The ABCs of ABC #nlpoli

 

In 2004, Danny Williams fought for three months against a federal government decision that had been settled – at least for the federal government – earlier in the year as part of the usual budget cycle.

Williams got the money the federal government had allocated but won the domestic war for public opinion.

In 2007,  Williams and his provincial Conservatives launched a second political holy war against the federal government’s budget decisions.  Williams waged a much longer war,  lost it, but was widely credited at home with a victory.

There were other similarities

The uncivil Civil War #nlpoli

At the heart of the ongoing civil war between Danny Williams’ provincial Conservatives and Stephen Harper’s federal Conservatives is the claim by Williams that Harper broke his 2006 election promise on Equalization.

Williams wrote to each of the federal party leaders and asked the leaders to state their party’s position on Equalization.

Smoke, mirrors, and Harper’s senate moratorium #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Heading into an election and with the three major federal parties within five or six points of each other in the opinion polls, the Prime Minister has decided that this is the time to talk about reforming the senate.

Stephen Harper said last week that he will not make any more appointments to the senate.  His plan is to create a crisis and then either reform the senate or abolish it in the ensuing melee among and with the provincial premiers.

The New Democrats are flattered. They have already advocated abolishing the senate altogether. This is a popular idea in Quebec where the NDP are threatened by the resurgence of the Bloc Quebecois.  The NDP won its current status as official opposition in 2011 with a surprising haul of seats in the province as the Bloc vote collapsed and its supporters looked for a politically friendly home. 

The sovereignists found a welcome embrace from the NDP.  To the extent that anyone else in the country thinks about the senate, it is likely only as the object of derision given the recent scandals over spending.  Few have thought through the implication of the NDP plan.  In Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, it would cut in half the province’s representation in Ottawa. 

Kremlinology 42: Dependency and the Loan Guarantee #nlpoli

The cost of the Muskrat Falls project has escalated to the point where the provincial government can’t do it without a federal loan guarantee.

Premier Kathy Dunderdale said as much on Wednesday when she finally got around to meeting with reporters two days after her meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In her long rambling answer to the first question, she called the loan guarantee “important” at least twice. How far they have come since Danny Williams first started down the entirely political road to build the entirely political project.

The Federal-Provincial Puzzle #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale is frustrated.

“Extremely frustrated”

“What is it that we have to do down here to get your attention?” she asked, rhetorically, on Thursday.

She expressed that frustration in the House of Assembly in response to questions from Liberal leader Dwight Ball and in a scrum with reporters.  Dunderdale aimed her barbs most especially at defence minister Peter MacKay.

If the Premier is having trouble getting her message through to the federal government, attacking an influential cabinet minister in public for something he didn’t do won’t help matters.

It just piles bad tactics on top of flawed strategies.

Stephen Harper’s Goose Bay promise #nlpoli #cdnpoli

 

-srbp-

Expectations

Having jacked expectations through the ceiling, Kathy Dunderdale better convince Stephen Harper to commit to halt the transfer of the jobs at the coast guard search and rescue co-ordination office in St. John’s to Halifax.

If she gets nothing, then she will bear responsibility for the failure.

The only worse outcome will be if harper takes Dunderdale’s commitment to have the provincial government pay for the federal operation.

Dunderdale and Harper will speak by telephone this evening, apparently but Dunderdale has already said she won’t be available to brief reporters on the call afterward.

Local media are hyping the crap out of it based on Dunderdale’s babbling in front of reporters on Tuesday.

- srbp -

Libs, Cons and Dips put faith in preposterous financial claims #exln41

The people who push specific megaprojects usually over-estimate the benefits and under-estimate the costs.

