Colonial Building - further thoughts

A series of unusual e-mails yesterday prompted some further digging into the management plan for the Colonial Building, as discussed in Our plastic history. That digging prompted some further consideration of the issues and the plan.

There should be no question as to the Colonial Buildings historic importance as the former seat of government for Newfoundland and Labrador and, as a result, being the setting for some of the most important events in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador and of Canada.

Nor should there be any question of the need to restore and preserve the Colonial Building as a public building.

The only issue is the purpose to which the building should be put.

Some may suggest it be an historic site maintained much like Commissariat House either by the provincial government or the federal government or both.

The provincial government's management plan will see it turned into offices for one small section of a provincial government department plus its associated non-government groups.

Given its historic significance, the Colonial Building should become once again the meeting place of the House of Assembly.

Here are some additional thoughts:

1. A surplus legislature.There is something bordering on the bizarre about the idea of having a legislature building in a functioning democracy that is somehow surplus to requirements and in need of a management plan.

That's one of the ideas in Our plastic history and it remains probably the most powerful reaction I have to the management plan.

Try as I might, I haven't been able to identify another example from the Commonwealth where this situation exists. There have been several examples of legislature buildings in the United States being replaced by new structures. There is one in Oregon, for example. There's also one in Illinois and in Boston. There are also old legislature buildings in Rhode Island and Connecticut.

It seems these legislature buildings were replaced by new ones owing to the need for larger space which the existing buildings and their surrounding land couldn't provide. That's a pretty simple and practical reason. In Boston, the Old State House became Boston City Hall for a period and until it was purchased and restored the building was the site of shops and restaurants.

In Oregon, the Old Capitol is still a government office building. In Illinois and Massachusetts, the old legislature buildings have been restored and maintained solely as historic sites.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, the Colonial Building served as home to both the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council until suspension of responsible government in 1933/34. During the Commission Government period, it served as government offices. The National Convention met in the House of Assembly chamber from 1946 to 1948 to consider the future constitution of the country and from Confederation in 1949 to 1959, the provincial legislature sat there.

First session of the National Convention, 1946

Moving the House of Assembly from the Colonial Building to the newly built Confederation Building seems to have had more to do with the preferences of Premier Joe Smallwood than on any space problems or any technical shortcomings with the old building. [I am open to correction on this point if someone has better information.]

2. Was there a committee? After some checking with some people involved and after listening to John Fitzgerald's interview on CBC Radio this morning, I have come to the conclusion that there was and there wasn't a committee.

There was no committee in the sense that a group of people were given a defined mandate by the Williams administration or its predecessor.

What did exist was the group of people listed on page 30 of the management plan, chaired by former minister of education Dr. Phil Warren. They examined options, looked at cost estimates, reviewed the issues involved in the different options and worked to find some consensus among the group on what ought to be done with the Colonial Building.

With the change of administration in October 2003, it appears that group (which I'd still call a committee) fell apart with the bulk of the subsequent work being handled by an out-of-province consultant, Dr. John Weiler.

3. Is the plan the same as what this group discussed? Being neither privy to the options discussed nor to the deliberations of the group, I can only judge based on John Fitzgerald's comments to CBC Radio.

Essentially, he argues that the final plan reflects the direction in which the committee was moving. That's my paraphrase of his remarks but I am satisfied they are accurate.

4. What will the Colonial Building be? Essentially, under the management plan, the Colonial Building will become offices for the Provincial Historic Sites program and for upwards of eight not-for-profit groups.

That will be the major function of the building the goes on day-in and day-out.

Some other events will take place there from time to time, such as youth parliament, investiture ceremonies, receptions and potentially wedding photographs.

There will also be a fairly pricey "interpretation" program for the Building so that people can become somewhat familiar with the history of it.

That said, the day-to-day function of the building will be office space, primarily for not-for-profits. The presence of the one government section (Historic Sites) would justify the costs of restoring and rehabilitating the site as well as the ongoing maintenance and security work that would need to be done.

5. What will it cost? Craig Welsh, over at Townie Bastard questioned the cost of relocating the House of Assembly to the Colonial Building.

Fair enough. I took the government estimates at face value since they represented, supposedly, the cost of bring the Building up to current occupancy standards and addressing the accessibility issues in an old building. Based on what I had in mind, I couldn't see the total cost heading for much more than the proposed $3.0 million or so. It might hit $5.0 million, but there is more than enough cash in the province's budget now or over the next couple of years to fund that amount. Bear in mind that The Rooms as a new facility with significant archaeological issues cost about $40 million. Refurbishing the Colonial Building should not come even close to 25% of that figure; it would be far less than $10 million.

As for the management plan, I can't comment on the cost estimates for the structural section. The "interpretation" bit, which came to $850,000 seemed a bit rich, as in over-priced. It should be possible to produce a much more effective set of interpretive materials without spending the kind of cash involved here, at least on some items.

Someone suggested to me that the cost estimates might be lowballed. I don't know but that is one suggestion I am working to track down.

6. Not-for-profits: are they treated equally? The provincial government does provide support for some not-for-profit groups. However, while there is some internally consistent logic in the management plan of locating the historic sites section with associated not-for-profit non-government groups, there is a question as to whether government should be assisting some groups and not assisting others of equal importance to the delivery of government services to a comparable degree.

There is likely a much better way to support not-for-profits than allowing them to use the Colonial Building.

7. Putting the House of Assembly in the Colonial Building would be too inconvenient. Two advantages of turning the Colonial Building back into the local parliament would be that maintenance, security and upkeep as wells interpretation and all the other bits would come out of the House of Assembly budget allocation. If we moved the Speaker's Office, the Clerk, house committees, the sergeant-at-arms, ushers, television and audio service and the Library to the Building, we would have a functioning legislature. A small adjunct building would not drive the costs up dramatically, but it is something to consider.

Undoubtedly, there are people who would talk about the inconvenience of moving from the Hill to the Building.

It happens in other places. The offices for elected members as well as the government administration offices are frequently in buildings different from the legislature.

Parking can be accommodated by revamping the existing grounds and looking across the street to the Government House grounds.

Undoubtedly, some people will talk about the things to be lost - like the size of the public gallery.

Ok. That's a good point, but in fact, the existing galleries are massive in relation to the usual public traffic during a session. The most frequent visitors to the galleries are political staff and comms directors. They can give up their seats to voters and other visitors and still carry out their function somewhere else like an adjoining room with a television feed.

Quite a bit of functionality for staff was lost in the move to the current location for the House, for example. The loss was largely one of habit and convenience and staff rapidly found new ways to do what they needed to do. Expect the same at the Colonial Building.

Size of the assembly shouldn't be an issue. There are currently 48 elected members of the House of Assembly. That is only slightly larger than the size of the National Convention and the early post-Confederation legislatures. In the current location, the amount of space taken up by the elected members has grown to meet the huge space in which they meet. There is a great deal of unused space both on the floor of the legislature and in the public galleries.


If anyone still wants to quibble, just bear in mind that at Westminster [see picture at left] only about a third to a half of the elected members of the House of Common can actually sit on benches - they have never had desks of the type seen in Canadian legislatures. During crucial votes, members crowd about with some sitting and most standing.


With the legislature returned to the Colonial Building, the Legislative Council chamber could easily function as both a House committee meeting room as well as the site for investitures and other provincial or national ceremonies. It is a large, well-laid-out room with public galleries for observers.

8. Restoring the House of Assembly to the old chamber would destroy the historic character of the Colonial Building. The Colonial Building as it stands today is not the original structure erected in the middle of the 19th century, nor is it the building that was converted to an archives space in the 1960s. Interior and exterior changes occurred on several occasions as documented in the management plan.

Any decision on restoration will fix the building at a particular point in time and may not adequately represent the entire history of the building when it was in daily use as a legislative complex.

Restoration of the House of Assembly to the Colonial Building would allow the structure to be altered only to meet current occupancy code requirements, while at the same time preserving as many of the essential elements of the interior structure as is practicable and consistent with the Building's designation as an historic site.

Returning the provincial legislature to the Colonial Building would also mitigate against some time when a future government strapped for cash or a department no longer interested in sustaining the Colonial Building looks to close it or skimps on maintenance.

A site of such evident importance should not be left to suffer potentially the same fate as the Old Military Hospital.

9. The Colonial Building should be a National Historic Site. With the exception of Province House in Prince Edward Island, the Colonial Building is the only national legislative building which is intimately connected to Confederation. Newfoundland and Labrador is the only country to have voted to become part of Canada. While other legislatures debated Confederation, Newfoundland and Labrador is the only existing province in which a national convention was used as the means to determine the country's constitutional fate.

The Colonial Building is a site of historical importance to Canada as a whole.

