Merry "World Fisheries Day"!

Today is World Fisheries Day.

Better than Christmas for those focused on securing a strong, stable and healthy fishery.

Except the presents and the gifts are few and far between for this special occasion and special industry.

More often than not, it's coals in the stockings kinda-feeling.

More challenges than solutions. More talk than action. More short-term take than long-term planning, innovation and investment.

Still, we are thankful for this day for it highlights the most serious problems not just facing NL, other countries, but the entire globe and our 7 billion earthling family members.

All those people need to be fed. And the wild fish population will be critical to this food provision. There is an anticipated increase in global food production in the years ahead and that's just one of the many reasons to step up our game.

World Fisheries Day is also a day to celebrate.

So, on this day I am grateful for our long fishing history and ancestors who  nurtured us to this time and place under the stars.

And I am thankful for the small things, like the recent news that our very own federal government plans to rebuild the Newfoundland Atlantic Cod in the area known as 3PS - on the south coast of our province. Yes, it's the same government that wiped out the world's greatest fishery. After 22 years of a shutdown in our fishery, to see inshore and offshore sectors and the processing sector come together to ensure the long-term sustainability of these stocks is like a very nice Christmas gift. (Let's hope they don't overfish the stock in the process.)

Not to be greedy, but we need more gifts like that.

Why the wild fishery? Well, the wild fisheries matter to people because they provide a truly organic resource; and they provide livelihoods, cultural identity, and a sense of place.

Most importantly, we need to be sustainable to ensure that fishing today does not harm fishing potential for future generations. A kind of fishery that comes around every Christmas for time immortal. 

Imagine if Santa would just stop coming how devastating that would be.  Same goes for the fishery.

 
Our fisheries also need the gifts of meeting rural development and local food security needs.

 

There is no doubt about it, the fishery needs a Santa.

 

Not for one day only but all year, all decades and all generations long.

 

So, here's to the day when our fishery stocking will be chock-ful with all the right gifts.

Have a Merry Wild Fishery Day!

I, amongst other things, will be eating my small stash of frozen Cod caught by a hard-working Newfoundland fisherman to celebrate!

"...for the Uplifting of the Fishermen"

On November 3,1908, the Fishermen's Protective Union (The FPU) was formed in this province after founder William Ford Coaker gave a two-hour speech in Herring Neck and signed up his first members.

Exactly 106 years to the day, McCurdy announced his retirement in St. John's after serving for over 21 years as President of a modern day fishermen's union, the FFAW.

Life, they say, is about cycles and patterns - a series of endings and beginnings; or is it, as the optimists like to advance, no endings, only beginnings?

Coaker was referred to as the Fishermen's Advocate and this is reflected even in the name he chose for his union with the word "protective" at its heart . The FPU dominated politics along the northeast coast of the island for a quarter-century. In fact, Coaker was eventually elected to the Legislature and in his maiden speech, he  stated  (a) revolution ...has been fought in Newfoundland. The fishermen, the toilers of Newfoundland, has made up his mind that he is going to be represented on the floor of this House."

In the end, the FPU ceased to be, but not before a ceaseless struggle of - as Smallwood termed it - "countless battles for the uplifting of the fishermen."

However McCurdy's tenure as Union president and advocate is judged will be for the history books.   As for Coaker, a sentiment offered by a supporter said it all.  "It didn't turn out to be a successful great ending, but he had the courage and the pluck to try, and that made him a hero in many people's eyes. "


In the Catholic faith, the patron saint of fishermen was St. Peter, a fisherman himself.  How did St. Peter die? - well, he was apparently "crucified with his head downwards"..  Perhaps that is why today McCurdy said his job was "not for the  faint of heart". Being the protector of fishermen through the centuries has never been an easy calling.  Coaker would no doubt agree.

The struggle for fishermen continues.  It has too - for they are at the very centre of our history, our here-and-now and our hereafter.  Our fishermen are the constant soul of our province, though various imposters knock at our door over time. Fishermen will always need advocates (like Coaker and McCurdy) for they are the tireless toilers that need protection against those with protection grand-fathered in, like the ol' fish merchants and current day versions.

The cycle continues this November as it did in November 1908. The endings, the beginnings ...

Incidently, Coaker was buried on November 4, 1938.  McCurdy's last day as FFAW President is November 17th, 2014.

Our Magnifcent Truth

Blessed am I to receive, this Thanksgiving weekend, an email from a passionately inspired and immensely proud Newfoundlander and Labradorian - Dr. Phil Earle.

