Kennedy slices into NDP’s Muskrat falls hypocrisy #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy belled the NDP cat on Wednesday for the provincial party’s flip-flop on Muskrat Falls. As the Telegram reported in its Thursday edition,

… Kennedy was particularly hard on criticism coming from the NDP, saying the current tone represents a break from deceased federal leader Jack Layton.

“The NDP has been making a lot of noise in the last little while, but it’s my understanding that Jack Layton supported the project,” Kennedy said. “Does the NDP still support the project? They’re not answering that.”

Jerome is right, of course. 

And not only about Jack Layton’s support. 

Bloc-NDP members of parliament Ryan Cleary and Jack Harris campaigned on a pro-Muskrat Falls ticket during last year’s federal election, as did provincial party leader Lorraine Michael who joined them on the campaign trail.

Enterprising news editors will no doubt be scrambling for shots of Lorraine cheering Jack’s visit here as she cheered Jack on and looking through Lorraine’s old news releases.

Lorraine supported the Lower Churchill project.  Her only criticism at the time it was released is that the deal was not as big as the original promise.

But make no mistake:  Lorraine backed Muskrat Falls.

However, she’s been shifting her position as public opposition to the project mounted.  You could say she’s trying to pull an Aylward.  Former Liberal leader Kevin Aylward shifted his potion almost 180 degrees on the project during the latter days of last fall’s provincial election. 

Now Michael is trying to sound like she isn’t backing the plan to deliver cheap electricity to her New Democrat pals in Nova Scotia.  Here’s how the Telegram quoted her from another Muskrat story from Thursday’s paper:

NDP Leader Lorraine Michael said she’s open to being convinced that going ahead with the project is a good idea. Nothing Locke said moved her, though.

She said she’s hoping to see independent, in-depth examination of alternatives to Muskrat Falls before the project gets sanctioned.

“If there was an in-depth analysis that was done on an alternative like the wind power — an in-depth analysis — then I’d like to see it,” she said. “My understanding is that no in-depth analysis has been presented.”

The spring session of the legislature should be interesting if only for the political cat-fighting among members of three political parties all of which support Muskrat Falls to one degree or another.

The Liberals back the project as well.  Their only objection, as described by natural resources critic Yvonne Jones is that there is no guarantee any power will go to Labrador.

Power could go there, of course, but Jones apparently wants some other guarantee. her objections are best described as superficial or trivial.  She’ll fold up and back the thing when it comes down to it.

But a crushing public debt?

The enormous cost piled on the backs of ordinary people of this province while others get a free ride?

Not a worry for Jones and the Liberals apparently.

Kennedy will have an easy time of it in the House lined up against the likes of the NDP and the Liberals.

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Here’s what an opposition party looks like #nlpoli

The Conservatives won’t open the House of Assembly until the spring.

Former Tory Premier Tom Rideout thinks it’s a bad idea, according to CBC:

"The government is an incumbent government. It has plenty of legislation on the books and ready, I'm sure, for the legislature. I think it's a sign that in Danny's case and, again, unfortunately in Kathy's case, that they're not house of assembly people," said Rideout.

…

Rideout said he loved life in the house of assembly, but he said Dunderdale and Williams see it as a "necessary evil."

CBC quotes NDP leader Lorraine Michael in their story online:

“I think its irresponsible. You know, Danny Williams did the same thing in 2007 and I just see Kathy Dunderdale carrying on the same arrogant way of dealing with opposition in the house," she said Tuesday, after the NDP won five districts in the provincial election.

That’s what an opposition party should sound like.

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Townies and Baymen #nlpoli #nlvotes

Some people were surprised the other night when Danny Dumaresque told the very small audience at a Board of Trade economic forum that:

I would have to say to the mayor of this great city that there are a hell of a lot more priorities outside the overpass that need to be addressed before we start forking more money over to the City of St. John's.

Some people thought his remarks were stupid.

Danny is anything but.

What Danny Dumaresque said won’t hurt him one bit in the Isles of Notre Dame and Danny knows it.

What’s more, what Danny said is true, at least for the people who currently dominate the Liberal Party.  About 12 years ago, they started shifting the party focus away from the province as a whole to one that idealises an imaginary one.

Ruralism started to bloom in the brief period Beaton Tulk served as Premier.  It’s not surprising that Kevin Aylward brought Tulk back to play a key role in the current campaign.

Ruralists believe – as the Liberals’ centrepiece policy for the current campaign states – that:

The fishery is our province’s defining narrative…Our fishery has been our past and the Liberal Party believes it will be our future.

It is not just the fishery, though.  Ruralism, for all its romantic, reactionary beliefs, holds the fishery as the foundation of an entire culture with social and economic components.

The Ruralists flourished after 2003 and their philosophy was firmly entrenched after 2007.  Despite Kevin Aylward’s fervent efforts to pretend otherwise during the debate Wednesday night,  the party he now leads has written off anything east of Goobies.

To be fair, the Liberals aren’t alone in their Ruralist beliefs.  The provincial Conservatives carried on with the Liberals’ Ruralist agenda.  They kept the Rural Secretariat and married its assumptions with Danny Williams’ peculiar version of nationalism.

Again, not surprisingly,  Kevin Aylward proudly declared himself a staunch nationalist shortly after he took over as Liberal leader.  

At its miserable heart, though, Ruralism is really nothing more than old fashioned paternalism and patronage.  Grit or Tory, all the Ruralists really want to do is use public money to keep people in some parts of the province dependent on political hand-outs and therefore firmly under political control.  It’s a miserable, cynical ploy.

