Way to go Danny...You have created such a stir or fear for those who protect investors rear ends as opposed to what is just for Newfoundland. A writer in the National Post condems your action to nationalize the investment interest of the operators of the pulp and paper mill in Grand Falls. The company has made a lot of money over the hundred years of operation...now the company wants to run...screw the commitment over generations. Oh, by the way, the company wishes to retain the mineral, forestry and water rights...plus sell the power. Well master...are we bowing low enough? Do we need to kiss your ring as we subdue our futures to your investors? What ever happens on this one, I feel Danny has done the right thing. Who gives a frig about those Ottawa "shirt and tie" generation who are worried about offending our neighbours to the south. We need to take a stand on resource exploitation. I remember similar circumstances involving the Churchill Falls deal. Quebec (all the power to them...excuse the play on words...) has denied countless Nf and Lab people the benefits of the profits earned from our own resource...Oh Canada..we stand on ...Politicians like Danny need to take the stand...way to go Danny.

New beginning

A lot has happened since the last blog...summer in BC with the rain...smog in the TO area and now nestled back in a winter routine. Actually, it has been a great fall with hunting prairie chicken as the dominant activity. Did not get back on the rock at all this past summer. Oh well, next year things will improve. It is nice to keep on top of the news knowing Danny still has the charms to woe voters. I still find it hard to believe that the anybody but conservative serves the interest of the island. Great guns when the economy (the price of oil) is high...not so great when it is rock bottom. Oh well, Danny will have the answers. Picked up a great book on John Crosbie this past week. Really enjoying his slant on the Smallwood era. Met Joey once...Yes, I do accept what John was saying in his bio....the man was an power hungry one man wrecking team. How could the voters be so blind. Ah, it is not ours to judge but I do remember the mirrors that Joey gave out with the saying that the smart ones vote liberal...It was hanging in my grandmother's house. I do not think for a minute that people were buried with them...that is kind of stretching it! Anyway, the rock still rests heavily in my heart with tunes dominating my thoughts.
What has all of this have to do with new beginnings?

Services Lost

Living in rural western Canada one shutters when comparing basic services offered here to services offered back east in rural Newfoundland. For example, if one needs to see a doctor at our local clinic you do not have to wait "forever" as the case for an appointment back east. In our local area, one stop service is offered in a small clinic where the maximum time to wait for an appointment is a mere day or two. The waiting room is generally not full where people are sitting for hours on end. Follow up tests go in the clinic, and if one is early in the am, there is never a problem getting a series of blood work, xrays, and other diagnostic work done with no major wait. One stop full service that many rural communities in Newfoundland would cry for. So, why does one province have the service and the other does not. The day is over when we can say that one province is a have while the other is a have not. Both of the provinces are often compared as the poor house of Canadian politics. The answer lies in the will of government to not only make health care a priority but to follow up with action to ensure they "walk the talk." However, the buck not only rests with government. It rests with those employed to provide the service. Collectively, things can improve back east to allow for a level of service that mirrors what we have here in Western Canada. With the aging population the number one priority of those retirees that the government of Newfoundland hopes to attract back to their roots will be health care. It will not happen if the service does not improve.

pension woes

The stage has changed but the players remain the same. It is a different government. Different players, a new generation of people facing the plight of deciding to withdraw from the employment rolls and join the line of the retired on a government pension. A new generation of savoy politicians poised to reap the benefits of the booming resouce sector. Each trying to find a balance between what is an adequate reward for those who have given faithfully over decades of service to the government and the needs of this retired generation to maintain a life style above the survival mode. Given life expectancy statistics, one could be "drawing" a pension for a time equal to greater than their working life. For pension planners and politicians this creates an angonizing dilemma. How do we continue to support such an integral, growing component of society while balancing the cost to the publically supported government purse? Sadly, government had for too long taken money that was posted for pension support and used it to build the roads and bridges that guaranteed their political survival. Now, the pickle barrel that government finds itself in is not easily drained. On the one hand the aging, medically demanding still contributing sector of the population is lobbying government for more while government pleas there is no more to give. What is the solution? For those on pensions...organize, organize, organize...but not only at the top. Start with the bottom...your own decendents. Have them take the cause and pressure the politicians for it is the decendents of the family that will have to provide the support necessary when government fails...Doesn't this sound familiar? Where were we before the era of publically supported homes for the aged? Just a thought!

Billion Dollar Budget III

Wel, it is hard to comprehend. Not that its a billion dollar budget but it is a billion dollar surplus...Maybe, the time has come for the dream of a island where want is no more. The ultimate irony of this wealth is it comes from the very source of another resource that has been destroyed over decades of abuse...Never is a strong word but never is the word that comes to surface when discussing a return to the glory days of the cod fishery. So, how will we fair with the new wealth. Will it go the way of the fishery. Maybe, the provincial government should take some investment advise from the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund and make it work to develop an economy that will act as a magnet attracting the thousands and thousands that have been forced to leave...lost in that economic treadmill scratching out a living for necessities not reachable on the island. Yes, 'rant and roar', enjoy the moment rewarding those who patiently awaited a day when 'have not' will be no more. However, think in the long run for the oil will be gone and we need to build the economy of the future that will stop the exodus of people and guarantee the return of those who will be part of the better tomorrow.

Billion Dollar Budget II

Billion Dollar Budget

The winter that won't quit

It seems as if this winter will not leave us. Today, still below freezing in a part of the province that should be full of new growth in anticipation of a spring that is too long overdue. This past week the flocks of robins appeared in shock as they scrambled for morsals of food that given all things even should have been there for....grubs, worms, etc. The best that could be foraged were the left over scraps of decayed apple sprouts from last fall. The back yard became the scene of a feeding frenzy as these robins competed for a dimishing food supply. Coupled with the snow cover has been the crippling, bone chilling temperatures. It will be interesting to note just how this will ripple within the food chain over the coming months. Hopefully, the lastest blanket of white stuff and cold will be an unpleasant memory of a winter that just does not want to quit as we enjoy that warmth of July in the isolation of that favourite family spot away from the hustle of everyday maddness of urban living. Oh well, grin and bare it!

Lobster season in NL...one meal a season. Check in with Table Mountains blogger, Wayne, to just tear the guts out of one as Wayne posts the pictures of his lobsters cooked out side in some cove near his home community. Way to go Wayne...another reason for those Newfies that are lost out this way to want to be back. Oh well, maybe we will have to go to the big box store and pay $16 a pound for the treat of a lifetime.

Generations torn

It is little wonder that there are so many of us out there torn between a life that we knew and a life that we are now carving. So many, separated families that knew a life that was beyond comparsion. There were extended families in communities, generations coexisting in many of the same ways they existed for decades. The transition from school to work to what was expected in a community seemed so natural. Things were good! But change was creeping our way before anyone could realize. Political barons made decisions that impacted the generations that had coexisted....railway gone...fishery gone...economic development limp...no direction except to exit for preceived greener pastures up yonder way! Is it doom or gloom or reality that the island offers no future for the dispossessed youth and the extended generations chasing the family connection?