ILP Nov 22 2013 - The Business Post

State of the province
Still life, interest in the NDP Eyeing a PC stronghold
Mount Pearl ready to reach ‘the Summit’
The Post
Business
Vol 9 # 5
NEwfouNDlAND AND lABrADor’S JourNAl of BuSiNESS & PolitiCS
Aug. 2014
For the Coultas family, life and business is a matter of
‘Going with
your heart’
This year marks the 10th
anniversary of Five Island
Art Gallery in Tors Cove
and for Bill Coultas the enterprise is as much about
family as it is about business.
The gallery is located in a
picturesque old two room
schoolhouse that the family
bought years ago when they
were living in Burnt Cove
on the Southern Shore.
While they had saved the
building from being torn
down, the family had no
idea what to do with it, until
the notion was broached of
using it to house an art
gallery.
That idea came after Coultas’s wife Frances Innes, one
of the best known rug hook-
ers in the province, teamed
up with their daughter
Sheila Coultas, a visual
artist, for a mother-daughter
art exhibition at the Botanical Gardens in St. John’s.
“It turned out to be a real
successful show,” Bill Coultas recalled. “And our other
daughter Laura, who happened to be out of work at
that time, said, ‘Listen, why
don’t we turn the schoolhouse into a gallery.’ Everyone cottoned onto that.
Sheila had a lot of artist
friends and the next thing
we went up to the schoolhouse and cleaned it up,
painted it up and opened up
a gallery.”
But the Coultas’ put a lot
See “the business,” page 2
Bill Coultas of five island Art Gallery in tors Cove. ten years ago Coultas, his wife frances innes and daughters Sheila and
laura Coultas embarked on an adventure in art and entrepreneurship. it hasn’t been easy, but there have been rewards.
Breaking boundaries, having fun
Mount Pearl clothier top of international specialty clothes market
By Craig Westcott
The Business Post
AbbyShot Clothiers, the
little Mount Pearl company
that isn’t so little anymore,
signed another deal last week
to manufacture clothes based
on the costumes worn by
characters in a video game.
This time it’s with CapCom and the line of clothing
is known as “demon hunting
apparel” for fans of DcM
Devil May Cry’s lead character Dante.
If that sounds like a joke,
consider this: After 12 years
in business and after winning
numerous awards, AbbyShot’s line of clothes,
which ranges from a cashmere blend Dr. Who sports
coats to leather Bladerunner
jackets and Silent Bob trench
coats, is now sold in 53 countries and housed in international fulﬁllment centres in
the U.S and Northern Ireland. And the headquarters
for all that is located in a
funky suite of oﬃces in a
quiet building oﬀ Barbour
Drive in Mount Pearl.
These days the company
even
has
a
Risk
Manager/Safety Oﬃcer on
staﬀ to ensure the clothing it
has manufactured in plants
in Pakistan and China, as
well as Toronto, meet safety
and other standards.
It’s a pretty impressive rate
of growth for a company that
started as a sewing shop in
founder Bonnie Cook’s
home.
“That’s where my passion
lay,” Cook says of her years
as a seamstress. “I loved
doing what I was doing. I
stayed home with my daughters and had a little job at
See “it’s the,” page 3
Bonnie Cook has grown AbbyShot Clothiers from a home business to an international exporter.
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The Business Post
NEWS
Page 2
August 2014
The business is growing with the region, says Coultas
Continued from page 1
more work into it than that.
They replaced the old outhouses with a proper modern bathroom inside the
building and added a furnace room, but for the most
part stayed true to the character and design of the
building with the refurbishments they did. Indeed the
schoolhouse is as much a
piece of Newfoundland art
as the works hanging on its
walls. The natural lighting
provided by the big windows brightens the room
and adds to the colourful
display of painting, sketches
and rugs adorning the walls.
Frances, Sheila and Laura
aren’t the only Coultas’ with
a talent, or appreciation for
art. Bill has an eye too. The
former inshore ﬁsherman
ﬁsheries
observer
and
turned videographer has a
number of documentaries
and television series under
his belt that he both videotaped and produced, including
Homegrown
and
Breaking Ground, which
were televised on NTV and
CBC. His current series, in
its third year, The Art of Art,
proﬁles artists who exhibit
at Five Island Art Gallery.
The gallery features
works by well-known artists
such as Ilse Huges and Ben
Gillard, but Coultas said the
majority of the works are by
talented people who are less
known. “They’ve been
painting for a long time and
they’re very, very good at
it,” said Coultas. “As a result
we’ve got very high quality
artists up there who are able
to oﬀer their work at a very
aﬀordable price.”
While it is challenging
keeping an art gallery located in a small rural community going for a decade,
Coultas said the enterprise is
growing with the Southern
Shore itself, which has seen
tremendous population and
business growth on its north
end over the past while, especially when it comes to
tourism.
“We’ve sort of tapped into
that,” Coultas said. “The
majority of people who
come into the gallery are
from outside the province,
are tourists who are visiting.
“So when they’re going on
the boat tours and the hiking
trails they are looking for
something else to do on the
weekends or the evenings
and we’ve tapped into that.
A lot of them want some
kind of souvenir and some
of them have a little more
cash in their pockets than
you would think. But the
other thing is that more and
more people from St. John’s
are coming up to the gallery
and making it part of their
annual trek and many of
these people art lovers. They
ﬁnd the art aﬀordable and of
really high quality. That part
of the demographic is really
developing.”
Coultas said the toughest
thing about running the
gallery is that the family is
committed to keeping it
open seven days a week.
“That’s demanding on your
time when you’d like to be
oﬀ hiking, or swimming or
just giving yourself a bit of
time,” he admitted.
It also involves quite a bit
of work in the spring
preparing the gallery and
exhibitions for display.
Daughter Laura Coultas
still serves as the gallery’s
manager. The work includes
more than maintaining good
relations with artists and assembling a selection of work
to display. Laura and the
family also stage events at
the gallery to attract clientele, everything from entertainment nights featuring
local musicians to art workshops.
“We don’t make a whole
lot of money,” Coultas admitted. “So we spent a lot of
time trying to ﬁgure out
how to get free publicity for
the gallery.”
Some events, he noted,
such as the recent celebration of the anniversary of Sir
Edmond Halley’s visit to
Tors Cove in 1700, which
was a partnership with two
other art-related businesses
in the cove, Ballycatter
Crafts and Running the
Goat Press, attract the attention of the local media and
CBC. The hook for the Halley celebration was that he is
famous as an astronomer
and is the person for whom
Halley’s Comet is named.
When his vessel pulled into
Tors Cove in 1700 for wood
and water, it was at ﬁrst mistaken for a pirate ship and
was shot at. Events such as
the Halley celebration not
only promote the gallery,
but the community itself.
One of the positive sides
of the business is that it
makes you feel like you’re
part of the local community,
said Coultas. Another positive is that it gives him the
opportunity to work with
his wife and daughters.
“It’s all kind of serendipity,” said Coultas. “It all
kind of happened by accident. But every now and
then we all sort of step back
and say, ‘Well isn’t this
great.’ And every now and
then someone will say to us,
‘How lucky you are to have
a family like this and have
an outlet to express your
art.’ That’s pretty exciting
and exceptional really…
You don’t dwell on it, you
just do what you’ve got to
do to keep it going. But
when we do have a kind of
calm, step back moment, we
say, ‘Isn’t it amazing that we
own an art gallery?’”
The family is also pleased
to have played a role in preserving and expanding the
traditional Newfoundland
art of rug hooking.
Coultas said one of the secrets to the gallery’s survival
is that the family doesn’t
plan too far ahead. “It all
happened kind of by
serendipity and if we had all
realized how much work
goes into it sometimes we
probably would never have
done it,” he allowed. “But as
regards the future, we love
the idea that we are part of a
gallery. We like the idea of
being a part of the Southern
Shore and growing with the
Southern Shore. The Southern Shore has changed so
dramatically. I can remember ﬁshing out of Bay Bulls
and out of Tors Cove and
the concept that there would
even be suburbs in Bay Bulls
and Witless Bay and that the
Southern Shore would have
a fairly high end art gallery
was out of the question, it
just didn’t exist. But now
we’ve got that.”
With the art gallery, Ballycatter Crafts and Running
the Goat Press print shop,
Coultas can see Tors Cove
becoming known as an arts
community.
“Who knows, in another
20 years, why wouldn’t Tors
Cove be an art hub for the
Southern Shore, an art destination for people outside the
from left, artist Sheila Coultas, her daughter Abbegayle Coultas-Chubbs, 8, and five island Art Gallery
manager laura Coultas work on a mural depicting Halley’s Comet passing over tors Cove. the work
was part of a fun weekend of celebration held recently to mark the visit in 1700 of famed astronomer
and scientist Sir Edmond Halley to tors Cove as he worked ona system for measuring longitude.
province?” asks Coultas.
