Nothing could be further from the truth

Hands up anyone who recalls a little spat between the parliamentary press gallery and the Prime Minister's Office over who gets to decide who asks questions during a prime ministerial newser?

Anyone?

Didn't think so.

One of the things Stephen Harper can add to his list of accomplishments is taking the cajones from reporters in the Ottawa press gallery.

The crowd that prided themselves on supposedly liking their meat raw and freshly stripped from the hide of an unsuspecting politician are now dutifully chowing down on whatever scraps their PMO handlers toss them.

Like the whole Daddy Steve series of photo opportunities.

Or the photo gracing the front online page of the Globe this nearly last weekend of the campaign.

It shows the PM in front of a couple of signs held aloft by what appear to be adolescent women.

The signs read "I have a crush on Harper".

Does this not strike anyone as bizarre, in the extreme?

Let's leave aside for a moment the fact the young women appear to be holding the signs carefully so that the photographer they are evidently aware of cannot catch their faces.

When was the last time you can recall a political leader stirring the loins of young women or men in this country spontaneously?

Anyone?

Exactly.  And in this instance, it is clearly nothing more than an organized event, a complete contrivance.

The Conservative Party campaign is so hermetically sealed that a young woman from a television show with her credentials intact is hustled from the room and slapped in handcuffs.  There are many media events where the Prime Minister simply does not take questions.This is not an environment for spontaneity or sarcastic protests. 

Nope.

These sign holders - with their perfect cut out letters and oddly matching design layout - were very likely officially approved participants in the photo op.

What we are looking at here is a fabrication.

They are like the stories of Harper at his high school reunion or with a family, especially babies.

They are to news coverage what those e-mails abut Viagra and some Nigerian bank official with bags of American cash are to your e-mail inbox:

Spam.

However, the taming the gallery goes considerably further than just the odd stunt photo passing as something real. People die from tainted meat.  The agriculture minister discusses the issue on a conference call with government officials and places the handling of the crisis in both a partisan (wrong enough) and a personally partisan context (even wronger).

Reporters pen apologias that make the PMO press wranglers drool in envy, they could never have written stuff that aped sincerity so well.  News rooms, we are told, are places of dark humour.  Just like cabinet ministers' offices. Reporters and editors all deal with such weighty, difficult issues on a daily basis they resort to gallows humour to help them get through.  We must forgive Gerry Ritz for he is just human like the rest of us. 

Apparently, unlike Wayne Easter or the 17 dead and their families who are not part of the circle of people hefting the weight of the world on their shoulders..

And that young woman, slapped in cuffs?  She was from the entertainment side of things and after all, it was - as one report called it - a lighter moment on the tour.  No sarcasm in sight on that one, either.

The Conservatives run television ads which contain false information.  Not a peep of comment, certainly not the torrent with which it should be met when any political party resorts to blatant falsehood as a core part of its campaign.

Then there's the puffin poop.  The smudge of guano vanishes and news reporters trumpet the very wise apology offered by the campaign and wag fingers at the naughty staffers who supposedly slipped off the leash.

In such a tightly control campaign?  Gimme a break.

And the vicious personal attack site on which the guano was now gone?  Absolutely intact and free to continue presenting its officially sanction tripe, ignored by virtually all of the news media.  Its message  - a savage attack on a national party leader's character - survived the contrived apology built around fake bird crap.

The lightweight, the superficial reporting of this election campaign strikes all media forms, public and private. The early gaffes by the Conservative party and its multi-million dollar war room went largely unreported except in a couple of small corners, while the problems in the Liberal campaign, both real and many more imaginary, were front page news.  They continue to be. Whether its the news spaces or the blog spaces, there's an unmistakable tone to the coverage and that tone is light.

It seems to go a bit beyond the normal advantage that goes with incumbency.  There seems to be a certain active collaboration, an apparent willful blindness to the obvious on the part of many news outlets.

That likely sounds awfully familiar to voters in Newfoundland and Labrador.

They saw just Friday past the announcement of yet another investigation into computer security in the provincial government's system; reported straight up with no context,  like say the last time a security breach occurred and the release was turned into its own form of luncheon meat, prepackaged for easier eating by overworked reporters.

Or the "historic" "deal" with the Labrador Innu on Churchill Falls and the Lower Churchill:

CBC:  Instead of taking a direct ownership position, though, the Innu Nation has elected to take an equivalent royalty, which will amount to five per cent of net project revenue.

Globe:  The Innu will get royalties from the new project and, as part of the same agreement announced Friday, will receive millions in compensation for losses suffered in the 1960s when the Upper Churchill project flooded their lands. They also have secured varying rights to 27,000 square miles of land, with legal title to about one-fifth of that.

The same sort of thing is in included in other national and local coverage.

A 20 minute read of the actual agreement shows something else. A trip to the memory hole turns up something else on top of that.

Even old stuff, stuff that long ago was shown to be distorted, misleading and in some aspects downright false reappears in something purporting to be a "reality" check.

The quiet demise of the Family Feud goes unnoticed, even though early reports talked it up as the hottest thing this side of Sarah Palin.

If the polls hold and the Conservatives are re-elected with a strengthened minority or even a majority, odds are that more of the surreal coverage Canadians have seen during the campaign will be commonplace. That's certainly been the case in this neck of the woods under a Provincial Conservative government.

There will undoubtedly be times when it comes to news coverage that Canadians will find themselves falling back on a line that - odds are  - the federal Conservative leader will be using quite a bit, if the pattern holds: 

Nothing could be further from the truth.

