http://www.ccnl.ca/what-s-available/

I mean there’s the issue about quietly slipping Nalcor EIGHT! (8) percent of the budget (or $664 million) to develop a project that hasn’t been approved yet. There’s also the long running issue of the bloated budget itself, having grown nearly 70% since the “Tories” took office in 2004, with no heritage fund or plan to fill the looming hole which the end of oil is going to leave in the budget. Others have covered these topics, and have done better than I would anyhow. Besides, people expect my mainland (#labrador) perspective. But by gar, they didn’t give me much to work with in this budget…

Except the big target they paint(ed) on the NSP

For those unaware, the NSP – or Northern Strategic Plan – is essentially the provincial government’s report on spending to show that it is doing something for the “Big Land”. Now I’m not against openness and transparency of government, and I fundamentally agree that departmental spending reports are an essential component of modern democracy. BUT! (I always have one of those, right?) I disagree with some of the fundamentals of this NSP on three major principles:

#1 – The Strategicality of the “investments”

As I alluded to earlier, the NSP basically rolls up all government spending in Labrador, or all spending that can be implied to be for Labradorians. What I mean is, every dollar that’s spent by government – whether it be for jails, judges, roads, government offices, teachers, police, foresters, doctors, et cetera, et al – is included as an “investment”.

Think I’m off? Well maybe, but the numbers are more off. Take the most recent NSP report: I’ve added up all the “investments” and they come out to be about $97 million, a tad shy of the $158 million total. In fact ALL of the NSP reports have this adding error, which leads one to think that the remainder must be the total of other government activities. While technically everything you do for society is an “investment” in the future, the words investment or strategic doesn’t come to my mind when funding jails, judges, or fighting forest fires.

#2 – How ProvGov uses the NSP for political gain

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of COURSE they boast about what they’re doing. That’s what politicians do. But lines like “Unprecedented investment in Labrador” and “more investments than any previous government” are essentially weasel words. I mean, simply spending at the rate of inflation does nothing to improve actual services, but represents spending more than any previous government in net present dollars.

By rolling all the program and infrastructure spending together, it gives the appearance of being more generous by boggling the mind with big numbers! I mean in the April 19^th 2011 budget announcements (which were subsequently bragged about in the elections) the Progressive Conservative government claims to have “invested”  $3 billion by the end of 2011 in Labrador since taking office in 2004! For 30,000 people! That is actually quite a staggering number if you don’t stop to think about it much.  But after this year’s budget (with its $158 million towards NSP) the number somehow jumps to $3.5 billion (page two here). I’m not a math major, but how did a 1/3^rd of a Billion get in there with no budgets in between? And it’s less than the revenue of Labrador every year.

#3 – NSP represents a fiscal imbalance for Labrador

Don’t get me wrong, I think the investments were quite welcome, and sorely needed. You see, most of these investments represent bringing Labrador up to the bottom level of island infrastructure standards. Until the turn of the millennium, most of the infrastructure in Labrador was paid for by Canada, or by CFLco or IOC. In addition, $340 Million of the ProvGov NSP “investment” was transferred to the province for the Trans Labrador Highway and to phase out the ferries. Some of the other “investments” like health care, Aboriginal programs, and labour market development also come from federal transfers to the province annually.

Even if this weren’t so, $3.5 Billion is less than the ProvGov made off of Labrador since 2004

Let me try to sum it up quickly. I’ll start with taxes. According to the annual Estimates that go with the budgets (usually page IV, V, VI), citizen and corporation driven provincial revenue sources (other than oil, minerals etc) like personal income tax, gas tax, lottery revenues, booze tax, fines, fees (excluding corporate tax) and so on for each year since 2003/04 to 2012/13 are (in billions) $2.022B, $2.216B, $2.216B, $2.254B, $2.232B, $2.340B, $2.299B, $2.513B, and $2.666B, 2.685B(est 2012/13)for a total of $23.53 billion raised in the province since the PCs took over. Multiply this by Labrador’s percentage of the population (27,000 / 514,000 = 5.3%) and Labrador could be said to have contributed roughly $1.25 billion (or $125 million per year) in taxes since 2003. That assumes we don’t have higher wages and spend more, which we do.

How about the controversial Churchill Falls side/deals?

From 2003/04 there was the remainder of the recall sale deal of Brian Tobin resulting in about $30 million for that year. Then in 2004 Williams/Byrne announced a deal to realize $230 million over five years from the recall power. The PCs then made another deal in 2009 to ‘wheel’ power through Quebec resulting in another $280 million (assuming middle of the road sales of the $40-80 million a year). Plus Churchill Falls churns out about $20 million a year for the province, with a total of $200 million since 2003/04. That’s an additional $740 Million to ProvGov from Labrador since the PCs took office.

The air base in Goose Bay…

…while mostly defunct, contributes to the economy in no small way. This lovely outdated report (pdf!) coupled with this one in 2006 peg the revenues generated by the base at $36 million per year to the ProvGov revenues. Over 10 years that’s an additional $360 million. But from that same report comes the Labrador’s single biggest contributor to ProvGov revenues…

Mining

Iron ore accounted for 90% of provincial mining revenues in 2003. When Voisey’s Bay came fully online in 2006, Labrador suddenly accounted for 98% percent of provincial mineral revenues. Oil revenues only surpassed Labrador’s cumulative contributions in 2008 at roughly $5 billion. When the oil’s all gone, Labrador’s iron ore will keep going for another 150 years (not counting all the other minerals being discovered at a rate of exploration investments of $50-150 million annually).

How much was mineral revenue since 2003? Well… The simple answer is located on page iv, v, or vi of the estimates under mineral revenues so you could add all those up over the years, but that’s just a simple picture. This behemoth of a data document, while only capturing data up to 2004, gives a good historical perspective on minerals, mineral revenues and investments. Page 92 outlines how mining revenues actually multiply on an order of FOUR TIMES when you take in corporate tax (notice I removed it above), gas tax, sundry tax, retail tax, and payroll tax.

