Innu vow to protest, continue caribou hunt

After a while, some of this stuff gets repeated so often you could be reading the news with an early undiagnosed case of dementia and not really know for sure that slowly you are losing your grip on reality.

Penashue.

Hickey. 

Innu. 

Protest.

Caribou.

Is it 2010 or 1987?

The answer  - at least for the old Canadian Press clipping below -  is 1987.  The first clue the story is older is the reference to “Innu Indians” and if you managed to slip by that one, the dead give-away is the mention of protests at a military runway.

Other than that, the rest of the story could be from events of the past six or seven years.  A group of Innu, protesting an issue they believe involves their aboriginal rights, decide to kill a few animals from an endangered herd.

A Penashue from Sheshatshiu, in this case Greg, speaks on behalf of the protesters:

''People ask us why we don't sit down and negotiate with government,'' said Greg Penashue, president of the Innu association. ''Well, that's not something I foresee in the near future.

Meanwhile, there’s a prediction of dire consequences from someone regular readers of these scribbles will recognise as a local favourite:

However, John Hickey, [right, shovelling something else in 2009] president of the Mealy Mountains Conservation Committee, said the illegal hunting could escalate into a full-scale slaughter of the herd.

''What's probably going to happen next year, in my estimation, is Metis hunters and hunters from other communities are going to start operating in there and we're going to have one big massacre in the Mealy Mountains,'' he said.

Now aside from the novelty of seeing the old story recycled in this way, there are a few other lessons to be drawn from all this.

Firstly, the Innu  - whether from Quebec or from Sheshatshiu – are past masters at using caribou hunts in sensitive areas as a way of attracting southern media attention for their political cause of the moment.

Second, the caribou herds involved have been used like this for more than 22 years and so far the herds have not been decimated.  There is good reason to doubt either the scientists views or, by referring back to that first point, what is actually going on.  Innu aren’t stupid people, individually or collectively.

Third, the same cannot be said for the white folks who – each and every year - fall for the same schtick without fail.  In that light,  John Hickey’s prediction of a “massacre” 22 years ago is laughable.  But he is basically no different than the crowd who have played the reflexive, knee-jerk white redneck role in the Annual Media Caribou Frenzy every year since.

What’s especially sad is that some of the biggest parts in the 2010 edition of the annual knee-jerk follies are played by a bunch of politicians who are supposed to be or who should be a heckuva lot smarter than they evidently are.  Felix, Danny and Kathy should know better than to get into the racket.  They aren’t being played for saps;  they have re-written the script for themselves and in the process done absolutely nothing to defuse the situation, strip the protest of its political value or advance the Lower Churchill land claim.

Rather, with their claims that charges might be laid they are showing themselves to be extraordinarily stunned.  As lawyers of some experience, Felix and Danny should both know that the aboriginal people of Canada have a constitutionally guaranteed right to hunt, fish and trap subject only to laws about safety and conservation.  In this case, showing any conservation issue is going to be highly problematic.  The facts speak for themselves.

In the end, if Danny and Felix try a politically-driven prosecution  - a la FPI and yellow-tail flounder, right - they can only lose as a matter of law.  They may secure the redneck vote and grumble about the friggin’ courts but that’s going to be of little use once the Innu have a much stronger political position as a result of pure stunnedness. 

On the other hand, now that Danny and Felix have built up an expectation that charges will be laid against the Innu – presumably knowing there is frig-all chance of a conviction – they are going to look like eunuchs if they decide that a prosecution is a waste of time and don’t lay charges.

They got into this mess, one suspects, for a very well-known habit of one of three  - Danny, Felix or Kathy - to shoot from the lip before the brain engages.  Henley v. Cable Atlantic is just one of many such examples. The people of the province have seen it countless times since 2003 and  - contrary to popular mythology – The Lip has cost taxpayers dearly indeed.  This case will likely prove to have a similar high price-tag attached to it.

Either way, the Innu will be stronger as a result of this little escapade. Building up sympathy among the southerners is a time-honoured part of their strategy and it will work now just as it did 22 years ago.

One potentially huge difference in the political response to the Innu outside Newfoundland and Labrador now versus earlier has to do with the level of interest of other governments in the whole affair.  If the feds were as attached to the Lower Churchill  as they were to low-altitude flight training in the 1980s or if the Lower Churchill project was more than a load of hot air, the federal politicians would be less susceptible to the political pressure that is likely to be applied to them very shortly.  There’s no way of knowing for sure – at this point – how they will react.

At the same time, these recent protests and the strong words being tossed highlight the huge cleavages within the Innu communities north and south of the Labrador-Quebec boundary. The white folks in this end of the province might want to consider that in a worst case scenario, there’s no guarantee “our Indians” will side with us against “their Indians.”  None of that bodes well for the Lower Churchill.

And if nothing else, all this highlights the sheer idiocy of believing that history started in 2003 and that – in an of themselves – the current lords and ladies ruling this place are inherently smarter than any average bear that went before.

