The Bow Wow Parliament creates a Kangaroo Court #nlpoli

The Bow Wow Parliament

The first casualty of the current pandemic in Newfoundland and Labrador was democracy and on Tuesday, the pandemic added to its draconian toll.

A handful of members of the House met with the permission of a government official and passed without much discussion a measure that created a kangaroo court in which the official could apply in secret to two cabinet ministers, obtain a de facto conviction of someone without what lawyers call due process, and then send off the police to scoop up the hapless person who may or may not have violated a health order under the health protection law. 

Health minister John Haggie introduced the amendment. He shed no light on why the government had banned all non-residents from entering the province except people in two special categories.  Haggie did not explain why the restrictions that had been in place were not working. He gave no indication why he and his colleague the justice minister needed the powers of a judge already set out in another section of the health protection law to enforce any orders.

When his turn to speak came, opposition leader Ches Crosbie spoke briefly about what he referred to as new police powers that would be used to enforce all the chief medical officer’s special orders.  He noted the concerned expressed to him by lawyers that the recent travel ban was illegal and/or unconstitutional. 

Then Crosbie said that he and his caucus had decided to vote for amendment in exchange for a promise the government would:   

1. read a submission from the Canadian Bar Association about the travel ban, and 
2. ask the chief medical officer to amend her improper travel ban to allow a few categories of exemptions they wanted.

That is all.

Such are the intellectual, ethical, and legal standards of the Bow Wow Parliament.

Political Foote Ball #nlpoli

Since 2003, the legislature has become more about political theatre than the public interest.  This past sitting of the House proves how much that is so.

Public discussion of policy issues in Newfoundland and Labrador takes place inside an echo chamber. It tends to stay inside arbitrary, artificial boundaries.  Participants  ride their hobby horses and ignore or try to shout down anything that contradicts their assumptions. often comments are not about what is actually going on.  They emphasise the trivial and superficial – the spats with Gerry Byrne and Tom Osborne – and ignore the  far more serious. Much of what they do is absurd:  they chase Chris Mitchelmore, knowing that Dwight Ball actually made the decision. 

Only the Premier can approve appointments
to the senior public service. 

You see them a lot.

New releases from the provincial government announcing changes to the senior public service in the province.  New people taking jobs.  People being moved from one job to another. A handful of retirements or people who left, implicitly to take up another job.

In October 2018, for example,  there was an announcement of a new appointment as associate secretary to cabinet for communications. There’s no mention of what happened to the person who used to have that job,  although the release for that earlier appointment came in January 2016.

The senior public service includes deputy ministers, associate and assistant deputy ministers, and executive directors.

There were 56 changes at that level in 2016, 60 in 2017, and only 16 in 2018. 

They don’t issue news releases for every one, any more.  Dwight Ball stopped announcing any appointments below the rank of deputy minister.  The high number of changes in the senior public service under Kathy Dunderdale became a major issue and an easy way to stop people finding out about the changes was to simply stop announcing some of them.

Fortunately for openness, transparency, and accountability, there’s a database online of orders-in-council that anyone can search.  Those are the legal documents that make each senior executive appointments official. 

Chaulk and Cheese #nlpoli

If the members of the House of Assembly vote to accept the reports from two statutory officers as presented they will have to accept that Chris Mitchelmore committed an act that does not rise to any reasonable definition of gross mismanagement.   

If they accept that he has committed such an act, then they must accept he did it alone despite evidence that others are at the very least equally culpable. 

Then they must also accept that the punishment for such an offence is far below the standard one ought to expect. 

And in the process, they will endorse reports that are, by any reasonable measure, far below the standards that should come from an office as important as that of the Citizen’s Representative and that of the Commissioner of Legislative Standards.

The conventionally wise were conventionally outraged by two reports released on Monday about how Carla Foote got her job at The Rooms.

None of the reports told us anything of substance about the whole business that we didn’t know before.  Dwight Ball wanted Carla Foote in a new job and Chris Mitchelmore obliged by fixing up a spot at The Rooms.  That did not stop the Chorus from moaning, wailing, and bunching up their tighty whities at this unprecedently extreme, unusual, and hitherto unknown display of corruption unseen in this place before now.