He is amongst a small core of our people who still believes strongly in a fishing future for our province and whose soul is tortured by our falling away from our roots - our "failing path" he terms it. In this email-essay he expresses a poetic reverence for this place we call our home and how it has shaped us and is calling out for our respect and our action .  His words will reek of romanticism to those sold on the here and now and with little aptitude beyond the profit margin. To those with a sense of soul, sensitivity, history, depth, respect and vision, his words are indeed the "magnificent truth"... 


Hi Kim;

You know, maybe I just don't face the reality of this place... our past, EJ Pratt knew -  like we do and feel  - that our people were fired in danger and courage, in daring and ability, in self-reliance and venture. This rock and sea that forced us to make a pack with it ... infusing in us, in its process, with a character of love and trust.

The process of the outward journey into the inebriate Nord Atlantic which was really, in our seafaring fathers and mothers, an inward journey into their souls! Fact. How else can you explain how they had the greatest fiber woven into their beings? Tell me?

This reality, this truth, of who we have been, where we came from; and therefore, who we ARE... has another part today in that 90 goddam percent who now live on this island have forgotten this magnificent truth.

Our shame is not the destruction of our fishing resource ... our shame on this island is that we have lost the connection to the soul that made us the greatest seafaring characters and fisher people on earth. We have become a derelict culture.
Not to be taken out of context... but look around NL today... oil, mining, tens of thousands working in Alberta, aquaculture, etc. So are we blending into the melting pot of Toronto or Ft Mac or what Harper wants to do to us as fodder for the nations of CETA? What culture is this ... one like an Indian Reservation?

Our fishery has the ability to sustain a 10-Billion yearly economy, bigger then Norway's and that would completely change our province... restore our coastal heritage, culture and our Souls.  
 
Its not words that will bring the insight and passion that we need to change
our failing path... only the belief in one's heart of what can be - and action from it can make a difference.
phil  

The Canaries in our Waters

Sometimes, a single newspaper can tell a larger tragic story
without even intending to do so.

Such was the case on Friday, August 28th, 2014, when The Telegram featured several disturbing environmental pieces.

The first was front-page story of Gannets in Cape St. Mary's abandoning their young chicks in nests, leaving them to starve. According to seabird biologists, Bill Montevecchi, something similar happened two years ago and he calls the behaviour "extreme".

Over on page A5, another baffling find in our waters. Recreational divers fishing for scallops near Change Islands and Fogo Island found empty scallops in not one, but nine different locations.  A similar eerie find occurred less than a year ago in Port au Port area where divers there found high mortality within scallop shells and with rock crab.

One doesn't have to be a scientist to sense that something may be amiss in our waters. Are these findings the canary in the coal mine for our oceans? Are these unusual outcomes telling us something that we are overlooking?  Are there other unreportable environmental quirks happening that could lead to a comprehensive picture of what is affecting our watery coal mine like overfishing, pollution and ocean acidification?

Most importantly WHO is investigating to try and get to the bottom of both of these incidents and others.  The answer may lie in the same paper - this time on the editorial page in very insightful piece called "Science Inc."

This editorial highlights once again the war on science that Horrible Harper has launched since he landed in the PM's chair.  From slashing scientific budgets to undermining the independence of scientists, this corporate creature continues to drive a profit agenda, at the expense of the environment. His recent Aquaculture regulations attests to this reckless approach.

As the editorial so rightly states "Science should exists as a service to all facets of society, including environmental protection."

It goes on with a more powerful message "The world is more complex than oil and jobs."

It was telling in the scallop story that DFO, upon hearing of the empty shells, asked local  divers to bring in samples, rather than launching a full-scale investigation themselves. It's like the police saying  "Bring in the body - we'll have it analysed."

The editorial points out that the decimation of the East Coast fishery shows the federal government does not have the right stuff, nor the right moral fabric to take care of our fish and our waters.

Tragedies are happening. The canaries are dying.

And there is little or no stewardship priorities in the political corridors of DFO. 

But future generations depend on what we do today.  So do what you can.

Speak up 
Vote up
Vote out

Be on the right side of history.

Rejigging Youth back in the Fishery Boat

Notwithstanding a loss of life,
two bits of good news have been harvested from this summer's food fishery.  

First, reports of the larger Cod is encouraging as it appears our fish are winning the battle against all that has ailed them the past quarter century or more.

The other reassuring aspect is the number of young people featured in social media photos out on the water, getting the smell of the house off them and catching a feed of Cod with their relatives.

If our fishery is ever to rejig itself into a full-fledged sustainable commercial fishery, we need the next generation eager and engaged.

 

And young people out in the boats during the annual food fishery is a dandy way for them to get in touch with their heritage and acquire skills and some understanding of fishing and conservation.
 

