthe Newfoundland contingent’s firstyear at war.

Walter Davidson, governor at thetime, almost immediately began enlist-ing men after the initial declaration ofwar on Aug. 12, 1914. In an interviewwith The Star, Davidson said“Newfoundland must do her part, lay-ing claim, as we do, to being the oldestand most loyal colony.

“In my telegram (to Britain) I statedwe were poor in money and rich inmen.”

Davidson pledged 500 men to the wareffort, but wanted 5,000 and immediate-ly began recruiting through every medi-um possible. Advertisements in everynewspaper followed the August decla-ration.

There were 49 casualties and 93wounded during the battle at Gallipoli.

One British general offered congratu-lations to the men in a story printed in aEuropean newspaper, which was even-

tually re-printed in The Star’s synopsispiece.

“By their conduct in this, their firstimportant work, they have brought dis-tinction to the brigade, and have provedthemselves to be possessed of self-reliance, bravery and tenacity, the firstqualities of a good soldier.”

When it came to recruitment, TheStar kept a running tally and each dayprinted the names of those who enlistedand where they were from.

On April 4, 1916 the paper reported46 enlistments in a five-day period withthe majority from St. John’s. The nextday the total number of recruits fromaround the province was pegged at3,388.

The pages of the paper weren’t filledonly with names of those who wererecruited, but listed at least 10 to 15names a day of casualties from theprovince.

The first shipment of wounded sol-diers sent home from the front wasreported on the front page of the April17, 1916 edition of The Star. On theboat sailing into St. John’s harbour,arriving to a welcoming party of “hun-dreds,” 20 soldiers returned home.

The advertisement for recruits wasn’tonly published in The Star. The BayRoberts Guardian ran the same ad formonths.

“To young men,” the ad read. “YourKing and Country need you … and ifyou would to yourself be honest andtrue. Country first, self last should beyour stand. Need you persuasion?You’re a slacker if you do. You mustfight with all your might the Kaiser willsubdue.”

On May 12, 1916 several war stories

ran in The Guardian, including the storyof German submarines agreeing withthe United States that German U-boatswouldn’t attack passenger ships withoutproviding notice to the Americans first.

There were also instructions fromgovernment postal services thatexplained the rules of sending packagesto loved ones overseas and on the front.

It explained the proper addresses tosend packages and letters (two differentaddresses) and how packages must bewrapped: in canvas or linen, not paper,cardboard or metal. No more than 11pounds were to be sent at any one timeand luxuries like tobacco and chocolatehad to be packaged in tins so as not tomelt or moisten other packages.

The Royal Gazette, almost alwaysfilled with court-docket informationand public notices, began publishingadvertisements encouraging youngmen, between the ages of 18 and 35 tojoin the war effort.

The advertisement stuck out like asore thumb as it was the only noticewith larger text, capitalized sentencesand different type settings.

“Your king and country need you!Will you answer their call?” asked thebold headline.

The job provided free fares to St.John’s for any recruit from outside thecity; each man was paid $1 a day andfree rations for the duration of militaryservices.

“Newfoundland has already respond-ed to the empire’s call and has sent forth2,000 men for the army and 1,250 menfor the navy.

“We wanted to do our best and ourambition is now to double those num-bers.”

‘For King and Country’

In Qatar, where sand is their snow andcamels are their cows — camel

racing is the big sport. One can only

imagine it came about the same way as curling did — a bunch of sheiks

sitting around takingdraws off the water

pipe, looking forsomething to do

on a Qatar Saturdayafternoon.

Bob French

PAPERTRAIL

MAY 1, 2005 INDEPENDENTNEWS • 9

From page 3

— at just over 500,000 — is muchsmaller than other provinces.)

Efford backs those numbers.“If the union disagrees with that,”

he says, “I’ve done very little in mylife that the unions haven’t disagreedwith.

“The problem that we got inNewfoundland is we don’t boastenough about what we already havehere … and be proud of things they’redoing.”

Loyola Hearn, Tory MP for St.John’s South, says the issue is one ofhis pet peeves and he’s often broughtup the question of federal governmentjob losses in Ottawa with little or noresponse.

Hearn, who opposed the proposedelimination of 82 postal outlets in theprovince, says public outcry alsostopped the proposed shut down ofthe experimental farm on BrookfieldRoad in Mount Pearl in April, saving28 jobs that were to be “redeployed.

“We’ve thrown a spoke in thewheel kind of thing and sometimeswhen you get out in front of it andembarrass them a bit then they backoff and deny that they are going to doit,” Hearn says, adding he’s alwaysadvocated government departmentslocate where they can be most effec-tive.

He says it’s only “logical” theDepartment of Fisheries and Oceansbe located on either coast.

“They say no jobs are being lost butif you had 100 jobs and now you’vegot 60 I know the jobs are goingsomewhere.”

Reg Anstey, president of theNewfoundland and Labrador Federa-tion of Labour, says the federal gov-ernment “walked away” from theprovince when the decision was madeto remove about 40 per cent of feder-al positions from this province. Hecites the Gander weather station,which was relocated to Halifax, andthe privatization of 5 Wing GooseBay — reducing 1,000 governmentjobs to 400 non-government posi-tions. Fifty more positions are expect-ed to sail across the Gulf with thecoast guard vessel WilfredTempleman, as a new research vesselreplacing it will be stationed inDartmouth, N.S.

“This is political decisions andthere’s nothing we can do other thancontinue to apply pressure on ourprovincial representative,” Ansteysays, adding a federal presence would“do wonders for the economy.”

Federal government‘walked away’: Anstey

By Jeff Ducharme The Independent

Seven MHAs have missed the April 1 deadline for dis-closing details of their personal finances and have beengiven until mid-May to file before the issue is handed

over to the Speaker of the House of Assembly. Premier Danny Williams met the deadline, but Liberal

Opposition leader Roger Grimes did not.The financial information is filed with the office of the com-

mission of members’ interests, a position held by WayneGreen.

The list of MHAs who have yet to submit disclosure state-ments include Liberals Percy Barrett, Judy Foote, Gerry Reidand Grimes; Tories Kathy Goudie and John Hickey; andNDPer Randy Collins.

Grimes and his Liberal government had made an issue aboutthe fact Williams took more than a year to put his financialhouse in order after being elected in 2003. The premier met the2004 deadline, but Green had concerns and directed Williamsto put his substantial interests into blind trusts and resign froma number of corporate boards.

“He (the premier) has met every requirement of the act (for2005),” Green tells The Independent.

Before entering politics, Williams, alawyer by trade, sold his company, CableAtlantic, to Rogers Cable for $232 mil-lion.

Every MHA is required, under conflictof interest legislation, to file with Green’soffice by April 1 of each year. In total, 24disclosure documents are complete, 13have yet to be signed off by MHAs, andfour more are currently being reviewed byGreen — including the premier’s.

Williams current disclosure statementwon’t be available to the public untilGreen reviews the premier’s “in depth”statement.

Thirty of the 48 MHAs were late in fil-ing. Green says even with the mediaattention that swirled around Williams’financial foot-dragging, the majority ofMHAs still aren’t taking the deadlines seriously.

“It’s unfortunate and I don’t like it,” says Green. “Each yearit seems to be as bad or, in fact, maybe getting a little worse.”

In the most severe cases, Speaker of the House HarveyHodder can declare a seat vacant — throwing an MHA out ofthe House.

A number of the disclosure statements list businesses that are

“inactive.” For instance, Municipal Affairs Minister JackByrne lists two inactive survey companies as part of his hold-ings.

Under the legislation, Green simply takes an MHA’s word.“There is an element of trust there that they aren’t withhold-

ing anything and if I see something that is inconsistent with pre-vious statements then I raise questions,” says Green.

NDP leader Jack Harris lists a number of residential rentalproperties in St. John’s among his holdings. He draws a salaryfrom those properties and from his law practice. Harris also list-ed a private airplane which, according to the statement, was tobe sold on May 1. His wife is a lawyer at the Workplace, Health,

Safety and Compensation Commission.Education Minister Tom Hendderson lists

income from rental properties in St. John’sand Marysvale and owns land in BayRoberts.

Tory MHA Ray Hunter has three Crownland leases in the Windsor-Springdale dis-trict. He also owns 88 per cent of Hunter’sElectrical (inactive), and his wife isemployed with the Newfoundland andLabrador Association of Public and PrivateEmployees.

Liberal MHA Yvonne Jones ownsRiverlodge Motel in Mary’s Harbour. Herspouse, who works for the Woodland Groupof Companies, owns land in Heart’s Content,as well as Jones Charters and Tours inMary’s Harbour.

Tory Paul Oram owns 100 per cent ofBirchview Manor, Oram’s Funeral Home

and 58 per cent of D&P Quality Builders. Locations of theholdings weren’t listed. He receives a salary from the funeralhome and Birchview Manor.

Grit Kelvin Parsons and his wife own 270 acres of undevel-oped land in McDougall’s Gultch near the Codroy Valley anda joint interest in the commercial property rental firm DocksideRealties. His wife also draws a salary from Dockside.

Roger Grimes Paul Daly/The Independent

“There is an element oftrust there that theyaren’t withholding

anything and if I seesomething that isinconsistent with

previous statementsthen I raise questions.”

Wayne Green

Loyola Hearn

Financial foot draggingSeven MHAs late in handing over financial statements —including Roger Grimes

Truax and six other OPP officersreturned to Ontario on April 25 andhave plans to return this month.

Deering says he’ll investigate theforce and find out who’s leakinginformation.

Meantime, Marie Hayes, a recordstechnician, was charged with threecounts of breech of trust and onecount of obstruction of justice as aresult of the force becoming aware ofher leaking information to anunnamed person. She appeared incourt on April 29.

Hayes was released from custodyand is suspended with pay. She willappear in court again on May 24. It isnot known whether the charge againstHaynes relates to the OPP investiga-tion.

INTERVIEW EXCERPTS

In an April 28 interview withreporters from The Independent andCBC Radio, Royal NewfoundlandConstabulary Chief Richard Deeringmade clear that officers who provideinformation to the press are breakingan oath. Reporters who encourageofficers to provide information areaccomplices. The following are sever-al excepts from Deering’s interview:

Deering: “If you want to use confi-dential sources within the departmentthat’s your business. It’s problematicand frustrating for me because inessence what you’re doing, and youknow the media are very good at this,they want to hold us to a certain stan-dard, they want to hold us account-able for the way they conduct them-selves, but on the other hand theywant to participate in illegal activity.

“You want to participate and co-operate with police officers who arebreaching their oath of conduct, theiroath of office, their oath of confiden-tiality in the Royal NewfoundlandConstabulary Act and I sit back as thechief of police and say you can’t haveit both ways.

“Either you are going to hold usaccountable and rightfully so, andmake us live to a certain standard, and

you’re going to refrain from partici-pating in this kind of stuff.”

•••Deering: “This insistence of get-

ting to the bottom of this whole pros-titution thing, in my view, is ridicu-lous, because I can tell you with cer-tainty that this prostitution file fin-ished two years ago. It’s been subject-ed to three independent reviews, twointernally and one externally — it’sover.”

•••Deering: “You’ve talked about so

many — who are your sources? Whoare you talking to in the RNC? Whoare you talking to in the RNC?”

Reporter: “I can’t reveal mysources.”

Deering: “Why can’t you? Soyou’re condoning their conduct — isthat what you’re saying? You’re con-doning police officers who live out-side of their oath of office and oath of

confidentiality — is that what you’retelling me?”

Reporter: “Sir, when it comes toprostitution in the city …”

Deering: “No answer my question,answer my question, are you tellingme that you condone that sort ofactivity and that you’re going to par-ticipate in it?”

Reporter: “Sir we follow a stan-dard set of guidelines and ethics …”

Deering: “So tell me, what’s you’re

ethical line on this you tell me.”Reporter: “We, will not reveal our

sources.”Deering: “Well I’ll tell you what

then, how many do you have two, 20,100 I don’t know.”

•••Deering: “I wanted to sit down

with you and be upfront and say Idon’t know who your sources are andto be very frank, I don’t care. I docare, that’s not true, because whatyour insistence has prompted me todo now is to open an internal file tofind out who is corrupt in this depart-ment in terms of leaking information.And I’ll give you a guarantee it willtake us a while, but we will get to thebottom of it.

“At that point in time maybe bothof you (reporters) will have youropportunity to explain your ethicspolicy in front of someone besides thechief of police. I don’t know.”

•••Reporter: “When it comes to pros-

titution in the city, how bad is it?”Deering: “Is there prostitution in

this city? Yes, is it a concern? Yes.”Reporter: “Do we have a vice

squad looking into this?”Deering: “We have investigations

ongoing here at any given time andfor me to sit down and tell you specif-ically what they are is counterproduc-tive in terms of what we’re trying toaccomplish. I don’t have an obligationto explain to the media every investi-gation that we’re involved in. In fact,it would be inappropriate for me to doso because sometimes these investiga-tions take on an undercover compo-nent an undercover aspect.

Reporter: Why have there been sofew prostitution charges laid?

Deering: “The laws are pretty spe-cific in what you can and can’t chargefor and if you’re following what hap-pens in the media, and I’m sure youare, there’s a huge debate going on inwhat’s happening in some of the stripclubs downtown and unfortunately,from my perspective, I think the lawsdon’t perhaps have the teeth that wewould like them to have.”

•••Reporter: Have any of the officers

been suspended or put on probation?Deering: “No, none. You know I

just have to sit back and say you folksamaze me. You want to hold us to astandard, but you want to be part andparcel of the corruption that goes onin society and particularly in policedepartments.

“You want us to conduct ourselvesat a very high level, but you want toaccept information from people whowant to be corrupt in the policedepartment. I just say you can’t haveit both ways. What do you want? Doyou want to be part of the solution ordo you want to be part of the prob-lem?”

10 • INDEPENDENTNEWS MAY 1, 2005

Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Chief Richard Deering and Staff Sgt. June Layden answer reporters’ questions April 28 regarding an OPP investigation.

