RARE SPECIES FACES EXTINCTION IN N.B.

The deck-ape, a long time creature whose habitant on lower Saint John River cable ferrys, is facing extinction. For well over a century, these creatures with their distinctive, colourful orange & lime green vests, have greeted and directed cars and passengers on cable ferrys. Now forced into extinction by as early as December, the deck ape will no longer be seen in their natural habitat, the cable ferry, as extinction by committee will wipe out this unusual species.

More then just a greeter, the deck-ape over the years has been trained to do many useful tasks including emergency first-aid, launching a life boat to rescue humans who fall off these river crafts, extinguishing fires, cleaning, servicing equipment, environmental spill clean-ups and various report writing. In recent years, the deck-ape has evolved and is now operating these 300 ton, multi-million dollar cable ferries.

Forced into extinction by committee, the absence of the deck-ape from cable ferries is a sad loss to the entire province. After all, even a deck-ape knows that a safety policy based on luck (or managable probable in government speak) will fail sooner or later. For more information on the extinction of the deck-ape please contact Denis Landry, Minister of Transportation, Province of New Brunswick or Transport Canada.

(POLITICAL SATIRE ONLY)

(NOT A STATEMENT OF FACT)

SEE ATTACHED PHOTOS OF THE

DECK-APE IN HIS NATURAL

HABITAT

THIRD WORLD HEALTH CARE IN "THE PLACE TO BE"

Regardless of what our Liberal government in Fredericton spins out about how great our health care system is in "the place to be", the little guy who has to access health care knows better. Any person who has sat at "the outdoor" a local term to describe our regional hospitals out-patient clinic, for 12 hours to see an emergency doctor, knows the truth. Any person who has had to wait, in chronic pain, for 8 to 12 months to see a specialist, knows the truth. Any person in New Brunswick who has to travel to a clinic for any kind of primary health care because they do not have a family doctor, and in "the place to be" there are thousands without a doctor, they know the truth of the government lie. With a few million dollars of our taxes boosted in the last budget to the provincial governments communications department, the lies about health care from Fredericton will increase as the Pinochio Liberals head into the last year of their governing mandate.

Every single person in this province knows a friend, relative or acquaintance who has waited weeks and months for test results, months to see a specialist, mis-diagnosed illnesses that has resulted in that individuals untimely death.

Under the guidance of now demoted former health minister Mike Murphy, our provincial government took a page out of their Liberal demagogue's book, Frank McKenna, and tore up the provincial doctors signed, legal contract and instead, froze all doctors wages in this province for two years. They also tore up a few other civil servants contracts as well just to show the doctors that as a government we're "all round assholes". Remember the early 80's where New Brunswick elected to be ruled by a King, Frank McKenna. No opposition party in the Legislature and good old King Frank tore up some civil service contracts which lead to a few short strikes. Governments never learn from history.

As governments never learn from history, and I guess as a former gymn teacher Shawn Graham never taught history in his school (thank God) as his governments contract freeze for doctors has made a third world health care system in a province now advertised as "the place to be". Only if you are healthy and expect to stay healthy and do not expect to grow old.

As the Liberal government heads into the home stretch before "the little guy" gets his chance at the ballot box to say what he really thinks, wait to see the doctors salary freeze be recinded. It will still be a two year wage freeze for every other civil servant in the province but not for the doctors. I mean, as a civil servant, my family doctor, and I am lucky and grateful for him, earns in 1 day what I earn in one month. Now, I didn't go to medical school for a decade or two and I don't begrudge the doctors their salary, far from it, but a society is judged on how it treats "the least" of its citizens and on that score New Brunswick is NOT "the place to be".

There is hope on the horizon. The Shawn Graham Liberals will go to the polls as late as next September. One year left to correct three years of mistakes. It is not all the provincial governments problem with health care in this province. Every party, every stakeholder must have a can do attitude and a "we can and will fix this" This is needed from the Medical Society to every person who works in health care in this province for as other provincial governments have found, throwing buckets of taxpayers dollars at health care appears to have improved nothing. A change of attitude, a change of direction, a positive approach to all issues regarding health care in this province is needed. And the little guy can also do his part.

Any person who sits in a dirty, crowded outpatient department for hours in pain and suffering should NOT be voting for the government who continues, through their neglient policies to make this happen. Any person of any age in New Brunswick who does not have a family doctor due to this provincial governments failure to recruit physicians to "the place to be", should cast their vote AGAINST the government who made this possible. Any person in New Brunswick who has suffered in pain for months before they can see a specialist must get out and vote against the government in Fredericton who made this possible. Any person in this province who has watched a friend or relative die because of late diagnoses, late treatment, because of a lack of doctors, medical services, has to get out and vote AGAINST the provincial government who through their neglect, has allowed this to happen.