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Cult of Personality, federal version

Margaret Atwood in the Thursday Globe:

Or is it even worse? Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they're a mouthy lot and they don't line up and salute very easily. Of course, you can always get some tame artists to design the uniforms and flags and the documentary about you, and so forth - the only kind of art you might need - but individual voices must be silenced, because there shall be only One Voice: Our Master's Voice. Maybe that's why Mr. Harper began by shutting down funding for our artists abroad. He didn't like the competition for media space.

Of course, it's far easier and far more effective to just toss a few bucks at the local "culture" club right before an election to get them to sing your praises.

And you can still have what Atwood calls a cult of personality.

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"Reality Check" reality check on Equalization and the Family Feud

The crew that put together's CBC's usually fine "Reality Check" can be forgiven if they missed a few points by a country mile in a summary of the Family Feud.

Forgiveness is easy since the issues involved are complex and  - at least on the provincial side since 2003 - there has never been a clear statement of what was going on.  Regular Bond Papers readers will be familiar with that.  For others, just flip back to the archives for 2005 and the story is laid out there.

Let's see if we can sort through some of the high points here.

With its fragile economy, Newfoundland and Labrador has always depended on money from the federal government. When they struck oil off the coast, the federal government concluded it would not have to continue shelling out as much money to the provincial treasury. N.L.'s oil would save Ottawa money.

Not really.

Newfoundland and Labrador is no different from most provinces in the country, at least as far as Equalization goes.  Since 1957 - when the current Equalization program started - the provincial government has received that particular form of federal transfer.  So have all the others, at various times, except Ontario.  Quebec remains one of the biggest recipients of Equalization cash, if not on a per capita basis than on a total basis. Economic "fragility" has nothing to do with receiving Equalization.

In the dispute over jurisdiction over the offshore, there was never much of a dispute as far as Equalization fundamentally works.

Had Brian Peckford's view prevailed in 1983/1984, Equalization would have worked just as it always has.  As soon as the province's own source revenues went beyond the national average, the Equalization transfers would have stopped.

Period.

That didn't work out.  Both the Supreme Court of Newfoundland (as it then was called) and in the Supreme Court of Canada, both courts found that jurisdiction over the offshore rested solely with the Government of Canada.  All the royalties went with it.

In the 1985 Atlantic Accord, the Brian Mulroney and Brian Peckford governments worked out a joint management deal.  Under that agreement - the one that is most important for Newfoundland and Labrador - the provincial government sets and collects royalties as if the oil and gas were on land.

And here's the big thing:  the provincial government keeps every single penny.  It always has and always will, as long as the 1985 Accord is in force.

As far as Equalization is concerned, both governments agreed that Equalization would work as it always had.  When a provincial government makes more money on its own than the national average, the Equalization cash stops.

But...they agreed that for a limited period of time, the provincial government would get a special transfer, based on Equalization that would offset the drop in Equalization that came as oil revenues grew.  Not only was the extra cash limited in time, it would also decline such that 12 years after the first oil, there'd be no extra payment.

If the province didn't qualify for Equalization at that point, then that's all there was.  If it still fell under the average, then it would get whatever Equalization it was entitled to under the program at the time.

The CBC reality check leaves a huge gap as far as that goes, making it seem as though the whole thing came down to an argument between Danny Williams and Paul Martin and then Danny and Stephen Harper.

Nothing could be further from the truth, to use an overworked phrase.

During negotiations on the Hibernia project, the provincial government realized the formula wouldn't work out as intended. Rather than leave the provincial government with some extra cash, the 1985 deal would actually function just like there was no offset clause. For every dollar of new cash in from oil, the Equalization system would drop Newfoundland's entitlement by 97 cents, net.

The first efforts to raise this issue - by Clyde Wells and energy minister Rex Gibbons in 1990 - were rebuffed by the Mulroney Conservatives.  They didn't pussy foot around. John Crosbie accused the provincial government of biting the hand that fed it and of wanting to eat its cake and "vomit it up" as well.

It wasn't until the Liberal victory in 1993 that the first efforts were made to address the problem.  Prime Jean Chretien and finance minister Paul Martin amended the Equalization formula to give the provincial government an option of shielding up to 30% of its oil revenue from Equalization calculations.  That option wasn't time limited and for the 12 years in which the 1985 deal allowed for offsets the provincial government could always have the chance to pick the option that gave the most cash.  It only picked the wrong option once.

The Equalization issue remained a cause celebre, especially for those who had been involved in the original negotiations.  It resurfaced in the a 2003 provincial government royal commission study which introduced the idea of a clawback into the vocabulary.  The presentation in the commission reported grossly distorted the reality and the history involved. Some charts that purported to show the financial issues bordered on fraud.

Danny Williams took up the issue in 2004 with the Martin administration and fought a pitched battle - largely in public - over the issue.  He gave a taste of his anti-Ottawa rhetoric in a 2001 speech to Nova Scotia Tories. Little in the way of formal correspondence appears to have been exchanged throughout the early part of 2004.  Up to the fall of 2004 - when detailed discussions started -  the provincial government offered three different versions of what it was looking for.  None matched the final agreement.

The CBC "Reality Check" describes the 2005 agreement this way:

The agreement was that the calculation of equalization payments to Newfoundland and Labrador would not include oil revenue. As the saying goes, oil revenues would not be clawed back. Martin agreed and then-opposition leader Harper also agreed.

Simply put, that's dead wrong.

The 2005 deal provided for another type of transfer to Newfoundland and Labrador from Ottawa on top of the 1985 offset payment.  The Equalization program was not changed in any way. Until the substantive changes to Equalization under Stephen Harper 100% of oil revenues was included to calculate Equalization entitlements.  That's exactly what Danny Williams stated as provincial government policy in January 2006, incidentally.  The Harper changes hid 50% of all non-renewable resource revenues from Equalization (oil and mining) and imposed a cap on total transfers.

