1. In the cause for electoral reform or political reform or some kind of reform: another riding taken by a party already in dictatorship territory, with 38% of the vote.
2. For incompetence: Proof the current executive of the party - and especially the president - need a vacation.
Well, more like a retirement, actually, but a bit more permanent.
3. Blindness: New Democrats. A wake-up call that there is no "labour" vote. Re-think your approach to politics
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If you want to see what savvy political use of the Internet looks like, then take a look at the Australian political parties.
The incumbent Liberal Party site has all the right bits including multi-media presentation, ways to get involved (donate, volunteer etc), and information on the platform. The site includes RSS which allows people to get regular updates without having to visit the site: in other words it pushes information at the voter in a way that can be viewed as either a supplement to other means of communication or as a way of bypassing news media filters.
The same can be said of the Labor Party site.
Compare that to the main websites in the recent provincial election Newfoundland and Labrador.
While the Progressive Conservative site was the best of the three, it was very much the best of the old school. This is not a site designed to encourage citizen participation. It is merely a one-way message sending site and the only message really being sent is the face of the commodity being marketed.
Take a stroll through the site and look at the contradictory messaging. There's much talk of "team" but how many images show "The Leader" without a team anywhere to be seen?
The Liberal site was built on the same basic concept of message send without any concern for feedback, interaction or even stimulation. There was nothing on either the Tory or Grit sites to do that: this is elitist, top-down politics.
The site was marred by dead links (let alone irrelevant ones) and a platform document that was cumbersome to access.
Take a look at the picture on the front. No people. Just a glum-faced Gerry Reid in what unfortunately became the defining image of the Liberal Party.
The provincial New Democrats fell very much into the same old school approach and their website is just the non-election site with some new stuff on it.
Sure the provincial NDP is a small outfit and they are still suffering the effects of the long stagnant leadership of Jack Harris, but as with the Liberals, they really don't have much of an excuse for such an unimpressive site. This Internet stuff is actually easy and relatively cheap to do. For parties with little cash to throw around, Internet campaigns can be a way of reaching audiences inexpensively but very effectively.
While there's no way of knowing for sure - unless the parties released their traffic details - consider that the Liberals and the New Democrats likely had less attention paid to their online media than I.P. Freely did. A few clicks and you can find the youtube.com homepage for the I.P. Freely videos. Take a look at the total views for each one. Even the stuff posted during the recent election had hits in the hundreds and that's on a site that wasn't being promoted as heavily as either the Liberal or New Democrat ones. For all the technical and other flaws the I.P materials show, people were interested enough to look at them.
The Internet is a communications tool waiting to be used. The examples are there. Local political parties just have to decide to use it. Rather than moan about voter 'apathy", political parties just need to find new ways to reach voters.
Electoral districts colour coded by percentage of popular vote for winning party.
[h/t to labradore]
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On CBC radio this afternoon, provincial affairs reporter David Cochrane mentioned a possible increase in the size of the provincial cabinet and mentioned splitting the agriculture and forestry bits off the natural resources ministry. The reason given was that agriculture hasn't been getting the attention that it deserves.
Hmmm.
That wasn't in Charlene Johnson's briefing notes for her participation in a forum sponsored by the agriculture federation last Friday. Johnson, incidentally, is parliamentary secretary to the natural resources minister.
In fact, when asked about departmental configurations in a future cabinet, Johnson begged off the questions saying it was The Leader's prerogative.
The idea was introduced into the discussion by Simon Lono based on the observation that since minerals and oil had such attention in the administration, the other bits - like the trees, vegetables and cows - were being left behind. Lono made a straightforward and practical observation based on his own experience in government and the the idea met with some positive reaction among the handful of people attending the session. Sadly, no media were there to record it for posterity.