From page 1

On the record with Chief Deering

Paul Daly/The Independent

INDEPENDENTWORLDSUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, MAY 1-7, 2005 — PAGE 11

Putin putting around old Soviet policies NEW YORK

What is Vladimir Putin up toin the Middle East? Lastweek’s trip by the Russian

leader to Egypt, Israel and Palestinemarked an historic crossroads forMoscow as well as the region. NikitaKhruschchev was the last Moscowsupremo to visit Egypt — over 30years ago — and this was the first timeever a Kremlin boss set foot on Israelisoil, even though Moscow was amongthe first nations to recognize Israel.

In Israel, Putin got red carpet treat-ment: a military guard, lunch withIsraeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

(who informed Putin that he was“among brothers”), and meetings withreligious leaders of all faiths. To under-score the brotherly theme, Putin hadscheduled a meeting with Red Armyveterans – Russian Jews who were partof the huge emigration to Israel follow-ing the Soviet Union’s collapse in1991.

That emigration explains at least part

of the visit. An estimated 1.5 millionIsraelis — more than 20 per cent ofIsrael’s population — are of recentRussian origin; and Russian culture,attitudes and even criminality (thanksto the branch operations of someRussian mafia groups) permeate Israelisociety.

But it also puts a stamp on one of themore interesting foreign policy maneu-vers of post-Soviet Russia. For muchof the Cold War, Moscow was anunabashed ally of the Arab world, set-ting itself squarely against Israeli poli-cies. But the Putin government in par-ticular has embraced Jerusalem forboth domestic and external reasons: to

demonstrate its opposition to anti-semitism at home, and to make a com-mon cause with Israel in the battleagainst Islamic terrorism.

The early honeymoon betweenMoscow and Jerusalem turned sour,however, mostly because of Russia’scontinuing efforts to maintain lucrativearms export and oil connections withArab countries like Syria and Iraq.Israelis greeted Putin with temperedcynicism.

“In the world of realpolitik — ofwhich Putin is a master practitioner —it is hard to accept that his (policy)redirection arises only from a desire tobe fair and right a historical wrong,”

observed The Jerusalem Post.In fact, “realpolitik” is the founda-

tion of Putin’s Middle East journey.When he touched down in Cairo, Putinproposed holding a Middle East peaceconference in Moscow next fall fol-lowing Israel’s scheduled withdrawalfrom Gaza. The conference would sup-posedly revive the road-map peaceprocess of the early 1990s, in whichRussia along with the so-called “quar-tet” of the United States, the EuropeanUnion and the United Nations acted asguarantors.

Not surprisingly, only the Pales-

See “Arms exports” page 13

For Harper, snap vote now trickierThe face of a chameleon government remains to be seen

By Chantal HebertThe Toronto StarOTTAWA

The hand on the ticking federal electionclock may just have been moved back.At the very least, the NDP/Liberal budg-

et deal puts the election ball squarely in StephenHarper’s court.

The bargain struck between Jack Layton andPaul Martin impacts first and foremost on theoptics of a swift execution of the minority gov-ernment.

Indeed, notwithstanding NDP claims to thecontrary, the most immediate consequence ofthe recent budget deal-making has more to dowith raw politics than with public policy.

Yes, an upcoming round of corporate tax cutswill be partly cancelled. But those cuts wereonly going to kick in in 2008, beyond the life ofthe current government under even the mostoptimistic Liberal scenarios.

Nothing will prevent whoever is in powerafter the next election — and since we got theprime minister’s word there will be a vote 10months from now at the latest — from reinvest-ing in corporate tax relief.

And yes, more money will trickle into the

social and the environment budgets betweennow and then, although much of it at first onlyon paper.

A sizeable chunk of the money Martin agreedto reinvest would only be spent after Canadianshave gone to the polls.

If Martin is re-elected, one can only assumehe will follow through on his commitments toLayton.

But if the Liberals lose power to theConservatives, a Tory government will hardlybe bound by the deathbed promises of the cur-rent one.

In the face of this, Harper can still, if he wantsto, set out to force a spring election.

With the help of just one independent MP, theConservatives and the Bloc Québécois — if alltheir MPs show up — would have enough votesto topple Martin. That goes even if the NDPshores Martin up — as it will, for the foreseeablefuture.

The defeat of the minority government couldhappen on one of the handful of confidencemotions the Conservatives have already intro-duced in case they decide to bring Martin downlater this month.

Or defeat could come on the next budget votesince the changes brought about basically

ensure the Conservatives can no longer supportit.

But Harper will have to keep a finger on thepulse of public opinion before making a finaldecision because the deal does make the swifttoppling of the government lesspoliticallypalat-able for his party.

Polls already show that a strong majority ofCanadians would be just as happy to wait untilnext winter to pronounce on the Martin govern-ment.

Andthen,Martinhasalreadytakentoconnect-ing the dots of a Conservative-Bloc Québécoisallianceandtheissueofnationalunity.AsHarperknows, the budget deal will make it easier to por-tray his party as one more interested in partisangain than in the country’s future.

The Liberal/NDP agreement ensures that, ifthe Conservative leader wants to defeat the gov-ernment this spring, he will have to go it alonewith the Bloc.

It could be that the mood of the country hassoured beyond the salvation point for theLiberals and this deal will only make thingsworse.

Butuntil theduston that settles, the immediatewinner isLaytonwhosawachance tomakehim-self relevant to the election discussion without

having to give the Liberals an open-ended leaseon life.

Bypromisingtocallanelectionwithin30daysof the December report on the sponsorship scan-dal,Martinhimselfputanexpirydateonhisgov-ernment.

As for the prime minister, while he is hardlyhome and dry yet, he now has a chance to live tofight another day — and maybe even the fewmonths he so desperately wants.

Inexchange though,Martinhas turnedabudg-et originally crafted to suit Conservatives to onemade to order for the NDP.

That may yet come at a price in the ballot box.In the dying days of last year’s campaign,

Martin appealed to the left-minded voters toshore up his flagging support.

But thosewhoultimatelymadethebiggestdif-ference to last June’s election outcome were thesmall-c conservatives who went with theLiberals rather than buy into the newConservative party.

Whether these make-or-break voters will feelcomfortable doing so again in the face of achameleon government remains to be seen.

ReprintedwithpermissionfromtheTorontoStar.

STEPHENHANDELMANGlobal context

NDP leader Jack Layton and Prime Minister Paul Martin meet in St. John’s during the 2004 federal election. Paul Daly/The Independent

12 • INDEPENDENTWORLD MAY 1, 2005

By Bryan K. ManningFor the Independent

Editor’s note: Bryan Manning is teach-ing English as a second language at theAmerican Language Centre in Aden,Yemen. The Middle East country, with apopulation of nearly 20 million, borderson Saudi Arabia. “I always wanted totravel and work in Yemen as it wasabout as exotic and unknown as anycountry I could imagine — and it cer-tainly lived up to that part of its reputa-tion,” he says.

Manning says virtually everyone car-ries Kalasnikovs (Russian assaultrifles), and there are an average of threeweapons in every household, “however,the crime rate is comparatively low…and violent crime is basically non-exis-tent as we know it in the West.”

He describes the law of the tribe,which governs the land outside thecities, and is currently at the root of oneterritorial war. “All this is pretty fasci-nating to live amongst,” he says. “AndI don’t regret my decision to come herefor a minute, despite the Third Worldliving conditions.”

Manning submitted the followingpiece from his home in Aden.

Too often in Yemen, the newstakes the form of hair-raisingheadlines that read like warning

labels on caches of TNT: Threat levelrises for Westerners in Yemen, warnsembassy. One would swear the very airin Yemen is laced with mustard gas.

Can a place be so incorrigible in itssupposed barbarism towards outsiders?Embarrassed as I am to admit it, I morethan entertained — or should I say swal-lowed — this preposterous media myth.

It is hard not to succumb to thedescription of Yemen (tainted andskewed as it is) we Westerners receive.For the sources — foreign media andgovernment alarmism and opportunism— make clever and convincing bedfel-lows.

There is no viable alternative to thesenews sources, barring uprooting oneselfand making contact with actual Yemenipeople, in Yemen. Not an option formost, I would think.

And so the truth of life in the MiddleEast, and in Yemen specifically, isreplaced by fallacy: that life as a for-eigner, notably a British or Americancitizen, is inherently fraught with immi-nent danger.

Cue the chorus line of weatheredclichés. Fundamentalists and Islamicextremists will target you for assault,maiming, and possibly murder. If youmake it through that nasty gauntletmore harrowing peril awaits — kidnap-ping.

I was once informed by a CanadianIslamic scholar the kidnapping rate hasescalated to “cottage industry” status.Not surprisingly, he had never set footin any part of Yemen but was sure thestatistics (more likely lore) held true.What hope is left if even the learnedamongst us are being sucked in?

Whatever the reason, be it nerve-

wracked governments, ill-advised indi-viduals, or myopic journalists, theworld perception of Yemen is plainlyfalse, and painfully outdated.

As a working citizen of Aden I seedanger, not in the streets and alleyways— chaotic as they are — but in a webspun from beyond Yemeni and MiddleEastern demarcations.

The web’s orb is fixed over theMiddle East and its spin-doctors arebusily at work here in Yemen. Itsstrands connect to North American andEuropean media corporations.

The message — Yemen is unsafe —is derived from the news, recycled bythem ad infinitum and mass produceduntil the stories’ origin is virtually for-gotten.

You need only reference the researchof American Will Hutchison on con-trasting images of Yemen and Americato begin to see the double-standard inreporting. An example: in Kansas City,population 440,000, a person is 97times more likely to be a victim of acrime than in Sanaa, the capital city ofYemen.

At the core of this epic blunder incommunication between the West andthe East is a thirst for sensationalismwhich demands a divorce from ethics.If they negatively sensationalizeYemen, you will not come. And theviewer ratings of a major broadcastingstation grow.

If they condemn the country as ahaven for al Qaeda, then you may dis-miss it soundly enough to malign it out-right.

This is the all too concrete and neg-lected crisis facing the national psycheof Yemen. It is a stake to the heart ofkey industries — culture and tourism-related promotion, and foreign businessinvestment to name a few — alreadystruggling to get on their feet in thecountry.

While the rest of the world reaps theexposure and profits of the global travelphenomenon, Yemen crouches in anarcing shadow of bad publicity.

Sadly, those who lead the charge inthis campaign of misinformation fail toconsider its social and economic ramifi-cations, the insidious and demoralizingconsequences that hurt the dignity of anentire nation.

It is about time this media assaultchanged from accusatory to account-able. Then, at last, some semblance ofthe real picture of life in Yemen canshow itself.

Then maybe the outside world, solong misled by spin-doctors and propa-ganda, will start to see the genuineYemen. And foreigners like myself andcountless others can stop chastising our-selves for not coming to this refreshing-ly uncommon country sooner.

The truth about Yemen can be as sub-limely vivid as a sunset over ElephantBay — just don’t look for it on theevening news.

Do you know a Newfoundlander orLabradorian living away? Please con-tact the Independent at editorial@thein-dependent.ca

The news in YemenNewfoundlander Bryan Manning frustrated by world’s view of country he’s grown to appreciate

VOICEFROMAWAY

Yemeni Ahmed Abdullah al-Abrash jumps over a row of six camels, approximately three metres in length and three metres long, during theYemeni Traditional Sports Festival in 2004 in the city of Zabid, 200 kilometres southwest of the capital Sanaa. The event was organized by thegovernment for the first time in 2004 and will now be held yearly in Zabid. AFP/Khaled FAZAA

Australia to closedrug dealer taxloophole CANBERRA (Reuters) —Australia’s government is trying toclose a tax loophole that allowed adrug dealer to claim a tax deductionon hundreds of thousands of dollarsstolen from him during a heroin deal.

Drug dealer Francesco DominicoLa Rosa buried more than $220,000($172,000 US) in his backyard in1995 and dug it up again to buy hero-in, but the cash was stolen during thedrug deal.

La Rosa spent six years in jail forheroin importation and possession.

Treasurer Peter Costello says in-come tax law amendments woulddeny deductions for losses and outgo-ings related to an indictable offencefor which the taxpayer had been con-victed. Deductions would also be re-fused for expenditure on illegal activ-ities.

Under Australian law, incomeearned from illegal activity can besubjected to income tax. The HighCourt of Australia ruled in Octoberthat if illegal income is subjected totax, then losses should be deductible.

“At the time of the High Court’sdecision, I said I was not satisfiedwith that outcome and that I wouldseek to introduce legislation tochange that law,” Costello says in astatement.

The October ruling ended a 10-year battle between La Rosa and theAustralian Tax Office, which arguedthe tax deduction was against goodpublic policy.

No frogs in blenders for PeruLIMA, Peru (Reuters) — Peruvianofficials saved some 4,000 endan-gered frogs from being whizzed intopopular drinks after they were foundhidden in an abattoir.

“We were checking the fridgeswhen out jumped a frog. It hadescaped, they were in big crates,” aspokesman for Lima city hall says.

Frog cocktails are popular in theAndes because of their supposedaphrodisiac qualities. Shops in cen-tral Lima selling the drinks havetanks where customers can choosetheir frogs.

He says the telmatobius frogs —which had apparently been broughtfrom the southern lakes in the highAndes — were found stored in theabattoir.

They were taken to a colonial foun-tain in central Lima to splash aroundbefore being returned to their nativelakes by ecological police.

“There were about 5,000 of them

but 1,000 died because of the condi-tions and in transit.”

Interrogations fakedat Guantanamo, witness says NEW YORK (Reuters) —Authorities at Guantanamo Baystaged interrogations of detainees forvisiting politicians and generals togive the impression valuable intelli-gence was regularly being gathered,according to a former Army translatorat the camp.

Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar toldCBS television show 60 Minutes thathe believes “only a few dozen” of the600 detainees at the camp were ter-rorists and that little information wasobtained from them.

“Interrogations were set up so theVIPs could come and witness aninterrogation ... a mock interrogation,basically,” Saar tells the program,which airs Sunday, April 1.

“They would find a detainee thatthey knew to have been cooperative.They would ask the interrogator to go

back over the same information,” hesays, calling it “a fictitious world”created for the visitors.