Reported mineral revenues from 2003/04 to 2012/13 are (in millions) $16, $14.4, $21, $53, $358.7, $302.7, $134.9, $167.5, $283.5, and $270(12/13 estimated). If you use the iron ore multiplier on the years we know iron ore are the sole revenues, it comes out to about $100 million a year. Adjusting for inflation on the historic iron ore tables this estimate seems to be accurate enough for the Department of Mines and Energy.

So let’s add the multiplier to each year for the iron ore…

From 2003/04 to 2012/13 and not for Voisey’s Bay (I have no idea what the multiplier cost is for that operation so I’ll not use it – but suffice it to say my number is going to be smaller rather than bigger). ProvGov revenues go from  (in millions) $76, $68.7, $100, $153, $458.7, $402.7, $234.9, $267.5, $383.5, and $370(12/13 estimated) Which adds another 2.5 Billion to provincial coffers.  Heck if you don’t add the iron ore multiplier and just use inflation it comes out to $1.7 Billion

Got your calculator? Add the bold/underline/italics numbers up. The range is $4.05 Billion (with no iron ore multiplier) to $4.85 Billion that Labrador has invested in ProvGov coffers. This doesn’t even include fishing, tourism, forestry, and other small business contributions. That’s $400 to $500 million a year. Reminder, they brag about how generous the NSP is, with upwards of $3.5 billion “invested” in Labrador over the same period (with federal transfer money comprising a huge chunk of that) and $158 million this fiscal year. Clearly oil revenues aren’t helping every person in every region in the province as has been claimed.

Labradorians love to share b’ys, but this is a pretty big fiscal imbalance. If the ProvGov doesn’t want to manage our resources and properly re-invest in our infrastructure – so we can grow and contribute more – Labradorians would gladly take over doing it.

The foursome – Chris Picco, Adam Cardwell, Matt Hender, and Dicky Strickland – have had a busy two years since their unlikely formation. Tracks comes on the heels of a self-titled EP in 2010 that ended up being nominated for an ECMA last month in Moncton, and a tour of Eastern Canada that just wrapped up. With a video shoot and a St. John’s CD release show this weekend, it’s been a test of stamina – but if there’s one thing a long distance runner has, it’s endurance.

“Anyone who’s doing it knows how tough it is, just to keep a band together. You definitely need a lot of endurance,” explained Picco, the group’s vocalist and principle lyricist, who sat down to chat with the Indy last week.

“I’ve gone through a lot the last couple years, doing these records. I got married, my mother died, I had a baby, I produced a few records […] all in the last year and a half.”

Instead of exhaustion, the Long Distance Runners have turned life circumstances into creative energy. Tracks is a layered collection of rock tunes that veer in their influences – expect alt-country interspersed with ballads and straight-up indie rock – but are ultimately grounded in unified frameworks where no one member outshines another, but rather feeds off of each other and builds momentum.

“Some people might find it difficult to figure out exactly what it is, but I think that’s a good thing. There is a cohesiveness – I mean, you’ve got the same songwriter writing all the lyrics, there are common themes going through, and they all came from a similar period. They might have different styles, but it’s always the same band.”

“I’m glad that it’s not all the same,” Picco quickly adds. “You put out a record some days, and you hear the first 5 songs, and then that’s the whole record. We’re not about that – we’ve got different styles we like to work in.”

Sounding Like a Band

“Even on this tour, a regular comment after a show would be, ‘You guys sound like a band,’” the musician explained. It seems a simple thing, but when you consider that the Long Distance Runners didn’t know each other (let alone play music together) before collaborating, the all-together band sound is something of their Holy Grail.

The same can be said of the songwriting process. Although Picco is responsible for the bare bones of the songs, the finished cuts are all collaborative efforts, with some of the best work happening at the spur of the moment in the studio.

“The first EP, we said we’d do these 5 songs, record these, and we knew what we wanted to do on them. This album was a little more spontaneous. Songs like ‘Election Day,’ ‘Treading Water,’ ‘The Island’ – those songs, the band had never played them before. So we have a mix of songs that were thought out and rehearsed, and other songs that were more spontaneous and came to shape in the studio.”

Keeping on Track[s]

From a listener’s perspective, Tracks stands apart from other local rock records because of its sophisticated production and sense of completeness in forging an identity. The influences of classic rock are prevalent – particularly in the 70s-esque harmonies and guitar riffs, most noticeable on “Sally Ann” – but forays in different directions are never made just for the hell of it or to be quirky for quirky’s sake.

Rather, there’s always a point, and Long Distance Runners are capable of making it because they understand what they’re doing and how to establish a mood by way of musical arrangements. If they want to make you dance, then you’ve got “Treading Water” or “He Doesn’t Stare into the Sun No More.” If they want a folksy sing-a-long, there’s “Knuckles,” and for a stuck-in-your-head pop jingle, there’s “Credits Roll.”

I say “if they want,” but that’s not really fair. It never feels like the band wrote songs specifically to fill a gap – each song has a specific role that could not work otherwise, and is presented the way it is simply because it is.

But don’t take my word for it – let the music do the talking.

“It’s not a political song, it’s just the title comes from a moment where I was watching something on TV – the Conservatives coming into power. It’s not about Stephen Harper, it’s not about my political beliefs, it’s about taking sides.”

Running Ahead

Tracks was officially released online and in stores in April, but the St. John’s release show is this Friday at the Rock House. After that, the name of the game is playing and promoting this excellent record – with two tours under their belt already, the band is optimistic they can spread their music farther across the country, and hopefully into the United States and Europe in the not-so-distant future, with a return visit to the studio also in the works.
This is the race that the Long Distance Runners have been preparing for, and now is not the time to feel out of breath.