If they were, then they wouldn’t have volunteered so eagerly to play the horse’s arse – yet again - in the pantomime that is Labrador hydro development.

April 22, 1987

Canadian Press

Innu Indians, locked in an escalating battle over native hunting rights and provincial laws, set up tents yesterday on the runway of a military airport.

Five tents were pitched at Canadian Forces Station Goose Bay by members of the Naskapi Montagnais Innu band to protest against the resumption of low-level flights by NATO fighter jets.

The Innu, who believe the flights disrupt the migratory patterns of caribou, were also protesting against the imprisonment of band members arrested on charges of illegally hunting caribou.

The tents, which were not disrupting airport activities, come after a winter of defiance by Innu from the central Labrador community of Sheshatshit.

The Innu, non-status Indians native to Labrador and Eastern Quebec, say they have killed at least 50 caribou from the protected Mealy Mountains' herd on the south coast of Labrador. The Innu consider the area part of their traditional hunting ground.

Six band leaders and Rev. Jim Roach, a Roman Catholic priest, are in jail awaiting a court appearance next week on charges of illegally hunting or illegally possessing caribou meat.

''People ask us why we don't sit down and negotiate with government,'' said Greg Penashue, president of the Innu association. ''Well, that's not something I foresee in the near future.

''How can they guarantee us rights when they throw us in jail virtually every day for practicing our traditional way of life?'' The Innu claim the right to roughly 300,000 square kilometres of land in Newfoundland and Quebec, saying the tribe was hunting caribou as its way of life before Newfoundland existed and has never signed a treaty giving up its rights.

However, John Hickey, president of the Mealy Mountains Conservation Committee, said the illegal hunting could escalate into a full-scale slaughter of the herd.

''What's probably going to happen next year, in my estimation, is Metis hunters and hunters from other communities are going to start operating in there and we're going to have one big massacre in the Mealy Mountains,'' he said.

Other native peoples in Labrador have also claimed traditional rights in the Mealy Mountains. The Innu receive government assistance in the form of subsidized housing, social services and hunting trips.

''If you get right down to it, the Innu went into a section of Labrador which is traditionally used by the Metis people,'' said Joe Goudie, president of the Labrador Metis Association.

''They have impinged on our land without consultation, without anything.''

The Mealy Mountains and the nearby Red Wine Mountains were closed to caribou hunting after the herd dwindled to less than 200 in 1975 from about 2,500 in the 1950s. The Innu are allowed unrestricted access to the George River caribou herd far in the north, whose numbers have mushroomed to more than 700,000.

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Kremlinology 12: Dead caribou edition

Odd -  dontcha think  - that members of the Innu Nation chose the last part of last week to challenge the provincial government on caribou hunting in an area where previously they’d been generally supportive.

Every year, usually in the spring, some Innu from Quebec cross the border and take down a few of the very few remaining caribou in the Red Wine herd.  There’s always a flurry of news coverage and righteously indignant news releases from the provincial wildlife minister.

This year, the controversy arose in November, coincidental with the Churchill Falls/Lower Churchill meeting of Atlantic Premiers and involved some of the Innu from Sheshatshiu.

The spokesperson was Peter Penashue who – again just coincidentally -  has also been front and centre lately, discussing the latest round of never-ending discussions to finalise a land claims deal that was supposedly finalised last fall and which Penashue recently said actually wouldn’t be done for another three years or so.

On the caribou issue, Penashue was hammering away at the supposed lack of consultation between the Innu and the provincial government on wildlife management.

More interestingly though, here’s how the Globe contrasted Penashue from five years ago when the Quebec Innu were doing the spring hunt and Penashue today:

"No one knows for sure if Red Wine woodland caribou were killed, or, if they were, how many," he wrote then in The Globe and Mail.

"The hunt in the Red Wine caribou range was not just an illegal protest, it was completely inconsistent with Innu values. ... Putting a threatened caribou herd at further risk can never be justified on the basis of aboriginal rights."

He said last night that "I obviously wouldn't concur with" that statement now, saying that he had lost faith in the provincial government's ability to manage the caribou.

Interestingly, Premier Danny Williams described the Innu land claims agreement as being crucial to the Lower Churchill:

Williams recently told a Telegram editorial board that if the New Dawn Agreement with the Labrador Innu isn't ratified, the Lower Churchill deal would die.

That’s from a story in the Saturday edition which isn’t on line.

The timing is rather interesting, though. 

If the Innu were really close to settling the land claims issue with the provincial government that is so crucial to the Lower Churchill project, then it seems odd the point man on the New Dawn agreement would be out on such a particular day in such a conspicuous way tackling the provincial government for its lack of consultation.

We’ll all know something is up for certain – he said perhaps only somewhat facetiously  - if the Fan Klub starts linking Penashue to Hydro Quebec and Shawn Graham.

And the Pentavaret.

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Rinse. Repeat. #nlpoli

Not one, not two, but three provincial cabinet ministers announced a five year ban on hunting George River caribou on Monday.

