Island Edition began on Nov. 14, 2011 as a sandbox project for myself, an unemployed journalist. I sent invitations out hoping to find several people who could contribute a few features and news stories each month. Very few people expressed interest in contributing to the site.

I, along with two regular column writers, continued to keep the site updated daily. My portion of the project was to produce news stories, which can be time consuming when you factor in the time it takes to interview, research, photograph, write and edit. We did this work for free, finding the overwhelming support that came from Islanders to be worth more than money.

But as winter turned to spring, the opportunity to  make more money arose, as it does for many Islanders. With bills stacking up, I had no choice but to accept more hours from my employer and to put Island Edition on the back burner.

Island Edition will return in the months to come

While the site has been left outdated, I am still working hard to develop a strong concept for independent news for Islanders. I hope to re-launch Island Edition before its first birthday this November with a more sustainable plan. In the meantime, the hundreds of stories we produced over the first four months will remain in our archives.

Thank you for reading,

- Andrew Chisholm – reporter / everything else

Several stories Island Edition broke over its first four months:

Police investigating sudden death at Prince Edward Home

Convicted child molester fired from job at CARI complex

Unknown man rescues blind dog stranded in harbour

Tourism Charlottetown Inc out of the event business

P.E.I. Right to Life board member encourages supporters to vote against Island woman

New company offering low-volume oil deliveries to parts of P.E.I.

Of course, these are great big gaping holes to the taxpayer. Auditor General Colin Younker’s report stated that 17 of the 31 contractual arrangements he studied had “significant deficiencies.” These included lack of necessary treasury board approval and more than half had not gone through the correct competitive process. Younker also noted a lack of documented contracts, saying it was hard to enforce work without one.

All we are hearing at the moment is about cuts and belt tightening and this is just another example of how the provincial government has been playing fast and lose with taxpayer money.

You could bet the entire tourism budget that if it was Henderson’s own money wriggling out of a pin hole, the “tiny gaps” would have been filled long ago.

Big Job Cuts

Job cut announcements are coming with the plopping irritability of a broken tap. Firstly, there was the news that 237 road maintenance employees would lose their jobs. Then Finance Minister Wes Sheridan stopped number shuffling for a few minutes and took up the word juggling. He announced that the provincial government is cutting positions to save costs – without anybody losing a job. Initially he stated that new jobs would be found for those who were losing their current position. He then clarified this with the confidence inspiring remark: “I think we have found positions for just about everybody.”

But it didn’t stop there. Premier Robert Ghiz followed up a few days later in a CBC interview by saying that 300 public sector jobs would be cut, including 120 teaching positions.

This came on the back of a Throne Speech where it was stated that the government would increase the number of people employed on PEI (despite unemployment increasing in March to 11.3 per cent). The speech also contained news that government aimed to increase the population of P.E.I., presumably to maintain the 11 per cent unemployment rate.

One cannot help but wonder whether the handing out of cash, either through ‘little gaps’ or more obvious bigger ones, is now going to be paid for by cutting jobs. If money hadn’t been wasted, would it have saved some Islanders’ their livelihoods?

Huge Joke

Robert Ghiz’s statement that an appointed school board instead of an elected one would ‘take the politics out of it’ must be rated as one of the funniest things he has ever said. Yes, the Liberal Government appointing people to positions would have no political connotations at all. Absolutely not.

It’s hard to know whether the premier thinks Islanders are stupid or he actually thinks micro-managing is the way a democratic government should work.

No Free Ride is a weekly political piece by Andrew Want. An Islander By Choice, Andrew Want has called PEI home for over 10 years. Having had an eclectic career, he recently turned his hand to politics and, subsequently, the study and critique of it. In his spare time Andrew plays soccer and pool and listens to obscure British music. He lives in Charlottetown with his two daughters, who keep his spare time minimal.

NDP Leader James Rodd believes that it’s time for government spending
cuts and job loss to be directly felt by those responsible for the
Island’s economy and the well-being of its citizens.