As for the revenues being "clawed back", one of the key terms of the 2005 deal is that the whole thing operates based on the Equalization formula that is in place at any given time. Oil revenues are treated like gas taxes, income tax, sales tax, motor vehicle registration and any other type of provincial own-source revenue, just like they have been as long as Equalization has been around.

What the federal Conservatives proposed in 2004 and 2006 as a part of their campaign platform - not just in a letter to Danny Williams - was to let all provinces hide their revenues from oil, gas and other non-renewable resources from the Equalization calculations.  The offer didn't apply just to one province.  Had it been implemented, it would have applied to all. 

That was clear enough until the Harper government produced its budget 18 months ago. What was clear on budget day became a bit murky a few days later when Wade Locke of Memorial University of Newfoundland began to take a hard look at the numbers.

Again, that's pretty much dead wrong.

It became clear shortly after Harper took office in 2006 that the 100% exclusion idea from the 2004 and 2006 campaigns would be abandoned in favour of something else.  There was nothing murky about it at all. So plain was the problem that at least one local newspaper reported on a fracas at the Provincial Conservative convention in October 2006 supposedly involving the Premier's brother and the Conservative party's national president. That's when the Family Feud started.

As for the 2007 budget bills which amended both the 1985 and 2005 agreements between Ottawa and St. John's, there's a serious question as to whether the provincial government actually consented to the amendments as required under the 1985 Atlantic Accord.

The story about Equalization is a long one and the Family Feud - a.k.a the ABC campaign - has a complex history.  There's no shame in missing some points.  It's just so unusual that CBC's "Reality Check" was so widely off base.

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Yawn

Harper was in town on Saturday.

Just a bit of In-out, In-out.

And a candidate whose sign people can't even spell his own name.

 

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Yes, but what kind of fruit?

Chuck McVetty is likely fuming, given that the federal Conservatives are apparently led by a guy willing to self identify as a fruit.

Talk about alienating your base, there Queensway Steve.

But there's more to this little bit of campaign levity than that campaign levity.

For starters, the CBC version refers to the question thrown at Stephen Harper as inevitable given that Harper was at a produce market for a photo op. Yeah, like that's the first and most obvious question.

Then there's the apology from Harper handlers that he hadn't been briefed on the question.

Briefed on the question?

Apology?

Maybe they were apologizing publicly to the people behind the entirely manufactured Stephen Harper  - is that like a political GMO? - for letting the guy field the question in the first place.

So anyway, when asked what kind of vegetable he would be, the unscripted Stephen Harper looked at the laden tables  and picked "fruit".

If they'd had a chance to brief him, Harper would probably have said "potato", being careful of course to make sure they added an "e" at the end.

We all wondered what Dan Quayle was doing these days.

-srbp-

The Rhodes to Perdition

In his Globe column on Stephen Harper this first campaign weekend, Rex Murphy demonstrates an ability to observe but not see.

Murphy begins with a description of the television ads currently running:

They're from a series of seven, titled "At home with Stephen Harper." And very gentle, soft, fuzzy little minuets they are. In the jargon of PR, they try to "humanize" the Prime Minister.

He then writes:

Well, he's been running the country now for a bit more than 2½ years. We've seen him in the House. We've seen him at press conferences. We've seen him on his good days and on his bad. And the cumulative impression we have of him is already fixed.

and then proceeds to a glowing description of the Prime Minister:

For all his angularity, occasional harshness and remoteness, Canadians recognize him as a leader. They see him, in the main, as competent and determined. They are not embarrassed when he goes abroad. They know he has intelligence to spare. And despite his chilliness of manner (which I expect is as much a product of shyness as arrogance), he's a decent man who loves his country. For good or ill, that's the package - and in the campaign about to unfold, from the Conservatives' perspective, it's mainly for the good.

While noting that he does not agree with the "premise" of the television ads designed to "humanize" Harper, as Murphy puts it, Murphy is prepared to list the qualities we know and pronounce them as placing Harper well ahead of the other party leaders, particularly Stephan Dion.

Murphy's observation may well be accurate in the long run; Harper and his party may well win the election.

What he does not see - or at least does not show signs of seeing  - is that Murphy, like Canadians across the country, has not seen Stephen Harper at all.

We have observed the premise of Stephen Harper. We get the assumption on which we are supposed to base our vote.

That is,  we watch minuets,  to use Murphy's word:  carefully scripted dances.

We have observed that this Prime Minister is visible outside those carefully contrived moments as we have of Dion, Layton and other political leaders in Canada current and former.

As a Canadian who lives at one end of the country but who is no less removed from the mainstream of national media as anyone living in Toronto, your humble e-scribbler cannot recall anything of Harper that was not scripted.

Managed.

Contrived.

As with the television ads, fake.

It is that inherent sense of falseness  - designed not by public relations people as Murphy states but advertising types - that Murphy and others ought to find unsettling.

Murphy forgets the great set-to between the parliamentary press gallery and the Prime Minister's Office on the point of control. it was about nothing more than establishing tight and unrelenting control over what snippets of Stephen Harper Canadians are allowed to see.

Harper won that tussle as he inevitably would and from the moment he took office, Stephen Harper has presented to the world only that much of himself and his government as fits the premise to be presented; nothing more and far, far less than we are used to or that we deserve. Rather than reducing the "Daddy" ads to a mere passing point, Murphy could more accurately have said that they are yet another element in a diligently mapped plan to gain power and to exercise that power to do something. 

The "something" unfortunately has not been approved for disclosure. We are not allowed to vote on what Harper will do, only on the pretty pictures all posed with precision. We are to assume it, and risk the dangers that go with every unchallenged assumption.