“I’m feeling strong – focussed on my career, focussed on my music, focussed on the band.”

What is a fry? Where do tadpoles come from? Do dragonflies really live in water?
Come and discover the life cycle of our freshwater friends!

Saturdays & Sundays at 1:30pm
June 9 – June 30, 2012
Program runs approx. 45-60 minutes

Preregistration is recommended
Fluvarium Kids Club is Family Fun and usually includes an outdoor component, game, story and craft!

For more information contact:
Denise Hennebury – 754-3474 – dhennebury@fluvarium.ca
___________________________________________________________

For only the second third fifth time in my life, I heard my name being called over the intercom.

“Omg,” thought I, “the plane’s fully loaded and they’re waiting for me!” I tossed a $10 bill at the bartender for my glass of house white.

“It’s $10.95,” she proclaimed. My eyes bulged, but my common sense – ‘GET ON BOARD’ – prevailed and I tossed a couple toonies her way, grabbed my bag and charged for the gate.

I arrived on board, greeted with enthusiasm by the staff – the one other passenger called by name didn’t show up for another 20 minutes – and was shown to my seat.

Once there, seated on a small plane near the cockpit, I witnessed an interesting scene. The pilot was in a visibly agitated state, pacing back and forth, talking intermittently on his cell phone and with the cabin crew. Occasionally he turned and stared back over the sea of passengers belted into their seats.

We – the passengers – for our part stared back at him with mildly concealed impatience. Most of the passengers had been on board since Toronto – two stops, and four hours of flying. They wanted to be off and toward St. John’s. They collectively glared at him, wondering why this was all taking so long. He turned back into the cockpit, spoke emphatically once more on his cellphone. Then he turned around, picked up the intercom and spoke to us.

Most of the passengers had been on board since Toronto – two stops, and four hours of flying.

The essence of the situation – gleaned both from his polite, restrained announcement, and comments I overheard while waiting in line by the cockpit to use the washroom – was this. He felt there was an issue with a part of the landing gear. Toronto (never mind that we were in Halifax) felt the issue was not an issue, and he could fly anyhow. He didn’t feel comfortable lifting off; they (command and control in Toronto) wanted him to get on his way, keep the schedule flowing, get us to our destination. The young co-pilot was shrugging with bravado at the cabin staff. “It’s not a big deal,” he said, smirking. The older pilot glared at him for a few seconds, then went back outside to inspect the landing gear again and take photos with his cellphone to email to mission control in Toronto.

To be honest, the passenger complement was split on the issue. Many of us wanted to be on our way, and get to our destination. Others wanted to trust the judgement of the captain, and let him have his way.

Eventually, he did. He convinced command and control in Toronto that the issue was one to be concerned about, and arranged for a technician crew to come and do some work on the landing gear. “Customer service” insisted we stay on board for the half hour it would take. He convinced them it would take at least an hour, and got permission for us to ‘deplane’. We cheered, and headed straight for the bar, for another overpriced glass of wine.

Heavy responsibilities

When we eventually continued on toward our destination, I found myself reflecting on the ongoing Air Canada labour dispute. My flight was not with Air Canada, but it got me thinking about the roles and responsibilities of airline pilots, and of the captain of our flight in particular. What had been going through that captain’s mind as he argued and fought with the technicians in Toronto? All they could see were the gauges and readings being electronically transmitted to them: from their perspective, everything was within normal and acceptable statistical range.

The pilot, on the other hand, was the one sitting in the cockpit. He was the one who’d flown the plane from Toronto; felt it take off and land, and had the hours – years – of flight experience to know what felt right and what didn’t. And he knew something didn’t feel right.

What pressures were going through his head? The passengers were glaring at him and angry from being cooped up; they wanted on their way. The command crew on the ground wanted him on his way; he was gaining no popularity with management by holding up the schedule. Yet there he stood, refusing to take off, garnering the anger of passengers and management alike. And the only thing making him hold steadfast to his decision was his professional experience and the knowledge that no matter what his passengers thought, and no matter what his bosses ordered, the wrong decision could cost hundreds of lives.

I’m sure glad I had that captain.

Turbulent times

Many of us have followed the ongoing Air Canada labour disputes. Those of us who had tickets booked during the fray, more closely than most. In early March – after 18 months of fruitless negotiations – Air Canada management threatened to lockout pilots shortly before a strike deadline. The federal government intervened, suspending the right to a free collective bargaining process and banning either a strike or a lockout. The dispute was sent to an arbitrator (hearings begin this week). Later in March, when dozens of pilots phoned in sick, management complained that an illegal strike was in progress and government threatened fines of up to $1000 a day for pilots who continued to…phone in sick.

When government threatens to fine you for phoning in sick, you know something’s gone slightly unhinged with the society you live in.

What do managers actually do, anyway?

Let’s talk about ‘management’ for a moment. Most of us who work for an employer accept management as an annoying but necessary fact of life. Somebody’s got to run the show; coordinate many workers; make sure the task is accomplished.

But that’s not really what ‘management’ does in this day and age. Those who study labour policy talk about something called ‘surplus value of labour’. This is, basically, the amount of work-value an employer is able to get out of you – above and beyond what they have to pay you for you to continue subsisting as a worker (your labour-value). When times get tough, the only way an employer is able to continue profiting is by increasing that surplus value – in other words, getting more work out of you while paying you the same. That, say many labour scholars, is where management came in: their role was created by employers in part to wring more work out of you for the same cost to the employer. Take the following scenario: a worker at a call centre is able to do an average of ten telephone surveys in an hour. If their manager is able to drive them – by incentives, threats, intimidation, pressure, whatever – to make twelve calls in an hour, that manager has just made an extra profit for the employer.