As such, an integral part of the management plan for the Colonial Building should include designation of the building as a National Historic Site. This designation would provide both the financial and technical support of the Government of Canada to assist in the proper restoration of the Colonial Building. While this could be done no matter what the building is ultimately used for, it could be extremely important in funding its use as the House of Assembly.

Hire George Murphy

The feds are creating an office to monitor gas prices.

The province's office is a mess.

Simple solution: hire George Murphy. The St. John's cab driver was a mere tenth of a cent off in his latest forecast for gasoline prices. That's typical of his analytical prowess.

As a bonus he is personable and does a decent interview. You can actually understand what he is talking about.

Our plastic history

For those who have visited capital cities anywhere in the western world, one is struck by the lengths to which nations go to preserve the visible symbols of their democracies.

United States Capitol
Washington D.C.

As this site notes, the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. is one of the most important symbolic and architectural buildings in the United States. The building was destroyed by fire in 1814, but rebuilt on the same site. As the American government grew in size, the building was expanded to accommodate senators and representatives from the new states. The Capitol is an integral part of the architecture of the city of Washington, reflecting geographically the constitutional division of powers among the legislative (Capitol), executive (White House/Old Executive Office Building) and judiciary (Supreme Court).

The United States Capitol, like the House of Parliament at Westminster or the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa are much more than symbols. They are the home of elected legislatures. They are living elements of the political, social, economic and cultural life of their countries. One can stand in the very halls where some of the most important national and international decisions were debated and decided and where new issues of equal importance are considered.

Return now to Newfoundland and Labrador from this sojourn among the Great Nations and one is struck by the management plan for the Colonial Building, released last week by the provincial government's Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

The plan is striking for its ability to reduce the significance of our historic seat of government to yet another mouldering artifact of the past. The language of this discussion paper is sterile: "The Colonial Building is one of the most significant heritage properties in Newfoundland and Labrador." It is said to have heritage character-defining elements.

The plan is also striking since a committee of government-appointed experts from government and the local arts, cultural and heritage associations has determined the fate of the building, now vacant with the absorption of the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador into the bland collective known simply as The Rooms.

The Colonial Building is to be restored in some fashion and turned into offices for arts, cultural and heritage organizations in the province. There will be the obligatory charade of "stakeholder consultations", but the Colonial Building will continue to be what it has been since 1959 - home to yet another group of technocrats.

Colonial Building circa 1949
St. John's Newfoundland and Labrador

The management plan contains many references to the political history of Newfoundland and Labrador as well as the physical alterations to the building since it was built in the 1850s. The picture above shows the two German field howitzers (150 cm calibre) installed in the 1920s for example. They were part of an extensive collection of war booty that symbolized, in part, the sacrifices made by the Dominion of Newfoundland during the Great War.

In the 1950s, these howitzers were removed, a fountain installed in their place and the guns turned over to Branch 1 of the Royal Canadian Legion. They sat untended apart from the odd splash of paint behind a hedge until one of them was unceremoniously chopped to pieces and shipped of to Robin Hood Bay. Only by the quick action of a couple of local aficionados was the only such howitzer in Canada saved from a similar fate underneath a decomposing pile of scraps from Sobeys and Dominion.

Our history is often treated with the same sense that it is disposable or plastic.

Witness the legislature itself.

Once the home of elected government in Newfoundland and Labrador, the Colonial Building was abandoned in 1959 in favour of a new site for the House of Assembly on the upper stories of Joe Smallwood's Confederation edifice. That legislature space fell victim to concerns about safety and security. The Peckford administration started the move to its current site within the Confederation Building, replete with Turkish brothel interior design.

One may stand in the same place where Winston Churchill delivered some of the most stirring speeches during the fight against Nazi tyranny or where his predecessor Benjamin Disraeli helped built Britain into a global power. One may see the very spot where Roosevelt, Lincoln or Kennedy delivered their inaugural addresses or annual state of the union speeches.

Find the spot where Joe Smallwood introduced the Come by Chance refinery bills. Seek out the spot where the Meech Lake Accord was debated. They are gone, turned into work cubicles from Dilbert or public washrooms.

The management plan for the Colonial Building comes at an estimated cost of over $3.0 million. Only $120, 000 is required for annual operations. Nearly a million dollars will go to developing an exhibit and iinterpretation program, including a hideously overpriced "audio" tour and an equally expensive "virtual tour" on the internet. A brochure will set government back about $25, 000 while the combined price for interpretation "planning" alone will exceed $70, 000. The physical restoration of the Building will be over $2.0 million.

And for what purpose? So that the very same committees that sat in judgment of the building can have luxurious places in which to remove their gaiters. So that youth parliament can continue to meet there or that investiture ceremonies can take place in the former Legislative Council chamber or that "small weddings" may lease the building for some purpose.

At the same time that some people are spending precious energy to promote their peculiar piece of fabric for a flag, one of the most important foci of our province's history is to be turned into a slightly more grand set of offices for appointed officials.

What a sad comment on the true state of our sense of national pride.

Scrap the management plan.

Restore life to the Colonial Building by making it, once again, the home of our elected legislature. The financial cost would be about the same as the management plan's estimate.

More importantly, we would avoid for one of the few times in our recent history the cost of making our collective history something to be reshaped based on nothing more than the interests of those appointed to make a decision.

Colonial Building Riot

In the photo at left, thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians rush to the Colonial Building to see the historic seat of government turned into offices for arts, cultural and heritage organizations.

They were heard chanting "Long Live Cubicles" and "More filing cabinets".

Police stood by as the rioters peacefully increased their awareness of the heritage defining characteristics of the achitecturally significant structure.

During the demonstration, one man in the crowd noted the absence of the lantern from the top of the building, missing since shortly after it was opened in the 1850s.

"Let us spend $125, 000 to build and install a new replica lantern," shouted the man to a smattering of applause. "Some poor architectural student needs a new grant."

Lobbing verbal bombshells in the blogger wars

Amen, Cerberus.

Being guilty of engaging in comment exchanges, I vow to stop.

Period.

Local shipyards may win navy contract - amended

Joint Support Ship
[Provisional drawing, copyright Department of National Defence]

According to Canadian Press, two of four bidders for a contract to build supply and support ships for the Canadian navy plan to use Marystown Shipyard and other small facilities to build subcomponents of the ships. Final assembly would take place at Bull Arm.

The ships are officially known as Joint Support Ships. Anticipated delivery of the first of the three vessels is 2012, with initial operating capability (IOC) achieved in 2013.

A third bidder, SNC Lavalin would build the ships in Victoria, British Columbia. A consortium headed by General Dynamics would use the Davie yards at Lauzon Quebec.

The last time the Canadian navy under took a major ship construction, the contract was split between yards in English Canada and two yards in Quebec. The resulting mess cost the Mulroney government hundreds of millions of dollars in cost over-runs for the Halifax-class frigates.

Expect a repeat of the split process or the award of the contract to General Dynamics. The Davie yards have extensive experience in building Canadian warships.

Construction of the vessels on these timelines may impact on planned local construction of a small gravity-based structure for the Hebron-Ben Nevis project. There has been no public disclosure of how the companies involved would handle both major contracts simultaneously.

Norm Doyle - some curious thoughts

The Spindy recycled a story this week about the St. John's airport authority looking to attract more "military tourist" traffic to the local airport.

What they mean is that the airport wants to see if it can attract more refueling business to the capital city's newly renovated airport.

On the face of it, this has got to be the most ludicrous idea imaginable. The military traffic through the airport is based on international conditions. The only way we can boost traffic is by having another war break out somewhere.

The airport's logic sounds nice. But the more you think about it the more you realize these guys are just off base. Some consultant is making a fortune figuring out the "decision factors" that go into bringing American aircraft here versus somewhere else.

Some clues:

1. There must be an overseas deployment, either an operation or an exercise. They need a reason to fly across the Atlantic.

2. The aircraft must be a type that cannot fly across the Atlantic without refueling. Big visitors were C-130 Hercules variants and DC-9 variants.

Beyond that, the presence of a vibrant nightlife and decent hotels meet just about all the requirements.

The Americans will be concerned somewhat about the relative cost of the Canadian dollar and high fuel prices, but basically fuel is a given - they need it. The Americans might try and find ways to double-up their travel, but as long as there are troops in Iraq, the Americans will fly through St. John's to get there.

Which brings us to the comments of St. John's North Connie member of parliament Norman Doyle.

Seems Doyle is thrilled with all the business coming to his riding, but he has some qualms about the source of the lucre.

As Normie told The Spindy: "I would certainly not support helping aircraft to service the war in Iraq because that would be the same as involving Canada in the war in Iraq."

Norm, Norm, Norm.