“God knows we’ve got the
landscape and now we’ve
got the infrastructure to ac-
commodate people. We
know what they want, and
there are restaurants in the
area and lots of Bed &
Breakfasts, so why can’t that
idea expand and why not
Tors Cove as an art hub?”
PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP - SEPTEMBER 9, 2014
ǲǳ
Conducted by: Don Clarke, American Association of Petroleum Geologists
FIELD TRIP - SEPTEMBER 10, 2014
A full day field trip, all meals included, will be departing from Corner Brook where
participants will explore the geological wonders of the Port au Port Peninsula under the
guidance of field trip leader Larry Hicks, Department of Natural Resources
TECHNICAL PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS - SEPTEMBER 11, 2014
A full day technical programme concluding in the evening with a keynote gala event will
feature presentations from key industry leaders including:
Honourable Derrick Dalley, Minister of Natural Resources
David Murray, Black Spruce Exploration Corporation
Steven Hinds, New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources
Mark Jarvis, Shoal Point Energy Limited
John Hogg, Skybattle Resources Limited
Dr. Wade Locke, Memorial University
Full Programme available for viewing at www.wnloilandgas.com
GLYNMILL INN, CORNER BROOK, NEWFOUNDLAND
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 5, 2014
WWW.WNLOILANDGAS.COM
(709) 634-5831 x [email protected]
Photo by: Larry Hicks, Department of Natural Resources
NEWS
The Business PosT
August, 2014
Page 3
‘It’s the secret to success’
Continued from page 1
Call 834-4620
for rates & deadlines
home.”
It’s been quite a learning
curve growing from that
starting point, Cook admits,
“as it continues to be every
day.”
After 20 years of sewing at
home, Cook’s business had
evolved further than hemming and patching by the
time she set out to build
something bigger. She was
handling bridal work and
sewing for dance schools and
troupes needing costume
work. It was work she enjoyed doing. “We need to
pick things in life that are fun
to do,” she says.
But Cook admits she had
few business skills when she
set out on the next phase of
her business. “I had to learn
a lot of things as I was
going,” she says. “I had
never managed people before and so I had to learn
how to do that. I just made it
my business to ﬁnd out how
to do things.” That included
spending months every night
mastering the Simply Accounting software program.
The hardest thing was
learning how to be a communicator, she says. “That was
deﬁnitely my biggest challenge.”
By that Cooks mean dealing with staﬀ as much as
with others. “Because it’s the
people who make the business,” she stresses. “It’s not
me who makes this business
work, it’s the people I have
and that’s the truth, deﬁnitely.”
About four years into the
‘new’
business,
Cook
reached a point where she
had to decide whether to
keep going and adapt to the
growth, or scale things back
to where the business used to
be. The enormity of the
choice stopped her cold one
morning in the bedroom as
she was getting ready for
work. She opted for growth.
Newfoundland’s
geographic isolation was more of
an impediment to others
than it was to Cook. “The
ﬁrst year I was in business I
went to a conference and this
guy from Ottawa spoke up
and said ‘If you’re thinking
about starting an e-commerce business for clothing,
forget it, because it’s not
going to work.’ That’s the
kind of stuﬀ that makes me
dig my heels in more,” Cooks
says, laughing.
“It (geographic isolation)
was never an issue,” she
says. “We had to learn how
to do things. As we started
adding employees, I looked
for skills that we didn’t have
Bonnie Cook, left, and the team at Abbyshot Clothiers: Adam Marin, Brenda Hollohan, Brent thomas, Grace Shears, rita Maher and lebin Yang. Missing from the photo is leader product designer Julia Cook.
and I was fortunate to get
people who really saw the vision of the company.”
Cook now has nine people
working out of the Mount
Pearl headquarters.
“We’re really keen on social media,” she says. “To
compete in a global business,
you have to know how to
reach people in diﬀerent
ways and the staﬀ here are
really creative about how we
put our message out.”
One key to success was
getting licencing agreements
with the creators and producers of movies, television
shows and video games to
copy
and
manufacture
wardrobe lines of speciﬁc
characters. At ﬁrst, Cooks
says, she didn’t even know
what licencing agreements
were. “As we started to learn
about that and take on new
licencing agreements, that’s
where the opportunities
started to come to us even
bigger. And that was a huge
learning curve as well.”
The ﬁrst licencing deal was
for the Silent Bob coat.
Again, the company’s
physical location wasn’t an
obstacle. “The internet is
your oyster, really,” says
Cook. “You can do anything
from anywhere. You don’t
have to be living in Los Angeles to be doing business
with them. All of our connections are done electronically.
As well, we’ve learned where
to position ourselves to meet
these people in person.
We’ve been fortunate enough
to get funding to go to the
conventions that these people have been in and take
part in trade missions and
things like that. That’s been
really great, because it makes
us real to them and them to
us.”
Cook is grateful for the
various rounds of government funding her company
has managed to acquire over
the years. “We’ve used it
wisely and I’m really proud
of it actually,” she says. “This
has helped to drive us forward as well – them believing in us.”
AbbyShot’s success has
made it a poster child for the
provincial
government’s
business investment eﬀorts.
A provincial department recently did a photo shoot at
the Mount Pearl plant for use
in its promotional materials.
“Our company is growing
at around 28 per cent in sales
per year for the last three to
four years,” Cook points out.
“Isn’t that fantastic? But
growth is always a bit scary.
You have to manage it properly, which is why we added
a Risk Management employee, because our growth
curve is exponential.”
A key ingredient for
growth is cash ﬂow, Cook al-
lows, and the company has
been lucky to have customers
who are good payers.
In March, AbbyShot took
another big step. It packaged
up 95 per cent of its inventory and shipped it out to the
fulﬁllment centres in Belfast
and the United States to facilitate quicker shipping of the
product to customers. “When
we get the orders in the
morning electronically, we
don’t even see the goods,”
says Cook. “We just send the
e-mails out and the inventory
gets shipped to our customers. They can get it faster
and the shipping is cheaper.”
Cook gets a great feeling
when she spots someone
sporting AbbyShot’s apparel.
“We say we turn the virtual world into reality and
we do,” Cooks says. “Some
of these things don’t even
exist in reality until we make
them. We’ve had people fall
on the ﬂoor at shows when
they see our coats because
they’re so excited that they’ve
played this game and the
coat was in the game.”
Cooks admits she’s not
much of a gamer herself.
“But I can hire that,” she
says, laughing again. She
credits Business Development Manager Brenda Hollohan
with
being
“phenomenal” at keeping up
with the trends in the various
genres to which AbbyShot
caters. But then half the staﬀ
are video and gaming geeks.
Some days, the whole team,
Cook included, take an afternoon to go to the movies,
such as last week when they
went to see Guardians of the
Galaxy. Another day the
team spent an afternoon out
at Cook’s house on the pond
socializing on a ﬂoat.
It seems like Cook is having an awful lot of fun.
“Sure what’s wrong with
that,” she says Cook, laughing again. “It’s all about the
culture. If you’ve got people
who are really unhappy
working for you, then you’re
not going to have a successful business. It’s about trust,
it’s about communicating
and it’s mostly, I believe,
about being a contribution
toward one another. That’s
true. That’s what I believe.”
So far it seems to be working. Cook has been named an
NLOWE
(Newfoundland
and Labrador Organization
of Women Entrepreneurs)
Entrepreneur of the Year, the
company was named Innovator of the Year by the Canadian Manufacturers and
Exporters in 2008 and this
fall, Cook and AbbyShot is
up for an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year
Award. And that’s only some
of the accolades they’ve
nabbed.
Again, Cooks lays the success at the foot of the team.
When the company does run
into something that causes
them to pause, she says,
everyone sits around the
table and tears the topic
apart.
“We never see that there
could be a problem,” Cook
says. “We only see solutions
and success. That’s who we
are. I believe it’s the secret to
success.”
NEWS
Page 4
The Business PosT
August, 2014
Business Association says local ﬁrms being overlooked in oil industry
The Business Association
of
Newfoundland
and
Labrador has asked the City
of Mount Pearl to support its
lobbying effort to make the
Canada-Newfoundland and
Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board act more stringently to ensure local
businesses benefit from the
oil industry.
Last month, the BANL
copied the City on a letter it
had sent to Premier Tom
Marshall in which it claimed
local companies that “have a
long history in our business
community are losing opportunities/contracts… to out of
province companies.”
