Private company wants equity in Lower Churchill?

Nova Scotia-based Emera would likely be looking for an ownership stake in the Lower Churchill if Halifax journalist Jim Meeks is right.

For Nova Scotia Power, it’s all about Nova Scotia.

For Emera, it’s not about geography but about opportunity.

You could see the differences between the two companies this week, when they each signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Newfoundland Power to (possibly) take power from the proposed Lower Churchill hydro project.

NSP wants another source of renewable energy for this province.

Emera wouldn’t mind that either. But it would also want a piece of the action if a subsea power line from Labrador lands in New Brunswick.

It could "wheel" that electricity through its enhanced transmission system in Maine, which it would like to extend to Boston.

So here's a question for the Premier:  if it would be bad to sell Labrador power to Quebec so it wheels the power to other customers at a higher price than they paid for it, why would it be better to have the same situation occur if the Labrador power was sold to a Nova Scotia private company? 

So much for go-it-alone.

-srbp-

Mealy Mountains National Park in limbo

A victim of the family feud otherwise called ABC?

Mired in competing interests with the provincial government and other interests looking for ways to make sure mines in the area could develop? That would be kinda short sighted given the economic benefits of a national park.

Land claims hold ups?

A feasibility study was conducted in 2001.

it's 2008.

Why the hang up?

-srbp-

But why the other "N" word, Warren?

In some of the corners of the online word, Warren Kinsella and Damien Penny are slogging it out over something or other.

But would Penny being from Newfoundland -  a "Newf" as Warren puts it - be relevant to the discussion?

Methinks not, but this will soon become another example of the great evils done to the Far East of the Western World by mainlanders.

Can't we all just get along, people?

Super duper quick update:  Warren apologises.

-srbp-

House of Assembly scandal: why "no comment" is not an answer

Bond digs deeper and finds surprising result in AG saga

It's one thing to be blamed for something you did.

It's quite another to be blamed for something you didn't do.

It's another thing again to be accused of something you didn't do and then keep silent about the whole business.

In this instance, we are talking about a supposed gag order applied by the House of Assembly on the Auditor General when he makes reports on the legislature's operations.

The Telegram reported in late December that provisions of the House Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act "sets out special treatment for MHAs and House staff who may have improperly retained public money, and gags the auditor general from talking about such situations."

CBC recently took up the same point. On top of that the opposition party leaders are now raising questions about the issue.

The Canadian Press story on the opposition leaders' comments makes a fundamental error of fact when it states this:

The new law exempts legislature members and some staff from public auditor general reports involving "the improper retention or misappropriation of public money.

A Telegram editorial makes a similar erroneous comment:

It also means that we will probably never see another scandal like the one uncovered by the AG.

Why? Because, among other reasons, if an AG finds such a scandal, he or she is now specifically forbidden to tell us about it.

Pure nonsense. Bond Papers already dealt with the Telly editorial, but it's worth reviewing it again.

Section 45 of the new House of Assembly administration act sets out essentially the same directions to the Auditor General as the ones contained in s.15 of the Auditor General Act:  if he or his officials find a suspected case of improper retention of public funds, then he must report the case to authorities. s.45 specifies more people must be advised of the report than under the old s.15 and it includes - for the first time - clear direction that the accused person must have the right to address the allegations from the outset.

And while it's true that s. 45 does say the Auditor General cannot disclose anything about the report initially, as with s. 15, the AG is required - by law - to include a reference to the report in his next major report to the House of Assembly.  That is a public document. Even in the worst case scenario, the longest period that would pass before the public would learn something of a s.45 report is a year.

12 months.

Not never.

Well, unless there is a conspiracy of such dimensions that no law could be written to preclude it. But for all conceivable circumstances and in light of the scandal itself, it is very hard to see how reporters might miss such a reference next month or the month after or even in three years time.

Just to be sure, here are the two sections of the bills laid side by side, in their entirety so you can read for yourself. The words are simple.  The sentences are not complex.

 

Auditor General Act

House Accountability, Integrity  and Administration Act

Improper retention of public money 15. (1) Where during the course of an audit, the auditor general becomes aware of an improper retention or misappropriation of public money or another activity that may constitute an offence under the Criminal Code or another Act, the auditor general shall immediately report the improper retention or misappropriation of public money or other activity to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. (2) In addition to reporting to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council under subsection (1), the auditor general shall attach to his or her annual report to the House of Assembly a list containing a general description of the incidents referred to in subsection (1) and the dates on which those incidents were reported to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council.

Improper retention of public money 45. (1)  Where (a) during the course of an audit; (b) as a result of a review of an audit report prepared by another auditor employed by the commission; or (c) as a result of an internal audit procedure, the auditor general becomes aware of an improper retention or misappropriation of public money by a member, the clerk, the clerk assistant or staff of the House of Assembly service or the statutory offices or another activity that may constitute an offence under the Criminal Code or another Act of the province or of Canada, the auditor general shall immediately report the improper retention, misappropriation of public money or other activity to (d) the speaker; (e) the chair of the audit committee; (f) the Premier; (g) the leader of the political party, if any, with which the person involved may be associated; (h) the Attorney General; and (i) the Minister of Finance. (2) In addition to reporting in accordance with subsection (1), the auditor general shall attach to his or her annual report to the House of Assembly a list containing a general description of the incidents referred to in subsection (1) and the dates on which those incidents were reported. (3) Before making a report under subsection (1), the auditor general shall give to a person involved and who may be ultimately named or identified in the report (a) full disclosure of the information of which the auditor general has become aware; and (b) a reasonable opportunity to the person to provide further information and an explanation, and shall take that information and explanation into account in deciding whether to proceed to make a report. (4) The auditor general shall not make the existence or the contents of a report referred to in subsection (1) known to another person except (a) as part of his or her annual report to the House of Assembly; (b) in accordance with a judicial proceeding; (c) as part of proceedings before the Public Accounts Committee; or (d) as a result of a request from the commission. (5) The auditor general is a compellable witness in any criminal or civil proceeding and in a proceeding before the Public Accounts Committee relating to a matter dealt with in a report made under this section. (6) Section 19.1 of the House of Assembly Act does not apply to a report made under this section. (7) Section 15 of the Auditor General Act does not apply to a member, the clerk, clerk assistant or staff of the House of Assembly service.

The silence from the legislature on this has been nothing short of amazing.  There have been no comments from the House of Assembly on the issue and in the Telegram story, the Premier's spokesperson is merely quoted as saying that the Green bill was passed as received. No one from either the House or government has made any comment. 

The Auditor General has dutifully explained to every report who asked his own rationale for staying silent, but as it should be clear, the fellow has gotten some terribly odd legal advice.  Either that or he has taken it in his head to stay completely silent, given that, after all, it was his own unsubstantiated commentaries early on in the scandal and the AG's abusive investigative process that prompted Chief Justice Derek Green to write s.45 in the first place.

Take a look at sections of Green's report and you will be struck by the strong language with which Green criticizes what happened:

Undue publication of the information in a report at such an early stage - before decisions are taken to lay charges, or prosecute or seek reimbursement - risks interfering with important constitutional and other
values. Given the relatively low threshold justifying the making of a report, even though its issuance may cause considerable damage to an individual’s reputation that may be difficult to repair if it is ultimately shown that there is an innocent explanation, one ought to be careful about bandying details about in the public domain. Furthermore, undue publication of the information with its implicit suggestion of impropriety or criminality may have an effect on a person’s constitutional right to a fair trial if charges are ultimately laid.

Still, it was striking that the Auditor General was continuing to decline any public comment on his last report, filed in September 2007, and citing Green.  Both reporters - one at the Telly and the other CBC - contacted Green and got the same reason.  They both came to the same conclusions even though, the plain English of s.45 did not apply to anything but a report on improper retention of public funds. The September mega-report wasn't one of those.

So why no comment from the AG? 

