A foundation of lies and deceit #nlpoli

You could feel the shock among the local media on Friday as Stan Marshall carefully dissected the insanity that is Muskrat Falls.

Didn't matter if you heard the voices on the radio,  watched them on television or read them online.   The reporters' emotional reaction transferred through whatever medium it was that conveyed their words.  Here it was laid out in stark detail:  billions over budget,  years behind schedule,  a financial burden for the province its people will be sorely pressed to bear and all of it built - in essence - on a series of false statements,  faulty assumptions, and anything but facts and reason.

Never mind that all of what Stan Marshall said was - in effect - already widely know and had been known for most of the preceding decade.  Here you had someone as rich or richer than Danny Williams telling them that Muskrat Falls was utter shite.  By the unspoken law of Newfoundland politics,  the poor benighted scribblers now had no choice but report it.

The Old Boys (and Girls) Club #nlpoli

The always provocative and informative labradore posted a chart on Wednesday showing the number of days the House of Assembly sat in each session since Confederation.

The information to make up the chart came from the legislative library,  the group of people who provide information and research for the members of the legislature.

That period marked by the black band is the period in which the House typically sat for the greatest number of days. It runs from 1972 to 1996.  For the 22 years before that and for the 16 years after that period, the legislature hasn’t sat more than 60 days a year.

There’s more.  Since 1996 or so, the House has also sat for fewer days per week when it is in session.  The members decided that they didn’t want to have a session on Friday mornings as the rules used to require.  They decided to cancel the Friday sitting and add an hour to three of the other four days.  Same number of hours, they explained, so there was no loss to the amount of time.

They just left out a couple of details.  One of the biggest ones is that they chopped off a Question Period on Friday morning.  That meant that the opposition parties had one fewer chance during the week to grill the government party.  It also meant that House lost a day on which to debate legislation.  While they theoretically had the same number of hours in total, the members actually cut off the amount of effective time they had for discussion.

They made a few other changes as well.  Once upon a time, not so very long ago, members of the legislature would ask for information from government departments.  They got them through something called Questions on the Order Paper.  Departments were obliged to deliver the information, free of charge, and without much – if any – deletions or omissions.

The idea behind that was that the members of the legislature had an inherent right to inquire into what the government was doing with public money and how they were doing it. The legislature is supposed to be about more than a place for rackets and speeches. It’s supposed to be a place where the members found out stuff.

After all, the legislature is not the government.  It is the place where the government goes to get permission to do things with the people’s money.  They get the permission from the men and women the people elected to keep an eye on things. That’s the idea at the heart of democracy based on popular sovereignty.  Power  - the right to make decisions - comes from the people.

In any event, all that’s as maybe.  In the late 1990s, the government and opposition cut a deal among themselves.  Instead of asking questions on the order paper, the opposition agreed to submit access to information requests, which they would pay for out of the money they got to run the House.  The government could then censor the documents as if the members of the House had no right to information other than what the ordinary punters could get.

Everyone had less work to do, the government could keep more information from the public and – don’t forget – they all agreed to give themselves extra cash to hand out in their districts as they saw fit and without receipt.

No one objected.

Not a one.

No one did anything to change any of it until 2006 and even then, the only reason they changed was because some of them got caught breaking the law.  Even then the only thing that changed out of the convenient deal was the slush fund.  All the other parts stayed in place. 

It’s that sort of general understanding among the political parties - the back-room agreements among da b’ys - that helped create the current state of the House of Assembly.

What will be interesting to see in the new session that starts on Monday is whether the sort of easy relationship among the members will carry on.

- srbp -

Personality Cult

Take a gander at a Canadian Press story about the personality cult surrounding the Premier and you’ll notice some rather curious things.

Of course there are the cultists themselves who display the characteristic worship of the Premier, the propagation of the usual myths and the patronising and paternalistic way these people look at politics.  To wit:

“Blair”:…The one thing I can say for certain is that he has accomplised  [sic]the most possible for this province, and I see no leader that could possibly shake my belief in him and his ability to run our great Province.

…

“C”:…I can finally say that there is a premier that I am proud of.  I can honestly say that when I am represented by MY premier I'm not cringing in anticipation of his comments like so many in the past.

…

“Seriously”:…Danny Williams is successful because he doesn't need the office. He can make decisions that have better long term outcomes because he doesn't need the office.

…

By far the best example of the personality cultist view came from someone who signed with a pseudonym “Joe Blow”:

But Danny already has everything he wants when it comes to money. Now what he wants is a better future for his people, and he is succeeding in this.

[Lorraine] Michael wonders how long the Cult of Danny can endure?

Here is your answer.

Death will be the only thing that stops this man from ensuring that our province thrives.

“Now what he wants is a better future for his people, and he is succeeding in this.”  There can be no clearer statement of that view which reduces individuals in Newfoundland and Labrador to the status of children fit for nothing better than to be looked after.

Such is the essence of personality cults.

