The Newfoundland Nationalist orthodoxy

Given the nationalist rhetoric permeating the latest provincial throne speech, it might be useful to examine the writings of another Newfoundland nationalist.

The following piece appeared in the St. John's Telegram in 1998 under the title "Confederation orthodoxy". It's author, John Fitzgerald, today serves as the provincial representative in Ottawa, or as it might seem to some "our man in a Blue Line cab."

While his doctoral thesis was on the Roman Catholic church in Newfoundland in the middle of the 19th century, Fitzgerald's master's thesis was titled The Confederation of Newfoundland with Canada, 1946-1949. His interpretation has been criticised by other historians, but it did serve as the inspiration for the entertaining but fictional movie Secret nation.

The film contended that Confederation was the result of a giant plot involving foreign powers that included falsifying the final referendum result. Fitzgerald's account below does not come to that conclusion, but there is no doubt that he leans heavily on a peculiar interpretation of selected information to attack what he views as Confederate mythology. It is all to common for self-proclaimed myth debunkers to propagate a few myths of their own and Fitzgerald is no exception. He recites neatly the townie anti-Confederate catechism.

For that reason, and given Fitzgerald's current position as a senior advisor to the Premier, here is Fitzgerald's 1998 view:

Confederation orthodoxy
John Fitzgerald
The Telegram
St. John's, NL
April 6, 1998
Page 6

The Telegram editorial of April 1, celebrating 49 years of Confederation as a "qualified success," claimed that Newfoundland would have been much worse off as an independent country than as a Canadian province, and that without Ottawa, Newfoundland might return to the "grinding poverty" of the 1930s. This is the same tired orthodoxy that The Telegram and Smallwood preached in 1948: Newfoundland would not survive without Confederation.

Newfoundland very likely could have prospered without Confederation. For nine of the 10 years before Confederation Newfoundland had a balanced budget. On the eve of Confederation, Newfoundland had two-per-cent unemployment and a per-capita debt which was one-tenth of Canada's. On the eve of Confederation, Newfoundland had an accumulated surplus on current account of $43 million and $12 million in interest-free loans to Britain. In 1998 dollars this would be close to $1 billion. Was this prosperity temporary? No. Newfoundland changed forever in the 1940s. If the absence of a House of Assembly at the time prevented Newfoundlanders from knowing it or doing anything about it, then Canada certainly did know the wealth and value of Newfoundland.

Confederation may have been an qualified success for Canada, but not so for Newfoundland. Canada feared that Newfoundland could have used its resources to survive and prosper independently. The Ottawa mandarins realized that Confederation would help extract the Americans from their bases in Newfoundland. Newfoundland also had two of the largest airports in the world, situated on the Great Circle air route.

Canada wanted them, and acquired them with Confederation. It then used the control of the airports and landing rights to force its own way into American markets which had previously excluded Canada. In 1946, Newfoundland had an estimated 300 million tons of iron ore in Labrador, which Canada was interested in exploiting. (In March 1996 the IOC blasted the one billionth ton of iron ore out of Labrador, while Newfoundland still collects revenues under the 1944 royalty regime established by the Commission of Government which allows Newfoundland five per cent of what the IOC tells us their profits are.) Ottawa knew that controlling Newfoundland's fisheries would eliminate Newfoundland from competing with Nova Scotia for markets for its fish. (Could Newfoundland have managed its cod stocks any worse than Canada has?)

On Oct. 17, 1946, the Canadian High Commissioner in Newfound land, Scott Macdonald, wrote Ottawa about the benefits Newfoundland would bring to Canada. Newfoundland had "very considerable mineral and forest resources as well as easy access to the finest fishing grounds in the world." Confederation "would solve, permanently, all questions of post-war military and civil aviation rights which are at present terminable after March 31, 1949, on 12 months' notice. It would make possible a common jurisdiction over North Atlantic fisheries. ..."

And would Newfoundland return to poverty? Not likely. "Moreover," Macdonald wrote, "(Newfoundland) is richer by the investment of at least $100 million by Canada and at least $300 million by the United States primarily for defence but much of which was spent on roads, wharfs (sic), telephone lines, warehouses, similar buildings, radio ranges, airfields, the training of Newfoundlanders in various technical jobs, etc. and has redounded to the general development of the country." In Macdonald's view, Newfoundland thus had the infrastructure to sustain prosperity.

For Canada, Newfoundland's Confederation was not about the welfare state or about helping Newfoundlanders "out of poverty" (for which, The Globe and Mail tells us, we must be eternally grateful). Rather, it was about acquiring valuable resources, eliminating competition, acquiring very valuable aspects of Newfoundland's sovereignty, and doing it all rather deeply [cheaply?]. After all, Smallwood's Confederation campaigns only cost CD Howe and the Liberal Party of Canada a cool half-million bucks.

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Destiny, nationalism and a Speech from the Throne

Following is an extract from remarks by Premier Danny Williams in the House of Assembly following the throne speech.

The words are taken almost directly from the throne speech since, as convention dictates, it is the Premier who writes the speech.

Both for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and for their fellow Canadians across Canada, the speech is an interesting clue to the thinking of the feisty first minister.

For example, note that in his speech, as in the throne speech, Williams refers to something called "Ottawa", as if it were a foreign capital.

Some people should also take note of a particular sentence, that "we cannot rely upon those elected to offices outside of this Province to deliver what is in our own best interest." This sentence, repeated in the throne speech and in the news release issued on Tuesday afternoon, should give pause to Stephane Dion, with whom the Premier met on Saturday.

It should surely give pause to all those incumbents federal members of parliament from this province and those likely candidates for it means clearly that Danny Williams does not and will not trust you. These words mean, unequivocally, that elected representatives of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are not to be trusted merely because they represent the people of the province somewhere other than in the House of Assembly controlled utterly by the current provincial administration.

Scott? Walter? Paul? Peter? Siobhan? Fabian? Gerry? Loyola?

One wonders if they get the point.

Note as well, in the second last paragraph the number of claims that have no substance behind them. The current revenue wave which alone produced the economic miracle Williams claims credit for came as a direct result of the Atlantic Accord (1985).

This landmark in federal-provincial relations was achieved as a direct result of agreement between two strong governments and on the federal side is a direct consequence of efforts by John Crosbie. The negotiations were lengthy and difficult. The deal came close to failing but in the end, through the determination of both the federal and provincial governments, an historic agreement was achieved.

In the current context, a modern John Crosbie would likely get not a lick of support from Danny Williams merely because he was "elected to federal office outside the province". The truth is, that as a direct result of both the federal government and a capable federal minister from this province, Newfoundland and Labrador has never before been in such a position of strength. Nationalists will find that a bitter pill to swallow but it is far closer to reality that anything uttered by the Premier on the matter today.

In the current though, that agreement may be in some jeopardy. The federal government is seeking to amend the deal in direct violation of section 60 of the 1985 Accord. The provincial government - who should be guarding the Accord vigilantly - apparently did not notice that section and still ignores it some three weeks after finance minister Tom Marshall said that provincial lawyers were checking to see if the federal government could unilaterally amend the 1985 Accord.

Instead, the Premier makes much of the "broken promise". Should the federal government succeed in amending the Accord unilaterally, the joint management rights and/or the very revenues on which the Danny Williams miracle has taken place - not the added hand-outs, but the provincially determined direct revenues - might be in jeopardy.

Flowery rhetoric is a fine thing. Quoting William Jennings Bryan on destiny is a fine thing, but perhaps adapting another Bryan quote would be more useful in describing the Premier's speech(es): it seems to me it would be too exacting to confine the Premier to the facts; if he is not allowed to get away from the facts, what has he to deal with?

What does he have indeed?

