An early morning e-mail from a regular reader caused me to go back and review a column I had originally written for the Independent back in its early days. I don't recall if it ever appeared in print; something tells me it did.
The e-mail took issue with my Jack Byrne post, noting specifically that I was remiss (and maybe partisan) in failing to note that the Job Creation Program ( form of make-work) was actually an invention of Beaton Tulk.
Ok. I didn't point it out, but partisan had nothing to do with it. Anyone who does follow my stuff will realise that I have been as critical of the Tobin/Tulk crowd over things as anyone else. In fact, I know I have made the point on many occasions that Tobin marked a return to Peckfordism on a whole bunch of levels.
The point of my Byrne post (in case I wasn't clear) was that in the absence of a policy, governments tend to default to either bureaucratic or partisan genetic memory. Hence, the blatant make-work program Byrne announced. I also drew the parallels between Byrne's talking points and those of Glenn Tobin nearly two decades earlier.
While I had thought about this old column before, it seems appropriate to resurrect it now since it speaks to the basic idea that political rhetoric in this province seems to come around again and again. There's no point in pretending the column is comprehensive and elegant; it isn't. I was grappling with finding possible explanations for what seems to be an obvious phenomenon.
Reviewing the column now about 18 months after I wrote it, the only thing I would disagree with is the conclusion: I was wrong. People here don't seem to tire of having the same carpet threads being pushed in front of them again and again. Actually, I'd have to admit that over the past 18 months we have seen old ideas and old threads being sold time and again at their original price, marked up to account for inflation.
Jack Byrne just wound up being the latest salesman. Whether the ideas were his, those of his colleagues or solely those of the Premier is irrelevant from where I sit.
I am just astonished that we keep doing the same things over and over again expecting a different result.
Anyway, here's the column as it was originally presented...
The politics of history
History is a powerful thing in Newfoundland and Labrador politics.
In his victory speech a few weeks ago, premier-elect Danny Williams pledged that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians had voted to seize control of their destiny using words eerily reminiscent of Smallwood, Peckford and Tobin. "There will be no more giveaways. The giveaways end right here and right now!"
Why are we stuck on this rhetorical merry-go-round?
One reason is that political leaders take a Calvinist approach to history. As Calvin told his stuffed tiger Hobbes many years ago, people reinvent history to suit modern prejudices and to fit modern needs. We spin our history, old and new, reweaving the threads of fact to suit the immediate need. Tories blame the Liberals for job cuts in the early 1990s, conveniently forgetting the world recession, and the abysmal state of the province'’s finances. New Liberals blame old Liberals for the Upper Churchill give-away. Nationalists blame foreigners for everything from the collapse of responsible government to current resource "giveaways", all the while forgetting that we have controlled our own destiny for most of the past 200 years.
The second reason is that spin seems to work. Politicians like to get elected. Brian Tobin and Brian Peckford won huge majority governments promising that one day the sun will shine, that we will be masters in our own house or that not one teaspoon of ore will leave the province. They hammered at the giveaways, vowing never again. At least in Peckford'’s case, he stuck around long enough to make a decision, yet, as good as his intentions were in signing the Atlantic Accord, newer politicians have found in that deal their latest scapegoat.
The third reason is that politicians are people and people like sameness; it'’s a human characteristic. Change in any form is often intimidating. For politicians in a province that has experienced relatively little change throughout its history, more of the same seems like the answer to everything, especially if you want to get elected.
The fourth reason is that there is a certain expectation that everything in the province is government'’s responsibility. For most of our history, Newfoundland and Labrador has been a top-down place. Churches and politicians ran things. The churches handled schools, salvation and morality. The government ran everything else, from job creation to the dole. If voters expect you to walk on water, and you don'’t have a better idea, politicians found it easier to take a step or blame someone else for the supposed failure, if they wanted to get elected.
History seems to push politicians to more of the same, but ironically, history is about change. And as the Newfoundland and Labrador electorate changes, they are getting better able to spot the same carpet being sold to them time and again.
The choice for the new crop of politicians elected last month is whether to spin history for immediate, and ultimately short-lived, gains. Or use history - our experience, our culture - as one tool to guide substantive changes in and for Newfoundland and Labrador. In eight years time, they may find that many of the changes they hoped for like massive new industries will still be little more than the fodder for someone else'’s rhetoric.
The four factors just mentioned, though, are all within their power to change.
For a politician to change those in Newfoundland and Labrador would be something truly historic.
08 July 2005
More poll dancing - as promised
This is just a teaser.
After lunch, I'll throw up the post on the January offshore poll.
There are some interesting things in there and so far the assessments from the people I have bounced the poll off are almost word for word the same.
Stay tuned.
Same Bond Time.
Same Bond channel.
For an exploration of political decision-making a la Danny Williams.
After lunch, I'll throw up the post on the January offshore poll.
There are some interesting things in there and so far the assessments from the people I have bounced the poll off are almost word for word the same.
Stay tuned.
Same Bond Time.
Same Bond channel.
For an exploration of political decision-making a la Danny Williams.
07 July 2005
It could never happen here...
In the wake of the London terror attacks, it is very interesting watching the Ontario emergency measures boss Julian Fantino and Ontario public security minister giving a media briefing and taking questions about the possibility of such attacks in Canada.
Makes me ponder our local preparedness.
Makes me ponder our local preparedness.
Jack Byrne - Back to the Future!
For those not in Newfoundland and Labrador, the Fisheries Broadcast is a CBC Radio show that has been running for decades. It's the last show in the CBC radio line-up that is aimed solely at a particular sector of the economy, giving news and weather of interest to those in the fishery.
Driving home on Wednesday evening, I caught the introduction by host John Furlong to an interview with provincial cabinet minister Jack Byrne. Furlong said that the recent make-work package for fisheries workers announced by government had stirred some debate. To be sure some of the "debate" was from politicians clamouring to see the package extended to their districts or otherwise sweetened up.
But unless I have been missing a rollicking good time on the Fish Broadcast, I haven't heard so much as a peep from anyone about this policy from the Peckford years.
Jack Byrne did an admirable job of answering Furlong's questions; well, actually he did an admirable job of socking out the SOCKO-crap all that expensive mainland "media training" gave him. Jack had three messages and he stuck to them relentlessly, which is what many of these pre-packaged "training" sessions tell people to do.
It's Jane Stewart-in-a-can all for the low price of about $20, 000 bucks. Locals could do real training better and cheaper; but I digress.
Jack said:
1. The package was a one-time deal.
2. All the marvelous plans for economic development the government was working on would generate jobs to take care of fisheries workers in the future.
3. Whatever happened, he was sure the Premier would always use the best information to make the right decision in the best interests of the province.
So much for cabinet government.
To take the last point first, I am not sure if Byrne's point was that "Papa is in charge" (an excerpt from the Generic -Messages -for -the - Typical - Third -World -Dictatorship training module, no doubt) or that Jack himself wanted no responsibility for the make-work policy in the first place.
As for the middle point, this was a return to the "We gots Plans" theme that ran through the last Throne Speech. It was right after the Official (But Limited) List of Great Artists Known by the Speechwriter.
The only problem with Byrne's contention is that almost two years after taking office and another two and a half years in opposition before that, during which time we were assured they had plans ready to implement the day they took office, the current administration seems not to have a plan of any kind at all for anything.
The proof? We simply have yet to see one. Of any kind.
Even an outline would be nice.
In almost two farggin' years, as Roman Moroni would say.
The only plan they have is to keep sending SOCKOs out that they have plans in the works.
I felt a chill run down my spine as Byrne tossed out that "things will be better" SOCKO just because it sounded so much like a line from Glenn Tobin, Peckfordite social services minister (the guy in charge of Lotto 10-42) and more recently, known to be in charge of the liquor corporation.
In an interview with the fifth estate about Lotto 10-42 as it was then known, Tobin said two things:
1. There is no Lotto 10-42 in which the government deliberately stamps people up to get them on the EI rolls; and,
2. Even if there was such a program, and he wasn't admitting there was, but if for argument's sake we allow there was such a program, it wouldn't matter anyway because the Hibernia was about to start flowing and there'd be jobs for everyone and we'd all be rich, Praise Brian.
Or words to that effect.
All that leads us inevitably to SOCKO The First.
The problem with Jack Byrne's message that this was a one-off aid package is that history teaches us something starkly different.
Government works on the basis of an extreme version of Newton's First Law of Motion (inertia): - an object at rest will remain at rest (despite the best efforts to move it) or alternately, an object in motion will remain in motion (despite any evidence that it needs to stop quickly or Herculean efforts to stop it).
In the absence of a plan, governments everywhere tend to come up with these lash-up policies, sometimes, as in this case, digging back into their genetic political memory to find something that fits. This little make-work policy from government, for example, looks like it was dreamed up by Marty McFly, who took his Delorean for a little hop back to the glory days of 1985 to find out what Brian would have done.
Policy, as one wise former deputy minister once told me was about history, not logic and reason. When confronted with an issue, government bureaucrats invariably ask: 'What did we do before?"
I digress yet again.
More to the real point, though, in the continued and complete absence of a plan for either the fishery, or for economic development either in this case, there is a danger that as these work shortfalls inevitably occur, government will tend to go back to the make-work approach again and again until it becomes a policy.
As premiers wander about pledging that he won't let a single community "go down", they are spouting policy.
When a government gets focused exclusively on the tactical, as this one surely is, it starts doing everything as a "one-off". It only sees the specific issue and looks around for something to make the issue go away. Until the next time.
By the time of the third "one-off", you have a policy.
and a strategy.
by default.
In the meantime, in cases like this, no matter how many SOCKOs get spit out about having plans, being strategic and having a plan, the evidence almost inevitably shows that the SOCKO claims are actually a case of GIGO and that government is headed for being either SNAFU, TARFU or FUBAR.
Driving home on Wednesday evening, I caught the introduction by host John Furlong to an interview with provincial cabinet minister Jack Byrne. Furlong said that the recent make-work package for fisheries workers announced by government had stirred some debate. To be sure some of the "debate" was from politicians clamouring to see the package extended to their districts or otherwise sweetened up.
But unless I have been missing a rollicking good time on the Fish Broadcast, I haven't heard so much as a peep from anyone about this policy from the Peckford years.
Jack Byrne did an admirable job of answering Furlong's questions; well, actually he did an admirable job of socking out the SOCKO-crap all that expensive mainland "media training" gave him. Jack had three messages and he stuck to them relentlessly, which is what many of these pre-packaged "training" sessions tell people to do.
It's Jane Stewart-in-a-can all for the low price of about $20, 000 bucks. Locals could do real training better and cheaper; but I digress.
Jack said:
1. The package was a one-time deal.
2. All the marvelous plans for economic development the government was working on would generate jobs to take care of fisheries workers in the future.
3. Whatever happened, he was sure the Premier would always use the best information to make the right decision in the best interests of the province.
So much for cabinet government.
To take the last point first, I am not sure if Byrne's point was that "Papa is in charge" (an excerpt from the Generic -Messages -for -the - Typical - Third -World -Dictatorship training module, no doubt) or that Jack himself wanted no responsibility for the make-work policy in the first place.
As for the middle point, this was a return to the "We gots Plans" theme that ran through the last Throne Speech. It was right after the Official (But Limited) List of Great Artists Known by the Speechwriter.
The only problem with Byrne's contention is that almost two years after taking office and another two and a half years in opposition before that, during which time we were assured they had plans ready to implement the day they took office, the current administration seems not to have a plan of any kind at all for anything.
The proof? We simply have yet to see one. Of any kind.
Even an outline would be nice.
In almost two farggin' years, as Roman Moroni would say.
The only plan they have is to keep sending SOCKOs out that they have plans in the works.
I felt a chill run down my spine as Byrne tossed out that "things will be better" SOCKO just because it sounded so much like a line from Glenn Tobin, Peckfordite social services minister (the guy in charge of Lotto 10-42) and more recently, known to be in charge of the liquor corporation.
In an interview with the fifth estate about Lotto 10-42 as it was then known, Tobin said two things:
1. There is no Lotto 10-42 in which the government deliberately stamps people up to get them on the EI rolls; and,
2. Even if there was such a program, and he wasn't admitting there was, but if for argument's sake we allow there was such a program, it wouldn't matter anyway because the Hibernia was about to start flowing and there'd be jobs for everyone and we'd all be rich, Praise Brian.
Or words to that effect.
All that leads us inevitably to SOCKO The First.
The problem with Jack Byrne's message that this was a one-off aid package is that history teaches us something starkly different.
Government works on the basis of an extreme version of Newton's First Law of Motion (inertia): - an object at rest will remain at rest (despite the best efforts to move it) or alternately, an object in motion will remain in motion (despite any evidence that it needs to stop quickly or Herculean efforts to stop it).
In the absence of a plan, governments everywhere tend to come up with these lash-up policies, sometimes, as in this case, digging back into their genetic political memory to find something that fits. This little make-work policy from government, for example, looks like it was dreamed up by Marty McFly, who took his Delorean for a little hop back to the glory days of 1985 to find out what Brian would have done.
Policy, as one wise former deputy minister once told me was about history, not logic and reason. When confronted with an issue, government bureaucrats invariably ask: 'What did we do before?"
I digress yet again.
More to the real point, though, in the continued and complete absence of a plan for either the fishery, or for economic development either in this case, there is a danger that as these work shortfalls inevitably occur, government will tend to go back to the make-work approach again and again until it becomes a policy.
As premiers wander about pledging that he won't let a single community "go down", they are spouting policy.
When a government gets focused exclusively on the tactical, as this one surely is, it starts doing everything as a "one-off". It only sees the specific issue and looks around for something to make the issue go away. Until the next time.
By the time of the third "one-off", you have a policy.
and a strategy.
by default.
In the meantime, in cases like this, no matter how many SOCKOs get spit out about having plans, being strategic and having a plan, the evidence almost inevitably shows that the SOCKO claims are actually a case of GIGO and that government is headed for being either SNAFU, TARFU or FUBAR.
It's the Lord's Table, Father. You're just the waiter.
This little story about a member of parliament and his wife being denied eucharist because of the MP's stand on social policy issues is yet another argument for the firm legal separation of church and the state in this country.
Throughout the equal marriage debate, several Christian denominations attempted to impose their individual doctrines on all Canadians, adherents or not by fighting against the equal marriage bill.
Well, my solution is simple.
If the churches, like say the Roman Catholic Church or even the English Catholic Church want the government to ban equal marriage, then... let them accept civil divorces as having an equal status as church-authorized annulments but... and this is a big but since money is involved... without forcing people to pony up any form of special surcharge to the church for the privilege of cleaning off the marriage slate. Indulge me on that one.
Better still, let's just wipe out tax-exempt status for churches.
Period.
In this province, we languished for too long with clerical control over secular education. Now it's time to break the ties between church and state across the board.
As a local aside, I find it amusing that an organization which tried to claim it didn't exist here in order to avoid ponying up compensation for past crimes like child molestation, now has no problem throwing its own very real theological weight around to try and crush individual parishoners.
Then people wonder why parishoners were afraid to speak up against the child molesters hiding beneath vestments.
As another local aside, Bruce Gregerson, who is quoted in the Citizen story linked above used to be the minister at Gower Street United Church here in St. John's.
I like his take on things.
It's the Lord's Table.
I'd go a step farther.
That makes the priest a waiter.
And the bishop becomes the maitre d'.
If I were the MP, I'd take my weekly offerings to another church, just like you'd do if some snooty wait staff made your trip to another table and humilating experience instead of an enriching one.
See how long the Church agents stick to their guns when the bills start adding up and the pews start emptying.
Money really does change everything.
Just ask the guys who wanted us to believe they are really just a figment of our imaginations.
Throughout the equal marriage debate, several Christian denominations attempted to impose their individual doctrines on all Canadians, adherents or not by fighting against the equal marriage bill.
Well, my solution is simple.
If the churches, like say the Roman Catholic Church or even the English Catholic Church want the government to ban equal marriage, then... let them accept civil divorces as having an equal status as church-authorized annulments but... and this is a big but since money is involved... without forcing people to pony up any form of special surcharge to the church for the privilege of cleaning off the marriage slate. Indulge me on that one.
Better still, let's just wipe out tax-exempt status for churches.
Period.
In this province, we languished for too long with clerical control over secular education. Now it's time to break the ties between church and state across the board.
As a local aside, I find it amusing that an organization which tried to claim it didn't exist here in order to avoid ponying up compensation for past crimes like child molestation, now has no problem throwing its own very real theological weight around to try and crush individual parishoners.