To make it clear that patronage isn’t just a favourite ploy for one party, consider that Conservative candidate Keith Russell made it plain enough on Thursday when he said to voters in central Labrador (via the Telegram) that

we have to be on government’s side to access government coffers…

Conservative leader Kathy Dunderdale repeated basically the same line while campaigning on the south eastern coast of Labrador on Thursday.  CBC’s Chris O’Neill-Yates tweeted it:

Abandoning the Avalon Peninsula doesn’t mean the Liberals are doomed as a political party.  They can still win plenty of seats and could well pick up a few this time around.  They’ll likely stay as the Official Opposition. What they can’t do, of course if form a government.  The Liberal strategy is as short-sighted in that respect as it is simplistic. 

Its narrow focus means the Ruralist Party, as it should now be named,  has had way more trouble than an opposition party normally would getting candidates in the last three elections.  In 2011, they’ve had to turn, once again, to dragooning political staffers to fill out the last remaining slots in the candidate roster.  The only thing Beaton Tulk didn’t do in his mad search for names for the ballots on the Avalon was hold a séance.

The Ruralist Party’s focus doesn’t mean they haven’t turned up some good candidates in the process.  George Joyce in St. John’s West is the best of the three candidates running in St. John’s West by a long way. 

In St. John’s Centre, newcomer Carly Bigelow has been kicking Shawn Skinner around. 

During an appearance on Out of the Fog, she popped Skinner’s eyes a bit when she reminded him that Tory policy is to keep public service pensioners on fixed incomes with no increases and then double their electricity rates.  He flipped but that pretty much sums up Skinner’s position. The truth really does hurt, as it turns out.

George and Carly could be easy choices St. John’s voters.  After all, a vindictive, patronage-addled Conservative administration can hardly shag the district for funds in retribution for voting the “wrong way”.  They don’t push pork into townie districts anyway, at least not like the do outside the capital city, so Sin Jawns voters have the opportunity to pick candidates on merit, rather than by party colour.

The Liberal Ruralists aren’t the only ones with problems in Capital City.

In St. John’s North, both the Conservative and New Democrat candidates  are running headlong into the problems with their platforms. 

An NTV profile of the district on Thursday evening’s news noted that the district has a very large percentage of people on fixed and low incomes.  Plenty of public service pensioners live there so incumbent Bob Ridgley must be having a hard time explaining Tom Marshall’s cavalier dismissal of their demands for a modest increase in pension payments now that the government has $4.0 billion in cash laying about.

Add to that the Tory plan to use the cash to double electricity rates instead and you have a very tough pill to shove down voters throats.  If you are a Tory that is.,

Meanwhile, Sin Jawns New Dem Dale Kirby is having an equally hard time.  His party backs the Dunderdale plan to force the people of St. John’s North to pay to ship discount electricity to Nova Scotians.

And then there’s the public sector pensions.

Not a peep in the NDP platform about it at all.

Kirby must be having a devil of a time explaining how the NDP party president and his colleagues didn’t think those pensions might be an issue. Talk about treating seniors with the respect they deserve.

Pensioners can take some cold comfort with the knowledge they weren’t the only thing Kirby and his colleagues didn’t know about.  They missed entirely the contracts that prevent them from introducing their new crude oil tax that was supposed to pay for some other campaign promises.

And if that wasn’t enough, there was another glaring Dipper gaffe in St. John’s.

Liberal Drew Brown is running an uphill fight in Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi  against  an entrenched NDP campaign that knows which way every blade of grass votes in the district. He’s another candidate who’d be far better than the incumbent.

But facing all that didn’t stop Brown from picking up on a glaring oversight in the NDP policy book: the party of supposed social responsibility has no platform plank on replacing the Dickensian-era HMP that happens to sit in Lorraine Michaels’ district:

“The existing infrastructure at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary is still abysmal, despite the findings of the 2008 ‘Decades of Darkness’ report on the state of the provincial corrections system,” Brown explained. “I find it really surprising that no one is talking about it in this election, especially considering the federal Conservatives’ forthcoming crime legislation is likely going to result in an increased number of prisoners going through the system.”

The Liberals plan to begin work on replacing the prison – and aggressively lobbying the federal government to cost-share the project – within weeks of forming the government.

“Without safe and effective prisons, our system of justice here in Newfoundland and Labrador is seriously weakened. Better conditions for the prisoners aside, the facility workers themselves deserve a safer workplace than the one they currently have,” Brown added. “It’s a government facility – the working conditions for employees at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary should be held to the same standard as any other government institution.”

Wowsers.

So at about the half-way point in the general election, one party  - the Liberals – have voluntarily surrendered  a huge chunk of the voting population to the other parties.  They’ve left some very good candidates to fend for themselves.

Another party has just missed the boat entirely on core issues in the one region of the province where they are supposed to have such amazing support and affinity.

this is not a townie versus bayman thing, as much as some people might like to paint it that way.

It’s really about political parties that operate with limited political vision.

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The NDP and Regressive Social Policy: education #nlpoli

those who are interested in education policy and the current election campaign will be fascinated by a chunk of one conversation that broke out on Twitter Sunday. 

Two of the participants were Mark Watton, former Liberal candidate in the Humber West by-election earlier this year and Brad Evoy, a New Democratic Party supporter and former vice president (academic0 of the Grenfell campus Student Union in Corner Brook.

They were discussing NDP policy that would make post-secondary education in Newfoundland and Labrador free to any students.

This is an edited version of the conversation, but one that tries to preserves both the flow of the exchange and the thrust of Evoy’s position.  Evoy starts off on accessibility and then morphs into a wider argument:.

Watton:  Just because something costs money, doesn't mean it is inaccessible. …a viable investment i.e. one which individuals, as well as the state, can make.

Evoy:  That's mighty well and easy for you to say, Mr. Watton, but it is not so for many NLers.

Watton:  on what basis do you make that statement?

