Bill Graham to start hot war with Denmark.
Facetious? Maybe. I've always said the easiest way to save Goose Bay in a way that would satisfy the local citizens/ committee (i.e. we won't lift a finger to do anything; Ottawa save us.) is to start a war or get us into one.
Well, the only thing out there on the northeast frontier is the Arctic part of a little country called Denmark.
So stop your bitching, Graham Letto.
International wood products company Abitibi Consolidated has given notice it intends to close its Stephenville operation and shut down one of its two paper making machines at the company's Grand Falls mill.
The provincial government reacted angrily to the announcement.
In a news release the provincial government discussed details of a proposal to supply electricity to the plants, a proposal that both Premier Danny Williams and natural resources minister Ed Byrne dismissed as being unjustifiable to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The nub of the problem for Abitibi appears to be power costs and power supply. Newsprint manufacturing globally goes through ups and downs. North American operations are increasingly challenged by competition from plants in the developing world and China where operating costs are considerably lower.
The $300 million hydroelectrical proposal called for two new generators producing 60 megawatts. In addition to that development being paid for entirely by the Crown corporation Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, Abitibi reportedly asked for a discount on power costs amounting to upwards of $14 million per year for a total of 30 years.
The provincial government's tally of the cost is $455 million representing the costs of the subsidy, plus the increased costs to electricity users to pay for the $300 million capital construction program.
While Premier Williams is threatening to revoke Abitibi's timber rights in the event the company carries out the plan to shut down a machine at Grand Falls, this is the hollowest of hollow threats. First, revoking the timber rights as laid out in Bill 27 would effectively close the Grand Falls mill. It is difficult to imagine a government deliberating shutting down a major economic engine in the province's economy under any circumstances. The threat contained in Bill 27, passed under the Grimes administration was nonsense when it was first uttered and it remains a nonsense.
Second, taking that action would leave the province liable to being sued by Abitibi for unfairly and arbitrarily penalizing the company for taking what are essentially normal operating decisions.
The government's goal here is clearly to keep the two mills operating. The company, meanwhile, is concerned to keep them operating as well, but at reduced costs.
A closer examination of the electricity scheme and public comments by government ministers suggests that the only major issue separating the two parties is the issue of who will own the hydro plants at the end of the 30 year agreement.
This is interesting on two counts. First, the issue is relatively small. Abitibi need have no interest in owning generating capacity if it does not own the mills the plants would service. If it does not have the capital to build its own generators, then its share of the new projects could be as simple.
Second, despite the protests to the contrary, it is only logical to conclude from comments by Minister Byrne and his colleagues that government would be willing to finance a new generation scheme and subsidize Abitibi's power. The costs, described as exorbitant, would therefore not be so burdensome after all.
Perhaps this becomes more clear if one looks closely at the cash involved and the options available.
The government's estimated cost of the project is $300 million. This represents the highest of three estimates of the cost for building two new hydroelectric projects. In the ordinary course, the hydro corporation would borrow the money and then pay for it through increased electricity rates. This is what Minister Byrne noted when he talked of a four percent rate increase for consumers and a two percent increase in rates for business.
Yet, the provincial government just received $2.0 billion in cash from Ottawa. Amortized over 30 years, the capital cost of the construction project is a mere $10 million. That works out to be far less than one year's interest on the offshore cash in one instance or, a paltry sum even if taken out of the offshore cash.
Bear in mind that the provincial government and its supporters maintain that the offshore deal is worth in excess of $10 billion.
Consider, as well, that the $300 million represents the high-end estimate. Were Hydro to contract the work to the private sector, then it might actually be brought in at a lower cost.
Government could easily gift the money to Hydro and not be out of pocket for much, if anything. In exchange for this one-time capital construction, the government secures the jobs in two communities, guarantees that the mills have secure power in the event Abitibi wishes to sell off its operations, and in the worst case has low cost power to supply businesses and consumers in the province if the paper mills shut. If no money is borrowed, there is no interest to be paid on the loans and hence no real need to raise electricity costs to end users. Cheap power attracts business.
Beyond that, the provincial government can also simply sell the power to Abitibi at a nominal rate. This amounts to an indirect subsidy to Abitibi - no cash actually changes hands - and reflects a variation on the sort of financial incentives companies often receive in order to set up a business here.
For those concerned about the long-term, it is simply a matter of inserting a clause that obliges both parties to renegotiate the price of electricity on a regular basis. This allows the province to increase electricity rates should the world-wide newsprint markets rebound. And it precludes Abitibi from subsidizing its global operations with savings in Newfoundland and Labrador.
As much as we may all decry such subsidies, the actual amount here is relatively modest on an annual basis. Even the government's own worst case estimate is that the subsidy amounts to $14 million per year. The total of $455 million is based on the deal operating for 30 years. If Abitibi closes it mill or mills before that the deal could cost much less.
Put that up against the 772 jobs at Abitibi in Stephenville and Grand Falls and the others in the two communities that depend on the mills. Put the annual cost of $14 million in subsidy against the 408, 000 metric tonnes of newsprint the mills produced in 2004 at a market value of about $225 million. Then think about the corporate and other taxes the company pays to the province.
All things considered, it is possible the provincial government is not as angry at Abitibi as it might seem. Abitibi may be pushing back at a government which was already playing hard ball at the negotiating table. Read between the lines of government's news release, add in a few other considerations and you get the sense the provincial government will be putting some new cash into Abitibi through reduced power rates.
The offshore cash can produce a lasting benefit if it is used properly. Is there a better use than securing over 700 jobs in the best case and in the worst case having low-cost power readily available for a new enterprise?
Our respective reasons may be different, but Express columnist Craig Westcott and I are in complete agreement that the food fishery is a damn-fool idea.
Westcott has covered fish issues for years. He knows what he is talking about.
He rightly points out that guys like Jigger Jim Morgan, the former provincial fisheries minister known for his acquaintance with illegal fishing, can rant and rave all they like. Their arrest for illegally taking a codfish is much less than the poor inshore fisherman who gets to lose his entire livelihood from jigging.
Here's the link to Craig's column, which hopefully will stay around for a while.
Here's my backlink to a post on fisheries matters in which I first used the phrase damn-fool fishery.
From the vacuous space known as The Rooms comes this suitable news release issued on Wednesday by board chairperson Dr. Priscilla Renouf. In its title, the release purports to have the chairperson respond " to statements made by former director [of the art gallery] and clarifies information regarding governance structure of The Rooms".
The former art gallery director made a number of accusations in a news conference he held on Tuesday. He was suddenly fired a few weeks ago, apparently because he objected to the plans to move some of his staff previously involved in efforts like outreach and shift them to other parts of the corporation, like marketing.
He also criticized Renouf and the board of directors who approved demolishing the well-established brand Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador (AGNL) in favour of the pasty-sounding Provincial Art Gallery Division.
Incidentally, the name was changed since the gallery is headed by a director and in government a director can only head a division. Of course, the pedants of government could not merely consider the ranks and titles as being for administrative purposes. The word "division" must be in the title and the separate identity of the gallery assimilated within the parent cube.
In public relations, a response release normally makes some effort to rebut accusations if any have been made. After all, public relations is about communicating with people to gain and maintain support. It's about managing relationships and focuses on things like reputation and credibility instead of the highly transitory notion of image. One actually tries to say something meaningful, to explain what has occurred and give the reasons for it.
In this case, Renouf actually proves the accusations are right: The Rooms is in danger of becoming a gigantic black hole into which our history, culture and heritage is being sucked. There is the pointless repetition by Renouf of the corporation's mandate and the assurance that the board will work to achieve it. There is the matter-of-fact reference to the PAG without even a suggestion that giving a reason for the name change might be in order.
Apparently, we on the outside are not worthy of her efforts. She simply assumes that since the name is changed, we must all accept it. So it is written. So let it be done.
Other than that, the rest of the release is a collection of comments so devoid of any meaning that neither Orwell nor Kafka could have written a better parody of the soul-chilling banality of government.
The release concludes with this arrogant assessment: "The divisions of The Rooms - the provincial archives, art gallery and museum – will continue to enjoy unprecedented support from a broad public as we continue to reach out with a variety of dynamic public and educational programs."
I'd suggest Renouf get some public relations advice but I know I'd be wasting my breath.
Sometimes when you go looking for information, you actually find something really curious.
As part of an interview your humble e-scribe did on Tuesday with CBC television, I made the point that if the Premier wanted Andy Wells on the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, the easiest way to do it was to put Andy on one of the provincial seats.
Under the Atlantic Accord (1985), the board is made up of seven appointments, three from each of the federal and provincial governments and the chair who is appointed jointly by Ottawa and St. John's.
Here are the current Board members with their appointment noted in round brackets.
Chair: Vacant (Joint)
Member: Herb Clarke (Government of Canada)
Member: Lorne Spracklin (Government of Canada)
Member: Hal Stanley [former chair and chief executive officer] (Government of Canada)
Member: Joan Whelan (Government of Newfoundland and Labrador)
Member: Fred Way (Government of Newfoundland and Labrador)
Member: Vacant (Government of Newfoundland and Labrador)
Notice that last vacancy.
It's been open for a while and certainly since the Premier decided to call Paul Martin and float the idea of putting Andy Wells on the offshore board as chair and chief executive officer.
The question remains: why Andy as chair?
The premier says it part of fighting for greater benefits and that the existing candidates were too close to the oil industry.
Ok.
Well even if we allow for a minute that all of that was true, why does Andy have to sit in the chair and CEO job?
Andy Wells served very effectively as an excrement agitator when the Peckford administration appointed him as consumer representative to the public utilities board.
It seems logical to just put Andy into the empty provincial slot - which the feds can't veto - and let Andy be Andy. The Prem still gets to negotiate greater benefits, if he can, and the offshore board just carries on as the regulatory body it should be, headed by the excellent person selected by the eminently fair and open process that was already in place.
The answer to this question may never be known.
But since it is highly unlikely that Andy Wells could ever beat out the slate of highly qualified candidates already in the selection stream for the Big Job at the offshore board, Andy might just go off to sit in the empty provincial slot anyway, if the Premier feels like it.
It's a part-time job, so Andy could continue as Mayor. The Premier gets to have his boy stirring up the offshore board in a way only Andy could do.
Of course, if Wells does get the top job at the offshore board, will his view of The Narrows be blocked by the new eight story condo block being built on the site diagonally opposite from the board's offices?
Follow this link and you'll wind up at the federal implementation act for the Atlantic Accord. The provincial one is largely the same, but the federal one is actually easier to read and doesn't have a bunch of annoying shorthand in the official text, like using "1st" for first.
The Implementation Act
Scroll down to Section 45 and you'll find the bit that the powers held by the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board related to benefits plans. The language is pretty simple and plain.
Notice that under Section 45 (5), the board has to consult with both energy ministers to ensure the benefits plan submitted by a proponent meets the requirements of the federal and provincial implementation acts. What that means, in simple terms, is that there is no way for a development to proceed if one or both of the governments doesn't like the benefits plan.
Notice as well, though, that the act doesn't say that a fixed percentage of work has to come here, a set number of jobs have to be here or that any particular amount of work need actually be carried out in the province.
If you look closely at Section 45 (3)(d), local companies need only be given first consideration and then only if their goods and services and competitive in terms of fair market price, quality and delivery.
In Practice
In practice, benefits plans have been reviewed by the province and the federal government, even if in general terms, well before the entire development applications ever hits the offshore board. A smart operator would want to make sure that the development plan is a smooth as possible so they will invest energy before submitting the plan to make sure it meets the governments' requirements.
That's why it was the Premier and his energy minister of the time who were involved in the discussions with the Terra Nova about the possible transfer of engineering and procurement jobs to Newfoundland and Labrador. It wasn't the offshore board.
That's why it was Premier Williams who stated the province's terms for local benefits on the Hebron project.
Any visitor to St. John's knows that what Peter Mackay, DDS, is hopping over in this story from the CTV website is just a low barrier to keep vehicles from parking on the wharf, not a major barrier for threats.
There are several open gaps that allow vehicles to be driven right up to ships so they can unload cargo, people, food and fuel.
If Peter had anything serious observations to offer on port security, he'd have tried getting access to a major wharf complex, like Vancouver, Montreal or his own fave city, Halifax. The reason he didn't try anything like that is because:
a. his tight buns would be sitting in a local lock-up; and,
b. as a result, the photo-op wouldn't have been as...how do you say... appropriate for the point Peter was trying to make.
Of course, what Mackay is doing is called a stunt and it's what you do when you don't have anything of substance to say.
The thing is, Peter, your hopping over that little barrier (you could have walked around) doesn't reflect lax security; it reflects the low threat in St. John's as well as the obvious point that it is virtually impossible to "secure" the harbour apron without effectively closing down the harbour itself and half the downtown.
Heck, I'd go a step farther: pretty much anything on the south side of Water Street would have to be demolished including historic sites, major office complexes, and the building housing Provincial Court among others.
The buildings that remain would be facing a 10 foot-high concrete wall topped with razor wire and patrolled regularly by armed security guards and Alsatians. Kiss the downtown restaurants goodbye. As well, you'd have to figure out some way of blocking anyone with a view of the harbour since it would be easy to lob a rocket-propelled grenade from the upper floors of the TD Building or even the government's own office complex down onto the dockside.
You'd also have to expropriate the homes of people living at the Battery, and people living farther up Signal Hill. Forget ever seeing most of the Southside Hills or Fort Amherst again. All of that would have to be fenced and monitored so that terrorists could get in or out easily.
In another part of the TV report that sadly didn't make it to the web story was the bit where Peter and Loyola Hearn, the pretend member of St. John's South Mount Pearl, talk about the danger posed by the containers from around the world sitting at the Oceanex terminal.
Hey!
Guys!
Over here!
Reality Check: those containers had to pass through Montreal and/or Halifax before they go to the local terminal. That's where the big security issue is for containerized traffic. Go check out their security. Containers don't come to St. John's directly from unsecure foreign ports.
There are other security issues at St. John's Harbour Peter and Loyola could have talked about. But since Peter was too busy issuing nonsense releases like this one (Picture that Culkin kid from Home Alone when you see that Pete was "shocked") and Loyola knows squat about the riding he supposedly represents, neither of these guys bothered to address some real local public security issues.
Oh, and if you want to know about some real strategic targets in St. John's, some places that might just be likely security issues, I can point them out to any reporter who wants to take the tour with me.
The only condition is that you cannot broadcast where they are. After all, the Internet is a major source of intelligence for the bad guys.
The harbour isn't one of the sites.
And Peter Mackay, the supposed Connie security guru should know better than to identify St. John's as a weak spot in Canada's security system on the news media and the Internet.
If CSIS granted you a clearance, they should take it back.
Bonehead.
CBC journalist and blogger John Gushue recently offered a link to Contentious, a blog by Amy Gahran.
This post challenged people to think of a world without what Amy calls press releases.
With any luck and a modest level of effort, I can apply some of Amy's other advice about blogging and make my stuff sharper and more effective.
Old dogs can learn new tricks.
Ok.
To be honest I got this idea from one of the Liblogs but it was just such a flash of inspiration, I thought I'd make it your morning chuckle.
The serious stuff, like lampooning Loyola Hearn and Peter Mackay, DDS, will have to wait a bit.
Her Excellency the Governor General will soon be departing Rideau Hall.
The hunt is on for a replacement.
My pick is Paul Soles. Here's a link with a picture so you can see Paul has that Einstein thing going on.
Like Clarkson, Soles used to host Take 30, an afternoon chat show on the CEEB. At one point, Paul and Adrienne were co-hosts but she got the flick in favour of someone else.
Unlike Clarkson who became a bit of a social gadfly and pseudo-diplomat, Soles actually worked for a living.
He is an actor and since the 1950s has earned his living in everything from the old Wayne and Shuster Show (maybe it was funny in 1954 on the second go 'round) to Rocket Robin Hood and Spider-Man to This is the law. He also appeared in some other stuff, like moudly plays by some long-dead English guy. I think his name was Shakespeare.
Paul Soles.
Canadian Icon.
My nominee for Governor General.
Taking a leaf from the ongoing trend for promoting the most abysmal ideas in public policy proven ludicrous in other places, Federation of Agriculture head Merv Wiseman is calling on government to legislate a guaranteed minimum floor price for agricultural products.
Merv wants to implement Soviet agricultural policies in the 21st century. Way to go there buddy.
Where do I begin to explain to Comrade Commissar Wiseman the folly of his idea?
First of all, the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on tariffs and Trade is busily working to get rid of this sort of protectionism/marketing combines that do nothing but stick it to consumers.
Ask John Crosbie about protectionism like this. All it does is cause local consumers to pay through the nose, much like we do with gasoline prices thanks to people like Tovarische Doktor O'Keefe.
Since Wiseman admits that local agriculture covers only 10% of local demand, local farmers would actually be pumping more cash out of the province to mainland suppliers, if their floor price policy was applied fairly across the sector.
Second of all, Wiseman is making the call because of changes in the retail grocery business that have wiped out some of the local farmers' retail outlets - but farmers have done squat to help themselves.
Merv and his buddies need to explore what other small business have explored in the face of competition. Try going directly to the consumer at the farmers' market or through an outlet like the Lester's Market on Brookfield Road.
Wiseman acknowledges that his members are getting squeezed on prices by having these middlemen, yet at no point in the CBC story linked above does Comrade Merv think that maybe, just maybe the farmers should help themselves before asking me and the government to bail them out.
Wiseman in following in what is becoming a depressing local tradition. Everyone from Brian Dobbin to bits of the local oil industry (as in the Wells nomination) to the fisheries crowd (especially the Hunter/Gatherers Union) to the gas-price-fixers all seem to think that turning this place into a museum of stupid ideas that never worked anywhere else is somehow a good idea.
Oooh. Ooooh.
I've got a great idea. Why don't we run the entire province according to one giant central plan. We will have everything owned by the state and each month you can get your rations of everything. Ok, so the Soviet Union was a giant misery pit, but maybe things will be different here.
After all we are unique in Newfoundland.
Put another, less sarcastic way, some business operators and other people seem to think that it is the duty of government to prop them up at whatever cost to people like me and you.
Get a grip, Merv. I have much better things to do with public money, like helping people keep heat in their houses next winter, than coming up with some plan to fix the price of turnips.
Heck, Merv I can grow carrots, potatoes, turnip, parsnip, cabbage, beets and strawberries in my backyard for little more than the cost of my labour, as my parents do now and as my grandparents did for almost seventy years before that.
What will Merv want to do next, toss granny in the clink for breaking his strangle hold on local rhubarb production?
Federal natural resources minister John Efford is invoking the Atlantic Accord (1985) to send the job of picking a new chair for the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board [CNLOPB; the offshore board] to a panel of three persons.
