Fisherman's Road

Any chance NL would trade VLTs for a casino? Here’s an outside-the-box idea: how about trading in every last VLT in the land for a single casino in St. John’s. There seem to be loads of high rollers in Town with disposable cash. Just count the million-dollar homes, the Corvettes drag racing on the Outer Ring Road, and the cruise ships squeezing wallets through the Narrows. It would be a shame not to offer the rich and famous an outlet to vent their excesses. So get rid of the VLTs in all the nooks and crannies, where problem gamblers aren’t so easy to spot. Or help. And go with a casino in St. John’s like other big-boy cities. ••• Forget the rich and famous, mention the VLT debate — whether or not to eliminate video lottery terminals outright — and people say they should have the right to choose. The same way they can choose to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. They don’t want government to make decisions for them. Pro-choice in every way. Besides, each of the Maritime provinces has a...

It’s one thing to wait a few minutes to get a haircut. Quite another to have to wait around for the police to take fingerprints. I stopped by the First Choice Hair Salon on Elizabeth Avenue in St. John’s Friday afternoon and encountered a locked door. I looked through the door’s window to see a crowd of bulletproof vests interviewing haircutters and their clients. I watched as a young man, 15 or so, signed a statement handed to him by the officer who had taken it down. A lady who had arrived earlier for her hair appointment told me that the salon had been held up a few minutes earlier by two men with knives. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon when I arrived on scene, son in tow. The salon is off a busy intersection in east end St. John’s, with Canadian Tire just around the corner. I’m tempted to write “daring” daylight robbery. But “daring” has an intelligent ring to it. I moved on to the next salon up the road, where one of the stylists expressed surprise that robbers would target a b...

Finally, the answer is clear on how to turn around battered groundfish stocks such as northern cod off the island's northeast coast and Labrador. One word: resettlement. Only 2010 style. Pack up the fish this time around and move them to waters off the Maritimes. The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans is sure to look after the stocks when they’re in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. As far as I can tell the department has only turned its back on the Grand Banks. ••• I’m shaking my head as I type because I can’t believe the news article I read this evening. And heard discussed on the Fisheries Broadcast . CBC reported today that DFO is looking at ways to reduce the estimated 300,000 grey seals in the Gulf of St. Lawrence because they’re hurting the recovery of groundfish stocks. I repeat — because they’re hurting the recovery of groundfish stocks. Who knew? I’ll come back to that in a moment. There are two scenarios contained in the report prepared for DFO by a Halifax consulting fi...

“My father grew up in a house that was blessed with water from an iceberg. A picture of that iceberg hung on the walls in the front rooms of the many houses I grew up in. It was a blown-up photograph that yellowed gradually with age until we could barely make it out. My grandmother, Nan Johnston, said the proper name for the iceberg was Our Lady of the Fjords, but we called it the Virgin Berg.” — Baltimore’s Mansion, Wayne Johnston ••• There was news this week about how Newfoundlanders shouldn’t be surprised if they soon see an iceberg and do a double take. This past March Dutch sculptor Ap Verheggen placed two iron sculptures of stylized dogsleds on icebergs off Greenland, icebergs that are now drifting south. It’s hoped the sculptures will generate discussion about climate change. An iron dogsled is one thing, but imagine how Newfoundlanders felt in 1905 when an iceberg bearing a striking resemblance to the Virgin Mary floated past the Narrows, the entrance to St. John’s harbour. On ...

“Francois’s television antennas — make-shift wooden crosses, unnervingly like primitive grave markers — are silhouetted on the hilltops. I heard it said more than once in the outports that the arrival of television had changed Newfoundland irrevocably. However that may be, the music of outport kitchens, the ticking of clocks, the sputter of fireboxes, and the rhythm of knitting needles and rockers now must compete with the cacophony of the sitcom and the quiz show.” — National Geographic , May 1986 ••• National Geographic is in the local news this week after St. John’s city council’s tourism advisory committee said it wanted to join forces with the magazine to establish eastern Newfoundland as an official National Geographic “geotourism destination.” Which would essentially put our geography front and center on the world’s tourism map. When I heard the news I was immediately reminded of a 25-page spread that National Geographic did on Newfoundland (before the name change) in 1986 — ...

