Hydro Quebec intervenes on Lower Churchill

Hydro Quebec has taken a shot at the Lower Churchill project as part of the environmental review, saying the environmental documents do not contain the amount and the quality of information normally required within the framework of the environmental evaluation of major hydroelectric projects, according to le soleil.

The HQ submission said that unless deficiencies are corrected, the project shouldn’t be approved.  Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro has until September to respond to the HQ submission, as part of the environmental review process for the project.

One of the issues highlighted by HQ was water resource management between the Churchill falls power plant and the Lower Churchill. 

That may be a valid objection and could be the reason why the provincial government made changes to the Electrical Power Control Act two years ago but still hasn’t implemented them.  Under the changes, two energy producers on the same river would have to come to an agreement to ensure both projects worked to the maximum.  In the absence of an agreement the province’s public utilities board could impose one.

But, the revisions are in limbo.  Incidentally, the only part of the province the section applies to would be the Churchill River.  It would have applied to any developments on the island but any potential issues there were eliminated when the provincial government wiped out most private sector electricity generation on the island with its December expropriation.

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Paying not to produce electricity

A drop in electricity demand in North America will see Hydro Quebec paying some of its suppliers not to produce electricity in the next year, according to le devoir.

Selon les documents déposés devant la Régie par la société d'État, ses surplus d'approvisionnements s'établissent à 11,3 TWh pour l'année prochaine. Le chiffre inclut les volumes d'énergie différés par le passé. De ce volume important, Hydro-Québec souhaite désormais soustraire les 4,3 TWh de la centrale de Bécancour. «Notre contrat avec TCE nous permet de payer pour la non-livraison d'électricité», a commenté Guy l'Italien, porte-parole d'Hydro-Québec. «Cette option nous coûte, dans le contexte actuel, moins cher que si nous décidions de prendre possession de l'électricité pour la revendre sur le marché.» La Société n'a pas été en mesure hier d'indiquer si des clauses similaires étaient présentes dans ses contrats d'approvisionnement avec d'autres de ses fournisseurs.

HQ is looking to shutter a natural gas generator operated by TransCanada Energy and pay the company $250 million under the terms of the contract between the two companies.

In the near term, HQ may also wind up with a significant surplus of generating capacity as it looks to bring the La Romaine and other projects on stream.  HQ will go ahead with the megaprojects since it has the capital and will look to recover its costs over a very long time span.

A drop in energy demand and competition from other electricity generators will likely also lessen the chances the provincial government’s cherished Lower Churchill project will find favourable capital arrangements.  The $6.0 to $9.0 billion project remains chronically about two to three years behind schedule in its most recent iteration. 

The project also doesn’t have a single customer to date outside consumers on the island portion of province.  They would be – in effect – forced to subsidise the massive project by virtue of having an infeed line strung to the Avalon peninsula even though demand on the island could be met through other less costly means.   Other than that, there are no signed power purchase agreements.

Interestingly, as demand has lessened, interest in the project has increased, particularly within the Maritime provinces.  Federal cabinet minister Peter Mackay and Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently toured the proposed dam sites by helicopter.

Of course, weakening demand and a proponent jammed up for cash and pushed along by its own hyper-torqued rhetoric might create a much better circumstance for energy buyers looking to strike a favourable long term deal.  That’s very similar to the situation that led Brinco to sign a disastrous deal with Hydro Quebec in 1969, with the backing of the provincial government.

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h/t to Claude Boucher.

An unhealthy trend

In a province with a notoriously underdeveloped private sector,  the news of a manufacturing venture in Argentia should be bringing a lot more voices of concern than it likely will.

That’s because the metal fabrication facility will be a joint venture of JV Driver, D.F. Barnes Group and the provincial government. 

Out of a total estimated cost of $10 million, the provincial government is tossing in $4.0 million. And of that amount fully half is going to purchase specialized equipment for welding pressure vessels as well as training employees.

In other words, the provincial government is taking on the capital costs and the human resource costs for two private sector companies of the start-up venture. 

Now it’s not like these sorts of government-backed ventures have a spectacular history of success in Newfoundland and Labrador, and that history spans a half century and more.  Typically, the ventures that need such massive transfusions of public money are marginal at best or  - even worse - unthinkable without it. 

Places that have a market demand and industrial sectors where there is demand usually can attract sufficient private sector investment to make a go of things without government involvement to the tune of 40% of project cost and with government absorbing the cost of training and capital equipment purchases. 

If you look at the news release, there’s no sign this new venture has any contracts already aside from whatever demand might come from local offshore projects.  That might point to another issue, namely that this pressure vessel fabrication plant is competing with well-established players globally that are considerably closer to customer locations than Newfoundland and Labrador.   The existing companies would also have the competitive advantage of experience and a proven track-record for delivery.

Taken altogether, those points suggest it might be difficult to break into the pressure vessel market successfully without using government subsidy as a way of lowering costs.

This is not the first example of government subsidized industry in this province and, if the current administration’s policies are any clue, it won’t be the last.  What this project indicates is that government has decisively abandoned the 1992 Strategic Economic Plan. 

That plan, you may recall was built on the twin ideas of lower to non-existent government subsidy on the one hand and on the other a focus on industries where Newfoundland and Labrador offered an obvious competitive advantage.  The idea was to create businesses that were sustainable in the long-haul in a global economy without government financial support.

What is now appearing more obviously is that the provincial government’s industrial development policy is a throw-back to the rubber boot and eyeglass factories  of the Smallwood era and the 1980s vintage cucumber grow-ops. 

Plus ca change, it would seem, or perhaps res ipsa loquitur:

"In particular, My Government will create sources of capital to enable businesses to establish, grow, diversify, and prosper."

There are also white tips poking through the sand, portents of the bleached bones of Latvian dinosaurs from the days when another government brought back little more from its wanderings than the crushing weight of debt. It is not for government to create sources of private sector capital out of public money, Premier Williams. One shudders at what the winds of time will expose of that seemingly Smallwoodian tyrannosaur.

After years of looking at the Irish and Icelandic models, the province’s industrial policy has apparently reverted to its original Latvian root.

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When small could mean big

As renewNewEngland.com reports, the Maine state legislature recently passed an initiative designed to encourage small, locally-owned green energy generation concepts. The bill was signed into law on June 26.

The new law establishes a six-year pilot program to encourage the development of community-based renewable energy in Maine, defined as a majority locally-owned facility that generates electricity from an eligible renewable resource.  The pilot program has an overall program cap of 50 MW, 10 MW of which is reserved at the outset for projects that have a generating capacity under 100 kW or are located in the service territory of a consumer-owned utility.  To be eligible for the program, renewable energy projects must (1) have a generating capacity of 10 MW or less, (2) secure a resolution of support from their local community (projects with a capacity of less than 100 kW are exempt from this requirement), (3) be connected to the grid, and (4) have an in-service date of September 1, 2009 or later.

This has all the hallmarks of a growing trend south of the border to focus on private sector development of small energy developments.  It’s based on the belief – apparently -  that small is not only less harmful to the environment but that local initiative and local capital can successfully combine to meet a portion of the nation’s energy needs.  The approach is supposed to create jobs and, since it is handled by the private sector and costs are relatively small, stimulate the growth of local businesses.

Compare that to the official philosophy in Newfoundland and Labrador that is touting an energy megaproject that thus far has no customers outside the northeast Avalon peninsula.  Incidentally, even your humble e-scribbler’s sister missed the point that the infeed the provincial government is trying to ram through Gros Morne is designed to bring power to townies, not Yanks. 

There is no plan in public at this point to extend any power lines south of the island of Newfoundland.  There likely won’t be if customers can’t be found for the juice.  Anyone who has read any part of the environmental review documents for the infeed to Soldiers Pond will understand that the thing is justified entirely on a supposed power shortfall on the island within the next decade. 

They plan to meet that supposed need with Lower Churchill power at a cost of $6.0 to $9.0 billion.  As the 2007  energy plan puts it:

This demand is forecast to grow at a fairly steady, moderate pace over the next several years. This would result in a need for new sources of supply on the Island prior to 2015, and later in Labrador.  As a result, we plan to develop the Lower Churchill project, which will include  a transmission link between Labrador and the Island.

Anyone reading the environmental impact documents will also realise that the provincial government’s energy company has effectively ignored the potential for small hydro developments or other small electricity projects to meet local need.  Even when an energy corporation official talks about wind power, it is obvious the corporation is fixated on the export market.  And when they think exports, big is all they seem to see.

There’s been a moratorium on small hydro projects in the province since the late 1990s.  While the provincial government committed two years ago to make a decision on the moratorium this year, odds are the decision won’t be made on time.  Even if it is made, the energy plan links the Lower Churchill and alternative sources for the island in an “either/or” proposition.  If the government proceeds with the Lower Churchill, alternatives are dead issues.  If the Lower Churchill dies, then small generators are the way to go.

As for private sector capital investment,  you only have to consider that one of the effects of the expropriation bill last December to see the official attitude to the private sector.  While everyone fixated on Abitibi, the expropriation also included seizing control of just exactly the kinds of small hydro that Maine and others are encouraging and hand them over to the provincial government’s energy corporation.  Star Lake  - totally unrelated to the Abitibi mill - was one of the casualties of the expropriation, as was the Exploits River partnership, a joint venture between Abitibi and locally-based Fortis. 

If that doesn’t convince you, consider that in the event small hydro projects go ahead, the energy plans mandates that only the provincial government energy corporation will be involved:

If the Provincial Government lifts the moratorium, it will institute a policy that the Energy Corporation will control and coordinate the development of small hydro projects that meet economic thresholds and are viable for an isolated island system.

And it’s not like the energy corporation has been very efficient at exploring alternatives to its current obsession with megaprojects.  The earliest proposals for wind energy farms on the island turned up over a decade ago. However, it took another six years for a small project to start on an isolated island and another  seven years for a report to examine the issues involved in wind generation and another two years after that before the first larger demonstration project started.

If Newfoundland and Labrador followed the approach of other jurisdictions, the people of the province could reaping the big economic and environmental benefits of innovative, small energy generation.

Unfortunately, the provincial government’s energy plan is fixated on government monopoly and megaprojects. The only things big in that are costs and - of course - project delays.

The Lower Churchill was supposed to start in 2009.  By the latest estimates, the earliest it could start construction is after 2011.

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The Wookey Hole Witch

Wookey Hole Caves, near the village of Wookey, Somerset held a competition recently for the post of witch at the local tourist attraction.

Contestants had 60 seconds to make their pitch in front of a panel.  Carole Bohanan, a real estate agent, bested 400 or so others and walked off with the job. As the resident witch, Carole will work under the name Carla Calamity. 

The job comes with an annual stipend of 50,000 pounds sterling.

Legend has it that an old woman did once live there, with her dogs and her goats, her spells making life miserable for the locals.

Eventually, a monk from Glastonbury was sent for and Father Bernard, together with his bible and a candle, went in to see if he could sort the situation out

He failed. The witch ran off into the depths of the cavern, cursing and screaming.

So the monk scooped up some water from the cave, blessed it and threw it at the witch. She and her dog were turned to stone and can still be seen in the cave today.

Now given a choice, something suggests that people on the west coast of Newfoundland might prefer shelling out a few hundred thousand annually for a local Carla.  If nothing else, she’d be a much better draw than say some massive steel erections in a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Don’t think so?

Just take a gander at the winner.

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Fisheries activist passes away

Father Des McGrath, the Roman Catholic priest who was instrumental in the drive to organize the Fish, Food and Allied Workers union has passed away at age 74.

McGrath was found dead in his garage by police.

Born in Corner Brook in 1935, McGrath was ordained in 1961.  in 1969, McGrath and Richard Cashin helped fisherman organize the Northern Fisherman’s Union.  It amalgamated with the Canadian Food and Allied Workers Union in 1970 to form the predecessor of the FFAW.  Cashin served a president. 

McGrath held no union office but remained an advocate for fisheries union for the remainder of his life.

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Why…

1.  Does Ron Ellsworth, wannabe mayor, keep referring to himself in the plural as in “we” received information or when “we” got into politics when he is referring to himself, singularly and personally?

The “we”, something he copied from his model’s speaking pattern along with referring to things as this “piece” or that “piece”, sounds pompous, arrogant or – worse – deranged.  [word replaced;  see note below]

And while we are at it, why…

2.  would Ron Ellsworth, wannabe mayor, bring up optional blind trusts for city councillors when there are other ethics issues he’s clearly ignoring.

Like campaign finance reform.

Far better for people to know which monied interests in town are backing candidates than giving councillors the option of putting their interests at arms length.

But in the spirit of disclosure and accountability, maybe Ron could disclose publicly his own local business interests for starters and a complete accounting of his campaign donations and expenses for the past two elections.

We are not talking about the ones required by the laughable city election rules.  We are talking about full and complete disclosure using – for example – the federal campaign spending and reporting rules.

Ellsworth has made a rod to beat his own back, but his rival for the mayor’s chair – Doc O’Keefe  - isn’t likely politically swift enough to use it. 