The Little Guy gets his chance on election day. All you have to do is make the time and go vote for any party who has not created this mess. One year and counting.

-30-

WHEN YOUR RIGHT - WRITE!

In 2007 in one of my first blogs I described the true employment situation here in good old Saint John New Brunswick, Canada's oldest incorporated city. At the time I lamented on the hype created by the oil rich interests that our daily newspaper serves up for their Irving masters. Saint John was to be the new Calgary East. Our Liberal government jumped on the hype bandwagon proclaiming to the country and the world that the port of Saint John was to be the new energy hub of eastern Canada. A natural gas pipeline to be built, a new Liquidify Natural Gas Terminal was to be built, Point Lepreau Nuclear Plant was to be refurbished, the Irvings were to build a huge new oil refinery (the oil kings already have the largest refinery in Canada here) and a possible second Nuclear reactor was to be built at Point Lepreau. Check my blog from 2007. Its all there.

What a difference two years can make. The natural gas pipeling connecting the LNG terminal to American markets was completed. The LNG terminal is now completed and in operation. Despite assurances from NB Power Commision head David Hay that Lepreau would be completed "on time and on budget" at the time of this posting, the nuclear power plant refurbishment is still not completed, its millions of dollars off budget and about six months behind schedule. Still, David Hay will get his several hundred thousand dollar bonus for such poor performance and Mr. and Mrs. taxpayer will cough up the pony.

On July 24 the oil Kings announced that they will not be building a second oil refinery in Saint John, not now nor in the future. All the hype of Saint John being an energy hub and attracting thousands of skilled workers to the city, died with the announcement. All the hundreds of construction workers who did flood the city while the LNG terminal was built and the natural gas pipe-line was under construction have long ago packed their campers and have left for work in greener pastures. With the completion of the Point Lepreau Nuclear Station staggering to a late finish, those workers will leave as well.

Let me forecast that a second nuclear reactor for Point Lepreau WILL NOT be built anytime in the future. The excessive cost over-runs that are always associated with constructing new technology will not be financed by kind of financial institute and it is far too costly for any provincial or federal government or marriage thereof to afford. The villiage idiot told me a long time ago with world oil prices hovering around the $67. per barrel mark, that it would not be possible to sink billions into a refinery for Saint John. Somehow, politicians must start believing their own hype (or bullshit if you like) by proclaiming to the world that Saint John is the new energy capital of the Eastern Seaboard.

More reality about Saint John. The information technology sector in this city or call centers as they are called locally, has been shedding jobs in this city. A large number of lay-offs at Eddie Bauer, over 300 jobs lost with another call-center unplugging their phones and leaving by the years end. Saint John's history, and the Tapley family has been a part of that history for about 280 years, is a history of boom and bust. You can put lipstick on a pig but you still have a pig. Energy center of Eastern Canada has been the hype here for two years . The result is the housing market has been far stronger and more viable then it should have been. New hotels, new houses, new sub-divisions and the creation of more condos then any city needs have been following the hype. Apartment rentals have climbed. Housing prices have climbed . All this in anticipation of the thousands of skilled labour and construction workers that will be flooding to Saint John from Calgary and Fort McMoney. All Hype. After all, a dead horse is a dead horse. Putting a different label on it changes nothing.

Cable Ferrys: A Long History of Service

The paddle-wheeler "Magnet" built by my ancestor David Tapley in 1850. Used primarily as a tug, the "Magnet" also worked for several years as the overnight boat from Saint John to Fredericton, hauling passengers and freight.

Kennebecasis Island Ferry (F-74) currently in operation, is the last of a particular style of river ferry. With over 30 years of service to the public, this sister boat to the Bellisle Ferry is also do to be replaced.

You may have to squint a bit to see this one but this is the Gondola Point Ferry, sail up and ready, on the Gondola Point beach about 1900. Photo courtesy of the NB Museum.

CABLE FERRYS; PART HIGHWAY, PART HISTORY, PART COMMUNITY

With over a century of service to the people of New Brunswick, the slow moving river ferrys are as part of true New Brunswick as the covered bridge, the lighthouse on the coast, fiddleheads and salmon, biscuits and tea.