Evoy:  Again, individual investment should not prohibit what is best for our common good. …Aside from knowing those who suffer under debt loads and turn away from PSE due to cost? … So there is some with the ability to be affluent, that doesn't mean all can….Question now, would you even dare suggest the same for Primary and Secondary Education… As in our society some level of PSE is now as needed just as well as those, in many fields…would it not be better to remove personal wealth from the equation all together? … Is it not more equitable for students to be judged on their merit and pay tax when…...they are all established well enough to do so? That's the idea here….Some form of PSE is quickly becoming an employment baseline...... in many professions. We require skilled persons in our economy.

Watton:  so if something is an employment baseline the state should pay for it for everyone?

Evoy:  Aren't we already doing so from the period when high school was exactly that? …And, again, it's a baseline for many professions and some won't have the academics…

Free or low tuition has been a popular idea for decades.  The arguments in favour f it usually centre on accessibility for people from lower income families.

The only problem for people who make accessibility their foundation is that there isn’t any substantial evidence to support the claim about accessibility and free tuition.

Take a recent study from Ireland as typical.  Kevin Denny of the Institute for Fiscal Studies released a paper in may that looked at the impact of the Irish government policy that wiped out tuition fees in 1996. His conclusion is that eliminating tuition fees had no effect on university attendance by students from lower income families.

What did it do?

The only obvious effect of the policy was to provide a windfall gain to middle-class parents who no longer had to pay fees. [p. 14]

In a footnote Denny indicates there is some reason to believe that these families wound up shipping their children to private schools.  that would likely have had the effect of improving their academic performance which further disadvantaged children from lower income families in the competition to enter university.

Overall, while the numbers of students from low incomes went up after 1996, so too did the number of students from other  family income levels.  The effect was such that the proportions of students in university did not change significantly for the better with the elimination of tuition fees.

Flip back up to Evoy’s comments for a second and look at this bit:

would it not be better to remove personal wealth from the equation all together? … Is it not more equitable for students to be judged on their merit and pay tax when…...they are all established well enough to do so?

The effect of free tuition is the opposite, according to Denny.  It doesn’t take personal wealth out of the equation.  Rather, free tuition delivers a windfall to those who could already afford to send their children to university or who can afford it moreso than those on low incomes.

Incidentally, you can find similar conclusions to Denny’s work in other studies.  A 1990 paper by Benjamin Levin titled  “Tuition fees and university accessibility” noted that university students in Canada tended to be from families where one or both parents had university degrees.  University graduates earned, on average considerably more than non-graduates.  As such, free tuition would tend to provide a disproportionate advantage to those who were better able to pay for education anyway.

That’s without considering that the cost of a university education in this province is already unconnected to the actual cost of the education.  This is especially true in medicine and the other professions where incomes are higher and the ability to repay substantial loans would be much better than say a typical Arts graduate. 

And the other thing these studies have in common is that they found that other factors  - besides tuition fees - affect access to post-secondary education.

If accessibility is the goal, there are other ways to deal with it.  Levin argued that targeted programs were a better way to go.  Means tested grants, for example, or changing the ratio of student loans and grants based on student financial circumstances would help to ensure that students from low income families would not be disadvantaged because of fees.  In the professions, governments can do more of what they do now with a variety of cash incentives as well as provide means-tested grants.

What’s most interesting about the New Democrats and free tuition is the ease with which they have adopted what is essentially a regressive social policy. 

While New Democrats like Evoy talk about accessibility and how the party represents “ordinary” Canadians,  their solution is a blunt tax cut or subsidy approach that appears to be better suited to Conservatives. That’s especially striking in the case of free university tuition where research shows that eliminating fees doesn’t improve accessibility. 

It does, however, provide financial advantage to people who are already better able to pay tuition or people who would be better able to pay in their future career.

The NDP.

Not Tommy Douglas’ socially progressive party any more.

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Three MF Amigos split up #nlpoli

Liberal leader Kevin Aylward may have personally been waffling about Muskrat Falls a week or so ago, but his position has shifted:

An Aylward led government would immediately halt all spending on this project and establish a truly independent analysis to look at all options for meeting domestic energy demands.  The review currently before the Public Utilities Board is not a true independent review.  It is limited in scope and resources and is designed to provide government and Nalcor with a predetermined result.

That’s the last paragraph in a short, simple news release that Aylward issued Friday.

That leaves just Kathy Dunderdale and Lorraine Michael of the NDP struggling with their positions.

Michael is still talking about getting more information but her fundamental problem of privately supporting an unpopular deal remains.

In a news release Friday, Michael said:

NDP Leader Lorraine Michael (MHA, Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi) said the government’s release of the Report of the Joint Review Panel into the Muskrat Falls project may be a step towards the transparency she has been asking for, but it raises more questions about the project.

She said the provincial government should stop “pouring money into the project” and that “[w]e need to have a broadbased [sic]independent analysis.” It appears, though, that Michael is still limiting herself to a discussion of developing Muskrat Falls, as the Conservatives and Nova Scotia new Democrats are proposing as opposed to looking primarily at options to meet domestic energy needs.

Meanwhile, Kathy Dunderdale and the Conservatives are ploughing ahead. Dunderdale seemed to be confused about the panel’s rejection of the premises on which she is pursuing the megadebt project.  According to CBC,

"We're on the same path," Dunderdale told reporters in St. John's Thursday. "We're not misaligned. We absolutely agree."

“We” is apparently the provincial government and the panel.

Natural resources minister Shawn Skinner, left,  told a radio call-in audience on Friday that the joint federal/provincial review panel report was just more wonderful and informative information in a decades long and ongoing process of study, review and information gathering in which no decisions have been taken or will be taken any time soon.

Of course, that just makes it all the more embarrassing that the provincial government’s energy corporation couldn’t supply the review panel with simple, straightforward explanations of the reasons why it wants to pursue the project and what the implications will be.