For a number of years during the Cod moratorium, young people didn't see a future in the fisheries, let alone see themselves involved in this industry. For these post-moratorium young citizens, the fisheries was something that happened in the past, something their grandfathers did.  Our young people also learned in school that the Newfoundland fishery has been a failure, that it was overfished & no one cares about it anymore. "Our fishery went away" is all they know.
 

Sometimes, children need leadership and positive messaging to lead them into areas where they see no hope or a future.  Thankfully, there are voices trying to push a positive message about our fishery and inspire passion for its future.

Our province's Cod Doc George Rose once stated that: 

We need our children to grow up knowing the benefits
that our fishery brings to the province & their community.
Our children should grow up knowing the benefits to the
biological, social, cultural and economic benefits of our great resource"
 
Kudos also to CURRA (Community-University Research for Recovery Alliance) which kick-started the dialogue a number of times (and even held workshops) to highlight the issue of re-engaging youth in our fishery.  Lead Researcher Barb Neis produced a report on CURRA's 5- year project as it concluded, entitled "Moving Forward - Building Economically, Socially & Ecologically Resilient Fisheries & Coastal Communities". 

 

One of Neis' key messages was that the fisheries is NOT broken and that we must encourage youth in the fisheries.  "Governments, schools and other institutions should encourage young people's interest in,and entry into fisheries ... Our school curriculum is strangely devoid of information about marine ecology and about fisheries as a way of life and as a business. There is also next to nothing in it on fisheries culture and heritage."

In her DVD "Cod, Renewing a Bountiful Catch",  Invervale Founder and President Kathleen Blanchard encourages our young people to take an active interest in Cod recovery. The DVD  shares the following advice:  "take young people out on the water, share their enthusiasm for what they discover and  encourage their sense of wonder about the ocean." 

Over in Norway, they have a strategy of providing a youth quota to address intergenerational succession in the fisheries.  It's an idea worth looking into for our province and would need the enlightened support of all sectors.

 

The collapse and downsizing over the years in the fishery has had a dysfunctional effect on our intergenerational continuity in the fisheries. Transfer of skills and knowledge through the generations is how we sustain industries and culture, and the fisheries more so than most.

 

Of late, the news have warned us of NDD (Nature Deficit Disorder) and its effects on our young people.  Here in Newfoundland and Labrador we need to guard against  FDD (Fisheries Deficit Disorder) in our youth. Getting them on the water during the food fisheries is a wonderful place to start, but there's a boatload of other initiatives to consider and implement.

 

In fisheries lore, it is well-known that the older female Cod is vital to recruitment efforts, but when it comes to industry, it is our youth that is important to its sustainability.

 

This recent twitter post by a local journalist is an encouraging sign our youth may still be interested in one of Newfoundland's oldest industries:

 

Son, who's 4: "Dad, do I have to get married & become a husband? "

Me: "That'll be up to you."

Son: "I think I'd rather be a fisherman.

 

Amen to that!
 

-30-

The Friggin' Fish Flu

Dear ex-fish Minister Gail Shea:

Please do not visit our province again. Nothing personal - just a provincial health concern and alert.

We come down with a wicked case of "Fuck-the-NL Fishery" flu every time you pop by.

 

We end up with the shivers and shakes (our heads and our fists),

and chills (you leave us feeling so cold)

and uncontrollable nausea and cursing.

We gets the sweats (from our exasperation and anger)

and the dry scratchy throat (from condemning you on Open Line).

Then we gets the runs - some running away from your curse

and the rest running to clout you 'bout the head.

 

Its just ungodly how ill and weak we get when you hit our shores. You takes the good right out of us, I tell you cause you got everything arse foremost!

So, the good Doctor recommends that we stay very, very far away from the carrier of this wicked flu. The anti-frig-the-fish flu shot won't work, he says, because we've already been overdosed by your arrogance, patronizing ways, as well as contempt for us. Not to mention your slick misleading info and feigning compassion. You do not understand the fisheries and how it defines us. Cut your losses and skedaddle, missus.

It isn't much to ask you NOT to come here for your once-a-year visit, is it?  Just send those few piddly federal dollars for wharves and what-nots on the boat to China with our fish. It'll make it back to us at some point.

You see the "Frig-the-NL Fishery" flu is the hardest flu ever to hit our people 'cause we just loves our fishery. We take it seriously. We lives and breathes it and sometimes we adores it just like a god. It's been real good to us over the century and we like to keep it healthy and strong into the future. We got centuries ol' communities and young people counting on the fishery heartbeat to keep pumping. Sure, if truth be known we got babies lined in heaven just waiting to be born a NL fisher in a rural NL community - that's how precious and popular our culture is. Ottawa don't have those bragging rights, eh?