It’s also worth noting this comment:

"If anybody thinks democracy is healthy in this province just look at the voter turnout the other day," said Michael Temelini, a political scientist at Memorial University.

…

"As popular as (Williams) may be, we should be paying as much attention to the House of Assembly and its important role in upholding our democratic system. People should stop paying so much attention to the executive branch. But that's what happens when you get one party in power.

"What's going on in Newfoundland is people are just going to wait until Danny Williams retires. Now that's a problem."

There is nothing evident today that was not also evident five or six years ago but that’s really another issue.  The thing to note is that Temelini – once a very public Dan-o-phile – is now a solid critic of where the province is under Williams’ leadership.

Temelini isn’t alone in this.  There are a number of public commentators who have gone from praising the Premier to be concerned for the state of public life in the province.  Then there are the comments coming from all corners of the province that express some frustration with things in Newfoundland and Labrador after seven years of Danny.  Increasingly the grumbling is coming from within the Tory party, especially among the old townie establishment part of the Blue Machine.  it’s all still very much quiet grumbling of the sort where people are a bit self-conscious that word might spread back to Hisself and Hisself’s hangers-on. But five years ago, no one would have dreamed of even thinking of being disgruntled let alone expressing it.

Moods are shifting.

Still, some people quoted in the article seem to recognise  - albeit vaguely – that there is an issue even if they quite obviously don’t know what to do about it.

"Why do people put so much hope in one person?" wonders Lorraine Michael, the sole New Democrat in a Gang of Five opposition that includes four Liberals.

"We do have a personality cult mentality here in Newfoundland and Labrador and a lot of it is based on his personality."

That last bit is by no means clear.  The worship of an individual in the fashion seen in this province over the past few years speaks to a much deeper cultural issue  - a cultural disorder – rather than something as simple as “he is a sweet guy” or “he is a bully” or “he is very charismatic.” take your pick:  those are all descriptions of a personality but they don’t explain the bootlicking toadying of so many out there.

Nor does it explain the unwillingness of Michael and the four Liberal opposition members to resist being steamrolled by Mr. Popularity.  Just because someone is popular, even if he or she is actually that popular, doe snot make them correct in decisions. Rolling over on something like the expropriation bill, for example, simply shouldn’t happen in a healthy democracy.

Still, recognising there is a problem is the first step in finding a solution.

-srbp-

What Wakeham said

Every tool in the Tory tool shed may be manning the phones in yet another  campaign of partisan intimidation, but more than a few of the rest of us have wondered what Bob Wakeham said to get all the tools in a prudish tizzy.

Those of us who haven’t been practicing the two minute hate required of Party members might wonder what could possibly have caused Danny Williams to tell the Ceeb he won’t be talking to them because of:

"very unfortunate and unnecessary comments made about the premier on the CBC" that [Elizabeth] Matthews [notionally Williams’ director of communication] said were irrelevant and hurtful to his family, and for that reason the premier won't do interviews with the CBC about his health care.

You see, the plain truth is that Bob Wakeham didn’t really say much of anything on February 3 that normal human beings would find the least bit problematic.  In the context of a discussion about what the media ought to cover about politicians and their private lives, Wakeham mentioned a subject which – until now – the local news media had completely ignored.

After acknowledging that the local media hadn’t “done a Tiger Woods” and had covered some other issues like the Premier’s back surgery in 2003, Wakeham said:

I always found it kinda passing strange that we’ve…the media…has never dealt with the fact… never reported on his martial problems. To me that was kind of something that we should have reported on not in a real intimate way in trying to find out why his marriage went belly up but just as a matter of fact.  This was a woman who had been with him on the podium on election night, had been with him on election campaigns and all of a sudden she disappears…

That’s it.

There’s a few more words as the idea trails off but that’s the sum and substance of Wakeham/Goldstein’s evil words.

Those are the remarks that Wakeham’s fellow panellist that day has now described as “contemptible.”  The Telegram commentary editor also said that Wakeham’s remarks were “ill-timed”, a phrase that is rather curiously but surely coincidentally similar to the official view that the words were “completely irrelevant.”

Now Wakeham did bring the whole thing up again a couple of weeks later when his co-panellist on the Morning Show was none other than former Tory candidate, notorious Tory apologist and biographer Janice Wells. He went over the same ground again in much the same way.

But again, that was the sum of it:  report as fact matters of fact involving a prominent public official.
Only in Newfoundland and Labrador since 2003 could anyone find that the least bit radical  - let alone objectionable - as an idea.

Then again only in Newfoundland and Labrador since 2003 would you find reporters who agree that it is unconscionable to report facts as facts.

Not all of them have actually said that out loud or typed it, mind you.  Nonetheless, some one of them have actually censored themselves both on this health story, aspects related to it and on other stories where the potential would be high that the callers and their political associates would be less than pleased.

And that would be exactly what the callers, the e-mailers and their partisan friends wanted all along.

What Bob Wakeham said was nothing at all.

What others said in response to his remarks, though, is yet more evidence of just how dysfunctional the political society of Newfoundland and Labrador is.

-srbp-