Unknown, that is since the last crowd got punted from office in 2015.  Truth is, by example of politics in Newfoundland and Labrador between 2003 and 2015,  Mitchelmore ought to be ashamed at himself for falling so far short of the standard of corruption represented  by the appointments of cabinet ministers’ bedmates, hacks, and failed candidates to all manner of jobs far more influential than directing advertising for the provincial museum and art gallery.  In those heady days,  the legendary A.B. Morine, looking up from the warmer climes in which he is spending Eternity, could be heard on especially still nights slow-clapping his approval from the old House of Assembly as his heirs on The Hill bested his century-old record time and again.

Yes, Dwight Ball promised to stop this sort of thing, but so too did Danny Williams, gone from office now these nine years this week.  Williams’ parting act was to try and put his future wife onto the offshore board. He failed but not before a few people  - in and out of government - embarrassed themselves in some pretty spectacular ways.  Even Williams’ shag-ups are legendary.

And yes, they both deserved to be pummeled for making promises they knew or ought to have known they would not keep.

But the thing that people should be concerned about in this is more than hypocrisy.  They should read the two reports released on Monday and ask many more questions that are every bit as troubling as the way the Premier and his administration moved the Assistant Secretary to Cabinet to from one part of the public service to a Crown corporation.

The Rookies, the House, and the Orchestra Pit #nlpoli

What is reported is seldom what happened even though what happened is far more interesting than the stuff that falls into the orchestra pit.

Events in the House of Assembly are the result of decisions by members of all three parties.  Any analysis that ignores the simple realities of the House or robs the individual members and their parties of their agency is misleading.

_____________________ 

The biggest story from the House of Assembly’s latest session was Ches Crosbie’s call last Thursday for his party to hold a vote on his leadership next spring.

There’s no surprise in this.  Political parties usually dump leaders after a failed election and this time will be no exception for both the federal and provincial Conservatives.

The immediate impact of this, aside from what it means for the Conservatives, is that the Liberals will now have an easy ride getting their budget through the House no matter how bad it is.  The Conservatives won’t want to trigger an election in the midst of a leadership change.

And there *will* be a change.  The Ball-led Liberals are weak, and the polling numbers reflect that. Any reasonably competent opposition could unseat them in a general election.  After all, Crosbie’s incompetent crowd came within a hair’s breadth of unseating the Liberals and the Liberals have not gotten better six months later.  So, expect a new Conservative leadership hopeful to emerge after Christmas to lead a reinvigorated blue bunch.

Meanwhile on the Liberal side, Dwight Ball will also face a leadership review vote in the middle of 2020 at the party’s postponed annual conference.  The party executive skipped out the one for 2019 because it was an election year, but it must have a convention in June 2020 according to the party constitution. That’s not to say that party president and Dwight Ball loyalist John Allen isn’t trying to find some way to push the convention off to 2021.  Apparently, there is anxiety over the prospect that Ball wouldn’t survive the mandatory leadership review vote that comes with the next party convention.

But as big as Crosbie’s Thursday announcement and Ball’s situation are for the future of the province – there is that little provincial government financial mess sitting out there unaddressed – that wasn’t what the news media and the local political commentariat were yammering about last week.

No.

The House and Twitter #nlpoli

Guest post by Simon Lono

The latest House of Assembly Twitter flap raises more issues that it first appears.  Leaving aside the wisdom of the timing, it’s worth understanding why the point was raised at all.

The Telegram, in their Saturday thundering and mocking editorial condemned the whole exercise because “We actually have a right to know if you or your fellow MHAs don’t deign to come to work”.

This is true but ultimately irrelevant to the issue.  And like so many rules of parliament, pointing out absence or presence of members just seems silly until you examine why it’s there.

How government decides - From Bow-Wow to Basenji #nlpoli

The Liberals' signature policy initiative is Bill 1.

It is so important that it is the only piece of new legislation the Liberals have introduced in this session that is directly connected to their election promises.

Bill 1 creates a new appointments commission that is supposed to ensure individuals appointed to positions by cabinet will be selected as the result of what the proposed law calls a merit-based process.

A merit-based appointments process for every appointment is such an important policy for the Liberals that, when faced with their first significant appointment,  they abandoned their own process last week.

Tiny pebbles in an empty washtub #nlpoli

For the third day in a row,  the opposition has asked one question over and over again, with a couple of minor variations.

They’ve asked education minister Dale Kirby why the New Liberal government that took over last December hasn’t called elections for the school board the Conservatives appointed in 2013 after they crammed all the English language school boards together in one pile.