Under Clause 5, the federal and provincial governments each appoint one panel member and these two in turn appoint the third person. If they fail to agree on a panel chair, the job of picking the third member goes to the Chief Justice of Newfoundland and Labrador, Clyde Wells.
No matter how the panel is constituted, the new process will look much like the one Danny Williams trashed a week ago when he proposed Andy Wells to head CNLOPB. The competitive process included representatives from both governments, chaired by Robertson-Surette's local senior consultant, Lloyd Powell.
The most logical panel would be one of the current federal and provincial representatives with Mr. Powell as the the chair. Mr. Powell is an experienced former public servant. There is nothing to disqualify him from chairing the Clause 5 panel, except specious political posturing. If the Chief Justice gets to pick the arbiter, one can be assured that the panel chair will be both eminently qualified and scrupulously fair.
It would logical to assume, as well, that the new panel will have to weigh Andy Wells against a group of other nominees, likely the ones already selected as a short-list as well as one or two additions.
It is highly doubtful that Mr. Wells will be the nominee. He just doesn't meet the qualifications, especially compared to respected professional geologist and former natural resources minister Rex Gibbons. Mr. Wells likely wouldn't even match some of the other likely nominees from the recently failed process.
For the Premier, this is his second failure on the offshore. His January offshore revenue deal fell far short of his stated goal in January 2004 both from the standpoint of the cash received and the policy objective he sought, namely ending Equalization clawbacks.
Now he has failed in his attempt to have Andy Wells, or anyone else, appointed to head CNLOPB by anything but a competitive process.
As for Mr. Wells, he has already given any credible challenger for the mayoralty strong ammunition with which to batter the otherwise unstoppable political force in municipal politics. Mr. Wells made it clear he would be happy to be rid of some of his fellow councillors as they would likely be happy to see the back of the mayor.
St. John's voters may now legitimately question Mr. Wells commitment to the city for another full term. If the Premier is suddenly so enamoured of the man he once worked desparately to oust, Mr. Williams may have another nice little job waiting for Andy.
In the matter of a week, Andy Wells has gone from being Mr. Invincible Incumbent to being a carbon copy of Brian Tobin in 1999. Any assurances from the incumbent mayor that he wants to keep his job and will serve a full term should be met with the skepticism born of the Tobin experience.
His opponents in the fall mayor's race, if Mr. Wells still runs, will have the mayor's own words to use as bludgeon. Expect to have the clips played over and over and over.
We may yet be seeing the political death of Andy Wells, the man Danny Williams couldn't defeat before.
Perhaps that was the real goal of Mr. William's offshore board play.
One of the greatest public policy failures of the Grimes administration was the imposition on Newfoundlanders and Labradorians of the Petroleum Products Pricing Commission (PPPC).
The progeny of the old PPPC, now under the Board of Commissioners of Public Utilities (PUB) carries on the useless practice of appearing to interfere in the marketplace on behalf of consumers.
The PUB is now conducting a public consultation on the whole business of price regulation for petroleum products, i.e. gasoline and home heating oil. Here's the link to the discussion document.
Don't get too excited.
The PUB merely wants to hear about how the regulation should be conducted. So much for thinking outside the box by at least offering the chance for consumers to challenge the very idea of government regulation of petroleum prices.
Well, here is such a challenge.
The PPPC is a fraud.
In a normal world, gasoline prices are set by the marketplace. The consumer price is determined by costs (price of oil, processing costs, shipping costs, etc.) and demand. Prices in Newfoundland and Labrador vary across the province and differ from the price in other places in Canada based on all those factors.
It should come as no surprise that gasoline was cheaper in St. John's, for example, than it was elsewhere. The population is larger which means, among other things, that a retailer can make enough cash to sustain his or her business based on volume of sales. There are a bunch of different retailers and in the old days, before Roger Grimes created a sinecure for an old buddy, they used to watch each other like hawks to see where the price was going.
The price per litre went up and it went down, and not surprisingly because the cost of the raw material never dropped dramatically the price never dropped dramatically either. During the Gulf War in 1991, the prices skyrocketed based on international tensions. After the war was over the prices dropped significantly, as one would expect.
There were calls for price regulation but successive provincial governments came to the conclusion that in the modern economy, regulation was a charade. They rejected it.
Then along came Roger Grimes and his cabinet.
In 2001, they created the PPPC and set up George Saunders in an office in Grand Falls.
They studied oil and gas prices using the New York as a baseline. They set a benchmark year and price and then announced the maximum prices to be charged to consumers across 14 zones. That's system that continues today, with irregular changes based on nothing more than international changes in the price of oil.
In other words, Saunders and the PPPC spent a chunk of money (from the oil retail companies) to recreate a bureaucracy to do what the market was already doing. The PUB discussion document basically asks people to help them refine a set of formulae and rules and models that recreate what in just about every other part of North America is handled by competition in the marketplace.
Consumers in other places grouse about prices, and rightly so. That's a consumer's fundamental right.
But they also have the right to change their consumption, as prices rise. Drive less. Buy a smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicle. In the case of businesses, they can just pass on the added costs to consumers, as they used to do.
And what is the upshot of four years of gas regulation?
Today, I am paying $1.04 per litre for regular unleaded gasoline in St. John's. In Eastern Ontario, I can buy gasoline for almost 20 cents per litre less. On Saturday it was about $0.87 per litre in most places around Kingston.
My sharp-eyed father-in-law keeps close track of the prices and takes advantage of whatever savings he can. He drives less. He bought a more fuel-efficient car.
But, by my informal calculation, that's one of the largest gaps in pricing I have ever seen in the 15 to 20 years I have been commuting from St. John's to Kingston ever so often. Gas prices are actually going down around Kingston whereas in this province there have been only modest drops in price.
The reason is simple: in a world where retailers are told what to do they will always charge the maximum.
Always.
There is no incentive to drop prices and pass along any benefit to consumers.
And don't believe the malarky of the commissars who tell you that if it wasn't for the PPPC prices would be higher or that if the PPPC ran "better" it would prevent the prices from going up.
It's a crock.
Gas prices across Newfoundland and Labrador vary from place to place, based on a bunch of factors. Essentially as costs of production increase, so too do consumer prices.
Just like they used to in 2000 B.G./B.S. (Before Grimes/Before Saunders).
But they don't go down as much as they might in 2005 without the PPPC.
Rather than continue the PPC charade, I have a simple suggestion:
Scrap gas price regulation.
It serves no useful purpose. The situation that obtains today across the province is exactly the same one that would exist without the PPPC, except that we never see a reasonable break on price reductions that the market would deliver and has delivered elsewhere.
And so what if gas prices go up? I'd rather that people thought harder about the energy use and the only truly effective way to do that is to smack them in the wallet.
Some people, notably the self-appointed gasoline watchdogs have talked about freezing provincial taxes on gasoline. In his one note-worthy foray in the public since the House of Assembly closed, Liberal leader Gerry Reid suggested that the province's gas tax haul be frozen at around the $1.00 per litre mark.
As someone else noted, that doesn't do a damned thing to help people on low and fixed incomes. It just makes it easier on the guy with the gas-sucking truck so he can keep sucking gas.
It sure as hell doesn't change the provincial tax haul.
As the PUB document notes, the provincial government hauls in a flat 16.4 cents per litre regardless of the base price of the fuel. In addition, the province collects 15% harmonized sales tax (HST).
In other words, if Reid's idea were implemented, the provincial fuel tax would remain at 16 cents per litre so as long as gas is being sold, the provincial government doesn't give a damn what the retail price is.
As for the HST, the province could only change its application in agreement with the Government of Canada. It could happen. If it did, the province would still rake in over 20 cents [math correction] for every litre of gasoline it is selling...just like it is doing today.
Oh yes, and since the PPPC system keeps gasoline prices artificially high, the odds are against the price dropping below a buck a litre anytime soon.
Dumping the PPPC would at least get rid of a needless bureaucracy and open up the prospect consumers could see some understandable changes in gas prices both up and down. In the meantime, as prices increase, consumers who can actually make changes in their lifestyle could do so.
For those on low and fixed incomes, the provincial government has the option of putting in place a program aimed specifically at the people who can actually use some relief from high home heating costs. They can easily figure out who those people are and the province can afford it. After all, Loyola Sullivan is profiting from both the high price per barrel of our own offshore oil and the marvelous HST on a litre of refined gasoline and home heating fuel.
Would that a political party in the province had the courage to suggest just such a policy.
It would indeed be a New Approach.
Premier Danny Williams suggests that St. John'’s mayor Andy Wells should be the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board [CNLOPB; the offshore board].
The Premier said that Mr. Wells nomination was part of an overall campaign to pressure the oil companies into providing Newfoundland and Labrador with a full and fair share of the benefits from offshore oil production.
Federal Conservative member of parliament Norm Doyle offered additional arguments for Mr. Wells'’ candidacy, more by way of implication than anything else.
The federal government has flatly rejected Mr. Wells, pointing out that another selection process is already underway to fill the job at CNLOPB and Mr. Wells is not on the list of applicants.
Theirs is a process argument: since the process is not completed, it would be unfair or unreasonable to inject another candidate for the job by another process. It is simple, neat and bureaucratic.
While process is as good a reason as any for rejecting both the candidate and proposition he came in on in this instance, the Premier'’s idea should be rejected for other reasons.
First, the Atlantic Accord (1985) [Accord] gives the provincial government responsibility for setting its own revenues and benefits. The Premier's proposal transfers that responsibility to an appointed board. This is unacceptable.
The Atlantic Accord establishes the overall responsibilities of the federal and provincial governments on the one hand and the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board on the other for the overall management of offshore oil and gas resources.
The offshore board administers "relevant provisions of the Atlantic Accord implementation acts and other legislation". [Accord, Clause 3]
The Accord reserves to the federal and provincial government the responsibility for setting overall policies through legislation, including the revenue and other benefits that should flow to the two governments from exploration and production in the offshore. [Accord, Clauses 21, 22, 24 and 25]
The Accord specifically provides that a development proposal may be approved by the offshore board but, if the proposal contains insufficient local benefits, then the provincial minister may overrule the offshore board and prevent an unsatisfactory development proposal from proceeding. [Clause 25]
The only significant reason the Premier has offered for proposing Andy Wells as chair and chief executive officer does not stand up to even the most simple reading of the Accord.
Second, the Wells nomination violates the basis on board members serve. The Atlantic Accord (1985) provides that the members may provide advice to both governments on changes to the Accord implementation legislation [Accord, Clause 10] and directs the board members will not as as nominees of the government which appointed them. In other words, the board members are to function as board members, not as proxies for either the provincial or federal governments. [Accord, Clause 12]
A more detailed reading of the 1985 agreement makes it clear that the board should not act as proxies for either government, thus making the Premier's own rationale for the Wells appointment a violation of the Accord. What else would Andy Wells be, except a proxy of a provincial government seeking increased local benefit from the offshore, when that is both Mr. Wells' stated goal and the Premier's objective in proposing Mr. Wells for the job?
Third, the Wells nomination, like so much of the Williams' administration policy manual is rooted in old ideas. As Mr. Wells noted in the most recent issue of The Independent, his understanding of offshore oil development issues is shaped by Cabot Martin. Some will recall that Mr. Martin was instrumental in developing provincial government oil policy in the 1970s and 1980s which led, ultimately to the twin disaster of the 1983 and 1984 Supreme Court decisions.
Beyond that, however, Mr. Martin's general approach to the offshore was the philosophy behind the Hibernia agreement. While Hibernia it served to start the local offshore oil production industry, the Hibernia agreement placed a higher premium on short-term job creation by forcing construction of a gravity-based structure than on the long-term financial benefit from the only way in which provincial government makes cash from non-renewable resources: its royalty regime.
The lasting local benefit from oil and gas will only come in the growth of a local industry which can compete globally, as occurred in Scotland. The Martin/Wells approach is focused exclusively on the short-term; experience demonstrates this clearly. Forcing a gravity-based structure would only have made sense at Hibernia if there was a competitive reason for using the same production mode not only in the four other oil fields offshore Newfoundland and Labrador but from other fields elsewhere in the world.
There was none and as a result the owners of the offshore resource - ordinary Newfoundlanders and Labradorians - continue to pay a hefty price for seven years of gravity-based makework.
By taking a different approach in the Terra Nova and White Rose fields, the provincial government ensured that it received maximum provincial revenues, while at the same time giving local industry the opportunity to develop much-needed experience in oil production projects.
That local business involvement might not be as great as if the provincial government had forced the companies to use local labour and suppliers in the short-term, but in the medium- and long-term, the cost of such an approach would have meant a reduction in provincial government revenues.
As it stands, Terra Nova will pay out this year and by September, the provincial government will reap even greater revenues than it currently does. The same will likely occur at White Rose in due course and with no demonstrable or irreparable costs to the provincial treasury or to the environment.
Imagine if another approach had been taken at Hibernia, by far the largest of the offshore fields. A project which currently will likely never achieve payout of start-up costs, could be producing ever greater revenues as the field's full potential is exploited. The attitude of the 1980s, exemplified by the Peckford administration of which Mr. Martin was a key part, was surely penny-wise and pound foolish.
For a place like Newfoundland and Labrador, without large local markets, the only way to sustainable prosperity lies in being competitive internationally. The strongest supporters of free-trade should be local businesses since we have proven time and again that we can compete against the very best in the world.
Yet, the very approach favoured by the Premier, apparently, and Mr. Wells is to demand local benefits rather than earning them. All we grow with such a policy is the kind of business that will wilt without the protection of Government the Mother Hen. We have already seen this corrosive approach from our pre-Confederation history.
Our own local preference policies in the modern day actually prevent local companies from gaining the long-term work since we support other places to be just as jealousy opposed to foreigners as we ourselves would be.
Less than a decade ago when Nova Scotia was flourishing and our offshore was stagnant, local companies were blocked from winning contracts in Nova Scotia. Worse still, even when they won the contracts in the Nova Scotia offshore, their costs were raised to the point where it made such work almost untenable.
Local protectionism may have looked good in the 1970s and 1980s when we had no practical experience of the oil business. All we had were the romantic promises of Brian Peckford and his lieutenant Cabot Martin. Now that we have experience, these outdated ideas should not be allowed come back. They should be banished when we know from experience that they actually keep us in the shackles of economic dependence rather than developing a strong, prosperous local industry.
If Mr Wells is truly the offspring of old ideas, then to put him at the helm of CNLOPB would be to take our fledgling oil industry back to an ideological past that we cannot afford. To be fair, it is not Mr. Wells per se that is the issue here. Rather, it is the very idea embodied in the Progressive Conservative Blue Book and, as best as we may guess, with current provincial policy.
I say as best we may guess since we do not actually know what provincial policy is. A royalty regime exists but apparently the Premier is intent on negotiating something else with companies looking to develop the last proven offshore oil field. We hear talk of a new oil refinery or petrochemical plant, presumably to process Hebron oil. A new refinery or processing plant isn't really linked to Hebron, except by implication but through all the recent public chatter, no one can say for certain what the Premier is up to. He has not told us.
When we think the Premier is about to negotiate, he pushes Andy Wells to head the offshore board, as if the offshore board is actually going to conduct the negotiations with Chevron. This may stir the political pot and push the Premier's opinion poll numbers, but, in truth, it does little to impress those familiar with the oil industry.
Through it all, we see a familiar pattern, not for Danny Williams but for other Premiers. Brian Peckford spun tales of future riches from oil as a diversion from other issues he could not or would not address. Peckford claimed the nationalist mantle. Brian Tobin blamed the offshore board for supposed short-comings in offshore benefits, in as good an effort as tossing the monkey onto someone else's back as local politics ever saw.
None of these tales, as popular as they are with editorialists and others, are based on fact.
Worse, they divert the public from things that ought to be talked about.
Today, those things would be a reform of the fishery, of building a genuinely competitive offshore industry, of spreading economic development around the province and deciding what to do with the economic prosperity from our resources that is no longer a promise.
What we are facing in the Wells nomination appears to be a return to bad ideas.
If Mr. Wells is seeking a new job, then let him compete for it.
As in Iceland and in every other genuinely successful and prosperous place, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians should hand public work to those who prove themselves in an open and competitive process.
Anything else hobbles us all.
This post was originally intended as a simple comment on one posted by Liam O'Brien about Iceland. At the time, I was intending it to be a much long thing, but in hindsight, I don't think it needs to be longer. [I hear people shouting "Shorter. Shorter."]
In light of the nonsense about a start-up to commercial fishing of cod and the ever-present bitching about the so-called food fishery, it actually makes for a timely piece now.
The simple answer on fish is that we are our own worst enemies. People like Jim Morgan, spouting utter tripe, get media coverage and manage to organize enough political pressure to get people to do things that make no sense. Like fishing at all a fish population that by any measure sits at far less in total than the amount of fish we were allowed to harvest in 1991.
The formula is simple for sensible people: There are no fish; therefore stop fishing. We call it conservation.
For the crowd calling for a food fishery - or as I like to call it the damn-fool fishery - the formula is: there are only a few fish; therefore for the sake of conserving the stock let us fish all but the last one, and make sure that if any are caught they are caught by someone from Newfoundland.
Let's hope that the federal fisheries department will keep making its policy choices rather than listen to the damn fools in this province who continually attack it.
Anyway, here's the piece for Liam -
Liam O'Brien's rejoinder to my post about Iceland went up a couple of days ago. It is worth having a look at if only for the intensity of Liam's presentation.
Liam claims toward the end of his piece: "I think I know why Ed's decided to go so hard against the Iceland comparison."
Actually I don't go hard against the Iceland comparison. I endorse the Iceland model and wish its substance would be employed here.
Iceland is a very useful object lesson, as I attempted to point out, if only people would look hard at the two places in the 1940s and again today and see with their eyes fully open what it is that has made the difference between the two places. The difference is not independence.
In his lengthy reposte to me, though, Liam actually proves my point. Each of the fisheries quotes he tosses up were not about anything other than preserving antiquated and outmoded fishing methods well after Confederation. Numerous inquiries and commissions in the years after Confederation had recommended changes; the changes were resisted tooth and nail.
The quotes Liam tosses up about trawlers in the late 1960s were arguments against a technology which we had ignored and which was proving to be infinitely more successful than the small boat operations which persisted in the province until relatively recently. This is a point I noted in "All trout live in trees" and it is worth restating. The industry in the province at the time of Confederation and for decades afterward steadfastly resisted attempts to turn the fishery into a modern, thriving business. By the 1980s, the government in power deliberately stuffed ever more people into the fishery such that no fish plant work or small boat fisherman could earn a decent living from labour alone. The fishery could only survive by massive social welfare programs and became itself a massive welfare system. Even today, fully 89% of fishplant workers make a meagre $16, 000 or less from their labour.
This dole was not foisted on the people of this province by some evil design of the minions in Ottawa. The inability to earn a living wage from the fishery was not a plot by central Canada to have someone else catch our fish.