Saar worked at Guantanamo fromDecember 2002 to June 2003.

U.S. Southern Command spokes-man Col. David McWilliams says themilitary allows visiting politiciansand others who need to understandthe process to view interrogations,but insisted, “We do not stage interro-gations for VIP visits.”

Saar also recalled interrogationtechniques he witnessed at Guan-tanamo, including one previouslyreported incident where a female offi-cer behaved in an overtly sexual fash-ion while interrogating a devoutMuslim, at one point smearing inkwhich she told the detainee was hermenstrual blood on his face.

McWilliams declined to commenton that claim, saying it was similar toanother incident detailed in leakedFBI memos that are the subject of amilitary investigation.

Saar writes about his time at thecamp in the book Inside the Wire: AMilitary Intelligence Soldier’s Eye-witness Account of Life at Guan-tanamo, to be published this week byPenguin.

By Jeff DucharmeThe Independent

The Canadian ambassador to Icelandsays both nations share a common foewhen it comes to fishing abuses on the

high seas — Spain and Portugal.Richard Tetu was in St. John’s recently to

work on a number of issues, the fishery beingthe most critical, that he believes Newfound-land and Labrador and Iceland could workclosely on.

“It’s a problem that is widespread, overfish-ing,” Tetu tells The Independent. “TheIcelanders ... it’s the same thing they are con-cerned (about), what the Portuguese or what theSpaniards have been doing at times and we allshare the same concerns.”

The career diplomat says the traditionalmethod of tackling high-seas overfishing —diplomacy and negotiations — have yet toachieve substantial results.

“We are at a point … where if we don’t talkabout it more seriously, yes, in five years fromnow it could make a difference. And we want toavoid that and everyone I’m sure wants toavoid that, it would be against our own inter-ests, all concerns.”

Ministers from 18 nations will be in St.John’s this week as part of The Conference onthe Governance of the High Seas Fisheries andthe UN Fish Agreement: Moving from Words toActions.

The Icelandic delegation will be led by thatnation’s Fisheries minister.

“Their minister of Fisheries is a very closeally here and he was one of the first to accept aninvitation to come to this conference,” saysTetu.

For many Newfoundlanders, it’s just anotherconference in a long line of conferences.

“The minute you don’t talk anymore, ofcourse, it leads to confrontation.”

Tetu says he understands the frustrationsconcerning foreign overfishing that have ledsome critics to call for definitive action, includ-ing Canada taking custodial management of theentire continental shelf.

“We’re totally of the same view that we haveto take all measures we can to counter overfish-ing, to better manage what is there, whatremains there.”

Icelanders, he says, “take every opportunity”to remind nations such Spain and Portugal theyhave to change their ways.

With a population of just under 300,000 peo-ple and on an island in the north Atlantic,Icelanders have faced many of the same fish-ery-based issues that face this province. Thetiny island nation is regularly pointed to as anexample to follow when it comes to managinga fishery.

“Some communities are less profitable thanothers so there is less fishery ... they’ve sort ofregrouped,” says Tetu. “They got together anddid something together.”

Fewer and fewer Icelanders work in the fish-ery, says Tetu. Many have taken advantage ofthe country’s free-education system and movedaway from the traditional way of life — fishing.

Icelandic boats are increasingly crewed byforeigners, primarily those from the BalticStates, he says. Tetu shuns charges that some ofthose foreign crews are the very ones puttingthe stocks at risk because they refuse to followquotas, or fish for species under moratoria.

“That I would doubt, because the control isstill exercised by the Icelanders at the end of theday,” says Tetu.

Like many people from outportNewfoundland who have followed the oil boonto St. John’s, Icelanders have also moved to thecapital of Reykjavik in search of jobs outsidethe fishery.

“I see similarities here in a sense that St.John’s now is more and more the centre.”

MAY 1, 2005 INDEPENDENTWORLD • 13

‘A common foe’Newfoundland and Iceland share the same enemy when it comes to overfishing

Petro-Canada is proud to support the development of Petro-Canada Hall, a new rehearsal and

performance facility at Memorial University’s School of Music. Combining arts and education

is more than good business – it’s music to our ears.

Part of your community.

stories from here

www.petro-canada.ca

stories from here

Canadian ambassador to Iceland Richard Tetu. Paul Daly/The Independent

tinians welcomed the idea. For everyoneelse involved in that much-discountedprocess, the road map is yesterday’sidea. In Arab capitals, Jerusalem and inWashington, things have moved on.

Nevertheless, Putin’s attempt to re-insert Moscow into Middle East diplo-macy can’t be easily ignored. Arabcountries are privately eager for some-thing to balance Washington’s increas-ingly monopolistic command of politi-cal developments in the region, even ifRussia’s power to make its voice is farfrom what it was.

In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarakseized almost with relief on Putin’s com-ment that “democracy can’t be export-ed” to the Middle East from the outside.That was a mild swipe at Washingtonpolicymakers who are trumpeting theiroverthrow of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein asa message to all Arab leaders to reformor get out of the way.

That suddenly makes Moscow a use-ful foil. So does Russia’s continuedpresence as an arms exporter. Recentannouncements of sales of short-range

missiles to Syria and a plan to providePalestinians with armoured vehicles hasunnerved both Israel and Washington.Putin took pains to say he has no inten-tion of inflaming tensions in the area. Heeven let it be known the had cancelledthe sale of problematic longer-rangemissiles to Syria. And he has made com-mon cause with Israel against thenuclear ambitions of Iran, with whomMoscow has a long-established programof technical nuclear assistance.

“We are not changing the balance ofpower in the region,” Putin insisted.“Israel has no problem there.”

Maybe not. But Putin and Russia haslittle else to offer right now except armsand an alternative diplomacy.

As Russia determinedly begins to re-empower itself as a foreign policy play-er, after a decade in the wilderness, thosefactors will be increasingly hard to dis-miss.

Stephen Handelman is a columnist forTIME Canada based in New York. He canbe reached at shandel@ix.netcom.com. Hisnext column for The Independent willappear Sunday, May 15.

Arms exports and oil connections

WORLDINBRIEF

From page 11

Osama bin Ladennot quite dead yet

DUBAI (Reuters) — A posting on an Islamistwebsite which appeared to report the death of alQaeda leader Osama bin Laden was misleading,the full text of the Internet article makes clear.

The posting on a website often used byIslamists began by saying there was news binLaden had died but then went on to say the fugi-tive militant could die at any time and Muslimsshould be prepared.

The unidentified author appeared to be tryingto attract readers to his posting with the headlinereporting bin Laden’s death. There was no evi-dence bin Laden had died.

N. Korea reactorshutdown problematicfor talks: U.S.SEOUL (Reuters) — The United States believesNorth Korea may be trying to harvest materialfor a nuclear bomb from a shut-down reactor, thechief U.S. negotiator to stalled nuclear talkssays, and adds that would be “problematic.”

“The plutonium reactor at Yongbyon has notbeen running going on three weeks,” saysChristopher Hill, U.S. assistant secretary ofState. “There could be an effort to reprocess(nuclear material).”

Hill told reporters after meeting with SouthKorean officials the reactor shutdown and thepossibility of a North Korean nuclear test were ofgreat concern to powers trying to coax NorthKorea to give up its atomic programmes throughsix-party talks.

“To go ahead and have a nuclear test at a timethe six-party talks are in abeyance I think wouldbe very troubling for the talks,” Hill says.“Efforts to harvest plutonium at a time the NorthKorean side is simply boycotting the talks wouldalso be very problematic for the talks.”

Hill says patience in Washington is wearingthin on the North Korean nuclear issue, but says“we are not abandoning the six-party process.”

Proliferation experts say the north may havealready harvested enough fissile material to pro-duce six to eight plutonium bombs.

Earlier this month, U.S. newspapers reportedNorth Korea had stepped up activity at a siteWashington believes can be used for an under-ground atomic test.

The last round of the six-party nuclear discus-sions — which bring together the two Koreas,Japan, China, Russia and the United States —was held in June 2004.

Norwegian court con-victs first woman forrapeOSLO (Reuters) A Norwegian court has sen-tenced a woman to nine months in jail for rapinga man, the first such conviction in theScandinavian country that prides itself for itsegalitarianism.

The 31-year-old man fell asleep on a sofa at aparty in January last year and told the court in thewestern city of Bergen he woke to find the 23-year-old woman was having oral sex with him.

Under Norwegian law, all sexual acts withsomeone who is “unconscious or for other rea-sons unable to oppose the act” are consideredrape.

The court sentenced the woman to ninemonths in jail and ordered her to pay 40,000Norwegian crowns ($6,355 US) in compensa-tion.

The woman argued the man had been awakeand consented.

Doomsayers say Benedictfits world end prophecyROME (Reuters) — Pope Benedict’s ascent tothe papacy took a conclave of 115 cardinals, fourrounds of voting and followed a lifetime of serv-ice to the Vatican.

But ask Internet doomsayers eyeing a 12thcentury Catholic prophecy and they’ll tell you itwas all stitched up more than eight centuries agoand that judgment day is nigh.

The prophecy — widely dismissed by scholarsas a hoax — is attributed to St. Malachy, an Irisharchbishop recognized by members of thechurch for his ability to read the future.

Benedict, believers say, fits the description ofthe second-to-last pope listed under the prophe-cy before the Last Judgement, when the biblesays God separates the wicked from the right-eous at the end of time.

“The Old Testament states: ‘believe hisprophets and you will prosper’ — so believe it.We are close to the return of the judge of thenations. Christ is coming,” wrote one Internetpost by the Rev. Pat Reynolds.

14 • INDEPENDENTWORLD MAY 1, 2005

WORLDINBRIEF

ROME Reuters

APolish priest accused of spying on thelate Pope John Paul said he had takenmoney provided by a suspected secret

service agent, but denied he had been a spy. “I was never an agent. You can call me fool-

ish or naive, but not a spy,” Father KonradHejmo said in comments published in Italiannewspaper La Repubblica.

A Polish state agency overseeing commu-nist-era files says Hejmo, who looked afterPolish pilgrims coming to the Vatican forsome 20 years and had access to John Paul II,informed on the Polish-born pontiff during the1980s.

Hejmo says a Polish agent based inCologne, Germany, had come to Rome short-ly after John Paul became pope in 1978 andhad befriended a number of Polish priests.

“This agent also gave me money via thepriests,” Hejmo told La Repubblica, addingthat the agent had died of cancer.

Hejmo did not specify why he thought hewas given the money. The paper quoted him assaying he was hard-up and “there were kind-hearted priests who gave me money.”

The Vatican has declined comment on theaffair.

The Polish National RemembranceInstitute, which oversees and carries outresearch into the communist files, says it hadevidence Hejmo was a conscious informer ofthe SB security service.

The SB tried to infiltrate the church in the1980s over its support for the Polish anti-com-munist opposition, led by the then-bannedSolidarity movement.

The Polish Catholic Church has demanded athorough investigation into the accusations.

The allegation dismayed many Poles. Thepope, who died on April 2, was revered in hishomeland as an unrivalled moral guide andplayed a major role in bringing down commu-nism in Poland and across central Europe.

Hejmo’s religious order, the Dominicans,says their Polish chief Father Maciej Ziebawould travel to Rome this week to talk to thepriest.

John Paul had links with the democraticopposition while an archbishop in Krakow in1960s and 1970s. His election as Pope in 1978sparked a national awakening that resulted inthe birth of Solidarity two years later.

Priest took money, but denies spying on pope

MAY 1, 2005 INDEPENDENTWORLD • 15

16 • INDEPENDENTWORLD MAY 1, 2005

F O R M O R E I N F O R M A T I O N C A L L

1.866.686.8100humbervalley.com

Prem

ier S

oc

cer Camp

A ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY FOR YOUR KIDS.A WONDERFUL RETREAT FOR YOU.

TThis summer former Premier League soccer star Ian Marshall

and visiting professional English coaches will be offering an exclusive Humber Valley

Resort soccer camp. For $1999* you and your family can stay at a luxurious Humber

Valley chalet for five nights and enroll two children in the camp. All aspects of soccer

will be covered and each child receives a jersey, ball, and water bottle.

We'll also throw in two rounds of golf on the resort's championship River Course. With

activities for the whole family ranging from kayaking to cave exploring, resort restaurants

and bars, and accommodations that have everything you want, come experience

Newfoundland tourism as you've never seen it before.

* ALL TAXES EXTRA.

IAN MARSHALL

Venezuela, Cuba forge anti-U.S. allianceHAVANAReuters

Oil exporter Venezuela has drawn closer to Cuba byestablishing subsidiaries of its state oil companyPetroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and a government

bank on the Communist-run island. Presidents Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, who are seeking

to build an alternative to the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area ofthe Americas — from which Cuba is excluded — attended thelaunchings in an upbeat mood.

“We are very pleased. This is a historic day,” says Castro,78, dressed in his customary military uniform.

Chavez was just as pleased.“We have been building this brick by brick, like a house,”

says Chavez.The left-wing leaders tasted sardines and chocolate at a fair

where Venezuelan businesses sold $412 million in products toCuba with the help of Venezuelan export credits. The goods,including toys, car tires, clothes, shoes, sports equipment andbuilding materials, will enter Cuba tariff-free.

Castro declared the FTAA dead in a three-hour speech inwhich he said the U.S. proposal for a single free-trade bloc ofthe Americas was an “anexionist plan” aimed at plunderingLatin American resources.

“What’s left of the FTAA is just pieces, bilateral agree-ments,” Castro says of the hemispheric free-trade plan, whichhas met with growing resistance in Latin American societiesdisillusioned with the promises of free-market capitalism.

In the last five years, Venezuela has become a vital eco-nomic lifeline for Cuba’s cash-starved government, partlyfilling the void left by the Soviet Union’s collapse with vitalsupplies of oil on very favorable terms.

OIL FOR DOCTORS Cuba is paying for the estimated $1 billion a year oil bill

with medical and educational services. Officials say 30,000Cuban doctors and medical personnel are working inVenezuela.