__________________

Hansard, 24 April, 2007:

We are not prepared to tolerate a future of relying on others economically or having others manipulate us into selling ourselves short on resource benefits because we have all seen where that leads. Our people have learned that the best way to achieve self-reliance economically is to achieve self-reliance politically, by taking charge of our future as a people. I do not mean this in any separatist way. People should not read anything into that, because we are all strong nationalists and we are proud Canadians.

Political self-reliance simply means that we cannot rely upon those elected to offices outside of this Province to deliver what is in our own best interest. We must achieve that on our own. Self-reliance will not come by depending on others to achieve it for us. That is a lesson we have learned year after year, generation after generation. So we will harness the desire among Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to cultivate greater political, financial and moral autonomy vis-a-vis Ottawa. As a distinct people and as equal partners, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal together, we will write a new future for Newfoundland and Labrador; a future of our own design, where mutual understanding, justice, equality, fairness and co-operation are the order of the day.

As the Throne Speech states, we will define our own future. We will strengthen our financial autonomy and our fiscal capacity to meet our own obligations by diversifying and growing our own economy; by reducing Newfoundland and Labrador’s burden of debt on our children; by pursuing a fair, fiscal balance between levels of government and by reducing our dependence on equalization payments.

We now have the ability to aspire to something better for Newfoundland and Labrador. We have the natural resources. We have the human resources and the opportunities that will enable us to achieve self-reliance on our own steam and on our own terms. Even though the federal government will not assist in the way they promised, we will continue to put the resource revenues we are permitted to keep to work for our people.

The truth is, that despite the federal government, never before have we been in a position of such strength. Revenues are strong. Our fiscal position is strong. Our record of expenditure growth has been responsible and strategic. Our standing before our credit rating agencies has never been better. Our resource portfolio is increasingly strong and very attractive to investors, and our collective political will as a people has never been stronger.

We have the financial leverage to accomplish things that are in our Province’s best interest and the fiscal means to stand firm before those who are pressuring us to sell ourselves short. We are negotiating from a position of strength. We can afford to say no to bad deals and hold out for agreements that will result in long-term gain for our Province, not just short-term band-aid solutions, Mr. Speaker.

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The agenda revealed: Throne Speech 2007

We as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians aspire, not to perpetual subservience, but to self-sufficiency. Our people are not content to tolerate a future of relying on others economically. However, our people have now also learned that we will achieve self-reliance economically only by taking charge of our future as a people. To that end, My Government will harness the desire among Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to cultivate greater cultural, financial and moral autonomy vis-à-vis Ottawa. Our priority is the well-being of successive generations of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, including those who live here now and those we welcome to join us from all over the world. My Government will affirm Newfoundland and Labrador’s status as a distinct people, not uniform in lineage but multi-cultural, one nation inclusive of many nations living in harmony together. [Emphasis added]

The goal is autonomy.

What that means and how to get there are not clearly defined.

From the Throne Speech

A curious claim given that on Hebron there are no talks and the province has yet to sign off on White Rose expansion. Hibernia South is still mired in "talks":

In Newfoundland and Labrador’s offshore oil and gas sector, massive energy opportunities are matched by My Government’s confidence that further activity will soon be occurring at Hibernia South, White Rose and Hebron-Ben Nevis as exploration proceeds in other basins. My Government also launched industry consultations to develop an offshore natural gas royalty regime that will provide clarity to industry. This should facilitate the development of our immense natural gas resource potential in a manner that provides a fair return to industry and the people of this province.

Maybe White Rose will get the nod, giving credence to John Lau's claims of having a great relationship with Danny Williams.

As for Hebron, maybe the truthiness of the statement depends on what ones' definition of "soon" is.

Raude heads south

Having finished at Great Barrisway F-66 in the Orphan basin, the drill rig Eirik Raude is off to the Gulf of Mexico to complete a drilling program there on behalf of ExxonMobil.

Before leaving Newfoundland waters, the rig will stop at Marystown where it will undergo inspections and recertification, a process required for drill rigs every five years.

The Eirik Raude is likely to return to the Orphan Basin in 2008 or 2009 to continue exploration. The Great Barrisway hole was drilled in 2,350 metres of water, deeper than any other well drilled so far offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

Initial estimates were that the exploration well would cost $140 million based on an estimated four months drilling. As completed, the well took seven months.

On top of the harsh ocean environment offshore Newfoundland, the water depth in the Orphan Basin calls for cutting edge technology. Pressures at the depths involved can be as much as 200 times the atmospheric pressure at the ocean surface.

Great Barrisway F-66's water depth rivals those in the Gulf of Mexico. Chevron's Jack 2 field in the Gulf of Mexico was discovered at a water depth of 2100 metres and 6100 metres below the sea floor.

But drilling to such depths provides many daunting engineering challenges.

Such equipment, for example, must be built to handle tremendous weight.

"The way the drilling process works is that you put sections of pipe together one at a time as you run [the pipe] through the water and down into the earth," Hadden said. [Steve Hadden, senior vice president of exploration and production at Devon Energy in Oklahoma City, quoted in the National Geographic story linked above.]

"You keep adding to the drill string until you reach the total depth of the well. So [in this case] you've got a 30,000-foot-long [9,144-meter-long] string of pipe hanging off a floating rig," he added.

"You can imagine the weight requirements, and you have to have the ability to lift it to the surface to change the drill bit."

Twenty thousand feet (6,096 meters) of the large diameter pipe that encases the drill hole tops the scales at over a million pounds (453,000 kilograms).

The enormous pressures found in deep wells are another major hazard.

Too much pressure can make it difficult to control the drill bit. Or the pressure could collapse the hole altogether.

Drillers must therefore use seismic readings while drilling to predict how high pressures will be at future depths in order to keep the hole viable.

Danny and John get along well

From the Tuesday National Post, this article on the strong, positive relationship between Premier Danny Williams and Husky Energy's John Lau.

At Husky's annual meeting last week, for example, the Hong Kong-born accountant gushed that the premier has been "very helpful" to Husky and that his company, in return, is eager to "work with the government and share the upside."

The relationship between the Premier and the oil man stands out in light of other stories that there is tension between the Premier and the industry.

When asked about the secret of his relationship with Mr. Williams, Mr. Lau said Husky and the province are so transparent with each other it's resulted in a level of trust that is unusual "between a corporation and the government."

"We understand what the government wants, and the government understands what we want. We have no hidden agenda," Mr. Lau said, giving credit to his team in the province, led by East Coast vice-president Ruud Zoon.

Husky would not be averse to having the government as an equity partner as long as it doesn't affect its bottom line, Mr. Lau added.

The real clue to what makes this relationship work actually comes later in the piece. it has to do with the individual styles of the two men.

Some argue it's also a matter of style. Despite their vastly different backgrounds, the two leaders have kindred spirits: both see themselves as outsiders who don't get enough recognition, are highly successful, built organizations in their own image, are hands-own and hard to work for.

Fundamentally, though, Husky Energy is following a pretty standard approach to any relationship: the company is trying to find common ground, bearing in mind that whatever it might consider, including an equity position for the province, is governed by the corporate bottom line.

There are strong signals that Danny Williams is looking to change the perception of his policies if not the substance of the way he approaches relationships. In the confrontation with the federal government over Equalization, Williams has repeatedly stated he is not seeking confrontation for the sake of having a racket. He said much the same thing over the weekend following a meeting with federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion.

Ultimately, that's both factually accurate - he isn't really fighting for the sake of fighting - and a sign that Williams understands what is needed to foster mutually beneficial relationships. As Michael Harris said of Brian Peckford a quarter century ago, "dogma is no substitute for dialogue, and compromise no synonym for weakness."