Now if David heard this idea long before last Friday, there's no doubt he'll flip an e-mail pretty quickly to sort it out. But, something says the idea wasn't in the idea pile at the Tory campaign bunker until after that Friday. Smart politician that she is, Johnson should have noticed the practical suggestion, the positive reaction and brought it back to the The Leader.
Poof, the day after the election, Cochrane is mentioning it as something he picked up.
Now, if David heard this idea after Friday - or if he got it from Charlene - maybe he should do some more asking.
Update: [12 Oct 07] Two e-mails, one from david Cochrane, shed some light on the original of creating - once again - a department of agriculture, likely coupled with forestry. Cochrane's comments were based on discussions going back well before the election. Another e-mail pointed out that the idea was floated at least as far back as January within the agriculture federation.
Interesting then, that the idea never turned up during the campaign, endorsed or even mentioned by Charlene Johnson, apparently, and not mentioned within the Progressive Conservative platform. Agriculture contributes significantly to the provincial economy and having it buried away inside natural resources hasn't given it the attention the sector deserves.
Let's see if the new cabinet structure includes a separate agriculture department and/or whether other departments mgiht be re-arranged to deal with other possible policy initiatives. in his comments on CBC radio, Cochrane suggested an increase in cabinet by one seat which would bring the total up to around 17 or 18. It will be interesting to see if that view holds or if - as Shawn Skinner suggested the same day - the new circumstances in the province warrant a change that might be wider in scope. There will be change; it's just a matter of how much.
A new department of Labrador development and aboriginal affairs? A new department of community development and culture?
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Res ipso loquitur.
| CRA | Telelink | Actual | |
| P.C. share of eligible vote | | | |
Surprise?
in some respects, yes.
The projections of 43 progressive Conservative seats seemed extraordinarily high, as did the popular vote projections.
| Year | 1966 | 1956 | 2007 | 1962 |
| Percent | 62.8 | 61.6 | 60.9 | 58.9 |
At the outset, though, everyone must start with the understanding that while the Tories hold nearly a record share of the popular vote, it came in an election with a near record low turnout of eligible voters. This point cannot be ignored. While our system allows such a result, we should be collectively concerned about why so many of our fellow citizens did not exercise their right to vote. Apathy and complacency have been tossed out as possible reasons, almost exclusively by the Progressive Conservatives and repeated by commentators who spent a lot of time traveling with the campaign.
Outside of that tiny bubble of opinion, though, there is absolutely no insight into the views of nearly half the population. Some will casually dismiss those who did not vote this time. Others will talk for a while about changing the electoral system to something other than the winner-take-all system currently in place in each district. Any words spent on reform are basically so much hot air, as will become plain below. Incumbents have no interest in electoral reform that might threaten their pre-eminence.
The Blue
For the Progressive Conservatives, the election reaps the rewards of a classic approach to politics: with full coffers, spend it while you got it. That approach invariably works and it worked in spades in 2007.
At least one commentator this evening referred to Danny Williams as an atypical politician. He is not. In fact, Danny Williams is a shrewd, capable and extremely aggressive leader in the tradition of Newfoundland politicians.
Williams has been compared to Smallwood and rightly so. Some may take that as a disparaging remark. Some old Tories likely wince at the comparison, but the hallmarks of Smallwoodism - the cult of personality, the ruthless attack on any dissent, starving of opposition districts and overwhelming domination of cabinet and caucus by a single, single-minded personality - are hallmarks of the Williams approach. One can only stand in awe a politician who understands that and can capitalize on it so effectively.
The Red
For the Liberals, four years of indifference have reaped their own reward. The party is a ruin, with no district organizations in most places and a crushing debt. Whoever steps forward to lead the party will have a daunting task in front of him or her.
The Liberals elected in 2003 never got over the shock of being out of comfortable government jobs. They failed to make the mental adjustment to opposition; they had not gotten past the simple understanding that their job as the Opposition was to develop a coherent set of alternative policies.