The partnership is viewed with suspicion in Washingtonwhere Bush administration officials see a conspiracy againstU.S. interests in Latin America. Venezuela, the world’s fifthlargest oil exporter, is a major source of energy for the UnitedStates.

PDVSA will make Havana the headquarters for itsCaribbean oil refining and distribution plans. It signed anagreement with the Cuban oil company Cupet to build a lubri-cants plant in Cuba.

The Venezuelan company is also looking at building asuper-tanker shipping terminal and a storage facility with a600,000 barrels a day capacity at Matanzas, east of Havana,and the completion of a Soviet-built oil refinery inCienfuegos.

PDVSA will consider off-shore exploration in Cuba’s Gulfof Mexico waters, where Spain’s Repsol YPF last year dis-covered a noncommercial deposit of good quality oil.

The two countries further agreed to undertake joint nickeland cobalt mining projects, improve communications andstep up air and shipping links.

Venezuela increased oil shipments to Cuba to 80,000-90,000 barrels per day (bpd), Venezuelan Oil Minister RafaelRamirez says.

Since 2000, Venezuela has officially supplied Cuba with53,000 bpd of crude and refined products, but exports haverisen since Chavez’s consolidation of power.

The Bush administration’s former point-man for LatinAmerica, Otto Reich, accused Chavez of using Venezuela’soil wealth to prop up Castro.

“We have to be careful that our home, the WesternHemisphere, is not undermined through political warfareguided by a couple of self-described revolutionaries who alsolead increasingly failed states,” Reich said in a Miamispeech.

MIAMI Reuters

AU.S. military jury has sentenced anArmy sergeant to death for killing twoofficers in a grenade and rifle attack

on his comrades in Kuwait two years ago, mil-itary officials say.

Sgt. Hasan Akbar, a former member of the101st Airborne Division, was found guilty aweek ago on two counts of premeditated mur-der and three counts of attempted premeditat-ed murder after a trial at Fort Bragg, N.C.

The trial is subject to review by a high rank-

ing military officer, who could approve thesentence or reduce it, officials say. After thatreview, the case will be automaticallyappealed to higher U.S. military courts.

The last time a U.S. soldier faced a court-martial for murdering a comrade in wartimewas during the Vietnam War and the last mili-tary execution was in 1961.

“Sgt. Hasan Akbar was sentenced to deathby a military panel here,” Fort Bragg officialssaid in a written statement.

The charges stemmed from a nighttimeattack at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait onMarch 23, 2003, as 101st Airborne soldiers

awaited orders to move into Iraq at the start ofthe war. Akbar was accused of rollinggrenades into soldiers’ tents and firing a rifle atthose who emerged.

Cpt. Christopher Seifert and Maj. GregoryStone were killed and 14 others were wound-ed.

Akbar’s mother and military lawyers sayAkbar snapped in the face of relentless ridiculeof his Muslim faith and harassment by fellowsoldiers, according to a published report.

Akbar had faced three possible sentences:death, life in prison with the possibility ofparole or life without parole.

U.S. soldier sentenced to death for killing comrades

INDEPENDENTLIFESUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, MAY 1-7, 2005 — PAGE 17

LIVYERS

‘Breaking the ice’By Clare-Marie GosseThe Independent

As someone who not only con-vinced his newly-wed wifeto live with him in a shack-

like house in the Arctic, but managedto make the experience a fond one,Jack Clark proves he’s not a man tostray from a challenge.

It’s a quality that has taken thishonourary Newfoundlander (original-ly from Ontario) from developing anArctic gas pipeline through to south-ern Canada and the United States, toadvising on underwater structures foroffshore projects such as Hibernia.

Clark’s work as a geotechnicalengineer, which entails understanding

the earth’s crust and how to build withit and on it, has led to national recog-nition.

Already a recipient of the Order ofCanada, Clark will be awarded aCanadian Engineer’s Gold MedalAward in a May 14 ceremony inRegina, Sask. The medal is consid-ered the most prestigious award forengineering in the country.

“It came out of the blue and it’svery exciting for it to happen,” Clarktells The Independent, “but I alwaysthink, ‘Geez, I know about 30 peoplemore deserving.’”

Clark and his family lived nearCalgary for almost 30 years beforemaking their home in Newfoundlandand Labrador in 1984. Now retired at

72, Clarke still travels to Alberta andB.C. for consulting work; which iswhere he is now.

“I’ve still got a lot of people that forsome reason will still hire me,” hesays over the phone. “I don’t do full-time by any means and I turn down afair bit, but between Alberta and BC,I’m working on a number of proj-ects.”

Clark and his wife Joan (a well-published local author) found them-selves “lured” to Newfoundlandwhen Clark was offered a job as headof St. John’s-based C-CORE (TheCentre for Cold Ocean ResourcesEngineering). C-CORE provides

Jack Clark is honoured by Adrian Clarkson.See “A unique opportunity,” page 22

By Clare-Marie GosseThe Independent

To the casual, local onlooker,Newfoundland and Labrador may beas grey as ever, but within the old

Pouch Cove Elementary school building,three outsiders are finding the colour.

Tucked away inside the dilapidated, white-washed building — now a residence for visit-ing artists — Scott MacLeod, Gerald Pedrosand Francis Caprani of La Raza Group areliving and working, busy collaborating on avibrant, 40-foot long mural.

The piece, depicting their impressions ofthe essence of Newfoundland and Labrador,is to be featured in an exhibition runningthrough May at the James Baird Gallery onDuckworth Street in St. John’s. The artistswill also show locally-themed pieces of theirown, individual work.

More surprising than La Raza’s unusual,relaxed, collaborative approach, is that thehighly successful trio from the mainland(with roots in Cape Breton, Dublin andEurope) will be donating half of the exhibi-tion’s proceeds to the Janeway Children’s

Hospital. “Everyone, I think, somehow in life, wants

to give something important back,” saysMacLeod, the group’s youngest member.

Since their Montreal beginnings in 1988,La Raza has adopted the concept of using artas a means towards effecting social change,both through the imagery of their work andfundraising.

Among other projects, including organiz-ing food banks and working with AmnestyInternational, the group raised money sellingtheir work to fund half the cost for a new hos-pital in Honduras, South America, in 2003.

“We’re not going to change the world, butwe can change our communities or the com-munities we go visit,” Macleod tells TheIndependent. “So I think that’s the impetusbehind making a living and that obviously hasto translate into cash dollars — and eventual-ly it does.”

Named after a slum area of Mexico City,where the artists worked and exhibited in thelate ’80s, La Raza found themselves inspiredby the public art and murals of severalMexican painters.

The group has since cultivated a loose,

unfettered style, which is visible in the jour-nal-like collage of local history and characterexhibited at the James Baird Gallery.

“Newfoundland has been a place that’salways fascinated us,” says MacLeod, “andthere’s no better way to do it than to actuallycome here … it’s Canada but this really doesfeel like another country. These people are apeople unto themselves.”

Not unlike Caprani, Pedros and MacLeod.As a collaborative piece, elements of each

artist can be found in the mural. Caprani, who is Irish/Italian and married

with three daughters, often deals with spiritu-al themes incorporating women — he has alight, almost ethereal touch.

Pedros (also married with children) has avibrant, bold, style which comes through inhis recreations of icons and images from oldNewfoundland churches.

MacLeod has a personal interest in archeol-ogy, which is demonstrated in images focus-ing on the history of the Beothuks and L’Anseaux Meadows, rendered with his loose, unre-stricted approach.

‘Mother Teresas of the artworld’

Three artists on a mission — not to change the world

— just the smaller communities they

visit like Pouch Cove

Gerald Pedros, Scott MacLeod and Francis Caprani of La Raza Group with some of their pieces. Paul Daly/The Independent

See “Having the goods,” page 19

18 • INDEPENDENTLIFE MAY 1, 2005

Marcus Gosse lives and breathesart. A substitute art teacher, anart tutor and a full-time artist,

Noseworthy is making progress on agrowing career in as many mediums ashe can get his hands on.

Gosse’s Torbay home and studio isfilled with art: mixed media pieces hangnext to soup-can plates designed andsigned by Andy Warhol, and a femininesketch by Salvador Dali.

After seven years painting, he’s still atoddler in the art world compared tomany of the artists — includingNewfoundlanders — who created thework hanging on his walls. Despite thenumber of years he’s been a profession-al artist, his portfolio of work — morethan 2,500 pieces consisting of mixed-media paintings, lino-prints and mixed-metal sculpture — and passion for arthas been drawing a lot of attention.

“I pretty much try to traffic my artwork wherever I can,” Gosse tells TheIndependent.

With five exhibits under his belt andnew representation, Gosse decided tocreate a sketchbook the province canhave a look at. The book, The Island in

Me, including poetry and sketches, willbe released through publisherBreakwater Books in 2007.

Gosse will also be involved in an artauction this month. He says it’s a “priv-ilege” to be to be involved with a newart dealer who not only knows her stuff,but plans on selling his art side by sidewith work by Mary Pratt and DavidBlackwood.

Behind Gosse’s house is what he calls“the barn” — a studio workspace openall summer long. Gosse says he leavesthe door open so the community andtourists can pop by. He admits he’s beenfrightened a few times by people whowalk in unexpected.

Gosse’s main focus in his artwork is

blending his two heritages — Mi’kmaqand Newfoundland — to create a self-described “funky” take on life in theprovince.

“It shows a colourful world ofNewfoundland, not poor and unem-ployed,” he says. “It’s more vibrant artthan what we usually see because we’reused to more traditional art.”

When it comes to realism versusabstract, Gosse doesn’t mince wordsabout the way he mixes the two styles.

He says people see realist work he didin the beginning of his career and havetold him he should do more of it, but hesays the same person can stare at hisabstract work for hours and be “fasci-nated” and not make any comments.

“It looks like a photograph,” he says,pointing to one of his earlier pieces,“but you can buy a photograph any-where.

“I wanted to make NewfoundlandStarry Night,” he says of some laterpieces that depict fishing stages in theblue hue of starlight, similar toPicasso’s famous painting.

Gosse says he’s learned many lessonsfrom world-renowned artists he’sworked with and his art classes atMemorial, but the most important —and the one he’s taught to all of his stu-dents “is to be open to other people’sideas and to know that everyone’s gotan opinion.”

— Alisha Morrissey

The Gallery is a regular feature in The Independent. For information, or to submit proposals, please call (709) 726-4639, or e-mail editorial@theindependent.ca

GALLERYPROFILE

MARCUSGOSSEVisual Artist

“Once (buyers) make their selection,we’re going to have a red pencil andwe’re going to sketch a square and thethree of us will sign it and we’ll put a reddot on it and at the end of the exhibitionthey’ll all be cut out, framed and thengiven,” MacLeod says, explaining howthe 40 foot-long mural will be sold.

The diverse mix of materials andstyles in the collage sums up La Raza’sown versatile approach.

The artists have used oil paints,acrylics, charcoal — “whatever servesthe purpose” — upon a type of thin,plastic, non-absorbent parchment calledmylar.

“It’s a material used by architects …it’s easy to transport, you just roll it up,you don’t necessarily have to frame it …you can almost put anything on it, it’s avery, very forgiving material.”

And it makes for great layering.MacLeod points out a large painting of awoman he began as one of his solo proj-ects. Unhappy with its progress hepassed it along to Caprani, who addedhis own spin — and his own layers.

“That’s how we influence each otherand we kind of have this attitude thatanything’s up for grabs,” says MacLeod.“If someone has a discovery we say, ‘Ohyeah? Show us how to do it.’ It’s sort ofa collective spirit when we do collectiveprojects.”

Caprani, Pedros and MacLeod areundeniably unique within an industrywhere most artists move uncertainlyfrom one paycheque to the next.

“It’s hard to make a living (as anartist),” MacLeod admits, putting LaRaza’s success down to “a combinationof a certain kind of business savvy,knowing how to market and also havingthe goods and being persistent.

“We’re just trying to give back what

we’ve gotten over the years and art is aplatform for change and you can dogood with it.”

Caprani gives his own tongue-in-cheek summary.

“So we’re like the Mother Teresas ofthe art world,” he says with a grin.

MAY 1, 2005 INDEPENDENTLIFE • 19

What did you do for EarthDay? Many of us tossedaway our newspapers and

plastic bottles of water, boarded ourSUVs, and headed for work. You haveto really work at it to honour Earth Dayin Newfoundland.

Environmentalism catches on fasterin places where environments are lesshostile. In these parts April is the cru-elest month — not because spring flow-ers tease us into thinking life goes onforever — but because life is barelyhappening at all.

Well, now it is May and MotherNature’s name is still being taken invain, and for good reason. However,anyone who recently attended a workcalled Rocks On at Eastern EdgeGallery might be thinking a little differ-ently about the planet, even this grey-brown chilly part of it.

The work in question is a form of artthat involves performance. It is literallyoff the wall. Unlike conventional artexperiences, the viewer doesn’t shufflealong a high partition from one framedimage to another, pondering the mean-ing of life in a frozen painted moment oftime. Performance art is happening inreal, not caught, time. This is art that notonly inhabits physical space, but alsofeatures the human activity that goes onwithin it.

It is no accident performance art andEarth Day began at roughly the sametime, in the more socially aware 1970s.The former is a body of work that refus-es to be commodified by the wonky freemarket. You can’t bid on a piece of per-formance art at Sotheby’s. It’s a livingwork, with the breathing creator at itscentre. It’s resolutely anti-elitist, or,ironically, in the word of a popularadvertising campaign, priceless. Whena performance artist dies, whether or nothe has cut off his ear, he takes his workwith him.

Earth Day was also born in the early‘70s, out of a widely shared need tosave the planet from our ignorant pollut-ing selves. Skeptical detractors notwith-standing, it does appear as if the earth isgetting smellier, messier, and warmerevery year. Thirty years ago we thought

the environmental movement was thedomain of a strictly lunatic fringe.Today it is difficult to avoid sharing theguilt over how much waste we con-tribute every day to the global garbagedump.

Both performance art and environ-mentalism have endured as legitimateexpressions of the human condition.And just last week both came togetherelegantly at Eastern Edge in the work ofSarah Stoker, a St. John’s native andfounder of Gutsink Productions Inc., acompany that performs what it believes.Consider its memorably titled work of2000: They cut down trees so you canwipe your ass and blow your nose withthe softest tissues ever.

