Fisherman's Road

How far has the NL fishery fallen? Not quite so far that boats are being burned, but enough so that they're losing their reason for being. Some grocery stores have stopped carrying fish caught off our shores. Costco no longer sells Atlantic cod and halibut or any other “wild species” that’s red-flagged as “at great risk." Instead, Costco freezers are stocked with Vietnam-farmed catfish, or tilapia from Honduras, according to a story in the Weekend Telegram . Costco won’t resume sales of Atlantic cod or halibut unless the sources of the fish are certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council , which bills itself as a “leading certification and ecolabelling program for sustainable seafood.” Sobeys and Loblaws have given themselves a deadline of 2013 by which time they will be committed to sell seafood from sustainable sources only. Which will likely rule out NL cod — unless Ottawa gets its arse in gear. ••• In 2003, NL cod stocks were designated as thre...

This is a hard place to live, and not just because of the weather. The retribution can be brutal. A price is often paid for going against the government grain in small-town NL — the entire population of which is only about the size of a Montreal neighbourhood, as political scientists like to point out . The CBC’s legislative reporter, David Cochrane, may have said it best three years ago in an address to the St. John’s Board of Trade: “Business leaders shy away from comment if it even smells of conflict with the government. They react as if the first person to speak out would be like the first person to wander off alone in a horror film … never to be seen again.” Gus Etchegary is an exception. There have been times when he would have spit in Ottawa’s eye, if it had an eye. ••• Etchegary, a fishing industry executive until his retirement in the late 1980s, is chairman of the Fisheries Community Alliance, a 14-member group devoted to the restoration of the NL fisheries. ...

CBC reports that Quebec is funding a new study on a possible tunnel to link the province’s Lower North Shore to Newfoundland. This time last year Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe was preaching that a sovereign Quebec would work well with a sovereign NL. Could there be more than one type of link in the works?

A story on The Telegram’s front page today, Toews blames Grits for no new prison , has the federal Conservatives taking a shot at the province’s 6 Liberal MPs. But, as usual, the only real blow is delivered to Newfoundland and Labrador. Federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told reporters in St. John’s Monday the Harper government will not help pay for a new prison to replace the 152-year-old museum by the lake, Her Majesty’s Penitentiary. Why? Because the province’s 6 Liberal MPs didn’t bring a new prison to his attention. You wouldn’t know but an election was in the air. ••• Three questions: First, Stockwell Day, the federal Public Safety minister immediately prior to Toews, toured the Pen in July 2008. Why didn’t Stockwell put the Pen on Toews’ radar? Stockwell's tour of the Pen was set up by Conservative Senator Fabian Manning . Why didn't Manning put the prison on Toews' radar? Finally, Toews has been Public Safety minister for 13 months . Why hasn’t one of the pro...

Newspaper columnists have their tricks of the trade, or ways to engage readers in written combat. One trick is to make a strong, unpopular argument — one the columnist may not necessarily agree with — for the sole purpose of getting a rise out of people. A sports columnist, for example, may write a column on the eve of the Royal St. John’s Regatta that rowing isn’t a “real” sport. That would stir people up (the crowd lakeside, for sure), and generate a few letters to the editor. A.k.a. badges of honour. ••• That particular journalistic trick came to mind when I read an article in the Weekend Telegram , Political myth-busting , in which two Memorial University political science professors tackle a number of NL political “myths.” My immediate reaction was that the professors — Alex Marland and Matthew Kerby — were trying to get a rise out of NLers. No more, no less. Myth No. 1 That the province would be better off if it didn’t join Canada. Which “ignores the fact” that NF wa...

“Even in past faded and tired Liberal governments — governments just waiting for the electorate to give them that one final shove into the pension pasture — Jones was never more than a second-tier minister. Having Jones reach the premier’s chair would be a little bit like having Danny Williams retire and Ross Wiseman taking over the Conservative party by acclamation.” — Russell Wangersky, The Telegram , Aug. 3 rd , 2010. ••• John Efford’s taking intense heat for suggesting that Liberal leader Yvonne Jones couldn’t win a provincial election. I wrote that myself just last week. Whatever happened to the concept of telling it like it is?

“I’d kill him if he starts going into politics again. I’d shoot him first.” — Teresita Williams on her son, former NL premier Danny Williams. ( National Post , Nov. 27th, 2010.) ••• I spose Danny’s all right, and his mother hasn’t taken him out. The former premier was spotted Monday pressing the flesh in his old Corner Brook district of Humber West, the day before a byelection to choose his replacement. Does that count as “going into politics again”? If so, is Teresita carrying? ••• Danny was campaigning Monday with Vaughn Granter , Tory candidate for Humber West, at Colman’s grocery in the district. There’s a photograph in today's Western Star that shows Danny wearing sunglasses indoors — like the NL super star that he is — and sporting a vote-for-Granter lapel button as he shakes hands with a constituent. The shot was taken in Colman’s bakery section (you can almost smell the fresh bread behind them) directly below the sign, “HOT.” How fitting is that? ••• Acco...