Then people wonder why parishoners were afraid to speak up against the child molesters hiding beneath vestments.
As another local aside, Bruce Gregerson, who is quoted in the Citizen story linked above used to be the minister at Gower Street United Church here in St. John's.
I like his take on things.
It's the Lord's Table.
I'd go a step farther.
That makes the priest a waiter.
And the bishop becomes the maitre d'.
If I were the MP, I'd take my weekly offerings to another church, just like you'd do if some snooty wait staff made your trip to another table and humilating experience instead of an enriching one.
See how long the Church agents stick to their guns when the bills start adding up and the pews start emptying.
Money really does change everything.
Just ask the guys who wanted us to believe they are really just a figment of our imaginations.
06 July 2005
The price of the premiership
The Premier took the time at the White Rose launch in Marystown and at the lame cheque stunt yesterday to do two things:
1. In Marystown, the Premier acknowledged publicly that the revenue and benefits deal on White Rose was damned good. The Premier likes to kick the crap out of any deal he didn't sign, but in this instance, he was giving due praise.
2. In St. John's, he threw out some tough words in order to posture publicly for the upcoming negotiations with the Hebron consortium.
Well, as noted here before, the Premier really needs to tell the public what he is thinking when he talks about refineries and pipelines and petrochemical plants. He needs to tell the people of the province plainly what he will be seeking in any discussions with oil companies and he has to tell us what price he is prepared to pay (with our cash) for these oil industry add-ons.
The single defining characteristic of Premier Williams thus far is that he is long on rhetoric and extremely short on details for anything he does. The big cheque from John Efford yesterday is a classic example of how the Premier can talk his way through things and ultimately deliver something that really was a heck of a lot less than what he promised.
He changes positions as fast as any politician we have seen locally with the exception of maybe Brian Tobin. Some are starting to think he is driven by polls; that remains to be seen. Friday's post will be an assessment of the January polls recently released by government, coupled with a timeline on the Premier's positions on the flag lowering and mnegotiations with the federal government.
All that can be said right now is that the Bond Papers were borne out of the Premier's penchant for saying things that were at odds with the facts. There is good reason for continuing to watch carefully what he says and does.
The offshore revenue deal, for example, is pretty good in that it adds $2.0 billion in free federal money to the provincial coffers. However, what the Premier started out to do was double our revenues, which he claimed were being taken away from us.
At least two major things flowed out of the February deal. First, the Premier acknowledged in the very first clause that not a single nickel of provincial revenues was taken away. Second, and most importantly, he settled for a couple of billions in cash and a deal that may well cut out this year.
Before anyone jumps at me, take a look at the facts.
The offshore add-on from January applies only as long as the province is receiving Equalization. That was already forecast to happen next year, but high crude oil prices will likely put about $700 million into provincial coffers from offshore royalties alone. Equalization this year is only forecast to be slightly more than that; it's hard to figure exactly since the government fiddled around with the presentation of its figures in the last budget.
It really wouldn't take too much economic growth to push the province that final bit over the Equalization edge and into the realm of the so-called "have" provinces. Once that happens, there is no more extra money flowing to the province from the January deal, unless of course, the economy all but implodes.
Certainly we have the two billion dollars, as some will quickly point out. But that isn't what the premier was looking for. He started out seeking a doubling of revenues for at least a total of eight more years. As it stands right now, the $2.0 billion will be less than what the province will get directly from oil this year and next year, let alone the total over the next eight.
It's pretty easy to see the gap between the promise and the delivery. We have a bag of cash but we were promised a bag that was twice to three times the size of what was delivered.
When it comes to royalties and refineries, we need to look very carefully to make sure the Premier isn't talking about repeating Hibernia, even as he promises something else. The Hibernia deal was based on a trade-off between short-term construction jobs and long-term royalties. While Hibernia was the lead projected that started the local oil industry, there are at least two problems with the Hibernia model.
First, the construction jobs were short-term and admittedly so. If they can come, then fine. But when they are linked to royalties and other government revenues, then we have the second, bigger problem. Royalties are the money we collect as the original owners of a resource for our ownership. When we give up some of that economic rent, we are really giving away the core cash value of the resource. We undervalue our resource and actually beggar ourselves collectively while putting a few sheckels into the pockets of local builders like say the Dobbins.
Let's not do that again.
There is no need.
And as we know from looking around, there is no reason to try and force the Hebron consortium to build a refinery, petrochemical plant and/or pipeline here when they evidently did not factor it into their business plans. If there is an economic reason to build one of these things here, then let the industry decide.
The alternative, that is, building something which is not economically viable, is for the government to pay for it through royalty and tax concessions. It is easy for Premier Williams to talk tough when he is flush with my cash both from offshore oil and from Ottawa's taxes. However, it is my money he is now gambling with yet again.
It is again long past due for the Premier to explain to me and every other voter in the province what he is up to. If he were my slip-and-fall lawyer behaving as he does by not telling me relevant information, I'd cut him a cheque and send him on his merry way.
The thing is, he isn't a slip-and-fall lawyer; he's the Premier.
There's a big difference.
1. In Marystown, the Premier acknowledged publicly that the revenue and benefits deal on White Rose was damned good. The Premier likes to kick the crap out of any deal he didn't sign, but in this instance, he was giving due praise.
2. In St. John's, he threw out some tough words in order to posture publicly for the upcoming negotiations with the Hebron consortium.
Well, as noted here before, the Premier really needs to tell the public what he is thinking when he talks about refineries and pipelines and petrochemical plants. He needs to tell the people of the province plainly what he will be seeking in any discussions with oil companies and he has to tell us what price he is prepared to pay (with our cash) for these oil industry add-ons.
The single defining characteristic of Premier Williams thus far is that he is long on rhetoric and extremely short on details for anything he does. The big cheque from John Efford yesterday is a classic example of how the Premier can talk his way through things and ultimately deliver something that really was a heck of a lot less than what he promised.
He changes positions as fast as any politician we have seen locally with the exception of maybe Brian Tobin. Some are starting to think he is driven by polls; that remains to be seen. Friday's post will be an assessment of the January polls recently released by government, coupled with a timeline on the Premier's positions on the flag lowering and mnegotiations with the federal government.
All that can be said right now is that the Bond Papers were borne out of the Premier's penchant for saying things that were at odds with the facts. There is good reason for continuing to watch carefully what he says and does.
The offshore revenue deal, for example, is pretty good in that it adds $2.0 billion in free federal money to the provincial coffers. However, what the Premier started out to do was double our revenues, which he claimed were being taken away from us.
At least two major things flowed out of the February deal. First, the Premier acknowledged in the very first clause that not a single nickel of provincial revenues was taken away. Second, and most importantly, he settled for a couple of billions in cash and a deal that may well cut out this year.
Before anyone jumps at me, take a look at the facts.
The offshore add-on from January applies only as long as the province is receiving Equalization. That was already forecast to happen next year, but high crude oil prices will likely put about $700 million into provincial coffers from offshore royalties alone. Equalization this year is only forecast to be slightly more than that; it's hard to figure exactly since the government fiddled around with the presentation of its figures in the last budget.
It really wouldn't take too much economic growth to push the province that final bit over the Equalization edge and into the realm of the so-called "have" provinces. Once that happens, there is no more extra money flowing to the province from the January deal, unless of course, the economy all but implodes.
Certainly we have the two billion dollars, as some will quickly point out. But that isn't what the premier was looking for. He started out seeking a doubling of revenues for at least a total of eight more years. As it stands right now, the $2.0 billion will be less than what the province will get directly from oil this year and next year, let alone the total over the next eight.
It's pretty easy to see the gap between the promise and the delivery. We have a bag of cash but we were promised a bag that was twice to three times the size of what was delivered.
When it comes to royalties and refineries, we need to look very carefully to make sure the Premier isn't talking about repeating Hibernia, even as he promises something else. The Hibernia deal was based on a trade-off between short-term construction jobs and long-term royalties. While Hibernia was the lead projected that started the local oil industry, there are at least two problems with the Hibernia model.
First, the construction jobs were short-term and admittedly so. If they can come, then fine. But when they are linked to royalties and other government revenues, then we have the second, bigger problem. Royalties are the money we collect as the original owners of a resource for our ownership. When we give up some of that economic rent, we are really giving away the core cash value of the resource. We undervalue our resource and actually beggar ourselves collectively while putting a few sheckels into the pockets of local builders like say the Dobbins.
Let's not do that again.
There is no need.
And as we know from looking around, there is no reason to try and force the Hebron consortium to build a refinery, petrochemical plant and/or pipeline here when they evidently did not factor it into their business plans. If there is an economic reason to build one of these things here, then let the industry decide.
The alternative, that is, building something which is not economically viable, is for the government to pay for it through royalty and tax concessions. It is easy for Premier Williams to talk tough when he is flush with my cash both from offshore oil and from Ottawa's taxes. However, it is my money he is now gambling with yet again.
It is again long past due for the Premier to explain to me and every other voter in the province what he is up to. If he were my slip-and-fall lawyer behaving as he does by not telling me relevant information, I'd cut him a cheque and send him on his merry way.
The thing is, he isn't a slip-and-fall lawyer; he's the Premier.
There's a big difference.
05 July 2005
There's no pleasing some people
As I sit here working away, there has been a non-stop bitch-fest on Crap talk with Bill Rowe with caller after caller and Sightless Bill himself slagging the offshore deal from any angle they can think of.
Too bad the gripers have no idea what they are talking about.
Like Jim Halley.
As I listen to him now, his presentation of the law related to the offshore is exceeded in its complete inaccuracy only by his presentation on our history.
Too bad the gripers have no idea what they are talking about.
Like Jim Halley.
As I listen to him now, his presentation of the law related to the offshore is exceeded in its complete inaccuracy only by his presentation on our history.
An announcement a week and a good poll
Reputedly that was Brian Tobin's formula for political success.
Danny Williams is determined to go him one better what with eight good polls he is trying to keep secret and then the string of announcements.
More of everything from Danny Williams: it's actually more like an announcement and a poll a day!
Hot behind announcement of new health care money for the Burin Peninsula comes this one in which John Efford will hand over a fake cheque representing the $2.0 billion for the new offshore revenue deal.
The money was actually transferred by the Government of Canada on Monday. The cheque is so "da byes" can add to their respective "I love me" walls. [Note to self: check the federal proactive disclosure releases and see if First Contact is making any more cash from John Efford for this little piece of nonsense. Note to readers: I still haven't figured out what they did for the $22 and a half large they pocketed from earlier this year.]
Of course, the offshore deal is really only worth $2.0 billion and not the double revenues that the Premier boasted about all along. You see, provincial oil revenues are so good the province will likely go off the Equalization rolls this year.
That means there is no Equalization offset under the new deal; we just get the declining one under the original deal. Since the province is likely to stay off Equalization for a while, the odds of ever collecting more than the $2.0 billion would be pretty slim. And what does the new deal actually become worth at that point? Something around $320 million over two years.
That's okay, though. Over the next two years we'll pocket more than $2.0 billion in direct oil revenues and we'll keep every penny of it. I know that isn't what you were told and it sure as heck isn't what you'll be told tomorrow.
But hey, you used to believe in the tooth fairy once too because someone told you she was real.
Speaking of good polls, tomorrow's major post will be some comment on the poll commissioned by the Premier's office in January on attitudes toward the provincial position on the offshore deal. The story was originally covered in the Telegram a while ago, but now that I have had a chance to go through the research report, there are a few interesting things in it that are worth bringing to wider attention.
It might help explain why the Premier is so reluctant to let us all have a look at the eight good polls he is keeping stashed in his desk drawers.
Danny Williams is determined to go him one better what with eight good polls he is trying to keep secret and then the string of announcements.
More of everything from Danny Williams: it's actually more like an announcement and a poll a day!
Hot behind announcement of new health care money for the Burin Peninsula comes this one in which John Efford will hand over a fake cheque representing the $2.0 billion for the new offshore revenue deal.
The money was actually transferred by the Government of Canada on Monday. The cheque is so "da byes" can add to their respective "I love me" walls. [Note to self: check the federal proactive disclosure releases and see if First Contact is making any more cash from John Efford for this little piece of nonsense. Note to readers: I still haven't figured out what they did for the $22 and a half large they pocketed from earlier this year.]
Of course, the offshore deal is really only worth $2.0 billion and not the double revenues that the Premier boasted about all along. You see, provincial oil revenues are so good the province will likely go off the Equalization rolls this year.
That means there is no Equalization offset under the new deal; we just get the declining one under the original deal. Since the province is likely to stay off Equalization for a while, the odds of ever collecting more than the $2.0 billion would be pretty slim. And what does the new deal actually become worth at that point? Something around $320 million over two years.
That's okay, though. Over the next two years we'll pocket more than $2.0 billion in direct oil revenues and we'll keep every penny of it. I know that isn't what you were told and it sure as heck isn't what you'll be told tomorrow.
But hey, you used to believe in the tooth fairy once too because someone told you she was real.
Speaking of good polls, tomorrow's major post will be some comment on the poll commissioned by the Premier's office in January on attitudes toward the provincial position on the offshore deal. The story was originally covered in the Telegram a while ago, but now that I have had a chance to go through the research report, there are a few interesting things in it that are worth bringing to wider attention.
It might help explain why the Premier is so reluctant to let us all have a look at the eight good polls he is keeping stashed in his desk drawers.
04 July 2005
Bob Benson - ink stained, maybe but unsullied by facts
Yesterday's Telegram had yet another column by retired journalist Bob Benson on the plight of Newfoundland and Labrador. You can find the column here, but I'll also append it to the end of this post so it won't disappear in the bowels of the Telly's abysmal website. Look under columns, then Sunday and then Bob Benson.
Ray Guy, who used to write for the Telly when Bob first put fingers to typewriter, likes to call reporters ink-stained wretches; I always took that as an affectionate reference and personally, I look on all reporters as being a gaggle of oft-misunderstood people.
Benson has been pumping out this stuff for years but since he retired, the Telly has given him a ready platform for his pseudo-nationalist rants.
The one yesterday made me wonder why he is writing in the Telly and not for the newspaper where he'd feel much more comfortable: the fact-challenged weekly known as the Independent.
Here's the first chunk of the column with my comments in square brackets:
"Losing our future
Two days after the celebrations of Canada'’s 138th birthday on July 1, this province has yet to find its place in Confederation.
To be brutal about it, union with Canada has failed to produce the new Jerusalem that was promised in 1949.
To be sure, Newfoundland and Labrador has benefited immensely from the largess and handouts of federal transfer payments in areas like Canada Pension, Old Age Security, health care as well as employment insurance and social assistance payments. Then there are the industrial bailouts like the $3 billion which went to support rural Newfoundland after the 1990s northern cod fisheries collapse which was mainly due to federal mismanagement in the first place.
Lost resources
Federal mismanagement, and Ottawa'’s failure to control offshore overfishing by foreign, as well as Canadian, fishing fleets is one of the factors, but not all, that have resulted in the decline of rural Newfoundland."
[Rural Newfoundland is changing. It is only declining if one accepts that the notion that what existed before 1992 was the peak or was preferable. Bob needs to go back and have a hard look at the hard life of people in the fishery before he suggests that the current situation is a decline. Benson also doesn't dare suggest anything bold, like following the Icelandic model of fish management. Nope. That might force him to stop being yet another promoter of the "victim" school of local history.]
"In addition, two rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada in the 1980s denied us control over our natural resources. One ruling said we did not have the right to change the one-sided Upper Churchill hydroelectric contract which made Hydro Quebec the main beneficiary. The other ruled the province doesn'’t own offshore oil and gas on the Grand Banks even though they were brought into Canada because of Confederation. True, Ottawa has permitted us to keep 100 per cent of the royalties but that is only crumbs compared to what it would be if the province had outright ownership."
[Ok. These are favourite bits of nonsense that are not made suddenly true by the constant repetition.
Bob conveniently forgets a few things. First, the Upper Churchill case was basically a ruling against the government attempting to change a contract unilaterally by its own legislative powers. It was a contract law case and the ruling essentially reinforced the notion that one party can't change a contract using its own extraordinary powers without the consent of the other party.
He also doesn't point out that the provincial government bought out the local end of the contract from a private company. The wisdom or folly of that decision has yet to be chewed over by anyone.
Second, on the offshore, there were two rulings. The first upheld a decision by the Supreme Court of Newfoundland that the provincial government didn't have legislative jurisdiction over the offshore. People like Benson like to ignore the decision by the local court. The second decision was on another reference and concluded the same thing.