Danny loves Loyola, Update

A video featuring Danny Williams supporting Loyola Hearn in the 1989 provincial Progressive Conservative Party leadership contest is picking up more attention with each passing day.

The video is posted on youtube.com.

When Bond Papers posted the link on Friday, the total viewers was 91. That number hit 241 by mid-day Monday. The video was featured on CBC's Here and Now supperhour news show on Monday evening and as of 10: 45 Pm Monday night the hit counter had reached 369.

The politics of outrage runs aground

From today's Globe?

Nope.

Try February 23, 1983.

Following is a Michael Harris piece that originally appeared in the Globe and Mail in the aftermath of the first court case on offshore ownership (the one the nationalists like to forget).

The odd thing is that it doesn't take much adjustment to have this story apply equally well today. A feisty Premier, given to fighting anyone, anywhere, anytime in the best interests of Newfoundland and Labrador, and yet finding himself coming up short.

So to speak.

So for your reading enjoyment is this blast from the past, titled in the original as this post. Don't be confused by some of the references, by the way. Almost a quarter of a century ago, Jim Hodder was a Liberal member of the legislature. Hodder crossed the floor not long after this article appeared. He's like Tom Rideout, at least in that respect.

Leo Barry went on to lead the Liberal Party and was later appointed a justice of the Supreme Court. Brian Peckford is in British Columbia advising people out there about starting an oil and gas industry.

______________________________

"One cannot reasonably demand that discussions take place on the basis that it would constitute only additional obligations for one party and only benefits for the other."

- Rene Levesque to Brian Peckford on the
Upper Churchill Power question,
April 29, 1980.

There is a caveat to Rene Levesque's otherwise self-evident assessment of what constitutes meaningful negotiations - it is not applicable when dealing with Newfoundland.

For three years now, Premier Brian Peckford has practiced the politics of outrage on a range of arguably outrageous disputes in which Newfoundland has become embroiled.

In the two most celebrated quarrels - with Quebec over Labrador hydro-power and Ottawa over offshore resources - his strategy has been identical. Mr. Peckford has developed a quasi-moral position and then gone on to defend it with messianic zeal. ''Pre-conditions'' has become the buzz word when negotiating with Newfoundland. And if the notion of preconditions precluded meaningful negotiations, that was a problem for the other guy. Newfoundland would soldier on and eventually triumph because Newfoundland was in the right.

As political strategy, the approach has been a howling success - so far. Newfoundlanders unabashedly admire their battling Premier. So much so that the opposition Liberals were almost wiped out in last year's emotional provincial election. Securely wrapped in the provincial flag, Mr. Peckford rules his caucus with an iron hand and the House of Assembly with an iron tongue, much as Joey Smallwood did in his political prime.

But as a means of realizing Mr. Peckford's stated public policy goals, the feisty, inflexible approach has been an abject failure. The Upper Churchill Power Contract remains in full, ruinous force, depriving Newfoundland of $750-million a year to which the province feels entitled. And the vast oil resources off the province's southeast coast remain undeveloped.

Worse, politics as the art of being right has shifted both disputes to a forum where politicians are powerless to influence the outcome - the courts.

The stark reality of what that can mean was demonstrated last week when the Newfoundland Court of Appeal ruled that Ottawa owns resources on the continental shelf off Newfoundland. In a single stroke, the Newfoundland Petroleum Directorate became a legal fiction, the province's oil and gas regulations lost their force, and Mr. Peckford's bargaining position with Ottawa suffered a devastating blow. Ironically, Mr. Peckford must now appeal for his justice to the very court he has consistently described as the tribunal of central Canadians, the Supreme Court of Canada.

Predictably, the political opposition has argued that such epic blundering with the province's long-term future requires the supreme penalty - in the wake of last week's decision, Liberal MHA James Hodder has demanded Mr. Peckford's resignation. But the reaction of fellow Tories, particularly Newfoundland's former energy minister Leo Barry, is of far greater significance.

Mr. Barry has become the first Conservative to publicly criticize Brian Peckford since he became Premier in 1979. Two years ago, the Yale-trained lawyer and author of Newfoundland's oil and gas regulations resigned from the Peckford Cabinet over differences with the Premier on how offshore negotiations with Ottawa should be conducted. Now Mr. Barry is pointing out, ever so delicately, that the ownership question should never have been referred to the Newfoundland court in the first place and that the Newfoundland Government acted ''precipitously'' in so doing.

What makes Mr. Barry's comments all the more significant is the fact that he espouses the same goals as the Premier. Like Mr. Peckford, he too believes Newfoundland is entitled to ownership of offshore resources. But unlike the Premier, his formula for achieving ownership hinged on keeping negotiations with the federal side going and, if a deal couldn't be struck, waiting for a change of governments in Ottawa.

His reasoning was simple. Having already offered Newfoundland 100 per cent ownership of offshore resources in 1980, a Conservative government in Ottawa would have a hard time reneging on that offer if returned to power at some time in the future.

Against the backdrop of his defeat in the Newfoundland courts, and criticism from an prestigious member of his own caucus, Brian Peckford continues to talk tough. But his words are less important now than what happens in the Supreme Court of Canada in the coming weeks.

If the high court upholds the position taken by the provincial Supreme Court, as many legal observers believe it will, the Rowdyman of Newfoundland public life will have learned a harsh political lesson: dogma is no substitute for dialogue, and compromise no synonym for weakness.

Promise made, Promise MIA

From the much bally-hooed Blue Book from 2003:

* Approximately 40% of all government expenditures goes towards salaries and employee benefits. Over the next five years, approximately 25% of the public service will be eligible for retirement. A Progressive Conservative government will use this five-year period to reduce the size of the public sector through attrition.

...

* Strengthening the Public Tender Act. All government departments and agencies will be required to comply with a strengthened Public Tender Act with an aim to strengthening competition and eliminating costly lawsuits that occur as a result of violations to the Act.

...

* A Progressive Conservative government will restore the House of Assembly to it rightful place as the "People's House". Our aim is to create a system of government in which power is shared with the legislature and the people, instead of being concentrated in the office of the premier and cabinet. [Emphasis added.]

...

* The appointment of a special committee of the legislature that will ensure proper scrutiny and public discussion of federal proposals in areas of provincial concern.

And speaking of electoral reform...

There's the case of Rob Anders, as viewed by the National Post's Don Mills.

The eastern banana republic

When the cabinet seizes control of what is supposed to be a parliamentary democracy, you get an announcement that the government is appointing a "staunch Tory" to be chief electoral officer.

The root of the current problem goes back to the House of Assembly scandal when the Premier, not the Speaker, seized control of the issue and started to manage the whole thing from the Premier's Office. Contrary to his public protestations, the Premier has been running the show ever since.

In the current situation, if for some reason the House doesn't approve him, the staunch Tory will continue to serve in an acting capacity.

Why wasn't this supposedly non-partisan position recruited through a non-partisan process through the House of Assembly?

And by what authority will the "staunch Tory" get to keep his job even if the legislature finds him unsuitable?

Chuck Furey's appointment was bad enough.

This announcement completely destroys any pretense that the government is accountable to the House of Assembly in any manner whatsoever.

What's say we just skip the fall election and save a bundle of cash using the Yeltsin solution.

After all, when a "staunch Tory" is appointed by a Tory government to a supposedly non-partisan position overseeing an election, it really doesn't take much imagination to figure out that the whole democracy thing has become a sick joke.

The Northern Strategy for Labrador, dissected

With vigor, here and here.

NS improves offshore competitiveness

The Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board has introduced a new exploration license at a lower cost but with a shorter term.

An improbable feast

Geoff Meeker has an interesting post on the difference between the food pictured in commercial fast food advertising and what you actually get at the Arby's, Wendy's or PKF.