So, if you can't stop coming, we will retaliate. We got this new vicious flu bug growing that if unleashed could wipe out your entire central Canada government and I predict it will happen during Election 2015.  They don't call us fighting Nflders for nothing, girl.

In the meantime, we are symbolically striping you of your title as Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. In our books, you have never earned a day's pay yet.

And as for rationalizing the fishery - don't you get it by now? Us Newfoundlanders and Labradorians can't be rational when we're pissin' angry - especially about our fisheries. So if you going to insist on inflicting the LIFO damage and all the other fish mess, let the fish flu biological warfare begin! 

Cough, sniffle ... ahhh..coo! Look, we're even breaking out in hives. Jaysus, yes, stay away - we're even allergic to you too!  Oh me nerves!

Fishing for a Fair Food Fishery

Cod and Newfoundlander & Labrador are linked liked the moon and the stars.  It's hard not to think about one without the other.

Centuries ago, our waters teemed in these fish; and we treasured them, traded them and yes, we ate them.

 

Now, we are now down to a dictated fishery that permits our citizens only five fish a day for just 31 days of the year (July 19-August 10/September 20 -28^th). The feds call it the recreational fishery, but we shouldn’t let them - for our people, it's our chance to put our traditional food back on the table.

My uncle recently shared a story about how, as young boy coming home from school for lunch, my grandmother would ask him to take the flat boat and row off a little ways in the cove and jig a Cod or two for supper.

 

It would take just a few minutes and I would have a couple of good-sized fish and head back to school. But things were different then....

 

When it comes to Cod - it could have been different. We could have sustained our ability to fish for food every day of the year. Instead, the bungling Cod managers in Ottawa mismanaged it so gravely, we nearly lost the resource. Twenty three years later, we are lucky to have a food fishery.

 

Back a year ago, some 18 organizations convened a meeting in Clarenville and found a common ground in expressing massive dissatisfaction with the Atlantic Canada 2013 groundfish regulations.  In other Atlantic Provinces, up to 10 groundfish are permitted and the season runs much longer – up to 11 months in one part of Nova Scotia.

 

This coalition wrote the Prime Minister, but despite their poor track record on managing fish stocks Ottawa argued they know best.   Thus, these unfair regulations are still in place.  This ongoing and controversial policy is discriminatory. And it needs changing, especially given that our Cod is on the first step of the rebound ladder. 

 

What we really need is joint management of our fisheries – but in the meantime, we needed justice.   Our culture and our heritage have been built on the Cod fishery; and our bodies nourished by this world-famous fish.   Not something those without coastal genes far from the ocean would understand.

 

Not certain where this quote came from, but it sums it up nicely our love of a good meal of Cod…

 

The food fishery  "sure that's not a meal!  When you were fishing , fer sure you had fish once a day"
Sure, I wouldn't mind if we had it 3 times a day …

 

 

So despite the unfairness, Cod-bless the traditional fish that is on our tables on those regulated days. Keep Safe!


 

Rebuild It and They Will Come

The wound of the 1992 Cod Moratorium still festers after all these years.

It's been 22 years today that the near 550-year-old fishery narrative was forever altered in our province.

With the collapse of the Cod stocks and the declaration of the moratorium, we lost scores of jobs from 400 communities (the largest industrial closure in Canadian history), and people (80,000 left the province!); and our society and culture took a bad beating. 

Some say that the Moratorium milestone ranks up there in significance with the founding of this land in 1497... it was that huge - then, and still remains so today.  

For those with a connection to the fishery and our rural places, our hearts still aches for the mess-management that brought us to that point, all that has slipped away from us since and for the cavalier approach by both governments in restoring the resource over the past 2 decades.

In 2005 government produced a document called A Strategy for the Recovery and Management of Cod Stocks in Newfoundland and Labrador. Nearly a decade later, government #INACTION nailed it to a cross of gross negligence. Now, we are told that because Canada signed an international agreement committing them to using the Precautionary approach in managing fish stocks, they decided (in 2009) that rebuilding plans were needed (some smart they are). Two years later (in 2011) DFO took the next giant step and formed working groups to develop rebuilding plans in areas 2JKL, 3PS and 3Pn4RS.   There are no formal written terms of reference as yet - at the rate they going, that may take another few decades.  

If Canada is ever to move on properly rebuilding the Cod fishery, it will take international pressure from people concerned about world fish stocks.   Ottawa has shown time and time again, they could care less, nor do they understand, the fishery, its health and the socio-economic and cultural importance to our province.

