Leaders and salaries #nlpoli

Donald Trump says he won't even take one dollar in salary as president.

Sounds familiar.

In Newfoundland and Labrador,  Proto-Trump said the same thing.  His fan club insist the Greatest One never took a penny of salary.

That was, at best, a fib.

The Reverse Midas Touch Rides Again #nlpoli

The crowd running this place these days has an unrivalled ability to look at a problem and find the worst possible response imaginable.

On Wednesday,  natural resource minister Siobhan Coady and environment minister Perry Trimper announced that the government would tell Nalcor to keep flooding the Muskrat Falls reservoir but at the same time, they will have to cut down more trees and clear more vegetation from the flooding area.

This solves nothing.

The truth about Danny Williams, Hydro-Quebec, and the Lower Churchill #nlpoli

Danny Williams promised he would never cut a deal on the Lower Churchill with Hydro-Quebec unless it included redress for the 1969 contract.

But as Kathy Dunderdale revealed in 2009,  Williams spent five years secretly trying to sell the Lower Churchill to Hydro-Quebec without any redress at all.

Then Williams got pissed off because Hydro-Quebec wasn't interested.

Here's what Dunderdale told VOCM's Randy Simms in September 2009 about Williams' desperate efforts to get a deal with Hydro-Quebec:

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Thank you, Danny Williams #nlpoli

Rob Strong has been a key player in the local oil and gas industry pretty much since the earliest days.  He knows what he is talking about.

Strong pointed out to VOCM on Wednesday that the Hebron field won’t be the cash cow for the provincial government some people hoped/pretended it would be.

Analyst Rob Strong says he fears that on the front end of a project, that will have a 25 year life, this province won't reap any benefit for being a partner in the development.
Strong says when oil was at $100, Hebron type crude was being discounted by $35. He says that means in the short term, the picture does not look as bright for Hebron owners. This province has a has a 4.9 per cent share in the development.

What Strong is pointing to is a deliberate cut in the provincial royalty offered as a gift to the oil companies by Danny Williams and Kathy Dunderdale in 2007.  Dunderdale, the natural resources minister at the time, said that she and Williams wanted to give the multi-national oil companies “some downside protection if the price of oil went very, very low.”

Selling energy assets a good thing: Danny Williams #nlpoli

 

“It was a previous Liberal government that wanted to actually privatize Hydro. This particular government wants to strengthen Hydro, wants to make it a very valuable corporation: a corporation that will ultimately pay significant dividends back to the people of this Province; a corporation that perhaps some day may have enough value in its assets overall as a result of the Hebron deal and the White Rose deal, possible Hibernia deal, possible deals on gas, possible deals on oil refineries and other exploration projects, where hopefully we might be able to sell it some day and pay off all the debt of this Province, and that would be a good thing.”

Premier Danny Williams, House of Assembly, 30 April 2008

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Real change #nlpoli

“A positive, optimistic, hopeful vision of public life isn’t a naive dream,”  Justin Trudeau told Canadians after he won a truly historic victory in the October 19th federal general election.  That victory, said Trudeau,  “is what positive politic can do.”

“We beat fear with hope, we beat cynicism with hard work. We beat negative, divisive politics with a positive vision that brings Canadians together.”

Premier Paul Davis spoke to the St. John’s Board of Trade on Tuesday.  Earlier in the day he released another letter he’d written to Trudeau listing off Davis’ demands,  things he wanted Trudeau to give the province as soon as possible.

The provincial government had problems dealing with the federal government, wrote Davis, as if he and his colleagues had absolutely nothing to do with creating those problems.

Davis complained about not having a federal cabinet minister from the province, as if Davis and his colleagues had absolutely nothing to do with creating that situation either.

“But with your election,  we now have change,”  wrote Davis.

And just to prove how Davis himself had nothing to do with change, he then proceeded to rattle off a list of demands.

The ABCs of ABC #nlpoli

 

In 2004, Danny Williams fought for three months against a federal government decision that had been settled – at least for the federal government – earlier in the year as part of the usual budget cycle.

Williams got the money the federal government had allocated but won the domestic war for public opinion.

In 2007,  Williams and his provincial Conservatives launched a second political holy war against the federal government’s budget decisions.  Williams waged a much longer war,  lost it, but was widely credited at home with a victory.

There were other similarities

Hyping the stock, yet again #nlpoli

Any oil company seriously interested in bidding on an exploration license offshore Newfoundland and Labrador isn’t likely to need the hyped presentation by the provincial government Thursday.

Exploring offshore is expensive.

Always has been.

Always will be.

Exploring beyond the 200 mile exclusive economic zone, in upwards of two kilometres of water, just makes the oil and gas all that much more costly. to find and more costly to produce.

Chainsaw Earle keeps austerity on the table #nlpoli

NDP leader Earle McCurdy called the province’s major open line show on Thursday and by the sounds of things he hasn’t backed off the position that the size of the government’s financial problems will mean more cuts.

Sure he said he was opposed to austerity,  but what Earle did say was that the government will have to cut jobs, lay people off and slash spending to cope with its financial problems. 

Potato, potato, Earle.

Moral victory: saying yes to less #nlpoli

A couple of years after his war with one prime minister, Danny Williams was locked in another war with another federal first minister.