“The Premier announces hundreds of job cuts and then introduces
legislation to maintain his own income at its current level,” Rodd noted.
“Meanwhile, his government funds studies that it then ignores and spends
money on untendered contracts that violate its own rules.”

Finance Minister Wes Sheridan announced that, despite a report by the
Indemnities and Allowances Commission suggesting a 2% pay increase, there
would be a continued freeze on MLA salaries.

Rodd believes it is hypocritical for members of the government to announce
hundreds of job will be lost while imposing 3% cuts to all governmental
departments, including unknown cuts in healthcare, without feeling the
effects of those cuts for themselves.

Rodd also challenged Conservative Leader Olive Crane to support the NDP’s
call.

“Initially, the Opposition Leader supported the 2% increase recommended by
the Indemnities and Allowances Commission,” the NDP Leader said, “then she
flip-flopped and called for a freeze to maintain MLA salaries at their
current level. Does she have the backbone to come full circle and agree to
a 3% reduction, to do her share in a fully proportional manner?”

If all 27 Members of Legislative Assembly took a 3% pay cut on their base
salaries, the government would save $71,519.14 annually. This figure is
roughly equal to two and a half times the average Island salary. Under a
3% pay decrease, the Premier’s annual income would decrease by $4093.14,
Cabinet members and the Leader of the Opposition would take home $3330.96
less, while MLA’s would see an annual decrease of $1960.32.

Note: This article is an unedited press release issued by the New Democratic Party of P.E.I.

As usual, I heard the “Moving Forward” rhetoric the government likes to throw around, along with some broad statements about their plans. However, there were a few somewhat more direct statements, which CBC and The Guardian have already worked on. So, now I’m just one of those unimportant voices at the coffee shop, talking about them.

1) Consolidation of the two English school boards. So, Lt. Gov. Frank Lewis read that there will be one English school board, while the French board remains untouched. Wes Sheridan is excited about this prospect, he said in an interview.

This directly goes against the suggestion by the Education Governance Committee. Bill Whalen, co-chair of the committee, said this move won’t save any money.

Well, streamlining can be a good thing, but this could be yet another sign of the government’s love of Charlottetown over the rest of the Island. That, and I don’t think the Western School District should end up emulating Colonel Grey. I don’t have the research in front of me, so I have to wait and see if this actually saves or wastes money.

2) The speech mentioned a shipbuilding contract. This is most likely the contract Halifax received. However, Lewis read about its benefit to P.E.I. and mentioned our past shipbuilding history before Confederation.

Unless people my age took P.E.I. History in high school, they might not know about stuff like absentee landlords and our “glorious” shipbuilding industry before the collapse that came with joining Confederation. There’s been talk of this contract helping out Georgetown. If it does, then great. I really want this contract to help all around, but it might be warships instead of fishing vessels.

Also, this could really screw up and not produce any jobs for us. While Canada as a whole has gained jobs, our unemployment went up to 11 per cent.

3) Equalization payments. These weren’t mentioned in the speech, but I asked about it afterwards. Sheridan said our equalization payments are down by $2 million compared to 2009. According to the Federal government website, it’s down $3 million from that year. Along with that, Stephen Myers said our total transfer payments are up $26 million this year, which isn’t just equalization. Again, according to the site James Aylward linked to me, it’s up this year by $15 million, and up $46 million since 2009.

I know, that’s a lot of numbers I threw at you. Our total payment this year is $513 million, with $337 million in equalization.

I guess the point I’m trying to make here is this: None of us have our facts straight. I don’t completely trust the numbers on the Federal site, and I don’t trust any of the numbers the MLAs are throwing my way, either. We really should get it straight, since the Island’s economy is based on these payments.

Still, my most vivid memory of the speech is almost falling asleep during it. I wonder if the boredom is intentional on their part to throw us off.

On that note, enjoy the rest of your long weekend. Whether you celebrate it or not, Happy Easter.

Thanks In Advance.