It's been 22 years ... a long wait for our heart and soul to be returned to our province. 
And as one wise observer of the fishery has stated:

Until Ottawa is forced to accept its responsibility and restore the fishery, the future
of the Newfoundland and Labrador economy is in jeopardy. Unless we have a restored and viable renewable fishery, reliance on non- renewable resources (oil and
minerals) will lead to economic disaster.

Then there are those who say if the Cod comes back in full abundance, who will want to fish it?

Rebuild it Ottawa - because it's the right and moral thing to do and because you owe us big time.  

And we can assure you we will come to fish it.  It's in our centuries-old fishing genes.  


   

Lest We Forget ....

She has a household name here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

And she passed away on this day in 1829.

Shanawdithit.

Her death was extraordinary. She was the last known Beothuck who graced our fair isle.

Shanawdithit succumbed to a white man's disease called tuberculosis - the "cough demon" that had taken many of her people.

Having surrender to, or been captured by, Europeans due to destitution, Shanawdithit lived for 5 years as a housekeeper on the Exploit Rivers.  Still only in her late twenties, she spent the last year of her life in St. John's under the care of William Cormack (who to his credit had formed the Beothuck Institute in 1827 to help build a bridge to these aboriginal people.) 

Through drawings and words, Shanawdithit or Nancy April (as she was called)  shared much of what we know about her native people and culture.

Did we, as white people, mean  to wipe to another human race? Perhaps not, but clearly we did not do enough to save them.

From the time we landed on these shores during the Viking era, and annexed their land over time, it took mere centuries to eradicate a people who lived here for many, many moons.

Shawandithit feared her people would be wiped out and her nightmare came true...

....

Which brings home the point, you never know how a small act over time can contribute to the end of something so precious as a human race and a culture. 

So, today if you hear people riling against the slow erosion (or the outright eradication by government decisions) of our traditional way of life and industry here in Newfoundland and Labrador, don't regard them as alarmists or tune them out. 

It can happen - Shanawdithit's story attests to that.  Bit by bit over years, decades and perhaps centuries, one small thing after another is taken away ... until there is nothing left.

Every single decision taken today by each of us and particularly by governments has a butterfly effect so that in 100 or 1000 years, the ripple reverberates to dilute or eradicate a people and a place. 

Rural Newfoundland and Labrador has to stand guard against this.

It has been written that Shanawdithit didn't laugh a lot.  How could she? As the last of her native people, her shoulders and heart must have felt especially heavy.

Shanawdithit is reported to have died in a naval hospital and the latest archaeological evidence suggests her remains are buried under the Southside Road. 
 
This special and brave Newfoundlander is commemorated in a statute in Boyd's Cove by renowned artist Gerry Squires.  It is meant to evoke the spirit of the Beothucks as well as the tragedy of their demise.

Lest we forget ...

Shanawdithit, the person
The Beothucks, her lost culture
and the hard lessons learned from the disappearance of an entire people and their way of life.

And on the 185th anniversary of her death, this is a call to government to make something (more than a plaque) of her life and her presence here in our capital city. 

She deserves nothing less and a whole lot more.   



          We have traces enough left only to cause our sorrow
          that so peculiar and so superior a people
          should have disappeared from the earth like a shadow"
          William Cormack

Gutting the Big Blue Whale

Two dead big Blue Whales are being gutted on our shores by good scientists from Ontario.

The good people of this province ought to pay very close attention to how it's done.

Very soon we have a big bad political Blue Whale that will need to be gutted and rendered to nothing in the next federal election.  The bloated carcass washed upon our shores in 2006 and it has left a terrible rotting stink in our province ever since.

Nowhere does the smell reek more fiercely than in our fishery sector.

The federal Blue Whale has swam around for years doing its best to avoid doing anything for our industry -i.e. neglect.  When it did enter the bay where our near-broken fishery lay- it wrecked more severe and lasting damage.

From chronic mismanagement (including degrading our science and research capabilities and failing to properly rebuild our precious resource);  to failing to implement custodial management, as promised; to failing to give us an equal say(at least) in our fishery through joint management, as promised; to the downgrading of our Search and Rescue services; to the unbelievable and contemptible way it has treated our province and our people with its arrogance, the bloated Blue Whale has simply become unbearable.

The very foul stench around the recent Shrimp quota cuts is enough to bring one to one's knees. This decision underscores the need for the big bombastic Blue Whale to be towed out to sea and never be seen again.

The Dictator of Fisheries rendered a decision that went against the majority of people in the industry and province when she applied a dubious and destructive principle to further threaten the inshore shrimp industry.   How does one person/one minister get vested with such power?