Of course if Bob relied on facts to back up his opinions he'd never be able to go on an bitch about the fact that noone from this province has ever sat on the Supreme Court of Canada. It actually wouldn't make a difference, Bob, since people usually make decisions based on facts.
Third, and this is really the big point, Benson is simply full of crap when he claims we are getting a pittance from the offshore and that amount would be greater if we had "ownership".
The provincial government claims 100% of direct revenues from the offshore which is exactly what would occur if the province actually "owned" the fields; not "sort of" or "approximately" but EXACTLY.
Bob's pittance is actually enough this fiscal year to push the province off the Equalization rolls. This year - 2005 - the province will become a have province for the first time in its history and we will hold that position for the foreseeable future.
That fact alone makes Bob's lede complete foolishness.]
Here's the rest of the column and again, my comments are inside square brackets.
"Passed over for high court
By the way, why is it that not one Newfoundland and Labrador judge has been nominated to a position on the Supreme Court of Canada? With the exception of Arthur May who served briefly as federal deputy minister of Fisheries and Oceans in the mid 1980s, why hasn'’t a person from this province been appointed to a senior civilian public policy-making and administrative position in the federal government? The answers to these questions would be interesting indeed.
[They'd be interesting solely because Bob would have to stop writing drivel.]
"But after 56 years of Confederation, we still have the nation'’s highest unemployment rate which is stuck at 16 per cent. The average annual income in rural Newfoundland of $20,000, well below the national average except for Prince Edward Island.
Above all, the province'’s youth is leaving in droves to find employment in other parts of Canada.
An alarming statistic
In the past decade or so, more than 30,000 people have moved away because they couldnÂ’t find employment. Even more worrisome is the fact, according to information from the recent symposium on rural Newfoundland held in Carbonear, that 28 per cent of young people in rural areas live on some form of income support.
Our youth is our most precious resource and once they are gone, we lose everything.
Just last week, I received this e-mail from a young reader: '“As a 23-year-old recent graduate of Memorial University, I am finding myself, like many others of my age, being drawn to the mainland for bigger opportunities. However, it is only recently I began to realize the plight of Newfoundland and its impact on me.'”
But he is proud of his identity as a Newfoundlander and this bodes well for the future.
'“I know from visiting many people across Canada that we are a rich and recognizable people,'” he wrote.
Mainland commentators and critics fall into the trap of thinking this province is a haven for whiners and, to use a good old Newfoundland expression, '“slingers'” or idlers and loafers."
[When all the mainlanders see is stuff like yours Bob, then you can understand why they come to their conclusions. When they see stuff like Hard Rock and Water, how can anyone think anything else?]
"But all we want is control over our own destiny and to make this province a decent place for all of its citizens to live in. If we have to rant and roar to achieve this, so be it."
[We already control our own destiny, Bob. If we'd stop ranting and roaring, i.e. shooting off our mouths while uttering idiocies, and start addressing the issues on a factual basis, we'd be much better off.]
"Bob Benson is a St. John'’s journalist. He can be reached by e-mail at
bjbenson@allstream.net"
Ray Guy, who used to write for the Telly when Bob first put fingers to typewriter, likes to call reporters ink-stained wretches; I always took that as an affectionate reference and personally, I look on all reporters as being a gaggle of oft-misunderstood people.
Benson has been pumping out this stuff for years but since he retired, the Telly has given him a ready platform for his pseudo-nationalist rants.
The one yesterday made me wonder why he is writing in the Telly and not for the newspaper where he'd feel much more comfortable: the fact-challenged weekly known as the Independent.
Here's the first chunk of the column with my comments in square brackets:
"Losing our future
Two days after the celebrations of Canada'’s 138th birthday on July 1, this province has yet to find its place in Confederation.
To be brutal about it, union with Canada has failed to produce the new Jerusalem that was promised in 1949.
To be sure, Newfoundland and Labrador has benefited immensely from the largess and handouts of federal transfer payments in areas like Canada Pension, Old Age Security, health care as well as employment insurance and social assistance payments. Then there are the industrial bailouts like the $3 billion which went to support rural Newfoundland after the 1990s northern cod fisheries collapse which was mainly due to federal mismanagement in the first place.
Lost resources
Federal mismanagement, and Ottawa'’s failure to control offshore overfishing by foreign, as well as Canadian, fishing fleets is one of the factors, but not all, that have resulted in the decline of rural Newfoundland."
[Rural Newfoundland is changing. It is only declining if one accepts that the notion that what existed before 1992 was the peak or was preferable. Bob needs to go back and have a hard look at the hard life of people in the fishery before he suggests that the current situation is a decline. Benson also doesn't dare suggest anything bold, like following the Icelandic model of fish management. Nope. That might force him to stop being yet another promoter of the "victim" school of local history.]
"In addition, two rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada in the 1980s denied us control over our natural resources. One ruling said we did not have the right to change the one-sided Upper Churchill hydroelectric contract which made Hydro Quebec the main beneficiary. The other ruled the province doesn'’t own offshore oil and gas on the Grand Banks even though they were brought into Canada because of Confederation. True, Ottawa has permitted us to keep 100 per cent of the royalties but that is only crumbs compared to what it would be if the province had outright ownership."
[Ok. These are favourite bits of nonsense that are not made suddenly true by the constant repetition.
Bob conveniently forgets a few things. First, the Upper Churchill case was basically a ruling against the government attempting to change a contract unilaterally by its own legislative powers. It was a contract law case and the ruling essentially reinforced the notion that one party can't change a contract using its own extraordinary powers without the consent of the other party.
He also doesn't point out that the provincial government bought out the local end of the contract from a private company. The wisdom or folly of that decision has yet to be chewed over by anyone.
Second, on the offshore, there were two rulings. The first upheld a decision by the Supreme Court of Newfoundland that the provincial government didn't have legislative jurisdiction over the offshore. People like Benson like to ignore the decision by the local court. The second decision was on another reference and concluded the same thing.
Of course if Bob relied on facts to back up his opinions he'd never be able to go on an bitch about the fact that noone from this province has ever sat on the Supreme Court of Canada. It actually wouldn't make a difference, Bob, since people usually make decisions based on facts.
Third, and this is really the big point, Benson is simply full of crap when he claims we are getting a pittance from the offshore and that amount would be greater if we had "ownership".
The provincial government claims 100% of direct revenues from the offshore which is exactly what would occur if the province actually "owned" the fields; not "sort of" or "approximately" but EXACTLY.
Bob's pittance is actually enough this fiscal year to push the province off the Equalization rolls. This year - 2005 - the province will become a have province for the first time in its history and we will hold that position for the foreseeable future.
That fact alone makes Bob's lede complete foolishness.]
Here's the rest of the column and again, my comments are inside square brackets.
"Passed over for high court
By the way, why is it that not one Newfoundland and Labrador judge has been nominated to a position on the Supreme Court of Canada? With the exception of Arthur May who served briefly as federal deputy minister of Fisheries and Oceans in the mid 1980s, why hasn'’t a person from this province been appointed to a senior civilian public policy-making and administrative position in the federal government? The answers to these questions would be interesting indeed.
[They'd be interesting solely because Bob would have to stop writing drivel.]
"But after 56 years of Confederation, we still have the nation'’s highest unemployment rate which is stuck at 16 per cent. The average annual income in rural Newfoundland of $20,000, well below the national average except for Prince Edward Island.
Above all, the province'’s youth is leaving in droves to find employment in other parts of Canada.
An alarming statistic
In the past decade or so, more than 30,000 people have moved away because they couldnÂ’t find employment. Even more worrisome is the fact, according to information from the recent symposium on rural Newfoundland held in Carbonear, that 28 per cent of young people in rural areas live on some form of income support.
Our youth is our most precious resource and once they are gone, we lose everything.
Just last week, I received this e-mail from a young reader: '“As a 23-year-old recent graduate of Memorial University, I am finding myself, like many others of my age, being drawn to the mainland for bigger opportunities. However, it is only recently I began to realize the plight of Newfoundland and its impact on me.'”
But he is proud of his identity as a Newfoundlander and this bodes well for the future.
'“I know from visiting many people across Canada that we are a rich and recognizable people,'” he wrote.
Mainland commentators and critics fall into the trap of thinking this province is a haven for whiners and, to use a good old Newfoundland expression, '“slingers'” or idlers and loafers."
[When all the mainlanders see is stuff like yours Bob, then you can understand why they come to their conclusions. When they see stuff like Hard Rock and Water, how can anyone think anything else?]
"But all we want is control over our own destiny and to make this province a decent place for all of its citizens to live in. If we have to rant and roar to achieve this, so be it."
[We already control our own destiny, Bob. If we'd stop ranting and roaring, i.e. shooting off our mouths while uttering idiocies, and start addressing the issues on a factual basis, we'd be much better off.]
"Bob Benson is a St. John'’s journalist. He can be reached by e-mail at
bjbenson@allstream.net"
Poll dancing - some little thoughts
When pondering why government won't release a series of eight polls done by Ryan Research for Executive Council, ask yourself the same questions I have been mulling over:
1. Since Ryan Research is the Premier's personal favourite polling firm, is it possible most of the information in the eight polls really about attitudes to the Premier and his performance and how the public is viewing his opponents? That information isn't Earth-shattering or secret; it might be a tad embarrassing for the Premier himself, though.
2. Are these polls actually ones that should have been paid for directly out of the Premier's Office budget but which were, a la Tobin, foisted on someone else?
One thing I would bet my house on: the resistance to releasing them has nothing to do with the need to keep cabinet discussions secret.
1. Since Ryan Research is the Premier's personal favourite polling firm, is it possible most of the information in the eight polls really about attitudes to the Premier and his performance and how the public is viewing his opponents? That information isn't Earth-shattering or secret; it might be a tad embarrassing for the Premier himself, though.
2. Are these polls actually ones that should have been paid for directly out of the Premier's Office budget but which were, a la Tobin, foisted on someone else?
One thing I would bet my house on: the resistance to releasing them has nothing to do with the need to keep cabinet discussions secret.
Byrne backs Bond
Natural Resources minister Ed Byrne called Open Line today to say what Bond readers have known for some time:
There is nothing in the Real Atlantic Accord that prevents a refinery from being built here.
Byrne noted that government is assessing the possibility of building secondary and tertiary oil refining capacity here. Not only is that good news, it is something people have known for a while.
There is nothing in the Real Atlantic Accord that prevents a refinery from being built here.
Byrne noted that government is assessing the possibility of building secondary and tertiary oil refining capacity here. Not only is that good news, it is something people have known for a while.
Reduction to absurdity III
The provincial government's Access to Information act is a pretty simple document.
It establishes the right of the public to obtain a wide range of information in government's possession, with only few exceptions. In fact, clause 3.(1)(c) states simply that one purpose of the act is to make public bodies more accountable by "specifying limited exceptions to the right of access".
Section III establishes those limited exceptions. Clause 18 provides that "[t]he head of a public body shall refuse to disclose to an applicant information that would reveal the substance of deliberations of Cabinet, including advice, recommendations, policy considerations or draft legislation or regulations submitted or prepared for submission to the Cabinet."
That section is the section Premier Danny Williams and his acting justice minister Tom Rideout are pointing to when they claim that releasing certain public opinions polls would "preserve that underpinning of British parliamentary democracy, that cabinet discussions are secret." The complete text of the original Telegram story on the poll controversy can be found here.
This claim is merely an attempt to argue an absurdity. No one is seeking any records of cabinet deliberations,advice given to cabinet by officials or outside consultants or anything else which would reveal cabinet deliberations. The small cloak of invisibility granted by the legislature to those extremely sensitive deliberations remains intact. What has been sought by the Telegram is nothing more than data - a set of questions put to several hundred residents of the province and their anonymous responses.
A few sentences later in the legislation, however, the intention of the House of Assembly is clear when it comes to releasing public opinion polls. Clause 20.(1) states that "[t]he head of a public body may refuse to disclose to an applicant information that would reveal...(a) advice or recommendations developed by or for a public body or a minister; or (b) draft legislation or regulations."
Clause 20.(2)(b) is unequivocal: "The head of a public body shall not refuse to disclose under subsection (1)...(b) a public opinion poll."
In making his case for withholding something clearly intended to be released, the Premier claims that it is not the content of the polls; after all, anyone can conduct the same public opinion polls. Rather, argues the Premier, it is the precedent.
At this point, the Premier's contention reduces his own argument to the point of absurdity.
The Williams administration has already released a series of public opinion polls conducted by Corporate Research Associates. If the administration was concerned about precedent, then it would have stood its ground when the first request to release the first poll was received. In each case, the only thing released were the questions and the tally of answers. They made the same argument about cabinet confidentiality then, as in the latest case and in each case, access commissioner Phil Wall dismissed the feeble government objections. Here is decision 002 for 2005. Here's the most recent decision; note the similarity both in the vague arguments presented by government and the detailed and sophisticated reasoning of the access commissioner.
In another set of two polls conducted in January 2005, information commissioner Phil Wall recommended that the polls be released but that advice from the consultant be deleted. His recommendation is consistent with the spirit and intent of the access legislation and, curiously government complied.
The polls they are now withholding were conducted by a single firm - Ryan Research and Communications - over the period between December 2003 and August 2004. Three separate polls were conducted in April 2004, during the height of the budget controversy last year and two of those polls were sent to government within a working week of each other.
Why have these polls suddenly become matters of high state secrecy?
The simple answer is that they are actually not polls that would reveal cabinet deliberations. Ryan Research is the Premier's personal favourite opinion firm. The polls in question were likely requested by his office and may well contain questions which reveal exactly the extent to which this Premier is keen to know exactly how the winds of opinion are blowing when he makes a decision.
There is no coincidence that his January polling, for example, showed that tearing down the Canadian flag was extremely unpopular with Canadians across the country and especially those at home. Fully 60% of those polled opposed the flag fiasco, selecting the strongest opposition choice in the questionnaire. When you couple that with the fact that the same disproportionately surveyed Atlantic Canadians it is no surprise how quickly the Premier put the flags back less than a day after the poll was concluded.
All of that is actually irrelevant.
The provincial government should release the Ryan research polls without delay.
The black letter of the access legislation requires it to do so, obviously without any recommendations or analysis as conducted by the consultant.
The provincial government has already released a series of polls conducted for Executive Council, as were the Ryan polls, without making much fuss of the matter.
As the Premier has argued, the polls themselves contain nothing which could not be released. In effect, he argues against himself, making absurd both his own position and the arguments he presents to back it up.
More importantly, the government's refusal to release these polls makes absurd the entire concept of access to information. No one - not a private citizen, not a newspaper reporter - should have to go to court to seek what government is obliged to release by the black letter of the law and by its own precedent.
It establishes the right of the public to obtain a wide range of information in government's possession, with only few exceptions. In fact, clause 3.(1)(c) states simply that one purpose of the act is to make public bodies more accountable by "specifying limited exceptions to the right of access".
Section III establishes those limited exceptions. Clause 18 provides that "[t]he head of a public body shall refuse to disclose to an applicant information that would reveal the substance of deliberations of Cabinet, including advice, recommendations, policy considerations or draft legislation or regulations submitted or prepared for submission to the Cabinet."
That section is the section Premier Danny Williams and his acting justice minister Tom Rideout are pointing to when they claim that releasing certain public opinions polls would "preserve that underpinning of British parliamentary democracy, that cabinet discussions are secret." The complete text of the original Telegram story on the poll controversy can be found here.
This claim is merely an attempt to argue an absurdity. No one is seeking any records of cabinet deliberations,advice given to cabinet by officials or outside consultants or anything else which would reveal cabinet deliberations. The small cloak of invisibility granted by the legislature to those extremely sensitive deliberations remains intact. What has been sought by the Telegram is nothing more than data - a set of questions put to several hundred residents of the province and their anonymous responses.
A few sentences later in the legislation, however, the intention of the House of Assembly is clear when it comes to releasing public opinion polls. Clause 20.(1) states that "[t]he head of a public body may refuse to disclose to an applicant information that would reveal...(a) advice or recommendations developed by or for a public body or a minister; or (b) draft legislation or regulations."
Clause 20.(2)(b) is unequivocal: "The head of a public body shall not refuse to disclose under subsection (1)...(b) a public opinion poll."
In making his case for withholding something clearly intended to be released, the Premier claims that it is not the content of the polls; after all, anyone can conduct the same public opinion polls. Rather, argues the Premier, it is the precedent.
At this point, the Premier's contention reduces his own argument to the point of absurdity.
