Newfoundland's role at Beaumont Hamel to be Swept from History

I often hear comments from other parts of the Country to the effect that Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans are nothing but a bunch of complainers and whiners. The opinion seems to be that we will never be happy with the great job Canada has done in supporting us and providing us with handouts.. A bunch of malcontents is what we are called for our rumblings of separation and unfair treatment. What these people fail to realize is that many Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans are unhappy with this Dominion for many reasons and the least of those are financial ones.

An example of this reality is the situation playing itself out in France as I write this very commentary. On Saturday July 1, remembrance ceremonies will be held to commemorate the battle of Beaumont Hamel, the fierce WWI battle which saw many Newfoundlanders give up their lives for King and Country. The thing of it is that the men from Newfoundland and Labrador who died in that battle were fighting for the Country of Newfoundland, not for Canada. During WWI confederation with Canada was still decades away.

During the ceremony this week the anthems of Canada, France and Newfoundland (The Ode to Newfoundland) will be played. As is the custom during such events the men and women of the armed forces will stand and salute during those anthems. The exception is that the Canadian forces has informed the men and women of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, the very regiment who’s early members fought in that great battle, that they will be expected to salute the French and Canadian anthems but they will not be permitted to salute the Ode to Newfoundland.

Why in God’s name not? Apparently it is felt by Canadian military leaders that only the anthems of the nations involved should be saluted. I guess someone forgot to mention to this brain trust that hundreds of men from the Country of Newfoundland died during WWI and the military men and women from this Province should be given the opportunity to express their pride and remembrance for their ancestors.

These are the sorts of things that upset people from the Province beyond anything financial regardless of what others may think and they are the sorts of acts that people in other parts of Canada never see or hear about.

Lieutenant Governor Ed Roberts is attending the ceremony at Beaumont Hamel as an honorary member of the forces. He has said that while he would like to salute the Ode to Newfoundland, he must respect the uniform he is wearing and follow the rules laid out for him by the Canadian military. I disagree completely. As the Queens representative to the Province he has a bigger obligation to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and he should take that obligation seriously.

My suggestion is that the Lieutenant Governor should disregard the orders given to him and salute for everything he is worth. As a temporary and honorary member of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment what can the military do about it. If he feels so strongly about his anthem, as he should, but doesn’t want to disrespect the Canadian Forces, he could opt to appear at the ceremony without the uniform. This would free him up to do as he pleases.

Through seeing a man of Ed Roberts stature take this stand, it might even convince some members of the regular forces to follow his lead. Even if it doesn’t, at least it would send a strong message to Ottawa and his actions would help return at least one small part of the dignity that is being stolen from us all by this action.

It’s a sad day when a country fights and gives up the lives of its men on the battle field of a foreign land only to be told on the 90th anniversary of one of those battles that the descendants of those men will not be permitted to salute the anthem they fought and died for. Thank-you once again Canada for your understanding.

Vive le Canada

There has been a lot of news coverage lately about the alleged abuse of expense accounts by some MHA’s in Newfoundland and Labrador. A terrible thing indeed, but on a positive note, at least the supposed fraud seems to have been limited to a just few members of the House, unlike the outright theft taking place in Ottawa these days.

Just before leaving for a months of fun in the sun, members of the House of Commons decided to pad their wallets once again at our expense. In 2001 the House eliminated the tax free expense accounts that had been used up to that point in time and decided instead to raise the base pay of MPs.

When the expense accounts were done away with, an MP’s base pay was approximately $65,000 per year. This amount was increased to $130,000 and has since risen to nearly $150,000. Now, after seeing their base pay rise by $85,000 in just 5 years, MPs have determined that they can’t survive on what they are making and have decided to re-introduce expense allowances on top of their new wealth.

So what is it costing you to have your MP show up for the occasional vote or speak in the House of Commons (if they bother to show up at all)?

The tab includes:
Base pay: $147,700 per year + additional pay for anyone who is a minister, member of a committee, etc. (basically if you do anything other than get yourself elected the amount begins to climb steadily.)

Ottawa Living Expenses: $24,000 per year

Meals and Incidentals: $75.40 per day

Mileage: .47 cents a kilometer

Travel: 64 free return-trip airline tickets a year (I'll bet you an MP's salary that they aren’t coach tickets either).