BANL present Donald
Coady said it’s the association’s understanding that the
C-NLOPB was set up to prevent that. “It is only right that
NL-owned and operated
companies with a long history in our economy come
first on a level playing field
where the rules of engagement are fair for equal opportunity,” Conway added.
“This is not happening.”
Councillor Andrew Ledwell noted the letter was recently discussed at council’s
planning and development
committee. “The letter is ad-
dressed to the provincial
government,” he noted.
“What they’re asking from
us is some support. They’re
looking for some changes
from the provincial government, the C-NLOPB, looking to ensure that local
companies get an opportunity to take advantage of all
these opportunities.”
Given that this province
has been a major player in
the oil industry for nearly 20
years, the letter had Mayor
Randy Simms wondering
why Newfoundland companies are not competitive. He
pointed out that while the C-
petencies here to do it, or we
don’t, or we’re pricing ourselves out of the market. I
wonder if the Business Association has made a determination
as
to
what’s
happening? They indicate
there is some kind of unfairness in the rules, they refer to
‘a level playing field where
the rules of engagement are
fair to equal opportunity, this
is not happening.’ They
haven’t bothered to really explain that and I don’t know
whether we can do anything
with this at this point in time,
because of that.”
Councillor John Walsh
said he isn’t sure what the
City’s role in the matter is either, “but we welcome the
correspondence” and appreciate being informed.
Walsh suggested the association keep the Mount Pearl
– Paradise Chamber of Commerce in the loop, because
the chamber is a very strong
advocate for businesses.
“And the more support they
can get, obviously the better
it is for them,” he offered.
Asked if the company has
any other sites in mind, Mercer replied, “Nothing firm
yet, we’re still looking.”
One of the communities
rumoured to be interested in
the project was the Town of
Fermeuse. “I have not spoken with Fermuese,” said
Mercer. “We’re not looking.
That project is sort of on the
backburner for us right now
to be honest with you.”
The company was interested in finding a harbour on
the Southern Shore to work
from because of its proximity
to the offshore oil fields located some 350 kilometres
southeast of St. John’s. It already has a substantial offshore oil industry-related
operation at Bay Bulls harbour as well as a quarry and
laydown yard on the road
that leads to the town’s for-
mer municipal dump site.
Mercer dismissed any notion the project has been
idled because Pennecon didn’t land a particular contract.
“There’s no contract to lose,”
he said. “This was a project
that we’re considering for future work that has not come
to pass yet.”
as a result of the cap." This
64% reduction from 2013
levels is greater than the 52%
reduction expected nationally.
In economic regions with
an annual unemployment
rate of 6% or higher, which
currently includes all of Atlantic Canada, the government will no longer process
applications for ten low-skill
occupations in the accommodation, food service and retail sectors.
"As of
December 1, 2012, there
were over 550 TFWs in these
ten occupations in Atlantic
Canada, about 11% of the
total TFWs in the region at
that time," said Bergman.
Other program changes include higher processing fees;
restrictions on the length of
work permits for low-wage
positions; and a need for employers to submit transition
plans for high-wage positions to reduce their reliance
on TFWs.
Three of the four Atlantic
provinces have finalized new
labour market agreements
with the federal government.
Nova
Scotia,
New
Brunswick and Newfound-
land and Labrador will receive annual payments of
$13.4 million, $11 million
and $7.5 million respectively, over six years under
the Job Fund Agreement
which implements the federal government's new
Canada Job Grant.The
provinces will also receive
funding under separate
Labour Market Agreements
for Persons with Disabilities
and the renewal of the Targeted Initiative for Older
Workers.
NLOPB was established to
ensure maximum local benefits, its other purpose is to
serve as the regulator of the
offshore oil industry on behalf of the provincial and
federal governments.
“If Newfoundland and
Labrador companies are not
getting their share of the contracts in our oil and gas industry, why would that be?”
Simms wondered. “Are they
pricing themselves out of the
market? All of this stuff, ultimately, gets driven by
money and competencies.
That’s what it comes down
to. We either have the com-
Pennecon project slides to backburner
Pennecon Marine’s bid to
open a second quarrying and
shipping operation on the
Southern Shore to supply
rock to the offshore oil industry has been placed on
hold.
The
company
had
broached the idea of building
a new wharf at Aquaforte and
opening a quarry between
that community and neighbouring Fermuese, but the
idea generated considerable
opposition among some people living in the area as well
as folks once connected but
now living away for most of
the year.
The plan, reportedly,
would have seen some 30
seasonal jobs created quarrying rock and loading it
aboard a vessel to take offshore to cover subsea lines
and other equipment. When
a petition against the idea
was raised in Aquaforte, the
council in Trepassey approached Pennecon to see if
the company would be interested in moving the operation further south. Pennecon
explored it, but ultimately rejected the idea.
“We are considering neither of these sites right now,”
said Pennecon spokesman
Rod Mercer.
APEC forecast warns of slow growth
The Summer issue of the
Atlantic Provinces Economic
Council (APEC)'s Atlantic
Currents indicates that economic conditions in Atlantic
Canada were fairly soft in the
first half of 2014, with weakness in labour markets, retail
spending and new home construction across the region.
Exports were generally the
one bright spot.
"According to Statistic
Canada's Labour Force Survey only New Brunswick experienced
higher
employment in the first half
of 2014," said APEC Senior
Solution page 10
Policy
Analyst
Fred
Bergman. "However, employment in that province remains below 2008 levels and
Statistics Canada's business
payroll survey points to continued weakness." Employment declined in the other
three provinces, in contrast to
the 0.7% gain nationally.
"The federal government
continues to make changes to
programs affecting Canadian
labour
markets,"
said
Bergman. It recently announced major reforms to the
Temporary Foreign Worker
(TFW) Program and is intro-
ducing the Canada Job Grant
through new labour market
agreements
with
the
provinces.
For the TFW program, the
government is imposing an
immediate cap of 30% on the
proportion of low-wage
TFWs that a business can
employ at each worksite.
This cap will be reduced to
10% by July 1, 2016. "There
were about 2,700 low wage
TFW entries in Atlantic
Canada in 2013," said
Bergman. "The federal government expects this number
will fall to about 950 by 2016
NEWS
The Business PosT
August, 2014
Page 5
Debating the notion of a Commons
In Witless Bay, council and some residents are at odds over whether to reserve land from development
The subject of whether a
town council should set aside
Crown land from development has sparked a debate in
the growing community of
Witless Bay located about 20
kilometres south of St. John’s.
The debate arose after
Deputy Mayor Dena Wiseman served a notice of motion last month that she
intends to ask the province to
set aside 99 hectares of
Crown Land from Ragged
Beach to the border with Mobile as a Reserve. The motion
is expected to be voted on at
a meeting this month.
Wiseman’s idea stirred
strong debate among audience members at Witless
Bay’s public council meeting
when she tabled it and further strong words during the
30 minute minute informal
question and answer session
that council gives residents
following the formal meeting.
Wiseman outlined the plan
after serving notice on two
other ecological related initiatives – the banning of the
use of controversial chemical
defoliant Agent White within
the boundaries of the town
by Nalcor and Newfoundland Power and a call for the
reinstatement of the manager’s position at the Witless
Bay Ecological Reserve, a job
that was cut by the provincial
government in the 2013
budget. Both of those motions passed unanimously.
As for the Reserve, Wiseman said it should begin
below Mullowney’s Lane
and extend south along Witless Bay’s boundary, running
some 450 metres inland from
the coast.
Wiseman noted that in the
Town Plan now before the
Department of Municipal Affairs, council set aside signiﬁcant
sized
areas
as
conservation zones. “Two of
these are our southern coastline and our northern coastline,” she added. “We all
know that zoning is only as
good as the next amendment
to the Town Plan so if we are
serious about protecting
some of these lands we need
stronger protection. This is a
way of ensuring that this
coastline remains rural and
remains in the pristine state
that it’s in now.”
Turning the Crown Land
into a reserve exempt from
development would protect
the nesting seabirds on the islands that compose the
nearby Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, Wiseman argued, noting they are
aﬀected by artiﬁcial light
from human activity. It
would also protect ‘The
Beaches Path’ section of the
East Coast Trail, she added,
describing it as one of the
most used and accessible
trails in the East Coast Trail
system.
A reserve would also protect the coastline from urban
sprawl, Wiseman said, pointing out a number of areas on
the northeast Avalon have
lost their rural coastlines to
housing development.
“Creation of this reserve
will ensure that we maintain
a signiﬁcant portion of our
coastline for public use,” said
Wiseman. “The pressure to
develop in this region is unprecedented so the time to
make responsible choices for
the future generations of our
residents is now… This
southern coastline is part of
our landscape and helps deﬁne the character of our town
and should be protected for
future generations.”