While it is troubling that it took job cuts for the PCs to realise that MLA wage increases were not a good idea, it is still a little reassuring that some politicians have a conscience, even if it’s an opportunistic one.

What’s more troubling, however, is that the press conference had another element: The PCs launched their “Island Voices” initiative.

This is where the people who are represented by the opposition get to do the opposition’s work for them.

On the surface, it sounds pretty commendable – the PC party shows they are concerned about public point of view and, therefore, want their direct input in challenging government.

Underneath, it shows the PCs for what they truly are: an unprepared and ineffective opposition.

The job of any opposition is to hold the government accountable by asking the tough questions and offering viable alternatives. What Island Voices does is show that the PCs either do not know how to challenge the government, are completely out of touch with what is happening on P.E.I. or have simply not done any research.

The Liberal government is leading P.E.I. down a dangerous path with poor spending decisions, secretive policy talks and a combination of recklessness and ineptitude. Even with issues that have arisen since the last election – including botched Highway re-routing, dismantling health system, fence sitting on issues they don’t want to talk about, such as abortion – surely a party with the history and resources of the Progressive Conservatives would have enough material to know what Islanders are concerned about.

Instead of asking for Island voices, perhaps they should occasionally check out the Island media.

Sheridan reacts to the federal budget

Finance Minister Wes Sheridan reacted to the federal budget by saying, correctly, that there was nothing in it to help growth on P.E.I. This is the same Wes Sheridan who is part of the government that has spent a small fortune on useless items that do nothing for growth on P.E.I.

Over the last five years provincial money has been thrown at such growth inducing items like a pedway under Grafton Street, fake waves in Bordon, help finance a white elephant hotel in Charlottetown and fish plants that shut down.

Sheridan’s complaint came within days of the provincial government announcing the cut of 237 road maintenance jobs.

Sheridan is right in saying that Ottawa’s budget does nothing for growth on P.E.I. But there is an old saying: Those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Layoffs, poor spending decisions and running an unprecedented deficit are not scenarios that encourage growth. Sheridan may be better to take a look at his own record of supporting growth before pointing fingers further afield.

Minimum wage increased to $10 an hour

Good news for the working poor – minimum wage increased on April 1st.

Those struggling to make ends meet can now relax in the knowledge that they are earning a whopping $10 an hour. Yes,  the hourly rate is now more than a No. 2 combo at a fast food restaurant.

No doubt there will be a run on luxury goods and exotic vacations, right?. Unless, of course, rent has to be paid or cars have to be gassed up or nutritious food has to be consumed.

Business owners will no doubt cry foul at having to keep employees in low paid positions. But they’ll likely get their break in the provincial budgt when HST comes in. And, of course, there is always the option of passing the extra costs onto the consumers – so those on minimum wage can continue to struggle.

No Free Ride is a weekly political piece by Andrew Want. An Islander By Choice, Andrew Want has called PEI home for over 10 years. Having had an eclectic career, he recently turned his hand to politics and, subsequently, the study and critique of it. In his spare time Andrew plays soccer and pool and listens to obscure British music. He lives in Charlottetown with his two daughters, who keep his spare time minimal.

The reaction to most of the stuff I show people is: “How the hell did you find this?” I can get lost in a Wikipedia session for hours and I stumble across some pretty weird stuff. The good thing about it is I also have a vast knowledge of mostly useless/probably inaccurate facts.

I also tend to click on links in articles and look up things I’m not familiar with. This happened most recently while reading an article on Vice about a crazy Italian psychic. In the article, the psychic mentioned Indigo and Crystal children and how they’re going to save the world or something, so I just had to find out what the heck Indigo/Crystal children are.

Turns out, there’s a small group of people out there who actually believe some children have special powers and are more sensitive and advanced than normal humans. In reality it’s just a way of making an excuse for actual behavioural problems caused by the parents themselves, who are in denial.

 But it got me thinking about child worship, because that’s what the Indigo/Crystal child movement is: extreme child worship. It also got me thinking about a milder form of child worship that’s just as creepy and much more prevalent in our society and has gotten worse since the advent of Facebook.