As Geoff points out, advertisers use food dressers to primp, spritz and do just about anything else to make the food look pretty much the opposite of what you get when you open the wrapper.

Of course, that just leads one to thinking of what another dresser has accomplished with her demonic arts, right.


Then, there's what you get when you open the greasy paper wrapper, left.

Dion: a man of integrity

From Canadian Press, via the Globe:

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is pledging to foster a relationship of co-operation with Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams, who has a history of high-profile feuds with Ottawa.

Mr. Dion and Mr. Williams met Saturday in St. John's and discussed several issues, including equalization and the province's fisheries, after which Mr. Williams said Mr. Dion is a man he can trust.

The pair said they hadn't intended to reach any formal agreements, but rather open a dialogue that would continue if Mr. Dion is elected prime minister.

"We conclude with the most valuable gain that two human beings may have — mutual trust," Mr. Dion told a news conference following the meeting.

A veritable GPS to the butts of the politically powerful

From the Telegram, Bill Rowe demonstrates once again that he is good at nothing else if not sucking up to autocrats.

Hence his successful service in both the Smallwood and Williams administrations, where he probably spoke truth to power daily using the vocabulary worthy of a Rhodes scholar:

"Yes, Mr. Premier, I do believe the obscurating clouds have now been successfully dissipated and the glorious solar orb is now once more emitting its miraculous benefit at full luminosity safe ensconced from between your nether cheeks".

Rowe endorses the idea of Sir Danny the Good leading a band of seven virtuous sons (and daughters) of The Cause on a Quest for the Holy Grail of More Hand-outs from Ottawa.

Rowe nominates Danny for the lead role. He genuflects so strenuously in doing so (even in writing) that one fears Rowe will poke out an eye or two if he does not calm down.

Andy Wells is cast as, one expects, Sir Lancelot. In true suck-arse fashion, Rowe credits Andy Wells - the other amigo in the little band - for calling this band the Bloc Newfoundland and Labrador. Since Rowe long since abandoned the party he once led - up to a sorry encounter with some brown envelopes - he likely forgets that credit for inventing the most ludicrous idea in Newfoundland political history since A.B. Morine as minister of justice goes to:

Roger Grimes. A Liberal leader who  - unlike Rowe - can say more of his political career than Brian Tobin used to hand out envelopes for him.

Rowe himself?

Likely Bedevere from the Monty Python incarnation of the fairy tale: "and that my Liege is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped...".

That's about the only way one can explain not only the farcical Bloc but lines like this, which Rowe types with all earnestness:

It would be a double whammy. One, Danny could punish Harper for his treachery by helping to deny him a majority government. Two, like Quebec, we’d have a solid group of MPs pulling on the same oar, dedicated solely to this province’s best interests.

Deny Harper a majority government.

Right.

Even the much-vaunted Bloc, which for all the praise it gets from people like Rowe has produced exactly what for Quebec from the Government of Canada...

Zip?

Nada?

Bupkis?

And outside of a few chuckles, that - s.f.a. - is what Bill's latest column is worth.

If the Bloc's 57 or 60 or whatever number they've achieved cannot produce one ounce of influence on anyone outside Quebec, then there is simply no means by which seven could do more.

Power rests in the cabinet, and particularly in the first minister's office. The Blocheads will never see the inside of either, and that is why a Bloc, whether from Quebec, Prince Edward Island or Dannystan would be as useless as, well, writing a book commentary without having read the book.

How odd that Rowe, who has shown himself to be a reliable compass needle for local political butt-lickers, could not figure out the location of the same power source in Ottawa.

Bill's needle is off on this Bloc one.

But, as it did 40 years ago, it still faithfully indicates the motherlode of Newfoundland political magnetism.

Fed changes to Accord cause worry

From the Saturday Telegram, Rob Antle's story on federal changes to the Atlantic Accord (1985). Antle quotes Ron Penney, a member of the provincial negotiating team 20-odd years ago.

That's Penney, standing second from right in the photo.

“If they’re going to unilaterally change a provision of the Atlantic Accord with respect to the equalization phase-out, then what’s to prevent the federal government from changing other fundamental provisions of the Atlantic Accord?” Penney said.

And like you haven't heard this argument before.

Danny loves Loyola

This 1989 clip from CBC coverage of the 1989 provincial Tory leadership convention shows Danny Williams speaking with Deanne Fleet about, of all things, the prospects of Loyola Hearn winning the convention. [The guy who posted it disabled embedding.]

Yes.

The Danny Williams.

Backing the Loyola Hearn.

With all his heart and soul.

If memory serves, one of the commentators - Greg Stamp - wound up working for the eventual winner Tom Rideout.

He asks Williams if he had any regrets at not running. In the pre-campaign days, Williams had criticized the nomination process saying the whole thing wasn't as open as it should have been, in his view. There was some apparent friction between Williams and Rideout.

How times have changed in so many ways.

Too damn sexy

This didn't take long for someone to pump out.

Personally, I was thinking more Marie Antoinette, but it still works.

The guy who threw this together should have really played up Sandra Buckler's comments about the stylist being nice, carrying bags and holding open doors. What a patronising load of rubbish.

Husky to expand Terra Nova presence

From Oil Week:

Husky Energy Ltd. (TSX:HSE) plans an active year of expansions and acquisitions, from bumping up its stake in the offshore Terra Nova project, to increasing upgrader and refinery capacity, the oil and gas producer said Thursday.

Husky, which held its annual shareholders meeting in Calgary on Thursday, said it would be growing its ownership stake in the offshore Newfoundland project by increasing its working interest in developing fields, rather than buying other partners‘ portions.

Excerpts of Charest's instructions to the new cabinet

From le soleil, something for the provincial government to ponder (once they've had it translated):

9 - M. le Ministre des Ressources naturelles et de la Faune :

Vous aiderez le secteur forestier à sortir renforcé de la crise actuelle. Après l'annonce de la construction du projet hydroélectrique Eastmain 1-A Rupert, vous mettrez en chantier le projet La Romaine, sur le Basse-Nord. Vous poursuivrez le développement des énergies vertes et alternatives dont l'éolien dans le respect des populations locales. Et vous agirez de manière à ce que l'essor du secteur minier génère le maximum de retombées et d'emplois dans nos régions. En plus de ces fonctions, vous serez ministre responsable des régions du Bas-Saint-Laurent, de la Côte-Nord et du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean.

10 - M. le ministre du Développement économique, de l'Innovation et de l'Exportation, ministre responsable de l'Accord sur le commerce intérieur et ministre du Tourisme : Votre priorité est la prospérité du Québec. Vous augmenterez la création d'emplois dans les régions. Vous ferez en sorte que le secteur manufacturier puisse mieux s'adapter à la concurrence internationale. Vos maîtres mots seront "productivité" et "innovation". Le tourisme est un secteur économique de première importance et un levier de diversification pour les régions. Vous ferez la promotion de la destination Québec en toute saison. En plus de ces fonctions, vous serez ministre responsable de la métropole. Notre gouvernement travaillera en étroite collaboration avec les leaders politiques, économiques et sociaux de Montréal. (...)

Hearn hits back

Federal fish minister Loyola Hearn delivered a luncheon speech on Friday in which he took a few strips off the provincial government, in return for the strips Premier Danny Williams took off Hearn's hide a few days ago.

Hearn, seen at right at a function some months ago, seemed to be either pointing fingers at the Premier or, perhaps, inviting the feisty Mr. Williams to see what happens when he pulled Hearn's finger.

There is nothing uglier than a fight within a family.

Regular Bond readers will recall the cat fight last year, left [not exactly as illustrated], over Premier's scheme to install Andy Wells as head of the offshore regulatory board. That, too, had all the earmarks of a fight a la Crystal and Alexis.