You won’t find those words hangingbeside a landscape painted by one of theGroup of Seven, now will you?

The most recent work, titled RocksOn, magically transformed the normallybland white space of Eastern EdgeGallery on the harbour front of St.John’s into a nature reserve, turning theplace inside out. The audience was firstled into the darkened space and took aseat somewhere along the walls. Ourattention was directly focused in thecentre of the floor, where Stoker’s tall,pale, androgynous body lay still andpartially smothered in beach rocks.

Wrapped in skin-coloured gauze,Stoker’s outstretched body assumed analmost uncanny serenity, nestled on andcovered by grey-blue stones. Floating insensual billowy curves above her andsuspended from the ceiling were twomassive white sheets onto whichimages of nature were continuously andrhythmically projected. As familiarsounds of sea and air filled the room andthe lights came up ever so slightly,Stoker’s body slowly, gradually, steadi-ly, awakened to the room, as if respond-ing to some ancient siren call.

It is difficult to tell how long the piece

lasted — 15 minutes, possibly more, orless. The performance displaced ourrushed workday sense of time, puttingus in a deeply relaxed mood, in tunewith the ebb and flow of water on abeach, with the cries of gulls and thewhoosh of wind.

Throughout, Stoker lifted her bodyinch by carefully controlled inch out ofthe rocks into a crouching, then a par-tially upright position, and then movedjust as slowly and deliberately backdown to the floor again, to the point atwhich she began, performing a deliber-ate cycle of rising and falling, birth andburial.

Astonishingly, such a simple conceitas a body emerging from and thenreturning to a resting place amongbeach rocks achieved a lasting effect, at

once hypnotic and provocative. There,in the half-light of an imagined space,Stoker’s body was solidly of the earth,briefly detached from it, and restored toit once again.

One of the notable contradictions ofthe performance is that it was enhancedwith technology. The audience inhabit-ed a white-walled room into which largecolourful images of nature were mech-anically projected. Silently and withreverence, we were at first stiff in ourseats, expectant, and ready to submit tothe surprise of Stoker’s choreography.The contrast between the artist’s expres-sion of profound attachment to the earthand our own equally profound alien-ation from it became heavily obvious.

The whole brief luminous exercisenot only made us experience a serene

connection to the natural world, but italso reminded us of our own sorry dis-tance from it.

Art has the ability to make these con-tradictions obvious. Art can remind usof that distance and our own complicityin it. Art can bring us back to somethingwe have forgotten, ignored, or taken forgranted. Indeed, the short-lived experi-ence of Rocks On generated far morepower than the empty repetitive mes-sage about taking the one-tonne chal-lenge.

Performing is obviously so much bet-ter than preaching.

Noreen Golfman is a professor of lit-erature and women’s studies atMemorial University. Her next columnappears May 15.

A living artwork

‘Having the goods and being persistent’

Performance artist Sarah Stoker. Rhonda Hayward/The Independent

From page 17

NOREENGOLFMANStanding room only

20 • INDEPENDENTLIFE MAY 1, 2005

While most sportsemphasize winning,the women’s hockeyleague in St. John’shas taken a different

approach — working hard, making newfriends, and having a good time. WriterDarcy MacRae and photographer RhondaHayward took in a playoff game April 27.This is their report:

There’s a buzz in the air at Prince ofWales Arena in St. John’s. It’s Wednesdayevening, April 27, and there’s an aura ofexcitement when a visitor walks throughthe front doors and sees the flurry of activ-ity on the ice.

The Sport Shop Women’s RecreationalHockey League has begun its year-endtournament with a game between CityHonda and Once Upon a Child. The play-ers on the ice and spectators in the seats areclearly enjoying themselves; their smilesgive it away.

It may be an official playoff game, butthere’s no pressure to win. That’s not whatthis league is about.

“We’re 100 per cent recreational,” saysKelly Piercey, who plays for Glen Collings

Ltd. “We’re about skill building, and hav-ing fun. It’s all about women playing hock-ey, many for the first time.”

The action on the ice may not be drivenby the quest for victory, but it’s still enter-taining. City Honda applies loads of pres-sure on Once Upon A Child goaltenderCrystal Kean early, forcing her to makeseveral key saves. Eventually, Laurie Huntbeats Kean to put her team up 1-0, but justa short time later Once Upon A Child’sKaren O’Neil skates the puck into theattacking zone, weaves around a trio ofdefenders and scores with a quick wristshot to tie the game at one.

As play continues, the friendly nature ofthe contest becomes more obvious. Noplayer is allowed to score more than three

goals in a game, slap shots and diving forlose pucks are not allowed for safety rea-sons, and body contact is forbidden.

Even if players were allowed to check,there wouldn’t be any cheap shots.

“There just isn’t any dirty play,” Pierceysays. “It’s nice to see that. It’s kind ofunique for hockey.”

Kelly Piercey is joined on the GlenCollings Ltd. squad by her sister Kristy,who’s also league president. Kristy wasone of the founding members of theleague, having been one of 12 womenwho, six years ago, took to the ice regular-ly at 6 a.m for practice and pick-up games.The league has since flourished. There areeight teams this year.

The driving force in making the league a

‘It’s a fabulousINCAMERA

success has been keeping the moodloose. With players ranging in agefrom 25 to 55 and varying in skilllevel (some never played before join-ing the league), it’s all about gettingto know new people, exercising, andhaving fun. To keep the atmosphere,teams are dismantled at the end ofevery season, with new line-ups puttogether the following fall.

“That keeps the level of competi-tiveness reasonable,” Kristy says.“We don’t build rivalries becauseyou’re not on the same team longenough.”

Once the season begins, steps are

taken to ensure games are close. If ateam routinely pounds their opposi-tion, trades are made to even out therosters.

“We want it to be something thatcan be maintained,” says LindaSloka, league vice-president. “Agreat way to do that is to have eventeams every year. One team doesn’tbecome a powerhouse, we keep itfun for everybody. Once you’ve beenplaying for a few of years you knowalmost everyone in the league.”

Back on the ice, City Hondatopped Once Upon A Child 3-1 in thefirst contest, while Midas beat Glen

Collings Ltd. by the same score laterin the evening. These types of gamesare exactly what the league presidentlikes to see.

“We wouldn’t accept games thatwere 8-0, we would do somethingabout it really quick. We’re funda-mental about that, because nobodywants to play in that type of game,”Kristy says. “It doesn’t matter if ateam loses every game, as long asthey’re able to compete in everygame. If we wanted to make it acompetitive league, things would bedifferent, but we just want to havefun.”

But just because winning isn’t theonly objective doesn’t mean playersaren’t trying hard. Effort and deter-mination are demonstrated on everyshift, as well as a fair bit of athleti-cism.

An example of that came on thefirst goal of Piercey’s game. Midasforward Gail Head danced aroundalmost all of the Glen Collings’ Ltd.

skaters before finding herself on abreakaway early in the opening peri-od. She faked right, before pullingthe puck left and sliding it into anempty net. The goal broughtapplause from both teams.

“It’s a fabulous game,” Kristysays. “It’s just a blast.”

Darcy_8888@hotmail.com

MAY 1, 2005 INDEPENDENTLIFE • 21

game’

22 • INDEPENDENTLIFE MAY 1, 2005

www.whscc.nf.caPRIMEThe new standardfor determining your workers’

compensation assessments

PREVENTION WORKSHOP SERIESAccident/Incident Investigation

Locations

�

�

�

�

�

�

plus much more...

St. John’s ........................May 17 ........Guv’nor Inn .................8:30 am - 4:30 pm

St. John’s ........................May 18 ........Guv’nor Inn .................8:30 am - 4:30 pm

Corner Brook ..................May 25 ........Holiday Inn..................8:30 am - 4:30 pm

Labrador City .................May 27 ........The Carol Inn ..............8:30 am - 4:40 pm

Grand Falls-Windsor .......May 31 ........Mount Peyton Hotel .....8:30 am - 4:30 pm

To register please call Michelle MacDonald at (709)778-2926, toll-free 1-800-563-9000

or e-mail: mmacdonald@whscc.nf.ca.

This practical workshop will provide OH&S professionals and other stakeholders with an

overview of accident/incident investigation process as it relates to the management of

occupational health and safety programs. Participants will gain knowledge of:

the benefits of reporting and investigating accidents and incidents

the role of A/I investigations in building an effective OH&S program

the legislative requirement to conduct investigations

a strategic, effective investigation procedure

the A/I investigation team; who should be involved and what are their roles

what accidents or incidents should be investigated

Registration is free and lunch will also be provided.

Understandingthe Accident/IncidentInvestigation Process

global engineering solutions to clientsin natural resource sectors such as oiland gas.

“I’ve been so fortunate to haveincredibly interesting projects,” saysClark. “The work I did in the 1970son the Arctic gas pipeline was cer-tainly immensely interesting becausewe were literally and figurativelybreaking new ground.

“I thought that was going to be aunique opportunity that would neverbe repeated and when I got the oppor-tunity to go to C-CORE and finallymove out under the water to the off-shore … sea bed-related work wasjust as exciting.”

Throughout his life, Clark has livedall across Canada, starting off in atiny community of 150 people calledBullocks Corners near Hamilton,Ont.

He met his wife Joan, who comesfrom Nova Scotia, while attendingNova Scotia Technical College andthe couple have three children.

Clark admits to having a love

affair with Newfoundland and Lab-rador, but says his wife is completelyhooked.

“When we moved there we becamevery attached, in fact years ago Joansaid, ‘You know, you’ll never get meto move from Newfoundland’ …she’s published, now, 14 books, shefinds Newfoundland an extremelygood, creative environment to workin.”

What’s a bit of wind and fog to awoman who was happy to live in sub-zero temperatures with her younghusband and haul water from thenearby river to use the outhouse?

“That was a tremendously interest-ing start for us there (the Arctic) …she looks back on it very, very fondlyand one of her books that she didn’tget to write until 20 years after weleft, was very much set there.”

Clark may not be planning to revis-it his first marital home anytime soon,but he’s not ready to put up his feetjust yet.

“I’m 72 and it sure has been a lot offun and it continues to be and hope-fully will be for many years to come.”

‘A unique opportunity’From page 17

MAY 1Sun Spirits Aboriginal performances,matinees available St. John’s Arts andCulture Centre, until May 2, 729-3650.

Cul-De-Sac LSPU Hall, 8 p.m., pre-sented by Artistic Fraud, 753-4531.

Home Show 2005, Mile One Stadium10 a.m. to 5 p.m., tickets $5.

Aliant Walk for Kids Help PhoneBungalow, Bowring Park, St. John’s,starting at 11 a.m.

MAY 2International Compost AwarenessWeek at Memorial’s BotanicalGardens continuing until May 7, a fullweek of compost talks and demonstra-tions, free.

The Gander WISE will be starting anew 12-week career exploration pro-gram for women, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.,free for women who qualify.

NLOWE’s 2005 Annual Conference:Creating a Buzz & Entrepreneur of theYear Awards, Fairmont Newfoundland,St. John’s, May 3, 754-5555.

Ballet Jörgen Canada presents TheVelveteen Rabbit, Corner Brook Artsand Culture Centre, matinees avail-able.

MAY 3Organizing meeting for The MountPearl Subchapter of the Children’sWish Foundation of Canada, Kim’sFamily Restaurant, starts at 7:30 p.m.,739-9474.

Youth Community Awareness Day,10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the SalvationArmy Citadel, St. John’s, admission:non-perishable food item.

Centre Chorale Spring Concert,Gander Arts and Culture Centre, tick-ets $12.50.

MAY 4Ballet Jörgen Canada presents TheVelveteen Rabbit, Stephenville Artsand Culture Centre, matinees available,643-4553.

Sun Spirits Aboriginal performances,matinees available Gander Arts andCulture Centre, until May 5.

MAY 5Red Shield Salute, Salvation Army,Grand Falls-Windsor Arts and CultureCentre.

MAY 6Sun Spirits Aboriginal performances,matinees available, Grand Falls-Windsor Arts and Culture Centre.

Ballet Jörgen Canada presents TheVelveteen Rabbit, Labrador West Artsand Culture Centre, matinees available.

Connie Parsons School of DanceRecital, St. John’s Arts and CultureCentre, tickets $18, continuing May 7.

MAY 7Andy’s Inferno: Celebrity Roast withMary Walsh, Pete Soucy, Mark Critch,Steve Cochrane and others, starts 6:30p.m., The Bella Vista, St. John’s, tickets$100, 753-4531.

IN THE GALLERIESWith this Freedom, Elayne Greeley,Leyton Gallery of Fine Art, openingreception with artist in attendance, 3 to5 p.m., 722-7177.

La Raza at the James Baird Gallery,until May 18, free, 726-4502.

Cultural Barometer: A statement on thestate of the arts in Newfoundland andLabrador. Featuring the work ofMichelle Baikie, Cathy Driedzic,Elayne Greeley, Nikki Hart and more,until June 12 at The Resource Centrefor the Arts, 753-4531.

EVENTS

Comedy Network picks up George Street TVBy Jamie BakerThe Independent

The little show from GeorgeStreet is about to be cast into thenational spotlight.

George Street TV, the brainchild oflocal comedians Kent Brown andDonnie Goobie, which also featuresScott Taylor and former Codco starGreg Malone, has been officiallypicked up by the Comedy Network.

The popular comedy show has beenfeatured on NTV for the last two-and-a-half years, and it will become, as far asthe show’s creators know, the firsthome-grown local show to be picked upby a national broadcaster.

“Donnie and I first met with the net-work in Toronto three years ago afterour pilot,” says Brown, who’s also theshow’s producer. “They were veryencouraging at the time and thought wewere on the right track and that was justour pilot.

“We’re excited, motivated andpumped.”

“It’s sinking in now … I’ve been flip-ping out since we heard,” Goobie tellsThe Independent. “It’s not only goodfor us, but it’s good for St. John’s andNewfoundland because we get toexploit Newfoundland and GeorgeStreet in a good way all across Canada.