This should be no surprise of course, since the 2003 Liberals had campaigned on policy platforms essentially identical to those introduced by the Progressive Conservatives. Given the choice in 2003 between real Tories - nationalist to the core - and fake Tories, the people opted for the brand-name over the generic.
Try and slip a sheet of paper between the Liberal, New Democrat and Conservative parties on major issues such as the energy corporation, FPI or the province's financial position. Science cannot conceive of something so infinitesimally thin. Liberal Party policies, from the administration of the House of Assembly to the waste management plan to the poverty reduction strategy continued after 2003 or were introduced by the Williams based on the work already done.
One can hardly expect that the three Liberals and the one New Democrat in the legislature after this election will be any different tomorrow than they have been. If there are to be any new ideas on the province's political scene, it will surely have to come from somewhere other than the legislature. The ideas will have to come, as well, from someone other than the ones - like John Efford or Danny Dumaresque or Walter Noel - suspected by some of eyeing the Liberal leader's job.
With the departure of Roger Grimes, the opposition Liberal caucus never took seriously to the business of organizing themselves as anything beyond a loose association of people scared of the government party, overawed by polls, and desperately afraid of the result which they inevitably received. In his concession speech, Gerry Reid seemed genuinely relieved of the burden he bravely shouldered, and shoulder it he did despite the onslaught of personal attacks waged on him from the Tories from time to time. But listen to his words and one can see that he - and likely most of his caucus - had been psychologically defeated long before the writ dropped. They were simply going through the motions.
That said, there were a number of Liberal candidates who stood out for their abilities and for their promise. In any other situation, some might have succeeded. At any time in our province's history, the next crop of politicians for any political party come out of defeated opposition candidates, Liberal or Conservative or New Democrat. if that is indeed the case this time, we may see some bright spots in the future.
The Orange
The New Democrats attracted some talented people as well, but the party remains localized in St. John's. The party remains incapable of developing a strategy for growth. Once again, the people of the province have seen its usual pattern of running names on ballots rather than focusing on seats where it might stand a chance of winning. As such the party will be doomed to be a marginal political force at best, no matter what patronizing praise its leader receives from the Premier.
The Future House and the future province
If the recent past is any indication, the legislature will slip increasingly into irrelevance. The House will sit fewer days. Bills will be passed with less and less debate. Three of the four opposition members are the same people who allowed the House to run as it has over the past four years, including agreeing in secret to the speedy passage of the Green bill in a manner that made the bill itself a mockery of its author's intentions. The public will know less and will have a weaker ability to discover anything.
With such a large caucus, Danny Williams may well be faced with a dilemma of political management unseen since the 1980s. Brian Peckford's solution was to buy the co-operation of his caucus by giving them all extra stipends and positions as parliamentary secretaries. With a speaker, deputy speaker, chair of committees and government whip, there are only 39 left to accommodate. A cabinet of 20 with a matching number of parliamentary secretaries will ensure that all stay nicely in line. let's see if that is the solution which comes, if not this year, then in a few more.
In the estates, don't worry about the news media becoming the opposition. Corporate concentration in some cases and political inclination in others will ensure that self-censorship will kill or weaken anything that appears critical long before it hits the page or the airwaves. As anyone paying attention would have already seen since 2003, anything that does not conform to the official line is , by definition, critical and, therefore, bad.
And in cyberspace, things will likely carry on as usual. Some will view Bond Papers as partisan or personal. If they do, they merely miss the point. It has always been about policy choices and alternative information. And whether that goal has been met or not on occasion, that will remain the focus, for as long as it can be sustained.
Our descendents 40 years hence should not be able to look back on this time as we do to a time 40 years ago and wonder why no one pointed out the obvious alternatives to decisions taken in near unanimity.
The past is too much in our present to give anyone any comfort.
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Couldn't get the Aliant link from the earlier post?
Well, here's the vid that backs it up.
One of the more curious contributions to this election campaign has come from some blogging under the name I.P. Freely.