This is a very serious situation, they said.

It must be serious.  They had very glum faces.

If people don’t stop killing caribou, then bad things will happen, they said.

Justice minister @King_Darin said law enforcement officials were around and well…you know what that could mean.

Uh huh.

The Politics of the Caribou

Some pictures turned up in ye olde in-box showing caribou in Labrador.  The shots were taken this year.

At this point don’t get concerned with the discussion of which herd is which.  Are biologists in agreement that the various herds  - George, Red Wine, Joir, etc - are actually separate entities?  Or are they merely sub-sets of one large caribou population that ranges over what some people have referred to as the Quebec-Labrador peninsula?

If the Red Wine herd was really only 100 animals and it seldom migrated very far then six or seven years of hunting by both Labrador and Quebec Innu should have wiped them out.  Well, certainly if the Innu are reportedly taking way more than 100 animals every season.

The biology of it is one thing.  The politics of it is another and as this story of the Innu hunt has really taken off, people are getting a better perspective on the deep political cleavages that lay behind the annual caribou media frenzy.

There is the pressure on the provincial government, evidenced by a statement issued by Hisself  - presumably recuperating from heart surgery in sunnier climes - and the companion piece – a media availability by Hisself’s hand-picked political mouthpiece and occasional stunt-double.

Then there is Innu leader Peter Penashue pissing all over the Quebec Innu for supposedly being backward-assed and stunned.  Peter reveals the schism between the Innu south of the border and those north of it pretty nakedly. He may also be a bit ticked at being on the receiving end of some of the same tactics he and his associates have been known to use, but that’s another story.

But truth be told, Peter himself is not representing a monolithic group. Heck, Peter’s own mother isn’t on side with the deal.  And when it comes to hunting endangered caribou, Peter was singing a very different tune before Christmas than the one he spouts today.

In other words, the issues involved in this are complex.  They cannot be dismissed as easily as Peter dismisses them or as some of the non-aboriginal people of the south are making them out to be. 

Heck, it isn’t clear yet Peter’s own crowd north of the border will buy into the New Dawn or view it as merely a dolled up version of the original Matshishkapeu Accord. He may like people to think that everything is tucked in, but we heard that same story from him when the Matshishkapeu Accord rolled out the first time.  Whatever happened to that January 31 2009 ratification vote, there, Peter? 

As with a herd of caribou, there is much more to this story than may first appear.

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Muskrat Mania #nlpoli

• Nova Scotia “energy consultants pan Muskrat Falls project”.
• “Let’s wait for URB verdict”:  former NS NDP leader
• Ekuanitshit Innu suing over Muskrat Falls. (French)
• Nalcor excluded the George River herd from Muskrat falls impact study according to  Ekuanitshit commentary on MF environmental review:

Effects on the George River herd

Generally speaking, the proponent’s optimism with respect to the effects of the project on caribou cannot be justified merely by its very selective description of the effects on certain herds.

The George River herd was arbitrarily excluded from the impact study:

“More recently, the GRH has wintered west of the northern end of the Study Area in Central and Southeastern Labrador. Since the Study Area receives inconsistent seasonal use by this herd, any use of the area is likely to be by individuals or small groups rather than thousands of caribou. Due to the limited nature of any likely Project interaction with the GRH, it has not been carried forward in this assessment.” (EIS, p. 12-102)

It is arbitrary to exclude the herd since in its EIS, Nalcor recognized that the herd had recently been present in the study area chosen by the proponent:

“Migratory caribou are typically tundra dwelling and are characterized by their extensive seasonal migrations between winter and calving grounds (Bergerud et al. 2008). Currently, the 15 province recognizes the George River Herd (GRH) as the migratory ecotype. This herd has recently wintered in the vicinity of the Study Area in Labrador (such as observed by the Study Team in the winter of 2009 to 2010).” EIS, p. 10-93

In its addendum to the EIS however, Nalcor makes no mention of the George River herd.

Yet according to the results of an aerial survey conducted jointly by the Quebec Department of Natural Resources and Wildlife (MRNF) and Newfoundland Department of Environment and Conservation, together with the Institut pour la recherche et la surveillance environnementale (of which the Council of the Innu of Ekuanitshit is a member) and the Torngat Wildlife, Plants and Fisheries Secretariat, the George River herd population declined from 74,000 in October 2010 to 27,600 in July 2012.[1]

The Joint Review Panel, which studied Nalcor’s proposed hydroelectric generating facilities at Gull Island and Muskrat Falls, had recommended (7.10) that the proponent “monitor interactions of the George River caribou herd with Project activities and facilities and identify any impacts”: Joint Review Panel Report, p. 31.

It is surprising, to say the least, that given the urgent situation of the George River herd, the proponent could deliberately exclude the potential effects of the transmission lines from the environmental assessment. Nalcor has indicated no intention of monitoring “interactions of the herd” with this phase of the project.