Others might not be.

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Change update:  There are two parts of that post that require correction, elaboration and clarification.

The first is the use of the word “mentor” in reference to Ellsworth.  That wasn’t the right word since it could suggest a conscious collaboration by both parties. The word “model” is better since it merely suggests what seems to be obvious, namely that Ellsworth is modelling himself on a certain well-known politician.

The second is to replace the words “but Doc is too stunned to use it, most likely”.  Stunned is a common enough local word and while that phrase would come across to someone who got the point using dialect, the potential for misunderstanding is too great to leave it alone.

The phrase could be taken the wrong way so best to change it to one that more accurately reflects the meaning intended:

As it now reads, the sentence should convey the point that while Ellsworth has essentially handed his rival with a political rod to beat him about the head with, Ellsworth’s rival hasn’t displayed the sort of political savvy and moxie – the political swiftness – to capitalize on his opponent’s blunder.

Now for those who think your humble e-scribbler got calls, be assured that there were none.  Also be assured that Doc’s crowd won’t like the revised version any better than the one before.  Nor will Ellsworth and his crowd.

This just makes plain what was meant.

Re-union fever

Among the bands re-uniting for concert dates in 2009:

1.  Kajagoogoo.  [youtube link]

2. Spandau Ballet

3. Ultravox.

4.  Earth, Wind and Fire are still out there so this doesn’t really count as a reunion;  it’s worth just posting this video of a recent version of September that stills kicks ass.

5.  And to reunite you with some really great music from a band that never stopped, there’s always Kid Creole and the Coconuts:

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Significant digits: $100 million

No, it’s not Dr. Evil trying to catch up with the times.

There’s something about $100 million that seems to tweak the current Provincial Conservative administration in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Even more specifically, it is $100 million coupled with Labrador.

Take, for example, the plan to string hydroelectric lines and massive steel towers from Labrador to St. John’s via a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Premier is backing the proposal to drive the giant steel erections straight through Gros Morne because the cost of jogging around the park -  which he estimates at $100 million – is too high a price. 

Or during the last provincial election campaign when the Liberals floated the idea of establishing a $100 million fund for economic development in Labrador.

Oh no, screamed the Tories.  The province might go bankrupt at such a price.

And then there’s the cost of extending fibre-optic telephone and data lines to Labrador.

Glorious idea, but the provincial government can’t even think about starting without federal cash.  The estimated cost is $80 million, but that’s only a couple of minor cost overruns or a simple bit of rounding from hitting the magic number.

All that is strange enough from a government that has money pouring in by the barrel-full from oil deals signed before 2003 when they came to power.

But, in fact, the Tories in power have so much cash floating around from all those old deals that, according to the last budget, they’ve got almost 20 times $100 million sitting in temporary investments.

Bankruptcy is far from imminent.

Still, the consistency of the talking point that connects $100 million and Labrador as being something problematic, just leaps out as a pattern.

Labrador.

$100 million.

There’s something about the two that sounds awfully familiar.

A few clicks of the keyboard and up it pops.

Faced with bankruptcy in the early 1930s, the Dominion of Newfoundland tried to sell Labrador to Canada as a way of picking up some fast cash and retiring the crushing debt that had been accumulated by decades of over-spending and mismanagement by Tory and Grit and coalition governments alike. 

Labradorians didn’t even have a vote before the 1946 National Convention but their lands, won by Newfoundland in a 1927 Privy Council decision on the boundary went up for sale before the ink was even dry on the documents.

The asking price was $110 million.  In some accounts the $10 million bit gets dropped off, probably due to rounding.

The Canadians weren’t interested.

Seems like the connection between Labrador and $100 million is passed on genetically because it just keeps seeming to crop up among local politicians.

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iPod and flames

Seattle, Washington television station KIRO 7 reported last week on an 800 page report by the American Consumer Product Safety Commission into reports that some iPods have apparently burst into flames for no observable reason.

The report included 15 cases across the United States of iPod-related fires including some that caused injuries. There are over 175 million iPods across the globe.  No recall is planned.

Consumer reporter Amy Clancy obtained the report after a seven month long process under US federal access to information laws.

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Gasoline plus Taser equals?

Fire, apparently.

Well, maybe. 

A man in Australia who had doused himself in gasoline reportedly burst into flames when local police hit him with a Taser. A police officer who tried to douse the flames suffered burns and injuries from rocks thrown at him by a nearby woman.

However police are also checking to see if the lighter the man was brandishing along with a container of gasoline may have ignited or if the man ignited as he was being struck with the Taser.

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The Newfoundland Flag: Great War version

For those who have been following the Newfoundland flag posts, here’s another contribution that may well surprise some people.

This is an example of the certificates sent to families of soldiers killed during the Great War (1914-1918).  A similar document for sailors killed in action had the words Royal Naval Reserve in place of “1st Newfoundland Regiment”.

The flag to the left is the familiar Union Flag. 

The one on the right is the red ensign, adopted by the Newfoundland legislature in 1904.  The red version flew on government buildings while the blue version flew on government ships.

Incidentally, a Wikipedia entry on Newfoundland and Labrador incorrectly identifies the ensign as an “unofficial commercial flag” while one on the Dominion of Newfoundland shows the ensign correctly as the official flag..

The ensign included the 1827 Great seal of Newfoundland in the fly.   The Great Seal depicts a fisherman and Mercury, the god of commerce, presenting the harvest of the sea to Britannia.  The motto is translated as “These gifts I bring thee.”

This was the official flag of Newfoundland at the time of the Great War.  In fact, you’ll have a hard time finding any official documents from the period which substitute another flag for the red or blue ensign. 

There are other examples of unofficial documents that use this flag in preference to any other.  A handbill distributed by the Fishermen’s Protective Union to praise the sacrifice of the Morey family of Boot Harbor [sic], Hall’s Bay shows the Union Flag and the red ensign.  The Morey’s had seven sons:  a total of four served with the Newfoundland regiment (2), the Royal Naval Reserve (1)and the forestry corps(1) .  A fifth had joined the American army and two others had tried repeatedly to enlist but been rejected for undisclosed reasons.

A poem honoring the regiment’s Roman catholic padre, Father Thomas Nangle, appeared in the August 1916 issue of the Newfoundland Quarterly. The only flags on the page are the Union Flag and the red ensign of Newfoundland.

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Tourism industry association caves on Gros Morne hydro towers

The province’s hospitality industry now supports the provincial government’s plans for Gros Morne national park, expressing their belief that a “balance” can be found in the government’s plan to sling hydro lines along 120-foot-high steel towers along the most visible, public portions of the park.

There’s a story in the Western Star from last week.

Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador – the province’s tourism industry association -  issued an unprompted and undated statement  in early July that said:

…By being an active participant in this process and working with stakeholders to find the best solution, HNL is optimistic that a balance will be found. As business owners, the tourism industry understands the need to be financially prudent in making long term economic decisions and is confident that the long term economic and social impact of Gros Morne to the province is being considered during this process.

That statement appeared around the same time the Gros Morne story reared its head again publicly.  It came about a month after the provincial government created a new provincial tourism board.  The membership includes a bevy of current and former HNL heavyweights including HNL president Bruce Sparkes.

The language in the statement – especially the bit about being “financially prudent”  - matches perfectly the line taken by the Premier that he was prepared to sacrifice Gros Morne’s UNESCO status because the costs of going around the park might possibly, theoretically, be too high.  Financial prudence dictated the shortest route, especially if that extra money could be spent on health care instead.  Never mind that the province’s energy corporation would be building the lines with borrowed cash not money from the provincial treasury.

The Premier estimated the cost of going around the park at $100 million.  The provincial government currently has cash assets on hand of upwards of $1.8 billion.

By the time HNL issued its new position, the “long term economic and social impact” had already been considered of course, and promptly dismissed by the provincial government.

As the Western Star noted, the new HNL language is also radically different from the statement HNL made in February when the towers controversy first appeared.  Back then, there was an unequivocal statement that the towers were the wrong way to go:

"Running towers in front of dynamic and dramatic landscape is going to take away from the natural beauty of it," [HNL president Bruce] Sparkes said. [CBC story]

"From a photographic, awe-inspiring point of view, it's going to take away that. And who wouldn't say, 'Gee, too bad they put that pole line there?'"

What hasn’t changed in the government position, as expressed by the Premier:

“When park officials look at what the trade-off happens to be for the benefits we get at the end of day ... I think they will see the benefit,” he said.

Seems like that happened, but not to the park people. Who knows?  Maybe the HNL rethink was aided by a few phone calls and e-mails.

What makes the HNL about-face even more spectacular  something your humble e-scribbler noted back in early July when the erection story heated up again:  “the surest way to put an end to any news story about the threat to Gros Morne  from the potentially unnecessary infeed from the Lower Churchill – if that even gets built – is to have the tourism people state publicly that having Gros Morne festooned with steel girders and power lines  is just a lot of fuss about nothing at all.”

The tourism people have spoken.

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Irving shelves second refinery

Irving oil has cancelled plans for a $7.0 billion refinery in Saint John New Brunswick, adjacent to its existing refinery and natural gas facility.

The company cited the recession and forecasts of weak demand.

The proposal would have doubled the size of Irving’s existing 300,000 barrel per day refinery in the southern New Brunswick city.

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For want of a nail: cabinet ministers and conflict of interest version

The issues raised by the Paul Oram case just got a whole lot worse, politically:

…Oram replied that "if you look at any business people that are involved in government you'd have to ask the same question."

"I'm not the only one that owns businesses within government and owns shares within government, and has been a director of a business within government. There's all sorts of people that are involved there."

Expect reporters and others to ask some logical questions:

• Who are the others in cabinet with business interests that aren’t in a blind trust?
• Has there been a real or perceived conflict of interest in each of these?
• How come the Premier didn’t simply require his ministers to put their businesses in a blind trust when they were appointed to cabinet?

That last one remains the crucial one for your humble e-scribbler.  This entire issue was one of the easiest to manage with a little preventive action.

As a result of that initial decision, Paul Oram’s answer to The Telegram just opened up a whole new line of inquiry where really there shouldn’t need to be one.

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Freedom from Information: the “how Irish are we” version

From the 2008 annual report of the Ireland Newfoundland Partnership:

Irish Legacy Project at The Rooms

The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, INP and IBP are supporting the establishment of the Irish Legacy Project at The Rooms Provincial Museum, Art Gallery and Archives (www.therooms.ca).

The Irish Legacy Project will be a focal point for telling both the historical and contemporary stories of the Irish in Newfoundland. It comprises the development of a permanent exhibit for the museum, and the creation of an ancestral research workspace for the archives. It is expected that the museum exhibit will open to the public in September 2009.

There’s also a pretty good description of the project in the INP strategic plan for 2008-2010:

In 2007, INP became a partner in a major initiative titled the Irish Legacy
Project, which will establish a permanent exhibit at The Rooms Provincial
Museum, Art Gallery and Archives in St. John’s. The exhibit will incorporate
film, artefacts, maps, and text to describe the historical and present day
relationship between Ireland and Newfoundland. It is envisaged that the
establishment of this legacy project at The Rooms, will provide a focal point
for future culture and heritage projects and will assist the long-term
sustainability of the Ireland Newfoundland connection. The core of the Irish
Legacy Project will be a permanent exhibit in the provincial museum. To
complement this exhibit, INP should continue to encourage art exchanges
between the provincial art gallery and the Irish Museum of Modern Art,
building upon a previous exchange in 2005.

You also won’t find anything over at the provincial version of the Ireland partnership.  There’s been no annual report from the Ireland Business Partnership since 2006-07 likely because the local website hasn’t been updated for the most part since late 2008. Even the “What’s New” section doesn’t mention the permanent exhibit, even though that page was updated in June 2009.

So what about The Rooms?

Funny thing is, you won’t find any reference to this exhibit on The Rooms’ website, even though the project has been underway since 2007  - at least  - and is apparently slated to open in September 2009.

This is really strange since in the museum world a permanent exhibit is a pretty big deal.  It’s basically the core of what the museum is supposed to represent.

You can see that by looking at two of the three permanent museum exhibits at The Rooms right now.  One is on the province’s natural history.  A second one focuses on aboriginal people in the province.  That pretty much follows on from the old Newfoundland Museum which combined a natural history museum and a human history museum in one pile.

A permanent exhibit that focused on one of the groups of European settler populations wouldn’t necessarily be the logical next step. Given the limited permanent space in the building, one might expect the next permanent exhibit to have a broader look at European history in the province with sections devoted to various aspects of that history.  The Irish would be there, along with the English – as the largest group – and the Norse, French, Basques and others.

An approach that emphasises diversity and the complexity of our history would also be in keeping with the provincial government’s own stated image of the province:

My Government will affirm Newfoundland and Labrador’s status as a distinct people, not uniform in lineage but multi-cultural, one nation inclusive of many nations living in harmony together.

Focusing in one one specific ethnic group - even one with as significant a role in Newfoundland and Labrador history as the Irish  - would be a pretty powerful political statement for one thing. 