There has been a steady flow of videos, bumper stickers and bingo cards all taking pokes at politicians, but mostly at Danny Williams. Apparently, when you are the most popular guy around, you are also the easiest target.
Some of these have been quite clever and well done. The Hebron secret deal "'Danny and his chamber of secrets" looks like a political television spot, but without the better quality sound and video production qualities. Others, like the one about Danny putting oil in the ground, just head to nowhere funny or pointed.
As we draw down to the last few hours of the campaign, here are Freely's latest work samples.
First, there is the exhortation to vote freely. It's simple, funny and includes an inside reference to another recent video that's worth checking out as well for it's simple, funny message.
Second, there's a video that is equally simple but the impact comes entirely from the audio. While the slides and movie images scroll through a series of Tory promises, the audio is Danny Williams telling people what to do at the ballot with someone who breaks a promise. Some of the stuff produced in Ontario during its election campaign have had better production values, but in terms of bang for the buck, this sort of thing - having a leader speak eloquently against himself - creates a sort of jarring effect that is difficult to achieve. This sort of thing can only happen where the political leader takes positions based on something other than logic and consistency.
Cognitive dissonance.
Surrealism.
Thy name is Danny.
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The political reporters
A panel of CBC reporters gave some interesting insights on a province-wide Morning Show this morning into the final days of the campaign and what may occur on Tuesday.
In particular, it was interesting to hear provincial affairs reporter David Cochrane's reporting of comments with the Progressive Conservative campaign on possible seat outcomes ranging from 38-39 seats for the ruling party to as many as 44. The Tories have been rightly trying to dampen sweep expectations since they know the whiff of overwhelming success doesn't give their own supporters motivation to turn out at the polls and may increase the motivation of others to vote.
Unfortunately, that also smacks into a problem with the core Danny Williams message for the past year or more, namely that he needs a strong mandate - read as many seats as humanly possible - in order to carry forward. The two things comes together nicely in the major Tory message of the past week and exemplified in the only new Progressive Conservative advertising released during that time. A radio spot, likely airing only in areas where the Tories are concerned to pull out votes, has Danny Williams stating emphatically that "we need a strong mandate."
Tory callers to open line radio shows have echoed Williams' messages of the need for political parties to earn a vote and one caller went so far as to express concern that voters may vote for a strong opposition - as opposed to a strong mandate for her favourite - to the extent that there might be a change in government. The chances of a Bob Rae surprise as in the Ontario 1990 election is remote but it may be revealing to see a staunch Tory supporter expressing that concern.
The projections and the polls
One of the few people talking openly of a potential sweep has been Don Mills of Corporate Research Associates (CRA). Mills' quarterly polling has fueled the opinion that Williams enjoys overwhelming popular support across the province. He's refined his seat projections in recent days, not based on polling research mind you but by gleaning some information from media reports. Mills now projects the Tories will win 43 or 44 seats.
bear in mind that, at best, Mills' numbers are simply a brute estimate of popular vote. They lack the necessary subtly of a properly constructed political poll that would allow someone to draw informed inferences. Indeed given that some of the more useful questions have tended to be the property of specific clients - like the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador - Mills' comments on issues such as voter satisfaction have sometimes proven to be misleading since his own research is inadequate. He can't or won't disclose client data, even though he knows what the results are and even where the results give a deeper and more detailed picture than the one painted by the three simple questions Mills discusses publicly.
Just to illustrate the extent to which Mill's number support a variety of potential outcomes in this election, remember that Mills is predicting a sweep or near sweep. His figure would give 91% of the seats in the legislature.
Let's look at the unadjusted CRA poll results and see what they tell us, potentially. By that, we mean we will look at what appears to be the raw percentages of the survey instead of the percentage of decided voters Mills uses.
Using that approach, what we see over the past year is a range of potential popular support for the Tories ranging from 53.2% in November 2006 to 62% in the most recent poll result.