---

[1] http://www.mrn.gouv.qc.ca/presse/communiques-detail.jsp?id=9880

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The Annual Caribou Frenzy: 2010 edition

Every year Quebec Innu hunt caribou in the northern part of the territory they claim.

Every year there is a panic about it.

This year was no exception.

There was just a unique excuse this year:  the Matshishkapeu Accord.

But every year the Innu hunt caribou, and every year the government gets its collective knockers in a giant bunch, some locals call for the army to be sent in to arrest the interlopers and every year the endangered Red Wine caribou herd and its 100 animals never seem to get slaughtered into extinction.

And it’s not like someone hasn’t pointed out that this pattern occurs.

Same bat time, give or take a few weeks.

Same bat place.

Every.

single.

year.

 

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The Danny Legacy Option for the Lower Churchill

As noted in the Bond Papers on Friday, the Premier held a news conference on Monday to update the province on the process to develop the Lower Churchill.

The government news release listed three comprehensive proposals to build the Gull Island and Muskrat Falls generating stations plus associated transmission facilities. These will now move to the second phase of the process, namely a feasibility study.

The three proposals are:

1. The Hydro Quebec/Ontario Energy Financing Company/SNC Lavalin proposal. One of the few proposals made public, this joint venture contained an option in which the joint venture would lease the Gull Island and Muskrat Falls sites for 50 years and a second in which Ontario and Hydro-Quebec would negotiate an agreement under which Ontario would purchase energy and Newfoundland and Labrador would finance construction.

This was widely held as being the likely strong proposal. The partners have extensive experience in the energy business, more than enough experience in the construction of large hydro-electric projects and the ability to raise all the capital needed to build the project.

This project also included construction of improved transmission capacity between Ontario and Quebec.

The guaranteed, long-term purchase of power by both Ontario and Quebec would make it easy for the province to raise any capital to build the project under the second option.

Construction would begin in late 2006 with first power transmitted by 2011.

2. TransCanada Corporation. Nothing is known publicly of this proposal. The company operates several hydroelectric and other generating systems in the central part of the continent. The largest is a little more than 18% of the Lower Churchill's combined generating capacity.

Call this one a long shot.

3. Tshiaskueshish Group. This is a consortium comprising Macquarie North America, Ltd., Innu Development Limited Partnership, Peter Kiewit Sons Co. and Innu Kiewit Constructors.

Again, nothing is known about this proposal. The companies have considerable experience in large construction projects. Beyond that, there is nothing available publicly.

Given the the Innu component of this proposal and the stated need in the original call for proposals for aboriginal involvement, this might be a proposal that had a leg-up as a result. The Innu Kiewit website is a little out of date since it notes that Voisey's Bay construction has been delayed.

Then there is the stealth option, one that Premier Danny Williams included on his own.

That's the one which would see the provincial government and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro build the whole Lower Churchill project by themselves. For want of a better name call it the PWG Caribou Company proposal.

There are several reasons the Premier is likely to give when this option is selected.

1. The PWG Caribou Company meets all the proposal call requirements:

- It cuts out the middle man thereby maximizing the cash return to the provincial government and Hydro.
- It allows the government to deal with the Innu land claim directly, as it would have to do anyway.
- It gives the provincial government total control over the local benefits.

2. The province can afford it. The proposal call listed the estimated cost of the project as being CDN$3.3 billion. With the $2.0 billion from the federal government, the province can almost pay off the whole thing by itself. Borrowing would be limited and with the right power purchase agreement, the remaining capital can be raised at reasonable costs. The various financing options allow the provincial government to find novel ways of finding money for the project.

3. We would develop our resources for ourselves. The Pink, White and Green Caribou Company is the ultimate expression of the "local power" wave the Premier created with his offshore revenue deal. The strongest argument he will offer for doing it ourselves is that we will have total control over everything and that every aspect of the project possible will be done locally.

Just remember that the whole thing hinges on the power purchase agreement or having steady markets in which to sell the power.

As for the rest of it, expect the province will do exactly as the Premier said today: Give first priority to the PWG Caribou option.

I'd expect he has already decided what to do with the offshore cash. He keeps telling us but no one wants to accept it. The rest of the process is all for show, or at least serves only to give the Premier the chance to pick over the very best ideas from a whole bunch of other proposals so he can then do the whole thing himself.

It's Danny Legacy Option.

I can hear the speech now:

"It is our water. It is our falls. It will be developed for our benefit. By our engineers and our architects and run by our Hydro company and our government with our oil revenue."

There's an old black-and-white film from the Upper Churchill the Premier can use to help get the speaking notes together.

It's the one we will see announced very shortly, with construction well underway by the time the Premier seeks re-election.

The Annual Caribou Media Frenzy

The rival to March Madness and the seal hunt.

Submitted for your consideration, these extracts from the archives of the natural resources department:

2004: Minister disappointed in Innu response, and an update from an earlier statement.

2006:  Ministerial statement

2007:  Slaughter threatens Labrador caribou herd (also available en francais, no less)

2008:  Increased enforcement is apparently now protecting the herds.