One of the hallmarks of leadership  - a word Murphy uses but does not define - is the ability to inspire men and women to attain a goal.  Barack Obama inspires.  He is able to describe in simple words the hopes and aspirations of millions of Americans in a way that invites them along on a journey.  He is seen, at ease, in the company of others and even alone on a stage amid tens of thousands of cheering Americans already committed to his political party, he seems to reach past the physical distance between himself and others.

Stephen Harper does not inspire.  His cold, aloof manner is not a virtue in this regard, as much as Murphy seems to think it does. It is a barrier between him and others.  It is a barrier that Harper's script writers are evidently conscious of and worried about. If they were not, they would not have come up with the ads featuring actors reading words written by others in an effort to "humanize" Harper.  They would not present Harper himself mouthing words. If they were not uneasy about Harper they would not have had someone pick precisely the right clothes in exactly the right shades of blue to convey exactly the picture they wished to others to see.  They would not have paid someone to cut and style his hair into a gray helmet that, if nothing else, looks right for whatever impression they desired to leave.

Obama, like all political leaders since the 1960s, is no less surrounded by the handlers, hairdressers, and writers;  it is just that we cannot see with him as obviously as we see with Harper the signs of their manipulations. The one is a skilled craft that is merely aimed at presenting a clear picture of the man. The elegance of their work is that is not evident. One suspects it is not evident because they are able to let the man speak for himself without worrying about the impression.

With Harper, we can see every pixel.

We see every line.

Every line pointing somewhere.

But we are not allowed to know - and during the campaign the managers will work hardest of all to ensure - that we do not know where those lines really point.

Perhaps from Toronto, Rex Murphy is too close to the screen to tell what road it is showing.

 

-srbp-

Quietly Conservative

Over at the Telly, the weekend and holidays crew is writing headlines designed to arouse the irk of the nationalist fringe.

Either that or they didn't notice it's not just the apparent mainlander quoted by Canadian Press as dismissing the Anything But What It Seems campaign.

At least one of the people from Newfoundland and Labrador isn't impressed by the Premier's bout of high dudgeon and he's not a political science professor somewhat removed from reality, err, the front lines of political organizing.

Liam O'Brien points out the bleeding obvious, the so-bleeding-obvious that Memorial University political science professor Steve Tomblin missed it entirely. Sayeth Liam:

“It’s the strangest thing. It takes me back to my Catholic days when you go to confession. We’re getting these people walking up and whispering to us, ‘I’m a provincial Progressive Conservative, but I’m also a federal Conservative,”’ he said.

“They (Tory voters) don’t need to scream it out loud, they just need to mark their X on the ballot.”

That's pretty much what they did in 2004, the last time the provincial Conservative leader had a bit of a disagreement with his federal brother.

Comparing the 2004 and 2006 vote counts shows some slight suppression of turnout in the St. John's area ridings and a slight drop in federal Connie vote. But once the provincial Connies were given dispensation to work for the federal crowd, the numbers moved back up.

Overall though, the population continued its usual pattern of voting anything but Conservative. That's what they've done in almost every election since 1949. And when they didn't do it, as in the late 1960s, the vote was driven almost entirely by their dissatisfaction with the provincial Premier of the day.

Like say 1997, when the locals were so rotted with the provincial government and Brian Tobin (Lloyd Matthews, father of Danny's Liz as health minister) over health care, that they bucked the trend and turned out a bunch of Connies even in formerly safe Liberal seats.

Poof.

Times change.

The irk subsides.

Every sign that voters are going back to their usual voting patterns not just here but across Atlantic Canada.
Up pops young Mr. Tobin to proclaim that he is leaving the premier's job behind and heading back to Ottawa - notwithstanding his promise of just a few months earlier he'd finish the full second term - to lead a joyous crusade for something or other and set it as his personal mission to restore Liberal seats in Atlantic Canada.

Restore Liberal seats.

When the polls showed voting patterns returning to the historic norms and seats which had gone Connie or Dipper in 1997 would be returning to the Gritty crew.

And some less than observant observers vowed it would be possible what given that young Mr. Tobin was wildly popular, a brilliant political strategist and able to walk on water, heal the sick and turn water into Jockey Club at the drop of a hat.

Miraculous lad, that young Brian, said all the sayers of sooth.

Had a bit of trouble with the fishes, though, but other than that a wonderful popular fellow who at no point had an ulterior political motive like say becoming prime minister. Pay no attention to that guy behind the curtain holding fund-raisers.

He's just going back to Ottawa on a mission for the people and he will produce a voting miracle.

But you see the pattern, right?

Predict something that usually happens and the rubes will think you are a genius.

It's the stuff of a late-night infomercial by The Amazing Ruth and her Psychic Bunions.

It does point out the weakness in all the drivel about Danny being pissed because Steve fooled him and so now Danny is going to make Steve pay by campaigning against him.

That weakness being the lack of tangible evidence the Provincial Conservative will have any sway with voters anywhere at all, including locally when it comes to federal politics.

'Cause, as Liam points out, in the secret ballot box where even the dogsbodies sniffing out the unfaithful for their master cannot go, there's no way of knowing what a given person does in the secrecy of the ballot box.
That little reality would be galling if that's what the dogsbodies' master really had as his political goal in the Anything But Reality campaign.

Not everything is as it appears, even on a Blackberry screen.

-srbp-

 

Eats, shoots and leaves update: 

There are typos. 

Untied instead of united?  That's a typographical error in which letters are tapped out of sequence.

Then there are spelling problems.  Typing sediment when you meant sentiment.  Or tudor when you meant tutor.

No matter how you try and explain those, there is no way that those misuses of words are a function of fingers hitting the wrong keys.

Then, there are problems with punctuation.

Turns out that the headline on the story linked above is the original Canadian Press headline.

Almost.

The CP version had a colon between the word "Ontario" and the word "commentator".  The colon suggests that the words before it are a paraphrase of a comment made by the commentator.