I don’t know how it happens.

You get to know someone before they have any kids, they seem pretty normal, pretty damn cool even. Then BOOM. They have the kids and that crazy side you never knew about comes out and it’s status after status followed by endless albums of the most annoying garbage ever. It gets to the point where you just hit unsubscribe and sometimes unfriend.

Everybody who has Facebook has young parents on their list who feel the need to post the most mundane of child activities in their status.

Your kid took a dump in the potty instead of his diaper. BIG EFFING DEAL. These are normal developmental stages in most children’s lives. Your kid is not special. I am sick, SICK, of people thinking their child is the best, most magical little being to ever come to this Earth. Guess what? Kids are not perfect. They are a work in progress, a not-yet developed human being.

I get it, the whole watching a kid grow up thing is exciting for parents, but it’s also very personal. Those special milestones, like first bath or walking for the first time, are meant to be documented privately through actual, physical photo albums, not splashed all over the Internet. It really takes the special meaning out of it when 50 other moms you know are also posting the same moments to Facebook. Keep it to yourselves.

These same parents also feel the need to post hundreds of photos of their child(ren), which I personally think should be outlawed not only because it’s annoying as heck for the rest of us, but because when that child grows up he/she’s going to be like, “What the hell mom? Why am I all over the Internet?”

Those pictures are permanent. Once they’re posted, that’s it. Facebook owns you. Nobody should be able to post pictures on Facebook of anybody who hasn’t consented to the photos or who doesn’t actually have a Facebook account themselves. That goes for friends and relatives, too. If your grandma isn’t on Facebook, don’t post her photo without her consent.

Here’s my advice to all the parents who are going overkill with the statuses and photos: The next time you go to post something about your kid, think first if you would post the same information about yourself. For example: “Brayden Michaelangelo has a MAJOR rash. Don’t know what it is. HELP!!!!1”

Would you want your Facebook friends to know you have a rash? Do you think your kid would want them to know if he had a choice in the matter?

Probably not.

Laura Yorke, formerly from Nova Scotia, is a 23-year-old journalism student in her final year of study at UPEI and holds a diploma in journalism from Holland College. Her column, Who Does She Think She Is? periodically appears on Island Edition.

Charlottetown’s street crime unit, assisted by Borden police, stopped a vehicle in Borden around 7 p.m. Friday. Officers found and seized $80,000 worth of drugs, including hydromorph contin, Dilaudid, Oxycontin and a quantity of hashish and marijuana.

Police also searched a Charlottetown residence and found more evidence of drug trafficking related to the case.

“Police believe that this seizure will have an impact on the street level drug trade in Charlottetown,” states a news release.

William David Lamoureux, 30, of Charlottetown and Peter John George Arsenault, 39, of Hunter River are charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking.

They are being held in custody until their court appearance Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.

Note: The information and picture in this article were released on the Charlottetown Police Services website.

A few cuts stuck in the minds of a lot of people. The penny is about to be eliminated, which I actually like. However, plenty of these cuts are going to affect us in mostly negative ways. I’ll list the ones I’m most concerned about for P.E.I.

1) Cuts in government jobs. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said more than 19,000 federal civil service positions across the board will disappear. Apparently, most of the ones eliminated will be from Ottawa, but there are federal workers on the Island that could lose their jobs over the next three years. Plenty of people depend on these jobs to get by, and now they’ll evaporate. In an already terrible job market, which I talked about before, this will only make things worse.

2) CBC is going under the knife, again. Their budget is being cut by $115 million over the same three years, which is a 10 per cent decrease. Ian Petrie, Holland College’s broadcast journalism instructor who worked for CBC, says on his blog profile that he got out before the broadcaster became a media sweatshop.

