A week of truth for the Conservatives #nlpoli

Not that we didn’t know the provincial government had already granted exemptions to its supposedly sacred minimum fish processing requirements, but CBC this week gave us an insight into just how often the government has waived the MPRs.

In 2010,  the provincial government approved 11t exemptions out of 19 requests.  In the last six months of 2014 alone,  it approved 27 out of 29 requests. 

That’s quite a jump.

The wild spurt of exemptions came at exactly the same time  - ironically enough - that Premier Paul Davis was insisting that MPRs were an essential part of the government’s efforts to keep fish processing jobs in the province.

They were so important that he and his colleagues would only give them up for a $280 million slush fund of federal cash controlled by the provincial government.

When is a cut not a cut? #nlpoli

A couple of years ago, the province’s auditor general noted that a Crown agency responsible for developing an integrated health information system was paying salaries to its employees that were way outside provincial government guidelines.

The Telegram reported last fall that the problem was still unresolved 18 months after the auditor general issued his report. This was no small matter. Salaries grew 354% between 2007 and 2012, according to the Telegram. In one case, the salary for a senior executive member jumped by 119%.

Last week, and in the wake of an updated report by the province’s auditor general, Canadian Press reported that health minister Steve Kent had cut salaries at NLCHI. They’d save $50, 000 in one case and altogether the salary cuts would save $330,000.

Small problem.

Fearful Symmetry #nlpoli

There are a couple of constables in an office over in the basement of the old Memorial College building at Fort Townshend, right next to where the USO building used to be.  They handle all the mysterious calls about weird goings on,  sort of like a local version of the X-Files.

So the scuttlebutt has it at the nearby Timmies,  the boys got a call Thursday afternoon about the time Ross Wiseman was reading his budget speech.  The workers over a Colonial Building said they saw two fellows come out of the old House of Assembly Chamber,  arm-in-arm. 

There was one older fellow, a bit on the round side,  who walked with a limp.  The other fellow walked very straight and had a really high collar on his shirt.  Sorta like Don Cherry would wear one of the workers said.

The two fellows went out the front door of the building, the workers inside said.  The only problem was they didn’t open the door.  They just walked through it.

Opposition grows to antidemocratic House cuts #nlpoli

Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador,  the umbrella organization that speaks for the province’s towns and cities, doesn’t like the plan to slash the number of representatives the people of the province have speaking for them in the House of Assembly.

“We believe that a reduction in representation will have serious implications for municipal governments and the communities they represent, “ MNL posted to its Facebook page on Monday.

Easy and frequent access to our MHAs is critically important to municipal leaders. So much of municipal work is done in partnership with the provincial government, and any erosion of this relationship would set us back - particularly in rural communities. Effective democracy comes at a price. We need to think long and hard before we decide that price is too high.

A group of university professors also released a copy of a letter they sent to members of the House of Assembly.

Fishery reform: the deeper story #nlpoli

NTV’s Thursday report on Loyola Sullivan focused on the union protests and accusations of a conflict of interest from Liberal Jim Bennett.

But the more interesting news on Thursday came from Michael Connors’ tweets about Sullivan’s speech to the employer’s council.

Sullivan is now talking about the economic problems in Europe. He says world's faltering economies are a result of living beyond means.

He's veering back to the debt issue now.

Sullivan talks about governments spending irresponsibly so they could get re-elected.

Sullivan now talking about his own tenure as finance minister. Proud that he brought down first balanced budget in 2006.

Now talking about how province can bring down per capita debt. Dunderdale wants to cut that number in half in 10 years

Sullivan raising concerns about province's debt to GDP ratio.

Sullivan says government should commit to balanced budgets and debt reduction.

Connors called it surreal but what he was really seeing here is a clue to some pretty big political backstories.

Go back in time and it doesn’t take too much imagination to think that Sullivan left the Tory cabinet abruptly in 2006 as a result of a huge disagreement over financial policy.  The 2007 budget – an election year budget  - that they would have been discussing when Sullivan quit saw a huge increase in pork-barrel spending and set the tone for the rest of Danny Williams’ tenure.

Sullivan wasn’t any great shakes when it came to sound fiscal [planning but his couple of years as finance minister are a model of tight-fistedness compared to the Dipper-esque spending sprees of the Danny Williams/Tom Marshall era.

There was something serious on the go at the time.  Danny Williams announced his resignation around the same time. In the months after Sullivan left, Williams got increasingly testier.  That’s when the Old man tossed a public threat at your humble e-scribbler and started musing about getting rid of free speech in the legislature.

Slide forward in time to the current day and you can see signs of a pretty big split in the local Tory party that just got a whole lot wider.  This OCI versus the government story is about more than the fishery.  The Sullivans are a crowd of Big Tories. The family has lots of friends and supporters across the province. Loyola’s a former leader of the party.

When Sullivan made some pointed comments about the current crowd’s lack of financial prowess, he was likely speaking for a large number of local Tories.  His comment about the debt was a very clear shot at Tom Marshall and Kathy Dunderdale.  You could also add a poke at the Muskrat Falls plan into Sullivan’s comment about the public debt.  Muskrat Falls, after all, is about increasing the public debt.

Things are not sunshine and roses inside Tory circles and they haven’t been for some time.

Loyola Sullivan’s speech on Thursday is a sign of how big a rift there is

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Ah, that explains everything…

The Old Man, quoted in the National Post, describes his own political party’s philosophy:

We have a Reform-based Conservative Party which is probably ideologically more right-wing.

More right wing than what he doesn’t say, but that’s not the key bit.

But here’s a question:  how many Progressive Conservatives in the province, the ones that like to put weight on the progressive side of the ledger, knew that in 2001  they started supporting a “Reform-based” Conservative Party?

And on what the Old Man calls the “other side”, he just talks about how much money he spends:  “We’ve doubled our health-care budget. We’ve put a lot of money into education.”

There it is, though, straight from the horse’s mouth: Newfoundland and Labrador is currently run by a  “Reform-based Conservative Party.”

That explains a lot of things.

- srbp -

Politics and Language in Newfoundland, Corner Brook version

Someone writes a letter to the Western Star commenting on Danny  Williams’ use of language.

Some members of The Fan Club take issue in predictable ways.

More comments follow, pro and con.

Fascinating.

-srbp-

Prissy politics

Anyone ever see a letter to the editor from Dr. Noel Cadigan taking a politician to task for referring to someone as a traitor?

Doubtful you’ll find one.

But Cadigan found a problem with the use of the word “crackie” in reference to health minister Jerome Kennedy.  For those who don’t know, a crackie is a common enough term in colloquial Newfoundland English for a small, yappy dog.  It’s also a common-enough term in Newfoundland politics.

All in all, it is relatively benign.

So benign in fact it that a letter from anyone complaining of its use – save from an elderly maiden aunt who was born in the reign of Queen Anne – stands out.

Cadigan isn’t that pompous, most likely, nor is he quite as sensitive as the letter suggests.  Rather he is using  the coded language of current Newfoundland politics.  Note the lecturing, condescending tone of the letter in the fashion of a prissy school master lecturing an errant lower form boy in a public school. 

Note as well the pointed reference to what the Telegram ought to be doing instead of offering critical commentary in an editorial.

Sound much like Paul Oram?

You get the picture.

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