That’s the result of a Scandinavian study of these sorts of things. The title is Megaprojects and risk.  They used examples taken from around the world:

Cost overruns and lower-than-predicted revenues frequently place project viability at risk and redefine projects that were initially promoted as effective vehicles to economic growth as possible obstacles to such growth. The Channel tunnel, opened in 1994 at a construction cost of £ 4.7 billion, is a case in point with several near-bankruptcies caused by construction cost overruns of 80 percent, financing costs that are 140 percent higher than those forecast and revenues less than half of those projected (see chapters 2-4). The cost overrun for Denver’s US$5 billion new international airport, opened in 1995, was close to 200 percent and passenger traffic in the opening year was only half of that projected. Operating problems with Hong Kong’s new US$20 billion Chek Lap Kok airport, which opened in 1998, initially caused havoc not only to costs and revenues at the airport; the problems spread to the Hong Kong economy as such with negative effects on growth in gross domestic product. After nine months of operations, The Economist dubbed the airport a “fiasco”, said to have cost the Hong Kong economy US$600 million. The fiasco may have been only a start-up problem, albeit an expensive one, but it is the type of expense that is rarely taken into account when planning megaprojects.

With that as background, consider that all three federal political parties are backing a megaproject in Labrador where the numbers just don’t add up.

labradore does a fine job of exposing the problem using comments from the provincial legislature last week.

Opposition leader Yvonne Jones asked Premier Kathy Dunderdale about current costs estimates for things like a transmission line from Labrador to St. John’s.  The current forecast price is the same as the price in 1998 despite the fact that  - for example – steel prices have climbed 200% in the years since.

Dunderdale’s response is really interesting.  She doesn’t explain anything but basically stands behind the contention that she and her geniuses have somehow magically eliminated the impact of inflation on this project.

Minor problem, notes labradore.

Nalcor’s geniuses told the environmental assessment panel reviewing the project that inflation still works, but only for things they have no interest in doing.  Like say a power line to the small communities in Labrador who will will only get to watch the power lines run by their communities on the way to the island and Nova Scotia:

In fact, in 2001 the Province estimated that the cost of constructing transmission lines to these communities would be in the range of $300 million. With inflation and increased costs for materials and labour, that number would be even higher today.

- srbp -

Harper and coalitions

Without hypocrisy, some political leaders wouldn’t have anything to stand for.

Last night, a post from 2008  - “Taking power without an election” - suddenly found renewed popularity.

Given Stephen Harper’s condemnation of coalitions after he dropped by the Governor General’s place on Saturday, it becomes all the more hysterically funny to recall that in 2004, Steve thought coalitions were the cat’s ass.  They were just the answer the GG should give if the prime minister came a-calling looking for an election writ.

Coalition governments are bad.

Unless Steve is heading one.

Then they are good.

- srbp -

A leaf from Harper’s political playbook, by J. Layton

Jack Layton and the New Democratic Party want the federal government to drop the goods and services tax on home heating costs.

Layton had a wonderful story to go with his call, as recounted by Aaron Wherry at macleans.ca:

“Mr. Speaker, Frank Rainville is a senior in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario who told me about how his bills for basic utilities have gone up by $20 a month just this past month because of the government’s HST,” the NDP’s Jack Layton reported a short time later. “He asked me how he could cope with heating bills when he has to turn the thermostat on because it is cold up there. The fact is heating bills are going up all across the country and working families are struggling right now. Will the Prime Minister show some leadership, join with us and work to take the federal sales tax off home heating fuel now?”

Yes, folks, Jack Layton and his fellow new Democrats are standing up for the working poor, people and fixed incomes and all sorts of downtrodden, hard-done-by people. Well, at least that’s what the die-hard Dippers out there will tell you.

But just think about it for a second. Mr. Rainville is going to have to cough up an extra $20 a month for heating thanks to what Layton has taken to calling the Harper Sales tax.  Rainville’s on a fixed income and that 20 bucks will come in handy.  Even though Layton’s little HST cut is aimed primarily at voters in Ontario and British Columbia where the HST is very unpopular, there are plenty of Mr. Rainvilles throughout Newfoundland and Labrador and the same cut to the heating costs will help them out, too.

Yay, Jack.

Well, not so fast.

These sorts of blanket tax cuts – the stock in trade of conservatives  - have the wonderful effect of cutting costs and they have the even more wonderful effect – from a Connie perspective of helping rich people proportionately more than people like Mr. Rainville. In St. John’s someone in public housing will get a break, but the person down in King William Estates or one of the other swankier neighbourhoods springing up in St. John’s East will just love the cut on heating oil or electricity that it takes to make their blimp hangers all the more cozy in the cold January night.