In this instance, there's a slight difference to the two headlines given the punctuation variation.

The Telly headline suggests that the commentator from Ontario isn't impressed.  That's true, if you read the story, but the CP version gives the sense of the comments in the story story, namely that voters in Ontario won't be impressed.

All of this may only bother a handful, but when you are trying to communicate an idea clearly, everything from spelling to punctuation to verb tense to getting the words in the right order can affect what idea the reader sees.

For those who are troubled by punctuation, for those who do not know the difference between a colon and a semi-colon, there is help:

Your humble e-scribbler has looked for this book in a local bookshop for some time now.  The heavens aligned recently and delivered it at a second-hand bookstore in Mount Pearl, in pristine condition and for only a handful of bucks.

Lynne Truss gives a master class in punctuation using simple sentences and plenty of humour.

What more could you ask for?

Universal Translator revealed

When it comes to federal politics, reporters and other observers sometimes  misunderstand the words the Premier uses.

It's really very simple. 

Whenever he says "Newfoundland and Labrador" or "we", he means "Danny Williams".

That's it.

The confusion comes from the fact that most people do not consider the entire province, all its people and their collective interest to be the same thing nor do they believe it is embodied in one person.

By contrast, he does. 

As in words after the 2007 general election to the effect that "I believe in my heart and soul that I embody the heart and soul of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians."

It was a real "l'etat? C'est moi!" kinda moment.

So take a quote like this one:

"From a Green Shift perspective, as well, Newfoundland and Labrador is just basically waiting to see where all the cards are going to fall here."

On the face of it, this is a pretty ludicrous statement given that in the same scrum, the Premier said that "[t]his election is not going to be decided strictly on Green Shift."

He's right on that point.

The election isn't going to be decided on one issue.

And the Green Shift was never intended to be the silver bullet of the next federal election.

The Green Shift is a niche policy designed to move a certain type of voter. It won't appeal to everyone, but it will appeal to enough to make a difference here and there.  Coupled with other similar niche ideas, it could tip enough ridings to propel the Liberals to a minority or majority government.

The whole concept is taken from the Conservative strategy in 2005/06.

That's why the Connies fear it so much they are  apoplectic trying to make the Green Shift some vision of the apocalypse.

But if you go back and apply the universal translator to that quote, you can see that, in fact, Danny Williams is waiting to see how the field shapes up on policies before he endorses one party or any party.

Now the quote makes perfect sense.

That's what the Premier did in 2004.  He waited to see how the offers looked and he went with the one he liked.

He did it again in 2005/06, endorsing Stephen Harper and the Conservatives even though the Layton New Democrats said yes to every single thing the Premier asked for in his Letter to Santa 2005.

But here's the thing:  in both federal elections, the Premier's impact on voters even in Newfoundland and Labrador produced a marginal effect.

In 2004, he made it tough for the local volunteers to turn out for the Conservative brethren.  They lacked party workers, but the Conservatives who won, did so in usual Conservative seats.

Individual voters still turned out and voted federally for their own choice in a secret ballot, in many cases, despite what their provincial vote may have looked like or what the Premier wanted. 

In 2005/06, it became safe for provincial Tories not only to work on Connie campaigns but to run for them as well.

But don't forget one crucial point:  the resulting seat count was exactly the same as in 2004. There were changes in voter turn-out but the overall impact of the Premier's position and intervention was marginal at best.

So while Danny Williams may like to answer reporters questions about the next federal election, it's doubtful the federal Conservatives are taking him too seriously.  Aside from the impact in his own province, Danny Williams just doesn't travel well.  Sure there are people who crop up here and there saying lovely things about him, but - as with every other provincial premier since the dawn of time - he just doesn't carry much beyond his own province. 

That's because  - fundamentally - Danny Williams is not identified as speaking on national issues from a national perspective.  He's not even really speaking on a plane that connects with voters in Dauphin or Deseronto.

He's a niche player, with a niche impact. 

Like a Green Shift.

The only difference among the federal parties is that - rightly or wrongly - the federal Conservatives have taken the measure of the niche impact based on two kicks at the can in the recent past. 

The New Democrats seem to have missed the lessons.  So too have some of the local Liberals  - candidates and back roomers alike - who want to court Danny in the  belief his blessing will be all that is needed to change their fortunes.

But the Connies? 

They've decided the impact isn't enough to worry about, either locally or nationally.  To get the point, think about that famous Stephen Harper quote from October 2006 in Gander. 

You know.

The one that came only from the Premier himself.  Something like "We don't need Newfoundland and Labrador."

Apply the Universal Translator.

Now you understand why DW is so pissed.

-srbp-

An old Connie ploy

Create a dysfunctional situation where one didn't have to exist and then crusade to fix it.

It's a bit like backing a dodgy proposition which you, yourself, had previously rejected, and then crusading against the position you endorsed.

If this keeps up, Harper will pledge to change the rules on election spending so that something like the in-out scam never happens again.

Sheesh, where have we heard that one before?

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So where's the in-out scam in the local headlines?

Odd, dontcha think, that the local media haven't done much with the Conservative party in-out advertising scheme during the last election?

This is a very large story with a large number of local players. For instance,

Cynthia Downey, who ran in Newfoundland, said her campaign could have made much better use of the $7,700 transferred by the party in and out of her account.

Logic would suggest the story would get some play in some of the local media, but so far it's meritted hardly a whisper.

For some unknown reason, the story has been bumped, sometimes in favour of bumpf.

-srbp-

Some Harper observations

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

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

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

-srbp-

Williams lowers expectations for Lower Churchill...again

In an interview with The Telegram, Premier Danny Williams admits there are considerable hurdles to overcome in developing the Lower Churchill hydroelectric project. The story isn't available online.  [Amended;  by request, we've removed the article from the post. If it turns up online, we'll supply a link.]