Williams was demanding compensation for yet another supposed injustice. 

“What I said before and I said going in, this is about principles,”  Williams told reporters in November 2007 “but it's also about money as well. At the end of the day, the promise and the principle converts to cash for the bottom line ….”

The pattern set in 2004 was repeating itself.   

John Crosbie and the Last Crusade #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Every story told thus far about Ches Crosbie and the riding in Avalon has the unmistakeable odour of bullshit about it.

The latest twist, namely that Senator David Wells was scuttling a potential rival as The Biggest Conservative in Newfoundland and Labrador, is a bit more in the realm of plausible but it still doesn’t quite ring true.

Jihad against people who dissed Harper?

No equity? No surprise. #nlpoli

It didn’t take long for Paul Davis to get the comparison he was looking for last week.

The Telegram - not surprisingly – offered it up in the editorial on June 17:

“Premier Paul Davis pulled a Danny Williams Tuesday,”  the editorialist wrote.

Davis told the annual NOIA oil and gas industry conference that a deal to develop Bay du Nord was mere weeks away.  Never mind the complexity of the project:  500 kilometres offshore,  in very deep water,  very deep under ground.  Never mind the complexities of international law not fully resolved yet.  Never mind the project economics – whether it can be developed profitably -  are still unknown.

Never mind anything.

The goal was the comparison.

Experience and government #nlpoli

In the 1980s, local entrepreneur Craig Dobbin bought a batch of helicopter service companies across Canada and merged them with his own company  - Sealand – to form Canadian Helicopters. 

By the time Dobbin died in 2006,  CHC was one of the largest providers of helicopter support services in the world.

Not just Newfoundland and Labrador.

Or Canada.

Or even North America.

The world.

The Federal Boogeyman #nlpoli

The Liberals kept poking at Premier Paul Davis in the House of Assembly on Wednesday about the European free trade deal announced last year.

Specifically, Liberal leader Dwight Ball asked Davis for the second day in a row about a joint federal-provincial fund under the deal that would see the federal government spend $280 million and the provincial government drop in $120 million on something to do with fisheries.  We say “something to do with fisheries” because there really hasn’t been much substance to go with the announcement in the year since the provincial government announced the thing.

Tuesday’s questions led to Davis admitting there was some kind of unspecified problem with the talks.  As the Telegram reported,  Davis told reporters outside the House that he “wouldn’t say [the funding deal was] falling apart, but having not been able to reach a finalized agreement yet is troubling.”

Myths, then and now #nlpoli

You really do have to wonder how anyone could be expected to keep things straight when the people they rely on to help them understand keep changing their statements.

Take, for example,  the fight between the provincial Conservative administration in Newfoundland and Labrador a decade ago over offshore oil royalties and Equalization. 

The Ego-mentary #nlpoli

Danny Williams’ hockey team tried a little marketing ploy this week.  They sent out a bulletin to news media disguised as a news release. 

They claimed the hockey team was locked in some kind of record breaking attempt with a crowd of mainlander for the most sold-out games.  While everything was going well, apparently, there was a chance that this week’s first game would fall short of the glorious goal of yet another sell-out.

What’s interesting about this pretty transparent marketing ploy is that it worked with the CBC.  Popular opinion, including among the crowd at the Mother Corp is that they just don’t do that sort of thing.  Well, the opinion is wrong. The folks over on the Parkway are as big a bunch of suckers for a good “us versus them” narrative as the rest of the crowd in the province.

No-brainer #nlpoli

Perhaps it is just Danny Williams’ ingratitude that pisses people off.

The multi-millionaire hockey team owner just got a massive subsidy from the taxpayers of St. John’s so that he won’t suffer any lost revenue.  It should be a no-brainer for the guy to say thanks to the people who have made him wealthy for the cash Williams’ buddies on city council handed him this week.

A simple “thank you” wouldn’t have hurt him.

it was a no-brainer.

But no. 

Instead, Ole Twitchy called the media together on Wednesday to whine, moan, bitch, and complain about those who don’t like giving tax dollars to people like Williams who don’t need it.

What a douche.

Everything has a price #nlpoli

Danny Williams famously once said that at some point,  “principle converts to cash.”

When his old friend Tom Marshall named a court house after Williams,  the former Premier said this to reporters about his emotions: "I can't put a price on it."

He may not be able to convert his emotions to cash at this point, but how curious that he ties the two things together so effortlessly.

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Nothing was further from the truth #nlpoli

A decade ago,  the offshore regulatory board reduced its estimate of the recoverable reserves in the Terra Nova field from 405 million barrels  to 354 million barrels.

Danny Williams was trying to squeeze additional transfer payments out of the federal government in the guise of getting provincial oil royalties that the federal government supposedly took back.

The whole thing was a fraud of the first magnitude but hundreds of thousands of people in Newfoundland and Labrador fell for it.

Premier Mulligan #nlpoli

The news on Monday was not Frank Coleman’s announcement.

The news was in the reaction of provincial Conservatives to word that Coleman wouldn’t be Premier after all.

They skipped past the obligatory expressions of concern over Coleman’s unspecified family problem and quickly went on to talk up the chances the party now had to hold a “proper” leadership contest.
Conservatives were relieved that Frank was gone.  You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief.