And then there’s announcing money you haven’t even got…

That CBS bypass road extension seems to be a field of political landmines for Tories.

Not only did Fabian Manning blow off some bits of his political anatomy with promises for money that wasn’t approved, Manning’s former caucus mates seem to have spoken a wee bit out of turn as well.

In December 2007, Manning and federal cabinet representative Loyola Hearn talked about a federal transportation initiative that would cost-share some roads work with the province.

On January 10, 2008 a news release appeared issued by provincial transport minister Diane Whelan announced “$182 million in road improvements, the largest such funding in the province’s history.”  The release covered a raft of cost-shared projects involving the provincial and federal governments.

Included in the list of projects was – you guessed it - “$3.5 million for Conception Bay South (CBS) By-Pass Road Extension.”

According to a Telegram story this week (not online) on the whole mess:

But a provincial news release from January 2008 commits $3.5 million for the extension, and the letter from Baird confirms the province applied for the matching funds in September of that year.

Announced in January but no one applied for the funds until nine months later?

And then the funds weren’t approved until June 2009?

Wow.

It’s one thing to criticise someone else for announcing  projects time and time again over the span of several years, but what would you call it when your own government announces money it doesn’t even have and knows it doesn’t have because they hadn’t applied for it yet?

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For Everything There is a Season Update:  Hearn announced on or about December 18, 2007.

So did Diane Whelan, on December 18, 2007, almost a month before her January “for the first time ever” stroke-fest. 

In the release that coincided with Hearn’s, Whelan  announced that “planning is currently underway to identify further infrastructure priorities to be funded under the recently signed Federal-Provincial Infrastructure Framework Agreement.”

"We will be consulting with municipalities and other Provincial Government departments to identify infrastructure projects to be funded under this agreement, and we intend to start spending this spring." said Minister Whalen.

Minister Whelan says that while she is pleased the Federal Government agreed yesterday to cost-share hard-surfacing of the Trans Labrador Highway (TLH), improve the Argentia Access Road and extend the Conception Bay South (C.B.S.) By-Pass, she is requesting the Federal Government be ready to move the projects forward in the spring.

[Emphasis added]

So the planning was so good that while they intended “to start spending this spring”, the provincial transportation department didn’t even apply for funding until September 2008.

September would be the fall of 2008, for those noting the passing of the seasons.

And even then the project wasn’t approved by the feds until June, 2009.  That would be the second summer after the announcement and the second spring after.

Even if the tender is awarded sometime before September 2009 – tick tock, tick tock -  it’s going to be tough to get things geared up before next spring.

That would be more than two full years and the third spring after the thing was supposed to start.

Oh yes, while we are on the subject of planning, let’s all recall the words of Trevor Taylor - Whelan’s successor – a couple of weeks ago:

We had been proactive and our sound strategic planning allowed us to move forward with a series of significant projects very smoothly.

Proactive is a hideous corruption of a word but it is generally taken to mean getting things done in a timely way. 

Applying for cash ten months after an announcement would be pretty much the opposite of proactive.

And making an announcement without cash doesn’t suggest there is very much of anything that looks like planning, let alone planning that is strategic and definitely not planning that is both strategic and sound.

Then again, half the projects Taylor was talking about a couple of weeks ago  were old. 

Some of them dated back to 2005.

At least another one – besides the CBS bypass – was promised in 2007 with completion in 2009.

It just went to tender.

And those old projects had been announced time and time again.

Scuttling his own political future

Senator Fabian Manning went a long way this week to ensuring he won’t be able to make a comeback in elected politics any time soon.

The guy who beat him – Scott Andrews – revealed that Manning had committed the federal government to spend a couple of million or thereabouts on a road in the eastern end of the riding Manning used to represent. 

Only problem was the money wasn’t anything close to approved when manning made the announcement in late 2007.  Not only that but it wasn’t approved until this week and hastily announced the day Andrews scored a big political smack right in Manning’s possible future.

Manning did some media interviews on the affair.  In the process, he managed to come off looking like a guy scrambling to come up with excuses for his obvious blunder.

In the story printed by the Telegram (not online), writer Dave Bartlett attributes the following to the junior senator:

The senator then explained what happened.

He said the original project was funded under the Rails for Roads agreement, but the provincial Liberal government of Clyde Wells scuttled that program in 1988.

Neat trick that would be.

The federal and provincial governments signed the Roads for Rails agreement (see page 11 of the link) in 1988.  In exchange for money to upgrade roads across the island portion of the province, the federal government was relieved of its constitutional obligation under the 1948 Terms of Union to operate a rail service across Newfoundland.

In 1998, Brian Peckford sat in the Premier’s Office.  Clyde Wells was Leader of the opposition and didn’t get to the Eighth Floor until May, 1989.

But even then, Manning’s accusation that Wells scuttled the roads deal is completely out to lunch.  From 1988 until the program ended in 2003, the roads deal paid for a host of projects all of which were pretty well mapped out at the start, the year before Wells took office.

Not only did Fabe make the blunder of announcing money he didn’t have, he then made it infinitely worse by coming up with a completely bogus excuse once he got caught.