People could not earn a living from the fishery simply because there were too many people attempting to suck a wage from a resource which even at its peak could never have delivered a living wage to the tens of thousands working in it. When the federal government realized in the early 1950s there was little chance of making significant changes for the good in the fishery in this province, it resorted instead to improving living standards by income supports. As decades passed, dependence on social programs grew and the willingness to change the character of the fishery dwindled. The fishery has become less business and livelihood and ever increasing amounts of myth.
The fishery as it stands today is a testament to choices made by Newfoundlanders and Labradorians directly and through their provincial and federal governments. The federal government's fisheries policy is the result of many factors but it is too convenient to ignore the role which fishing and other interests from this province have played in setting Canada's fisheries policy in Newfoundland and Labrador.
If we need any proof that these damn-fool ideas persist and have influence, one need only listen to the radio call-in shows, examine the provincial government's 1980s-style makework projects or listen to our federal cabinet representative.
Independence has nothing to do with it, Liam.
As I wad cleaning out the mouldy drafts bin, I can across this one which for some reason I didn't post back in March. Here it is now, for the record if nothing else.
[Note: originally drafted March 10, 2005]
There was some reason behind Danny Williams' hastily organized road trip to Labrador this week involving the whole cabinet and a gigantic news conference of cash announcements.
There was a reason...
but damned if I can figure out what it was.
Nor, as I have discovered can anyone else I know offer a theoretically possible explanation that doesn't involve a misalignment of celestial bodies and their influence on undiagnosed mental illness.
The best theory goes that it had something to do with the byelection. Problem for me on that one is that Danny Williams doesn't get any value of putting someone in the caucus of a party he doesn't support when he already holds sway over every MP save one and a good few of the senators from this province already.
Plus, Danny's man - which ever one gets the Tory nod - doesn't stand much of a chance of getting elected in Labrador anyway.
The story of the Labrador road trip gets ever stranger though, when you take into account Rob Antle's front page story in today's Telegram. I have linked to the Telly website but Miller didn't post Rob's story there today. Instead, I am reprinting it below.
It turns out that all but $3.0 million of the $56 million announced by Danny Williams comes courtesy of Ottawa.
And...
it seems most of the projects involved have been announced at least once before, some as recently as a couple of weeks ago.
D'0h!
Add this trip to your Homer Simpson file.
Before we get to the Antle piece, I'll toss out some observations:
1. John Efford needs to take a hard look around him and ask the great Dr. Phil question: "Is this working for you?" Every successful one of John's predecessors never let a nickel of federal money get spent anywhere in the province without the very coins themselves bearing a tag reading "Courtesy of Ottawa". It is unthinkable and unfathomable and a whole bunch of other "un-ables" that John Efford continues to let Danny Williams claim credit for cash from Ottawa.
If John wants to rebuild his image that he tarnished so badly during the recent Accord episode he need look no farther than these sort of announcements.
Get a grip, John.
2. Danny Williams evidently profitted from the advice from his golfing buddy Brian Tobin on being a successful politician. The current Premier's short-lived predecessor was fond of announcing an announcement that announced an announcement of something began to be announced originally a year beforehand. His record may be six news releases and news conferences on a single action, but I'll let someone else keep a closer track of Brian's exact score.
Incidentally, Tobin was once described as being able to smell a headline a mile away. See Greg Weston's account of the Turner tenure as Prime Minister and Leader Opp. (Reign of error, (Toronto: MacGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1988), pp. 142-143) for the full story.
This Labrador trip has Brian Tobin's fingerprints all over it. If Tobin wasn't involved directly, then Danny seems to been channeling Tobin's ghost from the greens.
3. While this gaff isn't as damaging as some of the stuff we saw a year ago, it seems that Tobin...err...Williams and his political staff still have some fundamental difficulties with getting the basics right.
Surely someone knew that this money was old and Federal. No one saw this coming? Maybe the fine are of writing a briefing note that actually says something has been lost.
If the whole thing was one of The Boss' Manic Monday Moments, surely to heavens there is somebody on the Hill who can talk him in off the ledge.
I just shake my head sometimes in utter disbelief. Don't even get me started on the announcement today of a paltry sum to handle school renovations and repairs that appears to have been timed purely in reaction to the last flooding of a St. John's area school.
Anyway, here's the story by Rob Antle.
It may be a one party state, but at least it is entertaining.
Is there a matinee on Sunday? What's the entree this evening?
Text begins...
"Old cash in Williams' speech"
by Rob Antle
The Telegram
Page A1
The Williams administration previously announced plans to spend most of the $56 million it portrayed as new money for Labrador this week.
And the vast majority of the money comes from federal, not provincial, sources.
"Today I am announcing a 2005-06 investment of $56 million to improve access to health services, strengthen aboriginal communities, build and repair infrastructure and expand economic opportunities," Premier Danny Williams said in a news release Tuesday.
"This is the strongest signal yet that government intends to see Labrador thrive and prosper, and to see Labradorians enjoy the same standard of living enjoyed by residents living on the island."
What Williams didn't say is that government previously announced $31 million of that $56-million total six months earlier.
In September 2004, the province said it would spend $35 million to kick-start Phase 3 of the Trans-Labrador Highway.
In Happy Valley-Goose Bay Tuesday, Williams announced $40 million in spending on Phase 3 of the highway - with, he acknowledged, some "carry-overs" from the previous year.
But those "carry-overs" amounted to $31 million, or 78 per cent of the $40-million total.
Department of Transportation officials confirmed Wednesday that new, unannounced, work will account for only $9 million of the money spent in 2005-06.
Elizabeth Matthews, a spokeswoman for Williams, downplayed the discrepancy.
"As the premier stated yesterday, some of these funds are carried from last year," she said in a statement late Wednesday.
Matthews instead highlighted the positive aspects of other funding announced by Williams, such as money for social programs and other infrastructure.
Some of those infrastructure projects have already seen the light of the government news wire as well.
On Feb. 22, the province announced millions in multi-year capital works funding for Wabush and Labrador City - totals that appeared to be included in the $56-million tally unveiled Tuesday.
And most of the money involved is actually federal cash.
Every dime of the $40 million announced for Labrador highway work is from Ottawa.
It is the remaining cash in the Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund - the $340-million, one-time buyout from Ottawa accepted in 1997 by the Tobin administration for taking over responsibility of the Labrador ferry system.
Some $13.3 million of the remaining $16 million comes from various infrastructure funds.
The province offered no specific breakdowns on what money will come from which fund. But most of the programs are cost-shared, with the province picking up anywhere from about 30 per cent to 70 per cent of the overall tab.
The remaining total of about $3 million is broken down into a number of smaller initiatives.
Those include $167,000 for Labrador West residents traveling to Goose Bay for medical care, $200,000 for a hospital infrastructure assessment, $500,000 for the 2006 Labrador Winter Games and $70,000 to reopen a group home.
The Opposition critic for Labrador affairs dismissed many of the funding announcements as recycled news.
"After reviewing the number of announcements yesterday, it appears many of these initiatives were already announced or are being supplemented by federal money," Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair MHA Yvonne Jones said in a statement.
"There seems to be very little in the way of new announcements and many of the pressing needs and priorities of Labradorians were completely ignored."
Jones pointed specifically at the roads funding as an example.
"Premier Williams is trying to convince people that he announced $40 million for the Trans Labrador Highway," Jones said. "In actual fact, this money was announced years ago and is coming directly from the Labrador transportation fund.
"This is nothing more than an attempt by the premier to be seen investing new money in Labrador, when in actual fact, he is bribing the people of Labrador with their own money."
Labrador could be the site of at least one provincial byelection within months.
Two MHAs - Jones and Wally Andersen of Torngat Mountains - are contesting the federal Liberal nomination for Labrador.
If either wins the nomination, they would have to resign their provincial seat.
Andersen has also been linked to a potential role in the new Inuit government of Nunatsiavut.
The potential for another Labrador byelection was averted this week when Labrador West MHA Randy Collins said he would not run federally for the New Democrats.
Collins said in an interview that many people in his district have a positive reaction to this week's funding announcements.
He pointed to health-care money targeted at Labrador West. "I'm pleased to see that (the premier) kept that commitment."
He added, "Always, you'd like to see more."
Text ends.
Since I am still trying to enjoy my vacation, I am putting off the Andy Wells megapost until Monday.
In the meantime, here's the answer to an old Get Smart trivia question I posed a while back, including a reference to the SAGE from back in April:
The question was about the link between Max, 99 and Newfoundland.
Here's the answer as posted to wouldyoubelieve.com:
Airdate: Saturday, March 1, 1969, 8:00 PM
Writers: Arne Sultan and Chris Hayward
Director: Jay Sandrich
Carl's Rating: ***
KAOS has been hijacking trucks filled with electronic equipment, so Max goes undercover as a truck driver. He promptly has his truck hijacked. Max can identify the hijacker, but the man he identifies was killed months before. That leads the Chief to suspect top scientist Dr. Eric Zharko of having perfected a machine to bring the dead back to life.
Max and 99 journey to a small island off the coast of Newfoundland to search for Dr. Zharko's lab in the island's caves. Unfortunately, Zharko finds them first and he attempts to place Max and 99 in suspended animation for five years.
Tom Poston, who was the original choice to play Max, appears in a great over-the-top performance as Dr. Zharko. "
Meanwhile, in current day Maine, a small ship disguised as a missile tracking vessel slips quietly out to sea. On board are agents of KAOS, the international organization of evil heading to re-activate Zharko's base.
Ludwig von Siegfried, KAOS vice president of public relations und terrorism (I swear that was his title) could not be reached for comment.
Pause a moment today and remember James Doohan, who passed away yesterday morning at his home in Washington state at the age of 85.
Best known and eulogised already as engineer Montgomery Scott on the original Star Trek series, Doohan was an established character actor and veteran of the Second World War.
As a young artillery officer with the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, Doohan landed on Juno Beach, 6 June 1944. Doohan was wounded subsequently, losing a finger and reputedly being saved from a mortal chest wound by the swift action of a cigarette case.
Doohan became the embodiment of the artillery motto ubique, literally translated as everywhere, since his popularity as engineer Scott led him to appear just about everywhere. Try and find a news website without a mention of Doohan today.
Quo fas et gloria ducunt, Jimmy Doohan.
In your case, right and glory have hopefully led to a restful eternity.
It's been a real treat with Lynda Calvert hosting the CBC supperhour news this week.
For those who may not be familiar with the issues involved in Danny Williams' attempt to foist Andy Wells on the offshore board, just take a look at the qualifications description Danny Williams approved for the ad Robertson Surette placed for the offshore board job.
It's really important to notice too that what Danny Williams called a mainland company is actually the local office of an internationally respected head-hunting firm.
It's the firm he approved.
Here's the list of qualifications:
"Candidates will have an in-depth knowledge of Newfoundland and LabradorÂ’s offshore oil and gas activities, along with a demonstrated ability to manage an organization with diverse technical and regulatory responsibilities, and to work effectively with senior industry and government officials. Qualified individuals will also have a good understanding of the structure and operation of the Canadian and international petroleum industry. Applicants will have extensive experience in the operational aspects of offshore petroleum activities, including full knowledge of related business, financial, safety and environmental matters, and of federal and provincial government legislation and operations. In addition, candidates will have experience in dealing with industry associations and a wide range of non-government organizations. This position requires exceptional communication skills."
Ok. Leave Andy Wells out of this for a second.
nowheree does the description say the person should have extensive experience in negotiating benefits for the province. It doesn't even hint at that. That's because the chairman and chief executive officer doesn't do that job. Danny Williams does.
As for Williams' comments about the existing list being "too close to the industry", I'd like to know how anyone would acquire the skills to run a regulatory body as described above and not actually know some people in the oil business. Again, the Prem's claim about "too close" is bogus: it isn't the real issue.
Now think of Andy Wells and see if you can see which of the above qualities Mr. Wells possesses.
Personally, I can think of a few other jobs related to the offshore where he might be better suited than asCEOo of the offshore board.
If Danny is so amazed by Andy Wells abilities, maybe Danny would appoint him minister of energy and let Andy actually handle the negotiations on Hebron.
What this all comes down to is credibility and while local media have been avoiding asking the Premier any tough questions on the Wells issue, I think this is another matter where a little caution is merited before we climb back on any bandwagons.
Go back and see what the Prem wanted from the offshore in January 2004 and see what he accepted in 2005 while proclaiming it "100%". The Prem will be quite happy to retell the war story again and again, but here's the kicker:
Compare the claim against the facts.
Notice the huge gap.
Now ponder the Premier's most recent offshore foray.
Ponder that until tomorrow's megapost which will wrap the whole thing up in a neat package.
In an interview with CBC Radio's Geoff Gilhooley on 19 July, Norm Doyle told a story of being called by someone Norm identified as a lobbyist for the oil industry to make the claim that Andy Wells wasn't wanted by the industry as chair of the offshore board.
There are a couple of obvious pieces of nonsense in this entire Doyle interview:
1. Why the hell would anyone call Norm Doyle about anything to do with the offshore? He has NO influence over anything, let alone who sits on the offshore board.
I think Norm is telling a giant fib. A nose-puller. A falsehood.
A Gurmant Grewal.
Gee, likes that's the first time he's done that in recent months.
2. Doyle talks about having a strong chair as the solution for getting more from the offshore from the industry.
Norm has NO idea what he is talking about.
The Board doesn't do that job - Danny does.
3. The industry isn't the enemy here.
What Danny, Norm and da byes are up to is yet another example of misdirection.
They are picking a fight with the oil industry even though the oil industry has nothing to do with who runs the regulatory Board.
Nothing.
Not a sausage.
They want you to ignore Danny's efforts at political interference by getting angry at someone else.
4. Norm accuses the PM of having patronage on his mind.
Again, let's distract from an obvious case of political interference by accusing the feds of the very misdeed the province is doing.
The point is, Norm, - if you actually had a clue about anything - you know full well the process Danny is busily scuttling is designed to keep patronage out of appointments as well as keeping unqualified people out of key jobs.
Let the Accord work as it is supposed to work.
5. It will be Hibernia the Sequel: make-work and no royalties.
Underneath this all, with the way Danny and Norm talk, all I can hear is Brian Peckford talking about forcing the oil companies into building a gravity based structure for Hibernia.
Refineries. More benefits from oil.
We have heard the same sad song before.
The only people who pay for it are people like you and me.
We actually get less from the offshore than if we had not let political games trump the best interests of the province.
Now I want to know why Norm is joining Danny Williams in playing political games with the offshore.
Why is Norm Doyle telling yet more oily untruths?
How odd to hear Danny Williams crapping on Robertson Surette, the head-hunters who have bene busily trying to find a chief executive for the offshore Board using a process Danny Williams first wanted but now wants to scuttle.
Rob Sur's local office is run by a former assistant treasury board secretary - one of the most senior public service position there is. The guy is accomplished and professional.
The whole selection process was driven by the provincial and federal governments. They set the criteria; they sat the interviews and developed the questions. Rob Sur's job is to keep the thing on an even and impartial keel.
But media people - you have consistently missed the main issues here:
- the process isn't finished.
- the process is supposed to be open and impartial, not the kind of personal fiat patronage Williams is trying to make it (Don't take my word for it read the Real Atlantic Accord).
- The Prem already has the power to negotiate whatever deal he wants on the offshore - he doesn't need Andy Wells.
What CNLOPB needs is someone who understands the oil industry, who is professional and capable of running the board.
The selection process is designed to find just such a person based on qualities both the feds and the province selected.
Let the process as described in the Accord work.
That's another way we get to be principal beneficiary of the offshore: we replace the political glad-handing of jobs and hire properly qualified people.
Despite what Premier Danny Williams might want people to believe about the job as chair of the federal-provincial offshore board, here are a few facts that get in the way of the neat little story he fobbed off on CBC news.
1. The process isn't finished. The premier told CBC news that he rejected the short list. The problem is he shouldn't have seen a short list; the candidates hadn't been interviewed when he started pushing Andy Wells last week.
An e-mail came my way just before I went on holidays documenting the process to date; so far there was no list for the Premier to reject. He is pushing Andy Wells before letting the head-hunters finish their job.
2. What about a woman, Danny? Even if by some chance the selection process was finished, I'd still like to know why Danny is pushing Andy Wells and not a senior executive with bags of offshore knowledge like ..say.. Leslie Galway? If for some reason she wasn't on the list of five slated for interviews, the Prem took a strange step by passing over Leslie in favour of Andy.
Why did the Prem take Leslie out of the CNLOPB process? Or if she was omitted already, why didn't he just put her right back in?
3. Under the Atlantic Accord, the real one signed in 1985, the feds and the province must use an open, competitive process to find a chief executive officer. That's blank and white. If Danny wants to live by the agreement as he claimed during the revenue dispute then he should do so now by sticking to clause 16.
Danny Williams is trying a closed, secretive process instead. If Andy hadn't blabbed, we never would have known. In the process underway, we know that there is little or no room for political interference. We won't see some candidate flung up by one party or another like this was a banana republic: the most qualified person will get the job.
The Accord process is pretty specific:
- an open and transparent process, first and foremost.
- alternatively, an agreed-upon candidate.
- if all else fails, an arbitration process is described which takes the hands of both governments out of the job of finding a chief executive officer.
The Premier's attempt at political interference/patronage simply isn't allowed under the Real Atlantic Accord.
4. The Board doesn't negotiate local benefits. The Prem claims he wants Wells so that Wells can fight for added benefits for the province (What did I tell you he'd say?)
The offshore board regulates and manages exploration, development and production offshore. It doesn't set local benefits. Those things are negotiated by the provincial and federal governments. And here's the ace up the province's sleeve: under the real Accord, the provincial energy minister - namely Ed Byrne - can reject a development application. Even if the offshore board accepts a plan the province doesn't like, Ed Byrne can veto the whole thing.
He has that legal power and don't let anyone tell you differently.
Danny Williams doesn't need Andy Wells at the offshore board to negotiate a better benefits deal with the oil companies. That's Danny's job and he has all the power he needs.
So the question still remains: what is Danny up to?
- The process set out in the Atlantic Accord isn't finished.
- Even if it was, there is a specific means established for selecting a chairman for the offshore Board: Williams is ignoring both the spirit and the letter of the Accord without any reason.
- Why did the Prem take Leslie Galway out of the running for CEO to make room for Andy?
- The Prem already has all the power he needs to negotiate increased industrial benefits for the province. Why is he pushing the nonsense that he needs Andy to help out?
Maybe we could actually let the process - the legal process, free of political interference actually work as the real accord provides. If we take political games out of the offshore, the people of the province might actually get a highly qualified person to run the board - say a Mercedes, a BMW or a Volvo of a CEO.
I don't know about you, but I am getting a little tired of the fiats.