Such a narrow exhibit would also run the risk of  providing a potentially distorted view of the history of Europeans in Newfoundland and Labrador complete with the stamp of museum authority.  That’s no small issue given the absence of a required history course in the provincial high school curriculum, for example,  and what appears to be a popular tendency to imagine or fantasize our history.

Then there’s that ancestral archives thing.  The provincial archives already get a huge chunk of business from people doing research into their own family tree.  Putting in some sort of dedicated genealogy workspace is a significant undertaking.  If the new workspace had an ethnic overlay to it, like say a special emphasis on the Irish alone, we’d be looking at a major alteration of the archives’ philosophy.

So with such a big thing in the works, it’s a bit peculiar that there has been so little public mention of it by the people behind the “legacy” project.

Let’s look a little deeper.

There is a reference to the project in The Rooms strategic plan (undated, but covering the period 2008-2011) tabled in the legislature in 2008.  It refers to completion of an undefined “Irish Legacy Project” by 2011, as one example of how the museum division will “have increased opportunities for the public to interact in a meaningful way with the history and visual arts of the province.”  Planning would be done by 2009.  The strategic plan doesn’t saying anything about this being a permanent exhibit.

There’s also a reference to the project in The Rooms 2007-08 annual report (tabled in February 2009 (!)):

…working with the Irish Business Partnerships and the Irish Newfoundland
Partnership, and the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, the Museum
initiated the Irish Legacy Project. The project, scheduled to open in
March, 2009, will result in an exhibition focusing on the historical and
contemporary connections between Newfoundland and Ireland.

Again, there’s no definition of the project nor a reference to a permanent exhibit but we do have a new date:  March 2009.  Now that’s not a date for planning to finish, that’s a date for the thing to open even though a different timeline was given in the strategic plan.

Let’s go back to digging and see if there’s more somewhere else.

Forget the provincial government website.  There’s nothing there on it at all in the way of a news release or ministerial statement. 

Over at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John’s website you’ll find this bit:

The Archives of the R.C. Archdiocese will have a number of archival documents on exhibit in Talamh an Éisc – The Fishing Ground , an exhibition that introduces the Irish peoples who have been in Newfoundland and Labrador since the late 1600s, the exhibit explores the communities they built and celebrates the contributions they made to life here in Newfoundland and Labrador. The permanent exhibit will open in The Rooms on March 18, 2009. [Bold in original]

They even have a specific date, but no exhibit opened in March 2009, though.

But there’s that word “permanent” again.

This is all very peculiar.  Neither The Rooms’ strategic plan nor annual report are documents people are going to leaf through impatiently trying to find out what is coming up.  Even if you did, the language is so vague as to be impenetrable. 

Sure, the documents are publicly available but if no one from The Rooms or the provincial government highlighted the project, mentioning it in the annual report or strategic plan is as good as saying nothing about it at all.

And if the crowd at The Rooms were hopped up on this major project, you’d think they’d be mentioning it, letting us now how important it is, how much work it will involve, and generally trying to build up a bit of attention for it.  After all, a new permanent exhibit on the Irish in Newfoundland is no small venture.

And since both the archdiocese and the Irish government think this is going to be a permanent feature of The Rooms, it seems very strange there’s been not so much as the peep of a pipe or the lilt of a lyre about it.

This is all very interesting and very peculiar.

And it makes you wonder what is really going on over in the box the Basilica came in.

-srbp-

Better late than never: Oram version

The province’s health minister putting his business interests in a blind trust.

The issue arose when Oram  - who owns two personal care homes – was appointed to his new portfolio.
As CBC reports it:

Not only is he moving all his shares in personal-care homes into a blind trust, Oram said, but he is going even further by moving all of his business interests — including stakes in funeral homes, a grocery store and a construction company — into a blind trust.
It makes sense to do it all at once, Oram said, in case he changes portfolios.

Yes.

Good idea this blind trust thing.

Heaven knows you wouldn’t want to be appointed to a portfolio  - like say the Department of Business (which Oram held at the time of his appointment to health)  – and be running businesses in the province.

That would be a conflict of interest, wouldn’t it?

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Told ya so Update:  The CBC story, linked above, has grown a tail made up of people essentially tossing back and forth comments in defence of Oram and attacking him.


All wonderful stuff and all completely unnecessary.

A real or perceived conflict of interest could have been avoided in this case and others if cabinet ministers were required to place their business interests in a blind trust when they are appointed to cabinet.  It's a simple solution and one that's been used in this province before.


All you can do is shake your head in disbelief.

Another OCIO triumph

How do you deal with a government computer system that is hopelessly out of date it wants you to “update” your Internet browser to a version that is actually three version older than the one you are using?

You don’t really.

You just shake your head and laugh.

This picture is the screen that appears when you try and access some provincial government websites.  In this case, it’s the lobbyist registry set up after 2004.

Note the dates:

“Copyright 2000”

“Last updated January 12, 2003”… that is the year before the lobbyist registry bill passed the House of Assembly and long before the bill was even thought of.

The version of Firefox that screen appeared on is 3.0.12.

The government computer won’t let that higher version to access the registry because supposedly it doesn’t meet the minimum “security and compatibility requirements.”

The truth is the Firefox version currently in use by your humble e-scribbler exceeds the security requirements but in order to use it, the version it will accept is two full iterations old.

The alternatives are no better. 

There are still lots of people out there using Internet Explorer 6, but more and more of us users have upgraded to version 8.

Netscape Navigator was last updated in 2007.  The only thing you can get these days is an archive for it. That last iteration was version 9 which, as you can see, is two full iterations beyond the current government-supported version.

What about Chrome?

You get the same silly blocking screen recommending you use antiquated software.

The Office of the Chief Information Officer is the giant bureaucracy created by the current administration to manage all provincial government computing services.  The thing has been a pretty spectacular  - and expensive - failure, at least when it comes to ensuring the public face of government is functioning at something reasonably approaching modernity. 

This mess at the lobbyist registry website is a case in point. Incidentally, the companies registry is no better.  The only thing it will accept is IE.

So what’s a body to do? 

Try Internet Explorer.  For some inexplicable reason, the OCIO system still supports IE no matter version you are using.

One suspects, therefore, that security isn’t really the issue.  Rather the issue is likely that giant , expensive unwieldy bureaucracy cannot deliver what it should be delivering to government and especially to the public.

Running into this little annoyance time and again makes you wonder, though, if the current hardware standard throughout government is a 286 hooked to a dot matrix printer.

Oh.

One last thing.

That contact link at the top of the page people are supposed to use if you download the old browsers and still can’t get through?  it takes you to a list of telephone numbers that are only available during government working hours.

There’s no e-mail contact address at all, anywhere.

Welcome to the 21st century, courtesy of the provincial government.

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Cruising the numbers

The local tourism industry is a notorious spin machine, constantly trying to make things sound as magically delicious as possible.

That may be great for marketing but the hyper-torque makes it very difficult for anyone trying to get a handle on what the actual trends are in tourism or if all the money spent is bringing real dividends.

Take the local cruise ship marketing crowd for instance.  Their website is famous for predicting banner years in visitors, but the actual performance sometimes comes a little shy of the forecast.

In 2008, the tourism marketing agency predicted there’d be 60,000 passengers and crew visiting the province. The actual number was 50,000.  In fact, between 2005 and 2008, the number of passengers and crew from cruise ships has ranged between 50,000 (the low for the period) and 55,500 in 2007. The cruise authority’s forecasts are something else again.

This year, the prediction is for 65,000 visitors bolstered by provincial government cash. In fact, what catches the eye in a government news release is this claim:

Newfoundland and Labrador’s cruise industry has experienced significant growth in recent years. The latest industry research projects a 38 per cent growth rate since 2008 in the number of passengers and crew visiting the province – to exceed 65,000 visitors in 2009.

Since they don’t tell us what the performance was before 2008, we don’t know the basis on which the “research” makes the projection and we certainly don’t know how much growth there has been.

Usually a lack of concrete information is the first sign of bullshit and in this case, you’d be right on. Once you’ve checked the numbers, you’d discover that they’ve actually been pretty stable over the last four “recent” years.  Between 2007 and 2008, the trend was decidedly downward.

That second sentence is a bit dodgy as well since it holds out a prediction for this year compared to last year but without any solid underpinning.

Now once you have the numbers, you can also start to question basic math skills.  65,000 visitors in 2009 would represent 15,000 more than actually showed up in 2008.

That’s 30% more, not 38%.

But that number “38” didn’t wind up there by accident.  It was probably cut and pasted from an earlier news release.

You see 38% would be the increase CANAL predicted earlier this year when they were forecasting there’d be 69,000 cruise visitors in 2009.

Luckily they didn’t cut and past the earlier earlier prediction:  a 56% increase - 78,000  - in cruise ship visitors to in Newfoundland and Labrador in 2009. 

In other words, in the space of a few weeks, the cruise authority’s “research” forecast a 56% increase, then successively smaller numbers until this most recent one which is now 13,000 visitors lower than their first prediction.

Now the cruise ship industry, like the whole tourism industry, is a key part of the local economy.  Unfortunately, when it comes to facts, there are some in the industry who prefer the stuff that sounds good over the stuff you can measure. That’s too bad because every one of these visitors is a real visitor bringing new money into the economy.  Whether there are 50,000 of them this year or 60-, 65-, 70- or 78, 000, that’s a good thing.

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INP boondoggle tagged for axe in Irish expenditure cuts

A decade old business/trade project between Ireland and Newfoundland and Labrador that seems to have generated only cultural exchanges and ministerial trade missions has been identified by an Irish government-appointed panel  as one area of government spending the Irish government could cut in tough fiscal times.

In the report issued last week, the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programs recommends chopping public spending for the Ireland-Newfoundland Business partnership:

“…the discontinuation of programmes within the Department of the Taoiseach which are no longer justifiable given the significantly reduced Exchequer resources available and the existence of other more important priorities. Expenditure on the Active Citizenship Office and the Newfoundland Labrador Partnership falls into this category.” [Emphasis added]

In the report’s second volume, the panel cited a lack of an economic rationale to underpin the project as a key reason for recommending it get the axe:

This programme was developed to promote and develop cooperation with the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The Group understands that the partnership developed from the recognition of extensive migration ties between Ireland and Newfoundland/Labrador and the desire to build cooperation. However, there is no significant economic rationale to underpin continuation of the scheme and the Group recommends that the scheme be abolished to save €0.3m a year.

In setting the background for the recommendations, the group noted that the Irish government is facing a projected deficit in 2009 of 18.4 billion Euros.  The panel was also aiming at reducing the Irish public service which had grown overall 17% in the past eight years. 

In some sectors, the report noted disproportionate growth “in the ratio of senior-level grades where, for example, the numbers at middle to higher management levels in the civil service grew by some 82% in the period 1997 to 2009 at a time when civil service numbers as a whole increased by 27%.” (page 12)

The government is looking for ways to return the budget to balance in the shortest possible time.  The scope of the financial problems being faced in Dublin are laid out succinctly in the opening of the report:

Consequently, Ireland is now in a position where we need to borrow more to fund a larger budgetary deficit, while paying higher costs for this borrowing. This means that ever increasing proportions of our tax revenues will be needed to service the national debt. In 2009 over 11% of estimated tax revenues will be used for this purpose, compared with a figure of about 4½% of tax revenues as recently as 2007.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, innovation minister Shawn Skinner expressed his belief that the partnership would continue but his comments suggest that either he hadn’t read the report or had been very badly briefed before speaking with reporters.

"They are physically moving the office of the INP to the Taoiseach's office which is like … the premier over there or the prime minister over there and that to me speaks to the significance that the Irish hold this office in," he said.

The report clearly indicates that the partnership is already housed under the Taoiseach’s (first minister’s) office so that is really no indication of anything. 

Moreover, given the magnitude of the country’s financial problems, no office was safe from recommended cuts.  Even defence, which had seen a reduction of 8% in staffing over the past eight years, is included in the projected cuts and rationalisation.

The CBC online story (linked above) erroneously refers to the report as being prepared by consultants.  This suggests something with far less official status than it does.  The review panel was appointed by the Irish government as part of a specific government financial management project.  It received technical and administrative support directly by staff from the country’s finance ministry.

Skinner also said:

“"They are very cognizant of the good work that's being down by the INP with the IBP and they want to see that continue and I have no doubt they will continue to fund this office."

Pretty well all the projects and offices proposed for the chopping block do “good work”.  Most do far more “good work” core to Irish domestic social and economic interests than the half-million dollar partnership.

The current Irish national debt is more than 65 billion Euros.

The report is now in the hands of a parliamentary committee for detailed review before the next budget is set in the fall.

-srbp-

The Shoe Cove Connection

On July 20, 1969, humans first walked on the moon and Newfoundland and Labrador has played a role in the American space program since the beginning.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) operated a  station at Shoe Cove, north of St. John’s to provide telemetry for launches from Cape Canaveral and to assist in track spacecraft in orbit as part of the Manned Space Flight Network (MSFN). The Shoe Cove was one of dozens operated around the globe in support of the NASA program.