“We’re swimming with the big fishnow, man.”

Comedy Network programmingdirector Brent Haynes says the showwill allow a unique Newfoundland per-spective on the events of the day. But hesays it was the actors themselves —Goobie and Brown — who sold the net-work on the show.

“Having seen what they’ve done andhaving been out there, I can say there’ssomething about their personalities …people just connect with them,” Haynessays. “They’re funny, and that’s whatwe’re in the business of capturing. Theyhave good, strong personalities and adifferent comedic take on what’s goingon in the world.”

While air dates have yet to be set,Haynes says production is expected totake place this summer, likely in July.

There are no plans to make wholesalechanges to the show’s content, butHaynes says there will be a little fine-tuning.

“It’s going to be a different show thanit has been on NTV, because we don’twant to mimic that show,” Haynes says.“We want to do something that is in thespirit of what they were doing, butspeaks to the country as a whole.

“That’s ultimately what we’re tryingto do on the Comedy Network — givevoice to many different opinions andpeople and mix it up a bit.”

And mix it up they will.Calling the Comedy Network “a

staffing of friends,” Goobie says theGeorge Street TV gang couldn’t be hap-pier to be part of the network’s family.

“We’re pretty lucky,” Goobie says.“We get all the freedom we want and dowhatever we want, but all in good taste.The good thing about it is they want itall about Newfoundland and about usand what our lives our like.”

Besides being a great opportunity toshowcase St. John’s and the province— which Brown refers to as the“Hawaii of the north” — Brown alsosays the show will give new recognitionto the hotbed of talent that exists in the

province.“I always hoped George Street TV

would become a Saturday Night Livefor Newfoundlanders,” Brown says. “Ifeel like we need a local TV show thatcan have local people on it who can getrecognized and go on to have an impactin this industry. We’re so incrediblyproud to be from this place.”

Scott Taylor, a.k.a. “Glitter Man,” arecurring character on the show knownfor spending most of his time doingweather forecasts from tropical loca-tions, says he’s excited about having theopportunity to push the “glitterficationof the nation.”

“I’m glitterfied to be able to glitterfythe nation … it’s a good feeling b’y,” hesays. “The whole glitterfication processis a journey in itself and I’m tickledpink that I’m able to glitterfy every-body.

“It all comes from everybody enjoy-ing what they’re doing, so it’s good andexciting.”

While Goobie and Brown are thrilledto be going nation-wide, Brown gives alot of credit to the Stirling family andNTV. “We walked in there when every-one else said no to us, and they said,‘Let’s go.’ They also credit the“comedic genius” of Malone for help-ing make their dreams become reality

“We have a very good reputation formaking funny television with nomoney, but this year, hopefully, we getto make funny television and we’ll havemoney. Donnie and I always believed ineach other and thought we could do it… we’re over the moon man.

“We’ve been on a rip ever since weheard. Now we got to sober up and do abit of work.”

Paul Daly/The IndependentGeorge Street TV members Donnie Goobie, left to right, Scott Taylor and Kent Brown.

By Clare-Marie GosseThe Independent

Having wriggling, black wormsdropping down the chimney,crawling over the dining room

table and studiously making their waytowards the bedroom would be enoughto send anyone running for pest control.

It’s just another standard summer’sday for many central St. John’s resi-dents during the months of July andAugust.

In recent years there’s been a price tobe paid for living in a nice, leafy area.

Anywhere up to a few thousand dol-lars, in fact, just to keep the infamouselm spanworm — which has taken up aseasonal reign of anarchy in St. John’ssince 2000 — under control.

“Oh my God I had them comingdown on my bed,” says CraigmillarAvenue-resident Eva Hawkins,“because they come through the chim-ney … it was horrendous. I felt like run-ning away from home.”

This year Hawkins is enlisting thehelp of a qualified friend with a pressuresprayer loaded with dormant oil to blasther fairly small maple trees. The dor-mant oil spray works directly on thespanworm eggs and spring is the besttime to apply it — before the leavesstart to bud.

A pesticide called BTk (BacillusThurigiensis) is probably the most com-monly weapon against the spanworm.People with small trees can save somemoney by purchasing the bacterium at agarden store, but most need a profes-sional sprayer to deal with the largerones. The general price-range fallsbetween $50 and $100 a tree, dependingon size.

BTk causes a fatal disease in theworms and is best applied after the eggshave hatched and the larvae are stillsmall. A follow-up application is oftenrequired.

A medium-sized garden with a fewtrees could cost between $300 and $500to treat. Larger premises, particularlythe many high-end guest houses in cen-tral St. John’s, have shelled out moneyin the thousands to keep their customersworm-free.

As a caterer, Hawkins says she’s seenweddings cancelled at locations infestedwith spanworms.

Nicole Greeley, who heads the span-worm project at Murray’s GardenCentre on Portugal Cove Road, sayscustomer enquiries about treating thepests are growing. Murray’s sprayedaround 300 gardens last year.

Although Murray’s only deals withthe BTk spray, there are some localcompanies offering to “plug” infectedtrees with a pesticide called Ace Cap 97.The chemical gets drawn up into the sapof the tree and make the leaves poison-ous.

Although this method is generallycheaper and often more effective, it’stechnically illegal to use it for the treat-ment of spanworms in Newfoundlandand Labrador.

“It’s not registered for spanworm,”says Greeley. “I know there’s loop holesgetting around using them, but our cus-tomers are aware that the federal gov-ernment is not registering it yet, sowe’re not offering it until it is.”

Peggy Dixon, an entomologist withAgriculture and Agri-Food Canadabased in St. John’s, has been involvedwith in-depth research into the span-worms in recent years.

She and her colleagues are hoping tocollect data to enable the spanworm tobe registered on the list of pests legallytreatable by the Ace Cap-filled treeplugs.

Dixon says although studies datingback 50 years show the spanworms tobe native in this part of North America,they were once considered rare in theprovince. She adds records show partsof the United States have had seriousproblems with the pests for hundreds ofyears.

Last week, a student from Memorialwho made spanworms the subject of herhonours project in 2004, paced thestreets to get an idea of the current num-bers of eggs waiting to hatch. Dixonsays the areas heavily afflicted last yearseem to be slightly diminished this year— but the worms could just be relocat-ing.

“I don’t want to be alarmist because itwas only a couple of places that theywent to, but they were pretty high insome of those areas. And in the Statesthat’s kind of what they found. It wouldbe a few years in one area, maybe thewhole outbreak lasted 10 years, but not10 in the same area.”

As well as having an abundance ofhard-wood maple trees (a favourite withthe worms), the province appears tohave an unfortunate lack of naturalpredators to keep the outbreaks at bay.

Still, Dixon says “it can’t go on forev-

er.”The last major outbreak in the United

States was in the 1970s, and Dixon saysthe eventual collapse of the spanwormswas discovered to be due to a small,parasitic wasp which attacked the eggs.

Although no predator was found inthe eggs on local trees last year, she saysthere was some evidence of a parasite.

“We did find some in the later stagesin the cocoons … it was there, and thatwill build up.”

‘Get the hell out of here’Union rep for workers at Grand Falls-Windsor mill says Abitibi should sell out and leave town

By Alisha MorrisseyThe Independent

Union officials representingAbitibi Consolidated employ-ees say the company should

sell its operations in Grand Falls-Windsor and Stephenville and leave.

“The time has come for Abitibi to sellthose two mills and get the hell out ofhere,” Max Michaud, Atlantic regionvice-president for the Communications,Energy and Paperworkers’ union, tellsThe Independent. “Give a chance toanother player and it would be the bestthing that could happen to the popula-tion of Newfoundland.”

Speaking in a thick French accent,Michaud says the union was “shocked”by the company’s April 27 announce-ment to shut down of one of two paper-making machines at its Grand Falls-Windsor mill.

The announcement came following a60-day internal review.

Abitibi Consolidated — the largestpulp and paper company in Canada —announced the review in January after afourth quarter loss in 2004 of $108 mil-lion. The company reported a $51-mil-lion loss in the first quarter of this year.

Mills in Stephenville and GrandFalls-Windsor, as well as mills inKenora and Fort William, Ont. werereviewed. The company’s cost-savingplan includes the “phase out” of the No.7 machine at the Grand Falls-Windsormill, cutting an untold number of jobs inthe province, and selling its FortWilliam operation.

Pink slips will be handed out in theprovince’s two mills in mid-May as partof an amalgamation of administration,says Seth Kursman, spokesman for thecompany, adding numbers won’t bereleased until employees have been

informed. Abitibi Consolidated has 240 workers

in Stephenville, 520 in Grand Falls-Windsor and 420 woodlands workers.

“We’ve got a business that’s not com-petitive … we, as a company, have lostmoney for a number of years here,”Kursman says. “Our shareholdersdeserve a return, our employees and thecommunities in which we operatedeserve to be a part of a business thatmakes those difficult decisions.”

Natural Resources Minister Ed Byrnehas announced he will invoke Bill 27 —revoking the timber rights for 60 percent of the wood supply for the GrandFalls-Windsor mill — if the companyfollows through on shutting down theNo. 7 machine. Byrne failed to returnThe Independent’s messages prior topress deadline.

“We’re going to take the high roadhere and we’re going to talk about the

future,” Kursman says. “But I must cau-tion, you cannot make paper withoutfibre.

“I think that if a measure like that istaken, where we lose all our licences, itwould have a detrimental impact on ouroperations across the province.”

The Stephenville mill has been facingincreasing energy costs, with companyofficials claiming a hike of 30 per centover the past three years and a monthlypower bill of $2 million. The mill has nosecure wood supply and imports up to70 per cent of the wood fibre it needs tooperate from offshore.

In March, Opposition leader RogerGrimes told The Independent sellingboth mills could be an opportunity forthe province.

“Other companies would find eitherStephenville or Grand Falls-Windsor

See “Now’s their chance” page 24

INDEPENDENTBUSINESSSUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, MAY 1-7, 2005 — PAGE 23

Worming them outThe unpopular elm spanworm may be gearing upfor another assault, but there are ways to fight back

Span worms take over an abandoned snowblower. Paul Daly/The Independent

A paper-making machine in Abitibi’s mill inGrand Falls-Winsor.

Paul Daly/The Independent

By Clare-Marie GosseThe Independent

The French Ambassador toCanada, Daniel Jouanneau, paidhis first visit to Newfoundland

and Labrador late last week since hisofficial posting in Ottawa in Sept-ember, 2004.

The Independent caught up withJouanneau for a sit-down interviewabout his thoughts on the province, thefishery, Danny Williams and his inten-tions to promote French business andtourism in the province.

Sitting in the lobby of the FairmontHotel in St. John’s, Jouanneau stressesthe importance of his visit to theprovince, both on a personal and polit-ical level.

“I came with a team,” he says. “Icame with my wife, I came with mydaughter, who lives in London, and herfriend. I came with our trade commis-sioner … and I came with the man whois in charge of tourism for the whole ofCanada and he will see how we canimprove the tourist link.”

Jouanneau has just come from a cer-emony to award Newfoundland andLabrador war veteran Ronald Reid aChevalier de la Legion d’honneur(Knight of the Legion of Honour)medal.

Reid received what is considered tobe France’s most prestigious nationalorder for his service during the SecondWorld War. He lost his leg at the infa-mous D-Day battle on Juno Beach in1944.

Jouanneau says his first impressionsof Newfoundland and Labrador are of a“proud country” with a great sense of“solidarity.

“They are right to be proud of what

they have achieved in a difficult con-text, shifting from fishery to oil. Alltoday and nothing tomorrow is a verypainful transition,” he says.

With a French presence inNewfoundland and Labrador datingback some 500 years, Jouanneau saysthe bridge between the two cultures is

important. He adds he would like toexpand business relations — particu-larly within the oil industry.

“Our trade is still modest. I think wecan do more.

“Also we can have interesting part-nerships in the field of oil, forinstance, because you know, when

Hibernia was built there was a groupof French technology components inthe construction … and now for WhiteRose again.”

Jouanneau say he would like to seemore of the thousands of Frenchtourists that visit Canada every year,expand their horizons.

“They know Quebec and they knowthe Rockies and I’m sure that moreshould come here because it’s really abeautiful country. People are warmand very hospitable.”

The French ambassador says he isalso impressed with the premier’swork to improve bilingualism in theprovince, as well as his administra-tion’s cultural initiatives.

“I never saw that, and I travelled alot in Canada. Every time I meet a pre-mier I read the speech from the throne,because all his policies, all his ideas,his problems are there … I found veryinteresting this emphasis on culture.”

The fishery is perhaps what mostdefines the province, a fishery theFrench have participated in for hun-dreds of years through the islands of St.Pierre-Miquelon off the island’s southcoast.

While the people of the Frenchislands felt the harsh blow of the cod-stock collapse of the early 1990s, sodid the men and women of Brittany.

“Of course it’s a big issue forNewfoundland and Labrador,”Jouanneau says. “I think it’s veryimportant to have a scientific eye onthe evolution of fish populations.”

Jouanneau adds France would wel-come the opportunity to extend marinebiology research in east coast watersand, with modern advancements in sci-ence, he hopes foreign over-fishingissues can be tackled in a more collab-orative way.

“I think on this issue, we now in2005, certainly have more sophisticatedtools than we had in the past; it willprobably help politicians to make gooddecisions and ease the relationsbetween those countries that togetherfish in this area.”

24 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS MAY 1, 2005

Fisheries advocate Gus Etchegarysays now is the time for theprovince to demand an in-depth

audit of the federal Department ofFisheries and Oceans (DFO).

“Particularly now, when we’re in aminority government and approaching,perhaps, another election,” he says,adding the audit should go back to 1949when Newfoundland and Labradorentered Confederation.

Julie Hebert, a spokeswoman with theAuditor General’s office in Ottawa, tellsThe Independent that although DFO hasnever been audited as one department— primarily due to its size — aprovince-specific investigation couldpotentially be carried out.

“I’m not sure if we’ve ever done itbut, yes, we could,” she says.

