Newfoundland is Slowly Sinking: Expert

Lord t’underin’!

A geography expert says Newfoundland is slowly sinking in the Atlantic Ocean,  posing a risk to residents living close to the province’s coastline.

Norm Catto, an expert in coastline erosion at Memorial University, estimates  certain parts of the island province are sinking at a rate of 3.5 millimetres  per year.

Catto told CTV News Channel on Sunday that the erosion does not pose an  immediate risk, but said planners must be mindful of the rising coastline.

Guess one day, they’ll all have to move away…  Like they’ve always done, bitching all the while…

Good thing you’re part of Confederation, rather than a foreign country, hmmm, Newfoundlanders?

How to Lose $260K at Tim Hortons: Let the Government Run It and Pay Staff $28/hour

Stupid, stupid, stupid.  (HT: Free Northerner)

When the Tim Hortons at Newfoundland’s Health Sciences Centre opened in 1995, the hospital’s administrator predicted the shop would turn an annual profit of up to $300,000 and pay for seven nurses — or 11 support staff, or maybe even pay for the increase in chemotherapy drugs for cancer patients.

Instead, the coffee shop at the St. John’s hospital lost about $260,000 last year, offering what critics say is a cautionary tale of what can happen when the public sector gets involved in things better done by private enterprise.

On Tuesday, the Eastern Health authority announced it would turn the location squarely over to the private sector, where the average Tim’s owner reportedly rakes in $265,000 in profits.

“Let me tell you why [the hospital franchise loses money],” Vickie Kaminski, the authority’s president and CEO, told reporters on Tuesday. “We charge you a buck-ninety-four for that large coffee, but we insist that the staff who are pouring the coffee are Eastern Health staff, and they get paid $28 an hour. No Tim Hortons pays that.”

So, the store lost roughly as much money last year, as the profit a typical Timmy’s owner MAKES in a year.

“Somehow it became public employees running a doughnut shop,” said Lloyd Matthews, who was Newfoundland’s health minister when the location opened at the Health Sciences Centre in 1995. “It brings us all home to the issue of waste in health care …. [It] makes us all a little interested in where else money is being wasted.”

Doesn’t it, just?

Thai Workers Flown in to Staff Newfoundland Fish Plant

Weren’t there any Newfoundlanders, or other Canadians, who might have been happy to have had those jobs?

In what is believed to be a first in Newfoundland and Labrador, foreign workers have been brought in to work at a fish plant in the province because of a shortage of available labour.

About 20 Thai workers are now on the job at the Quinlan Brothers crab and shrimp processing facility in Bay de Verde.

Gabe Gregory, a spokesman for Quinlan’s, says the hiring of temporary foreign workers followed a long and involved process.

“The fact is that the company has demand for labour, and wasn’t able to fulfil it this past winter locally, and really is left with no other choice but to take these kind of avenues,” Gregory told CBC News.

Strange new world…

Two Newfoundland NDP MPs Reveal Separatist Sentiments, Flying the Newfoundland Independence Flag

Original piece at Radio-Canada’s site, in French; Google translation with corrections below:

Two Members of the Newfoundland New Democratic Party have decided to give equal weight to a flag associated with the independence of Newfoundland as the official flag of their home province, raising controversy in Ottawa.

The pink-white-green, a symbol of Newfoundland nationalism, is to MP Jack Harris a reminder of the strong feelings of Newfoundlanders for their culture and their province. To his colleague Ryan Cleary, Newfoundland, with its natural resources, is a “have province” which no longer needs others to survive.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage, James Moore, notes that the NDP “said they replaced the Bloc Quebecois as an opposition which is federalist. I hope this is the case. “

The NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, has not commented yet on the matter, saying he wanted to make his own investigation first.

I’m sure Mulcair will rap their knuckles over this; it’s surely the last thing he’ll want to have seen, as his party as a haven for Newfie separatists.

Regardless, this isn’t going to go over well.  Once again, the NDP are showing themselves to be, as always, ”The Not Yet Ready For Prime Time Players”.

What Moose? Woman Can’t Recall Dramatic Collision

She can’t remember accident or the drive to Gander, says badly injured mother.

A central Newfoundland woman, who drove about 40 kilometres with her windshield smashed out and her car’s roof peeled back like an opened can, says she didn’t know she’d hit a moose until she arrived at work in Gander on Monday.

“I can remember pulling into the driveway and my co-workers came out and asked me if I was okay and I said ‘Why?’ and they said ‘Well Michelle you’re bleeding and look at your car. I looked at my car and I was devastated,” Michelle Higgins told CBC Friday.

“The roof was like a sardine can. I thought, ‘this is impossible’.”

Shock is a peculiar thing…