Well, either he had faulty advice, had been ordered to stay silent or there were more reports. Given that the report was made public, an order to keep his mouth shut would be odd, especially since he cited Green as the reason. He might have bad advice, but the most logical reason, namely that there had been more reports filed, is one that simply hadn't been explored by anyone. It would be pointless to ask Green himself since, by diligently following s.45 he wouldn't be able to confirm or deny the existence of a report on improper retention of funds. His silence on the whole report would be smart - under those circumstances - since he would avoid giving a hint on that a specific report existed.

The other officials identified in s.45 weren't constrained by the Act, even though the general principles Green cited in his report would restrict how much they could disclose.

So Bond started at the top and contacted the House of Assembly with a simple question

Has the Auditor General filed any reports in accordance with s. 45 of the Green Act (or s.15 of the AG Act but now covered by the Green Bill) other than those already made public on Hickey, Goudie and the individuals who have been charged?

The response took a few hours but when it came, it was as curious as could be: no comment.

No comment?

Neither "no" nor "yes", but no comment.

If there were no reports, that's easy enough to establish.  If there were reports, then their existence could only be withheld for a period, anyway.  A simple explanation of the fact that one existed and that it was being addressed would be news but - consistent with Chief Justice Green's own comments - details could be legitimately withheld to ensure the fundamental integrity of the process.  Integrity is what Green is all about, right next to accountability.

In the ordinary course, that no comment response would have been the end of it and, duly blogged, the local media would like take up the case.  They may still. In media circles and in public relations circles a flat "no comment" comes with all sorts of baggage, none of which is good.  Much like an American pleading the "fifth", no comment is often taken as being tantamount to an admission, in this case, that at least one new report existed.

Other inquiries lead your humble e-scribbler to conclude that, in fact, there are no other reports. The Auditor General has some odd legal advice or is just keep quiet and using Green as an excuse.  That's something he will have to, and should, answer for.

But at the House of Assembly, there is clearly a need to get a grip on a basic policy to handle this sort of contingency, this sort of question.  It's only by sheer coincidence that two reporters, working separately, made the same erroneous conclusion and didn't ask the obvious.  Frankly it didn't spring readily to mind at Bond until there were three examples of the AG using the same excuse.

Yes, Green creates a new set of issues and policies for the legislature but this one - a report on alleged improper retention of funds - is what broke the whole story in the first place.  In the series of media stories since Christmas, the legislators are being accused of gagging the Auditor General when clearly they haven't.

And a "no comment" response to a simple question maybe now but definitely in the future will only fuel media and public curiosity. The lack of attention to this story from the Speaker, on behalf of the management committee and the House, has allowed some to question the integrity of the very process set in place to restore public confidence. 

That shouldn't be allowed to stand unchallenged.  The House management committee meets this week and the issue of the AG gag is on the agenda.  However, the opposition leaders are coming at it largely based on erroneous media reports. This needs to be dealt with quickly and the public record set straight or the entire legislature will continue to operate under a cloud of suspicion.

Too much disclosure can lead to problems, as Chief Justice Green noted.  He gave the House of Assembly the means to address the problem based on an administrative mechanism to balance accountability with fundamental integrity.

Too little disclosure - in this case no comment - has obviously produced problems for the House and, by extension for every resident of the province.

-srbp-

Better health through booger flushing?

One of the posts at Persuasion Business that garnered the most e-mail attention was a piece on a nasal irrigation device that had managed to score some big attention in the United States, despite what one public relations blog had termed a bad pitch to news media.

Well, the craze has hit St. John's.  One of the flyers that arrived in the mailbox this week included a small ad, right, offering 20% off the price of a little blue teapot-shaped contraption.  The idea is that the spout end goes up your nose and by rinsing out your nasal cavity, you can reduce the symptoms of allergies and colds.

Lovely concept.

The original post included the picture at left showing a charming young woman with what appears to be a porcelain gravy boat jammed in her nostril.

Maybe that's what helped generate the e-mails, most of which included the question "Where do you find this stuff?".

No. No.

Not the bidet. 

The post on it.

Anyway. 

Those who want to be early adopters of the latest health fad can find the little teapots at your local Shoppers Drug Mart.  They may be in other places, but this ad appeared in the weekly SDM flyer.

If you still haven't been convinced - *sigh*- of the value of this little marvel, then check a website for one outfit that has been plugging the idea of plugging a teapot in your snout since 1972. The Himalayan Institute has what they describe as an award winning instructional video.

You'll find the official netipot video at youtube, but if you search you'll also find enough amateur demo vids to make it clear that the thing is obviously a bit of a cult craze.

Yes, yes, we have entered a world in which proboscal lavage is a means of self expression. Notice that in the marketing shots, everyone is having a good time. 

Notice that in the amateur stuff, people are having a good time, but for entirely different reasons.

None of this should be a surprise though. people have been hunting for supposedly natural or holistic health things for decades. If someone could come up with the idea you could live a healthier life with regular "colonic irrigation"using coffee, it was only a matter of time before a less-adventurous but no less dedicated New Ager thought of pouring fluids into another part of the anatomy where fluids don't usually go.

Frankly, there are better uses for coffee and a decent whiskey.

-srbp-

Avec moi, le deluge

In this case a deluge of what Telegram editor Russell Wangersky calls "moaners".

It's easier to say we've never gotten anywhere because of all the things done to us, because of all the efforts to keep us down, because of all of the conspiracies and dirty deals.

It's easy, because that means we never have to take even the slightest little bit of responsibility for anything we do or have done.

Bad business decision? Pardon my French, but "we were screwed!" is always the resulting clarion-call.
And you know what? Every time I hear the pained bleat of "they've done it to us again," a little bit of my heart dies, along with a little bit of my pride in the things we've been able to achieve in this hard and desperate place.

And there must be other people out there who feel the same way I do about it.

So, what are we supposed to be? Victims of what everyone else has done to us, or the survivors of a tough place with, until now, one of the hardest pieces of land and sea in Canada?

Well, said, Russell.

-srbp-

Quebec City mayor shoots back; BC fumes

A poor but passable translation:

It is known well that the Vikings passed by Newfoundland, but there's a difference between a fish and fur counter and the establishment of Quebec in 1608...

Surely his tongue was planted firmly in his cheek at the controversy over whether St. John's or Quebec City is the oldest city in Canada.

Meanwhile aboriginal people across the country are laughing themselves silly at the whole debate.

And on the Wet Coast, there's some consternation that their anniversary is going thus far unblessed by federal funds:

Funding of Quebec fête sparks debate about relative worth
 

Quebec City, 110 million; British Columbia, zero. 
 
That's the score so far in the federal funding game for two parts of 
the country celebrating historic milestones this year. 
 
The Quebec capital, marking the 400th anniversary of its founding by 
Samuel de Champlain, has already been granted $40 million from the 
Department of Canadian Heritage to pay for birthday festivities, with 
an additional $70 million in federal money for infrastructure 
upgrades, including restoration of historical sites. 
 
Meanwhile British Columbia, commemorating the 150th anniversary of its 
establishment as a British Crown colony, has yet to be promised a 
penny from the federal government. 
 
Charles Parkinson, the executive director of the BC150 Secretariat, 
which is organizing the celebration, said he requested funding from 
the federal government last winter, but the request stagnated. 
 
"We went there, but we didn't really hear anything (back)," he said. 
 
However, after persistently arguing his case to the federal 
government, Mr. Parkinson said he now believes that some money will be 
forthcoming. 
 
"Five or six weeks ago, we received a call from Ottawa saying, 'We're 
really interested and we want to talk seriously', " Mr. Parkinson 
said. "The signs coming from Ottawa have been very, very positive. 
It's been slow, but they've been positive." 
 
Officials from Heritage Minister Josée Verner's office declined an 
interview request, but sent an e-mail via the Heritage Department, 
saying the department will consider funding the B.C. celebrations once 
it receives a detailed request. 
 