Invented by Captain William Pitt around 1906 this unique invention worked well as it was an underwater cable that the barge like vessel pulled itself along from shore to shore. This simple system (picture a spool of thread) allowed the cable attached across the shortest point in the river, to drop to a depth of 35 to 40 feet in the middle. When on either shore loading passengers, horses, wagons and freight, the cable ferry allows vessels of almost any draw to pass safely up the river. The Saint John River and the Kennebecasis River systems were very busy waterways at the beginning of the 20th century with a plethora of wood boats, steam tugs pulling large rafts of logs or barges of coal for Fredericton. Steam paddle- wheelers plyed these waters making frequent stops along the various waterways. The cable ferry was there then. They are still there today, the last of their kind on the rivers. Still hauling passengers, freight (all on trucks now) and vehicles of all sizes and shapes.

I posted the very small print of the sketch of "The Magnetic" Built in Saint John in 1850 by my ancestor David Tapley along with a partner, the "Magnet"was initially built to be a lumber tug. My ancestors, all out of Sunbury County New Brunswick, were one of the first English speaking families to settle in New Brunswick. We were here before New Brunswick was a province but a territory of Nova Scotia. The family business and fortune were linked to the lumber trade in that they shipped great rafts of lumber and logs from Sunbury County and beyond to the booming ship building industry going on in Saint John. The "Magnet" was one of many steam-boats my family owned, another century ago. So the "Magnet" sailed the Saint John river system, into Grand Lake. The "Magnet" knew the waters of Long Reach, Washedemoak Lake, the marshes and waters the river pilots called "hardscrabble." The "Magnet" went on to become the overnight boat between Saint John and Fredericton. The side-wheeler continued in this service for five years until the family sold the boat in 1855 to the Glaziers, their competition in the timber business.

One of the tricks these old river boat captains used was when they ran their vessels aground, and it was frequent with the various water levels each season brought, was to tie a sout rope around the paddle and in as straight a line as possible, attach the other end to a large tree. Then with "steam ahead slow" or "steam astern slow" the boat would slowly haul herself into deeper water. Perhaps Captain Billy Pitt, who currently has two river ferrys named after him, knew of this riverboat trick and applied it to the invention of the cable ferry. It is just a historical theory of mine. I offer it humbly.

PRIVITAZION OF NEW BRUNSWICK'S FERRYS IS WRONG

Once again our New Brunswick government has stumbled badly in its hasty decision to "cut the cable" on three of its nine ferrys' in southern New Brunswick. The public outcry coupled with an intense grass-roots protest from the rural communities these ferrys' serve lead to few months reprieve. During this "reprieve" period, Liberal friend Eric Allaby will be paid $100. per day to find private operators for two of these unique cable ferrys'. Mr. Allaby's expertise that is earning him this wage is that he has experience as a diver and he once lived on an island.

These two ferrys' that are scheduled for this experiment in privatization are the Gagetown Ferry and Bellisle. The savings to the taxpayers is about $1.5 million. Not much, when you consider that the Graham government boosted spending in its advertising and promotion department by $2 million dollars. The government propaganda department gets a big boost in spending while services to rural communities are cut.

Our provincial government has forgotten that 80% of the taxpayers and voters of New Brunswick live in rural areas. Because New Brunswick is largely a rural province with a small population (approximately 800,000 people) it is difficult and expensive to deliver services to an area larger then many European Countries. To deliver these services to the people that pay for them in such a large area requires a sizable civil service to deliver these services. In the same spring budget that cut the cable ferrys, provincial government garages were closed, court services axed, property taxes tripled and more. The taxpayer in rural New Brunswick is now discovering that gravel roads are not graded and services that we have used and needed are no longer available. Couple this with a health care system that is truly third world in how it deliveres its lengthy and often deligent service to the people that pay a lot of taxes for this service, you have a government that is out of touch with the people who elected them. There is always a golden lining to any cloud and the New Brunswick Liberal government of Shawn Graham will have to go to the polls in about 1 years time.
This government has alienated just about every group in New Brunwsick; from doctors to civil servants with a two year wage freeze, to teachers, nurses, parents (cuts to French Immersion) and so on.

CABLE FERRYS' NEED HISTORICAL DESIGNATION

Do not be fooled. As the march goes on to find a private company to take over and operate the Gagetown cable ferry and the Belisle ferry two things are becoming increasingly clear and will likely become policy to ALL the ferrys' the provincial government now operates. The first is the public that uses these unique river boats will now pay some kind of fee to travel on them. The second is, privatization and user fees will become the policy for all other ferrys' the government currently operates. The provincial government wants out of the ferry business. They will give the public facts and figures to make this look like the rosy deal it is anything but. Currently, the provincial government has been trying to find a private operator to take over its Deer Island operations. After over 4 years, no private operator has signed.