And it’s not like Manning wouldn’t know the rights of things.  He sat in the House of Assembly from 1993 until his local Tory buddies flicked him out of caucus.  Every year , Manning would have heard announcements about roadwork paid for by the Roads for Rails agreement.

Heck, even Loyola Hearn knew that the roads deal didn’t die in 1988.  CBC quoted Hearn on the very same announcement Manning was chatting up in December 2007:

Hearn, Newfoundland and Labrador's federal cabinet representative, said it's the biggest program of its kind since the roads-for-rails agreement hammered out in the late 1980s, when the Newfoundland Railway was closed down.

All things considered, Manning would be nuts to even consider taking another run at elected politics.  Better off  to sit in the Antechamber to the Kingdom of Heaven than blow holes in your own political hull the size of that one on the CBS bypass road.

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No fed funding approved for roadwork, despite 2007 announcement

Avalon member of parliament Scott Andrews said today that a federal contribution for roadwork in Conception Bay South has not been approved despite an announcement of the funding in 2007 by then Conservative member of parliament Fabian Manning.

Andrews posed a series of questions to federal officials in April:

With regard to funding from the government, through the Department of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, for an extension of Conception Bay South By-Pass Road, from Legion Road to Seal Cove, in Newfoundland and Labrador:

(a) was there an official approval of this project by the government on or before December 17, 2007 and, if so, (i) what amount of funding was approved, (ii) what date was it approved, (iii) why was it not included in a news release issued by the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities on December 17, 2007;

(b) if no formal approval was given for this project by the government prior to December 17, 2007, has there been any formal project approval given for an extension to the Conception Bay South By-Pass Road since December 17, 2007 and, if so, on what date; and

(c) is the project to extend the Conception Bay South By-Pass Road, from Legion to Seal Cove, currently being reviewed or recommended for approval within the Department of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities?

There’s a short news story and a video clip at vocm.com.

The provincial government included the CBS by-pass road work in a list of stimulus projects released earlier in June. The project is indicated as scheduled to go to tender this fall.

The same project was also listed in a 10 January 2008 news release from the provincial public works department. Terry French, CBS member of the House of Assembly also mentioned the project in a speech in the legislature on March 13, 2008:

I am delighted actually to say that our Cabinet and our government have decided that the CBS Bypass would be a priority under the roads program and that they would commit the $3.5 million to $4 million. I am delighted with that, Mr. Chair. Actually the provincial share is ready. The Minister, Diane Whalen, was at the announcement and assured the residents that the provincial share of the money is there and we are ready, we would call tenders this spring. Mr. Chair, we are ready to go and I certainly hope that our federal counterparts are as eager and as willing as we are because we have the check [sic] written, if you will, and ready to go with that announcement.

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Avalon: a quick look at the results

If there ever was a campaign which showed the power of negative campaigning, it's Avalon.

From a time well before the writ dropped, incumbent Conservative Fabian Manning received countless vicious personal attacks.

That includes a reference to Manning as a "traitor" by no less than Premier Danny Williams. That savage rhetoric continued throughout the campaign from many quarters, including from a strong supporter of the Andrews and Harris campaigns.

Liberal Scott Andrews, the only serious competitor piled on relentlessly, lightening up only for the last week or two.

That didn't mean the attacks stopped since the Family Feud deployed at least three cabinet ministers to the area north of the Trans-Canada Highway to work their persuasive magic on local Provincial Conservatives.

Through all that, Manning did phenomenally better than his colleagues in the St. John's ridings. In St. John's East, the Conservatives captured only 20% of the vote from 2006.  In St. John's South-Mount Pearl, 26% of the vote held.

In Avalon, Manning held on to about 60% of his vote from 2006.  Still and all, he lost 7590 votes.

Interestingly enough, the drop in voter turn out and the increased vote for Green, Liberal and New Democrat candidates totals 7582.  That's not likely a coincidence.

What's noticeable in Avalon is that the lost votes didn't migrate to another party. They appear to have just stayed home in large numbers.

Scott Andrews increased the Liberal vote by 4%, or 548 votes. 

The largest jump in votes for any candidate was in the New Democrat column which saw a 70% jump (2343 votes). If those votes came from disgruntled Provincial Conservatives, the attractiveness of New Democrats would largely be defined by one quality:  they aren't Liberals. The same quality likely had a strong influence on Blue voter choice in the St. John's ridings for those who came out to vote.

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Wishin' and hopin' and spewin' and sprayin'

Undoubtedly, Scott Andrews campaign took great heart this past week for stories running on CBC and in the Telegram about Fabian Manning and his expense accounts in the House of Assembly.

The race looks tight, according to an NTV/Telelink poll and those two stories might well look like the kind of ammunition needed to push Andrews into the lead.

They might.

But then again, they might not.

Here's why.

Firstly, the race in Avalon appears tight according to the NTV/Telelink poll.  Given the relatively high undecided  - 40% of respondents - it might look like pulling Andrews in front is within grasp. 

However, the undecideds are likely made up of a huge number of Fabe fans who are right now either uncomfortable in saying who they will vote for or who genuinely are hung up about whether or not to vote.

Those people are necessarily winnable for the Andrews cause.