Mr. Parkinson said he intended to send the detailed request this week. 
 
Hedy Fry, the Liberal MP for the B.C. riding of Vancouver Centre, said 
she hopes the federal government will contribute about $20 million. 
 
"I am being very generous when I say, I know that the federal 
government will be very supportive of this, given that there is a 
precedent in other provinces' centennials and in Quebec's 
celebrations," Ms. Fry said in an interview with the Citizen this 
week. "I think that they should do it from a point of principle." 
 
It's undisputed that Quebec City is extremely important historically, 
as a hub for the fur trade and a base for the French exploration and 
colonization of North America. 
 
But some argue that the government's hype around Quebec has gone too 
far, entering the realm of historical hyperbole. Promotional material 
from the Department of Canadian Heritage states that "the foundation 
of Quebec City also marks the foundation of the Canadian State" and 
that "French is the founding language of Canada." 
 
But B.C. historian Jean Barman argues that Canada, as we now know it, 
did not have a single founding moment. Rather, there were different 
founding events in different territories, which eventually became 
provinces and came together to form today's Canada. 
 
The establishment of B.C. as a Crown Colony in 1858 was one of those 
founding moments, she argues, because the imposition of British rule 
stopped the territory from falling into the hands of the expansionist 
American republic. 
 
"If it hadn't been for 1858, it's very possible that Canada as a 
country would not go coast to coast," said Ms. Barman. 
 
So, if the 400th anniversary of Quebec's founding is worth $110 
million to the Canadian taxpayer, what's the relative worth of B.C.'s 
150th celebration? Or the 500th anniversary of John Cabot's landfall 
in Newfoundland in 1497? Or the 100th anniversary of Alberta and 
Saskatchewan joining Confederation in 1905? 
 
Prominent Canadian historian Jack Granatstein says it's impossible to 
gauge the relative importance of different historical events -- or to 
compare the money allocated to different celebrations, in different 
places, at different times, under different governments. 
 
"You can't. You really can't," he said. "Is an apple more important 
than an orange? Who knows? And it's a mug's game to try and play 
that." 
 
Yet the $110 million granted to Quebec City has raised eyebrows -- and 
perhaps some envy -- among other historic hotspots that received less 
federal government largesse. 
 
According to figures from the provincial government, Newfoundland 
received $5.5 million from the federal government for its Cabot 500 
celebrations in 1997. And the small Nova Scotia community of Annapolis 
Royal, which was colonized in 1605 --pre-dating Quebec City by three 
years -- received just $250,000 from the federal Heritage Department 
to celebrate its 400th anniversary in 2005. 
 

Federal Funding of Recent Historical Celebrations 
 
Quebec City 400th celebrations, 2008 400th anniversary of the founding 
of Quebec City by Samuel de Champlain. 
 
- Government of the day: Stephen Harper's Conservatives 
 
- Federal contribution: $40 million (celebrations); $70 million 
(infrastructure) 
 
British Columbia 150th celebrations, 2008 150th anniversary of the 
establishment of the Crown Colony of British Columbia 
 
- Government of the day: Stephen Harper's Conservatives 
 
- Federal contribution: $0 (at the time of publication) 
 
John Cabot 500th celebrations, 1997 500th anniversary of John Cabot's 
landfall in Newfoundland. 
 
- Government of the day: Jean Chrétien's Liberals 
 
- Federal contribution: $5.5 million (celebrations and infrastructure) 
 
Annapolis Royal 400th celebrations, 2005 400th anniversary of the 
founding of Port Royal by Samuel de Champlain and Pierre Dugua, Sieur 
de Monts. 
 
- Government of the day: Paul Martin's Liberals 
 
- Federal contribution: $250,000 
 
Alberta and Saskatchewan centennials, 2005 100th anniversary of 
Alberta and Saskatchewan joining Confederation. 
 
- Government of the day: Paul Martin's Liberals 
 
Federal contribution: Saskatchewan: $3.1 million (celebrations); $3.1 
million (infrastructure); Alberta: $3.5 million (celebrations); $60 
million (infrastructure)

-srbp-

Hedderson wrong on federal employees in province

A news release from provincial intergovernmental affairs minister Tom Hedderson seems to be a calculated part of the ongoing family feud between the governing Progressive Conservatives and the federal Conservatives, i.e. the party they officially supported in the last federal general election.

Family fights are always nasty.

In this case, Hedderson spouts some information which is - in a word - wrong. labradore has consistently pounded home the facts. The issue has come up on Bond Papers at least once.

However, when the family squabbles or maybe people feel a bit sheepish at having voted against the majority of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians in the last federal election, facts go out the window.

Either way, Hedderson is wrong on the facts.

-srbp-

Dimwits

Radio Noon's "Cross Talk" today had a great question for listeners: How do we get past the impasse between the Premier and the prime Minister? or words to that effect

Well, the simple answer is that one or both sides have to want to get past it. As long as the parties can't even agree on the need to get past the impasse, there's not much chance of resolving a conflict.

What Canadians learned on Wednesday was that contrary to earlier media reports, neither Premier Danny Williams nor Prime Minister Stephen Harper were trying to bury any hatchets in the Equalization feud except maybe between each other's eyes.

You see the starting point for Danny Williams' definition of a resolution is having Harper accept he owes $10 billion to Danny Williams (listen to Williams' scrums and the whole l'etat, c'est moi thing is really obvious).  That acceptance comes with the implicit or explicit acknowledgement that Harper lied during the last election at least on Equalization.

Not surprisingly, Harper isn't interested in admitting he's an untrustworthy person of low or no moral fibre.

You can see the problem here.

The Premier has very deliberately and very consciously framed his attack in highly personal and highly insulting terms. They are terms designed to frustrate a resolution of the conflict.  There's only one person who knows why and he is having too much fun clenching his jaw for the cameras to tell us. But it's gotta be deliberate;  only a complete dimwit would carry on with the insults and then at the same time believe his actions are constructive.

None of that, of course, is an argument in Harper's favour either.  Newfoundlanders and Labradorians never warmed to the guy or many of his candidates.  A majority of people in the province didn't vote for them the last time. He doesn't suddenly become pure because he is on the outs with a guy whose jaw muscles are like Arnold's biceps from all the clenching and unclenching that goes with his latest jihad.

And while we are at it, Danny Williams' realization that he personally made a major error in judgment in 2006 is all fine and good, but frankly, no one is holding his or her breath expecting Danny to admit that, the most obvious point about his whole ABC tirade. Even if it would hasten a resolution, it ain't gonna happen.

Anyway, whatever benefits the two first ministers are getting out of this little public tiff clearly outweigh the costs.  Until that calculus shifts, there won't be a resolution to the impasse.

Still, though.

Neither one is a dimwit, but given the way they keep flailing away at each other to no obvious, constructive effect for the people they supposedly represent, you'd have to wonder sometimes.

-srbp-

Montreal Gazette

16 January 2008

A politician prevaricates!

"I don't need Newfoundland and Labrador to win an election."

Either Stephen Harper said that, in "private" conversation with Premier Danny Williams, or he didn't. The two men are on the record with conflicting versions of their talk, and barring some hard-to- imagine misunderstanding, one of them is not telling the truth.

Frankly, we hope the Williams version is false, because if it's correct it suggests the two men are both dimwits. Consider: Harper's minority government might face an election soon; he will need every seat he can get. Williams won a sweeping re-election victory last October by bashing Ottawa, and sees no reason to stop.

So why would Harper, by all accounts no dimwit and in some versions the reincarnation of Machiavelli, put himself in the hands of so strident a foe by saying something like that? Even if Harper believed that statement, why say it?

As for Williams, doesn't he understand the cost of betraying such a private statement - if there was one? How can Williams now expect Harper to tell him so much as the time of day ever again?

"That's good governance..."