After two years of review and months of public hearing’s and after giving Nalcor a second chance to correct deficiencies in its presentation, the panel concluded:

Need, Purpose and Rationale

… the Panel concluded that Nalcor had not demonstrated the justification of the Project as a whole in energy and economic terms, and that there are outstanding questions related to both Muskrat Falls and Gull Island regarding their ability to deliver the projected long term financial benefits to the Province, even if other sanctioning requirements were met. The Panel therefore recommended that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador carry out separate formal financial reviews before sanctioning either Muskrat Falls or Gull Island to confirm whether the component being considered for sanction would in fact deliver the projected long-term financial benefits. [Page 3, Emphasis added]

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NDP avoids straight answer on Muskrat Falls #nlpoli

You can tell if a provincial opposition party politician supports Kathy Dunderdale’s Muskrat Falls plan by how many words it takes to explain his or her position.

New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael proved the point on Wednesday with a news release posted to NDP website and a statement issued to the media but not posted on the website that repeats the release’s content in slightly different words.

The total word count?  More than 550.

Read it all, though, and you still won’t have a clear answer whether or not her party supports Kathy Dunderdale’s plan to hike electricity rates in the province, double the public debt and ship discount electricity to Nova Scotia at the expense of taxpayers in this province.

The news release claims it is going to give Michael’s position on Muskrat Falls. 

But it doesn’t.

Instead, Michael launches into a claim that the provincial government and Nalcor haven’t told the public how the company has spent $348 million the provincial government transferred to the company in the current fiscal year.

Then-Opposition Leader Yvonne Jones questioned the same transfer, incidentally back when provincial finance minister Tom Marshall introduced the budget in April.

But unlike Lorraine Michael, Yvonne Jones wasn’t concerned at the time whether or not the money was spent properly on Muskrat Falls.  Jones thought the money could be better spent on other things.

Still, even if Nalcor did tells Michael exactly how it spent the $348 million, the people of the province won’t be any closer to knowing whether or not Michael really supports Kathy Dunderdale’s Muskrat Falls plan but is afraid to admit it publicly.

What’s really cute about Michael’s claims about transparency and accountability is that she worked with the provincial government in 2008 to pass amendments to the energy corporation’s governing statute that frustrated genuine public accountability. The Liberals did the same thing.

At the time, Michael was generally satisfied if Nalcor filed reports in the House of Assembly. Michael’s comments on one amendment are typical:

This amendment, I think, does assure the thing that is at the basis of our responsibility, that the public of this Province will be informed of what is going on through the usual process which is the tabling of the information here in the House of Assembly. That is how the public learns anything that has to do with the Crown, through tabling here in the House of Assembly. We now assure that our accountability to the public is assured. We, I think, are showing that we believe in the transparency, openness and accountability that we say we stand for by now having this amendment.

There’s no indication Nalcor failed to abide by the legislation Michael endorsed in 2008, incidentally so it is more than a wee bit hypocritical for Michael to be taking pot shots at an “accountability” regime she helped create..

Throughout the whole release and statement, Michael never does give her position on Muskrat Falls.  Instead, she repeats the general party policy that supports “any development that is economically viable, environmentally sustainable and beneficial for the people of the province…”.

Kathy Dunderdale will tell you that Muskrat Falls meets every one of those criteria.

So far Lorraine Michael hasn’t shown any sign she’d disagree.

Just to give you a sense of the NDP position, take this Twitter exchange about the NDP position. 

St. John’s East NDP candidate George Murphy followed his leader and avoided a simple answer to the simple question:

Question: @GeorgeMurphyNDP @dalegkirby So you support it, George?

edhollett

Answer:  @edhollett @dalegkirby If it's economically viable...wouldn't you?

GeorgeMurphyNDP

Q:  @GeorgeMurphyNDP @dalegkirby Do you support the deal, yes or no?

edhollett

A:  @edhollett @dalegkirby Ed..I can't make it any simpler than that...I just said 'if it's economically viable"...

GeorgeMurphyNDP

Q:  @GeorgeMurphyNDP @dalegkirby You say yes you support the deal or no you don't. Simple answer.

edhollett

A:  @edhollett @dalegkirby Jees Ed...I can't be any clearer than what I said. If it's economically viable. Wouldn't you?

GeorgeMurphyNDP

Followed almost immediately after by:

C'mon Ed..If it was an economically viable project, would you support it? Yes or no. Simple answer...

Q:  @GeorgeMurphyNDP @dalegkirby The more you dodge, the worse it looks, George. Is the problem that you don't have enough info to assess viability?

edhollett

George didn’t reply.

The problem for the NDP is that Muskrat Falls is a serious wedge issue that could cause major problems within the party itself.

On the one hand, Michael is already on record supporting the loan guarantee through her appearance at Jack Layton’s last national campaign appearance in St. John’s. 

Michael also knows that the NDP government of Nova Scotia backs the deal as does the national NDP.  Ultimately, Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter carries a lot more weight in Ottawa with the national NDP than Lorraine does.

On the other hand, many of the NDP’s current and potential supporters in Newfoundland and Labrador are leery of Kathy Dunderdale’s plan for the public debt and their electricity rates. They are also pissed at the idea Nova Scotians will get cheap electricity paid for by taxpayers in this province.

Openly endorsing the deal could cost Michael and the NDP a great many votes especially among disaffected Tory voters in metro St. John’s who could be looking for a safe place to vote against the Muskrat deal.

They won’t find a safe anti-Muskrat haven in the NDP.

Put it all together and you have a news release that – like candidate George Murphy – doesn’t give a simple answer to a simple question.

Lorraine Michael tries to sound critical of the provincial government but, behind closed doors and the backs of hands in whispered conversations, the NDP is backing Dunderdale to the hilt.

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The missing NDP statement from 2011.

Michael demands Muskrat Falls transparency, proposes Nalcor conservation division

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Newfoundland and Labrador New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael (MHA, Signal Hill-Qidi Vidi) today released a statement outlining her party's stand on the Muskrat Falls development. She also called on Nalcor to create a separate energy body mandated to help Newfoundland and Labrador families save money through programs that maximize conservation of energy resources.