Wiseman said that under
Section 8 of the Crown Lands
Act, applications for reserves
must be less than 100
hectares, which is why the
town is asking for 99.
Gary Churchill, the man
whose application to develop
a ﬁve lot cul de sac just oﬀ
Mullowney’s Lane set oﬀ a
furore over development
near Ragged Beach, asked
Wiseman why she was starting the reserve in that particular area where there are a
number of private land owners.
“Why don’t you start (it)
after people’s private land?”
Churchill asked.
“We’re starting with the
Crown land, we’re not touching anybody’s private lands,”
Wiseman said.
“But you’re freezing all the
land around it,” Churchill
countered. “It’s the same
principle.”
Wiseman said that’s not
true. “It’s a Crown Land reserve, it doesn’t have anything to do with private land.
It doesn’t touch anyone’s private land… If there’s a right
of way, then people have a
right of way to their property.”
Churchill said council
doesn’t have the right to
make such a decision.
“I have a right to make a
motion to ask council to vote
on it,” Wiseman said.
Councillor Ralph Carey
said all that council is doing
is sending a request to the
provincial government.
But Anne Marie Churchill
said such an important matter should at least be
broached with the public
through a public meeting or
notice before council moves
on it.
“It really impacts a lot of
people who have private
land in the area,” she pointed
out. “And this is the ﬁrst
we’ve ever heard of it. So
you’re going to vote tonight
to send a letter asking for
permission to do this when
you haven’t even consulted
the people who own land in
the area?”
That got Ed Vickers of the
Friends of Ragged Beach into
the fray. “You have no say in
Crown land, okay, you have
say in private land,” Vickers
shouted.
“I don’t need to listen to
you
anymore,”
Gary
Churchill replied.
“Well you better listen to
me,” said Vickers as Mayor
Sébastien Després banged his
gavel and called for order.
residents, developers, two successive councils and a bevy of environmentalists have been wrangling for several years
over whether houses should be allowed to go ahead in an area not far from ragged Beach in witless Bay. Now a councillor
has served notice that she wants to turn Crown land the area into a reserve.
Resident Joanie Tobin,
who is seeking election to
council in today’s (July 16)
by-election, said with such a
large tract of land involved,
the equivalent of some 244
acres, the matter should be
put before the public so people can have a chance to oﬀer
their opinions. “It’s just
seems that if it’s a signiﬁcant
chunk of community land
there should be community
involvement and a little bit
more say about it,” Tobin argued. “I’m not saying (it’s)
right, wrong, or indiﬀerent.
But I think that as a community as a whole we need to
have more input when you’re
talking great big chunks of
land like this, because we all
own it, we all live here.”
Tobin added that residents
have yet to see how much
land is already set aside for
conservation in the new
Town Plan.
Després and Wiseman disagreed. They insisted that the
conservation areas were
noted on a map of the new
Town Plan, which was presented at a public council
meeting two months ago.
(The Irish Loop Post was
present at that meeting and
while the map was brieﬂy
displayed and discussed for
several minutes, there was no
speciﬁc mention of 99
hectares of land being set
aside as a reserve).
Vickers said it’s a misunderstanding that the land is
owned by the people of Witless Bay. “It is not,” he said.
“It’s owned by the people of
Newfoundland…
Crown
Lands is in favour of this (reserve). They’ve spoken to
me, and I’m sure they’ve spoken to council – they sent a
letter out – and they’re not
going to allow development
down there, it’s as simple as
that. That’s community land,
they see it as land owned by
the people of Newfound-
land. We would like to think
it’s our land, but it isn’t.”
Vickers added that the
people who own private land
can still grow potatoes or do
whatever it was they were
doing before. “There’s nobody interfering with that.”
Tobin said while it may be
true that the Crown land is
owned by the province, it’s
doubtful that anyone in Bay
Bulls, for instance, would be
concerned about what happens in Witless Bay. “But as a
community we need to be involved in big decisions like
that,” she argued.
Wiseman said Tobin is
mistaken if she thinks people
from outside Witless Bay
don’t care about the coastline
or want to see it protected,
arguing that protection of
rural coastlines is an issue
throughout Atlantic Canada.
“But the people who live
here, don’t you think they
should have a greater say in
how they would like to see
their community developed?” Tobin countered.
“I think everyone has had
ample opportunity,” said
Wiseman. “We did present
the map, we did say that we
have gone to the four corner
conservation idea that was
presented by our town planner. That was all done
openly. What we’re doing
here, I’m making a motion
that we take it a step further
to solidify this coastline.”
Anne Marie Churchill said
she supports conservation,
but still feels the citizens of
the town should be consulted. She said she is also
puzzled as to why council
only seems to be concerned
about conservation in the
area south of Mullowney’s
Lane, while ignoring development in the rest of the
community.
Resident Ron Harte, who
grew up in the area and still
owns family land that he
would like to pass along to
his daughter to eventually
build a home, said he too
doesn’t understand why the
reserve has to start below
Mullowney’s Lane, a move
that will make private land
inaccessible.
“We can’t build a house on
it like everyone else has the
right to do on the Southern
Shore,” said Harte.
Wiseman said everyone
doesn’t have the right to
build on private land holdings. “If they’re not zoned
residential you can’t build on
them,” Wiseman argued.
“It’s council’s right to determine zoning and council has
done that.”
Resident Albert Murphy
said this move by council
seems to be a variant on the
idea of making the area into
a “Commons,” as proposed
by the Friends of Ragged
Beach before it was dissolved. “The East Coast Trail
is there and it’s preserved, so
what’s the big issue?” Murphy asked. “To me it’s ludicrous. That’s a big decision
for this town and it might
come back to bite us.”
Wiseman said she’s willing
to take that chance. “My motion stands,” she said.
Councillor Carey said the
town is trying to think ahead
for the beneﬁt of future generations. “We’re not begrudging anybody private land. It’s
Crown land that we’re going
to preserve for the future.
What is wrong with conservation?” he asked.
“How much do we need?’
responded Murphy.
“Nobody knows,” said
Carey. “I don’t know how
much we need, but you can
never preserve enough.”
Murphy suggested the application for a Reserve is
council’s way of stopping
people from ﬁghting over development in the area.
Churchill repeated his sug-
gestion that council start the
boundary of the Reserve past
the private land holdings,
namely to the south of Ron
Harte’s property, arguing
that would be a reasonable
compromise. “Why is this
particular piece of land the
issue?” he added.
With that Wiseman and
the Churchills engaged in an
argument, talking over each
other until the mayor insisted
upon order again.
“I am calling the question,” said Mayor Deprés.
“We have a motion on the
ﬂoor.”
Put to the vote Deprés,
Carey, Wiseman and councillor Kevin Smart voted to support Wiseman’s motion, with
only councillor René Estrada
voting against it.
Deadline for
next edition September
Oct.
28 2
EDITORIAL
Page 6
The Business PosT
August, 2014
Latest poll shows more political imbalance
T
he latest public opinion
polls reported by
VOCM Radio and Abacus
show the Liberals firmly in
the lead in Newfoundland
and Labrador both provincially and federally.
The lead is so strong, in
fact, that if an election was
held today, New Democrats
Jack Harris and Ryan
Cleary would probably be
tossed from office. And
that’s with nobody on the
ballot yet for the Grits. Television personality Seamus
O’Regan is said to be
preparing for a run in St.
John’s South - Mount Pearl,
which is Cleary’s riding.
Nobody is in the bullpen for
either the Liberals or the
Conservatives in St. John’s
East yet, where Jack Harris
won without breaking a
sweat in 2008 and was reelected just as handily in
2011.
The ramifications of
sending Liberals to Ottawa
to represent the two St.
John’s ridings are mostly
positive given that Stephen
Harper’s Conservatives
seem nearly certainly
headed for defeat across the
country. It could mark a
nice change for this region
to have somebody within
the bosum of the federal
government. Danny
unsuccessful machinations
of former NDP MHA Dale
Kirby, who is now a Liberal. Getting rid of the Tories will be a welcome
change in this province. Replacing them with a government that has no
Opposition, however, is a
dicey prospect indeed.
The Public Ledger
Craig westcott
Williams’ cold war against
Ottawa has cost this
province dearly. In the six
years since he launched his
ABC camapign and convinced Newfoundlanders to
turn their backs on Canada,
this province has become
isolated politically and even
culturally.
Sending a full slate of
Liberals into office at Confederation Building, however, is another matter.
While the governing PCs do
not deserve to be re-elected,
a full house of 48 Grits
would make for questionable government. Governments tend to become more
arrogant the bigger they are.
