Setting the agenda #nlpoli

In a set of media interviews this week, Premier Dwight Ball thought he would be talking about what's he learned in his first year in office, what motivates him, and the great plans he has for the future. The election was on November 30, 2015 and Ball took office on December 15.

As the result of  a tweet at 6:00 PM on Wednesday evening, everyone else will be talking about the fact Ball is already working on his third communications director after only 11 months in office.

Then they will wonder how long before Ball is starting in on his fourth... and then his fifth.

-srbp- 

The graveyard of ambition #nlpoli

Think of it as an inside joke.

James McLeod interviewed Premier Dwight Ball about the horror show that has been Ball's first year in office. "Ball also came under heavy fire,"  McLeod wrote, "for his handling of Nalcor Energy and perceived dishonesty about what he knew about outgoing CEO Ed Martin’s exorbitant severance package." McLeod quotes Ball:  "'I understand why people would suggest that, well, this guy, I can’t trust him, simply because of the HST or because of this or that.'"

This or that, of course, would be Ball's claim that he knew nothing of the plan to pay Ed Martin any form of severance although he'd quit as the head of Nalcor. That's the sort-of joke part. I can see, said Ball understatedly, how people might think I have some trouble telling them the straight story.  Subsequent evidence made it pretty clear Ball knew about severance payment Martin got, even if it was only to the extent he believed Martin was entitled to a severance payment under his employment contract and didn't know about the elaborate fraud perpetrated by the Tory-appointed Nalcor board.

Ball, Coady confirm secret talks with Quebec on Labrador hydro #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Premier Dwight Ball confirmed in the House of Assembly on Wednesday that officials from this province are talking to officials in Quebec about significant development of hydro-electric assets on the Churchill River.

We know that something very serious is going on  - in secret  - because of the way that Ball and natural resources minister Siobhan Coady answered questions in the House from opposition leader Paul Davis about recent media reports about comments from Quebec and Ball's reply to the story.  Ball was very obviously playing with words at every turn in the House. Every answer to an opposition question had a too-cute-by-half quality to it,  giving the unmistakable feeling that Ball wasn't telling anything close to the truth.

Ball has done this before, most recently when ambushed by reporters on his return from a golf and hockey vacation in the middle of the Muskrat Falls protests.  With his public support in the low double-digits,  and with a severely damaged reputation from his performance in the the Ed Martin fiasco in the spring,  Ball's passive-aggressive performance in the House on Wednesday betrays a rather curious strategy.  Ball's performance just reinforces the negative impressions people have of him  - he has trouble telling the truth - without winning him any new supporters.

His best shot #nlpoli

The most important measurement you need to take of Dwight Ball's great vision for the provincial government is that this is his one, best shot.

That shot consists of a hackneyed, worn-out, tired list of all sorts of things that government departments are already doing,  things that won't materially affect the problem or government's deficit or the economy, or that are just irrelevant to the problem that continues to loom over all our heads.

Take as a good example, the commitment to improve breastfeeding initiation rates from their current 72% to something like the national rate of 90%.  It sounds like a great idea since breast-feeding is a good way to improve babies' health. Healthy babies mean healthy adults and healthy adults cost less to care for than the crowd currently filling our hospitals. What's more, it sounds like there is a measurable target, going from 72 to 90 and all that.  Lots of evidence in there for the evidence based fetished among you.

But it isn't.

Appearance #nlpoli

What you know of the world outside your immediate physical sensation - what you can touch, taste, feel and so on - is a mental construction.

It is a fiction.

That doesn't mean it is all false. All fiction has some element of the concrete amid its vapour. Nor does it mean that appearance is reality, as many mistakenly assume.

We share a lot of that fiction with everyone else. The thing is, we all run slightly different versions of the same story in our heads. From time to time, our fiction runs up against a different version of events.

That's when things get interesting.

The polls remain discouraging for Liberals #nlpoli

Heading into their convention this weekend,  the provincial Liberals have another poll that confirms what all the other polls have said for the past six months or so.

For those misled by reports about the MQO poll like CBC's initial one, see the bit down below.

Here's what you get when you take all the polls over the past six months together,  and make allowances for variations like the margin of error.

Three points:

• Only about 16% of respondents think Dwight Ball is the best choice for leader.
• If an election were held tomorrow,  somewhere between 20% and 25% of voters would pick the Liberal.  
•  About 60% of people think the government is headed in the wrong direction.

Not good.

All the reboots and changes and visions have done precisely nothing to change public attitudes about the Liberals and their leader.

The Muskrat Circus rolls back into town #nlpoli

Stan Marshall appeared out of the shadows on Tuesday to do a round of interviews with every media outlet in town.

He told NTV what he told everyone else:  the cost of the protests and the environmental work coming from the agreement that ended the protests will slow the project and cost money.  Stan also said something that is true but that upset a lot of people.  We don't know for sure that the clearing  called for under the agreement will actually reduce the methylmercury output from the project.