Hebert says there is a plan to conductan audit into “Canada’s ocean strategy,”scheduled for fall 2005, but she couldn’tprovide details on what that might entailor what areas it would focus on.

“I would like to see an in-depth inves-tigation carried out along the lines of thesponsorship program in Quebec”Etchegary says.

Audits of DFO conducted in recentyears were carried out in the areas of thesalmon fishery and marine vessel navi-gation. A follow-up report in 2000,relating to an audit conducted in the late1990s into sustaining and renewingAtlantic groundfish stocks, showed thedepartment was maintaining acceptableprogress.

The report stated, however, that DFOhad been unsuccessful in carrying out arecommendation to conduct an inde-pendent audit.

French ambassador to Canada says relationship between his country and Newfoundland and Labrador should be strengthened

Investigate DFO thesame as sponsorshipscandal: Etchegary

attractive. If Abitibi pulled out I’m con-vinced there would be buyers in themarketplace,” he said at the time.

Michaud agrees, saying it’s time forthe company to quit complaining andleave.

Abitibi should follow newsprint-giantBowater’s example, he says. In the1980s, when the company had financialtrouble, the Corner Brook Pulp andPaper Mill was sold to Kruger. Theunion represents workers at the CornerBrook mill as well.

“We don’t hear any bitching fromKruger … Abitibi since they’ve beenhere, since I can remember, all I heard isthem bitching that we’re not makingany money in Newfoundland.”

He says the membership is tired ofthe company’s constant reorganizing.

“For the past 10 years everybody isscared of buying a house, they arescared of their job (being cut) and itdoes affect a lot of families and I don’tsee any other solution,” Michaud says.“So why not sell the two mills inNewfoundland? They need the cash, sonow’s their chance.”

‘Now’s their chance’From page 23

French ambassador to Canada, Daniel Jouanneau. Paul Daly/The Independent

MAY 1, 2005 INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 25

By Jamie BakerThe Independent

With half the continent em-barking on a desperate searchfor the extra electricity

required to satisfy growing demand,you might think a little province likeNewfoundland and Labrador has noth-ing much to worry about.

Not so, says Dean MacDonald, chair-man of the board of Newfoundland andLabrador Hydro.

But while many areas of the provinceare or will be in need of increasedpower, MacDonald says there are someoptions.

On the island portion of the province,MacDonald tells The Independent theneeds can be met without necessarilybringing in lower Churchill power. Hesays there are great possibilities associ-ated with wind power and developingexisting hydroelectric projects to reachtheir full potential.

“The demand for energy on the islandcan certainly be met with developmentof some of the hydro sites that are stillunder-utilized on the island, along withwind energy and some other sources,”MacDonald says. “Demand for energyon the island is probably, with somegood planning, something that is well inhand and can be managed.”

In Labrador, where potential newheavy industry is already assessing theavailability of electricity, the lowerChurchill looms large.

The key in that region, MacDonaldsays, will be securing the necessaryrecall rights from the project to usewithin the province.

“It’s something we certainly have tobe sensitive to as we move forward, toensure we have some recall rights,” hesays. “Labrador, depending on whathappens with mineral discoveries, etc.,whether or not there’s need for addition-al energy sources for smelter or com-mercialization of any activities up there,that’s anyone’s guess.”

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydrohas the fourth largest generating capaci-ty of any utility in Canada. But develop-ing and running power projects —whether they be hydro, fuel generated,wind powered or nuclear — is not acheap prospect.

Holyrood currently provides up to 40per cent of the electricity for the island’spower grid, but last year alone the plantused 2.6 million barrels of No. 6 fuelwhich, at an average price of $31 perbarrel, cost approximately $80.6 million.

That plant will also face significantchallenges in the years to come withemissions reduction requirements as perthe Kyoto Accord.

“There are huge obstacles facing thecountry and world in terms of energy,and we are not immune to that in thisprovince,” MacDonald said during anApril 26 speech at the St. John’s Boardof Trade luncheon. “Energy is an essen-tial commodity that cannot be taken forgranted.”

The overall cost for developing thelower Churchill project, including Gull

Island and Muskrat Falls, is estimated atsome $4.8 billion. The Gull Island proj-ect is expected to take about six years tobuild while Muskrat Falls is expected totake just under five years.

The project would generate 2,824megawatts of new energy, or 17 millionmegawatt hours annually — enough tosupply approximately 1.5 million house-holds.

The opportunities associated with sell-ing that power to energy-starved mar-kets in places like Ontario and the northeastern United States are lucrativeenough that 25 proposals were submit-ted in response to the provincial govern-ment’s call for expressions of interest.

Those proposals are currently beingreviewed by two assessment committeesrepresenting government and Hydro.

MacDonald says the province hasmade some gains in recent years by win-ning some recall rights from the upperChurchill project. That extra power, hesays, has been a “boon” in the sense thatthe province has made money sellingthat power.

Most heavy industries require accessto large amounts of power. Mineral pro-cessing or smelting is one of those in-dustries. Oil refining is another, althoughMacDonald says that’s not much of aconcern given the fact “there hasn’t beena new oil refinery built in North Americain the last decade or two.”

Markland Resource Developmentmade a significant mineral find in the

Churchill River bed last year, and is put-ting pilot processing of those mineralsinto operation this June.

But in order for the company to lookat possible secondary processing oppor-tunities in central Labrador it will needpower — the kind of power the lowerChurchill project might generate.

Still, when it comes to actually usingpower to develop and attract industry,MacDonald says you need far more thanjust an energy source.

“It’s not just a matter of having thepower there, but then you have to getthe power to where it’s needed. If therewas a smelter in the middle of Labrador,then you have the capital cost of trans-porting energy to it through transmissionlines and so on.

“It’s not just a simple slam-dunk, butobviously anything we do with lowerChurchill is the whole issue of ensuringthere are some recall abilities therebecause it’s important to us.

“Obviously if the power is there andavailable, it puts you in a much betterposition to attract industry.”

© 2005 Mercedes-Benz Canada Inc. Toronto, Ontario. *Lease offer is based on a new 2005 C230 Sport Coupe. $345 per month for 39 months. Total obligation is $13,455. Down payment or equivalent trade of $3,999 plus first monthly payment and security deposit of $400 due at lease inception. A.L.R. of 4.9% applies. 54,000 km allowance (0.20$/km exceeding 54,000 km applies). Freight and PDI, licence, insurance, taxes, registration and PPSA are extra. Dealer may lease for less. C320 Sport Coupe shown.

THE 2005 C-COUPE. Dual-

zone automatic climate control,

in-dash single-CD player, 8 air

bags including Head Protection

Curtains, 5-spoke alloy wheels,

assertive exterior design, sporty

interior. The 2005 C-Coupe has

all the features you’d expect

from a Mercedes-Benz. And now,

with an attractive lease rate

of only 4.9%, one you wouldn’t.

Mercedes-Benz. You’re ready.

$345*

A MONTH

2005 C-COUPE

Dual-zone automaticclimate control

In-dashsingle-CD player

8 air bags includingHead Protection Curtains

60/40-split folding rear seat

Multifunctiondisplay

itss leasee ratee shouldd bee attractive,, too.

TOM WOODFORD LTD.673 TOPSAIL ROAD 364-9888

Growing power

Province may not be immune to increasing energy concerns, but at least there are options

Dean MacDonald at his office in St. John’s. Paul Daly/The Independent

26 • INDEPENDENTBUSINESS MAY 1, 2005

MAY 1, 2005 INDEPENDENTBUSINESS • 27

28 • INDEPENDENT MAY 1, 2005

WEEKLYDIVERSIONSACROSS1 Help!4 Didn’t sink8 Talk without a script13 Mosquito, e.g.17 I have18 Poet Roy ___ (2000 GG)19 Carefree: sans ___20 Belly malady21 Casino game23 They crow24 Horse colour25 Not often seen26 Retail worker28 Our highest majorlake (B.C.)30 Stealing32 Double features, attimes33 Fee for instruction34 Detest35 Outstanding in his ___36 God37 Tee preceder38 Canadian WWI pilotBishop39 Exploits40 He played Tonto: ___Silverheels43 Jeopardy44 They get shifted45 Golfer Lorie46 Body of water S ofBorneo (2 wds.)49 Loses heat

50 They often lack amate51 Polished a manu-script52 He plays JiminyGlick: Martin ___53 Canadian co-inventorof film colourization54 ___’s Thesaurus55 Just going through a___56 Puts down57 Malay dagger58 Discontinue59 First Quebec womanin House of Commons60 Salt (Fr.)61 Frighten62 Our highest mountain63 Cellular letters66 Grab a bite67 N.B. island: Grand___68 “World’s largestWestern ___”(Edmonton)69 Largest intact coastaltemperate rainforest: ___Valley, B.C.72 B.C. flower with edi-ble bulb: blue ___73 “Reduce, ___, recy-cle, recover”74 Unmitigated75 Tribe head76 Phial77 Kind of transporta-

tion78 Like a queen80 Summer treat (2 wds.)84 Normandy city ofWWII fame85 Humiliate86 Venture87 Do a takeoff on88 Leadership position89 Longed90 Recedes91 Beverage container

DOWN1 Bro or sis2 Eggs3 Open ___ (Alice Munro)4 Stylish5 Electric ___6 Short alias7 W.O. ___8 Go up9 Portals10 The ___ of the draw11 Ewww!12 Digestive ___13 Equal status14 Bacterium15 Tall military dress hat16 Mortise and ___22 Site for a bite27 Tiger ___29 Smacks30 Definite article31 Possesses

32 Eyelashes33 They’re shed underduress35 Discharged36 Passed out38 Attacked on all sides39 Actor Colm ___40 Inventor of Ringette:Sam ___41 A skate supports it42 “Oui” and “si”43 CanapÈ spreads44 Farmyard fowl45 Sacred text46 Yanks47 Worship48 Devotional watch49 Abyss50 Developer of oralpolio vaccine52 Most feared fish53 Actress Follows55 ___ of mind56 Ballerina painter58 Pretentious talk59 Authentic61 Quotable notable?:abbr.62 Crippled63 Where “Corner Gas”is filmed: ___, Sask.64 Negatives65 Tucked in66 Downhill ski race67 Posted68 Endure69 Famous photographer

70 Fuming71 Run of birdsong72 Action film feature

73 Patna and basmati75 Greenish blue76 Action word

79 Kimono sash81 Taxi82 Taxing mo.

83 N.S. coal miners’choir: ___ of the Deep

ARIES - MARCH 21/APRIL 20Don't take a loved one's harshwords to heart, Aries. He or she isgoing through a rough time andjust needs to vent a little. Thingswill blow over by early next week.

TAURUS - APRIL 21/MAY 21Don't try to force your views ontoothers, Taurus. Everyone is enti-tled to his or her own opinions. Afamily friend drops by unexpect-edly. Don't rush this person out thedoor.

GEMINI - MAY 22/JUNE 21When it comes to a heart-to-hearttalk with a loved one, be blunt.That special someone has animportant question for you. Betruthful, but also assist with thedecision made.

CANCER - JUNE 22/JULY 22While you need to show yourauthority at work, don't step on toomany toes. Show your coworkerssome compassion. A friend asks a

favor of you.

LEO - JULY 23/AUG. 23Don't be possessive when it comesto a special someone, Leo. He orshe truly cares for you, but alsoneeds some time alone. You givefinancial advice to a close friend.

VIRGO - AUG. 24/SEPT. 22You get caught in the middle of adisagreement between colleaguesearly in the week, Virgo. Whileyou didn't want to get involved,help them work through the issue.

LIBRA - SEPT. 23/OCT. 23One day this week, coworkers willneed your help with a project. Aloved one monopolizes your timeduring the evening. Don't worry;the weekend is yours alone.

SCORPIO - OCT. 24/NOV. 22While you like to be in charge,that's not how things work early inthe week. Let someone else take

control when it comes to a busi-ness problem. Pay attention, andlearn.

SAGITTARIUS - NOV. 23/DEC. 21A lot of people are depending onyou this week, Sagittarius.Consider what is best for everyoneinvolved -- even if you must makesome compromises.

CAPRICORN-DEC.22/JAN.20You have a lot on your mind,Capricorn. If you're nervous, talkto a trusted friend. Things willquiet down by Friday, leaving youtime to enjoy your weekend.

AQUARIUS - JAN. 21/FEB. 18Try to take it easy this week,Aquarius. You've been busy for awhile. Now that you have a break, enjoy yourself. Be support-ive of a loved one who needs yourhelp.

PISCES - FEB. 19/MARCH 20That special someone has a sur-

prise for you. Don't accept it ifyou're having second thoughtsabout the relationship. Consider itdeeply.

FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS

MAY 1Tim McGraw, singer

MAY 2Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson,actor

MAY 3Engelbert Humperdink, singer

MAY 4Lance Bass, singer

MAY 5Danielle Fishel, actress

MAY 6George Clooney, actor

MAY 7Mike Myers, actor/comic

POET’SCORNER

`ImmortalityIf you would seek me, when from hence I goInto the quiet dusk where shadows dwell,Seek for me in the evening afterglowOr in the brook’s song, that I loved so well.

Or when the April dews refresh the earthAs Spring fulfills her promise once again,Think of me in the morn of her rebirth,And in the coolness of the welcome rain.

I have but gone into the grateful shade,Think not of me, as one whose song is done,Seek for me where the rose blooms in the glade,Or where the wood-thrush greets the morning sun.

Seek not for me in some dark, mouldering tomb,Nor heed the epitaph upon its surface gray,’Tis but my clay left there in that cold room,A cumbrous garment I have thrown away.

A 1949 poem first published in the Poems ofNewfoundland, a book edited by the late MichaelHarrington.

WEEKLYSTARS

Solutions on page 30

MAY 1, 2005 INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 29

30 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS MAY 1, 2005

Canadian Progress Club of St. John’s presents

MyBigFatGreekAuction!

18th Annual CPC Gala & Auction

Please join us on May 6th, 2005 at The Delta Hotel for an evening of “Opa” as we celebrate Greek culture while

raising much needed resources for our worthwhile charities The Vera Perlin Society and

The Newfoundland and Labrador Special Olympics.