Even if you have never heard of this issue before the instant you read that sentence, you know precisely where this is going.

Mr. Speaker Osborne #nlpoli

Members of the House of Assembly had the good fortune of having two fine candidates for Speaker.

While SRBP endorsed Scott Reid, the House made an excellent choice in Tom Osborne. Tom is the longest-serving member in the House having first been elected to the House in 1996. He held a number of cabinet portfolios in the first Williams administration before crossing the floor to sit as an independent. he eventually joined the Liberal caucus.

Osborne brings considerable experience to the job, plus he brings a reputation for fairness and integrity. He is well-liked and widely respected.

Scott Reid for Speaker #nlpoli

Liberal member of the House of Assembly Scott Reid is a candidate for Speaker of the House.

By the looks of things,  members will have a competition for the Speaker's chair.  That will be a first.
In the past,  nomination of the Speaker was treated as a prerogative of the Premier.

Having a competition for Speaker will be a key element of reforming the House and separating the House from the control of the government.  Scott Reid has the personal integrity to uphold the traditions of the House,  to protect the rights of members, and to resist any efforts to curb the legislature.

Reform of the House is an important feature of the Liberal platform.  Reid has the professional knowledge as a political scientist and the experience as a political staffer to guide the reform.  Scott also has the personal qualities the new Speaker will need to work with both his newly elected and veteran colleagues to bring about that reform.

The Speaker has significant responsibilities to manage the statutory officers, such as the child and youth advocate,  the privacy commissioner, the chief electoral officer,  and the auditor general.  Scott's personal commitment to the integrity of those positions will be crucial to successfully reforming the way those positions have been filled and the way the incumbents fulfill their responsibilities to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Scott will likely have competition from Tom Osborne.  Osborne has wanted the Speaker's job for some time now.  Kathy Dunderdale saw to it that Osborne didn't stand a chance after the 2011 election.  Tom Osborne would be a fine Speaker.

But for your humble e-scribbler,  as good a man as Tom Osborne is, Scott Reid is the choice.

-srbp-

The Moveable Fixed Election Date #nlpoli

Arguably, the greatest fairy tale the Conservatives spread after 2003 was that Danny Williams didn’t take a salary from the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The truth was he collected every penny of his salary from the day he entered the House of Assembly until the day he left.

The second biggest fib they told was that there were fixed election dates.

A swing and a miss #nlpoli

The usual round of Saturday chores this weekend brought with it the usual accidental meetings with all manner of friends and acquaintances.  Even the least political among them wondered what went on in the House of Assembly last week.

Good news.  There is help for them.

Your humble e-scribbler laid out the positions of the various players before the debates started.  There was a comment on Tuesday, another on Friday, and a more detailed description of the political landscape the morning  the debate started in the House of Assembly.

On top of that, two news reports appeared over the past weekend – from CBC and the Telegram -  purporting to tell the inside story of last week’s emergency debate in the House of Assembly.  They cover different aspects of the goings-on.  The CBC one in particular adds a bit of detail but generally confirms what the Tories were up to.

Pull back from all the details, though and a much clearer picture emerges.

Review faces stiff competition from province’s politicians #nlpoli

If Paul Davis and his beleaguered band of provincial Conservatives started the week on a high,  it didn’t last very long.

They opened the House on Monday to debate a bill that would reduce the size of the House of Assembly by 10 members.  They had the instant support of the Liberals and, going into the session, they knew that Ball and the Liberals had already agreed that the fall election would now come sometime in 2016.

They announced another ridiculous twist in the already ridiculous fight over European free trade.  The media reported the whole thing positively at first, although before the day was out major economic groups in the province had slammed the provincial government for their anti-trade stance.

On top of that,  the three maritime premiers were in town for a meeting of the Atlantic premiers council.  Reporters asked them about the feud.  We’d be ticked off too, in the same position, they agreed, but if there’s federal cash to be had, we want a piece as well. That does nothing except highlight why the provincial government was just plain dumb when they passed on the original deal and tried to turn it into something else.

Okay, so Monday wasn’t really all that high, but when this time last year,  the Conservatives were being burned in effigy for heat and light as people sat around in a blackout caused by the provincial energy corporation, Monday was pretty damn good.

Then Tuesday came and, in the hideous cliche of hack television reporters,  things went horribly wrong.