Canada has already supported the American campaign in Iraq directly and indirectly, including sending our own troops there as part of American and British units.

This military traffic has been going on for years.

The only way we could satisfy Norm's moral qualms would be to ban American military equipment and people from Canada.

Just think about Norm's comments logically; that's the implication.

Has Norm been having late night dinners with the New Democrats of Carolyn Parrish?

Whither Harper?

Predictably, the relatively small rise of the federal Conservative Party in some recent polls has been enough for Connie bloggers to trumpet the results as proof of something.

The guy responsible for the supposed Connie rise in popularity is usually held out to be none other than former Chretien cabinet minister and notorious porker David Dingwall. Here's one such post from someone who finds it strange that I have called his blog Reflexive Grit-Loather Productions. Go figure.

RGL points to a Pollara poll, as reported in the National Post Lampoon, which shows a six point gap between the federal Liberals and the Conservatives led by Stephen Harper. The Pollara research report isn't on their website - something that always makes me suspicious - but here is a link to the Canadian Press story on the poll which gives more detail than the Lampoon story.

As well, for the sake of comparison, here are the results of a poll taken by Decima, one of their competitors.

Some observations:

1. It's pretty sad when you have to point to a dead politician from another party as the reason why your own popularity is going up. As I have noted here before about other politicians - notably the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador - the worst position to be in is the one where your fortunes are linked to the cock-ups of The Other Guy.

The people who say they are supporting you today will not be supporting you tomorrow, if the other guy doesn't screw up.

2. Don't get mislead by headlines: the polls don't show any substantive change in voter attitudes. Say what you will, the Liberals are still running about 10 to 12 points ahead of the Connies, the Pollara poll notwithstanding. If you look at the CP story, you'll see that Pollara stills has the Libs running ahead of the Connies by about the same margin as the last Pollara poll. That's no change, boys and girls.

This CP story is a non-story.

and...

3. All polls show the Liberals way ahead of the Connies in Ontario. The majority of seats come from Ontario. Ya gotta win big here to win big everywhere.

So far the Connies just aren't doing it.

Just as they haven't been doing it there for months.

4. The ads had no apparent impact. Remember those glossy ads everyone was talking about two months ago? No? Gee, I wonder why. Maybe they just missed the mark.

All of this leads us inevitably back to wondering about the future of Connie leader Steve Harper.

My guess is that the Connies will just struggle through until after the Liberals get re-elected in the spring.

Then they'll boot Harper back to Alberta and poke somebody else in Stornoway and start planning a serious political campaign.

The flag for Newfoundland and Labrador

This is sure to annoy the PWG crowd.

Sun reporters might make good frag vests

The Ottawa Sun is to Ottawa what The Independent would like to be to St. John's.

Those radio spots the Spindy is running on VOCM (at $145 a pop, mind you) are sheer crap. If the newspaper was actually as informative and thought provoking as the spots claim, then I wouldn't be listening to a bunch of (likely) Dobbin employees badly reading a prepared script that tells me the paper is "informative" and that if I don't read it I must out of the loop.

If any of the claims were true, they'd be able to cite specific examples.

They can't.

People know they can't.

Therefore the spots are crap.

The Spindy is on the verge of folding.

But I digress.

Back to the Sun chain.

Take a look at this story [via Bourque]. Seems the feds have gotten a bunch of bigwigs together to take a trip to Afghanistan next week as a combination morale booster for the troops/familiarization trip for the bigwigs.

The Sun claims the trip is top secret.

How in the freep can it be secret, let alone TOP secret if some twit from The Sun is plastering everything short of the departure time on the friggin internet?

These guys should have just sent an e-mail to Al Queda so that the terrorists could blow up Canadians. This is an example of reporting at its worst. These sort of affairs are usually kept under wraps so the bad guys can't score a big propaganda coup by blowing everyone up. If The Sun wanted to expose some sort of political angle to the story - DO IT AFTER THE TRIP IS OVER AND PEOPLE ARE HOME SAFE AND SOUND.

Personally, I think, the organizers of the trip should issue every person traveling one Sun reporter as their own personal flak bait/frag vest. Let the Sun staff pay the price for the Sun's irresponsibility.

My buddy, the nitwit

Verrryyyy interestink....but it doesn't make any sense.










This from our Glorious Boor, Andy Wells, mayor of the ancient and until recently, relatively pleasant city of St. John's:

"There was one little nitwit running around, showing up at water main breaks saying the city was going to hell in a handbasket.

Either he didn't know the difference, which is somewhat more forgivable than if he knew the difference and chose to ignore it. But the fact is we've spent substantial money on infrastructure."

For those who may have missed it, Wells was referring to Simon Lono. In case you missed it, flip over and check out Lono's campaign website, the video on city infrastructure and some of the other stuff the newbie candidate raised in his first run at municipal elected office.

There are a couple of observations to make about The Boor's attack on Lono.

1. Of all the outsider candidates, Lono obviously made a huge impression on Wells. He lost the election but Lono ranks up there with people like Shannie Duff, the former mayor, former member of the House of Assembly and current at large councillor for the ability to poke right at the Boor and get his attention.

2. As noted here previously, Wells is obviously at odds not only with Lono but also with the Board of Trade, to whom he was speaking. The Board also thinks that the municipal infrastructure deficit - lack of adequate spending on water, sewer, sidewalks and roads - is one of the major issues facing the city.

3. Wells misses the point, again. The issue isn't that the city hasn't spent money of infrastructure. Nope. Lono and the Board of Trade note that work has been done.

What they say is that there isn't enough being done.

Lono made the point that the city has been spending money propping up failed ventures like the Mile One crowd ($3.0 million annually), while at the same time sidewalks are cracking and people are being injured as a result. (Pick up The Telly today to see a front page story on two more people who suffered serious injuries due to crumbling sidewalks.)

In the Great Geyser, Lono just drew media attention to a problem that had toddled along for a week before finally erupting into a 15 foot high spout of gushing city water. The problem lay in the ancient pipes and valves in that part of the city, which were 50 years old and needing replacement when Wells first sat his Boor-ass in a council chair. They are now over 80 years old and in need of replacement and upgrading.

Yet, Wells persists in spreading the fable that everything with the water, streets and sidewalks is just ticketyboo in the City of Legends.

4. Wells intends on making the problem worse. In another part of the speech to the Board of Trade, Wells mused about tax cuts.

Ok. That sounds nice.

But if, as the Board contends, the city needs to spend more money on infrastructure, Wells' tax cuts would actually mean the city has less to spend on fixing the problems with the city streets, water and sidewalks.

Wells mentioned the federal money for infrastructure and here's where city residents should notice the shell game. Wells plans to take the federal money, which should be extra, and then use that to fund a tax cut for the city. He can do that because the city economy is booming - something Wells takes credit for but which he had nothing to do with generating. We can thank Chevron, ExxonMobil, PetroCanada, Husky, Brian Peckford for that...anybody but Wells.. 'cause they actually produced the economic boost.

Wells ought to be spending what he has committed now plus what the feds would add so we can get ahead of the game now that times are good.

Instead, Wells is actually speculating about spending no more than he is currently allowing to fix a problem everyone sees but him. Trust me: in the speech, Wells sucked and blew at the same time, deriding the idea of an infrastructure problem and then talking about putting cash into fixing it.

The result? The infrastructure will continue to fall apart and some future council led by some future mayor will have to jack up taxes and suck cash out of my pocket - maybe when the economy isn't doing so well - to pay for Andy's folly.

That ain't ticketyboo.

5. Wells' personal attacks prove another Lono point. Calling people names is old hat for The Boor. The guy seems to have some pathological need to hurl personal abuse at people he disagrees with or who disagree with him. Councillors, city staff, candidates, ordinary citizens. All are treated with contempt.

That's why Lono introduced a Code of Conduct for council when he launched his election campaign.

It would have committed council to being open, transparent, and in this type of thing, being grown-up about how city business gets done.

Wells's abusive style may amuse some. Truth is it belittles the people on the receiving end of his abuse. It belittles Wells himself. But worse, it belittles the residents of the city.

On both counts, the people of St. John's deserve better.

But, in closing, just go back and read Wells' own comments and then apply them to the mayor himself:

"Either he didn't know the difference, which is somewhat more forgivable than if he knew the difference and chose to ignore it."

It is pretty clear that Wells knows the difference about the infrastructure problem. Heck he's been on council since the Moores administration.

Yet, he chooses to ignore it.

You be the judge.

Personally, I'll be standing firmly behind my good buddy, the nitwit.

He ain't going away Andy.

Zis is not good, here. I am not killing you. Don't you understand? You must die. Will you cooperate?!!

