The Sir Robert Bond Papers
The real political division in society is between authoritarians and libertarians.
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Churchill Falls and Muskrat Falls - Background
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27 July 2015
Smoke, mirrors, and Harper’s senate moratorium #nlpoli #cdnpoli
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Heading into an election and with the three major federal parties within five or six points of each other in the opinion polls, the Prime Mi...
24 July 2015
The Line They Didn’t Need #nlpoli
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For some time now, Nalcor has needed an extra line from Bay d’Espoir to increase the capacity across the Isthmus of Avalon. They just kep...
23 July 2015
Gull Island? Dead duck. #nlpoli
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From the Financial Post , Tom Adams and Ed Hollett take a look at three issues that will hold up any development of Gull Island: While...
22 July 2015
Reality check for the Ontarians, please #nlpoli
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If nothing else, media coverage about energy talks between Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador shows just how much people don’t know about...
21 July 2015
Always ready for a better tomorrow #nlpoli
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Ontario and the faltering Conservative administration in Newfoundland and Labrador are talking about the possibility of developing Gull Isl...
20 July 2015
Maternal mortality #nlpoli
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Black women in the United States are twice as likely to die as a result of complications of pregnancy and childbirth as are white and Hispan...
17 July 2015
Seven with one blow #nlpoli #cdnpoli
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Seven companies in Newfoundland and Labrador have reached a deal with Elections Canada in the Penashue illegal contributions case. Accordi...
16 July 2015
Arse Foremost #nlpoli
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Politicians help out with each other’s election campaigns all the time. There’s nothing unusual for a municipal politician to work on a pr...
15 July 2015
That’s gotta suck, big time #nlpoli
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All the country’s provincial and territorial leaders – except for Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia – are in Newfoundland and Labrador this week ...
14 July 2015
It was Greek to me #nlpoli
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After days of intense talks, the Europeans apparently have finally reached a final deal to help Greece out of its latest financial misery. ...
13 July 2015
Cripple you say? #nlpoli
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Unnamed Conservative “insiders” have been talking about the Ches Crosbie nomination fiasco as if it was a rejection of a new Tory Jesus or s...
10 July 2015
Overcooked Ambition #nlpoli
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Nameless Conservative Party insiders predict that without Ches Crosbie as a candidate, the federal Conservative party will be crippled in Ne...
09 July 2015
The long summer campaign #nlpoli
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Liberal leader Dwight Ball kicked off a 10 week campaign swing around the province this week. It’s basically a tour of the local festival...
08 July 2015
Confidence Builder #nlpoli
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The public utilities board asked Liberty Consulting to review Hydro’s decisions in 11 projects. Hydro is looking for a rate increase. The...
07 July 2015
Canadian Forces recruiting centres and demographics #nlpoli
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The Canadian Forces is planning to move its three full-time recruiting staff out of the office in Corner Brook and move them elsewhere. Fr...
06 July 2015
Impotence and weakness #nlpoli
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If you take John Crosbie’s version at face value, the Conservative Party rejected his son Ches as a candidate for the party in Avalon becau...
04 July 2015
Way behind schedule #nlpoli
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The reports you will likely read in the conventional media all peg the Muskrat Falls project as behind schedule. That’s what the latest pr...
03 July 2015
Through a glass, darkly #nlpoli
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Imagine that Newfoundland history is enclosed inside a gigantic room. Inside the room everything is pitch black. Every now and again, so...
02 July 2015
John Crosbie and the Last Crusade #nlpoli #cdnpoli
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Every story told thus far about Ches Crosbie and the riding in Avalon has the unmistakeable odour of bullshit about it. The latest twist, ...
The Great War and Newfoundland Political Memory #nlpoli
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“It is sobering to think,” historian Sean Cadigan wrote in the Telegram on Tuesday, “that the memory of the casualties of war has been use...
01 July 2015
Forget-me-not #nlpoli
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-srbp-
30 June 2015
Forget that Orange Wave Thing #nlpoli
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Two-thirds of respondents to the most recent Abacus-VOCM News poll said they believed the Liberal Party will win the next provincial genera...
