Opposition critic asks where is help for PEI Internet companies

Currie accused the Ghiz government of having no plan for PEI. In the response to the opening of the Legislature, Currie the $85 million dollar deficit means cuts to employee wages.

Unemployment and bankruptcies are up on PEI while the Premier hides on the 5th Floor according to Currie. Currie said PEI had one of the highest rates of bankruptcy in Canada.  Read the rest of this entry »

Emperor Ghiz has no clothes on Rural Development Plan

PEI Premier Robert Ghiz with his wife Kate in Brudenell, rural PEI as cottage country

By Paul MacNeill, Eastern Graphic

For two years the Ghiz government told us to wait. For two years they told us to be patient, their long promised rural development plan would change the face of rural PEI.

The wait ended last week when the government finally released its report – minus the vacationing premier. And the most generous reaction after reading all 106 glossy pages is: ‘That’s the best you could do?’

There is precious little that will create jobs.

There is virtually nothing pertaining to immigration to rural areas.

There is virtually nothing dealing specifically with strategies to attract former residents home.

There is virtually nothing of substance for the agriculture and fishing sectors.

There is no analysis on the impact closure of schools, emergency rooms and hospitals will have on rural economic development.

There are no benchmarks for jobs to be created or population increases to be attained.
Read the rest of this entry »

Brown’s a nice guy but not going to put himself in the line of fire like Clint Eastwood.

Gail Shea I Need A Job

This week Fisheries Minister Gail Shea got a pie in the face. They say it was tofu. My favorite is banana cream but that’s another story.

In 2008 when she got her job as Minister I applied to work for her. I sent her this video application down below. She didn’t send me a video reply from her laptop video cam. Never wrote me back either although I waited breathlessly for months.

If she hired me back in 2008 instead of Phillip Brown, I’d have protected her from that pie. There wouldn’t be an terrorists from Newfoundland or armed and dangerous animal activists attacking her.

First, I an activist and we activists can spot another one a mile away, birds of a feather thing. I’d have seen that girl coming and whispered into my earpiece. The Mounties would have pepper sprayed and tazered that girl before she got two feet.
Read the rest of this entry »

Snubbing rural PEI one more time

Video on the next page.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Minister has been wrong, hid the facts and mislead the people. He only has himself to blame

Innovation Minister can't stay on his feet

Second Opinion by Paul MacNeill, publisher, Eastern Graphic

There is a massive political target on the chest of Allan Campbell, and the Innovation Minister has no one to blame but himself.

To put it lightly, the last few weeks have been disastrous for Campbell. Either through misspeaks, misinformation or flat out misleading statements, the minister has seen his reputation tattered.

Most troubling for taxpayers’ is the revelation the provincial government loaned Mariner Seafoods $500,000 for crab processing. The issue is whether the loan violates the long contentious Polar Foods agreement with Ocean Choice International. If it violates the agreement taxpayers could be on the hook for millions.

Under terms of the Polar agreement government cannot offer support to competitors of Ocean Choice without offering similar support to OCI.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a help but not much

Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, June 10, 2009 with story from CBC

Gail Shea announced $65 million in help for the struggling lobster industry. While any help is good, the numbers don’t look that positive.
Read the rest of this entry »

CRA Poll May 09 has Robert Ghiz down (click for larger image)

Liberal Robert Ghiz drops to 38% in CRA poll while the Tories have no leader

PEI’s Premier Robert Ghiz is at his most unpopular since he came to power a scant two years ago.

In the latest Corporate Research Poll, Ghiz is going only down to 38% in the latest poll. That’s 35% less than his all-time high in February 2009 score of 58%. Corporate Research Poll, Liberals slipping

The Poll taken May 12 to 26th, 2009 could not have taken into consideration one of Ghiz’ most unpopular moves yet – closing eight rural schools.

He is likely to dip below 30% when the effect of that unpopular decision hits the next poll in August.

Corporate Research does not put the blame when it lies but it is obvious to Islanders: Ghiz has failed to deliver his promise of looking after Islanders for a change.

Premier Robert Ghiz has broken promises to Acadians, Islanders with a sense of ethics and fair play, disabled seniors, fishermen, farmers, rural Islanders, almost everyone except his group of close friends and family.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ed Frenette PEI FA (CBC photo)

Looks like the government bail-out is an offer they can’t accept

Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, May 26 2009 with story from CBC

PEI lobster fisherman are learning quickly the Federal and Provincial governments are long on talk and short on help. The latest self-funded buy-back scheme means fisherman may get out of the industry but future fisherman will pay the tab. Read the rest of this entry »

Gail Shea, got the jump on Ghiz but fisherman left holding the lobster

Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, May 23 2009 with story from CBC

Gail Shea’s $10 million announcement to find an Atlantic Canadian solution for the decline in the lobter fisheries smells bad. $10 million for innovation will not go to lobster fisherman but to developing new markers, technologies or scaling back the industry. Along with Robert Ghiz’s tiff over who said what first, Shea’s words in Moncton about trade pact violations makes us wonder. Is Gail Shea backing out of lobster deal before the deal is done? and Ghiz storms out of Legislature over lobster Read the rest of this entry »

Gail Shea, Federal Fisheries Minister says oops can't help you boys

Ottawa says money for lobster fishermen would violate trade pact

CBC, May 17th, 2009

Federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea says providing Maritimes lobster fishermen with subsidies in this time of low prices would violate Canada’s trade agreement with the United States. Read the rest of this entry »

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, May 7, 2009

Lobster landings are down on the south side of PEI and have been for years. Back when I lived there in the 1970′s and 1980′s, the north side of PEI was suffering and the boys in Graham’s Pond were hauling them in. Times change and I hope they change back. Read the rest of this entry »

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, April 13, 2009

The story is exciting – sniper’s take out pirates – the adrenalin and rush of emotions with family reunification. Who cares about some Somali pirates or Somali anything? The world will go back to stealing the Somali’s fish and livelihood. Countries and industries will poison the Somali’s with more toxic and nuclear wastes dumped on the beaches. The Somali’s may be in a state of lawlessness. Are we any better for preying on their plight? Somalia – we steal their fish and dump chemicals and nuclear waste

Hey! Stop making the West ransom it’s ships as they pass your coast.

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, April 8, 2009

With the typical hypocrisy of the Western developed world, we are aghast at the piracy off the coast of Somalia. Today a tanker with 21 Americans is being held for ransom, probably $1 million. The ransom will be paid, and the ship released almost in a business-like way, except the Somalis use rocket propelled grenades. Torn by decades of civil war, we consider Somalia a lawless country, unfit for our support or assistance. Read the rest of this entry »