Lawyers and blogs: a good start

Try this article from the New York Times on the unusual number of lawyers and judges who either maintain blog sites or who read them.

A few lawyers and judges read this little collection of e-scribbles. Why, I have no idea.

Blogging is one use of the Internet that I think performs a useful function. It contributes, with any luck and a lot of hope, to the wider discussion of ideas and trends affecting our society.

Lawyers, who once dominated politics in Western countries, have slipped from their prominence in that field: sadly, in some cases; thankfully in others. Generally, lawyers have add to a debate both in the style and the substance of their arguments.

There are exceptions to every rule, of course.

Who really twisted arms, Steve?

As predicted here, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary came up empty in their investigation of alleged witness tampering in the trial of the poor guy charged with beating the crap out of Danny Boy Junior.

Williams' lawyer, Steve Marshall claims that someone's arm was twisted to get stories changed. Steve, maybe we should wonder who did the arm twisting to get the original "eyewitness" testimony into play in the first place. Marshall's entire claim of tampering was, of course, without any foundation. He was just blowin' smoke, maybe, just maybe in an effort to get people off the scent of his former law partner. Seems the Prem did some early morning phone calls to the Constab which Marshall subsequently explained with a bullshit excuse.

Maybe, just maybe, the RNC should release the tapes of the Prem's calls to the office so we can finally put the whole arm-twisting thing to bed.

Oh yeah.

and Steve owes the accused in this case an apology.

So does Danny, who claims the accused assailant had a political motive in the beating.

No evidence of that either, at all, ever.

Yet another horsecrap conspiracy theory from our own low-rent Fox Mulder.

NOIA recycles the offshore

How many times will NOIA focus on Hebron and gas development as part of "new" possibilities for the offshore?

I lost count of how many times NOIA ran a seminar like this one under Leslie Galway. Now that she has been replaced by someone the NOIA board figured is tight with Dean MacDonald and hence Danny Boy, NOIA is back at the same old crap again.

Three things:

1. NOIA is oriented in the wrong direction and is yet again strategically snookered if it thinks hiring someone who knows someone who knows Danny will get them on the Premier's radar screen. Hint: He doesn't give a flying derrick about NOIA.

2. Hebron - being held up by the guy NOIA is trying to suck up to. Problem - NOIA can't suck up to Danny on the one side and then try to blow him slightly off his position on the other. All sucking got the last time was a job for Leslie Galway. NOIA needs to start being professional about their government relations and dispose of the amateur crap.

3. Note the speaker for the event is Ed Martin, the guy who has been slowly transforming Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro into PetroNewf without so much as a public discussion of what the frig he is up to. When exactly will Danny and his Boys decide the public deserves to know what they are doing with our money? When will we find out why two vice presidents and some senior managers were tossed over the Falls recently and who is replacing them?

Second point from this: Ed's on the agenda 'cause of Dean (the chairman of Ed's board), who of course is connected to the new NOIA president, who was hired for being able to make just those kinds of daisy chains, with Danny at the front end of it. (That's just in case you missed the high-end strategic thinking I noted earlier.)

When exactly will a NOIA session on "new" things actually include something new?

Tough aircraft. Tougher pilot.

Flip over to Strange Military and you'll find the full size version of these pictures.

They show the starboard rear section of an American A-10A ground attack aircraft shot up by small arms fire. The hits and the chunk taken out of the horizontal stabilizer apparently knocked out the aircraft hydraulics. That means the pilot landed without brakes and with limited controls.

The A-10 is designed to take hits by bigger things than the rifles that appear to have shot up this particular aircraft. It's almost 30 years old and isn't loved by a lot of American pilots who like the faster and supposedly sexier stuff.

Tough, dependable, does the job and gets the pilot back in one piece.

Works for me.

S*P*I*E*S Like Us

Six immigrants trying to enter the country illegally?

Or people trying to enter the country under assumed identities to act as spies?

You decide.

Six people from mainland China were arrested for trying to enter Canada at St. John's with Korean identity documents.

It seems a little expensive and convoluted for an immigration scheme.

It sounds more like an old, tested way of getting spies into a foreign country. The Soviets were famous for the approach and planted several hundred such spies in Canada during the Cold War. In the case of Chinese, they could easily pass as Koreans.

As for Connie member of parliament Loyola Hearn's claim this is proof of the lax security at our harbours, one can only scratch one's head in bewilderment. Surely Loyola understands that the people involved were caught. They were identified and arrested based on intelligence analysis and co-operation among different security agencies.

No one in the country is well served by Mr. Hearn and his colleagues making claims about the supposedly unsecured ports of entry at our harbours when this simply isn't the case. Security may not be perfect, but then again even in the United States today illegal immigrants and foreign spies and terrorists are able to enter.

All Loyola Hearn is doing with his comments is feeding uninformed comment and raising more questions among our American allies about Canadian security that simply aren't well-founded. While Hillary Clinton is busily trying to stop a proposal that all travelers to the United States will need to carry passports, Hearn is fueling the sort of diatribes we hear from Faux News and other right-wing outfits. Clinton has correctly pointed to the disastrous effects the new policy will have on trade.

Hearn is just giving Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly more ammunition.

Way to go, Loyola.

Is City Hall for sale?

The Montreal Gazette just finished a three-part story on problems in Montreal's municipal campaign financing.

Here's the editorial that concludes the series.

Here's the bit that started it all.

Anyone care to try looking at St. John's municipal campaign expenses and contributions by donors?

Good luck.

Under the provincial law, only winning candidates have to report any donations of cash over $100. Anything given "in-kind" is never reported - it doesn't have to be.

So... anyone with a private company or two can hide an unlimited amount of campaign work as an "in-kind" contribution. Need a few thousand signs? No problem, says the supporter. My company can supply them and my volunteers will put them up for you.

That's a possibility not that it actually happened. It may have happened and certainly you'll hear plenty of anecdotal information - some of it pure spec and rumour - about who did what for whom.

The problem is that residents of St. John's have no way of knowing what is being given and spent by whom and for whom in city politics.

If nothing else - at the very least - the whole lack of accountability creates a cloud of suspicion that doesn't improve the image of politics in local eyes.

In the worst case, city residents can be concerned that the millions of dollars in municipal contracts and the millions of dollars of development in the city might be had for a few bucks at election time.

Better that we fix the election expense laws and bring more information into the public domain rather than endure suspicion that ultimately erodes public confidence in the electoral system.

Today in Newfoundland and Labrador History

Trenches at Suvla Bay, 1915 (Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador) PANL VA-37-3. Likely from the collection of Major R. Tait.


The Blue Puttees set sail for England aboard the S.S. Florizel on October 4, 1914.

This first contingent of Newfoundland volunteers in the Great War formed the nucleus of what became the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.

By June 1915 they were considered sufficiently trained and were at full strength, with a depot battalion in Scotland.

Selected for service at Gallipoli, the active service battalion joined the 88th Brigade of the 29th Division, the last regular army division to be formed by the British Army out of units that had been garrisoning the empire. They landed at Gallipoli in September 1915 and were the covering force for the Allied withdrawals in January 1916.

Trenching at Gallipoli is the only contemporary account of the Newfoundlanders overseas. John Gallishaw was teaching at Harvard University when he volunteered in 1915. Wounded at Gallipoli he was honourably released and returned to the United States. He wrote Trenching at Gallipoli while convalescing. Gallishaw authored a small pamphlet in 1917 aimed at American volunteers joining the American Expeditionary Force bound for Europe. He also authored other works on writing. Gallishaw may be considered to have influenced the filmmaker George Lucas.

The naked truth

Ummm.

Ok.

I get the concept.

But something tells me some of the heads of these federal lil Liberals in Quebec have been photoshopped onto other people's bodies. And by the looks of it, they have been dropped onto a stock street shot.

Now I could be wrong on this one.

But I am confident in saying that if some of us stripped for this cause, there isn't a rights charter anywhere in the world big enough to cover the assault on public decency represented by seeing our middle-aged spread on a billboard anywhere.

That said, there isn't anything really edgy about this piece of work. The boff bods are all covered by undergarments.

The work is being distributed by a company called Newad. This all seems pretty much old-ad stuff to me.

CBC lock-out over?

While other blogs have been filled with the CBC lock-out, I have held fire for no particularly good reason.

News today is that there is a tentative agreement and those of us news junkies who thrive on the Mother Corp's radio programs will soon be getting our daily fix. The link is to John Gushue's superlative blog in which said radio broadcaster has kept up an estimable compendium of all things related to the lock-out and much more besides.

Here's the Canadian Press version of the story.

One post samba

Since this blog from Sue Kelland seems dead, I guess we can just note it in passing.

If it turns out to be a more active place, I'll link it in the right margin.