BRAIN PLOPPINGS

The ongoing controversy about our Canadian RCMP Tazering people to death continues, simply because one of the Mounties latest in a string of bad management and bad policing regarding tazering has been shown over and over again on our tv's. Canadians are not used to watching live coverage of a Polish immigrant to Canada being fried to death by the RCMP.


All police forces, RCMP, military and ANY public servant MUST realize that today EVERYBODY HAS A CAMERA. Just about every human on earth has a cell phone which will film just about anything or if not a cell phone with camera then a small digital camera. Society will be seeing more and more of this shit just because the technology is there for Joe Public to film civil servants not doing their job or police doing their jobs badly. In Vancouver, with the violent death of a poor Polish Immigrant by poorly trained RCMP was filmed and then shown around the globe. Not only did the RCMP Screw Up, airport management needs a violent kick in the ass as well. Every RCMP officer and cop in Canada has got to realize that most of the general public are now carrying cameras and that most of the public WILL FILM THEM AS THEY SCREW UP ON THE JOB.

To sum it up its, "Bad Cop Bad Cop, What you gonna do.
"What you gonna do when they
"video you!!"



The head of our provincial power utility feels that New Brunswickers are not paying enough for electricity and that power rates in this province should be similar to power rates in Europe and Japan. Mr. Hay has lost touch with reality, which is what happens after you have been at the top and sucking on the rich gravey tit of an income Mr. Hay has. Wages for the working stiff in Japan are higher then they are here and I do not think that the climate in Japan has many minus 30 degree weather for days on end. We do here in Canada.

Our parents and grand-parents have helped build and pay for NB Power, the CROWN corporation built with tax-payers money. The goal of this corporation should be to provide the lowest price on electricity, something we poor working stiffs MUST have to maintain life in New Brunswick.

We currently live in two rooms of our large rented house. We operate two electric heaters this winter. Other poor working stiffs I know simply close off parts of their home and apartments using heavy blankets over doorways, blankets over drafty windows and wear lots and lots of clothes and sweaters. Third world heating conditions brought to you by Cliffey Hay and his brain dead management team at NBEPC, who think we are getting a real steal on the electricity they produce for us/.

The province of NB in recent years bought out Elizabeth Weir of the NDP and appointed her, at a good salary, to head a government department promoting energy conservation. What a retarded concept!!! If we save, as a province, more and more and use less and less electricity for example, the good ole boys at NBEPC will just jack up power rates more and more to cover their losses by conservation. And Elizabeth Weir's department will provide funding to low income NB'ers to fix up energy efficient windows, doors etc. As usual, the working stiff who always PAYS for these programs, and my tax rate on my income currently runs about 1/3, do not get to take part in these programs. You must own your own home to be eligible for these grants. I rent my home as do a great deal other New Brunswickers who are forced to pay for this program through a heavy burden of taxes but do not get to take part in any way in this expensive conservation program.

As the Christmas season approaches a great deal has been made in the media about how prices are coming down in Canadian stores as a result of the high Canadian dollar. One group of merchants have been very strangely quiet on this issue and that is the Canadian grocery store. I have yet to hear Rodney Weston (Loblaws) or any of the Sobeys announcing overall price reductions in their grocery stores. Well over 40% of the products in any Canadian grocery story or supermarket are IMPORTED and paid for with a Canadian dollar that is worth more then the American greenback. I notice food prices are not coming down. I can and do live without ever shopping at Sears or Wal-mart. Salvation Army and Thrift stores are where my clothing comes from as we are poor working stiffs. I cannot live without food and must purchase it and yet, the grocery giants are getting richer and imported food (most of your supermarket food is imported)
is NOT GETTING CHEAPER. How about we all head for the boarder to get our groceries.



Remember, use your cell-phone to take pictures of RCMP or any police force doing stupid or violent activities. Photo any civil servant who is wasting your tax dollar by being lazy or stupid. It is not Big Brother who is watching but a Canadian public armed with cell phone cameras and digital cameras who now will make bad cops and bad policing public.