Incidentally, Hearn's remarks as quoted by the CBC story kinked above as well as other reports on the speech, will seem familiar to Bond Papers' readers. Several federal departments are regular Bond readers but that is likely nothing more than a coincidence.

One thing is certain from today: John Crosbie had some good advice for both Williams and Hearn. Premier Williams should consider Mr. Hearn a potential asset in trying to deal with the current dispute on a diplomatic level. Crosbie knows exactly how much can be accomplished by a federal regional minister on behalf of the province.

He's done it before throughout disputes between St. John's and Ottawa during both the Brian Peckford and Clyde Wells administrations. The relationship between a premier and a regional minister doesn't always have to be amicable.

Heavens knows that Wells and Crosbie often had a few choice words for each other both publicly and - to tell tales out of school - in private. Let's just say that soundproof doors aren't quite so soundproof when two strong-willed politicians are involved in what can euphemistically be termed a difference of opinion. Through it all, though, they still met and they still took each others' telephone calls.

Can the same be said of the current situation?

Maybe Crosbie has another clue to a fundamental change that needs to happen.

If not, then Hearn's comment today on fighting it out in an election might be the only way to resolve matters. Perhaps Mr. Williams would consider running as an independent Progressive Conservative in the next federal election, potentially leading - as did Lucien Bouchard - a nationalist bloquiste party.

Williams could even take Hearn on directly, that is if Hearn will be running next time out. As much as your humble e-scribbler would not like to see that blood letting on his own front lawn, that contest might just get all the testosterone out of the air and let people start building productive relationships again.

No need for Canadian Tire to stock up on mounds of absorbent pads just yet, though. Current word from Ottawa is that there won't be an election until sometime in 2008.

In the meantime, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are likely to hear the family next door in a knock-down, drag-out on the front lawn for months to come.

*sigh*

-30-

Your serial government at work

There's a northern "strategic plan" for Labrador.

Labrador is north, so that bit is redundant.

Well, unless the plan is for northern Labrador.

Anyway...

As the news release notes, this "plan" fulfils a commitment from the 2005 throne speech. That means it has taken two full years to generate this document.

That's a pretty long time, especially considering that things like a wind power project and Lower Churchill development have already started in the case of the latter, or been postponed (the former) while this plan was being developed.

So what's the thrust of the document? Well, there is the obligatory commitment to sweeping goals of making things "better". There is plenty of cash committed here and that likely is the real purpose of the document: spending in an election year.

Other than that, most of the initiatives in the plan are already in train or are the sorts of things that one might expect, like building schools where needed and improving access to health care.

There is a curious one under natural resource development:

Support Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro to conduct an ACOA funded assessment of technical options for natural gas developments off Labrador...

If Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is going to get into oil and gas development, then that could be a good thing. It could be - conditional language - since we don't know what Hydro's role will look like or what the financial implications are.

In this specific case, the technical options for developing gas offshore Labrador could be explored and likely would be explored - if they have not been explored already - by the license holders.

It is curious that the Hydro corporation will be studying these options. But it is even more curious that studying the options requires federal funding through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). Surely Hydro has enough retained earnings to fund the study.

Beyond that, though and aside from all the good things to happen in Labrador, this document bears all the marks of something completed over two years ago. Note the number of phrases which project ore shipments and employments levels...for 2006. In early 2007, those projections should be easy since the year is past. Hindsight is always more accurate than foresight.

This is your serial government at work.

Not only does it take two years to complete a "strategy", but the strategy contains no concrete measurable goals to judge success. Major strategic decisions on everything from a new hydroelectric project, delay of a wind power project and decisions on new mine developments in western Labrador are all taken before the "strategy" is in place. On top of that, document is actually held up through the bureaucratic process to the point where it is announced fully two years after it started.

Surely it would have been nice to develop an actual strategy, one that lays out the guiding principles for its various components like health care and resource development.

Surely it would have been nice to have those principles before decisions are made.

-30-

The Imperial Prime Minister

Apparently requires a psychic, luggage-carrying dresser.

Steve joins Tsarina Alexander, Nancy Reagan, Marie Antoinette and others not actually holding power yet spending public money on nonsense.

Let them eat cake, indeed.

Did Danny consent?

Over at Offal News, Simon Lono has another take on the implications of the federal government's Equalization changes.

Lono makes the point that by changing the Atlantic Accord (1985), the current federal administration has raised troubling questions about any agreement between a provincial and the Government of Canada.

He's right.

But there's a couple of curious things about the Atlantic Accord (1985) Lono did touch on.

Let's add those in right now.

Under s. 64 of the agreement, the province may request that the entire deal be entrenched in the Constitution.

64. The Government of Canada agrees that should the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador achieve the requisite support among the other provinces for the constitutional entrenchment of the Accord that it would introduce a mutually agreeable resolution into Parliament.

No provincial administration has made such a request. Frankly, there's no public indication any provincial government ever tried to secure such entrenchment.

That simply reinforces Lono's content on the importance of the Accord. It isn't just any other piece of legislation that can be amended easily by one or the other party. The Atlantic Accord (1985) is about as close to a constitutional document as you can get and either party would tamper with it at its peril.

Beyond at though, there's another clause that bears on the current issue Lono raises.

60. Except by mutual consent, neither government will introduce amendments to the legislation or regulations implementing the Accord.

That sentence makes it pretty clear that if the federal government is altering the offset provisions of the 1985 agreement, they would need provincial consent to do so.

So did Premier Danny Williams consent?

If the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador agreed to the changes contained in Bill C-52, then the Premier's current public posture is sheer crap. He could not have been misled since the provincial government would have been fully aware of the proposed amendments and would have had to agree to them before they were tabled in the House of Commons.

Assuming - and that's dangerous with this administration given the Hibernia South experience - that they exercised appropriate due diligence, government officials and any external consultants they hired would have assessed the implications of the changes.

Now in his scrum, Williams was clear to accuse the feds of misleading his government, but he focused the bulk of his comments on misleading a private citizen. He spent considerable time accusing the finance department of misleading the public and Wade Locke.

Now if Williams misspoke in saying he had been misled, and instead meant to focus on what happened with the public, then Williams may well have consented to the changes. He just failed to us that. If that's the case then Danny Williams is as guilty of misleading the public as anyone else.

The feds are right in that scenario: Danny is just looking for a headline. He's looking to manufacture a crisis for what many are now speculating is coming: a referendum on separation. His confrontational approach to federal-provincial relations would certainly be consistent with that interpretation. It would also fit if the same guy giving him long-term strategic advice is the same political putz who thought it was a great idea to rip down Canadian flags. Overall, it fits with Williams' record of vicious anti-Ottawa rhetoric.

Now if the feds didn't tell anyone what was going on, then Williams has a legal case to overturn at least one set of changes to C-52. Then Williams is right.

But something says that if he had such an unequivocal case, Williams would be launching a lawsuit pretty freakin' quick. In that context, C-52 is such an incontrovertible breach of such an important agreement that every court in the land would smack Harper and Flaherty between the eyes in unequivocal terms.

All someone has to do is ask the feds and the province.

Oh yes, and ask for any documents demonstrating whichever scenario is correct. Danny Williams told us all the provincial premier's supported his 2005 deal. We still haven't seen any proof of that.

-30-

Two degrees of separation

Fox News brunette Coulter-wannabe, Rachel Marsden.

Check out the links on the left of her bio page.

Yep. Fight the Seal Hunt.

Look up though and find a link to Canada Free Press. CFP is an eclectic collection of commentary from across a wide spectrum.

One of CFP's regular contributors is this guy, from Newfoundland and Labrador. One of his recent columns was this piece on the failure of the seal hunt protestors' restaurant boycott.