Okay, so it's not like it's the first time Danny Williams applied two different standards to similar situations when he wanted different outcomes in both.

There's no small example of this approach to governing that isn't based on any other principle than 'What I say goes."

take for example, the tedious drama in which Danny Williams tried to stuff Andy Wells onto the offshore regulatory board.  The provincial government started out wanting one person to be chairman and chief executive officer.  Then they tried to split the job in two with Wells taking the chairman's job. 

Then when a panel appointed to pick a single person for both jobs chose someone other than Andy, Danny Williams went back to the two jobs approach.

The sorry tale is well described in Ruelokke v Newfoundland and Labrador.

The best quote of all, though came from none other than the Premier himself, while the case was in court.  Speaking to reporters, the premier gave this lovely explanation of his position:

"My ultimate responsibility is to the people of the province to make sure that we have the best representation on that board to safeguard our interests.

"That's good governance, that's good practice ... we even actually went to Mr. Ruelokke and said look you know why don't you agree to split this ... and he didn't want any part of that," Williams said.

He's right.  They did go to Ruelokke and make such a proposition and he quite rightly rejected it.  After all, the provincial government had set up a selection panel to find one person for both jobs.  That's what the panel found.

The Public Utilities Board is no less important a body.  After all, under the Electrical Power Control Act it has some pretty wide reaching powers to regulate the province's electricity industry. The revised version of the Act, introduced in 1994, allows the board to recall power from Churchill Falls under certain circumstances and to provide adequate compensation to Churchill Falls Labrador Corporation and its customers in the process. 

The utility regulator may well have an interesting time in the next few years if the Lower Churchill project goes ahead and, depending on how things go with that enterprise, electricity rates might well be affected and not in a good way.

Interesting then that Danny Williams appointed Andy Wells to run the utility regulator on Thursday serving as both chairman and chief executive officer. Forget Williams' comment in the early 1990s that Andy needed a good "shit-knocking";  in the years since the two have become best political buddies.

Hence the appointment of one man to two jobs, even though when it came to the offshore board good corporate governance suggested something else to the Premier.  Of course, no one should doubt that had Wells gotten the nod at the offshore board, Williams would have happily accepted one guy in two jobs and then rationalised that decision the same way he undoubtedly will rationalise the discrepancy between his two views of good corporate governance in regulatory authorities.

Wells' appointment is interesting, in a Chinese curse sorta way.

Well, that and it raises a question as to why Wells got the nod at the utility board.  The answer might rest in an older question:  why was Williams so insistent on Wells at the offshore board.

No one has been able to answer that one definitively, since Williams never got his way.  But if you think about it for a while and ponder these old posts - here and here - some ideas may come to mind. The Wells appointment might be less about good governance and more about controlling a regulatory body so it can be used for a specific purpose at some point in the future.

There's nothing like stacking the deck.

-srbp-

Thanks Telly

The province's major daily newspaper is taking a foray into online multi-media.

The little gem today is a video of the Premier's scrum on an exchange of letters with the Prime Minister on the Hibernia shares. It's edited, but there are some choice comments in there.

You can see pretty clearly the entire basis of the Premier's effort, supposedly "a genuine attempt" to resolve the matter, consists of having the federal government accepting that it owes the provincial government $10 billion. Since the federal government has already indicated publicly it rejects that premise, it's hard to know on what basis the matter could be resolved.

-srbp-

Endless re-runs

Strip away all the trademark and largely shopworn histrionics from the Premier and take a look at the recent exchange of correspondence with the Prime Minister.

Some interesting things come to light:

1.  For all the talk about a package of initiatives supposedly designed to get past the Equalization "impasse", the first letter written by the Premier after the famous late November meeting focused on one thing:  the Hibernia shares.

2.  There isn't a specific proposal here, rather the letter is intended to "clarify issues concerning the Government of Canada's investment in Hibernia."

3.  The deadline for the proposal was not the end of 2007 or even January 11, 2008.  Nope, as the Premier wrote, he believed it would be in the best interests of both the federal provincial governments if the matter was resolved before "the end of the new year [sic]", that is, the end of 2008.

4.  In the next letter, dated eight days after the first one, the Premier asks if a decision has been made and then requests a reply by Christmas.

5.  In the next letter written a week after that one, the premier raises comments made by Loyola Hearn.  He then takes issue with Hearn's comment that the federal government had received no written list of options from the provincial government.  The Premier cites his December 3, 2007 letter as evidence this is not the case and accuses Hearn of misleading the public.

Interestingly, the public can now read the December 3 letter, look at its contents and understand that Hearn was correct, at least on that point.

6.  The next letter, dated January 3, complains about comments attributed to Loyola Hearn.

7.  The Prime Minister's reply, dated January 15, focuses on the Hibernia shares since this is what was contained in the December 3 letter. The letter states the federal government's view of the costs associated with those shares, refutes several claims made by the Premier and then asks three simple questions with respect to the shares, based on the provincial government's recent purchase of shares in two offshore projects:

-  What portion of the federal interest is the provincial government interested in acquiring?

-  What would be the fair market price proposed by the provincial government for that share?

-  What is the view of the Hibernia partners to the proposed share purchase.

He concludes by stating that he looks forward to future discussions on the issue.

There is no rejection of anything, specifically, but there is a clear indication the federal government may be prepared to sell the shares.  That's consistent with Stephen harper's letter to Danny Williams during the last federal election.

8.  In his reply, dated January 16, the Premier begins by re-stating his position on a range of comments made in earlier correspondence.

On the specific questions, he states that the provincial government is interested in the 8.5% interest in Hibernia plus the additional Net Profits Interest option associated with the federal involvement in the project.

it is plain the Premier is not interested in purchasing the shares but rather proposes that the value, once determined, be deducted from the "net value gap".  In other words, he wants the cost to charged against the notional $10 billion Equalization debt.

The Premier interprets the last question as questioning 'our capacity to manage the project'.  The Prime Minister's question was legitimate;  the partners may be interested in purchasing the federal shares themselves.

Canadian Press got the headline wrong on one story, although the bulk of the story describes the premier's vitriolic reaction.  The shorter one carried by the Globe online is more accurate since the claim that the PM rejected the Hibernia idea is actually coming from the Premier, not from the factual record.

Interestingly, the Premier took umbrage at being accusing of misstating what the Prime Minister said in November in a private meeting.  Look at the December 3 letter and the later comments by Hearn.  So much for factual accuracy, let alone an understanding of when the new year ends.

There really isn't anything new in all of this. It seems like Canadian political life is simply mirroring American television during a writers strike:  endless re-runs.

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Buckingham story mismatch

Why is it that some of the details in the CBC story on Dr. Sean Buckingham's future as a doctor don't match the description at vocm.com?

On Tuesday, CBC reported:

Buckingham's future medical career will be determined by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador, which said after a jury convicted Buckingham in December that it would launch an automatic review of his medical privileges.

Buckingham voluntarily surrendered his licence in 2005, soon after he was arrested during a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary raid on his home.

The college is not expected to call a panel to consider Buckingham's licence in the immediate future.

Yet, vocm.com gives the story a little differently:

Dr. Sean Buckingham's future in medicine is now in the hands of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Complaints Authorization Committee. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison this week on charges of sexual assault and trafficking in prescription drugs. Buckingham had surrendered his medical licence back in 2005 when he was arrested by the RNC. The college says the matter is now being dealt with as an allegation under the Medical Act.

Under the Medical Act, 2005 a conviction in criminal court becomes a prima facie allegation against the medical practitioner.  Handled in the usual way, it would proceed to the Complaints Authorization Committee which will, as the name implies, review the information and authorize a complaint to proceed to a discipline hearing if that's what the case merits.

That's a feature of the revised legislation that makes the College's job easier. In the old days, the medical board would have to start its own, separate investigation and collect information as if the case was new.  Now the case can be handled somewhat more expeditiously than it would have once upon a time.