Their previous $1.1 billion budget sounds like a lot to one person, but try to imagine how many people and resources that money has to go to. Creating TV shows isn’t cheap. They’re already strained, and these cuts will further reduce their effectiveness as a news organization. I wouldn’t mind if the cuts only affected their mostly sub-par fiction TV line up, but I’ll make sure there’s Hell to pay if this means The Fifth Estate is taken off the air.

3) Bumping up the OAS to 67. I ended up on Compass when Steve Bruce was asking about what people thought. The quote used was the tamest, since I said we have to wait and see what happens. I still think this will screw up several generations, but people already in their mid 50s are clear. People around age 40 have to worry very soon, since they’ll have to work longer. That means they’re strained even further. This also means they’re keeping their positions for two more years, so they aren’t leaving to make room for my generation. This is bad news all around.

4) Environmental review process streamlining. A.K.A. “Let’s make it even easier for oil companies to kill us all.” This is going to shoot out oil projects faster than it should. Reviews should be a slow process, since slowing things down forces our brains to be rational rather than the primal mess they usually are. The politicians are using their usual “creates jobs” guff, but that term seems meaningless, especially when they’re cutting jobs in other areas.

This is more of a national and international problem than a local one, but this means oil projects for drilling near our shores are going to be approved more quickly, as well. Our water’s already screwed up; this could add black sludge to our brown gunk.

Along with this, the government will tightly enforce limits on how much a green charity can devote to political advocacy. Previously, Prime Minister Harper has called people who oppose the oil sands “radicals.”

People with concerns about the planet aren’t Commie-Nazi-Hippies, people.

5) The government is cutting $7.5 million from Elections Canada’s budget. They’re in the middle of investigating the claims of robocalls. Make of that what you will.

Things are already tough for everyone. We just have to be careful and have to deal with fewer jobs, less well-made news, more work, more of the planet burning up, and more potential election fraud. Hopefully, we can all adapt.

Thanks In Advance.

Edit: Changed a statement about OAS, when it originally said “retirement age,” and corrected a few typos. Thanks for pointing out some mistakes, readers. Let me know if there’s any other typos in the comments.

Sara Underwood issued a Skills Canada press release to media on Monday that included an internal joke calling Island high school and college students “idiots” and “dickheads.” The release, which was sent by email, contained a list of students who won their right to compete in the Skills Canada National Competition in Edmonton later this Spring.

Underwood ended her release with this sentence: “Following is a list of competition winners as provided by Skills Canada P.E.I. Idiots are identified with one asterisk; dickheads with two.”

Shortly after sending the release containing the comments, Underwood issued a second release in which she removed what she called an inter-office joke.

“I feel absolutely awful about it and I’m so embarrassed and it’s so unprofessional,” Underwood told the Eastern Graphic. “It was one of those inter-office jokes that should never happen in the first place.”

She told the Kings County newspaper that an initial draft release was sent to a few people in her office as a joke, but forgot to remove the last sentence when she dropped the release out to journalists across the province.

Part of Underwood’s job description is to proofread communications sent to media and the public.

When asked by the Eastern Graphic if she intended to issue an apology for her mistake, Underwood brushed it off by saying that she felt an apology was not needed because the comment was never released to the public.

“If the public doesn’t know about it in the first place, then why would we issue a public apology, which is then going to raise the question of what it was I had done in the first place?,” she said. “I reissued it, I did damage control the best I could at the time.”

Her manager, Greg Arsenault, said the matter will be dealt with internally.

The accident occurred on Rte 235 in East Wiltshire shortly before 11p.m.

Queens District RCMP identified the man as Glenn James Peters, who was the lone occupant of a 4-door Chev Epica.

RCMP say he was traveling East bound and failed to navigate the turn in the road, causing the vehicle to cross the center line.

“(He) went off road on the left entering the ditch and overturning, coming to rest in a field. The male was pronounced dead at the scene,” stated an RCMP release.

RCMP Queens District members were assisted at the scene by the North River Fire Department, Island EMS, RCMP Traffic Collision Investigators and the Coroners office.

The police investigation is ongoing, preliminary indications are that alcohol is not a factor in this crash.