There's absolutely no connection between the two of these people except that by some coincidence that has nothing to do with anything but fluke, some Fox News entertainer with anti-seal hunt inclinations winds up promoting to her American audience a Canadian site with at least one writer who has some pretty strong views in another direction.

There is the Internet in a nutshell.

Brown and browned off

Give credit for the title to CBC television's supperhour news and the banter between the anchors after a segment on Premier Danny Williams' comments on Wednesday about the ongoing racket with Ottawa about Equalization and offsets.

Williams was back in the province today after spending a couple of weeks someplace sunny.

Brown he is, thanks to a tan.

Browned off?

Well, that's a local expression for being annoyed or upset.

In a scrum with reporters on Wednesday, Williams called for finance minister Jim Flaherty to resign. Williams also tore strips off federal fish minister Loyola Hearn - the regional minister for Newfoundland and Labrador - as well as Conservative members of parliament Fabian Manning and Norm Doyle.

One of the consistent problems for anyone trying to figure out the whole issue is what the federal government has actually done. Skim through the initial budget documents and one would have a hard time finding any reference to a cap being applied to both the 1985 Atlantic Accord and to the 2005 offset agreement. What you will find is the following reference to Equalization:

A fiscal capacity cap to ensure that Equalization payments do not unfairly bring a receiving province’s overall fiscal capacity to a level higher than that of any non-receiving province.

Many people in Newfoundland and Labrador - your humble e-scribbler included - took this to mean that the existing offset agreements, both of which are tied to Equalization and are limited in duration, would still operate until such time as Newfoundland and Labrador exceeded the national per capita fiscal capacity as determined by whatever Equalization formula is in effect.

It appears that Memorial University economist Wade Locke worked on the same assumption for his initial analysis, even after extensive discussions with federal officials. Danny Williams certainly appears to have taken that meaning from the federal budget. He told a CBC radio audience on March 26 that the province would likely opt for the O'Brien formula by 2009. That would be consistent with Locke's assessment, made public two weeks after Williams made those comments

It seems as well that federal fisheries minister Loyola Hearn had a similar impression. He assured Newfoundlanders and Labradorians that once they saw the details, their initial fears would be allayed. That was what he said on March 22. As recently as last Friday, he said much the same thing. Hearn is a smart old politician and he is just too smart to fall into the sort of trap that his predecessor John Efford built for himself and then jumped into.

That perspective on the offset agreements changed on Monday with Jim Flaherty's admission that in fact the federal government would be unilaterally applying caps to the agreements. Of course, in the process, Flaherty had to savage a few facts, but that seems to be a common feature of public life these days.

Taken altogether, it's easy to understand Danny Williams' latest anger. He's right, by the way: Flaherty jerked everybody around. The federal finance leprechaun has been too cute by half. Williams hasn't pointed it out - and he likely won't, but the changes to the 1985 Atlantic Accord have far more serious implications than anything else.

That deal is not just a simple piece of legislation to be changed at a whim. It represents the basis on which Newfoundland and Labrador derives all its oil and gas benefits. The federal legislation enables a landmark agreement in federal-provincial relations and the offset benefits - temporary and declining are a part of the package of financial benefits it contains. The Equalization offsets were intended to provide additional cash to Newfoundland and Labrador on a temporary basis to allow for economic infrastructure development that, frankly, hasn't really been possible until recently.

Williams winds up with a few of problems as he looks at the current federal-provincial mess.

Biggest among them is that he simply has absolutely no means of communicating seriously with the federal government. His last potential allies - the three Conservative MPs - are all dirt under his feet. Williams started the whole mess with Harper at least last October in Gander, and as much as he insists he did the right thing, kicking the Prime Minister in the crotch - publicly - isn't designed to win any friends.

And friends are needed in politics. Even if people aren't friends, you at least need them to not be enemies. Politics is about the art of the deal, about maximizing gains inside a realistic set of options. It's not about Mr. Right, to steal a phrase. Sometimes it's about Mr. Right for Now. Perfect isn't ever possible, but there are plenty of really good possibilities short of perfection. you can cut those deals - good, beneficial deals - on a range of issues if your head is screwed on properly.

But if all you do is set fire to their underwear, the odds of winning people over is slim. When you take to their Stanfield's with a flamethrower, well don't be surprised if they don't invite you over to dinner to meet the kids and the rest of the family. Be surprised if they don't look for a restraining order.

On another level, though, Williams' fundamental argument isn't designed to win converts from among the non-converts. We've said it before. For the federal government and for mainlanders generally, we need to explaining what is in it for them. The Premier hasn't been able to do that, at all.

The weakness of the whole Equalization argument about clawbacks - as fraudulent as it is - takes away the one selling point: we make money; you make money. Instead, them making money becomes a crime. They - the undifferentiated foreign exploiting demons - take what is ours and, according to Williams, by God he will get it back by force if necessary. Any wonder people have tuned out?

Of course, it really doesn't help when your finance minister rejects deficit and debt fighting all the while you are holding out a big debt as one of the big reasons you need federal hand-outs.

Danny Williams lamented recently that mainlanders don't seem to understand how prosperity here benefits there, wherever there is.

Well, the real test of his abilities as a Great Negotiator and a politician will be in how he tackles that challenge.

It's his job to explain the point. He can do it.

The question is will he.

Doing an endless repetition of one of his first interviews - three freakin' years later - just isn't cutting it so far.

Spend 'em if ya got 'em

At a time when the provincial government is screaming that it needs federal handouts to deal with a huge public debt, finance minister Tom Marshall defends fiscally irresponsible budgeting.

The Offal News take.

The North-South connexion

From Walrus magazine, a four-pager on growing economic ties between Canadian provinces and American states.

All three of these transnational political groupings represent a new chapter in North American governance, with both Canada and the blue states bringing powerful assets to the partnership. Canada’s vast energy reserves (including hydro, natural gas, oil from the Alberta tar sands, and, potentially, Newfoundland’s offshore reserves, as well as wind power across the Prairies) provide the kind of energy security that is essential to make transnational political regions semi-autonomous.

-30-

Conoco Canada boss looking at expanded presence

ConocoPhillip's new chief executive officer in Canada is interested in developing the company's Canadian assets.

Of the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore, Kevin Meyers said:

"There are a multitude of options out there [to reduce greenhouse gas emissions]. A lot of them will require technologies to be developed, so we are looking for greenhouse gas policies that are cognizant of this." Newfoundland: The company wants to explore in the Laurentian Basin off Newfoundland, but won't move forward until the province sets fiscal terms for natural gas production, likely in conjunction of Premier Danny Williams' long-awaited energy policy, expected this spring. "Do we want to drill? Yes. It is difficult for us to come forward with any public plans about drilling exploration wells in the Laurentian Basin until we have an understanding of what the fiscal regime is going to be," Mr. Meyers said.

Meyers told the National Post that Canada is an attractive investment prospect since its stable political and fiscal climate offsets many of the challenges of developing oil and gas fields which, as Meyers describes it "can be marginal in nature. They are always in the cutting edge of cost and service or supply, but that stability of fiscal regime helps offset that.

Meyers warned though: "You do worry when government starts to take away that advantage it has."

Like in Newfoundland and Labrador, one wonders.

Meyers should understand the political climate on Canada's Eastern Front. His last post was running Conoco's operations in Russia under Vladimir Putin.

-30-

The future of rural Newfoundland

Craig Westcott's latest commentary for CBC radio [ram file] and Merv Wiseman's reaction. [ram file].

Westcott was his usual bold self. He called for government to stop paying lip service to problems, to stop "conning people" into believing that some bureaucratic plan built on a theatre festival will save things.