A government without Opposition, as Williams’ PCs
were effectively for so long,
becomes insufferable. It’s
too bad the NDP have been
critcially weakened by the
Regatta Thoughts
Many people, especially
the vendors, were disappointed with the turnout at
the St. John’s Regatta this
year. One vendor complained on Open Line radio
that the committee that organizes the event cares little, if anything, for the
vendors and that all the attention is focused on the
rowers.
There seems to be a grain
of truth in this claim. Indeed, it may be time to take
the Regatta planning away
from the small, elite clique
that has run it for the past,
well forever, and hand it
over to a broader group of
people representing vendors, rowers, sponsors, City
Council and the public at
large.
By stubbornly clinging to
the Wednesday holiday
date, the city is mising a
great opportunity to develop
a three day cultural festival
in St. John’s. Make the holiday on the Monday and
schedule the races, local entertainment, such as the
Folk Festival and George
Street festivals, and some
other cultural events around
it. Such a festival would
likely attract more people,
especially tourists, than
would be lost to the cabins
and parks. And with the
event spread over three
days, the prospect of races
or concerts being cancelled
because of a day’s rain is
lessened. The extra two
days provide some grace.
PC Leadership
One is tempted to call the
PC leadership race a contest
without a real prize.
Though John Ottenheimer, Steve Kent and Paul
Davis are making somewhat
of an effort to wash away
their sins of the past 11
years, they’re not catching
any traction with the public.
These are three men afterall,
who unabashedly supported
the secrecy of Bill 29, the
financial boondoggle that is
Muskrat Falls, the wanton
arrogance of Kathy Dunderdale and the unbridled
bullying and misgovernment of Danny Williams.
Yes they deserve credit
for making the much-delayed race into some kind of
a competition. But it’s a
competition with a doubtful
prize. The winner gets to sit
at the head of a parade that
is leaving the gates because
the hosts who once welcomed them have been sickened by their company.
adults.” Prices in the local
tourist industry are “ridiculous.” Parks are “too expensive.” Gasoline is “too
expensive.” There are “high
prices” for “most things especially eating out.” “The
cost of EVERYTHING is
through the roof.” We “don’t
have enough money for a
new shirt let alone a vacation.” It’s” just as cheap to
go to Florida or Ireland as to
stay around here.” In fact
it’s “cheaper to go away.”
Prices are so “overrated” in
Newfoundland you “can’t
buy a loaf of bread and 2
liters of milk for less than
$6, and can’t fill up the car
for … less than $50.” These
are just a few of dozens of
such opinions. Those who
were pleased with the status
quo were in a distinct minority. Dissatisfaction with the
costs of goods and services
flowed over onto general
distaste for what Newfoundland has to offer to a tourist.
Who wants to look at rock
and salt water? someone
asked.
Is it unwise to make too
much of this? Maybe not. I
think it could hint at a deep
discontent with economic
conditions in present-day
Newfoundland. This current
of outrage and dismay is unexpected, when you consider the blather you hear
about the vast supply of oil
money kicking around.
There is a lot of money
about for sure, as reflected,
for instance, in the mcMansions being put up both inside the city and on the outer
fringes by the nouveaux
riches. But the VOCM survey seems to show that a lot
of people have not cashed
in, and instead are feeling
the pinch, perhaps in 2014
as never before, as the cost
of ordinary goods and services, once available to them,
has skyrocketed out of their
reach. They can’t afford to
eat out any more, given the
rip-off prices in many
restaurants; they can’t afford
to travel around the
province, owing to the hikes
in gas prices; they haven’t
got the money to get off the
island; and many of them
have had to cut back even
on groceries, because those
prices are shooting up too.
The provincial Tories, to
be fair, have taken some notice of this noxious jump in
commodity prices, as in the
kickback they pay on home
heating fuel. But their steep
fall in the polls may well
show they haven’t paid
enough attention to it. The
Liberals, if they are to deserve election, and the NDP
as well, must tell people
what they are going to do to
keep the cost of living
down, and even reduce it.
Bold action, it seems to me,
is called for. This applies as
well to the pro-development
City Council in St. John’s
which, oblivious to the responsibility of keeping a lid
on municipal taxation,
seems intent on driving the
common man and woman
out of their homes.
Patrick O’Flaherty writes
on history and politics for
The Business Post.
The State of the Province
Samuel Johnson wrote
“the true state of every nation is the state of common
life.” Yet one of the hardest
things in writing Newfoundland history is to get a sense
of what that “state” is –
what the mass of the people
at any given period are feeling or thinking, and how
they are coping with current
conditions. Before the 1810s
there was no local journalism to work from, and
though newspapers proliferated afterwards what they
mostly contained, apart from
hard news, was elite opinion. And even much of the
hard news was told from an
elitist perspective. Ballads,
doggerel, proverbs, vocabulary, letters to the editor, and
some more formal literary
texts written by observant
visitors can offer clues to the
mindset of the general public over time, and you can
make a lot out of election results and censuses. Yet social
history is elusive and often
speculative.
I wonder what will be
Long Beach Notes
By Patrick o’flaherty
written about us, here today,
by later generations of
scholars and journalists.
What will they use to find
out what we are feeling and
thinking? There will be
plenty of places to look for
evidence. Archives and libraries are blocked with material. But there is one
source of opinion that may
not survive, and it is surely a
rich one that somehow
should be preserved. I’m referring to the VOCM Question of the Day, and not just
the actual results – not just
the percentage for and
against the proposals being
tested -- but the often
The Business PosT
Advertising [email protected]
trenchant observations that
follow them. This is anonymous, straight-from-the
shoulder, no-holds-barred
commentary from ordinary
people. When it’s centered
on an individual or a political party it often veers towards libelous abuse and
isn’t very useful. When it’s
on an issue relating to
lifestyle or the economy it
can be revealing.
Take the recent question:
“Are you planning to spend
your summer holidays in the
province? Why or why
not?” This looks on the surface like a harmless topic.
But anyone who looks over
the comments (which are
still online) will get a different picture. Overwhelmingly
the responders refer to the
costs incurred in taking a
holiday. The commonest
view is we “can’t afford to
get off the rock.” The ferry
across Cabot Strait is “highway robbery.” It’s “a year’s
wages to cross the gulf.”
Marine Atlantic charges
$850 for “trailer, truck and 2
Vol 9 # 5
August 2014, 2014
Tel. 709-834-4620
Publisher & Editor
Craig Westcott
[email protected]
Fax. 709-834-2558
Canada Post
Publications Mail
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NEWS
The Business PosT
August, 2014
Page 7
Even die hard Tory seats are no longer safe, some contenders feel
How low have the PCs
sunk in terms of their electoral prospects next year?
One measure is that even in
historically strong Tory districts people are coming forward to vie for the Liberal
nomination.
In Ferryland District, a region so PC it had no fear in
telling Joey Smallwood what
he could do with his blandishments and threats, a number of ‘big names’ locally are
being rumoured as eyeing
the seat. The only person to
step forward publicly so far,
however, is an employment
services counsellor who was
among the 16 people axed
along the Irish Loop when
the provincial government
pulled its funding for job
centres across the province is
out to ensure the Liberals are
in good shape to ﬁght the
next election in Ferryland
District.
Joby Fleming, 34, said he
intends to organize a Liberal
District Association in Ferryland and may even seek the
nomination when it is called.
“Really starting the district
association is the important
thing,” said Fleming, who
lives in the Goulds and became politically motivated
after the province pulled the
plug on the Employment Assistance Services oﬃces
which had been run by the
Celtic Community Business
Development Corporation.
“That was a big hit, losing
the EAS oﬃces,” said Fleming. “Three oﬃces fell in the
Ferryland district – the Bidgood’s Plaza oﬃce here (in
the Goulds), the Colony of
Avalon oﬃce in Ferryland
and the Trepassey oﬃce as
well. This was a big hit for
people in rural Newfoundland and certainly for people
in this district who really relied on these oﬃces as a place
to come for advice, for contact information, for redirection to other government
services. It’s one year later
and I ask myself, where are
we in terms of how people
are being provided assistance
to ﬁnd employment, or to
better themselves through retraining? I think this is a serious issue and should be a
serious issue in this campaign and for that reason I’m
very much interested in setting up the district association oﬃce.”
Unlike last election, when
nobody stepped forward to
run for the Liberals and an
Opposition Oﬃce researcher
agreed to place her name on
the ballot, Fleming believes
this time “everything is up
for grabs.” PC incumbent
Keith Hutchings won handily in Ferryland district
claiming all 39 regular polls
in the 2011 election as well as
the four advance polls and
the special ballots. The ﬁnal
tally saw Hutchings collect
3,640 votes, which was over
2,400 more votes than the
nearest contender, Chris
Molloy of the NDP, who garnered 1,224 votes.