The NDP supports any development that is economically viable, environmentally sustainable and beneficial for the people of the province, Michael said. However, the invisibility cloak that has been draped over the project by Nalcor and the Dunderdale Conservatives makes it impossible to assess how responsibly they are spending taxpayers' money.

"Last Friday's media event only served to reinforce the grave concerns we have about the way this important development is proceeding. Now the Dunderdale Conservatives are not immediately releasing the environmental assessment," Michael said. "The people of this province have already spent $348 million this fiscal year alone on Muskrat Falls – that is $700 from each man, woman and child who lives here. That investment should buy us some transparency.

"If we had spent the $348 million directly through the Department of Natural Resources, for example, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador would have access to the budgetary process, with line items to show exactly where the money has gone.

"As it stands, with Muskrat Falls being handled through a Crown Corporation created by this government, we are supposed to blindly accept government assurances that they are spending responsibly. I'm sorry, but the people of Newfoundland and Labrador deserve more than the 'Trust us' they are getting from the Dunderdale Conservatives."

The NDP is also calling for the creation of a body within Nalcor dedicated to energy conservation.

"Our approach to our valuable energy resources can not be simply to develop them and use them up," said Michael. "We need practical programs that will help Newfoundland and Labrador families save money while at the same time conserving our resources. The best place for this to be done is within the crown corporation mandated to oversee energy usage.

"Every resident of Newfoundland and Labrador should be getting the maximum possible for their household energy spending. And every resident of this province should be asking the government, 'What am I getting for my seven hundred dollars?'"

The Power of Confusion: The Three Amigos Update #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale doesn’t understand the criticism of the federal government’s recent announcement of a loan guarantee for the Muskrat Falls megadebt project

Provincial NDP leader Lorraine Michael, for one, has been crapping on the announcement, saying that it isn’t a loan guarantee at all but “an agreement to agree”.

Check that link and you’ll also find new Liberal leader Kevin Aylward quoted by theindependent.ca saying:

This is not a legally binding offer and the Harper government can still back out of it,” Aylward said in a statement. “It’s no wonder Premier Kathy Dunderdale didn’t show up for the press conference.”

Kathy Dunderdale is right to wonder why Michael and Aylward are criticising the loan guarantee.

After all both Aylward and Michael support development of the Muskrat falls project as Dunderdale is proposing.  All three want to saddle the provincial taxpayers with guaranteed high electricity rates and a huge increase in the public debt.

Plus, they all agree it is a good idea to send discount electricity into Nova Scotia and anywhere else people want it, all thanks to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

You can tell the two other party leaders back the deal if for no other reason than because they do not criticise it.

Nope.

Their comments on this federal announcement is a criticism of Dunderdale for not being farther along with the negotiations (Michael) and for not nailing Harper down on the guarantee. (Aylward)

Kathy didn’t hold Steve’s feet to the fire, or words to that effect.

Just to test this out, try this:  if you get the chance to speak with Lorraine and/or Kevin ask them whether or not they will kill this deal.

Yes or no.

The more words they have to use to explain their position – without first saying yes or no – is a sign of how strongly they want to support this deal.  The reason they can’t be open in the love for Muskrat is because they think their are votes to be had by appearing to oppose the deal.

Will you kill the deal? 

Yes or no?

Try it.

You might be quite surprised at the replies.

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Slide a sheet of paper: the spend ‘em if ya got ‘em edition

Earlier this week, finance minister Tom Marshall announced a second increase in the estimate for offshore oil production for 2011 and with it an increase in provincial government revenues.

Marshall claims the money will go to paying down the public debt.

It won’t.

Every time Tom Marshall says he’s paid down the debt, his nose grows. Marshall has a case of pinocchiosis that defies medical science.

If his case of pinocchiosis politica swelled something other than his nose every time he bullshitted about paying down the debt,  Tom could do porno as if he was Johnny Wad and Ron Jeremy and Long Dong Silver combined.

The cash will either:

1. go in the bank and be held in the form of short-term investments that will only appear to lower the debt; or
2. cover the gigantic deficit Tommy  - or whoever is fin min - will face next year as a result of the Tories persistent unsound, unsustainable financial management.

Speaking of spending, that’s exactly what the local chapter of the New Democratic party wants to do with the windfall cash.

"This money, I think, needs to be seen as revenue that has come early, and we [should] keep it until we look at how we need to spend our money in 2012/2013," Michael told CBC News.

You will not be able to slide a sheet of paper between the political parties in this election.  They will all have the same policy, especially hen it comes to spending.

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Bloc Quebecois not separatist party: NL NDP leader

You read that correctly.

Newfoundland and Labrador NDP leader Lorraine Michael is quoted by VOCM making the argument that the Bloc Quebecois is not a separatist party:

On VOCM's Backtalk with Paddy Daly Thursday, Michael also said that, according to former Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, the Bloc has been about securing a better deal for Québec from the federal government, not about separatism. Michael compared Turmel's past actions to people who have fought politically for this province: it's like saying someone who goes to Ottawa to fight for Newfoundland is a separatist.

Lorraine is out of touch with reality.

Either that or she is so desperate for any political success in her last election as NDP leader in Newfoundland and Labrador that she will say anything, no matter how preposterous it might be.

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Free tuition at NL university for Nova Scotians: NL NDP leader

The Newfoundland and Labrador local of the New Democratic Party wants taxpayers in her province to give Nova Scotians free tuition at Memorial University.

Sounds idiotic, doesn’t it?

But that’s exactly what she wants to do, at least if you follow the thrust of Lorraine Michael’s July 8th news release.

In the release the NDP leader said that “free tuition is essential to ensuring that all of Newfoundland and Labrador’s young people get equal access to education they will need for their own, and by extension, all our prosperity.”

Wonderful stuff.