He notes that the salvation of rural Newfoundland would be creating a pool of skilled workers. Out of those educated young people will come the source of new ideas or people who can change and adapt more readily than their forebears.

Wiseman is an excellent proponent of the reactionary approach, rooted in the old rural development movement that infiltrated the economic development boards and turned them, in too many cases, from producers of results based on local opportunities to producers of government grant applications for further studies into the magical properties of another blueberry festival or golf course.

Wiseman essentially spouts buzzwords like innovation as if throwing up a few whalebones and calling it a museum actually gets at the core of the issue. He misses entirely the educational and demographic challenges that are already here in many parts of the province.

A clue to his headspace? Wiseman refers to the consequences of Newfoundland dieing, not rural Newfoundland but Newfoundland, as if what was in the mythical idyllic past is all that ever was and ever can be.

His major thrust was that Westcott was being too negative. That's it. Too negative. As if smiling and denying would suffice for anything except convincing people that you were in need of therapy.

There was nothing in Wiseman's comments to deal with the substance of the issue, namely the changes that will come - some inevitably - in the mythical entity Wiseman and Westcott call rural Newfoundland.

At least Westcott did that with his comments on education. Rather than seeking to hang on to as much of what was and is, Westcott talked about the simple foundation for adaptability. He pointed correctly to the value of education in building successful economies - and societies - in a host of places from Iceland to Asia.

Education was a key idea component in development ideas 15 years ago. More scholar for the dollar, as then education minister Phil Warren called it. Education reform in the early 1990s was about giving our young people the tools they need to build their own lives and with that their province and the future.

By the late 1990s though, and continuing today, education decisions were often about keeping schools in communities with fewer an fewer children as a symbol of the community's future. Keeping more and more teachers teaching fewer and fewer children with resource spread around such that the overall quality of education stayed about the same.

More dollar. Less scholar.

And Merv Wiseman? Well, he never really had any concrete, positive actions to show what is going on.

If they are out there and Wiseman had talked about them, he'd have been far more convincing than accusing Westcott of patronizing people.

Patronizing them is what the old rural development crowd do all the time with their talk. And if that's all they have, then Newfoundland and Labrador generally, not just the rural bits, is doomed.

Facts do matter

Except to this man, apparently.

From federal finance minister Jim Flaherty's latest Equalization news release:

To do so [not to alter two federal-provincial agreements unilaterally] would give Newfoundland and Labrador access to Equalization payments above all the other Equalization provinces even though its fiscal capacity is higher than Ontario's and British Columbia's, which receive no Equalization payments.

If Newfoundland and Labrador's own-source fiscal capacity exceeds the national standard for Equalization, then the province doesn't qualify for either Equalization or for Equalization offsets contained in the 2005 agreement between Prime Minister Paul Martin and Premier Danny Williams:

5. If in any fiscal year in the period 2006-07 to 2011-12 the province does not qualify for receipt of an Equalization payment, no additional offset payment in respect of clause 4 will be made for that fiscal year beyond the payment specified in the existing Atlantic Accord.

The federal Equalization formula currently used and the O'Brien formula contained in Flaherty's 2007 budget set the standard used to determine if a province qualifies for Equalization.

That standard in both cases is below the fiscal capacity of Ontario (the lowest non-recipient province) by several hundred dollars per person.

Yes, facts do matter, Jim.

They just don't matter to the current federal administration.

Obviously.

That was then. This is now.

Then, federal foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay said:

"It is important to note that if Nova Scotia opts for the new system, it doesn't have to give up its Accord–in fact, the Accord will be fully respected and continue to provide benefits to Nova Scotia," said Minister MacKay. The Accord provided Nova Scotia with $830 million immediately upon signing.

Then - a mere few days ago - federal fish minister Loyola Hearn told reporters much the same thing:

Hearn insists the Atlantic Accord, which the province and Nova Scotia negotiated with the former Liberal government in 2005, is safe.

"Are we going to get screwed? The answer is no, we're not," Hearn told reporters Friday.

"Are we going to be disadvantaged … by a billion dollars or by a dollar? The answer to that is no, because the government of Canada committed that we would not be disadvantaged."

Then, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons:

"The Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador asked repeatedly that this government reject the recommendation of the O'Brien commission that would have put a cap on the equalization benefits of the Atlantic accord," Harper said to the House.

"The Atlantic Accord is preserved in this budget and is preserved due to the good work of the minister of fisheries and oceans and of course other members of our Newfoundland and Labrador caucus. Promise made and promise kept."

Now, finance minister Jim Flaherty admits that his budget caps Equalization offset payments in both the 1985 Atlantic Accord and a supplementary deal in 2005:

The province will also have the right to opt permanently into the new, improved, Canada-wide Equalization system. This choice provides the province with flexibility for the future and improves Newfoundland and Labrador's chance of qualifying for an extension beyond the existing system. If the province chooses the new Equalization system, it is only fair that the whole package would apply, including the fiscal capacity cap, to ensure fairness. In this case, it would not be just to other provinces if only Newfoundland and Labrador is allowed to double-dip or cherry-pick only those parts of the new Equalization program that will benefit the province.

To do so would give Newfoundland and Labrador access to Equalization payments above all the other Equalization provinces even though its fiscal capacity is higher than Ontario's and British Columbia's, which receive no Equalization payments. [Emphasis added]

To apply the cap, the Government of Canada is unilaterally amending both the 1985 Atlantic Accord signed by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Premier Brian Peckford and the 2005 deal between Prime Minister Paul Martin and Premier Danny Williams.

Forget a broken election promise.

Harper and his cabinet can't even stick to the same commitment over the course of four weeks.

To see the full impact of this latest revelation, compare Wade Locke's original analysis and the one based on capping what they said wasn't capped.

If the provincial government had waited until the evidence was amassed, the impact of this Conservative perfidy would hav been plain for all to see.

-30-

Connies write off three NL ridings

A news release like this one virtually guarantees the seven seats in Newfoundland and Labrador will represented by someone other than a Conservative after the next federal election.

It confirms that federal government will be altering the 1985 and 2005 offshore agreements if and when the Newfoundland and Labrador government adopts the new Equalization program, something they never mentioned until caught at it last week.

How many times have the federal Conservatives said there were or would be no caps on the Atlantic Accord?

Surprise.

It isn't a cap.

It's a hood.

Around Bond Papers, we've been callin' 'em Connies for a couple of years.

Seems they are Connies.

Trying to con people into giving them votes.

Danny Williams must be especially rotted, seeing as he threw his lot in with these guys, even though it was painfully obvious at the time what the result would be.

Danny Williams even attributed things to Harper that Harper never even said, all in an effort to get Harper a few seats.

Wow.

That's gotta hurt.

-30-

Update: Among the others like Danny Williams smarting at the latest Harper political shaft must be the local talk show maven who sometimes calls herself Hydroqueen.

She spent a lot of time shilling for Steve Harper and his local candidates during the last federal election.

She even invented bizarre political theories to bolster her argument. Hydroqueen was wrong in the theory and, as it turns out, in the practice as well.

Maybe we need to start a special Homer Simpson gallery of people who backed Harper in 2005, lambasted any Liberal in sight on a purely partisan basis, and who today are feeling just a wee bit used.

Update Update: Yet another person who fell for the Connie job. Well, "fell" doesn't accurately describe someone who actually reworked reality in an effort to back his cause, but let's be generous.

NL town suffers second major landslide

The first was last fall.

The second was this past weekend and it continues on Monday.

Odd that only last month, the provincial government stopped paying assistance to people thrown out of their homes by the last emergency. The province also refused any financial assistance to people who could not return to their homes because of safety concerns.

Lucky for them, their houses have now fallen into the ocean.

