What better time for the provincial government to release some major announcements. Heck, a complete waste of time - like the new Danny-logo, hailed as the most stupendous event in the province's history, or words to that effect - can get huge amounts of government dollars.
But what warrants government sliding it out late in the week?
Try this stuff:
1. "Stephenville? Where's Stephenville?" said the Premier. The environment minister releases the Abitibi mill closure from environment assessment review. Only a few short years ago, Danny Williams was promising the mill would not close on his watch. It didn't. He meant the watch on his arm and there was never a plant on his watch. It couldn't. The mill it Stephenville is inanimate. There was no way it could close in on Danny's watch as long as he stayed out of the building.
2. Subsidizing industry, without saying it. The announcement - actually on Thursday - that government will be handing $10 million to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro to pay for electricity that normally would have been used by the above-mentioned Abitibi mill.
The provincial government is effectively subsidizing the electricity rates to Kruger and to Abitibi's Grand Falls operation. He previously rejected an industrial energy subsidy to Fishery Products International.
Presumably, this subsidy will only be paid until the INCO smelter is built at Long Harbour. That is, when the Premier stops trying to hold up the construction.
During talks with Abitibi about the Stephenville mill, Williams committed to pay the company an energy subsidy up to a maximum of $12 million a year if the mill stayed open. That amount was actually larger than the tax revenue government gained from the mill's operation.
Expect that one of the natural resources minister's talking points notes that the $10 million subsidy is actually lower than the previous commitment to Abitibi and is being shared with the mill at Corner Brook run by Kruger.
A large double-double to the reporter who puts that to the minister an doesn't hear back the talking point given here or a close variation.
3. Fewer ferries operated by a private sector, not-for-profit. Transportation minister John Hickey released a long-awaited study into the province's ferry system.
The consultant recommended reducing the size of the fleet from 14 vessels to 12. It also recommended having the system run by a not-for-profit but privately incorporated entity like BC Ferries.
The vessel replacement portion of the plan is estimated at $80 - $90 million spread out over time.
The minister's new release contains very little factual information, incidentally, but it does have tons of partisan rhetoric. That's what you have to resort to when either:
a. You didn't read the study before you wrote the release; and/or,
b. You are politically afraid of the increased ferry rates resulting from the decision.
Expect the departmental talking points, drafted by Krysta Rudofsky's former sidekick, will play up the millions in new work for the Marystown Shipyard.
This way of spinning the message would be a political salve for the considerably more Marystown lost in the Premier's failed Hebron deal. People in Marystown will recall that they could have been doing Hebron and the ferries.
4. "You'd make more with FPI's wage cut offer." Not long after Danny Williams suggested workers at Fishery Products International go back to work for the wage cut being offered by the company, comes an announcement from fish minister Tom "Tovarisch" Rideout of a make-work project for former fishplant workers at Marystown. (Left: Our man in Moscow)Rideout spent an unusually long-time last week gathering market intelligence by hanging out around fishmonger stalls in Moscow. Unusual, because while Rideout was on this hastily organized junket, his cabinet colleagues were approving the sale of the former FPI plant at Harbour Breton to Barry Group. Rideout had condemned the sale as illegal.
Rideout slags FPI in this release, but by now we all know that when the going gets tough, Tom will probably be on a flight to Moscow or Tahiti or God knows where. Anywhere but in cabinet as it decides to do the opposite of what Tom said.