The Williams administration has already released a series of public opinion polls conducted by Corporate Research Associates. If the administration was concerned about precedent, then it would have stood its ground when the first request to release the first poll was received. In each case, the only thing released were the questions and the tally of answers. They made the same argument about cabinet confidentiality then, as in the latest case and in each case, access commissioner Phil Wall dismissed the feeble government objections. Here is decision 002 for 2005. Here's the most recent decision; note the similarity both in the vague arguments presented by government and the detailed and sophisticated reasoning of the access commissioner.
In another set of two polls conducted in January 2005, information commissioner Phil Wall recommended that the polls be released but that advice from the consultant be deleted. His recommendation is consistent with the spirit and intent of the access legislation and, curiously government complied.
The polls they are now withholding were conducted by a single firm - Ryan Research and Communications - over the period between December 2003 and August 2004. Three separate polls were conducted in April 2004, during the height of the budget controversy last year and two of those polls were sent to government within a working week of each other.
Why have these polls suddenly become matters of high state secrecy?
The simple answer is that they are actually not polls that would reveal cabinet deliberations. Ryan Research is the Premier's personal favourite opinion firm. The polls in question were likely requested by his office and may well contain questions which reveal exactly the extent to which this Premier is keen to know exactly how the winds of opinion are blowing when he makes a decision.
There is no coincidence that his January polling, for example, showed that tearing down the Canadian flag was extremely unpopular with Canadians across the country and especially those at home. Fully 60% of those polled opposed the flag fiasco, selecting the strongest opposition choice in the questionnaire. When you couple that with the fact that the same disproportionately surveyed Atlantic Canadians it is no surprise how quickly the Premier put the flags back less than a day after the poll was concluded.
All of that is actually irrelevant.
The provincial government should release the Ryan research polls without delay.
The black letter of the access legislation requires it to do so, obviously without any recommendations or analysis as conducted by the consultant.
The provincial government has already released a series of polls conducted for Executive Council, as were the Ryan polls, without making much fuss of the matter.
As the Premier has argued, the polls themselves contain nothing which could not be released. In effect, he argues against himself, making absurd both his own position and the arguments he presents to back it up.
More importantly, the government's refusal to release these polls makes absurd the entire concept of access to information. No one - not a private citizen, not a newspaper reporter - should have to go to court to seek what government is obliged to release by the black letter of the law and by its own precedent.
03 July 2005
Reduction to absurdity II
Contrary to what some people believe, I love Brian Dobbin's million dollar folly, known officially as the Independent but known to many of us out here in the world as the Spindy.
Grab the new issue today and have a gander at some of the choice offerings.
1. On page one there's a story about an unnamed consultant in the provincial department of education who holds a degree from what the Spindy says is a degree mill. For $10 Large and the effort of filling out a few forms you can get a doctorate. There sounds like the makings of a great story here and a very embarrassing situation for a whole pile of people in the provincial bureaucracy.
2. Then there's the letter from soon-to-be Liberal leadership candidate Chuck Furey in which he denies ever having said anything vaguely like "Dick Cheney bought off Brian Tobin", as the Spindy reported a couple of weeks ago. Its factually anemic original story (based on one source who apparently now has recanted) claimed that a company that had no controlling interest in the Terra Nova project gave the province a few warehousing jobs in lieu of engineering and procurement jobs on the Terra Nova project.
That "fact" gave Spindy publisher Dobbin the chance to attack the provincial government for supposedly selling the shop on Terra Nova. (What he really meant was they didn't weigh down the thing with a gravity-based structure; do the Dobbins have interests in big concrete manufacturing and such? It's a just a question.)
This week Dobbin puts the ultimate pseudo-nationalists Evil Eye on Terra Nova, calling it a Bad Deal. He hasn't compared it to Churchill Falls yet but I am waiting for that one.
Its such a bad deal, Brian, that the project will pay off its costs after a mere three years and is the principal reason the provincial government will reap at least $400 million in revenues this year alone abovewhat it projected in the spring budget. Brian obviously missed the point that once Terra Nova pays its starting costs, the whole project starts generating revenues for the province on the order of double digits. Incidentally, the total value to the provincial economy of the "lost" engineering and procurement jobs was estimated by the Spindy at $400 million.
While Dobbin slams the idea of politicians and bureaucrats negotiating big business deals, given Dobbin's obviously pathetic grasp of math and the Big Picture, I think I'll leave oil and gas decision-making to someone other than Brian Dobbin.
3. My favourite story this week though is the all-too-short-on-details piece on the front page that claims there are legal "road blocks" in the Atlantic Accord (1985) that might prevent the provincial government from luring someone into building a new oil refinery in the province.
Let's get this clear once and hopefully for all: there is nothing in the Real Atlantic Accord that prevents anyone from building an oil refinery in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Period.
I challenge anyone to find a clause preventing a refinery from being built here or that forces the provincial government to get permission from Ottawa.
This is nothing more than a big fib being foisted by everyone from George Baker back in the mid-1980s to talk-show maven, Spindy researcher and former advisor to Roger Grimes, Sue today.
Build a heavy oil refinery. There's a global shortage of refining capacity for heavy oil such that Saudi crude (heavy and sour) goes for about half the price of our light sweet stuff.
Bring in the oil from the Middle East.
Refine it and sell it to your heart's content. There's no one to stop you, if the venture is commercially viable. If it isn't, someone might even give you some tax incentives to refine crude here.
It would be easier to figure out what everyone is talking about if the Spindy actually gave some facts in its story. Near as I can figure though, the Premier may have been talking about Section 54 of the Real Accord, when he gave the Spindy an interview.
Here's the kicker, though. That section talks only about making offshore oil available to a refinery in the province. Given the world-wide shortage of heavy crude refining capacity, we could build a refinery here and never have to worry about that clause. But even if it did, the clause makes it clear the province can have access to offshore product "on commercial terms", i.e. without any preferential pricing unless the oil companies developing a field want to make some type of deal.
There is a caveat that the feedstock (i.e. crude for refining) is in excess of the needs of existing refineries in eastern Canada, but by taking that one step further we can see there isn't likely much of an issue here either.
An earlier clause of the Real Accord establishes something called national self-sufficiency and security of supply. Basically, that is calculated every five years. If there is self-sufficiency, then control over development passes to the provincial energy minister. By implication, it would be hard to be nationally self-sufficient without also being regionally self-sufficient, especially considering there have been refinery closures in eastern Canada since 1985.
There really shouldn't be any obstacle to building a refinery that could handle heavy crude from Hebron, for example. We just have to double-check the numbers.
The sad thing is that the Spindy only has to talk to a few people who actually understand these things and they might actually find a better story. Or they might just stop wasting time pumping out more stuff like they have been about the offshore.
The Spindy has become, on some issues anyway, an ongoing reduction to the point of absurdity.
Just so you can make your own judgment, here's the regional security of supply clause:
Grab the new issue today and have a gander at some of the choice offerings.
1. On page one there's a story about an unnamed consultant in the provincial department of education who holds a degree from what the Spindy says is a degree mill. For $10 Large and the effort of filling out a few forms you can get a doctorate. There sounds like the makings of a great story here and a very embarrassing situation for a whole pile of people in the provincial bureaucracy.
2. Then there's the letter from soon-to-be Liberal leadership candidate Chuck Furey in which he denies ever having said anything vaguely like "Dick Cheney bought off Brian Tobin", as the Spindy reported a couple of weeks ago. Its factually anemic original story (based on one source who apparently now has recanted) claimed that a company that had no controlling interest in the Terra Nova project gave the province a few warehousing jobs in lieu of engineering and procurement jobs on the Terra Nova project.
That "fact" gave Spindy publisher Dobbin the chance to attack the provincial government for supposedly selling the shop on Terra Nova. (What he really meant was they didn't weigh down the thing with a gravity-based structure; do the Dobbins have interests in big concrete manufacturing and such? It's a just a question.)
This week Dobbin puts the ultimate pseudo-nationalists Evil Eye on Terra Nova, calling it a Bad Deal. He hasn't compared it to Churchill Falls yet but I am waiting for that one.
Its such a bad deal, Brian, that the project will pay off its costs after a mere three years and is the principal reason the provincial government will reap at least $400 million in revenues this year alone abovewhat it projected in the spring budget. Brian obviously missed the point that once Terra Nova pays its starting costs, the whole project starts generating revenues for the province on the order of double digits. Incidentally, the total value to the provincial economy of the "lost" engineering and procurement jobs was estimated by the Spindy at $400 million.
While Dobbin slams the idea of politicians and bureaucrats negotiating big business deals, given Dobbin's obviously pathetic grasp of math and the Big Picture, I think I'll leave oil and gas decision-making to someone other than Brian Dobbin.
3. My favourite story this week though is the all-too-short-on-details piece on the front page that claims there are legal "road blocks" in the Atlantic Accord (1985) that might prevent the provincial government from luring someone into building a new oil refinery in the province.
Let's get this clear once and hopefully for all: there is nothing in the Real Atlantic Accord that prevents anyone from building an oil refinery in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Period.
I challenge anyone to find a clause preventing a refinery from being built here or that forces the provincial government to get permission from Ottawa.
This is nothing more than a big fib being foisted by everyone from George Baker back in the mid-1980s to talk-show maven, Spindy researcher and former advisor to Roger Grimes, Sue today.
Build a heavy oil refinery. There's a global shortage of refining capacity for heavy oil such that Saudi crude (heavy and sour) goes for about half the price of our light sweet stuff.
Bring in the oil from the Middle East.
Refine it and sell it to your heart's content. There's no one to stop you, if the venture is commercially viable. If it isn't, someone might even give you some tax incentives to refine crude here.
It would be easier to figure out what everyone is talking about if the Spindy actually gave some facts in its story. Near as I can figure though, the Premier may have been talking about Section 54 of the Real Accord, when he gave the Spindy an interview.
Here's the kicker, though. That section talks only about making offshore oil available to a refinery in the province. Given the world-wide shortage of heavy crude refining capacity, we could build a refinery here and never have to worry about that clause. But even if it did, the clause makes it clear the province can have access to offshore product "on commercial terms", i.e. without any preferential pricing unless the oil companies developing a field want to make some type of deal.
There is a caveat that the feedstock (i.e. crude for refining) is in excess of the needs of existing refineries in eastern Canada, but by taking that one step further we can see there isn't likely much of an issue here either.
An earlier clause of the Real Accord establishes something called national self-sufficiency and security of supply. Basically, that is calculated every five years. If there is self-sufficiency, then control over development passes to the provincial energy minister. By implication, it would be hard to be nationally self-sufficient without also being regionally self-sufficient, especially considering there have been refinery closures in eastern Canada since 1985.
There really shouldn't be any obstacle to building a refinery that could handle heavy crude from Hebron, for example. We just have to double-check the numbers.
The sad thing is that the Spindy only has to talk to a few people who actually understand these things and they might actually find a better story. Or they might just stop wasting time pumping out more stuff like they have been about the offshore.
The Spindy has become, on some issues anyway, an ongoing reduction to the point of absurdity.
Just so you can make your own judgment, here's the regional security of supply clause:
Regional Security of Supply
54. Hydrocarbons produced from the offshore area will be made available to Newfoundland and Labrador on commercial terms to meet both total end use consumption and the feedstock requirements of industrial facilities in place on the day that legislation implementing this Accord is proclaimed. Similarly, feedstock availability shall be ensured, on commercial terms, for new industrial facilities in Newfoundland and Labrador, provided such feedstock is excess to feedstock required to meet the demand of presently existing industrial capacity in eastern Canada.
01 July 2005
Commemoration Day 2005
For those across the country, take a pause as you begin your Canada Day.
In 1949, the history of Newfoundland and Labrador became your history too.
July 1 has been known as Commemoration Day since 1917, making it one of the oldest annual memorial days in the Commonwealth. On this day 89 years ago, at 0915 AM local time, more than 800 young Newfoundlanders and Labradorians of the Newfoundland Regiment (later the Royal Newfoundland Regiment) attacked German trenches in front of the French town of Beaumont Hamel.
Fewer than 70 were able to answer roll-call next day and those consisted almost entirely of the 10% hold-back left to reconstitute the battalion. Every single one of the men who came out of the trenches that day was killed or wounded in the space of a mere 30 minutes.
Last night was the official regimental mess dinner to mark the event. In addition to the commanding officer, former commanding officers, current and former members and friends of the regiment , dignitaries at the dinner included His Honour the Lieutenant Governor, defence minister Bill Graham, municipal affairs minister Jack Byrne, army commander Lieutenant General Marc Caron, regional army commander brigadier general R Romses (whose mess kit was obviously in desperate need of being brought up to standard by a professional tailor).
For those of you unfamiliar with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment and Beaumont Hamel, try the links here and here.
And have a happy Canada Day.
In 1949, the history of Newfoundland and Labrador became your history too.
July 1 has been known as Commemoration Day since 1917, making it one of the oldest annual memorial days in the Commonwealth. On this day 89 years ago, at 0915 AM local time, more than 800 young Newfoundlanders and Labradorians of the Newfoundland Regiment (later the Royal Newfoundland Regiment) attacked German trenches in front of the French town of Beaumont Hamel.
Fewer than 70 were able to answer roll-call next day and those consisted almost entirely of the 10% hold-back left to reconstitute the battalion. Every single one of the men who came out of the trenches that day was killed or wounded in the space of a mere 30 minutes.
Last night was the official regimental mess dinner to mark the event. In addition to the commanding officer, former commanding officers, current and former members and friends of the regiment , dignitaries at the dinner included His Honour the Lieutenant Governor, defence minister Bill Graham, municipal affairs minister Jack Byrne, army commander Lieutenant General Marc Caron, regional army commander brigadier general R Romses (whose mess kit was obviously in desperate need of being brought up to standard by a professional tailor).
For those of you unfamiliar with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment and Beaumont Hamel, try the links here and here.
And have a happy Canada Day.
30 June 2005
Reduction to absurdity I
Provincial Liberal leader Gerry Reid thinks there should be some type of gasoline tax freeze so that consumers can get some break from soaring gasoline prices. The news release on this is located here.
There are a couple of obvious problems with Reid's idea and his news release.
First of all, Reid claims the provincial government is making windfall profits from oil production on the order of $400 million this year due to high crude prices. As Reid puts it, "[m]edia reports this morning [29 June 05] indicate that the provincial government is making an extra $400 million in profits this year from increased offshore oil royalties."
That's dead wrong.
Those aren't profits, Gerry. They are the revenues from oil production due to the province under the agreements signed for production at Hibernia and Terra Nova.
Second, what he is proposing is far from clear. If what Reid notes is true, then 39 cents of every litre of gasoline is some type of government tax. But, he notes that the province collects 16.5 cents per litre in a fuel tax and a portion of the harmonized sales tax with the Government of Canada. In radio interviews, Reid suggested capping the tax take at a price to consumers of $1.00 per litre.
The provincial government can only change its own taxes by itself. Changes to the HST would require an agreement with the Government of Canada. As for the provincial tax he notes, it amounts to 16.5 cents on each litre. How would his proposal work?
Is he advocating a reduction of prices in the metropolitan St. John's region by a measly four cents per litre, something that could be done by dropping the provincial fuel tax? If that's what he is suggesting, then I will save the princely sum of a toonie the next time I fill up my 50 litre tank. In the meantime, the provincial government will still collect the better part of $8.25 from me, not to mention its slice of the HST.
I am overwhelmed at Gerry Reid's generosity.
Reid claims his idea is aimed at helping people who are having a hard time making ends meet. Well, for Reid's information, those people aren't using up huge amounts of gasoline filling their SUVs. Nope. Any break in prices will help people who can already afford to pay full price for their gasoline. Ordinary Shmoes like you and me will have to get by on the extra $2.00 Gerry wants to save on a fuel-up.
But the story got a little more interesting when Reid was doing interviews. His suggested $1.00 price cap actually produces a greater benefit for the people outside St. John's, in the mythical "rural" Newfoundland and Labrador where, coincidentally, the few remaining Liberals members of the House of Assembly are huddled dreading the next onslaught of the Williams election machine.
Reid's idea is really just a way of letting people outside St. John's continue to gas up with some modest break in prices. That's really the problem, the modesty of it, not any hidden idea he might look like he is standing up for his own constituents at the expense of others.
According to CBC, the highest gas price in the province is currently $1.17 per litre. Even if Reid managed to drop that by the full amount of the provincial fuel tax (i.e. $16.5 cents), people in the province would still be paying more than a loonie a litre. If that same approach were applied across the board and everybody's gas prices dropped by almost 17 cents a litre, St. John's drivers and those in other urban areas like Corner Brook would be still able to buy gasoline way cheaper than anyone else - 87 cents a litre. Guess where you are likely to find a honking great piles of gas wasting SUVs and trucks?