But, if the case is before the Complaints Authorization Committee already, as vocm.com gives it, then the CBC story doesn't make sense when it says the College isn't expected to call a panel to consider the status of Buckingham's license.  The CAC meets fairly regularly and it would be considered a "panel' in the ordinary meaning of the term. It hears an allegation after an investigation has been conducted by College staff.

So which is it?

And while we're at it, Buckingham surrendered his license in 2005, but both stories suggest he did so willingly and, in the case of the CBC story using the word "shortly" is accurate but doesn't describe the sense at the time.  In the interests of disclosure, the College was a client of your humble e-scribbler at the time.

It took a few weeks, if memory serves and in the end required some fairly clear public indications from what was then the medical board under the old medical act that if he didn't hand the license over, then the Board was prepared to take it.  The board started an investigation into the new allegations at the time Buckingham was arrested in order to be prepared to have a discipline hearing under the process at the time into the status of his license.

Presumably the information collected in 2005 has been held in abeyance ever since so the process two and a half years later should be fairly straightforward (as suggested by vocm.com).  It shouldn't take a while, as suggested by the CBC story.

So which is it?

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Monroe options Altius uranium prospects in Newfoundland

From the company news release:

Monroe Minerals Inc. (TSX VENTURE:MMX) ("Monroe") announced today that it has entered into option agreements with Altius Resources Inc. ("Altius") allowing it to earn up to a 60% interest in the Boxey Point and Berry Hill uranium properties, located in Newfoundland, Canada.

Monroe President and CEO Derek Moran commented: "We are pleased to expand our relationship with Altius and to focus Monroe's growing uranium division in Newfoundland and Labrador, with obvious logistical benefits. We shall announce our 2008 program later this quarter and meanwhile we continue to review new projects both in Canada and on the African continent."

The Boxey Point property totals thirty-six claims and is 900 hectares in size. It is located in the Fortune Bay area along the southern coast of Newfoundland, between and a little south of the Coomb's Cove and English Harbour West settlements. The property is about 600 km by road from St Johns. A recent soil sampling program yielded elevated uranium results and two rock samples tested 738 ppm and 1,498 ppm uranium (0.09 to 0.18% U3O8) respectively. There is also remarkable alteration of the sedimentary strata on the property. The expected deposit type could be similar to the conglomerate-hosted uranium prospects that exist at the Beaverdell deposits in southern B.C. or the former Midnite/Blackhawk Mine near Spokane, Washington. For example, from 1955 to 1981 the Midnite mine produced about 11.6 million pounds of U3O8 from 2.63 million tonnes of ore with an average grade of about 0.2% U3O8.

The Berry Hill property totals fifty-seven claims and is 1,425 hectares in size. It is located on the Burin Peninsula about 160 km due west or 235 km by road from St. Johns. The Berry Hill property is a conceptual play based on fluorite occurrences and a number of stream sediment, lake sediment and till samples with elevated concentrations of one or more of uranium, molybdenum and fluorine. The expected deposit type is a granitic-hosted uranium deposit such as the Rossing mine in Namibia, Radium Hill in South Australia or Johan-Beetz uranium prospect in Quebec. Granite-hosted uranium deposits tend to be relatively low grade (e.g., less than 0.1% U3O8), although they can be very large. The Rossing deposit in Namibia, for example, has been in production since 1976, has a uranium grade ranging from about 0.018 to 0.042% U3O8, and in 2006 produced about 7% of world uranium production (http://www.rossing.com/rossingmine.htm).

Monroe may earn a 60% interest in the Boxey Point property over four years by spending $1,000,000 on exploration, including a minimum first year commitment of $100,000, and making share payments to Altius of 2,000,000 Monroe shares, including 400,000 shares on signing and 1,600,000 shares divided equally over four years to be paid on each anniversary of the agreement.

Monroe may earn a 60% interest in the Berry Hill property over four years by spending $475,000 on exploration, including a minimum first year commitment of $50,000, and making share payments to Altius of 500,000 Monroe shares, including 100,000 shares on signing and 400,000 shares divided equally over four years to be paid on each anniversary of the agreement.

The earning under each project is independent of whether earning occurs under the other. Upon Monroe fulfilling its earn-in obligations, the parties will form a 60:40 joint venture, with each partner contributing its pro-rata share of future expenditures. If either party dilutes its interest to less than 10% in the joint venture, its interest shall be converted to a royalty of 1.0% of gross uranium sales.

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15 more minutes of fame

Premier Ed Stelmach is likely regretting the day he decided to tackle Dave Cournoyer.

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On top of ole Smokey...

There might be a ski hill today, but IOCC is looking at Smokey Mountain as a possible source of iron ore.

[h/t labradore]

A little perspective

Why is anyone in the province, let alone the country, paying attention to the bit of silliness otherwise known as the Danny Williams "anybody but Conservative" thing?

Well, here's as succinct a view as one might advance:

Since when did we need the Premier's blessing to not vote for Stephen Harper?

Most Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, unlike their Premier, were smart enough to know better last time around. And the time before that.

There are more than enough reasons not to vote Conservative. There were last time around too.

But why do you insinuate that by questioning Danny Williams, you are thereby supporting the federal Conservatives? Or that questioning the provincial government somehow detracts from the "great fight" with Ottawa in which we all must uniformly engage?

It's like saying Newfoundlanders can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Just because "our" Premier can only focus on one issue at a a time doesn't mean the same holds true for the rest of the province's citizens.

Frankly, I think all this hullabaloo detracts from the real reasons we should be voting against the current federal government - their record on the environment is atrocious, the same for childcare, seniors benefits, their skewed prioritization of tax measures, their elimination of funding for the status of women, the court challenges program and other equality seeking programs, not to mention their misguided foreign policy.

But all of these issues were plain and obvious three and four years ago. The Premier voted for him anyway.
Maybe instead of imploring that all "good" Newfoundlanders follow Danny's lead, you should be imploring him to follow theirs. After all, in 2004 and in 2006, most of "them" ("us") got it right.

January 14, 2008 10:46 PM

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Just wondering...

As we come up on the first anniversary of the whole meltdown, what exactly is going on with John Hickey's lawsuit against Roger Grimes?

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It's not a contract to sell power

For some bizarre reason, CBC news online is claiming that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro announced an agreement to sell Lower Churchill power today.

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro announced an agreement Monday to sell electricity from the Lower Churchill megaproject to consumers in the Maritimes and the northeastern U.S.

Hydro did no such thing, as the very next paragraph of the CBC story makes plain:

The Crown corporation said it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Nova Scotia Power and Emera Inc. "to explore the possibility of bringing energy" to the Maritimes and New England markets.

That's what the official news release said, too. it's just another memorandum of understanding to explore the possibility.  That's about as far away from a contract to sell power as it is possible to get, except for not having an MOU at all.  No company is obliged to do anything except study.

The only time people should get excited about the project going ahead is if the provincially-owned Crown corporation announces it actually has a contract to sell power to someone other than Newfoundland Power. So far, the only people on the hook to pay for the project are the provincial taxpayers, especially those on the northeast Avalon.

That's pretty much a captive market.

Even the Premier isn't sure the thing will go ahead.  Just a few weeks ago, he officially rated the prospect of the project getting the green light at 50%.

And while we're at it, consumers should beware of the project and the impact it may have on their power rates.

Under changes made to the Electrical Power Control Act in 2006, power rates in the province can be linked to Hydro's business actions that may not be related to electricity generation. The Williams administration added a subsection to a previous section of the Act to exempt the crown utility from a restriction on its business activities.