This year  the annual caribou slaughter release is in March. Increased enforcement suddenly isn’t working quite as well as before.

At what point will the provincial government try and deal with this issue before the hunter’s hit the bush?

Just a thought.

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A Memorial at Gallipoli #nlpoli

The provincial government announced four years ago that a caribou memorial at Gallipoli would be part of the Honour 100 commemorations to make the 100th anniversary of the First World War.

For those who don’t know,  the Newfoundland regiment fought its first battles on the Turkish peninsula from September 1915 to January 1916.  Gallipoli is the only major battle site from the First World War that doesn’t have a caribou memorial.

That’s why the provincial government announcement in 2011 was such welcome news.

That’s also why it came as such a disappointing shock to so many people on Monday to learn that not only had the provincial government scrapped the memorial but that they had done so because they could not find $500,000 in the budget to cover the cost. That is precisely what odds and sods minister Darin King told the House.

Romaine clears environmental review

The Romaine hydro project in Quebec cleared the joint federal-provincial environmental review panel on Friday.

In making its decision, the panel noted that it worked within the legal boundary between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador:

Par ailleurs, elle a évalué les effets environnementaux du projet selon le tracé de 1927 du Conseil
privé et ne se prononce aucunement sur la validité de cette frontière entre le Québec et Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador.

Quel shock for the League of Professional Victims.

For those whose French isn’t that good here’s a rough (not literal) translation:

In addition, it evaluated the environmental effects of the project according to the boundary set in 1927 by the Privy Council and does not come to a conclusion at all about the validity of this border between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador.

It comes to no conclusion since it had no grounds on which to question the whole issue. So much for the twaddle pushed by the League that somehow this decision would see the federal government endorse a border change. Apparently only one private individual appeared before the committee to recommend that the border be erased altogether.

There is extensive discussion of the environmental issues, including the potential impact on migratory caribou herds. The panel recommends that the Quebec ministries involved develop a plan with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to protect the caribou.

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Doing nothing to save the national emblem

A woodland caribou population in serious trouble. The overall drop is from over 90,000 animals to just under 40,000 in a little over a decade. Some herds are at a tiny fraction of their numbers a few years ago.

The fairly obvious reason: an increase in predation - especially from invading coyotes which are not native to the island - and other pressures from things like human development. Those reasons , especially the predation one, are acknowledged in the news releases describing government's response:

$15.3 million.

Five years.

To develop a strategy - that can be implemented after the situation is five years further developed - to figure out.

Not we have a strategy or that it will take us a few weeks or months since we have already been studying this, but rather we will now study the problem to confirm there is a problem and then tell you what we will do.

Five years from now.

And that's in addition to two years and $3.7 million to study the decline already.

If the same rate of decline obtains, there will be something like 20,000 or fewer caribou left by the time they finish the study.

At that point the Do Nothings will probably announce a study to determine if the study that was just concluded actually had any impact or if things just kept getting worse on their own.

And according to the news release continuing to study rather than studying and then acting is part of their "strategy".

Strategy for what?

Doing Nothing, evidently.

And it's not like that should be a surprise.

Just remember the throne speech from a few years ago telling us what the Do Nothing philosophy was all about: and there shall be plans and plans for plans and plans to integrate the planning for plans.

Bullshit headline; bullshit story

“Quebec Innu hunters may face charges” screams the headline above a cbc.ca/nl story.  The subject  - the annual caribou frenzy  - rivals the annual march madness of the seal slaughter for the media play it gets and the howls of protest from people within the province.

There is the first sentence that supports the headline and makes it look like the provincial government might actually be doing something to stop the hunt of caribou near an endangered herd.

The second sentence is a quote from the minister:

"We certainly do," [justice minister] Felix Collins told CBC News. "We certainly hope that the evidence will be sufficient to lay charges.”

Unfortunately the rest of the story reveals the naked truth:  the headline, lede and quote are sheer bullshit because the provincial government doesn’t have a scrap of evidence worthy of the name. 

There’s a quote from the minister that anyone with half a clue could figure out:

"Evidence taken from surveillance cameras presents some challenges because you have to identify a shooter with a dead animal on the ground, and given the angles of the cameras and the lighting and the clothing and distinguishing one individual from the other and what not, it takes quite a challenge to do that."

Collins said no evidence was seized at the scene.

If you listen the audio that goes with the story, Labrador Morning host Cindy Wall very simply notes for justice minister Felix Collins that there have been no charges laid despite the fact this stuff goes on regularly. Collins gamely insists that work is progressing and evidence is being assessed.  He even tries to make it sound like there is still a possibility charges might be laid arising from events last year.

Good luck with that one, there Felix.

Collins even insists that charges would be laid against anyone, including Innu from Labrador.  Wall pointedly corrects that one, too by calmly speaking truth to power. The last time Labrador Innu hunted in a restricted zone they got their gear back and no charges were laid.

Admittedly, Collins is in a hard spot on this one.  He’s caught between the domestic political pressure to do something and the practical problems of trying to do anything at all with a massive hydro-electric legacy project at stake. 