That’s why they’re such an annoyance…because they’re trying to pressure you to do more than you’re capable and comfortable doing, and all for the benefit of some distant boss who’s getting rich off of you.

And that’s what managers, by and large, are expected to do in this day and age. That’s why they’re such an annoyance – not because they’re telling you what to do, but because they’re trying to pressure you to do more than you’re capable and comfortable doing, and all for the benefit of some distant boss who’s getting rich off of you.

Well, life’s tough. But let’s go back to that airline cockpit. With the Air Canada dispute, what we have are rich managers and executive officers driving around in limousines trying to wring extra profits out of the people flying their airplanes.

And what happens when people reach their cracking point? Well in a call centre, you get fed up, curse out your boss in a dramatic little scene and then quit.

In an airplane, you make a mistake and people die.

The right to strike and the right to safety

There’s a reason our labour relations system lets workers go on strike, even though it means our day-to-day activities and conveniences get disrupted. That’s because it’s better to deal with a minor inconvenience for a short period of time, than the consequences which result when workers are driven beyond what they’re able to handle. Air Canada’s management argues that in a competitive market, they need to be able to wring more profits out of their workers if the company is to stay afloat (airborne?). Air Canada’s pilots argue that their working conditions need to be a priority over company profits, and that their managers and CEO’s should sacrifice first. Well, let them duke it out: if the company goes under, it goes under (and other airlines will pop up to fill the gap). If the company doesn’t go under, then great: everybody wins.

But when the federal government intervenes in the dispute and prevents this struggle from taking its natural course, then it creates a very dangerous situation. Management is able to continue wringing more work out of their pilots. That would be one thing if this was a donut company and the only consequence was smaller, staler donuts. But this is air travel. The consequence is stressed out overworked pilots and dangerous travel conditions for those flying through the skies.

It is not just mean-spirited and anti-democratic for the federal government to intervene in labour disputes…It’s a threat to public safety…

It is not just mean-spirited and anti-democratic for the federal government to intervene in labour disputes like they have with Air Canada. It’s a threat to public safety and endangers the lives of Canadians (not to mention the literally millions of non-Canadians who fly through our skies as well). And a government which risks and endangers the lives of Canadians in order to boost economic growth is not fit to sit in office.

Average workers have big responsibilities

Of course, a similar argument could be made in many fields. Stressed out, overworked teachers might find themselves yawning and not paying attention as that young child climbs precariously high on the school playground. Stressed out, overworked electricians might find themselves not thoroughly checking their wiring and a short could cause an apartment building to burn down. A stressed-out, overworked construction worker might hurry under management pressure and not adequately reinforce the bridge they’re cementing into place. A stressed-out, overworked autoworker might not secure the braking system on the car they’re building, leading to a fatal traffic accident down the road. A stressed-out, overworked nurse could mix up medications; a stressed-out, overworked daycare worker might not check for peanuts in the snacks they provide to children; a stressed-out, overworked meat inspector might skip over that last batch of testing which would have revealed listeriosis in the hot dogs you bought your children for lunch.

The fact is, in today’s society countless numbers of us make decisions which affect the lives and safety of others. No matter what our job, we know how to do it best. And when management tries to pressure us to work harder, faster or more competitively, they place the lives and safety of others a distant second to the desire of a handful of CEO’s for extra profit.

As workers, we know how to do our jobs best. That’s what we were trained for.

As workers, we know how to do our jobs best. That’s what we were trained for. Sure, we might get lazy now and then. Sometimes a supervisor does have to have a chat and tell somebody to buck up or face discipline. Sometimes a bit of incentive to work harder is not a bad thing. But when workers have decided a line needs to be drawn in the sand, and they are willing to give up their salaries and go on strike to demand better working conditions, then our society needs to respect the right of those workers to do that, and trust in their common sense to demand the possible and refuse the impossible.

Due to the poor judgement and misguided priorities of our federal government, our skies are now full of angry, resentful pilots who are stressed out and overworked. They’ve been warned that calling in sick will be deemed an illegal strike and they could face thousands of dollars in fines for doing so. What sort of government allows sick, tired and overworked people to fly thousands of flammable tons of metal over our heads? Air Canada’s pilots are among the best in the industry. But when management puts profits ahead of their pilots, and when government allows them to do so, all of our lives are at risk. When somebody makes split-second decisions every day that affect the lives of hundreds of passengers, you do what they say and you pay them what they ask.

Here’s hoping that despite the pressures, mistreatment and lack of respect management and government are showing those pilots, they will continue to demonstrate the same courage, professionalism and concern for their passengers as the pilot I had last week, who refused to take off in an unsafe plane and risk the lives of hundreds for the sake of profit for a few.

But it’s important not to overlook the more traditional economy, which is still very much alive in Nunavut. Arviat especially has a reputation for being one of the more traditional communities in the territory, in terms of harvesting activities and arts and crafts production. Inuktitut is also the first language in over 90% of homes here, one of the highest rates in Nunavut.

Harvesting the land

Hunting, fishing, and trapping are all common ways that Arviammiut provide for themselves, their families, and their friends, and it’s quite common to see caribou skins drying on somebody’s porch railing, or freshly killed caribou strapped to qamutiks as a hunter returns home.  These harvesting activities are certainly traditional, but a certain modernization has taken place. While many hunters and fishers will harvest to provide food for their families, many also generate income from these traditional skills.

You can find local country foods, especially Arctic char, in the stores, but it’s common to buy caribou, fish, or other country foods directly from the hunters. There is also a fish plant at Whale Cove, and a meat processing plant at Rankin Inlet, both of which buy catches from harvesters for processing and distribution throughout the territory and beyond. Fur trappers have adapted from selling to Hudson’s Bay Company outposts to selling to southern fur auction houses and distributors, often through purchasing agreements with the Government of Nunavut.