As for the provincial government, it would still be making out like a bandit with the HST and the oil revenues.
If Reid wants to take a run at the Liberal leader job full-time, he is going to have to come up with a better idea than monkeying around with gasoline prices in a way that likely wouldn't produce any real benefit at all to any consumer while government would still rake in the cash in buckets.
It seems like the Liberal opposition is reduced to foisting absurd ideas in place of solid ones.
That's based only on my quick look at Reid's notion. I haven't even gone to the lengths of at least one e-mail I received that reduced Reid's release to little more than vapour.
There are a couple of obvious problems with Reid's idea and his news release.
First of all, Reid claims the provincial government is making windfall profits from oil production on the order of $400 million this year due to high crude prices. As Reid puts it, "[m]edia reports this morning [29 June 05] indicate that the provincial government is making an extra $400 million in profits this year from increased offshore oil royalties."
That's dead wrong.
Those aren't profits, Gerry. They are the revenues from oil production due to the province under the agreements signed for production at Hibernia and Terra Nova.
Second, what he is proposing is far from clear. If what Reid notes is true, then 39 cents of every litre of gasoline is some type of government tax. But, he notes that the province collects 16.5 cents per litre in a fuel tax and a portion of the harmonized sales tax with the Government of Canada. In radio interviews, Reid suggested capping the tax take at a price to consumers of $1.00 per litre.
The provincial government can only change its own taxes by itself. Changes to the HST would require an agreement with the Government of Canada. As for the provincial tax he notes, it amounts to 16.5 cents on each litre. How would his proposal work?
Is he advocating a reduction of prices in the metropolitan St. John's region by a measly four cents per litre, something that could be done by dropping the provincial fuel tax? If that's what he is suggesting, then I will save the princely sum of a toonie the next time I fill up my 50 litre tank. In the meantime, the provincial government will still collect the better part of $8.25 from me, not to mention its slice of the HST.
I am overwhelmed at Gerry Reid's generosity.
Reid claims his idea is aimed at helping people who are having a hard time making ends meet. Well, for Reid's information, those people aren't using up huge amounts of gasoline filling their SUVs. Nope. Any break in prices will help people who can already afford to pay full price for their gasoline. Ordinary Shmoes like you and me will have to get by on the extra $2.00 Gerry wants to save on a fuel-up.
But the story got a little more interesting when Reid was doing interviews. His suggested $1.00 price cap actually produces a greater benefit for the people outside St. John's, in the mythical "rural" Newfoundland and Labrador where, coincidentally, the few remaining Liberals members of the House of Assembly are huddled dreading the next onslaught of the Williams election machine.
Reid's idea is really just a way of letting people outside St. John's continue to gas up with some modest break in prices. That's really the problem, the modesty of it, not any hidden idea he might look like he is standing up for his own constituents at the expense of others.
According to CBC, the highest gas price in the province is currently $1.17 per litre. Even if Reid managed to drop that by the full amount of the provincial fuel tax (i.e. $16.5 cents), people in the province would still be paying more than a loonie a litre. If that same approach were applied across the board and everybody's gas prices dropped by almost 17 cents a litre, St. John's drivers and those in other urban areas like Corner Brook would be still able to buy gasoline way cheaper than anyone else - 87 cents a litre. Guess where you are likely to find a honking great piles of gas wasting SUVs and trucks?
As for the provincial government, it would still be making out like a bandit with the HST and the oil revenues.
If Reid wants to take a run at the Liberal leader job full-time, he is going to have to come up with a better idea than monkeying around with gasoline prices in a way that likely wouldn't produce any real benefit at all to any consumer while government would still rake in the cash in buckets.
It seems like the Liberal opposition is reduced to foisting absurd ideas in place of solid ones.
That's based only on my quick look at Reid's notion. I haven't even gone to the lengths of at least one e-mail I received that reduced Reid's release to little more than vapour.
29 June 2005
Poll dancer - update
Update: a faithful reader sent me a quick e-mail to point out that Tom Rideout is actually a graduate of Ottawa U law school not the Halifax legal temple. I double checked Tom's online biography and yep, I goofed. Then I noticed Tom used to work in Fisheries and Oceans in the international directorate. Anyway, I corrected the law school mistake.
That just makes what I will post tomorrow all the more interesting.
For those with a passionate interest in access to government information, there is a curious story on the front page of today's Telegram. It's also online here.
For those who may not be able to access it, here's the complete text courtesy of The Telegram and reporter Rob Antle.
As someone who has dealt with access to information issues from boths sides in the course of my 16 year career, I have a few thoughts and observations on this story. I'll save them for tomorrow morning's post, along with some links to the legislation itself and the recent rulings by privacy commissioner and former finance deputy minister Phil Wall.
Transportation Minister Tom Rideout is quoted in the story that follows. he is currently acting justice minister. In a previous life, he was premier of the province, even if it was only 43 days in the spring of 1989. After leaving politics, Mr. Rideout went off to Ottawa U law school and was a practicing lawyer before he went back to politics again.
The only other thing I'll say here, before letting you get to the full story by Rob Antle, is that I'd be dumbfounded if The Telegram didn't take this one to the Supreme Court.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Page A1 (above the fold)
Polling data stays secret
by Rob Antle, The Telegram
Opinion polls are secret cabinet documents not to be released to the public, the Williams administration has decreed.
The decision overrules the findings of a report issued Tuesday by the province's information commissioner.
"We disagree with the interpretation that's been put on this by the information and privacy commissioner," said Tom Rideout, who is acting justice minister while Tom Marshall is out of the province.
"We don't feel that his interpretation is within the confines of the spirit and intent of the legislation. Š Based on that belief, we will not be releasing the information."
The province says releasing public-opinion polling commissioned over a 14-month period would reveal cabinet confidences.
Information Commissioner Phil Wall ruled Tuesday that the government should release the documents under new open-records laws, with some small exceptions.
"Quite simply, Section 18 of the ATIPPA cannot be treated as a 'blanket' exception to disclosure," Wall wrote, referring to the part of the act dealing with cabinet confidences.
"It specifically states that only those items which would reveal the substance of deliberations of cabinet can be severed from the record, and it gives examples of what such items might be, such as advice and recommendations."
Rideout said Wall is wrong.
"There are still certain protections for the system, and one of the protections has to do with the confidentiality of cabinet documents," he said.
"That's one of the underpinnings of our whole system, and we're certainly not prepared, at this stage of the game, based on what we think is an error in interpretation by the privacy commissioner, to undermine that process."
The commissioner has the ability to make recommendations to the government, but cannot force the province to act upon them.
In making his ruling, Wall cited case law and precedents in Ontario, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
"We feel that case law is fairly clear in its conclusions," Sandy Hounsell, executive director of the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, told The Telegram Tuesday.
Government officials now have 15 days to respond to Wall's report.
The only recourse after that is Newfoundland Supreme Court.
The information commissioner can decide to take the matter to court. The applicant - in this case, The Telegram - can also decide to do so.
"We will wait until we get formal representation from Executive Council on their position, and then make a decision as to what we will do with this particular report," Hounsell said.
That decision will likely be made within days of receiving the final response from the government, he said.
On Jan 18, a Telegram reporter requested a list of public-opinion polls done by, or on behalf of, Executive Council between November 2003 and January 2005.
Executive Council is the wing of the public service which oversees government policy and decision-making.
A month later, the province supplied a list of 12 polls, broken down by pollster and date.
However, the government refused to disclose the subject of the polls, or their content.
On March 10, the province decided to provide two of the polls in question.
Several weeks ago, after fighting for nearly five months, the province released two other polls. Both dealt specifically with the Atlantic Accord.
Wall had recommended the release of that information.
But the other eight polls must remain secret, the province maintains.
Comfortable with stand
Rideout said Tuesday the government is "very comfortable" with that position, even though Premier Danny Williams campaigned on a policy of openness and transparency in 2003.
"My government will provide real financial management, real transparency, and real accountability," Williams said in the Conservative pre-election "blueprint" of promises.
"Ours will be a new approach, and one which will benefit every Newfoundlander and Labradorian in a positive and powerful way."
The Tory campaign document said that "a comprehensive and effective freedom of information act is the best safeguard against the tendency of governments to descend into official secrecy and elitism."
In December 2004, the Williams administration tabled its "accountability and transparency agenda," updating laws governing lobbying, government purchasing and the tendering process.
"In our blueprint, we committed to set the bar on transparency and accountability much higher, so that government is truly open and transparent in decision-making and accountable to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador," Williams said in a statement issued Dec. 2.
In January 2005, the Williams administration finally enacted new open-records laws - laws which had languished on the books since 2002, and the days of the previous Grimes administration.
The premier's office steered inquiries about Tuesday's decision to Rideout.
rantle@thetelegram.com
That just makes what I will post tomorrow all the more interesting.
For those with a passionate interest in access to government information, there is a curious story on the front page of today's Telegram. It's also online here.
For those who may not be able to access it, here's the complete text courtesy of The Telegram and reporter Rob Antle.
As someone who has dealt with access to information issues from boths sides in the course of my 16 year career, I have a few thoughts and observations on this story. I'll save them for tomorrow morning's post, along with some links to the legislation itself and the recent rulings by privacy commissioner and former finance deputy minister Phil Wall.
Transportation Minister Tom Rideout is quoted in the story that follows. he is currently acting justice minister. In a previous life, he was premier of the province, even if it was only 43 days in the spring of 1989. After leaving politics, Mr. Rideout went off to Ottawa U law school and was a practicing lawyer before he went back to politics again.
The only other thing I'll say here, before letting you get to the full story by Rob Antle, is that I'd be dumbfounded if The Telegram didn't take this one to the Supreme Court.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Page A1 (above the fold)
Polling data stays secret
by Rob Antle, The Telegram
Opinion polls are secret cabinet documents not to be released to the public, the Williams administration has decreed.
The decision overrules the findings of a report issued Tuesday by the province's information commissioner.
"We disagree with the interpretation that's been put on this by the information and privacy commissioner," said Tom Rideout, who is acting justice minister while Tom Marshall is out of the province.
"We don't feel that his interpretation is within the confines of the spirit and intent of the legislation. Š Based on that belief, we will not be releasing the information."
The province says releasing public-opinion polling commissioned over a 14-month period would reveal cabinet confidences.
Information Commissioner Phil Wall ruled Tuesday that the government should release the documents under new open-records laws, with some small exceptions.
"Quite simply, Section 18 of the ATIPPA cannot be treated as a 'blanket' exception to disclosure," Wall wrote, referring to the part of the act dealing with cabinet confidences.
"It specifically states that only those items which would reveal the substance of deliberations of cabinet can be severed from the record, and it gives examples of what such items might be, such as advice and recommendations."
Rideout said Wall is wrong.
"There are still certain protections for the system, and one of the protections has to do with the confidentiality of cabinet documents," he said.
"That's one of the underpinnings of our whole system, and we're certainly not prepared, at this stage of the game, based on what we think is an error in interpretation by the privacy commissioner, to undermine that process."
The commissioner has the ability to make recommendations to the government, but cannot force the province to act upon them.
In making his ruling, Wall cited case law and precedents in Ontario, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
"We feel that case law is fairly clear in its conclusions," Sandy Hounsell, executive director of the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, told The Telegram Tuesday.
Government officials now have 15 days to respond to Wall's report.
The only recourse after that is Newfoundland Supreme Court.
The information commissioner can decide to take the matter to court. The applicant - in this case, The Telegram - can also decide to do so.
"We will wait until we get formal representation from Executive Council on their position, and then make a decision as to what we will do with this particular report," Hounsell said.
That decision will likely be made within days of receiving the final response from the government, he said.
On Jan 18, a Telegram reporter requested a list of public-opinion polls done by, or on behalf of, Executive Council between November 2003 and January 2005.
Executive Council is the wing of the public service which oversees government policy and decision-making.
A month later, the province supplied a list of 12 polls, broken down by pollster and date.
However, the government refused to disclose the subject of the polls, or their content.
On March 10, the province decided to provide two of the polls in question.
Several weeks ago, after fighting for nearly five months, the province released two other polls. Both dealt specifically with the Atlantic Accord.
Wall had recommended the release of that information.
But the other eight polls must remain secret, the province maintains.
Comfortable with stand
Rideout said Tuesday the government is "very comfortable" with that position, even though Premier Danny Williams campaigned on a policy of openness and transparency in 2003.
"My government will provide real financial management, real transparency, and real accountability," Williams said in the Conservative pre-election "blueprint" of promises.
"Ours will be a new approach, and one which will benefit every Newfoundlander and Labradorian in a positive and powerful way."
The Tory campaign document said that "a comprehensive and effective freedom of information act is the best safeguard against the tendency of governments to descend into official secrecy and elitism."
In December 2004, the Williams administration tabled its "accountability and transparency agenda," updating laws governing lobbying, government purchasing and the tendering process.
"In our blueprint, we committed to set the bar on transparency and accountability much higher, so that government is truly open and transparent in decision-making and accountable to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador," Williams said in a statement issued Dec. 2.
In January 2005, the Williams administration finally enacted new open-records laws - laws which had languished on the books since 2002, and the days of the previous Grimes administration.
The premier's office steered inquiries about Tuesday's decision to Rideout.
rantle@thetelegram.com
Federal Accord communications support costs
St. John's based communications company First Contact Communications Inc. received $22, 500 from the federal Department of Finance in the last quarter of Fiscal Year 2004, according to the department's website.
The Finance website only indicates that the work was for "other professional services otherwise not contracted" and lasted for a period from 21 January 2005 to 25 February 2005.
While the website does not specify the nature of the professional services, it was apparently for communications support on the Atlantic Accord signing.
The province spent more than $100, 000 of its own on the signing ceremony and associated communications. That doesn't include any amounts spent on public opinion polling.
Under the federal government's proactive disclosure policy, expense claims for senior staff as well as all contracts valued at more than $10, 000 are posted to each department's website.
The Finance website only indicates that the work was for "other professional services otherwise not contracted" and lasted for a period from 21 January 2005 to 25 February 2005.
While the website does not specify the nature of the professional services, it was apparently for communications support on the Atlantic Accord signing.
The province spent more than $100, 000 of its own on the signing ceremony and associated communications. That doesn't include any amounts spent on public opinion polling.
Under the federal government's proactive disclosure policy, expense claims for senior staff as well as all contracts valued at more than $10, 000 are posted to each department's website.
28 June 2005
In the land of the blind...
Radio call-in shows are the source of much misinformation, well-meant or not.
There's a news story over at VOCM based on comments to Randy Simms on Open Line from former cabinet minister Bill Callahan that Danny Williams vote against the Fishery Products bill may be illegal.
Nice try, Bill, but the only thing that would be odd, but not unconstitutional, would be for the father of the bill to vote against it. In this case there was a free vote, so every single member of the legislature had the same power on the vote as any other. They could even stay away from the House if they wanted, and a number did. It was the ultimate expression of the individual rights of members to vote their conscience.
Since a majority of members approved the bill, there is nothing to prevent the cabinet as a whole and the premier in particular from exercising their right to advise the lieutenant governor on the bill. Heck, the cabinet could theoretically advise the LG against signing it, even if the legislature passed it. Don't count on that happening, though. The elected representatives of the people have spoken.
Meanwhile, last night Sue decided to call Linda Swain on Nite Line and play false prophet with the Constitution. She selectively quoted a bit of the Terms of Union and then launched into a tirade about Ottawa paying up billions for their supposed destruction of the fishery.
Sadly for Sue, she was having an Emily Litella moment. The bit she mentioned- Term 31 - refers to the maintenance of bait stations and other similar measures. Since 1949, Ottawa has fulfilled its constitutional obligations for the "protection and encouragement" of the fishery in more ways than one. Her entire rant was just another one that was founded on a complete misrepresentation of the facts.
Then for good measure she said something to the effect that the provincial government would have to go beg Ottawa to allow an oil refinery to be built here. This myth, fabrication, canard - call it what you will - started about 20 years ago and it has been tossed around by a whole raft of people.
The problem: it is completely false. There is nothing written anywhere - including the Atlantic Accord (1985) - that prevents anyone from building a refinery in the province.
Ah well, at least they filled up some airtime in an otherwise slow day in the call-show racket.
There's a news story over at VOCM based on comments to Randy Simms on Open Line from former cabinet minister Bill Callahan that Danny Williams vote against the Fishery Products bill may be illegal.
Nice try, Bill, but the only thing that would be odd, but not unconstitutional, would be for the father of the bill to vote against it. In this case there was a free vote, so every single member of the legislature had the same power on the vote as any other. They could even stay away from the House if they wanted, and a number did. It was the ultimate expression of the individual rights of members to vote their conscience.