But Collins dilemma hardly warrants a news story that starts out with sheer crap for a headline, lede and opening quote.

Leave that for the crowd in the Confederation Building who get paid huge amounts to pour out just exactly that kind of bullshit.

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“The most serious threat to Gros Morne”

A report prepared as part of the 1987 application process to declare Gros Morne a World Heritage site labelled proposed transmission lines through the park for the Lower Churchill project as “the most serious threat to Gros Morne”.

The report said an environmental assessment determined the proposed route would affect the park’s caribou populations and plant life along the transmission line.  The summary report, prepared by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, was submitted to the panel reviewing applications under the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage program. It also concluded the development wasn’t very likely but that the potential impacts needed to be clarified.

The NALCO proposal in 2009 does note potential impact on caribou in and around Gros Morne but indicates the company will continue to practice measures to mitigate the impacts even though the impacts are not precisely known.  There is no apparent reference to the earlier environmental assessment of the project in the 2009 proposal although it  includes a reference in the bibliography to the UNESCO website.

Gros Morne was selected as a World Heritage site for its relatively pristine environment, special geology and overall physical beauty.

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Caribou over Afghanistan

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you.

That’s a DHC-4 Caribou, known to Americans as a C-7, upgraded with turboprops. 

They are indeed 50 years old, but they still do the job dropping supplies to remote locations in Afghanistan. 

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Commemoration Day, 2006

Some time ago, I planted Forget-me-nots on my front lawn. Each June, they sprout and spread wildly. They get cut when the lawn is mowed but they always come back.

The pretty blue flowers are small but they never fail to catch the eye across the deep green of the lawn. In a little ravine just a few hundred metres from my house, the little flowers grow wild along a small stretch of river that flows, ultimately past Bowering Park and on to St. John's Harbour.

It's easy to understand why Forget-me-nots were chosen as the flower for Commemoration Day. Aside from their name, they are everywhere by July 1st, the anniversary of the opening day of the Somme offensive in 1916 when the Newfoundland Regiment was all but wiped out in their assault on German trenches near Beaumont Hamel.

On July 1st, 1916, the Somme valley was not the muddy pile of trenches so familiar as an image of the Great War. Rather, the lush farmland was largely untouched by heavy shelling even after the massive preparatory bombardment that lasted the entire week before the infantry assault on the fateful Saturday morning. Green grass was everywhere.

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the tragedy in which the 1st Battalion, the Newfoundland Regiment suffered the highest casualties of any battalion in the British Army at the time. Virtually every man who stepped over the parapet and advanced toward the German lines was killed or wounded that morning. Only the 10% cadre left out of battle and the battalion headquarters escaped the slaughter.

The casualties included:

- 14 officers and 219 other ranks killed or died of wounds;
- 12 officers and 374 other ranks wounded; and,
- 91 other ranks missing

Miraculously, some men did manage to escape unscathed. Lieutenant Owen Steele, serving as officer commanding D Company recorded after the battle that 16 men of the company returned to the Newfoundland trenches unwounded. Steele, whose brother was wounded in the assault, was injured by German shelling on 7 July 1916 and died of his wounds.

The last survivors of the battle died more than a decade ago. Abe Mullett, the last of the original recruits, known as the First 500 or the Blue Puttees for the navy coloured material of their original leggings, died in 1993. The last known survivor of the battle, Walter Tobin, passed away in 1995. Ron Dunn, died in 1993 as well, having survived the battle in 1916. He was wounded in the stomach and staunched the flow of blood with the field dressings from his pack and clumps of grass torn from the French soil.

Newfoundland's participation in the Great War produced profound changes in the small Dominion. The regiment marked the first national effort that was not divided or organized along sectarian lines. Efforts at home to assure the appointment of officers based on sectarian lines was firmly resisted by serving officers on the grounds that ones religious beliefs were irrelevant in wartime. One was only concerned that an officer or soldier was capable to doing his job.

Commemoration Day was established by an act of the House of Assembly in 1916 to be held on the Sunday nearest July 1st each year. It was one of the first Great War remembrance days established in the Commonwealth. Although the statute remains in effect, common practice has been to hold a remembrance parade and wreath-laying on the morning of July 1st each year with the remainder of the day devoted to Canada Day.

In the 1920s, memorials were erected by the Newfoundland government at five sites in France and Belgium. Each marks a significant moment in the regiment's history during the Great War. At each stands a life-size bronze caribou looking toward the German position. The main Newfoundland national memorial is fittingly located at Beaumont Hamel. A sixth caribou (right) stands in Bowring Park, in the west end of St. John's facing across the ocean toward northwest France and Flanders.

The National War Memorial was erected on Water Street in St. John's in 1924.

Most significantly though, survivors of the war and their fellow Newfoundlanders and Labradorians chose to establish as a permanent memorial to the fallen a new non-sectarian college that later became Memorial University.