The stench heightened as our All-Party Shrimp Committee travelled to Ottawa  since the big blue Minister wouldn't come our way. Our commendable All-Party representatives then had to present to not ONE but TWO Fisheries Committees - all in the hopes these parliamentary committees would try and relay to the Minister that her decision stank to high heaven and she should reconsider.

Why wasn't this ego-bloated political mammal there to hear these important and passionate pleas from East coast Canadians about their important industry? Because she doesn't care.

The whole matter leaves one feeling  disrespected, insulted  and affronted. This is deeply disturbing treatment by the big Blue Whale and his pod mates.  It is unacceptable.

These feelings were echoed by inshore fisherman Brad Watkins on the Fisheries Broadcast this evening. He shared his appall and anger over how he was badly mistreated by the big bad Blue Whale when he tried to share his expert narrative with the House of Commons Fisheries Committee.  

And now the word is the big bad Blue Whale's Minister has already said a big fat NO to reversing the reeking shrimp decision - without even first hearing from the Committees. Let them eat no shrimp.


We should not and we must not allow this god-forsaken smell to continue any longer.  

The big Blue Whale is rotting our lives, our culture, our economy, our values and most of all our pride and our dignity. By accepting the mistreatment, we are condoning political bullying and reducing ourselves to helpless victims, individually and collectively.

The solution is to remove the decayed and offending carcass out of sight and out of our lives.

When Ottawa sends us the good scientist in 2015 called the Election, let's get ready to gut the big bad stinky Blue Whale. 

Until then, we got to be creative in coming up with ways to mask the stench.  Brad Watkins is taking the legal route as one way to skin the unwanted beast. He deserves our support.

We deserve not to be listed as an endangered culture. 

-30-

The Curwibblers and Closing Time

According to the Dictionary of NL, a curwibble  is a “sudden change of direction”.

 

Remind you of anything in politics lately?

 

Yes, the current crop of long-standing government members and their affable leader. 

 

They have suddenly all seen the “openness and accountability” light.  Now, they want to repent for their dark past sins for excluding citizen from the information dome.

 

First, there was the promised review of the notorious Bill 29.

 

Now, we didn’t see anything wrong with the Legislation, but people perceived it as bad.

So, we’ll go along with the people …. Only cause it’s nearing voting time.

 

Code for forestalling closing time.

 

Then there was the Open Government Initiative.  Here, they snatched $4,500 from the tattered taxpayer’s pockets to gather government cheerleaders and revel in the new era of faux openness and accountability.

 

Piled up behind that was the announced oversight of the mega-money drainer Muskrat Falls Project.

 

“Well, there was plenty of oversight already,

But if you insist we’ll indulge you with some in-house bureaucratic snoop-dogs”

 

Jerome got his oversight wish. Meantime, the taxpapers’ account has been drained of $5 Billion without even an oversight blink.

 

Lo and behold, again this week the Curwibblers then hauled out from underneath the cloak of secrecy the reviews on the Legal Aid Commission and the Sheriff’s Office with election spending kicked into high gear to enhance these arms of legal justice and re-election justice.

 

Closing time must be feeling pretty close for the Curwibblers.

And the Premier’s  previous master must, most certainly, be turning in her political grave.

 

But Marshmallow Marshall had a legacy to leave. And he only had less than 6 months to spin a tale of newfound openness, gentleness and respectfulness.

 

The problem is this government can curwibble down the cow path all they want – but when populace starts singing Closing time and not Hallelujah,  

the curwibbling down the poop path

will get curtailed sooner rather than later.

 

So why even bother suddenly changing direction?

 

 

 

 

The Fish Riot Act!

We came into the House with barrels and barrels of fish;
and now, at the end of the day, they are mostly all gone...

Did the Master of the House take sufficient care to safeguard and sustain those fish intended to feed all the inhabitants within and those that came to the front (and back) doors to be nourished?

Did the 1949 House de-cod us?

In case of the Ottawa House Master who took in the "poor" Newfoundland  child in 1949, he can only be found negligent.

Negligence is defined as "failing to take proper or normal care of something or someone."
 
In this case there was a legal document binding and reminding them of their responsibilities - it was called the Terms of Union.  This solemn, historic and legal pact stated that if we brought the fish to the House, they would take over caring for them and keep them alive and healthy and we were told not to question their expertise.

Trusting, we walked across the threshold with our 500-year-old bounty of beautiful big barrels of Cod (and numerous other species). Then dysfunctionality set into the Household and the once strong fish started to get sick, dwindle and some nearly disappeared.  Today, some 65 years after we came there are now over 50 species in Atlantic waters un-viable or endangered.