The site is identified in NASA historical records as being at St. John’s, but the facility was located north of the city, near Cape St. Francis.

The Shoe Cove facility operated from 1960 until it was phased out in 1970.  As such, Newfoundland played a role in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. A portable Minitrack and Optical Tracking System (MOTS) was moved to Newfoundland from a site in the Bahamas to support launches for Skylab.

The dates for the site are given incorrectly in some local accounts.  Several  documents available online give dates for the site from the late 1950s until the early 1970s.  One, dated 1962,  includes the frequencies on which the local system operated. An application for the site was approved by the federal cabinet in 1959.

With the end of the Apollo and Skylab projects in the 1970s, the connection between the American space program Newfoundland didn’t end.

Newfoundland remains a site in the Cape Canaveral range monitoring system.  With the closure of the U.S. naval facility at Argentia,  the 45th Space Wing, headquartered at Patrick Air Force Base, took control of one of the buildings still covered by the 1941 lease on the site. It is the last remaining American military location in Newfoundland and Labrador.  

An X-band radar installed on top of the building provides telemetry for launches from Canaveral along the northern portion of the range. The site is operated remotely but may be manned as needed.  The building and its systems are not part of NASA  - they belong to the U.S. Air Force’s 1st Range Operations Squadron, 45th Space Wing - but support NASA operations.

-srbp-

Halberstam on the late Walter Cronkite

From The Atlantic, an excerpt of David Halberstam’s piece on television journalism:

…He knew by instinct the balance between journalism and show biz; he knew you needed to be good at the latter, but that you must never take it too far. He was enough of an old wire-service man to be uneasy with his new success and fame. He was just sophisticated enough never to show his sophistication.

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Ospreys 3

Here are some shots of CV-22 “0032” on the runway at St. John’s.  Apparently the US Air Force Ospreys  didn’t leave a couple of days ago as these came through this afternoon.

Note the heat plumes on the bottom shot coming from the engine.

 

Meanwhile, you can find one of Gary Hebbard’s shots at Avweb, in the slide show of reader-submitted shots.

Plus ca change pour M. Hodder

The Jim Walsh trial continued in court this week.

Former House of Assembly Speaker Harvey Hodder is still on the stand.

The Telegram account of his evidence on cross examination suggests the former Speaker is continuing the curious pattern he has had of offering accounts of events that vary somewhat over time.

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Kremlinology 4: there and not there

Another news release of cash for Trevor Taylor’s district but no sign of any comment from the cabinet minister in the official news release from government.

Then again, a news release issued the same day with cash for a different project in the same community and Trevor is there, large as life.

Curious.

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Back to the moon

As part of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing NASA is spending US$230,000 to restore video footage of the first mission that put humans on the moon.

NASA lost the original video in the 1980s when old tapes were inadvertently erased and re0used.  The lunar mission sent video pictures from the moon using a format unusable by television.  NASA converted the images into a TV-friendly format and it is those converted images that were broadcast around the world.  in the process, much was lost, apparently.

The restoration project involved a combination of footage found in video archives around the world and some 36 hours of video that survived in NASA’s own archive.

Some of the restored footage was unveiled Thursday on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch of Cape Canaveral. There is also a NASA website containing still and video images of the Apollo 11 mission as well as NASA’s Apollo program page. Google also has a Google Moon site which covers the lunar landings from Apollo 11 until the last mission Apollo 17.

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Conflict of interest curiosity

Under the 1995 Conflict of Interest Act, a public officer hold is defined as any person who “receives a salary or other remuneration, in whole or in part, from money voted by the legislature…”.

That would make a cabinet minister a public office holder under the meaning of the Act.

Pretty simple, right?

There are also sections of the House of Assembly Act  that cover conflict of interest for elected members. There are provisions that tell cabinet ministers what to do.

They all come down to the same basic points.  People can’t further their private interests using information they gain from their public office.  In addition, cabinet ministers who may find themselves in a conflict of interest have a couple of options on how to handle a specific case, should it arise.

The simplest way for a cabinet minister to avoid an appearance of conflict is to place any business interests in a blind trust as soon as he or she is appointed to cabinet.

The reason is pretty simple:  lots of things come before cabinet or a cabinet committee, especially at budget time.  If you had certain types of business interests, the “leave the room” or “get someone else to do it” procedures set out in the House of Assembly Act would basically mean some ministers would spend more time out of the cabinet room than in it.

The Premier sensibly put his interests in such a blind trust after the October 2003 election.  He may have taken a while to do it and he may have moaned and complained as he went through the process but ultimately, his approach is the most sensible way to avoid political problems. When you have important work to do, there’s no reason to be distracted by issues that can be easily avoided.

Odd then, that the Premier has apparently made no such rules for his cabinet.  In response to reporters’ questions today, the Premier said that handling potential conflicts of interest would be a matter for the new health minister to sort out with former Tory party president Paul Reynolds ( in his role as Commissioner of Legislative Standards) but, for his part, Danny Williams advised Oram to put things in a blind trust.

Advised him?

Odder then, that Oram has been in cabinet – as business minister – but hasn’t bothered to sort out this issue before now.  A blind trust is a really simple, practical solution to a very real potential political problem.

And the whole thing is odder yet again considering that in 1997, then-Premier Brian Tobin issued cabinet conflict of interest guidelines that added to the requirements already in legislation.

1) Ministers shall place in a blind trust all assets, financial interests or other sources of income within the definition of "private interest" in S. 20 (e) of the Act, except for those that are an "excluded private interest" within the definition of S. 20 (a) of the act;

(2) Trustees for these blind trusts shall be other than members of the Minister's immediate family; and

(3) Ministers shall cease to serve as directors or officers in a company or association, as referred to in S. 20 (e) (iii) of the act.

Tobin acted amid accusations of a conflict of interest involving one of his ministers.

Maybe that’s what Danny Williams referred to before the 2003 election when he laid out his own ethics and accountability commitments to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador:

We've seen blatant abuse of office and taxpayers' money, allegations concerning conflict of interest, questions of fundraising contributions, and suggestions of impropriety during leadership conventions. These are very serious issues that are eroding the people's confidence in government. [Emphasis added]

Who knows?  Maybe he had other issues in mind.

But there’s no doubt he was aware of the issues and concerned enough about them to issue a suite of promises on ethics.

He didn’t mention a specific commitment on cabinet ministers and conflicts of interest but it seems passing strange that he hasn’t given his ministers any specific instructions on conflict of interest for his own cabinet.  If nothing else, clear instructions remove needless political problems like we said already.

The Premier certainly has the power, authority and everything else needed to set the rules for his own cabinet.

So how come he has decided to let Paul Reynolds sort it out?

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Last Osprey shot

The CV-22s from 8 Special Operations Squadron and their escort Hercules aircraft left St. John’s at around 1430 hours local time on Wednesday afternoon.

That doesn’t mean the end of the great shots, however.

This one shows “0028” on approach, transitioning the engine pods to the vertical position in preparation for landing.  They are at about 45 degrees in this shot.

Incidentally, the pointy bit on the nose is the end of the  refuelling probe. 

Ospreys at YYT: Day 2

A flurry of photographers arrived in ye olde e-mail inbox this morning from local aircraft enthusiasts.

These people can also use a camera.

With the better pictures, it is now easy to confirm that the aircraft belong to 8th Special Operations Squadron, US Air Force unit that is part of Special Operations Command. 

To quote the factsheet:

“The primary mission of the 8th SOS is insertion, extraction, and re-supply of unconventional warfare forces and equipment into hostile or enemy-controlled territory using airland or airdrop procedures. Numerous secondary missions include psychological operations, aerial reconnaissance and helicopter air refuelling. To accomplish these varied missions, the 8th SOS utilizes the CV-22 Osprey, a highly specialized Bell-Boeing tilt-rotor aircraft.”

They fly out of Hurlburt Field in Florida.

Unlike the Marine and Navy aircraft, these come with a variety of specialised attachment including countermeasures, radio and different radar.

Here’s a shot of the one included in last night’s update.

You can see some of the additional bumps on the nose to accommodate some of the specialised add-ons.

Here’s another spectacular photo of 0028 on approach. 

Look at the tail ramp and you can make out the loadmaster next to what appears to be a weapons mount covered in a yellow tarpaulin.

Turns out to that these aircraft have been through St. John’s before.  In October 2008, they transited through St. John’s, presumably on the way to an international exercise in Mali. 

The photos below are from the October visit.  They clearly show “0028” and “0031” both of which went through St. John’s in the past 24 hours, destination across the Atlantic presumably.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“0031” with blades folded.

Another aircraft being readied for flight.

“0031” ready to launch.

Fantasy Island; Flags of Our Fathers version

A cabinet minister whose doesn’t know his historical arse from his current events elbow.

And now a bunch of guys who put up a flag to remind us, supposedly, of where we came from, of our past. That’s how one of the guys behind a giant pink, white and green flag described the project for CBC Radio’s Chris O’Neill-Yates.

Seems some yahoo unscrewed the flag base and demolished the thing a month or so after the boys put it back. Apparently it’s been vandalised every year since it was stuck up there a few years ago.

Ah yes, a glorious reminder of our past.

Our past as the pre-Confederation Newfoundland, it would seem:

As mentioned in my last post, we’re putting up the Republic of Newfoundland flag on the South Side hills, and everyone is invited to join in on the hike.

Those familiar with what actually happened will no doubt be scratching their heads and rightly so. Just stop before you cut through the skin.

The Republic of Newfoundland is fiction.

Never existed.

Never happened.

The “republic” is entirely the invention of a local guy looking to make a buck on a few tee-shirts. And he’s made it too what with the popularity of the shirts among the latter-day corner boys.

The flag – in all its pink, white and green gloriousness – belonged to a St. John’s crowd but over its whole history it never gained widespread popularity through what became the Dominion of Newfoundland.

It was certainly never adopted as the official flag of the country.

In other words, at the very best, the flag is a townie artefact but as the flag of a republic? You can’t be the flag of something that never existed anyways.

The crowd who demolished the flag are very likely not a bunch of historians on a rampage.

They are most likely just another bunch of locals who like to destroy what others have made, even if – in this case – what the flag represents is entirely a figment of someone’s imagination masquerading as reality.

Oh well.

If the boys with the flag are raising some money to fly their flag again, maybe they can get in touch with Paul Oram.

He seems like the poster child for their project.

Update November 21, 2009: New title to deconflict with another post. Both were originally titled "Fantasy Island"

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Seen at YYT: Ospreys!

Pictures to follow but three Osprey tilt-rotors arrived at St. John’s airport within the last hour, apparently accompanied by a KC-130.

The Osprey is an unconventional aircraft that is entering service with the United States Marine Corps, Navy and Special Operations Command.  Launching and recovering vertically like a helicopter, the engine pods rotate in the air allowing the aircraft to fly like propeller driven airplane.

For those who haven’t seen one, here’s a US Navy stock shot of one in a hover.

 

 

 

 

 

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No Joy Update:  Your humble e-scribbler is not a photographer.

St. John’s airport has a ramp where aircraft are parked in cases when the owners don’t want them seen.

That’s where the three Ospreys and a bevy of Hercs are parked, with the Hercs positioned in such a way that only the tips of the blades of two of the Ospreys could even been seen from the airport fence.

In the twilight, the third could be seen, behind a service truck, with its rotor blades folded.  if you squint and look at the shape inside the red outline above, there she is.  That glint slightly right of centre is the reflection of the airport trucks yellow roof light on the aircraft windscreen.  The starboard engine is just above the truck.

Hopefully some other local aircraft enthusiasts had better luck and are better photographers.

Having big guns helps

Paper maker Kruger may be getting additional financial help from the provincial government to keep its mill in Corner Brook operational.

There’s nothing new in this.  The provincial government has been subsidizing the forest industry for years.

What makes this a bit different is that the area has such strong representation in government.

No one is explaining to forestry workers why subsidies are bad, as fish minister Tom Hedderson did a few weeks ago when people wanted some cash to help out that troubled industry.

Having big guns helps.

Of course,  having those big guns a wee bit worried doesn’t hurt either.

You can tell they are worried about local public anxiety about the future of the Kruger operation when a news release appears advising that every provincial politician from the Corner Brook area will be traveling in a pack on Wednesday.

-srbp-

Good news on fishery

It may have taken a global crisis to bring everyone together but the provincial government, the Association of Seafood Producers and the Fish Food and Allied Workers union have reached an agreement to develop a plan on restructuring the fishery.

Working groups will look at financing, marketing and overall restructuring.

The process will be directed and overseen by a steering committee consisting of two representatives from each of the FFAW, ASP and the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture. An independent chair will be appointed by the Provincial Government and the working groups will be assisted by a facilitator from the department.

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Sorta NSFW Monday

There is no limit to the human imagination.

Proof can be found in the marvellous Lego.

Millions of children have grown up with them, building entire worlds out of a few small bricks.  We loved them and cherish them and sometimes choked on them, but with Lego we could build a world which was entirely ours.