Put that in perspective by looking at popular vote numbers during elections in Newfoundland and Labrador since Confederation. In the 1996 general election, the Liberals took 71% of the seats with 54.9% of the popular vote. In 1982, Brian Peckford won 85% of the seats in the legislature with 61% of the popular vote. Those are two of the largest majorities since the mid-1970s when the voting system changed away from having several candidates elected in a single district. In 2003, Danny Williams' Progressive Conservatives garnered 58.5% of the popular vote and won 34 seats, 77% of the legislature.
Eighty-five percent of the seats in the current legislature is 37 seats. Seventy-one percent would yield 31 seats. Even allowing for demographic changes within the province, including outmigration and internal migration, it seems highly unlikely that popular vote numbers in the historic ranges for an incumbent party would yield an increase in seats of seven to 30% more than the historic seats numbers from a given share of popular vote.
Winners and losers
Based on the apparent popular vote numbers from CRA and historic data, it would be reasonable to expect the Progressive Conservatives to be elected with a seat total upwards of 40. That's pretty much in the range expected in the so-called realistic projection some Tories mentioned by Cochrane said was their likely outcome.
By the same reckoning, Don Mills' seat count of 43 to 44 seats would be highly unlikely.
There are a number of factors that might influence the final outcome and, as with the publicly available polling, this post is as much an exercise in speculation as anything else. However, some things that can be said or issues to watch:
- St. John's West and Conception Bay South. Strong candidates running against incumbents. Even if there isn't an upset in one of these seats, a strong showing by the Liberals will change the interpretation of St. John's as Tory country.
- Burin-Placentia West. The NDP seem to be running a strong campaign there, dropping the former national party leader in over the weekend.
- Labrador's four: How the four seats go will indicate a major political rift to be managed over the next four years, and possibly beyond.
- Isles of Notre Dame and Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi. The Tories are working to unseat the opposition party leaders. let's see if they can do it.
- Straits and White Bay North. Is anything going on with Trevor Taylor or are the hints of some local push-back just unsubstantiated rumour?
- Bay of Islands. Eddie Joyce is to Danny as Lynn Verge was to Clyde. Let's see if Ed can withstand the onslaught of the premier in the district on the last day of the campaign on top of the small-town petty politics that has been worked with the city council and chamber of commerce in Corner Brook.
| District | Percent advance (07) | Percent advance (03) |
| Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi | 4.9% | 2.5% |
| Carbonear – Harbour Grace | 4.0% | 7.2% |
| Port de Grave | 3.3% | 4.7% |
| Exploits | 3.3% | 2.7% |
| Lake Melville | 3.2% | 2.7% |
| Humber Valley | 3.2% | 4.1% |
| St. John’s East | 3.2% | 2.5% |
| Torngat Mountains | 2.9% | 2.6% |
| St. John’s West | 2.9% | 3.6% |
| St. John’s South | 2.8% | 2.3% |
| Gander | 2.7% | 3.6% |
| Topsail | 2.7% | 2.9% |
| Cartwright – L’Anse au Clair | 2.7% | 2.1% |
| Labrador West | 2.7% | 2.8% |
| Mount Pearl North | 2.6% | 2.9% |
Danny Williams came within a hair of promising a cabinet seat for Patty Pottle if the voters in Torngat Mountains would elect her as the MHA.
That's about as pathetic a gamble as it gets; there really is no other word for it.
Normally, that sort of thing is the hint dropped by desperate candidates trying to hang on to a seat. Normally, when a candidate resorts to spreading that rumour - always denied by the Leader for a whole bunch of reasons - it's a sign that all hope has gone.
Now when the party leader who is the Premier starts running around openly promising he'll pretty much surely plunk Patty in a cabinet seat, you can bet two things:
1. He's reasonably sure his current Labrador cabinet minister is toast.
2. he's desperate to have a seat on the mainland that he is prepared to promise anything to get it.