If Jack Layton really wanted to help people on fixed incomes, he’d go for something other than a blanket tax cut. Layton and his crew would offer rebates or  - better still - tax breaks tied to income. That way the people who need the help the most could get it and those who can well afford to heat their massive homes can carry right on doing so while footing the bill for their choices.

And actually the problem is not just with giving a disproportionate big break to the wealthy – as the NDP idea would do – or carrying a huge public deficit while helping out the wealthy.  That’s all bad enough just as it is bad enough that the average Republican looking at this scheme would embrace Layton as a discipline of Karl.  

Jack Layton’s tax cut idea is also damned poor environmental policy. Canadians don’t need to be rewarding energy inefficiency or giving people the chance to consume more energy.   An across-the-board tax cut does just that.  It potentially makes the NDP vulnerable on the left from the Greens, but there seems to be a conscious effort in the NDP thinking that they should just look for more votes in places where they can fight Conservatives, like out west or in a couple of ridings in Newfoundland.  That’s pretty much in tune with the NDP position on the gun registry as well.

Now the NDP position isn’t all bad.  They do want to bring back an energy efficiency incentive program.  That’s a great idea and coupled with a targeted tax break scheme, it would be a progressive social policy.

Unfortunately, this isn’t about progressive social policy:  the New Democrats are playing politics like Stephen Harper.  This HST thing is just Connie-style retail politics.

And politically, it is a sensible  - if monumentally cynical - thing to do if you want to get elected.  Jack Harris in St. John’s East will win re-election handily with such an idea.  All the well-heeled people in his district will love his conservative policies while the people on fixed and low incomes will get a bit of cash to make them happy too.  Over in St. John’s South-Mount Pearl, the same thing applies even if there aren’t as many people with giant houses there.

Basically these sorts of Conservative-looking policies might help sagging New Democrat fortunes in a place like St. John’s where, as bizarre as the idea might seem, Conservatives will vote New Democrat if they can’t vote Connie for some reason.

It might work.  Too bad for Jack Layton and the New Democrats there likely won’t be an election for some months yet.  By the time people head to the polls federally, this sort of thing will likely be long forgotten.  But in the meantime it is interesting to see just exactly how much influence Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party have had on Canadian politics.

- srbp -

88 and a wedgie!

There’s an old Newfoundland joke about a fellow jumping up and down on a manhole cover on a street in downtown Ottawa.

A crowd gathers to watch the guy.  They are amazed at his exuberance in jumping up and down and yelling “87!” at the top of every leap.

Finally one of the mainlanders strikes up the courage to ask what he’s doing.

“Jumping up and down,” sez the Newfoundlander.  “You should try it.  Lots of fun."

So after a couple of minutes the fellow puts down his briefcase and steps forward to take his spot. The Newfoundlander steps aside.

The mainlander jumps up and as he does, the Newfoundlander whips the manhole cover out.  The poor mainlander drops straight into the sewer.

The Newfoundlander pushes the cover back in place and starts jumping again, a big grin on his face.

“88!” he yells.

Danny Williams could be that Newfoundlander.

And Michael Ignatieff is the hapless fellow staring down at the open sewer beneath his feet.

The Ig-man, you see, deigned to visit Newfoundland and Labrador on Friday and pledged any government he leads will be a “good partner” and pay for the Lower Churchill.

According to a story in the Saturday Telegram  here’s what Ignatieff told reporters after the Board of Trade luncheon:

When it comes to the Lower Churchill, the federal leader said every Canadian wants the project to be developed and pledge the Liberal’s support [sic] for it, if his party takes office. [Telegram, Saturday Nov 28, 2009, p.A5, “Ignatieff says Harper lacks vision”,  not on line]

Now Ignatieff didn’t offer to foot the whole bill,  but the actual words and their meaning has always been no never mind in the world Danny Williams’ lives in.  If Williams wants to make the claim, he will.  Not a single politician or reporter in the province will take the time to find out what – if anything – the other party actually said.  They will do as they have always done:  accept Danny Williams’ version at face value, even if there is evidence readily available which contradicts his claim. 