“Really, truly everything
has changed this time
around,” said Fleming. “I
think if you look at the polls
that have been done and also
the feeling that is out there,
everybody is open minded
for listening. My role in this
is helping people understand
that there is another choice,
that even though a lot of people have said this is a stronghold district for the PCs, I
truly believe that with the decisions that have been made
over the past four years and
the fact that this government
was not a people-minded
government… people really
did not see that the individuals were listening within this
party and I’m here to listen to
everybody’s issues and being
them back and I really hope
to make a diﬀerence in the
district and that is why I am
considering running. I feel
like I have something to
give.”
Fleming said he understands the party is considering holding a district
association meeting early this
summer,
possibly
this
month. “I hope this will really be a renewal within the
district of people’s interest
(in the Liberal Party),” he
added.
Ferryland district runs
from Doyle’s Road in the
Goulds as far south as St.
Shotts. “It’s a huge district
and it’s one where every
voice should be heard,”
Fleming said.
Like some of the clients he
used to serve, Fleming is still
ﬁnding his feet in the employment market where despite the boom in the greater
St. John’s area, the provincial
unemployment rate rose
again last month to just over
12 per cent, the highest in
Canada. The national unemployment rate is 6.9 per cent.
“Taking out employment
counsellors is not a way to
help that in any kind of
way,” said Fleming, adding a
government commissioned
report on the issue by former
Auditor General John Noseworthy found the EAS oﬃces
“should not have been
touched.”
Fleming said he was part
of a group that met with government and presented research in support of keeping
the AES oﬃces, but couldn’t
change the minister’s mind.
“Right now people who
don’t have internet or computer access in Ferryland district have to ﬁll out an
employment and training assessment (online) before anyone will even talk to them,”
Fleming said. “This is a three
or four page online only survey that has to be ﬁlled out
and that truly, as an employment counsellor, you’d be
tasked to do it if you didn’t
have the training as an employment counsellor to ﬁll it
out. To me that’s a barrier.
We were about removing
barriers. I truly feel the government is putting them up.”
Joby fleming wants to organize a district association in ferryland and may run for the seat.
Business PosT
and
irish Loop Post
689-4979
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NEWS
Page 8
The Business PosT
August, 2014
Mount Pearl Mayor randy Simms and the rest of council unveil the logo and branding for the new multi-million dollar state of the art recreational complex in the city. it will have
three areas for swimming a d a number of specility ﬁtness rooms for cario and other requirements. it opens to the public next month.
Mount Pearl reaching the ‘Summit’ when it comes to services
The biggest, most modern
aquatic and athletic facility
to come to the Northeast
Avalon in some years was at
the top of the agenda at
Mount Pearl City Council
last week as Mayor Randy
Simms unveiled its name and
logo and set the stage for the
integration of the state of the
art facility into the City’s
recreation programming.
The $33 million Summit
Centre will open to the public during the first week of
September.
“I’m delighted today to be
making the announcement
and hopefully people will be
as delighted as we are,”
Simms said.
The “amazing” 60,000
square foot centre, he noted,
was designed according to
leading design and construction standards, and will function as a high performance
“green” building.
“It houses a 25,000 square
foot aquatic complex, a fitness centre with an indoor
walking track, a weight training room, a fitness program
space, multi-purpose rooms,
as well as a retail space,”
Simms noted. “Also attached
is the Reid Community Centre, which houses a double
gymnasium, ideal for sporting, social, recreational and
cultural events. It will also be
home to an expanded Youth
Centre this fall.”
The Mount Pearl Sports
Hall of Fame will also find a
home in the building.
“We’re very proud of the
work that’s gone into the creation of the name and the
brand for this, our largest
iconic feature, really, in the
City of Mount Pearl,” Simms
said.
There was much discussion about the city’s history
and its future in coming up
with the name, he explained.
“Council also wanted to take
into consideration the Glacier, which shares this site,”
Simms pointed out.
The mayor then invited
the rest of council to join him
in the centre of the chamber
for the unveiling of the name
and logo. Simms joked it will
be great having a real name
for the Summit Centre instead of the generic “multiplex” that has been used
during its construction.
Simms invited Deputy
Major Jim Locke to provide
more details on the centre.
“What a beautiful, beautiful logo,” said Locke.
“The new Summit (Centre) will be many things to
many people, your Worship,”
Locke said. “For some, it
will be achieving a new level
of health and a new level of
fitness. For others it’s going
to mean discovering new interests and a more active,
more engaging lifestyle. For
many families it will be a
place that encourages greater
participation for all ages. For
the City of Mount Pearl it’s
the promise of a better,
healthier, more inclusive
community with facilities de-
signed to attract people of
many interests with a promise of a better living and a
better life.”
Locke said the diagonal
bands of rich colours in the
Summit Centre’s logo captures the multi-purpose character of the facility and
mimics the shape of a mountain summit. The flowing
lines at the bottom are a nod
to the state of the art aquatic
centre, which features three
swimming areas.
“The configuration captures the essence of the facility – a place to reach new
heights of personal achievement and personal growth,”
Locke said.
The summit peak in the
logo is shaped to suggest
both the letter M in Mount
Pearl and a pulse rate, “the
perfect image of a city in motion,” Locke added. “As a
whole, the Summit Centre
brand engenders hope, ambition, passion and direction,
aspects that every commu-
nity aspires to to create a better life for all.”
Locke said the City is appreciative of the $11.3 million approved under the
Building Canada fund for the
Glacier and multiplex projects.
“On behalf of council, I
would like to extend special
thanks to our prime consultant, Bae-Newplan Group
Limited and Marco Construction for their dedication
to this project,” Locke said.
“And to Open Communications as well, who worked
with the City in designing the
logo, the branding and the
name. And I want to send out
a special appreciation to our
City staff who have worked
extremely hard to keep this
massive project on track, on
budget, always upholding a
vision of excellence, which
is what we enjoy here in the
City of Mount Pearl… We
are so excited to see what
you guys have in store for us,
for our citizens, our neigh-
bours and the many visitors
to our remarkable city.”
The official opening ceremony will take place September 2 followed by
opening weekend celebrations on September 6 - 7.
Mayor Simms said he can
recall when the Glacier was
named “and we walked
many a mile going, ‘Hmm,
Glacier, Glacier, is that a
good name?’ Now it’s an
iconic name… I envision the
day in the not very distant future when people will refer to
events and happenings, competitions and things that are
taking place at ‘the Summit’
and everyone will know
where and what it’s all about.
And the day I look forward
to most now is the day we
unlock the doors and let the
public actually see inside this
place. It is a pretty phenomenal facility and Mount
Pearl, I think, will be very
proud of it when the time
comes.”
PC leadership contenders to talk business at Chamber of Commerce event
The three contenders
for the leadership of the
PC Party will all be in the
same room later this
month taking questions
from
businesspeople
thanks to the Irish Loop
Chamber of Commerce,
which is hosting the event
in the Goulds on August
27.
The event, set for St.
Kevin’s Parish Hall, includes a dinner and costs
$50 for members of the
chamber and $60 for any-
one else who would like
to attend to hear what
John Ottenheimer, Steve
Kent and Paul Davis have
to say about issues aﬀecting the economy and business climate. You can
reserve a ticket by calling
the chamber at 432-3104.
The three leaders have
been bumping into each
other at delegate selection
meetings
across
the
province, but this is the
ﬁrst time they will share a
platform in a public venue
since the leadership was
called for the second time
after business Frank Coleman suddenly pulled out.
Irish Loop Chamber of
Commerce President Jeﬀ
Marshall, who is himself
the Liberal candidate in
Kilbride district, said the
evening will allow people
some socializing time
with the candidates as
well as a question and answer session afterwards.
“We’re pretty excited
about it,” said Marshall.
“It’s fantastic exposure for
the chamber and is a great
opportunity for our members – I mean one of those
people is going to be our
next premier for at least a
year anyway. And it will
be interesting to hear
what they have to say
about local issues.”
Marshall said the chamber is hoping to get a good
turnout of businesspeople
from the Goulds and
Southern Shore, St. Mary’s
Bay and anywhere else.
“It’s an important
thing,” he noted. “One of
them will be the premier
for the next year and there
are a lot of issues that people have within the business
community
regarding transportation,
communication services
and infrastructure and
things like that.”
Marshall said a goal of
the chamber is to foster a
better business climate in
the area and an event like
this one aids that goal.
The event builds on the
trade show expo the
chamber held at Mobile
Arena in June, Marshall
said, and leads up to the
annual Fall Fair set for
November.
