But that doesn’t mean natural resources minister Shawn Skinner escaped completely unscathed from his episode on Backtalk on Wednesday.
Here’s the latest version of a story about comments Skinner made on VO’s afternoon call-in show. The head on the story was “Retraction”:
The following story appeared on the web in a manner which left the impression that a minister was speaking about the C-NLOPB, when, in fact, he only referenced Nalcor in his call to VOCM Backtalk.
The government is refuting claims by a talk show caller that the auditor general cannot gain access to the books at Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. On VOCM Backtalk with Pete Soucy, a caller said the provincially-owned utility would not allow an audit. However, Natural Resources Minister Shawn Skinner told the show that claim was untrue.
While the auditor general has complained that he was unable to get the information he wanted from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, he has never expressed any concerns about Nalcor or its predecessor, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.
There.
That’s clearer.
Not.
Here’s the actual “following story” that this supposedly replaces, although you’ll notice that in the version above, there actually isn’t the bit of the “following story” that it replaces.
The government is refuting claims by a talk show caller that the auditor general cannot gain access to the books from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. The A.G. complained recently that he was unable to obtain the information he was looking for.
However, the minister of natural resources, Shawn Skinner, replied on VOCM Backtalk with Pete Soucy that that claim is untrue. He said there is a provision for the auditor general to review commercially sensitive information.
What we actually have here is an entirely new version of Skinner’s comments.
In the new version, the caller was talking about Nalcor, not the offshore board. So Skinner didn’t throw the AG under any sort of bus. VO made the mistake. That was one of the possibilities in the earlier post and, frankly, it makes more sense given the very friendly relationship between the AG and the current administration.
All the same, if you look at what Skinner was actually talking about, he did wind up raising a rather uncomfortable issue of another sort. Skinner just reminds us all of changes that Skinner and his colleagues made to the Energy Corporation Act in 2008 that effectively hid Nalcor from any meaningful public scrutiny and independent oversight.
That’s so much better.
- srbp -