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.
Dean MacDonald, the undeclared leader of the provincial Liberal Party spoke to a crowd in Port de Grave district on Saturday night. There’s an account of his speech in the Telegram’s Monday edition.
Dean crapped on the provincial Conservatives for all sorts of things. Most of all, he seemed to think they lack what George Bush used to call the vision thing:
“I don’t think we have a vision, I don’t think we have a plan for the province. I don’t feel that we’re all on a team who all know where we’re headed,” MacDonald said. “The party that’s been in power too long believes their own bullshit, and the party that will sweep into power doesn’t, and that’s us.”
Contrary to what the Telegram reported, MacDonald didn’t seem to offer much of a vision himself during the speech. Well, certainly the Telly didn’t report any vision-like utterances and no one who attended the session seems to talk much about Dean’s vision. The Telly just included a few quotes confirming that the handful of people in the province who still support the Liberal Party see MacDonald as the Saviour.
This is not news.
Nor is it any sort of vision.
MacDonald reportedly spoke for 30 minutes. He shat on Kathy Dunderdale. He has done that before. And just as surely as he has criticised Dunderdale before, we should all remember that Kathy Dunderdale is doing nothing except continuing the plan of her predecessor, complete with his vision and using all the same people that her predecessor picked for their jobs. Kathy Dunderdale is following the agenda of Dannyism, right down to the hydro-electric project Danny Williams used as an excuse to retire.
In January 2008, Dean told the world - via The Independent - that what the province needed was 20 more years of Dannyism. There’s no sign Dean has changed his mind at all about that. In fact, after Dean criticised Dunderdale’s unsustainable spending in 2011, he quickly sucked it all back again.
Go back and take another look at Dean’s interview with David Cochrane last fall. You won’t be disappointed, which is more than you can say for some of the people who attended the fundraiser on Saturday night. Those would be the people who didn’t leap to their feet in applause at the end of Dean’s speech. That would even include the people who did stand and applaud but who did so slowly, after others had started. Rumours of wild enthusiasm were - like the depth of MacDonald’s insights – greatly exaggerated. You see lots of people – not just parties in power too long – believe their own bullshit.
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Free advice, they say, is worth exactly what you paid for it.
And when it comes to free advice on the provincial Liberal Party leadership, Dean MacDonald is more full of it than usual. CBC’s David Cochrane gave MacDonald free airtime this past weekend to share his insights into what the party needs to do.
Cochrane describes MacDonald as having “long Liberal ties” but that really isn’t an accurate description of MacDonald’s limited association with the Liberal Party. Sure the guy spent some time as Brian Tobin’s bagman for Tobin’s abortive federal leadership run. But other than that and raising some cash recently, MacDonald’s most significant act while associated with the Liberal Party was blading Roger Grimes as MacDonald’s old business buddy - Danny Williams – strode toward the Premier’s Office.
And that, dear reader, is the extent of MacDonald’s association with provincial Liberals. If that’s all that it takes to have not only ties, but long ones by some estimations, then perhaps that speaks more to the sorry state of the provincial Liberal Party at this point in history than anything else.
The guy, after all, hasn’t held any positions within the party, has an incredibly limited record of his own of making financial contributions to the provincial Liberals and, as far as it appears has absolutely no political experience whatsoever.
MacDonald acknowledges this point, by the way, when he talks about the need for establishing some street cred within the party.
And aside from suggesting he could “help out” by fundraising or doing some other odd jobs, MacDonald doesn’t offer much else.
What he does do is spout a phenomenal load of pure shit throughout the entire interview. One of the choice moments is when Cochrane asks MacDonald about Dean’s criticism about Kathy Dunderdale’s “unsustainable” spending. MacDonald quickly disavows any suggestion he was criticising the Conservatives.
When Cochrane notes – quite rightly - that Danny is the guy who started the unsustainable spending, MacDonald launches into an extensive Conservative apologia for Danny Williams’ unsustainable public spending. It’s vintage Williams bullshit from a charter member of the Fan Club.
Beyond that, Dean doesn’t have anything to offer on the Liberal Party beyond the need to “rebuild”, bring in "new people and fresh blood.
And that’s it.
To describe this as amateur and superficial would be generous. His own experience in fundraising is, by his own characterization, nothing beyond “arm-twisting” and organizing big dinners with high profile speakers.
On Muskrat Falls, MacDonald doesn’t do much better. he exaggerates his own involvement with the provincial government’s hydro corporation. His observations about the project and the issues involved are best described – again to be very generous – as superficial. MacDonald does not even have substantive talking points on the subject. The best he can do to try and counter David Vardy’s critique is suggest Vardy is recycled from the 1970s.
And that – you can see where this is going - is all there was.
If you want to talk about Liberal leadership politics, you’d be far better off looking at the federal party. There, at least, you can find people with ideas and energy. You can find people who have done a few things, taken a few for the team they were actually on, and who remain ready to do more.