29 June 2015
Rex, re-districting, and getting it right #nlpoli
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Rex Hillier: the first political victim of the bill that redrew the political map in Newfoundland. Simple story. Easy peasey. And com...
27 June 2015
The not-so-rare leap: @abacusdata June 2015 #nlpoli
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Two different polls from two different pollsters using two different polling methods have shown basically the same thing: the New Democrats...
26 June 2015
Porter makes history #nlpoli
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Steve Porter made history on Thursday night. He defeated an incumbent in the House of Assembly - Rex Hillier - in a party nomination fig...
25 June 2015
She's a class act all the way #nlpoli
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The House of Assembly closed on Tuesday, likely for the last time before the next election. Sure, Premier Paul Davis said he may call the...
24 June 2015
Purity Factories' advertising no treat at all #nlpoli
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Venerable local food manufacturer Purity Factories has a new advertising campaign featuring its delicious cream crackers. On a billboard i...
23 June 2015
George Murphy quits politics #nlpoli
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Whenever anyone runs down politicians as a group, remember George Murphy. And then give the boor who ran down politicians a lash in the a...
22 June 2015
Tree Politics #nlpoli
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From your humble e-scribbler's yard, the province's political parties as revealed by trees. First, we have the Conservative Part...
No equity? No surprise. #nlpoli
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It didn’t take long for Paul Davis to get the comparison he was looking for last week. The Telegram - not surprisingly – offered it up in...
20 June 2015
What district is Earle in, again? #nlpoli
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Since the bill to change provincial districts cleared the House last week, the provincial New Democrats have been tweeting sanctimoniously ...
19 June 2015
The politics of information #nlpoli
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A couple of recent post are reminders of how important it is to take a look at issues in the province from another perspective. On June 10...
18 June 2015
Newfoundland forcing Quebec's hand on Old Harry #nlpoli
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The Bay du Nord field is far offshore and far from development, Paul Davis’ optimism notwithstanding. It’s way the hell offshore (about 5...
17 June 2015
A troublesome and costly pattern #nlpoli
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There are so many problems raised by Premier Paul Davis’ zeal to sign an agreement with Statoil for the Bay du Nord that it is difficult to...
16 June 2015
The Moveable Fixed Election Date #nlpoli
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Arguably, the greatest fairy tale the Conservatives spread after 2003 was that Danny Williams didn’t take a salary from the people of Newfou...
15 June 2015
Brad Wall's case for abolishing Premiers #cdnpoli #nlpoli
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Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall thinks that making the senate an elected institution that better reflects Canadians is too hard. Rather th...
12 June 2015
Small things and big differences #nlpoli
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The Auditor General delivered his annual report on some of the provincial government’s programs and services on Wednesday. We learned, am...
11 June 2015
A tonic for NDP Amnesia #nlpoli
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When he was a member of the House of Assembly in Newfoundland and Labrador, NDP member of parliament Jack Harris double-billed the legis...
10 June 2015
The cost of out-dated ideas #nlpoli
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The Barry Group plant near Corner Brook pays a better price for crab than a competitor in New Brunswick. New Brunswick fishermen can't...
Deaths in Modern Conflict
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The Fallen of World War II from Neil Halloran on Vimeo . -srbp-
The Politics of Menses #nlpoli
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Until now, we had no idea how our governments valued menstruation. Some of you might be surprised to think this was a question but now we ...
09 June 2015
A lot can change in three months #nlpoli
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The Liberals and the Conservatives dropped in the most recent Corporate Research Associates poll and all that vote went to the New Democrat...
08 June 2015
Small ball, election dates, and other minutae #nlpoli
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Later today, Premier Paul Davis will introduce a bill in the House of Assembly that, among other things, sets the next provincial general e...
07 June 2015
Q2 2015 Poll Speculation #nlpoli
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Corporate Research Associates boss Don Mills has done a good job of teasing the results of his latest poll, due Monday. "Significant&...