Arts and crafts

There’s also a very strong tradition of arts and crafts production in Arviat, and it is known for artwork such as carvings, clothing, decorative wall hangings, dolls, and jewelry. Although much of the clothing is made for use at home, a modernization of the arts and crafts industry has also taken place. The common method of selling an artwork is simply to complete a work and then go door-to-door until you find a buyer, and many carvings and wall hangings are sold this way. Almost every day I will have somebody at my door, either at home or at work, looking to sell artwork. But artists and artisans are increasingly using the internet to sell their work, and to connect with galleries and online shops to increase their sales.

Facebook especially has become a popular way for artists to connect with buyers. There is an Arviat Sell/Swap Facebook group where people post things for sale, trade, or to buy, and you often see homemade clothing there as well as carvings and wall hangings. Recently, a Facebook group based in Iqaluit made the news when the increased demand it generated drove the price of kamiks up to as much as $2,000 a pair.

…local artists are embracing modern methods of marketing and distribution to use and preserve traditional skills and techniques.

Since the 1960s, the Co-op stores (Arctic Co-operatives Limited) have offered  buying and selling services to Inuit artists. Local Co-op stores would buy artworks, especially carvings, from local artists and re-sell them through galleries or auctions in the south. In recent years, Arctic Co-ops have also been selling through their website – www.northernimages.ca – allowing customers to browse and buy through their online store.

And they are not the only place to buy traditional artwork online. Google ‘Inuit Art’ or ‘Nunavut Art’ and you will find many places to buy online, from small carvings for a hundred dollars to large pieces by well-known artists that go for thousands, even tens of thousands. To get an idea of some of the artwork produced and the price it fetches, you can visit the Inuit Art page of Waddington’s Auctions, who recently held their spring sale of Inuit art, and look at their list of prices realized.

Whether they sell door-to-door, through the local Co-op, work with a southern gallery, or post their work on Facebook or eBay, local artists are embracing modern methods of marketing and distribution to use and preserve traditional skills and techniques. I feel lucky to live in such an artistic community where traditional skills are alive and valued. And with each artwork being interesting, attractive, and absolutely unique, I’ll never be stuck for a gift idea.

The views and opinions in this column are those of the author alone, and are not necessarily those of the Hamlet of Arviat, Government of Nunavut, any of its departments or agencies, or anybody else.

Whether it is nostalgia, my ongoing infatuation with words and story, or the indulgence of some resilient tactile addiction amidst pulp-scented hordes, I still love to wander bookstores. Used-bookstores, especially.

Books are the nearest our species has come to developing telepathy, and I crave them, collect them, and desire to be surrounded by them. During an age in which the bibliophiliac seems looked upon with slightly less suspicion than those of other ‘iliac’ perversions, that feels rather confessional.

There is solace in the calm perusal of shelves, and in unexpected discovery. Books aplenty, sometimes ascatter and in disarray. Sometimes neatly alphabetized and parade ready, even if the divisions and categorizations are misleading and some get sent to the wrong department. Many transcend category. If I owned a bookstore, that would be my addition – a ‘transcends’ section. Those books, often the best books, that fit nowhere else, or in too many sections to make any single one their home.

A great bookshop is a party where you get to assemble your own custom hub of like minds, ideas, experiences.

A great bookshop is a party where you get to assemble your own custom hub of like minds, ideas, experiences. A party full of strangers seeking meeting. Some dull, some wise; some, intuitively, just get you. Some will make you laugh; some will make you ponder things unpondered and see the world – your slice of it, at least – fascinatingly askew. Some will be a fling soon forgotten. And a select few will become lifelong friends, to be counted upon to arrive with fresh insights through all the finitely numbered pages of your life.

So, it grieved me to discover that they have been disappearing from our city.

Where have they gone?

One of my near-and-dear (here she will be, simply, ‘B’) shares my craving for journeys down aisles of print. (I knew we would remain friends when, upon one of her first visits to my home, I caught her smelling a leatherbound edition of … gods, I’ll have to ask her. Regardless, there’s an efficient litmus test for friendship for you.) I was recently over a clingy case of bringoutyourdeaditis that had been making the rounds, and we decided a used-bookstore crawl was well overdue.

There was a time when I could spend an entire day making the rounds of St. John’s’ various book haunts. Wordplay (yet mourned), Afterwords, I believe there were a couple or three Second Pages, and others, gods, one on Topsail road… Names have phantomed on me. I’d hit each one in order, and by day’s end several bags of forlorn paperbacks and bruised hardcovers would fill the back seat. And there was usually at least one gem, one sought after text, or soon-to-be favourite author, discovered huddling behind its mates atop a shelf, only spotted by the most scrupulous seeker. Often haggard, ninety cent castoffs, that would open a window onto a new writer, a new way with words, that I would carry forward. Borges, Dostoevsky, Bradbury, Gaiman, Ellison, Murakami, Nabokov, Adams, Lovecraft, Vonnegut, Faulkner, Chandler, Bierce, McCarthy, Burroughs… All well-loved, and all first encountered in a stack of cheap, often crippled, volumes in a used-bookstore. Easy enough to take a chance for a dollar or few. Easy to make lifelong friends with so small an investment.

There was a time when I could spend an entire day making the rounds of St. John’s’ various book haunts…Now, most of them have folded tent and left a bare field behind.

Six, perhaps seven used-bookstores in the downtown and a few stop-lights beyond. Now, most of them have folded tent and left a bare field behind. In fact, we discovered that Afterwords appears to be the city’s solitary survivor. (We found two, mind you, left in Mt. Pearl. Oh, St. John’s, where is thy shame?)