Complimentary Cocktails at 7:00 p.m. Greek Inspired Dinner at 8:00 p.m.

Dinner Entertainment by The Perlin PlayersContinuous Silent Auction with over 70 great items Outstanding Live Auction hosted by Dave Greene

Music and Dancing with Billy and the Bruisers

Tickets are $100.00 per person and can be purchased by contacting any of the following CPC members:

Terry Murphy 834-7402 Chris March 576-1383Gary Haynes 753-7822 Roger Downer 739-6017Peter Furlong 576-4208 Brad Marche 728-5146

Win a trip for two to Greece!

Regina Games, is spot-on when hedelivers his message to all teams andathletes.

“I tell them it’s important to have thebest showing possible,” Littlejohn says.“If we’re playing for ninth or 10th posi-tion, I want them to finish ninth. Thesame goes if they’re playing for firstand second. I want them to finish first.”

This is the stretch run for the provin-cial teams, with four months left to pre-pare. A volleyball team has a trainingtrip to Cuba, and our male rugby andsoccer teams have each made visitsacross the pond. The soccer team touredEngland, and the rugby side playedmatches in Ireland.

The rugby team is tabbed as being aserious contender for a medal, and that’sno surprise given the track record ofprovincial teams on the national scene.

Male softball teams from thisprovince are always in the hunt, andeven though the sport itself is beingplayed by a decreasing number of ath-letes, look for the team to again be in the

chase in Regina.Littlejohn expects some good results

in athletics, with runner Julia Howardpoised to lead the way. He thinks someof our wrestlers could surprise, as wellas our rowers, who have done quite wellin recent national competitions.

A proposed new training facility inSt. John’s, while still a couple of yearsleft from reality, will make a differencefor future provincial athletes.

Funding is always an issue and younever know when the government axeis going to fall on sports funding, butfederal dollars are usually consistentfor our sports teams — albeit, theamount is hardly enough, which is whycorporate sponsorship is so important.The pool of eligible, and willing, cor-porate sponsors in this province is shal-low.

It’s just another challenge for sportorganizers in this province to over-come, but in my opinion, it’s a facet ofour local sports that we must improveon as time goes on.

Bob White writes from Carbonear.whitebobby@yahoo.com

‘Important to have the best showing possible’From page 32

Solutions from last week’s puzzle Solutions for this week’s puzzle

PRIMEThe new standard

for determining your workers’compensation assessments

PRIME Information Sessions

P R I

M E E

revention + eturn-to-work + nsurance

anagement for mployers/ mployees www.whscc.nf.ca(709)778-2922 or

1-800-563-9000

(2 presentations)

Will you be ready fora refund in 2006?

Will you be ready fora refund in 2006?

chunk of our regular players are notphysically restricted. That’s a very pos-itive sign in itself because while thesport is designed to cater to people whohave physical restrictions, it’s not limit-ed to that. We feel that in order to growproperly as an organization, we need tobe able to appeal to able bodied individ-uals as well as physically restricted.”

If everything goes according to plan,this fall will see the Avalon SledgeHockey Association offer athletes suchas Osborne the chance to play somemeaningful games. Should thingsprogress nicely in the St. John’s area,Osborne hopes the sport will then beginto grow in other parts of the province.

“Hopefully what we’ll be able to dois appeal to enough people to get it offthe ground and reach out to other areas

at a future time,” says Osborne. “Ourgoal long-term is to see the growth ofsledge hockey evolve to include moreteams and have opportunities to ice aprovincial all-star team.”

As much fun as Osborne is havingplaying sledge hockey again, he’sequally excited about bringing the sportto kids who face the same circum-stances he did during his youth. Insteadof having to sit on the sidelines andwatch everyone else play this country’smost beloved game, he wants them toexperience the thrills hockey has tooffer.

“Sledge hockey gave me the opportu-nity to play the game,” he says. “I couldfind out what it’s like to score the goalor deliver a body check — things thatgenerally excite kids about playinghockey.”

Darcy_8888@hotmail.com

From page 32

Sport expectinggrowth in future

By Darcy MacRaeFor The Independent

Golf course executives in thisprovince were probably teed offthis week when Globe Golf, a

special edition magazine printed by TheGlobe and Mail, hit the stands.

The magazine ranked the top 100courses in Canada — and there wasn’t acourse in Newfoundland and Labradoramong them.

There are more than 20 courses spreadthroughout the province, with most pro-viding breathtaking views of the ocean,mountain terrain and wildlife.

Some avid golfers strongly disagreewith Globe Golf’s rankings.

“It’s disappointing. We have somefirst-rate golf courses here, in particularthe Terra Nova Golf Course. I’ve playedon courses in other parts of Canada andthe United States, and that is as nice acourse as you will find anywhere,” saysMike Browne, executive director of theGrand Falls Golf Club. “We also havethe new one on the west coast at theHumber Valley Resort. That’s a world-class facility. I’m not sure The Globe andMail even visited any of our courseswhen they made those rankings.”

Browne’s opinion is shared by manyin the province, including BruceCrichton, general manager of Bally HalyGolf and Curling Club in St. John’s.

“I’m surprised that there isn’t anythere,” he says. “There are certainlysome nice courses. The Wilds atSalmonier River and Terra Nova areprobably the top two on the list.”

Golf Newfoundland and Labradorchairman Trevor Morris was also disap-pointed to hear not a single golf coursefrom the province received any nationalrecognition. However, he says there is noshame in being left out of the top 100,especially considering the number ofgolf courses in the country.

“There are thousands of golf coursesin Canada, so to get in the top 100 wouldplace you in the top 10 per cent,” saysMorris, who’s also general manager ofThe Wilds at Salmonier River, TheWillows at Holyrood and The Woods atSouthlands.

“There are a lot of amazing courses inevery province that didn’t make that list.But I have no doubt that we should havehad at least one ranked in the top 100.”

Rather than focus on the fact theprovince was shut out, Morris prefers to

focus on the positives of the game.At thistime of year, golfers throughout theprovince are preparing to hit the links.Golfers here will undoubtedly be joinedby out-of-province golfers during thespring and summer months. The resultsmeantourismrevenue.

“It’scertainlyamajorpartoftheoveralltourismproduct,”saysMorris.

With more than 5,000Newfoundlanders and Labradoriansplaying golf every summer, there’salreadyconsiderablecashfloatingaroundprovincial courses. Add to that the out-of-province golfers who come here and

golf’s financial potential appears unlim-ited.

“We had golfers from all across theisland last year as well as golfers fromthroughout Atlantic Canada, Europe andChina,” Browne says. “As everybodyknows, golf is one of the most popularsports in the world right now, so mosttourists are looking for 18-hole golfcourses. The fact that we have one inGrand Falls-Windsor certainly adds tothe local economy.”

The Grand Falls Golf Club completeda nine-hole expansion last summer andhas since seen the number of golfers

increase dramatical-ly. Crichton saysupgrades are goodfor the golfing busi-ness across theprovince because

attractive courses attract tourists whomay be looking to play multiple courseswhile visiting Newfoundland andLabrador.

“With Stephenville coming on with an18-hole golf course, and with Ganderand Grand Falls expanding, there aremore options for tourists to play golf,” hesays.

Of course, there’s always room forgrowth. Close to 85 per cent of golfershere are male, leaving golfing executivessuch as Morris wondering how to attractwomen to the game. One way is toinform women that, while golf may bemale-dominated, their presence wouldbe appreciated.

Says Morris, “The big thing is lettingwomen know they are welcome and theyare wanted on the golf course.”

Darcy_8888@hotmail.com

MAY 1, 2005 INDEPENDENTSPORTS • 31

Missing the greensGolf courses in this province may not break Canada’s top 100, but golf still big business here

SPORTSINBRIEF

Golfers, such as Rod Efford, are ready to hit the links as soon as they are ready. Paul Daly/The Independent

Beckham ‘pilgrims’follow trailLONDON (Reuters) — Devotees ofEnglish soccer captain DavidBeckham have a new way to worshiptheir hero — a “pilgrims’ trail”around his humble London roots.

Taking advantage of his globalfame, a local council has created the‘Beckham Trail’ including his birth-place, his school and the playingfields where he first learned histrade.

NFL takes turnbefore congressWASHINGTON (Reuters) — Withadvances in technology, professionalsports may soon have to confront thepossibility of genetically and scien-tifically engineered super athletes, aCongressional panel on perform-ance-enhancing drugs was told.

“As scientists come to truly under-stand — and therefore be able toalter — the genetic structure ofhuman beings, the ‘Six MillionDollar Man’ will no longer be a tele-vision fantasy but will insteadbecome a near-term reality,”National Football League Commis-sioner Paul Tagliabue says in writtentestimony.

Benitez gone atleast four monthsSAN FRANCISCO (Sports Net-work) — The San Francisco Giantswill be without closer ArmandoBenitez for at least the next fourmonths and possibly the entire sea-son after an MRI revealed torn ten-dons in his right hamstring.

The Giants had placed the right-handed hurler on the 15-day disabledlist prior to a 10-3 win over the SanDiego Padres at SBC Park on April27.

Washington nationalscreate buzz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — In apolitically divided city, avid baseballfans have found common groundduring the barren 34 years Wash-ington subsisted without a MajorLeague team. Bereft of a home teamto support, they have had to cheer fora club elsewhere.

By Darcy MacRaeThe Independent

Darryl Osborne is passionate about hockey. He tookto the sport early and, like most Canadian kids,dreamt about scoring the winning goal or deliver-ing a stiff check. He loved sitting down to watch a

game on television or from the bleachers of a local arena,activities he still enjoys today when he finds the time.

But as much as Osborne loves the game, he has had toendure long stretches without actually playing the sport —until this past winter, that is.

Osborne, 27, was born with cerebral palsy and as a resulthad difficulty skating, a factor that prevented him from play-ing ice hockey. When he was eight years old, however, he

began playing sledge hockey in St. John’s, and finally experi-enced the thrills he knew the game could provide.

“I’ve always been an absolute hockey nut,” Osborne tellsThe Independent. “What was particularly refreshing aboutsledge hockey was the freedom it provided. It is unmatched asfar as anything I’ve done regarding sports.”

Osborne fell in love with the game of sledge hockey, andtook part in the sport regularly for the next few years. Buteventually the number of participants dropped off, and by thewinter of 1988, the program ceased to exist. The Mount Pearlresident longed for the chance to get back on the ice and thisyear finally got his wish as the Avalon Sledge HockeyAssociation (of which he’s vice-president and spokesperson)brought the sport back to the St. John’s area.

Since October, Osborne has been joined by 10 to 12 dedi-

cated sledge hockey players at the O’Hehir Arena in St.John’s. Every Saturday night, the group plays a friendly one-hour game and they hope to begin a full-contact league in thefall of 2005.

“We want to create enough interest this year to have aleague of four teams of 11 players next year,” Osborne says.“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback, which is very encour-aging.”

Sledge hockey is very much like ice hockey. In fact, it’s afull contact modification that allows people with and withoutphysical disabilities to participate on a level playing field.Instead of skating, players travel around the ice on oval-shaped sleds with skate blades (or runners) attached to the bot-tom. Participants pull themselves around the rink with theirarms, digging the picks on the bottom of the sticks into the iceto gain momentum.

“It’s a legitimate game of hockey,” Osborne says. “It’s onlymodified in the sense of how you manoeuvre. But the game,no matter how you say it or how you play it, is a game ofhockey.”

So far this winter, the Avalon Sledge Hockey Associationhas been joined by disabled and able-bodied players. Thegreat thing about the sport is that, unlike ice hockey, a playerwith physical restrictions is not at a great disadvantage.

“You are on par if not at an advantage over your able-bod-ied counterparts because you’re used to using your arms anddoing things a little bit differently,” Osborne says. “A big

INDEPENDENTSPORTSSUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, MAY 1, 2005 — PAGE 32

It’s that time of the year again, whenthere is a gap in the local sportsscene.

Hockey and all the other winter sportsare pretty much done, and the summersports have yet to swing into action.

What does a columnist write about, atleast regarding local sports?

The Herder is over, and all other rele-vant hockey is done. Yes, I’m purposelyexcluding the St. John’s Maple Leafsbecause I fail to see the relevance any-more. It’s been a long while since I’veseen any relevance. They (Leafs man-agement) don’t want to be here any-

more, and the feeling is mutual (frommy perspective, anyway).

But enough of that. What lies on the horizon for provin-

cial sports? Well, let’s see. It’s a Canada Games

year and our province’s finest will be inRegina in August to see how we meas-

ure up against the rest of the country.For athletes, the event will most like-

ly be the high-water mark of theircareers. Some will progress to competeagain at the national level, and a fewmight even get to the internationalstage. For those athletes, the CanadaGames can be a springboard to greaterheights.

For everyone else, Regina will be thehighlight. They get to represent theirprovince — an honour that will staywith them for the rest of their lives.

Oftentimes, the odds are stackedagainst our athletes when competing

with some of the bigger provinces,where training advantages — not tomention easier access to better competi-tion — gives young men and women areal competitive edge.

Despite this, our athletes turn inimpressive performances.

Athletics, baseball, basketball, canoe-ing, cycling, diving, field hockey, row-ing, rugby, sailing, soccer, softball,swimming, tennis, volleyball andwrestling are on tap for competition inSaskatchewan.

Our provincial teams and athletes willshow up and compete in all sports, save

for canoeing and field hockey, but real-istically, there are only a few sports inwhich we have a chance of winninggold, silver or bronze — or even finish-ing in the top five.

Realistically, it’s simply not sensibleto think our athletes should be in medalcontention on this stage in every sport.It would be great, mind you, but it’s justnot going to happen.

But taking home medals in everysport is not the focus. Glen Littlejohn,the province’s chef de mission for the

Passing time in sports limbo

See “Important to have,” page 30

‘Hockeynut’

BOB WHITE

Bob the bayman

Sledge hockey is once again catching on inSt. John’s; may be a league some day soon

See “Sport expecting growth,” page 30

Darryl Osborne has found his game — sledge hockey. Rhonda Hayward/The Independent