The overall cost of the constituency allowance scandal in Newfoundland and Labrador, at least as far as can be determined at this point, appears to be in the neighborhood of $1 million. Nothing to sneeze at by any means but when you consider that with over 300 MPs in Ottawa milking the system for the items outlined above, $1 million is just one drop in a very large bucket.

Either way you slice it somebody is getting the shaft and I can bet you know who that is. Remember this next April when tax time rolls around. Better yet, when the next election call is made, think about what marking your X really means to the average Canadian’s wallet.

Vive le Canada!!!

Political Double Speak

Out-migration is a term to which we’ve become accustomed in Newfoundland and Labrador. It’s a simple benign sounding little word that refers to people leaving the province to live and work in other parts of Canada. It’s a sanitized and passionless political term used by governments and the media alike to identify a situation without the need to ever speak of the sickening realities of what it really means.

In reality the term out-migration is comparable to accidentally dropping a 500 pound bomb on a crowded marketplace, killing a hundred people, and referring to the result as “collateral damage”. It’s like accidentally shooting 20 members of your own military force and reporting the event as a “friendly fire” incident. Either way you slice it, it's a way of sanitizing a terrible and ugly truth that nobody wants to think about. Sanitize all you want, in the end the bodies still exist and the mourning goes on.

You may be wondering how I can equate something like out-migration to such horrific events, but there isn’t a great deal of difference. Of course what’s happening in Newfoundland and Labrador isn’t the kind of bloody horrific death we see in a war torn country, but it is death without doubt. In fact, in some ways it may even be worse because instead of individual deaths, out-migration represents the slow and lingering death of an entire culture and its people.

Make no mistake, what’s happening right now in Newfoundland and Labrador is far from passionless and to sanitize it in any way is sickening. There was a time when men (and to a lesser degree women) left the Province to find seasonal work. They would often return to their homes for the remainder of the year, perhaps to fish or hunt. Such is the life of an island community. Over the decades this trend continued, but each year more and more of our people settled in the larger centers and never came back.

It started as a slight trickle, but has gained in momentum until we have reached a time in our history when the process has begun spiraling out of control. The unfortunate thing is that we have all become so accustomed to it that nobody is standing up and taking notice of what’s really happening. These days there seem to be more people leaving than staying and what was once a trickle has become a tidal wave before our very eyes.

The people leaving are our young, educated and family oriented people. The same people who are needed to sustain our Province. They leave behind them grandparents who will not see their grandchildren grown up. They leave behind countless parents, siblings and extended family and friends who may or may never see them again. That’s the human impact here.

On the more practical side of things, statistics already show that the average age of Newfoundland and Labrador’s population is increasing rapidly. How quickly will those numbers begin to climb if the bleeding away or the youth isn’t quelled?

We are caught on a treadmill to nowhere. A vicious cycle or domino effect is taking place right here and right now. Simply put governments and provinces need revenue to survive. They need it for everything from infrastructure to job creation to health care to schools and on and on and on. Like it or not, a large part of that revenue comes as a direct result of you and me working, living and paying taxes in the Province. If we reach a point where so many of our youth leave that the majority of our people are retired, where will that revenue base come from?

What about federal transfers which are largely based on population density. Every time an individual leaves the province thousands of dollars in federal funding leaves right along with them. Every time 2 or 3 or 4 people leave, 2 or 3 or 4 times that amount disappears. As less and less money is available for infrastructure and services, less and less jobs are created. This in turn leads to more and more people leaving which once again leads to less and less funding and the cycle continues to grow by feeding upon itself at an ever increasing rate. I believe this is what we are seeing right now in Newfoundland and Labrador and unless something is done we, as a people, will cease to exist.

It’s a simple equation really. If you have more people leaving the province than entering it and more people entering their final years than being born, then a culture cannot survive and will die as surely as if a bomb was dropped directly into the heart of its territory. It may not be a violent death but it’s a death none the less.

“Friendly Fire”, “Collateral damage” or “Out-migration” are all handy terms that help soften the blow of something terrible and horrific. They are terms intended to comfort those directly touched by tragedy, sanitize the event by making it more palatable and distance those responsible for its happening. In all three situations the use of these terms also serve to leave the public in a state of mind where nobody gets angry enough to stand up and do something to stop the carnage and that in itself is a tragedy.