Williams repeated his January estimate that the chances of the project going ahead are 50/50.

"Well, at best that would be late 2009," said Williams. "We're going through the environmental process. We're attempting to reach agreement with the Labrador Innu. I'm optimistic that can happen. (Then we'll
decide) what the nature of the project will be and get the financials in place and be ready to rock'n'roll."

Take that statement as being an admission the project is unlikely to proceed at all. The crucial element is project financing. If that isn't even being reviewed until 2009 - at the earliest - then it's a well as saying the project is not happening in the near future.

In the interview Williams exaggerates the development issues, referring to them as hurdles, and claiming that the hurdles are larger than on other mega-projects either under development or under consideration in the province. The other projects are all private sector ones.

The development issues aren't larger.

It all boils down to markets for the power and financing to make it happen.

In 2005, Williams rejected a joint project with Ontario and Quebec which would have seen both provinces purchase the power and assist in the financing and construction.

Williams rejected the proposal without explanation, inserting instead a so-called "go-it-alone" option which had not be evaluated by Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro or government officials before it was publicly announced. However, even in announcing his own idea of having the provincial government build project on its own, he left the door open to equity partners.

Shortly after he went to the federal government looking for a loan guarantee, still insisting the provincial government would build the Lower Churchill project - estimated to cost between $6.0 and $9.0 billion - on its own.

Despite receiving no such commitment from Stephen Harper, Williams insisted Harper promised a loan guarantee and used it as part of his political feud with his fellow Conservative first minister.

Williams has announced only two potential customers for Lower Churchill power. The State of Rhode Island and Nova Scotia's Emera have signed separate memoranda of understanding committing to explore the possibility of purchasing Lower Churchill power.

Beyond that, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro has had no serious discussions with potential external customers for the project's estimated 2800 megawatts. Even the plan to sell power to eastern Newfoundland - covering at least $2.0 billion of the total project cost - is contingent on the project going forward. That idea, floated by natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale just before last fall's provincial election seemed to confuse the radio host interviewing her at the time since she insisted the plan wouldn't increase electrical power rates on the Avalon peninsula.

The Lower Churchill project figured prominently in several campaign announcements both during last year's Summer of Love pre-election spending spree and in the energy plan campaign prop.

There are some factual errors in the Peter Walsh story. The Wells administration came close to a deal on the Lower Churchill in the early 1990s, however political issues at the time and changed economic circumstances scuttled the negotiations.

Brian Tobin used development on Churchill River as the start of a re-election campaign he started in 1998. Ultimately none of his promised development occurred.

Roger Grimes had a tentative deal to develop the Lower Churchill but it was scuttled by political opposition within his own caucus and cabinet, heightened by the dramatic resignation of Hydro chairman and Williams associate Dean Macdonald from the Hydro board.

Walsh also repeats a claim that the 1969 Churchill Falls deal has produced $19 billion in revenue for Hydro Quebec versus $1.0 billion for Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. Those figures are not substantiated by any factual analysis. It is, however, a popular myth.

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Dumb things said to reporters, the umpteenth edition

Federal fish minister Loyola Hearn got lost in his own metaphor in a scrum on Monday trying to explain something or other about the Premier and his anti-Harper crusade.

He said, in part,

It's something like demanding Santa give you what you want, when all you have to do, instead of standing on a chair and shouting up the chimney,'Santa, I want everything or I'll light the fire,' sit down and write a letter and make sure it gets to the right people, and you might get what you want," Hearn said. "That's providing you've been a good boy - if you haven't been a good boy, then it depends."

How many ways is this wrong? Just a few:

1. Just as the war is over, Loyola takes a pointed shot at Danny.  Talk about blowing it just when your side won the war, Loyola. This sort of nonsense just enflames people needlessly.
2. Comparing Ottawa to Santa.  Bad enough provincial premiers and others think of Uncle Ottawa in that sort of facile way already.  It's worse when a cabinet minister actively encourages people to think in terms of irresponsible "gimme,gimme,gimme" attitudes.
3. Comparing Stephen Harper to Santa.  Just not an image an adult should have in his or her head, let alone a picture to paint for a small child so close to Christmas.  Gets your attention, like say Debbie suddenly popping up in red leather anchoring the news, but in a totally creepy way.
4. Danny did write a letter.  That's the problem. Danny wrote a letter.  Danny got a reply and not from those whack jobs who sneaked into the Canada Post elves department recently. He got a big fat promise. He played nice. He got ashes anyway.  That's why he's pissed.
5. Warning: Small children, talk show listeners, members of the Privy Council and other easily led, impressionable types, turn away now...Seriously.  Go read something else. Adults.  Highlight to read beginning here...> Santa doesn't exist. Canadians just wish Harper didn't.

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In a nutshell

1. The finance minister admitted today in comments to reporters that the government had paid scant attention to the provincial debt thus far in its mandate. The government will apparently use the bulk of the 2007 budget windfall (estimated at more than $800 million) to reduce the public debt. Check the video when it comes available. Tom Marshall's comments show the hollowness of his previous claims about debt fighting.

2. Words to watch out for: "Once we account for the change in capital assets, the balance will reduce the province’s net debt." It's a question of assets and liabilities. Since the equity position contains both, let's see how the provincial government accounts for those in its upcoming budget. The windfall might actually go out the door with the debt only appearing to be reduced.

3. The only principle is cash. Not in the media reports by mid-day, but the provincial government is accepting the Harper Equalization deal, as amended by the agreement with Nova Scotia.

There's a gigantic surprise.

Not.