05 June 2015
Politicians and other damn fools #nlpoli
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On Wednesday, politicians in Newfoundland and Labrador condemned the federal minister of fisheries for making a decision about the fishery i...
04 June 2015
The Persistence of False Information: free electricity version #nlpoli
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An exchange on Twitter reminded your humble e-scribbler on Wednesday evening of the power of false information to persist despite either be...
03 June 2015
Duff in the Hole #nlpoli #cdnpoli
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Dwight Ball’s announcement last week about Liberal Party funding was a good example of how relatively simple mistakes can turn a good-news a...
02 June 2015
Politics, CETA, and the fishery #nlpoli
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The European trade deal came up in the House of Assembly on Monday. Everyone kept to the same lines they've been kicking around for m...
01 June 2015
For want of a nail... #nlpoli
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Dwight Ball demonstrated last week how very simple things can turn into problems very quickly. He handed his political opponents a stick the...
29 May 2015
Parting Gifts #nlpoli #cdnpoli
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Peter MacKay may have quit federal politics but that didn't stop him from porking up the federally-appointed courts before he left. On...
More delays in taking out the trash #nlpoli
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On Monday , municipal affairs minister Keith Hutchings announced that the provincial government was setting back the clock on the provincia...
28 May 2015
Yesterday #nlpoli
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The news should have been good. Party leader Dwight Ball announced on Wednesday that the Liberals had rid themselves of the debt the part...
27 May 2015
Conservatives abandon ridiculous position on European trade… again #nlpoli
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In January , trade minister Darin King wrote a letter to his federal counterpart about the European trade deal. King said the provincial...
26 May 2015
The party is over #nlpoli
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There are times when you wonder why anyone pays attention to a crowd like the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council. They showed up in St. J...
25 May 2015
Everything will be fine. Or not. #nlpoli
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This pretty picture shows a very ugly problem. Look at the point (2008) where the red and blue lines separate. The area in between repres...
22 May 2015
A week of truth for the Conservatives #nlpoli
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Not that we didn’t know the provincial government had already granted exemptions to its supposedly sacred minimum fish processing requiremen...
21 May 2015
TBT: a cabinet divided #nlpoli
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The latest case of the Premier and one of his ministers saying different things can’t be put down to brain farts. You also cannot dismiss ...
Oil Royalty and Oil Price Forecasts (2015) #nlpoli
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Don Mills says people in Newfoundland and Labrador have a false impression of the state of the provincial economy. Wade Locke says Mills i...
20 May 2015
Brain Farts #nlpoli
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Some people have a hard time with the idea that a great many political decisions are not the product of deep thinking, extensive research, a...
19 May 2015
Political Pandermonium #nlpoli
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You can tell the election is already going on. You can tell because of what some of the political workers are doing. The Liberals are goi...
18 May 2015
Owing it forward #nlpoli
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The provincial government will balance its books this year by borrowing $2.1 billion. Lots of people don’t know that, as Michael Caine wo...
15 May 2015
Never heard anyone say that before #nlpoli
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“This may be our last shot at it,” said captain of industry Paul Antle this week as he set off to find other captains of industry to help hi...
14 May 2015
And it’s only Wednesday #nlpoli
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Imagine, if you can, what it must be like to be Sandy Collins. Sandy is a very young man who is - right now - living the first line of hi...
13 May 2015
A Memorial at Gallipoli #nlpoli
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The provincial government announced four years ago that a caribou memorial at Gallipoli would be part of the Honour 100 commemorations to ma...
12 May 2015
When is a cut not a cut? #nlpoli
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A couple of years ago, the province’s auditor general noted that a Crown agency responsible for developing an integrated health information...
11 May 2015
Ethnic identity economics #nlpoli
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Wade Locke and Don Mills are two of the faces most associated with the current Conservative administration in Newfoundland and Labrador, asi...
08 May 2015
Trends: corpse kicking after a lost decade of delusion #nlpoli
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Don Mills is the latest fan of the provincial Conservatives to turn on them savagely. The St. John’s Board of Trade had Don back to delive...