Since a majority of members approved the bill, there is nothing to prevent the cabinet as a whole and the premier in particular from exercising their right to advise the lieutenant governor on the bill. Heck, the cabinet could theoretically advise the LG against signing it, even if the legislature passed it. Don't count on that happening, though. The elected representatives of the people have spoken.
Meanwhile, last night Sue decided to call Linda Swain on Nite Line and play false prophet with the Constitution. She selectively quoted a bit of the Terms of Union and then launched into a tirade about Ottawa paying up billions for their supposed destruction of the fishery.
Sadly for Sue, she was having an Emily Litella moment. The bit she mentioned- Term 31 - refers to the maintenance of bait stations and other similar measures. Since 1949, Ottawa has fulfilled its constitutional obligations for the "protection and encouragement" of the fishery in more ways than one. Her entire rant was just another one that was founded on a complete misrepresentation of the facts.
Then for good measure she said something to the effect that the provincial government would have to go beg Ottawa to allow an oil refinery to be built here. This myth, fabrication, canard - call it what you will - started about 20 years ago and it has been tossed around by a whole raft of people.
The problem: it is completely false. There is nothing written anywhere - including the Atlantic Accord (1985) - that prevents anyone from building a refinery in the province.
Ah well, at least they filled up some airtime in an otherwise slow day in the call-show racket.
27 June 2005
Evolution at work
Scroll down the right side of the blog and you'll see that I am now officially a Slithering Reptile in the TTLB ecosystem.
Basically, that means the blog is getting enough hits and more importantly enough links to qualify for an upgrade in its status. The counter system is one way of tracking readers.
So while some of my critics may consider me to be primordial ooze, I have managed to evolve, at least in one respect.
I owe it to the people who read these humble e-scribbles.
Thanks.
Basically, that means the blog is getting enough hits and more importantly enough links to qualify for an upgrade in its status. The counter system is one way of tracking readers.
So while some of my critics may consider me to be primordial ooze, I have managed to evolve, at least in one respect.
I owe it to the people who read these humble e-scribbles.
Thanks.
Furey to seek Liberal leadership
Yeah I know it hardly seems like news but since he is yakking it up to the Spindy, I thought I'd out him and see what happens.
There's a story on page 5 in which Furey talks about his travels around rural Newfoundland, how there are 10 seats the Liberals could pick up with hardly any work, blah blah blah, if only they used a radical new approach to revitalizing rural Newfoundland.
He then denies he has any plans "right now".
Uh huh.
That's a Tobinesque "right now".
Which is code for ask me in a few weeks right before my news conference.
So there it is.
Chuck Furey.
Chuck apparently doesn't see any difficulty with the fact that the bulk of his messages - deep as they are - are already in play from the government. That, of course, begs the question of why Chuck just doesn't join the Danny band-wagon. Apparently, he thinks there is just enough of a difference to warrant him looking at the Liberal leadership.
I'd be curious to poll the current members of caucus to see how they feel about the possibility of Fuhrer Furey.
Most if not all would recall the way Furey bailed in advance of his old buddy Brian Tobin and ran in a 2000 federal by-election, all in the insanely egotistical belief that his charm alone would turn hard-core Connies in the old riding of St. John's West into Liberal lovers.
He turned in one of the worst Liberal votes in recent memory in the riding.
Oh well.
There's plenty of time for someone else to announce; someone who would provide a genuinely fresh approach.
I live in hope.
There's a story on page 5 in which Furey talks about his travels around rural Newfoundland, how there are 10 seats the Liberals could pick up with hardly any work, blah blah blah, if only they used a radical new approach to revitalizing rural Newfoundland.
He then denies he has any plans "right now".
Uh huh.
That's a Tobinesque "right now".
Which is code for ask me in a few weeks right before my news conference.
So there it is.
Chuck Furey.
Chuck apparently doesn't see any difficulty with the fact that the bulk of his messages - deep as they are - are already in play from the government. That, of course, begs the question of why Chuck just doesn't join the Danny band-wagon. Apparently, he thinks there is just enough of a difference to warrant him looking at the Liberal leadership.
I'd be curious to poll the current members of caucus to see how they feel about the possibility of Fuhrer Furey.
Most if not all would recall the way Furey bailed in advance of his old buddy Brian Tobin and ran in a 2000 federal by-election, all in the insanely egotistical belief that his charm alone would turn hard-core Connies in the old riding of St. John's West into Liberal lovers.
He turned in one of the worst Liberal votes in recent memory in the riding.
Oh well.
There's plenty of time for someone else to announce; someone who would provide a genuinely fresh approach.
I live in hope.
10 better panelists for the Spindy
Sitting enjoying a relaxing afternoon and reading once again the Spindy's "Navigator" contest, I couldn't help but be struck by the names on the "panel of experts" who are going to vet the nominees and, most likely add a few of their own favourites.
Basically, the Spindy panel is all of their columnists, plus Ryan Cleary the managing editor, and John Fitzgerald.
While each of the panelists is no doubt a fine human being, I though there might be some others out there who might be just a tad better, having already distinguished themselves in their field. The panel is also dominated by white males, quite obviously. Before any Spindite comes forward to say they wanted to leave qualified people open to be nominated, let me say at least two of the panelists are worthy of nomination in their own right. I think the panel was chosen for expedience - they are all available to the Spindy staff already.
But, before we launch into any codgitating over who the greatest 10 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians might be, I thought I'd toss out the names of 10 better panelists than the ones they have:
1. Peter Neary. Author of the best history about Newfoundland in the two decades prior to Confederation and currently teaching at the University of Western Ontario. Neary wouldn't bring any pseudo-nationalist bias to the panel and would be able to judge our historical nominees with some measure of balance.
2. Rex Murphy. One of the most literate people ever to draw breath and come from this province, Murphy would likely be ready to surrender his own potential nomination for the chance to put forward other nominees.
3. Mary Walsh. To represent the arts community properly and give the panel a bit of spice and cynicism, who better than Mary Walsh? She's the bright spot in Hard Rock and Water solely because she gives Lisa Moore some genuine insights into this province for the piece Moore did with Barbara Doran only to have the two film-makers ignore the insights because they didn't fit into the preconceived spin the script already had.
Incidentally, Walsh is the only person to have appeared in two works of fiction using the same Ron Hynes song as the closing music. One was Secret Nation; the other was Hard Rock and Water. While people seem to think that both were documentaries, it is pretty clear that both used certain facts (like Confederation) as the centrepiece for an elaborate and entertaining bit of make-believe.
4. Donna Butt. Actor and driving force behind one of the most successful theatre companies in the province. She might find herself shit-baked, as she once said on national radio, but I doubt it.
5. Dean Oliver. Successful historian author and museum official. Plus he's a good buddy of mine. You may not know him, but you should. He is a local boy who has done very well for himself.
or if you don't like Dean, then try someone like Jim Wellman, a respected broadcaster.
6. Captain Sid Hynes. A sharp mind and blunt nature make Captain Hynes the kind of panelist who won't suffer any fools or foolish comments at all, let alone gladly.
7. George Baker. While I may disagree with him sometimes, there is no way anyone can find fault with George's breadth of experience and his insightful mind.
8. and 9. I am going to leave open a spot here for my Labradorian friends to nominate a couple of people who would add to the stature of this group.
10. Admittedly, I am stuck with too many other good nominees for the last spot. I can think of a bunch of women and men who have distinguished themselves at home and abroad in many fields. They'd all make excellent panelists.
Given how easy it has been for me to generate this list in the matter of about 30 minutes on a Sunday afternoon, it makes me wonder how much effort the Spindy put into making up a panel that consists of their ME, all their columnists and the guy they quote whenever they need a nationalist academic voice. Like I said, the panelists are all fine human beings; it's just that I can easily think of 10 people who could come up with a great list on their own.
"The Navigators" could actually increase awareness of our historical figures, like the first woman elected to the House of Assembly:
Hilda Squires. [Editor: D'oh!]
Basically, the Spindy panel is all of their columnists, plus Ryan Cleary the managing editor, and John Fitzgerald.
While each of the panelists is no doubt a fine human being, I though there might be some others out there who might be just a tad better, having already distinguished themselves in their field. The panel is also dominated by white males, quite obviously. Before any Spindite comes forward to say they wanted to leave qualified people open to be nominated, let me say at least two of the panelists are worthy of nomination in their own right. I think the panel was chosen for expedience - they are all available to the Spindy staff already.
But, before we launch into any codgitating over who the greatest 10 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians might be, I thought I'd toss out the names of 10 better panelists than the ones they have:
1. Peter Neary. Author of the best history about Newfoundland in the two decades prior to Confederation and currently teaching at the University of Western Ontario. Neary wouldn't bring any pseudo-nationalist bias to the panel and would be able to judge our historical nominees with some measure of balance.
2. Rex Murphy. One of the most literate people ever to draw breath and come from this province, Murphy would likely be ready to surrender his own potential nomination for the chance to put forward other nominees.
3. Mary Walsh. To represent the arts community properly and give the panel a bit of spice and cynicism, who better than Mary Walsh? She's the bright spot in Hard Rock and Water solely because she gives Lisa Moore some genuine insights into this province for the piece Moore did with Barbara Doran only to have the two film-makers ignore the insights because they didn't fit into the preconceived spin the script already had.
Incidentally, Walsh is the only person to have appeared in two works of fiction using the same Ron Hynes song as the closing music. One was Secret Nation; the other was Hard Rock and Water. While people seem to think that both were documentaries, it is pretty clear that both used certain facts (like Confederation) as the centrepiece for an elaborate and entertaining bit of make-believe.
4. Donna Butt. Actor and driving force behind one of the most successful theatre companies in the province. She might find herself shit-baked, as she once said on national radio, but I doubt it.
5. Dean Oliver. Successful historian author and museum official. Plus he's a good buddy of mine. You may not know him, but you should. He is a local boy who has done very well for himself.
or if you don't like Dean, then try someone like Jim Wellman, a respected broadcaster.
6. Captain Sid Hynes. A sharp mind and blunt nature make Captain Hynes the kind of panelist who won't suffer any fools or foolish comments at all, let alone gladly.
7. George Baker. While I may disagree with him sometimes, there is no way anyone can find fault with George's breadth of experience and his insightful mind.
8. and 9. I am going to leave open a spot here for my Labradorian friends to nominate a couple of people who would add to the stature of this group.
10. Admittedly, I am stuck with too many other good nominees for the last spot. I can think of a bunch of women and men who have distinguished themselves at home and abroad in many fields. They'd all make excellent panelists.
Given how easy it has been for me to generate this list in the matter of about 30 minutes on a Sunday afternoon, it makes me wonder how much effort the Spindy put into making up a panel that consists of their ME, all their columnists and the guy they quote whenever they need a nationalist academic voice. Like I said, the panelists are all fine human beings; it's just that I can easily think of 10 people who could come up with a great list on their own.
"The Navigators" could actually increase awareness of our historical figures, like the first woman elected to the House of Assembly:
Hilda Squires. [Editor: D'oh!]
26 June 2005
The Sunday Papers
1. Over at the Telegram this fine overcast Sunday, you'll find a story confirming what readers of this blog have known for some time: The United States is not interested in putting a radar system in Goose Bay. You won't find the story online; just head over there and complaint about the lack of online content. Anyway, the story by Jaimie Baker quotes a spokesperson for the missile defence agency who notes that American ballistic missile defence is relying on upgraded systems at Thule, Greenland and at Fylingdales in the United Kingdom. Of course, regular readers of these e-scribbles already knew all about that.
The company in the news, Raytheon, has been in Goose Bay of course, but, building on a CBC story recently by Peter Gullage, my bet is they were merely scouting potential deployment sites for a mobile form of the X-band radar. It would show up in Goose if there was some problem with the main sites in Greenland and the UK. Raytheon, who is contracted to actually deploy and maintain the transportable system, would most likely fly in, fold out the tents, set up the trailers and then bugger off again with the whole thing once the job was done.
Anybody who has suggested otherwise was sadly misinformed.
2. Meanwhile the Spindependent is celebrating the last Sunday in June by continuing to foist a bullshit story about Halliburton and engineering jobs from last week's issue. There never was a trade-off of the Halliburton site in Mount Pearl for Terra Nova engineering and procurement jobs. The entire Spindy story from last week was based on the allegations of one individual - former Liberal cabinet minister Chuck Furey. Geez, why not quote Sue, guys. She has about as much cred on some issues as the guy who seems to be rebuilding his profile to take a run at Roger Grimes' old job.
Never mind that his story didn't make any sense - Halliburton was never in a position to trade anything related to Terra Nova development - the Spindy just wanted to run anything they could to give some vague support to publisher Brian Dobbin's lunatic column in which he claimed, among other things, that the feds never did anything to make Hibernia happen.
On those issues, Brian might want to talk to one of his columnists, namely John Crosbie, before he demonstrates yet again that really he is a guy with cash to pour into a failing newspaper, but not a heck of a lot of anything else.
My personal favourite Spindy piece this week was the front-page contest to find the top 10 Greatest Newfoundlanders and Labradorians of all time. Everywhere else, including the UK they settled on just one. I guess we are just so special, rare, unique and different - as the Spindy and the pseudo-nationalists keep telling us - that one is insufficient; we need . More likely, this is like Chuck Furey's favourite phrase when he was industry minister, namely "world-class". Anyone who says something is world-class is giving proof it isn't. The need for 10 "greatests" sounds just like that "world-class" crap: yet more pointless self-massage.
But as if the whole contest wasn't looking as lame as the "balance sheet" crap from last fall, seems the Spindy can't even get a few simple facts right. In the front-page story, they make reference to some possible nominees, like the first woman ever elected to the House of Assembly.
Problem? Of course there is, for the pseudo-nationalist rag. The Spindy calls her Hilda Squires. The first woman legislator in this province (when it was a proud country) was Lady Helena Squires, a fact easily checked in any of a number of reference books.
Ryan and the happy band at the Spindy must be looking for jobs over at the department of InTRD: a simple google search for "first woman legislator in Newfoundland" revealed a raft of hits, including this one from the National Library of Canada. There's a link in there to a bio of Lady Helena (her family pronounced the name hell-eena).
When you're done with that, have a read through Ivan Morgan's column in which he slags Bill Rowe for suggesting independence for Newfoundland might be the solution to all our ills. Ivan is absolutely correct in saying a columnist's first duty is to move papers. But his take on Bill is kinda funny on a number of levels. I've known Ivan for years and like his style; it fits with the Spindy's approach. But hey Ivan, a better way of tackling Rowe would have been to continue his "separation theme" - the cure for all our provincial ills would be to separate the northeast Avalon or maybe the whole Avalon from the rest of place island and let Labrador go separately as well. You'd have taken a much funnier poke at Rowe's inadvertently self-lampooning writing style, and moved a few more papers of your own.
Ah well, time to get some chores done.
Like checking to see if I have a spare alternator for a 1919 Vickers bomber in the basement.
The company in the news, Raytheon, has been in Goose Bay of course, but, building on a CBC story recently by Peter Gullage, my bet is they were merely scouting potential deployment sites for a mobile form of the X-band radar. It would show up in Goose if there was some problem with the main sites in Greenland and the UK. Raytheon, who is contracted to actually deploy and maintain the transportable system, would most likely fly in, fold out the tents, set up the trailers and then bugger off again with the whole thing once the job was done.
Anybody who has suggested otherwise was sadly misinformed.
2. Meanwhile the Spindependent is celebrating the last Sunday in June by continuing to foist a bullshit story about Halliburton and engineering jobs from last week's issue. There never was a trade-off of the Halliburton site in Mount Pearl for Terra Nova engineering and procurement jobs. The entire Spindy story from last week was based on the allegations of one individual - former Liberal cabinet minister Chuck Furey. Geez, why not quote Sue, guys. She has about as much cred on some issues as the guy who seems to be rebuilding his profile to take a run at Roger Grimes' old job.
Never mind that his story didn't make any sense - Halliburton was never in a position to trade anything related to Terra Nova development - the Spindy just wanted to run anything they could to give some vague support to publisher Brian Dobbin's lunatic column in which he claimed, among other things, that the feds never did anything to make Hibernia happen.
On those issues, Brian might want to talk to one of his columnists, namely John Crosbie, before he demonstrates yet again that really he is a guy with cash to pour into a failing newspaper, but not a heck of a lot of anything else.