Ballsiness #nlpoli

Before Christmas, Liberal leader Dwight Ball had been calling for an election as soon as possible.  After Christmas, faced with the chance to chop a few seats from the House as he had already pledged to do, Ball was quick to agree both to the cuts proposed by the Conservatives and to a delay in the election at least until November. 

Ball’s hasty decision will cause him two very serious problems, as we have already noted.  Now that the bill is in the House there are new dimensions to the problems faced by Ball and the Liberals. 

Not fit for it #nlpoli

It’s not surprising that the provincial Conservatives and their supporters want to reduce the representations the people of the province have in the House of Assembly.

After all, the plan to cut 10 seats from the House of Assembly and make other changes in the interest of “modernisation” fits their pattern of behaviour over the past decade.

But there’s a bit more to it.

Anti-democratic, regressive, and unprincipled #nlpoli

The idea of reducing the size of the province’s legislature because the provincial government has a massive financial crisis didn’t get any smarter when the provincial government announced its plan on Thursday to slash the House from 48 seats to 38.

People who want to start government cutbacks at the top should expect a reduction in the number of departments and a cut to the size of cabinet and the senior ranks of the public service. 

What the government is proposing is to slash the board of directors in response to a problem with the company caused by lousy management.  In other words, they want to start by cutting the people responsible for keeping an eye on management in the first place.  That sounds just as screwball an idea as it is… if your goal is to get the company back on a sound financial footing.

Cutting the House to save money – the government’s goal, endorsed wholeheartedly by opposition leader Dwight Ball – is anti-democratic, regressive, and unprincipled.  The New Democratic party’s outgoing leader may be screaming now but she’[s already on record supporting the cuts for the same reasons.  She’s equally guilty of backing an anti-democratic, regressive, and unprincipled move.

SRBP dissected the idea on Tuesday.  That post still says it all.

-srbp-

The House comes back… what’s on the menu? #nlpoli

Nice to be wrong update:  The Liberals started Question Period on Monday hammering the Conservatives over the Humber Valley Paving controversy.

This is a big story with huge implications.

Original post follows

________________________________

 

As far as when Frank Coleman might find the time to get around to taking over the Premier’s job, not much as it seems. 

It’s till vague, undefined, and potentially will happen quite some time from now.

He appeared on VOCM Open Line on Friday and still talked about wanting to take the job some unspecified time after July 5th.  As for when he will get a seat in the House, Coleman is still talking – hypothetically – about some unspecified time in “the fall.”

Some people might think the cabinet shuffle changed a lot.  The Telegram editorial board is hung up on the cost.

Meh.

And you want to be my latex salesman? #nlpoli

Last week SRBP noted that the provincial cabinet seems to be having some difficulty getting legislation into the House for debate.

Normally, we’d see upwards of 30 bills handled in the spring session.  In 2011 they had almost all the bills introduced by the early part of May.  In 2012, the provincial government had more than twice as many bills on the go as they do this year.

Well on Monday, finance minister Jerome Kennedy gave notice he has one more bill to add:  an amendment to the Revenue Administration Act.  He called it amendment number three.

Except it isn’t.

Light Session #nlpoli

As of May 2, there are a mere six pieces of legislation on the list of bills currently set for debate in the House of Assembly.  It seems to be up to date because on Thursday they added links to a couple of the bills that are ready to start debate.

But they didn’t add any to the six listed there.

Not with a bang, but a whimper #nlpoli

The longest filibuster in Newfoundland and Labrador legislative history ended quietly Saturday morning.

This was the second filibuster this year and the  Telegram’s legislative reported posed a simple question via Twitter before the House closed.

What does it say about current Newfoundland and Labrador political culture that we’ve had two such filibusters in a single year?

Normally a filibuster is an opposition tactic to hold up a government proposal the opposition doesn’t like.  That was the case with the Bill 29 filibuster in the spring.

As it turns out, the Muskrat Falls filibuster was different things for different parties.

Jerome’s Jawbone of an Ass #nlpoli

Last week Premier Kathy Dunderdale told the House of Assembly something that was patently not true.

She said that the public utilities board had endorsed the Muskrat Falls project.

She did not mislead the House, as some suggested.  To do that, Kathy would have had to know something the rest of the members didn’t.

In this case, they all knew the rights of it.  Kathy just frigged up.

Badly.