What happened at that Household?  Bad science? Bad Bureaucrats? Bad Politicians? Bad Advice? Bad Leadership? Bad Monitoring? Bad Regulators? Bad Timing? Bad Luck?

The bad-ass culprits are many, but they all took place within that Home.

If fish were children and so many ended up ill and missing, there would be one huge investigative unit converging on this house with  spotlights from the sky and miles of police tape cordoning off the crime scene.

But, as it is, fish are not children.

They are, however, meant to be nourishment for our children and children the world over now and forever.

They are a part of our earth's great ecosystem.

They were here hundreds of millions of years before us late comer humans  emerged on this planet.

Fish is what brought people to our shores and why we have evolved as a magnificent people and a place.

Fish is one of the golden gifts we brought to the House in 1949 with the promise of good management. Instead it turned out to be a case of criminal neglect and now it appears totally abandonment.

If nothing else fish are a species just like humans on this planet and they should be respected and protected.

 

Here in Newfoundland and Labrador, all evidence points to the fact that we need a new House for the Fishery.

If the current House cannot, or will not protect our most precious resource, we need to move the fisheries either to a new room or out of the House altogether.

 

65 years is long enough to know when something is working for us or against us.

 

2014 is the year to read the Ottawa Housemaster the Fish Riot Act!  

 

Signing ...
Next!  

On Washing Machines & Politics

My faithful partner of 23 years passed away today.

When I realised there was no gig in him, my world stopped suddenly.

In shock, I took a seat on a small stool next to him and I went into reflection mode.

I sat for a few moments looking at my silent buddy - white and worn-looking, but still looking like he had gone before his time.

We did a lot of laundry and an equally a number of spins together all those years.

I wondered why I felt so sad at his last breathe ...eh wash.

Yes - it was my washing machine that croaked on me today.

He has been there faithfully, dependable for nearly a quarter of a century - never giving me a hitch.

He lasted longer than any  toaster, microwave, oven, fridge or car.

Heck, he lasted longer than my husband!

The world gives us all sorts of blessings;
and I had never thought of it before but my washing machine ... eh, washing buddy had been there thru the thick and thin - more like through the dirty and the clean.

As I sat there pondering my loss (including the cost of replacing him!),
I was oddly (or not) reminded of politics.

You see in the world of politics, governments and those mostly honourable (and sometimes dishonourable) members, it can all be like the workings of a washing machine.

As a starter, politics can change as quickly as you can change your clothes;

and sometimes what goes in can be quite smelly.

Of course, Government tries not to air its dirty laundry,
but eventually someone hangs it on the line for them.

Members go through their cycles too - sometimes they go in for a wash and come out another colour.

Sometimes, someone sets the reset button on those governments (or members) when they are not ready and they have to start on another cycle.

Some members go in for a rinse when they really need a full washing and a bottle of Javex to boot!.

Some are on the permanent cycle and stay too long;

While some members just are too delicate for the game.

Most governments always prefer the Spin (doctor) cycle.

Yup, I've come to the conclusion that politics is like a  washing machine
- you never know what you are going to turn out like
 'til you go through the whole damn cycle.

But pretty certain - unlike my washing machine, - nothing in the political world (especially in this province)  lasts for anything close to a quarter of a century.

If it did, it would be called a pretty darn good cycle;

And it would definitively involve a good clean government!

 

 

Kathleen & Daniel

Kathleen resigned today
What is to be said?
Everything and nothing...

From Burin Council Seat to the Premier's Chair
Not a bad accomplishment.
And in between all sorts of achievements.
First Woman Premier being chief amongst them.
Not shabby.

In politics as in life,
people ride in and they ride out.
Some are memorable
Some not so.

Kathleen had her challenges ... as all politicians do.
Her governance was full of increasing doubt by the people.
For some reason she did not connect
One-on-one she aced it.
But as a provincial Leader in the moment, in the heart
she seem to have fallen short.
Missteps and a populace weary of Tory rule sealed the deal.


Poor Kathleen fell under the shadow of Flamboyant Daniel
and Daniel was a force to be reckon with.
You see Kathleen wanted to be her own person
and rightly so ....but Daniel dominated her.

Kathleen wore

his Muskrat Falls yoke,
his un-apologetic ring,
his arrogant trousers

his dismissive jacket

his "my-way-or -the-highway" cufflings.
It did not suit her nor did it do her any good.
Unfortunately,
she lost herself in the shadow of Daniel and his confrontational/aggressive

business agenda.