Now, we do have a sizable book retailer in town, and I will not pretend I have never crossed its threshold. B and I ended our literary scavenger hunt at this franchise – the big box store – on Kenmount Road. There are sufficient aisles to maneuver, sale shelves to mull over, and assembly-line caffeine aplenty. I consider it a tolerable hypocrisy, dumping coin down the corporate gullet, as independent options are scarce and it is at least populated by staff who seem to actually partake of the stock. But, there is something exclusive to the used-bookstore that is being lost.

Big is not beautiful

When in Toronto some years ago, I made a point of visiting an emporium that portentously called itself ‘The World’s Biggest Bookstore’. It was … big. Really big. If not the biggest, it would surely have left the champion peering anxiously over one ink-stained shoulder. But it also resembled nothing so much as a hospital for words. Spotless, arid, impersonal. Organized, it seemed, by an army of librarians with OCD. It was absolutely bloody rife with books of every size, flavour and weight. Ropes formed a unidirectional maze to the cash, where the successful shoppers might efficiently offer up their cards for swiping, their finds for bagging, their eyes for brief meeting, as they were sent on their way with all but a stamp on their foreheads that read, ‘Completed’.

It had all the personality of a box of white crayons.

I fled into the sunlight blinking away the afterglow of sterile efficiency and wandered until a sign containing the words ‘used-bookstore’ grazed my eyes. The name of the shop is lost to me, but it certainly made no claims to being the siziest, mostiest or bestiest of anything. And it was down a flight of stairs, beneath street level; a substore. I was met within by a flotilla of mildering, sagging bookshelves. I had stumbled across an out-of-the-way, gloomy, cluttered treasure cave. It was a riot in progress; a bookmob. A pulpy avalanche awaiting the right shout or shove to send it atumble. It was perfect.

…there is something exclusive to the used-bookstore that is being lost.

Such shops are vanishing. In part because, generally, our society puts less value on reading; certainly on reading more than the average web article, forum or cellphone text. In part because our ability to do so diminishes at a depressing pace. And in part because those who do still enjoy absorbing books can do so via electronic texts – ebooks are now pushing 10% of book sales in Canada and the US. Even the aforementioned dead trees and glue lovin’ B is in the market for an e-reader, as she prepares for an extended stay outside the country. And I get that. The model has changed, and the delivery system ought not matter, so long as the content – the words, the information, the craft of story and character and insight – remain and are appreciated. The literary Luddite in me bristles and scowls, no less. He’ll have to adapt.

Now a second confession: the demise of the bookstore is in part due to exactly such as myself. Yes, I’ll take my slice of culpability. Some years ago I, somewhat ashamedly, crossed over to the internet to acquire most of my reading material. I can not only get the best price, but have a seemingly infinite warehouse of selections, with choices swifted to my mailbox. If I want that Easton Press edition of Wilde’s collected stories or that particular copy of Gormenghast with Peake’s illustrations, it is a matter of no more than a few keystrokes and some patience. Mea maxima culpa.

Yet, despite the easily accessed treasures of the webly-interpipes, delivered to door, I retain the need to occasionally thumb a row of virginal, uncleft spines, sift through exhausted veterans of the reader wars, and absorb the smell of a copse of reincarnated trees. It appears that, in St. John’s at least, it’s becoming more and more difficult to sate that need.

In 1892 Sir Wilfred Grenfell arrived in Newfoundland and established hospitals in Labrador and northern Newfoundland. He recruited medical professionals from the UK and in the late 1960’s my mother and father arrived independently in Goose Bay as a nurse midwife and dentist respectively. Obviously both adventurous, they loved the wilderness and challenges of the Grenfell Mission. In fact, they delayed their marriage for a year because my mother received the Station Nurse position in Cartwright. Ever a trail blazer and leader, I am proud to be her daughter. With this background and my own personal interest, I now find myself involved and interested in what I can do about the current state of midwifery in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Newfoundland and Labrador falling behind

While there is a standing agreement that nurses in the Labrador Grenfell Health Board with a midwifery background practice a limited scope of midwifery, Newfoundland and Labrador is one of only three jurisdictions in Canada without midwifery legislation (along with PEI and the Yukon). The Canadian Association of Midwifery, in a gesture that implies there is work to do in Newfoundland to bring our pre-natal and natal care options up to par with many other regions in Canada (and, in fact, other parts of the world), is holding their Annual General Meeting and conference in St. John’s this year to help raise awareness about this issue.

Over the past year or so I have been surprised to find that there are qualified nurses already living in Newfoundland who could practice midwifery. Additionally there are qualified Newfoundlanders living away who would love to return. But return to what? Until there are positions and legislation to which they can return and begin to practice, our province will be in a state of inertia.

But return to what? Until there are positions and legislation…our province will be in a state of inertia.

Midwifery began devolving in Newfoundland some time ago. In 1961 and 1962 there were no applications for new licenses, and in 1963 there was only one application. At this time the Provincial Government decided that midwives were no longer required and ceased to appoint a Board to issue the annual licenses to midwives practicing in the province. In 1963 the last license was issued to a midwife. In 1986 the midwifery diploma programme was discontinued. Classes were small, because without legislation there were limited opportunities to practice skills in the clinical areas. Kind of a Catch-22, don’t you think?

Baby steps

Midwifery in Newfoundland remains in a Catch-22 situation. The profession is included in umbrella legislation that encompasses several other professions. However, many of these other professions are already established within the health care system in this province and delivery of service will not change based on this legislation. Indeed, neither will midwifery. There were no midwives working in health boards outside of Labrador Grenfell before the Health Professionals Act, and there are none since it’s been passed. It’s a step that midwifery was included in the Act but there is still lots more to accomplish. Nevertheless, a big kudos goes to the incredibly hard work of dedicated volunteers for everything that’s been accomplished to date.