Some of us couldn’t bear to part with these special toys from our childhood. Your humble e-scribbler still has a bag of all his 1960s and 1970s era bits and pieces but they haven’t been played with in a while.

Okay.

Maybe since last week.

Ummm.

Anyway…

For your amusement, here are some links to what some of the hornier adult Lego fans get up to in their spare time.

Given that they involve sexual images, we have to put a warning label on them that they may not be suitable for all ages and may not be safe for work.  Given that they are Lego people, they might be safe for some workplaces, hence the “Sorta NSFW”.

There is the Lego Kama sutra, although there are only 12 pictures in that link.  If memory serves, there were a few more positions than that in the book.  Bonus points to anyone who can find a Ferrari in the original illustrations.

Rest easy, literary purists.  Someone else has reproduced additional positions from the  Kama sutra and made a slide show of the result.

There is another collection of 40 pictures of Lego people in various suggestive positions.  We call them “suggestive” since the wee Lego people are not even close to anatomically correct and they are merely positioned close to each other in certain poses that hint at  certain sexual positions. 

With that in mind, the genius behind this  little collection evidently has an obvious fondness for one position.  Given the frequency with which it appears, odds are he or she isn’t getting  much of it.

Note that the one with the elephant and  another with the Batman characters are just warped enough to put some people off their oatmeal.

Those of you of the kinkier persuasion will probably like the rather elaborate one that isn’t depicting intercourse.  Or police officers, for that matter although handcuffs show up.

Now if all that Lego smutification isn’t your cup of tea, there are some other truly inventive and well-done bits of animation on youtube using Lego.

Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Sorta.

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Sudbury workers on strike

Vale Inco’s unionized employees in Sudbury hit the picket line Monday after 85% rejected the company’s latest contract offer in voting on the weekend.

According to the Globe and Mail:

At issue was Vale's proposal to reduce a bonus tied to the price of nickel.

In addition, workers opposed a plan by the company to exempt new employees from its defined-benefit pension plan, which guarantees employees a reliable and steady income after retirement.

The company is proposing to provide them with a defined-contribution plan, which bases retirement benefits on investment returns.

Employees at the company's Voisey's Bay operations in Labrador voted 99 per cent against the same offer on Wednesday and are set to begin a strike on Aug. 1.

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$300 million for Goose Bay environmental clean-up

The federal government will spend $300 million for environmental clean-up at 5 Wing Goose Bay. The clean-up project will end in 2020.

The clean-up is being touted as an economic boost to the town in addition to the obvious environmental value.

"This significant investment benefits the Wing, contributes to the economic foundation of the community and mitigates risk to human health and the environment," MacKay, who visited the base Sunday, said in a news release.

Liberal member of parliament Todd Russell sees the clean-up as a prelude to shutting the military base. Russell is quoted by the Ottawa Citizen’s David Pugliese:

"When governments clean up they're looking to clear out," he said.

The defence minister’s spokesman, Dan Dugas, denies the claim according to Pugliese:

Dugas said Goose Bay continues to play an important role in the Canadian Forces operations. "We believe in the base," he added.

Dugas noted that around $100 million a year is spent annually operating the base. In addition, $20 million was recently spent on improving runways there.

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Government on shuttle watch?

STS-127 will launch from Cape Canaveral in less than four hours.

The shuttle Endeavour will launch on an inclination of 51.6 degrees taking it over the Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose platforms.

Is our offshore oil safe from the possibility shuttle pieces will fall on top of them in some sort of fiery cataclysm?

Don’t laugh.

Only four short years ago, the Premier threw a very public and very ill-informed panic attack over rocket launches heading over the precious oil fields and the prospect one might drop and blow everything up.

It was one of the early dramas in what seems to have become  a drama-filled administration.

Not all have been so preposterous or as laughable.

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Weather Report Update:  They scrubbed the launch due to bad weather.

Paul Oram: Minister of Revisionist History

Former business minister Paul Oram did a series of interviews when he was in Atlanta last October to attend a trade mission.

His interview on diversifying the economy is interesting mostly because Oram manages to completely cock-up just about everything.

According to Oram, the cod moratorium took place in the “early to mid-1980s”.

If you think that was a slip of the tongue consider that according to Oram, once the moratorium started,  we then turned to diversifying the economy with mining for things like iron ore and uranium.  Iron ore mining dates back to the 1890s, not the 1980s and as for uranium, there isn’t a functioning uranium in the province at the moment.  There never has been one. There are prospects but no actual mine.

The Lower Churchill will start up within the coming year (i.e. 2009) according to Oram, even though the thing had not even started the environmental review process when he did the interview.  It won’t complete the process until 2010-2011.

When asked about innovation, Oram couldn’t give an example.  Instead, he talked about the difference between his department and the innovation department.

We’ll be generous and say that oram sounded like the minister of revisionist history.

Others might say he was the minister of  the “Don’t know a Damn Thing” department.

Oh.

Incidentally, just count the number of times Oram says “to be honest with you.”

We assume he is being honest.  It’s just that he honestly doesn’t have a clue about recent events in Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Well, that didn’t work

A quickie cabinet shuffle – the third in eight months – didn’t produce the media coverage they likely thought it might.

Check the headline.

Of course, it doesn’t help when you have to admit in the post-shuffle scrum that the shuffle postponed a scheduled update in the breast cancer scandal that has dogged the government.

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Who’s laughing now smart arse? update:  There was no secret that Danny Williams, Premier was not enamoured of John Crosbie, former cabinet minister.

No surprise, therefore, that Stephen Harper, arranged to have Crosbie installed as lieutenant governor.

Crosbie may be silenced daily but he still gets his shots in.  Like say reminding everyone assembled for a cabinet swearing in that -  as the Telegram put it -  “Brian Mulroney used to have frequent cabinet shuffles when the former prime minister wanted to deflect criticism from his government.”

Everyone laughed and the incident made news.

Talk about getting payback with the seemingly most innocuous of comments.

It’s not easy being green

Well, at least not under a variety of American state and federal laws in New England especially if you are proposing a hydroelectric project like the Lower Churchill.

Sure, we all think of hydro power as pretty friendly to the environment and a source of energy that is pretty low on carbon emissions.

Heck, in the ruckus over erections in Gros Morne, the provincial government has been pretty quick to talk about how green – as in environmentally friendly  - the Gull Island and Muskrat Falls projects are.

As an aside – in some of the online discussions,  some people have been talking about ripping through the park because it’s a way to sell the power to the United States.  Let’s get this clear:  there is no current proposal to build any transmission lines to the United States through Gros Morne park. 

The line that Danny Williams would drive through a UNESCO World Heritage Site ends just west of St. John’s.  It’s the same line Brian Tobin proposed in 1998.

That’s right. 

It’s a line to bring Lower Churchill power to townies, not Yanks.

And while we are at it, Holyrood will not close either even with the infeed.

The comments coming from some quarters makes plain just how much fundamental ignorance – lack of information, awareness and understanding  – there is out there about major public issues.

But anyway, back to green energy and American markets.

Turns out that American state and federal governments are working to develop new, renewable sources of energy.  They are looking at a system of emission credits and what sorts of projects would qualify for credits. 

If the current trend holds, Big Hydro projects  - just like nuclear plants  - won’t count toward renewable energy credits.  New England states have various rules in place currently that look at qualifying hydro power from plants of less than 100 megawatts.  In some states, even these small hydro projects must not change the water level (i.e. no dams) or otherwise impact the natural environment.

A bill currently in the United States Senate – HR2454 the American Clean Energy and Security Act 2009 – limits hydro that qualifies for certification to incremental power from technological upgrades to existing plants, generation from existing dams built for other purposes and “hydrokinetic generation”, that is power generated by ocean currents, wave action and the like.

So two honking great dams across a river, even a few thousand miles away, isn’t necessarily where the Americans are looking. Missing MOU anyone?

Not surprisingly, some states are looking to find a local economic spin-off from new energy sources.  Rhode Island recently adopted a bill mandating the state electricity distribution company to enter into long term power purchase agreements for upwards of 90 megawatts of power from new renewable sources locate din Rhode Island.  They are looking at a $1.5 billion wind farm project  - among other things - to help meet that requirement.

This doesn’t mean that the New England markets are closed to hydro power from Canada but it does mean that proponents of the Lower Churchill are not looking at easy pickings.  

If states and the US federal government are getting stickier about local renewable projects, there’s a very good chance they’ll get stickier about imports as well. 

That’s the thing about American democracy:  people get to participate.  If an environmental lobby builds up against a project like the Lower Churchill, the thing could have a rough ride.  Imagine what might happen if environmentally conscious consumers managed to figure out that the same people promoting this hydro megaproject are the same people who turn up on CNN promoting some old-fashioned seal bashing.

There’s anothing thing too:  look closely at some of this legislation, like say the Rhode Island bill, and you can see limits on the length of the purchase agreements with a maximum of 15 years.  That’s also an issue to think about given that a project the size of the Lower Churchill would likely be financed over a period twice or three times that.

Are states going to be willing to sign PPAs over such a long period?

Would bondholders be prepared to offer up cash with the prospect that markets could go soft half way through the bond life? How about American lenders who are already hurting through the recession and who may still be leery of investing large sums even after the recession ends?

Any way you want to look at it, the Lower Churchill project is still a very long time from starting.

There are currently no power purchase agreements of any kind with any customer. No PPAs means financing will be much tougher on a project that was estimated to cost at least six to nine billion dollars when talk about the project was revived in 2005-2006. Imagine what it will cost in two years time.

The environmental review process won’t finish until 2011 and that alone puts the project two full years behind the schedule mapped out in 2006.  Hydro Quebec is already well on its way to having power to market from new projects by the time NALCOR is looking to start construction of the Lower Churchill. They’ll have a goodly chunk of their new projects done by the time Muskrat and Gull Island turbines start turning, even if the current 2018 timeline for first power could be met.

On top of that there are serious questions that still exist within the Innu community about the draft land claims agreement between the provincial government and the Innu.  Bear in mind that the federal government should be in there as well, but so far hasn’t offered any comment on the darkness that has befallen the New Dawn.

And all of that is without considering the potential for even a teensy bit of public backlash over environmental issues.

It really isn’t easy being green, is it?

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The Great NL Gasoline Price Fixing Scheme: Summer 2009 edition

Gasoline prices in Newfoundland and Labrador are set by the provincial government.

While gasoline prices across North America have been dropping recently, the government’s price fixing mechanism hasn’t kept pace.

To give an idea of the consequences, take a look at this chart.  It shows the average Canadian price per litre (blue) and the average price in Newfoundland (red).

Look closely at that blue line which has been on a steady downward trend since June 20.  The average stands at $1.01 per litre on July 9, down from  $1.06 at peak.

In Newfoundland, the number has pretty much been a steady average above the current average $1.12 per litre since June 20. There were even a couple of upticks in the Newfoundland number during the period.  The current average prices is less than two cents down from the peak.

If none of the previous arguments against government-controlled prices worked, then surely this chart should cause you to sit up and wonder why gas in this province is 11 cents per litre above the Canadian average. 

There’s obviously something wrong.

Seriously wrong.

There have been two big winners from gas price regulation in Newfoundland and Labrador and neither of them is the average consumer.

Gasoline retailers have been gifted with steady and predictable profit margins. They buy at market prices and sell at the government price.  As you can see from the charts below, that can be pretty sweet.

The provincial government also wins.  Its taxes are buried in the price and when the price stays high based on the vagaries of some contrived formula, its tax haul stays nice and fat.

Not surprisingly, there aren’t any politicians calling for the elimination of gas price fixing by the provincial government. In fact, one of the guys who pushed hardest for this scheme – St. John’s mayor Dennis O’Keefe – has been conspicuously silent about the whole issue.

And it’s not like this is a new phenomenon.

Over the past four years not only have prices been substantially above the Canadian average, there are too many occasions where the local prices have bucked the downward trend.  And on some of the upward trends the local price jumps have been disproportionately highly compared to the national average.

Just for good measure, let’s look at the trending over six years.

 

More of the same.

The only astonishing thing in this has been the dead silence from consumers, let alone from the various self-appointed consumer advocates out there, one of whom has managed to find himself a sweet job leading a Great Sittee.

If you didn’t think there was a reason to scrap the government-dictated gasoline price scheme in this province, surely the events this week and this evidence should make you sit up and take notice of what is a fairly obvious problem.

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Oil drops 18 % in a week

Prices for front month crude have dropped more than 18% in the past week.

The markets appear to be reacting to news of continued economic uncertainty in the United States and continued gluts in gasoline supplies. Stockpiles of gasoline in the US have grown by 1.9 million barrels last week as Americans curb their driving. 

“The recession is far from over,” said analyst Stephen Schork. “Perhaps the run-up in prices was a bit overstated.”

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Strike looming at Sudbury and Voisey’s Bay

Unionized workers at Voisey’s Bay voted on the weekend to reject a contract offer by the employer Vale.

A vote at Vale’s Sudbury operation is also expected to reject the contract, according to the Globe and Mail.