My personal favourite Spindy piece this week was the front-page contest to find the top 10 Greatest Newfoundlanders and Labradorians of all time. Everywhere else, including the UK they settled on just one. I guess we are just so special, rare, unique and different - as the Spindy and the pseudo-nationalists keep telling us - that one is insufficient; we need . More likely, this is like Chuck Furey's favourite phrase when he was industry minister, namely "world-class". Anyone who says something is world-class is giving proof it isn't. The need for 10 "greatests" sounds just like that "world-class" crap: yet more pointless self-massage.
But as if the whole contest wasn't looking as lame as the "balance sheet" crap from last fall, seems the Spindy can't even get a few simple facts right. In the front-page story, they make reference to some possible nominees, like the first woman ever elected to the House of Assembly.
Problem? Of course there is, for the pseudo-nationalist rag. The Spindy calls her Hilda Squires. The first woman legislator in this province (when it was a proud country) was Lady Helena Squires, a fact easily checked in any of a number of reference books.
Ryan and the happy band at the Spindy must be looking for jobs over at the department of InTRD: a simple google search for "first woman legislator in Newfoundland" revealed a raft of hits, including this one from the National Library of Canada. There's a link in there to a bio of Lady Helena (her family pronounced the name hell-eena).
When you're done with that, have a read through Ivan Morgan's column in which he slags Bill Rowe for suggesting independence for Newfoundland might be the solution to all our ills. Ivan is absolutely correct in saying a columnist's first duty is to move papers. But his take on Bill is kinda funny on a number of levels. I've known Ivan for years and like his style; it fits with the Spindy's approach. But hey Ivan, a better way of tackling Rowe would have been to continue his "separation theme" - the cure for all our provincial ills would be to separate the northeast Avalon or maybe the whole Avalon from the rest of place island and let Labrador go separately as well. You'd have taken a much funnier poke at Rowe's inadvertently self-lampooning writing style, and moved a few more papers of your own.
Ah well, time to get some chores done.
Like checking to see if I have a spare alternator for a 1919 Vickers bomber in the basement.
24 June 2005
Update for Mike
One of my faithful readers has been burning up the phone lines around town trying to figure out who Sigfried and Shtarker are.
Seems that he thinks they are actually just code names for real people.
In the interests of saving the guy some more cell phone minutes and to make sure no one else is hunting for hidden codes, the whole KAOS thing was...a joke.
A few weeks ago, I posted some stuff about KAOS and Siegfried, who I discovered was the vice president of public relations and terrorism at the international organization of evil. Every time I make a bet or prediction, I say "I von ze pool" just like Shtarker did in the episode I mentioned.
Here's a link to "The Not-so-great Escape", parts 1 and 2. Max winds up imprisoned at KAO's POW camp, known as Camp Gitchee Goomee Noonee Wa Wa, located as the title screen indicated "Somewhere in New Jersey".
Shtarker had a bet on the time of the great escape the prisoners were planning.
We now resume our regular programming.
Seems that he thinks they are actually just code names for real people.
In the interests of saving the guy some more cell phone minutes and to make sure no one else is hunting for hidden codes, the whole KAOS thing was...a joke.
A few weeks ago, I posted some stuff about KAOS and Siegfried, who I discovered was the vice president of public relations and terrorism at the international organization of evil. Every time I make a bet or prediction, I say "I von ze pool" just like Shtarker did in the episode I mentioned.
Here's a link to "The Not-so-great Escape", parts 1 and 2. Max winds up imprisoned at KAO's POW camp, known as Camp Gitchee Goomee Noonee Wa Wa, located as the title screen indicated "Somewhere in New Jersey".
Shtarker had a bet on the time of the great escape the prisoners were planning.
We now resume our regular programming.
I von ze pool
Over at KAOS, the international organization of evil, they were running a pool on the Exploits by-election. I managed to beat out both Siegfried and Shtarker to earn the right to say, as Shtarker did in the famous Stalag episode of Get Smart: "I von ze pool."
By-elections are notorious for their relatively low turn-out, but then again, that isn't really much of an issue if any Liberals toss that out as a reason for their loss. Any election is a winner take all proposition and in this case, the Progressive Conservatives played for keeps and ran a solid campaign.
The Premier called it quickly, catching the Liberals in an organizational schlamozzle that had absolutely nothing to do with Roger Grimes' departure. Maybe the candidate had something to do with it; personally I'd point to the lack of organization on the Liberal side as the biggest factor.
Some Libs will also point to their hard financial situation as an excuse/explanation. I'll buy that up to a point. Part of the issue is how you spend your money. The Liberal campaign could have used a scientific opinion poll to give them some idea of the issues in the district and where the Liberals stood relative to the other parties. I keep hearing that a poll was rejected not just because of the cost (typically less than $5K) but because the Libs just didn't see the need of it.
By contrast, I'd bet a part of my anatomy that the PCs had a poll that identified the school issue as a big one. Once they took care of that one, they could just blitz the district with everyone they've got and it paid off. The PCs set the tone; the Liberals were all reaction and predictably they just took a big kick in the political goolies.
Flip over to the Liberal website and you'll be hard pressed to find too many releases that focused on the only game the Opposition had: winning Exploits. Maybe they were focusing their efforts in the district but hey guys, the party as a whole would have benefited by seeing you make a strong showing. I could be way off, but I don't recall hearing too many Liberal members of the House Liberal supporters, let alone the Leader blanketing the call-in shows (they're free) to pound away at any of a number of themes, including making Exploits a test for the Williams government.
I'd venture there are a few more sitting Lib MHAs who are thinking about retiring before the next election. Every single one of those by-elections will be fought by the Conservatives as hard as they fought this one. That should send a chill down some spines in the province.
Meanwhile, the party executive still hasn't set the date for the leadership convention. No one will declare until they know the date. In the interim, the party looks palid since no one is expressing a public interest. It gets even worse when in the absence of any other candidate or prospective candidate, rumours are starting to fly that Sue has returned to the call-in shows with a vengeance as a prelude to declaring her candidacy.
Oy vey!
It will be interesting to see what, if anything, this by-election spurs. The Progressive Conservatives are strengthened by this decisive win and good on them for a well-run, professional campaign.
On the other side, the loss of a seat will either spur renewal or hasten departures.
Maybe KAOS needs to start another pool.
By-elections are notorious for their relatively low turn-out, but then again, that isn't really much of an issue if any Liberals toss that out as a reason for their loss. Any election is a winner take all proposition and in this case, the Progressive Conservatives played for keeps and ran a solid campaign.
The Premier called it quickly, catching the Liberals in an organizational schlamozzle that had absolutely nothing to do with Roger Grimes' departure. Maybe the candidate had something to do with it; personally I'd point to the lack of organization on the Liberal side as the biggest factor.
Some Libs will also point to their hard financial situation as an excuse/explanation. I'll buy that up to a point. Part of the issue is how you spend your money. The Liberal campaign could have used a scientific opinion poll to give them some idea of the issues in the district and where the Liberals stood relative to the other parties. I keep hearing that a poll was rejected not just because of the cost (typically less than $5K) but because the Libs just didn't see the need of it.
By contrast, I'd bet a part of my anatomy that the PCs had a poll that identified the school issue as a big one. Once they took care of that one, they could just blitz the district with everyone they've got and it paid off. The PCs set the tone; the Liberals were all reaction and predictably they just took a big kick in the political goolies.
Flip over to the Liberal website and you'll be hard pressed to find too many releases that focused on the only game the Opposition had: winning Exploits. Maybe they were focusing their efforts in the district but hey guys, the party as a whole would have benefited by seeing you make a strong showing. I could be way off, but I don't recall hearing too many Liberal members of the House Liberal supporters, let alone the Leader blanketing the call-in shows (they're free) to pound away at any of a number of themes, including making Exploits a test for the Williams government.
I'd venture there are a few more sitting Lib MHAs who are thinking about retiring before the next election. Every single one of those by-elections will be fought by the Conservatives as hard as they fought this one. That should send a chill down some spines in the province.
Meanwhile, the party executive still hasn't set the date for the leadership convention. No one will declare until they know the date. In the interim, the party looks palid since no one is expressing a public interest. It gets even worse when in the absence of any other candidate or prospective candidate, rumours are starting to fly that Sue has returned to the call-in shows with a vengeance as a prelude to declaring her candidacy.
Oy vey!
It will be interesting to see what, if anything, this by-election spurs. The Progressive Conservatives are strengthened by this decisive win and good on them for a well-run, professional campaign.
On the other side, the loss of a seat will either spur renewal or hasten departures.
Maybe KAOS needs to start another pool.
23 June 2005
All trout live in trees
Blogging in the province seems to have evolved to the point where we can have raging disputes on our respective blogs.
Liam O'Brien, chief schpeeler at Responsible Government League has taken exception to my comments on Iceland and an independent Newfoundland and Labrador. Liam takes issue with what he assumes are my points on the matter, suggesting that I am defending the status quo and supporting what I guess he would characterize as the evil Canadians. Here's the link to the post itself.
While his post is lengthy and well written, it suffers from a fundamental flaw: it misses the point entirely.
As noted in previous posts on this subject, the syllogism Iceland = Independent = Successful Fishery//Newfoundland=Not Independent=Fisheries Disaster doesn't stand up to closer scrutiny.
The idea of an independent Newfoundland managing the fishery as Iceland rests on a series of unfounded assumptions. Specifically these are:
- that Newfoundland is the same as Iceland in political, economic and social terms;
- that when dealing with fisheries management issues, local elites in an independent Newfoundland would have done something radically different than what occurred within Confederation; and,
- the current situation is entirely the result of Confederation and particularly the "fact" that Ottawa controls the backbone of "our " economy.
Let us dispose of these as quickly as possible and thereby set the stage for dealing with the substantive issue, namely what policy ought to be in place for the fishery offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.
Newfoundland and Iceland are the same. On the face of it, this is a difficult proposition to sustain. Iceland is a relatively homogeneous society in which language and religion, for example, are the same. There is no history of internal factional fighting on any denominational or other lines. The country is also outward-looking and was particularly so from the 1940s onward.
While Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are predominantly local-born (the ratios now are the same as in 1911) and speak English primarily, the place has a long history of fractious internal disputes along ethnic and religious lines. These were managed primarily by a division of political administration and public services among adherents of particular denominations. In hiring decisions, for example, Newfoundland's prevailing social structure at the time of Confederation did not place emphasis on qualifications; it emphasized one's religious beliefs. Ability was less important than what church one attended.
An Independent Newfoundland government would have acted differently from the post-Confederation governments. While this is a subject that has undoubtedly entertained many a discussion among undergraduate historians at the Breezeway or Ben's, it is difficult to predict with any degree of accuracy what might have occurred in an independent Newfoundland.
However, we can look at what existed in 1949 and at some specific examples to see if there is any evidence at all that Confederation constrained Newfoundlanders in any meaningful way in matters of fisheries policy.
Newfoundland in 1949 was and remains to a large extent a society which is focused inward. As much as there is a tradition of international sea-trading, most Newfoundlanders up to the time of Confederation had little experience of the world outside their own community. There remains a powerful insular, if not tribal, sentiment and one which is distinctly collectivist. Ask Margaret Wente about that.
One of the major factors affecting Iceland's economic success has been its emphasis on education. In Newfoundland, our education system remained wasteful and in many respects deficient up until the 1990s. Confederation did not produce any significant in this area; in fact, Term 17 (Denominational Education) was specifically included in the Terms of Union as a way of mollifying clerical sentiment in the erstwhile province. The established interests were primarily concerned with maintaining the status quo.
The same can be said of the economy. Both the anti-Confederate forces and to a certain extent individuals such as Ches Crosbie on the Confederation delegation were concerned with perpetuating the economic status quo in Newfoundland. They sought a continuation of the quasi-feudal fisheries economy as well as the continuation of the prohibitive tariffs on imported goods to the extent they could be sustained. I have already noted elsewhere the extent to which pre-Confederation economic policies in Newfoundland favoured the business class in St. John's at the expense of the majority of the population.
As for the fishery, as Raymond Blake has noted in his worthwhile but largely ignored book Canadians at last: Canada integrates Newfoundland as a province,(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994) the fishery was ignored by the 1948 Newfoundland delegation to Canada. The only sections of the Terms dealing with fisheries issues continue the saltfish marketing board established by the Commission Government to flog a product that by the late 1940s was facing declining demand. [pp. 146-176]
Thus, at the time of Confederation, the economic and social elites were generally aimed at preserving the existing order in every respect. On the face of it, this is the antithesis of the situation proposed by the Newfoundland nationalists when using Iceland as "proof" of their argument against Confederation.
Again, as Blake notes (p. 147), "[i]f the governments [in Ottawa and St. John's] had pursued the policies recommended by [several inquiries and commissions into the fishery immediately after Confederation], they would have created a small corps of fishermen concentrated in a small number of communities engaged in both the salt and fresh-frozen fisheries from modern boats and trawlers with greatly increased capacity". However, by 1954 it was clear in Ottawa that there was no other work for the fishermen and their families who would have been displaced by such approaches.
For political reasons rooted in this province and in the Maritimes, Ottawa settled on some modest efforts at centralization of fishing efforts with improvements in living standards coming largely from income support programs. For those who argue that Ottawa ignored the Newfoundland fishery, be aware that the first post-Confederation fisheries development program was introduced by the Government of Canada on 05 May 1949, little more than a month after Union.
For his part, Smallwood initially hoped that his industrialization policies would give work to displaced fishermen. When his projects failed, as Blake puts it, "he turned his fury on the federal government, blaming it for the destruction of the fishery". How odd that O'Brien and others repeat the words of Joe Smallwood, their ancient nemesis. More importantly, though, the provincial government did not propose any significant alternatives to Ottawa's approach and, to add my own assessment to Blake, throughout the 1960s and into more recent decades, Newfoundland's own policies have largely been aimed at perpetuating the system of income supports from Ottawa first developed in the years immediately after Confederation.
Part of the nationalist "Iceland" argument contends that economic circumstances would have transformed, as if by magic, the insular, conservative - almost reactionary - social and political order in an independent Newfoundland into a bastion of self-confident entrepreneurship. In other words, those pesky federal social programs sapped local drive.
Sadly, there is little evidence to suggest a nationalist government in power behaved any differently than its predecessors. By the 1980s, the fishery was in crisis yet again and the Newfoundland government was nearly broke. It was also captained by an ardent Newfoundland nationalist, Brian Peckford whose chief lieutenant was to coin the phrase "the rack of Confederation" when describing the oil and gas ownership dispute. Despite the evidence from Iceland that was readily available at the time and a growing world move toward free trade and free markets, the political solution to the fishery offered by Newfoundland was strikingly familiar.
First, some fish processors were rescued from bankruptcy and reformed into Fishery Products International. The new company would be controlled by provincial legislation and, as it turned out, headed by a bureaucrat imbued with anything but an entrepreneurial trading objective. Fish prices were still set by collusion and the fish processing company focused its attention on supporting provincial social policy until the collapse of the cod stocks forced it to do otherwise.
Second, the government generally favoured a system which stuffed as many people into the fishery as the industry could manage. The situation described by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies is the result of exactly a policy aimed at using the fishery to take any and all comers irrespective of the impact such approaches had on the economics of the fishery. As Peckford himself said, he would rather see 20, 000 fishermen making a pittance than see half that number earn a living wage from the fishery. The most nationalist of Newfoundland governments, like most before and after, viewed the fishery as a social program, not as a business.
What more need be said to appreciate that there is little substantive evidence to support the nationalist use of Iceland as a model for an independent Newfoundland with a thriving fishery.
Ottawa controls "our resource". In 1949, Newfoundland had control over fish within its three mile limit. At Confederation, Canada's jurisdiction applied as so Newfoundland obtained a 12 mile buffer in which it could fish exclusively. Until the 1970s, when international law recognized a 200 mile exclusive economic zone, everything beyond first three and then 12 miles was the high seas. The fish were there for whomever could catch them. They were never "our" fish from the outset. Legally and in every other meaningful sense, the fish resources of the Grand Banks and elsewhere offshore Newfoundland and Labrador remain a world resource as they were in 1949. Our economic success or failure derives from our own attitudes, not our ownership of anything.
Under the Constitution, Ottawa controls access to the offshore fisheries resources. However, the Newfoundland government controls the processing sector entirely. In any discussion of fish policy these two things need to be taken together or, to extrapolate as Blake's argument, it is important to recognize that federal fisheries policy is rooted in local political forces in Newfoundland as much as anything else.