4. The finance minister still likes to pump out nonsense: "It is also important to acknowledge the Atlantic Accord 2005, which was successfully negotiated by Premier Williams, and its remarkable contribution to the overall improvement to the province’s fiscal position."

The improvement in the province's fiscal position is driven entirely by the results of the 1985 Atlantic Accord (the real one), three offshore development deals signed before 2003 and high mineral prices flowing from deals signed before 2003.

As the government statement said: "the change is due to much higher oil prices, increased production from the offshore projects, higher royalties for the White Rose project and higher than expected mineral prices."

Update:

5.  A portion of the finance minister's remarks are available from CBC [ram file].  Marshall refers to the cabinet decision to put $55 million of the last budget against the debt as being "not enough".    That isn't what Marshall said at the time of the budget.  In fact, his budget speech trumpeted the great strides in debt reduction he and his colleagues had made.  Rather than quote the Telegram editorial (even though the words are worth heeding), Marshall might well have pointed to those of us who have been drawing attention to the current administration's debt-reduction nakedness for some months now.

Turns out the Emperor and the entire court had no clothes and knew it all along.

6.  While you're listening try asking yourself a simple question:  who is Marshall trying to convince that paying down the debt is a good thing?  Is his audience inside cabinet or outside?

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Welcome to the endgame

The Telegram account of the Friday meeting between premier and Prime Minister carries a headline about a temporary ceasefire.

They're right.

Williams declared a ceasefire or a toning down of his personal vendetta likely in reaction to pressure from his own caucus.

Then again, Williams did follow his usual pattern of changing the definition of what it takes to satisfy him, too. Recall that in 2004 his negotiations consisted of pointing repeatedly that he wasn't happy and that it was up to the other side to make him happy. When the other party presented him with something that satisfied his demand for happiness, Williams merely shifted ground claiming that the offer didn't make him happy enough or that while that used to make him happy, it is no longer what works.

To wit, the loan guarantee on the Lower Churchill.

A loan guarantee from Ottawa to help with the project is something Williams used to talk about a lot. It was one of the promises - this one a supposed one - that Harper was supposed to keep unless the might of Danny would be called down on the Harper crown.

Now?

A loan guarantee is just that, and it's only a guarantee if we default. That's a good project. That's an annuity. That's a license to print money. That's why we're going to do it alone and that's why we want to have a big piece of the action. Forgive me, we're going to do it in partnership with others. So a loan guarantee is not a big deal. It will enable us to pick up money a little bit cheaper. We'll get a little lower on our interest rate. That's what the benefit is, but that's not $9 billion in cash and don't think for one minute it is. I know you know the difference. That's not a big deal.

There are a few reasons for this shift in direction, beyond the fact that it is just Williams' pattern. As pointed out previously:

1. The loan guarantee would come with a price tag, namely a federal equity stake - an ownership stake - in the so-called "go it alone" project. The downsides of that should be obvious to anyone who has paid attention to Williams for the past four years.
2. There never was a loan guarantee offer in the first place. Again, no one reading Bond papers regularly is surprised by this, but it bears repeating. The whole idea of a federal loan guarantee is a Williams invention. it's easy to dismiss something you made up in the first place.
3. Williams doesn't need the money any more. The Lower Churchill will be backstopped by Hebron - that's one of the reasons for the quickie deal and the real intended use of the Hebron cash all along - as well as the unnamed partners in the "go it alone" version of the Lower Churchill. In the quote above Williams corrects himself and refers to doing the project "in partnership with others." Make note of that correction. Who those others are is a mystery and likely will remain a mystery for years to come.
4. We are in the endgame of a fight that was never really much of a fight. It would seem that this prime minister, as with the last one, finally drew the line. At that point - as in January 2005 - Williams knew that the bluster and bluff that characterizes his public style has run its course. Exactly the same thing happened when Paul Martin told Williams bluntly that he had reached the end. A final offer was on the table. The Hebron partners likely did something very similar, although in their case, they held the negotiating whip hand as the version of the deal announced earlier in the fall suggests. in this case, Williams started off by acknowledging that the positions are firmly entrenched. Both parties agree to disagree on the "principles" - i.e. the final position is on the table - and the only question now is about compensation.

Some enterprising reporter should dig out the scrum from 28 January 2005 and find the one sentence where Williams talks about the remaining - or did he say "only" - question being the "quantum".

That's the only question left in the family feud between Danny and Steve.

-srbp-

Update: Stephen Harper sounds like he made it clear the final position is on the table on issues Danny Williams was squabbling over. As the Toronto Star reports, Harper said on Friday:

"Politics is the art of the possible. You can't have 100 per cent of everything you want from someone else or some other government. Danny Williams made his point forcefully; it's time to move on to other issues."

The only principle is cash

What I said before and I said going in, this is about principles, but it's also about money as well. At the end of the day, the promise and the principle converts to cash for the bottom line for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Premier Danny Williams revealing the core of his political philosophy, November 30, 2007.

It's never really about principle with the current provincial administration.

It's always about money, specifically the "compensation" that can be received for some injury real or invented.

The best example of this approach is the 2005 federal transfer of $2.0 billion to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. As Danny Williams said in a scrum at the time, the major issue under discussion at the final, January meeting was the amount of the cash advance.

The principles supposedly underlying the original position taken by the Premier were abandoned in the final deal. As a result, the deal is worth a total of $2.0 billion and will never be worth any more than that.

It is no accident that the Premier used the word "compensation" frequently during his post-meeting scrum and also spoke of specific amounts of cash. One figure he cited several times was $10 billion.

This is an entirely artificial number, incidentally, based not on principles but an estimate prepared by university economist Wade Locke. He used certain assumptions which may prove to be accurate or which may, as in the case of the 2005 federal transfer payment, prove to fall well short of the actual values. This does not denigrate Locke's analysis but rather, people should consider that Williams is not talking principles; he isn't talking about the rules under which a system may operate.