Restrictions on business
24. (1) Subject to this Act, a retailer shall not engage or invest in or carry on any business or activity other than the business of the production, transmission, distribution or retailing of power and the business or activity that is generally related to it.
(2) For greater certainty, subsection (1) shall not apply to a person who controls a retailer, including a corporation referred to in paragraph 23(3)(b).
(3) This section does not apply to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. (added in 2006)

The problem is that under section three of the same Act, the Public Utilities Board is responsible for setting power rates such that: 

(a) the rates to be charged, either generally or under specific contracts, for the supply of power within the province
...
(iii) should provide sufficient revenue to the producer or retailer of the power to enable it to earn a just and reasonable return as construed under the Public Utilities Act so that it is able to achieve and maintain a sound credit rating in the financial markets of the world, ...

If Hydro winds up involved in any other business activity besides electricity generation, as it may do under the Hydro corporation act, then it will affect power rates.

But then again, if the Lower Churchill corporation is set up primarily to export power outside the province, it isn't clear what effect this section of the act might have  - if any - on power rates as they relate to the portion of the power Hydro plans to ship to the island to replace the current oil-fired plant at Holyrood.

The 2006 changes altered substantively the intent of the original act on the hydro corporation, passed in 1977 and amended by the legislature following the 1989 general election:

Special Hydro provisions

17. (1) In considering the rates charged by the hydro corporation for the purpose of a reference under this Act, the public utilities board shall take no account of expenditures or revenues of the hydro corporation or its subsidiaries that are not attributable to the supplying of power to retailers and rural customers.

(2) Where the hydro corporation supplies power to a user who is neither a retailer nor a rural customer, the hydro corporation shall use its best endeavours to obtain for that power the rates or a class of rates that would be compatible with the power policy declared by section 3.

(3) Where the hydro corporation is unable to apply the rates or the class of rates referred to in subsection (2) because of public policy or existing contracts, the Lieutenant-Governor in Council shall enter into those financial arrangements or other arrangements that may be necessary to enable the hydro corporation to comply with the power policy declared by section 3 in respect of those other users of its power.

It also changes the intention of the 1994 version of the Act, which established clear regulatory control by the Public Utilities Board of power allocation and rates within the province, provided a mechanism to redirect power from Churchill Falls under certain circumstances and ensured that consumer rate would be based on electricity generation, primarily for power used within the province.

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May the farce continue...

The farce will be continuing this year, after all.

People in the province have a mere few days to get their submissions ready.

In St. John's, it's less than a week.  The first of the budget "consultations" start next Monday.

Don't count on any summary of the provincial government's financial position to help, either.

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The secret of life, and comedy...

is timing.

The day before Tom Rideout's volte face, these two letters appeared in the Telegram:

'is anyone else outraged?'

I'm a Danny Williams fan who was overjoyed when he came home with the $2 billion in Atlantic Accord money.

I also walked with a lighter step when he signed the Hebron deal.

I voted to help him get the huge majority.

Now things are changing. I hope it's not the old adage that power corrupts and absolute power, etc.
Tom Rideout has to be held accountable. To say that he hasn't been charged, therefore it's OK, is unacceptable. Tom Rideout was given permission for this suspect billing by the same person who gave permission to the MHAs now up before the courts.

Since the auditor general is now effectively mute, whose job is it to lay those charges?

I highly encourage all who are outraged by Tom Rideout's arrogant attitude towards these concerns to write to the editor and express their views.

Ron Wilson

'We deserve better.'

It's a sad day, indeed, when we read in our news media, and hear on the TV and radio, of wrongdoings by our provincial politicians and find ourselves asking, "Well, what else do you expect?"

It's more than sad. It's frightening.

According to news reports (Telegram, Dec. 19) Deputy Premier Tom Rideout spent thousands of taxpayers' dollars on house and office rentals and travel expenses - much of which, it certainly appears, was a blatant overspending of our money.

And you say, Mr. Rideout, you did nothing wrong. You claim you had all your expenses approved. Are we then to conclude that if the House of Assembly told you it was OK to rent two houses, three houses or any number of houses, then you would do it simply because it was approved?

Mr. Rideout, I ask you a simple question: is it too much for us mere mortals to expect you - as an MHA, a deputy premier, a minister of Fisheries - to use some discretion in spending our hard-earned money?
I believe I'm speaking for thousands of taxpayers when I say to you (and all politicians), for goodness sake, stop justifying your actions by insisting they were approved by Bill Murray or the House regulations or whatever. We are fed up with hearing it.

Those regulations (made by politicians) should never have been made in the first place. And no politician worth his salt would ever have had any part of them. Not only would one expect a person in such a position, who is dedicated to our province, to not partake in such action, but one would expect him or her to expose such flaws in the system as they are discovered and make the necessary changes to ensure such situations are no longer possible.

Let's start calling a spade a spade. They were unconscionable. Let's never hide behind them again.
If you continue to insist, with a straight face, that you have done nothing wrong, then your actions are nothing but an insult to our intelligence. We expect, and demand, better of all politicians.

George Martin

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A little naval history

As a kid, I built the old Aurora plastic model of the USS Skipjack and played with it for hours. The kit is still around, repackaged by Revell Germany, but these days the kit is likely bought by adults instead of children.

Skipjack was the first submarine with both a nuclear powerplant and a tear-drop hull. It's the hull that made a difference in this revolutionary craft. Previous submarines, including the first nuke boat - Nautilus - used hulls shaped like the hulls of surface ships. Skipjack was different. Her hull worked best underwater and her nuclear reactor gave Skipjack the ability to stay submerged under crew or food supply was exhausted.

Here's a newsreel from the time. [Update: a link for those who might not be getting the embedded video.]

While on the slipways, one of her sister ships was cut open, and a length of new hull was added to turn her into the the first American ballistic missile submarine, USS George Washington.

No small irony here. In later years, as the Washingtons and follow-on boomers reached the end of their service life the missile compartments were removed and the subs turned into attack boats as they had originally started life.

This picture - of the 1950s and early 1960s vintage submarines awaiting disposal is remarkable for a whole bunch of reasons.

It includes the first of a class of operational nuke boats in history, for example, the USS Skate. She's the first blunt nosed submarine, two to the left as you look at the photo. Skipjack, incidentally, is second from the left of that entire section.

The longer conventional hull is USS Seawolf. She's the second nuclear powered submarine, after Nautilus and the only boat to carry an experimental reactor cooled by liquid metal. At this newsreel, you'll find a short segment on the Seawolf and her reactor problems.

Look closely and you can also see the de-evolution of some of the hulls back to training ships for attack subs.

All the boats in this picture are now buried in the desert, their entire reactor and associated bits stored in metal canisters.

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Jack Brod, diamond merchant and boat builder dead at 98

Jack Brod is dead.

Don't know him?

He died January 6 at the age of 98 years and was touted by the New York Times obit piece as being the last original tenant of the Empire State Building.  Jack's company - Empire Diamond - has a suite on the 76th floor in the building where it's been since 1931.

The curious thing about Brod's life, though is this line:

Mr. Brod’s other business interests included running a boatyard on City Island in the Bronx and a boat factory in Newfoundland.

Now which boat factory might that be?

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Rideout misrepresents former cabinet colleague's remarks

Fish minister and deputy premier Tom Rideout must be having a bad day. 

Not only is he now on the hook repaying several thousands dollars of taxpayers cash he received but was not entitled to, but it turns out his rebuke of former cabinet colleague Loyola Sullivan is based on Rideout's misrepresentation of Sullivan's comments.

Here's Tom's version, as reproduced by CBC:

We were astounded and surprised at the view taken by [fisheries ambassador Loyola Sullivan] when he made the remark that we're 10 years too late for the fight," Rideout said in a statement, describing Sullivan's appearance at a Fur Institute of Canada meeting in St. John's earlier this week.

Here's the next bit of the CBC story, giving Sullivan's actual words.

However, Sullivan's precise comment while speaking with reporters was substantially different than Rideout's rendering of it.

"It's difficult because it's advanced so far," Sullivan said, describing the effectiveness of campaigns by groups protesting the seal hunt.