In the CBC version of his interview, Marshall acknowledged that the folks at Nalcor hadn't always done a good job of explaining what was going on with the project.  Marshall pointed out something that is both undeniable and true:  lots of people involved in the protests really had no idea what methylmercury was. They were legitimately afraid but they were afraid of the unknown.

Ball, Bennett, Williams, and Marshall #nlpoli

One of the things finance minister Cathy Bennett told NTV's Issues and Answers this weekend was that the Premier Dwight Ball scrapped the fall mini-budget in September in favour of his own Grand Strategy for Moving Forward in a Generally Advancing Fashion with Vision.

Ball scrapped the financial course laid out in the budget because of the way people reacted badly to it. If anyone asked Ball asked him about it,  he would deny the polls had anything to do with the change of plans. Then again, last week's marathon meeting had nothing to do with protesters at Muskrat Falls either.

The change of direction actually happened much earlier than September.  Dwight Ball made it pretty clear last summer he'd reverted to his old plan.  That consisted of keeping government on the strategic course the Conservatives set in 2006ish:  spend as much as possible and change government organisation and spending only by the smallest necessary to shift money from one spot and put into another.

The political dynamics of Muskrat Falls #nlpoli #dip-o-crites #cdnpoli

The people of Labrador who have now occupied the work camp at the construction site are exercising the only political influence they have in the only way they have been able to influence events thus far on this project.

There'll be a post later in the week to run through how we got to this place.  For now, let's just understand the political dynamics right now. People ignored by everyone else in discussions about this project have taken the only action they knew how to take. This is one of those disjointed protests that happens every once in a while.  It has a life of its own.

Outsiders see it from their own perspective.  Remember that as you see New Democratic Party politicians federally and provincially or local townie celebrities or mainlanders professing their undying solidarity with the indigenous people of Labrador in their fight against blah blah blah. Yeah. Whatever.

In 2010 and in every year since then,  these same people sided with the people building this project in Labrador. They backed the project despite the fairly obvious lies the proponents told, despite the many financial problems with the project, and despite the environmental problems including the problem with methylmercury. These folks had other interests then and their actions now are driven by interests other than the cause of the protesters.

Eeyore and the Blustery Day #nlpoli

Premier Dwight Ball stood up before a hand-picked crowd at The Rooms on Tuesday and told them they were there to help develop a strategy for the future of our province.  They would look over some ideas the government crowd had worked up,  sit around tables talking with "facilitators" as part of this gigantic consultation, and then the government crowd would figure out what the final strategy should look like.

In his speech,  Ball said that we were in the current financial mess because the crowd running the government before now had followed a strategy of strategies.  They'd have a strategy for ever problem. One year they came out with 10.  All developed according to the same basic formula:  issue - idea - consultation - cogitation - strategy.

The Liberals would do things differently, Ball said. How they would be different he could not say. Maybe it was that instead of doing a health strategy and a n innovation strategy and a fisheries strategy, Ball and his crowd were going to have One Big Strategy.

But somehow,  the same was different to Ball's way of thinking and all would be wonderful as a result.

Politics as masturbation #nlpoli

"I am warning you.  Don't make me wear my pikachu costume."

Demonstrations at Memorial University and at Nalcor headquarters on Friday show the extent to which Newfoundland politics has become little more than irrelevant stunts staged chiefly for the personal amusement of the folks with the expensive cellphones.

The protesters do not want to stop the project. A few people who turned up *think* that was the goal. But the university students' union representative quoted by the Telegram about aboriginal rights made it plain in her CBC interview she wasn't interested in stopping the multi-billion dollar blunder cum boondoggle. 

Just as well.  The project is basically unstoppable and has been for years. That is also the position of all three political parties in Newfoundland and Labrador:  we cannot afford to let this project stop.

The Way Forward #nlpoli

Last December, Dwight Ball laid out his plan to deal with the provincial government's financial problems.

Ball made the comments to CBC's David Cochrane a week or two after he'd been sworn in.  This was after he'd been briefed on the provincial government's financial situation, so he'd had a chance to get over any shock and figure out a plan to cope with an unprecedented financial mess.

Depending on whether you go with what Ball said last year or what he said at the Liberal fund-raising dinner last Thursday,  Ball was totally shocked to find out how bad things were or didn't bat an eyelid because he knew exactly how bad things were.  Take your pick.

Either way, here's what the newly minted Premier said were his three ways to handle the unprecedented financial mess:

Grits and Cons play dodge-fact over Labrador hydro talks #nlpoli

"There are no discussions between this government and the  Quebec government."

That's part of a statement sent out by email to local reporters from natural resources minister Siobhan Coady's office.  You can't find it on the government website or the party website.  Coady was responding to a release from provincial Conservative leader Paul Davis challenging Dwight Ball to state the administration's plans for the province's hydro resources in Labrador.

Words matter. No one has suggested that the two governments were talking about anything.  The talks would take place between Nalcor and Hydro-Quebec and, whether we take Nalcor boss Stan Marshall's own words or the local scuttlebutt,  the talks are going on between the two companies.