LIFE AS A NB CIVIL SERVANT

When I first received word that I had been hired as a seasonal civil servant, it felt like I had won a lottery. Still, never having won a lottery, it is a close as I could come. Prior to this, I had worked as a casual employee for the provincial government, one of approximately 5,000 casual employees the provincial government hires. Casual employees in this backwater province are not allowed to join a union, are not paid benefits, have no re-call rights, no access to a medical plan or no seniority. Despite recent rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada guaranteeing under the Canadian Charter of Rights that any Canadian has the fundemental right to join a union in Canada. Except in New Brunswick. So I was more then thrilled to join the provincial civil service, have pension benefits, seniority rights, health plan and become a member of the largest trade union in Canada, CUPE. Little did I realize that CUPE actually stands for Canadian Under Paid Employees.

I went to work. In my first couple of years working for my new employeer; well, it was a nightmare. I had mental health issues that were not diagnosed and found out I had a chronic, clinical depression. Boy did that impress my new employer. On one hand, my employer, The Province of New Brunswick offered me help, counselling and some support while on a local level managers treated me like something stuck to the bottom of their shoe. These managers still do not have any kind of understanding on mental health issues, depression which will affect 1 in 4 Canadian workers in their lifetime, and could not have cared less. For example, my employer forced me to take an anger management course that was designed for men in spousal abuse situations. The taxpayers of NB paid for this even though at the time I lived alone, was not married, and had my old hunting dog for companionship. Still, I made the best of it, learned from the program, and applied it to life with my old hound dog.

I thought the government of New Brunswick with its massive civil service (one of the largest in Canada) would be leaders in industry and everything they did. Sorta setting an example or standard the government would like to see in other industry. Civil servants are not trend setters, nor innovaters, nor any kind of leader in their particular field. The old joke about civil servants being so slow to accomplish anything is they only work with one hand; their other hand is busy covering their butt in everything they do.

I spent most of my working life working in the private sector and what a shock to a working man to see how the government does it. Simple decisions that would take a couple of weeks to complete in the private sector takes the civil servace years to complete. A good example is the department where I work. There have been over a dozen full time jobs vacant now for at least two years. It will take my department at least another year to fill these jobs. Three years to fill a dozen positions!!! In the private sector; this would take one month.

Having a strong union is no guarantee of justice happening for the working man in New Brunswick. Seasonal civil servants, and there are full time civil servants ,(far more seasonal civil servants then full time), are routinely laid-off for two weeks every year. This practice continues only on the basis that "management has always done this and will continue to do this." This is spite of the provincial civil service act not requiring a two week lay-off, a union contract that does not require a two week lay off and this continues in spite of a labour shortage in the province. The seasonal civil servant is laid-off for two weeks, then the employer holds back his pay for two weeks (illegal to hold back pay in NB - Employment Standards Act). One month without a pay cheque. The reason for doing this, the logical reason given; we have always done it this way. CUPE has been fighting this issue with successive governments for well over 20 years. Another lousy Christmas in this civil servants household. While I am laid off the work I do is still done by a non-unionized employee and the abuses these people suffer under this system is appalling. Casuals in my work unit are forced to work 16 hours straight without any break (as I do) and work back to back long long shifts.

I never went hungry when I was working in the private sector. My wife and I often do now . My co-workers, all of them, live hand to mouth, pay cheque to pay cheque. I earn a whopping $32,000 year. I have a wife, a dog and a cat. I live within 4 miles of where I work to be available for overtime whenever my employer needs me. The last overtime I was offerred by my employer was 4 years ago. Again, favorites, and nepotism, in spite of a union contract that clearly states how overtime is to be divided in the work place, are the rule here.

My wife cannot work because of illness. We do not gamble, drink booze, own a satellite dish, own a dvd player, own a VCR, own any toys. We do not eat out, go to movies and have no hobbies. We earn scarely enough to exist. We have trouble paying our massive power bill, telephone bill. We own a 12 year old vehicle that is broken down more then it runs. We cannot afford repairs. We own an ancient dial-up computer that we paid too much money for (poor people never get a "deal" on anything). We barely exist. I am embarassed to admit that I have never bought my wife a birthday gift or any Christmas gift since we were married 3 years ago. There is no money to do so.

However, my union and employer all feel that we get paid pretty well as everyone in my work unit is considered "unskilled labour." As New Brunswick has a functional illiteracy rate of 50%, my work unit has a great number of provincial civil servants who are completely illerate. These men can sign their name, that's it. As one union official told me,"most of the men in this local, if they were not working here, would be on welfare." There are exceptions in my local to this rule, it matters not.


Our provincial elected leaders or the temporary rulers in Fredericton (always an election coming) want New Brunswick to be self-sufficient in 25 years. An admirable goal. It cannot and will not be achieved unless the province gets rid of these backward thinking individuals who manage, so poorly, our civil service.