Bonus points for anyone who can decipher the rather lengthy post, apparently all on September 5 that rambles from topic to topic without any seeming connection.

Baiting made easy

And yet more from RGL Inc.

Shorter post.

Still misses the point(s):

1. I haven't endeavoured to rebut any of RGL's previous posts since there really isn't anything to rebut.

2. A comment, as the one posted here early this morning, isn't a rebuttal, therefore it makes no sense to criticize a comment because it isn't a rebuttal. This is a PIFO - a penetrating insight into the flippin' obvious. A comment is a comment. It is not a rebuttal.

3. Aside from his cut and pasting the list of points in favour of the PWG, Liam hasn't offered anything new to support the PWG.

4. The entire bit about self-loathing is nonsense since at no time have I criticized all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, nor have I advocated one flag for the province of any kind over another flag of any description. I simply said there are better things to talk about.

5. This entire series of posts has actually morphed off into a pointless exchange in which Liam makes some form of comment. I then offer observations on the nature of his comments. Then he replies to the observations.

6. Raising irrelevant points - e.g. self-loathing, the lack of a comments section on this blog - doesn't constitute an argument for or against anything. Ditto for the bit about "profiling Liam as a townie. It never happened. The guy is from Buchans. Not sure if he missed this or imagined it.

Since there is no html code for a shrug, I'll move on to other things.

Everything old is new again.

Try this little observation from Campaign Central, about the renaissance of radio - specifically podcasting - as a means of political communication.

Our commentator is not entirely accurate. The Connies have introduced podcasting. The other parties may try it; we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Being from Western Canada, he uses Western examples. The best local example of the use of radio for political campaigning remains Joe Smallwood during the National Convention.

Joe Smallwood delivering an after-dinner speech
Note the microphones.

RGL goes ballistic

Yet another lengthy post over at Responsible Government League commenting on yesterday's award.

And true to form, Liam trots out yet another one of his stock criticism's for use when nothing else comes to mind - "self-loathing" - even though it has absolutely nothing to do with anything at all anywhere.

He's used it on everyone from Richard Cashin to well, me. I am in fine company.

Actually, Liam should know these last two posts are not about the flag issue, as he claims: the focus has shifted from the issue to the lengthy posts he uses to ranble on about anything other than the topic.

Those posts that miss the point.

All the time.

And the award goes to...

1. Reflexive Grit-Loather [RGL] Postings Inc. for the lengthy pseudo-rebuttal to The Dead End Kids.

The post:

- is long, in keeping with the format at RGL. Heck, the guy even beats me out for lengthy posts.
- misses any point made by anyone, all the time, any time.
- manages to dredge up some obscure comic book from Marvel that appeared briefly in the mid 1980s. Thank Heavens for google. When will Howard the Duck turn up over that RGL?
- accuses everyone else all the time of the same faults and foibles of the RGL, usually without any evidence that such is the case.

2. To the Spindy editor Ryan Cleary who claims, in his editorial this week, that Confederation robbed "us" of all our heros, the award for sheer volume of equine excrement compacted into one tiny phrase.

Ryan, maybe you need to start thinking about your readership when they elect a 19th century Roman Catholic priest as the greatest Newfoundlander or Labradorian ever, and then your carefully-selected editorial panel [all your columnists and writers], tosses the notion in favour of someone plausible - i.e. William Coaker.

Sir Robert came in second.

Something tells me Ryan couldn't stomach handing out an award to Sir Robert, whom he labels a career politician - that's just crap since at the time people held down elected office and maintained other careers. We didn't see career politicians in this place until after Confederation. Ryan has been known to fume about at least one thing bearing Sir Robert's name. Maybe the name just sticks in his craw a bit.

But hey, Coaker deserves a lot of praise - perhaps for being the guy who built the Icelandic fishery.

Meanwhile, rumours the the Spindy's imminent demise are surfacing again in the wake of people quitting and being fired from Dobbin's little laugh factory by the Bubble. Now that he has his plum appointment, maybe Sir Brian won't be as interested in flushing so much cash down the drain each week.

Having served its purpose and gotten Dobbin onto the public travel tit, the Spindy maybe long for the harbour.

The Dead End Kids

As one might have expected, The Gangs of St. John's caused a stir over at Responsible Government League [RGL], or as I sometimes call it, the place where one finds posts of Really Great Length.

At the outset, let's restate the point made in the original post which, admittedly, might have gotten lost either in the wake of the opening photo of a well-known Bowery Boy or in the end photo of Cameron Diaz.

The Gangs of St. John's argued that:

a. There are many more pressing issues deserving of widespread public debate or discussion at this point than what piece of coloured nylon flaps from the flagpoles of the province; and,

b. if we must discuss it, there is little merit in holding up the pink, white and green flag that derived from a particular, short-lived political faction in early 19th century St. John's as being somehow the de facto emblem of our fair land and its people.

The pink, white and green is a version of the flag of the so-called Newfoundland Natives' Society.

That is it. Pure and simple. After the Society collapsed in 1847, the flag appears periodically, almost exclusively in St. John's and continues today having become associated with the idea of Newfoundland and Labrador as an independent country.

The origins of the colour combination are somewhat difficult to trace. Prominent local historian John Fitzgerald brands as a fable the idea that the flag was designed to include the colours of England and Ireland with a white band of peace between the two. He then ignores any discussion of the origins of the flag, preferring instead, as does RGL to focus on the appearance of the flag after 1860 or thereabouts to make the case for the tricolour as the flag of this place. Oddly enough, the tricolour petition website actually cites the seal myth as part of the flag's history despite the fact that Fitzgerald dismisses it as unsubstantiated.

The Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador contends that the flag derived from the banners of two rival Irish organizations, one made up of people born in Newfoundland, the other being new-comers. This is the version I have accepted thus far, until someone can suggest an alternative.

There is no doubt that the tricolour appears periodically and has been held up as the local flag. However, the examples offered by O'Brien and others are almost exclusively from St. John's. O'Brien notes the formation of the police force and fire brigade, which, it should be noted means the St. John's police force and the St. John's fire brigade.

O'Brien notes the pledge of Sir Robert Bond in the 1908 election to make the tricolour the official flag of the country. He takes issue with my contention that Bond made the pledge for electoral benefit, likely by appealing to a particular group in St. John's (I am suggesting predominantly those of Irish heritage) to try and win a hotly contested election.

As I noted in comments on RGL, it seems passing strange that Bond would use the tricolour as a major part of his campaign. Bond was seeking re-election and it was during his administration that the legislature adopted a typical British ensign as the official flag of Newfoundland. Aside from what may have occurred in certain instances noted by tricolour supporters, this flag flew on all government buildings before 1949 and a blue ensign of the same design flew on government-owned vessels. It is also the flag that hangs in the Amiens memorial chapel to the fallen of the Great War representing Newfoundland, as one of the countries that fought to defend France.

The 1904 Newfoundland Ensign

Perhaps the most curious portion of O'Brien's post is the argument that I have somehow confused the tricolour flag with separatism. He cites a poll conducted for the Vic Young Royal Commission as proof of his contention that the flag and the "nationalist" sentiment actually pervade the province.

Let's us be clear. The Ryan Research poll does indicate that an overwhelming majority of respondents consider themselves to be Newfoundlanders or Labradorians before they consider themselves Canadians. At the same time, the poll also found that an overwhelming majority of respondents were opposed to Newfoundland and Labrador becoming an independent country. That sentiment was strong across all regions, including St. John's.

But at no point does Ryan ask about the flag. Therefore, O'Brien's use of this poll to prove or disprove any point about the validity of the tricolour as the provincial flag is erroneous.

Nationalism, on the other hand is something altogether different from independence and separatism. Nationalism as pride in one's place of birth is an obvious notion.

The "nationalism" to which I referred in The Gangs of St. John's is that version of nationalism that is rooted in St. John's. Part of it derives from the nativist sentiment of almost two centuries ago. Some of it - albeit a very small portion, according to Ryan - is unabashedly in favour of a return to so-called responsible government: independence.

To be fair, I should have clarified my use of the term. In local usage, the word "nationalist" almost invariable does not mean independence. Even the newspaper which uses the tricolour in its masthead and which calls itself The Independent cannot seem to call outright for the independence of Newfoundland and Labrador from Canada.

Rather the "nationalists", who have always been found mostly on the streets of St. John's are actually closer in philosophy to Quebec's sovereignists: they romanticize about local "nationalism", of being maitres chez nous, and speak in strong terms about the supposedly harsh treatment this place has received from "evil" Canadians.