But they have to be won.

And that leads us to the second point:  Andrews hasn't done anything to woo the undecideds. 

Thus far, Andrews has run a flame-thrower of a campaign built almost entirely on attacks straight at Manning.  Andrews has sucked the ABC tit harder than a cabinet minister looking for a new job in the upcoming shuffle.  He's not getting any milk out though because the Family Feud nipple spews only bile.  It's all negative, all the time.

The Family Feud gives nothing to which a voter can attach.

Take a listen to the Morning Show's candidate forum last Thursday and you'll see the point. [Part 1 and Part 2] 

Andrews spent way too much time slicing into Manning personally in a high pitched and grating way.  Who the heck could stand to listen to that for more than a few seconds?

The answer is no one and in the case of Morning Show listeners no one other than the handful of partisan loyalists and the masochists who just take anything political they can get regardless of what it is.

The rest of us would rather have been chained naked at Cape Spear with seagulls plucking out our eyeballs all the while enduring Slim Whitman's greatest hits at top volume rather than sit through one more second of Thursday's racket.

Take a look at Andrews' campaign website.  Look as hard as you want  and you will be hard pressed to find one single reason why anyone should vote for Andrews and the Liberal Party. There are plenty.  Andrews just isn't intent, apparently, on letting on what they are.

Third, if you look at the Manning stories, you have a hard time finding something to get really annoyed at.  In a case where the benchmarks were set by Tom Rideout and Walter Noel, Fabian Manning's handful of travel claims is hardly worth talking about. On top of that he paid back the secret bonus cash.

You don't have to like what Fabian did, but he is by far nowhere near the worst of the bunch, even if you take aside those facing criminal charges. Hey, it's not like even one of Andrews' staunchest supporters hasn't been known to change his mind completely on House of Assembly spending once the local Family head has pronounced on the matter.

How the heck will a Manning supporter react?

Even if Andrews wants to get indignant about Manning's spending, the story is still framed as what not to do.  The Connie vote is suppressed enough;  you can't suppress it more without risking post-traumatic stress disorder up and down the shore.  What's missing is the stuff to pull voters in Andrews' direction.

So far he and his team haven't shown any signs of figuring that out.

Now, their hammering might work.

The odds are against it.  No amount of wishing and hoping based on spewing and spraying has worked very well yet anywhere else.

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Some Harper observations

1.  Anyone else notice that the not-campaigning Stephen Harper spent all his time in Fabian Manning's Avalon riding?  Seems a bit odd since there are supposedly two Connie incumbents seeking re-election.  H Harper never did anything with St. John's South-Mount Pearl except pass through it.

2. Harper's comments at the Renews-Cappahayden come home year celebrations were remarkably unremarkable.  Like incredibly flat, boring, generic. Still, he got a loud and enthusiastic welcome.  That night be worrying some people in the province who still believe the Anybody But Conservative thing had a meaning left in it [Hint: it doesn't.  Williams will personally stay out of the federal election, restricting himself to making comments favouring the Dippers.  The rest of the local Tories will work for the Connies - as they did in the last election -  if they feel so inclined.]

3. But the unremarkable remarks warranted a news release. Of course there's no chance these guys are worried there'll be an election.

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Fabulous Fabe

More than a few in Newfoundland and Labrador were surprised by this picture [Tom Hanson/Canadian Press].

Why?

Because instead of federal finance leprechaun John Flaherty sitting next to the Prime Minister, there was Avalon member of parliament Fabian Manning.

Normally a member doesn't get to sit on the treasury benches unless he or she is a member of cabinet. Yet, there's a nattily-dressed Manning, looking on as the much more sartorially splendid Prime Minister tackles questions during the daily Question Period.

Now Newfoundlanders and Labradorians weren't struck by the attire of the two men, although some will certainly note that Fabe looks good without high-priced help.

Nope, wags across the province were wondering why Manning is cuddling up to the Prime Minister during the fracas over Equalization promises. Some are even going so far as to add the Avalon MP to a list of fellows elected to parliament who seem to have turned their backs on their province. They wonder if Manning won't be getting his come-uppance at the polls for supposedly betraying the province.

It's a good question.

Except that the whole premise of the question is based on the belief that one can only be a good, proper, loyal and trustworthy Newfoundlander by backing the provincial government in the crise du jour.

Manning might pay, but by the time of the next federal election - anyone wanna bet on 2008? - odds are good that the ruckus with Harper will be forgotten and Manning will be re-elected handily. On top of that, Manning is the likely choice to replace Loyola Hearn should the province's current federal cabinet representative opt for retirement.

Odds are also good that Manning - ousted from the provincial Tory caucus in a dispute with Premier Danny Williams - will be taking advice from John Crosbie on how to conduct his business. Wouldn't that be an interesting development: Premier Danny Williams dealing with the guy he wouldn't have stay in his own caucus, and the fellow from the Southern Shore having his hand on bags of federal cash.

Talk about come-uppance.

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Update: A quick check of the Commons seating chart indicates that The Fabulous Fabe was actually sitting in the seat normally occupied by Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Transportation.

The finance leprechaun must have been absent that day or just not in the shot.