Rather he is looking solely at an amount of cash, despite the fact that in actual performance a properly constructed Equalization regime, like a properly constructed offshore royalty regime could produce more revenue for the provincial treasury in actual performance than a single set of projections, based on certain assumptions, might suggest.

To give some idea of the extent to which Williams is focused entirely on cash, as opposed to principles, consider this response to a reporter's question during the Friday scrum:

At the end of the day, this translate down to the 10, $11 billion gap that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador would have received if he fulfilled his promise up to 2020. If you take 2006 when it was there 14 years and you divide that in to $10 billion, you get about $700 million a year. That's the magnitude of the commitment. If the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador was able to receive similar compensation in some form or another whether through that formula or something else, then we as a people have gotten that monetary benefit. If we disagree on certain principles, then we disagree, and we can't reach agreement, there's nothing we can do about it.

The entire issue is framed in the context of very specific amounts of money. It is most emphatically not based any principles, such as those underlying, for example, an equitable Equalization system or of the fiscal relationship between the federal government and the provinces.

This fixation on specific amounts of money may reflect the current administration's collective difficulty in appreciating the value of the 1985 Atlantic Accord and the principles it contains versus the entirely limited specific amount of cash attained in January 2005. The administration allowed the 1985 Accord to be amended unilaterally by the current federal administration and did not raise a single whimper about the violation of the terms of the 1985 memorandum of understanding. Instead, they focused on the cash irrespective of the dangerous precedent set by the amendment.

The most obvious weakness in this approach is that it gives the federal government an easy target to achieve. Since the provincial administration is concerned only with cash and given that there is a record of Williams settling for much less than originally sought - despite the bluster - Stephen Harper needs only to consider how small an amount he can get Williams to agree to. Williams has said yes to much less before and he is likely to do so again.

if Stephen Harper came to St. John's looking to get rid of the minor annoyance of Danny Williams' personal vendetta, he may just succeed. It certainly won't cost the Government of Canada anything close to $10 billion spread over 20 years to do it.

As Williams said:

What better place to put some green infrastructure in transporting some of that Lower Churchill power to the island of Newfoundland and Labrador in order to replace Seal Cove, Holyrood, generation.

The current estimated cost of that project?

$2.0 billion.

-srbp-

What will the meeting bring?

The meeting between Danny Williams and Stephen Harper later on Friday afternoon?

One of the possibilities is a rapprochement between the supposedly warring leaders.

The former, safely back in power with an overwhelming majority, may just signal peace is at hand. He's been known to do it before.

Tons of bluster and anger, followed by a sudden bout of kissing and hugging with the former "enemy".

That all might lead to some interesting developments in federal politics. Since the last cabinet appointments, the locals have been speculating wildly about the prospect that Tom Osborne and Jack Byrne - both turfed from the Williams cabinet - would actually be trying for a spot on the Stephen Harper team alongside their old friend Fabian Manning.

Osborne, you may recall, is the candidate whose political signage touts his - ummm - shall we say performance.

The story made the Globe this damp Friday, as Harper arrives in the province for a couple of days of politicking. You can find a link to the Globe article and some added comments over at nottawa.

One aspect of the story not covered by local media has been the prospect that some members of the provincial Tory caucus are getting somewhat frustrated with the ongoing feud and would like to see it settled. Human resources minister Shawn Skinner hinted as much, at least until he was reined in by his boss.

As Mark suggests at nottawa, though, perhaps someone ought to simply poke a microphone in the general direction of Osborne, Byrne and even Elizabeth Marshall to ask what they plan to do with themselves when the next federal election is called. The responses might well give some clues as to what will evolve out of the Danny and Steve meeting.

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Steve and Danny meeting: more stuff

Well, you read it here already, but the rest of the world has picked up the harper and Danny Williams meeting story.

The Premier issued a short statement today confirming the meeting, although it will happen friday and not on Saturday as Bond heard it originally. "Premier Williams said his office confirmed the meeting two days ago," according to the statement.

Hmmm. No wonder the premier they were so testy about Brian Peckford's comments and had his plants suggesing some collusion between Peckford and the Prime Minister's Office. The 8th Floor blackberry drums knew about the Harper meeting before the rest of us did and likely assumed - in a paranoid way - that the two unlinked things were linked.

The Globe notes that provincial Tories have been trying to find ways to mend fences already, something that likely was at the heart of Shawn Skinner's recent comments. That is, before Danny yanked Skinner's chain and made the guy "apologize" and then publicly declare his commitment to the ABC nonsense.

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Hey, Steve! Message for ya!

Photographers sometimes capture images that they didn't see, but which turn up in the process of sorting shots after a shoot.

Like this one, taken during the recent campaign. Nope, it hasn't been photoshopped.

This is the original image as the premier adjusted his glasses during a speech.

Did he mean to do it?

Well, he meant to adjust his spectacles, but many of us use the middle finger to move our eyeglasses upward on the bridge of our nose.

Beyond that, there's no way of knowing if Danny wanted to send Steve a message.

Doesn't really matter.

It's still funny.

Danny Williams.

Middle finger salute.

And low and behold, a rather glum and sour expression.

-srbp-

Why the ABC thing might just turn out to be a farce or a ruse.

The Star, via nottawa.

The Conservative victory in 2006 was a function of a strong New Democratic performance.

Someone could reasonably conclude that an intervention that pushes votes to the New Democrats in this province, or which splits the non-Conservative vote would actually help the federal Conservatives secure the seats they have and maybe pick up a few more.

maybe that's what ABC is all about anyway. A political phoney war? maybe.

But definitely the kind of intervention that might help Stephen Harper rather than hurt the federal Conservatives.

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