Then she cites in study released by her party president Dale Kirby, wearing his education professor hat.

Kirby and his colleagues surveyed Memorial University students from Maritime Canada and asked them some questions about why they decided on studying at Memorial University. As the executive summary in the report notes, the number of Maritime students at Memorial went up “ten-fold’ in the past decade or so. And as the report also notes, there have been other reports, most notably by news media, in which Maritime students identified cost as one of the big reasons for them coming to Memorial. They can study at a comprehensive university that has a decent reputation overall(outstanding in some faculties) and they can do it cheaper than they could at Dalhousie or Acadia or University of New Brunswick.

They come here because the tuition is cheap, they said. 

So, reasons Michael, free education for Nova Scotians will benefit Newfoundland and Labrador.

She does not explain how. 

Odds are she can’t.

That’s not important, though. 

In the world of Conservative-style retail politics, all a political party has to do is offer this sort of cash incentive to win votes. It’s like the one about cutting taxes on gasoline or home-heating products.  None of those ideas make any sense except as a way of luring voters:  give us your vote and we’ll give you cash.

The foolishness of the free tuition idea is actually right there in Michael’s release. All you have to do is think about it for a second.

You see all those Maritime students frig off back to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick or Prince Edward island once they get their Memorial University degrees.  They only come here because they can get a decent university paid on the cheap.  They don’t spend four years at Memorial because they plan to settle in Hibb’s Hole once the drinking…err…studying is done.

And if lower tuition is already bringing in the mainland students in droves, then odds are free tuition will attract droves more. The university will have to hire more professors and build more classrooms and laboratories.

And who will pay for this?

Why the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador, of course.

Now think about that a bit more.

In a province where the government is facing a pretty severe financial problem because of foolish spending, the New Democrats want to spend millions more to make university education free.  Then they’ll have to spend hundreds of millions more making the university larger to accommodate all the new students.

And where will thousands of those students come from?

Why Nova Scotia, of course, the most populous province in Atlantic Canada.

Now where else has Nova scotia cropped up lately?

Yes. 

Of course.

Lorraine Michael, Kathy Dunderdale, and Yvonne Jones want to spend billions on this Muskrat Falls project so they can ship cheap electrical power to Nova Scotians.  Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will pay the full cost of the power plus a profit for Nalcor and Nova Scotia-based Emera so that Nova Scotians get a break.

And this is how Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will gain a long-term benefit from their natural resources:  by selling discount electricity to Nova Scotians. 

That sounds an awful lot like this education scheme Lorraine and Dale have cooked up.

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Not much to see

The Telegram’s Russell Wangersky looked ahead to the fall election and didn’t like what he saw.

Wangersky’s assessment is brutal but it is accurate.

The Liberals:  “When someone who isn't looking for the leader's job is bigger news than the person who's already holding it, you've got big problems.”

The NDP:  “Unremittingly hopeful but doomed to disappointment….Don't bet the family fortune on renting floats to the victory parade.”

The Conservatives:  “Right now, they are an all-encompassing government that stresses the need for belt-tightening (while spending more), reducing debt (while increasing it) and telling people that we have to live within our means (all the while living beyond their own).”

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A world of their own

Kathy Dunderdale showed up in the province again to talk about the wonderful reception her Muskrat Falls megadebt project got from the New England governors.

Two things stood out right off the bat from Dunderdale’s scrum. 

First, there was her reference to Yvonne Jones as if the Liberal leader hadn’t already drunk the freshie.  Jones supports the project for the same reason Dunderdale does:  “significant employment and income to the residents and businesses of Newfoundland and Labrador”.

That those short-term jobs will come at such a terrible price -  doubling electricity rates and doubling the public debt  - won’t bother the placeholders one bit;  none of the province’s political parties are concerned about such triflings when then can buy votes with public money.

Second was Dunderdale’s response to a question about comments by Connecticut Governor Dannel Molloy about the need for timely discussion between Canadian province’s and New England states about importing Canadian electricity.  He also noted the need for improved transmission infrastructure to move the power along.

Dunderdale reminded the reporters at her scrum that Molloy was a newbie, only in office since January.  Then she carried on with the usual song and dance about how hydro is the answer to everyone’s prayers.

The fundamental problems with Muskrat Falls still remain.  Nottawa reminded everyone of the basic problem in a post that ran on Tuesday.  Connecticut’s current retail price for electricity is 40% below Muskrat Falls’ projected cost price. 

What he forgot to add was the transmission cost. That’s also something Vermont Governor Pete Shumlin  was talking about when he told reporters during the recent New England Governor’s and Eastern Canadian Premiers’ conference that:

… the most pressing question that needs to be resolved is how to get Canadian power to northern U.S. markets without boosting transmission capacity.

"There is no universal plan to get it there," Shumlin said.

Muskrat power will cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of 14 to 16 cents per kilowatt hour to produce.  Then it has to roll through a couple of Canadian province’s and three or four American states.  In every one of those jurisdictions there will be at least one transmission charge whacked on top. 

That’s what Shumlin was talking about.  Even if by some hysterical development 16 cents a kilowatt hour became cheap electricity in New England, adding another 50% on top of that to move it around just prices the juice out of the market altogether.

Well, that and the fact that people in his state and elsewhere in New England just don’t want new hydro lines slung across their states.  New Hampshire opposition to a new line is just one example.

As you listen to Dunderdale, Jones, Michael and other politicians ramble on about Muskrat Falls you just get the sense they are in some sort of bizarre alternate universe.  They are out of touch with reality and news media keep repeating their comments as if they were rational.

The Telegram, alone among local media outlets, is finally getting the message. Its editorial on Saturday and again on Tuesday laid out the naked truth about Muskrat Falls and the provincial government’s enormous debt. The others, like VOCM, just continue to enable the delusions.

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The placeholder election

No matter what the outcome, all three political parties in the province will have new leaders before the 2015 contest.