The PC Party will
choose its next leader
through a delegated convention in St. John’s in
mid-September.
fAMilY PAGE
Solution page 10
Solution page 11
Can Cat and Parrots Survive Car Trip?
DEAR PAW'S CORNER: I
have a cat and two budgies,
and I am moving several
states away. I plan to drive
and bring all three with me.
I'm worried that "Tiger" will
stress out the budgies,
though. Can I keep the peace
between these pets? -- A
Reader, via email
DEAR READER: One way,
maybe the best way, to travel
with pets of diﬀerent species
is to keep them out of sight of
one another, and under control.
Tiger should be placed in a
carrier with a favorite blanket and toys to keep him occupied. The birds should stay
in their cage (or if necessary,
a smaller travel cage). The
change of location and the
car's motion could be stressors as well, so minimize
their exposure by covering
the cage while you're driving.
And do not leave your pets
alone in the car, even for a
few minutes, and even if the
weather seems cool. I know
I've repeated this advice all
summer, but I see incidents
several times per week on the
news, so many owners still
don't realize the danger. The
temperature in a hot car can
rise very quickly, even with
the windows opened a bit.
So plan your trip carefully.
At each rest stop, take the
birds' cage outside and uncover it in a shady area so
they can get some fresh air.
Take Tiger's carrier out, or if
he's a well-behaved cat, put
him on a leash (while he's
still in the car so he doesn't
escape) and let him explore a
safe, shady area.
If Tiger is a terror in the car
-- yowling or otherwise being
stressed -- talk to his vet beforehand about medicating
him to keep him calm during
the journey.
Send your questions or comments to [email protected].
(c) 2014 King Features Synd.,
Inc.
Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothie
kitchen and save yourself
money and calories.
Skip the ice-cream shop.
Blend these two great tastes
together right in your own
1 1/2 cups cold fat-free
milk
1 cup (1 medium) diced
ripe banana
2 tablespoons reduced-fat
peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar- and fat-free
vanilla ice cream
In a blender container,
combine milk, banana and
peanut butter. Cover and
process on BLEND for 30 seconds. Add ice cream. Recover and process on BLEND
for 15 seconds or until mixture is smooth. Serve at once.
Serves 2 (1 1/4 cups).
¥ Each serving equals: 258
calories, 6g fat, 13gm protein,
38g carb., 216mg sodium, 3g
ﬁber; Diabetic Exchanges: 1
Fruit, 1 Fat-Free Milk, 1/2
Meat, 1/2 Fat, 1/2 Carb.
(c) 2014 King Features
Synd., Inc.
Collecting Sea
Glass, Shells
and Stones
"This one is really rare,"
says 5-year-old Jude, as he
examines one of the pieces of
cornﬂower blue sea glass he
and his brother and grandmother collected along the
California shoreline. "Oh,
wait, this one might be rarer!"
chimes in 7-year-old brother
JD, as he sets a teal piece to
the side of the mounds of
sorted glass they dumped
out on the kitchen table from
a big bowl of treasures.
"Spending time with my
seven young grandkids is
about learning together and
making discoveries that ignite
the human spirit," says Jan
Bowman, retired teacher.
"Whether you are 6 or 60, connecting with one another
around an activity we all enjoy
is catching. That's what the
hunt for sea glass does for us."
Recently, after a big storm,
I said, "Let's go to the coast
this morning. I bet we'll ﬁnd
some rare sea glass that was
churned up in the ocean and
landed on the sand, just for
us to ﬁnd." Sure enough, nature's jewelry was dotting the
beach. That's when they
found a piece of yellow glass,
possibly from Depression
glass tableware. "It is considered extremely rare," she
says.
What is sea glass and what
is the allure? Plain and simple, it's discarded glass that
was cast into the ocean and
lost at sea -- until some pieces
came back in interesting
shapes and sizes after being
tumbled and chemically
weathered. It's often castoﬀs
from glass factories, or discarded bottles from shipwrecks that broke and
tumbled in the sea, decades
and centuries ago. Nowadays, it's a hobby that knows
no bounds, popular stateside
to global shores from Australia to the U.K.
Whether your family gets
hooked on collecting sea
glass, seashells or pretty
rocks and pebbles along
streams and around lakes,
there's always fun to be had
when you return home with
pockets full of ﬁnds. Enjoy
these easy-to-do crafts using
sea glass, shells or stones:
• Frame a photo of your
child at the beach where the
sea glass or shells were
found. Embellish the plain
frame with a select few of the
treasures glued to a corner.
• Glue "ﬁnds" on the top of
a small box in interesting patterns. Fill it with more summer souvenirs.
• Tie thin cording around
a ﬁnd, knot it, and glue the
knot in place for a memoryﬁlled necklace.
For inspiration and information on sea glass, ﬁnd author Richard LaMotte's
comprehensive book with
photography by Celia Pearson, "Pure Sea Glass: Discovering Nature's Vanishing
Gems" and "Pure Sea Glass
Identiﬁcation
Deck"
(www.seaglasspublishing.co
m).
(c) 2014 Donna Erickson
Distributed by King Features Synd.
Advertise in The Business Post
Call 834-4620
NEWS
Page 10
ThE BusinEss PosT
August, 2014
PC antics drove consultant to seek NDP nod in Placentia – St. Mary’s
Jenn Deon readily jokes
that she has a lot of nerve
running for the NDP in Placentia – St. Mary’s next election. “I’m living in St. John’s
– I’m a townie – and I’ve
even a CFA born,” she says
smiling.
But the social media consultant and member of the
NDP provincial executive is
all business about representing the New Democrats in
the next general election.
And she quickly points out
that her husband’s family are
all from St. Mary’s Bay.
Still, Deon has a battle on
her hands. Last election, the
NDP did pretty well in Placentia-St. Mary’s finishing
second in a three way sawoff that resulted in incumbent
Felix Collins getting reelected for the PCs, but with
less than a majority of the
vote. This election looks to
be a lot different. According
to opinion polls, as voters
contemplate the coming election, regard for the Tories
and NDP has waned, while
the Liberals are enjoying unusually high support.
But the NDP is used to
fighting from behind. And
injured workers advocate
Trish Dodd, who represented
the party in Placentia – St.
Mary’s last time, is working
on Deon’s campaign, the
new challenger says. “Unfortunately she has some personal issues that doesn’t
permit her to fully engage (as
a candidate) in a large campaign but I’m really glad that
she and her husband Bill are
going to be helping out on
mine,” Deon says.
The reason Deon is running, she explains, is because
the antics and statements of
the party in power have made
her angry.
“I don’t have a history of
political activism, but when
the budget came down last
year – my husband is a
teacher – and I had just finished listening to the radio
where a cabinet minister had
said, ‘Oh no, there are no
cuts to education’ as all these
cuts were coming out, and
my husband walks in and
says ‘Yep, we’re losing four
units at my school,’” Deon
recalls. “I just reached my
breaking point. The messaging that was coming out was
so against what was in the
best interest of the people.”
The passage of Bill 29,
which gives cabinet ministers the power to withhold information if they deem a
request for it to be “frivolous” and the sanctioning of
Muskrat Falls, which was
passed with eight minutes of
debate, Deon says, reinforced her frustration with
the PC government.
“That’s ridiculous when
you’re looking at the impacts
on our province,” Deon says
of the Muskrat Falls debate.
“I just felt I had to do something.”
Deon says she is a communicator by profession so
she started communicating
about the state of affairs. “I
started getting out on social
media and just talking about
what I was seeing as an individual,” she says. “I asked
the question that everybody
asks themselves: what can
one person do? I said I don’t
know what I can do but the
first thing I’m going to do is
sign up as a member of the
NDP. That was the first time
I signed up as a member.”
Deon sees Muskrat Falls
as a big issue. “I think it is an
irresponsible spend of our
money at this point,” she
says. “I am not an expert in
these things, but what is irresponsible is that a government spends this money
without due consultation
with its people. And they really haven’t allowed that. I
mean eight minutes of debate
and they’re spending how
many billions of our dollars?
Jenn Deon is seeking the NDP nomination in Placentia - St. Mary’s
District a traditionally strong PC district that could go liberal or
NDP in part because of the appalling state of the roads.
And of course the cost overruns are even upon us now.”
Once she signed the party
membership form, Deon
grew even more active politically. She was elected party
treasurer at the annual convention in May.
“There’s such a need for
people to step forward,”
Deon says. “I live my values,
I live my beliefs, they’re not
tied to big business special
interests, and that’s something I think I can bring to
the people of Placentia – St.
Mary’s.”