Not much of a surprise here that old Peckford cabinet mates Bill Matthews and Norm Doyle would get into bed together on Andy Wells as head of the board regulating the offshore, as VOCM reports.
Doyle apparently thinks he landed the money in the recent offshore dispute; haven't seen the householder but someone has described it to me.
Ok. So Norm is delusional.
What else is new?
Now he thinks Andy Wells would be a great chairman for the Canada Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.
Ok.
Fair enough.
But here's the problem and it is linked to Andy's little claim that he is the "official" nominee from the province for the job.
The nominee from either side hasn't been determined yet.
That's because both sides agreed to a simple process involving a selection run by one of the country's top head-hunting firms.
Apparently, Andy didn't apply.
Apparently, Andy didn't get approached by the head-hunters to apply.
So what is Andy Wells?
right now he is a guy the Prem is playing with for some reason.
At some point Danny will tell us, if the mood strikes him.
Maybe the Telegram could submit an access request to see if Karen Ryan has polled on this subject.
At least then we'd know the Prem was actually involved.
We'd hear the denials all the way up here in Kingston.
John Efford was absolutely right when he told CBC news that there was an agreed upon process to find a new chair for the offshore board - and Wells wasn't on the list.
And Andy Wells is right when he says that he knows nothing more than that the Prem suggested Wells' name.
The problem is, Andy, the process is not being followed and the Premier knows full well that his suggestion is offside; maybe more like throwing a monkey-wrench into the works.
So the simple question is this:
What game is Danny Williams playing?
There's a story today on VOCM that I picked up last week before leaving on vacation:
Despite there being a process already in place to find a highly qualified candidate to head the Canada Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, Danny Williams is pushing the appointment of Andy Wells outside the process.
Both the feds and the province agreed to have a national head-hunting company find a new chair for CNLOPB. Ads were placed across the country in April and a raft of highly qualified, local applicants have been screened down to the point where interviews are due to start if they haven't started already.
So where is this plan to appoint Andy Wells coming from?
Straight out of Danny Williams head.
But why?
Well, here are a couple of scenarios:
1. Wells, who knows little about oil and gas regulation but much about kicking up a stink, would be well positioned to bugger around with the forthcoming Hebron proposal. Wells would be a tag team with the Premier to try and push Chevron around a bit and since both men are of similar minds, there'd be less bickering between the two of them than between them and the oil companies.
In this case, Andy would owe his job to Danny, too which would help keep the waters smooth.
Since Andy is supposedly tight with the Prime Minister, Williams probably figures Wells would be a hard one for Paul Martin to reject. If the PM does reject Andy then Wells will likely kick up a fuss and the Prem can claim that the PM doesn't want a strong Newfoundlander on the Board.
Danny would be full of crap if he made that argument but hey, it is something he is almost guaranteed to try. I can hear the Premier on Open Line, Crap Talk and Night Line now.
All things considered, Williams probably figures he comes out a winner either way it goes.
Don't count on it.
2. Maybe Williams doesn't like some of the contenders for the CNLOPB job. He's in a position to know who they are, unlike the rest of us. Williams just removed one candidate by appointing her - out of the blue - to a backwater job as his deputy business minister. Maybe he wants to block the rest by going outside a process designed to find a highly qualified, professional senior executive - in other words, the ideal candidate for the job.
3. Maybe he wants to open the Mayor's job to his own hand-picked guy. Don't be surprised if someone known to be tight to the Prem suddenly emerges as a likely candidate for Andy's job at City Hall. If all goes well, Williams would wind up owning City Hall and CNLOPB.
Regardless of the reason, I just don't see a case for appointing Andy Wells to head CNLOPB. If Wells was so interested in the job, he had plenty of time to apply. If the head-hunting firm thought he was such a qualified candidate they'd have gone hunting Wells already.
This little scenario smells pretty suspicious. I'd be for sticking with the process and see who comes out on top.
But hey, if Danny wants to go outside the process, I have a candidate for him:
Lloyd Matthews.
How can you possibly turn him down, Danny?
After all, Danny knows Lloyd's daughter really well.
It's got bells on it.
The man accused of beating Premier Danny Williams' son (also called Danny Williams) was acquitted this week amid accusations that the Premier and his officials had improperly interfered in the police investigation into the case and the subsequent prosecution.
Little surprise therefore that the family lawyer, and the Prem's former law partner, Steve Marshall is rushing forward to say two things:
1. In an interview in the Telly on Thursday, Marshall acknowledged that Danny Williams the Elder called the police at about 0400 on the morning after the assault. According to Marshall, the Prem wanted to ask the police what the procedure was in this case.
That's where I first yelled bullshit.
If Marshall is to be believed, experienced lawyer Danny Williams, Queen's Counsel, a guy who has represented numerous civil and criminal defendants over the years was suddenly struck stupid. He apparently forgot the procedure one should follow (or that the police should follow) after someone beats the crap out of your adult son.
The story would be plain bullshit if Williams was still just a downtown lawyer.
But, when the guy is also the Premier of the province, Marshall's story turns into something else entirely - more like finely aged bovine excreta.
Not only was Williams ignorant of the law and police procedure, according to Marshall but he also decided that apparently it didn't matter that he was the Queen's first minister in the province and that maybe a call to the local cops might not put their whole system a bit out of whack.
If Marshall is to be believed, the Premier sees nothing wrong with having the Premier of the province picking up the phone and calling the local cops. This is normal, in Marshall's world, and then everyone just goes back to Tim's.
Even if the Prem's call was really, golly gee, just to see what to do next, apparently neither Williams then nor Marshall now think for one tiny instant that maybe, just maybe, the constable that answered the phone might be forced to change his underpants because Williams - the frickin' Premier - was speaking with him personally about a police investigation, underway or pending. The tone of the call was likely not calm, incidentally, if the Premier's reputed mercurial temper was in full bloom at the time.
Now to be fair, had Williams and his lawyer stuck to a more plausible line to try and deflect attention from the political attack the Prem is facing over the call, they might just have been believed. (Lesson learned: Never hire lawyers to handle public relations.)
After all, the police are supposed to take an attack on any Premier or his family damned seriously. I wouldn't want it any other way. Had the Premier been right in his conspiracy theory and adult son Danny got the crap kicked out of him for political reasons, then we should expect the local constab to drop everything and put an end to violence that has a huge political taint to it.
I'd expect the Chief of Police to take notice, for the case to be assigned to Major Crimes and, when it gets to the Crown prosecutor's office, that it is handled by the SPU. That's the Special Prosecutions Unit where the top prosecutors go. It's a sensible approach for a whole bunch of reason.
But here's the problem.
Williams and Marshall are telling an implausible story.
The political thing was bullshit from the start.
The Premier screwed up big-time.
Not only did he - the Premier - threaten people/make false public accusations, he made the call to the cops. Marshall admitted it and his explanation is as unbelievable as the testimony of three guys who were so hammered on the night of the assault they likely had trouble standing up straight.
Even if it was an innocent call, it was grossly inappropriate and that's why he shouldn't have done it. Report it to the cops - better yet have your principal assistant do it - and let them call you back. Keep the Premier himself and the Office as far from the investigation as possible. He ain't just - and never was - Danny from the Block, as much as the Premier has tried to deploy that silly excuse in recent days.
Keep the Premier directly out of it. That's the rule. At the very least, that keeps the process clean so there can be no accusation of impropriety. And there can no genuine impropriety because, trust me, when the Premier of the province calls anyone out there, they sit up and take notice. Add some 'tude to the call and you can imagine how easily someone might start thinking that heads will roll if someone isn't strung up for the beating.
Besides, if Danny Williams doesn't get it that the office he holds carries power, then he is simply a fool. I don't believe he is a fool and he shouldn't treat you and me like one either.
That leads us to:
2. Marshall's claim, seen here for example, that there is some indication that the witnesses who switched from their sworn statements to their original statements - i.e. "I was too drunk to recall my own name, officer" - might have been intimidated into switching their stories.
Given the sequence of events, I am disinclined to believe this claim on three grounds.
First, it surfaced after the Prem was accused of impropriety in his dealings with the police.
That's a bit too convenient for my taste. It smacks of an old tactic the Prem is fond of - distraction. It's just like his constant claims of conspiracy whenever something happens that doesn't look good for him.
Son assaulted - conspiracy (Lone assailant, allegedly, but Danny turns it into a political issue by dragging the guy's Mom into it).
Sino-Energy story broken by media after google search - conspiracy (They actually did a google search, Danny. You guys should learn about the Internet.)
Canadians detest his flag stunt - conspiracy of the Liberals comms machine (Oops almost forgot a poll that kicked the crap out of that nonsense, paid for by the Premier's Office.)
But I digress.
Second, the story as presented in court by the two witnesses is plausible - much more than the Williams/Marshall fable. Under oath on a witness stand in a criminal trial, the two individuals, one of whom was the only eyewitness to the events, decided under oath to tell the truth - not what they changed their story to a few days after being contacted by the police.
The judge - the guy who actually sat through all the evidence - didn't think there was a problem here. If Marshall or anyone else had evidence of tampering why wasn't it taken to the police and hence to the Crown on the file for immediate action? In another high profile case recently, the accused found himself facing more charges related to witness tampering before he even got part way into his bail hearing.
Thirdly, Marshall has yet to offer a plausible theory as to why anyone would want to save the accused's ass in the first place. There isn't any obvious reason and Marshall hasn't even tried to explain why people would make three, count 'em, three threats for the witnesses to change their story.
It doesn't add up, Steve. It just doesn't add up.
This all looks to me like a series of convenient claims by Williams and his lawyer to draw attention away from what might actually be fairly innocent - i.e. a phone call from the Prem to the cops. Improper yes, and easy to explain, but far from undue interference in the process as the Opposition and others are taking.
With the vigor of their denials and claims, Marshall and Williams lend credence to the idea that there was something highly improper at play here and maybe, just maybe involved the kind of political interference in the judicial process for which someone ought to be tossed from office or maybe sent to jail.
That the Premier decided to drag the accused's family into the matter and repeat the unsubstantiated political angle to the assault is bordering on the reprehensible. Sorry, Danny Senior, it isn't common knowledge that the accused's mom was on a picket line. Besides, how the hell would you know that anyway if you weren't keeping close tabs on the whole matter?
While a day ago I thought this story would blow over, I am now of the opinion that this entire file should be handed over to a judicial inquiry immediately.
The next best option would be to call in the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and commit to making the entire OPP report made public.
At the very least, release the audio tapes and transcripts of any and all calls the Premier made to the police on this matter.
Now that the case is finished in court, maybe the local media will start interviewing people who were involved in this matter directly or indirectly. Lots of other details - long rumoured - might burble to the surface and be confirmed or dismissed.
But one thing is certain: the truth will eventually come out.
It's just a matter of time.
All I ever wanted.
Vacation.
Had to get away.
Vacation.
Not to be spent alone.
Ok, so that isn't the song everyone knows. So sue me.
As of 6:20 this morning (a day early and $600 extra thanks to Air Can-do-nada and the exemplary project planning skills of Halifax airport officials), my happy little family and I are off to a well-deserved vacation visiting my wife's parents in Kingston, ON.
For your not-quite-so-humble e-scribbler, it's the first official, feet-up break in a few years and I am looking forward to it.
Not as much as my seven-year old daughter, apparently, who told me bluntly this afternoon that vacations are no fun without Dad along. She wants to play cards (she plays a wicked game of Crazy Eights), go swimming and just hang out, and truthfully I can't think of a better way to spend some hot days in Kingston.
The in-laws have an in-ground pool which we will likely be living in, if the weather stays as hot as it has been lately.
Of course, I'll have access to a computer and my e-mail, but for the next week I'll be away from the blogosphere.
And loving it.
Leslie Galway is an accomplished senior executive with extensive experience in the province's energy sector both from her time at the Public Utilities Board and from her time at the Newfoundland Ocean industries Association (NOIA).
Off the top of my head, I can think of three jobs where her talents would be much better applied than as deputy minister of a department that really shouldn't exist in the first place and which, all things considered, still doesn't really have a clearly defined mandate.
1. Chair and chief executive officer of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. The job is available. There is an active competition to fill the post. While the competition may be stiff, the CNLOPB job is one that Leslie could handle in spades and make a solid contribution. She may languish in the Business department, but at CNLOPB she could sink her teeth in.
2. Deputy Minister of Natural Resources. I know the job isn't open, but the Prem can easily re-assign people. Again, this is a place where Leslie's experience and ability are natural matches with the job and the department.
3. Energy Policy. There still isn't a comprehensive provincial energy policy. Leslie would be one strong choice to chair a small team to put the policy together. If that wasn't in the cards, then the provincial government could create a small policy section, headed by Galway, to focus on future development of the offshore in all its dimensions. There's a job where, again, Leslie could shine based on her background and her most recent experience. If we want to develop the oil business for the province, then there is a need for something like the old petroleum policy section. Let's revamp it and put Leslie in charge.
In her new job, Leslie is going to be basically following the Premier's lead because the Business department really plays to the Prem's personal strong suit. She might find it a bit limiting, but while she may rise to the challenge, I think we could better apply someone like Leslie Galway in public service than the new job she now faces.
While it has been on the books since last year, with one full-time senior employee and an acting deputy minister (until yesterday), try and find some information about the Department of Business, headed by Premier Danny Williams.
I dare you.
On the government website, in the departments and agencies section, isn't a single mention of the department.
Not one.
If you go to the front page and click on the Premier's link, you'll find his smiling mug staring back at you but nary a word about the department he heads.
Here's what the department does, according to the release announcing Leslie Galway's plum new job:
"The Premier said the Department of Business, in close collaboration with the Department of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development, will take a leadership role in building a competitive economy that is driven by private sector firms operating in all regions of the province. Reporting to the Premier, the deputy minister provides executive leadership and advice regarding governments agenda and its policies and programs, in order to foster business success in the province."
Ok.
Now go back to the release, take a look at Galway's bio and see if you can match the two up.
When you have taken the two seconds to spot the big gaps, go back to hunting for information on the department.
There isn't much.
My favourite place for government information is the budget. Let's see what cash has been allocated, since there must be approval from the House before money gets spent.
The title page of the budget entry for the Department of Business says this:
"The Department of Business is responsible for providing leadership and coordination across Government departments and Crown agencies to promote business development and good business relations. This includes overseeing the design and coordination of broad business development policies and the coordination of common business-related and marketing activities, particularly at the national and international level.
The Department has a particular focus on working with the private and public sectors to develop strategic plans and policies for creating a competitive investment climate in the Province and for leading targeted business attraction and investment prospecting initiatives in key sectors of the economy."
Notice the difference between what Liz Matthews put in the Galway release and what the House of Assembly was told last year. We aren't talking about national and international level marketing activities any more. Maybe the role of the department has been shifting with the sands of fortune. Maybe the government priorities have been shifting.
But anyway, we are finally starting to hit some solid information.
Turn to the next page of Budget 2005 and you start to see some curious things:
The Minister's Office is funded with $45, 000 in transportation and communications and $5,000 in pens, paper and stationery. The Premier is the Minister. He already has a big office and a big budget.
So what's the 45K for travel doing parked over here? Accountability you say? Piffle says me. The Premier can easily account for his travel allocations without having to set aside a specific amount of cash. When his budget is presented to the House, his Clerk can tell the members how the cash is split up. Case closed.
Slide across with your finger and notice that out of last year's allocation, the Prem spent all of $10, 000 last year from this allocation. If we are still in hard times why did he allocate the same amount again? Cut it back I say to the amount needed.
Next item is executive support (the bit where Leslie goes). There's $381, 100 for everything from salaries to travel to pens. But the whole executive group: deputy minister, assistant deputy etc, only get $26, 000 for travel compared to double that for The Boss. Hmmmmm.
Then we get to the biggest line item so far: something called "strategic planning and communications" with a budget of $493, 900. That's funding the so-called branding piece that has been whispered about all over town but few people know about.
The initial market research to support it was done last year by Noel O'Dea and Target Marketing. There was no tender for the contract; Treasury Board exempted it from the usual process. The contract was worth about $98, 000.
In the meantime, the province's senior communications officer - assistant secretary to cabinet Denis Abbott - was the point-of-contact for the ad soliciting bids on actually running the ad campaign. No word on who submitted a bid or where the process is, but it will likely be a major piece. I'd expect to see upwards of several million dollars spent on "branding" the province over the next few years.
The natural choice for the work would be Target, which is so good that to call it world-class (the favourite claim of posers) would be an insult to the team Noel leads. McCain. Air Canada. The Irvings. North Atlantic refining. All Target stuff.
There may be some pressure to give the job to Craig Tucker and the bunch at M5. Tucker helped Danny get elected and M5 has done a fine job with the New Brunswick tourism account, one of their major pieces of business.
Last thing in the budget is the half million in cash allocated for business attraction. I gather this is the actual campaign that will be mapped out in strategic planning bit.
This little rump of a department is basically all cash, with very little in the way of management and staff. Lean is the way to go, after all, especially compared to other government departments.
But, our little stroll through the government website in search of what Leslie Galway will be doing to fill up her days, has yielded very little of consequence. We can't even find a definitive statement of the department's purpose.
I am still wondering why there is a separate department at all whose sole job seems to be the same business promotion that was done extremely effectively in the old Industry department. It needed to be refreshed and renewed, but that wouldn't need a whole new department. As part of InTRD, there would be another $400,000 going to project delivery instead of salaries in the new department. That's lean and efficient.
Consider too that when it comes to "a leadership role in building a competitive economy that is driven by private sector firms operating in all regions of the province", there's no better person for the job than Doug House who literally wrote the book on the subject and then put the book to practice as head of the Economic Recovery Commission.
There's more knowledge of the province's business sector and business development in sociologist Doug House's nail clippings than in every inch of most accountants I know.
He's already working for Kathy Dunderdale over at Innovation, Trade and Rural Development, the department that used to own Leslie's budget.
Why not just give Doug two jobs?
I am open to suggestions.
It only took the better part of two years but Danny Williams finally rewarded Leslie Galway, formerly the president of the Newfoundland Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) with a new job as deputy minister of the Department of Business.
Galway beat out at least one other contender, a guy from Scotland with plenty of experience in business development.
Now that the announcement is made go back and take a look at a few posts on the Bond papers from February, like, Say "A take of two cities, Part Three" from February 20. There's also some stuff here and here and here.
My all-time fave, in light of today's announcement is the NOIA news release Leslie issued about the offshore revenue deal. While it is linked in one of those bits above, here's a direct line.
Note especially the last picture.
I still stick by the assessment back in February and April:
The giant full page add NOIA took out attacking Ottawa and all the Danny-sucking certainly didn't win NOIA any favours with the feds. It also displayed a real lack of understanding of the Atlantic Accord and NOIA members best interests.
Maybe it wasn't supposed to.
The Australian government announced today that a special forces task group comprising 150 soldiers will deploy to Afghanistan following requests from the Afghan government, the United States and the United Kingdom. The task group is expected to comprise members of the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS).