In December, the Tories decided to postpone their leadership fight until after the October general election.  Kathy Dunderdale took over the job in the first place on the understanding it would be a temporary thing.  The shift in December had more to do with internal party politics than Dunderdale’s sudden discovery she had some goals to accomplish.  [Hint:  she didn’t].

Dunderdale is pushing 60 as it is.  If she’s elected in the fall, she will be the oldest person ever elected Premier since Confederation, beating out Danny Williams by eight years. This is not a two term Premier, no matter how you look at it.

The only real question is whether the Tories will have the leadership quickly or wait until year three-ish.  Anything before October 2014 triggers an election under Danny Williams’ changes to the Elections Act.  How long she stays is really up the ambitious men and women within her caucus who have parked their campaign until after the fall vote.

Over in the Liberal camp, Yvonne Jones’ only hope of hanging onto her current job is if she wins the next election. Even then, her tenure would depend heavily on her having a clean bill of health.  Otherwise, the length of time she stays on as leader is in inverse proportion to the magnitude of her defeat. The only factor that could push her out more quickly would be a recurrence of Jones’ cancer.

There there is the 68-year old New Democratic Party leader, Lorraine Michael. While her party keeps torquing the idea of some massive break-through in the general election, Michael likely won’t be around long afterward to enjoy it, even if it does happen. 

Politics is gruelling.  Look at the toll the stress has taken on Kathy Dunderdale already, despite the fairly obvious makeover she’s undergone in a very short space of time.  And Dunderdale is nine years younger than Michael. 

This is Lorraine’s last trip to the polls. Just as well to start the pool now on who will replace her.

No matter how you slice it,  this election will be about marking time;  it’s a placeholder election with the real contest coming at some point within the next four years

It will be interesting to see how this issue – one that affects all three parties equally – factors into the campaign and to the final vote.

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D’oh! Dipper leader skewered by Johnson

It’s a pretty rare day when the likes of Charlene Johnson can score a major political blow but land one the provincial environment minister did on Friday, square between the eyes of the province’s New Democratic Party leader.

Seems Lorraine Michael served on an environmental panel in 1999 that approved use of a natural pond as a storage for tailings from Voisey’s Bay. Now Michael and her federal Dipper counterparts are lambasting the provincial Conservatives for doing the same thing at Vale’s smelter project in Long Harbour but made no reference to her own views of another project barely more than a decade ago.

There’s nothing like hypocrisy to damage the political cred. Johnson’s release must have sent the Dipper opposition office into a major tailspin trying to figure out how to unfrack themselves from this simple but devastating gaffe.

Then again that’s the sort of thing that happens when you do one thing and say another. Next thing you know, the New Democrats will try and erase many of the ideologically progressive ideas from the party constitution or push regressive tax reform all in an effort to appear more like Conservatives.

Oops.

Too late.

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Sullivan and Michael both wrong about government commitment to anti-scab legislation

New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael claimed that Danny Williams committed to introduce a law banning replacement workers during strikes.

Human resources, labour and employment minister Susan Sullivan claims that “[t]he government has never made such a commitment.”

Both are off base.

What actually happened is that cabinet ministers John Hickey and Shawn Skinner both indicated in 2007 that the provincial cabinet was reviewing the issue of labour legislation, including the need for anti-scab laws.

Hickey told CBC:

“Minister Skinner has advised me that inside the department, this whole legislation is under review, [and] I have taken the opportunity to review other legislation across the country … so these are issues that we as a government certainly are looking at dealing with.”

Skinner told the House of Assembly that the province’s labour laws were under review:

… I have indicated that the Labour Relations Agency, through its Strategic Partnership Initiative, is undertaking a review of all of the labour legislation in the Province. That will look at whatever the union representatives on that committee and the employer representatives on that committee wish to bring to the table for discussion. Once that review is complete, we will be in a better position at that time to look at the kinds of things will need to be updated in the legislation.

…

MS. JONES:  …My question today to the minister is: Are you prepared to move up the agenda on anti-scab legislation and have it brought to the House of Assembly so that we do not have situations like we have at Voisey’s Bay in the future?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated in my earlier remarks, we do have a strategic partnership between our Labour Relations Agency, the unions and the employers representative groups in this Province. We have a process in place that all parties have agreed to follow, and we will be following that process to do a thorough review and to make sure that any and all issues that are important to the people of this Province, be they employers or be they employees, will be reviewed and will be brought forward for consideration by the government.

We have undertaken that commitment, we will fulfil that commitment, and once we know what the results of that are we will decide then what actions can be taken.

Danny Williams might not have made a commitment about anti-scab legislation but two of his cabinet ministers sure did.

What Sullivan needed to explain is not who made a commitment but why it is taking more than two years to complete a review of the province’s labour laws.

Is this another example of something gone missing in action in the bowels of the Confederation Building?

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Clued out

Lorraine Michael needs to read more or get better research staff.

"I'm glad that the premier has finally shown that he believes that being part of a Canada-wide energy plan is something that he believes in. I had not heard this before."

Try 2007, for example.

Or the same story, as rendered by the Ceeb:

One topic that dominated Thursday morning's sessions was the idea to build a national energy grid that would make sure all provinces benefit fully from Canada's resources. 

"We need to find a way to get those [resources] to the Canadian people," Williams said. "There is a solution here."

or this:

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams, whose government is keen to relaunch the mothballed Lower Churchill Falls hydro mega-project to sell power to energy-hungry Ontario, said he would be open to having the federal government fund all or part of a new national electrical grid.

Heck, you can even find reference to hooking onto the grid in the 2003 Tory campaign book if you bother to go look.

All that extra cash the government caucus threw to Lorraine last winter evidently hasn’t helped to clue her in.  A 30 second google search and a raft of quotes turned up all showing only that Michael is out to lunch on this energy issue.

h/t to a keen reader, DL.