The Somme offensive and the British Army's performance in the Great War continue to be a source of controversy. More recent scholarship has taken very different view than the one commonplace in the anti-war climate of the 1960s. The Newfoundland Regiment's experience in the Great War has largely escaped examination by Canadian historians. Comparing the experience of the Newfoundlanders and Canadians might serve to temper some of the interpretations that have been applied t Canada's war effort at the time.

Historians from Newfoundland and Labrador have given the history of the Dominion's war effort some attention, but by no means to the depth it deserves. Popular attention continues to focus on Beaumont Hamel.

Some continue to abuse the events of 1916 for their own purposes and ascribe to the war an effect on Newfoundland and Labrador it did not have. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador did not pay for their sacrifice with a loss of democracy. This is merely a dolled up version of a convenient townie myth that has existed largely unchallenged since the 1920s.

Such an interpretation, which sadly will be broadcast across Canada this weekend as if it were credible, makes a mockery of what did occur.

Regardless, the Forget-me-nots will bloom again next year at this time, as they have for decades. It is hard to forget what occurred almost a century ago, even if some find it inconvenient to remember.

The Thick of It: environment minister version

Environment minister Charlene Johnson.

Think Nicola Murray but without the gravitas.

The province’s environment minister might still be wrestling to find a way to deal with a tire recycling program.  Her only solution to the piles of tires thus far has been shipping them to Quebec for burning.

Johnson might be struggling to sort out the waste management strategy she and her cabinet colleagues photocopied in 2007 from their Liberal predecessors’ version from 2002. 

Yes, friends they just pushed back all the implementation dates by a decade.

Charlene and her colleagues may have buggered up the Abitibi expropriation such that the public is on the hook for cleaning up three of five sites needing remediation.

The sustainable development act may be lost under someone’s desk.

But Charlene knows what it is to be a minister responsible for protecting the environment.

Consider her comments about calls for greater protection for woodland caribou, creatures she has under her jurisdiction:

"I know there [are] calls to have no harvesting at all within the core areas and the buffer areas, but then there would be no logging industry," Johnson told CBC News.

So there’ll be $15 million of study. That’s despite the fact that a decade-old study by government scientists showed that logging within nine kilometres of caribou can seriously affect the animal’s behaviour.

And in her latest round, Johnson thought a bottled water ban in provincial government offices was risible.

Yes, gentle readers, she didn’t just give a straightforward answer.  Charlene thought that ridiculing the New Democrat leader was the right way to go:

Mr. Speaker, I have to say I am absolutely shocked. We are dealing with an oil spill in Louisiana. We have all kinds of fishery issues that have been before the House. There are health issues, there are other issues in environment and I am getting asked questions about banning bottled water in government -

It is not to say that we do not take the issue seriously, Mr. Speaker, but I would certainly suggest that there are a lot of other issues, particularly in the environment that we can address.

Mr. Speaker, I just had a scan around government the other day. There are offices where meetings are held in government that there are no sinks. So, what is she proposing that we do not have anything to drink?

At the very least, we should all be thankful.

Thankful, that is, because even if Charlene is confused about what ocean it is that sits offshore (Hint:  it isn’t the Gulf of Mexico), then at the very least, Charlene knows that compared to the crap-load of major policy issues that have been sitting on her desk for years without any serious attention, bottled water in government isn’t actually the most pressing issue.

That is, not the most pressing even if it would be probably the easiest one of that back-log for her to deal with.

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BTDTGTTS Update:  As someone reminded your humble and now increasingly forgetful e-scribbler, Newfoundland and Labrador already had a ministry like Nicola’s with her “fourth sector” initiative.  We still do.

It’s called the minister responsible for Penny Rowe, errr, the volunteer sector, currently run by Dave Denine.  The first minister responsible for liaising with Penny used to rattle on about the fourth sector, which is a term penny used to use all the time.

BOHICA Update:  Meanwhile, the environmentalist minister landed a major gaffe on Tuesday which is likely to do wonders for the ongoing negotiations and legal action over Abitibi.  Things that were TARFU and FUBAR just went to the final stage, BOHICA. 

Charlene, quoted in the Wednesday Telegram which is sadly not online: 

“Our only concern is that the environment be brought back to the state that Abitibi found it in when they came here to use our resources.  We don’t even ask what the cost is.  As long as we’re fine with the way they’re doing it, that cost is really Abitibi’s responsibility.”

Charlene, God love her little socks, likely thinks that the big evil old company got here in 1905. That is the year on those leases which Carlene and the crowd in the House of Assembly voted to tear up a couple of years ago.

Unfortunately, the woman should actually read the backgrounders on the files she has stacked up on her desk. 

If she did, she would know that Abitibi arrived in the province in 1969.

Not 1905.

Two years after the first Summer of Love.

So basically, Charlene just said that it is government policy to restore the only land in the province Abitibi still owns back to the condition in was in 1969.  Would she like the original pollution restored then, in the places where,as the prov gov already acknowledged, the company has cleaned up a bit? Let’s hope not.