This question may be stunned, but here goes: If a German pulp and paper company — and a “reputable” one at that — sees merit in reopening the old AbitibiBowater mill in central Newfoundland, why can’t the former mill workers form a co-op and take it over themselves? It worked for Fogo Island and fish. Why can’t it work for Grand Falls-Windsor and wood? The Fogo Island Co-operative was formed in 1967 when the locals — facing resettlement — rebuilt their local economy on the sea, the only resource they had to play with. Today, the co-op has boats, plants, markets and a future. Necessity was the mudder of Fogo invention. In the case of Grand Falls-Windsor, the unnamed German company that toured the old mill last week apparently likes the access to a wood supply, a trained workforce and potentially cheap power. Not to mention an actual mill, which the Danny Williams administration accidentally expropriated last year. It isn’t known how much it would cost to get the mill up and running, but...

Oh thank goodness. For a while there I feared that Chevron’s drilling of the deepest oil well in Canadian history off Newfoundland could lead to a repeat of the “biblical” oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico. No worries of that now, though. The offshore regulator announced this week that it will use “greater oversight,” including more frequent inspections and audits of the well being drilled in the Orphan Basin, about 430 kilometres northeast of St. John’s. Speaking of leaks, excuse me while I plug the sarcasm dripping on my keyboard. There. All fixed. It was only late last year that Canadian regulators relaxed offshore drilling regulations, giving the energy industry more flexibility when putting in place safeguards against oil spills. Two steps back. One step forward. ••• Keeping a closer eye on the Orphan basin well won’t change the fact that if something goes wrong it will be harder to fix than the Gulf of Mexico leak. It may take months to plug the Gulf well. How much longer would ...

Blasts from NL’s past May 2005 “I disagree with that (the Gomery Inquiry into the sponsorship scandal), I think public inquiry causes too much discussion in public.” — Then-Liberal MP John Efford. “It is the flesh and blood of exiled Newfoundland, the bodies and souls who still face the sad exodus, which must command the thought and efforts of any Newfoundland administration. It’s the people, stupid. The Rock never cries.” — Ray Guy. May 2006 “There are times when I really love it, and I’m really proud of it and there are times when I feel like I just want to leave.” — Anita Best on her home province. “I’ve got to see what happens with Mr. Williams. He’s going right off the deep end with ‘It’s going to be our project.’ He can’t forget Quebec. He can’t do it without Quebec.” — Dave hunt, a past-president of the Labrador North Chamber of Commerce. May 2007 “He gives me motivation to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Newfoundland.” — Dean MacDonald on Gerry Reid. “It’s all ri...

“We need to be saying “Good-Bye French Frogs!” Time to live and let live … Separation is in ORDER!:)” — A comment left Thursday (May 19th) by “Denise” on VOCM’s website in response to the Question of the Day: Are you surprised the Quebec Court of Appeal has refused to hear the province's appeal concerning the clean-up of AbitibiBowater's former properties? ••• The above comment is absolutely tame compared to some of the anonymous comments left on local news websites. Pussycat tame. Some comments are published online that would never see the light of print. They can be abusive, hateful, insulting, obscene, vulgar, personal, and degrading. Not to mention downright mean and nasty. Oh, and libel. To top it off, most online comments are anonymous. But that’s changing. The Ottawa Citizen unveiled Wednesday (May 19th) a new reader-comments system that does away with anonymous commenting. Users will have to register first. “It will also allow us to better manage those abusive comments...

Danny Williams is forever in the news, but the following headline in Tuesday’s South London Press (that’s London, England) almost decked me. “Danny Williams: Now I can call it quits” Only the scrapper in the UK news isn’t our own Townie cornerboy who loves to blacken enemy lamps, but a veteran fighter who lost his British heavyweight title on Saturday night (May 15th). Danny Williams, a 15-year professional boxer, lost by a technical knockout in the second round. Our own Danny B’y has been knocked around by Quebec as of late, but isn’t about to throw in the towel. He told the Canadian Press earlier this month he wants a third term, although he has a ways to go before catching up to the all-time champ (in terms of political longevity) — Joey Smallwood. Telegram cartoonist Kevin Tobin loves to draw Williams with a bowtie, but the premier would have to win six back-to-back elections to match Joey’s record. Smallwood actually ran in 7 elections as leader of the provincial Liberals, altho...