At the very least, Williams will use Ignatieff ’s naive comments as a political poker to ram into whatever part of Ignatieff serves Williams’ purse.  He did it to Paul Martin.  He’s done it to Stephen Harper. 

And if Danny Williams wants to impress Stephen Harper as a way of mending broken fences between the federal and provincial Conservatives, Ignatieff has given Williams the perfect weapon with which to beat Liberal candidates about the head.  Some will undoubtedly sheer off, as they have sheered off in the past desperate for any sign of Williams’ favour.  Others will feel the pain as their leader’s words are pounded at them from every corner.

If that were not bad enough, Ignatieff also waded into the transmission corridor issue, talking about getting Newfoundland and Labrador power to market.   Ignatieff ’s advisors should have warned him off such an issue since it is entirely fictional.   They didn’t or he ignored them.  Either way, Ignatieff ’s comments on transmission corridors will do do nothing but give Williams a wedge for himself or for Stephen Harper to use between Ignatieff and provincial Liberals in New Brunswick and Quebec. 

Maybe none of that will occur.

But if recent history is any guide, Michael Ignatieff just set himself as the next federal political leader to jump up off the manhole cover in the modern-day incarnation of a very old joke.

-srbp-

Chew the wafer

The Prime Minister is in a bit of a political hard spot with questions over what he did with the  Eucharistic host at the recent funeral for Romeo LeBlanc.

Some say he didn’t eat it, as one is supposed to do, but rather slipped it into his pocket.

His office insists he did the appropriate thing.

Oh yeah.

There’s video, of course.

But it’s basically a piece of junk that shows absolutely nothing other than the PM accepting the communion wafer like everyone else.  If you pay attention to the text slides inserted at the front and the back of the clip, though, you might be fooled into thinking something else happened.

If there’s a question, then perhaps we should look to his staff who may have simply forgotten to make sure that every protocol point was covered.

Frankly, given the occasion – the funeral of a fine and respected gentleman – people should be willing to ignore this even if every accusation were true.  The controversy doesn’t damage Stephen Harper so much as it tarnishes the memory of the late governor general.

So let’s just turn the page on that one, shall we?

And if you want to watch a video that will unsettle some Roman Catholics out there,  just sit back, relax and enjoy a little vintage Tom Lehrer, complete with the introduction to set the stage and Tom’s momentary lapse of memory for his own lyrics:

-srbp-

Coincidence: Abitibi union version

Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union leaders met with Danny Williams in St. John’s in early April.

As a Canadian Press story put it on April 2, 2009:

"It really does create a lot of uncertainty ... and our members and retired members are uneasy about what's taking place," he [CEP president Dave Coles] said from Halifax, as he was returning from a meeting with Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams.

A day after returning from the meeting, the union decided that the federal government needed to step in an bail out the company.  From cbc.ca on April 3, 2009:

Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union president Dave Coles says Stephen Harper must intervene.

"Our demand of the government is that it take care of the Canadian workers.… I want the prime minister to get off his duff and do something for Canadian workers," said Coles.

-srbp-

Trouble in Harper-ville

Two senior advisors set to leave the Harper PMO is not a good sign for the Conservative leader.

Even Don Martin is talking about it.

Meanwhile, the latest Strategic Counsel poll has the Liberals and Conservatives in a tie nationally. A Harris-Decima survey shows overwhelmingly strong support for the Liberal budget initiative of regular performance updates.

-srbp-

They need a time out

There is a growing consensus that the current political crisis in Ottawa came from the Conservative Party's heavy-handed approach to government displayed in the mis-named financial update. 

Finance minister Jim Flaherty went beyond merely giving a report on the government's cash flows and the state of the Canadian economy to launch a much broader set of initiatives that would, among other things, ban strikes in the public service for several years.  There was no reason for such a draconian move but it was there.