The task group is expected to spend upwards of one year in Afghanistan working with allied forces in combating locally-based terrorist forces.
This comes less than a week after the Australian government announced AUS$207 million will be spent to improve the base housing the country's special forces command.
In May, Canada began the process of relocating its Afghan contingent from Kabul to Kandahar and switching roles to providing reconstruction of local civilian infrastructure.
Space Transportation System mission 114 (STS-114) will launch from pad 39B at Canaveral space centre 13 July 2005 at approximately 1531 hrs Eastern Daylight Savings Time using an inclination of 51.6%.
That means the space shuttle will transit across the Grand Banks, not too far off the track used by the NROL-16, the last Titan 4B mission in May that caused a near panic in the oil patch offshore Newfoundland and in the provincial government. Maybe google-searching is a government wide deficiency.
So how come people aren't losing their minds about an even bigger hunk of metal that has a track record of blowing up rather spectacularly?
Incidentally, as I noted earlier this year, the shuttle has flown over the Grand Banks on more than half its launches since 1981. Yet no one in the oil patch noticed.
The last shuttle mission had problems on launch such that the American space administration team might have aborted before that giant liquid tank made it to orbit; that is, had they known that on recovery the thing was going to scatter bits and pieces of people and machine from California to Mississippi.
So come this afternoon, I'll be sipping my coffee, watching CNN and enjoying the show, minus the local melodrama.
Incidentally, has anyone finished the internal review on the Hill to find out why the provincial government's emergency management system blew to bits when it first heard of the Titan missile?
Might be a good subject for an access to information request.
Incidentally, incidentally, how many provincial government employees hold valid security clearances as a result of their provincial jobs such that they could receive classified national briefings on things like, say, intelligence reports or other matters of national security? The answer explains a lot of what happened during the Titan thing.
Yet another good access to info request.
For those who want some entertainment, try flipping over to a blog run by a guy named Calgarygrit and take a look at his post on calls for Alberta independence.
I have no idea about the background of this Alberta-stan movement, but with the resurgence of independence...well, sovereignty...well, separatism...well sorta-good friends with sleep-over privileges...here in Newfoundland, it sure makes for some damned funny reading.
One of the big differences between here and there is that in Alberta someone actually has the guts to write a column advocating independence for Alberta-stan. Ok. That puts them ahead of us even though we have a newspaper called The Independent (hint, hint) with the pink,white and green on its masthead that I think, has voted for sending Ottawa an angry note saying we want more transfer payments but we don't want to call them transfer payments.
Ok, so they call them reparations.
Yet more Alice through the looking glass crapola like when the Prem was interviewed on CBC last October trying to explain why getting Equalization after we didn't qualify for Equalization really wasn't Equalization it would be fine because there was an agreement between Ottawa and St. John's that called it an Equalization offset and yes while I know it says Equalization offset I am going to cover up the word Equalization with my thumb here on this piece of paper so when you read it you will only see the word offset but never mind that because it is really just money that should actually be ours anyway and while it is actually like Equalization it isn't really that because...I have my thumb over it.
I'd link you back to the interview so you could see that I was quoting almost verbatim but hey, what's the point?
Anyway...
For hump-day, enjoy reading about the people in Alberta who want to create their own little paradise on the prairie.
Maybe we could hook up with them and be like India and Pakistan when they split up in 1947.
Canada would be like India.
The western guys could be West Alberta and we could be East Alberta.
Some of you can see where I am going with that.
For the others, just think: we would be getting rid of the long name we have right now.
In his last television interview before his death on Sunday from cancer, former Newfoundland and Labrador premier Frank Moores said he doubted the value of buying the Upper Churchill.
Moores said at the time it seemed like a good idea. He said that with all the difficulties of dealing with the Quebec government and trying to develop other hydro projects, the province could have done something better with the initial purchase price of $168 million.
Moores was evidently basing his second-thoughts on the fact that the purchase price represented 25% of the province's budget expenditure for the year. At the time, the province couldn't afford it.
Too bad someone didn't probe this a bit more with Moores, especially given all the mythology that has built up around the Upper Churchill.
Some of that mythology is spread by the buy-outs major proponent, John Crosbie. Crosbie's memoir, No holds barred, doesn't really provide much factual evidence to back his financial case for taking over the Upper Churchill. Some of it is couched in terms like "I have been told that..." Quebec gets something like $800 million whole the province gets a pittance. In another spot, Crosbie doesn't explain how a project that was going to cost the province money when it was a private sector project would suddenly be a winner if it was nationalized.
My favourite part, though, is the bit where Crosbie uses a drop in Equalization because of new revenues as a loss for the province and hence a reason for taking it over. It's the same bullshit argument he foisted recently during the Williams offshore fracas.
[Note: Number 1: the province doesn't lose any money in the scenario. Number 2: the feds fixed the problem in 1982 and might well have done it earlier had they been asked. As a result of a decision by the Trudeau government, the province actually has its Upper Churchill revenues hidden from Equalization. It's worth about $50 million annually to the province.]
BUT back to the point, and here is Crosbie's big but, it was an argument he rejected as utter nonsense in only the most crass and rude terms only someone like Crosbie could muster in 1990 when the provincial government tried to rework the Atlantic Accord (1985).
Maybe it is time for a public inquiry into purchase of the Upper Churchill by Crosbie. Put the old boy in the dock of public opinion with someone putting some hard questions to him.
At the very least, a solid historical analysis - no one has studied the Upper Churchill in detail - might finally put to rest some of the hot air emanating from people like John Crosbie. We'd all be able to see what happened and then maybe learn what mistakes to avoid the next time.
Crosbie's old boss doubted the value of spending 25% of a poor province's budget on a giant cash pit. At least Crosbie, described it as a cash pit in his memoir but as a justification for spending all that cash and saddling the province with all the debt from the construction. Of course, it wouldn't be the only time Crosbie ever changed his tune on a policy or an idea to suit his purpose at the time.
For those who want to do the math, Hydro's debt load of about $1.4 billion is counted against us by the banks and the provincial government when working out our current debt load. Go check the budget. It might be a relatively small portion of the debt today, which runs around $12.0 billion, but look at the figures for a decade ago. Hydro debt was $1.3 billion, part of a total debt in the budget of $6.8 billion and an accrual debt load of about $8.0 billion.
We are still paying for it today and listening to Crosbie justify the cutbacks and the layoffs from what may well have been his biggest public policy blunder.
[Note: This is an opinion piece, intended to offer one possible explanation of events.
The following is an account of the offshore discussions between the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador between January 2004 and January 2005. It is based on anecdotal information, correspondence between both governments, previous posts to the Bond Papers and on the research report submitted to the provincial government in January 2005 and recently released to news media.
References to strategy by the Williams' government are solely those of the author taking inferences from events and publicly available information.]
Getting the deal
Through the fall of 2004, attitudes grew increasingly gloomy among the Premier's Office staff in St. John's.
The original plan had been to snag a quick deal for extra cash from the offshore before the federal election. There was no detailed position paper, no legal argument that the federal government had somehow failed to live up to the 1985 Atlantic Accord.
What there had been was passion and attitude, playing up the sense of alienation from Ottawa and dissatisfaction among Newfoundlanders and Labradorians documented in research done for the Royal Commission on strengthening and renewing our place in Canada.
Premier Danny Williams found policy gold in the Young commission. A fiscal paper written by a former deputy minister of finance under Brian Peckford was readily adopted; one of its keystones had been an elaborate explanation of how the federal government was making billions from the offshore while Newfoundland and Labrador made a relative pittance from its "own" resource. Roger Grimes had been the latest of a series of provincial premiers to fail at having Ottawa rework the cash portions of the 1985 Atlantic Accord.
Here was a ready-made triumph for Williams.
Williams would tackle Ottawa like it was an insurance company, using a combination of the charm and bluster that had worked so often before in his private law practice.
Shag the facts.
Point to the shameful injustice of it all. Press Ottawa for cash. If they made an offer, up the ante and then seek more cash in public using whatever means possible. Ottawa Liberals would not want to be jammed up before a federal election, as Williams himself said in the early spring of 2004.
Play up the drama.
An impoverished province in desperate financial straits.
A new government in a province full of promise and hope, forced to slash services and freeze wages while billions in cash poured to ever-rich Ottawa.
Fight the case in the court of public opinion where, as Williams had learned through years of experience, the judge and jury are less concerned with pesky matters like details than in a real court-room. In public opinion's court, the more tears shed, the more money in the settlement.
And so it had rolled out.
The letter to Prime Minister Paul Martin in January 2004. Lengthy and relying entirely on a supposedly independent outside financial analysis, it made the case for a financial settlement from Ottawa that would make a modest adjustment to the existing Equalization offsets in the original Accord. This wouldn't be for grievance or indeed for justice. Rather, the feds would help because the money was needed to put a roof over the heads and food in the belly of Williams' 520, 000 clients.
The Prime Minister accepted the idea for further discussion later in January, sending his regional minister, John Efford, to meet with Williams and his officials in late February. Williams charmed Efford, couching the whole matter in the simplest of simple terms, ones that Efford was sure to accept. There was the news conference after the meeting in which Williams talked of there being a two-headed horse fighting for Newfoundland and Labrador.
Never mind that Efford would never, ever grasp either the political manoeuvering around him or the substance of the offshore revenue issue. If the feds coughed up cash, Danny would claim victory. If they stalled or rejected the idea, Efford was the easy scapegoat. He was no Crosbie, whose grasp of the facts and vicious tongue could dissect an opponent with the finesse of a broadaxe. Nor was he a Tobin. Efford was an easy mark.
There were claims by Williams of support from all the premiers. There were comments on the frustration of waiting for Ottawa to act. Behind the scenes there was little substantive provincial activity. There was no written proposal that spelled out Williams' ideas in legal detail. What they did slap together was an overhead slide show that would surely have suggested to anyone familiar with the Accord that the provincial officials didn't understand the history of the deal or the original deal itself. Anyone, like say Efford's deputy minister, who had helped negotiate the Accord in 1985 and who would likely remain opposed to the province's arguments based on his own knowledge of the original deal.
There was the odd short letter to the PM or telephone call. The letters said little more than: "Come on bye, ye gotta do something."
The goal was a commitment from the prime minister. No officials. No intermediaries. No getting bogged down in give and take. Williams wanted the words from Paul Martin's own lips: "I agree".
Williams got the commitment on June 5, 2005. The PM had accepted Williams' proposal, presumably the letter from January. Williams followed up five days later with a letter that thanked the prime minister for his accepting the province's position. Williams then restated the position increasing both the amount of money and duration of the deal from what had been discussed before, released it to the public and then set a deadline of the late summer for getting the thing finished.
The premier was not happy. He could never be happy. Every offer would be just short of what was required to make him happy enough.
and so the ante was upped.
A late summer deadline was set by Williams. Efford suggested it might be more like September.
By September, no deal had been reached.
The feds met a new October deadline for a proposal imposed by Williams but only just. Regardless of what was in the offer, Williams would never have accepted it. It wasn't his style. bad news for Williams though, came from the other provincial premiers who were finally waking up to a looming deal that had been, to now, underneath the national radar screen.
They realized that what Williams was asking for was a federal transfer to Newfoundland, equal to its offshore revenues, even if the province grew as rich as any other. Ontario's Dalton McGuinty would have none of it. He wrote to the feds stating Ontario's rejection of any such arrangement that smacked of Equalization as a provincial right. The letter of support he had written Williams finally surfaced, a note of such importance that his office couldn't find a copy. When faxed to them by Williams' staff it turned out to be little more than "the weather is here, wish you were beautiful" platitudes; certainly it didn't live up to the billing Williams had given it earlier.
So Williams stormed from a federal-provincial conference on Equalization without a deal and without suffering any closed-door gryping from his fellow premiers.
He sat with Don Newman on Newsworld and vented his frustration at Ottawa, his jaw clenching and unclenching visibly to the cameras. He started a news conference alongside his finance minister, cutting the whole affair off quickly by telling Loyola Sullivan that it was time they were going.
A confusing interview with CBC television's Carole MacNeil didn't help persuade national audiences that Williams wasn't looking to eat his oil cake and have his Equalization too.
More acrimony and then the December deadline.
In the meantime, the feds were hardening their position. They were refusing to play on Williams' terms or in his arena. Only Efford - his lack of influence in Ottawa painfully obvious with each passing day - would blunder to the public stage issuing a take-it or leave-it challenge on the October offer only to deny the plain facts of his statement when the public turned on him.
All the while, the province was being forced slowly to go where Williams had not wanted to go. After the October offer, St. John's started actually negotiating with Ottawa, sending off draft agreements, reworking clauses for the first time since the whole offshore issue had been raised with Ottawa 10 months beforehand.
No one in Ottawa would say much of anything publicly, neither repudiating nor accepting Williams' June letter. What was growing increasingly clear, though, was that Williams could achieve nothing even close to his June claim of doubling oil revenues in perpetuity.
With the realization, came the gloom.
One last deadline was set: December.
Time for a Christmas present if the news was good or to label the feds as the Grinch if need be.
Off to Winnipeg for a new federal offer which Williams praised to the media on the way up. Public optimism soared, especially on the province's radio call-in shows which had become, since Brian Tobin's time, a popular poll used by Premier's Offices to gauge what the public was thinking. Williams seemed to live on Open Line himself. Later he would implement a policy that required each of the senior public servants in the communications division to spend almost one entire day a week in rotation doing nothing but monitoring the radio and having someone on to counteract criticism. No negative comment was to go unchallenged for more than a few minutes.
Public optimism was shattered as Williams stormed from the meeting, flew back to St. John's and scheduled a media briefing for December 22. He announced there was no Christmas present from Paul Martin. Williams' talked of getting a slap in the face.
Then he ordered Canadian flags to be taken from every provincial building. "Why would we fly their flag and pretend everything is rosy?" he told reporters at Confederation Building.
There is no sign he had planned the announcement or had discussed it outside of a limited number of close confidantes. The province's most senior public servant, for example, normally unflappable, scrambled from the room to have public works security guards get the flags down. The security guard himself, who appeared on every TV set on every TV news broadcast in the country for days afterward appeared like he had been roused from a sleep and handed a dust-covered and seldom-used dress uniform cap to look his best.
At the news conference, Williams himself systematically pointed to each flag behind him intoning "That one will be coming down and that one and that one." The pointing wasn't as telling as the tone of his voice.
For a man who needed national public opinion to be on his side, Williams' actions could not have produced a more disastrous result. Over Christmas the public dismay mounted at using the national flag as a political tool. Letters, faxes and e-mails poured into the Premier's Office. National opinion polls turned against Williams, including one in the Globe and Mail, Canada's erstwhile national newspaper which had already endorsed Williams' offshore goal.
Locally the move was a hit, especially among the province's anti-Confederates. Williams' tried later to blow off the national public reaction as being orchestrated by the federal Liberal communications team. He was well off the mark with this, the latest of his conspiracy theories.
Coming back after a Christmas and new year's break, Williams launched an offensive. He would head to Toronto to make the case to national media. [As it turned out, the Globe editorial the day after its editorial board met with Williams was hardly positive for the premier. Others would follow suit, telling WIlliams he should accept the deal in front of him.]
Williams would soften his line on the flags a bit, hinting that they might go back after a suitable period and no longer, as he previously wanted, once Ottawa met his demands. He would write the prime minister and announce so publicly, to shift focus to Ottawa.
In the meantime, Williams commissioned a poll. Ryan Research and Communications was a firm which Danny had come to rely upon increasingly for insights into public moods. The principal consultant, Karen Ryan, was an experienced market researcher who had worked for one of the country's leading marketing firms before branching out on her own. Ryan did work for Vic Young on the Royal Commission and had polled for Danny himself virtually every month from December 2003 onward. She was a natural choice.
On January 3, 2005, Ryan was asked to survey attitudes in the province on the offshore negotiations and on the flag. Work was to start on the 4th of January and finish as quickly as possible. The Premier's Office quickly decided on a national survey and so 800 surveys were administered across the country from January 4 to January 9, 2005 on top of the 400 in Newfoundland and Labrador that had been wrapped up on January 5th. Its purpose, as the research report's executive summary stated, was "to gain insight into and understanding of Canadian's support for Premier's Williams' efforts to secure 100% of provincial offshore royalties and whether they perceived that the Prime Minister should honor his commitment of June 5th, 2004."
On that basis, the research report, subsequently obtained by The Telegram is a curious document. Aside from the standard questions about age, education and income, there are only five specific questions about different aspects of the offshore oil issue. That is typical in simple surveys.
What isn't typical is the wording, the ordering or the structuring of the questions. It wasn't a push poll - not a poll at all, really, but a propaganda technique pioneered in the United States - but the Danny Williams' messages would get across nonetheless, if that was the goal. If nothing else, the poll would give Williams something he could talk about publicly to give the appearance things were going better than they were.
The first one basically asked if the respondent believed the Prime Minister should live up to his commitments, but it did so with wording that would likely lead a respondent to answer in the affirmative.
Specifically it asked: "On June 5th 2004, Prime Minister Paul Martin publicly committed to accepting the proposal put forth by Newfoundland's Premier Danny Williams that would see Newfoundland and Labrador keep 100% of its provincial offshore revenues. Do you believe that Prime Minister Martin should honor this commitment to allow Newfoundland and Labrador to keep 100% of its provincial offshore royalties?"
The question contained the Premier's key message, not once but twice, that the whole discussion was about the province keeping its own money. Intuitively, few would argue with the point, except those that understood the intricacies of federal-provincial financial arrangements or the Atlantic Accord. Few did, including cabinet ministers and former ministers. Facts weren't important; the message was.
Nationally, 72% of respondents agreed with the idea of honoring the commitment. Fully 96% of Newfoundlanders agreed, along with 72% of Westerners, 68% of Ontarians, 73% of Quebeckers and 84% of Martimers. Even with the polls margins of error - 2.83% nationally, almost five percent in Newfoundland and almost 8% in the other regions, the figures were unmistakable.
So too with the second question, which asked: "Overall, all things considered, how supportive are you of Newfoundland's Premier Danny Williams' efforts to secure a deal with the Federal Government that would see 100% of Newfoundland's offshore revenue kept in that province?"
The responses were structured as a Likert scale, in which respondents are usually offered an equal number of positive and negative choices in order to gauge the intensity of their attitudes. In this instance, respondents were offered three positive choices (completely, mostly or somewhat supportive) and only one negative choice (not supportive at all), likely leading them to pick a soft positive one, even if they were actually opposed.
The total level of support was unmistakable with 72% picking one of the positive choices, but nationally, the individual positive choices were almost even. Outside Newfoundland and Labrador, where 73% supported the premier's efforts completely, or the Maritimes where 42% did so, the results were similar to the national figures, suggesting strongly that people had some reservations about the efforts.