Deon agrees that Placentia
– St. Mary’s is different than
many other districts in that it
is separated, physically, into
two regions, if not three, with
Placentia and the Cape Shore
on one side of St. Mary’s
Bay and the communities of
Route 90 on the other. Link-
ing the two sides somewhat,
is a dirt road leading west
from near Colinet. Deon says
she may have an advantage
in that she is not tied to any
one area and can represent
the whole of the district objectively.
But the various parts of
the districts do share some
common problems, she
notes, especially the state of
the roads. “Those roads, I
mean my God, when you
hear about ambulances
pulling off to the side because they can’t treat people
(while bouncing over the
potholes), or people being
afraid to drive at night – what
kind of quality of life is
that?”
The bad roads also affects
business owners who are dependent upon the tourism
season, she notes.
Deon says residents of the
district have had year after
year of promises not being
fulfilled. “I don’t know what
I can do for that except,
again, falling back on my
role as a communicator, even
through the fact that I am
running for office and people
are interviewing me about it,
maybe I can just add my
voice and bring a little bit
more shame and prominence
to the situation,” she says.
Future of Co-op housing on minds of councllors
The City of Mount Pearl
will add its voice to concerns
being raised over Ottawa’s
withdrawal of subsidies for
co-operative housing projects.
The move comes at the request of the Whitely Drive
Housing Co-operative.
The co-op’s property manager Rosalind Langer wrote
council last month pointing
out thousands of seniors, single parents and people with
disabilities across the country, including in Mount
Pearl, are facing an uncertain
future “as the federal ﬁnancial assistance that makes
their housing aﬀordable vanishes.”
Rather than cutting the
program, Langer argued, the
federal and provincial gov-
ernments should be creating
and funding more long term,
cost-shared rent supplement
programs.
The Whitely Drive Co-op
is working with a national
body on a couple of campaigns to ﬁght the cuts and
expand programs to people
who need help. One of the
campaigns is called ‘You
hold the key – Fix the housing crunch.’
The message found a receptive ear at Mount Pearl
City council. Mayor Randy
Simms noted that of the 21
co-op housing societies in the
province, 11 are located in
Mount Pearl. “We probably
have, on a unit by unit basis,
more co-op housing than any
other community in the
province,” he reckoned.
Councillor Andrew Ledwell agreed it’s an important
issue. “And certainly if these
funding programs were to go
astray that might create a further problem in terms of affordable housing and the
lack thereof here in the city
and the region,” he said.
Ledwell moved that the
City write a letter of support
on behalf of the Whitely
Drive Co-op.
Councillor Lucy Stoyles
seconded the motion. Stoyles
said housing is becoming unaﬀordable for more and
more people in the region, especially young people and
those working for minimum
wage. “I talk to a lot of people every single day and they
just can’t aﬀord to get a mort-
gage,” she said. “They can’t
aﬀord to save up the money
to qualify for a mortgage. I
think it is so important to
have co-op housing in our region and in our community
and I certainly support this
(campaign).”
Stoyles urged council to
rally other municipalities as
well. “This is something that
shouldn’t be taken away, it’s
too important,” she argued.
Mayor Simms said he liked
Stoyles’ idea of asking Municipalities Newfoundland
and Labrador to support the
cause. He also promised to
have a letter of support for
the co-op drafted and circulated amongst council members.
Councillor Dave Aker ob-
served there are some 600 coop housing units in the
province, 80 per cent of
which are located in Mount
Pearl. “The very ﬁrst housing
co-op in Newfoundland and
Labrador was in Mount Pearl
on Jeﬀer’s Drive known as
Genesis Housing Corp.,” he
added.
Aker said the real issue is
the future of rent geared to
income. “The basic principle
behind rent geared to income
is that people should not
have to pay, say, more than
25 per cent of their income
towards rent or mortgages
and property taxes,” he explained.
Aker noted that the federally-funded Canada Mortgage
and
Housing
Corporation has been withdrawing its funding from the
province and as a result the
provincial government has to
cover the diﬀerence or people have to pay more in rent.
ThE BusinEss PosT
August, 2014
NEWS
To advertise in The Business Post or its sister publications
please call 709-834-4620 or e-mail [email protected]
PAgE 11
Page 12
NEWS
The Business PosT
August, 2014
Extend your reach
by advertising in...
The Pearl
Vol 2 No. 15 The Community Newspaper of Mount Pearl & Southlands July 23, 2014
Serving our residential
and commercial
customers in the
community for
over 40 years
834-5568
www.dawesnl.ca
One cool
concept
Mayor Randy Simms says it’s time
to figure out what it takes to make
Mount Pearl a ‘winter city’
T
Eric Learning, left, and Chris Doyle, two camp counsellors with the City of Mount Pearl, try to right
their overturned homemade raft fashioned from Central Dairies milk cartons and duct tape in the City
Days competition held at Power’s Pond Park on July 19. After the race, Learning was heard to comment,
“Can we get a do over?” The team of Olivia Byrne and Matt Baker won the competition. The event was
sponsored by Central Dairies. More pictures inside.
lasses are over for the
summer, but work is
gearing up at schools
throughout Mount Pearl as
the English School Districts
realigns and refurbishes its
facilities in time for the return of students in September.
The work is being overseen by the board’s Assistant
Director of Operations, Tony
Stack, who has led a comprehensive planning and public
consultation effort to have
the schools made ready to accommodate the student population changes in the Paradise
– Mount Pearl system.
SOUTHLANDS CENTRE OPENING
St. John’s Mayor Dennis O’Keefe addresses children and parents at the grand opening of the $3 million Southlands Community Centre last week. “Southlands Community Centre
will be a hub for this growing community. This new building
will become a neighbourhood centre for activity, discussion
and fun,” said O’Keefe. See story page 6.
MOUNT PEARL CITY DAYS
Mount Pearl schools being readied for change
C
From the outside, the
changes look like a complicated game of musical
chairs. But there is a well
thought out order to it.
Here’s the run through:
Mount Pearl Senior High and
Mount Pearl Intermediate,
located next door to each
other on Ruth Avenue, are
swapping buildings. MPSH
will remain a Grades 9
through 12 facility, but MPI
will change from being a
grades 5 to 9 to a Grades 6 –
8 school instead. The Grade
5s will be retained at Morris
Academy, which was a
Kindergarten to Grade 4
school.
In the O’Donel feeder system, there are no changes to
O’Donel, St. Peter’s Junior
High or Mary Queen of the
World. However for St.
Peter’s Elementary and Newtown Elementary, which
were both formerly K to 6
schools, their separate catchments areas will now be
combined into one with the
result that Kindergarteners to
Grade 3s will attend St.
Peter’s while students in
Grades 4 to 6 will attend
Newtown.
Stack noted the Mount
Pearl – Paradise system has
more than 6,000 students,
representing just over nine
per cent of the province’s
student population.
At Mount Pearl Senior
High, an estimated $66,500
worth of work will be done
this summer reconfiguring
labs and moving walls. Another $1.7 million is being
spent as part of a longer ongoing project to give the
building a facelift, including
new windows.
MPI will get about
$200,000 worth of work.
Ironically, MPI used to be
Mount Pearl Central High.
See ‘Tender,’ page 4
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Community newspapers
have a strong appeal
and are read by a higher
proportion of the population
than daily newspapers and
magazines.
Discounts available
when you advertise in
two or all three of our papers.
See ‘Film,” page 2
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Reach thousands of
readers and potential
customers ﬁve times a month
in the growing suburbs of the
Goulds, Bay Bulls & Witless
Bay, the progressive City of
Mount Pearl, as well as
thousands of others in St. John’s
and other communities on the
Avalon Peninsula.
So the city has opted to
explore ways of redeveloping and changing things for
the better as opposed to simply expanding outwards.
“How do we constantly improve everything we’re providing to our citizens so that
their environment at the municipal level is, hopefully, the
best one anywhere, so that
people are banging on your
door wanting in?” Simms
said, describing the challenge that council and staff
have set for themselves.
Simms observed that the
level of services the city already provides has current
residents wanting to stay in
Mount Pearl. “That’s one
half of it,” he said. “The
other half I don’t know about
yet. It’s going to take time for
it to come to fruition as to
he mercury is on the opposite end of the scale of
what we suffered in January,
but Mount Pearl Mayor
Randy Simms is already
thinking ahead to next winter
and even winters beyond to
figure out what it will take to
make our coldest months
more livable.
The notion of making life
more enjoyable during our
frostiest and most testing
months appears to be a natural extension of council’s
strategic goal of continual
improvement.
The city has been looking
for ways to redevelop,
Simms noted, pointing out
that while neighbouring municipalities are focused on
growth, the reality for Mount
Pearl is that in the course of
the next 10 years, it will be
“grown out.”
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