The Globe and Mail reports today that Nova Scotia Auditor General Jacques Lapointe has called in the RCMP to investigate four former and one current member of the legislature for possible criminal activity involving their expense claims. But NL’s constituency allowance scandal still leads the way with six charges (and six convictions). Nova Scotia’s AG is to release a report today that doesn’t name names or many other details about the five cases. The AG began the deeper forensic investigation after an initial report in February highlighted a number of inappropriate purchases — big-screen TVs, custom-built furniture, etc. — by members of the legislature between July 2006 and June 2009. The scandal led to one resignation and, as The Globe reports, caused the government to announce changes in the way expense accounts for members of the legislature are governed and how they are publicly reported. Here in NL, our constituency allowance scandal eventually led to convictions against four M...

I mentioned in my last post how I came across an old collection of Newfoundland Quarterlies while Sunday cupboard cleaning. I set aside a Special Issue from the spring of 1978: Canadian Unity: From a Newfoundland Perspective , and promised to report back on interesting bits. And there were a few ... I’ll leave the fascinating essays for another day. The back of the magazine included News highlights between Dec. 1, 1977 and Feb. 28th, 1978. Highlights include: Dec. 1, 1977 “Solicitor-General Francis Fox stated that Newfoundland didn’t produce enough criminals to warrant a federal prison — and that the 80 Newfoundlanders in Dorchester, N.B., and Springhill N.S. prisons were permitted one telephone call per month to compensate them for the expense of their being visited.” I wonder if they're still getting free calls back home? Dec. 9, 1977 “A twin-engined jet crashed in Churchill Falls, killing eight people including top executive officers of Churchill Falls Labrador Corporation an...

I was in the act of cleaning out the cupboard under the TV this afternoon, which is what rainy Sundays are for, and came across a collection of Newfoundland Quarterly magazines. It was like getting them again, for the first time. One of my most prized Quarterlies is a Special Issue from the spring of 1978: Canadian Unity: from a Newfoundland perspective . I’m going to read it again later tonight. Can't wait. I’ll report back tomorrow on the interesting bits. I flicked through the pages (I have a bad habit of underlining paragraphs), and came across a poem on the back page by Percy Janes, who penned one of my all-time favourite Newfoundland books: House of Hate . Poems are made for inside Sundays. Dissident From East to West the execution squads are clattering toward a central fort, to blast one holdout waiting there. “Conform to Partypower” their slogans read, “or to the Majesty of Moneypower. This, or die.” And deep in that stockade time’s last non-partisan guru delves in his mi...

This isn’t the first time NL and Quebec have gone at it Thirty years ago the then-local CBC TV news show On Camera investigated the lower Churchill project and efforts to get it off the ground. Like the Danny Williams administration of today, the government of Brian Peckford was anxious to do a deal. The Power Authority of the State of New York was prepared to buy Lower Churchill power, but NL couldn't get permission to transmit it across Quebec. Peckford argued Newfoundland had a constitutional right to transmit electricity through Quebec, the same way oil can be piped between provinces. Ottawa was asked to intercede, but didn’t. Below is an overview of the On Camera series from three decades ago. The series was included in The Independent newspaper’s 2004 cost-benefit analysis of Confederation. The CBC spared no expense with the series, which took weeks to put together. Interviews were conducted with the major players in New York, Ottawa and Quebec. ON CAMERA’S INVESTIGATION I...