But there is still much to do. Each professional group within the Health Professionals Act is responsible for it’s own regulations, but the regulations for midwifery have been submitted and there seems to be no real impetus for the government to make midwifery regulations a priority. By-laws for a College have also been developed. But until there is public funding to support the registration process and provide employment so that midwives are able to access liability insurance, we seem to be at a stand still. So far there have been no provisions to fund midwifery in Newfoundland and Labrador.

…a 10-minute pre-natal appointment is not adequate time to spend with a care provider to fully understand the issues.

I care about midwifery services not only as a woman and a mother but also because I am a feminist. To me, being a feminist means supporting a woman’s right to choose. But further to that, I believe in informed choice. The right to birth at home unassisted? Yup. The right to elect a cesarean section without medical indications? Yup. The right to have a normal vaginal birth in the hospital with an obstetrician? Sure. But doing so without an understanding of the risks and benefits of each situation is not really a choice. Informed choice means doing a little work on our own as a 10 minute pre-natal appointment is not adequate time to spend with a care provider to fully understand the issues (in contrast, midwives tend to spend closer to an hour with a family at each pre-natal appointment). There are several private child birth education courses currently being offered in the city, one of which I offer, which is my way of continuing my mother’s work, and living out my feminist belief in informed choice.

Time for change

Midwifery services for our province just make sense. On the off chance that you, dear reader, are not a parent, never plan to be, or perhaps are not even female, why should you care about midwifery care? Because it’s a more cost effective service, and your hard earned tax dollars will be freed up for other uses when women are not visiting obstetricians for pre-natal care or meeting them at the hospital to give birth to their children. And the obstetricians/gynecologists will also have time and resources freed up. Their wisdom and expertise can be used in conjunction with midwifery services in the most appropriate use of their time. Thank goodness for obstetricians and interventions, and what a blessing it would be to have midwives to provide care to low risk women and screen those who need obstetrical care. I don’t think it would come as any surprise that most of our health care professionals are over taxed. I would support a move that would allow obstetrician/gynecologists more support and time in their field.

If you are unclear about what midwives do and how they would benefit our health care system, then inquire, ask questions, and look at the models in other countries that predominantly use midwives and home birth to see their lower rates of interventions and the better outcomes for mothers and babies. Notice how cost effective midwives and home birth are in comparison to hospital/obstetrical birth, and in combination with the improved outcomes.

Midwifery saves money and lives. It seems like a no brainer to me.

What can you do to help? Join Friends of Midwifery on Facebook to stay up to date on information. Write a letter to your MHA or Minister of Health to express that access to midwifery care is important to you.

There is a public lecture at the Health Sciences Centre Auditorium on Wednesday, May 2nd at 7:30pm with guest speaker Eileen Hutton, Director of Midwifery at McMaster University. She will speak on the topic: “Midwifery in Canada: Where does Newfoundland and Labrador fit?” The event will also have an update of the Health Professionals Act. This is the act which will regulate midwifery in Newfoundland and Labrador.

You can find more information about Fiona’s childbirth education classes at www.mindfulbirthing.ca

A great expanse appeared beyond the windshield and I found myself at a loss to compare the landscape before me with what had come to pass in the miles that stretched between New Brunswick and the ferry in North Sydney.

When we crossed the border and entered Nova Scotia I had noticed little more than the ways in which borders are constructed, maintained, and in this case, decorated by flags.

Was Amherst here or there?

And other such internal car ride dialogues.

The sight of Port Aux Basques forced a different kind of recognition. We had crossed water to get there. We had packed, driven, loaded, parked, and sat. There weren’t any lingering physical attachments between that land and this island. No causeway. No bridge. Just ocean for hours. I could see the rock stretch down deep, until it touched the water again. It was all geology, save a thin dusting of green on top.

The expanse remained throughout the drive. So much land. So much wilderness.

The farms, I would find, are present in pockets. Codroy Valley, the Goulds. In terms of food availability, only looking at fields denied the presence of an edible expanse.

There have been a number of changes to my perspective that have occurred while residing in Newfoundland. As I prepare for departure, I would like to devote this piece to the articulation of some of the lessons I have learned about food and community organizing in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Knowledges gained

The first relates to my conception of the foods that are consumed here.

A few weeks before it was time to go, I had been given a tour of Newfoundland recipes by a friend and her family, who had a stash of cookbooks from the region. In their pages, I made the acquaintance of seal, jiggs dinner, and moose. I figured I would add these foods to the list of regional delicacies consumed while traveling and shrugged them off for the time being. Initially, I cast off many of the recipes as novelties. Perhaps the samplings were kind of like tourism commercials: another way of saying “this place is different.” That the recipes were not merely window dressings on a well-crafted tourist display was a conclusion that I came to, eventually. As it turned out, recipes were highlighting regional availabilities, foodways, traditions, histories, and necessities. Learning about those traditions was one way for me to develop a better understanding of this place.

Along with the past, there is the present to contend with. So, my time in Newfoundland introduced me to some of the aforementioned foods, but mostly kale, Egyptian onions, leeks, nasturtiums, spicy greens, beets, fennel, parsnips, and Swiss chard. For so much talk about difficult growing conditions and acidic soil, the past few years have been marked by a number of delicious meals and tasty new flavours. A great deal of energy has been devoted to bolstering and supporting local farmers, sharing gardening skills, and raising awareness about the possibilities that exist with regard to growing food in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Potential is a keyword here. New initiatives are constantly in the works. Whether they be community gardens (at community centres, Lion’s clubs, schools, in public parks), greenhouse projects , rooftop gardens, new farms, farmers’ markets (Grand Falls-Windsor), or backyard growing projects (like those initiated at the Smallwood Community Centre or by Stella Burry Community Services), excitement seems to be catching on. Furthermore, due to the diligent work of many persons in the province, government bodies have also taken an interest in food security. The term even appeared in the most recent edition of the provincial Progressive Conservative Blue Book! All of this seems promising, but there are important questions to ask at this point in time.