Worst possible time for HQ deal #nlpoli

If the rumblings from Labrador are correct, an opinion column in lapresse - "Why Quebec should regain Labrador" - this weekend both fits right in and provides a cautionary tale for us all.

Pierre Gingras  - right - spent 31 years with Hydro-Quebec (1966 to 1997) building large hydro-electric projects like Manicouagan and James Bay.

Gingras thinks the time is right to rescue tiny Newfoundland from itself and a very old injustice done to Quebec.  After all,  Gingras notes, people in Quebec should recall that, owing to what Gingras calls the "shenanigans of certain [but unnamed] financiers"  the Privy Council  in London tore Labrador from Quebec in 1927 and gave it to the British colony of Newfoundland without any protest from Canada.

Flip. No. Flop. No. No. Wait. Flip. ... #nlpoli

01 August 2016 - "Continuing continuity"

“This is not about cutting,” Ball told reporters on Thursday morning at a news conference. “This is about where we can create new sources of revenue for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.” 

It may be different from what the budget said, or what people thought it said, but in truth abandoning cuts and looking for new money is what Dwight Ball promised he would do lst year. This is Dwight Ball's fetish for consistency even in the face of changed circumstances. 

This is the sequel to Continuity with Change.  

This is Continuing with Continuity.

22 August 2016 -  "Message Control"

Flip ahead three weeks from the big media briefing.  Ball does a bunch of media appearances the day after his political appointments' story broke.  He told VOCM that - hold on - we can expect more cuts in the fall from the mini budget.  "Expect service cuts" and "difficult choices"  the VOCM headline warned.   

Now, suddenly,  there's a return to the earlier plan. 

Which is it? 

When Dwight Ball says something,  how do we know what commitments we can believe and what ones we should doubt?

06 September 2016 -  No fall budget.  Just usual financial update:  Dwight Ball.

This is the sort of basic policy confusion that got Ball to 17% in the polls.  This is the sort of thing that will keep him there.  Ball's abysmal polling numbers will keep him mired in this sort of situation until he dunderdales* or until the caucus and party barry** him.

-srbp-

*  quits long after the party can do anything to change their own political fortunes.  After Kathy Dunderdale, who quit abruptly in January 2014, leaving her party another 22 months only to die at the polls in November 2015.

**  gets the flick.  After Leo Barry whose colleagues in the Liberal caucus ousted him as leader in 1987.

Who does he think he is fooling? #nlpoli

New England states need electricity.  They have a preference for green sources of energy,

"What we have to offer, both in hydro and in windpower, can be part of [a green energy] solution," Premier Dwight Ball told his eastern Canadian counterparts and the governors of the New England states at their annual international meeting.  CBC reported Ball's comments, which is where that quote came from.

Wonderful words.  

All wonderful.

Except for one teensy problem.

Ball's comment is a gigantic pile of crap.

And the governors know it.

The Unhappy Gang #nlpoli

The provincial cabinet ended a "retreat" at The Rooms by holding a news conference on Thursday using as a backdrop posters commemorating the slaughter of the Newfoundland regiment at Beaumont Hamel a century ago.

Not exactly the kind of image you want to have but at least it fit with a new poll from MQO that shows the Liberals are now in third place behind the provincial New Democrats with the Conservatives on top.

You can see the party choice numbers in the table, below.  April and July are MQO.  May is Corporate Research Associates.  Compare the MQO numbers:  the Conservatives have grown eight points since April and are now in first place.  The Liberals have dropped five points and are in third place.

Being there #nlpoli

Thursday is July 14.

Bastille Day.

It's also another anniversary.

Dwight Ball has been in office seven months.

In the latest edition of The Overcast, publisher Chad Pelley asks "What do we do if Dwight Ball resigns?"

That's a  reminder of where we are in this province.  A mere seven months into his first term, after winning a comfortably-large majority government,  people are demanding that Dwight Ball resign.  In the most recent poll Ball's personal popularity is south of 20%.  His party is in the same neighbourhood as is the level of satisfaction with his administration.

There is no precedent since 1949.   No precedent for the dramatic drop in a Premier's public support. No precedent for the calls that Ball resign.

And certainly no precedent for an article with that title that isn't panicked at the prospect the Premier might resign.

If Kelvin's departure was no biggie... #nlpoli

According to Premier Dwight Ball,  Kelvin Parsons was never going to stick around for long as the Premier's chief of staff.

Okay.

Let's think about that for a second.

11 minutes and 11 seconds #nlpoli

Dwight Ball was at Memorial University on Thursday morning to represent the provincial government in a joint announcement with Judy Foote on some capital funding to finish the new science building on campus.

The announcement is good for the university,  good for the economy, and good for everyone involved.  It's the kind of good news story Ball desperately needs after a hideously bungled couple of months

And Dwight Ball spent all 11 minutes and 11 seconds in a scrum with reporters afterward talking about emails, one of which was triggered by this tweet on June 5 by CBC's Jeremy Eaton.

Ball's message through the whole scrum was to deny any responsibility in his office for a relatively minor incident two weeks ago in which government spent a couple of hundred dollars tearing down a few hundred crappy signs.