Premier Danny Williams was more pissed than usual this week. Which is saying something. But then Quebec tends to drive Newfoundland premiers right over the edge. Quebec has punished us silly for years with the monumentally lopsided 1969 Upper Churchill contract. And the 31 years left on it. It punishes us too with the Lower Churchill — “the best undeveloped large-scale hydroelectric asset in North America” — and the decades NL has been unable to move it forward. What’s worse is that Ottawa hasn't lifted a finger. There have been points when the Government of Canada could have stepped in. Ottawa can still step in. But then Confederation seems to work better for some provinces than others. ••• As for where relations stand today … NL is suing Quebec for a better deal under the 1969 Upper Churchill contract. In a December speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, Williams said in 2008 alone, Quebec made $1.7 billion from the Upper Churchill contract, compared to $63 million for NL. “...

Jeffrey Simpson's column today in The Globe and Mail is a must read. To stir debate if nothing else. It's about the future of fish/us.

I just sent an e-mail to Bill Rowe, who's filling in this week on Open Line for Randy Simms. I'm posting a copy here: Just heard you on Open Line, Bill. As passionate as you've ever been. Good radio, I must say. I 100 per cent agree that Auditor General Sheila Fraser should be allowed to look at MP and Senate (don't forget the Senate) books. I investigated first hand what happened here, with our MHA scandal, and reviewed what happened in the UK and Nova Scotia. The details were shocking, as you know. Not allowing the AG in automatically creates suspicion. The only way to stop that suspicion from growing — and it will grow — is to open the door and let Sheila Fraser in. Ryan Cleary

‘I don’t have to prove this thing (offshore drilling) is risky, they have to prove it’s safe.” — New Democrat MP Nathan Cullen. ••• God forbid, but let’s say the worst-case scenario unfolds on the Orphan Basin about 430 kilometres off Newfoundland and there’s a massive oil spill on the scale of the Gulf Coast disaster. Set aside the monumental environmental catastrophe for now. The cleanup could cost a king’s ransom. In our case, a Danny ransom. The potential liability must have Chevron, the company doing the drilling, shaking in its oilskins. Or not. The offshore project operator would be 100-per cent liable for any costs and damages if it was determined that the operator were at fault. Fair enough. But what if there’s a leak and the operator weren’t at fault? According to a story in today’s Montreal Gazette , under the current rules companies have limited liability. In fact, the cleanup of a major offshore leak could land at the feet of Canadian taxpayers. Oil companies in Canada are...

“The C-NLOPB has acted much more as a cheerleader for oil development than as a regulator. They are routinely covering up vital information about offshore pollution — there is no other way to put it.” — Ian Toner, a biologist at Memorial University who studies sea birds and the effect of oil pollution on them, as quoted on CTV News . ••• The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board’s slogan is catchy enough: Regulating for future generations . Only the slogan isn’t specific enough — regulating for future generations of what ? Marine life? Couldn’t be. If that were the case the petroleum board would take the safe side and push for a halt to the drilling of the deepest well in Canadian history in the Orphan Basin about 430 kilometres off Newfoundland. At least until the cause of British Petroleum’s deepwater blowout/environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico is better understood, and the completion of an independent review of our own offshore oil spill safety practi...

The following headline appeared this past Friday (May 11th) in British Columbia’s Victoria Times Colonist : April unemployment rates: B.C. 7.3%, Newfoundland 15% NL may be a have and happening province, but we’re also still known from sea to shining sea for our unemployment rate — the highest of Canadian provinces. FYI — PEI has the second highest unemployment rate, at 9.5 per cent. If not for the oil industry, NL would be in sad fiscal shape. A basket case. Natural Resources Minister Kathy Dunderdale acknowledged as much herself. Here’s a Monday (May 10th) headline from Nova Scotia’s Pictou County News : Oil industry too critical to N.L. to suspend deep offshore exploration: minister Too critical to risk poisoning the sea that sustains us? Too critical to risk what few Atlantic cod are left? That's the same species of fish that scientists, as recently as two weeks ago, were trying to have declared "endangered." Would an oil spill push the poor cod over the edge? The ques...