"I would love to have been in this position 10 years ago, to be able to advance it before it got such a foothold."

It's like the different between an office and a house.

Last month, The Telegram revealed that Rideout had claimed rent of a house in his constituency, even though House of Assembly rules at the time didn't allow members to claim rent or mortgage costs for property in the districts they represented.

Confronted with the claims totalling $23,000 over eight years, Rideout initially defended the expenses saying that he had permission from administrative staff at the legislature for the arrangement. On Friday, Rideout took a very different position:

"I have personally concluded that the way in which these residential expenses were billed to my constituency allowance was not appropriate," he said during a news conference.

"I take full responsibility for that and it is therefore my responsibility to ensure that it is rectified."

Rideout's initial defence started to come apart at the seams when he made incorrect statements on a local radio talk show.  As reported previously, Rideout said that he had only claimed per diems for meals and similar expenses.  Documents obtained by the Telegram showed Rideout claimed both per diems for meals as well as per diems for accommodations even though he was occupying a house and office already being paid for by taxpayers.

Rideout was a member of the House internal management committee at the time he began the expense claim arrangement.  During Rideout's term on the committee, it approved changes to legislation governing the House administration that led, in one instance to the auditor general be barred from auditing the legislature's own accounts. The period was well described by Chief Justice Derek Green in his recent report on the period.

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Related links:

"Beholder, beheld and beholden", a post that notes the curious change in perspective on the Rideout affair from a newbie local blogger once the Premier spoke on the subject:

If Deputy Premier Tom Rideout had permission from the House of Assembly, and thus a special arrangement, to claim for accommodations in Lewisporte, then what has he done wrong? The accommodations exist, permission was granted to claim a legitimate expense, and he has done nothing illegal.

Wonder what the view is now that even Rideout admits there was something wrong in the billing arrangement.

Lookin' up from the basement

RBC Economics' latest forecast for provincial economies has Newfoundland and Labrador looking at growth of just one half of one percent in 2008 and one percent in 2009.

It won't take much to turn that into a recession for one or two years in an economy that just a couple of years ago was starting to fire strongly on all cylinders.

On the upside, RBC expects things will start improving again some time after 2010.

Production is sharply weakening at Hibernia but remains on track at Terra Nova,
White Rose and Voisey’s Bay. Because of these projects, exports of energy and
industrial goods (which include key commodities such as iron ore and nickel)
now account for about three-quarters of the province’s total exports. Recent
approval for a sizeable production increase at White Rose is an added support.
While Newfoundland may well become a “have” province in 2009, it will take
several years before it stands another chance at posting province-leading growth
rates. The go-ahead is now in line for Hebron to start construction in 2010 and
production by 2013. There is the potential for construction of a second major oil
refinery at Placentia Bay, which would also coincide with the rough timelines on
the development of Hibernia South and the Lower Churchill hydro project.

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It's never the principle.

It's always the money.

Beleaguered deputy premier Tom Rideout will be reimbursing the people of Newfoundland and Labrador for money he received which he wasn't entitled to, according to The Telegram.

The St. John's daily revealed last month that the former premier and current deputy premier and fisheries minister:

claimed more than $23,000 for “rental accommodations” in his district of Lewisporte from late 2004 to early 2007, while tacking on an additional $53 per day for accommodations whenever he stayed in the area.

Rideout acknowledged spending the $23,000 out of his constituency allowance to rent a house in Lewisporte.

The landlord who received the cash was a key local Progressive Conservative party organizer.

House rules in effect at the time barred MHAs from charging taxpayers the cost of renting a home or apartment in their district — no matter who they rented it from.

Rideout justified the claims by saying that his Lewisporte rental home contained an office — even though he also operated a rent-free constituency office in a government-owned building less than a kilometre down the road.

MHAs were permitted to claim a per diem of $53 without receipts for accommodations whenever they visited their constituency.

Rideout charged both — a monthly house rental of between $750 and $850, and $53 each day he stayed in Lewisporte.

That means Rideout could be forking out the better part of 30 large, given that the per diem claims for accommodations came to about $6,500 according to the Telly reports.

Repaying the cash once caught seems to be the standard approach taken by politicians in the province these days, as if the numerous questions raised by Rideout's actions in this case weren't cause for having him removed from office.

The same approach has been applied to members of the legislature - Rideout included - who pocketed a bonus payment in 2004 yet never told the public about it at the time. The Premier, for his part, knew about and tacitly approved the payment to members of the House even though he himself didn't accept the cash.

The whole sorry mess - in which everything is supposedly made right if the cash gets paid back, but only after one gets caught -  may work for some people but it's an ethically unsound way to run a province.

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FY 2008 budget set already: annual charade becomes accountability farce

Any organization looking to influence provincial government spending in the budget for Fiscal Year 2008 can cancel their plans.

The budget is set.

An announcement Thursday by two cabinet ministers of capital spending for the fiscal year starting in April is proof the spending program is already done and likely has been done since well before Christmas, if not before the last general election in October 2007.

The announcement included a little jocular disingenuousness on the part of one minister:

Included in the money is $73 million for the 2008-09 provincial roads improvement program. That's a 10 per cent increase over the $66.5 million the program got last year.
"I hope I don't give Finance Minister (Tom) Marshall a heart attack today because I'm going to be looking for another 10 per cent over and above my $66.5 million," [transportation minister Diane] Whalen joked.

Tom knows all about it. So does everyone else in cabinet, most likely.

Otherwise, Diane wouldn't have been able to make the announcement.

And the pre-budget "consultations" usually organized by the finance minister?

No sign of those yet, but when they do come they will have returned to what they were when Brian Tobin's crew started them in 1997: a charade.

dannywilliams.ca

If the crotchety East Coast premier is worried about having his name used in a dot ca domain, he's too late.

A search of the Canadian Internet registry shows that dannywilliams.ca is owned by Shane Barnes of 10 Dollar Domain names in Cornwall Ontario.

If the premier wants to dispute the registration, there is a policy covering it.  Quite frankly, at the end of the day, a dispute likely wouldn't settle in the Premier's favour under that policy.

Domain dannywilliams.ca

Registrant Name
Shane Barnes

Registrar
(10dollar.ca) 10 Dollar Domain Names Inc.

Renewal Date
2008/04/09

Date approved
2007/04/09

Last changed
2007/04/09

Description

Registrar Number
1064689

Registrant Number
1120459

Domain Number
1845382

DNS1

ns.fw2.com

DNS2

ns2.fw2.com

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Provincial labour force numbers

Overall, the Canadian economy lost jobs, according to the latest Statistics Canada information and in Newfoundland and Labrador, the economy showed a December to December flat line.

Full-time employment grew by 2.3% comparing December 2007 to December 2006, while part-time employment in the same period declined 11.7%. 

About 2,000 fewer people were unemployed in the province in the same period, a decline of 11%.

The month to month change - November '06 to December '06 - appears to be a shift from part-time to full-time employment. Full-time employment grew by 4200 jobs while part-time employment declined by 4000 jobs.  Unemployment decreased by 3900 in the same month over month period.

Overall, the labour force remained the same in the last two months of 2006. On a seasonally adjusted basis, there were 1900 fewer people in the province in December 2007 compared to December 2006.

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The blogger, the Premier and a bigger story

No, it's not another meltdown at what the local plants used to call "blogsters" who sometimes irritate their beloved leader.

[Aside: Anyone else notice that since the whole process has been outed, the plants have dropped from the airwaves?]

This time, it's Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach who has his political knickers in a knot over a website - edstelmach.ca - run by a University of Alberta political science student and former Alberta Liberal opposition staffer Dave Cournoyer.

The Alberta Tory had his lawyers threatening to sue for misappropriation of persona unless the site disappeared. They even included a little threat that is lawyer code for "we don't have a case but maybe some fancy letterhead will work instead".