Yet, these same champions of Newfoundland and Labrador seem to be unable to remove themselves from the tit on the Rideau. They studiously avoid working out the financial implications of separation. They argue for something akin to sovereignty-association, with progressively more and more political power accruing to St. John's while Ottawa has little to do beyond keeping the cash flowing to provincial coffers.

In that context, the January offshore deal is a classic example of the "nationalist" approach - so that the provincial government may receive all revenues from its offshore resources, it must receive not only all the revenues (as it currently does, and as acknowledged by the provincial government in the deal itself) but it must also receive federal transfer payments as if those revenues did not exist. We attain local self-determination (does this not mean independence?) - we become masters of our destiny in the Premier's words - by receiving ever more hand-outs from Uncle Ottawa.

That said, the pink, white and green is the banner around which these "nationalists" rally and no one should pretend that this tricolour flag is being proposed and is supported largely by anyone other than "nationalists".

Through it all, however, one cannot escape the overwhelming rejection of independence by those polled merely two years ago. The numbers today may well be different, but somehow I would doubt they would be radically different such that I might think it possible - were I a "nationalist" - to use an old St. John's flag as my rallying banner and expect to get very far.

This brings me inevitably back to the point at which The Gangs of St. John's started. With all the challenges faced by Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, surely the last thing on our agenda should be the flag. The last thing we ought bother to argue about should be the flag that is linked inextricably with such a small percentage of the population - by any measure.

If the flag - if the pink, white and green - is all we have to talk about or write petitions about, then surely we have reached a political dead end in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Maybe Satch really is the father of our "nationalists", if not our nation.

The Gangs of St. John's - amended

Horace Debussey Jones [Huntz Hall]
Is Satch the real father of our nation?

Renewed interest in having the townie banner made the official flag of Newfoundland and Labrador is probably one of the surest signs that public discourse in the province as a whole has descended to the same level as the sign wars of the recent St. John's municipal election.

Despite there being so many substantial issues of policy we could be discussing, a small group has decided to launch a website, dedicated to having the tricolour (pink, white and green) turned into the symbol of our supposed secret nation.

There's an interesting essay by John Fitzgerald, noted nationalist historian. It's interesting because it makes it appear as though the flag was somehow the defacto flag of the Dominion of Newfoundland, merely because it cropped up at townie events. Yes, Sir Robert Bond made a promise to have the flag legally adopted, but remember: he made the pledge in the heat of a very close election in 1908. Bond's actions may have had more to do with courting a certain ethnic group of voters than any deep-seated belief in the rightness of the Pink, White and Green.

[Amendment: Alright, a faithful reader has pointed out that I shagged up the front end of John's essay. No excuses. I made a huge mistake and I apologise to John Fitzgerald for my error.

John clearly identifies this myth as a myth and it isn't John's myth it is someone else's. Faithful readers of these e-scribbles should know I have learned the lesson of writing late at night.

That said, I have deleted the paragraph where I attributed the story to Fitz. The rest I'll leave intact with amendments, as noted.]

[Paragraph deleted]

The Pink, White and Green story I am familiar with is contained in the Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, both in Volume 2 on the entry for flags and in Volume Four in the entry on the Natives' Society of Newfoundland.

Here's the relevant section from page 196 and 197 of Volume 2:

"The pink, white and green flag, known as the native flag, developed from the merging of two flags flown by two rival groups in the 1800s: the so-called "natives" a group which was composed of well-established [i.e. locally born - ed.] citizens of St. John's who were largely Roman Catholic; and a large group of newly arrived immigrants from Ireland. During the 1840s the "natives" formed the Native Society of Newfoundland, an organization, the purpose of which was to safeguard the interests of "natives" in the face of the large influx of immigrants to the Colony.

The society adopted as its emblem a pink flag with a green fir tree, of unknown origin, which had been flown for a number of years. Apparently, there was more than one version of this flag flown for the society. One version showed two clasped hands beneath the tree and the word "philanthropy"...

The newly arrived Roman Catholics... began flying a green flag with the harp of Brian Boru to represent their group."

As this version of the story goes, the two rival Roman Catholic factions were locked in competition which peaked in 1843. Bishop Fleming intervened and proposed the creation of a new flag representing both groups - pink and green, with a band of neutral white in the centre. This sounds more plausible than the one pushed by the flag guys (but I am open to persuasion) in largest part because given Fleming's political activism it is difficult to see how he might be accepted by Protestants at the time as some sort of uniting force. At the time, did Protestants even see a need to stop begrudging Romans anything, or vice versa?

What we have then, according to the version I am familiar with, is a flag that essential derived from our own local version of the Gangs of New York. Before anyone leaps to the ramparts, it is useful to look closely at the history of Irish immigration to New York and see if there are any similar patterns to be found.

It is certainly true that the tricolour turned up at many events in St. John's after 1947,[<--added] but Fitz might want to do some checking on his claims that the tricolour was flown at so many major national events in pre-Confederation Newfoundland. For example, while he states that the tricolour was accepted alongside the Union Flag between 1914 and 1918, it is perhaps instructive to note that in the Amiens cathedral memorial chapel, the flag representing Newfoundland is actually the blue ensign adopted in 1904. That flag consisted of a conventional ensign design with the Union Jack in the upper corner. In fly was the Badge of Newfoundland, the arms of the Dominion. This consisted of two figures, one on bended knee offering up a fish to Britannia. Beneath are the Latin words translating as "We bring you these gifts". [Sentence added] In other words, officially, the flag of Newfoundland after 1904 was a typical engisn design. Underneath the whole PWG movement is the fact that the flag is a townie creation, much like Newfoundland "nationalism". [Added:] It is difficult to separate the flag from its roots, even if one dismisses the version Fitz identifies as myth. Surely to heavens though, with two communities in the province about to suffer difficult economic times, we can find something a bit more urgent to talk about than accepting a flag that may well have its origins not in a quaint little fable of denominational reconciliation but in the local equivalent of the Dead Rabbits or the Bowery Boys.

That said, and on a purely personal note, Fitz and the boys might actually get my support if they could manage to work Cameron Diaz into the story.

Come to think of it, a lot of guys would be willing to adopt the flag is Cameron Diaz was involved. Da byes might have to get Leo DeCapprio into the story to make more women go along with the tricolour thing.

The power of public relations

Simon Lono, unsuccessful councillor at large candidate received 8, 434 votes on a total campaign budget of around $3, 000. That works out to a cost-per-vote of $2.81.

Ron Ellsworth, who conservative estimates hold spent about $45, 000 on his campaign, garnered a little over 3, 300 votes in his successful Ward 4 campaign. That's about $13.60 per vote.

Lono was all over the news media on substantive issues affecting the city.

Ellsworth's first media interview was on election night with the softball crew at Out of the Fog.

Don't get me wrong: Ellsworth ran a fine campaign and he deserves full credit. He won; Lono lost.

But speaking as a public relations guy, a campaigner who has been around for a while and - in the interests of full disclosure - a guy who helped Lono, Simon's campaign should demonstrate the decisive impact of solid messaging and effective media relations. He went from being invisible to winning more than 8, 000 votes in the at large field of 14 candidates. There's no way of knowing what a few more bucks would have turned up in the way of votes, but...

Even in losing, Lono can look at a pretty solid return on his investment.

Why Andy Wells is wrong

In typical fashion, Andy Wells was quick to comment on the municipal election results in St. John's claiming credit for his own success in suppressing the vote for councillor Shannie Duff and others by raising Memorial stadium as an issue. He also criticized two at large candidates, although not by name.

The results don't support Wells contention.

1. Overall, there were about 35, 000 ballot kits returned in this election, down slightly from the 39, 000 returned in the 2001 contest. This decline is easily attributed to the lack of a mayoral race which has traditionally boosted voter turn-out.

At the same time, there were 11, 000 more mail ballots distributed this time. That doesn't mean that there was a dramatic decline in voter turn-out. About the same number of people voted this time as voted last time.

2. In 2001, Shannie Duff garnered slightly more than 21, 000 votes last time out and this time was re-elected with over 19, 000 votes. That decline is hardly indicative of any dramatic decline in her support.

In fact, Duff's share of the votes cast is exactly the same as it was last time out.

3. While Wells may trumpet his own apparent decisive victory, it is hard to take him seriously. This election was a no-contest against a man whose behaviour suggested he may well be experiencing severe personal problems. Such was the contest that Wells stopped campaigning.

But here's the interesting thing.

In the mayoral race there were actually more than 6, 200 ballots that were spoiled or not cast. That's almost 18% of the total ballot kits returned. It is a horrendous number for any election - but if Andy was the darling of St. John's, why was he unable to actually increase voter turn-out such that he garnered the support of more than 33% of the total electorate? That's a pretty abysmal comment on Wells the mayor and the contest as a whole. Had he faced a credible candidate, who can say what the outcome might have been?