What wasn't there was any sign of a stimulus package for the economy. To anyone listening to Flaherty's comments the words "stay the course" came to mind; but stay the course is hardly the option given both the serious downturn and the extent to which previous Conservative spending had decimated the public treasury. 

More than a decade of enormous surpluses produced by sound fiscal management had become piddling amounts that, in all likelihood would turn into deficits. 

The whole episode brought into the open once more concerns among Canadians that, when times turned tough, the ruling element within the party would head home to its ideological roots rather than display typically Canadian pragmatism.

On top of that, the crisis has shown up some of the fissures within the party rooted in the discomfort over Stephen Harper's autocratic style.

Clearly this is a party which has not only shown itself to be incapable of governing in a difficult period in a minority parliament.  This is a group which has manifest problems within its own ranks that need to be sorted. Dirty political tricks of the type the Conservatives used in their ruthless drive for power, hysterical rhetoric and churlish behaviour of the past few days merely remind Canadians of the controversy that continues to swirl around the Conservative Party of Canada.  A once proud and vital Canadian political force has been brought to a low not seen since the early 1990s. The party of Sir John A Macdonald and Brian Mulroney is now the party with nothing more to offer than reflexive Rovianisms.

Clearly, this is a party which needs a time out from government.

Better for them to take the time to fix their own problems and make an appeal to Canadians once again when they are ready to govern.

In the meantime, Canadian parliamentary democracy has offered a viable alternative to either more of a dysfunctional government or a second election in less than six months.  The Conservatives have tried to monger fear of separatism.  Aside from their baseless claims about senate seats and vetoes, the check against any notion that the country will fall apart rests in the elected members of parliament who would support a coalition government.

In particular, Canadians can rest assured that there is no one better in the next few months to ensure the unity of the country than Stephane Dion.  His record on separatism is clear.  He has found no need, in stark contrast to Mr. Harper, to try and curry favour with those who would see the federal government weakened to the point where the country ceases to function as surely as he we have seen him weaken the federal government's finances.

Time for the Conservatives to take a time out.

The only question is whether their current leader has the strength to face the House in a vote of confidence.  If he will not do that then surely he does not deserve the confidence of Canadians.

-srbp-

Connies start to unravel

The coalition is ready to get down to work but it isn't in office yet.

There are a few hurdles to overcome.

Still, the fact that the opposition parties have been able to cement an agreement that would provide stable, progressive government for the country at a time of economic turmoil is a testament to the good will and the vision of the men and women elected just this past fall to the House of Commons.

They stand, as such, in stark contrast, to the federal Conservatives who have worked diligently over the past five years or so to foster every form of division within Canadian politics.

The signs of stress are showing in the Connie camp.

Their sock puppets and other assorted plants turned up on talk radio on Monday spouting the standard talking points.  Too bad they were all out of date and too bad that the efforts to open cracks or sow seeds of doubt aren't taking.

But what with all the back-pedaling and the fulminating against an approach Stephen Harper himself tried but couldn't deliver, you know the Conservatives didn't figure on this response to their miserable economic "update". 

A mystery web site pushing John Baird as an alternative is likely to open up any cracks inside the Conservatives. There's another one promoting Jim Prentice for the job once Harper is gone. Now it doesn't matter if this is a Conservative inside job or a pair of sites by Liberal or New Democrat operatives.

Either way it spells problems for the rank and file and hence for the Conservatives.  They've held on this long by tight internal discipline. These sites and the whole pressure of the gaffe from last week might be enough to distract the Conservatives.

Another sign of the problems within the federal Conservatives - or maybe a new problem would be the better term - can be found in the skullduggery of taping an opposition caucus meeting.  It's just another distasteful episode from a party that has, in cases like Grewahl, shown itself able to stoop pretty low in the quest for power. The NDP have called the Mounties but even if nothing comes of it, the whole episode just reminds Canadians of what kind of ethics the current federal government believes in.

No one supporting the coalition should count any chickens before they are hatched.  Now that they are in power the Conservatives will do just about anything to keep their fingers on the levers.  They've shown the depths they will sink to already.