The URL now redirects to a Wikipedia entry on a social credit premier, in case you are wondering. According to Canadian Press, it used to redirect to daveberta.ca.

Pretty tame stuff.

However, as a result of the threats, the story has become a national embarrassment to Stelmach and given the blogger bags of free publicity.  Stelmach won't sue  - he was bluffing from the beginning - and has already sent his chief of staff to try and find an amicable solution to the whole thing. 

Even if the whole thing vanished tomorrow, the story puts the Premier look what the people in Fort Mac know as "stunned":   Had Stelmach spent $14 bucks  - that's what it cost the blogger to register the domain - when he got into politics he wouldn't be shelling out for huge billable hours to his lawyers and dealing with the media over what essentially adds up to nothing. 

It shows incredibly poor judgment for a guy who is also looking at a story about lost oil royalties [see below].

Your humble e-scribbler left a comment at Dave's blog that suggested, only partially tongue in cheek, that it would be appropriate to have every Ed Stelmach in the province sue the Premier for trying to appropriate their persona.  An evil political mind could surely find ways to drag this one out for as long as the Premier wants to keep it going.  After all, Stelmach is paying for the publicity for his own self-immolation.

The only thing that would be more embarrassing than Stelmach's reaction to the daveberta story is a column in Edmonton Sun that laces into Cournoyer on a purely partisan basis. 

Neil Waugh reads like his copy was clacked out by some highly placed thumbs in Stelmach's office. What a novel concept.

The references to "juvenile" and "little Liberal" are embarrassing since Waugh ledes with reference to a much bigger story that he ignores entirely in the main part of the column:

For a few hours this week, it looked like the hopeless Alberta Liberals might be making a comeback.

The Grits energy watchdog, Edmonton Gold Bar MLA Hugh MacDonald, released some disturbing research from the government's annual accounts - the so-called Blue Book.

He revealed that a numbered company controlled by former energy department bureaucrat Kellan Fluckiger had been paid an obscene $1,358,645 to redesign the province's electricity system.

Fluckiger left the government mysteriously in the fall. And the highlight of his handiwork so far was the near brownout the province suffered before Christmas which forced the Tories to delay putting on the legislature Christmas lights for fear of crashing the grid.

Not to mention the sky-high electricity rates consumers have experienced.

And if Neil bothered to read Dave's blog - he likely cribs much from it but wouldn't admit it anyways - he'd find reference to an Alberta government report showing how much the province was losing in royalties.  The original story appeared in the Edmonton Journal, but, c'mon: a good story shouldn't be ignored just because it was covered by another newspaper.

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The polls were wrong?

While voters in Newfoundland and Labrador are used to seeing utterly useless political polls reported by local news media as if they were correct, the same in not the case in the United States.

Hillary Clinton's three percentage point margin of victory in the New Hampshire primary is the talk of the pundits, since pre-vote polling showed Barack Obama decisively ahead.  Political polls are not known for being out of whack from the vote by as much as 19 percentage points, or even seven, as was the case with recent polling in this province.

salon.com writer Joe Conason blames the "mainstream" media's anti-Clinton bias for what he contends was a backlash by voters in favour of Clinton.

A more plausible explanation focuses on the polling methodology.

Start with this summary of the results from the Washington Post:

Most polls accurately reflected the large bloc of likely Democratic voters yet to make up their minds, or said they were open to switching their support in the closing days. On the network exit poll, nearly 4 in 10 said they made their final decision within the last three days; 17 percent said they decided how to vote Tuesday. Among those making up their minds on Election Day, 40 percent supported Clinton, 37 percent Obama. Clinton did even better among the half of the electorate who settled on their top choice a month or more ago.

But the late polls missed on how votes divided by gender. Pre-election polls from CNN-WMUR-University of New Hampshire and USA Today-Gallup showed Obama and Clinton about evenly splitting female voters and Obama winning men by a margin of 2 to 1. But Clinton won among women by 13 percentage points, exit polls showed, and she lost among men more narrowly than suggested, drawing 30 percent to Obama's 42 percent.

What the polls may have missed, as the Post notes, is what the undecideds finally decided to do. That's a plausible explanation but one that awaits further detailed analysis by someone with access to the data. No matter what, it's much more plausible than the so-called "Bradley effect' in which white voters are presumed to hide their real voting intentions when an African American candidate is on the ballot.

The New York Times suggests that the impact of having two historic candidates - one black, the other a woman - on the Democratic ticket, coupled with the relatively short time gap between the votes in Iowa and New Hampshire may have had an impact on poll results.  NYT also suggests that methodology - in this case the use of tracking polls and their high margin of error - had an impact if not on the result than on the reporting of the polls.

And that's where another well-known phenomenon emerged, according to NYT:

Still, reporters who cover a particular campaign face a special challenge that was documented as far back as Timothy Crouse’s chronicle of the 1972 presidential race, The Boys on the Bus: Their ability to take in all that is happening may be limited.

At 8 a.m. Wednesday, Joel Achenbach, a reporter for The Washington Post who had been covering Mr. Obama in New Hampshire, posted a mea culpa on the newspaper’s Web site.

“Count me among those who thought Obama was a runaway train, that he’d blow Clinton out of the water,” Mr. Achenbach wrote. “You had to see the crowds! Feel the energy!”

Inaccurate polls and media commentary influenced by time spent on an airplane with the candidate?

What a novel idea.

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Additional links:

USA Today:  "Pollsters struggle to explain Clinton win"

Telegraph (UK): "Inquiry after pollsters miss Hillary Clinton win"

CBC Newfoundland and Labrador campaign blog 2007:  "Embedded on the big blue bus"

Recession ahead?

The Newfoundland and Labrador economy may slip into recession over the next 12 months, if some current projections hold true.

Forecasts to date had the Newfoundland and Labrador economy flat-lining over the next two years or experiencing extremely modest growth of less than 2%.  The provincial government's own economic analysis division forecast last April that economic growth in the province during 2008 would be 0.8%.

The division also forecast gross domestic product in the province would increase by 3.4% in 2008 and decline by over 11% in 2009, with a further 4.4% decline in 2010. In "chained" 2002 dollars, GDP is forecast to decline 1.8% in 2008 and 1.9% in 2009.

All of that - in a forecast dated last November - included an assumption that the American economy would "grow by 2.2% in 2007." As well, "growth is expected to average 3.0% per year over the remainder of the forecast period," which ends in 2010.

That might not be an accurate picture, as it turns out.

Goldman Sachs is assessing the American economy is already likely falling into recession.  According to the Globe and mail, Merrill Lynch is now forecasting that the "Canadian economy is poised for a sharp slowdown as U.S. demand weakens...". The recession is forecast to last from two to three quarters (six to nine months) and will be mild by historical standards. Growth is forecast by Goldman Sachs at 0.8% over the year.

In Canada forecasters are already adjusting their projections for Canada in 2008, with growth in one worst case scenario hitting on 1.4% nationally compared with earlier forecasts of 2.4% or more.

A recession in the United States - even if relatively mild by some standards could have a significant impact on Newfoundland and Labrador.  The United States is the province's largest foreign trading partner, receiving 52% of the province's exports in 2005. 

Given that experts are revising downward their forecasts for overall Canadian and American economic performance over the  next 12 months, it is reasonable to conclude that the provincial economy will perform more poorly than earlier predicted.

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Three kick-ass Geoff Meeker posts to start the year

1.  Meeker's "best of", part one.

2.  Meeker's "best of", part two.  Some might be surprised at Meeker's praise for the Independent both in layout and for content, specifically columnist Ivan Morgan and photo editor Paul Daly.

Meeker is nothing if not fair.  In this case, he's also spot on about the photos and the layout.

3.  A blast from the past, in which Meeker's Dad, media icon Ken Meeker offers up an audio tape of Joe Smallwood and an unnamed CBC reporter as Smallwood craps on reporter randy Simms for some comments Simms made on a local radio talk show in Gander.

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