Might be a clue to voters everywhere.
If you want Danny Williams' attention: elect an Opposition MHA.
But seriously, it is long since past due for political reporters to stop spreading the campaign executive jet spin.
Wipe the Kool-Aid from your lips. brush the salmon flecks and cheesecake crumbs from your lapels.
Put the Premier's run through Labrador in perspective. It isn't about taking seats away from anyone.
It's all about desperately avoiding losing the two seats in Labrador the Premier's already got.
The run is Torngat is actually beyond desperate.
It's pathetic.
As pathetic as another Premier from another party running around claiming that Kilbride and Ferryland were going red.
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Simple enough.
Take the pictures below, and/or add a funny caption.
Photoshop them (within the bounds of good taste), e-mail your submission to bondpapers at hotmail dot com and we'll post them.
"On a go forward basic, quite frankly, I'll be working to get the partridgeberry muffin back on the menu at every Tim Horton's in the Federation."
"Now when I blink my eyes, the election will be over and the Liberals will be back in government. It's a trick I learned from Jeannie."
"I did kick his butt, didn't I?"
[Photos; shamelessly taken from the CBC campaign blog, Campaign Trail]
Danny Williams recently accused Gerry Reid of planning an open cheque-book government.
For the record, here is the public sector debt since 2003, as contained in the provincial estimates for 2007.
Table 1: Public Sector Debt FY 2003 - FY 2007(f)
Source: Dept of Finance, Budget 2007, millions of CDN$
| 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007f | |
| Direct | 6692.7 | 6581.5 | 7244.0 | 7069.5 | 7306.5 |
| Crown | 2404.1 | 2885.8 | 2657.4 | 2660.4 | 2666.9 |
| Total* | 8007.1 | 8345.2 | 8644.4 | 8355.6 | 8496.4 |
Williams ridiculed Reid’s business sense, comparing his understanding of the oil industry to the popular U.S. TV show, “The Beverly Hillbillies.”Funny thing about that attempted slur is that Jed Clampett was actually a wily, sensible and conservative gentleman.
“This is not Jed Clampett, Gerry. This is big business.”
One of the things to watch in this provincial election has been the media campaign, from the Tories low-key one to the Liberals' barely existent one. The new Democrats are somewhere in between, if that's possible.
There are the party websites, all of which represent the very best of Web 1.0 in a Web 2.0 world.
Even the Tory site, which is by far the best of the three party sites, is missing the sort of things that have become commonplace in political campaigns. Stuff like syndication feeds to allow people easily to access information from news releases. There's no campaign blog and even the whole layout is not designed to include people and invite them to participate. Rather, the party websites are simply devices for sending messages, not receiving them.
None of the political parties are using new media at all. No podcasting, let alone vidcasting.
There'll be more on this over weekend at Bond and Persuasion Business.
For now, let's turn attention to the unofficial contributions to the campaign, the stuff being put out by ordinary people.
There are bulletin boards on the Internet. There's good old nf.general, the newsgroup that seems to be decidedly uninterested in the campaign.
And there's youtube. Undisputed King or Queen of the genre in I.P.Freely. Sheer volume of output alone this year has dwarfed anything put out by the candidates. One of the original vids has had nearly 10,000 views since it emerged during the winter by-elections. A more recent vid on the campaign in Central Labrador has pulled almost 1,000 views in less than a week. [Hint for the professors out there: broadband access has nothing to do with it anymore than broadcasting does.]
Then there's one that cropped up in the Bond e-mail just this evening. It picks up on the raging political battle in Labrador and on something that the Tory campaign missed. Your humble e-scribbler, unrepentant townie that he is - the title townie bastard is already claimed - missed it completely as well.
In one of the streeters on the Tory website, at least two of the people refer to fighting for "Newfoundland". The first guy seems to be standing in front of the library at Memorial. There's an abrupt edit at the end of the word "Newfoundland' in the original, but that may mean nothing at all.