Some mornings are like Groundhog Day , the 1993 Bill Murray comedy where he finds himself repeating the same day over and over again. Especially when it comes to the local news. CBC Radio’s Morning Show reported a scoop this morning. Which is what they inferred with the use of the tag, “ CBC News has learned .” What the CBC had supposedly “learned” is that Canada is taking its fight against a European ban on seal products to “a new level.” More specifically, federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea is expected to announce today that Ottawa will take “formal action at the World Trade Organization over the European Union’s ban on seal products.” But that news was first reported — by the CBC — 15 months ago . Some mornings I’d like to introduce the radio to the groundhog’s head. ••• As it happens, the CBC changed the seal story on its website later in the morning. "CBC News has learned" was removed . I don't want to pick on the CBC, which is a news leader in New...

Shut out in the 2008 federal election, Conservatives expect to do much better next time around with the six seats in Newfoundland. But could the party be confusing Newfoundland with La La Land? Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant is slammed in today’s Ottawa Citizen for suggesting that NL fishermen take more responsibility for their own lives and not expect to be rescued by the Canadian Coast Guard if they run into trouble. The Ontario MP reportedly made the remarks last week during a House of Commons defence committee hearing in Newfoundland — further exacerbating the “already testy relationship between the Harper government and the province.” Natural Resources Minister Shawn Skinner, who attended the hearing, had this to say: “A one or two foot (wave) on the Ottawa River doesn’t compare to a 60-foot wave in the North Atlantic.” Well said, Shawn. Norway and the United States offer standard search and rescue response times of 15 minutes and 30 minutes respectively in emergencies...

“There are many who profess to regard the fishery as a thing of the past, who assume it is no longer possible to make it a paying proposition, or that it holds out any attraction to our industrious young people. I am not one of those.” — Frederick Alderdice, the last prime minister of Newfoundland, 1932. . ••• Fisheries research comes to town , is an interesting headline on The Telegram’s website today. You wouldn’t know but the arrival of the Irish research ship Celtic Explorer was NL’s first venture into fish science. Which isn’t the case, not by a long shot. In fact, Newfoundland (back when it was a country) got its first fish laboratory and research vessel in 1931 in an arrangement with Harvey and Company at their premises in Bay Bulls. Here’s a piece of NL trivia (thanks to George Rose’s book, Cod, The Ecological History of the North Atlantic Fisheries ): The vessel leased from Harvey and Company was the former side trawler RV Cape Agulhas . ••• Alderdice was an in...

If the reputation of the Newfoundland seal hunt wasn’t hard enough to defend, a hakapik has been linked to the Conservative Party of Canada. Jenni Byrne, 34, who’s been tapped by Stephen Harper to run his next election campaign, reportedly keeps a hakapik — “the weapon used to club to death baby seals” — on her office desk in Ottawa for all the world to see. The hakapik supposedly contributes to Byrne’s reputation as both feared and fearless. Which is hard to believe, considering there’s apparently not a stain of Newfoundland blood in her. Besides, it’s not the hakapik that makes the sealer, so much as the hand that swings it.

After 27 years at the helm of the St. John’s newsroom, Gerry Phelan and VOCM have “parted company," according to a Facebook update posted earlier today. “Now I seek new challenges,” Phelan writes. The general reaction, at least on Facebook, is shock. To many, Phelan was VOCM news, and it will be interesting to see how NewCap steers its news service without him. Phelan was in the news himself last month after he chaired a panel struck by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council to investigate a complaint made by a Newfoundland woman about the word “faggot” in the lyrics of the 1985 Dire Straits song, Money for Nothing . The panel ordered the word censored from the song because it’s derogatory to gay men — even though the song had played for 25 years. Christie Blatchford of the Globe and Mail described Phelan as the only Newfoundlander, besides the complainant, “without a robust sense of humour.” The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has urged th...

The Independent newspaper, when it was on the go, used to run an I-love-NL contest every year leading up to Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14 th . Readers were asked to send in a word, line, paragraph, or page explaining why they love this place. Some of the submissions are posted below. Why do you love NL? Submit your own reason in the comment section. ••• I love Newfoundland because it’s the only place I have ever been where one never feels alone in a crowd. Better Ford, Gander ••• I have lived in other provinces over the years. The single reason I can give for why I love NL is that home is where the heart is. In the years living away from NL, my heart was always home. That’s why I returned home. Elaine Budgell, Bay Bulls ••• I love Newfoundland because in our age of health obsessiveness you can find no less than four blow-out super high-calorie fish and chip restaurants — Ches’s, Johnnies, Leo’s, and the Big R — within a couple of hundred yards of each other in the capital c...