Workers could strike as of August 1.

Related:  Vale chief executive Roger Agnelli has described Vale’s Sudbury operation as unsustainable at current cost levels.

 

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Chew the wafer

The Prime Minister is in a bit of a political hard spot with questions over what he did with the  Eucharistic host at the recent funeral for Romeo LeBlanc.

Some say he didn’t eat it, as one is supposed to do, but rather slipped it into his pocket.

His office insists he did the appropriate thing.

Oh yeah.

There’s video, of course.

But it’s basically a piece of junk that shows absolutely nothing other than the PM accepting the communion wafer like everyone else.  If you pay attention to the text slides inserted at the front and the back of the clip, though, you might be fooled into thinking something else happened.

If there’s a question, then perhaps we should look to his staff who may have simply forgotten to make sure that every protocol point was covered.

Frankly, given the occasion – the funeral of a fine and respected gentleman – people should be willing to ignore this even if every accusation were true.  The controversy doesn’t damage Stephen Harper so much as it tarnishes the memory of the late governor general.

So let’s just turn the page on that one, shall we?

And if you want to watch a video that will unsettle some Roman Catholics out there,  just sit back, relax and enjoy a little vintage Tom Lehrer, complete with the introduction to set the stage and Tom’s momentary lapse of memory for his own lyrics:

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Of mice and antelope through the looking glass

In this summer of political problems across the province, of meltdowns and power lines, some old posts at Bond Papers take on a renewed relevance.

In November 2006, your humble e-scribbler brought out the idea of mice and antelope as a metaphor for the political problem of focusing on side issues  - trivial issues - rather than keeping eyes on the big prize.

A couple of years into the administration, its tendency to get distracted was plainly obvious.

Now a couple of years into its second term and the tendency has become the main operating method.

Around these parts, we’d say the mouse hunting is one of the big reasons why projects tend to hang around - unresolved - for years or why legislation is passed and then left to the sidelines or why major capital works projects are announced and then seem to take forever before a shovel is even waved above a sod let alone pushed into it.

The thing is that as time goes by, any government that tends to get distracted by mice will wind up having more things not accomplished than it has accomplished.  The magnitude of what it gets done, even if they are big things like offshore oil projects or a massive hydro project,  starts to look puny compared to the mountain of others things that hang around seemingly gathering dust.

That Lewis Carroll notion  - think “un-birthdays” - is one we’ve gone to before.  There is un-communication, for example.  Now it seems to be appropriate to start talking of the current administration’s un-accomplishments.

The Fan Club, at this juncture, is no doubt rushing about shouting something about shooting or lopping off heads, but in doing so they miss the point entirely, as usual.

People typically want their government to succeed.  They like it when schools are built, roads are paved, and jobs are created.  They like it when the party that wins an election actually does all the good things they promised;  sustainable development acts, improvements to open records laws, a New Approach that involves listening to people and giving them substantial input into how they are governed.

Pointing out the shortcomings is a reminder that there are antelope over there aplenty waiting to be slain.

It’s a call to the Fan Club and its idol to stop getting distracted by the mouse scurrying by.

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Gros Morne erections trump the unforgettable natural environment

Natural ecosystems were worth protecting in 2007 – the election year – because they define us as a people.

In 2009, yeah, maybe not so much.

The 2007 Progressive Conservative election platform:

“Among our greatest sources of pride is our clean and beautiful natural environment. It defines us. It makes living here wonderful. It makes visiting here unforgettable. Our natural ecosystems are worth protecting for future generations of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.”

Also from the 2007 Tory election platform:

…enforce the provisions of the Sustainable Development Act regarding the responsible and sustainable development of our natural environment, ensuring that our resource development decisions address the full range of environmental, social and economic values and that workers, environmentalists, industry, communities, aboriginal peoples and others have a say in how our resources are managed. [Note:  You actually have to have a sustainable development act that’s in force in order to enforce it.]

From 2009, the plan for massive steel erections in a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as CBC describes it in their online story:

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams says he is willing to risk losing Gros Morne National Park's UNESCO world heritage status if the cost of preserving it is too high

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An equity stake in the province’s natural heritage

A cynic, Oscar Wilde once wrote, is a fellow who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

There is no word, apparently for someone who knows neither the price of stringing hydro lines around Gros Morne National Park nor the value of leaving the park free of the steel girders and humming wires.

In his first media scrum since returning from a weeklong junket to Europe,  Premier Danny Williams said that he was prepared to risk the World Heritage designation for Gros Morne because the cost of the alternative might be $100 million. 

“Might be” since the thing had not been properly costed, according to the Premier:

"We can't just start carving out those kinds of dollars … without even have a proper costing. It's wrong to oversimplify it, but if it meant putting it into health care as opposed to putting it into UNESCO, I would put it into health care, he said.

The value of Gros Morne, untrammelled by NALCOR Energy’s plan to build a giant power line from Labrador to the northeast Avalon, should be obvious to all those who appreciate the national park’s natural beauty.

It’s value  - sans girders - to the provincial tourism department should be equally obvious to everyone who has watched a television ad or looked through a tourism marketing brochure.

But in the meantime, that’s a pretty startling admission:  that after four years and as the project barrels along, the proponents don’t know what it would cost to find another route a few miles to the east of the one they have in mind.

It smacks of scrambling rather than a careful weighing of all options, each properly studied and costed.

Then again, that’s what you’d get if you just abandoned the process you started and decided to go down an entirely different road from the one first proposed. You wind up looking at plans made 25 or 30 years ago, ones that involve slinging lines along a stretch of ground that – when the plans were hatched – weren’t inside a national park.  The national park didn’t exist then.

But the whole thing gets a wee bit bizarre – there’s that all-too-familiar-word again –when you consider that the Premier seems to think $100 million is too much money to talk about:

"It's not as simple as that, but we do have to strike that balance. It's not a small amount of money. It is a significant amount of money."

This is a guy who supposedly is used to dealing with grand schemes that cost in the billions.  The one he wants to push through the park is estimated at upwards of $10 billion.  Even the low-end estimates, which few would believe, put the total cost at somewhere between six and eight billion.  The infeed line alone, the one through the park, is likely to cost a couple of billion.

$100 million against $2.0 billion.

What is that? 

5%?

That’s like half an offshore equity stake’s worth of only a fraction of the whole project.

Surely to Heavens, when put in those terms, Danny Williams can figure out that shifting the steel girders outside the park isn’t really much of anything to do.

He can think of it as his equity stake in the natural heritage of our province.  A piece of the action that he can pass on to future generations.

Shifting the power lines outside Gros Morne might not conjure up the big buck announcements the Premier seems to thrive on, but by recognising the simple value of unadulterated nature, Danny Williams could show that he actually knows both the price of something and the value of something far greater.

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One Trick Pony Update:  Apparently, as much as Danny Williams likes to talk about the importance of going it alone, the whole Gros Morne thing seems to be a bit of a dodge to try and force some money out of Uncle Ottawa to fund the whole Lower Churchill scheme:

"If the federal government is interested in an alternate route because of the importance of the UNESCO designation, because of the importance obviously of Gros Morne as a federal park, then I would expect the feds to participate with us in rerouting that cost," Williams said Tuesday.

The cost of developing an alternate route could be as much as $100 million, Williams said, but he added that was a preliminary estimate.

"If in fact we can get support from the federal government and if in fact we can justify another route, then that's something I would prefer to do ... but I can't turn around and say today without proper costing that that's something I would definitely do," he said.

"It's a significant amount of money."

Of course, the project has never been a go-it-alone affair.  Williams has been trying to find federal backing for his grand design from the beginning.

9 Wing Gander to get new buildings

The Department of National Defence will spend $42.5 million on three new buildings at 9 Wing Gander.

One building will give a new home to 91 Construction Engineer Flight, a reserve unit.

Two other buildings will bring together 9 Wing support units from different facilities at the Gander airport.

Work is expected to start in 2011 on the home for 91 CEF.  Work on the other buildings is not expected to begin until 2015.

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NALCOR may be exempted from offshore royalty payments

If the provincial government acts on a provision of the Hebron fiscal agreement, the government’s own energy corporation could wind up paying nothing to the provincial treasury in royalties.

That would set it apart from any other offshore interest holder,  including the federal government’s Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation (CHHC).

Under sections 8.4 of the Hebron fiscal agreement, the Hebron partners agree that the provincial government can “make amendments to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act”…, “make amendments to the Royalty Regulations” or “make an agreement pursuant to section 33 of Petroleum and Natural Gas Act…to adjust, vary or suspend OilCo’s liability for the payment of royalties on oil produced from the Lands”  that would be different from the arrangements with the other project partners.

That provision  - which could see the province’s own oil company pay nothing at all in royalties - might also violate the agreement that is the basis for the province’s offshore wealth.

Under section 41 of  the 1985 Atlantic Accord memorandum of understanding between Ottawa and St. John’s,  “Crown corporations and agencies involved in oil and gas resource activities in the offshore area shall be subject to all taxes, royalties and levies.”

That section was intended to put any Crown corporation operating offshore, federal or provincial,  on the same footing as a private sector corporation.

That section applies to CHHC and should also cover NALCOR Energy.

The provision of the agreement appears to take advantage of hasty 2001 amendments to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act which gave the provincial government the ability to make an agreement on royalties that differed from the generic royalty regime.

Although the changes to the province’s fundamental oil and gas law were substantive, the entire set of amendments passed through the House of Assembly in a single evening with only three speakers.

Energy minister Lloyd Matthews described the changes as “administrative.”  He did not give any detailed discussion of any amendment, and simply glossed over the section on royalty agreements – the new section 33 – as if it was nothing more than a change of numbering.

John Ottenheimer, the opposition energy critic at the time and now the chair of NALCOR Energy’s board of directors,  spoke on the bill but made absolutely no reference to the details of the changes concerning royalties and variance to royalty arrangements.

That’s surprising given that the opposition leader at the time had already begun to speak publicly against give-away resource deals. Section 33 set the legal stage for just such a give away.

Jack Harris also spoke on the bill, spending considerable time criticising the existing royalty regimes.  He made no reference to the substantive changes the bill made to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act.  That’s surprising since section 33 gives the government the right to sign a royalty deal which wasn’t even as lucrative as the existing regimes which he was criticizing. 

Then opposition leader Danny Williams made no comment at all on the bill during debate.

There’s no way of knowing at this point if a similar provision exists in the deal on Hibernia South. Details of the fiscal agreement on that project have not been made public.

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CHHC pays off for provincial government

Even without owning it, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador will likely earn more from the federal government’s 8.5% share in Hibernia than it will from its own 10% stake in Hibernia South.

That’s because the Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation (CHHC) pays royalties to the provincial government like any offshore interest holder and with Hibernia in payout, the royalty jumps this year from 5% to the current 30%.

CHHC’s stake covers an 8.5% interest in the remaining oil in Hibernia, including Hibernia South.  The total remaining oil could be as much as  1.2 billion barrels which would work out to the equivalent of about 100 million barrels for CHHC.

NALCOR Energy – the provincial government’s energy corporation  - owns a 10% interest in Hibernia South.  That works out to about 17 million barrels in the approximately 170 million barrels of the extension project in which NALCOR holds an interest.

Assuming an average price $50 per barrel, the NALCOR interest in Hibernia South would generate $850 million in gross revenue over the life of that project, less royalties that might be paid to the provincial government, as well as development and operating costs. The royalty on $850 million would be $255 million, assuming only 30% royalty.

But, using the same price,  the royalty paid by CHHC to the provincial government on the federal stake remaining in Hibernia – including Hibernia South  - would work out to roughly $1.53 billion.  That royalty comes with no deductions.

That’s not a bad return considering the provincial government took virtually no financial risk in Hibernia by acquiring an operating interest.

Between 2000  - the first year royalty payments were made - and 2008, CHHC paid the provincial government a total of $104.8 million according to figures released to Bond Papers by the federal finance department.

Table:  CHHC Hibernia Royalty

Year	Royalty Amount
2008	22,536,000
2007	15,576,000
2006	17,902,000
2005	20,582,000
2004	11,308,000
2003	6,254,000
2002	4,436,000
2001	2,205,000
2000	4,040,000
Total	$104,839,000

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Province’s political puff posture goes “Poof!”

Sure, the Premier claimed the provincial government wasn’t participating in the trade talks with the European Union, but Geoff Meeker discovered that over the past 18 months the provincial government has been working with the talks team.

Provincial government officials have been attending regular meetings and they have a seat at the table alongside the other provinces.

Meeker rightly wonders what all the bluster was about earlier this year. Turns out that there may be even more of a dysfunction or disconnect within the provincial government than first appeared.

We might also wonder therefore why the Premier suddenly headed off to Europe last week claiming he was working on the trade talks.

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Agricultural land freeze action MIA

The provincial government announced a  review of the agricultural land freeze in the metropolitan St. John’s area  in early 2007.

The commission didn’t hold hearings until 2008, but it managed to submit a report in June 2008.

The provincial government released the report in September 2008.