Newfoundland-based fish harvesting interests have never had problem gaining access to fish; indeed, until nature forced John Crosbie to close the ground fish fishery, Ottawa bent relentlessly to pressure from the province (initially, government, industry and the wider public and then later from the latter two) to maintain cod quotas at the highest possible levels. Domestic fish harvesters highgraded and engaged in other illegal practices all of which contributed to the decimation of the codstocks. Only in the late 1980s did the provincial government begin to call for reduced cod quotas but they were ignored by the contrary advice of Newfoundland's federal cabinet minister whose riding depended heavily on the fishery.
Conclusion: The title of this post comes from a Monty Python sketch in which a logician is lamenting wife's inability to understand simple formulations. Given the major premise that all fish live in water and the minor premise that all trout are fish, the logician's wife will conclude either that trout live in trees or that "I do not love her any more." (Hint: the sketch is really about the logician's lack of sense.)
In the same fashion, Newfoundland nationalists point to Iceland for nothing other than their completely illogical conclusion that responsibility for every problem with the province's fisheries can be laid squarely in the lap of the Government of Canada.
Yet, pre-Confederation history - particularly, the broader social and political forces at work - as well as post-Confederation evidence suggests that Newfoundland's fisheries problems are more deeply rooted. Hence, they are more difficult to address.
At no point in its history, has the government at St. John's been incapable of taking an approach to fisheries management within its jurisdiction and advocating changes outside its power that mirrored the Icelandic model. There were no legal impediments; none.
The reason why the government has consistently failed to advocate Icelandic solutions must come from some other explanations, of the types I have suggested here.
Fundamentally, fisheries policy is not a problem to be solved by determining which bureaucrats - those in Ottawa or those in St. John's - have the most control. Rather, the long-term solution to the problem of making the local fishery economically and environmentally sustainable lies in giving genuine power to those who actually engage in the industry.
That will be the subject of the next major post: "Better fewer, but better".
Liam O'Brien, chief schpeeler at Responsible Government League has taken exception to my comments on Iceland and an independent Newfoundland and Labrador. Liam takes issue with what he assumes are my points on the matter, suggesting that I am defending the status quo and supporting what I guess he would characterize as the evil Canadians. Here's the link to the post itself.
While his post is lengthy and well written, it suffers from a fundamental flaw: it misses the point entirely.
As noted in previous posts on this subject, the syllogism Iceland = Independent = Successful Fishery//Newfoundland=Not Independent=Fisheries Disaster doesn't stand up to closer scrutiny.
The idea of an independent Newfoundland managing the fishery as Iceland rests on a series of unfounded assumptions. Specifically these are:
- that Newfoundland is the same as Iceland in political, economic and social terms;
- that when dealing with fisheries management issues, local elites in an independent Newfoundland would have done something radically different than what occurred within Confederation; and,
- the current situation is entirely the result of Confederation and particularly the "fact" that Ottawa controls the backbone of "our " economy.
Let us dispose of these as quickly as possible and thereby set the stage for dealing with the substantive issue, namely what policy ought to be in place for the fishery offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.
Newfoundland and Iceland are the same. On the face of it, this is a difficult proposition to sustain. Iceland is a relatively homogeneous society in which language and religion, for example, are the same. There is no history of internal factional fighting on any denominational or other lines. The country is also outward-looking and was particularly so from the 1940s onward.
While Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are predominantly local-born (the ratios now are the same as in 1911) and speak English primarily, the place has a long history of fractious internal disputes along ethnic and religious lines. These were managed primarily by a division of political administration and public services among adherents of particular denominations. In hiring decisions, for example, Newfoundland's prevailing social structure at the time of Confederation did not place emphasis on qualifications; it emphasized one's religious beliefs. Ability was less important than what church one attended.
An Independent Newfoundland government would have acted differently from the post-Confederation governments. While this is a subject that has undoubtedly entertained many a discussion among undergraduate historians at the Breezeway or Ben's, it is difficult to predict with any degree of accuracy what might have occurred in an independent Newfoundland.
However, we can look at what existed in 1949 and at some specific examples to see if there is any evidence at all that Confederation constrained Newfoundlanders in any meaningful way in matters of fisheries policy.
Newfoundland in 1949 was and remains to a large extent a society which is focused inward. As much as there is a tradition of international sea-trading, most Newfoundlanders up to the time of Confederation had little experience of the world outside their own community. There remains a powerful insular, if not tribal, sentiment and one which is distinctly collectivist. Ask Margaret Wente about that.
One of the major factors affecting Iceland's economic success has been its emphasis on education. In Newfoundland, our education system remained wasteful and in many respects deficient up until the 1990s. Confederation did not produce any significant in this area; in fact, Term 17 (Denominational Education) was specifically included in the Terms of Union as a way of mollifying clerical sentiment in the erstwhile province. The established interests were primarily concerned with maintaining the status quo.
The same can be said of the economy. Both the anti-Confederate forces and to a certain extent individuals such as Ches Crosbie on the Confederation delegation were concerned with perpetuating the economic status quo in Newfoundland. They sought a continuation of the quasi-feudal fisheries economy as well as the continuation of the prohibitive tariffs on imported goods to the extent they could be sustained. I have already noted elsewhere the extent to which pre-Confederation economic policies in Newfoundland favoured the business class in St. John's at the expense of the majority of the population.
As for the fishery, as Raymond Blake has noted in his worthwhile but largely ignored book Canadians at last: Canada integrates Newfoundland as a province,(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994) the fishery was ignored by the 1948 Newfoundland delegation to Canada. The only sections of the Terms dealing with fisheries issues continue the saltfish marketing board established by the Commission Government to flog a product that by the late 1940s was facing declining demand. [pp. 146-176]
Thus, at the time of Confederation, the economic and social elites were generally aimed at preserving the existing order in every respect. On the face of it, this is the antithesis of the situation proposed by the Newfoundland nationalists when using Iceland as "proof" of their argument against Confederation.
Again, as Blake notes (p. 147), "[i]f the governments [in Ottawa and St. John's] had pursued the policies recommended by [several inquiries and commissions into the fishery immediately after Confederation], they would have created a small corps of fishermen concentrated in a small number of communities engaged in both the salt and fresh-frozen fisheries from modern boats and trawlers with greatly increased capacity". However, by 1954 it was clear in Ottawa that there was no other work for the fishermen and their families who would have been displaced by such approaches.
For political reasons rooted in this province and in the Maritimes, Ottawa settled on some modest efforts at centralization of fishing efforts with improvements in living standards coming largely from income support programs. For those who argue that Ottawa ignored the Newfoundland fishery, be aware that the first post-Confederation fisheries development program was introduced by the Government of Canada on 05 May 1949, little more than a month after Union.
For his part, Smallwood initially hoped that his industrialization policies would give work to displaced fishermen. When his projects failed, as Blake puts it, "he turned his fury on the federal government, blaming it for the destruction of the fishery". How odd that O'Brien and others repeat the words of Joe Smallwood, their ancient nemesis. More importantly, though, the provincial government did not propose any significant alternatives to Ottawa's approach and, to add my own assessment to Blake, throughout the 1960s and into more recent decades, Newfoundland's own policies have largely been aimed at perpetuating the system of income supports from Ottawa first developed in the years immediately after Confederation.
Part of the nationalist "Iceland" argument contends that economic circumstances would have transformed, as if by magic, the insular, conservative - almost reactionary - social and political order in an independent Newfoundland into a bastion of self-confident entrepreneurship. In other words, those pesky federal social programs sapped local drive.
Sadly, there is little evidence to suggest a nationalist government in power behaved any differently than its predecessors. By the 1980s, the fishery was in crisis yet again and the Newfoundland government was nearly broke. It was also captained by an ardent Newfoundland nationalist, Brian Peckford whose chief lieutenant was to coin the phrase "the rack of Confederation" when describing the oil and gas ownership dispute. Despite the evidence from Iceland that was readily available at the time and a growing world move toward free trade and free markets, the political solution to the fishery offered by Newfoundland was strikingly familiar.
First, some fish processors were rescued from bankruptcy and reformed into Fishery Products International. The new company would be controlled by provincial legislation and, as it turned out, headed by a bureaucrat imbued with anything but an entrepreneurial trading objective. Fish prices were still set by collusion and the fish processing company focused its attention on supporting provincial social policy until the collapse of the cod stocks forced it to do otherwise.
Second, the government generally favoured a system which stuffed as many people into the fishery as the industry could manage. The situation described by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies is the result of exactly a policy aimed at using the fishery to take any and all comers irrespective of the impact such approaches had on the economics of the fishery. As Peckford himself said, he would rather see 20, 000 fishermen making a pittance than see half that number earn a living wage from the fishery. The most nationalist of Newfoundland governments, like most before and after, viewed the fishery as a social program, not as a business.
What more need be said to appreciate that there is little substantive evidence to support the nationalist use of Iceland as a model for an independent Newfoundland with a thriving fishery.
Ottawa controls "our resource". In 1949, Newfoundland had control over fish within its three mile limit. At Confederation, Canada's jurisdiction applied as so Newfoundland obtained a 12 mile buffer in which it could fish exclusively. Until the 1970s, when international law recognized a 200 mile exclusive economic zone, everything beyond first three and then 12 miles was the high seas. The fish were there for whomever could catch them. They were never "our" fish from the outset. Legally and in every other meaningful sense, the fish resources of the Grand Banks and elsewhere offshore Newfoundland and Labrador remain a world resource as they were in 1949. Our economic success or failure derives from our own attitudes, not our ownership of anything.
Under the Constitution, Ottawa controls access to the offshore fisheries resources. However, the Newfoundland government controls the processing sector entirely. In any discussion of fish policy these two things need to be taken together or, to extrapolate as Blake's argument, it is important to recognize that federal fisheries policy is rooted in local political forces in Newfoundland as much as anything else.
Newfoundland-based fish harvesting interests have never had problem gaining access to fish; indeed, until nature forced John Crosbie to close the ground fish fishery, Ottawa bent relentlessly to pressure from the province (initially, government, industry and the wider public and then later from the latter two) to maintain cod quotas at the highest possible levels. Domestic fish harvesters highgraded and engaged in other illegal practices all of which contributed to the decimation of the codstocks. Only in the late 1980s did the provincial government begin to call for reduced cod quotas but they were ignored by the contrary advice of Newfoundland's federal cabinet minister whose riding depended heavily on the fishery.
Conclusion: The title of this post comes from a Monty Python sketch in which a logician is lamenting wife's inability to understand simple formulations. Given the major premise that all fish live in water and the minor premise that all trout are fish, the logician's wife will conclude either that trout live in trees or that "I do not love her any more." (Hint: the sketch is really about the logician's lack of sense.)
In the same fashion, Newfoundland nationalists point to Iceland for nothing other than their completely illogical conclusion that responsibility for every problem with the province's fisheries can be laid squarely in the lap of the Government of Canada.
Yet, pre-Confederation history - particularly, the broader social and political forces at work - as well as post-Confederation evidence suggests that Newfoundland's fisheries problems are more deeply rooted. Hence, they are more difficult to address.
At no point in its history, has the government at St. John's been incapable of taking an approach to fisheries management within its jurisdiction and advocating changes outside its power that mirrored the Icelandic model. There were no legal impediments; none.
The reason why the government has consistently failed to advocate Icelandic solutions must come from some other explanations, of the types I have suggested here.
Fundamentally, fisheries policy is not a problem to be solved by determining which bureaucrats - those in Ottawa or those in St. John's - have the most control. Rather, the long-term solution to the problem of making the local fishery economically and environmentally sustainable lies in giving genuine power to those who actually engage in the industry.
That will be the subject of the next major post: "Better fewer, but better".
Go ahead. Make my day.
I can appreciate the element of bravado and bluster in all this, but do the Connies really want to force an election when the Liberals are so far ahead in the polls, when the vultures are circling the political carcass of their leader AND on a issue that displays their antedeluvian policy platform?
Now what you have to ask yourself is do you feel lucky punk?
Well, do ya?
[Exeunt shaking head and chuckling in disbelief]
Now what you have to ask yourself is do you feel lucky punk?
Well, do ya?
[Exeunt shaking head and chuckling in disbelief]
21 June 2005
Fisheries reports
The fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador has been studied of not to death then to the point of being in a coma.
1. Dunne report. Here's a link to the now infamous Dunne report completed over 18 months ago. Take time to read it. The report is interesting for its specific recommendations, the assessment of the fishing industry two years ago, and the way Dunne assesses issues. It's a classic case of thinking entirely inside a very small fish box. Then people wonder why we keep having the same problems over and over again. Try walking inside a box and see how often you keep coming back to the same place.
Considering the provincial government made frequent reference to this report during the recent crab quota confrontation, it is important to recognize that the Dunne report identified short-term prospects for the industry (i.e two years and less) as well as longer term projections. By the time government implemented a tiny aspect of this report, its short-term projection time-frame had already been spent.
There are also some interesting statistics on the decline of fish plant worker incomes in constant terms since the late 1990s as well as the decline in the number of fish plants. Dunne notes there were some 220 plants in 1990 compared to 122 when he completed the report. That's a little more than half the plants operating today that used to operate. Dunne also notes the problems in finding workers, the aging workforce of the existing plants and declining harvest levels.
These aspects should go hand-in-hand with increased automation and efficiency in the sector, but apparently they don't.
Note especially that the average fish plant worker in this province makes less than $10, 000 per year from labour. Almost 90% of the workers in this sector earn less than $15, 000 per year from labour. This alone should be a big clue to someone that the entire approach to the fishery needs to change.
Dunne's conclusions have been dissected elsewhere so there is no need for a lengthy review.
Suffice it to say that Dunne's recommendations do not call for a radical transformation of the fishing industry. Rather Dunne perpetuates all the existing levels of government (over-) regulation of the processing sector, albeit in slightly changed forms. Recommendation 8.1 actually advises the department to increase its regulation by taking all steps necessary to "defend and properly exercise its authorities [sic] to manage the fish processing sector".
The marketplace could do this far more effectively than Dunne's proposed inspection and ticketing regime.
2. Mike Kirby. Somewhere out there is the Kirby report from 1982. You can't find it online although there are plenty of references. Kirby was the father of enterprise allocations for harvesters which were a start toward the Icelandic approach of individual transferable quotas. I'll have to ferret out a copy and go through it again.
In the meantime, lest you think I was kidding about "studied to death", here's a partial bibliography covering a mere five years in the 1990s. The list was compiled by Memorial's Queen Elizabeth II library.
1. Dunne report. Here's a link to the now infamous Dunne report completed over 18 months ago. Take time to read it. The report is interesting for its specific recommendations, the assessment of the fishing industry two years ago, and the way Dunne assesses issues. It's a classic case of thinking entirely inside a very small fish box. Then people wonder why we keep having the same problems over and over again. Try walking inside a box and see how often you keep coming back to the same place.
Considering the provincial government made frequent reference to this report during the recent crab quota confrontation, it is important to recognize that the Dunne report identified short-term prospects for the industry (i.e two years and less) as well as longer term projections. By the time government implemented a tiny aspect of this report, its short-term projection time-frame had already been spent.
There are also some interesting statistics on the decline of fish plant worker incomes in constant terms since the late 1990s as well as the decline in the number of fish plants. Dunne notes there were some 220 plants in 1990 compared to 122 when he completed the report. That's a little more than half the plants operating today that used to operate. Dunne also notes the problems in finding workers, the aging workforce of the existing plants and declining harvest levels.
These aspects should go hand-in-hand with increased automation and efficiency in the sector, but apparently they don't.
Note especially that the average fish plant worker in this province makes less than $10, 000 per year from labour. Almost 90% of the workers in this sector earn less than $15, 000 per year from labour. This alone should be a big clue to someone that the entire approach to the fishery needs to change.
Dunne's conclusions have been dissected elsewhere so there is no need for a lengthy review.
Suffice it to say that Dunne's recommendations do not call for a radical transformation of the fishing industry. Rather Dunne perpetuates all the existing levels of government (over-) regulation of the processing sector, albeit in slightly changed forms. Recommendation 8.1 actually advises the department to increase its regulation by taking all steps necessary to "defend and properly exercise its authorities [sic] to manage the fish processing sector".
The marketplace could do this far more effectively than Dunne's proposed inspection and ticketing regime.
2. Mike Kirby. Somewhere out there is the Kirby report from 1982. You can't find it online although there are plenty of references. Kirby was the father of enterprise allocations for harvesters which were a start toward the Icelandic approach of individual transferable quotas. I'll have to ferret out a copy and go through it again.
In the meantime, lest you think I was kidding about "studied to death", here's a partial bibliography covering a mere five years in the 1990s. The list was compiled by Memorial's Queen Elizabeth II library.
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