The third question was about the flag and again was structured as a Likert scale with three positive and only one negative choice:
"To what extent do you support Newfoundland's Premier Danny Williams' decision to remove Canadian flags from Newfoundland's government buildings to protest Prime Minister Martin and the Government of Canada not living up to the commitment to allow Newfoundland and Labrador to keep 100% of provincial oil revenues?"
There was no question as to how familiar people were with the issue, nor was there a simple question about the respondent's feeling about removing the flags. The question included the Premier's rationale for the move in detail.
Despite the leading nature of the question, having heard the same rationale about commitment's and revenues in two previous questions and despite the skewed nature of the scale which would tend to have respondent's pick a positive response, 60% of respondents nationally picked the sole, extreme negative choice.
The view was as clear in the regions across the country, even allowing the poll's margins of error. Respondents strongly opposed the flag move in every region except Quebec and Newfoundland. Even 63% of Maritimers were not supportive at all. In Quebec, where flag flaps were old news, the figure was 45% not supportive at all, the single largest response category by more than two to one.
In Newfoundland and Labrador 38% were completely supportive and 29% were not supportive at all. With a margin of error of almost five percent, those figures could be 33% completely supportive and 34% completely unsupportive. Those results were available to the Premier possibly as early as January 6 and may have prompted his admission to news media on January 7 that the flag issue had cost him support. Even at home, as Williams may well have known, his flag flap was a loser at worst, a distraction at best.
There is no way of knowing for sure, but it is interesting the coincidence that this polling was completed nationally on January 9 and that Premier Williams ordered flags raised on January 10. The move surprised everyone, coming, as it did, in the midst of a news conference to announce a call for expressions of interest in developing the Lower Churchill.
There is no specific date on the polling research report. Those familiar with polling know that it is possible to produce quick results that simply tally responses. Those could easily have been available to the premier by late on the 9th or early on the 10th.
With the flags back, the Premier removed a issue that had overshadowed his campaign on offshore revenues. On January 14, the Prime Minister released his reply to Williams' letter both accepting Williams' request for a face-to-face meeting as an attempt to resolve the ongoing offshore issue and making it clear that the federal government was never going to accept the June double-up scheme.
The deal reached in late January 2005 has been discussed in detail elsewhere. The first clause of the agreement repudiates the very basis on which Williams made his public case: the provincial government already received 100% of offshore revenues. ("This agreement reflects an understanding between the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Government of Nova Scotia that both provinces already are collecting and will continue to collect 100 percent of offshore resource revenues as if these resources were on land.")
In the end, the province accepted a cash lump sum of $2.0 billion, as had been offered in October but increased to reflect then-current oil prices. Other details of the deal did nothing to change the fact which had served as the foundation of the Young commission's report and Williams' case as well: Equalization and Equalization offsets would not continue if the provincial government no longer qualified for Equalization.
The lump sum was more than was on the table in the beginning but it fell far short of the provincial government's June objectives. It even fell short of its January 2004 goal.
But the deal was done.
And the Premier claimed victory.
The message was important, not the details.
Postscript:
Is there other provincial government Accord polling? Maybe.
Ryan Research conducted polling for the Williams administration almost every month from December 2003 to August 2004 and again in January 2005. Those are the polls that were paid for by the provincial government and which have been acknowledged publicly.
Despite a ruling by the province's access to information commissioner, the Williams administration is withholding any polls done by Ryan. They have released research done by other firms, despite the claim that polling done for Executive Council reveals cabinet deliberations.
Only work by Ryan Research is being withheld.
Newly developed is this simple list of phrases for people writing obituaries, especially of former politicians:
- He was a great man/she was a great woman.
- H/She was a great Canadian.
- H/she was hard-working. Variation: H/she was a tireless worker.
- Politician: H/she worked on behalf of the people of his/her province/Canada. Vary location as appropriate; may be combined with "hard-working" quote from above.
- His/her death is a loss for [insert name of province here]/[Canada]. May combine both province and country for extra emphasis.
- H/she was committed to making the world/province/city/community a better place.
- We owe him/her a debt of gratitude. [the reason for the debt is irrelevant]
Now that you have seen this list, take a peak at this VOCM story, and the Premier's official statement, and the Prime Minister's statement on the death yesterday of former Newfoundland and Labrador premier Frank Moores.
While you're at it, here's the CBC web story. Click on the link to an audio clip of Brian Tobin, who apparently has been rehabilitated as a public commentator. Note a few things: the number of names Tobin drops particularly in the story about being on a military "jet" [If it was actually a jet at altitude and a door seal broke, odds are good we wouldn't be hearing any reminiscences from Tobin and all the other people on the plane]; the cell phone dingling in the background at one point; the reference to Tobin's previous life as a "journalist".
I have written a few of these things in my time and not every one was a gem. At least, I tried to make it appropriate to the person being remembered.
The second premier of Newfoundland and Labrador after Confederation and successful businessman, Frank Moores died today in Perth, Ontario of complications from liver cancer.
Gregarious and affable in his public and personal life, Moores won three general elections as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party (plurality, 1971; majority, 1972 and 1975) before retiring in 1979. His term as premier saw the completion of Smallwood-era megaprojects, purchase of the Upper Churcill project and the development of oil and gas policy by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
He later helped organize the successful campaign of Brian Mulroney for national progressive Conservative leader and later prime minister. Moores started a powerful and influential consulting business in Ottawa shortly afterward.
Moores began working with the family fish business, becoming president of the company before entering politics in 1968 as the member of parliament for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception. Moores became provincial Progressive Conservative leader in 1970 and set about rebuilding the party for an anticipated provincial general election. His coalition of disaffected Liberals like John Crosbie, T Alex Hickman and Val Earle and lifelong Conservatives like Anthony J. (Ank) Murphy, Gerry Ottenheimer and Tom Hickey won 21 seats in the 1971 general election compared to 20 seats for the Liberals under Joe Smallwood and one seat held by the New Labrador Party candidate Tom Burgess.
After much political manoeuvering by Smallwood, the lieutenant governor invited Moores to form an administration in January 1972. Political uncertainty caused by shifting political allegiances and resignations led Moores to seek issuance of a writ of election. Under the slogan "The time has come", Moores won a majority over the Liberal Party led by Edward Roberts.
In his first term as premier, Moores completed several of the projects begun by Smallwood including a crude oil refinery at Come by Chance and the Upper Churchill hydro electric development, which Moores' administration later purchased from the private developers Brinco along with that company's mineral and timber rights throughout the province.
In his second term, Moores' administration started a major fisheries initiative in which the province extended loans to fishing businesses. Discussions with Quebec over recall of upper Churchill power proved fruitless and Moores began talks to develop the Lower Churchill's hydroelectric potential.
Moores may be remembered as the premier under whom the provincial government began seriously to establish provincial regulations for offshore oil exploration and development under energy ministers Leo Barry and later Brian Peckford. During Peckford's term as energy minister in the second Moores administration, the provincial government released a position paper which laid out the provincial government's claim for ownership of the offshore resources.
Ignore the simple answer.
You have to hand it Ryan Cleary.
He is relentless in his pursuit of something or other.
The real problem for readers of the Independent is that it is hard to know sometimes what he is after or why he can't seem to find what everyone else has already uncovered.
But he keeps digging.
And reporting that he and his staff can't find stuff.
And blaming other people for not telling them what they should have been able to find out on their own.
Like Ryan's column in this week's Independent in which he complains that the Spindy crew couldn't find out the answers to a few questions. There's a front page story by Clare-Marie Goose on the whole thing, but more of that later.
Well, here are the questions and the answers.
1. How much does the federal government make from the oil industry on the Grand Banks?
I don't have the most up-to-date figures right at hand but I can give you a decent idea of what the federal and provincial government are taking in; at least I can give you a sense of the proportions. In fact, this information has been posted to the Bond Papers before and, if memory serves, I e-mailed a chart to Ryan when he was making up his six part series on how Canada bleeds us white. Even though the tables I sent Ryan are factual, nothing even close to it ever appeared in print.
When Husky presented the White Rose development proposal they paid local economist Wade Locke to estimate the treasury impacts for both governments of the project over a 15 year life-span. The figures for provincial royalties are based on a price per barrel of US$20.
(A) Provincial:
Of direct revenues, only the province collects royalties from offshore production, just as in Alberta and exactly as the Atlantic Accord (1985) provides. As well, the province collects corporate and personal income taxes and the payroll tax.
Locke estimated that provincial direct revenues from White Rose would be $908 million over the life of the project. Annual royalties were estimated to be a little under $30 million.
(B) Federal:
Direct federal revenues consist only of corporate and personal income taxes. Locke estimated the feds would make $741 million in direct revenues.
But here's an important point to recall. Provincial royalties are tied directly to the price of a barrel of oil; federal corporate taxes are not. With oil trading at three times the figure in Locke's estimate, provincial royalties alone jump dramatically while federal revenues won't.
There are also some indirect revenues as well, resulting from spin-offs from the oil business and from the impact economic growth has on things like reduced social assistance costs or increased premiums for employment insurance. Ms. Gosse's story points that out - sort of - but only mentions the indirect federal revenues; the provincial government collects indirect cash as well, like say its portion of the HST on refined petroleum products.
Incidentally, Jim Wright from Memorial University is right when he suggests the offshore has larger impacts on the federal treasury than the provincial one. In Locke's analysis, it is easy to see that the most significant source of federal revenue comes from its corporate income taxes. After all, the feds can tax a corporate head office in Calgary or a sub-office or business in Ontario that someone can add in as being revenue from the offshore. That just reflects the fact that the feds can tax across the country, but provincial governments only tax within their provinces.
[By the way, using that same sort of approach, Ralph Klein actually makes cash from Hibernia through his provincial taxes. Is he next on the hit list for cash?]
The second biggest treasury impact for the feds comes from Canada Pension and Employment Insurance premiums that result solely from increases in employment levels. The Newfoundland and Labrador government doesn't have any program even vaguely like that so it would be hard for it to collect the same type of revenue.
For the sake of at least starting to answer the Spindy question, let's just stick with the direct figures since they are...well...direct. Armed with that information, the Spindies could certainly get a sense of how the revenues flow to Ottawa and St. John's, even if the exact figures weren't readily available.
2. How much does the federal government collect from Alberta's oil? What's Ottawa's take of a dollar of crude in Alberta versus here?
In both, Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador, Ottawa does not make any money from a barrel of oil, that is if we look directly at royalties.
Under the real Atlantic Accord, offshore oil is treated exactly as if it were on land.
Pretty simple so far?
Therefore, the federal government doesn't collect a penny from royalties in either province.
If you are asking something else, go back to question 1.
3. How does Ottawa own "our" oil?
Part of the problem here may be that Ryan doesn't actually want to read anything that has been written on the two offshore decisions from the early 1980s. Ryan just likes to mention the Supreme Court of Canada decision in 1984 but something tells me he is ignoring the answers on this one because they interfere with his pre-conceived editorial slants.
Here's a link to the 1984 so-called Hibernia reference to the SCC from the Government of Canada. The Supreme Court of Newfoundland decision on the provincial government reference isn't online but a trip to the province's library system will get it easily. There are enough mentions of it in the link I just gave, though, that you can get a good sense of it.
Anyway, here it is in a nutshell.
Offshore oil actually doesn't belong to Canada (or any part of Canada) in the same way oil under land does.
Under international law, Canada has exclusive rights to exploit sub-seabed mineral resources.
The Supreme Court of Newfoundland determined and the Supreme Court of Canada upheld in two completely separate references that since the right to exploit the resources is a result of Canada's external sovereignty, under the Constitution, exclusive legislative rights to the offshore rests with the Government of Canada.
BUT, under the real Atlantic Accord, the Government of Canada agreed to share management rights and gave this province certain powers under the real Atlantic Accord that basically give the provincial government virtually all the benefits of offshore oil without actually having legal title to them.
Pretty neat idea, huh?
It's actually not hard to understand at all, unless you want to deliberately misrepresent stuff for some reason.
Any oil on land, though, is treated exactly the same here as anywhere else in the country. The rig that is busily pumping oil from a couple of wells on the Port au Port is pumping royalties directly to St. John's. Here's a little quirk though. Any of that oil out to three miles from shore belongs to this province and this province alone. That puts us in a position unlike any other coastal province.
Guess who decided that.
The Supreme Court of Canada upheld a decision from the Supreme Court of Newfoundland in the ruling Ryan likes to ignore. That too upsets his anti-Ottawa slant, so I guess there's an answer and a question both of which can get ignored down in a building that ironically housed a place called "The Light"..
I could probably tackle the other questions furrowing Ryan's editorial brow but I just thought I'd deal with the major ones.
As a final point, it is really strange that in Claire-Marie Gosse's story, the Spindy reports provincial revenues this year from oil as being only $215 million.
For one thing, anyone who paid attention to the March budget knows that the province based that projection of royalties on a relatively low price of oil. The whole issue was well-dissected in the media at the time (not in the Spindy though) and here at the Bond Papers.
It gets better. If I recall correctly, CBC news reported just last week that current estimates of provincial revenues will add about $400 to 500 million to that figure.
Back in the winter, Wade Locke used these figures when discussing provincial offshore revenues. Note that the figure for this year is somewhere around $600 million.
How in the heck did the Spindy miss that one?
Ms. Gosse also neglects to point out that the Terra Nova project will move to a higher royalty tier this year, largely as a result of oil prices coupled with the lower start-up costs from not building a gravity based structure. Either Clare-Marie didn't know that information - it was widely reported - or she knew better than to write something that would praise a project her boss hates.
Anyway...
Ryan's column started out just fine. He pointed to the different ways reporters get information, noting that at the Spindy they try asking questions.
Ok. I'll buy that.
After filling up lots of space with many words, he ends with a flourish:
"In the end, the Independent is left with a choice: scrap the story about how the offshore pie is divided or point out the shortage of facts and the trouble it takes to get them.
Either way it's a story."
As with so many Spindy pieces, neither Ms. Gosse's writing on the offshore nor Ryan's column are stories.
Unless, that is, one was reporting on the bizarre inability of a newspaper that prides itself on investigative journalism, yet which can't seem to find it's backside in broad daylight with both hands.
[UPDATE: A regular reader pointed out in an early morning e-mail that I forgot to include the federal shares in Hibernia.
Yep, I did. No excuses.
That would have to be added in to a calculation, but oddly that was missing from the Indy piece as well, so I don't feel quite so bad.
The offshore is an issue which is greatly misunderstood and most of the public commentary over the past two to three years has been founded on more myth than fact. As my morning correspondent noted, each project has to be examined differently for a number of reasons. Again, he is spot-on.
The Bond Papers grew out of my own frustration with the high level of noise and very small signal found in the offshore discussions.
All that does, though is point to the need for an investigative newspaper like say...ooooh...the Indy... to invest some time and energy in an investigation, followed by the reporting. Report the facts - not the preconceived ideas. Actually explain stuff to people.
That would be awesome news.]
[UPDATE II: Another faithful reader of these e-scribbles fired off an e-mail to point out that if the fed's share of Hibernia is included in a calculation, then consideration has to be given to its cost of acquiring those shares.
Again, another valid point.
Two things occurred to me after writing the original post and the first update.
First, if one were to include the federal government Hibernia shares, then one might actually want to look at what share of a typical offshore barrel of oil is claimed by the oil companies themselves. This might actually be a more interesting study. One must take into consideration the economics of the thing, such as the relatively high costs and of course one must admit that the party taking the financial risks is naturally entitled to a handsome share of the revenues.
In that respect, the federal Hibernia shares are not substantively different from the Exxon ones. As I believe I noted in the early days of this blog, it is passing strange that the Premier has not to date complained about the oil companies revenue shares. Yes, I know he is trying something on with Chevron but until now, it is an issue he hasn't bothered with. More importantly though, I don't recall hearing the Spindites, the Open Liners or any of the pseudo-nationalists attacking the oil companies with any vigor.
Second, if one is to divy up relative revenue shares of all types, then one will actually be dealing with a notional barrel of oil that is worth a lot more than US$60.
No matter how you slice it, the information is out there. One merely has to look for it and accept what one finds.
And that really was the point of the original post.]
Rob Antle's July 6 2005 story in the Telly on a proposed underwater cable to carry Lower Churchill power into the Maritimes ("Proposal would skip Quebec") was based on this story by Stephen Maher in the Halifax Chronicle Herald from Monday, July 4.
Keep your eyes peeled. There may be other Maher stories coming. He's been working on this for a while now.
In any event, both stories report on a proposal by British Columbia company Sea Breeze Power to run a power cable under water from Labrador to either Prince Edward island or Nova Scotia to hook into the Maritime power grid.
Certainly, the idea is technically feasible. Engineers can put the arse back in a cat with enough time and money.
Time isn't an issue here.
It's money and that's what ultimately affected the Upper Churchill too, despite the nonsense foisted on local audiences by everyone from former politicians to crap talk mavens.
It's the financing that remains a question. Someone has to pay for it and if it is built as part of the overall project, the one paying will be the end user. The project economics will have to ensure that the power gets to a consumer at a competitive price.
Note in Maher's story that some unnamed industry experts predict Labrador power can be taken to an American market for little more than a third the current market price of electricity in New York.
Be very skeptical of those figures, if only because the source is unnamed.
Be skeptical too because megaproject proponents (and their official and unofficial supporters) grossly underestimate the cost of their projects. They deliberately minimise the costs. The undersea cable idea has been around since the 1960s and what prevented it from working then was cost.
There's an interesting reference to an unnamed source in Newfoundland who talks about the premier heading off to New York to try and get financing for the secretive Sino-Energy deal.
Note that according to the unidentified source Premier Williams' requests for financing were rejected in New York because the idea wasn't seen a viable.
If that's true, (and I'd be very skeptical of the source unless the name is revealed or the information confirmed) then we have yet another piece in the mysteriously secret deal that involved a Chinese company under sanctions in the US for illegal arms shipments. Rob didn't report that part in his Wednesday story likely because he couldn't confirm it and I doubt very much that you'll see anyone here coming forward to comment on it.
Energy minister Ed Byrne lied to the House of Assembly about discussions with the company and government kept secret its business dealings with the company for upwards of six months before suddenly springing the news. These include a secret memorandum of understanding that gave the alliance of two Canadian and one Chinese state-owned company unrestricted access to any information they wished on the Lower Churchill project.
Later revelations by ousted Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro Board member Danny Dumaresque suggest the sudden revelation may have be triggered by fear in the Premier's Office that some members on the Hydro Board, who were questioning the projects internal financial arrangements, might leak news of the secret Chinese deal.
Local news outlets never really got to the bottom of Sino-Energy.
There are a couple of other things worth noting from these two stories:
1. Quebec is a net importer of electricity.
2. The shortest route and the cheapest costs of production and hence the greatest potential profit come from selling the power into Quebec.