07 May 2015
The Fourth Party #nlpoli
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A Telegram editorial on Wednesday contained a curious comment. The subject was news that broke this week about the provincial governme...
06 May 2015
Austerity #nlpoli
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All this talk of austerity, gutting the public service…. Then you look at the salary costs, from the provincial budget. There’s somethin...
05 May 2015
The Red and the Black: budgets and politics #nlpoli
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The annual budget is probably the most political document of any government in a Westminster style parliament like ours. At its simplest a...
04 May 2015
Fearful Symmetry #nlpoli
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There are a couple of constables in an office over in the basement of the old Memorial College building at Fort Townshend, right next to whe...
01 May 2015
Conservatives stay the debt-building course #nlpoli
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Budget 2015 offered absolutely no surprises. On major areas the Conservatives continued their policy of spending more than the provincial ...
30 April 2015
The little things will get you #nlpoli
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Maybe someone can point to this information somewhere please. Maybe your humble e-scribbler missed it. But in the past couple of days, t...
29 April 2015
Yes. The government has big financial problems #nlpoli
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Yet another academic paper emerged on Tuesday that pointed out that the provincial government has a big financial problem caused by followi...
28 April 2015
Contending Political Strategies #nlpoli
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Starting last Friday, the ironically-named Conservatives currently running the place started holding a series of “pre-budget” announcements....
27 April 2015
Hysteriana #nlpoli
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The response to the proposed boundaries for districts in the House of Assembly has been…what’s the word for it? … oh yes, totally off-the-w...
24 April 2015
You know things are going badly when… #nlpoli
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… you launch your election campaign at at huge fundraiser and your signature policy announcement gets slaughtered on Twitter within seconds ...
23 April 2015
Another little thing that stood out #nlpoli
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From Tuesday’s throne speech , here’s another little passage buried away, that could prove to be one of the most significant parts of any th...
22 April 2015
The little things that stand out #nlpoli
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Throne Speech 2015 was the kind of document you’d expect from a group of politicians who are out of new ideas. People are making a big de...
21 April 2015
Pre-emptive rebuttal #nlpoli
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This excerpt from Tuesday’s federal budget speech seems aimed at province's like Newfoundland and Labrador where the government promised...
The problem with no problem #nlpoli
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Dwight Ball is the latest Liberal to emerge from the candidate protection program. He popped up on NTV on Monday evening to tell us all tw...
20 April 2015
The Political Game of Stupidity #nlpoli
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Last week, the provincial Liberals came out of the candidate protection program to talk about the Dunphy shooting. Liberal justice critic ...
17 April 2015
Has anyone seen the Liberals lately? #nlpoli
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This editorial by Craig Westcott originally appeared in The Pearl newspaper and is re-produced here with permission. Two of the most ...
16 April 2015
Goldilocks and the three mayors #nlpoli
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Almost a week after we all got a peek at the new provincial electoral boundaries, things have settled down in some areas and the insanity h...
15 April 2015
Minority Report #nlpoli
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One of the police officers responsible for the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary’s Twitter presence did an interview with CBC’s Anthony Germai...
14 April 2015
Politics, the police, and tragedy #nlpoli
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Last October, Premier Paul Davis appointed Lynn Moore to his new advisory council on crime. Moore is in private practice these days but, a...
13 April 2015
Political Boundary Issues #nlpoli
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Some people thought that the electoral boundaries commission wouldn’t get its job done within 120 days. On Friday, those people found out...
10 April 2015
The week from hell #nlpoli
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You gotta feel for police chief Bill Janes and the rest of the men and women of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. All this happened bet...
09 April 2015
The irresponsible rush to judgment #nlpoli
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For those not involved but deeply concerned about the events in Mitchell’s Brook on Easter Sunday, one of the more disturbing aspects of the...
08 April 2015
For the Quebec lovers #nlpoli
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We’ve got two recent pieces on events in Quebec. Don Macpherson explains why the student “strikes” aren’t really strikes at all. And fo...
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