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Politics : Canadian Political Free-for-All -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: seismic_guru who wrote (2580)	5/9/2003 3:34:18 PM
From: seismic_guru	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 37246

Newfoundland calls to amend Constitution May 8, 2003 The last time there was a real Wrestlemania match between Newfoundland and Ottawa was way back when, as they say, giants walked the earth. Joey Smallwood and John Diefenbaker had a wonderful go at each other over one of the terms of Newfoundland's union with Canada. There were more sparks that flew out of that match than Churchill Falls has been able to generate ever since. Today, another Newfoundland premier – one that, as he would be willing to admit, doesn't have quite the voltage of Joey Smallwood – threw down the gloves at Ottawa, and the current Liberal government, over Ottawa's handling of the Newfoundland fishery. Roger Grimes went quite a distance. He wants no less than a renegotiation of the terms of union. At issue is the continued closing of the Newfoundland fishery. But contained in Mr. Grimes' announcement is a good deal more than just the fishery. The Premier very clearly states that there exists a broad and deep feeling that Ottawa doesn't understand the consequence of its policies for Newfoundland, that there is a growing resentment over what he has called Ottawa's high-handedness when it makes decisions affecting Newfoundland that go so much deeper that the bare economics of those decision. Ten years ago, the historic Newfoundland fishery was halted. Since then communities have been gutted of young people and the middle aged. Some outports have dwindled into shells of their former vitality. Each year of the so-called moratorium – and there have been ten of these years – has seen the gradual, slow atrophy of the cardinal signature of Newfoundland's way of being. Closing the fishery was not the same as closing a chain of drugstores, or a string of Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets. So there is a background sentiment for what Roger Grimes announced today. And it is taking on some extra power from what is going on simultaneously in the New Brunswick crab fishery. That sentiment may be stated as follows: a growing sense of distance from Ottawa, the feeling that the whole East Coast, not just Newfoundland, is a item in the bureaucratic administration of Canada, rather than a living component of Confederation. It's my feeling that it isn't the decisions in themselves or the facts behind them to close down the Gulf cod fishery or limit the crab fishery that have so angered fishermen in both provinces, but that they are issued from the federal Fisheries Department and a federal government from some high distance, unburdened by a real feeling for what these decisions will mean for those who have to live by them. Roger Grimes is heading for an election soon. Without a doubt, he is taking the dramatic step he has taken impelled by the advantages he sees for him politically in taking it. Politics never sleeps in Newfoundland. That much is unchanged since Joey Smallwood's day. His political advantage aside, he is also mining a very real perception: that the oppositionless government in Ottawa is no longer as careful as it should be with the texture of people's lives in what we call so easily "the outlying regions of this country." And that the feeling of being left out constitutes one of the soft fractures of this Confederation, as alive in Newfoundland and the East Coast as it is, depending on the time of day, say in Alberta. I don't know if what Mr. Grimes launched today will have a real benefit for Newfoundland fishermen. But he has done one real service already: he has broken the spell of complacency that just because the government in Ottawa doesn't face any real opposition, that there's not real opposition to the government in Ottawa. For The National, I'm Rex Murphy.

To: seismic_guru who wrote (2580)	5/16/2003 1:03:22 PM
From: Eashoa' M'sheekha	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 37246

From " The Department Of Really Stupid Ideas "..The Senate.. Plan would turn Grand Banks into Grand Buses Robert Fife, Ottawa Bureau Chief National Post Friday, May 16, 2003 CREDIT: Fisheries and Oceans Canada ADVERTISEMENT OTTAWA - Senators have proposed dumping old school buses, ships, trains and trucks in waters up to 2,000 metres deep as a solution to Canada's fishing crisis. Creating "artificial reefs" would prevent trawling nets of foreign factory ships scooping up schools of depleted fish stocks just outside Canada's 200-mile limit, the Senate Fisheries Committee says. Lawrence O'Brien, a Newfoundland Liberal MP, was stunned at the idea of dumping heavy equipment in mid-ocean. "Are you serious? Oh for God's sake. My oh my! Well, if that's the only solution, it's time for us all to shut down Parliament, let's go home and let's restore anarchy," he said. It would take years and thousands of school buses and subway cars just to create one reef. The depth of the ocean along the edge of the continental shelf where the Senate committee wishes to create man-made reefs ranges from 1,000 to 2,000 metres and extends along the entire East Coast of Canada. In a report to be tabled in Parliament in two weeks, the Senate committee says the creation of artificial reefs could rebuild endangered fish species that have been vacuumed up by industrial fishing fleets off the nose and tail of the Grand Banks. "It has long been recognized that heavy sunken objects -- old boats, school buses, subway cars and automobiles (cleaned of any noxious chemicals) -- enhance fish habitat and attract finfish and invertebrates," according to the report obtained by the National Post. "If positioned in sufficient numbers and at the right locations ... the proposal would have a salutary effect of creating 'de facto no fishing zones' because of the potential damage that such underway structures may cause to trawl fishing gear." Senator Gerard J. Comeau, the Conservative chairman of the committee, said in an interview that the artificial reefs would save depleted stocks such as cod, red fish, halibut, flounder and turbot from foreign trawlers, mainly from former Soviet satellite countries, that have been fishing endangered species. "One of things that we found that some countries -- I think it happens in Africa and some other countries -- where what people would do is dump man-made structures in areas that should not really be fished ... so as the draggers would come through it would foul up their gear and effectively make it impossible to pay to fish in those areas," Mr. Comeau said. Mr. Comeau acknowledged Canada may face legal liability from shipping fleets that have their nets damaged but argued it may be worth the fight in court. The committee recommends the federal Fisheries department commission an independent study and the Justice Department provide a legal opinion on the feasibility of dumping ships and school buses into the ocean outside the 200-mile limit. Foreign overfishing declined in the wake of Canada's declaration of a 200-mile exclusive fishing zone in 1977, but it has persisted in the outer reaches of the Canadian continental shelf. Newfoundland has called on Ottawa to extend its jurisdiction over the ocean to 350 miles as done by 23 other nations, such as Iceland and France for their islands in the Pacific. A study by Dalhousie University in Halifax has found industrial fishing fleets have wiped out 90% of the large fish in the world's ocean and most of the damage has been done over the past 15 years. bfife@nationalpost.com