3. Sea Breeze's Eugene Hodgson knows how to pitch a story (see the quotes at the end of the Maher piece) but his deeper understanding of Lower Churchill power may not be quite as slick.
4. There are actually several proposals that have been confirmed, even though these stories note only one.
- We know about the joint Quebec-Ontario government proposal which includes SNC Lavelin as the construction manager. This proposal also includes a significant upgrade to the power grid between Ontario and Quebec around Cornwall, an area very familiar to Fortis Inc.
- There is another proposal from Quebec alone. Since Lower Churchill talks resumed in 1990, Quebec has insisted it has sufficient demand for the Lower Churchill power to be the only customer. While the Prem's Office may be silent, there is reportedly another proposal from Hydro Quebec.
- There is supposedly a proposal from Upper Churchill engineer and Stunnel proponent Eric Kierans. I wonder what it might involve.
Over at Macleans, Inkless Wells beat me to use of one of my favourite Churchill quotes.
He does link to a very short message from a Londoner who was in the underground this morning to the thus-far anonymous murderers who planted the bombs.
As Paul says, can anyone think of a worse target for terrorists than London.
Then he links to this guy who demonstrates the value of saying things simply, concisely, accurately and clearly.
WARNING: The language in the link is NOT for the faint of heart or those easily offended.
UPDATE: For those who think the Internet can't make someone famous for unusual reasons, take a look at the number of comments Andrew from London has received. Click here.
Thankfully, Trevor Taylor came down off the roof and took some time to call Bill Rowe on Crap Talk, the afternoon call-in show on VOCM.
That is a tongue-in-cheek reference to his opening comments about trying to re-shingle the roof and repair the eaves on his mother's house. When my grandmother was ticked off with someone repeatedly asking where so-and-so was, she'd always say he was up tarring the roof. With some of the tired voices from the past calling open line shows altely, I wish some of them were actually up tarring a roof.
As busily as I was trying to scribble down notes, I finally just stopped and listened to his frank comments on the issues in the fishery and current government policy. It was such a broad swath of topics that there was no way to keep up with him.
If people actually listened to what he is saying, they'd understand he is probably one of the best fisheries minister the province has ever had. There are no illusions clouding his judgment. Taylor speaks with a lifetime of knowledge about the fishery and it shows. He is genuine and sincere.
As Trevor climbs back out on the ledge to fix the eave he should consider pulling together a bunch of people for an informal brain-storming session on the future of the province's fisheries. Rather than go through the usual dog-and-pony shows of Royal Commissions or public consultations, maybe Trevor would call a few people who normally don't get called. ignore the tired voices and let them shingle the tumble-down shacks of their worn-out complaining. Maybe he could call a few people who usually never discuss fisheries issues but who might just have some creative ideas.
Give them a hammer, a pile of shingles and some nails.
Then get to work.
Have a chat in the summer sunshine and chew over what is going on and more importantly where we need to go with the fishery in the province.
My morning e-mailer noted that we can't have a fisheries policy here, just a fish processing policy.
I disagree.
I am firmly convinced that if we brought the right people together, we can find a new fisheries policy that would change Trevor's life for the better and put something on paper that federal fish minister Geoff Regan couldn't ignore.
The worst that will happen is that the province will be right where it is now and a couple of the helpers will wind up with a skill to fall back on in hard times.
The best is that we might actually be able to bring about some fundamental and meaningful changes to the benefit of everyone in the province. Taylor is the kind of guy who could not only bring together the right people; he could also persuade people to give the group's ideas a try.
At the very least, his mom would have a roof that isn't shingled with the best of intentions.
An early morning e-mail from a regular reader caused me to go back and review a column I had originally written for the Independent back in its early days. I don't recall if it ever appeared in print; something tells me it did.
The e-mail took issue with my Jack Byrne post, noting specifically that I was remiss (and maybe partisan) in failing to note that the Job Creation Program ( form of make-work) was actually an invention of Beaton Tulk.
Ok. I didn't point it out, but partisan had nothing to do with it. Anyone who does follow my stuff will realise that I have been as critical of the Tobin/Tulk crowd over things as anyone else. In fact, I know I have made the point on many occasions that Tobin marked a return to Peckfordism on a whole bunch of levels.
The point of my Byrne post (in case I wasn't clear) was that in the absence of a policy, governments tend to default to either bureaucratic or partisan genetic memory. Hence, the blatant make-work program Byrne announced. I also drew the parallels between Byrne's talking points and those of Glenn Tobin nearly two decades earlier.
While I had thought about this old column before, it seems appropriate to resurrect it now since it speaks to the basic idea that political rhetoric in this province seems to come around again and again. There's no point in pretending the column is comprehensive and elegant; it isn't. I was grappling with finding possible explanations for what seems to be an obvious phenomenon.
Reviewing the column now about 18 months after I wrote it, the only thing I would disagree with is the conclusion: I was wrong. People here don't seem to tire of having the same carpet threads being pushed in front of them again and again. Actually, I'd have to admit that over the past 18 months we have seen old ideas and old threads being sold time and again at their original price, marked up to account for inflation.
Jack Byrne just wound up being the latest salesman. Whether the ideas were his, those of his colleagues or solely those of the Premier is irrelevant from where I sit.
I am just astonished that we keep doing the same things over and over again expecting a different result.
Anyway, here's the column as it was originally presented...
The politics of history
History is a powerful thing in Newfoundland and Labrador politics.
In his victory speech a few weeks ago, premier-elect Danny Williams pledged that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians had voted to seize control of their destiny using words eerily reminiscent of Smallwood, Peckford and Tobin. "There will be no more giveaways. The giveaways end right here and right now!"
Why are we stuck on this rhetorical merry-go-round?
One reason is that political leaders take a Calvinist approach to history. As Calvin told his stuffed tiger Hobbes many years ago, people reinvent history to suit modern prejudices and to fit modern needs. We spin our history, old and new, reweaving the threads of fact to suit the immediate need. Tories blame the Liberals for job cuts in the early 1990s, conveniently forgetting the world recession, and the abysmal state of the province'’s finances. New Liberals blame old Liberals for the Upper Churchill give-away. Nationalists blame foreigners for everything from the collapse of responsible government to current resource "giveaways", all the while forgetting that we have controlled our own destiny for most of the past 200 years.
The second reason is that spin seems to work. Politicians like to get elected. Brian Tobin and Brian Peckford won huge majority governments promising that one day the sun will shine, that we will be masters in our own house or that not one teaspoon of ore will leave the province. They hammered at the giveaways, vowing never again. At least in Peckford'’s case, he stuck around long enough to make a decision, yet, as good as his intentions were in signing the Atlantic Accord, newer politicians have found in that deal their latest scapegoat.
The third reason is that politicians are people and people like sameness; it'’s a human characteristic. Change in any form is often intimidating. For politicians in a province that has experienced relatively little change throughout its history, more of the same seems like the answer to everything, especially if you want to get elected.
The fourth reason is that there is a certain expectation that everything in the province is government'’s responsibility. For most of our history, Newfoundland and Labrador has been a top-down place. Churches and politicians ran things. The churches handled schools, salvation and morality. The government ran everything else, from job creation to the dole. If voters expect you to walk on water, and you don'’t have a better idea, politicians found it easier to take a step or blame someone else for the supposed failure, if they wanted to get elected.
History seems to push politicians to more of the same, but ironically, history is about change. And as the Newfoundland and Labrador electorate changes, they are getting better able to spot the same carpet being sold to them time and again.
The choice for the new crop of politicians elected last month is whether to spin history for immediate, and ultimately short-lived, gains. Or use history - our experience, our culture - as one tool to guide substantive changes in and for Newfoundland and Labrador. In eight years time, they may find that many of the changes they hoped for like massive new industries will still be little more than the fodder for someone else'’s rhetoric.
The four factors just mentioned, though, are all within their power to change.
For a politician to change those in Newfoundland and Labrador would be something truly historic.
This is just a teaser.
After lunch, I'll throw up the post on the January offshore poll.
There are some interesting things in there and so far the assessments from the people I have bounced the poll off are almost word for word the same.
Stay tuned.
Same Bond Time.
Same Bond channel.
For an exploration of political decision-making a la Danny Williams.
In the wake of the London terror attacks, it is very interesting watching the Ontario emergency measures boss Julian Fantino and Ontario public security minister giving a media briefing and taking questions about the possibility of such attacks in Canada.
Makes me ponder our local preparedness.
For those not in Newfoundland and Labrador, the Fisheries Broadcast is a CBC Radio show that has been running for decades. It's the last show in the CBC radio line-up that is aimed solely at a particular sector of the economy, giving news and weather of interest to those in the fishery.
Driving home on Wednesday evening, I caught the introduction by host John Furlong to an interview with provincial cabinet minister Jack Byrne. Furlong said that the recent make-work package for fisheries workers announced by government had stirred some debate. To be sure some of the "debate" was from politicians clamouring to see the package extended to their districts or otherwise sweetened up.
But unless I have been missing a rollicking good time on the Fish Broadcast, I haven't heard so much as a peep from anyone about this policy from the Peckford years.
Jack Byrne did an admirable job of answering Furlong's questions; well, actually he did an admirable job of socking out the SOCKO-crap all that expensive mainland "media training" gave him. Jack had three messages and he stuck to them relentlessly, which is what many of these pre-packaged "training" sessions tell people to do.
It's Jane Stewart-in-a-can all for the low price of about $20, 000 bucks. Locals could do real training better and cheaper; but I digress.
Jack said:
1. The package was a one-time deal.
2. All the marvelous plans for economic development the government was working on would generate jobs to take care of fisheries workers in the future.
3. Whatever happened, he was sure the Premier would always use the best information to make the right decision in the best interests of the province.
So much for cabinet government.
To take the last point first, I am not sure if Byrne's point was that "Papa is in charge" (an excerpt from the Generic -Messages -for -the - Typical - Third -World -Dictatorship training module, no doubt) or that Jack himself wanted no responsibility for the make-work policy in the first place.
As for the middle point, this was a return to the "We gots Plans" theme that ran through the last Throne Speech. It was right after the Official (But Limited) List of Great Artists Known by the Speechwriter.
The only problem with Byrne's contention is that almost two years after taking office and another two and a half years in opposition before that, during which time we were assured they had plans ready to implement the day they took office, the current administration seems not to have a plan of any kind at all for anything.
The proof? We simply have yet to see one. Of any kind.
Even an outline would be nice.
In almost two farggin' years, as Roman Moroni would say.
The only plan they have is to keep sending SOCKOs out that they have plans in the works.
I felt a chill run down my spine as Byrne tossed out that "things will be better" SOCKO just because it sounded so much like a line from Glenn Tobin, Peckfordite social services minister (the guy in charge of Lotto 10-42) and more recently, known to be in charge of the liquor corporation.
In an interview with the fifth estate about Lotto 10-42 as it was then known, Tobin said two things:
1. There is no Lotto 10-42 in which the government deliberately stamps people up to get them on the EI rolls; and,
2. Even if there was such a program, and he wasn't admitting there was, but if for argument's sake we allow there was such a program, it wouldn't matter anyway because the Hibernia was about to start flowing and there'd be jobs for everyone and we'd all be rich, Praise Brian.
Or words to that effect.
All that leads us inevitably to SOCKO The First.
The problem with Jack Byrne's message that this was a one-off aid package is that history teaches us something starkly different.
Government works on the basis of an extreme version of Newton's First Law of Motion (inertia): - an object at rest will remain at rest (despite the best efforts to move it) or alternately, an object in motion will remain in motion (despite any evidence that it needs to stop quickly or Herculean efforts to stop it).
In the absence of a plan, governments everywhere tend to come up with these lash-up policies, sometimes, as in this case, digging back into their genetic political memory to find something that fits. This little make-work policy from government, for example, looks like it was dreamed up by Marty McFly, who took his Delorean for a little hop back to the glory days of 1985 to find out what Brian would have done.
Policy, as one wise former deputy minister once told me was about history, not logic and reason. When confronted with an issue, government bureaucrats invariably ask: 'What did we do before?"
I digress yet again.
More to the real point, though, in the continued and complete absence of a plan for either the fishery, or for economic development either in this case, there is a danger that as these work shortfalls inevitably occur, government will tend to go back to the make-work approach again and again until it becomes a policy.
As premiers wander about pledging that he won't let a single community "go down", they are spouting policy.
When a government gets focused exclusively on the tactical, as this one surely is, it starts doing everything as a "one-off". It only sees the specific issue and looks around for something to make the issue go away. Until the next time.
By the time of the third "one-off", you have a policy.
and a strategy.
by default.
In the meantime, in cases like this, no matter how many SOCKOs get spit out about having plans, being strategic and having a plan, the evidence almost inevitably shows that the SOCKO claims are actually a case of GIGO and that government is headed for being either SNAFU, TARFU or FUBAR.
This little story about a member of parliament and his wife being denied eucharist because of the MP's stand on social policy issues is yet another argument for the firm legal separation of church and the state in this country.
Throughout the equal marriage debate, several Christian denominations attempted to impose their individual doctrines on all Canadians, adherents or not by fighting against the equal marriage bill.
Well, my solution is simple.
If the churches, like say the Roman Catholic Church or even the English Catholic Church want the government to ban equal marriage, then... let them accept civil divorces as having an equal status as church-authorized annulments but... and this is a big but since money is involved... without forcing people to pony up any form of special surcharge to the church for the privilege of cleaning off the marriage slate. Indulge me on that one.
Better still, let's just wipe out tax-exempt status for churches.
Period.
In this province, we languished for too long with clerical control over secular education. Now it's time to break the ties between church and state across the board.
As a local aside, I find it amusing that an organization which tried to claim it didn't exist here in order to avoid ponying up compensation for past crimes like child molestation, now has no problem throwing its own very real theological weight around to try and crush individual parishoners.
Then people wonder why parishoners were afraid to speak up against the child molesters hiding beneath vestments.
As another local aside, Bruce Gregerson, who is quoted in the Citizen story linked above used to be the minister at Gower Street United Church here in St. John's.
I like his take on things.
It's the Lord's Table.
I'd go a step farther.
That makes the priest a waiter.
And the bishop becomes the maitre d'.
If I were the MP, I'd take my weekly offerings to another church, just like you'd do if some snooty wait staff made your trip to another table and humilating experience instead of an enriching one.
See how long the Church agents stick to their guns when the bills start adding up and the pews start emptying.
Money really does change everything.
Just ask the guys who wanted us to believe they are really just a figment of our imaginations.
The Premier took the time at the White Rose launch in Marystown and at the lame cheque stunt yesterday to do two things:
1. In Marystown, the Premier acknowledged publicly that the revenue and benefits deal on White Rose was damned good. The Premier likes to kick the crap out of any deal he didn't sign, but in this instance, he was giving due praise.
2. In St. John's, he threw out some tough words in order to posture publicly for the upcoming negotiations with the Hebron consortium.
Well, as noted here before, the Premier really needs to tell the public what he is thinking when he talks about refineries and pipelines and petrochemical plants. He needs to tell the people of the province plainly what he will be seeking in any discussions with oil companies and he has to tell us what price he is prepared to pay (with our cash) for these oil industry add-ons.
The single defining characteristic of Premier Williams thus far is that he is long on rhetoric and extremely short on details for anything he does. The big cheque from John Efford yesterday is a classic example of how the Premier can talk his way through things and ultimately deliver something that really was a heck of a lot less than what he promised.
He changes positions as fast as any politician we have seen locally with the exception of maybe Brian Tobin. Some are starting to think he is driven by polls; that remains to be seen. Friday's post will be an assessment of the January polls recently released by government, coupled with a timeline on the Premier's positions on the flag lowering and mnegotiations with the federal government.
All that can be said right now is that the Bond Papers were borne out of the Premier's penchant for saying things that were at odds with the facts. There is good reason for continuing to watch carefully what he says and does.
The offshore revenue deal, for example, is pretty good in that it adds $2.0 billion in free federal money to the provincial coffers. However, what the Premier started out to do was double our revenues, which he claimed were being taken away from us.
At least two major things flowed out of the February deal. First, the Premier acknowledged in the very first clause that not a single nickel of provincial revenues was taken away. Second, and most importantly, he settled for a couple of billions in cash and a deal that may well cut out this year.
Before anyone jumps at me, take a look at the facts.
The offshore add-on from January applies only as long as the province is receiving Equalization. That was already forecast to happen next year, but high crude oil prices will likely put about $700 million into provincial coffers from offshore royalties alone. Equalization this year is only forecast to be slightly more than that; it's hard to figure exactly since the government fiddled around with the presentation of its figures in the last budget.
It really wouldn't take too much economic growth to push the province that final bit over the Equalization edge and into the realm of the so-called "have" provinces. Once that happens, there is no more extra money flowing to the province from the January deal, unless of course, the economy all but implodes.
Certainly we have the two billion dollars, as some will quickly point out. But that isn't what the premier was looking for. He started out seeking a doubling of revenues for at least a total of eight more years. As it stands right now, the $2.0 billion will be less than what the province will get directly from oil this year and next year, let alone the total over the next eight.
It's pretty easy to see the gap between the promise and the delivery. We have a bag of cash but we were promised a bag that was twice to three times the size of what was delivered.
When it comes to royalties and refineries, we need to look very carefully to make sure the Premier isn't talking about repeating Hibernia, even as he promises something else. The Hibernia deal was based on a trade-off between short-term construction jobs and long-term royalties. While Hibernia was the lead projected that started the local oil industry, there are at least two problems with the Hibernia model.
First, the construction jobs were short-term and admittedly so. If they can come, then fine. But when they are linked to royalties and other government revenues, then we have the second, bigger problem. Royalties are the money we collect as the original owners of a resource for our ownership. When we give up some of that economic rent, we are really giving away the core cash value of the resource. We undervalue our resource and actually beggar ourselves collectively while putting a few sheckels into the pockets of local builders like say the Dobbins.
Let's not do that again.
There is no need.
And as we know from looking around, there is no reason to try and force the Hebron consortium to build a refinery, petrochemical plant and/or pipeline here when they evidently did not factor it into their business plans. If there is an economic reason to build one of these things here, then let the industry decide.
The alternative, that is, building something which is not economically viable, is for the government to pay for it through royalty and tax concessions. It is easy for Premier Williams to talk tough when he is flush with my cash both from offshore oil and from Ottawa's taxes. However, it is my money he is now gambling with yet again.
It is again long past due for the Premier to explain to me and every other voter in the province what he is up to. If he were my slip-and-fall lawyer behaving as he does by not telling me relevant information, I'd cut him a cheque and send him on his merry way.
The thing is, he isn't a slip-and-fall lawyer; he's the Premier.
There's a big difference.
As I sit here working away, there has been a non-stop bitch-fest on Crap talk with Bill Rowe with caller after caller and Sightless Bill himself slagging the offshore deal from any angle they can think of.