The second one is impossible to situate, but the phrase "Newfoundland" is unmistakable, as opposed to "Newfoundland and Labrador" or "NewfoundlandLabrador" as the province has become over at Voice of the Cabinet Minister.
The name of the province is a sensitive issue in Labrador.
Very sensitive.
Just how sensitive?
Well, the answer to that is in the intensity of the battles raging in the seats in Labrador, including the one held by cabinet minister John Hickey. He's the guy under attack in the 1,000-views video.
In an out-of-the-way hangar at St. John's airport, a handful of journalists are sitting comfortably in overstuffed leather chairs, gazing into their laptops or staring wide-eyed at the day's travel itinerary.
There's coffee, tea and an assortment of breakfast snacks.And judging by the decor, this place is accustomed to well-heeled visitors.
Parked less than 10 metres away is a sleek private jet valued at about $2 million. Its two pilots wait patiently for their VIP passenger - Premier Danny Williams - and his entourage.
Then there's the Liberal bus-bound travel and the NDP's minivan.
2. Heard that one before, sorta. From Danny Williams in Marystown:
"My goal is to get the husbands and the fathers and the sons and the daughters and the mothers who have gone away to work, gone away to Alberta, gone across this country and get 'em back home," Williams told the crowd.
When Clyde Wells uttered the famous "every mother's son" line in Cox's Cove in 1989, he was talking about creating an economy and society where people could make a choice to live in Newfoundland and Labrador or pursue their own goals wherever they wanted. There's a big difference between individual choice and getting people back just because it fits some other imperative. Like say the demeaning "homing pigeon" nonsense Danny Williams likes to spout.
3. The Ghosts of Peckford. Interesting to see Peckford-era cabinet ministers Glenn Tobin (Social Services, Government Services) and Bob Aylward (Rural, Agricultural and Northern Development, Forest Resources and finally Municipal Affairs) advancing for Danny Williams at a rally in Marystown.
Tobin represented Burin-Placentia West from 1982 to 1996. He's currently the chair of the provincial government's liquor corporation.
Aylward represented the district of Kilbride from 1979 to 1993. Most recently he was vice-chair of the electoral boundaries commission.
Eons ago, Tobin was interviewed in a television report on the provincial government's make-work schemes. These would let people work on provincially funded projects long enough to qualify for federal unemployment insurance benefits. The whole policy was known as Lotto 10-42, a play on a popular gambling game combined with the formula that 10 weeks of make-work earned 42 weeks of federal benefits. The interview lurks in the archives at CBC most likely, but the one part that stuck with your humble e-scribbler all these years was pretty simple: Tobin denied there was such a policy. But if there was, he said, it wouldn't matter since oil would be flowing shortly and all would be fine.
4. Curiouser and curiouser. labradore, noticed something very interesting from Danny Williams speech in Corner Brook this week. The Tory campaign song was apparently written in 2004, or as Williams described it, just after the offshore deal victory. Problem: the deal came in 2005. Maybe there was a reason why Danny Williams didn't want to release poll results from his first 18 months in office. Makes you wonder what was in the polls, though, since they were eventually released to the Telegram but the Telly did nothing with them. Maybe the Telly missed something, aside from the research on adopting the green, white and pink native flag as the new provincial emblem. Maybe there was something curious in there after all, like discovering how much of a disaster the flag flap was, as revealed by the Premier's own polling.
5. You'll get the files, manana. The Indy is reporting this weekend that Diane Whelan promised to release details of her constituency allowance spending, particularly the donations. You may recall that, of the 115 legislators subjected to a review by the Auditor General, Whelan handed out the largest percentage of her allowance as cash gifts. The day after saying she'd cough up the details, Whelan told the Indy she'd dig the information out. But we'd have to wait until after the election to see where the money went. The story might be online next week.
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