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Clueless, useless “opposition”

Lorraine Michael is clueless.

She obviously – painfully obviously – doesn’t understand how cabinet appointments are made.  How the heck else would she make this kind of comment to voice of the cabinet minister?

NDP Leader Lorraine Michael wants the Premier to consult with the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women when filling board positions. Danny Williams appointed Ed Drover to replace outgoing member Mary J. Whelan on the Offshore Petroleum Board earlier this week and Michael says the new makeup may not be able to adequately address employment equity issues for women in the offshore since there are now no women sitting at the table. Michael says Williams missed the opportunity to name a woman to the now all-male board, which also has an all-male management team. Michael plans to raise her concerns in a letter to Williams.

If not understanding the process wasn’t bad enough, the biggest concern she’s got about the recent appointment of a Tory bagman to a plum job on the offshore regulatory board is that the fact the board is now all-male means they won’t be able to adequately address gender equity employment offshore.

First of all, Lorraine Michael is making a sexist comment.

That’s right, a sexist comment.  Her comment is based on the assumption that men cannot understand, appreciate or act on issues involving gender equity evidently merely because of their chromosomal structure.

Utter crap, Lorraine.  Sheer crap.

Second, she might want to pay attention to something like the lack of any obvious qualification for the appointee other than his impeccable Provincial Conservative ones. Rather than make sexist comments, Lorraine might try addressing substance.

Third, she might want to watch the news once in a while. 

Lorraine Michael is the kind of opposition a government loves:  clueless and hence completely ineffective. 

Go ahead and write your letter to Danny, Lorraine. 

It’s sure to have a profound effect on the guy who eats tough multinational companies for breakfast.

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Danny and the Moe Howard School of Diplomacy

[original 15 Oct 06; Updated 160800NDT Oct 06]

So much for kissing and make up with the federal government.

Offal News has as good a take on the weekend events at the provincial Tory convention as you will find.

No small irony that a guy who only five years ago made fun of the provincial Liberal government fighting with the federal Liberal government is now in a situation where he is fighting with everyone, big or small, Tory or heretic.

[Photo: Premier Danny Williams and finance minister Loyola Sullivan plan their next war with Ottawa in advance of the 2007 provincial general election. Not exactly as illustrated]

This is the New Approach, for sure.

Meanwhile, Canadian Press has reported on the weekend events (see below). For some reason, CP did not get any quotes on the Slander in Gander donnybrook from deputy premier Tom Rideout [Photo, right, exactly as illustrated]

Question: Is this the first time Premier Danny Williams has taken it upon himself to tell what went on in a private meeting only for us to discover later that what Danny said and what actually happened were two entirely different things?

Update: Here's the answer to the question. Danny Williams claimed Stephen Harper was prepared to consider so-called fallow field legislation for the offshore. Williams is looking for the legal power to force development of offshore fields. He raised the idea after failing to achieve a deal on Hebron.

CBC Radio is reporting this morning a statement from the Prime Minister's Office which rejects the idea. The PM never agreed to consider or think about it apparently. Take note of the reference in the CBC story to contracts fairly negotiated or something along those lines.

This seems like an oblique reference to the issues of bad faith bargaining raised here about Danny Williams' approach to negotiations with the oil companies. Steve doesn't likely read the Bond Papers, but he seems to be talking about the same issue and heading to the same conclusion about Danny.



Williams takes aim at Ottawa in drive for re election in Newfoundland
The Canadian Press
Oct 15, 2006

By Tara Brautigam

GANDER, N.L. (CP) _ Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams hopes to capitalize on a growing standoff with Ottawa in his quest for province-wide dominance in next year's provincial election.

Williams rallied his party at a weekend Progressive Conservative convention in Gander, with a fiery speech that drew a deep line between himself and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The premier warned Saturday night that he would urge Newfoundlanders to vote against Harper in the next future federal election if the province loses out in a revised equalization formula.

Hours earlier, Williams and Harper met in an effort to resolve their differences over several thorny issues, including a revised equalization formula. But their discussion about equalization only further chilled relations between the two Tory leaders.

The meeting was "heated,"' one of the premier's staffers said Sunday. [Ed note: This likely means the Premier was shouting, as he is wont to do, while the other person is being calm and professional.]

Williams has made a political career of fighting the federal government.

In December 2004, he pulled down the Canadian flags from provincial buildings during talks for a revamped Atlantic Accord to give Newfoundland full protection against equalization clawbacks on offshore royalties.

In early January, the flags went back up, and an agreement was reached after marathon talks in Ottawa a month later.

"Fighting the enormous resources of the federal government and achieving a new deal on the Atlantic Accord is not easy, but that doesn't mean it's impossible,"' Williams told about 600 supporters Saturday, indicating he would step up his battle against Ottawa before his re-election campaign.

"Stay tuned, you might be into round two before this one is all over."'

Williams also warned the party not to take the Oct. 9, 2007 election for granted, a message echoed by party president John Babb.

"A quick clean sweep? Who knows?"' Babb said. "But from our point of view, we're not making any predictions."

The Progressive Conservatives can make big gains in the next election, observers say.

At least two polls this year suggested Williams enjoyed an approval rating above 70 per cent, despite a government spending scandal that led to the resignation of Ed Byrne, one of his top cabinet ministers, in June.

But the Liberals have slammed Williams for neglecting rural Newfoundland and Labrador, areas beset by waves of residents moving to Alberta for work because of mass layoffs from the forestry and fisheries industries.

Currently there are 35 Progressive Conservatives in the provincial legislature, 11 Liberal members and one New Democrat.

A byelection has been called for Nov. 1 to fill a vacant seat in the Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi riding in St. John's, where high profile criminal lawyer Jerome Kennedy will run for the Tories against NDP Leader Lorraine Michael.

The Liberals are not running a candidate.

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