Too bad the gripers have no idea what they are talking about.
Like Jim Halley.
As I listen to him now, his presentation of the law related to the offshore is exceeded in its complete inaccuracy only by his presentation on our history.
Reputedly that was Brian Tobin's formula for political success.
Danny Williams is determined to go him one better what with eight good polls he is trying to keep secret and then the string of announcements.
More of everything from Danny Williams: it's actually more like an announcement and a poll a day!
Hot behind announcement of new health care money for the Burin Peninsula comes this one in which John Efford will hand over a fake cheque representing the $2.0 billion for the new offshore revenue deal.
The money was actually transferred by the Government of Canada on Monday. The cheque is so "da byes" can add to their respective "I love me" walls. [Note to self: check the federal proactive disclosure releases and see if First Contact is making any more cash from John Efford for this little piece of nonsense. Note to readers: I still haven't figured out what they did for the $22 and a half large they pocketed from earlier this year.]
Of course, the offshore deal is really only worth $2.0 billion and not the double revenues that the Premier boasted about all along. You see, provincial oil revenues are so good the province will likely go off the Equalization rolls this year.
That means there is no Equalization offset under the new deal; we just get the declining one under the original deal. Since the province is likely to stay off Equalization for a while, the odds of ever collecting more than the $2.0 billion would be pretty slim. And what does the new deal actually become worth at that point? Something around $320 million over two years.
That's okay, though. Over the next two years we'll pocket more than $2.0 billion in direct oil revenues and we'll keep every penny of it. I know that isn't what you were told and it sure as heck isn't what you'll be told tomorrow.
But hey, you used to believe in the tooth fairy once too because someone told you she was real.
Speaking of good polls, tomorrow's major post will be some comment on the poll commissioned by the Premier's office in January on attitudes toward the provincial position on the offshore deal. The story was originally covered in the Telegram a while ago, but now that I have had a chance to go through the research report, there are a few interesting things in it that are worth bringing to wider attention.
It might help explain why the Premier is so reluctant to let us all have a look at the eight good polls he is keeping stashed in his desk drawers.
Yesterday's Telegram had yet another column by retired journalist Bob Benson on the plight of Newfoundland and Labrador. You can find the column here, but I'll also append it to the end of this post so it won't disappear in the bowels of the Telly's abysmal website. Look under columns, then Sunday and then Bob Benson.
Ray Guy, who used to write for the Telly when Bob first put fingers to typewriter, likes to call reporters ink-stained wretches; I always took that as an affectionate reference and personally, I look on all reporters as being a gaggle of oft-misunderstood people.
Benson has been pumping out this stuff for years but since he retired, the Telly has given him a ready platform for his pseudo-nationalist rants.
The one yesterday made me wonder why he is writing in the Telly and not for the newspaper where he'd feel much more comfortable: the fact-challenged weekly known as the Independent.
Here's the first chunk of the column with my comments in square brackets:
"Losing our future
Two days after the celebrations of Canada'’s 138th birthday on July 1, this province has yet to find its place in Confederation.
To be brutal about it, union with Canada has failed to produce the new Jerusalem that was promised in 1949.
To be sure, Newfoundland and Labrador has benefited immensely from the largess and handouts of federal transfer payments in areas like Canada Pension, Old Age Security, health care as well as employment insurance and social assistance payments. Then there are the industrial bailouts like the $3 billion which went to support rural Newfoundland after the 1990s northern cod fisheries collapse which was mainly due to federal mismanagement in the first place.
Lost resources
Federal mismanagement, and Ottawa'’s failure to control offshore overfishing by foreign, as well as Canadian, fishing fleets is one of the factors, but not all, that have resulted in the decline of rural Newfoundland."
[Rural Newfoundland is changing. It is only declining if one accepts that the notion that what existed before 1992 was the peak or was preferable. Bob needs to go back and have a hard look at the hard life of people in the fishery before he suggests that the current situation is a decline. Benson also doesn't dare suggest anything bold, like following the Icelandic model of fish management. Nope. That might force him to stop being yet another promoter of the "victim" school of local history.]
"In addition, two rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada in the 1980s denied us control over our natural resources. One ruling said we did not have the right to change the one-sided Upper Churchill hydroelectric contract which made Hydro Quebec the main beneficiary. The other ruled the province doesn'’t own offshore oil and gas on the Grand Banks even though they were brought into Canada because of Confederation. True, Ottawa has permitted us to keep 100 per cent of the royalties but that is only crumbs compared to what it would be if the province had outright ownership."
[Ok. These are favourite bits of nonsense that are not made suddenly true by the constant repetition.
Bob conveniently forgets a few things. First, the Upper Churchill case was basically a ruling against the government attempting to change a contract unilaterally by its own legislative powers. It was a contract law case and the ruling essentially reinforced the notion that one party can't change a contract using its own extraordinary powers without the consent of the other party.
He also doesn't point out that the provincial government bought out the local end of the contract from a private company. The wisdom or folly of that decision has yet to be chewed over by anyone.
Second, on the offshore, there were two rulings. The first upheld a decision by the Supreme Court of Newfoundland that the provincial government didn't have legislative jurisdiction over the offshore. People like Benson like to ignore the decision by the local court. The second decision was on another reference and concluded the same thing.
Of course if Bob relied on facts to back up his opinions he'd never be able to go on an bitch about the fact that noone from this province has ever sat on the Supreme Court of Canada. It actually wouldn't make a difference, Bob, since people usually make decisions based on facts.
Third, and this is really the big point, Benson is simply full of crap when he claims we are getting a pittance from the offshore and that amount would be greater if we had "ownership".
The provincial government claims 100% of direct revenues from the offshore which is exactly what would occur if the province actually "owned" the fields; not "sort of" or "approximately" but EXACTLY.
Bob's pittance is actually enough this fiscal year to push the province off the Equalization rolls. This year - 2005 - the province will become a have province for the first time in its history and we will hold that position for the foreseeable future.
That fact alone makes Bob's lede complete foolishness.]
Here's the rest of the column and again, my comments are inside square brackets.
"Passed over for high court
By the way, why is it that not one Newfoundland and Labrador judge has been nominated to a position on the Supreme Court of Canada? With the exception of Arthur May who served briefly as federal deputy minister of Fisheries and Oceans in the mid 1980s, why hasn'’t a person from this province been appointed to a senior civilian public policy-making and administrative position in the federal government? The answers to these questions would be interesting indeed.
[They'd be interesting solely because Bob would have to stop writing drivel.]
"But after 56 years of Confederation, we still have the nation'’s highest unemployment rate which is stuck at 16 per cent. The average annual income in rural Newfoundland of $20,000, well below the national average except for Prince Edward Island.
Above all, the province'’s youth is leaving in droves to find employment in other parts of Canada.
An alarming statistic
In the past decade or so, more than 30,000 people have moved away because they couldnÂ’t find employment. Even more worrisome is the fact, according to information from the recent symposium on rural Newfoundland held in Carbonear, that 28 per cent of young people in rural areas live on some form of income support.
Our youth is our most precious resource and once they are gone, we lose everything.
Just last week, I received this e-mail from a young reader: '“As a 23-year-old recent graduate of Memorial University, I am finding myself, like many others of my age, being drawn to the mainland for bigger opportunities. However, it is only recently I began to realize the plight of Newfoundland and its impact on me.'”
But he is proud of his identity as a Newfoundlander and this bodes well for the future.
'“I know from visiting many people across Canada that we are a rich and recognizable people,'” he wrote.
Mainland commentators and critics fall into the trap of thinking this province is a haven for whiners and, to use a good old Newfoundland expression, '“slingers'” or idlers and loafers."
[When all the mainlanders see is stuff like yours Bob, then you can understand why they come to their conclusions. When they see stuff like Hard Rock and Water, how can anyone think anything else?]
"But all we want is control over our own destiny and to make this province a decent place for all of its citizens to live in. If we have to rant and roar to achieve this, so be it."
[We already control our own destiny, Bob. If we'd stop ranting and roaring, i.e. shooting off our mouths while uttering idiocies, and start addressing the issues on a factual basis, we'd be much better off.]
"Bob Benson is a St. John'’s journalist. He can be reached by e-mail at
bjbenson@allstream.net"
When pondering why government won't release a series of eight polls done by Ryan Research for Executive Council, ask yourself the same questions I have been mulling over:
1. Since Ryan Research is the Premier's personal favourite polling firm, is it possible most of the information in the eight polls really about attitudes to the Premier and his performance and how the public is viewing his opponents? That information isn't Earth-shattering or secret; it might be a tad embarrassing for the Premier himself, though.
2. Are these polls actually ones that should have been paid for directly out of the Premier's Office budget but which were, a la Tobin, foisted on someone else?
One thing I would bet my house on: the resistance to releasing them has nothing to do with the need to keep cabinet discussions secret.
Natural Resources minister Ed Byrne called Open Line today to say what Bond readers have known for some time:
There is nothing in the Real Atlantic Accord that prevents a refinery from being built here.
Byrne noted that government is assessing the possibility of building secondary and tertiary oil refining capacity here. Not only is that good news, it is something people have known for a while.
The provincial government's Access to Information act is a pretty simple document.
It establishes the right of the public to obtain a wide range of information in government's possession, with only few exceptions. In fact, clause 3.(1)(c) states simply that one purpose of the act is to make public bodies more accountable by "specifying limited exceptions to the right of access".
Section III establishes those limited exceptions. Clause 18 provides that "[t]he head of a public body shall refuse to disclose to an applicant information that would reveal the substance of deliberations of Cabinet, including advice, recommendations, policy considerations or draft legislation or regulations submitted or prepared for submission to the Cabinet."
That section is the section Premier Danny Williams and his acting justice minister Tom Rideout are pointing to when they claim that releasing certain public opinions polls would "preserve that underpinning of British parliamentary democracy, that cabinet discussions are secret." The complete text of the original Telegram story on the poll controversy can be found here.
This claim is merely an attempt to argue an absurdity. No one is seeking any records of cabinet deliberations,advice given to cabinet by officials or outside consultants or anything else which would reveal cabinet deliberations. The small cloak of invisibility granted by the legislature to those extremely sensitive deliberations remains intact. What has been sought by the Telegram is nothing more than data - a set of questions put to several hundred residents of the province and their anonymous responses.
A few sentences later in the legislation, however, the intention of the House of Assembly is clear when it comes to releasing public opinion polls. Clause 20.(1) states that "[t]he head of a public body may refuse to disclose to an applicant information that would reveal...(a) advice or recommendations developed by or for a public body or a minister; or (b) draft legislation or regulations."
Clause 20.(2)(b) is unequivocal: "The head of a public body shall not refuse to disclose under subsection (1)...(b) a public opinion poll."
In making his case for withholding something clearly intended to be released, the Premier claims that it is not the content of the polls; after all, anyone can conduct the same public opinion polls. Rather, argues the Premier, it is the precedent.
At this point, the Premier's contention reduces his own argument to the point of absurdity.
The Williams administration has already released a series of public opinion polls conducted by Corporate Research Associates. If the administration was concerned about precedent, then it would have stood its ground when the first request to release the first poll was received. In each case, the only thing released were the questions and the tally of answers. They made the same argument about cabinet confidentiality then, as in the latest case and in each case, access commissioner Phil Wall dismissed the feeble government objections. Here is decision 002 for 2005. Here's the most recent decision; note the similarity both in the vague arguments presented by government and the detailed and sophisticated reasoning of the access commissioner.
In another set of two polls conducted in January 2005, information commissioner Phil Wall recommended that the polls be released but that advice from the consultant be deleted. His recommendation is consistent with the spirit and intent of the access legislation and, curiously government complied.
The polls they are now withholding were conducted by a single firm - Ryan Research and Communications - over the period between December 2003 and August 2004. Three separate polls were conducted in April 2004, during the height of the budget controversy last year and two of those polls were sent to government within a working week of each other.
Why have these polls suddenly become matters of high state secrecy?
The simple answer is that they are actually not polls that would reveal cabinet deliberations. Ryan Research is the Premier's personal favourite opinion firm. The polls in question were likely requested by his office and may well contain questions which reveal exactly the extent to which this Premier is keen to know exactly how the winds of opinion are blowing when he makes a decision.
There is no coincidence that his January polling, for example, showed that tearing down the Canadian flag was extremely unpopular with Canadians across the country and especially those at home. Fully 60% of those polled opposed the flag fiasco, selecting the strongest opposition choice in the questionnaire. When you couple that with the fact that the same disproportionately surveyed Atlantic Canadians it is no surprise how quickly the Premier put the flags back less than a day after the poll was concluded.
All of that is actually irrelevant.
The provincial government should release the Ryan research polls without delay.
The black letter of the access legislation requires it to do so, obviously without any recommendations or analysis as conducted by the consultant.
The provincial government has already released a series of polls conducted for Executive Council, as were the Ryan polls, without making much fuss of the matter.
As the Premier has argued, the polls themselves contain nothing which could not be released. In effect, he argues against himself, making absurd both his own position and the arguments he presents to back it up.
More importantly, the government's refusal to release these polls makes absurd the entire concept of access to information. No one - not a private citizen, not a newspaper reporter - should have to go to court to seek what government is obliged to release by the black letter of the law and by its own precedent.
Contrary to what some people believe, I love Brian Dobbin's million dollar folly, known officially as the Independent but known to many of us out here in the world as the Spindy.
Grab the new issue today and have a gander at some of the choice offerings.
1. On page one there's a story about an unnamed consultant in the provincial department of education who holds a degree from what the Spindy says is a degree mill. For $10 Large and the effort of filling out a few forms you can get a doctorate. There sounds like the makings of a great story here and a very embarrassing situation for a whole pile of people in the provincial bureaucracy.
2. Then there's the letter from soon-to-be Liberal leadership candidate Chuck Furey in which he denies ever having said anything vaguely like "Dick Cheney bought off Brian Tobin", as the Spindy reported a couple of weeks ago. Its factually anemic original story (based on one source who apparently now has recanted) claimed that a company that had no controlling interest in the Terra Nova project gave the province a few warehousing jobs in lieu of engineering and procurement jobs on the Terra Nova project.
That "fact" gave Spindy publisher Dobbin the chance to attack the provincial government for supposedly selling the shop on Terra Nova. (What he really meant was they didn't weigh down the thing with a gravity-based structure; do the Dobbins have interests in big concrete manufacturing and such? It's a just a question.)
This week Dobbin puts the ultimate pseudo-nationalists Evil Eye on Terra Nova, calling it a Bad Deal. He hasn't compared it to Churchill Falls yet but I am waiting for that one.
Its such a bad deal, Brian, that the project will pay off its costs after a mere three years and is the principal reason the provincial government will reap at least $400 million in revenues this year alone abovewhat it projected in the spring budget. Brian obviously missed the point that once Terra Nova pays its starting costs, the whole project starts generating revenues for the province on the order of double digits. Incidentally, the total value to the provincial economy of the "lost" engineering and procurement jobs was estimated by the Spindy at $400 million.
While Dobbin slams the idea of politicians and bureaucrats negotiating big business deals, given Dobbin's obviously pathetic grasp of math and the Big Picture, I think I'll leave oil and gas decision-making to someone other than Brian Dobbin.
3. My favourite story this week though is the all-too-short-on-details piece on the front page that claims there are legal "road blocks" in the Atlantic Accord (1985) that might prevent the provincial government from luring someone into building a new oil refinery in the province.
Let's get this clear once and hopefully for all: there is nothing in the Real Atlantic Accord that prevents anyone from building an oil refinery in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Period.
I challenge anyone to find a clause preventing a refinery from being built here or that forces the provincial government to get permission from Ottawa.
This is nothing more than a big fib being foisted by everyone from George Baker back in the mid-1980s to talk-show maven, Spindy researcher and former advisor to Roger Grimes, Sue today.
Build a heavy oil refinery. There's a global shortage of refining capacity for heavy oil such that Saudi crude (heavy and sour) goes for about half the price of our light sweet stuff.
Bring in the oil from the Middle East.
Refine it and sell it to your heart's content. There's no one to stop you, if the venture is commercially viable. If it isn't, someone might even give you some tax incentives to refine crude here.
It would be easier to figure out what everyone is talking about if the Spindy actually gave some facts in its story. Near as I can figure though, the Premier may have been talking about Section 54 of the Real Accord, when he gave the Spindy an interview.
Here's the kicker, though. That section talks only about making offshore oil available to a refinery in the province. Given the world-wide shortage of heavy crude refining capacity, we could build a refinery here and never have to worry about that clause. But even if it did, the clause makes it clear the province can have access to offshore product "on commercial terms", i.e. without any preferential pricing unless the oil companies developing a field want to make some type of deal.
There is a caveat that the feedstock (i.e. crude for refining) is in excess of the needs of existing refineries in eastern Canada, but by taking that one step further we can see there isn't likely much of an issue here either.
An earlier clause of the Real Accord establishes something called national self-sufficiency and security of supply. Basically, that is calculated every five years. If there is self-sufficiency, then control over development passes to the provincial energy minister. By implication, it would be hard to be nationally self-sufficient without also being regionally self-sufficient, especially considering there have been refinery closures in eastern Canada since 1985.
There really shouldn't be any obstacle to building a refinery that could handle heavy crude from Hebron, for example. We just have to double-check the numbers.
The sad thing is that the Spindy only has to talk to a few people who actually understand these things and they might actually find a better story. Or they might just stop wasting time pumping out more stuff like they have been about the offshore.
The Spindy has become, on some issues anyway, an ongoing reduction to the point of absurdity.
Just so you can make your own judgment, here's the regional security of supply clause:
For those across the country, take a pause as you begin your Canada Day.
In 1949, the history of Newfoundland and Labrador became your history too.
July 1 has been known as Commemoration Day since 1917, making it one of the oldest annual memorial days in the Commonwealth. On this day 89 years ago, at 0915 AM local time, more than 800 young Newfoundlanders and Labradorians of the Newfoundland Regiment (later the Royal Newfoundland Regiment) attacked German trenches in front of the French town of Beaumont Hamel.
Fewer than 70 were able to answer roll-call next day and those consisted almost entirely of the 10% hold-back left to reconstitute the battalion. Every single one of the men who came out of the trenches that day was killed or wounded in the space of a mere 30 minutes.
Last night was the official regimental mess dinner to mark the event. In addition to the commanding officer, former commanding officers, current and former members and friends of the regiment , dignitaries at the dinner included His Honour the Lieutenant Governor, defence minister Bill Graham, municipal affairs minister Jack Byrne, army commander Lieutenant General Marc Caron, regional army commander brigadier general R Romses (whose mess kit was obviously in desperate need of being brought up to standard by a professional tailor).
For those of you unfamiliar with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment and Beaumont Hamel, try the links here and here.
And have a happy Canada Day.
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