Regardless of that, in a head-to-head contest between Andy Wells and a guy who people wondered might be ill, they took Andy. Personally, I wouldn't be writing home about that.

4. Frank Galgay is actually the best proof of Wells' political impotence - that is, if Andy he is trying to suggest that he is the King politico of St. John's. Wells courted Bob Crocker to run against Galgay, may well have financially supported Crocker and certainly publicly attacked Galgay with newspaper ads and a letter mailed to every voter in Ward 2.

Galgay beat Crocker - and by easy extension Wells - by better than two to one.

If anything, Wells crude "campaign" actually cemented Galgay's support and drove them to the polls. Negative campaigning is supposed to suppress voters, especially the opponent's supporters.

That's what Wells is implicitly claiming - he, the master politician affected the results of other candidates. He may have, but certainly not in the way he thinks.

Take that, Bembridge scholars.

5. The Memorial Stadium issue had no traction with voters. It didn't appear to motivate them one way or another, except for a handful of disaffected people in the east end of town.

Wells was challenged publicly on his bizarre accounting by both Duff - who handily won re-election - and by one of the new faces in the campaign, Simon Lono. The media covered it; Wells ignored it, as only Andy can.

6. Wells introduced nothing of substance to the campaign. He did not indicate what he plans to do over the next four years. He did not run on any platform. He advanced no new ideas. Indeed Wells, who was once the candidate of change, revolution and attacking the system is now the ultimate Establishment candidate.

His only foray into the campaign was to attack other candidates and in the effort, every single one of Wells' targets - save one - gained re-election.

7. In the sole exception, Paul Sears defeat can easily be attributed to his own poor performance on council. Andy can hardly claim credit for Sears' self-inflicted wounds.

8. Wells most laughable comments on Out of the Fog came when he lambasted two at large candidates for their platform issues.

Although he didn't mention names, one was obviously John Fisher who talked about fighting crime. Ok, Andy, I'll grant that. Fisher was talking about crime and the police when the city can do exactly diddly squat about it.

But the second candidate was Simon Lono who Wells' thought foolish for "attacking city hall".

Here's some meat to chew on, as opposed to Wells' characteristic gristle.

Of all the at large candidates, indeed of all the candidates, Lono was the only one who put substantive policy issues on the table for discussion.

He gained media coverage that was second to none, except for Boss Andy himself.

In the singular, substantive moment of the campaign, Lono embarrassed Wells by drawing public attention to the week-long Duckworth Street water main fiasco. The city delivered its own coup de grace on that one by letting the thing fester for more than a week until a 15 foot high geyser erupted in the east end of town.

It was a public embarrassment not just for Wells and his supposed record of infrastructure management but for the whole city. Hundreds of cruise ship visitors, one of them a retired municipal water engineer, looked in amazement at the evident lack of proper maintenance and the profligate treatment of the city's precious water supply.

Wells then supplied further proof of his lack of a grip when he attacked a deputy mayoral candidate during a television interview. According to Wells, the city's water problem were caused by people drowning their lawns; that interview aired the same day the water main broke and a week before the geyser shot up.

Talk about hubris.

The night Lono's media coverage appeared, city council was in heavy damage control mode. Council crews scrambled from sight when the cameras arrived and - surprise, surprise - a geyser that was apparently unfixable until a new part arrived and couldn't be tampered with for fear of cutting off water to businesses and residents suddenly vanished. The thing was gone the next day and fixed within two.

Lono also talked about crumbling sidewalks and borrowing from next year's capital works budget to patch problems that emerged this year, all of which are accurate.

But Andy needn't take Lono's word for the infrastructure deficit.

Last week, no less a public body than the Board of Trade included the municipal infrastructure deficit as one of the major challenges facing the new council.

Yeah, Andy. Lono doesn't know what he is talking about.

Neither does Marilyn Thompson, president of the Board of Trade and her members.

Andy Wells may be a lot of things, and he is right about things once in a while.

But as far as his comments on the municipal election results, he is actually the one who doesn't have a clue, let alone a sweet one.

If Dobbin wasn't a typical local businessman...

He might actually attract some experienced writers to work for his rag, the Spindy.

As John Gushue notes, our own low-rent Conrad Black - Brian Dobbin - is vacating his column on the editorial page of his own personal yellow sheet in favour of...guest columns.

He doesn't have to pay for guest columns.

Surprise. Surprise.

If Dobbin hadn't nickel and dimed locked out CBC reporter David Cochrane and then kicked him in the crotch for good measure with the lame "Die CBC, die" editorial a few weeks ago, Dobbin might have better stuff gracing his pages than the recycled or one-source wonders the Spindy usually prints. No one told CBC staffers they couldn't work for Dobbin's little sweat-rag.

They decided to avoid a guy who clearly has no regard for the news or for staff. Cleary and Dobbin's little tag-team routine the past couple of weeks defending Dobbin's crass and - typically - ill-informed opinion just confirm the extent these two share the same low standards of journalistic integrity. I am severely disappointed in Ryan.

But then Dobbin wouldn't be able to use the Spindy as his own homage to Joe Pulitzer. Cochrane is used to basing a story on pesky things called facts, not the sort of crap (figure out the ending and then collect up some quotes to fit the preconceived ending) that usually assault public eyeballs each Sunday.

Anyone remember the Chuck Furey fiasco about the Terra Nova project? One source. Fit with Dobbin's own ill-founded ideas. Got printed. Then the one source recanted.

That was good for a few yucks.

Incidentally, is it a coincidence that Dobbin is vacating the column (and its fawning praise for our beloved Premier) now that he has his reward - an appointment to a business advisory committee on Ireland?

Will Brian be able to bill his own business trips to the Emerald Isle to the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador, all the while trumpeting the virtues of free enterprise and condemning publicly-funded anything?

Don Adams - rest well, Max

Don Adams, the actor who played television's best known parody of a parody - secret agent 86 of CONTROL- passed away in Los Angeles on Sunday, aged 82.

Cause of death is reportedly a lung infection.

In addition to his role on Get Smart!, Adams was the voice of cartoon characters Tennessee Tuxedo and Inspector Gadget.

Earth just got a little duller, but Heaven is sure gonna be a funnier place.

The case for a new municipal elections act

When Andy Wells said people would vote for Saddam Hussein rather than him, he likely wasn't only speaking of the deep-seated animosity some people have for the mayor of the capital city.

They likely would opting for Saddam's democratic election system.

The City of St. John's mail-in ballot system is the best case yet for a new municipal elections act that brings civic elections into line with the standards of a modern democracy.

A committee of councillors plus municipal officials (who owe their paycheques to the councillors) devised a system that violates the spirit and intent of the Municipal Elections Act. Here are some examples of the Act's provisions, designed to counteract corruption (like fraud), that the city officials have repeatedly and consistently ignored:

1. Given that the voters list is out of date, contains inaccuracies and the procedures for administering the election make it possible for the same person to receive two ballots for two separate wards, the election is potentially in violation of s. 23. This section prohibits the same person from voting in two separate wards while being resident in only one.

2. The city has issued ballots to individuals who fail to qualify under s. 24 (residency). Examples have been well documented beyond the 4, 000 officially noted thus far.

3. Candidates have been unable to exercise their right under s. 25 to challenge individual voters and require that they affirm or attest to their qualification as a voter and to have said objection registered under s. 41.

4. There is some question as to whether the city has applied s. 40 requiring a record of those who have cast votes, typically by crossing names from the voting list, to preclude double-voting.

5. There is no indication that s. 38 was applied under which candidates or their agents inspect the ballot box and ensure that it is empty at the time it is sealed.

6. The provisions for declaring ballots spoiled under s. 50 have been misapplied in the case of the 700 disallowed votes. These ballots may well be otherwise valid (i.e. not overvoted etc) but they are precluded merely because city officials refuse to adopt simple methods for removing the voter declaration form from the envelope containing ballots and still preventing anyone (except election officials) from knowing how any one person voted.

Incidentally, this scrupulous adherence to the notion of secrecy is an example of the zealous way officials apply some rules but ignore others. For example, under federal and provincial election rules a voting official may assist a voter (thereby learning how the vote was cast). But they are sworn to secrecy anyway!

7. The city is in clear violation of s. 51, which provides that the ballot boxes may not be opened and counting commence until after the close of polls. There is no legitimate reason for violating this provision. The city clerk's attitude at the candidates briefing (i.e. that the election was effectively over by now anyway) is certainly an indication of the antidemocratic attitude officials have brought to the process of elections.

8. Based on all the foregoing, this mail-vote system violates s. 54(5) insofar as the procedures established by the municipal bylaw are not consistent with the principles established under the MEA.