But in the meantime, just watch the signs as they unravel.  They might just be in the early stages of spin from which they cannot recover.

-srbp-

Harper's 2004 letter to the GG: full text

Posted at Bond Papers last Friday:

"Taking power without an election."

-srbp- 

Cats, frogs and something really lost in translation

Cute piece about Stephen Harper in Yarmouth Nova Scotia, a tickle in his throat and the side story about the different idiomatic expressions in English and French for the condition.  Frog in the throat in English;  cat in the throat in French.  A cough, a chuckle and a gaggle of confuddled Francophone reporters who missed the almost gaffe

All that from an English language Canadian Press story carried by the Star online.

Mais, the readers of copy from La Presse Canadienne got an autre histoire.

Seems Harper was coughing.

He was also pretty clear that while he thought Acadians were lovely people he had no intention of introducing a motion in the Commons recognizing the Acadians as comprising a nation within Canada:

"Je n'ai pas l'intention de faire une motion à la Chambre des communes", a déclaré, hier, le chef Stephen Harper, lors d'un point de presse à Yarmouth, en Nouvelle-Écosse.

Harper couldn't have had a cat in his throat.  The feline was too busy being set among the pigeons.

-srbp-

Steve and Stock in 2003

From the Wall Street Journal, March 2003, Stephen Harper and Stockwell Day tell Americans their position on Iraq (presumably not stolen from someone else):

Canadians Stand With You

By STEPHEN HARPER and STOCKWELL DAY

Today, the world is at war. A coalition of countries under the leadership of the U.K. and the U.S. is leading a military intervention to disarm Saddam Hussein. Yet Prime Minister Jean Chretien has left Canada outside this multilateral coalition of nations.

This is a serious mistake. For the first time in history, the Canadian government has not stood beside its key British and American allies in their time of need. The Canadian Alliance -- the official opposition in parliament -- supports the American and British position because we share their concerns, their worries about the future if Iraq is left unattended to, and their fundamental vision of civilization and human values. Disarming Iraq is necessary for the long-term security of the world, and for the collective interests of our key historic allies and therefore manifestly in the national interest of Canada. Make no mistake, as our allies work to end the reign of Saddam and the brutality and aggression that are the foundations of his regime, Canada's largest opposition party, the Canadian Alliance will not be neutral. In our hearts and minds, we will be with our allies and friends. And Canadians will be overwhelmingly with us.

But we will not be with the Canadian government.

Modern Canada was forged in large part by war -- not because it was easy but because it was right. In the great wars of the last century -- against authoritarianism, fascism, and communism -- Canada did not merely stand with the Americans, more often than not we led the way. We did so for freedom, for democracy, for civilization itself. These values continue to be embodied in our allies and their leaders, and scorned by the forces of evil, including Saddam Hussein and the perpetrators of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That is why we will stand -- and I believe most Canadians will stand with us -- for these higher values which shaped our past, and which we will need in an uncertain future.

Messrs. Harper and Day are the leader and shadow foreign minister, respectively, of the Canadian Alliance.

This comes from a supposedly conservative website, so presumably they just copied as is.  Short, sweet and too the point.  Harper may have cribbed the text of his speech that same month in the House of Commons, but there can be no mistake about the position that Harper and his party (now doing business as the Conservative Party of Canada) took on the need to invade Iraq.

-srbp-

Separated at birth: the international Connie speechifying version

Stephen Harper's 2003 speech on Iraq was lifted from a speech by Australian Prime Minister John Howard delivered two days before Harper's oration.

In classic Connie fashion, the gaffe has been blamed on a staffer.  In classic Harper fashion -  and in the interests of direct personal accountability - Harper stuck his spokesperson out front to toss a few  lines at the media.

The guy who wrote the speech is a fellow at the Fraser Institute and used to write speeches for Bill Vander Zalm and Kim Campbell.  Vander Zalm was premier of British Columbia.  Campbell was the short-lived prime minister who succeeded Brian Mulroney until the spectacular political disaster in the 1993 general election when her party was reduced to two seats.