Jack Byrne, the provincial municipal affairs minister, is now talking about getting the feds to compensate the homeowners.

Goodale calls Harper move "betrayal" of NL and NS

From Canadian Press.

"The worst betrayal of all was the barefaced failure to tell the truth on the issue of equalization and the Atlantic accord," he told Liberal MP Geoff Regan's nomination meeting.

Vote early. Vote often

Angus Reid's on-line survey.

Sign up.

Get to vote on questions like "Is Andy Wells doing a good job as mayor?".

Watch the results currently answering that question in the negative, 55% to 45%.

Mario Dumont: a constitutional fantasyland

From ctv.ca:

Quebec's new Opposition leader says he's ready to begin major talks that would facilitate the signing of the 1982 Canadian Constitution.

Is Quebec now in some sort of constitutional limbo?

M. Dumont peddles the same old fantasies that others have tried before. It would seem his version of something he calls autonomism is just the same old stuff we have heard before the Parti Quebecois and others.

Perhaps we should call it automatonism since that is what the federal government would likely be reduced to, a mindless follower of the dictates of one or all the provincial premiers.

And purely for local automatonists, a flashback to Morningside and a 38 minute discussion during the last effort to foist on the country the mythology of Quebec being outside the constitution.

The change Locke found

In Wade Locke's original analysis, he used the assumption that Equalization offsets provided for in the 2005 offshore revenue agreement and enabled by the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador Additional Fiscal Equalization Offset Payments Act, S.C. 2005, c. 30, c. 85, would continue as originally intended.

Under that Act as it currently stands, the additional offset is calculated based on the difference between what the provincial government received in Equalization under the formula in use at the time.

The Equalization changes contained in the 2007 budget gave the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador an option of which Equalization formula would apply.

However, s.84 of the budget implementation Act (C-52) makes a significant change to the 2005 implementation Act by imposing a definition of the Equalization system in use at the time to mean the O'Brien formula.

84. The definition “fiscal equalization payment” in section 18 of the Act is replaced by
the following:

“fiscal equalization payment” means (a) for the purposes of section 22, the fiscal equalization payment that would be received by the Province for a fiscal year if the amount of that payment were determined in accordance with section 3.2 of the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, without regard to section 3.4 of that Act; and,

(b) for the purposes of sections 24 to 26, the fiscal equalization payment that would be received by the Province for a fiscal year under Part I of the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act if the Province’s total per capita fiscal capacity were the amount determined by the formula

A + B + (C / F)

where

A, B, C and F have the same meaning as in the definition "total per capita fiscal capacity" in subsection 3.5(1) of that Act.

As a result, even in a year in which the province used the existing Equalization system (100% of resource revenues included), the additional offsets would be reduced since the O'Brien formula already offsets half of resource revenues.

Additionally, the use of the O'Brien formula, which includes a cap on payments, the proposed changes in the budget implementation legislation would change the meaning of s. 22 of the 2005 implementation Act. Under the current meaning of that legislation, no additional offset payment would be received if the provincial government did not receive an Equalization payment.

In the operation of the Equalization system and the offsets agreements as currently in effect, no payment would be paid if the province did not qualify for Equalization. However, under the O'Brien formula, the province may qualify for Equalization, but receive no payment in years where a combination of all revenues (own source plus Equalization plus Equalization offsets) exceeds the per capita fiscal capacity of the lowest non-recipient province.

Given the amendments contained in Bill C-52, Newfoundland and Labrador would actually receive no offsets at all in any year where its Equalization payment were reduced to zero as a result of the O'Brien cap.

There is no obvious reason for making this change. If the federal government wanted to give effect to both the 2005 agreement and the 2007 budget - allowing for choices - Bill C-52 would necessitate only modest changes, if any, to the implementation acts for 1985 Atlantic Accord and the 2005 agreement.

National Poetry month

A few suggestions:

1. The Poems of Ewan McTeagle.

2. Wilfred Owen

3. Celia, Celia, by Adrian Mitchell:

When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope has gone
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on

4. Healy Willan, Canadian composer, organist and devoted limerick afficionado:

There once was a man from East Sheen
Whose musical ear was not keen.
He said, "It is odd,
But I cannot tell 'God
Save the Weasel' from 'Pop! Goes the Queen'"

Soldiering on

An unidentified soldier salutes the remains of two comrades as they are loaded on Canadian Forces aircraft bringing them back to Canada.

The soldier is from an unspecified community in Conception Bay, Newfoundland.

Evolution's bitch

Scientists have discovered similarities between Tyrannosaurus Rex DNA and that of a modern chicken.

From world-dominating predator to a lunch meat for kids all in a few million years.

T. Rex: Darwin's bitch.

Darwin's other bitches?

Guys who fancy themselves the next Mike Holmes just because they saw it on television.

Upping rates better than less for longer

A panel reviewing parental and maternity benefits is recommending that the claim period be extended.

How about just changing the amount paid instead?

Currently parental and maternity benefits under the Employment Insurance program are pegged at the same rate as EI, that is 55% of previous salary.

The panel also recommended changing the rates. Good for them.

That's a simple initiative most parents would readily accept, even if the benefit period remained limited to one year.

Premature gasket-blowing

From Tom Marshall, minister of finance:

The Honourable Tom Marshall, Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board, today confirmed that the federal government has misled the Provincial Government and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador regarding the true implications of the new equalization program as outlined in its 2007 Budget.

However, as Simon Lono points out at Offal News, there is something odd about Marshall's release in that it provides no provincial government calculations. Indeed, the provincial government has thus far provided not a shred of information or analysis to back its original contentions on Equalization. Ditto for the federal government, represented in this case by federal fish minister Loyola Hearn.

As Offal puts it:

You would think the Hearn would release numbers of his own to defend the federal position. He does not. Instead he's reduced to a weak claim that no province will be harmed.

But does he actually have any real idea whether the province will be harmed? Apparently not.

As for Marshall, he's definitely on the warpath now. And you can expect the Premier to be leading the barbarians at the federal gate as soon as he gets home.

But didn't Marshall already know that Locke's numbers were off in the first place?

Apparently not.

Wade Locke's latest analysis is interesting for two reasons.

First, it suggests that there is an interpretation of eligibility for Equalization offsets which is different from the one used in his original presentation. More will follow on that in a separate post.

Specifically, Locke quotes this section of an e-mail from an unnamed senior federal finance official:

In effect, NL would be eligible to receive Equalization and offsets as long as long its own-source per capita fiscal capacity (including non-resource yields and 100% of resource revenues) is not equal to or greater than the own-source per capita fiscal capacity of the non-receiving province with the lowest per capita fiscal capacity. [Italics in original]

On the face of it, this section does not contradict what appears to be the intention of the 2005 offshore deal or the 2007 federal budget as announced.

What Locke has done here is identified a potential issue. It is far from proven conclusively. As well, the provincial government appears to have blown a gasket before conducting its own review. Tom Marshall stated in a number of interviews that his officials were still seeking clarification on the issue, he had endeavoured to have the issue clarified with his federal counterpart and that provincial justice officials were reviewing the federal legislation. In one interview it appeared that Marshall was entirely unaware of this issue until Locke brought it to his attention sometime before Locke's news release today.

The one thing that can be concluded from this entire episode over the past 24 hours is that federal-provincial relations are at an all time low state. Marshall's inflammatory news release, done with the full approval of the Premier presumably, will not help resolve this matter successfully.

Claiming to be misled is one thing, if you have evidence and can prove it. Flaming the federal government - or anyone, for that matter - without substantive evidence is grossly unprofessional.

Dr. Locke has provided an invaluable public service with his analysis. Would that the politicians acted with the same professionalism he has displayed.