Beyond these points, there are ample grounds to question the legitimacy of this election. The unwillingness of city officials to accept reasonable alternatives to their rules further demonstrates the substantive problems with this election.

Their goal is to deliver a result as cheaply as possible. Legitimacy and fairness are not an issue.

After this fiasco is completed, the provincial government should introduce a new elections act to bring municipal voting rules in line with provincial ones. Let the province's chief electoral officer run the entire voting process. It would be cheaper than the current system and infinitely more fair to all concerned.

It is certainly far more important and issue than discussing whether or not to change the province's flag.

What good is a flag if the basics of democracy are trampled?

Mail-in voting: more details; more evidence of major problems

Candidates and their representatives received a briefing today on how the mail-in ballots will be counted on Tuesday.

Here are some details:

1. Candidates are unable to scrutinize ballots as they would in any other election. Since ballots began arriving at City Hall on 12 September, city officials have already made their decisions about validity of specific ballots and included them or excluded them based on their own policy.

2. To date, about 700 ballot kits have been ruled invalid. These ballot kits either had no voter declaration, had one that wasn't signed, had multiple signatures on the declaration (presumably including a notary's signature attesting to the identity of the voter [!!!]) or some other technical failing.

3. "Spoiled" ballot kits are running at a rate 10 times higher than the provincial election despite a turn-out thus far that is one tenth of the total provincial votes cast. One tenth the votes; 10 times as many "spoils".

Of the approximately 25, 000 mail-in ballots cast thus far, almost 3% have been ruled "spoiled". In the last provincial general election, out of more than 278, 000 ballots cast only 790 were ruled "spoiled". That's .28%, compared to the 2.8% for the city election.

4. The actual number of rejected ballots (each kit actually contains four separate ballots for different races) is actually around 2, 800. The total number of possible ballots (four per voter) is 75,000 times four, or 300,000. Even if we allow this figure as being the number of "ballots" then the spoilage rate thus far is double the last federal election and three times the number of "spoils" in the last provincial election.

5. In the last federal general election, the number of rejected ballots for Newfoundland was 0.5%.

6. The St. John's municipal vote will set a new national record for spoiled ballots, once the actual number of spoiled ballots will be determined on 27 September. All that has been determined right now is the number of kits that have been rejected as invalid. Within each ballot kit that will be counted on 27 September (accepted as valid by officials), individual ballot sections such as the one for mayor may be blank, double-voted, written on or otherwise spoiled using conventional definitions.

7. Ballot counting will begin shortly after 0800 hrs on the 27th, or 12 hours before the polls close. In every other election, ballot boxes are not opened until after the polls have closed. In this election, the election results will be known (except for the handful of ballot kits received on the official counting day) by around noon. Results will not be released until after 2000 hrs (8:00 PM) but city officials appeared to have no firm policy on this point.

8. Candidates have had no opportunity to challenge the credentials of voters, as provided in the Municipal Elections Act. If any candidate detects a problem on polling day, there is no way to determine which fraudulent ballot has been cast or how many such ballots may have been cast. City officials did not consider this to be an issue.

9. City officials have not been crossing names off their voting list, another way of detecting fraudulent voting in cases where ballots have been sent to the same person under two slightly different names.

10. Dominion Voting System Corporation [DVS Corp] has been contracted to count the ballots using their computerized counting system.
Likely problems don't stem from their system; problems come from the completely inadequate procedures established by city officials and approved by city council.

And then there's this blog I just found...

which should make the blood pressure over at Liam-land [aka Responsible Government League]break through the sphygmomanometer cuff.

The author of this blog, Watching the CPC spin machine in actionn, is pretty funny.

Consider this post on one of my favourite Connies, Peter MacKay.

Or this one on the Connie bloggers and the disappearing posts. Seems they are trying to find any way to discredit Belinda - now that she isn't a Connie. And at least a couple of the angriest bloggers in the world actually had to pull their conspiracy posts when it turned out the conspiracy was... wait for it...a complete fiction.

So let's just post this one and wait for the little explosion. I'll keep my eyes on the horizon and see if the mushroom cloud erupts.

Which historic general are you?

These quizes seem to be growing in popularity among bloggers, so for some lighter weekend fair, why not give this one a try. Which historical general would you be?

Seems that I resemble a dead Roman general. Not exactly who I had in mind, but the old boy was effective.

Scipio You scored 63 Wisdom, 70 Tactics, 54 Guts, and 63 Ruthlessness!

You're most similar to Scipio in the fact that you're smart and ruthless. Scipio beat Hannibal by luring him back from Western Europe (where he was crushing legion after legion of Roman soldiers trying to gain support from local tribes) by laying seige to his home country of Carthage. Hannibal returned to defend his home and was defeated at the Battle of Zama. Ruthless, but it worked. Scipio was the conqueror of Hannibal in the Punic Wars. He was the son of Publius Cornelius Scipio, and from a very early age he considered himself to have divine inspiration. He was with his father at the Ticino (218), and he survived Cannae (216). The young Scipio was elected (c.211) to the proconsulship in Spain. He conquered New Carthage (Cartagena) almost at once (209) and used the city as his own base; within several years he had conquered Spain. As consul in 205, Scipio wanted to invade Africa, but his jealous enemies in the senate granted him permission to go only as far as Sicily and gave him no army. He trained a volunteer army in Sicily. In 204 he received permission to go to Africa, where he joined his allies the Numidians and fought with success against the Carthaginians. In 202, Hannibal crossed to Africa and tried to make peace, but Scipio's demands were so extreme that war resulted; Scipio defeated Hannibal at Zama (202), returned home in triumph, and retired from public life. He was named Africanus after the country he conquered. His pride aggravated the hatred of his enemies, especially Cato the Elder , who accused the Scipio family of receiving bribes in the campaign against Antiochus III in which Scipio had accompanied (190) his brother. It was only through the influence of his son-in-law, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, that Scipio was saved from ruin. He retired into the country and ordered that his body might not be buried in his ungrateful city. Later he revealed his great magnanimity by his attempt to prevent the ruin of the exiled Hannibal by Rome.

Mail-in vote follies continue

Enjoy this little story from VOCM, quoting city clerk Neil Martin on how smurfily goes the mail-in voting for St. John's city council.

Then pick up the Telegram and find the facts.

Martin predicted a couple of things: one was that the turnout would be over 60% and possibly as high as 75% this time. He also predicted that 90% of ballots would be returned no later than 19 September.

The city mailed out about 75, 000 vote-by-mail kits.

As of Thursday morning, the elections crowd at city hall had received 25, 000 ballots back. As of close of business Tuesday, they had 21, 000 according to a city hall official contacted on Wednesday by the Bond Papers. There is some confusion here about whether those are 21 or 25, 000 valid ballots or total ballots, but the point is still clear: the turn-out so far is about 30%, and it is not likely to get much higher. In other words, that's one third of what Martin expected and it will be lucky to crack 40%.

But here's a Telly kicker - of the ballots received on Thursday (as the Telegram tells it - might have been Wednesday), fully 600 were chucked in the bin as being spoiled. They either did not have a signed declaration with the vote envelope or the declaration had been included inside the vote envelope.

If we take the average daily vote return of 3, 000, that means in one day alone fully 20% of the ballots were spoiled. That is a horrendous number and may speak to problems with the voter awareness portion of this whole thing.

Beyond that, though, you may well have the complete disenfranchisement of thousands of voters simply because they didn't follow the rules. Maybe they were elderly and had trouble reading the information. Maybe they were illiterate. They still had a right to vote.

Then there is the possibility that thousands of other people voted twice or voted when they weren't entitled to vote.

This doesn't look like an election that is running swimmingly.

Nor are the ballots "flooding in" as VOCM claims.

Nope.

But then again, according to the city, that geyser on Temperance Street was proof that everything was working just fine in the city.

What, me worry?

Wells unsure on taxes

Over at the local website for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, one can find the results of its mayoral candidate survey.

Here's the link to the St. John's results.

A few of incumbent Andy Wells responses stand out:

Asked about his stand on a municipal sales tax and a municipal income tax, Wells indicated he was "unsure". Hmmmm. Hope Andy doesn't plan on dipping into the public pockets after the next election to fix the city's infrastructure problems (Andy's wells, like the one on the east end of Duckworth Street). This idea could have gotten a firm "No!". Wells' waffling is a cause for caution.

Wells also thinks that city residents who cannot access municipal services - like water and sewer - should still pay full taxes.

Wells also favours eliminating "costly" red-tape and regulation. Andy has never seen a developer he wouldn't say yes to. Makes one wonder what exactly he considers to be "costly" regulation.

It's also an interesting attitude for a guy who the premier thinks is the right guy to manage the offshore regulatory board.