The federal Liberals are talking about having a wide-open leadership race that lasts several months and involves a series of votes. Some are likening it to the American primaries. As the Toronto Star reported:
“This is not tinkering at the edges. This fundamentally changes how power in a political organization is exercised,” Liberal party president Alfred Apps told reporters on Thursday as the revival plan was released.
Some of the problems the federal Liberals have experienced are mirrored at the provincial Liberals:
For the provincial crowd, you can add a third one: a tendency to accept players from another team into their midst. Some of them even wind up being touted as potential leadership material spouting tons of free advice.
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The only people who seem excited at the prospect of Dean MacDonald leading the provincial Liberal Party are people who – like Dean – worked to undermine it or actively fought against it over the past decade.
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So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
labradore highlights the bizarro world of local Cultists including one of the leading worshippers who – according to very poorly informed pundits and some misguided others – is considered as a potential leader of the Liberal Party.
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Dean MacDonald left his job as chairman of the Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro board of directors. The reason for the departure was officially undisclosed in the news release.
The Premier revealed in a media scrum that MacDonald was concerned he would not be able to devote proper attention to his Hydro job given that he was spending increasing amounts of time working with a new venture capital company he'd started.
Williams also said there were some critical decisions on the Lower Churchill to be made in the next six months or so.
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Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro chairman Dean MacDonald tells an Ontario energy association meeting that when it comes to the Lower Churchill development "[w]hen you look at what the impediments are in front of us [to transmit power across Quebec to Ontario], we really have no alternative" than to build a power line through the Maritimes and ship power into the United States.
Meanwhile, Premier Danny Williams tells local reporters that, contrary to the implication of MacDonald's comments, Hydro hasn't abandoned the East-West sale potential.
On the face of it, this speech looks like a negotiating ploy by Dean. Tell the Ontarians we have power but can't get it across Quebec to you. Therefore, pressure Ottawa to intervene. In fact, the Globe story makes that pretty clear:
He urged Ontario energy executives and government officials to pressure Ottawa to intervene in the dispute between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, which are "rolling around in the mud" over the issues of access to markets and transmission systems.
Newfoundland has filed a submission with Quebec regulatory officials to require Hydro-Québec to deliver Lower Churchill power to markets through its transmission system, but it's a long process, Mr. MacDonald said. "With the lack of a connection between the provinces east-west ... we'll follow the path of least resistance, which is south," he said.
Then again, Dean's remarks also fit with comments he's made in the past and echoed by the Premier. Cost isn't an issue with the route through the Maritimes, according to both Williams and MacDonald; "if it costs us an extra billion to go north-south, we'll be the masters of our own destiny."
There's no conflict between Williams and MacDonald. They are both consistently singing the same song and it would perfectly in character for both men to use a speech like this to try and elicit some political intervention in the case.
There is a problem with their approach, however.
MacDonald was speaking to a sophisticated audience that can crunch the real numbers on the Maritimes route. These people know the idea of the alternate route costing "an extra billion" lowballs the real number, lowballs the overall cost and therefore doesn't even come close to explaining how the power can get to an American market at a competitive price. it's an historic problem and one that might only be solved - as has been suggested - by selling the power at or even below cost in the initial stages.
These Ontario energy players also know that MacDonald's team has so far only been able to turn up only one exploratory memorandum of understanding with one theoretical, potential customer and even that was for only 200 megawatts.
They likely think the whole posture MacDonald is taking is a big bluff.
How can you tell?
MacDonald said so: "I think a lot of people thought we were bluffing. We're not...".
When you have to state categorically that you aren't bluffing, that's a pretty big clue you are spinning a tale in which even you lack confidence.
Why not just promise to hold your breath until you turn blue?
It would be about as convincing and about as effective.
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"It's not poppycock. It's fact," he said of the much-maligned subsea route.Well, sort of.
MacDonald said there are examples "all over the world" of more power being transmitted over longer distances under the sea.
He said it may cost more to build, but the people of this province will reap the rewards in the end.
"The cost is such a damn good cost to not have to depend on anybody. To maybe pay a little more to build it, but when you sell it, we don't have to pay a toll charge on the way," he said.
"I'm mad as a Newfoundlander and Labradorian about what's gone on here. There may be a price to pay in the short term, but we have to draw a line in the sand," MacDonald said.There's also no surprise that MacDonald couldn't put a value on the price. His boss hasn't been able to do it. There's no surprise also that MacDonald offers up nothing more than Danny-esque rhetoric of drawing lines in sand and getting ready for "war". Danny Williams' latest war may be justified, however, as with every other war he has raged, Williams has been unwilling or unable to provide any substantive evidence to back his ire.
"Why is it when Newfoundland and Labrador asks for it, it's something that we don't deserve or it's something we shouldn't get? Well, it's so important that we don't roll over on it."Fortunately for us, his other remarks on this point were carried by CBC radio's On the go. MacDonald referred to Alberta's oil royalty regime. No one has opposed that since the 1985 Atlantic Accord. Newfoundland and Labrador today is in exactly the same position with respect to oil and gas royalties as any province in the country. In some respects, for example in comparison to the tar sands, our existing royalty regime is infinitely better than the Alberta regime.