Of the 1,450 acres recommended for deletion from the ADA, 1,061 acres (75 per cent) are within the boundaries of the Town of Portugal Cove-St. Philips. The report also recommends the deletion of 120 acres from the protected area in the Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove area and 170 acres within the Town of Torbay.

The majority of this land base being recommended for removal from the zone has severe limitations and is unsuitable for agriculture. The review did not recommend any changes in the Goulds or Kilbride area, the main agricultural area in the St. John’s Urban Region.

At the time, the news release said the government was reviewing the recommendations.

A year after the provincial government received the report, there’s no word on what – if anything – came of the recommendations.

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Kremlinology 3: Gros Morne version

The provincial government’s  tourism folks love Gros Morne with all its beautiful views and its UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

The provincial government’s energy folks want to sling 40-odd metre tall hydro towers through the park because it would be cheaper than going around the park.

So when the Telegram goes to the tourism department looking for a media line on a project that has – presumably – been endorsed by cabinet and therefore all of government, the tourism people suggest that reporter go speak to someone else.

Like the natural resources minister, she who oversees the line slingers.

Now it’s not like the comment was about something outside the tourism department’s mandate.  They should have a line on it ready to sling in the event someone asks them about the power line slinging.

But they didn’t.

They instead pointed to the other bunch.

And that’s a bit odd.

It suggests that somewhere in the tourism department there is at least one e-mail, at least one memo perhaps pretty high up the departmental food chain that considers the liner slinging to be “the most serious threat” to any tourism campaign featuring the pristine natural beauty of the province.

There might even be a document of some kind that says that, having looked at the “trade-offs”, the tourism people don’t like the idea of high voltage direct current electricity wire zapping bugs all down through the park.

Because, the surest way to put an end to any news story about the threat to Gros Morne  from the potentially unnecessary infeed from the Lower Churchill – if that even gets built – is to have the tourism people state publicly that having Gros Morne festooned with steel girders and power lines  is just a lot of fuss about nothing at all.

But they didn’t do that.

The tourism people passed the buck to someone else.

Very curious.

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“Negativity” and “bloggers” part of Palin excuses

Some aspects of Sarah Palin’s resignation excuses will sound familiar to people living t the other book-end of the continent’s northern reaches.

From the unedited transcript of self-described hockey mom Palin’s public remarks:

It’s pretty insane – my staff and I spend most of our day dealing with THIS instead of progressing our state now.

Palin was referring to complaints of ethics violations against her using state ethics laws.  Palin blamed people she described as “political operatives” for her woes.

Sounds a bit like frivolous access to information requests and people with a personal vendetta against government.

Then there are the comments that come from a senior Alaska Republican official:

Asked why Palin was stepping down as opposed to finishing her term (which ends in 2010), the RGA header cited pesky bloggers and activists as the reason. Palin had insisted she didn't want to put Alaskans through two years of a lame-duck governorship.

"I don't think this is buckling to pressure," said Ayers. "I think this is her coming to the realization that the legislature in Alaska and that some bloggers and activists in Alaska are going to do everything they can to stymie her progress. This is a governor who didn't run for the office because she wanted a title. She wanted to make significant change in the state. She realized that that was no longer going to be able to happen, because things had become so partisan there."

Even that sounds just a wee bit familiar – eerily familiar -  although the specific words used by the province’s Leading Hockey Player may be slightly different:

My biggest frustration in coming from several decades in the private sector to public life is trying to maximize my time to be the CEO of Government and run it to the best of my ability with my management team of Cabinet and public servants, and simultaneously deal with the day to day nonsense of counter- spinning negativity. That's politics, but for a pragmatic results oriented leader with a social conscience it can be very counter productive.[Emphasis added.]

Too negative. Too partisan.

Trying to “progress” but always being held back by these nefarious forces.

Makes you wonder.

Things get tough in Alaska, Palin packs it in.

Things get tough in NewfoundlandLabrador…

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Gros Morne international status threatened

Gros Morne national park could lose its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site if NALCOR Energy, the provincial government’s oil, gas and hydro company, succeeds with plans to string a series of high-voltage electric transmission lines through the park.

There are alternatives but NALCOR has dismissed them already as being either costly or technically difficult.
The lines are part of a transmission infeed to bring power from the as yet undeveloped Lower Churchill river to eastern Newfoundland.

The Telegram has that as the front page story on Saturday.

The Gros Morne transmission plan generated opposition from environmental and tourism groups, along with Parks Canada, which must approve the project.

In February, Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador (HNL) chairman Bruce Sparkes first raised the spectre of Gros Morne losing its spot on the United Nations list.

"It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it's been suggested that if you put this corridor down through it, it (may) lose the designation," he says.

"We believe Parks Canada is correct in opposing this."

No one from HNL or Parks Canada would comment for the Telegram.


Deputy premier and natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale was also unavailable for comment.  While Dunderdale was consumed with the fisheries crisis this week, her office couldn’t even deliver a statement by the Telegram’s deadline, as the department had apparently intended.

In February, Bond Papers and others first raised the issue of slinging transmission lines through the park.

The Premier backed the idea:

“When park officials look at what the trade-off happens to be for the benefits we get at the end of day ... I think they will see the benefit,” he said.

One of the trade-offs would presumably be the international designation.  According to the Telegram only two sites have lost the designation.

When the park was established in the 1980s, transmission towers through its pristine natural beauty was described as “the most serious threat” to Gros Morne.

The power lines may not be needed.

A NALCOR official recently told a business group in Gander that adding more wind generation to the island system would not be a good idea until the transmission line is built.  The transmission line would allow surplus power to be exported.

[ NALCOR manager of business development Greg] Jones told The Beacon the province can only produce a limited amount of wind energy because it can cause water to spill from hydro dams if excessive amounts are produced. This roadblock will be eliminated with the introduction of a transmission link in 2016 for the Lower Churchill hydro project.

The infeed is being justified, in part, on the grounds that the island will need additional power sources by as early as 2013. 

However, the environmental assessment documents for the project project only modest growth in residential and industrial demand in the future.  That was before the AbitibiBowater paper plant in Grand falls closed and before Kruger decided to shut down one of its paper machines at Corner Brook on what appears to be a permanent basis.

Jones’ comments suggest that current and future demand on the island can be met with much smaller, less costly alternative generation sources.  Adding wind power now would add to the current surplus, if the full implication of Jones’ comment about water spilling over hydro dams is clear. 

But that also means that added wind power and small hydro developments could continue to displace the Holyrood generating plant and still meet the island’s energy needs.  Holyrood burns oil to generate electricity and has been a subject of ongoing environmental controversy.

While the plant is currently operating at a severely reduced capacity, due to low demand in the summer months, the infeed proposal would require the plant to operate its three generators year-round in order to stabilise the power transmission from Labrador.

The government’s 2007 energy plan committed to replacing Holyrood with other forms of generation.  Also in 2007, natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale highlighted replacing Holyrood as one of the reasons for building the infeed.

In Dunderdale’s scenario selling Lower Churchill power to consumers in eastern Newfoundland  was one way the government planned to under-write the cost of the multi-billion dollar Lower Churchill project. 

No other power purchase agreements have been identified.  A memorandum of understanding with Rhode Island on a block of 200 megawatts appears to have gone no where since it was signed in 2007.

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BLTN Update:   CBC is running the story as well, on Monday.  The most interesting feature of this online story are the comments from a raft of pseudonyms - most of whom apparently like the idea of slinging power lines and steel girders through a park where right now the tallest power line is on a wooden poll. 

Nature schmature.

Happy second term, President Obama

Sarah Palin is considered by most to be a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

This should make Republicans in the United States decidedly uneasy. 

Palin’s departure/resignation comments are, in places,  vague and in other places confused.  Notice they are not confusing;  it should be clear to anyone listening that Palin was blabbering incoherent nonsense.  She switches with apparent easy between referring to herself in the singular to referring to herself in the plural, for example. She talks of the need to do some thing – never clearly stated -  in politics from outside politics, as if that was possible.   

Palin proved to be an appalling choice as vice-president, worse than the spelling champion chosen by Bush I.  She is, as John Cleese has described her, a good actor.  A good parrot.  She learns lines and repeats them.  She does not think.

Cleese should know:  he’s worked with an intelligent, funny Palin and a dead parrot in the same sketch.

When Palin had handlers during the presidential campaign she looked better.  She looked better because she had campaign professionals feeding her lines and dressing.  Palin may have complained but it worked.

In Alaska on Friday, Palin on her own, without handlers, massagers and healers, was closer to what American would get in Palin the presidential candidate.

If Sarah Palin – parodied by a comedian who merely copied the politician  without changing a thing -  is a presidential hopeful because she appeals strongly to the party’s voter base, Republicans might wish to do some serious repairs to the foundation of their party.

When they look beyond Palin, they should get ever more concerned.

Her rival is Mitt Romney, another insubstantial lump of plastic.  Both Romney and Palin are on the campaign trail already. The recent election is barely eight months over and already 2012 candidates are working the stump.

That alone should tell much about the prospective candidates.

Sarah Palin’s departure from gubernatoral politic is brilliant, according to Mary Matalin.  Clearly, Matalin is willing to take one for the team, in this case a hit to her credibility.  She is always on message and  always on point which is more than could be said of Palin.

Matalin and her fellow strategists are too sharp not to know the party is in big trouble.  Once the holiday weekend  - and a few heads – starts to clear.  Maybe Matalin and her colleagues should take a look at where their party is going.

For the heights of political success to Sarah Palin, Greatest Hope in a mere two decades.

That should send chills up anyone’s spine.

Oh.

And by the way.

Obama’s second term is guaranteed.  Congrats Mr. President.

And the way things are looking, Biden’s got a serious shot at 2016.  Back to back to back Democrat presidents.

Everyone can thank the likes of Sarah Palin.

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Northern Trident ’09 - Port Visit- St. John’s

Two Royal Australian Navy frigates – HMAS Sydney and HMAS Ballarat – will be in St. John’s on Monday July 6 for a port call.

The ships are on a round-the-world voyage called Operation Northern Trident 2009.

HMAS Sydney (FFG 03) is one of six ships built for the Royal Australian Navy based on the American Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates. Adelaide, the name-ship for the Australian navy, and Canberra have been decommissioned.

HMAS Ballarat (FFH 155) is one of 10 ANZAC-class frigates and was initially designed to patrol Australia’s exclusive economic zone. The ships began entering service in 1996 and are based on a modified German design. Ballarat was commissioned in 2004.

Each ship carries a variety of weapons, including SH-70 Seahawk helicopters.

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R.I. M.O.U. M.I.A.

A memorandum of understanding between the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the State of Rhode Island in mid-2007 appears to have vanished.

The MOU committed the parties to a two-phase process that was touted as part of a potential sale of 200 megawatts of power to the small state after 2015. 

The first phase – to last six months  - was to consist of a “mutual assessment of the merits of long-term sale and purchase agreement, as well as the development of an action plan to address any technical, regulatory and statutory requirements of the transaction.”

That was due at the end of 2007 but aside from a vague comment from natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale in May 2008, there’s no word on whether or not the assessment was ever concluded and what happened to the power purchase agreement talks.

The second phase was to consist of negotiation of a power-purchase agreement and hinged on the successful completion of the first phase.

The power would come from the Lower Churchill River development.

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VOCM website = GCRI

VOCM’s new website is turning into a bit of a disaster.

A new feature that lists the most popular news stories also allows for old stories that are long since out-dated to appear next to other stories that continue a story as it plays out.

The one that stands out right now is the story of a man who died on Tuesday after hitting a parked truck on the Outer Ring Road a week ago today.

We already noted that the website featured a story yesterday that had the guy still alive, two days after he succumbed to his injuries.

Things aren’t any better on Friday. 

This is a screen capture of the site at about quarter past eight on Friday, July 3.  As you can see, one story which reports the guy is dead is listed as the second most “popular” story.  Farther down there is still the story that he’s in critical condition.

Someone looking for the latest news – something VO used to be famous for – is now confronted with stories from different dates that give different aspects of the same story.  If you didn’t check the dates or if, as yesterday showed, the older story is “more popular”, then you’ll be getting out-dated information.  Badly outdated information.

And while we’re at it, how in the name of merciful heavens can anyone justify having a “most popular” post space on a news site?  It works on a blog because it simply shows what people are most interested in.

A news site where it’s greatest hits can include some gruesome, grizzly stories should not be promoting those stories based on any notion popularity.  A simple hit counter associated with each story, as CBC online does, allows the reader to gauge how many people have been reading it.  That’s useful.  In the CBC case, they track the number of comments and the number of people who have “recommended” a story.

The VO website redesign is garish enough.  There are some good features but it is, for the most part, pretty ugly.  What’s even uglier is this “most popular” news story feature.

VO had a well-deserved reputation for getting stories fast and delivering the raw details concisely.  It’s news room had and has some sharp, professional people in it.  They might be relatively young in some cases but they worked hard at getting it right.

Correction.

It’s not ugly.

It’s gruesome. 

Crass.

On top of that it is rude and insulting both to VO’s audience and to its newsroom staff.

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New Dawn still M.I.A

Announced with great fanfare last September, a land claims agreement-in-principle between the Innu of Labrador and the provincial government is apparently on life support.

The New Dawn agreement seems to have turned into the Matshishkapeu Accord after all.

The deal was supposed to go to a vote back in January but according to media reports the deal was postponed indefinitely.

Turned out there were unspecified “outstanding issues”.  Those issues have led to further discussions but it isn’t clear what the hold-up is or when, if ever, the deal may reach the stage where it can head to a vote.

Innu deputy chief Peter Penashue said last week that he hoped the deal will go to a vote in the fall.  He had hoped it would be concluded by now.

The deal was in trouble from the start, however and the same concerns within the Innu community are still be heard almost a year later.  The deal has a number of  other potential problems beyond local concerns over which Innu companies will benefit from the deal.

Whatever happened there’s no sign the deal is really back on track, despite Penashue’s optimism.

Settling a land claims deal with the Innu is crucial to development of the Lower Churchill.

In its annual report for 2008, the province’s energy corporation trumpeted the agreement as a major achievement in efforts to develop the Gull Island and Muskrat falls power complexes.  There’s no mention of the hang-up even though the report was released months after the vote was cancelled.

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Alive or dead?

According to an online VOCM story dated June 30 but still running at 5:00 PM, July 2:

A friend of the bicyclist critically injured in an accident with a parked truck Friday on the Outer Ring Road is appealing to the public.  The 48 year-old man collided with a parked truck near the interchange at Portugal Cove Road late kast [sic] week. Bill, speaking on VOCM Open Line with Randy Simms, says the man is not able to communicate the details of the accident. He's hoping that someone may have seen the accident and will call the police.

The headline says: “Cyclist Remains Critical”.

According to a CBC story posted on line July 2:

Cyclist Mike Dinn, 48, died Tuesday afternoon [June 30 for those without a calendar handy] of injuries he sustained after striking a large truck parked on the shoulder of the Outer Ring Road last Friday.

So which is it?

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Equity

The people of Newfoundland and Labrador have been hearing a lot about equity these past few years.

They’ve been hearing about it just recently from the fellow who likes to call himself the Leader of the Province. 

He mentioned it a few times within the past couple of weeks when he announced another offshore oil deal.  He was talking about equity as in shares in a business, as in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador running a small oil company.

Listening to fisheries minister Tom Hedderson last week on CBC Radio’s Fisheries Broadcast, people in the fishing industry likely had another meaning of equity in mind.

Hedderson told listeners that the provincial government was prepared to help out the thousands of  people  - the “workers” - affected by the crisis in that industry. They’d help, at some undefined point in the future, maybe,  with some way of bridging people onto employment insurance.  The provincial government would find a way to stamp them up, but only if necessary and at this point while things were bad, the point of necessity didn’t appear to be there just yet.  Well, certainly, to paraphrase Hedderson, no one had come to government with the documentation to show them conclusively of the necessity at this point. 

And what’s more, anything else for the industry, well that would be a subsidy and subsidies were not the way to go, according to Hedderson.

The Premier said much the same thing last week, via another medium.

No subsidies. 

No “investments”.

Only make-work and then EI.

If necessary.

That’s where the other meaning of equity likely came in for a host of people.  The “equity” they were thinking of was equity meaning fairness,  equity meaning to treat like things alike.

The Telegram editorial on Thursday talks about some of the things people across the province have noticed.

The paper workers [at Corner brook Pulp and paper] got a full-court ministerial press: the moment the 130 layoffs were announced, not only Premier Danny Williams, but Natural Resources Minister Kathy Dunderdale, Human Resources Minister Susan Sullivan and Justice Minister Tom Marshall were all on the plane to meet with the workers' union that very afternoon. Heck, the news release had the names of a record-breaking five separate media staffers to contact on the bottom.

Not so with fisheries workers. When fisheries workers occupied a government building in St. John's on Monday, Williams was in Europe on what is arguably a mission with only limited possibilities for demonstrable success. (Williams is talking to European Union officials about the already-done-deal of the EU seal ban, and about Canada-EU trade negotiations, where the EU has already said they deal with national governments, not individual regional ones.)

Fisheries Minister Tom Hedderson was in Houston, and the only minister available to meet with the group was Kathy Dunderdale - but she'd only meet with the group if they agreed first to leave the building.

That's a very different response for workers in a very similar circumstance.

The Telegram calls it a double standard.

That would be treating likes things differently.

They are right.

That’s not equity.

It is in the inequity of its own policies - the real or perceived lack of fairness - that the provincial government finds the root of its current political problems with the fishery.

And offering to stamp people up, in place of “investments”, and only maybe, at some undefined point in the future, if necessary?

Some might call that iniquity.

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Former LG Roberts named to Order of Canada

Her Excellency the Governor General yesterday announced the appointment of former lieutenant governor and former cabinet minister Edward Roberts to the Order of Canada.

Roberts is cited for his contributions in both capacities.

Roberts should also be credited with suggesting the creation of the newest addition to the caribou memorial at Bowring Park. After attending the 90th anniversary commemoration of Beaumont Hamel, Roberts wrote to the provincial government recommending the government fund the duplication of plaques listing the names of soldiers and sailors killed in action but without any known grave.

In official news releases issued in 2007 and again in 2009, the provincial government made no mention of Roberts’ role, although he was given a quote in the 2007 one.

Some who attended the formal unveiling ceremony noted that the mayor of St. John’s and others also ignored Roberts, preferring to tug their forelocks and give credit for the project to a certain absent first minister.

Now that’s tacky, boys.

Really tacky.

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Congrats Al Franken!

After a lengthy election campaign and a seemingly endless court battle, Al Franken is new senator from Minnesota.

In this short clip from the Connecticut Forum encounter between Al Franken and Ann Coulter, Franken delivers a killer punch line.  Politics is serious business but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun along the way. The United States Senate will never be the same.

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Commemoration Day, 2009

An old post that still resonates: Commemoration Day 2006

Fishing for sympathy without any bait

You can tell a government is up a political creek without a canoe let alone a paddle.

They issue windy news releases rattling off supposed accomplishments and how much money has been being spent on a given subject, in this case fisheries issues.

They’re just fishing for public sympathy but they don’t have any bait.

What happened yesterday doesn’t mean a row of beans to the thousands affected today by the current downturn in markets for all seafood products. It sure doesn’t deal with the problems being faced by the people in the shrimp industry. Those are the people, incidentally, currently shacked up in the fisheries department headquarters in St. John’s.

The pile of words – including the lengthy backgrounder – doesn’t do much to persuade anyone the provincial government policy is tickety-boo. That’s largely because there are a host of things in the release which are pretty much meaningless or which run against what is already known in public.

Take, for instance, this line from a fisheries minister who reputedly had to cut his vacation short to pump this out:

In the midst of a difficult year, the fishing industry is resorting to suggestions of quick fixes such as subsidies which do not deal with long-term structural issues and would violate international trade agreements.

International trade agreements were no never mind back in December when the provincial government had its eye on some really lucrative hydro assets belonging to Fortis, Enel and Abitibi that it wanted for itself.

The government has tried this line before and it still rings like a ripe watermelon tossed off the Confederation Building. If one release didn’t persuade everyone, a second one isn’t likely to do much better.

Then there’s the bit right after that:

The most significant marketing challenge facing the shrimp sector is access to markets and prohibitive seafood tariffs. Today, the Honourable Danny Williams, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, is in Europe addressing these issues. He is also addressing the proposed European Union ban on Canadian seal products.

Now if people in the province didn’t know the federal government and every other province in the country was working on a free trade deal with the Europeans this claim and the Premier’s sudden junket might have some impact.

However, earlier this year the Premier said he wasn’t going to participate in the trade talks - where there was a high-powered chance to deal with crucial issues like the shrimp tariffs - because he didn’t trust Stephen Harper to look after the province’s interest. By not participating in the trade talks, the Premier’s solution was to leave Stephen Harper to look after the province’s interest.

Bizarre, we know, but that was his logic at the time.

Now the Premier is trying to play a little catch-up but he is in a pretty weak position. . Before heading off on this quickie trip, the Premier said - in so many words - one of his goals was to make Europeans aware of Newfoundland and Labrador. if you have to start by making people aware, you really have an uphill fight.

One of his other goals was to bring up the seal hunt. Now you don’t have to be a rocket scientist or even a high school graduate to know that bringing up the seal hunt with a bunch of people who just voted to ban it from their shores is not very likely to make them amenable to cutting a deal on shrimp tariffs or much else.

And when they already know you like to call people names – like say “hypocrites”- they really aren’t likely to want to do more than politely listen before quickly getting down to things that matter. Like say trade talks with a G8 country and all the people from it who showed up for the meetings a few months ago.

The next great accomplishment in the release is also a plum choice:

As well, the province has implemented a Fish Price Setting Panel to resolve price disputes such as the one that is occurring now. There is a mechanism in place for the harvesters to appeal the price to the panel if they are dissatisfied with the current decision. They also have the option of re-entering negotiations with seafood processors.

That would be the same pricing system that has worked so successfully in resolving the current shrimp problem. Basically, the panel hasn’t been able to find a price everyone can live with and that’s after umpteen kicks at the proverbial catfish. So far the provincial fish minister’s only effort on this aspect of the current problem has been to blame the fishermen and the processors for failing to sort out a price. Hint: that’s what the panel is supposed to do.

That makes two smacks in your own head in one paragraph. You can see a pattern developing here. There is actually a third smack: part of the overall problem in fisheries management is this whole price-fixing approach in the first place, but that’s a whole other issue.

But wait.

It gets better.

Surely invoking the memory of fish policy made by a guy in a funny hat will persuade people that this is a government that has done much for the fishery.

"In 2006, we offered to purchase the marketing arm of Fishery Products International Limited for approximately $100 million. We later offered up to $5.4 million for a provincial seafood marketing council…”.

For starters, mentioning the FPI fiasco is a bit like going to Stephenville and telling them about the $15 million subsidy you offered to keep the mill open but the company didn’t accept. Your intentions don’t mean much if the offer wasn’t accepted and really doesn’t matter since the mill closed despite an unequivocal promise that the mill wouldn’t close on the Premier’s watch.

But the real sticky bit of this story is that FPI’s marketing arm only came available after what seemed like a long, protracted attack by the provincial government on that company. The Premier liked to take pot-shots at the company directors and if that wasn’t good enough, the Guy in the Funny Hat threatened a prosecution for supposed illegal processing. The whole prosecution seems to have taken an inordinate number of trips to the cabinet table – one would be too many - if some of the court documents in the case are any indication.

In the end, changes to the FPI Act actually made it easier to break up what had once been a very successful integrated fishing company with international markets.

This release is so successful at this point that its authors then try a little blame shifting, this time to the people involved in the fishing industry:

In the meantime, the industry continues to lobby the Provincial Government for additional seafood processing licences, despite their repeated calls for rationalization of the industry and despite the adverse effects that this would hold for plant workers.

Leave aside for a second the poorly constructed sentence that makes it hard to tell what it is that “this” refers to. Would issuing more processing licenses be bad for plant workers? Would rationalisation adversely affect the workers?

Let’s just note that, firstly, the provincial government alone has the jurisdiction over fish plant licensing. If they want more plants, they can license all they want. If they want fewer plants – rationalisation is the way to go, by the by – then the provincial government can create the circumstances to make this happen. They can set up the system to rationalise the number of plants and since fish plants are entirely provincial, they can put aside some oil money to pay for the “workforce reduction program.”

Secondly, it doesn’t matter a jot or a tittle what something called “the industry” wants since “the industry’ doesn’t exist as a monolith. Processors know there are too many plants. Workers know in their hearts there are too many as well. Some interests may be of a different view but – to be quite frank - the responsible rests with the licensing jurisdiction - i.e. the provincial government - to exercise its judgment.

And just to go back to the FPI thing: at a time when everyone seemed to understand that consolidation was needed to ensure for strong processors that could compete globally, the provincial government evidently thought the best thing to do was smash up the largest company and distribute its bits among a bunch of smaller operators. Even mentioning rationalisation just opens up a can of political worms for the provincial government, none of which are crawling willingly onto any hooks.

The rest of the release doesn’t get any better. At one point, the provincial government tries to claim that the industry is licensed “primarily” by the federal government. That’s despite the fact that the processing sector is entirely provincial and has the largest number of workers in it.

Go figure.

They even bring up the much talked about, much delayed and now much more costly aquaculture veterinary centre as an example of the commitment the provincial government has to the fishery. This release is a desperate effort if they have to put that chestnut out there.

The current crisis in the fishery is a real political test for an administration that has been remarkably free of such tests over the past five years. The administration hasn’t been handling it adeptly. Having the Premier and the fish minister leave town just as things were really heating up certainly didn’t help.

If this release is the best the provincial government can do in an effort to catch a political break, the fishery may well be in more trouble than it appears.

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