What kind of impact are local food projects making? Who benefits from them? These are questions that I have asked throughout my time here, and I feel confident in saying that although formal research is outstanding (and needed), many people are benefiting from community gardens, skills-development initiatives, networking opportunities, teleconferences, farmers’ markets, and backyard gardening initiatives.

Plenty of positives

In the past three years alone, we have seen a drastic increase in community gardens throughout the province. These initiatives are located at family centres, in public parks, at schools, in social housing neighbourhoods, and on land at other types of community centres. Interest in organizing them continues to develop, and through my work at the Food Security Network, I found it exciting to speak with coordinators about their goals and plans. Sharing experiences and generating an ongoing sense of best practices will be important in the years ahead.

In terms of skills development, workshops hosted by community organizations have made gardening seem possible to more people who are continuing to learn successful techniques. Not only are these events a great way to pick up useful information, they also contribute to the development of relationships amongst persons with shared interests and desires to grow food. One thing that must continue to be worked on is the establishment of connections across age groups, income levels, cultural backgrounds, and physical capacities. Developing personal skills related to food production, processing and preparation is an important aspect of meeting goals related to increased personal health and wellness. But how do we ensure that these activities meet diverse needs? Furthermore, how do we continue to offer skills development opportunities while ensuring that we do not lose sight of the ways in which some differences affect our abilities to garden, or cook, or put food on the table, generally?

…critical questions must be asked about who is gardening or participating, who is shopping at farmers’ markets, whether food banks and community kitchens are consistently meeting needs and how we can develop community food security…

While some of these activities contribute to the development of better access to food among those who perform them, critical questions must be asked about who is gardening or participating in skills development workshops, whether these activities are contributing to community food security as well as personal or familial food security, what types of supports would be needed if this were to become the case, and the nature of the constraints that persons may face in their efforts to consume healthy food. Asking questions may seem uncomfortable at times, and critique is often framed in a negative light. Answers, however, are sometimes surprising. We may be doing even more than we immediately recognize, even if we are not meeting all of our goals in all of our projects all of the time. Let’s reserve a seat at the table for patience, shall we?

Learning as we go

Notions of responsibility run through my mind from time to time. Balancing personal development with community development is key, if not an elusive goal. While many involved in food security-related activities recognize problems and inequalities with regard, for instance, to access to healthy food, it has sometimes been the case that good ideas come from those who are committed to the development of food security, rather than those the initiatives are meant to help. Every new project is an opportunity to learn how to coordinate effectively, and so it seems fitting to utilize reflection and conversation as sources of programming. Because we live in a province that is home to diverse cultural groups, differing climactic and soil conditions, unequal economic backgrounds, various skill sets and capacities, we must take these into consideration when planning projects and initiatives from the start. Some projects have adopted this approach, to successful ends. In more ways than one, many of us seem to be in a state of learning as we go. This is what makes Newfoundland and Labrador such an exciting place to be if you are interested in food issues. There is so much space to become involved, a great deal of camaraderie and support to enjoy, and a general sense that anything to do with food security is a worthwhile activity. Whether you are growing food for yourself or others, sharing experiences on a blog, hosting an event, or simply talking to a neighbour about what you are growing in your yard or picked up at the farmers’ market, you are expressing the potential for a more robust local food system. Everything counts for something. Alongside all of these feel good vibes, however, it should be stated that there is always room for improvement. We continue to need more accessibility of a physical, economic, and cultural nature within our projects, committees, and markets.

Whether you are growing food for yourself or others…or simply talking to a neighbour about what you picked up at the farmers’ market, you are expressing the potential for a more robust local food system.

For me, the past three years have altered my perception of edible landscapes. Yes, this place is often referred to as The Rock, but no, it does not mean that we are fundamentally limited to growing traditional root vegetables. On April 14, I spent most of my Saturday with about 100 others at this year’s FEASt Fest. Many listenined to discussions about gardening, bee-keeping, farming, and more. Others enjoyed a fine lunch, some came to drop off seeds or gardening materials, and others, to check out information booths hosted by area organizations such as Daybreak and MUN Botanical Garden. During one discussion, there was mention of peach trees in Pouch Cove, which blew my mind a little. Should it? Or are we simply telling ourselves too many stories about what used to be grown here instead of writing new ones about the occasional rewards of trying? This is something that I have so enjoyed while living here: that through my involvement with various groups and organizations, I have often been inspired to loosen up my sense of constraint, and not give in to lore around bad weather and less than ideal soil.

…are we simply telling ourselves too many stories about what used to be grown here instead of writing new ones about the occasional rewards of trying?

We live in a province where community organizing has created opportunities to learn more about gardening, grow food in shared spaces, and to practice these activities at home thanks to helpful skills and garden box building programs. And yet, our population also continues to rank rather low when it comes to personal health and wellness, as a result of consumption habits, lack of access to healthy food, and high costs of food items (especially in rural and northern regions). While my initial question was “Say, where do you figure the farms are?”, my follow-up questions relate to themes of viability, the types of initiatives that will create better access to fresh, healthy, sustainably produced food for everyone, and the extent to which desire for these types of foods are shared amongst a large part of the population. Diverse approaches are best suited to respond to particular interests, different situations, and various needs.

Over the past few months, I have attempted to share stories about food so as to generate interest, create a few sources of inspiration, and encourage thought around food security issues. While I do not have the sense that I have been conclusive or all-encompassing at any point, I do hope that something has come of this endeavour, and that more will come in relation to food security in Newfoundland and Labrador in the years ahead. I wholeheartedly believe that it will. To all those I have had the pleasure of meeting, working, and volunteering with while I have resided here, thank you for so many new recipes, skills, conversations, and ideas.

Good luck and good eating!