Oil from the Gulf of Mexico may be washing up on our political shores, but the response is anything but environment first. Just the opposite: it’s “chill baby chill." And “drill baby drill.” Meaning someday soon it could be “spill baby spill.” And the baby could be lost with the black water. The massive and ever-growing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico has raised fears about the safety of offshore drilling. But media reports indicate Chevron Canada Ltd. plans to proceed this week to drill one of the deepest offshore oil wells in the world off our coast. Located 430 kilometres northeast of St. John’s in an area known as the Orphan Basin, the well will look for crude 2.6 kilometres under water — almost a kilometre deeper than the well that broke in the Gulf of Mexico. It may take weeks or months to stop the Gulf of Mexico leak. How much longer would it take to fix a leak that’s in far, far deeper water and in an area of the North Atlantic much further off the world’s beaten path? Too ...

“Scientists were also explicitly ordered then, as they are today, not to discuss ‘politically sensitive matters’ (e.g. the status of fish stocks currently under moratoria) with the public, irrespective of the scientific basis, and publication status, of the scientists’ concerns.” — Drs. Jeffrey Hutchings, Carl Walters and Richard Haedrich, three respective university scientists, in the 1997 paper, Is Scientific Inquiry Incompatible with Government Information Control? ••• It’s hard to believe that anyone would tell Dr. Jeff Hutchings what to say about fish. He's one of the scientists who blew the whistle years ago on bureaucratic interference with the communication of research findings. In fact, he won a "whistle-blower" award. Hutchings doesn’t even have a public relations director. Which is unheard of these days. In a time when most info is vetted. Blogs even. Not this one, mind you. Dr. Hutchings is a well-known fish scientist with N.S.'s Dalhousie University, and ...

The following profile appears on the Fogo Island Co-op's website: “In 1967, we had to make a life-altering decision on Fogo Island. Leave our beloved island home and resettle on the mainland of Newfoundland and Labrador. Or stay and find a way to make it on our own. We stayed. And we made it. To ensure our survival, we turned to what we knew best for hundreds of years — the sea. Following a process of community self-discovery now known worldwide as the Fogo Process, our fishers formed the Fogo Island Co-operative Society, a community-based enterprise on which we built the economy of our island. We built more boats. We built bigger boats. We took over processing facilities abandoned by private enterprise. We built more plants. We sought new markets. And the Fogo Island Co-op has not only survived, it has succeeded. Today, Fogo Island and the Co-op are a major force in the international fish harvesting community. We have a fleet of 30 longliners, three fish plants, two buying station...

Fogo Island may be blueprint for outport renewal Finally. Light may have broken on the fishery’s dark days. The Fogo Island Co-op may have shown itself to be the future of the Newfoundland fishery, an example of how fishermen can make a go of it yet. A way to save the outports. — our heritage, culture. and pride. Could it be that the new economic model for rural Newfoundland and Labrador is the community co-op — with fishermen holding the quotas, catching and processing the fish, and selling it to market? With “millionaire merchants” removed from the equation? And fishermen free as the waves to make a go of it? ••• The Fogo Island Co-op is in the news this week for being kicked out of the Association of Seafood Producers. The Navigator breaks the story in its May edition. UPDATE: The story breaks on The Navigator's website . Editor Jim Wellman tells me the story broke after the May edition had gone to print, so he published it online. The co-op reportedly broke ranks this spring...

UPDATE : Included at the end of this post is the gripping story of Bay Roberts sniper Dave Fitzpatrick, who served in Bosnia. Newfoundlander Rob Furlong has lost his unofficial title as the best sniper in the history of marksmanship. According to a story in today’s Globe and Mail , British Corporal Craig Harrison killed two Taliban fighters last November from a mountain perch 2.47 kilometres away. Until now, the Canadian Forces and a former corporal from Fogo Island had claimed the world’s best sniper shot. In 2002, when the Afghanistan war was still in its infancy, Canadian army Corporal Rob Furlong of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry killed an alleged al-Qaeda fighter from 2.43 kilometres away — seemingly an unsurpassable feat. The rifle that Furlong used was a McMillan Tac-50 — which fires bullets the size of pop cans. But then Furlong was actually usually American ammo when he fired his record shot, having run out of Canadian ammunition. The Globe says Furlong’s sh...