So that’s Botwood sorted out back to the year Sesame Street started.

Then there’s Stephenville.

Abitibi didn’t get that land until 1979.

And by that time both the US Air Force and the provincial government had been peeing on it for the better part of three decades.  First there was an air force base and then there was the infamous linerboard mill.  Huge disaster – at least financially – which shut down in 1979 and left both a contaminated site and a gigantic debt load for the taxpayers.

Then Abitibi bought it for a dollar, at the behest of the Peckford administration.  Abitibi, meanwhile, diverted a brand-spanking new Valmet paper making machine from its original destination of Grand Falls and set it up at the old linerboard building. 

Poof:  the long-awaited third mill, made by splitting one of the others in two.

Now since 2005, Abitibi has already levelled the building the linerboard crowd put there.  So strictly speaking, they’ve actually put the site back in the shape it was just after the Americans frigged off - 1967.

That’s even better than Charlene said the government wanted.

And yet Charlene accuses others of not understanding what is going on.

As Ron Stoppable once said, this would be so cool if it wasn’t going to hurt us.

The Other Other March Madness #nlpoli

Premier Paul Davis mentioned the prospect of privatizing some public services last week.

This week,  the Liberals started running ads declaring they were opposed to privatising any part of health.

This week, NAPE started an ad campaign that predicted any form of privatization of public services would result in the end of life on the planet and possibly on adjacent planets in the galaxy.

This week,  whatever political staffer it is they have looking pretending to be Paul Davis on Twitter assured us all the future is bright, the fundamentals are strong, and that this financial problem is just a temporary hiccup for which the Conservatives will have a plan.

We’ve heard that before every year for the past three or four years.  It wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now.

But that’s not you should pay attention to.

Denine to challenge Simms for mayor’s job #nlpoli

If the word from the west holds true, Randy Simms won’t have too much time to worry about caribou and on-air meltdowns. 

The talk show host is going to be locked in a fight for his seat as Mayor of Mount Pearl from former Conservative cabinet minister Dave Denine in this fall’s municipal election. 

Apparently, Denine can’t find something better to do with himself and his hefty pension(s) than go after the part-time job he left when he got into provincial politics.a decade ago.  According to word coming from the Pearl, Denine is about to start raising cash and getting set for the municipal election in the fall.

Despite claims from Conservative circles in December 2010 that Tory incumbents would all run again, Denine was one of the crowd elected on Danny Williams’ coat-tails who cashed in his chips before the 2011 general election.

Denine held a bunch of posts during his time in cabinet.  After a couple of controversies in municipal affairs over disaster response and fire service, Williams stuffed Denine into a few inconsequential portfolios.  He racked up his pensionable time quietly after that.  Williams could always count on Denine to nod on cue.

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Perks #nlpoli

A story in last weekend’s Telegram documented all the perks that former Premiers get.

Aside from a severance package, a couple of extra months pay, and a government car allowance for three months,  they also get a free game license (big, small,  salmon) if they want one. Now truth be told,  those game licenses go with the job anyway.  From the day a Premier gets the job, he or she can lay claim to a license to hunt or fish whatever they want. 

Most of these date back to at least the 1970s around the time the first guy who served as Premier got booted out and the second guy replaced him.  The Telegram story covers all of that.

Province settles expropriation with Enel, Sun Life and others

Compensating a group of companies involved in the Star Lake affected by the Abitibi expropriation will wind up costing the taxpayers of this province more than the original project cost to build a decade ago.

Natural resources minister Shawn Skinner announced on Monday that provincial government will pay $32.8 million to Enel while Nalcor will assume responsibility for a $40 million loan from Sun Life and other companies.

That’s $72.8 million for a project that originally cost $51 million to build in 1998 according to Enel’s website:

The Star Lake Hydroelectric Project is an 18 MW remotely operated hydroelectric facility with a 173 million cubic meter capacity storage reservoir. The project provides electricity to Newfoundland’s integrated grid, which is sold to Newfoundland & Labrador Hydro.

Construction of Star Lake began in May 1997 and was completed in October 1998 for a total cost of $51 million (CAN).

From the earliest stages of the project, environmental considerations were considered in its development and have been instrumental in the technical design. The facility was conceived using environmentally friendly materials and equipment such as biodegradable hydraulic oil for its intake gate system and an oil-free hydrostatic bearing for the turbine unit. An underground penstock was also designed and implemented in order to avoid obstructing migration routes of the Buchans Plateau caribou herd.

An artificial brook trout incubation and rearing facility is also onsite. It is designed to produce up to 100,000 fingerlings (young fish). These fingerlings are intended for annual introduction to Star Lake to ensure that the lake's brook trout population is maintained.

Skinner is quoted in the news release as saying that this is a “a fair settlement and the most appropriate action for the province to take.”

The provincial government is still in talks with Fortis on compensation for that company on another project affected by the 2008 expropriation bill.

Nalcor has already assumed responsibility for a $59 million loan related to Fortis’ former hydro interests.

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