In her "stepping back" speech today, Kathleen made him proud.
She glossed over every error, mistake and failure
perpetrated on the people.
All was hunky-dory.
She exited as she reigned -
disconnected from the "real woes" of people
outside a certain wealth circle.
She didn't even take a question from the people....


Kathleen and Daniel two heros or villians?
upon our provincial stage.


When history is written years from now
My bet is that Kathleen will have her accolades.
She was genuine, real, strong, agenda-free for the most part.
Just overshadowed by Danny Boy .... and over the party's time.
Daniel was a flash in the pan/too much hype
but didn't have staying power 
for the real bad parts of the movie that is our lives.
He went out in a blaze of glory when the going was good.

Real heroes fight with us on the battlefield
even when our lives are troubled, raw and confused.

Good on you Kathleen.

You didn't need hero worship.
You were just crazy enough
to give it a good try even when you knew the going was rough.
Poor Daniel is in your shadow now Kathleen...





 

On My Knees

Sweet Jesus!

I'm not given to the Catholic guilt much anymore,

But following the nefarious news conference at the Confederation Building on Sunday,

I am on my shivering knees on the cold, cold floor!

My mother's rosary beads are hauled out of storage and are in my frozen hands

My heart is heavy with guilt.

And I am seeking repentance.

I have sinned, sinned, sinned.

Day in and day out over the years

I stole.

Yes, I stole ...   from the electrical grid of our province.

I use lights in my house.

I turned the stove on to cook food for me and the chil-ren.

I let them shower - oh shame on me!

I even let them play with the devil's tools - all that technology stuff that wastes so much good energy.

I put up a Christmas tree and turned the lights on it!


Yup

Because of my god-awful sins

I created a crisis upon my beloved province.

I kick-started the rolling blackouts throughout the province during Blackout 2014.

My sins left  people in the dark!

I am responsible for them being cold and no proper food in their belly.

Worst of all,  I am responsible for the Nalcor elite having to work over Christmas - dear Lord, will I ever be forgiven?

I even made the poor Premier go on the propane - Sacred heart of jaysus what have I done?

I only heard her on the battery-operated radio, but I know The Premier was pointing her ever-pointy finger at ME.

"YOU didn't conserve!"

"Yes! Yes! Yes! I confess I am a wicked bad thief!

"Oh Premier, I seek your forgiveness if you can find it in your kind heart."

Oh my ... t'is certain my soul is going straight to hell.

Hell ...hmmmmm?

Ok Never mind.  I don't need forgiveness.
 
Given the deep cold of the past few powerless days, 
the hot pit fire of hell is starting to look like an attractive "warming centre"!

Conserving Energy!

The season started off just perfect.

First, we were blessed with a white Christmas.

Then the white stuff just kept coming during the post-Christmas day period which was nice. We even got some snow shovelling exercise in which was good for our health.

By the fifth day of the white Christmas, however, the joy and merriment started to wane …

First, there was the excessive shovelling – Old man winter just didn’t know when to stop!

Then the shovel broke - and there were no shovels to be found in them normally well-stocked stores;

Then the car was stuck in the driveway  - and there was no salt to be found anywhere.

Then the threats began to blow in with the cold, wind and the snow.

Canada Post left me a sweet endearing note – “no mail delivery” until every last snowflake is cleared from your mail box.

Then the oil furnace people (normally nice folks)  left me an equally affectionate note “No oil delivery” until you have a path cleared to the tank (located in the bottom part of the yard).

Then the house insurance people informed me that “if your large deck is not cleared of the five feet of snow we are not responsible should it collapse.”

Not to be outdone, Nalcor got in into the threatening spirit.

“Conserve your energy or we’ll leave you in the dark!”

Conserve energy? Are you kiddin me Nalcor?  I have the  driveway, the walkway, the steps, the mailbox, the yard and the god-damn deck to shovel!    I have people on my back!

But then it hits me … NO ONE  messes with the Nalcor mafia!  That lot knows secret stuff the rest of us don’t have a clue about, they just about run the government and they have the protection of that big bad-ass bully called Bill 29.  Sure, they’re always reminding us they hold all the power.

So, lard thunderin’ why would I take any chances  – I am listening to Nalcor!

And when Canada Post, the Insurance and the Oil Furnace people come knocking at my door, I will inform them that Nalcor’s  threats have to be adhered to first – a royal government decree.

So, anyone wanting to wish for an over abundantly white Christmas next year – be my guest.

One thing will be certain, Nalcor will run out of power again next year (its an annual tradition) and they will demand that I conserve my energy like they did this year!

Which is why I am sitting here in my jammies with the fireplace roaring, candles ablazing, wine poured and feet up - no more endless shoveling for me this winter! 

And who says Nalcor doesn't have the power?